A Critical Hit! – Video Game Reviews

Publisher: Amanita Design / Developer: Amanita Design / Platform: PC

If I were to describe Botanicula — the sort-of spiritual sequel to indie point-and-click puzzle/adventure Machinarium — I’d say it has the strange other-worldly charm of Oddworld, happy nonsense-words music similar to Sigur Ros, and fun but not mind-bendingly difficult puzzles that remind me of playing Pajama Sam as a kid.  Is it actually as good as any of those things?  Yes.  Should you read this review anyway?  I’d like it if you did.

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Publisher: Stegersaurus / Developer: Stegersaurus / Platform: XBLIG

It really feels like something special when you find a game in the Xbox Live Indie Game section that actually feels like it was made by someone who knows a thing or two about videogames.  Like Escape Goat and Lair of the Evildoer, Lots of Guns is a surprisingly fun Indie Game that sells for dirt cheap.

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Publisher: Edmund McMillen / Developer: Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl / Platform: Mac, PC

It seems like Roguelikes are making a comeback.  Dungeons of Dredmoor, 100 Rogues, Legends of Yore and now The Binding of Isaac are all recent examples of additions to the masocore, die-once-and-start-over genre of RPGs that I personally find myself addicted to due to the games’ emphasis on everything being completely random, and the sheer number of things that can go wrong (or in very rare cases, right).

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Publisher: Bounding Box Games / Developer: Bounding Box Games / Platform: XBLIG

You know those physics-based flash games that seem to have grown in popularity for no real reason?  The ones where you control a cannon, or a guy with a bow, or some kind of shooty-thing, and you have to hit a specific target (or targets) by aiming with your mouse?  Star Ninja is kinda like that.  But with an Xbox controller.  And a ninja.

Pirates, too!

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Publisher: Dragoon Entertainment / Developer: Dragoon Entertainment / Platform: PC

You never know what to expect from an indie game.  Most indie developers lack the budget or team needed to make a really well-rounded game, but you can usually tell there was a lot of love for the game itself during development.  Skylight by Dragoon Entertainment is a good example of this.  While it may look cheap on the surface, there’s enough underneath that works surprisingly well to make the game somewhat enjoyable.

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