Justin Last

The appeal of fighting games is easy to see: formulate a better strategy than your opponent in single combat to win bragging rights, continued play, or the ability to advance the story. Fighters with simplified controls can still be fun (e.g., Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. series), but they need a sense of fairness and reward to keep the player motivated.

Fighting games are heavily skill-based. You don’t just level up your guy to make fighting easier. You have to practice until you know his moves inside-out and can pull off an aerial block that cancels into a super with your eyes closed. Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi, then, is not a fighting game. It’s an action game made out of a fighting game. READ MORE

Tropico 3 felt like it could have used a little more time in the oven. There was a great game and some interesting mechanics in there, but most of it felt like it was slapped on top, while the developers hoped that people found it fun instead of finding it odd that so many new mechanics weren’t adequately explained. Tropico 4 is Tropico 3 with the presentation that should have always been there. READ MORE

Okabu is entertaining but lacks polish. A lot of good games could have spent a little more time in the oven, but not every developer out there can afford to operate on Valve time. In Okabu, you, along with a friend if you’ve got one in the room, take control of two cloud whales traveling all over the world to stop the Doza and their terrible pollution. The pollution hurts the villagers and keeps their crops from growing, and it mingles with the clouds in the sky, preventing the cloud whales from flying high above the villagers. Naturally, the cloud whales descend to help the villagers, vanquish the Doza, and resume their life flying through the skies. READ MORE

PSN is second only to Steam in terms of providing us with great indie games at great prices. Eufloria is the latest in a long line of PSN games that are not only beautiful to look at, but challenging to play as well. The minimalist aesthetic betrays just how hectic and challenging things can get in later levels,so don’t write Eufloria off as a piece of art with some light RTS elements: it’s a real RTS whose simple gameplay concepts get cranked up to 11, and serves as proof that you don’t need hundreds of units to make a compelling skirmish. READ MORE

Having enjoyed the first two installments of Badge of Carnage, it isn’t surprising that we like the final episode as well. Beyond Reasonable Doom is, expectedly, a lot like the others. Hector is still trying to save the town of Clapper’s Wreake, and aside from puzzle-solving, the big star here is the raunchy humor. It’s great to see a series come along that invokes feelings more reminiscent of Leisure Suit Larry than Space Quest. READ MORE