And here comes Santa, here comes santa, in this flash tower defence game! Here comes santa!  Well not really.  It is santa’s evil brother, or that is what they want you to think!

http://www.addictinggames.com/flashempires2.html

This game is like Flash Empires but less complicated and bulky!  You also are trying to kill little elves and other randomness.  The game is cute!  You should play it… lets get down to the differnt towers there are!

Candy Cane Tower:  Cost 300 – Shoots candy canes at your enemies

Ginger Bread Tower – Cost 500 – Shoots ginger bread men at your enemies

Present Bomb  Tower – Cost 1000 – Shoots out presents with hidden bombs inside.

Tree Tower – Cost 700 – Strong tree tower that shoots out ornaments

Ice Canes – Cost 400 – Freezes your north pole’s candy canes so that when they hit an enemy, the enemy slows down

Uber Tower – Cost 4000 – This tower will slaughter anyone who comes near with a VERY fast fire rate

Well first off, I would like to state that I played this game at work so I did not have a chance to beat it.  I know…I know…I hate writing reviews without beating the game first.  This is rare

I would like to state my disappointment with the uber tower.  By description, it makes you believe that you place it down and it will do mass damage and no one can touch it!  I built up enough money for it, built it in a area where a lot of enemies are and watched it fall within 2 seconds.  Much crying occured! 

Also note that there is a little arrow at the bottom of the screen to allow you to switch between towers, troops and Misc.

Troops

Rudolph – Cost 250 – Guard elf armed with a candy spear.  Riding rudolph.

Toy Elf – Cost 50 – An elf spends much of his time making toys and isn’t very well combat oriented

Bow elf – Cost 100 – Elf that has been highly trained with a bow.

Guard Elf – Cost 150 – Elf that has been minimally trained for combat situations.

Santa – Cost 1500 – The pwner of all pwners.  The bruceless of all fighters.  This guy owns.

Ginger bread man – cost 250 – A very strong home made treat that can pound through the enemies

The only person I found worth investing in is santa.  He truely does kick ass. 

MISC – Self explainitory…

The game is fun and worth a play.  If you liked Flash Empires, you will like this game.  It is done a little bit better and more organized.  Game is a 8 and replay value is a 7.  Get playing guys!

Hot Shots Golf has been one of the best golf franchises on the Playstation, and the newest incarnation continues that tradition.  It won’t be released in the United States until sometime in 2008, but thanks to the lack of region encoding on the Playstation 3, there’s no longer a need to wait.  The name in Japanese translates to “Everybody’s Golf”, and there’s been hints that the game may be released in the US as “Everybody’s Golf 5″ instead of “Hot Shots Golf 5″.

The defining characteristic of this game, and what makes it so much fun, is twofold.  First, the physics are very precise and predictable.  If the ball doesn’t go where you think it should have gone, there’s a reason for it, and it’s usually immediately obvious.  Oh, I forgot to take into account my lie, or the wind, or the fact that the green is 25 feet lower than the tee.  It’s math, pure and simple.  The second part is that aside from the seriousness with which they made the physics engine, there’s nothing else about this game that’s serious.  The characters are comical, both the golfers and the caddies, and the ball bursts into flames in the air when you hit it with perfect impact.

Minna no Golf 5 is a step in the same direction as Hot Shots Golf FORE (PS2) and Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee (PSP).  As in previous editions, you step your way through challenges, increasing your ranking and unlocking more challeges.  Most of these challenges are a 30-player tournament (you + 29 computers) along 9 holes, and eventually 18 holes.  Each rank has a head-to-head challenge with a different character, though, the prize of which is unlocking that character for your use.

The biggest change to gameplay with this version is the upgrade to the swing meter.  You can use the swing meter in its classic mode, in which nothing is changed, or you can use the new mode which does away with this meter.  Instead, you look at the actual backswing of the character.  You have to tap the button to start the swing, then again at the top of the swing (marked by a red glow) and then again when the swing reaches the bottom.  There are a couple of visual cues which make this process really intuitive, and overall it works really well.  When putting, a holographic ball extends out ahead of you to show how far the shot power will take the ball.  These two simple changes are both steps up, and it was nice that they didn’t mess too much with something that has always worked well.

Hot Shots Golf: FORE (PS2) had a basic and fun online mode where you can play in tournaments with other players.  All of you golf each hole simultaneously, and then return to a lobby to wait for the others to finish where you get a one-line chat interface built-into the scoreboard.  This is essentially unchanged in Minna no Golf 5 except that you can see the other players golfing with you as silhouettes while you go through the hole.  This is quite fun.  Also, there is a lobby where you have an avatar you can walk around with, and you unlock new clothes and accessories for your avatar.  There are also scheduled major tournaments at certain times, and you can enter them and get ranked.  This is quite enjoyable, works well, and is quite Japanese.  I will be curious to see how this is implemented in the American version, or if they decide to change it.

Overall, I’m very happy with this game.  The most important thing is that it’s faithful to the series, which I have always gotten lots of play time out of.  The upgrades they made were all succinct and meaningful, and really add to the game without detracting from what has always been the core fun element of the game.  Good job!

I highly recommend this game!  Import it from Japan if you’re feeling adventurous, or wait six months or so until it comes out here.  It’s also planned for a December 2007 release as a demo in the Playstation Store, so look for that.

It’s funny how meaningless Fridays are now.  It used to be that exciting day preceeding two days off, two days where you get to do what you want to do for a change.  But now, that’s everyday, and I choose to spend all of them working.  So Saturday and Sunday now mean the same thing as everyday: freedom.  (on the flip-side, Mondays look a lot better than they used to)
Of course, this Friday is a bit more special than most.  It’s my five-month anniversary with my wife.  Even though she doesn’t read this blog, Happy Anniversary, honey.   I never got so lucky as I did on the day she married me.

So I am writing this while driving so hopefully I won’t kill anyone
This morning was a perfect drive….I had no traffic on 84 AT ALL! No traffic on the gps blip! And then…

Boop boop!

Traffic on 684! 31 minutes

what?
What happened to the no traffic day?
Welcome to the gridlock!

And the next game on the revie block is……..LAST REQUESTS!!!! As always, here is the link to play!

http://www.addictinggames.com/lastrequests.html

This is a slightly morbid game involving a mad scientist who is on his death bed.  He requested the help of his friend, you (I don’t remember being a friend of a mad scientist but lets go with it….I mean the man is dying afterall!) and he asks you random questions wants you to find responses for it.  If you get it right, you get rewarded!  GREAT!  I love rewards from mad scientists….maybe it is money! Maybe it is the cure for cancer!!!  Maybe it is a book he wrote about the questions he asked you?  Oh the possibilities!

Anyways, I was kind enough to write down the questions and the way to get the answers from the time I gave the game a whirl.  Now I did play one more time and it was a different question so you may not get these questions!  The game is simple though, I think we can all figure it out!

was the first man on the moon real or fake
Go to the library and find a book
the page is missing with a rotton smear…
go to the dump
You find the answer to the question which is real
Go to hospital

Do boulders fall faster or slower than feathers?
Go to the library
there is blood on the page – go to the butcher
answer is faster
go the the hospital

will xenonphobia always be a problem
go to the library – the page has a spaghetti stain
go to the italian restaurant – answer yes
go to the hospital

And that’s the game!  It was amusing to play but I would of liked more questions and made finding them harder…replay value is low but if you have 10 minutes to kill, give it a whirl!  Perhaps even play it at work!  As long as you mute the volume, it would be a great game to play.  There is not a lot of work involved and it waits for you while doing other things!