Archive for the ‘Arcade’ Category

Smashing Tennis Review

Action, Arcade, Sports | Posted by trackbum
May 22 2010

smash-tennis
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Hit the grass courts and fire off an ace in a high speed match of Smashing Tennis. The game is clear: win sets to win matches. Now all you have to do put your own skills to the test and see if tennis is indeed your sport of choice. The key to this sports game in particular is skill.

Smashing Tennis requires skills with the use of two hands on different keys of the computer. If a gamer fails to play well on their first try and decides to just give up and complain about it on other people’s blogs, then they missed the whole concept of Smashing Tennis in the first place. Smashing Tennis is not supposed to be mastered when someone presses start, it evokes a determination to evolve in skill level as players and tournaments are conquered one by one. To rise to the top of the International Tennis Association, it takes a lot more than scrolling and clicking a mouse.

Tennis is personally not my favorite sport. However arcade games of tennis  are always amusing and tons of fun. Smashing Tennis in particular is pretty entertaining as it reminds me of a 2D version of Mario Tennis. Overall I would give Smashing Tennis a 4 out of 5 stars.

Rating: ★★★★☆

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Youda Fairy Review

Action, Adventure, Arcade, Sim | Posted by Zeke
May 17 2010


Even 1000 year old forest wizards need a break now and then. This is the case in Mac arcade game Youda Fairy where the wizard protecting the people in the village is ready for a vacation of sorts. You are to train as his assistant learning to cast spells, create fairies and such to ward off the evil witch and her henchmen.

The main play is situated in a marshy, wet pond where you need to catch fireflies to make fairies. Never knew that’s the way you create fairies. You click on the lily pad with the same color flower as the fireflies and click on the bug to catch them. The flower will shoot out and gobble up the firefly. Stay away from the spikey firefly or it will decommission your lily flower for a while. So you have a blue lily flower on a pad and that flower will catch only blue fireflies. Pretty straightforward, right? Well, as in all time management type of game, it gets crazy or at least, frustrating in higher levels. Different colors will start popping up in later levels and you have to alternate colors to catch your insects. After the pad has its fill, you click on the pad to release the like color fairy. You click on the fairy and drag her to the like color lantern down at the bottom of the screen. Make sure you click on the gecko and frogs to shoo them away. The frog will incapacitate your flower and the gecko will eat your fireflies. There are more natural barriers as you go higher in the levels. Fortunately, you have helps like the sneeze spell to create more fireflies, spiders when dragged will collect all the same color fireflies in one scoop and a shield for your lily pad to ward off the pests.

Once you meet your goals (# of fairies in each color), you go to village to protect the town’s people from the destructive witch. The villagers will let you know when they need a fairy of a certain color to help them. Each time a heart of the fairy color pops up above a home, you need to click on the lantern with the same color fairies and then click again on the home before the hearts disappear. In addition to being fast on your feet, you have to deal with the nasty bad guys (witches, goblins and trolls). This part of the game reminded me of the Mac sim time management game Sushi to Go Express.

Although the game sounds easy, it is not; especially when you get up in the higher levels. I found it frustrating when you did not have a sneeze spell to create more fireflies to meet your goals. I found sometimes I was waiting around for the bugs. The pests though distracting helped move the play along. Another distraction to the main play is the building of the village with your earned points you can buy a cottage, bridge and many more sections after unlocking the upgrades.

As always, Youda developed a beautifully drawn game with deep, rich colors, but the play, although original, missed the mark for me. I would rather play Peggle without much of a story line than catch fireflies. I guess I was expecting more action than time management play. It wasn’t for me but you may enjoy this type of game. I give it a 3.0 for great artwork and originality.

Features of Youda Fairy:
-Original Play
-Help the Villagers
-Create Fairies
-Challenging Levels

Rating: ★★★☆☆

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Sweetopia Review

Action, Arcade, Match, Puzzle, Shooter | Posted by Zeke
May 16 2010

Sweetopia

Sweetopia is the perfect balance between an exciting story line and a great play. In this Mac game Kate Gainsborough is re-opening her grandfather’s old candy factory, but runs into many problems. One disturbing hurdle is the 2 sherbet sizzle candies if they should collide will blow up the building and destroy all of Kate’s hard work. Your job is to keep these 2 orbs away from each other by matching 3 or more like color candies to pop them with sphere launchers.

The play is the same 3 or more orbs to explode before the sizzles collide. This is a fun, action game with cartoon strips conveying theSweetopia 5 story between each level. There are blocks getting in your candy launcher’s way making it impossible to shoot the candies. In later Sweetopia 6levels there’s a second turret to use if you need it. Moving back and forth from one launcher to another is great fun. You feel like you are in control instead of shooting and ricocheting off of equipment haphazardly. A flashing orb will destroy any color for a while, more action is created from undulating blueberries, and orbs with question or explanation marks will provide surprising power-ups.

The music is very dramatic adding to the intense action and story going on all around you. You get involved in the fast action, frenetic pace of the moving candies snaking down the conveyor belts. The cartoon-like strip is an ideal way to move the story line along withSweetopia 3 its anxious and frantic characters. You can feel their concern and Kate’s confidence in their funny conversations. There’s an Arcade mode in case you just want to play the game without the story.

Sweetopia is like many other orb moving match plays like the Luxor series and Sparkle, but it has its own flair to its play and tale of Kate’s possible fateful ordeals. I like the candy shooting of this manic play and enjoy the peculiar individuals in this Mac game. The actual play is simple to learn, but as the levels go up, the challenging factor increases. Try this awesome game for some old fashion match 3 play.

Features of Sweetopia:
-7 Power-ups
-Bonuses
-14 Candy Types

Rating: ★★★★★

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Warblade Review

Action, Adventure, Arcade, Shooter | Posted by trackbum
May 15 2010

Warblade
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Fly away in the fast paced life of space and aliens in the intense shooter Warblades. Closely related to old arcade scrolling shooters, waves of enemies flow down the screen firing at your ship as you duck and fire while moving left and right. As levels progress, more enemies with more firearms along with more power-ups appear. Warblade takes Space Invaders also a little farther by giving the spaceship the ability to upgrade with money earned from certain dead enemies.

Warblade is a quality game with a lot of replay value. The high score system and fact that players can Warbladeset high scores with only three lives makes the craving of the game all the better. Two-player mode also makes the player feel they are back in the arcade mashing buttons with their buddy all those years ago. Warblade takes a traditional style of games and does not go off so far as to ruining it.

Personally I would give Warblade a 4.5 out of 5 stars due to appreciation of similar games and the fact that it was down right fun. Warblade is a pure arcade game that deserves praise and status as a competitor for all the past scrolling shooters that have come and gone in the video game world.

Features of Warblade:
-100 Levels
-Uncover Secrets and Bonus Games
-Use Strategy
-Beat the Bosses

Rating: ★★★★½

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Qwak Review

Action, Adventure, Arcade, Platform, Puzzle, Shooter | Posted by musicaltrack
Apr 30 2010

qwak
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Qwak is an awesome platform/puzzle action Mac game for all those old time arcade players and anyone who wants to have a good time. With myriad of upgrades, extras and baddies to beat, you can’t go wrong with playing 70 levels in 6 different worlds.

The object of Qwak is to collect gold keys to exit to the next level. Easy, huh? No way. Before you leave one level, you must collect fruits (either stationary or raining down from the top of the screen), gems, flowers (10 will get you an extra life), and more. At the end of the level the fruits convert to eggs, and you use them to shoot baddies. There are grey and purple potions and keys. The black keys open treasure chests and the gold keys open the exit gate.

There are a lot of baddies who can topple your duck over and send him to his demise. Qwak! Not only do you need to avoid the enemies, you need to make sure the duck does not get hit by a spike ball; both small and humongous. You have to time the bubbles to elevate you to higher platforms and at the same time avoiding all the bad things dropping down on your duck.

In addition to all that there are secret sections where you have to figure out how to enter this site. You may need to pull levers, collect the right keys to go through gates and in the right order. Good luck.

If all that is not enough, you can play as one player or 2. In the 2 player mode, this is the one I like, you play along side your buddy or against him and throw the eggs at him and let the baddies deal with him. Bye, bye friend.

Qwak, with its bright and cheery graphics and fun sounds, is a challenging, entertaining platform/puzzle play. You have to have quick reaction and nimble fingers in order to get through the many levels in this fast-paced Mac game, but it’s all worth it when you save the duck! Qwak!

Features of Qwak:
-70 Action-packed Levels
-6 Different Worlds
-Single Player or 2 Player Modes

Rating: ★★★★☆

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