With many adventure games, there is always a secondary character that rises up as a shining star to overshadow the main protagonist. Then there are others who through their own bumbling manage to carve an unforgettable niche into the series and become that comedic crutch that supports the plot. Like the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop, you know they’re just around the corner and while enjoying said confectionery treat you wonder how long you’ll have to wait to meet them. Monkey Island has one such character: he goes by the name of Stan and is no longer a stranger as we find him in Tales of Monkey Island 4: The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood.

Tim Shafer has always created great games that are normally critically acclaimed, yet never have any amount of commercial success. Brutal Legend went through a tumultuous sequence of events on its way to release, but throughout the process, looked to be a solid experience. However, some game design elements and repetition seem to take a lot of the fun out of an otherwise, incredible open world experience.
Starting into Brutal Legend, I was poised for a great hack and slash experience, as all of the demos and presentations gamers have received for the game have showed Eddie Riggs, our main protagonist, tearing up beasts. He would do combat with an axe and with the blazing hot strings of his guitar, but never would I have thought I would be playing Command and Conquer lite in Brutal Legend. If you cannot piece together that analogy, it basically means that you will be doing less hacking/slashing and far more building units and commanding them into battle. It is not a flawed system, but it is not what gamers were prepared for walking into this title.

It’s hard to believe that this game can be that good. The gaming press have been all over it, wet-dreaming their way through 10/10s and perfect scores, so when I hit the floor at the Eurogamer Expo in London last week (did I mention how great it was, btw? If you live in the UK and didn’t go this year, you missed out. Seriously), I made a beeline for the dark, tall, hair-clad witch we know and love as Bayonetta to put her through her paces myself as we searched to regain her lost memories and powers …
What struck me first and foremost was that Bayonetta hits the ground running. With an intuitive yet simple combat system, beautiful landscapes, great soundtrack and, of course, our not unappealing heroine, anyone can pick up a controller and get stuck right in – and I do mean anyone. Whilst there’s plenty of combos to be recited, learned and memorised – something you can try whilst hanging around in the loading screen – you can still kick-ass with nonsensical, button-mashing frenzy, too. Other reviews will tell you that there seems to be an infinite amount of combos to discover, and I’m not going to tell you anything different – there is no way the combat system is ever going get old. Add in the extra quick and slow time elements, and you know that no one chapter, no matter how often you replay it, is ever going to give you the same battle twice. The magical elements and special attacks are interesting, engaging and varied. Plentiful enemies keep battles entertaining and spontaneous, and the better you fight, the higher the score, and the better your subsequent rewards. Simple, no?
The Long and Winding Road
If you’re not familiar with Harmonix’s work on the Guitar Hero franchise and its various branchings, here’s a quick primer. Harmonix had a runaway hit with their Guitar Hero rhythm game which featured a special guitar controller, and it made Activision a great deal of money. The software was made by the rhythm game masters at Harmonix, the guitar was made by peripheral masters RedOctane, and the Guitar Hero brand was owned by publishing master Activision. MTV decided to get in on the action, so they bought Harmonix. In what looked at the time like a panic, Activision bought RedOctane. Most of us wondered what would happen next, now that RedOctane, Harmonix, and Guitar Hero could no longer work together. What happened was Rock Band.
What is it?
The Powermat is an electronic appliance that you set on a surface and plug into the wall, then use to charge your small electronic devices. I spent a lot of time thinking about what to compare it to, and I think I’ve got it: it’s a power strip. Imagine a power strip that doesn’t have any holes in it, but is capable of charging up to four of your devices simultaneously without using their charging cables.
That’s right, it doesn’t use the charging cables. This sucker is wireless. Well, sort of. There’s the wire that plugs it into the wall, of course. And if you don’t pick up a custom receiver for each of your devices, you’re still going to need to connect the universal receiver (called a Powercube) that comes with the Mat to your non Powermat-enabled device, using one of the many adapter tips, to the device using a wire. The reasons you’d do it this way are pretty compelling, and I’ll get to that.
Powermat sent along two of their Powermat devices and three of their dedicated receivers for me to try out, so I’m going to take you through exactly what these are and why you might consider picking them up.

After playing through Dreamkiller, I spent a week trying to put together the review for the game. It is not like I hated the game, or overly liked the game, but it was more about me trying to place the game in a proper context. Some will enjoy it, and some will hate it, but it does carve out a niche of its own, but only if you look at it as a throwback title to the FPS games of 5-10 years ago.
If you’ve poisoned your ears by listening to me rant on the Aeropodcast, you may be aware that I am not a big fan of the current state of iPhone gaming. Compared to the lengthy, polished productions I’m enjoyed on my Nintendo handhelds for years, the entire iPhone game library comes off as one of the those gimpy 100-in-1 LCD junk gadgets to me.
But that’s not to say that there’s no good games among all the $1 farting apps and weird ports of Pac-Man.
For more than a few weeks I’ve been playing a pre-release review copy of bitFLIP. The fact that I have been coming back to it every couple days – another iPhone puzzle game in an endless sea of iPhone puzzle games – means I like what I see.
bitFLIP is more or less an amped up Panel de Pon. You have a playfield with 25 circular “BITS” in multiple colors and shape icons. You have to swipe with your finger to line up three in a row, using a two-BIT cursor that should look familiar to Tetris Attack players. When three or more BITS line up, they pop into points. More BITS fall down onto the grid, creating stacks that must be cleared out before they get too high. Depending on your game mode, you can play for three minutes or you can run an endless game that can last for weeks and generate a truly ludicrous high score (which is mainly what I have been doing.)

Defense Grid: The Awakening Review (Xbox 360 Arcade)
It seems like Tower Defense games are all the rage these days, and it is hard to separate one game from the next, unless you get a solid hook for your game. Defense Grid: The Awakening looks to change things up a bit by giving you a vast arsenal to defend your base, while tweaking the formula and location for a fun experience.
Since its inception, the Monkey Island series garnered cult classic status through its pop culture poking, satire of adventure games, and written-while-intoxicated-on-grog storylines. Mixed into this are secrets, curses, pirates, ghosts, and a dash of Caribbean voodoo. And for a garnish, a sprinkling of humor is added that is just a shade below PG-13. This time Telltale Games is the head chef and has managed to brew up a delicious concoction.

The thing that bothers me the most about video games today is that most of the time the parts you want to play are in the cut scenes. Sure they look good, but damn-it I want to play the game not watch it! I am tired of putting down my controller to watch a cool action scene that I have no control over whatsoever. So why am I complaining? Because Uncharted 2 gets as close to letting you play those over the top moments as any game ever has. It blends a good story with some amazing over the top action, which you actually get to play through!