Mike Hommel: 5

Why oh why does this game limit your ability to fast-forward? There's no sense to that at all! It just means you get to sit there as your blobs slowly file into the exit. Other than that travesty, what we have is an average puzzle with a lot of trial and error, needless restrictions like a life limit, and rules that just personally frustrated rather than entertained me. You may differ.

Seth Robinson: 4

I'm reminded of Chu-Chu Rocket in this game. You place pieces to guide an army of blobs. The available pieces change over time; I'm not sure if they are just random or what. This could be good, but as they say, the devil is in the details. A real puzzler is why in the world the "Speed up game" button has limited uses. I mean, think about that for a second, there is absolutely no way this makes the game easier, its only conceivable use is to avoid the boring part of waiting for your blobs after everything is setup. Majorly confusing and unpolished at the moment.

Brian Clair: 4

In Bloniacs the player must direct various balls to their like-colored exit on the game board. This doesn't provide much gameplay depth, however, so there's also time pressure involved as the balls march their way forward in a straight line. In order to affect the balls' direction, you need to place directional arrow discs on the map itself, otherwise your balls fall off the map. If three balls go over the edge, you lose a life and need to start over again (you start with three lives). Unfortunately, there's a rather large snag here in that the arrow discs seem to be randomly generated, so there's no guarantee that he one you'll need to win will appear at all or in time to help if it does. Too often the proper disc is missing from your list of choices and you're forced to lose a life regardless of how simple the solution may be.

Russ Carroll: 6

An above average logic game that requires some quick reactions and isn't very forgiving. At first I was mystified as to why I had a limited number of speed-ups. It seemed to me that once I had things figured out I should have been able to just get everyone home quickly instead of waiting. Then I found out that using the speed only affects the blobs on the board at the time it is used, making for one set of fast blobs and one set of slow bobs. This creates a whole world of strategy and logic played challenges that the player has some direct control over as you can choose how and when to use the speedups (pretty cool though anti-intuitive). Still there is some room for improvement, like on level 18 where putting the 'green' in the wrong place will leave you staring at the screen for eternity as the game doesn't tell you that the level is no longer possible!

Mike Hommel: 4

This seems to be the month of unpolished "programmer-interface" games (as opposed to "programmer-art", which incidentally this game also has). The style is all over the place here. The gameplay is for the most part just boring, but like so much else this month, very original. You set up barriers to protect your city, then you sit and wait as those barriers slowly get whittled away. There's a jeep to drive around in the meantime, but not much to do with that either. Practice levels, despite the name, would offer a more entertaining game, except that they last 5 minutes each, which is interminable!

Seth Robinson: 5

This game is centered on the idea of placing 'gadgets' like walls and trampolines around a level to detour falling meteors from your city. In theory I like this - in practice, I don't. There are a hundred small problems; things that just don't work like you'd expect them to. Cycling through with your mouse button to find the piece you want is unwieldy; setting up their orientation in the heat of the battle is clumsy. That wormy red thing doesn't look like a trampoline. Alt-Tab should work. Escape should bring up a menu. There are a lot of neat ideas and variety here, but it's hidden behind monotonously slow levels and poor technical execution.

Brian Clair: 3

The basic premise of Meteor Mayhem is sound: block or redirect falling meteors from your cities. Unfortunately there are a number of sore areas that ruined much of the experience for me. These ranged from the incredibly tiny graphics that were hard to see, to the control scheme which was difficult to manage (short of using hotkeys, everything is done with the right-mouse button to cycle structures), to the time pressure (giving the player only 30 seconds to get setup just isn't enough).

Russ Carroll: 6

This is one of those games where you really like what they are trying to do. The game feels unique and different. It also feels like it could use a good deal more polish than it has. Meteor Mayhem has players using different obstacles to keep Meteors from hitting cities. There is a good amount of physics involved, though they feel a little off for some reason. For the most part you build different objects, such as platforms and cannons, to get the meteors to follow the path you have chosen, making your best attempt to consider all possible paths. Fun and different, but missing a bit in the execution area.

Mike Hommel: 8

This is what indie games do well. Take a not-so-indie thing - turn-based fantasy strategy battles in this case - and pare it down to a simple core, and then make a rather short game of it. That's what we have here. The leveling up is fun, the gear is fun, the rather small palette of spells and skills is fun. There are some issues with the interface (clicking on towns is hard, and it constantly resets which skill is active), but on the whole it's a very good production that makes for a very fun and simple game.

Seth Robinson: 7

This is a sharp looking fantasy themed turn based strategy game that has you moving around your 'heroes' and gaining levels to earn more action points. It's not perfect; the GUI leaves out some important pieces of information (show the AP cost, please!) and gameplay boils down to carefully watching your turns-left count and leaving a map right before you lose to maximize experience. I like it, it just feels like it could have used a few more hours in the oven.

Brian Clair: 8

This release may have a strange name, but is surprisingly fun to play. Styrateg is a turn-based fantasy RPG where the player controls several characters through a campaign to squash an unknown threat to the kingdom. While this title is quite original and addictive, there are some pitfalls potential players will need to be wary of. For starters, you only get so many turns to complete each mission, so you usually can't explore the entire map. This can be pesky since if one of your characters dies, they're often gone forever. Resurrection scrolls are very expensive, and since you always have a turn-limit over your head, you can't just hang out and hope to earn extra gold (once you've left a mission area, the character is lost forever). Death hurts even more since you start out customizing a character that you may then lose down the line. Factoring in some very well done music, Styrateg is definitely worth a trial run and well worth the purchase price.

Russ Carroll: 6

This game is a Strategy/RPG hybrid much like Empires and Dungeons from last month, though currently E&D is the better game. While it certainly looks better than E&D and has a more gameplay as you work through each segment of the story plays out as a distinct map, it suffers from many bugs that make it near unplayable. I was initially getting into the game until glitches like units crossing the entire length of the board and other problems crept into the picture. The final straw was getting to my 'goal' only to be told I needed to collect 3 idols. Well, I already had the idols, so smartly, the game moved onto the dialog thanking for bringing the idols, and the idols were removed from my inventory. Then the city popped up with the dialog that I needed to get the 3 idols to go further. Only one problem there...since you already took the idols I can't get them anymore! (c'mon people don't script it so linearly) I wandered the board for another 30 minutes, just incase the idols had re-appeared somewhere randomly on the board, but to no avail. It was the final bug for me! With bugs fixed it might be better than E&D.

Mike Hommel: 6

The innovation is present. The visuals are clearly some form of art (one I don't like, but undeniably snazzy). But the gameplay is bad! There's the issue of those artistic visuals - it's often hard to tell what is an obstacle and what isn't. The biggest issue though is that you're really at the mercy of the physics. I'd spend long minutes bouncing slightly closer and closer to a tipping point to get over a ledge. Of course after all those minutes, I fall too far or hit some spikes and POP, time to start the level over! Last gameplay complaint: the power-ups are arbitrary, numerous, and hard to remember.

Seth Robinson: n/s

Crashed after clicking play.

Russ Carroll: 10

One of the quirkiest and best put together games I've played in quite awhile. Though somewhat similar to Gish (in the way that LocoRoco is similar to Gish) this game has a bounty of inventive innovation from its visually impressive and original theme to its 'keep you on your toes' and constantly changing gameplay (just remember to bring a joystick). I played through the many varied levels, each of which presents an individual challenge that kept me glued to the screen and mystified by just how well everything worked together (except for the hours worth of tutorial levels, which sadly are a horrible experience). Playing this game made me remember, once again, why I love Indies. Playing Gumboy is a singular experience that you won't find in boring mainstream gaming. That probably means most of mainstream won't 'get' this game, which is truly unfortunate. Gumboy is quite possibly the best indie game I've played this year.

Mike Hommel: 4

What a disappointment! First the name- "Hack-It". Ooh, will I be hacking into cyberspace? Nope. Then the storyline. Ooh, will I be cutting wires and dismantling components? Nope. Then the graphical style. I don't have an ooh for that other than it looked like it would be a cool game. But no - the truth: it's a sliding block puzzle. Not a single special trick to it, just slide those blocks to make the 'picture'. I could pick up one of those at the 99c store!

Seth Robinson: 5

Finally, a rocking soundtrack, cut-scene driven storyline, and 3D graphics have come together to make. a sliding puzzle!! Yeah, you know, the kind every RPG uses as a mini-game and you grudgingly click until it's solved? Or the kind you can play for free, but most likely with more variations (different sizes blocks, etc), on thousands of websites? This is polished and great looking, but unless you're really, REALLY, into sliding puzzles save your $15.

Brian Clair: n/s

I had to pass on this one. The camera spin the developer employs gave me motion sickness. As a word of advice to all developers, camera spins should be used sparingly, if ever.

Russ Carroll: 6

You know those slide puzzles where you have 8 or 15 pieces set in rows of and you slide everything around until you have them in the right order to make a picture of a Gorilla or something? That is what this game is. Why someone made a game about those puzzles, and then tried to make it a hard-core game by claiming it was about hacking and adding a guitar-heavy soundtrack is just TOTALLY beyond me. The game does what it does perfectly, and it is way more fun than just simply sliding pieces around one of those puzzles. However, in the end, that's all it is, which leaves me wanting to play something else pretty quickly no matter how well done it is.

Mike Hommel: 7

I would like to rate this lower, I think, for the lack of polish and the overall presentation. But it gets stepped up a bit for being extremely original, and in a fairly entertaining way. It feels like the levels rapidly become too long, and you kind of end up just doing the same thing over and over (I suppose that applies to all shooters too, but somehow that feels different). Still, the thing you do is a new and interesting one, and the gameplay remains pretty solid throughout.

Seth Robinson: 6

This entire game is built around the simple and fun mechanic of throwing a laser-grapple around to navigate your ship. Ignore all the help text about using your keyboard unless you like pain; the mouse control let's you choose things instead of using the closest which is totally different. (If only I hadn't missed that help text; I played without mouse until level 8!) This is the kind of game that can get away with questionable art. My gripe is it isn't especially compelling: no ship improvements, no power-ups, no combos, no point system, no bonus for completion speed. Well worth a look.

Brian Clair: 7

I don't think I'll ever think of slingshots the same way again after playing OrbitMaster. Akin to how NASA uses slingshot maneuvers to send spacecraft zipping through our solar system, OrbitMaster has taken that dynamic and turned it into a game. The player controls a single, indestructible spaceship that can only move by using slingshot maneuvers to zip around space. To accomplish this, you use a tractor beam to anchor your ship to a nearby comet, and then gravity swings you in the direction you want to go. Of course, getting too near planets or the sun will mess things up, for which an emergency booster kicks in to put some distance between your ship and the troublemaker. It's a nifty gameplay dynamic and the storyline keeps you moving along between missions. The downside is that each mission is too much alike: typically having you build space stations using material from nearby nebulas or ferrying materials to planets in the system your in. That's not to say that every mission is the same, the developer did toss in various changes as you progress, like anti-gravity and aliens, but I think there needs to be more mission variety. Regardless, if you've been looking for something different, I'd recommend giving OrbitMaster a try.

Russ Carroll: 7

One of several games this month that felt like it was a really cool idea that needs a bit more work on the presentation and some tightening of the game play for the game to be as good as the idea is. Orbit Master is definitely experimental and original in its game play. I would have liked the feeling of tethering to a comet to have more impact. It may be less realistic that way, but it seems like it would be more fun if attaching to comets had a stronger and more immediate affect on your ship, perhaps swinging it around like Wik. The way it is set up currently is better for the patient, but when added with the sub-par graphics, it left me just a bit under whelmed.

Mike Hommel: 8

Hey, it's another polished match-3 clone! But this time it's a Bust-A-Move clone, which is nice, since I haven't played those in a long time, and I am a fan. This one is very good, incorporating occasionally actually-funny humor (including a blatant rip of Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force) with some innovative elements in the popping formula, including 'ball levels', where the whole playfield rotates after each shot. The presence of bosses is also very cool, and something I encourage. The only thing dropping this from a 9 is that it's another match-3 clone.

Seth Robinson: 7

If you've been looking for another variation of Puzzle Bobble to play with, you're in luck. This game exactly follows the "casual formula": Colorful, cute, a story mode and endless mode, and a few new twists. The new bits are a 'rotating board' mode and a 'boss battle'. The attention to detail is very good; different pieces have their own idle animations and voice effects. Solid entertainment that ramps up in difficulty pretty quick.

Brian Clair: 5

Scrubbles is quite simply a Bubble Bobble clone with a storyline slant towards teen/young adults (the subject matter can be suggestive and curse words are bleeped out). The gameplay is pretty average – match 3 heads of the same type to pop them - and so there's really nothing innovative to speak of. While things start off pretty easy through the first 12 levels , the difficulty suddenly ramps up to be quite hard. I also have to mention that the bottom half of the screen was partially cut off for me, which with the above, makes me think that Scubbles didn't undergo enough playtesting. One last drawback is that the music is very repetitive in this release, which only adds to the monotony.

Russ Carroll: 8

There have been hundreds of games like this in the past. So why is it that this one is so good? First off the sense of humor is excellent. It is burst out-loud funny. I love just hearing the 'Goth' girl say 'sureshot.' Secondly the game play is perfect. You can take it at your own pace and just get in and enjoy the game. An absolute gem of a puzzle game that probably won't sell well because it really needs a more mainstream audience for it to be really appreciated. Download this at work and I promise you'll be telling your friends about it.

Mike Hommel: 6

This is a really nicely made, well-polished (especially the great between-level PDA stuff) Crimsonland-ish game. So why rate it so low? It's incredibly un-fun. The developers made a concerted effort to suck all the run-n-gun fun out of that game type. You have to fire the right color weapon at the enemy, you have limited ammo, and the camera is a royal pain. I can see the idea they had - to inject strategy and thought into Crimsonland. Well, that's not a good idea. It's fun because it's mindless!

Seth Robinson: 7

This top view 3D shooter has you running around warehouses shooting mysteriously colored aliens. The story and cut scenes keep things steadily flowing and basic puzzles and bosses are introduced on a regular basis. Each level is fairly small, but even so, I found myself wishing for an in-game mapping system. It's a bit on the difficult side, but in a way I liked having to sweat it out to pass a level now and then. The controls are great, it feels good.

Brian Clair: 6

Project Xenoclone is a 3rd-person action game that pits you against regenerating hordes of nasty creatures. The primary play dynamic is that the rampaging critters come in two colors – red and blue – and you need to shoot them with the opposite colored energy to slay them (controlled by the left and right mouse buttons). Honestly, I don't see what the point of this is other than the fact that without this, Project Xenoclone is just another Alien Shooter. Don't get me wrong, the graphics are decent, the plot is good, etc. but there's just something missing.

Russ Carroll: 7

Pretty cool play on the Alien Shooter theme. Xenoclone isn't quite as action-oriented as that one, but it works to the favor of the horror-feel of the game. Enemies come in two colors requiring that you blast them with the opposite color weapon (done simply with the two mouse buttons). The game has a nice survival feel to it and respectable graphics. The first level will leave you guessing as you have a gun but can't actually kill anything (tip: run away!). After that it's hard not to get sucked into this one.

Mike Hommel: 7

First up is the incomprehensible story (and how usually the levels you play don't seem to relate to it!). Sheesh. But then the gameplay is pretty good! It's your classic beat-em-up. It doesn't offer a whole lot of variety in play, though. You level up, but you don't gain new moves or change the old ones. Also, all 3 characters play virtually the same with just variations in speed, range, and usefulness of the same moves. No big surprises like a grappler or, say, somebody who can jump. I really had my fingers crossed for Street Fighter style moves, but like with every beat-em-up outside of Guardian Heroes, I was disappointed. Despite the rant, it's not bad at all, and really brings back the arcade feel of Knights Of The Round, Golden Axe, and all of those.

Seth Robinson: 5

Indie (and otherwise) side scrolling beat 'em ups are pretty scarce these days so I'm happy to see this. It's got a lot of levels, decent gameplay and some fun extras. Sadly, two player co-op most can't be used on the main arcade game, only in the "arena battle" mode. This game attempts to run full-screen at a minuscule resolution of 512X384, which my monitor couldn't do, leaving me playing in a miniature window. Could be better all around.

Brian Clair: 6

I don't see many side-scrolling arcade fighters these days so Rage of Magic II is a nice entry. The old-style arcade feel is captured perfectly with the low-color 2D sprites, stereo sound (might have even been mono), and simple fighting mechanics. The storyline was a nice surprise for me as well, though some of the dialogue is childish which I didn't think matched up well with the characters. If I had to make a singular criticism of Rage of Magic II it would be that the difficulty is a touch on the hard side and that there aren't enough fighting moves. I'd also like to be able to customize my characters' levels as they progress in order to add some depth to the gameplay. Despite the above, I would recommend Rage of Magic II to fans of the genre.

Russ Carroll: 7

A very competent side-scrolling beat-em-up that feels very much like an advanced Super NES game (though not quite Neo-Geo quality). The fighting will leave your arms exhausted, though the cheesy storyline and cool characters that you get to play will keep you going. Kudos for allowing the enemies to pick up the power-ups as well as the good guys, it defintely adds a different twist to the game (and can often be your undoing). Anyone looking for a pixel perfect game that reminds of you the button mashing days of yore will be endlessly enthralled by this one.

Mike Hommel: 6

There's some real unique stuff here, and some of it is very fun. The main problem really comes in in the form of interface and accessibility. There are a lot of tweaky issues with the interface, and a lot of information is really hard to obtain or understand (especially a clear explanation of the different bomb combos!). The idea is clever and the campaign works it in well, with "different" tasks to do that fit in context. It's also very frustrating to be unable to pause, undo, or even restart a level without exiting it. So it's got the gameplay, I think, but it does all it can to stop you from enjoying that gameplay.

Seth Robinson: 6

This freebie game has you blowing up landscape to complete various goals. Kind of a single player scorched earth with different materials and more interesting physics. I'll admit it - I'm confused by this game. The problem is there is not a simple set of tools to use. The vague icons that label your arsenal keep changing selection, position, and even functionality (if I understand right) between levels. Context sensitive pop-up information would have gone a long way here. Despite this, if you can get over the learning curve this is really killer. Probably.

Brian Clair: 3

While the premise of Boom Boom Driller is easy enough to understand, I just didn't have much fun with this game. Connecting two points using explosive charges just didn't work out for me, as they never seemed to want to match up for some reason. It would have been very helpful if there were tooltips for the various types of explosives too, since you only get presented with color coding. The graphics here are certainly nothing special but get the job done. However, the music was a surprise – perhaps because it was so much better than the other production elements.

Russ Carroll: 5

This game definitely has the right price. It's got some fun interaction with the ground and the sand and the bombs and all, but needs a good bit of polish and balancing before the game becomes fun. Players will likely find themselves frustrated with the difficulty before they are half way through the tutorial, and that is a bad thing. The explanation of the different bombs is non-existent, leaving players to figure it out as they go. That would be forgivable if the game was a bit more forgiving. Play consists of pressing the mouse button and then moving the mouse to create a long fuse. You let go of the mouse button to watch your bomb drop and go off at a depth determined by the fuse. Unfortunately, the bombs are so small in the grand scope of things that precision is nearly impossible as you launch each succeeding bomb. I REALLY liked the concept, but the execution just didn't work for me.

Mike Hommel: 7

Despite some weirdness like no indicators of how much you can do in a given turn (or even whether you've already fired, which can only be done once) and other issues like the dialog written by Borat, this is a fun artillery game with a great variety of weapons to use to keep it interesting. I personally only enjoy it when I've got the tracers equipped, as the aiming is really sensitive and a single missed shot will cost you big. But when I have them, it's just fun! It is however rather poorly built as described above.

Seth Robinson: 7

Despite the complete lack of music, worst dialog since Zero Wing, abbreviating "please" as "plz" and a myriad of other small sins, I gotta say, this is a pretty interesting take on artillery-style battle. There is no landscape destruction; you build rails to mobilize your main unit. The weapon variety is a lot of fun, being able to access the store at any time during the game (in later levels) provides interesting strategy. The excellent in-game descriptions of the munitions (complete with small diagrams showing usage - B!B!D! could learn a lesson here) take the guesswork out of shooting your chickens from a cannon.

Brian Clair: 6

Three Vikings is an artillery game, where you control three characters whose goal is to defeat hordes of Orcs and other nasty creatures. While the translation in this title is pretty rough, Three Vikings does work well as a straightforward artillery shooter. There's also a nice variety of weapons, which I think is crucial for this kind of release. I would suggest to the developers that they increase the font size of some of the text in the opening comic, since some of it was too small to read.

Russ Carroll: n/s

I did finally get it working after 4 hours of trying to get it to run on several computers, but didn't get enough play time in to score it.

Mike Hommel: 6

There was this game a ways back, you probably never heard of it. It was called Monopoly. And here it is again! Monopoly isn't fun, despite anything your uncle who loves to cheat says, and neither is Sea Bounty, because it is virtually unchanged. It's well-implemented, but if you're looking for anything but Monopoly, look elsewhere.

Seth Robinson: 6

This is probably about as close to Monopoly as you can get without being hit with a lawsuit. (They hope!) You create sets of properties, build hotels "ships", land on chance, and roll doubles to get out of jail. The neatness of having four game boards is countered by the complete lack of rule configurability. Hot seat play of up to six players is included, which is good, because the CPU players have no personality whatsoever. All in all it does the job, no complaints, but I'd still rather be sitting down with the board game.

Brian Clair: 5

Sea Bounty is a Monopoly-clone set in a seafaring world. This release is something of a mixed bag: There are four maps to choose from and Sea Bounty manages to capture the Monopoly style of gameplay, but it suffers from suspect AI and a certain lack of depth. For example, the AI will often try to make deals for property which make absolutely no sense at all. Tack in a forgettable music track and mediocre graphics, and Sea Bounty ends up being a game that is best played only with friends.

Russ Carroll: 5

It's Monopoly with a pirate theme. If that sounds fun, give it a try. I was disappointed by the dim-witted AI that would sell me any property they owned unless they had a monopoly. Often I would buy 2 properties from one computer player and then complete the set buying properties from another computer player, all at a steal of a price, allowing me to quickly send the idiots to their doom. The build up of ships (hotels) is really quite odd as you are limited in how many you can build, leading to some games going on and on with no-end in sight as you can't collect as much from a player as they get going around go. It looks nice, but the AI and a couple of bugs I found make it a less than exciting experience.