He-Man: The Most Powerful Game in the Universe is a long title. In fact, it ranks up there with the Penny Arcade games as one of the most drawn-out game titles in existence, so from here on out, I’m just calling the game He-Man, because I doubt that I’ll ever meet another person who will call this by its full title.

But that’s okay.

He-Man is a surprisingly very fun game. For all its popularity in the 1980′s and even the resurgence in the 2000′s (and the cult following on Matty Collector), it’s never really gotten a decent video game. Or sure, there was the one for Intellivision/Atari 2600, and a Game Boy Advance title, but that was pretty much it. Shame too, considering the rich and creative universe this series has.

He-Man for iPad/iPhone is a very fun title. It plays similar to the old arcade classic Rastan, where the muscle-bound Eternian sets out to fight Skeletor, Hordak, and a handful of classic minions. Along the way, He-Man fights Horde Troopers, robots, skeletons, bat, sorcerers, and a few other beasties.

Graphically, the game looks great. It’s colorful, well animated, and varied with the environments. It looks Read the rest of this entry

A friend tipped me onto this game a few weeks back, but with my busy schedule of late, I hadn’t gotten a chance to sit down with it, much less review it. Now that I’ve done the playing needed to actually discuss the game, I am able to give an honest to goodness opinion.

At its core, the best way to describe Cargo Commander is an action puzzler. Taking the role of one of these said Commanders, your role is to draw in abandoned containers and extract the goodies from the hold using the various tools at your disposal. All of this grants you supplies and ammo and the ability to complete the task at hand to go on to the next level.

Of course this means that you won’t be doing this easily. There are the requisite alien creatures bent on killing you, to which you can utilize one of your weapons or the environment itself to wipe them out. And yet, they are not the most dangerous thing you face in the game….

Black holes. There you are, minding your own business and peacefully commanding cargo, when one of these rips will form and suck the Read the rest of this entry

Manos… the HANDS of Fate….

Never in my days would I have ever thought that I would write a review of the best worst movie I’ve ever seen. I’m so happy right now.

A little run-down about Manos: It’s a 1966 film that a fertilizer salesman made on a bet. A family gets lost on vacation and ends up visiting a hotel sort of thing run by the supposed satyr Torgo and his mysterious Master. Along the way, the family’s dog gets killed, there’s a lot of standing around, a couple inexplicably makes out a few miles down the road during the entire movie, the Master’s multiple wives get into a few catfights, more of that crazy Torgo, and I guess it resolves in some way or another. Hell, it just does and you have to accept that.

Forgotten until Mystery Science Theater 3000 brought a whole new audience to it, it’s the only film that Dr. Forrester and TV’s Frank actually apologized for showing, it’s so bad.

But they just released a video game about this oddball of a film. And how is it?

It’s actually really good.

No. Seriously.

The game is set in the style of a NES Read the rest of this entry

I was late to the Minecraft game. Sure, I’ve heard about the “build anything you want” premise that the game has, but being more a MacBook person, I never got around to trying the title on PC.

That changed when the game came to the Xbox 360.

This version of the title is essentially “Minecraft Lite”, a smaller version of the PC world, with less mod options. For those unfamiliar with the game, it’s basically a giant virtual Lego set. Even moreso than than the actual Lego games (although Lego has created an official Lego Minecraft set). It’s a world where you can create, break down, relocate, and is fueled by the power of your imagination. It almost sounds like a marketing tagline, doesn’t it? But at least it’s true.

Pretty much everything can be affected in the world. If not reused in its original form, the elements can be used to create something else. It’s a world of ice and oceans, caves and mountains, forests and beaches. And it’s populated by a number of unusual inhabitants. When you start the game, you are very much on your own. No tools, nothing to Read the rest of this entry

It’s hard to believe that this moment has come. The reason that I purchased my 3DS last year is finally here, so people must be wondering what I think.

Before I begin, let me tell you a story….

I got my NES back in 1987, and sure, I got the expected Mario/Zelda/Duck Hunt/Ghosts ‘N’ Goblins fare, but Kid Icarus was an unusual happenstance. I used to spend the weekends with my Grandmother, who was a neat, eccentric lady who would often give me an allowance of $3.00 when we would go shopping. Three bucks today doesn’t buy much, but back then, that was a comic book or two, or a few rounds of Paperboy or Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom at the mall’s arcade (Yes, I know I’m old). During one of our visits to K-Mart, I saw that silver NES box, and got excited. It was an “Adventure Series” game, and certainly, that had to be good, right?

On a whim, I asked my Grandma if I could have the game. Never hurts to ask, right? And to my surprise, she said “Yes”, marking one of the few few video games that she ever Read the rest of this entry

While my opinions of my time working with Midway have been touched upon here, I wanted to get a little more into the history of some of those titles. I always had a soft spot for two major areas of their games: The Mortal Kombat series, and their arcade classics. How could you not have a fond reverence for titles such as Defender, Robotron: 2084, Joust, Rampage, Spy Hunter and others? Not to mention in 1996 when they acquired most of Atari’s arcade classics like Gauntlet, Paperboy, and Marble Madness. I say “most” because somewhere along the way, Midway lost publishing rights to a handful of these titles, and they reverted back to “new” Atari. I never got the full story of what happened there. One day, we were publishing Asteroids, Centipede, and Crystal Castles, and then one day, we weren’t.

But I loved this series largely because of my fondness for preserving the history of gaming. Certainly, both Arcade’s Greatest Hits and Midway Arcade Treasures highlighted some real gems, but as the series progressed, the already basic interfaces got even more simplistic, and the last compilation just seemed like an afterthought to toss a Read the rest of this entry