Astro Flyer is the first game (I think) from Game Reclaim and quite a good one it is too. It’s a fairly simple game where you have a spaceship and have to weave in 3d through various levels collecting as many stars as you can. Think “Star Fox” on the N64 but not as detailed and without foxes. You use the mouse to weave the ship from side to side and can boost with the mouse button, which is a nice idea.

The graphics are what set this game apart, the  3d effect is really quite slick, although its just scaling a series of movie clips with 3d projection it does really have a good 3d feel, its very similar to missile 3d from DX interactive which came out a while back. The graphics all have a cell shaded appearance which really hangs together nicely, in fact the overall presentation levels are excellent.

The only problem with Astro Flyer as a game as it is a little bit frustrating at times. It’s quite difficult to judge where your ship is in the 3d world. So I often find I’ve moved left and have hit an obstacle which I thought I’d flown past. Game Reclaim has a version on his own site which you can play in full screen, which I found made this less of a problem. I think this is a general problem though with these scaled 3d games, my own game cubex suffers from the same problem.

Anyway overall its a nice bit of technology turned into a slick looking game, which is generally quite fun to play.

Go play Astro Flyer.

Spell Blazer is a new game sponsored by Addictinggames, it’s a kind of fantasy adventure turn based fighting game.

The first thing you notice when loading up is how amazing it looks, the graphics style reminds me very much of all the old lucasfilm point and click adventure games, Monkey Island etc. Its been produced by a professional company www.game-factory.eu so it should be, all their stuff looks utterly amazing. The level of artwork is some of the best I’ve ever seen for a flash game.

So whats the game like, we’ll after you get past the artwork and the intro the game is basically a turn based fighting game rpg. You have to send you character round the board and battle with creatures along the way, its a pretty well done genre but the turn based figting here is really good. Usually on those sort of games I’ left thinking “I just don’t understand how this is a challenge”, as you take a hit, they take a hit etc.  The fighting is all conducted round one of those block based puzzle games, you pick which spells you want to fight with and then you haveto find rows of 3 of more of that spell to cast it. If you find 3 blocks of an opponents spell you can block that spell. You can also set up multiple attacks by careful selection.

Its a game which has been done several time before  and quite well, however having the whole fighting element really adds something,  I’m not generally a fan of their block puzzle games of rpg’s however I played this one on several occasions and for quite a lot time. What really helps is the ai on the puzzle games is spot on, it starts off easy and gradually gets better with better creatures to fight.

I’d say its definitely one of the best games of 2008 so far, combining 2 genres brilliantly and there’s pretty much nothing you can fault about it.

Go play Spellblazer.

Pandemonium is the latest game published by Bubblebox, the plot seems good, you have to regain all the parts to the golden muffin. The game starts with one of the best and slickest intro’s around, a real cinematic masterpiece. Your main character’s a sort of snot coloured gi joe who gets the golden muffin which is then broken into several pieces, your job is to get all the pieces back together.

All sounds great so far and then you get to the actual game, your character is a tiny dot running around a static arena and all you have to do is pick up muffins while avoiding a few other object and falling cubes. Its all a bit of an anti climax after the awesome intro. The other problem is the main character has just a bit too much inertia, and with him being so small it’s very easy to hit the things you are meant to avoid. I found it pretty frustrating to be honest, when you have 2 items only pixels apart with a tiny character you end up just running into all the bad stuff. The levels are all pretty much of a muchness, the backgrounds change but its basically the same game just with different stuff to pick up avoid

Having said that about the game it is beautifully presented, nice instructions and brilliant cut scenes, I just felt the actual game play was a bit repetitive and also rather dull.

Go and play Pandemonium.