The Adventures of Lolo Retro Review: The Blue Puffball On The NES

Back before HAL Laboratory brought us pink puffballs and giant king penguins with hammers, there was a tiny blue ball of puzzle goodness called Lolo. He once quested through fifty levels of puzzles on the NES back in 1989 in “The Adventures of Lolo,” a compilation of sorts that was never released in Japan, as most of its levels were duplicated from the “Eggerland” series. [Continue Reading]

Roogoo: Twisted Towers Review: Peg-In-Hole Gets Complicated

Southpeak Games may be a fairly new player in the video game market, but they aren’t holding back in terms of the uniqueness and quality of their releases. The company has received various levels of acclaim courtesy of their console releases across every genre, including “Two Worlds” and “X-Blades.” Southpeak has also made a name for themselves on the philanthropic side of gaming as well, having given over $12.9 million to the development of independent gaming, and the presentation of it to the mainstream markets. One of those independent companies, Spidermonk Enterainment, received the 2009 Best Puzzler award at this year’s E3, courtesy of 411mania.com, for their recently released Wii title, “Roogoo: Twisted Towers.” [Continue Reading]

Spewer Review: A Nauseatingly Good Puzzler

Recently, the premise of puzzle games has been of two distinct types that I have been able to notice; clearing up shapes and blocks with other similar blocks to gain points with a couple variations to keep things from getting too boring, and where you control a character to move from one area to the other. Outside of a couple of variations and innovative titles like “Puzzle Quest” and “Portal,” the puzzle genre uses those two sub-genres to separate and define themselves. “Spewer” is of the latter sub-genre, and receives a bit more recognition due to the watchful eye of TIGSource and the developer, Edward McMullen, developer of the platformers “Gish,” and the upcoming “Super Meat Boy.”

In “Spewer” you play an adorable pink-and-red blob who must make it to an exit in each level by jumping and dodging spikes. How, you ask? It just so happens that you eat everything you come across, and you can not only projectile vomit and swim in said vomit to cross paths, but you can also eat your own regurgitation to charge your meter. That’s a sight from a video game that won’t leave your mind ever again. Supposedly created by the background scientist who shows up from time to time, the player navigates each level, getting introduced to new gameplay concepts each time. Some examples include the pills which change your colors and allow swimming through spewed clouds, or one that creates solid mass instead, as well as acid which kills you stone dead upon touching it, as well as breaking floors and opening the occasional switch from time to time that liquid is needed to trigger- including your own spewed juices. [Continue Reading]