Category Archives: half-hour review

HALF-HOUR REVIEW – Pushmo

Filling the puzzle void left by polishing off Picross 3D last summer is a little piece of 3DSWare called Pushmo (or Pullmo if you’re from Europe), a game that tasks a young, wobbly Mallo with pushing and pulling colored blocks to rescue children trapped in them. It’s not the most exciting first thirty minutes of a game, with a chunk of it stuck in tutorials, but I can confirm that it gets better.

I’m now on the level two puzzles–I think No. 68 to be exact–and the difficulty has ramped up to the point of stumping me constantly. That’s a good, my dears. Many of the mural puzzles, the ones that look like fruit or animals or famous videogame faces, are actually quite simple, structured to be pleasing to the eyes and nothing more than fluff to the brain. However, a recent viewing of GiantBomb‘s Quick Look for Pushmo forecasts that the size of the puzzle grids are going to get bigger, and bigger, and then bigger again. Whoo boy. Those will be some doozies, for sure.

I’m just pleased to have a time-killer again. Picross 3D was perfect in that if I had five minutes or so between something, like waiting for Tara to get ready, I could do a puzzle. That same theory applies now to Pushmo. I mostly do my puzzling while waiting for artwork to be scanned and Photoshop to open on my slow-as-slow Macbook. If I’m good enough, I can get through two or three before it’s time to get back to making them comics. But yeah, it’s pretty good, and if you have a 3DS, well, it’s a no-brainer to get it, even if you feel like $7.00 is too high a price, it’s not. Not at all.

HALF-HOUR REVIEW – Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker

Attention fans of monsters and monster-collecting!

My review of the first thirty minutes of Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker is now up over at The First Hour. Do check it out, as well as click the link on minute #30 to get the full impact of the loss of my goo friend Blues.

It’s not a terribly long experience, the review, but that has to do with the fact that the game’s opening is basically “run up a mountain and grind monsters to a pulp.” I’ve gone a little further since then, getting a platypunk onto my team and equipping everyone with better weapons; however, still haven’t made it through that cave. I’ll be sure to sing it loud and proud the moment Hodor and Team Dream Beam make it to the mountaintop. Until then, heroes!