Legacy User 33013's Reviews

54 public written reviews

The views here are this user’s only and are not representative of Giant Bomb's thoughts and opinions on the discussed video game. GB's official reviews reside at giantbomb.com/reviews.

Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book2015

Feb 17, 2017

I flipped to a new page of my notebook and stared at the screen a while. The latest Request from the Cafe wanted a Puni Missile, so I figured it was a good time to replace my current Puni Missile with something better and sell the old one. I had over 1500 materials stashed, so putting the best traits possible onto it should be a snap. Combining enough materials to make Ultimate Destruction and One-Hit KO traits was…

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Rebel Galaxy2015

Oct 23, 2015

When I finished Rebel Galaxy, I thought, "I'm not quite sure why I played that for 24 hours. The amount of missions is barebones, all the systems felt the same, and combat was simple & easy. I wish there was more meat on it so I could have an excuse to play more." A day later, I relaunched it and happily played it for 3 more hours. Rebel Galaxy gets away with a lot because it nails the emotions of space. Fights are…

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Cradle2015

Aug 10, 2015

Cradle is a game that starts out as a sci-fi mystery and turns into a Buddhist tale. You begin in a Mongolian yurt a half-mile from an abandoned amusement park and miles away from anything else. You have amnesia, so you start by learning about the world from the clippings scattered around the yurt. An inactive robotic "vase" is your only companion at first, so you eventually reactivate her. Then you begin learning…

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The Magic Circle2015

Jul 15, 2015

"Listen, over the course of making this game, we're gonna make... thousands and thousands of decisions... all we can hope for is that we get 70% of them right... if you get really obsessed about each little thing, you're gonna drive yourself nuts." -Dave Lang, Giant Bombcast 03/18/2014 31:10 The Magic Circle is a game about obsession turning from an extension of pleasure into its enemy. Characters are obsessed with…

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Transistor2014

May 21, 2014

"THE HEART OF DRAMA HAS ALWAYS BEEN ROOTED IN CLARITY." -Film Hulk Film Hulk said the above quote while explaining why movies were trading away emotional impact for the appearance of being smart, but it also explains Transistor's biggest problem. The heart of Bastion , Supergiant Games's previous release, was its story. And it was a simple story. There were only 4 major characters, and everything except the true…

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Sang-Froid: Tales of Werewolves2013

Apr 12, 2013

Folktales twist what is familiar into something beautiful & mysterious, a fantastic story that characterizes a place better than reality. This game is a Canadian folktale. It is a tale of the snowy frontier and the brave lumberjacks who lived there, where the Christian god and native spirits coexist, and the Devil's minions are fought off with cunning, traps, and whiskey. Like the best folk tales, it covers familiar…

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Diablo III2012

May 22, 2012

Download Size : ~8.5 GB Hours Played : ~40 Highest Act Reached : Act 3 out of 4, Nightmare difficulty (2nd tier) What I'd Pay : $70 Current Price (5/22/12) : $60 So, amidst all the debate and flame wars about the always-online requirement, the real-money auction house, and there being too many and/or not enough changes to the Diablo 2 formula, how does the latest in Blizzard's series of dungeon crawlers & treasure…

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Analogue: A Hate Story2012

Apr 28, 2012

Download Size : 80 MB Time Played : 1 hr 40 min Logs Unlocked : 63% Ending Received : 1st (out of 5) What I'd Pay : $3 Steam Price (4/29/12) : $10 Reading Feudalistic Emails A colony ship is drifting dead in space, and the only way you can figure out what happened is by going through its text log archives with 2 AIs. What follows is a 2-perspective tale of politics, repression, frustration, and annihilation on a…

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Lone Survivor2012

Apr 25, 2012

Download Size : 105 MB Time Played : 3.7 hrs. Ending : Green Final Grade : C- What I'd Pay : $10 Steam Price (4/25/12) : $10 Day 13. I woke up and turned on the radio. It spat and hiss, then I heard something say in a raspy voice, "We're... waiting... for you..." No idea who, or what. Went to the kitchen, cooked some beans to eat over a gas stove (no electricity), then checked my supplies: 2 flashlight batteries, 1…

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Logic Meets Absurdity

Apr 24, 2012

Download Size : 220 MB Difficulty Level : Easy Time Played : 3 hours What I'd Pay : $10 Steam Price (4/24/12) : $10 This game gets points just for throwing time travel at Sherlock Holmes without him batting an eye. Fantastic beasts, Satanic rituals, freeing ghosts... "There's a logical explanation for everything." I imagine Cthulhu himself could burst from the oceans and Holmes would go, "Hmm, that is fascinating.…

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Noitu Love 2: Devolution2008

Apr 23, 2012

Download Size : 13 MB Time Played : 70 min. Average Stage Grade : C What I'd Pay : $5 Steam Price (4/23/12) : $5 Well, that was a pleasant retro kick. Noitu Love 2 reminded me of playing Gunstar Heroes or Metal Slug , except the hero's a ninja instead of a gunslinger. You've got colorful sprites, tons of enemies exploding majestically, and some of the strangest bosses I've seen in a while. Although it was short, I…

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MacGuffin's Curse2012

Apr 22, 2012

Download Size : 340 MB Time Played : 4 hours 20 min Game Completed : 46% Manual Dexterity Required : None What I'd Pay : $7 Steam Price (4/22/12) : $5 MacGuffin's Curse has too much of a decent thing (puzzles), which gets in the way of enjoying the good stuff it has (writing). While the box-moving puzzles have a bit of a twist to them, the sheer number of them (150+) makes them feel monotonous. Meanwhile, I'm…

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A Slower-Paced MOBA in Space

Apr 18, 2012

Download Size : 1.2GB Hours Played : 3 Matches Played : 6 Unable to Connect : Half of the time What I'd Pay : $7 Steam Price (4/19/12): $10 I wasn't expecting a MOBA -variant when I bought this game, else I might have declined to review it entirely. I've been playing League of Legends for a year and I'm still learning about the game; how could I do a MOBA game justice in a week? Especially when the servers keep…

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Legend of Grimrock2012

Apr 16, 2012

I curled up in the corner of the room and tried to get some sleep. A charging ogre had surprised me while I was refilling my antivenom stores after a spider ambush. The gate I entered through had slammed shut, so I ran for the nearest open gate I saw. I turned the corner just as he smashed into the wall behind me; I promptly whipped around and pulled a chain, shutting the gate. He paced back and forth outside,…

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Avernum: Escape from the Pit2011

Apr 15, 2012

Download Size : 160MB Time Played : 12 hours Game Completed : ~25-33% Estimated Time to Complete : 40-50 hrs. What I'd Pay : $30 Steam Price (4/15/12) : $10 I first played this game 15 years ago, back when it was originally released as Exile . In the time of Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6 , back before Baldur's Gate revitalized the western RPG market, it was a shareware throwback to the early Ultima days: a…

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Lunar Flight2012

Apr 15, 2012

Download Size : 900MB Time Played : 2 hrs. Map Reached : 2nd of 3 What I'd Pay : $5 Steam Price (4/15/12) : $10 You'll see this a lot. I overshot the landing pad, sending my module careening out of control into the lunar dirt. Again. *BOOM* Another 4 minutes of careful maneuvering and delicate course correction down the drain. I hit the Reset button. The game deducted another $3500 from my account for the crash,…

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Scarygirl2009

Apr 15, 2012

Download Size : 1.2GB Time Played : 3.5 hrs. Levels Finished : 14/21 What I'd Pay : $5 Steam Price (4/15/12): $10 If only Scarygirl's gameplay matched the stylistic prowess shown. The dark, cartoony graphics are the first thing that comes to mind about this game, and they certainly stand out, but everything else in this game falls too short of the mark for the graphics to prop it up. For example, the second thing I…

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Shoot Many Robots2012

Apr 8, 2012

Download Size : 1 GB Hours Played : 4 Regions Finished : 6/14 (Normal mode cleared) Favorite Item : Gnoming Missile Launcher What I'd Pay : $20 Steam Price (4/8/12) : $10 Shoot Many Robots , like its redneck protagonist, is stupid, goofy, and more fun than it has any right to be. On paper, its premise seems boring: run and jump through a level and shoot many robots to earn nuts to buy better guns & pants to shoot…

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Hack, Slash, Loot2012

Apr 8, 2012

Download Size : 9 MB Time Played : 4 hours Monsters Killed : 447 Number of Deaths : 15 Wins : 0 What I'd Pay : $5 Steam Price (4/8/12) : $7 This is possibly the simplest Rogue -like game I've played, yet it still feels as difficult (if not more so) than the likes of Nethack and Dungeons of Dredmor . Unfortunately, this doesn't feel like "dying because you were stupid", but more like "dying because the Random Number…

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I Spent $10 on THIS?!

Apr 8, 2012

Download Size : 340 MB Time Played : 10 min. What I'd Pay : $0 Steam Price (4/8/12): $10 A disappointment. An utter, utter disappointment. From the name, I was expecting some interesting 3D take on a Match-3 puzzler. Instead, I got 6 mundane variants on Match 3 with an annoyingly enthusiastic announcer attached to a tech demo to justify the $10 cost. Let's talk about the tech first, since even the game's title…

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Ys: The Oath in Felghana2005

Apr 1, 2012

Download Size : 1.3 GB Time Played : 7.4 hours Levels Completed : 3 / 5 What I'd Pay : $20 Steam Price (4/1/12) : $15 Over a decade ago, I bought the official Nintendo Power Super NES game guide. One of the games covered in it was Wanderers from Ys . It looked good, I was hungry for an action RPG, and it was available at my local game rental store. I rented it, took it home, popped it in... and quit after about 3…

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A Decent Entry in the Hidden Object Genre

Apr 1, 2012

Download Size : 740 MB Time Played : 4 hrs. What I'd Pay : $10 Steam Price (4/1/12) : $14 The game is afoot! Haunted Houdini combines hidden object pictures and Layton -style puzzles into an adventure game that doesn't strain the brain cells too much, but is still an entertaining way to pass a couple hours. Your paranormal investigator travels from Boston to England to Canada and back again, trying to figure out why…

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Gettysburg: Armored Warfare2012

Apr 1, 2012

Download Size : 4.5 GB Time Played : 90 min. Players Online (Sunday evening after release) : 8 What I'd Pay : $5 Steam Price (4/1/12) : $10 I'd like a wargame set in a alternate steampunk Civil War, but not one this half-baked. Between the janky online play, the stiff (sometimes unworkable) controls, and the vague instructions, it's a struggle to find the fun in this game. Battlefield: The Prequel The game has a…

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Cute Fluff

Apr 1, 2012

Download Size: 400 MB Time Played : 1 hour Missions Completed : 5 / 28 What I'd Pay : $5 Steam Price (4/1/12) : $10 Space Ark combines weird dual-character controls with sickeningly cute graphics to produce a mediocre game. The solar system has been ravaged, so it's up to the Arkonauts to gather DNA and fruit to terraform the fragments back into something livable. Apparently jetpacks look like farting rainbows. The…

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Adam's Venture: Episode One - The Search for the Black Garden2009

Mar 25, 2012

Download Size : 770 MB Time Played : 1 hr. What I'd Pay : $3 Steam Price (3/25/12) : $5 At first, I thought this was just a cheap adventure puzzler imitating Indiana Jones. An archaeologist unearths an ancient chest showing the paths of four rivers which mark the entrance to the Garden of Eden? I could see Indiana Jones doing that; I'd like to see where this leads. It wasn't until a few puzzles and some exploration…

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Utterly Mundane, Utterly Forgettable

Mar 25, 2012

Download Size : 150 MB Time Played : 30 minutes Levels Completed : 33 out of 89 What I'd Pay : $2 Steam Price (3/25/12) : $5 It's a bad sign when you spend your entire time playing a game wishing you were playing other games. Everything in Mutant Storm Reloaded felt so standard, so mindnumbingly boring, I looked at shooters I had labeled "average" with fondness. At least they had some quirk or sense of style that…

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Waveform2012

Mar 25, 2012

Download Size : 840 MB Hours Played : 5.7 Levels from End : 4 What I'd Pay : $15 Steam Price (3/25/12) : $7 The allure of indie games is that, amidst all the derivative shooter and tower defense games, occasionally one appears with little fanfare that utterly blindsides you. They have a crazy idea worth trying and an execution worth playing. For the cost of a dinner out, they can embed themselves in your brain and…

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Cubemen2012

Mar 24, 2012

Download Size : 60 MB Time Played : 30 min. What I'd Pay : $1 Steam Price (3/25/12) : $5 I remember one moment in particular during a Skirmish against the AI. I was advancing my mortarmen into a flanking position against the enemy gunners. One reached his new position, targeted a gunner, and lined up a shot. The shell arced through the air... and crashed harmlessly against the side of the cube he was standing on.…

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My Very First High Score

Mar 24, 2012

Download Size : 100 MB Time Played : 1 hr. What I'd Pay : $3 Steam Price (3/24/12) : $5 Bumbledore indoctrinates our youth to the joys of getting a high score by combining crisp graphics with a simple combo system that rewards you to annihilate as many bugs with as few spells as possible. It's devious, and while it isn't my cup of tea, I must tip my hat to them for providing a gateway drug into other score games…

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Wizorb2011

Mar 20, 2012

Download Size: 250 MB Time Played : 3.7 hrs. Number of Stages: 68+ Average Number of Lives: 13 What I'd Pay : $7 Steam Price (3/20/12): $3 Here's something fun to do with Wizorb: boot it up and wait for someone to walk by. When they ask what you're playing, say you're playing a rare old game on an NES emulator. See if they can tell that you're BSing them. Not only did the creators nail the NES look & sound (while…

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Cargo! The Quest for Gravity2011

Mar 20, 2012

Download Size: 1.7 GB Time Played : 5.4 hrs. Favorite Vehicle: Helicopter Car What I'd Pay : $10 Steam Price (3/20/12): $20 Sheer absurdity can do a lot for a game. It won't jump-start a clunker, but it can allow a mediocre game to skate right into "memorable". Cargo's vehicle-construction gimmick wears thin fast, but its story & atmosphere has enough weird in it to keep you playing to the end. Cargo! is the latest…

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Defenders of Ardania2011

Mar 20, 2012

Download Size: 2 GB Time Played : 7 hrs. Number of Crashes: 3 Length of "3-Minute" Timer in Minotaur Mission: 15-20 minutes Unit Types Available in Campaign: 8 Unit Types Needed to Win Campaign: 3 (usually just 1) What I'd Pay : $5 Steam Price (3/20/12): $15 The Majesty series has a history of trying new mechanics and ending up with decent games from them. Majesty 1 & 2 played like RTSes, but only gave you indirect…

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All Zombies Must Die!2011

Mar 19, 2012

Download Size: 500 MB Time Played : 6 hrs. Favorite Character: Luxo the Alien Number of Areas: 8 What I'd Pay : $5 Steam Price (3/19/12): $10 There's a fine line between a good zombie game and a bad zombie game. All Zombies Must Die! skirts that line without quite crossing it, but reveals some of those key differences just by how close it almost gets it. Let's dig in and make some comparisons. All Zombies Must Die!…

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Containment: The Zombie Puzzler2012

Mar 6, 2012

Time Played : 2 hrs. Time Spent Chatting on Side: 90 min. Game Overs: 1 Manual Dexterity Required: Moderate What I'd Pay : $2 Steam Price (3/6/12): $5 This puzzler was made for zombies: it rewards fast movement and barely acknowledges thoughtful gameplay. The end result? Something that barely registered as a distraction and left me feeling disinterested from beginning to end. Containment follows a group of survivors…

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Luxor Evolved2012

Mar 6, 2012

Download Size: 55 MB Time Played : 3 hrs. Game Overs: 1 Manual Dexterity Required: High What I'd Pay : $12 Steam Price (2/5/12): $10 This is the type of game that makes me wonder if I missed out by not playing its predecessor. What started as a fun shooter turned into a frantic battle for survival as I pulled out every trick in the book to keep the Chain of Doom from reaching my pyramid. Space Egyptian: The Game…

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iBomber Defense Pacific2012

Mar 6, 2012

Download Size: 130 MB Time Played : 5 hrs. Missions Completed: 14/22 Manual Dexterity Needed: None What I'd Pay : $5 Steam Price (3/6/12): $5 If I had to pick an average tower defense game, it'd be this one. Its crisp graphics, good sounds, and competent design (with a few interesting ideas thrown in) show the game's developers were skilled, but it's missing any style or strategy that would really make it stand out…

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Painkiller: Recurring Evil2012

Mar 6, 2012

Download Size: 3 GB Time Played : 5 hrs. Enemies Killed: ~3000 Enemies Stuck Behind Walls: 3 (including final boss) Game Crashes: 1 What I'd Pay : $5 Steam Price (3/6/12): $10 There were 2 bastions of Doom-style FPSes in the early 2000s: Serious Sam and Painkiller . Serious Sam is one of my 3 favorite FPSes of all time (the other 2 are Marathon 2 and UT 2004 ), but I never got around to playing Painkiller. When I…

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Auditorium2009

Mar 6, 2012

Download Size: 42 MB Time Played : 3 hrs. Stages Unlocked: 13/15 Manual Dexterity Needed: None What I'd Pay : $7 Steam Price (3/6/12): $7 Making music with colors is tough, even when you can just convert them by moving the colors over the right spot. Sound abstract? It is. Welcome to one of the most challenging, abstract puzzle games I've played in a while. Your goal is to create a symphony by filling up meters on…

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Really Big Sky2012

Feb 26, 2012

Download Size: 220 MB Time Played : 2 hrs. Last Unlocked Song: Hiding in the Swamp of Freaks with a Toad Named Kieran Psychadelic Insanity: Slowly Increasing What I'd Pay : $5 Steam Price (2/25/12): $10 Shooters need more British narrators. I'm just gonna put that out up front. The deadpan snark of a Brit elaborating on the absurdity on-screen made this game twice as enjoyable. Why is it even off by default? Color…

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Pickers2012

Feb 26, 2012

Download Size: 600 MB Time Played : 8 hrs. Day I Became Top Seller on Normal: 14th day out of 30 Suggested Difficulty: Advanced What I'd Pay : $7 Steam Price (2/26/12): $10 I was not expecting a picture hunt game to be this engaging. When I think of picture hunts, I think of being stuck on a single screen, trying to find the last item of a list of 20, until I crack and click the Hint button in shame. Kudos to…

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1000 Amps2012

Feb 26, 2012

Download Size: 6 MB Time Played : 4 hrs. Manual Dexterity Required: High Time Spent Backtracking: ~45 min. Was Getting 100% Worth It? No What I'd Pay : $5 Steam Price (2/26/12): $5 Imagine Metroid as a puzzle game: dozens of rooms connected by a central hub, some of which you have to solve to proceed, and others you just pass through and solve later once you get the necessary upgrades. That's 1000 Amps in a…

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Dear Esther2012

Feb 15, 2012

Download Size: 1.5 GB Time to Finish: 1 hour, 40 minutes Most Impressive Level: The Caves Price I'd Pay: $5 Steam Price (2/15/12): $10 Like a good horror game, Dear Esther insists upon being played at a certain time: a half-hour before sunset, with the lights dim, when you won't be interrupted for 2 hours. It is for thoughtful times, those periods where you don't feel like doing anything but pondering the path…

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Crazy Machines Elements2011

Feb 11, 2012

Download Size: 256 MB Time Played : 4 hrs. Puzzles Solved: 54/100 Puzzles Solved Using Walkthroughs: 2 What I'd Pay : $5 Steam Price (2/11/12): $10 Price of The Incredible Machine Mega Pack on GOG.com : Also $10 I have fond memories of The Incredible Machine 3 . When I saw this game, I hoped it would fill its footsteps well. It didn't, but I'm not quite sure why. There's a lot in this game they get right, but…

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Scoregasm2011

Feb 11, 2012

Download Size: 70 MB Time Played : 3 hrs. Unsuccessful Attempts on Last Stage: 15-20 What I'd Pay : $7 Steam Price (2/11/12): $10 Demo Available Scoregasm introduces some interesting mechanics, then proceeds shoots itself in the foot with one of them. The dual-joystick controls ala Geometry Wars ? Work well. The path branching based on your success building combos, ala Star Fox 64 ? Also works well. The burst attack…

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Shank 22012

Feb 8, 2012

Time to Finish Campaign : 3 hrs. Deaths during Normal Campaign : 51 Modes Tested: Normal Campaign, First Levels of Survival Modes Not Tested: Hard Campaign, Coop Survival What I'd Pay : $12 Steam Price (2/8/12): $10 The side-scrolling brawler is another genre that has seemingly gone extinct, reduced to re-releases and the occasional Smash Bros. Brawl level. It didn't survive the decline of the arcade well. That's…

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Titan Attacks!2012

Feb 5, 2012

Download Size: 100MB Time Played : 2 hrs. Gave Up On: Lvl 100 boss That One Enemy : That last Divebomber What I'd Pay : $5 Steam Price (2/5/12): $5 Titan Attacks! mashes up a lot of classic shmup elements very well, making for an enjoyable experience up until the final stage. Comparing it to Space Invaders is the easiest reference, but each of the 5 stages adds a different classic to the mix, from Asteroids to…

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Snuggle Truck2011

Feb 5, 2012

Time Played : 1 hr. Courses Unlocked : Easy through Hard (Expert courses unplayed) Major Bugs Encountered: 2 What I'd Pay : $1 Steam Price (2/5/12): $5 Apple Store Price: Free I tried not to hate this game from the start. "Alright, so what if it looks like a port of a Flash game for kids? What if you get this dreadful feeling it's going to be mindnumbingly boring? You knew you'd have games like this when you vowed…

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Pineapple Smash Crew2012

Feb 5, 2012

Time to Finish : 2 hrs. Total Marine Deaths : 23 What I'd Pay : $5 Steam Price (2/5/12): $10 Pineapple Smash Crew is a jaunty retro game about a squad of mercenary marines dying from overwhelming numbers as they clean out derelict spaceships. And explosions. So many explosions. If the Warhammer 40k Imperium wanted to encourage teenagers to sign up for the Guard with a computer game, they'd probably release something…

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