Currently Browsing
Games
There are few game categories that I enjoy exploring and playing more than indie games. There’s something about supporting indie games and their developers that feels like I’m “doing my part.” It’s sort of like the “buying local” of video gaming. But there’s also the feeling of awe and excitement I get when I play amazing games that were birthed into existence without the aid of a major developer or publisher. If you also enjoy indie games, then you probably know that the Mac App Store has, thus far, been a goldmine for such games.
Limbo is an independently developed side-scrolling puzzle game from Playdead that is available on a multitude of platforms. I first played it on the Xbox Live Arcade, but didn’t really get a chance to play all the way through it until I downloaded it on my Mac. Today I’m going to delve into the world of Limbo, and since the best part of playing the game is not knowing what comes next, I’m going to try to do it as spoiler-free as possible! Hit the jump to read on.
Who doesn’t love a good world domination game? I mean, a good game is one thing. And a good fighting game is another. But a good fighting game where the goal is to take over the world? And with robots, no less!
Independent game studio Hexage fills this precise opening with a game called Robotek. Robotek is a turn based combat game in which you aim to reclaim the world from the evil robot uprising that caused the fall of humanity. Intrigued yet? Hit the jump to find out more!
Since its inception, the Grand Theft Auto series has gained both controversy and phenomenal success for Rockstar Games and now GTA III, GTA: Vice City and GTA: San Andreas have all been made available to Mac users via the Mac App Store.
Grand Theft Auto San Andreas is the most recent title currently available and is arguably the greatest chapter in the entire GTA series, but is still over eight years old itself. How well does this aging game hold up in 2011? Let’s take a look!
This isn’t going to be your typical Mac app review. Minecraft isn’t sold on the Mac App Store. It’s a cross-platform game that has over 3.5 million paid players across Windows, Mac, and Linux, making it one of the most wildly successful indie games in recent memory.
Minecraft is a creative/adventure sandbox game originally devised by independent Swedish game developer Markus Persson (known to the community as Notch) and continually developed by his company Mojang. Minecraft has its inspirations, but as a gamer, I can honestly say that I’ve never seen a game quite like Minecraft gain so much steam and such a huge following. What makes it so great?
Platformers are perhaps one of the most popular, the oldest and overdone genres in gaming. They have been re-thought a bunch of times over the years by adding a few new gimmicks to them, but most of them seem to have lost their touch and are no longer fun the way they used to be.
Today we’re reviewing a platformer that brings back to form the retro style of gaming, eight-bit and all. Everything from the graphics to the music is done in a fantastic way that combines old-school gaming with the kind of deeper gameplay found in newer games. It’s called Bit.Trip.Runner.
(more…)
Galcon Fusion is a strategy game sometimes described as “Risk, in space, in real-time.” Players begin with a planet that generates a certain number of ships per minute (based on size), and must strategically use those ships to overpower the forces of opponents in order to seize control of all planets on the map. When moving ships between planets, you can choose any percentage between 5% and 100% (in increments of 5%) that represents the size of the fleet leaving the planet.
As a long time fan of gaming (real-time strategy games, in particular), I was excited to get my hands dirty with the Mac/iPad follow-up to the popular Galcon for iPhone. Galcon Fusion carries on the same concept as the original, but bringing it to the bigger screen, along with several new game modes.
Trophy Truck Extreme is a cross platform release from independent developers XMediaGrafx which promises to be a fun and addictive racing game, seeing off-road vehicles move at a breakneck speed across rough terrain and smashing into each other in a frantic race to come first place.
So, does Trophy Truck Extreme deliver on this promise? Read on after the break to find out!
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System was a phenomenally fun console that successfully ate up a large portion of my childhood. There are so many classic games from this era that have long been forgotten. If only there were a way to download and play those 16-bit masterpieces on your Mac. Oh wait, there is.
Today we’ll flood your memory with enough digital nostalgia to make you teary eyed by showing you where you can grab these games and play them today. Be sure to read the fine print though as emulating old Nintendo games on your Mac is risky business!
Puzzle style adventure games have never exactly been my “thing”. I’m not a hardcore gamer, but when I do play, I usually stay away from these types of games. After deciding to expand my horizons, I looked around in this genre and spotted Machinarium. The screenshots of the game immediately drew my attention. The visuals were absolutely stunning and enough to get me to venture off into the realm of puzzle/adventure gaming.
Machinarium is a point and click game that takes place in a magical industrial environment full of amazing sights and sounds. You must solve puzzles of varying complexity within the environment in order to move forward in the game. Does the gameplay measure up to the graphics? Read on to find out.
First things first – I’m not a “hardcore” gamer. In fact, some of the few games I play are Flight Control, Plants vs Zombies and racing games like the Need for Speed series. I was asked to review Asphalt 6: Adrenaline newly available on the Mac App Store and was interested to hear that it was a ported game from the iOS platform, which I why I was eager to take a look at it.
Now we’re all familiar with the “Back to the Mac” ideology where developers bring back elements of the iOS platform into Mac applications. One of the best examples is Reeder and Day One. How well would this work with a game though? Would the UI stay the same or would it be just the major game elements that would match?
