Kinect Adventures is the game that comes with the Kinect Bundle for Xbox 360. Available with just the game and the sensor or bundled with an Xbox 360 S, gamers everywhere helped this product sell out quickly. Steve Balmer of Microsoft recently announced at CES 2011 that nearly 8 million Kinect bundles have sold worldwide. So, with so many copies of Kinect Adventures floating around, just how well does it live up to the hype?

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In case you missed Spike TV’s 2010 Video Game Awards, we’ve got you covered! Check out everything that happened!

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As a Canadian, it only seemed fit that I write about an up-and-coming Canadian indie development company, Xona Games, who will be releasing two new titles this coming week – Decimation X3 and Score Rush!

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Originally from China, Rainblood has been through many patches, translations, and rewrites but it has finally made it’s way to the states. This game has many different aspects that make it appealing to anyone who has a deep love for RPGs and Eastern culture.

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Thanks to my friend Mike, otherwise known as Ognawk, I came across this little gem on The Oatmeal. I can’t stand Justin Bieber, or anything else remotely close to his teenybopper bullshit, so this little game was right up my alley.

By answering a few questions, you are then given the amount of Justin Biebers you would be able to fight, kill, dismember, etc. Should I end up in a burly brawl against many Biebers, take comfort in knowing, dear readers, that I would be able to handle this:

Over the past few days I’ve been looking for some new iPhone games to get, and when scrolling through the recent titles I saw one named Almighty Mr. Ice. When I read the description, it looked like a simple little side-scrolling platformer, and was similar to Mario. I started to become genuinely interested in downloading it until I looked at the screenshots.

In this shot right here, everything looks relatively normal. It almost looks like a scene from Super Mario World on SNES. Pretty appealing, right?

Another normal screenshot. It shows the features of the Ice Shoe, and it’s abilities. Still nothing out of the ordinary.

WHAT IS THIS?!?!? EASY MODE: FOR LADIES AND KIDS? WHY FOR?!? Honestly? Aren’t we past this whole “women can’t play video games” type of mentality? Apparently not!

If the creator of the game simply said that easy game was for casual gamers, or for children, that would be fine… but to single out women as a whole, and apply that to the easy mode is ridiculous. Because of that, I didn’t download the game, an even though there are tons of positive reviews for it in the App Store, I won’t download it. I refuse to support a game that singles out women, and basically saying that women who play video games are so inept that they must resort to gaming on easy modes.

While I am not a fan of exclusive female gaming communities, because I feel that they actually help encourage the division between male and female gamers, I am strongly against discrimination towards female gamers. Every gamer is different. Every gamer has a different skill level. Why can’t we just leave it at that? Why do we have to have these arguments about how women shouldn’t be playing video games, or if they do that they will automatically suck? Sure some female gamers are terrible, but there are some truly awful male gamers out there too. As long as the player is enjoying themselves and having a good time, there should be no problem (but I should clarify that if I am playing a game with a team and there is a weak link, I won’t be too pleased because that holds the rest of the team back).

Anyways, without getting on a crazy soap box, my point to all of this is that it’s sad that there are still biases out there, and it’s a shame because I really wanted to play Almighty Mr. Ice. Now I won’t simply out of principle, and save myself the $1.99.

- Me

Hey there, fellow WOM Bats!  Welcome to another installment in the new World of Meh on-going Mad Lib series!  Yesterday, in the introductory Mad Libs post, Lindsey posted a couple of Mad Libs that I completed.  Now we’ll see just how twisted her own mind is!

How about we start with the tale of legendary American Paul Revere?:

Paul Revere was born in Boston, California, in 1735.  His father taught him to work with metals, and he soon became a fluffy library.  He was a soldier in the French and Chinese War and was at the famous Boston Supermarket Party when Americans dressed as Indians dumped tons of water into the ocean.  On April 18, 1775, Paul Revere waited in Fiji for a signal light from a church tower.  The signal was to be one if by tree, two if by barber.  When he got the message, he mounted his faithful mother and rode off lovingly.  On the way, he kept yelling, “The men are coming!  The men are coming!”  This was the beginning of the American War for Independence from King Ricky Gervais.

After that disturbing tale of strange love between an American legend and his mother, we’ll move on to a Report by a Student Protest Committee:

Fellow Students of Harvard!  We the members of the Students for a Difficult Society are meeting here to decide what action to take about the Dean of Fingers.  He has just fired our friend, Professor Chris, because he wore his penis long, and because he dressed in pants and wore old toes.  Next week, we are going to protest by taking over the tooth building and kidnapping the Assistant Soap.  We also will demand that all students have the right to wear hot hair and squishy beards.  Remember our slogan: “Down with legs.”

Why, yes, I do wear my penis long.  And pants.  I occasionally wear pants.

Tune in next time for more…of whatever the crap this is.

-[insert WOM Bats here]

Get ready for a new, regular feature to World of Meh! Mad Libs!

Weeks ago, Chris and I bought a Mad Libs book at our local Borders. Why? Well, for starters it was on sale for $1.99, and the other reason is because we can. The Mad Libs were fun for us because we would do them in bed before going to sleep, and it also gave us a chance to just be incredibly silly. After we filled up the first book we quickly went back to Borders hoping that the books were still on sale. To our surprise they still were, so to be safe we picked up 4 books.

On a regular basis we will go and post up some of the Mad Libs we’ve done (obviously the better ones because all can’t be winners), and I actually feel kind of sorry for you guys. Get ready for a lot of penis, testicles, boobs, and other filthy things. We are truly sad individuals, but at least we are having fun! (Chris says: Those with delicate sensibilities will be offended.)

To start things off, here is one Chris provided the answers for, which are underlined. The topic is Alexander the Great:

In 356 B.C., Philip of Macedonia, the ruler of a province in northern Greece, became the father of a bouncing baby lamp named Alexander. Alexander’s teacher was Aristotle, the famous rug. When he was 20 years old, his father was murdered by William Shatner, after which he became pen of all Macedonia. In 334, he invaded Persia and defeated Leonard Nimoy at the battle of Vulcan. Later, at Arbela, he won his most important victory, over Darius the Third. This made him Starship Hoogybloog over all Persians. Then he marched to India, and many of his penises died. After that, Alexander began drinking too much urine, and at the age of 33, he died of an infection in the eyelash. His last words are reported to have been, “There are no more pillows to conquer.”

Another one Chris provided answers to was titled How to be a Photographer:

Many massive photographers make big money photographing sausages and beautiful kielbasas. They sell the prints to stiff magazines or to agencies who use them in flagpole advertisements. To be a photographer, you have to have a yardstick camera. You also need a thick meter and filters and a special close-up knob. Then you either hire professional trouser snakes or go out and snap candid pictures of ordinary bananas, But if you want to have a career, you must study very lustfully for at least 69 years.

So there you have it. Two fabulous Mad Libs, one with our first mention of penis, and a second filled with penile innuendos (Chris says: In-YOUR-endos).

….dirty bastard :p

Today I was bored and felt like playing something fun. I remembered some people on Twitter telling me about Steam and how you can download free demos. You guys have probably figured out by now that I love free stuff, so if I could entertain myself and pass the time for free… you bet your sweet ass I was going to.

So I went to the Steam website and came across a demo I found interesting. After I downloaded the necessary stuff, I tried to play that demo and I thought it was crap. I was actually pretty bummed but then I came across a little jewel – Yosumin!

I love puzzle games. When I had a 360, I used to play the hell out of Hexic and loved it. I have Bejewled for my iPhone, I proudly own Super Puzzle Fighter II: Turbo for my PSX, and I cracked out on the Puzzle Kombat mini game for Mortal Kombat: Deception.

Yosumin! is a fantastic puzzle game by Square Enix. I did have my reservations about it since almost everything released by Square, since they merged with Enix, has been subpar. Yosumin! was like a breath of fresh air.

The controls were easy since you just use your mouse, and it wasn’t complicated. The number one thing I hate about PC games is that you use a keyboard instead of a controller or mouse. Yosumin! made sure that I didn’t have to screw around with that mess.

The demo was unfortunately limited to 60 minutes, and I knew that this was the type of game where time just flies. I was given the option to play Yosumin! Adventure or Endless Yosumin!, so I chose Adventure since I was curious as to what the story line would be for this game.

The story was actually pretty cute. Here is the actual description for it:

Once upon a time, deep in the Forest of the Yosumin!, which lies somewhere far away, but not too far from here, there was a shrine decorated with beautiful stained glass.

One night, someone came and took the stained glass, then smashed it into pieces and spread it far and wide over the world.

Work your way through the world of the yosumin in search of the lost pieces of their treasured stained-glass window!

Use the special Treats you earn along the way to help you make your way through the myriad of multifarious levels!

Image Courtesy of Steam and Square Enix

Pretty simple, right? Yes and no actually. The initial stages gave you tips, told you what to do, and I liked that. I didn’t want to have to play a guessing game regarding what I was supposed to do and what not. I wanted instant gratification. Yosumin! gave that to me. Within a matter of seconds I was playing the game like I was an expert at it, but that’s not to say that I didn’t fail a few stages because I did. Two of them actually. I was given the option to continue though, and to start right back at the same stage so that I didn’t have to plow through it all again. I liked that, a lot.

Image Courtesy of Steam and Square Enix

I also liked how each level was different. Since I started at the beginning, each level became more difficult and I loved it. Each level contained at least 5 stages and it didn’t seem like it was too much. Some of the easier stuff just required me to get a certain amount of red, orange, and green yosumin in order to complete that stage. You also had a meter and were timed. If you made large sets, the meter would go back up again.

The sounds were great too. It never became annoying, or too cheesy, nor was it to kiddie for me. I even found myself humming along after a few stages. The songs and sounds would change too when your meter was low which was nice because I hate when you get no warnings in games. It makes them frustrating.

Image Courtesy of Steam and Square Enix

As I progressed, there were more and more things to do in the stages. In some I was required to get a certain amount of glass shards in order to complete it, and in others I had to get a certain color shard in order for the shard to go away.

In the image below, you will see in the lower right hand corner of the board that there is a blue shard. To the left of the board you will see where it tells you how many yosumin and shards you need to get in order to pass the stage. With that particular shard, you had to get yosumin of the same color around it and make either the square or rectangle for it to disappear. If you used a different color the shard would stay and you wouldn’t get credit for it.

Image Courtesy of Steam and Square Enix

Once you completed all of the stages, you were done with that level. I believe I made it through 6 of the 10 levels that were in the demo. After each level was done, you watched a little clip of the glass you saved be put back into the shrine. Some of the pieces I earned started to connect with each other, but it wasn’t enough for me to make anything out. I did see some yosumin in the glass but there wasn’t anything else I could see.

Image Courtesy of Steam and Square Enix

There were a couple times in the game where I was able to make the entire board into a move. When that happened, the board would start to shake a little and then I would hear “YOSUMIN!!!” That move got me mega points so I tried to do it as often as possible.

Image Courtesy of Steam and Square Enix

When my 60 minutes was up, I was completely bummed. I really became enthralled with the game and really wanted to continue playing it. I was surprised to see that you could download the full version of the game for only $9.99 because I consider that a steal. The full version has so many levels and so much more content that I could honestly be here for a long time, boring you all to death with the details.

Out of all of the puzzle games I have played recently, Yosumin! has to be one of the best by far. If we had some sort of a rating system on our blog, I’d give it a 5 out of 5 or whatever. The colors were great, the sounds were great, the gameplay was great… literally my only complaint was that my demo ended. It’s rare for me to come across a game and be able to say that.

So, if you like puzzle games give Yosumin! a try. It’s fantastic and it’s cheap! What more could you want?

I did manage to record some video using the Qik app on my iPhone. It’s not the best in the world, but you can see the gameplay, hear the sounds (and even me humming), and get a feel for it. Enjoy!!

- She Who Has The Last Word