I came across an interesting puzzle game: Auditorium. It basically is a little flash game…that’s why this is a short review . You can finish the game in 1-2 hours. You have 3 elements in this game. A flow of sparkles, some square areas where you can “score points” when you redirect the flow of sparkles to them with the third element…some resizable modules that you can move around. If you don’t understand what I’m saying just play the game and see for yourself .

The interesting part, that tingled my interest is that when the flow of sparks hits the square areas they produce a sound (piano, drums and others), practically you create “music” with your actions…or I can say you hear pretty things when you advance through the level…That’s why it is called Auditorium. I almost forgot, your goal is to score the maximum amount of points in each square thingie by redirecting the flow accordingly. This is how you advance to the next level.

You can play the game at this link. If you like it maybe you can make a donation to the team. They want to do more with this game. This is what they say : “Want to hear more music, or see the full version on consoles or the iPhone?” It sounds like a good idea to port it on the iPhone… with the touchscreen and all.

If you never played a WW II FPS before or Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare you will find this game great, superb…put here any superlatives that come in your mind. This, not being the case, because I play WW II shooters since Wolfenstein 3D and I played COD 4 too, I’ll not give you this perspective on the game. The important minuses that this game has, are: the same COD 4 game mechanics, the lack of a story and of course…the old, tired WW II setting. Modern Warfare was a breath of fresh air…that’s why it was so appreciated. It’s too bad that World at War won’t get the same attention from the players and critics because it is a really good game if you look at it like a standalone game, and not put it in context. The developers could have put more effort in making the characters in the game more complex. Even Sgt. Reznov and Sgt. Roebuck could have been made a little better. Although their voices are performed by Gary Oldman (Commissioner Gordon from Dark Knight) and Kiefer Sutherland (from 24), it feels like something is missing. You don’t feel any attachment to this characters. It’s not the actors fault, they do a good job…it’s something else I can’t quite put my finger on it. The story…like I said before, kind of doesn’t exist. Practically the game follows Pvt. Miller from the US Army and Dimitry from the Russian Army on two different theaters of war in key moments from their lives and the war at the same time. There is no connection between missions (with some exceptions), this means there is no continuity, maybe that’s why it feels like something is missing or maybe because the game is focused on action too much and you don’t have time to get attached to your companions but on the other hand it gives you a taste of the despair many soldiers probably feel in the heart of the battle. I should probably tell you that the game isn’t a walk in the park, and you will dye a lot, especially if you are not familiar with the game’s mechanics. But at least the game is kind enough to tell you how you died… A grenade killed you…bla bla…I saw this too many times…it even became frustrating and I had to exit the game in the middle of the mission.

Like the previous COD this game gives you a unique perspective on the war, for example you are the gun man in a plane and you have to destroy a Japanese ship convoy or you drive a tank …and this tank has something special..a flamethrower…I bet you never burned before a dozen of Nazis at once. Speaking of flamethrowers, you have the chance of using one on several missions with Pvt. Miller and it’s spectacular, the bayonets are a new addition to the weapons too, harder to use but when you get the chance is ….spectacular.

Compared with Cod 4 and most shooters this game is more bloody, more violent even shocking in some moments. It actually starts with a scene where you and your comrades are being held capture by the Japanese and interrogated. You are tied up in a corner and watch the whole thing… one of your mates spit the interrogator in his face… an unfortunate action…because the Japanese takes his cigar and puts it out in your mate’s eye, after that he commands another guy to … cut his neck with a big knife…which he does….blood all over the wall…you get the picture. This is just one of the very explicit violent scenes. When you get your hands on a heavy machine gun you can dismember or blow the enemy’s heads off. The game is rated M for Mature, so it shouldn’t fall in the wrong hands. It gives you just a glimpse in the atrocities of war. For a video game it’s enough…the next best think is the real deal I guess. Splitting the game in two parts is not a bad idea because the two enemies…the Nazis and the Japanese act very different, giving you an unique experience. I really liked the first mission with Dimitry..it is very atmospheric and reminds me of the movie “Enemy at the Gates” . I’ll let you discover the rest by yourself.

The graphic is good, it’s not Crysis but it looks nice…you saw the screenshots. The sounds are well made, the music stands out. It runs smoothly which for me is very important(I hated Crysis for the slow performance). The multiplayer is very similar to COD 4 which is a really good thing. The maps are big so don’t forget to bring as many friends as you can…or join an internet game. The new addition is the Cooperative mode which allows 4 players to play the single player together…hmm…in that case I guess is not called single player any more. If you finish the game you will be awarded with a bonus mission: Nazi Zombies…which I enjoy very much. This concludes the review, I’ll give the game 8 out of 10.

They are sticky, they are slimy…some say they are even cute…it’s GOO for most of us. Like I promised this is the review for one of the most interesting, captivating and addictive games I played in years. It’s World of Goo. It looks like you don’t need millions and millions of dollars to make a great game and a good idea sometimes is enough. If in this period when Far Cry 2 , Fallout 3 or Red Alert 3 are out I play World of Goo…well…it says enough. This game has all the elements to be great. It’s fun, which is very important for a game and it’s competitive. This two elements are at the basics of all good games and I don’t mean only video games,. It’s a general rule from board games to sports and World of Goo has them both…that’s why it is so awesome.

It basically is a puzzle game based on physics. You start with a certain number of goo balls with which you have too build a structure, like a tower or a bridge to reach your goal. This goal is a little strange, you have to take the remaining goo globes to the pipe…it seems that a goo is fulfilled when it reaches this pipe. This is kind of the story of the game, the journey of Goo around the world, from one pipe to the other. This journey is split in 4 chapters and the epilogue, divided in 48 levels. All the extra goo balls that you take to the destination are sent to World of Goo Corporation, wich is kind of the multiplayer of the game. It is a palce where the players meet over the internet and have to build the biggest tower with their extra goo. The players are represented by clouds with their name, nationality and tower height. In the right top corner is dispalyed the place which you are in real time. This is the competitive part of the game. Now for the fun part. “As the sun set over the last of the hills, one of the Goo Balls seemed to say that life sure seemed like a giant physics simulation, but as he fell into the spiky death pit below, he knew it probably didn’t matter – love the Sign Painter ”. This Sign Painter is a real funny guy. He leaves signs all over the levels with funny and useful …signs. The game has a cartoonish look in a Dr. Seuss-like art style but darker. The soundtrack is real good and combined with the visuals make a very nice, unique, athmosphere. As you advance through the levels they become more and more chalenging. At first you might think that the game is to easy but as you advance you’ll see that you have to use your brain. The best part is that every level has its own distinc personality and you don’t get bored.Fot example in one level you have to rescue the goo from a stomach and help them fly away to the next island…or chapter. The handfull of diferent goo types help too. There are the basic black goo that when you use them, they stick in place, the green goo that you can move after the original placement and can rearenge the structures build with this kind of goo, the yellow ones that stick on every surface, red goo that is flamable or the goo bombs. From the simple idea to lead a bunch of goo balls from point A to the pipe over a dangerous terain 2D Boy managed to create a superb game that I recomend to enyone. One more thing… don’t forget about the gravity. I’ll give it 9 out of 10.

id.

Another thing about the engine is the rain. It is very well maid…first the wind is starting to blow, the clouds are forming and voila you have rain. After the rain the sun is making its appearance and if I mentioned the Sun I should say I saw the best Sunsets and sunrises in a video game…it’s simply beautiful. They captured Africa’s atmosphere quite good.

Enough about the graphics, let me tell you about the gameplay, another very important ingredient. As you know Far Cry’s 2 single player takes place in a 50 square kilometer zone in an unnamed African country that is teared apart by civil war. You’re a mercenary and your mission is to capture and kill the Jackal, the bastard that armed both sides of the conflict, actualy most of the sides in Africa’s conflicts. After you finish the first missions a message that says: The tutorial part is over, the game world is open and your mission is to capture the Jackal, or something like that, apears on the screen. I really liked this, it gives you a lot of freedom. It basically says …Hey buddy you have this huge zone, do whatever you like to finish the game. It’s not quite like that in reallity but it’s close. This freedom is not necessarily a good thing, I’ll tell you later why. You have to do jobs for the different factions in the game, for you’re buddys,some underground missions to get medicine for your malaria … I forgot to say…you have malaria and the simptoms come up in the most inapropiat moments. There are other missions from the weapon dealer, to unlock new weapons…and from the mobile phone antennas in the area… when you go to an antenna between missions your cell rings and a strange voice gives you a target…I don’t want an strange voice to order me around. I’ll give more bad stuff about the game because they are a lot. The most annoying is the repetitive jobs…you basically have to go to an location and kill someone, take an object or destroy something. The long distance between objectives is killing me, mostly because everybody in this country is shooting at you…maybe I have a big target on my ass…I don’t know. It’s a shooter I know…it’s supposed to be like this but I need a reason, maybe it’s not the target on my ass and it’s because I’m wearing a racist T-shirt . I don’t know that because there are no mirrors in the game. In an traditional shooter it works when everyone is shooting at you because usually you’re the intruder in that area, but here I’m a guy in a Jeep on a road in Africa. It’s not enough that at every crossroad they shoot at you…but after you kill everyone in an outpost they respawn almost immediately when you turn your back and make a few steps. It’s like all the enemies have doubles. The producers thought it’s too boring just to go from point a to point b in your car so they implemented a system where every 5 minutes or so you are being ambushed by another car. Again it’s like there is a tracking device o my car, or I drive the only red car in a sea of white cars. When a game wants to be realistic don’t put shit like this in it. There’s the AI too…it’s kind of stupid and buggy. I didn’t saw anything to impress me. When you start a fire near their outpost they don’t try to put it out, they all have eagle eye vision and sometimes they shoot at you but they are facing the wrong way…WTH they shoot bullets out of their buts? It’s hard to make the AI in an open game environment but it could have been better.

Enough about the bad stuff because I don’t want you to remain with the impression that this is a terrible game. This freedom you have in the game has its good parts too, you can complete every mission from any angle you want…kind of hard the stealth approach, cause I didn’t found any silencers for my weapons. When you are almost dead and heal yourself a very cool animation is played where you pull bullets out of your hands, legs, you put your bones back in place or bandage yourself. This gives the combat a very intense feeling…I can’t get enough of it. The weapons have a nice feeling but you have to be careful cause used weapons jam a lot and can even blow in your face. You recognize a used weapon after its look…it is dirty, rusty you get the picture. I really like this details and the game has a lot of them, things that you don’t see in other FPS’s. The day/night cycle is well implemented; if you want time to pass faster you can sleep in your safe house. I almost forgot the sniper rifle. It’s grate…the best feeling of a sniper rifle in a game. It’s really put to a good use in this game, my favorite. The game is very well optimized, it squeezes every drop of performance from your rig, although it has some memory management issues that should be fixed in a patch.

I haven’t had the chance to try the multiplayer but I hear it’s great. The game also has an easy to use level editor that should make this games life much longer.

As you can see the game has its ups and downs but overall it’s a good game, you can get past all the bad things. Nothing compares with an off-road drive through the vegetation with the sunrise in your face and a gazelle or other animal running in front of you. I’ll give it 8 out of 10. It could have been a 10.