Blade Kitten screenshot

Major videogame producer Atari have announced the upcoming European launch of Blade Kitten, the game based on the  comic book series by creator Steve Stamatiadis.

Developed by Krome Studios, Blade Kitten brings the world of bounty hunter Kit Ballard to life and will launch this September on Xbox LIVE Arcade for Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation Network, and Windows PC Download.

Blade Kitten marks the latest creation by Mr. Stamatiadis, the force behind the multi-million selling TY the Tasmanian Tiger series. In Blade Kitten, a prequel to the comics set three years prior; players are invited into the world of Hollow Wish where they take on the role of Kit Ballard, one of the best bounty hunters in the business.

With her pink hair and tail, Kit is part cat, part girl – and fully lethal.  As one of the last of her species, Kit commands her unique ‘Darque Blade’ hovering sword to defeat enemies.  Also along for the ride is Skiffy, Kit’s laid-back sidekick who lends a hand in collecting items, solving puzzles, and when needed, serves as Kit’s protector.

Blade Kitten goes beyond most downloadable titles to deliver a strong narrative, with high-quality cinematics, and a colourful, frenetic visual style, that lends to the pick-up-and-play arcade action.  Players will jump right in and easily begin exploring and fighting their way through 19 levels, including three exploration levels with Noot (a rideable alien mount).  Blade Kitten also features innovative gameplay mechanics, intuitive ’scramble style’ exploration, fully voiced dialogue, dramatic narrative and a powerful distinct anime-inspired visual direction.

John Burns, Vice President and General Manager for Atari Europe, said;

“We are pleased to announce the upcoming launch of Blade Kitten for Xbox LIVE Arcade, Playstation®Network and PC Download. With its colourful anime inspired universe, simple pick up and play arcade action and intuitive scramble style exploration Blade Kitten is destined to become one of the hot digital releases of 2010.”

For further information visit the Blade Kitten website.

Heavy Weapon

Heavy Weapon is a 2-D shoot-em-up game from PopCap that over two years ago was released on Xbox Live. The game has recently been released on the PS3 as a Playstation Network (PSN) game.

The game consists of 19 missions that you must complete. You can either do this solo or with a friend.

As you progress through the levels you can upgrade your tank in various ways. Once you have completed the level you get one point to spend on upgrades in the armoury. You have the choice of upgrading your defence or attack. I can assume everyone will go for the second option by purchasing Homing Missiles, a Laser, Rockets, a Flak Cannon or Thunderstrike.

There are three different game modes. These are:

Heavy Weapon – Mission Mode
This can only be played offline and can be played as a one or two player game. In this Mission Mode you must reach the end of each level by destroying the enemy forces and their boss with only three lives.

Heavy Weapon – Survival Mode
Survival Mode is where you have to stay alive for as long as possible whilst battling with the enemy forces. This game mode can be played online or offline with up to four players as you battle for the highest score. Playing Heavy Weapon in Survival Mode gives you the option of playing either a War Party or an Arms Race. War Party allows you to keep ‘re-spawning’ as long as someone in your team is still alive.  Whereas the Arms Race game mode only gives you three lives each.

Heavy Weapon – Boss Blitz Mode
The Boss Blitz Mode is where you battle every single boss from the game one at a time in the biggest battle. You will need to complete all missions to unlock this mode.

Another feature of the game is that it has both online and offline multiplayer. As I previously said you can play Survival Mode and Mission Mode in offline multiplayer, but you can also play levels online with up to four friends, playing either War Party or Arms Race. It allows you to invite friends to join the game as well.

Heavy Weapon features a collection of 13 trophies; some of which are very easy, while others can be quite challenging.

Overall the game creates a high level of excitement as you battle your way through whilst avoiding all bullets and fighting for survival as you play single or multiplayer.

Buzzin Games rating: 72%

Battlefield 1943

Battlefield 1943 is a new online multiplayer game released for the PS3 and Xbox 360 through Xbox Live and PSN.

Battlefield 1943 adds to the collection of Battlefield games which includes Battlefield 1942, Battlefield 2142 and Battlefield: Bad Company which was released last year.

Battlefield 1943 allows up to 24 players to play online in one match. From the title screen you are allowed to enter a match through; quick match (places you in a random game), Private match (create your own game and invite friends to join you) or Battlefield 1943 is built around the same online game play and style as Bad Company with a few adjustments. It uses the same scoring system as bad company, but a new style is added including fantastic graphics and beautifully designed surroundings.

Battlefield 1943 screenshot

Whilst playing you are either USA or Japan.

The only game mode you can play is conquest the idea of the game is to capture and hold the majority of the flags; there are five flags on each map. Capturing flags gives your team a new spawn point with vehicles so you can travel to other parts of the map.

Capturing flags also gives you points which contribute to your overall score. In order to win the game the opposing team must run out of reinforcement tickets. The amount of reinforcement tickets available for both teams are indicated by the two bars at the top of the screen every time a killed soldier “respawns” , one of the tickets are used. Another way to lower the amount of reinforcement tickets the enemy has to capture and hold three or more bases in the game.

There are three maps available to be used in the conquest game mode, these include: Wake Island, Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal. On each of these maps there are cars, tanks, boats and planes. These vehicles can all aid you in capturing flags as they provide a faster transport than running or swimming. Cars can hold up to three players, tanks can hold two, boats can hold five and a plane can only take one. When in a plane you can voyage all over the island (, don’t go into trees or buildings as you will die losing ten points for suicide). Planes can drop bombs and you can use two guns. If you want to get out of the vehicle you can jump or you can use a parachute to get to the ground safely.

Now we move onto Battlefield 1943 weapons.

You choose one weapon class at the start of a match and every time you die and then respawn you can choose again. Enemies drop a bag when killed, and it stays there for a while, if you want to you can pick up this bag and your weapon class changes to what the enemy had. In the game you have an unlimited supply of ammo which is a very helpful feature, for secondary weapons you must wait a few seconds though.

In the game there are three weapon classes which you can choose from, they are; Rifleman, Infantry and Scout. Rifleman gives you a semi-automatic rifle, rifle grenades, two grenades and a knife. Infantry gives you a sub-machine gun, a rocket launcher, two grenades and a wrench. The wrench; which is used as the melee weapon to kill enemies with can also be used to repair damaged vehicles. The final class Scout gives you a scoped rifle, a pistol, three satchel charges and a knife.

The aim of the game is to get kills but doing this will also earn you points, and points are what you need to rank up. Accumulating a certain amount of points unlocks the next level. The higher you get the more points you will need to level up.

Now you can play air superiority on the final map coral sea. This game mode is completely different from the rest of the game. In this game mode you are not allowed on land. Everyone is in a jet and you must work as a team to shoot down enemy fighter jets and claim air superiority. The only way to win is to take control of the sky and stay in control until the enemies reinforcement tickets run out.

The game allows you to earn 12 trophies. The trophies are all fairly simple to collect including a very easy gold. Two trophies are unlocked by playing 30 and 100 matches due to its addictive game play you’ll have it in no time.

This is definitely a game I would recommend, its addictive online multiplayer action has kept me playing for hours on end. The game is definitely worth purchasing if you are a fan of the battlefield collection or just a fan of shooters. I would give this game a 90% rating as it is very good. My only criticism is that there are only four maps so maybe additional map packs could be added in the future.

Buzzin Games Rating: 90%

archer macleans mercury

Archer MacLean’s Mercury is a challenging puzzle game that was originally released on the PSP in 2005. Mercury has now been re-released on the PSN (PlayStation Network) for £4.79. This is a recommended buy for anyone who hasn’t already played or purchased Mercury, as it is a frustrating and challenging game in a most enjoyable and unique way.

Mercury is a ball of liquid that you have to get to the finish before you lose too much mercury. To get to the finish you must complete many tasks including opening doors, activating buttons and just staying alive!

You will need to focus quickly to find the best route to finish in time, you will also need to change the colour of mercury to activate colour specific switches (or buttons), doors to allow mercury into the next area and colour filters which will only allow  a certain colour to pass through.

There may be a paint shop which allows you to transform instantly to the colour you need, or you may need to create your colour by using two or more paint shops and mixing the colours together in order to obtain the desired colour. Some levels contain teleports which can be used by any colour mercury just by waiting under it. This adds to the difficulty of some levels as you must identify where each teleport goes to.

The game itself contains six worlds, each with many challenging levels to complete to unlock the next world. These worlds are Neon (Tutorial), Quartz, Xero, Aqua, Helios and Nano. Each world contains various levels, the main ones being Race, Percentage and Task.

Race requires skill and speed as you are in an epic battle with time and you must complete the level quickly. Finishing these levels usually requires a small percentage of mercury, so you can rush through the level with little concern for losing mercury.

Percentage will normally require a larger amount of mercury in order to complete the level. You are given more time so be sure to take a steady route to the finish.  But you still need to be fast enough if you want to be placed top of the high scores chart for each level.

Task will require a lot more skill than the other levels. These levels are designed to challenge you, usually with colour filters and colour specific switches, you may even need to finish the level using a different colour than what you started with. Despite this you still must battle against time and not always a high percentage of mercury is required to finish the level.

At the end of each world there is a “boss” level.  The levels are very difficult to complete compared to the previous levels in that world as you must finish quickly, maintain a lot of mercury and use paint shops, colour switches and colour filters efficiently to complete the level.

Additionally, enemies can be included in some levels.  These enemies feast upon mercury.  Try not to get trapped in a corner with multiple enemies. Enemies automatically follow you when you get close to them so you can trick them by luring them away from the finish or switches you need to activate. You can even distract them by breaking off a small amount of mercury and let them nibble on it while you go for the finish.

Overall Mercury is a very good game which can offer hours of frustratingly difficult fun with its addictive and challenging gameplay.

Mercury offers a challenge to all levels of gamers. A recommended buy especially as it has been re-released at a low price.

Great game.

Buzzin Games Rating: 83%

Popcap’s Zuma is an exciting single player puzzle game that is suprisingly addictive and includes challenging levels that had me playing the game for longer than I had anticipated – always a sign of a good game.

Zuma has two game modes Adventure and Gauntlet Adventure which allow you to play through many temples, each with three stages, each with three unique levels.

The aim of the game is to destroy all of the coloured balls before they reach their goal. By shooting all the coloured balls you will make it to the next level.  However, letting just one ball drop into the hole will have you started over.

An added bonus is to get balls of the same colour to line up, three in a row which has the balls disappear.

The concept is simple, but Zuma is really challenging. Each level becomes more difficult and more taxing, leading to simple addictiveness, a challenge you get sucked into without realising it.

The Gauntlet game mode gives you an endless stream of balls. By destroying a specific amount of balls your status increases, and with the level of difficulty, until you reach the ultimate level, The Son of Sun.

In the Son Of Sun mode there are many different arenas to play on. All your scores, from any game, are placed onto a leaderboard.  So you know what you are competing against.

Zuma comes with it’s own PlayStation 3 trophies.  You can play it on the move via your PSP Remote Play.

Overall Zuma is an exciting game with bright effects and colours that spawns hours of fun, with its addictive nature and challenging gameplay.  The game is only £6.99 and is available on the PlayStation Network.