Back when I collected comic books, I lived in the Marvel Universe. Why?  read more »

Ever play a game called Pipe Mania many moons ago?  I think Tonya had it on her Macintosh when we first started dating.  It was a nice distraction of a game that required puzzle solving while under the gun.  The object was to connect a certain number of randomly assigned pipes together in order to control the flow of slime/ooze/sludge or whatever it was called from an inlet to an outlet.  Racing the clock meant trying to com  read more »

Let me state first and foremost that 7-year-old, Nikolai, and I have never played a Legend of Spyro game.  Although we are familiar with the Purple Dragon, having seen the commercials for his various game-playing incarnations over the years, we have never championed his battle against evil.  So we were novices to the world of Spyro when we were asked to review The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragons for the Sony PS3.  read more »

I have to give it to the advertisers, they new exactly how to go after my 4-year-old, Caleb.  No sooner had the commercial for the new Air Hogs RC Zero Gravity Micro ended when he said, “we need that!”  After a lesson in differences between ‘need’ and ‘want’, I convinced Caleb the best thing he could do was put it on his Santa Wish List.  A few weeks later, and he and I were putting a review unit through i  read more »

You know, after a hard, frustrating day of work, traffic, etc., sometimes you just want to come home and play a game involving physics, rotational motion, and orbital mechanics. Am I right?

Oddly enough, yes. It's perfect.  read more »

My Pokémon Ranch is a... well... game?

Hurm. Not exactly. My Pokémon Ranch allows you to take your Mii's and "Mii-d" Pokémon, place them together in an enclosed space, and sit back and watch as the fun ensues. And it really does, but it's more from watching the interaction of Pokémon and Mii Ranchers with each other and with the provided props than from anything else. Everyone in my house is at least a passing fan of the Pokémon games, and each of us get some enjoyment out of this game.  read more »

I've been an AC/DC fan since Junior High, but I was frankly surprised by the "T" rating on this game. (I expected "M".) AC/DC is not known for family-friendly lyrics. We'll take a look for songs for the whole family below, but know that this game is really intended for teens or (I might argue) adults, not younger. (I've emphasized before that playing only drums and guitar and skipping the mic will reduce the impact of some songs' lyrics.)  read more »

Harmonix has released another collection of tracks for Rock Band while we wait for Rock Band 2's ever-delayed release. Again, it's the same game with just a new set of 20 tracks. There's nothing really new here besides new music, but if you've been playing a lot of Rock Band, you're likely anxious for a new set of tunes to wrap your fingers around. And nothing new isn't necessarily a bad thing--we weren't expecting new from this round, and it wasn't broken.  read more »