Game Tunnel is proud to publish the November Independent Video Game round-up, the latest in our long-running Famitsu-styled panels that review all the latest Indie PC games. The 10 games reviewed for November include 2D Boy's World of Goo, Mount & Blade from Taleworlds and Project Aftermath from Games Faction. Read reviews from each of the panelists on all 10 games in the November Indie game round-up.

Michael Scarpelli: 9

World of Goo is just good gaming. There's really no two ways about it. It's got a great feel, quirky art, clever concepts, the whole nine.

It's a simple idea. You have a bunch of goo balls, and you need to get them to reach a vacuum tube on the level so you can get them into storage for the World of Goo Corporation. You get your goo to the tube by building goo structures. Goo has the ability to form links between itself and its buddies. Using these links, you build structures to reach great heights, span chasms and move around obstacles. There are various types of goo that change how you interact with them, which keeps the game fresh as you go.

Goo that are actively part of your structure are stationary. However, other goo that's still free climbs around on your constructions… and their movement shakes things up. So, you always need to be careful when you're making tenuous structures… can they support their own weight AND the jiggling caused by all the moving goo?

For as much as I enjoyed the game, though, I can't give it a 10 because some of the challenges are very difficult. The final level of the first section is a good example. You're building an impossibly large tower, using stages of goo constructions. It takes forever, and it's very easy to have 10 minutes of hard work and careful planning wiped out with a simple error in judgment… and then you have to start over. Fun factor is high, but so is frustration factor.

Pany Haritatos: 10

World of Goo!!! I'll start with a "Go buy this game right now!" This game is so close to perfect that the jealous game developer in me (who doesn't make games nearly as good as this) wants to pretend it doesn't exist. Every aspect of this game is executed with such amazing attention to detail that it really helps put all other games, not just indie games, into perspective. The graphics are spectacular, the music and sound effects rich and engaging, and the level design and gameplay execution is flawless. As indie game fans, we have a moral responsibility to not only give 2D Boy our money, but to tell everyone else to as well. Support 2D Boy! By giving 2D Boy your money, you're telling them, and every other indie game developer out there, that you appreciate and support the hard work and dedication of any team that is willing to invest the time, effort and money to make truly amazing games like World of Goo.

Coby Utter: 10

Approaching World of Goo with skepticism, I was completely floored at how amazingly fun this game is. It has been one of the hardest games to put down in memory and is unbelievably addicting. Essentially, WoG is a physics-based puzzle game that revolves around building structures via linking your finite supply of goos. You'll build up, down, and around in every direction while watching your structure wobble and gyrate, as you try to keep it stable. Eventually you'll get your structure close enough to a pipe to start sucking in your loose goos; you did leave some extra goos available, right?

WoG could have zero personality and still be a good game, but on top of the tremendous technical execution, you are presented with a quirky and odd world that teems with character. WoG has a style all its own and the flair and dynamics of the world just add to the pleasure of losing time with the game. Perhaps the most impressive feat, WoG is one of the few physics games that are more rewarding than punishing. Instead of frequent frustration, it always feels like "you were almost there" and there is a strong desire to retry incomplete levels and use new strategies to get to the goal. World of Goo is an indie masterpiece.

Russ Carroll: 10

Oh sweet goo-ness!

I've played a few indie games in my time and I'm convinced that the world of Indie has never produced anything as slick as World of Goo. The polish from start to finish makes the game feel like a Tim Burton movie with moody music and dark, but playful visuals that give the world a richness that is unparalleled. Oh and the game play flat out rocks.

The variety and mind-boggling wonder of puzzles furthers the sensation that your life is being enveloped by the game, but how can you turn away?

World of Goo is the complete package, showing other indies what they could be. It's a mixture of passion and brilliance that left me blubbering like a fanboy. Honestly, it's hard to talk about the game without drooling, it's just that good. If you don't own a copy of this game (a legitimate one!) your computer will disown you.

Michael Scarpelli: 7

Sroject Aftermath is a large part of the reason BC Kings suffered so much for me this month; Project Aftermath looks like it was made 20 years in the future after BC Kings. I'm very impressed with the presentation of Aftermath. It looks like a game you'd pay $50 for and it plays smoothly. This is a really well put together product.

Aftermath is a fun, squad-based RTS with just a ton of options to play around with. You have different heroes to use, each hero has a set of powers to employ, between levels you purchase new armor and weapons and spend research points, each level you try to gain maximum energy points to boost rankings and rewards… there's a lot here.

Though, as I kept going, I found there was just as much to gripe about. The energy system in the game being called GOOP is a bit of a mood-breaking from the rest of the game's tone, for one. My largest gripe, though, is the squad tactics. Your troops start out looking pretty slick. You can arrange their formations, specify their attack weapons… but it turns out that on their own, they're useless. They attack random things, ignore teammates in danger, run off by themselves and get killed. It's annoying. A big part of survival is effective use of waypoints to attack… but you can't queue two heroes up with waypoint progressions separately and then unleash them at once. They either go as a pair, or go one after the other. All together, this kept me from really getting into the game.

Pany Haritatos: 9

Project: Aftermath is one of those games that makes you forget you're playing an indie game. The 3D graphics are slick and they run liquid smooth on my somewhat older machine. The story is interesting, presented in a memorable comic book style, and is supported by decent writing and professional quality voice acting. The hybrid RTS-action gameplay isn't perfect, but it is fun and different enough to grab your attention and keep it during the course of the campaign. The mouse control scheme is generally well done, but I was a little irritated a couple times when I issued move orders accidentally. Project: Aftermath is a quality game that is easy to recommend to anyone looking for a high-quality AAA game at an indie price.

Coby Utter: 8

Project Aftermath is a one trick pony but that one trick is pretty good. PA is touted as an RTS, but it's much more of a tactical action game. You won't find any resource collecting or settlement building here. What you will find is intense squad-based action and an interesting weapon and armor system. If your idea of the perfect RTS lacks wood cutting and constructing forgeries, then PA will be your gaming nirvana. Otherwise, you will likely find PA lacking in substantial depth.

The presentation for PA is solid and fairly polished. The visuals are good, the music and sounds are effective (surprisingly, the voice work is quite terrific) and the comic style cut-scenes add some nice variety. Technically, the game is also capable: the AI is reliable, the UI is nicely integrated and the game ran smoothly most of the time. PA is fun, but for me, only in limited bursts; the game never enveloped me to the point of losing track of time. That said, PA was my reliable and frequent dose of high octane action.

Russ Carroll: 9

Project Aftermath bunks the typical indie 'smallness' and goes all out with a game that feels like an epic a AAA title.

That feeling is helped in no small part by the graphics. The game looks absolutely fantastic.

Game play is squad-based RTS, which means you'll be controlling your five captains, who have a small unit of troops that will work around the commands you give your captain instead of controlling every individual unit. It's much easier in that way and leads to some great game play.

The battle is in the future, complete with a wide assortment of blasters that are all destructive and beautiful to see on screen.There's also melee weapons for those who like to get up and personal with the enemy.

A large piece of the game revolves around the 'energy' type of the armor and weapons you are using. Each comes in a specific color (Red, Blue, Yellow, Green) and every enemy is also marked as to what type(s) of weapon and armory they have. You must continually equip your characters with different weapons to kill the enemies, which notably sometimes breaks down and feels clumsy when combat is intense, especially as you are switching back and forth between your squads.

Other than that issue, I really enjoyed Project Aftermath, despite it being fairly difficult and punishing, due to not having any save points. I really enjoyed it quite a bit more than any other squad-based RTS I've ever played.

Michael Scarpelli: 9

I think the Strong Bad games are going to rest at a solid 9 for me from here on out. As I keep saying, one game is exactly like the other games. The method of play is the same, and it's still well-crafted adventure gaming. The map is easy to work with, the inventory is simple. The interface is stripped and it's easy to move through the environment. The game remains quirky and funny and does a good job of creating new and attention grabbing ways to interact with the Homestar world. Trying to craft an ultimate Battle of the Bands to get the cash to pay for Strong Bad's broken video game system is a great plot. It's perfectly in character.

The Strong Bad games don't suffer from the official Adventure Game Problem, either, which is that Adventure Games are plagued by needing to have done ridiculously thorough examinations of the environment. Let's say you need a tree branch to solve a puzzle. A typical adventure game would give you a tree full of branches, and then require you to click on this one tiny part of the tree to get your branch, which you have a 90% chance of not clicking on and then thinking you're doing is wrong. None of that in Strong Bad! Everything is clear, bold and easy to interact with. Knowing what to do in the first place… well that's your problem.

Pany Haritatos: 7

There was magic missing from this month's episode. Maybe the novelty of the series is just wearing off, or I am just becoming too familiar with the game, but it felt like it was not quite as good as its predecessors. Two things in particular stuck out for me as being weaker. The pacing seems off this month. I didn't really feel compelled to keep moving forward in the game. The game actually made me sleepy! The other was the writing just didn't feel as tight. It seemed like far more jokes missed their target and fell flat.

It is still a great game though. The 3D cell shaded graphics are pretty, the audio is excellent and I think fans who have enjoyed the ride so far will still find plenty to keep them entertained. For someone who isn't a Strong Bad diehard, this month's episode felt like it wasn't quite at the same high level of execution as the previous two.

Coby Utter: 7

The Strong Bad game continues with Episode 3: Baddest of the Bands. This time around, Strong Bad needs to collect a fat sack of cash and his master plan to accomplish this involves organizing a Battle of the Bands. Of course, nothing is ever that simple and you'll have to help Strong Bad solve a variety of puzzles, meet a bizarre cast of characters, and ultimately make the money. While Baddest of the Bands keeps the humor up and the game sparkles with polish, it has some issues.

Of the three episodes thus far, Baddest of the Bands is by far my least favorite. The game opens up all right and it looks like it will be more of the same humor and mischief (while the humor is there, it doesn't match Ep. 2), but then come some of the most obscure puzzles seen in the series. There are a few really clever puzzles, but there an equal amount of puzzles that had me scratching my head and cranking up the hint system. Even after the solution was found, several times I was still completely lost, trying to figure out how any sane human could figure that out. This isn't a huge downfall, but it does take Baddest of the Bands down a level from the other entries in the series.

Russ Carroll: 8

Based on how these games are placing in the WiiWare Top 20, it seems less and less people are checking out each new episode in the Strong Bad series, and that is really sad for me.

Of the three I've played so far, Baddest of the Bands was the most immediately engaging and the puzzles either are becoming clearer to me with each new episode, or they were just a bit easier this time.

I only had one moment of surrendering to online help (dang you bleach!) and I was ashamed afterwards. The game is hilarious, entertaining and took me longer than either of the first two episodes, checking in near five hours (but I love to click on EVERYTHING because its just so flippin' funny!). I strongly and heartily recommend them to Strong Bad fans or would-be Strong Bad fans. Each game stands alone and Baddest of the Bands is a great place to start the series.

Michael Scarpelli: 7

There are elements of Mount and Blade that I really enjoy and others that are a bit half-baked. The combat itself seems to be the game's selling point… but on its face it's very basic. You left click to attack, you right-click to block. The fact that you're guiding your characters attacks in 3-D space actually makes them much more awkward. Combat on horseback, for example, can be a maddening exercise in essentially trying to circle strafe an enemy unit until you randomly hit them. The game really would have benefited from a target lock system so that when you're wading through a crowd of 10 fighters, you can keep your vision on the one you want to attack while you're trying to maneuver through the field.

However, combat writ large is pretty awesome. Commanding units against a siege, or protecting villagers from marauding invaders using a light-weight squad-tactics command interface is a lot of fun.

The single player campaign is made up of the same moments that make small-scale combat kind of lame and large-scale combat lots fun… but the overall goal of the game and the interactions with the world map and troop combat are not covered in the game's tutorials. Things end up feeling a little confusing as a result, but you quickly get the hang of the action.

Pany Haritatos: N/S (technical issues)

Mount and Blade feels like it is still somewhere around early beta. I see the framework here for a game I could really enjoy, but the reality is that nothing is executed well enough to make the rest of the game worth enduring. The biggest issue I had with the game was graphical. There was some sort of bug that caused a lot of the colors in the game to be trashed. The performance also left a lot to be desired, especially given how well the rest of this month's 3D games ran in comparison. I found the controls to be maddeningly frustrating. My first non-tutorial battle took a ridiculously long amount of time to resolve, first because I couldn't find my enemy, and then because landing a melee hit from a horse takes some magical timing that still completely eludes me. I'm fascinated by the potential in the game, but as it stands, I don't think Mount and Blade is ready for prime time.

Coby Utter: 7

Mount and Blade is a hugely ambitious RPG with one strong mechanic and several flaws. That strong mechanic is combat and it's pretty phenomenal. Combat is a defend/attack timing affair, using the mouse buttons and movements to deliver specific blocks and blows. It's intuitive, precise (as can be), and rewarding. Not to mention that it works well whether you're on foot or galloping around on your trusty steed. M&B also adds some light RTS elements, as you can build up an entire army to rid the world of scourge. This element of the action isn't as fleshed out as the single player combat, and managing your army is left to minimalistic commands. These are the two shining points in what is otherwise an average experience.

One of M&B's changes to the RPG 'norm' is a strictly realistic medieval world; no dragons, demons, or burning blades of toxic destruction. Some people will find this boring, but I found it was a nice change of pace. The game plays out in an open world fashion which would be great, but the total lack of narrative structure makes a lot of the game feel like aimless wandering. Even after several hours no cohesive plot emerges. You are literally just a person in a medieval world. Novel? Perhaps. Fun when implemented into a game? Not so much. The game is virtually devoid of polish. There are a lot of rough edges, strange bugs, and it has a general feeling of being unfinished. With some better design decisions and more time to iron out the rough spots, M&B would be great. Thankfully, a battle is never too far away and fantastic combat is a great reason to come back to M&B.

Russ Carroll: 9

Mount & Blade is a mix of amazing and terrible, of fantastic and frustrating. It also is a game I just could not put down.

Let's start with the bad. One-on-one combat is awful as is the case in essentially every game that has ever had close quarter combat. Flailing about and missing most of the time is the order of the day as usual. All I could think was that the game would have greatly benefited from Zelda's lock-on focus in battle.

Everything else about the game I loved.

Building up your own army from recruits and then leveling up those recruits and bringing in hero-type characters ("companions") is the heart of the game, and I found it absolutely mesmerizing.

If you picture yourself in midst of an epic battle in Braveheart, you'll have a good feel for how the game actually feels once you get going.

After I got through the horrible tutorial that only briefs you on combat, and a very rough first 30 minutes, I simply couldn't stop playing.

Fighting with your army thankfully takes away a lot of the frustration of single-player combat (it's still there for tournaments and hunting down criminals) and the pretty visuals make for several amazing vistas.

The occasional super item collected from battle and the distinctness between the different kingdoms in the game make the experience one where I was continually being surprised and beckoned onward. M&B is a different take on your typical RPG, a take that despite some pretty severe and frustrating flaws, is one of the more enjoyable games I've played this year.

Michael Scarpelli: 6

BC Kings gets points for being a full-on real-time strategy gaming experience with some fun takes on the genre, but it loses many, many points for looking like it was crafted for the Nintendo 64 and having a laughably bad English translation.

Enough of being snarky, though. BC Kings is fun, it just lacks polish. You have a fair array of units at your disposal, including various heroes, Warcraft III style. The game has a fun side-quest system that involves visiting sub-maps contained within each level… but this is more a conceptual thing than it is a gameplay changer.

In the end, BC Kings is fun, it's just really unpolished.

Pany Haritatos: 6

BC Kings wins the award for the worst writing I've seen in any game, ever. It is absolutely atrocious. The story itself is also laughable. It is fairly clear that the developer behind the game is not a native English speaker, but that is no excuse for unforgivable dialogue.

The graphics in the game are pretty good. Nowhere near as slick as say Project: Aftermath, but definitely on par or better than most indie efforts. From a features point of view, the game has clearly been inspired by Blizzard's Warcraft 3 and includes many of the genre standards established by that and other big name RTS developers.

The game introduces a couple of interesting new twists on the RTS genre, some of which work well enough to actually give the game some novelty. The AI in the game isn't the best, however, and I was particularly ticked off when I put my units in "agressive mode" (their spelling, not mine) and came back to find the entire army dispersed across the map aggroing all sorts of dangerous creeps I was not yet ready to tackle.

BC Kings is not something I could recommend, but it is certainly a well enough executed game, that is, if you completely ignore the story and writing.

Coby Utter: 9

BC Kings is a well executed prehistoric RTS with a dash of RPG thrown in for good measure. The game instantly grabs one's attention and has plenty of depth to hold it for several hours. The basic gameplay is textbook RTS: you'll need to gather resources, create buildings, and go to war with enemy armies. Defending your settlements becomes a priority early as dinosaurs and mutants will often rain on your resource gathering parade. You also have heroes to manage and can collect special items to facilitate their growth. The amount of content packed in is terrific and by the end of the campaign you'll need to have your caveman strategies perfected to a science.

The graphics and sound both hold up their ends of the bargain. There is a ton of ambient animation and life in each area and the only weaknesses here are the stilted character animations. It would be great if you could zoom out further as the viewable area always feels constrained and the map scrolling is occasionally jerky to the point of being disorienting. The developers packed in a lot of tutorial content, but the early stages of the game were still a bit confusing for me. Overall, the AI is sufficient but sometimes your cavemen followers forget they have brains and pathfinding is often hit or miss. These are pretty minor issues in the grand scheme of the game though, and BC Kings is an impressive RTS offering.

Russ Carroll: 8

BC Kings is a pretty straight-forward RTS with solid graphics that seem slightly dated and game play that is spot on. It doesn't really stray from the RTS formula much, focusing instead on the theme presented, the under-used (at least in RTS games) world of dinosaurs.

Altogether it is exactly what it advertises to be and the only things I really found annoying were the voices of the caveman, which really got on my nerves with their stupidity and the script, which doesn't read very well. Other than that, if you like RTS games, this is a very good one that doesn't expand the genre too much, but really nails what good RTS gameplay is.

Michael Scarpelli: 6

I tried to like Kudos in its previous iteration, but in the end, I was unable to. You can read about that saga here. Essentially, my problem with Kudos boiled down to how arbitrary the stats that govern your life were. The game seemed to boil down ultimately to "How rich are you?" because your money governed everything. It felt less like you were living a simulated life and more like you were trying to fit into whatever mold the game had decided made for a good simulated life.

Kudos 2 corrects some of those problems… but not all. You still make a ridiculously low wage compared to the social outings you are presented with. As a waiter in-game, I make about $11-$13/day… but a single meal at a restaurant costs about that much. The game essentially pays me $1.50 an hour, and then keeps the costs of everything else in the world the same. It's frustrating, and a real blow to the notion that I'm living a simulated life.

The interface has been totally overhauled. I was a fan of the old one, but the new system is undeniable smooth. Graphics are clean and crisp and everything feels really cohesive. However, the gameplay still boils down to click – read. Click – read. Click –read. Click. Click. Click.

Fans of the first should check this one out… but overall, I'm still not sold on Kudos. It still feels too gamey. I had to unlock the ability to go to church or to take a walk in the park… why? For a game about life, it doesn't feel very much like anything natural.

Pany Haritatos: 6

The best part of Kudos 2 has to be the great character graphics, followed by its top notch music and sound effects (except the female work-out noise.. That was just disturbing). The UI, on the other hand, was the biggest let down in the game. It's really pretty, but the usability is awful. For a sim game like this, a good UI is essential. A majority of the UI buttons are iconic, which would be fine except it is coupled with a tortuously long delay before the mouse-over explanatory tool tips appear. I didn't know there was a tutorial until I was well into my first game because of this frustrating combination. There are a plethora of other bad UI choices that each hurt just enough to take a lot of the fun out of the whole experience (some other good examples are putting the "end turn" button right next to the "quit" button, or making it non-obvious when a modal pop up panel had appeared by hiding it with similarly colored panels).

Gameplay-wise, I feel like the game failed to show up. I tried desperately to find something to keep me interested in the game and played it far longer than I should have hoping for something to happen, but it never did. The game starts off well enough, but it gets into a repetitive groove which it just never quite leaves. I feel like there is an awesome game here, somewhere, but I couldn't find it.

Coby Utter: 8

The original Kudos struck me as depressing and drab and as such didn't live on my hard drive for very long. When I first saw screenshots for Kudos 2, it was instantly more appealing and instilled a bit of curiosity to see what Positech had changed for its newest iteration. Almost everything that I disliked about the original has been revamped or completely redone, making Kudos 2 a deep and pleasant game.

The most obvious change is the overhauled visuals, which do add a lot to the experience of the game. The new characters are fully customizable and the UI has been re-skinned to keep the visual style cohesive. The color and tone of everything is much brighter than the first game, which definitely helps the atmosphere. There are more options, statistics, and things to do, which makes the depth and re-playability for Kudos 2 somewhere between ridiculous and never-ending. Of course, getting into the depths of this game requires a lot of patience and Kudos 2 isn't the most exciting game on the block. For simulation fans and casual players looking for an interesting diversion, it's hard to go wrong with Positech's engaging life simulation.

Russ Carroll: 7

Kudos 2 is very similar to the original Kudos, but sporting a much improved look with more inviting visuals and increased polish in both the game's presentation and the information presented.

The game plays very similarly to the original, which isn't bad, but I had hoped for more. It seems like you spend an undue amount of time with mundane tasks, which makes the game feel like it is falling short of the initial feeling of awe you get when you turn it on for the first time.

That was compounded for me by some frustrating moments, like getting sick during 5 consecutive weeks. (highlighted by once being sick twice in the same week!) It was hard to determine why my character was continually sick and how to prevent it. That sickness meant no pay, which lead to no money. No money meant I couldn't go out with my friends, and due to your friends in this game being what I would call, "unreasonably demanding," getting sick meant goodbye friends!

I often felt hopeless to improve myself in the game despite improving my knowledge and moving up the job ladder several times. Most frustrating was the feeling of being boxed in to what the game wanted me to do. I wanted my character to be like me, and it wasn't possible without offending every one of my friends...no wait, that part might be right.

Despite the nitpicks here, Kudos 2 is a solid game that is well-made, but unfortunately it felt like it did a lot more to improve on the visual of the original and not enough time on the gameplay.

Michael Scarpelli: 7

Gravitybone isn't really a game; it's an experience. This is the kind of game that is the bread and butter of the "games as an artform" crowd. Using Quake 2 technology (read: not new), Gravitybone is able to strike a very distinctive and appealing style. It's a world filled with people that are essentially rectangles with limbs and faces, and it looks great. It's smooth to move through and the feel of things is an instant retro-sheik that recalls classic spy thrillers with perfect clarity.

The game is fun to play and fun to watch and its ending cinematic sequence shows a directorial flair that really whet my appetite for more from the creators… and therein lies the problem with Gravitybone, even as a free art-house style gaming experience: it's too short.

It's a two-level experience and can be finished in about 15 minutes. Now, it's not the length of the game that gets me, it's that it feels like a stunted arc. We're introduced to our main character and the world in the first mission, in the second we're shown a more complex mission and then a nemesis hinting at a greater plot line and – fín. Another level would have really fleshed out the feel of the experience.

Pany Haritatos: 8

There's no excuse not to play Gravitybone. It's free, it's crammed with style, and it only requires a few minutes of your time. Ultimately, that's the most negative thing about the game. There's not enough of it. Without a doubt, the game will leave you wanting more, but only because the rest of the experience is such a blast. There are at least three or four moments in the game that immediately made me think of Valve's excellent Portal, partially because of similar aesthetic choices, but also because of the solid execution. The game has top notch audio, a graphical style that masterfully hides the ancient technology used to drive the game (Quake 2), and tells a wonderful story that is only betrayed by its shortness. Charming and enthralling but over far too soon, Gravitybone is bite-sized entertainment goodness.

Coby Utter: 4

Succinctly, Gravity Bone is not a complete game experience. It has a beginning and an end, but it's really just a morsel and not a meal. Right when the action was finally starting to heat up, the game ended…after 20 minutes of playing. This was a major disappointment.

GB plays as a first person spy game, where you begin with no guidance and a few clues to help you finish your first mission. In each area you find certain items to help you progress and a suitcase with details on your mission. You'll be poisoning cocktails, busting locks, and chasing villains all Team Mic in the blink of an eye. GB does the few things available pretty well; there is just not enough available due to the extreme brevity. As an experimental game, GB is an interesting diversion, but it cannot hold its weight against any of the other indie games this month.

Russ Carroll: 7

Mods are something that GameTunnel usually doesn't review, even when they are stand-alone, but Gravity Bone is not ordinary by any account.

Playing as a spy involved in espionage, the game play is more experiential than your typical game, and I don't think describing it would do it much justice and might potentially turn you off to the experience. With a very short play time (~15 mins), a unique take on gaming, a very cool spy aesthetic, and a totally free price, it's definitely worth your time.

Michael Scarpelli: 7

Lravitron is game that feels like it was made by PuppyGames, and while I'm sure Dark Castle Software may resent that… I mean it as a pretty high compliment. Gravitron has the feel of an Atari-era space-pod lander game, updated with updated gameplay, graphics and sound to give a hip retro-aesthetic.

The game is based almost entirely around navigating your ship and battling your thrust against the force of gravity. However, I think this works better here than in last month's Optimus Apparatus because the plane that you start out approaching is flat. Optimus Apparatus had you in a perpetual free-fall… but here you can land… and sometimes need to.

It took a few minutes to acclimate myself to the feel of the game and the method of controlling the ship (you rotate and thrust like it was an old Asteroids game – point the ship and go forward), but the gameplay is simple and fun and levels begin to get diabolically tricky.

Pany Haritatos: 7

Gravitron 2 is heavily inspired by Thrust, and unfortunately inherits its least desirable trait: sadistic level design. If you're a glutton for punishment, then you'll be pleased to know that Gravitron 2 is an awesome game with down right abusive level design. The game rocks a visually pleasing neo-retro look, and is supported by refreshingly unretro high quality music and sound effects. The keyboard controls are tight (don't bother with the mouse), and although they will make you hate life, the levels are at least dynamic and interesting. Ultimately, it's too hard to squeeze more than a few rounds of simple fun out of it, but it is excellent, and if tough challenges are your sort of thing, you will find exactly that in Gravitron 2.

Coby Utter: 5

The first things you'll notice about Gravitron 2 are the colorful and vibrant vector-style graphics. The game has a lot of retro throwback in its visual and audio styles. Particles often fill the screen and the action is quite attractive. These were the high points for me as everything that involved the actual gameplay prompted me to scream in anger. The controls are difficult to get used to; Gravitron 2 is a thrust based game, i.e. the bane of my existence, but I was able to fly around with a little bit of accuracy after several tries. The real deal breaker for Gravitron 2 is the absurd difficulty. Most of the difficulty stems from design; your targets regenerate health extremely quickly, there are 1-hit kill obstacles, getting hit by enemy fire will pummel your ship out of control and into walls or more incoming fire, and the levels are filled with treacherously narrow, twisting tunnels that are tough to navigate themselves, let alone with hostile fire and environmental hazards.

Gravitron 2 is a game with good production values, and likely has strong appeal within a certain circle of gamers. For the rest of us, there is very little to actually enjoy here.

Russ Carroll: 6

Gravitron 2 is another thrust-styled game. In this one you take out bases on a map that feels like it came right out of Defender, it even has people to rescue.

The bases are guarded by all sorts of enemy tricks and traps, including firing guns, moving walls, and lasers to block your way. G2 has very cool retro-styled graphics and the levels pack a lot of creative punch. Each one has been carefully created to feel unique and to provide a different challenge than the one preceding it. Unfortunately, the extreme precision and patience that is required for this type of game makes me lose interest quickly as I felt harshly punished for getting hit or accidentally running into a wall (and the game is built with some very difficult levels). I did find it about the most enjoyable Thrust game I've played, so if you dig these types of games it might be worth checking out.

Michael Scarpelli: 6

Meatboy is a fun and fresh (raw?) platformer. It's something you can play in a standalone downloadable version or via an on-line portal such as Newgrounds. You are Meatboy, a boy… made of meat. Your goal is to rescue… Bandaid Girl (maybe?) from… some guy. Look, I really don't know much about this other than that you're made of meat and you jump around and rescue someone.

I love the style of the game because I'm a sucker for pixel art. I also love that it's free to play. I love that it's a simple platformer with a sense of humor and challenging level design.

I hate the jumping. And this is the most critical flaw that a platformer can have. The jumping controls are vital, the life's blood of the platform experience. The game heavily features wall-jumping, which is something I hate but it's done well enough here, but the problem is with the very basic physics of Meatboy's standard jump. He moves through the air like he's on a rocket pack, just shooting across the screen. Every time I play there's a requisite warm-up period, which totally defeats the purpose of sitting down to play a quick few levels. And the game is filled with tense moments… and those moments almost always turned into frustrating moments for me because in the heat of jumping around it's a virtual certainty that you will shoot Meatboy into some deadly obstacle.

Pany Haritatos: 7

Aside from some atypical jump acceleration, Meatboy is a well executed run of the mill platformer. It's free and it definitely has a strong, albeit quirky, aesthetic, with charming minimalist graphics and excellent music. If you can get a handle on the jumping (it takes some practice, and even then you still may not like it), the game's pretty challenging levels will start to feel less brutal. They were never difficult enough to make me give up in frustration, but I did come close several times. If you like platformers (or good free games), you'll probably enjoy the time you spend with Meatboy. That is if you don't give up in the first 5 minutes.

Coby Utter: 6

Bizarre, difficult, and laced with secrets, Meat Boy isn't your typical platformer. In charge of a sentient piece of meat, you must jump, run, and wall-jump through a variety of levels trying to rescue your love, the Band-Aid girl, from the evil Dr. Fetus. Yes, that is pretty much the plot, and no, it doesn't make much sense. That's OK in this case, as the plot isn't necessary to enjoy the plat-forming mayhem. Meat Boy is a very challenging game, though thankfully you can skip past levels that give you too much grief. The jumping and wall-jump mechanic work well enough, but the ridiculous momentum you can gain when running makes precise movement tough.

There isn't a whole lot of depth to the gameplay, which is why Meat Boy is great as flash game, but only average as a stand-alone download title. The developers did go the extra mile and include a level editor, as well as several secrets you can unlock by collecting band-aids that are strewn amongst certain levels. Most of these secrets allow you to play as different characters (there is a surprise appearance by an indie mega-star!), although the final secret is both ridiculous and hilarious. For a quick and hardcore plat-forming fix, Meat Boy will probably generate a cult following, but I was simply content to play through the levels and move on.

Russ Carroll: 6

Meat Boy is the latest and greatest from Edmund McMillen, the character designer from Gish. Actually, he's released another game since Meat Boy, which shows just how prolific flash can be. Meat Boy is a strange sort of platformer where you are a bleeding blob of meat trying to meet up with your girlfriend band-aid girl.

The game revolves around jumping to avoid obstacles like blades and bullets and scrolling screens. The jumping takes some adjusting to, and the wall-jumping, which is what the entire game is built around, I had trouble with, which lead to a lot of dieing. You can skip around a little to calm your frustrations, which is a good thing. Overall it's a nice little flash downloadable, but, as is common with flash games, it lacks depth and is more of a snack than a meal.

Michael Scarpelli: 7

Strange Attractors grew on me. This review started out worse than its ending up. I found myself getting into a groove with the game and really enjoying it… but I began things very frustrated, and that frustration still seeps its way into the game from time to time.

The idea is very similar to Stardrone from our July Panel. Stardrone does it better from a pure playability standpoint because you always feel like you're in control.

In Strange Attractors, the concept is that you are trying to guide a sort of puck through the level using the attraction and repulsion force from various nodes in the level. At the start, the nodes are large and stationary, and the key is just figuring out when to push and pull your puck to get it to pick up the requisite star token to unlock the exit.

However, as the game progresses, the gravity nodes become free floating items in addition to the stationary nodes and then they ALL push and pull on your puck relative to all their positions. It might be hard to envision this scenario based on my writing, but suffice it to say, it becomes a very random experience very fast.

You can't control the floating nodes, and they seem to exist only to frustrate your carefully planned arcs of travel for your puck. With practice and careful movement, you can mitigate their influence… but I guarantee you there are times where they will become maddeningly frustrating. My problem here is that when you fail, it doesn't feel like you failed, it feels like the game stacked the deck against you, and that's never a good feeling.

Pany Haritatos: 5

Strange Attractors 2 forces you to do a lot of waiting. The game's loading screen, for example, is mind-blowingly long, by far the longest of any game I can remember playing on my PC. This sets an interesting tone for the experience that is later reinforced by the gameplay. You spend most of your time in Strange Attractors 2 watching your avatar move slowly around an arena, bouncing off stuff, not quite sure what is going to happen next.

There's a lot of random in this game, but none of it is the good kind. Because the positions of other moving bodies affects your ability to navigate the level, and because there are often dozens and dozens of these other bodies rapidly moving about, it can sometimes be very difficult to figure out how to achieve your goal. You spend a lot of time waiting, and a lot of time praying for a little bit of luck that maybe something will happen that helps you towards your goal.

Things get marginally less frustrating as you progress in the game and collect upgrades, but it's merely a patch. The core of the frustratingly gameplay persists. The game is really pretty to look at, and the audio is fairly decent, but it is not enough to make the core game enjoyable.

Coby Utter: 5

Physics-based arcade games often have moments of sheer brilliance and equal amounts of pure frustration. Strange Attractors 2 stays within this mold, offering occasional moments of triumph in between long periods of agony. The game is very straight forward and easy to pick up and play: the left mouse button attracts your metallic orb towards gravity points and the right button repels your orb. Obstacles float around in each area impeding your progress as you try to collect stars to progress to the next area. Collecting all of the stars and managing to get to the exit can often be an extremely frustrating ordeal as your orb haplessly bounces around while you try to attract, repel, attract, and repel your way to success.

The sound effects and music are the best part of an otherwise average presentation. SA2 suffers from an immediate let-down as well; the game takes over 3 minutes to initially load on both of my test machines. Adding to that annoyance, the frame rate fluctuated wildly and at times was completely unplayable. SA2 has a lot of potential to be a really fun and engaging game, but unless you are a physics-arcade game enthusiast, the pain of playing isn't worth the reward.

Russ Carroll: 7

Strange Attractors 2 got buried under a mountain of great games this month, which is unfortunate as I found the more I played it the more I 'got it' and enjoyed it.

The game is an interesting physics puzzler where you use push and pull to maneuver your pod through a variety of levels. The game mechanic makes controlling your craft a little unwieldy at times, but the levels are so intricate and so diverse (especially once you get past the first set) that with a little patience it is hard to be anything other than amazed by what you are seeing and doing. SA2 at its best was captivating and entrancing, making me feel like I was a brilliant mastermind, and though there are moments of frustration, it's often at its best.