What to know
Not much to know here. If you have been playing similar games, there’s nothing new here, except for the power-ups. Basically, you have a board with coloured stones, some of them with diamonds. When you get three (or more) stones in the same colour in line – horizontal or vertically – these stones blows up, leaving room for the stones above them to drop down. Look out for diamonds, as you have to destroy the stones that contain the diamonds to collect the diamonds to your range of collected diamonds. To finish of the level you have to collect an amount of diamonds. The faster you finish of the level, the better. Make good use of your power-ups to finish the level even faster.

Playing with friends
- no multiplayer. You could get a friend to visit you, taking turns to finish the level as fast as possible.

Amusements
I quickly discovered that when you get started, it’s hard to stop again. In spite that I know these kinda games, as there is several out there with different names and look, and even some playable differences – Treasures of Montezuma 2 is one of them – the game is basically the same. The funniest thing in this game is actually the power-ups. It makes you play a little different – and are helping you out, so you are rarely ending up with the “there’s no more moves” message. Destroying stones and making combos are very fulfilling when you get lucky and get big combos.

For eyes and ears
The games graphics are floating and have a distinctive look. The game isn’t a complicated game, so I can’t sit here and write that graphics are amazing and mind-blowing. But the graphics are better than similar puzzle games. The sounds are fine and are well adapted to what’s happening.

Gamer goals
There’s quite many goals in the game, like making a combo of 10, finish a level within platinum time, getting through all levels in one part of the game (5 parts with 8 levels+1 bonus level) and many more. If you are attempting to get all these goals, there are quite many hours to look forward to.

Glitches and mistakes
The only glitch and fail in the game I stumbled upon is at the level overview screen, when clicking on “Expert difficulty” it says “The Hard difficulty will become available after you’ve completed every level on the Normal difficulty level”.

Hearts
These puzzle games are addictive and it’s almost impossible to stop the game when first get started. This game having power-ups is making it different from the simplest of it’s sisters; Bejeweled, are making it so more much fun to play. You want to earn those power-ups to try them out!

Popularity: 30% [?]

Be adviced; These impressions is by playing the demo, not the full game.

I’m in gaming Nirvana once again. Bayonetta’s graphics look like Fable II and it plays better than Devil May Cry. Yes, I said it. Better.

The demo starts off with a tutorial that is easy to understand and then throws you right into the action. I pulled off combos effortlessly, and when I say combos- I mean extra special super duper awesome sauce combos. In fact, my jaw dropped when I pulled off a “torture attack” and then it hit the floor when I went into “Climax mode”. You will have to see it to believe it.

Dodging enemies took a little timing but when I mastered it, “Witch Time” began and enemies moved in slow motion for a short period of time. This gave me time to try out the guns and they were just as amazing. In fact, during “Witch Time” she sprouted Butterfly wings and soared above the enemies to shoot down upon them. I’m not sure if this was because of the slow motion or my button mashing prowess. Either way, it was beautiful.

I had a few problems with the camera angle and went into the options to change it to a first person view. All four of the options they listed were inverted, including first person. I’m hoping this is just for the demo because it was very hard for me to play with the default camera.
After defeating enemies, goodies are sometimes left behind. The bad part of this is if you die- the goodies die with you. You can start back where you left off- just with your default weaponry.
Few faults so far, gameplay that left me begging for more, stunning visuals. I just have three questions for SEGA/Platinum games:

Popularity: 60% [?]

What to know
There is a professor. He’s performing an experiment.
Ok, so there’s more to it than that – but you get the idea. Professor Ivor Question wants you to take part in his experiment and he wants to “enclever” you. This isn’t your typical “brain game” as it’s more of a mini-game circus that could easily get you addicted. The real question will be for how long. I’ve been looking into brain games lately, mainly for the fact that as I get older I’m getting more forgetful. I’m not really sure with the content that Encleverment Experiment provides that my memory will get better, but I am sure it will be fun trying. There are very cute Mascots that you must purchase using the in-game currency called Noodles. They will stand by and “Rawr” you to victory. This game has full avatar support, use of the vision cam and…
The big button controllers! I’m so glad I could pull these out of my trunk again. No game store would take them back and I’ve been done playing the game they came with for months. It’s really nice to see developers utilizing the ability to make use of this old hardware.

Gameplay
Encleverment targets four types of brain activity; reaction time (big button controller helps this), memory, pattern recognition and mathematics. In the Take-A-Test mode there are five rounds and you can track your “encleverment” over time. I enjoyed the Game Show mode the most where you take on 15 different characters. If you buzz in first you get the most points and if you buzz in second, your points are plunged by 40. This can be made up as the very last round is a “score stealer”. If you answer first and are correct, you can steal 100 of your opponents points. This can turn a close game around very fast. The finest feature is the ability to make your own home-made game with an editor. You can choose which tests you would like to take (up to 30) and even take it online to get a 1 up on your opponent.

Playing with friends
The multiplayer is where this game really takes off. Two to four people can go head to head in battle over Xbox LIVE. With Local (1-4) and LIVE play it’s easy to jump into the fun. The online has the standard options including Playing with your friends, Quick Match and Custom Match with the ability to have private slots. The only option is the Game Show round which is exactly like Take-A-Test except that you are going against other players. You can use your custom Home-made game online as well, but so can your opponents. I’d suggest hosting the game to use your own.

Amusements
“Pick an option, they don’t bite” is one of my favorite sayings from the professor. When you are in the options screen he will say many things to get you to pick your game. When the said something about “Encleverment Sleepyment”, I laughed out loud but I’ve never been able to get him to say it again! As I’ve said many times above, I’m in love with the Mascots in this game. They really have made me want to play through again and again to be able to get them all. It’s enough of an assortment that guys and girls alike will have one they fall in love with.

For eyes and ears
Usually games like this are annoying with repetitive sentences spewed over and over but I was pleasantly surprised. There were even a few things the professor said that made me chuckle. The mascots that you can purchase with your “noodles” are cute and make noise as you buzz in to answer a question and when you get it right. I’m unsure if they planned it or not but my favorite is the KISS inspired bear. Others have complained about the graphics but really: why would you be concerned about graphics in a game like this? It looks just right to me.

Gamer Goals
I’m assuming Blitz Arcade thinks our gamer goal will be to become smarter; to train our brains. Most gamers will disagree and go for the 12 achievements that for the most part seem easily attainable. The only achievement that may put off casual gamers is the “Noodlaire” which wants you to earn 1,000,000 Noodles. I don’t know about you, but I probably won’t be playing this game long enough to come up with a million. Who knows though, I need to get all 60 of those cuddly mascots and that might get me close.

Glitches and Mistakes
I didn’t find any problems during the normal gameplay or the multiplayer. Load times were manageable and online matchmaking was quick and painless.

Hearts
Best features: Mascots and Big Button Controllers! Although I enjoyed many parts of this game, the premise has been so overly done that nothing stood out to me as different enough. Of course the Mascots and Big Button controllers are big pluses in my book; they continue to help it’s replay value immensely. It’s definitely a step up from one of Blitz’s earlier go’s at this genre, “Are you smarter than a 5th grader”. Hopefully the developers will stick with more original work and continue to improve on what they have accomplished here.

Popularity: 34% [?]

Source; UK MCV

The UK MCV website posted today that they have caught some leaked information on the long-awaited hardware extension for the XBox 360, called Project Natal by the developers of the device.

Appearently their sources say that Microsoft has settled a release date which is a year from now, sometime in November 2010, and it will be a worldwide release, so no one feels left out.

The article also mentions that Microsoft has now shared technical details and information to game developers, so they can prepare games that works with the device.

Microsoft plans are to make 5 million units for the worldwide launch, with a price of 50$ for a unit – which is a significant lower price than people all over the internet has been guessing. Let’s just hope that this guess is a fact and not just a rumor. If the price is this, I will definitely pre-order one.

Remember to follow my Facebook Natal Fanpage.

Popularity: 48% [?]

Since the start in september, I have been working on this site periodicly. I’ve added some stuff here and there, when remembering or getting aware of a good function.

10th september I added counters, both flag counter – which I later on decided to remove because the design of it – but also dacounter, a free counter with lots of info on visitors which I love to use.

Later on, I found some share buttons, which I hope you all will use to show your gamingfriends the website.

If you wish to get updated on every post, you can either use your Trueachievements account and get in the leaderboard for the site and follow the website update thread, or use your Playfire account and get member of the group and follow the website updates thread there. Or you could simply use your Facebook profile and get fan of the page to get updates. Website updates will also be posted via Twitter.

I have a new writer on the way, be sure to check the website, so you can get to know her! I’m still looking for fresh new writers, so if you have a passion for games, are female and have some sort of writing skills in english, feel free to contact me. You can use the contactform or write to the twitter account.

The newest addition is probably the mark on pictures to show you, the reader, if the article is a review, impression, news or something completely different – with color code!

Also, I promise that I soon will be working on the article about myself.

I hope everyone has enjoyed this site so far. Feel free to write ideas on the comments to this article. Should we get a forum? Do you know about a wordpress installment we should get on this site?


hugs all around,
Twinkles
Founder

Popularity: 19% [?]

What to know
This is a 5 episodic point-and-click adventure role-playing game with a great story, but without too much challenging exploration. Yes for me, but I really suck at exploration games! You’re playing as Jackie, and you get a new friend in form of a pizza delivering vampire, who speaks Gibberish. After spending some time with each other, they both come to the conclusion that they have to work together to solve their problems – Jackie has to get back home from the magical world, and the vampire has to deliver her pizza.

Gameplay
I’m easily getting frustrated with these games, as I don’t have too much patience to wander around and click randomly on things to solve the riddles. Some of the stuff can be pretty obvious, and some can be harder to figure out, and then it’s search and click time to try out different stuff. In an early moment of the game, you have to find your cell phone, and of course you go straight to your schoolbag. You guessed wrong. Now you have to search the entire house (sounds big, but it isn’t) – I won’t reveal it, as you have to find it yourself, but you could leave the phone at that place in real life as well.

Playing with friends
- No multiplayer

For eyes and ears
The games graphics is acceptable, it’s pretty floating and the cartoonish style is making the look unique. And also reminds the player that the game is a spin-off of a cartoon, which also makes the story being this games force.
The voice acting in this game is playable, understandable, and from to time, amusing, but yet easy to predict most of the time.

Gamer goals
Most people won’t be playing the game again after finishing it – there isn’t any replay value, no collecting, no ranks and no medals, and certainly no rewards in any way.

Glitches and mistakes
I must admit, when the first episode ended, I was like; “What? Was that it?” as it only will require a few hours for someone, who aren’t used to play this kind of games to get through it. People who are used to play these games might get through within an hour. I have to remind myself there’s going to be 4 more episodes that might better the length of the game by miles.
The worst of this game was the repetition in dialogues this game suffers from, but I guess that goes for most of the games in this genre.

Hearts
Boring game play, repeating dialogues and lines and not quite unique. Only the story, characters and style have some uniqueness to it, which gives an extra heart.

Episode 1
Your main character is Jackie, a simple and normal schoolgirl. She comes home from school, only to find out her mom isn’t home, but mom left some money at home for pizza. Jackie has to find her cell phone and the menu from the pizza place. Suddenly a vampire appears in her house – and it delivers pizza. After some frustrating moments to get the vampires attention, they quickly get friends and discover that they have to help each other out, especially when a Watcher arrives and take them both back to the vampires magical forest. The vampire, named Abbie Positive, tells Jackie that she’s a pizza delivery vampire, and after getting rid of the Watcher, Abbie finds out that she can’t deliver the pizza, so Jackie has to deliver it…

Popularity: 30% [?]