July 25, 2010
£2.49 and 191 levels. BAM! That’s what we call a good deal! This is a 2D puzzle/platforming game that starts off with easy puzzles before soon leaving you scratching your head wondering what the hell to do next.
You control Archibald on his skateboard trying to find his way out of Professor Klumpfus’ creepy mansion/laboratory by hopping across gaps, avoiding mutants, flicking switches, moving boxes and teleporting, with the aim of reaching the exit door for each of the levels. Read the rest of this entry »
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Dealspwn.com, PSN (PlayStation Store), PSP, Platformer, Puzzle, Reviews | Tagged: Archibald's Adventures, Brendan Griffiths, Dealspwn.com, Rake in Grass | 
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Posted by Brendan Griffiths
July 9, 2010
Hidden object games are a nice match for the PSP Minis range, with their relaxed nature passing the time on a commute or ad break with ease. Route 66 scored well with a 7 a few months ago, so let’s see what G5 Entertainment can come up with.
There’s an actual story here, as a young archaeologist (that absolutely does not look like Lara Croft) is searching for her father who went missing while searching for the Crystal Portal. It’s not exactly Fallout 3, but the effort is appreciated. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Brendan Griffiths
July 6, 2010
The launch of Minis on the PSP has been the best thing to happen on the underused console for years. Even the cack games only set you back a few quid. Mahjongg Artifacts (their spelling) doesn’t have to worry about such things and is well worth the £3.99 asking price.
We get the feeling this version of the ancient game is a bit simpler than the original, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be hooked within minutes. All you have to do is match up pairs of identical blocks, that have pictures on them. Some fall into groups like Roman numerals, Egyptian eyes and so on. Some blocks from the same group can be paired despite being different, such as flowers, weather icons or theatre masks. Special glowing blocks can be paired with any of its kind or suit. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Brendan Griffiths
July 2, 2010
Ah minigolf games and Demon’s Souls in the same weekend. Will my pads survive? Will my sanity hold? Probably not.
£6.29 gets you an impressive amount of crazy golf shenanigans with 144 holes, 6-player local or online multiplayer and a course editor to create your own knuckle mawing middle finger salutes to reason. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Brendan Griffiths
June 23, 2010
Another block puzzle game for the PSP. It’s simple, colourful and cheap. What’s not to like?
The setup is very similar to the classic Lumines games. Blocks come down from the top in three different colours, either in squares of four, a block of six or a line of three. Rotate them on their way down to line up five of the same vertically or horizontally. Try and get as many connected to the line as possible for a combo.
The last block of the five needs to be put in last as you can’t add to a highlighted group afterwards like you can in Lumines. After the timer at the side of the screen reaches zero, a line will sweep down from the top and clear away any linked squares. Sometimes it takes ages to arrive, 25 seconds can feel like a lifetime when your screen is filling up.
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1 Comment | Dealspwn.com, PSP, Puzzle, Reviews | Tagged: Block Cascade Fusion, Brendan Griffiths, Dealspwn.com, Gamelion, PSP Minis | Permalink
Posted by Brendan Griffiths
May 1, 2010
This is a collection of traditional Indian village games that range from kite flying to board games. The story mode features a young Indian man from America, coming back to his family’s village to learn about the culture. We say learn about their cultures, but he really just wants to mess around and learn how to play the local’s games. It’s a pleasant enough way to ease in western gamers who have no idea what the games are, but should also prove handy to players that already understand them as the controls get explained before each game.
You walk (so very) slowly between areas, talking to villagers about the games. The only real reason to play is for the tutorials on them. I’d advise quickly learning how to play then quitting out and playing them from the mini games menu where you can choose your sides and so on. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Brendan Griffiths
April 22, 2010
These are the final three episodes of the murder mystery / puzzle game. Solving random puzzles involving maths, logic and common sense helps bring you one step closer to finding the perpetrator of that episodes crime, with the episodes linking together for the grand finale.
For those of you not familiar with the series you can pick up a bundle with all six episodes for £19.99 on the PSN. You play as one of four detectives (another three people can play along too) from the Blue Toad Agency. As you interview villagers and suspects you have to complete a puzzle before they’ll talk. Most of them have very little to do with your investigation. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Brendan Griffiths
April 22, 2010
Rather than use missiles and the like to defend their city, these citizens have decided it’s easier to fly onto these giant approaching warships and saw parts off them until they crash out of the sky. Bizarre, but brilliant. It’s a bit like an inverted update of the retro game Qix.
The story doesn’t exactly grab you, but it’s charmingly animated and the mad gibberish language that everyone speaks may give gamers fond memories of Okami. It’s the gameplay that’s fantastically strong here though. It’s alarmingly simple, yet has that vital ‘one-more-level’ feel to it. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Brendan Griffiths
March 31, 2010
Deflector is a basically designed yet challenging puzzle game, similar to some mini-games you may have played in bigger titles before. The aim is to deflect a laser beam into a receiver on a complex grid with you looking at it from above.
This is done by placing mirrors on the grid and rotating them to bounce the laser off in a new direction. Before setting the mirror in place you must make sure -via a dotted line that indicates the resulting path of the laser- that it will not hit any environmental objects that will end the game. These objects include apartments, trees, bombs and explosive barrels. Take a quick look at this video for an example of the early levels. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Dealspwn.com, PSP, Puzzle, Reviews | Tagged: Brendan Griffiths, Dealspwn.com, GameShastra, PSP, PSP Minis | Permalink
Posted by Brendan Griffiths
March 31, 2010
Forget all thoughts of motorbikes and possible cheap Road Rash thrills right now. This is a game that has more in common with the Where’s Waldo books that everyone had in the 1990s, albeit considerably less congested. It’s actually pretty damn good too.
Instead of looking for people, you use a cursor to find eight objects cleverly hidden onscreen in a scene picture from one of the many locations along the eponymous Route 66. You scroll around the picture with the analogue stick and move a cursor with the d-pad, selecting items with X. The items can range from broccoli to Buddha’s, hazelnuts to harmonicas and pinecones to peace signs. They’re very specific too, so don’t go thinking boot means shoe or anything like that. Read the rest of this entry »
1 Comment | Dealspwn.com, PSP, Puzzle, Reviews | Tagged: Brendan Griffiths, GameShastra, PSN, PSP, PSP Minis, Route 66 | Permalink
Posted by Brendan Griffiths
March 11, 2010
Old news for PC and 360 gamers, but Peggle has finally made its way to PS3 via the PSN service. If you enjoyed PopCap’s other games like Bejeweled 2 and Zuma then there’s every chance you’ll love this too.
The aim is to rid the screen of all the orange Pegs. You do this by shooting a ball at an angle from the top the screen, then simply sitting back and letting gravity take care of the rest as the ball bounces of walls and blue and orange Pegs. Pegs light up when touched and disappear a few seconds later, longer if the ball is still pinging around lots. Eventually the ball falls to the bottom of the screen, either into a hole or into a moving bucket which lets you use the ball again. You get ten balls to clear all the orange Pegs out, but more balls can be earned by saving them at the bottom or racking up a large combo by bouncing off lots of pegs. Once the last orange Peg has been hit the ball lands in one of five pits for an extra score bonus. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Brendan Griffiths
January 29, 2010
There are already a large number of 2D shooters on the PSN Store, but the genre hopping PixelJunk series from Q-Games has beaten them all with their first shot at the title. PixelJunk Shooter is a compelling game designed with a distinctive, simple, full-coloured style and perfectly balanced gameplay.
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Posted by Brendan Griffiths
September 28, 2009
After becoming something of a cult classic on the PlayStation Network it was only a matter of time before somebody realised this would work even better on PSP. For those of you who haven’t played the PS3 version this is a tower defence game. You build defence towers out of trees, using a limited supply of money in order to defend your village’s twenty inhabitants from multiple waves of invaders.
The towers are designed to be effective for ground or air attacks with some of them spreading themselves thin to do both. There’s plenty to choose from if you can afford them. There are canons, freeze guns, Telsa (electricity spewing towers), mortars, flamethrowers, crossbows, anti-air guns, lasers and electric barriers. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | PSN (PlayStation Store), PSP, Puzzle, Reviews | Tagged: Brendan Griffiths, PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe, PSN, PSP, Q-Games, Sony, tower defence | Permalink
Posted by Brendan Griffiths
July 6, 2009
PopCap Games and Sony Online Entertainment have done it again and brought another fiendishly addictive puzzle game to the PSN Store following on from the success of Bejeweled 2.
Zuma has you controlling a rotating stone frog in an Aztec temple firing different coloured balls out of its mouth. So yeah, it’s a little strange. Bear with me.
The aim of the game is to get rid of all the coloured balls before they move through the course and get sucked down a hole at the end (if one goes, they all go). You do this by shooting out coloured balls to make sets of three or more of the same colour to make them disappear. This is aided by a line that shows where the ball will land. You’ll have to be extra precise when aiming from distance or at awkward angles. It’s a bit reminiscent of Puzzle Bobble in a “Not there you shit!” sorta way. It’ll make you angry sometimes but you won’t be able to put it down. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | PSN (PlayStation Store), PlayStation 3, Puzzle | Tagged: Bejeweled 2, Brendan Griffiths, PopCap Games, Puzzle Bobble, Sony Online Entertainment, Zuma | Permalink
Posted by Brendan Griffiths
£2.49 and 191 levels. BAM! That’s what we call a good deal! This is a 2D puzzle/platforming game that starts off with easy puzzles before soon leaving you scratching your head wondering what the hell to do next. 
