PixlBit

Guess what?  Today (September 15) is my birthday!  So you’re all invited to my pretend birthday party right here on my blog!  We’ll do what I always do every year.  Please give me a pretend birthday present in the comments section.  It can be anything you want!  It’s the thought that counts…literally!  I could use some pretend birthday presents because I’m turning 39 this year so I could use some cheering up!  Ha ha!  And if you give me a pretend birthday present, you get a piece of pretend birthday cake!  And since it’s pretend birthday cake, if you eat it, you’ll get super strength and fire breath!  And speaking of presents, I have some gifts for you!  Game reviews recently posted at GamerDad.com!  Yay!  Please read as many as you can and maybe even post a comment or two.  I’d appreciate it.  Thanks!

Paddington: Adventures in London (3DS)

I never really read any of the Paddington Bear books when I was a kid, which is where that character got his start. But when I was little, I do remember seeing lots of Paddington Bear stop-motion animated shorts on TV and on filmstrips at school (I’m really aging myself here). In fact, Paddington had a perchance for eating marmalade sandwiches, and when I was a kid I had never heard of marmalade. So when I saw it at the grocery store when I was little, I convinced my mom to buy some so I could try Paddington’s favorite treat. I learned something that day, marmalade is DISGUSTING! Why couldn’t he have liked pizza instead? Fast forward to earlier this year. A new Paddington Bear movie hit theaters, and I recently saw it on video. It really wasn’t that bad of a movie at all, a very charming family flick that stays true to the source material. And now you can play a game on the 3DS based on Paddington’s adventures.  The game itself really isn’t that good, as would be expected.  I like the idea of playing as Paddington and helping out his friends and family in London by playing mini-games.  But the difficulty is way too hard for the target audience.  Even I had trouble with it! 

But like I said, the new movie that just came out is very charming and if you have kids or are just a fan of Paddington (nothing wrong with that), I recommend watching it.  One cool thing about the movie was that the lady who played the mom (Mrs. Brown), her name is Sally Hawkins (I had to look that up), and she also starred in the recent Godzilla movie.  I just thought that was a funny transition to go from Godzilla to Paddington, so I decided she would be on my favorite actresses list (plus she’s kinda cute).  It’s a good thing that I will never meet any of these celebrities because I’m sure they’ve been in more prestigious roles and here I am remembering them in stupid silly movies.  I bet they wouldn’t like that!

Alphabear (iPad)

And speaking of bears, here is a free-to-play word game for mobile devices.  I usually only review free-to-play games if I get a press release about them and the game interests me, but this one was introduced to me by some of my friends.  For a free game, it’s actually really fun and didn’t have most of the annoyances most freebies have.  So I felt compelled to review it anyway, just to share a good game I discovered.  If you like word games like Scrabble, I highly recommended downloading this one if you can.

Point Blank Adventures (iPad)

When I was reviewing the Katamari comic book, I checked out the iPad store to see if you could still download the Katamari Damacy game on iPad.  Unfortunately, it looks like they took it off.  But I did find a free game from Namco called Point Blank Adventures.  I have a history with the Point Blank series, so I decided to do a quick review.  The Point Blank games were originally silly and cartoony light gun titles for arcade and PSOne, and I loved them.  My brothers and I would play them all the time!  I really wish they would’ve continued the series.  I think they would’ve been a perfect fit on the Wii.  There was one on the DS that used the touch screen to ‘shoot’ targets, but it wasn’t quite as fun.  The iPad version is similar to the DS game in that you use the touch screen again to shoot targets, but it lacks the quirky charm of the previous games.  Plus it gets WAY too hard too quickly, and you must buy power-ups in order to progress.  Definitely a big annoyance I have with free-to-play titles.

Sonic Runners (iPad)

This is a typical free-to-play 2-D continuously running game for mobile devices.  Sonic seems to be a perfect fit for this type of game, and I’m a little surprised that it didn’t happen sooner (I know there was a 3-D one called Sonic Dash).  It’s one of the better runners out there, but you still have to deal with annoyances like in-game purchases and ads.  But at least the character designs are from Sonic Colors and Sonic Lost World, and NOT Sonic Boom.  So no buff Knuckles!

Fruit Attacks (iPad)

Remember how I said I usually only review free-to-play games if I get a press release about it and the game interests me?  Well this is a good example of that.  Funny thing is that they sent me a real life fruit basket to promote the game!  Why would they spend so much money to promote a free-to-play game?  I don’t get it.  The game isn’t very good anyway, just a shooter where you blast alien fruit in UFOs.  It has awkward controls and I think they only gave it that title so it could ride on the coattails of the more popular Fruit Ninja games.

Pixels Defense (iPad)

I thought a game that has Pac-Man, Centipede, and Galaga in it would be iconic.  But like the bad movie, this game is just a tired tower defense game that’s not very good.  I was surprised that a free-to-play game didn’t have any ads in it, but then I noticed that every level has a Dave & Busters building in it.  I wonder how the real creator of Pac-Man, Toru Iwatani, feels about having someone play as him in a movie, and he’s also playable in the game, too!

Wind-Up Knight 2 (Wii U)

And last is this continuously running game on Wii U.  You play as a knight and must use your sword and shield and jumping ability to avoid, block, and slash obstacles.  It has a bit of humor in it, but other than that it’s rather forgettable.  I never even heard of Wind-Up Knight 1.

Conclusions

And that’s all for now!  Thanks for coming to my pretend birthday party and giving me pretend presents!  And thanks for reading and commenting on my reviews and blogs.  That really makes my day when you all do that!  Next time on my blog, we’re going to take a look at my favorite D.I.Y. games, in honor of the recent release of Super Mario Maker!  Later!  --Cary