WordFu

I couldn't sleep last night so I started going through the app store on my iphone trying to find Oregon Trail. I remembered listening to a podcast where John Davison talked about a game called WordFu from NGmoco. He described it as Boggle with Kung Fu noises. This game came out at the end of February for 99 cents but when I went to download it, the price changed to $1.99. I would have liked to pay 99 cents, but like Shane Bettenhausen always says, "it’s nice to want things".

The game is fairly simple when you start it up. There are 9 letters that you can choose to either mulligan by shaking the iphone/ipod to get a new batch of letters or flip over single cubes to get new letters. The point is to get the best combination of letters that will help you get the most words out of your batch. At a certain point, the game throws some power-ups to help you get a higher score. There is a power-up that stops time; one that doubles your score and another that lets you flip one cube over. Everything is timed in WordFu. You have 20 seconds to choose your batch of letters and 45 seconds to make as many words as you can. To enter your words you touch the letter cube and when you're done with the word you shake the iphone/ipod to enter it for a score. While this game is over rather quickly it’s fun and addicting, especially if you like playing word games like Boggle. Leader boards and achievements are present in WordFu as well as 2 player wifi. I haven't tried the 2 player mode (you have to be on the same hot spot) but I really want to check it out.

It was worth the 2 bucks :)

-Rob

Condemned 2: Bloodshot Review

As promised, my review of Condemned 2.

Let me start off by saying I have not played the first game, so the story is sort of lost on me. However, it didn't seem like much of a factor after playing this game. Some would say that this was scarier than the last Condemned, but to me, it seemed creepy at best. I haven't been scared in a video game since Resident Evil 2 on the Playsation. Scary video games are like scary movies, they don't work when you get older. Nonetheless I was surprised by how disturbing some of the enemies looked and behaved. I would describe them as superhuman bums. Speaking of the main character (zing), he wasn't very likable and I could care less about him. It's hard to relate to an alcoholic that beats on other bums, unless of course you watch Bumfights constantly.

The combat was the highlight of this game. It felt like the combat system from Oblivion without all the suck. There are combos if you get the timing down and if you get an enemy on the ground, you can do something along the lines of a fatality. There are environmental triggers all over the levels for some variety. You can pretty much pick up anything from the environment to use as a weapon. There are some instances where you will use a gun, but for the most part it's just hand to hand combat, baseball bats, lead pipes etc. Another cool feature in this game was the investigation set pieces. You basically have to play as a CSI detective and figure out certain things using the clues in the crime scene. You are graded every time you send information back to the other cop. At one point in the game you have to identify a specific blood spatter on a door. It's a good thing I watched a lot of seasons of Dexter or I wouldn't have gotten it right.

One thing that annoyed me about this game was that the screen became distorted every time the developers wanted to freak the player out. I have seen this trend in other games like Fear 2 but here it became frustrating especially when enemies would attack you. Overall, the game was fun even though the story was a little weird (I guess I should have played the last one) and since I only paid $10, it was a decent experience.

-Rob

Busy!!

Sorry for not posting any new updates, I have been super busy with school/work/hanging out and a few games that I'm trying to get through. I will write up a review of Condemned 2 soon. Here are some games that I have been playing:

Burnout

Killzone 2

3 versus 3 Hockey

Condemned 2

-Rob