Sometimes a puzzle game will come out where the entire purpose is to solve puzzles. While I could be perfectly happy solving puzzles all day long, I crave some atmosphere and story and characterization intermingled with good puzzles. Fortunately for me, there are games like Jazz & Faust. Jazz & Faust is a puzzle/adventure game set in a fantasy environment with medieval and Arabian Nights -style elements. In it you play one of the two title characters as you try to unravel a mystery and achieve an ancient treasure. The trick is, once you have solved one of the character’s … Continue reading Russian Fairy Tales→
I hope I’m not hopelessly dating myself, but I remember when the pizza joint down the street from the college campus got in a game called Ataxx (this was back in 1990). It was different from a lot of the other games that were coming out at that time, in that is was a turn-based puzzle game. I spent many hours at this game, trying to beat ever-increasingly-difficult AI opponents in an effort to get a higher ranking. (Take that, Droolman!) Later, in 1993, 7th Guest came out with a rehash of the Ataxx game as one of its puzzles … Continue reading Assimilation: AI is Irrelevant→
Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams is basically an improved Xbox version of SH2 for the Play Station 2. I did not have the opportunity to play the original Silent Hill game, but I am told by several of my colleagues that I missed out in a big way. From speaking to them, I don’t know if either version of SH2 quite lives up to the original, but I did have an enjoyable time playing the game, especially about 11:00 at night with the lights all turned off. The Xbox version has an added sub plot that was not in SH2 … Continue reading Silent Hill Horror Lives→
I don’t know how they do it, but Dreamcatcher always seems to find a new puzzle/adventure game just to keep me from being bored. Publishers of some of the best games in this genre ever (Traitors Gate, Cydonia, Safecracker – hey, while I have your attention, guys, where the heck is game two of The Forgotten series? I’ve been waiting on that one for almost two years) they never cease to surprise me in their ability to find the next one. In this case the game is called Schizm: Mysterious Journey. It takes place in 2083, ten months after humans … Continue reading Somewhat Divided on Schizm→
Game Review- Incredible Machine: Even More Contraptions
The Incredible Machine: Even More Contraptions is incredible. It’s incredible how much of your time it can suck away. Like a really good book with really short chapters, you just keep telling yourself that you will complete one more quick contraption and then take a break. Hours later you emerge from your computer, bleary-eyed with your mind spinning and wondering why on earth you just had to break three more fish tanks just to get that darn Mel off to work. Breaking fish tanks is a common sub-goal of this game. What kind of sick mind thought that up? There … Continue reading The Incredible Machine is Ridiculous, Frustrating→
When I first played Myst so many years ago, I enjoyed myself so thoroughly I thought that one could not improve upon this greatness. When Riven came out years later, I was certain of it. Now, after much hype (which even included a film trailer at last year’s E3, no less), Myst III: Exile is here. Would this new chapter in the Myst saga be as great a puzzle experience is its initial predecessor, or would this be another cheap attempt to cash in on the Myst legacy? Only some serious playing time would reveal the truth. First off, I … Continue reading Myst III: Exile is Puzzle Vengeance→
The Ward is a puzzle/adventure game that takes you to the Moon, to Mars and beyond. It has a background story that is as old as the universe itself. However, I will try to be a bit briefer than that. This story actually starts in the far future, during the inevitable collapse of the universe. A highly advanced race called the Makers decide that the only way to escape their fate was to travel backwards through time billions of years, bringing their culture and technology with them. Unfortunately, due to the collapsing of Space, the time traveling did not go … Continue reading The Ward is a Sci-Fi Puzzle Experience→
Tower of the Ancients is a puzzle game that might be best described as a cross between Tetris and Connect Four. The objective is to line up the blocks that fall from the sky to create horizontal, vertical, or diagonal rows of identical symbols. Get three or more identical symbols in a row, and they disappear. When the blocks stack up too high, you lose. This isn’t the most polished game I’ve ever played; the graphics aren’t terribly sharp, and trying to improve the resolution somehow changed my system’s color settings as well. The game has also frozen up during … Continue reading Tower of the Ancients is Puzzle Psychosis→
Empire Interactive’s game Sheep is a puzzle/strategy game that allows us to pull the wool away from over our eyes and seek the truth. Those seemingly innocent little lambs grazing out on the open fields are exposed in this game as being former genius beings from another planet. The story goes that originally these highly intelligent aliens were sent here in disguise long ago to observe the earth’s inhabitants. Only over time these sheepish aliens lost sight of their mission and made a self-fulfilling prophecy into metamorphosing into the passive seemingly mindless creatures we think of today as sheep. The … Continue reading Sheep is Wild and Wooly Fun→
If you are a fan of Lemmings games from the 1980’s and ’90’s, stop reading. Go buy Lemmings Revolution. Now! It’s more challenging, more visually appealing, and easier to operate than the earlier incarnations, and the Lemmings are still unbearably cute. Those of you who are unfamiliar with the history of the Lemmings games may have heard of real live lemmings, rodents that have been known to plunge off cliffs in communal suicide. The digital Lemmings aren’t any smarter, and it’s your job to guide them to the waiting hot air balloons that will carry them to safety without allowing … Continue reading Lemmings Revolution is Puzzling Fun→
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