You are a rookie pilot sent to the outermost section of the galaxy known as Kenuriam. Everyone knows nothing good comes from that system. You are wary but take on this assignment for the good of planet Earth and mankind. You fight hard and furious against the invading alien Insectus race with your lone ship. They come at you in different waves of every formation known in outer space. Some move horizontally and vertically, while others will loop, stall, swoop and circle around the dark, starry sky in ominous patterns. They’ve also sent their biggest and baddest bosses to wipe you and earth out of the universe and beyond. Luckily there are power-ups galore and the weapons of mass destruction are available to you if you can catch them. They are missiles, mines, nuc bombs, 500 points, time and more to help aid you in your quest.

The game board is an overhead view of your space ship at the bottom of the screen. The never ending, spiraling enemy attackers will try to overcome your single ship and gain access to Earth. Be sure to post your highest score on the worldwide Hall of Fame.

Star Defender 3 may be similar to the old time arcade shooting games but with its fantastic graphics and more power-ups than you can imagine, the play is still intense, frantic, frenetic and just plain addictive. The only thing that will slow down your play is the hand cramps you get from shooting an infinite amount of alien devils.

Features of Star Defender 3:
-8 Huge Missions
-Progressive System of Bonuses
-Aliens to Blast

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Under the scrutiny of your commanding officer, you are interrogated about your outrageous claim of flying saucers. Did you really see it or is it your imagination? You can’t lie to your superior, but will he believe your wild claim? You stand your ground, and he confirms the sighting. You are given a small group of soldiers to take care of any unfriendly aliens in RPG Mac game Devastro.

The artwork is simple and the play is simple or is it? Left click to move your person, to shoot you right click, and to throw grenades you hit the space bar. Each level is a mission to kill the aliens. You move around the field looking for the spaceship and aliens. You can move all your men in sync, move them separately or you can leave your men on guard duty and you go scout out the aliens.

After each successful mission you and your troops are promoted, and as the ranks go up shooting and reactions of your soldiers are faster. You can train a new recruit into a lean, mean fighting soldier, because you need the best to kill the aliens and destroy the spaceship.

In addition to the promotions, you will eventually get cars and tanks to use to smash aliens with, and you can shoot at a car to explode it. Also another helpful thing to do is to lure the aliens to the minefield. There are fields, roads and water to travel around, and items and objects to collect as in other RPG games.

Devastro, similar to Avernum 5, is not a fancy game but there’s a lot of action and excitement when you beat the many aliens who come at you from many angles. You need to use all your strategy know how in order to maneuver your troops on your own turf instead of outer space, kill the aliens, and destroy their flying saucer. Remember to protect and save the sheep.

Features of Devastro:
-Over 50 Levels
-3 Different Scenes
--Grand Finale

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Making its grand debut on the Mac App Store is a new type of adventure puzzle game Light Quest. It’s a scrolling platform play using laser beams and a stranded robot named LQ.

LQ was headed home to his beloved wife and puppy when out of nowhere came a big blob. It turned out a dump ship was spewing debris all over the place and almost banged into poor LQ’s spaceship. Luckily LQ is skilled in dodging meteors and such. The console started beeping rapidly, and LQ realized all the expert maneuvering he performed drained the batteries of its power. Only thing to do was to land on a strange unknown planet and try to recharge at a refueling station.

Your adventure begins at the deserted station where LQ finds himself. He or you must follow the laser beam and lead it back to the spaceship to recharge. Using the arrow keys you can travel right or left and the up arrow to jump up. Also if you like to use your left hand the A, W and D keys will work the same way. While you are following this beam of light, you collect lug nuts, mirrors and beam splitters along the way. The lug nuts really do not do anything for you but it’s like any other platform game where you collect as many as possible some item usually fruit or coins. Also it’s just fun to do. Jump as high as you can, run as fast as you can to collect all of these things for another challenge.

The mirrors and beam splitters, however, are important and extremely functional. Without these items you cannot get anywhere. In order to enter doors, power elevators and move objects you will need to aim the laser beam you have been following at light receptacles. They usually are rectangular with a red and green light. Once you do that the doors will open, the elevator will go up or down, and you can use the other power equipment. The mirrors (2 sided and 1 sided red ones) and beam splitters will bend the laser beam so it hits the receptacles. It’s up to you to figure out the correct angle to reflect and bend it at the right projection. Just like the lug nuts you touch the mirrors and beam splitters to acquire them. They will go up to the right upper side of the screen until you need them. When you find these items, you know you have to use all of them to get the beam a certain angle and sometimes a lot of bending is required. However you must used them sparingly so you get to your final destination.

The difficult parts are when you have to go back and forth from one location to another to make sure the beam is aimed correctly because you may not be able to view the entire situation. Another hard part for non-platform players is the jumping to another elevation. Sometimes you need to continuously press the right or left arrow until the correct time to jump. When you press the big red button, it will move objects, but watch out because they may move back.

Light Quest is for puzzle playing platform gamers who want a new and exciting play to meet their thirst for a challenge. The different environments (although a little dark, but you need that for the laser) you will encounter will take some thinking on how to reflect the laser beam through different floor levels, out doors and through objects in order to refuel LQ’s little space mobile so he can return to his home planet and to his family. Light Quest reminded me of Mac game Bob Came in Pieces. It didn’t have the humor like Bob, but the feel of the game is similar. With Bob you also go through dark corridors and places to get him home again. Try it out and see if you have the skills to play this original and creative game by bending light.

Features of Light Quest:
-10+ Hours of Creative Gameplay
-5 Original Music Scores
-Collect the Lug Nuts

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars