Stinkers – Zuma Deluxe for the XBox 360

Genre:  Arcade
Platform:  XBox 360

I love Zuma.  It has entertained me for 100’s of hours on my PC or laptop.  This is a great game.  It’s very simple – you shoot colored balls at the other colored balls to match at least three and clear them.  So I was excited to play it on my XBox 360 quite a long time ago.  FAIL.  This is a terrible port of a game.  Of course, you use your 360 controller.  However, the controls are just awful.

You need to use the thumb sticks to control the cursor, but it is really hard to use.  I don’t understand why they chose to make this game difficult.  You have to hold the position with your thumbs to shoot the ball, but it requires a fair amount of pressure from your hand.  This means that it is slow and painful.

I was really good at Zuma on the PC using a mouse.  With this version of the game, I am horrible.  I can’t get past the third level.  Which means that this game is no fun.  I do not recommend anyone play it as you will be frustrated and disappointed.

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Games with Gold Sept 2016

August is almost over, so it’s time to look at September’s free Games with Gold from Microsoft.  The games are:

-Earthlock, Festival of Magic – Sep 1
-Assassin’s Creed Chronicles – China – Sep 16
-Forza Horizon – Sep 1
-Mirror’s Edge Catalyst – Sep 16

I plan on downloading all of these.  Earthlock is a new game coming out on September 1.  It is a turn-based RPG of some sort.  I see Harvest Moon being tossed around with it, so it’s likely a similar style game.

I have played and enjoyed Assassin’s Creed 1, and I expect to enjoy China as well.  I’m not sure what is different about the Chronicles series versus the regular, though, but I’ll find out!

I haven’t played a Forza game yet and I’m looking forward to playing the first Horizon game.

I don’t know anything about Mirror’s Edge.  I do know that this is the sequel in the series, but that’s it.  It’s free, so I’ll try it out.

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Hidden Gems – Pogo Island

Genre:  Card and Board, Arcade, Word, Puzzle
Platform:  DS

I believe I have expressed my satisfaction with Pogo.com previously on this site, so it’s no surprise that I really enjoyed this compilation of 5 different Pogo games, Pogo Island for the Nintendo DS.  This game contains a couple of my favorites – Word Whomp, Tri-Peaks Solitaire, Phlinx, Squelchies and Poppit.  Each game is fun in its own right and I can easily play them for hours on end.  This is a great game for travel for me.  Just pop it in and the time on planes just flies by (pun intended).

This game also lets you collect tokens as you play and upload them to your Pogo account, which is a nice bonus.  If you’re a fan of Pogo games or just solitaire games in general, I think that you will really enjoy this one.  I happened to have found it by accident in a GameStop one day and picked it up immediately.  I had never heard of it before, so it was a true hidden gem.

 

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Olympics: Japanese PM Abe during closing ceremony

Just in case anyone doubted the impact that video games now have on our society, let’s take a look at Japan’s introduction at last night’s Olympics closing ceremony from Rio De Janeiro.  Video games are a part of Japan’s identity and they showed the world that.  The image you see above is the Japanese prime minister sporting a Mario hat after he came up through a pipe.  This was preceded by an animated segment featuring Mario himself.

Mario-Olympics1

Of all of Japan’s potential rich culture and heritage, they chose to show us their video game and anime presence in the world.  I found this to be quite significant and pretty awesome.  This is one of the primary reasons my first out-of-country trip is going to be to Japan (hopefully next year!).

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I have been a subscriber of Game Informer Magazine for years now.  It comes free with Game Stop’s PowerRewards program and it’s worth it just for the magazine.  This magazine features really good up and coming games and includes those indie games that we all end up loving.  Many writers tend to skip these games as it doesn’t sell as well.

The format is great as well.  The first few pages are letters, fan artwork, letter from the editor and table of contents.  Next up is their feature (cover) article, which usually spans a good 10 pages or so.  Then there are previews of upcoming games and finally reviews of current games.  I typically agree with their reviews, but there’s always a time or two when you’ll think they are off the mark.

I strongly recommend this magazine.  The artwork is superb, it’s quality writing and it’s enjoyable all around.  It is available in both digital and print.

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Genre:  Word
Platform:  Nintendo 3DS

For many of us word game enthusiasts, word searches are what we start on when we are just starting to learn to read.  I was certainly no different.  While they are not typically the most challenging of games, they are great for letting your brain idle and wasting some time.  I personally play these when I’m watching something on TV that isn’t particularly enthralling.

I discovered Epic Word Search on the 3DS store about a year ago and was captivated.  This isn’t your grandma’s word search.  Instead, it consists of five boards, all containing 9 separate sections of word searches containing a category of the big board.  In Epic Word Search 1, the categories are Rock and Roll, Movies, Food, TV and Sports.  Each sub-category as somewhere in the area of 60 words, so each board has over 350 words to find.  It’s challenging and fun and will take you hours to do.  The categories for Epic Word Search 2 are Animals, Journeys, Ancient, America and Shakespeare.

If you like small games that can take up a lot of your time, like word games and have a Nintendo 3DS, then this one is for you!

epic-word-search-collection2

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Oldies but Goodies – Simpsons Road Rage

Genre:  Arcade
Platform:  XBox Original

I was a long-time fan of the Simpsons, although I haven’t really watched much of it the last 10 years or so.  So when Road Rage came out, I picked it up and really enjoyed it.  If you’ve ever played Crazy Taxi, it’s basically that with the Simpsons crew.  You select one of the cast to play and drive around Springfield acting as a taxi.  The faster you get people to their destination, the more money you get and the more time you have to play.

You only start with maybe 5 characters to play with and can purchase the rest as you earn money.  This really adds to the replayability of the game as you’ll enjoy playing the different characters.  Here’s everyone you can play:

Simsons RR characters

I have always been a big Lisa fan, so that’s usually who I played.  I also enjoyed Homer and Mr. Plow a lot, too.  You can destroy just about everything in this game.  Springfield is fairly large, so there is a lot of territory to cover.  There are shortcuts everywhere, so once you find them, the game becomes even more fun.  I just picked this one up again and I’m looking forward to replaying it.  I would recommend it if you’re looking for a fast-paced racing type of game and you are a fan of the Simpsons.

Simpsons

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Chey’s Top 25 Games – #8 – Rock Band 3

My love affair with music games was immediate and heavy.  I had heard of Guitar Hero back in the Playstation 2 days, when I was an XBox owner, and was intrigued.  Alas, it was not released for the XBox.  When I was visiting my brother, I wanted to play it so much that I bought him a PS2 with Guitar Hero.  I was in love.  I then went home and got my own PS2 with Guitar Hero.

Guitar Hero 2 came out not too long after that and I sold the PS2.  I was just immediately good at the game, having a music background and strong rhythm skills, and enjoyed the game immensely.  I have every single Guitar Hero or Rock Band game and have played through them many times.  It was hard to pick a single favorite game for my list, but Rock Band 3 wins out.

Rock Band 3 allows you to import any songs that you purchased through their store into the game, even if you purchased them for other games.  It also allows you to bring in songs from Rock Band 1, 2, AC/DC and Greenday.  The Beatles songs were not importable.  It introduced harmonies on vocals and a keyboard controller.  It also has pro modes for all instruments, so you can basically learn a real instrument as you play.  The keyboard controller is good for this, although it’s a mini keyboard with just over an octave to play with.  I bought a real electric guitar to plug in, but the pro modes take a lot of work, which I wasn’t up to at the time.

What really makes this game fun, though, are the songs.  I have spent a gross amount of money on the songs, so I have quite a list to pick from.  This makes it a fantastic party games.  When we lived in Daytona, we were somewhat known for our Rock Band parties, and we’re starting to rebuild that here in Houston.  Everybody has fun at these parties.  It’s amazing who you can get to sing, even if they are adamantly against it at the beginning.  Add a bit of liquid courage and even the most staunch person is singing their heart out.

I haven’t seriously played these games in a long time and I’m really rusty.  They are still a lot of fun and definitely have an air of nostalgia about them.  I’m undecided on whether I want to touch Rock Band 4, but Rock Band 3 will always have a special place on my shelf and heart.

DSC00062

Who’s ready to ROCK?!?

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