Trailer Review: Critter Crunch on PSN
Developer Capy already had a hit on their hands with unique puzzler Critter Crunch, the award-winning mobile phone game ported to the iPhone for the App Store’s launch nearly a year ago. If Lumines and Tetris have taught us anything, though, it’s that addictive portable puzzle games are still awesome on a big screen at home, and so we have this trailer for Critter Crunch’s hi-def debut on Playstation Network. Continue reading »
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Tags: 1080p, capy, critter crunch, derrick sanskrit, iphone, ipod, lumines, mobile phone, playstation 3, psn, puzzle, tetris, trailer review
Dat’s Swagtastic: The Path USB Drive Is Delicious and Tempting
There’s just something about having something to hold. I just can’t help myself. To hell with you iPod, sucks to you Kindle, and to you, PSN, Virtual Console, and Xbox Live Arcade. Give me a box and a disc and a cartridge, cover them in glorious art that makes my imagination seethe with elaborate details that the works they portray can’t possibly live up to. Give me Zelda in gold, give me Turok 2 in black, Maximum Carnage in violent, 90s-blood red!
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Tags: auriea Harvey, ipod, john constantine, kindle, legend of zelda, maximum carnage, psn, tale of tales, The path, turok 2, virtual console, wiiware, XBLA, xbox live
Trailer Review: Rolando 2
ngmoco’s Rolando is without a doubt the breakout hit game of the iPod/iPhone, so what can we expect from its sequel? From the looks of this trailer, more of the same, only bigger and better.
Yes, Rolando 2 is from the Tap Tap Revenge school of iPod game sequels - build a new engine to play the same game even better - rather than the newtonica school of making a wholly different game with the same name and a numeral on the end, but that’s perfectly cool. It still looks to have all the great tilt-n-jump gameplay you wish LocoRoco had, but with environments that are decidedly more LittleBigPlanetesque for some 2.5 dimensional bliss. Continue reading »
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Tags: derrick sanskrit, iphone, ipod, little big planet, locoroco, newtonica, ngmoco, paper mario, rolando, tap tap revenge, trailer review
Lilt Line, Tilt & Touch Solo Fun That Isn’t Technically a Sin
Developer Different Cloth’s website refers to itself as a games collective that “passionately believes that one person, with a little help from a few friends sometimes, can rightly be called a games collective.” Conclusion: Different Cloth is one dude. By the name of Gordon. He makes games. There are three on his website, all of which are…well…odd.
But this week Gordon released his first game for the iPod/iPhone, a stylish rhythm racer called Lilt Line. The game’s presentation is halfway between bitGenerations: DotStream and thousands of new wave concert flyers from the 1980s, all sharp angles and neon colors. And nothing says retro 1980’s graphics quite like gradients. Oh, yeah! Continue reading »
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Tags: bit generations, bit.trip, derrick sanskrit, different touch, dotstream, edge, iphone, ipod, lilt line, rolando
Alternate Soundtrack: rRootage vs. F*** Buttons
The iPod port of PC vertical shooter boss run rRootage was my 13th favorite game of 2008. It’s actually four games, one of which is Ikaruga. It’s also free. You should play it.
A seemingly never-ending wave of obscure bosses, hammering down on you with ever-increasing torrents of crystalline geometric projectiles, there is something very zen about rRootage. The goal is more in finding the gaps between projectiles to avoid destruction and cleverly using your special skills than in destroying the boss head-on. It takes a very special kind of music to score this kind of calm, complacent aggression. Time for another secret gem of 2008, the album Street Horrrsing by Bristol’s experimental noise duo Fuck Buttons. Continue reading »
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Tags: alternate soundtrack, derrick sanskrit, fuck buttons, ikaruga, iphone, ipod, pc, rrootage
iPod Games, You’re Doing It Wrong
Like it or not, the iPod/iPhone has become a gaming platform. There are tons of statistics out there and I’m not going to bore you with them, but the fact is a lot of people are making games for the iPod and a lot of people are downloading and playing them. This post is not about educating the blog-reading public so much as a friendly word of advice to the game developers out there.
iPod game developers, remember what your platform is. No matter how Apple dresses it up or the media hypes it, the iPod is first and foremost a portable music player. The iPhone is just an iPod that also happens to make phone calls. So please, when you want us to play your games on our personal music players, do take care when shutting off our music. Continue reading »
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Tags: adventure, audiosurf, aurora feint, de blob, derrick sanskrit, edge, iphone, ipod, newtonica, radio flare, rolando, scramble, sway
John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself. 
Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.
Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.
Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines.
Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.
Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.
Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.
