Dead Space: Ignition

As part of the release of Dead Space 2 last year, Visceral Games released this cheap, little mini-game collection as an interqual for download on Xbox 360 and PS3.  As someone who must play every game in a series to feel like I've accomplished something in my life, I downloaded it myself before playing Dead Space 2.  I'm only a year behind in game playing.  Woohoo!

Unlike the Dead Space game, there is almost no action to be found here, just some mini-games that, once figured out, are pretty darn easy.  The game follows a pair of space police, constantly on the run from the necromorph invasion (corpse monster-zombies to you), with only your ability to complete hacking puzzles standing between certain death and escape into the next comic-book style cutscene.  The games include a cute little hex-based real-time strategy game, a decent light-bending puzzle, and a freaking obnoxious and stupid "racing" game.

This hacking game sucks.

You can follow four pathways so, if you're a completionist like me, you can replay the game a few times with a couple of different puzzles scattered throughout.  I really like how the story utterly changed when following each pathway, basic choices to go one of two ways, casting you as a cold-blooded zealot in one and as a forlorn lover in the next, all dependent on the arbitrary decision of whether you go in the vents or take the long way around.  Kinda weird, but, it works fine if you're into Dead Space fiction.  The mini-games start a little confusing, get really fun when you master them, and then kind of boring when you've got to go through them yet again for achievement hunting which, if you don't do, leave you with a 40-minute game.  While Dead Space: Ignition really runs the gamut, I'll fall in the middle of my opinions and give it an OK.

The Walking Dead Episode 3

I love adventure games.  I love zombie games.  Two great tastes that could go great together.  And now, from Telltale Games, comes the adventure game version of The Walking Dead.  Adapted from the comic book (sorry, meh Walking Dead TV show!) The Walking Dead tells the story of convicted murderer Lee and his cadre of the living as they do what they can to survive in the early days of the zombie apocalypse.  This five-episode adventure game recently wrapped up its half-way point and, honestly, unless it poops the bed on the last two, this might be the best game of the year.

Wii U Is Coming!

I reeeeeeeally want to get a Wii U.

Pac-Man Championship Edition DX

The best part of paying the 50 bucks a year for PlayStation Plus service is the plethora of free games that you can download.  Though I came for the Just Cause 2, Infamous 2, and Ratchet and Clank: All 4 One, I figured it wouldn't hurt to fill my PlayStation 3 hard drive with the Pac-Man Championship Edition DX game which I'd seen was good in some magazine or on the Inter-webs.  And that Inter-web was right.

Dead Space iOS

I haven't been the hugest supporter of mobile games, though I have enjoyed my share of them ("Angry Birds", I heart thee).  Add that to being someone who frequently falls down the rabbit hole of franchise churnouts and we lead back to "Dead Space" (or "Dead Space iOS" to prevent confusion with the Xbox 360/PS3 game).  Having two kids leaves me very little time to focus on any given hobby so, sometimes, picking up my phone and plowing through a few minutes of handheld fun is all I can hope for, but can an iPhone game deliver the same scares as its console cousin?

Part of the "Kiss Me, I'm a Mutated Corpse" line.

Well, maybe not scares but it can definitely capture the action and fun weapon grind of the original.  "Dead Space iOS" deals with a saboteur on the Sprawl space station, duped into releasing hordes of necromorphs upon the general population and the attempt to fight them back, and so on, and so forth.  As far as story goes, you're either a "Dead Space" player interested in the Church of Unitology or someone interested in an action/adventure game to play on your phone.  Either way, this is probably worth your time.

While the controls take some time to get used to, given some time any player will be able to figure out the two-finger mechanics, though Dead Space iOS takes more dexterity than the average phone game.  Stick with it and, by the end, you'll be running circles around monsters.  I noticed a weird tendency of my character to do a sort of diagonal run which made navigation during intense battles a bit wonky but never so much that I became frustrated.

If you're here, you're tripping balls.

And that constant push for upgrades is the most enjoyable part of the game.  Much like the original, you'll delight in finding cash or power nodes to fill out the specs of your various tools of dismemberment, fighting a little farther to fill in the maze of incremental improvements until you're ready to decimate every oncomer.  Which leaves many of the battles by the end of the game feeling overly repetitive and far from challenging; as fights become increasingly rote, the shortcomings of the platform and the scope of the game become more and more apparent.  Still, some cool third act story twists and the ease of the final fights make finishing Dead Space iOS a worthwhile way to spend an evening.  It's a fun addition to the Dead Space franchise but only players seeking a slightly more robust game for their phones would consider it Really Good.  For a bonus, play it on the iPad in magnified mode to actually see what you're doing!