PixlBit

With a bigger budget, 505 could've had a real hit on their hands.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to turn in my gamer card for this one, but Funky Barn is a legitimately fun game. I know it sounds like shovelware garbage, and it does seem like it was built on the budget of such a title, but the farm sim is actually competent in its design, complete with an addictive game loop. Unfortunately the game's low budget is painfully obvious – from the low quality art to the long loading times to the hard freezes, Funky Barn has a healthy dose of anti-funk.

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If you didn't have enough stress at your day job…

If you noticed the developer on Aero Porter, your interest may have immediately piqued. Vivarium, which should be synonymous with Yoot Saito, helmed creation of this second entry in Level5’s Guild01 series. Like his previous works, Seaman and Odama, Aero Porter is an odd beast that’s fascinating in concept, but rather painful in execution. Aero Porter is not fun – but on the other hand, it doesn’t seem like it’s trying to be. Saito pulls no punches; he’s very up front with the fact that you’re going to be running the baggage sorting at an upstart airport and it’s very much your job. And jobs entail work, which is exactly what Aero Porter feels like.

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I feel as if a huge opportunity has been missed.

I’m aware that this is going to sound insane, but I was actually excited to give Wipeout 3 a whirl, despite being a licensed game for one of the more ridiculous shows on television. Inherently the show’s content lends itself to interesting 3D obstacle-based platforming, but more importantly, developer Behavior Interactive is responsible for Doritos Crash Course, which on the surface bears many similarities. Though free and sponsored by Doritos, the game took some serious cues from Donkey Kong Country and made for one of the more interesting platforming experiences to be released in a long while. Unfortunately, Wipeout 3 doesn’t channel that energy and instead provides an occasionally sloppy, mostly boring, licensed game.

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The brightest stars burn out first.

Roughly one year ago, German developer Shin’en released the latest entry in the “Nano” series and what turned out to be the first in the Nano Assault series. Nano Assault Neo recycles some of the content from that release, but removes the Star Fox-like levels and shifts all of the focus to the pure twin-stick shooting levels. This new focus proves to be a big success, but the shortened selection of levels (16, down from 32) leaves something to be desired.

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If an Animus ever comes to exist, I feel bad for the poor guy who has to retread my footsteps through this game.

A full-scale handheld Assassin’s Creed game has been a long time coming. However, the hardware and storage space issues have always been a limitation for Ubisoft to bring such an ambitious game to the space. Thanks to the PlayStation Vita, Ubisoft Sofia was given the green light to move forward, netting Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation. Unfortunately, despite the hardware’s capability, it’s clear this adventure is scaled back in every way imaginable and rife with many of the bugs found in its mainline console brethren.

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