Professor Layton and the Curious Village

This game I actually thought was a joke when I first saw it. I instantly dismissed it as a child's game that I need not waste my time looking into. Or at least that's what I thought until my friend told me it actually was a pretty good game. I laughed because I thought it was a joke, but he was serious. So I have decided to look into this game to see if he was right or just thinking of the wrong game.

The first thing that I found out was that this is actually a japanese series and the curious village is actually the fifth one. That kind of surprised me because this game didn't strike me as a japanese game, much less the fifth one in a series of them. The next thing I saw was that the game has 120 puzzles, and you can download new ones if you wanted. That is rather impressive to me. Also there's a reward system for puzzles, which I think I would like. I'm not sure what it is about reward systems, but I just like to get stuff when doing tasks.

Most game sites gave this game a fantastic rating and after looking at a few the only thing I saw that they said was bad about the game was annoying music. So with that many puzzles and the only thing seeming to be bad about this game is the music (which I can turn down my volume no problem), I don't really see a reason not to get this game and I suppose I should stop judging games by their covers.

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix

Another game I found while buying Puzzle Quest was the second one, Puzzle Quest: Galactrix. I wanted to see if this one was just the same game with a different theme or better so I decided to look up info on it.

This game has a space theme instead of a medieval theme, which I find odd since each of those themes are kind of complete opposites. But in this game there are more differences than I thought there would be. For starters it has a hexagonal shape instead of the standard square. It also brings gravity into play, so when you make a move and there's gravity, the new gems fall straight down into play, but if there isn't gravity, then they fall from the way you made your last move. The RPG elements don't necessarily seem better, but they are just as good. You still have the skill system, but now you also get to mine for materials in which you can use to craft things like ships. Along with this there's also many different races you can interact with.

For some reason there's not as much information on this game, but it seems the game sites are having trouble rating it. One gave it a 5 out of 5, while another gave it a 6.5 out of 10. The one that rated it poorly said that you have to "rely on luck as much as skill and the controls are a bit iffy". I don't really know how the controls to a puzzle game can be very "iffy", but that doesn't seem likely. Although I can understand how you would need to rely on luck. Sometimes you just can't get the right gems. Even though the ratings are split, I'm confident in saying I think that this will be a good game.

Gyromancer

I was looking around on the Xbox Live Arcade after purchasing Puzzle Quest when I saw this game called Gyromancer. It looked kind of the same as Puzzle Quest, but with a different story and look. I decided to look into to see if it was the same kind of Puzzle/RPG as Puzzle Quest, better, or worse.

After looking around on gamespot, I found that it looks like the same basic game, although with some key differences. Instead of fighting with skills, you summon creatures to fight for you. This kind of brings a card game feel to it (gamespot actually said "Puzzle Quest meets Magic: The Gathering). Also, you have to start thinking about your moves because you can't line up gems with the enemy monster or else it will help them, and some gems get locked so you can't move them after awhile of playing.

This game doesn't seem as good on the RPG side as Puzzle Quest because it only mentions leveling up. There is no customizable citadel like in Puzzle Quest, and you can't tame creatures (although you can summon them so I guess that doesn't matter as much). It is also criticized for a poor tutorial and short playthrough, although it has replay value because you can't go into some paths on you first playthrough. So this game doesn't seem quite as good as Puzzle Quest, but it does still look like a good game.

Puzzle Quest

While browsing through puzzle games, I came across another interesting looking game. This one is called Puzzle Quest. What made me interested in this one is that I saw it combined puzzle gameplay with RPG gameplay. Wondering how it managed that, I decided to learn more.

After reading a few descriptions, I found out that this game looks pretty intricate in its RPG half. The puzzle half is essentially bejeweled style in the way that you match up three of the same color tile in a row and they disappear. However, you also get things like mana, money, experience, and damage to your opponents health when you match up three or more in a row. Once you get enough mana, you can use some of your equipped skills with it. You get more skills by leveling up with experience. You can also buy things that will help you out in matches (like a sword that gives you extra damage) and tame some monsters to learn there skills and ride them as mounts. Your tamed creatures go to your citadel, which you can upgrade to make more items and spells with strategic mini games.

This looks like a fantastic mix between a puzzle and RPG, which I didn't even really know was possible. It is extremely more intricate than I thought it would be at first glance with its RPG elements, and got good ratings from many sites and magazines.

Meteos

I was browsing puzzle games for the DS and Meteos caught my eye. I don't know why my eye was attracted to the little blue outline people and blocks rocketing off into space, but it was. Anyway I decided to see what the game was all about because I saw some comments saying it was the best puzzle game ever.

What I found actually interested me. From the pictures I saw it looked just like a standard match the same color puzzle game, but when I saw videos of it, it was actually much different. You have to make rows of three of the same shape and color of objects called meteos to make them turn into rockets which then boost other shapes out of play. It seems the point is to just not let those shapes go to high off the screen.

I also found out that this game has a story, which really is surprising for a puzzle game. It turns out there's this evil planet that is trying to destroy other planets by sending these meteos to the planets it's trying to destroy. These objects put so much weight on the planet that it collapses. However, some people of the worlds find out that if you line three of the meteos up, they ignite and send the blocks back into space.

This game looks much more interesting than your standard puzzle game, and I hope one day I get to play it.

Rogue Warrior

For this journal I'm going to do a game I've heard only bad things about. The game is called Rogue Warrior and what brought it to my attention was that I noticed it got a 2 rating out of 10 on gamespot.com. I have never seen such a low rated game, and I was even more confused by the fact that it was published by Bethesda, who also published The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Fallout 3, which were great games. I wanted to find out why this game had gotten such a bad rating when it had such a great publisher.

Right when I started looking around I found out that the developer of the game was Zombie Studios, which after I looked at the games they had developed I realized why the game might be bad. All the games on their list of what they have developed were games that I hadn't even heard of and if I haven't even heard of a game the chances are it's not that good or else it has a very small fan base.

After looking further, I found out that the game Zombie Studios was making actually got scrapped because Bethesda didn't like what they saw and brought in Rebellion Development to develop it. I looked at a list of games that they developed and saw a few that I recognized but mostly never played. A lot of them were games for the PSP and PS2, and I haven't played many of them. Although the games that I did see and recognize I had never heard anything great about.

What I believe made this game get such horrible ratings is the fact that the developer made mediocre games for PSP and PS2, then jumped to the 360 and failed. One thing this research has taught me is to look into the games developers before buying. It will most likely save me many bad purchases I would otherwise make.

Halo 3: ODST

Halo 3: ODST, as most people know, is the newest Halo game that has come out. I have been curious to see since the trilogy is over if they can continue to pump out good games with this same kind of story, or if Bungie will fail because it's just trying to milk all the money it can from the Halo fanboys.

What I found is that what this game is about is you're an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper that is about to assault a Covenant ship about the city of New Mombasa. When you start to attack, one of the new members on your team changes course to miss the ship and you crash land in the city. You wake up alone and the rest of the game you spend trying to get out of the city to safety. I'm guessing you are also trying to find the new member of your team that changed the path of your vehicle while you were dropping to find out why they did it as well.

The multiplayer was praised for this game because of the new concept it had. It's called firefight and it is you and three other people trying to survive as long as possible against a horde of covenant enemies. That somewhat reminds me of nazi zombies at the end of Call of Duty: World at War (same concept except you're a WWII soldier fighting zombies...that are nazis) which it is my guess that could be where they came up with the idea.

Overall the game got great ratings (just like every halo game). I am starting to wonder, however, if these ratings are because of the space marine story that is Halo, or because they are actually good games. I suppose I will find out when I finally get to play ODST to see if the ratings are based on the gameplay or the name they slapped on it.