Author: Nabeel Burney

Canabalt

Nabeel Burney Leave a comment

Thanks to RPS for posting this great little flash gem by indie dev Adam Atomic. Canabalt is a fast-paced game featuring a free-runner speeding his way over rooftops. The only control is a single button to make him jump over various obstacles and across gaps. He progressively picks up more and more speed, so there rises a necessity every now and then to deliberately run into some of the non-fatal debris in order to slow him down. It’s the windows that get me every time, though.

Canabalt Canabalt Canabalt

The game is presented in an extremely short and wide aspect ratio, giving more time to see the route ahead but less warning for falling objects. People with very large monitor resolutions can play the even wider HD version of the game. The city depicted in the layers of parallax-scrolling background is futuristic and dystopian: ships fly past and huge robots with searchlights make their way across the industrial landscape. The music is suitably thumping with synths and beats, with quieter, atmospheric interludes.

Read More

Mass Effect Pinnacle Station DLC Released

Nabeel Burney Leave a comment

BioWare has released new DLC for Mass Effect, for the 360 and PC. Priced at $5, Pinnacle Station provides a new space station for players with a Spectre character to board and face 13 battle challenges, approximately 2-3 hours of content.

Pinnacle Station Pinnacle Station Bring Down the Sky

What makes this release interesting is the complete lack of a formal announcement from BioWare. The DLC was hinted at for months, leaked on the Swiss Live Marketplace, and then eventually released to the rest of the world with no acknowledgement from the developers. Moreover, the launch was less than smooth, with some users facing problems getting the mission to work 1)http://www.joystiq.com/2009/08/26/bioware-looking-into-mass-effect-pinnacle-station-dlc-gli/. Additionally, this DLC pack is not free for the PC, which the first one, Bring Down the Sky was. There is a marked difference in the kind of gameplay offered in Pinnacle Station, being primarily a combat-focused mission with little story. Bring Down the Sky featured a meaty side mission, introducing the previously mentioned but unseen Batarian race. Whether or not this latest pack is worth your hard-earned bucks is most likely down to how much you enjoy the combat in the game 2)http://kotaku.com/5347695/mass-effect-pinnacle-station-micro+review-a-curious-experiment; here’s hoping that this progression (or would that be regression?) in depth doesn’t extend to the next pack, if there will be one.

References   [ + ]

Read More

Sqr

Nabeel Burney Leave a comment

Sqr is a quirky little shooter by experimental developer Retro Anomaly. Utilizing simple but psychedelic graphics in a style reminiscent of Gunroar, the game is a nice little distraction for restless fingers – though confusing at first glance.

Sqr Sqr Sqr

The title of the game refers to the motif of square elements that comprise everything, including numbers for the odd high score screen. you control a tiny green square and are swarmed by larger pink ones in a variety of patterns. The two attacks granted to you are a steady laser and glowing orb. The first attack, activated by the z key, is controlled in the manner of a turret, with the orbiting blue square acting as the pivot. The second attack, on the x key, seems unpredictable and useless at first but with a little practice can be controlled fully (but is still useless). It’s basically fired by a sling motion – that is, hold x, move in the direction you want to fire and then let go of x.

Read More

Mass Effect Galaxy Review

Nabeel Burney Leave a comment

Mass Effect Galaxy was released a couple of months back for the iPhone and iPod Touch. This $2.99 top-down shooter tells a story that takes place between Mass Effect and the upcoming sequel. The main characters will appear in ME2 and the story touches on threads that will be picked up therein, too. So is it worth checking out for fans of the series?

Mass Effect Galaxy

(more…)

Read More

Batman: Arkham Asylum Demo Released, PC Version Delayed

Nabeel Burney Leave a comment

A demo for Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham Asylum has been released to all platforms. The PC version of this hefty 2GB package can be grabbed here, at nVidia’s site. As with Resident Evil 5, the demo works with nVidia’s 3D Vision technology for those who have the required hardware. The playable portion is the area that was shown at E3 a few months back, early in the game with a few areas and enemies for players to experience the various facets of the game mechanics.

bannerations5

This gameplay teaser comes with slightly bitter news for PC gamers, as their version of the game has been pushed back from the previously simultaneous launch date of August 25th date to September 15th. The reason stated is the improved implementation of nVidia’s PhysX technology, which provides the physics for the game’s environments and objects. A similar situation occurred in January with the release of Mirror’s Edge on the PC, which was a few months behind the console versions 1)http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/11/20/mirrors-edge-pc-delay-down-to-physx/1. The game is highly anticipated here at the Slowdown, so stay tuned for some impressions of the demo.

References   [ + ]

Read More