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GREEN ISLAND
GREEN ISLAND harks back to the days before Gamestop homogenized game stores. It’s reminiscent of a time when you could walk in to your local Microplay or Gamezone or whatever and grab some oddball import from Japan. A great mix of bizarre, old school graphics and just enough English to be completely decipherable, GREEN ISLAND is a taste of how exciting and unique XBLI’s open, worldwide market can be.
But it’s not just that GREEN ISLAND is an oddball release, it’s also an excellent puzzle/platformer. The goal of the game is to navigate through 50 levels and collect all of the gems scattered around. Simple enough, but it’s complicated by fans, rotating platforms, and maze-like areas that are tackled with nothing but a bubble gun. Yep, in true Japanese gaming tradition, bubbles play a prominent role in GREEN ISLAND – they’re climbable and they can be used to make bridges, fill gaps, or hit switches.
The game never really goes out of it’s way to test your patience, but grabbing all the extra golden orbs and going for the best time is part of the fun. Plus, the trial let’s you play all 50 levels, meaning you can test a whole slew of levels to influence your buying decision.
(80pts)
Filler
I have never played a game like Filler and part of me finds that unbelievable. It’s a game that’s based on the kind of simple and immediately entertaining concept that’s been copied ten times before you even hear of it. So excuse my possible ignorance when I call Filler a unique and cleverly elegant puzzle game. The idea is to inflate balloons as large as possible in order to fill two-thirds of a two-dimensional box. The only problem is an ever increasing army of bouncing balls that are intent of popping your balloons before they’re finished.
(240pts)
I Heart Shift
I Heart Shift isn’t noteworthy for being a quality game, but rather for being weird as hell. It combines puzzle game color-matching with a twin-stick shooter and tops it all off with some unpleasant sound design. Ultimately, the experience quickly falls flat, but there’s a hint of potential here and you can’t deny it’s something different.
(80pts)
Bailout!
Bailout! looks and plays like an Atari 2600 game, but smartly adds a modern day economy and advancement system. As a rich man in a failing economy, you must run left and right, collecting falling bailout money, avoiding suicidal stock brokers, and kicking away peddlers. Along the way you gain access to better and better skills, allowing you to move more quickly, hold more money, or shield yourself from attacks, to name a few. In our next-gen world, Bailout! may not be much to look at, but it has that addictive sense of achievement and advancement that’s the backbone of some of the best modern games.
(80pts)
PebbleDash Lite (80pts) – Learning that the original PebbleDash was a remake of the old school game BoulderDash didn’t change my mind. Charging less money helps a bit, but it’s at the expense of content.
Duologue (240pts) – With at least one Ikaruga/Geometry Wars-inspired shooter per week releasing on XBLI, the line had to be drawn somewhere. Duologue doesn’t offer anything new and it doesn’t do it with style either.
Gitigiti (80pts) – It seems that the harder you try to play Gitigiti, the more likely it is to punish you. This “cross-breeding RTS” works best when you mindlessly direct your units toward the enemy. Real-Time Strategy without the strategy? No thanks.
Bust a Wall (80pts) – This week’s most generic attempt at Break Out!
Electron Defense (240pts) – A tower defense game that makes no attempt to do something interesting or unique.
The Headsman (80pts) – The Headsman is certainly clever, if not very fun. You’d never imagine XBLI as an avenue for band promotion, but The Headsman prominently features a music video from cheeseball metal act Deathlike Silence. This video.
Crazy Coins (80pts) – Crazy Coins is eerily similar in premise to the afforementioned Bailout! Unfortunately it’s not so similar in execution – it’s essentially the same game with worse controls, worse aesthetics, and no sense of progression.
Enemy at the Gate 80pts – Imagine Missile Command without the emphasis on carefully placed shots and you’ll end up with a game that’s painfully dull, or called Enemy at the Gate.
Warfare Soundboard (80pts)
Words Search (240pts)
Pulsar (240pts)