Pretty standard RTS action, decent but lacking some of the classic niceties (for example, you can create numbered groups, but can't jump your view to center on them). It's also lacking in some useful information - no units display any information other than their current health, so you don't know how powerful they are, or even what types of attacks they use except by trial and error (there are only a few unit types, so you will learn, but never have that hard data). The game seems to focus strongly on story, with a whole lot of pretty well-voiced dialogue. It’s got some innovations, like artillery that is very scary, and unit upgrades that cause physical changes, but to really know what you’re doing (like that air units are invisible when over trees), you’ll need to sit and listen to some insanely boring tutorials. - MH

Making a campaign driven state of the art RTS is a massive undertaking. Enemy Technology covers the bases fairly well. Control scheme is similar to Warcraft or the Red Alert series. You don’t get to mine resources or build much, it’s more about combat. Some speed issues - my average FPS was 15 on a 3.0 GHz machine. Despite a kind of dated look and feel (especially the cut scenes) you’re getting a lot of game for $19.95. - SR

I of the Enemy is one of those games where the sum is better than the parts.  The sound and music in this game is extremely well-done and the storyline kept me playing just to see what was going on once I got through the half-way point.  This is definitely a game that you won't appreciate if you only play the first third of the game, and the RTS side of the game, though it has a couple of minor issues is quite enjoyable and challenging. - RC

Take Pacman and Snakes, add a healthy dose of cute and you’ve got Iggle Pop. After unlocking “Retro mode” you can play a more Pacman like version but with different color pellets that allow you to rack up combos. The game is balanced pretty well - in both modes you can choose to quickly and easily finish each level or go for the glory with combos. Elegant offering from Sprout.  - SR

Ok, this game oozes coolness in my books. I'd describe it as a controlled Chu Chu Rocket with some Bubble Bobble in it. It's essentially a top down maze game, where you save your buddies trapped in bubbles and take them to their houses. I'm very impressed with art style, especially the look of the enemies. The player has a lot of character to him as well. The audio is great too, with little muffles for characters speaking to each other, though I'd say it'd be perfect if the cut scene characters were professionally voiced, but I'm just being picky. I could have easily played this game for much longer, but had to cut myself short to get these reviews out on time. First Impression 9 (Great), Lasting Impression 8. - MK

This game seems really dumb on the surface, but it kept me playing until I passed everything in the demo! It’s just basic fun, upgrading your car, shooting the other cars. It’s greatly lacking a sense of speed, which is harmful to racing fun, but it still manages to entertain and look nice, while at the same time amusing with bad translations. I can’t call it great, but I have to rate it highly, just because it gave me fun. - MH

There’s just something about competing against humans that is inherently entertaining. This game does that well – very high speed, hard to control, teensy racing with lots of other people over the internet. There’s nothing ELSE to it, but what it has is very well implemented. And teensy. - MH

I went in expecting this game to be great – I haven’t seen a 3D indie adventure platformer before! And I am a big fan of Ratchet & Clank. Unfortunately, while this game LOOKS just like one of those games, it plays like a very watered down version of Pac-Man. The player can’t even jump, he must simply amble around his lackadaisical adversaries. This is a game that has amazing potential – if they’d just completely redesign the gameplay! - MH

This is the most sedate, dull game I have ever played. It really simulates the experience of sitting in a quiet room all alone doing a word search puzzle. The animations of the castle building are really cool, and it’s odd to see them in a game that is so very stoic otherwise. Even when “Action Mode” is turned on, the game is incredibly laid-back. That’s not the worst thing ever, it’s kind of appealing in the same way Boggle is. Without any timer. - MH

Another puzzle game, with a set of rules I'm sure I've seen before. That aside, it's still a clever puzzle. The graphics are nicely done, and it sports some nice effects, especially as levels get near their end. Variety of levels is rather lacking, as the board never changes shape or size. The game gives the impression of dynamic music, but only as dynamic as generic 'Drum and Bass' music gets. In addition to the mentioned music, the audio features a robotic voice pulled from some voice synthesizer. It's not bad little game. First Impression 7 (Neat look), Lasting Impression 6 (Meh...). - MK

This is a really polished looking game, but the interface is very strange and complex –it uses a paradigm where the game’s objects make new objects and do work instead of the people doing it, which is counterintuitive to say the least. It took a long time to really get to grips with what was going on, but once I did, I liked it. It’s a simulation to be sure, which means balancing a lot of fiddly numbers, but the demo misisons at least are very easy, so you don’t have to balance them very well. - MH

This is just a fabulous online crazyfest. The only downsides I encountered were unconfigurable controls (yeah, WASD is really comfortable for a lefty, thanks, especially when G and V are also used) and a complete lack of people to play against. I only saw one other player on any server at all, which is an absolute death sentence. If this game had players to play against and configurable controls, it would be absolutely wonderful, without a doubt.- MH

Zap is a ~500 KB download that provides lag-free multiplayer only death match action… with asteroids quality 2D graphics. It’s a strange combination and it works. This is really a demo for the Torque Network Library so I’m a bit surprised Garage Games decided to sell it. Nonetheless, it’s a very approachable game that honestly does have an off the wall fun factor when you get a good group of guys together, so check it out if you’re not a graphics tart.  - SR

This is more of a screensaver than a game. It accurately simulates the experience of traveling from an alien galaxy to Earth, on autopilot, at sublight speeds, without any sort of cryogenic suspension, or so much as a deck of cards to keep you busy. Oh, there’s aliens shooting at you, and you can shoot at them, but there’s no reason to worry about it, because they’re using Nerf bullets (good thing, since the bullets are so fast that even with your ‘time warp’ turned on, they’re unavoidable). Another safety measure is the fact that you are bombarded with more shield, health, and nuke-em-all powerups than you are enemies. Just lazily roll your mouse back and forth with the button held down for a nice solid dosage of visual prozac. Pretty colors! - MH

In Back To Earth 2 you’ll learn that in space pretty much everything glows and leaves trails. Despite a neat bullet-time effect the game falls far short in the playability area. It’s kind of a reverse Zap. Most enemies use the same AI: diagonally fly down while shooting directly below them in machine gun fashion. There is no real strategy, just keep your shields high and plow through everything. Each wave/level blurs into the last, it feels like new enemies are just the old ones with a new bitmap. - SR

As 3D breakout games go, I’d say this one’s the best! That’s not saying that much since no 3D breakout I’ve seen is nearly as good as a mediocre 2D one. However, it’s not too bad of a game. There’s no real strategy of any sort, as you get inundated with powerups, so it’s pretty much just free reign brick slaughtering, but it definitely avoids the typical last-brick syndrome (in fact, if you have a few bricks left, it gives you a “next level” powerup after just a couple seconds of not hitting them!). The 3D layouts are also really cute looking. - MH

An imminently original game that’s a good amount of manic fun. One huge complaint: it tried to connect to the internet for no visible reason. That’s a red flag. The actual gameplay is fun, though often so frantic you don’t feel like you really have any control (I racked up some insane Bad Trip Penalties!). Each level is a unique challenge (to some extent), which keeps it interesting throughout, and you have the freedom to choose your path and encounter different levels each time. - MH

This game is beautifully polished to a shimmering shine… but it’s a really simple and ordinary puzzle game which involves little thought, just moving pieces as quick as you can. Well, puzzle is the wrong word. Really, games like this are arcade games (like Tetris), but we call them puzzle games anyway. What’s the world coming to? I think the word puzzle is getting overly stretched. - MH

A nice puzzle game, that vaguely reminds me of the game Yoshi (where you put things in enclosed eggshell halves). In the game, you pick up and move stacks of cylinders around, trying to match the pictures on the front. They start as 2 cylinders high, then grow from there. The art is very nice, and music is suiting of the tropical theme. I think it's a cool game, it controls well and all, but I was bored of it quickly. First Impression 8, Lasting Impression 6. - MK

In this game you move around stacks of disc with cutesy animals on them to create matches and combos. It steadily adds to the difficulty until I got totally stressed out. (is that a good thing, though?) It’s a very well designed game featuring unlockables such as more game modes and ‘advanced tips’. My wife tested this one too and she concurs (after destroying my score) that it’s a winner. - SR

I really like the style of this game (but think it’s deeply broken that a game entirely about rock music comes with no music at all!), but it doesn’t come together in the gameplay. It’s not bad, but it’s just not quite there. Too many buttons to fiddle with, no explanations of what each special power actually does, just kinda strange. There’s real potential for a big hit here, but it’s just too complex right now, and the story mode is less story than your average fighting game. - MH

Uhh.. what am I doing here? This one has an intriguing and bizarre back story, about some space radio station, but that aspect seems totally lost in game. The game itself is a sort of space aerial dogfight game (I'm flying a jet for some reason). It has nicely drawn anime'ish avatars, and nice style to the vehicle models. The game control's fine as well. But the game doesn't make a whole lot of sense, in a bad way. The game also doesn't have any music!! That's taboo in any music inspired game! They do suggest dropping MP3 files in a folder, but still, that's just not right! It's a shame more time wasn't put in to expanding the strange back story into gameplay, as I think we could have had another winner. First Impression 7 (Fight for the freedom of music, ok, bring it on!), Lasting Impression 4 (Where's the music? How do I fight for something I don't have?). - MK

This is a free arcade space shooter not unlike Void War. Except it looks like some students put it together or something, mega cheesy dialog for the ‘story mode’ and graphics are very questionable. (Anime portraits and badly textured models) But it does have a nice tutorial to get you going and plays decently. There are a few neat power-ups such as turbo speed which might slightly help the age old problem these types of games have – you just fly in circles to get behind each other. - SR

This game is far far too hard for me, and I don’t even like logic games. But with my wife helping me, we got through the tutorial! It’s extremely well done, and a really good logic puzzle, if your brain can handle such things. Highly recommended to fans of such puzzles.- MH

This one's a clever little puzzle game with a set of rules I don't recognize. Generally it's like: for every match (3+), push adjacent spheres away, unless it was the piece just placed. Simple rules, but the complexity can really scale. The game does a fine job ramping and introducing the challenges, plus provides good hints to help you get used to how to approach the puzzles. The graphics are beautifully done, and the audio seems almost soothing. The last level I got to play introduced blocks that match in 2x2's, which would have added a nice variation to the game. Another pleasing little game. First Impression 8, Lasting Impression 8. - MK

Really slick logic puzzler. Something about the soothing music and famous quotes that are dispensed during play make this a special experience. You have a limited number of pieces that you place on the game board that will always cause some kind of fantastic chain reaction. Definitely for the thinker. - SR

Kind of a unique new take on the top-down shooter, where the player plays it like a normal shooter, but the enemies think they’re in a 3D space sim, so they curve all around and track you like crazy. It’s very hard, very fast, and very fun! It seemed like money and laser power were in short supply, but I think I probably just need more practice! The biggest problem is very high system requirements – I had to turn it down to 640x480 to see it at full speed, and even then it dropped to a crawl occasionally (my video card is not great, however). - MH

Well this is certainly one of the nicest looking 3d shmup I've played. Nice modeling and texturing, lighting, self shadowing, all those bells and whistles your $400 video card craves (short of normal maps). Unfortunately it suffers from some gameplay issues that make the game frustrating to play. The enemies park themselves in a circle around you, then aim and shoot at you. Sure, that doesn't sound so bad, but you can only shoot up. It's a shame, 'cause everything is done quite well with the game, that you may be frustrated to resort to flying in to the enemies to kill them. Maybe, if the game had WASD/Arrows Controls and a free aiming mouse, then it may not be so bad. As it stands, the enemies just don't fight fair. First Impression 8 (Beautiful graphics, shadows! Hmm... what's going on with these enemies?...), Lasting Impression 2 (Few games have made me consider taking up smoking). - MK

Unable to play, instantly quits to desktop. - SR

It hurts to give a match-3 game such a high score, but I guess I have to do it. It’s got a great system where you earn new fish for what amounts to a screensaver which makes playing rather compulsive (gotta catch em all!), but for me, that’s the only thing compelling me to play – the gameplay is just what you think… standard match-3, dull. Graphics and sound are very impressive.- MH

After last year's favorite, Wik, you couldn't help but wonder what Reflexive had cooking for us next. Unfortunately, it was Jewel Quest with fish. Fortunately, it looks stunning and is beautifully produced (style, color, audio, you name it). The game features Boulderdash/Rockford "falling logic", so pieces slide and slip in to cracks smoothly. Finally, you win fish by playing levels, and get to ... 'watch them' between stages. Hehe... alright, I'll admit I've caught myself watching those fish screen savers people love to put on PC's in computer stores, for more minutes that one should have. As far as matching games go, I'd say it's perfect. As far as it compares to other games, it's polish is tough to beat, but it's originality (in respect to mechanics) isn't something to brag about. First Impression 8 (Looks great), Lasting Impression 8 (I think my mom would like it). - MK

Reflexive does to the Bejeweled concept what it did to breakout with Ricochet. Everything is covered nicely in this scrumptious game; sense of progress (unlockable fish to put in your virtual aquarium), level variation, nice difficulty ramp with concrete goals, outstanding visuals, feel and sounds. But what really pushes this over the edge is taking a historically single player casual game and making it multiplayer on the same computer by plugging in more mice. That’s evolution, holmes. - SR