Farm Frenzy 3: Madagascar

Farm Frenzy 3 has finally outworn its welcome. After four spin-offs, it seems pretty clear that the developers have run out of ideas. Farm Frenzy 3: Madagascar brings little new to the table, and plays almost identically to every other game in the series. In fact, aside from a few visual differences, you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between Madagascar and its predecessor, Russian Roulette.

It seems that series star Scarlett's previous adventures have left her drained and in need of a vacation, so she decides to go on a self-guided tour of Madagascar. Unfortunately, since she doesn't have a tour guide, it's not long before Scarlett finds herself lost. She stumbles across an animal reserve, but finds even more bad news, as all of the animals are sick. Using her farming skills Scarlett decides to help out the reserve by raising as much money as she can.

The story is about the only place you'll find much new in the game. And like the rest of the series, is largely unimportant. Aside from the introduction and the occasional cut-scene -- which consist of comic book-style panels featuring wildly inconsistent art -- you'll hardly ever actually interact with the narrative. Instead, it serves as a goofy set-up loosely tying together the events of the game. Read full story...

Memorabilia: Mia's Mysterious Memory Machine

Have you ever moved into a new place, only to find that the previous occupant left something behind? In the hidden object game Memorabilia: Mia's Mysterious Memory Machine, the item in question isn't a lamp or a coffee maker of dubious distinction, but a machine that allows you to read people's minds.

You could use such a wonder to fight crime or farm secrets, but instead you decide to help your neighbors find the treasures they can't quite seem to find. Each neighbor has misplaced something dear to them, like a book of recipes or ribbon, and also has an item of which they're particularly fond. You'll get a brief dossier on your client telling you what to look for before they hop into the gizmo and let you prowl through their grey matter. Their memories come up as a hazy collection of transparent objects stacked haphazardly over each other, and you'll have to sort through the clutter to uncover the memory that will tell you where the loot is.

Some of the items on the list of objects you'll need to find are marked with a star – find those and you'll uncover a piece of memory that, when assembled like a jigsaw puzzle, reveal the location of your client's missing goodie. You could just go for starred items first and blaze through the level in seconds, but for the best bonuses, make sure you find everything on the list. Keeping your client happy is also important and delivers yet another bonus; to keep them smiling, perform well by finding items quickly, finding their favorite kind of object, or not clicking incorrectly. Read full story...

Super Smasher

Who doesn’t love a good carnival game? Super Smasher takes one of the most well-known casual game fixtures and adds a bunch of colorful panache all around it to create what is ultimately a solid product.The vast majority of gameplay in Super Smasher involves one task: click on targets that appear on the screen. Click on as many as possible, and do so as fast as possible, to earn the highest score. The simple concept and the ease of the point-and-click interface make the game easy to just pick up and play, which is one of its strongest qualities.

The game revolves around a large board game-style board. The board is divided into different sections, each section representing a different style of play. Players must make their way through each section before they are allowed to advance to the next game type. All the games have the exact same target-shooting mechanism, but they are presented in different ways – one of the games involves shooting peas at balloons, one involves shooting pies at people, etc.For example, in the balloon game, players use a blowpipe to shoot peas at the balloons, which is achieved by simply clicking on the balloons as they scroll across the screen. Players should also be on the lookout for bonus tokens that appear, increasing their score, as well as valuable blowpipe upgrades that make the peas shoot out faster or makes targeting the balloons easier. Read full story...

Blacklight: Tango Down

There are loads of gamers who have played Modern Warfare 2 every day since its release -- but haven't touched the single-player campaign. It seems people really, really like to shoot other people in games. So a cheap, multiplayer-focused first-person shooter like Blacklight: Tango Down makes perfect sense. It's not the most original shooter out there, but it's a fun and inexpensive way to get your multiplayer fix.
Blacklight: Tango Down offers several adversarial modes on 12 maps and a Black Ops mode that can be played cooperatively with up to four players. There is some sort of story about a conflict between the U.S. covert ops unit Blacklight and an ex-U.S. Special Forces group called The Order, but you'll never know this unless you read about it in the "How to Play" section of the menu. Blacklight shows off some high production values, but there is zero explanation or story in the game.
This is a very pretty shooter with a stylish sci-fi setting and a freaky electronica soundtrack. When you first jump into the game it may be hard to believe you only paid $15 for it. Blacklight doesn't have the environmental destruction that Battlefield 1943 did, but it does have more modes and many more maps.
Blacklight is a fairly generic shooter but one unique aspect is the Hyper Reality Visor. By turning on your visor you can see all nearby enemies, friendlies, and important items like health stations. You can only use the visor for a limited time, though, and then you'll have to wait for it to recharge. Read full story...

The Fifth Gate Review

Flowers, spells, potions and thrones. A magical tale of gardening and peril await with PlayFirst's newest time management title, The Fifth Gate. Enter a mystical realm brimming with charms, enchantments, and pests as you test your green thumb against the plight of being kidnapped by the power-hungry Morgana. Five gardens possess unique flowers and foes, and only upon exiting the Fifth Gate will you find yourself free of Morgana's tricks and sorcery.
You'll follow the tale of Eden, a beautiful young girl and the most talented gardener in all of the Fairy Kingdom. She awakens one day to find herself kidnapped by a foreboding woman named Morgana. Morgana has agreed to set Eden free, but she'll have to give her something in return. Eden must raise magnificent plants, while keeping bugs and wilting at bay, in order to complete tasks and brew potions set by Morgana and earn the five stones to open the various worldly gates. Only once she's obtained all the stones for the Fifth Gate will she be set free. Read full story...

Family Feud

Not too long ago, Ludia gave us a real stinker when they released The Price is Right on PlayStation Network. It was a lazy attempt to take something fun and enjoyable -- in that case, the extremely famous television gameshow The Price is Right -- and make it into something worth playing on a console. However, with the release of Family Feud on PSN this week, we're glad to report that Ludia has delivered to the PlayStation faithful a far, far stronger effort that may very well be worth your hard-earned cash.
Family Feud has a long, decades-old history on television in the United States, and if you're not familiar with the program, chances are you don't pay very close attention. First premiering in 1976 (and hosted by the amorous Richard Dawson), Family Feud has basically stayed its course and played the same over the last thirty-five years, through six hosts and serious amounts of syndication. Two families of five contend with one another as two teams, answering basic survey questions that the producers of the show have purportedly asked normal, everyday people. After an initial head-to-head round that determines control of the board, a single family attempts to fill out the survey as completely as possible by making guesses that best answer the posed question. They're only allowed to get three wrong answers, however, and if the survey isn't completely filled out by the third strike, the other family gets to steal with a single correct answer. Read full story...