Puzzle Craft [iOS, Android]

Puzzle Craft is a simple puzzle game but the way you unlock improvements to help you with those puzzles, will keep you hooked for hours.

There are two puzzles that you play in the game, farming and mining. Both of these games essentially work in the same way, you need to draw an unbroken line across at least three of the same type of resource as you want to collect. It sounds very simple and it is but the fun is in the level of detail the game goes into. Firstly you'll be working on your farm as you'll need food and other things in order to go mining but don't you wish that you could collect less things for more returns? Well hire some workers and what about collecting wheat becoming a free move, well build some buildings. This is what makes this game truly fun, improving your town making it more efficient and levelling up to unlock new things. You can even create tools that help you get more of that specific resource you are after.

As for the more aesthetic details the graphics are very simple but clean and there are a few nice animations. It's not going to win any prizes but it gets the job done. The music is nice but repetitive, the sounds on the other hand are quite nice and seem to fit the bill.

I did encounter a few issues with the game, it did crash once or twice and some aspects haven't been thought out as well as others. Some buttons overlay each other on the village screen, making them hard to touch, and sometimes the touch controls don't feel as smooth as they should. Overall I only encountered minor issues and I think these will easily be resolved with a patch.

Just looking at the screenshots the game looks far to simple to keep you going but just as you get the hang of something, it introduces a new concept. Mice come to eat up your crops and you must learn how to tackle them, wolves come to take away your livestock but a quick shot from your rifle should keep them at bay. The game handles all of this stuff nicely and at $1 it's hard to beat, 8.5/10

Warhammer 40,000: Dark Vengeance - Limited Edition

The new 40k boxed set is available for pre-order now. It contains Dark Angels and Chaos Space Marines plus everything you need to play 40k, including everyone's favourite, the mini-rulebook. Personally I think with the right customisations it would make for one great Chaos force, you'll just need a tank and some flyers/skimmers. It certainly makes the Battleforces seem expensive for what you get, although true to say it is going to be made in gigantic quantities which helps cut down the cost.

One Sentence Reviews

Awesome Tanks [Flash] Shoot tanks, shoot their base, upgrade your tank, rinse, repeat 4/10.

Sands of the Coliseum [Flash] I like this game, at times it feels like there is an inkling of strategy and who doesn't like a good decapitation? 6.8/10.

Monster Life [Android, iOS] One of those annoying games that even after you tell it not to and you've changed all the settings, it keeps giving you notifications anyway; still it's not bad for a lite pocket monsters game, play it while you wait for Pokemon Black/White Version 2 6/10.

Iron Brigade [PC, XBOX]

Iron Brigade is part of the growing number of tower defence games where you also play as a ground troop, laying down turrets and shooting the enemy personally. It's take on the genre is that you have a giant mech called a trench which is pretty cool. The game has been out for over a year now on XBOX 360 but has just been released on PC so this review mainly focuses on the PC version.

You can choose three basic chassis types for your trench, the engineer chassis which allows you to bring more turrets to the battle, an assault chassis which lets you bring more weapons, or a standard one which is a mixture of assault and engineer. Customising your trench and character make for the funnest part of the game. I love seeing what new loot I have found, or unlocked due to the multitude of stats the game keeps.

The gameplay itself is satisfying yet a little too repetitive. Blowing away waves of tubes, as the enemies are called, is great for a bit of instant gratification and although the game tries to mix it up with different monsters and scenarios it all feels a bit, been there done that after a while. The gameplay has a very arcadey feel to it and I found it best to play in small bursts. As I mentioned before the main hook to the game is the sweet loot you get. You can also team up with three friends to play but you have to use the much despised windows live.

Graphically the game is not going to push your brand new graphics card but it does look nice. My personal favourite is the heat effects you get off your gun as you reload it. From time to time I had a minor bit of freezing where the game seemed to do nothing for a few seconds, presumably it was loading then everything would be fine again. I also experienced some clicks and stutters in the audio and when the game really heats up the audio seems to apply a strange effect. I think it is deliberate but it doesn't quite sound right. None of these issues are game-breaking and there are already patches in the works.

Overall the game is fun but not highly unique or original, however it only costs $15 and the PC version gets the DLC for free. If you like stomping about in big mechs and love collecting loot and using it to upgrade then this is the game for you 7.8/10.

One Sentence Reviews

Amazing Alex [Android, iOS] They got the amazing part right but didn't quite nail the Alex 6/10.

Dead Island [PS3, Xbox, PC] Good mindless fun but lacks any finesse, presumably something similar can be said of the bug squashing team 7/10.

Running Warrior [Flash] Annoying yet mesmerising, levelling yet going nowhere and always running, running running 6.5/10.