gaming - page 15

You may not need a mouse much these days if you’re rocking a Macbook or Magic Trackpad, but if you do any kind of gaming on your computer, you know a mouse is essential kit.

Pro gamers rely on lag-free, incredibly high-tech controllers and gaming mice, and Steel Series is one of the top contenders in the field. Their series of gaming mice and keyboards are precision engineered to provide whip-fast response to any twitchy input a gamer needs in their chosen gaming environment.

The Steel Series Sensei wireless gaming mouse is an ergonomic marvel with ten buttons, its own software control app and some scary-quick response times.

Despite all that high-tech nonsense, it’s super easy to use and feels good in the hand. Which is important when I’m jacked into an all-night MMO session with 12 of my besties, raiding the lair of whatever monster it is that we’re all trying to kill.

I love this damn mouse more than I can say.

Every once in a while, something drops into the App Store that makes my Grinch heart grow three sizes. So after I take the pills my doctor gave me to keep me from dying when that happens, I spend some time with the game and see if it’s any good. And this one, which a 7-year-old boy designed, is actually pretty fun.

Greedy Ladder is a new free-to-play game in which you play as one of eight boys or girls (the differences are cosmetic) climbing a ridiculously tall ladder in one of six major cities. It’s a racing game: The goal is to reach the top as quickly as possible while eating healthy foods that will speed you up and avoiding junk food and inedible objects that slow you down.

All proceeds from the game go to charity, apparently, so that’s pretty cute, too.

While many are sure to remember the old hit-game Fruit Ninja, not many are still playing it. Though the slicing mania may be on halt in one app, Apple’s current app of the week KingHunt aims to keep you going at it. Claiming to be the next generation of the slicing game genre, slice your way through crazy objects and plenty of fun-filled levels. Do you think you can become the ultimate hunter?

Take a look at the video and see what you think.

Leo’s Fortune is one of the most beautiful iOS games I’ve seen in a while. But beyond its good looks, it also has an intriguing story, fun puzzles, and a ton of personality.

And I could stop right there, but then you wouldn’t hear about the cool physics and simple controls and the fact that the hero is a Star Trek Tribble with eyes like a Muppet and an undeniably amazing moustache.

This game basically has everything.

Bandai Namco’s mid-April press event didn’t have too many surprise announcements or knock-you-on-your heels demonstrations, but one upcoming PC game seems promising. It’s called Rise of Incarnates, a free-to-play, four-player fighting game where you control half of a team of superheroes battling it out in a ruined city.

Last night the app waltzed into my life, a stylish-looking game with head-sure confidence and whip-smart intellect. It didn’t waste any time getting down to business. It needed a thief with nimble fingers, and I was just the gamer for the job.

There are over a million apps in the naked App Store, and Third Eye Crime is one of the stylish ones. It’s a noir-themed stealth action game where you play as a detective with a passion for thievery and a touch of psychic ability.

Magic squares have always vexed me. I understand the concept — arrange a grid of numbers so that the rows and columns add up to predefined values — but actually doing them is beyond me.

So maybe I’m not the best person to review Equilibrium, a new iOS game that is nothing but magic squares for days, but I think I can put my own incompetence aside to recommend it. It has great presentation, a good challenge and is as accessible as can be.

I’m still awful at it, but hey.

Hundreds of new games come out every week in the App Store. A select few are the next must-play title that everyone will be talking about for the foreseeable future. Most of them are perfectly decent but may not receive the attention they deserve. And then you have the third group: games so odd, bizarre, and head-scratching that you’re not sure what to make of or do with them.

They aren’t necessarily bad; they’re just confusing and weird. And worst of all, people may never know that they exist. But that’s why we’re here.

Here are some of the strangest games to drop into the App Store this week, and they’re all weirdo versions of other titles. What you do with this information is between you and your iPhone.

Roll the dice, as many times as you like, and add the results together to create a huge attack number. Use that number (and a ridiculously large sword) to bash in the heads of random dungeon monsters.

Roll a one, though, and your turn is over. This cost-benefit system comes right out of a slot machine in Vegas and it’s got me hooked.

As the game editor here at Cult of Mac, I spend a lot of time with a controller or touch screen in my hand. Of all the fun games out this week on the iPhone and iPad, I’ve got to say, Tiny Dice Dungeon is the one I’ve spent the most time playing.

If I was forced, say, to choose my iOS Game of the Week (and I’m not), I’d pick this one.

Recycling is generally perceived as a good practice to help save the Earth. In the new game Scrap Squad, it’s quite the opposite: You sort and recycle to dominate the world.

Tap and drag bottles, cans, paper and other refuse down a conveyor belt and into corresponding colored robots as fast as you can. Do you think you’re a good enough evil genius to top the high-score charts?

Take a look at the video and see what you think.

David is a brilliant and challenging game about a little square facing off against some giant, cheap-as-hell foes with nothing but a minimalist game version of a slingshot.

You can see what they’re going for here, but it’s more than just David and Goliath; this plucky little game reminded me a lot of Shadow of the Colossus, one of my favorite-ever PlayStation 2 games. It was also about a little guy killing giant things, but unlike that title, which is ambiguous about whether or not you should be destroying these beasts, David is pretty confident that these geometric a-holes gotta die.

And killing them will not be at all easy.

The third episode in acclaimed adventure game The Wolf Among Us has just dropped on Steam, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and iOS, and –if the trailer below is any indication — it’s a doozy. Titled ‘A Crooked Mile,’ the new episode looks to raise the stakes for its main character, the detective in a city full of ex-patriate fairy tale characters.

It looks like Bigby Wolf is really working on the “bad” part of his better known moniker (The Big Bad Wolf) in this video game series based on the Eisner Award-winning Fables graphic novels by Bill Willingham and published by Vertigo Comics.

The trailer (below) is short on details but long on accolades as it shows Bigby tearing through the magical side of New York, dropping the F-bomb and getting very, very angry. Those red eyes aren’t a good sign for anyone.

It’s not uncommon to find yourself in a situation throughout the day when you’re just bored and looking for something to do. New iOS game Spin It will bring a fresh type of gameplay to your device to keep you entertained. Spin colored circles around the screen to match them in sets of three and four. Can you spin your way to the top of the high-score charts?

Take a look at the video and see what you think.

Sinkers has been out for a couple weeks now, but if you haven’t played it yet, you should.

It’s a minimalist puzzle game with two controls: You tap to remove all of the pieces of the same color that are touching, and you swipe up to “sink” the board and fill in the gaps from the pieces you’ve removed.

You have 20 moves to make as many points as you can. And that’s basically all you need to know, other than that this game is worth your time.

If you’ve ever wanted to slash and hack your way around a party full of your friends, now may be the time. Bonsai Slice is a new free-to-play multi-player iPad-only party game that has you using your iPad as a sword, slicing and dicing your way through a bunch of wacky objects. You’ll collect new swords, chase high scores and crazy combos, and compete with your friends in real time and online.

You can even play in single-player mode, but where’s the fun in that?

Check out the video below for a taste of the sword-swinging action.

The app store is notoriously known for having tons of endless runner games. While some developers are sticking to the running genre, others have taken to jumping. The new app Jumping Jaxx is an endless jumper where players must swipe platforms on the screen to keep the character from falling into a giant wave. Dodge piranhas, catch powerful boosts and collect as many flowers as possible to reach a new high-score and purchase upgrades. How high do you think you can help Jumping Jaxx reach?

Take a look at the video to see what you think.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with Burds, and yet I’ve never been so confused about why I continued to play a game.

It’s a little heavy on in-app purchases, but I can ignore those with only a touch of annoyance. And while Burds is shallow, fairly mindless, and dumb, it doesn’t take that long to play.

So I’m a little conflicted.

It’s easy to get a thrill from the action portrayed in the movies. While these characters perform bank heists and other risky situations, these are all far from being like our average days. When the office isn’t giving you a rush, the new app Bike Assault is perfect for you. Tilt your way through traffic shooting an armored truck, and catching as much money as possible, without crashing. Just how much loot will you be able to pick up?

Take a look at the video and see what you think.

Anyone — even a fat plumber — can run around and jump on things. But what if progress depends on being in two places simultaneously? Or three? Or five? Mario can’t even handle that. Unless we’re talking about the Mario vs. Donkey Kong games with all the mini-Marios.

Which we’re not.

Anyway, the hero of Instantion can be all those places. Let’s focus on that. Because it’s a fun game.

Murky water and alligators may not exactly be something you see everyday. While some may live the swamp-life, others can get an entertaining feel of it in the new app Swamp Attack. Protect your home with your trusty weapons, tapping all incoming waves of enemies to progress from level to level. Do you think you can fight off all alligators, raccoons, turtles and more to keep your land safe?

Take a look at the video and see what you think.

If you couldn’t tell by now, I’m a sucker for a good word game, and here’s a new multiplayer offering with an interesting idea behind it.

Catena is all about you and your opponent making a chain of words. One player starts, and then the other has to come up with another word that uses one or more of the last letters of the previous entry. For example, if I played “wholesome,” my opponent could play “somewhat” or “metric” or anything else that continues the chain.

It has a few hiccups along the way, but it’s mostly a good time.

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft came out on iPad this week, and I can’t seem to stop playing it. The amazingly well-balanced digital collectible card battling game has got its hooks in me and won’t let up.

This is the same game as the one that came out on Mac and PC last month, but in an easy to transport and play iPad version. The touch controls are well suited to the gameplay, and you’ll find quite a bit of depth once you figure out the basic card game itself.

I spent a little time recording this free-to-play game and chatting about it in the video below.

Enter another dimension in the new app Unpossible. Dodge all incoming obstacles as you use tilt or touch controls running your way along a 3D pipeline. Avoid hitting obstacles at all costs as speeds increase and obstacles get harder to see. Do you think you can dodge your way to the top of the high-score charts?

Take a look at the video and see what you think.

You can also check out an interview with the developer behind Unpossible here: https://www.cultofmac.com/270311/play-cult-mac-game-developers-conference-liveblog/#liveblog-entry-157439

If you like Threes but wish it was less numbery and more Tetris-like, SideSwype might be for you.

It’s a puzzler in which you, you know, swipe. To the side. And when you do that, you move every block on the board as far as it can go in that direction. So you might want to plan ahead a little.

Your goal is to line up three or more blocks of the same color to clear them, and it throws in some complications and special pieces too because otherwise it would be boring. But luckily, it has those things, and it is not boring.

The Hitman series has always alternated between vicious and silly, with a stern protagonist who will wear any kind of ridiculous costume, from ice-cream man to Mardi Gras costume, in order to murder his target. Hitman GO, a new turn-based puzzle game from Square Enix, doesn’t give you extensive dress-up options, but it is a refreshingly smart take on the series.

Hitman GO sanitizes the series’ violence by turning it into a simulated board game, with a satisfying number of missions and challenge. Presented as a collection of boxed sets with very little background audio, it’s a dramatic departure from the console games’ over-the-shoulder view and stealthy gameplay. You don’t creep in Go, but instead slide your Hitman game piece along grooves in the board, toppling other pieces when their backs are turned.