Review: Warlords (XBLA)

Arkanoid and Breakout were the more famous brick-breaker videogames in the '80's, but in the same genre less famously was Atari's Warlords. In its second modern reboot, Warlords brings back brick-breaking – or in this case, castle-wall-bricks-breaking – with a visually appealing and colorful rendition, although the gameplay doesn't have the same level of impressiveness that the eye-candy graphics have.

Review: Charlie Murder (XBLA)

Many a rocker has been accused of bartering his soul to the devil, or some variation of evil entity, for attaining rock stardom. Charlie Murder doesn't sell his soul to become the rock legend he is now, but jealousy has fuelled a rival death metal band, Gore Quaffer, to trade theirs in order to get the power to destroy Charlie and his bandmates. That's the heavy-metal backdrop that drives the brawler hybrid (mostly brawler, a good portion roleplaying game) Charlie Murder for Xbox Live Arcade, the new title from Ska Studios, makers of the excellent Dishwasher brawler series.

While there's a lot to like about Charlie Murder, including good multiplayer and that infusion of RPG character building, it lacks the charisma of both Dishwasher titles and doesn't quite capture the brawler soul either of those two games did.

Review: CastleStorm (XBLA)

Ninjas versus pirates. Birds versus pigs. With CastleStorm on XBLA, add knights versus vikings to the list of enemies that don't like each other very much in tower defense-type games. But this isn't a typical tower defender. CastleStorm relies on a lot more strategic elements, including deploying troops and creatures on enemies and unleashing heroes with classic old-school hack & slash brawling to bring victory and vanquish the opposing castle dwellers.

CastleStorm is more than just an Angry Birds copycat. There is more than one way to win besides knocking down walls, although the best strategy is to pound the enemy's castle and secure a win through destroying theirs first.

Feature: This Generation - Part III

Left 4 Dead 2

For the purposes of these features, "This Generation" refers to software found on the following hardware: Wii, DS/3DS, PSP, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360. Trends found on the PC platform will be addressed but because the demarcations between PC hardware iterations can be foggy, establishing what is of this generation is much more difficult to finalize. 

"This Generation" includes major trends or evolutionary notes that will, in this writer's opinion, be identified strongly with this generation of games and hardware for years to come.

Third  item to hallmark this period of gaming: Co-Op Gaming.