The A.V. Club - Sawbuck Gamer

Games: Sawbuck Gamer: February 13, 2012

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 12:00:00 -0600

Puzzlejuice Creator: Colaboratory Platforms: iPhone/iPad (Universal Binary) Played on: iPad Price: $1.99 There are people who are good at Tetris and there are people who are good at Boggle. Those who are in the middle of that Venn diagram can count themselves lucky when playing Puzzlejuice, which tests—nay, taxes—players’ spatial dexterity à la Tetris and their jumble-y discovery abilities à la Boggle at the same time. The game starts off like Tetris. Various shapes fall, and you fit them into one another. The shapes are also color-coded, though, and lining up three blocks of the same color transforms ...

Games: Sawbuck Gamer: January 23, 2012

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Abobo’s Big Adventure Creators: I-Mockery, Pesto Force, ThePoxBox.com Platform: Browser Price: Free Abobo’s Big Adventure is billed as “the ultimate tribute to the NES,” but if that’s true, it raises the question of what exactly qualifies as a “tribute.” In terms of quantity, Adventure certainly references a greater tonnage of Nintendo kitsch than any artwork heretofore known to man. There’s the Double Dragon connection, of course—Abobo was the muscle-bound boss on the first level of that NES classic—but that’s only the beginning. On Abobo’s quest to rescue his beloved son Aboboy ...

Games: Sawbuck Gamer: Dec. 12, 2011

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 11:59:00 -0600

Gobtron Creator: Juicy Beast Platforms: Browser, iPhone/iPad Played on: Browser Price: Browser—Free; iPhone—$1.99 So you’re a none-too-bright-looking giant pink fuzzy monster, roughly the size of the horizon, and you’re just hanging out one day when a bunch of teeny-tiny primitives start freaking out and hucking spears at you. What’s a horizon-sized monster (with no visible limbs, tentacles, or other useful appendages) to do, besides fight back with every gross weapon at your disposal? In the case of Gobtron, that means smacking them with snot, shooting them with boogers, drooling out a bubble shield ...

Games: Sawbuck Gamer: Nov. 21, 2011

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Mushroom Madness 3 Creator: Silen Games Platforms: Browser Price: Free Each subsequent Mushroom Madness game has preserved the original game’s cartoony-cute design and basic functions, while considerably expanding the experience, and game No. 3 is no exception: You’re still protecting your mushroom patches from marauding animals, but now there are more weapons, more play modes, bigger upgrades, more new goals, and more critters—each of which pose specific challenges. This is essentially a gussied-up take on whack-a-mole (and perhaps in recognition, the moles are the most annoying opponents in the game), but it features an impressive amount of ...

Games: Sawbuck Gamer: October 31, 2011

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Mercury Hg Creator: Ignition Entertainment Platforms: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Played on: Xbox 360 Price: $5 Like its predecessor, Mercury Meltdown, (which traces its heritage to Marble Madness), this action-puzzle hybrid requires you to navigate a puddle of goo from one end of a map to the next, not by moving it directly, but by manipulating the tilt of the world around it. Then, once that cognitive shift is sufficiently in place, Mercury Hg asks for more: Change your blob’s color to get past occasional barriers, or split your blob for easier access to bonuses, or navigate sticky terrain ...

Games: Sawbuck Gamer: October 10, 2011

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 12:00:00 -0500

The Binding Of Isaac Creators: Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl Platforms: Mac, PC Reviewed on: PC Price: $4.99 The Binding Of Isaac is pitch-black and hard as hell. If you die in the middle of crawling the game’s randomly generated, Zelda-styled dungeons, you start the game from the beginning, armed only with the knowledge of the mistakes that led to your demise. Luck plays a factor: Stumbling upon the right magic weapons and power-ups can give a leg up. But persistence is the key. The necessity for masochistic patience in the face of terrible odds might be ...

Games: Sawbuck Gamer: Sept. 19, 2011

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Jetpack Joyride Creator: Halfbrick Studios Platforms: iPhone/iPad (Universal Binary) Reviewed on: iPhone, iPad Price: $0.99 The working title of this game was Machine Gun Jetpack, which was funny as a lark, but then it became Jetpack Joyride, which does more to capture the spirit of the game. Joyride is indeed the iOS equivalent of doing donuts in the parking lot. Each playthrough of the game begins with your hero, Barry Steakfries, smashing through the wall of a science-y facility with the toy he just stole—a brand-new jetpack. The main object is simply to live the dream as ...

Games: Sawbuck Gamer: August 29, 2011

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 23:59:00 -0500

Julius Styles: The International Creator: Lapland Studio Platforms: iPhone/iPad (Universal Binary) Played on: iPhone Price: $2.99 Wesley Snipes is in jail for tax evasion, so new films are out of the question. Instead, he’s lending his mug, though not his voice, to Julius Styles: The International. Julius is a crack agent working for a nefarious group that seeks to gain economic control of developing countries. While the concept of controlling a gun-toting Snipes is entertaining, the game is mechanically awful. It’s mostly a point-and-click adventure, where you’re forced to squint at the tiny screen to ...

Games: Sawbuck Gamer: August 8, 2011

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Prime Minister’s Questions: The Game Creator: Pixel Politics Platform: PC Price: Free The width of the gangway separating the Government from the Opposition in the British House Of Commons is hardly arbitrary; it’s two sword-lengths across. That bit of foresight is all for naught, though, in Pixel Politics’ Prime Minister’s Questions: The Game. Questions features a turn-based battle waged via stale talking points, shameless emotional entreaties, and more ad hominem sniping than you’d find in a Huffington Post comment thread. Players retort to Labour Party leader Ed Miliband by selecting questions from a relatively limited pool ...

Games: Sawbuck Gamer: July 18, 2011

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Proun Developer: Joost van Dongen Platform: PC Price: Varies (“pay what you want”) Who cares whether games can be art? Proun poses a more interesting variation: can art be games? Proun is gorgeous, with an aesthetic drawn from 20th-century modern art. It’s a delight to listen to, with an upbeat, jazzy soundtrack perfectly matching its graphics. But the overall game is a bit lacking. It’s a racing game with a nice twist: You control a ball rolling along a wire and rotate the ball to avoid obstacles. It’s challenging, but other than the occasional turbo boost, extremely ...

Games: Sawbuck Gamer: June 27, 2011

Sun, 26 Jun 2011 23:59:00 -0500

George Plimpton’s Video Falconry Creator: Tom Fulp Platform: Browser Price: Free In the vein of other phony finds like The Great Gatsby for NES, George Plimpton’s Video Falconry fleshes out a nerd-tastic joke with retrofitted graphics, winking gags, and a just-shy-of-convincing backstory. Shameless Malört shill John Hodgman essentially summoned the game into existence during an episode of his podcast Judge John Hodgman; all that remained was for Tom Fulp to actually develop it. Plugging the Paris Review founder into a Colecovision title isn’t actually much of a stretch, considering that Plimpton regularly pimped Mattel’s Intellivision ...

Games: Sawbuck Gamer: June 6, 2011

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Ambia Creator: Ian Snyder Platform: Browser Price: Free Ambia is slightly reminiscent of old, old puzzle-action games like Adventures Of Lolo, only it replaces block-moving with gun-shooting—and the difficulty comes in figuring out the order in which you should blast enemies. Generally speaking, you want to kill everything you come across instantly, but it isn’t always that easy. Enemies hide behind blocks that only they can shoot through, and you have to cleverly navigate platforms to get a clear shot at their ugly mugs. Once you’ve eliminated all the enemies, a door unlocks, which lets you proceed ...

Games: Sawbuck Gamer: May 16, 2011

Mon, 16 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Pulse: Volume One Creator: Cipher Prime Studios Platform: iPad Price: $4.99 Pulse is a deconstruction of a rhythm game. Gone is the guise of a guitar (or a “hero”). Players interact with complex melodies using a series of concentric circles arranged like an archery target. As the electronically composed songs play, dots appear along the rings, and tapping on each one in sequence brings you closer to completion. Only a handful of songs are included in Volume One, and getting through them all is a breeze—there’s no penalty for missing a chunk of notes. But scoring an ...

Games: Sawbuck Gamer: April 25, 2011

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Superbrothers: Sword And Sworcery EP Creator: Superbrothers Platform: iPhone/iPad (Universal Binary) Played on: iPad Price: $4.99 Sword And Sworcery is more videogame art installation than it is fun. It’s enjoyable, but it compels you to win not by skillfully overcoming obstacles, but by simply spending lots of time in its world, which is as lush an ambiance as pixels allow. You are The Scythian, a mysterious, silent figure at the center of a Zelda-tinged noir (narrated by a cigar-smoking man in a lavish lounge chair). When a nefarious dead antelope is released from a long-forgotten temple ...

Games: Sawbuck Gamer: April 4, 2011

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Pica Pic Creator: Hippopotam Studio Platform: Browser Price: Free Even amid the rush to nostalgify every aspect of pre-1995 gaming, early portable LCD games have failed to garner much retrospective love. Maybe nobody loved them much in the first place. The extremely limited technology, which “animated” a game-like substance by switching various drawings on and off around the primitive screen, made these handheld units the unsatisfying last resort of a desperate gamer. In the United States, the market was dominated by Tiger Electronics, while in Japan, the standard was set by Nintendo’s Game and Watch devices, so named because ...

Games: Sawbuck Gamer: March 14, 2011

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Bit.Trip Flux Creator: Gaijin Games Platform: Wii Price: $8 So many indie games look backward at classic game forms that it’s something of a surprise that Pong and Arkanoid aren’t terribly well-represented. Bit.Trip Flux takes them as a model, giving you control of a paddle that traverses levels right-to-left, hitting square balls and dodging round ones, building combo streaks all the while. It’s controlled by holding the Wii-mote sideways and tilting it forward and back, a motion precise and relaxing at the same time. The game itself isn’t so relaxing, as the behavior of ...

Games: Sawbuck Gamer: February 21, 2011

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

The Great Gatsby Creators: Charlie Hoey and Pete Smith Platform: Browser Price: Free The Great Gatsby, best known as required reading in high school, certainly doesn’t scream “Make me into an old-school Nintendo game!” (At least not in the way that classic work of literature The Legend Of Zelda did.) Yet this reimagination of the book is near-perfect—an homage to F. Scott Fitzgerald and vintage games like Castlevania alike. Nick Carraway is the high-jumpin’, hat-slingin’ hero, battling his way through butlers, flappers, boxcar hobos, and gangsters as the story of The Great Gatsby unfolds. Daisy and other characters ...

Games: Sawbuck Gamer: January 31, 2011

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Grand Mystic Quest Of Discovery Creator: Hulahulahest Platform: Browser Price: Free Grand Mystic Quest Of Discovery borrows its story from the first Legend Of Zelda game, in that there really isn't one from the start. (Not even so much as an old man to say "It's dangerous to go alone! Take this.") Instead, the story is written as the quest deepens. Guided only by the cryptic writing of scattered scrolls, your hooded hero plunges into a dungeon. It isn't clear what he's seeking, only that weapons and tools, found along the way, become increasingly important—used ...

Games: Sawbuck Gamer: January 10, 2011

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 12:00:00 -0600

One Chance Creator: Awkward Silence Games Platform: Browser Price: Free One Chance has an unimpeachable premise: You only get to play it once. You play a scientist who appears to have successfully cured cancer, but instead triggered the end of life on earth. With only a handful of days before the end, you can try to find a cure, spend time with your family, or bang lab hotties. One Chance’s presentation does a fine job of conveying the end-of-days mood, but its adventure-game interface prevents it from achieving its potential. Accidentally talking to a coworker on the roof of ...

Games: Sawbuck Gamer: December 13, 2010

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

Pac-Man Championship Edition DX Creator: Namco Bandai Platforms: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Played on: PlayStation 3 Price: $9.99 Even with games like Super Mario Galaxy, Portal, and Bioshock populating the same 12-month stretch, there’s an argument to be made that the original Pac-Man Championship Edition was the best game to come out in 2007. Reimagining the dot-gobbling reflex challenge as a five-minute, widescreen high-score rush was unexpectedly successful, and the game’s blend of slick, simple neon graphics with thumping electronic music made the game immortal. Pac-man Championship Edition DX bests the original in every way. The revision ...