Auricular Discovery

Easily one of the best $2.50′s I have ever spent. I grabbed this rock-solid PSN-to-PC port during a crazy Steam sale, along with many other great deals a while back. I feel like I’ve played a couple dozen revivals of the Arkanoid/Breakout concept, mostly freeware, and I have to give props here. Shatter is by far the best effort. None of the new mechanics derail the core experience. The whole thing remains very balanced and fun, with every step the developer took forward. It also came with the full Steamworks community support. It’s the total package, as far as time-sink casual games are concerned. Newcomer to game music, Module hits us with a fantastically refreshing trip into a kind of 80′s space synth pop that I can’t get enough of. I’ve listened to this album probably 7 times at work. Definitely in my top 3 soundtracks of 2009! Be sure to check out the official music video for Amethyst Caverns, which was definitely the weirdest track of the set!

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Finished Trine this week. It’s not often we get a 2.5D sidescroller, so I had to check it out. I really don’t have a whole lot to say about it. You’ll have some fun for the first hour dealing with physics-based puzzles but before you know it, you’ll find that there’s little motivation to solve anything  in the intended complex ways. The game leaves itself quite open to exploiting certain elements. For example, anytime there was something out of reach, I would just conjure a plate in mid air with the Wizard and double jump off of it before it fell. I didn’t have the patience to do things carefully, especially when health is plentiful and dying has no real punishment. I also never have any interest in Tolkien-type fantasy, so I skipped past the narration. At least the score was top notch. Crystal Caverns is a really tranquil piece that stuck with me.

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