PixlBit

Cut the grass or die.

It’s getting late again, and not to mention, cold. I’m doing my best not to head farther east to satisfy my curiosity about that peninsula, and I’ve got to resist or I’m going to die – again. I’m hoping to make it through the winter. With what I’ve learned from the last few times I’ve survived that long there is a chance I might make it, but then I find an entirely new way to screw it up – again. And so it goes over and over, slowly learning, slowly progressing, slowly making it through another day all to fail and start back at the beginning – again. Somehow, the repetitive advancement through the generated worlds of Don’t Starve stays engaging and challenging for quite a while, until you will inevitably be unable to force yourself to toil through the opening days – again.

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Rise from your grave! And embark on a mediocre adventure!

Altered Beast was Sega’s showcase game for the Genesis debut, doing its best to attract extreme-minded 90s teens with its muscular protagonist who could transform into kick-ass werewolves and dragons. Although I was smack dab in the middle of the game’s focus group at the time, I was dorkier than Sega ever imagined and wasn’t interested in the least. With M2’s 3D conversion of Altered Beast hitting the 3DS, I figured it deserved another chance, and boy am I completely indifferent about my experience.

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Our staff's best games of 2013!

Video games had an exceptional year in 2013, with tiny indie teams getting attention for their creativity, and the usual budget behemoths stealing national headlines for their record-breaking sales. Two new consoles also hit the scene right at the end with a few titles that did their best to break into our top five.

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A collision of great concepts that just works.

Why in the world I keep getting suckered into buying retro-styled arcade game mash-ups is beyond me, but Nimble Quest is just going to encourage me to do it more. Mixing together the basic idea of Snake or Tron’s Light Cycles, adding a combat element,  and layering on a leveling-up mechanic got me pretty hooked on this little game originally designed for mobile devices. Nimble Quest fares well in its transition from mobile to PC (unlike a lot of titles) and it’s well worth the low price to have something on your desktop for an occasional attempt at a new high score.

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Time to replace that 72-pin connector.

If you’ve still got an NES kicking around your entertainment center, chances are it’s been a long time since it’s had a brand new cartridge popped in. Lucky for you and your forlorn, reliable console, there’s a fresh game slated for release early next year. Although there have been a smattering of games released for the NES recently, Armed for Battle is pretty unique. Not only was the project put together by a solitary programmer, but Frank Westphal is giving us something the king of ‘80s consoles never had before: a real time strategy game. Frank was nice enough to take some questions about his development process, his game, and what he expects from Armed for Battle.  Budding homebrew developers and fans of the NES will learn a lot from my conversation with Frank.

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