Category: Gaming

This review originally appeared on XBLARatings.com.
While I hate to be cheap about it, the two previous XBLARatings reviewers both hit the nail on the head when it comes to World War Toon, and you may see me referencing some of the things they had already talked about!

I had seen the name of “World War Toon” and was interested, but I had not yet seen anything about the game the game. After finally having a chance to sit down with it, I could not be more thrilled to play this game.

Protip: when starting the game: use the quick start. Otherwise, be prepared to spend a large chunk of time just determing where all of your troops will begin. While that does stay true to the board game style, I have to admit it got very old – and I think the AI bot placements should go a little faster. In some cases an AI player will rotate the globe painfully slowly. Once they find what they’re looking for, however, the AI players fly through their progressions, knowing exactly what they want to accomplish.

There is no beneficial tutorial mode, other than the basic “rock, paper, scissors” which troop-type is best suited for battle against which. It would help if the game explained or offered tips when placing new troops between rounds. The game seems to rely heavily on prior experience of board game players.

Fluid animation of the interface, the simple and straight forward design of the combat dice being rolled, and the joy of zooming in and out on troops makes this game “not much to look at” and “eye candy” almost simultaneously. The game has no music to speak of, and lacks much in the ways of animated combat or even sound effects of battle… but what it lacks, it makes up for in the same way board games do. The action is almost never ending, can go for hours on end, and will undoubtedly hook you and your friends in to extremely long battles.

I say World War Toon needs to be a full Xbox Live Arcade game with Xbox Live support – I want online play, with maps of different sizes (20 minute games would be nice for LIVE Support), an ability to sort of ‘save and resume’ would be ideal for the long campaigns, even if multiplayer. There is so much potential for this game I really hope the developers continue to work the idea out some more and have a full 800MSPoint offering some day in the future!

Good luck to them. I enjoy the game, and I hope many others will, too.

This review originally appeared on XBLARatings.com.
I was genuinely excited to try this game as soon as I saw the title. I enjoy BlackJack well enough, but maybe I’m just not familiar with the gambling scene to know what was going on. I gave Easy as 1, 2, 3 Blackjack an honest hour and a half and it made very little sense to me.

I had a friend play it and as he started to catch on, he thought it was making sense, but when I asked him the questions that I ran up against during the game, he couldn’t answer them either. Primarly, it seemed as though you were always placing a bet on a hand that hadn’t been played. I could bet $300 and win $25, but the next hand’s ante was $300, when my chances weren’t nearly as good.

Like I said, it may just be my own lack of understanding of the betting system, and other players may be having a blast betting on your choice of 3 different BlackJack hands. The game concept is unique enough, but even for my friend who thought he understood what was going on, the game quickly got stale.

Here’s hoping someone out there finds what they’re looking for in this game, but unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy it much at all.

This review originally appeared on XBLARatings.com.
Let me right out of the gate say that I’m giving Cyborg Mice Arena a seven out of ten because it is fast paced addictive FUN. Consider it a more comedic version of your favorite twin stick shooters (Geometry Wars, Robotoron 2084, etc…).

I first played the game for thirty minutes, and thought “well, I’ve seen enough.” A few days later, something told me I wasn’t ready to write a review for it, so I sat and played it a little more. It was then that I really got sucked in to the “I don’t want to set the controller down!” pace of the game. Enemies kept coming, wave after wave in the arena. Unfortunately, and this is what frustrated, even though the game rewarded me with 35 waves completed before I died and $39,000 in cash that I could use to unlock more weapons and cybernetic upgrades for my mouse, I was unable to comprehend the process of unlocking levels and game types! I simply could not unlock anything new and exciting.

But just because that is my own mental limitation or inability to correctly read a menu, doesn’t mean this game’s score should suffer from it. The action is great, the 3/4 overhead Isometric view angle gives you much more to look at and appreciate the work that the developer put in to this game.

The menu includes some hilarious backstory, excellent control customization (something missing from many twin stick games), and an interactive “art book.” The art book shows just how much care and creativity the developer put in to this game.

I have not had anyone over and thought to play this game, but I look forward to an extremely hectic night of local multiplayer in the near future!