Latest Posts in Game Room

Review: Plants vs. Zombies game

Finally combining my love of gardening and my need to slaughter the undead, Plants vs. Zombies is a unique tower defense game from PopCap Games.

In Plants vs. Zombies, you’re a home owner with a zombie problem. The undead want to invade your yard and get to your delicious brains. Your best defense is to plant peapods, mushrooms, squash, and other deadly legumes (deadly to the undead, that is) to fight back the zombie hordes.

The beautiful cartoon artwork is on the right side of zany and sets a light-hearted tone from the get-go. The zombies are silly, distinctive enemies that vary in character, from your standard groaning zombie to zombie football players, zamboni-riding zombies, zombie dolphin teams, and zombie balloon riders. Each has a distinct battle skill that you’ll have to confront.

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Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince game

Designed for release on the same day as the movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the latest in the series of adventure games based on the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling and their movie equivalents. Originally slated for released last Fall, both the movie and the game were delayed by several months. This extra time seems to have served the game well and makes Half-Blood Prince arguably the best of the series to date. Unfortunately, young Mr. Potter's games still fail to capture the magic and wonder of their source material.

For those unfamiliar with the Harry Potter craze, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince continues the adventures of Harry Potter, a wizard in his sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This time, he must uncover an insidious plot hatched by his rival, Draco Malfoy, meanwhile captaining his Quidditch team, confronting villainous Death Eaters, and dealing with being an angst-ridden teenager.

You control Harry as he explores Hogwarts, as he mixes potions, as he duels, and as he flies through the skies during Quidditch matches while looking for the golden snitch. The potion mini-game, while well integrated into the overall plot, is a frustrating redundant race against time to shake your beakers, stir your pot, or mix your ingredients. I imagine that with the Wii Remote controller the mixing actions are more fun (the game is available for the Nintendo Wii), but with the mouse the novelty just really isn’t compelling. The amount of time in the books and movies Harry spends on chemistry is minimal; it takes too much time in the game.

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Disney plans Alice in Wonderland game for iPhone, but not for Mac

Disney Interactive Studios has announced plans to release a video games based on “Alice in Wonderland,” the live action movie directed by Tim Burton that will be coming to theaters early next year. The iPhone and iPod touch are on the list of supported platforms, though the Mac is noticeably absent.

Burton, whose previous credits include The Nightmare Before Christmas, Batman, and Sweeney Todd, is directing the movie, which stars Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter and relative newcomer Mia Wasikowska as Alice. The story takes place years after the events in Lewis Carroll’s classics “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass,” when an older Alice finds herself once again in the surreal world of Wonderland — or Underland, as it’s known in the new film.

The video game picks up the story, where Alice, accompanied by friends like the Mad Hatter, March Hare, Cheshire Cat and White Rabbit, has to defeat the Red Queen and Jabberwocky. Each of the characters helps Alice to evade traps and solve puzzles.

The game is currently in development for the Wii, Windows and Nintendo DS, according to Disney, which plans to release those in February 2010 — no Mac version was announced. Also in development is Alice in Wonderland: The Mobile Game for iPhone and iPod touch, which will be released in 2010.

Blizzard signs Spider-Man director for Warcraft movie

Blizzard Entertainment’s legendary Warcraft franchise has spawned a series of video games, toys and books, so it’s only to be expected that it’d make the move to the big screen one of these days. Today the company announced that Sam Raimi has been hired to direct the film.

Warcraft started life as a real-time strategy game in 1994. The game series has evolved over time and is the setting of World of Warcraft, the most popular massively multiplayer online game in the world. At the core of all the mythology that has spun out of Warcraft is the story of an ancient conflict between the forces of The Alliance — humans, dwarves, night elves and others — and The Horde, orcs, trolls and other creatures.

Raimi is the director of the Spider-Man trilogy; he’s also the director of the cult horror classic The Evil Dead. He’s working with Atlas Entertainment to produce the movie, under the aegis of Charis Roven, whose credits include Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and 12 Monkeys. Legendary Pictures is co-producing and co-financing the film with Warner Bros.

Blizzard’s still keeping a tight wrap on details of the movie. More information, including cast and targeted release date, will be revealed a development progresses, according to the press release.

Playdom’s hit MySpace game Mobsters comes to iPhone

Making an offer that you are not likely to decline, today Playdom has launched the first iPhone mafia game linked to a social network. The number one game on Myspace.com, Mobsters, will be busting noses and making friends on the iPhone for $1.

Mobsters is a mafia-themed social RPG that already has 13.5 million installs on MySpace. The large community and feature rich game are being completely ported onto the iPhone for Mobsters: Big Apple. That means players who already have the game on MySpace can make bank deposits on MySpace and see the effects on their game on the iPhone—and vice versa.

According to director of product Jesse Janosov, all of the features are there as well. You can rob convenience stores, load up on ammo, buy getaway cars and much more all through the handheld convenience of the iPhone. Janosov boasts that it’ll be “the biggest mafia game on iPhone.”

But it won’t be a simple port of a widely successful game. There are several iPhone only features as well. The “Mysterious Mr. X Missions” help players transition from the MySpace game to the iPhone. The story that generates this arc can only be accessed through the iPhone and will reveal a deeper and more complex gaming experience.

Janosov also recognizes the unique challenges and advantages of developing for the iPhone. While, it’s relatively easy to invite your friends to join your mob over a social network, the iPhone proves more challenging to network. During some of the later missions, players require large groups of friends to complete the mission successfully. In order to address this problem, Playdom has taken several steps. First, all friends of yours on MySpace who have the game will show up on the iPhone version of the game. Second, certain missions exclusive to the iPhone will get you hired mob members. These will help you complete the “Missions for up to 30 Hired Guns” feature.

Playdom has also gone to great lengths to ensure that the playing experience is approachable and fun for new players. “How do we make this a great experience for people experiencing mobsters for the first time?” Janosov asked. With 3.0’s social features, they knew they could take their web property and “optimize it for the iPhone.” The menus, icons, and instructions are recognizable from the MySpace version but are ideally suited and designed for the iPhone. New players will realize that even though they may have played another game on the iPhone that deals with similar themes, nothing will compete with the amount of content provided by Mobsters: Big Apple.

Experienced players from MySpace will enjoy making the transition as well. Playdom wanted to make sure that players didn’t have to start from scratch when playing the game, and so all of the players friends, achievements, characters, weapons, etc can be accessed from the iPhone. Players will also be able to switch seamlessly between platforms, as the browser-based version and the iPhone version are both connected.

“[We] didn’t want to short change the experienced players who have poured hours into game,” Janosov explained. Experienced players will also appreciate that in addition to the traditional networking methods of obtaining mob members, the iPhone affords opportunities and missions that will provide new ways to get a mob.

For now, Mobsters: Big Apple will only have cross-platform support for MySpace and the iPhone. While that means players on Facebook are left out at this point, Playdom recognizes that this is only the beginning. “We want to target users wherever they are.”

System requirements call for an iPhone or iPod touch running iPhone OS 2.2.1 or later.

Nvidia recommends updating GeForce FX 4800, GTX 285 Mac drivers

Nvidia has released what it calls “a critical” update to the Mac drivers for its GeForce GTX 285 and Quadro FX 4800 graphics chip. The driver update is needed to maintain Mac OS X kernel compatibility, and will affect users who plan to update to Mac OS X 10.5.8, according to an Nvidia spokesperson.

Both cards are made for Mac Pro systems. The GeForce GTX 285 is offered by Nvidia manufacturing partner EVGA. It was released in June. The drivers are available for download from EVGA’s Web site. The latest Quadro FX 4800 drivers are available from Nvidia. The Quadro FX 4800 is a workstation-level graphics card offered as an optional add-on from the Apple Store.

Nvidia strongly encourages users of either graphics card to install the new drivers before attempting to upgrade to Mac OS X 10.4.8. As Macworld posted this article, the current release version of Mac OS X was 10.5.7.

Review: Braid

Timing is everything. In Braid, a time-bending, darkly psychological puzzle platform game by Jonathan Blow (distributed by Hothead Games), time is your main tool to guide Tim through his strange odyssey. A complex and genre-defying masterpiece, Braid is difficult to label and even more difficult to beat.

When you first launch Braid, you’re confronted with what looks like a darkly backlit and haunting silhouette of a little tie-wearing man with a cityscape behind him. After a couple of seconds, you realize this isn’t a title screen but the first level. The beautiful art style and haunting soundtrack are key features that thread throughout the game but begin when the game is first launched.

The objective of the game is vaguely stated. You must guide Tim through various obstacles, collect puzzle pieces, and eventually rescue The Princess from a “monster.” As you navigate the dreamy watercolor-looking worlds, you’ll be able to manipulate time so that you can prevent yourself from dying or complete time-sensitive puzzles. The time element aside, the interactive world is a simple set of obstacles that you’d likely see in a game like Super Mario Bros., complete with canons, goomba-like enemies, and killer plants.

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Avernum 6 'old school' RPG announced

Spiderweb Software has announced Avernum 6, the final installment of their long-running series of adventure role playing games (RPGs) for the Mac and WPC. The game is expected to be released in late 2009, first on the Mac, then on Windows in 2010.

Avernum is Spiderweb's homage to classic RPG games like Ultima. It's tile-based and turn-based, and uses an isometric (three-quarters) perspective a bit like the original Diablo.

Avernum 6 returns you to the subterranean land of Avernum, a place filled with dungeons, labyrinths and constant warfare. People live far below the surface of the world. Once a prison colony for rebels and thugs, Avernum exists as a frontier for adventurers seeking wealth, fame and power.

A blight has struck the mushrooms that the residents of Avernum need to feed themselves. The savage reptilians who live in the low tunnels of Avernum have emerged, destroying much of what's left of Avernum and creating legions of refugees. You must get people to safety before everything starts to fall apart.

Spiderweb Software estimates that the game will take hours for players to play through. It sports redone graphics, new, more clever AI and multitudes of side quests to explore.

System requirements will call for Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later, 1.6GHz or faster processor, OpenGL support and 32MB VRAM, 512MB RAM, 200MB hard disk space.

EVE Online ‘Apocrypha 1.5’ expansion due in August

CCP Games producer Torfi Frans Olafsson recently posted a blog update indicating what kind of changes players can expect in the next evolution of the online game, expected to arrive in August. Among the changes are new epic mission arcs, improvements to rigging and more.

EVE Online is a massively multiplayer online game in which players take massive spaceships to the stars, mining, pirating, transporting cargo — whatever they want. The game, which runs on Macs and PCs, underwent its last major evolution in March with the release of Apocrypha, its latest expansion pack. Olafsson revealed that the next release in August is “Apocrypha 1.5,” a mini-expansion made to smooth out some of the changes introduced in the March expansion.

Among the changes in the August update will be improved ability to “mod” vessels with the addition of small and medium rigs — equipment that radically changes the way your ship works. Thus far rigs have been expensive and bulky, but this change will introduce rigging to the smaller frigate-class vessels many players find themselves with early in the game.

Also new in 1.5 will be Level 4 “epic arcs.” Epic arcs — dozens of interconnected missions from computer-controlled non-player characters within the game — are new to Apocrypha, but this far there has been only one, and it’s a Level 1 mission, suitable for a new player with limited experience. The Level 4 arcs are meant for more experienced players: “… they will be more challenging, but also more rewarding,” said Olafsson. Each one is themed around a specific “race” in the game: Gallente, Minmatar, Caldari and Amarr represent the four playable human races in EVE.

Players will be able to add specialized cargo holds on their vessels, such as fuel bays; and factional warfare is being improved with the introduction of “Loyalty Points” awarded to players for kills and captures.

Olafsson also indicated that CCP Games remains hard at work for a more ambitious “Winter Expansion” that’s “focused on sovereignty.” He offered no other details except to say that “you will not be able to walk in it.” This is an important clue — at last year’s EVE Online Fanfest, its annual gathering of gaming enthusiasts in CCP Games’ home town of Reykjavik, Iceland, the developers demonstrated a tech demo of player avatars walking in stations. That capability remains a way off, it seems.

Review: Lego Batman: The Videogame

The Dark Knight. The Caped Crusader. His unique lore has transcended mere cultural fame to become something essentially American. He’s the more complex, fragile, and real side of American heroism. While Superman is the hero everyone wishes would save them, Batman is the frightening hero we deserve. But I’m not sure what we, as a society, did to deserve Lego Batman: The Videogame.

I’m a big fan of the Caped Crusader, and as I’ve shown in previous reviews, I enjoy the cartoonish violence, simple combat mechanics, and challenging puzzle/platforming formula of the Lego series. To a point.

The problem with Lego Batman is that it doesn’t do anything the other entries in the series haven’t already done (and better). Perhaps getting complacent, the developers have thrown another franchise into the lego-game-o-matic and hoped to get similar results.

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