Puzzle

Oh Luigi, you’re one of the most famous faces in Nintendo’s cast of characters and yet you remain a perpetual second banana. Sure, you’ve gotten a couple of solo ventures like the disastrous Mario Is Missing (seriously, what were they thinking?) and the underrated Gamecube cult classic Luigi’s Mansion, but you’ve never really been allowed to be the star thanks to the overshadowing princess-saving exploits of your brother. Well,...

Magical Drop V is the latest in a sprawling line of me-too puzzlers that have jumped on the bandwagon over the years. Strangely enough, it's an actual attempt at revival that seems to have come out of nowhere. Magical Drop made quite the splash back in the 90s with its debut on the Neo Geo, and for the better part of that decade made a name for itself...

The Professor Layton series has already carved out a place in handheld gaming as one of the premiere puzzle solving franchises, so the series debuting on 3DS is something special for fans of the genre. Well, I’ve got some good news for those folks who like to give their brain a tickle while doing their gaming. Professor Layton And The Miracle Mask captures everything that devoted fans have come...

If movies have taught me anything it's that children can't be trusted. One minute they're providing naive, heartwarming advice at the climax of a romantic comedy and the next they're pushing their mothers off of balconies, freaking people out by mysteriously repeating "redrum" or, in the case of Lucius' eponymous demon child, systemically murdering everyone they know. Movies are movies, but games treat children a bit differently,...

These Aren't, “Put Peg In Right Hole,” Puzzles. For people who thought the puzzles in the original Legend of Zelda were too difficult to figure out, the Testament of Sherlock Holmes is completely out of your league. The game provides brain busting puzzles within the first half hour of playing the game. While the difficulty of the riddles can be off putting to any player, even a...

Sackboy Returns Sackboy has been busy these last few years. First, in 2008, he battled The Collector and saved the residents of Little Big Planet. In 2009 he trotted the globe recruiting curators for a grand carnival. In 2011 Little Big Planet was again threatened, this time by the nefarious Negativitron and with the help of The Alliance, Sackboy was victorious once again. By now you'd figure...

The concept of the auteur hasn’t fully caught on in videogames yet, but every year seems to bring us closer to an industry influenced less by faceless development teams than by recognizable and distinct individuals. When strong leaders like Suda 51, Hideo Kojima, Ken Levine, Tim Schafer or Fumito Ueda head up a project, players are now able to predict the shape their game will take. Despite the enormous...

Puzzle games usually don't appeal to me, but there was something about Cipher Prime's Splice and its genetic gene separating mechanics, that caught my attention. Graphically, the title adopts an interesting aesthetic by replicating what it might look like to examine genes under a microscope. At first, it's nearly impossible to actually figure out what to do in Splice, even after following the game’s tutorial and messing...

The Stars My DestinationStarDrone Extreme is the kind of game that needs little explanation. It’s a casual, puzzled based game designed to while away the minutes on a commute to work or school. It might not be the sort of thing that’s going to push the Vita to it the edge of its performance envelope, but in many ways, it’s the kind of game that portables were meant to...

I would recommend Vessel not just to anyone who enjoys a more cerebral gaming but to those that enjoy videogames in general. It's that good, and that charming.The debut title and personal brainchild of Strange Loop Games’s John Krajewski , Vessel is the sort of game that only comes along once a year. It’s a 2D side-scrolling Metroidvania adventure that shows off a complex mixture of tight gameplay,...

The Xbox Live Arcade has diversified its offering of casual puzzlers since its inception, adding everything from sudoku, chess, card games, and the bizarre yet wholly addictive budget titles that can’t really be categorized. That’s where The Splatters fits in. It’s a colorful, wacky time that takes some obvious cues from a menagerie of iOS games and puts a new spin on them. If you’ve ever wanted to take...

Katamari Damacy is a video game delicacy. You either love it or hate it. Sometimes you have absolutely no idea how to approach it. And while that may repulse and repel some players, that's always been the reason I've been drawn to it. The Prince's zany missions to roll up as many items as possible to replace the planets his father, the King of All Cosmos, destroyed were delectable,...

Closure is a fantastic, innovative new puzzle game which has been released on the Playstation Network. The game is a deceptive platformer, which is actually quite a nuanced puzzle game which experiments with light, and challenges players to approach the game differently than most puzzle games. Puzzle platformers have a certain formula to them, and it’s with that formula in mind that Eyebrow Interactive has created this...

Lumines Electronic Symphony is a time consuming, perspiration inducing, foot tapping, edgy experience, in your PlaysStation Vita. If you’re looking for an upgrade from the original 2005 Lumines, or just craving an energizing puzzle game, it won’t disappoint. My personal take on this game is, “a nightclub for the puzzle blocks and a pain in my socks.” Lumines is an unending parade of puzzle blocks that the player...

Storm is a challenging new puzzle game which relies upon physics-related problem solving in order to complete each level. The purpose of each level is to move a seed along through the level, starting from a tree, and eventually getting to a dirt patch, where it is planted and a new tree grows from it. The levels are split into four major sections, which are patterned around...

Having grown up a fan of the original Burgertime game for NES, I was understandably excited earlier when it was announced that a newly updated, HD graphics version of the game would be released later in the year. When it finally was available for purchase online, I jumped at the opportunity, excited to play an updated version of what my inner child remembers and considers a classic. Unfortunately, Burgertime:...

In 2008, small-house developers HandCircus released Rolado, a LocoRoco-looking but generally original action puzzle game that was, at the time, a rarity. It was a legitimate iOS game, the first of many, and well ahead of the pack. This year, HandCircus is treading new ground, though mostly new grounds for them. Okabu, a 3D puzzle adventure, is part of PSN’s push for more exclusive titles,...

The initial reaction to Rock of Ages is “Huh...that looks weird.” It's true, of course, it does look weird. Not many games cast you as a giant rock. Fewer still cast you as a giant rock who's been battling with historical figures since the dawn of time. The art is even curbed from these periods, making this one of the more visually eclectic titles of the...

The God Game Returns It’s been years since players were put in the position of a deity responsible for the welfare of a people. For the most part, Peter Molyneux has dominated that landscape, first with the genre defining Populous and then much later with Black & White one of the last of the big, commercial “God Games” to hit the shelves. But leave it to the...