There is not a finer game for blowing stuff up
581951
The best thing to do with this game is to set it up, go for the third level of difficulty, activate the God mode and the all weapons mode and then go blow some crap up.  Nothing's more fun than shooting an alien at close range with a missile launcher. This game does have a lot of puzzles and other fun stuff.  The engine could have used some more tweaking in terms of weapons; you'll find yourself using the first four MUCH more often than you will the others.  But overall, a great game and challenging even if you're cheating.
4108961
I enjoy that this game works as either a 1-player or a 2-player. It's fun and strategic, but I have to admit it's not my favorite from our shelf of games or anything. It plays somewhat like plants vs zombies, but a card version. You're trying to protect the forest as fire monsters creep closer and closer every turn. You have three types of defense cards you can play to destroy the monsters and save the forest from destruction: fountains, animals, and trees. Fountains work like road blocks, when they come into contact with a fire monster, whoever is weaker dies (or they both die if it's a tie). Animals have special abilities, like letting you draw more cards or instantly destroying a monster. Trees earn you points to restore the forest at the end of the game if any of it has been burnt.

It's straight forward enough that it's easy to learn. But the strategy is complicated enough that it will take a long time to master. Overall it's just a tough game that is very rewarding when you win. If monsters reach your forest, they do damage. If you are damaged more than you can take, you lose. But it's harder than that, because even if you survive the entire game, defeating all the monsters, and still have healthy forest left, you have to have enough trees in play that restore your forest. If even one part of it is still burnt, you lose.

The art is original and lovely. They have several variants that really make this game something special. But like I said, it's just not a game I get excited about. But I very much believe "it's not you, it's me." So even though it's not my favorite, it deserves five stars because I think anyone would enjoy it, and I'm sure plenty of people will go back to it time and time again. Worth the buy.
3285883
The other 4/5 reviews already nailed it, so I'll keep this short.

It's not the best game out there but the graphics are fine and the controls are A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. It's the best use of the nunchuk that I have seen.  I really don't see how anyone could play this game using an old handheld controller. The freedom you get when you use the wiimote nunchuk combo is the definition of fun and I like moving them around so much. Torturing those storm troppers, Jedi knights and creatures is worth more than the $17 or so that I paid, that's for sure.  This is gaming at its best.
1490161
A game that will make you jump for sure. Not too mention it's hard to beat.
3864146
This game is like no other that I have played before.  I don't even know where to begin with this review.

Puerto Rico provides a unique game play of resource management.  There are many ways to play this game, many ways to strategize and many ways to win.  Each game plays differently which provides good game replay.  Based on the number of players that you play with, the strategy changes as well, which is something to keep in mind.

If you haven't played Puerto Rico, this is how the game plays out.  You are in charge of creating your very own Puerto Rico.  The game consists of a personal player board, a community board, a trading house, cargo ships and a colonist ship (along with resources, colonists, plantations, buildings, doubloons and victory point chips).  In each round one player acts as the governor (which signifies the start of a round).  Each player goes around either bringing colonists into Puerto Rico, planting goods, buying buildings, selling good, shipping goods or harvesting.  Once one action is chosen, the next player to choose has to choose something new.  So based on how your own Puerto Rico is looking, you can be strategic in your selection in order to help yourself out while hindering your opponents from progressing.

In order to buy buildings you need doubloons.  But don't get too caught up in obtaining a lot of doubloons, they do not count towards your final score.  Instead your focus is on victory point chips.  You get VP's by putting goods on the ships, buying buildings (they have certain VP points) and getting big buildings to give you VP bonuses.  The game can in 3 different ways.  1) you run out of victory point chips 2) one player has all 12 building squares filled or 3) there are no more colonists.

The game play can go slow for first time players, but once you have played it a few times, game play can pick up.  This version of the game says it is for 3-5 players.  Alea, the game producer, put out the 2 player rules.  I have yet to play 2 player but am looking forward to playing it soon.  This game is a good game to provide many hours of fun strategy play.  A definite game to include in  your game library.
2259285
This is what games used to be about, getting the high score. While the games of old can still be fun, they are still old. Geometry Wars Evolved 2 brings back the good old fun in competition of beating your buddy's high score. The game looks fantastic and the controls are super responsive. You will be zipping around the screen with ease in no time only to find the game's complexity increasing at an alarming rate.  Boom, then you die, and then you can't wait to try it again.

There are multiple game modes included, each of which have they're own unique techniques required to master them.  My favorites are Pacifism, and King. The game is not too hard to "beat", but to get all the achievements and to get a decent high score is really hard. This is the type of game that you always get better and better at, so it is very addicting.  Your buddies high scores sit right next to yours on XBL so it's really fun trying to beat them.
3222521
This game is not perfect, but it's awesome. It takes a while to learn the mechanics and how to survive, but when you do it's epicness.
4776553
This game is not your average board game.  It's about destruction.  My one warning is make sure you have a place to play it that meeples won't go flying under anything.  I found it more of an issue the first time we played, you get better at dropping and flicking pieces as you play.

Eat the meeples, destroy the buildings and have fun!
3259502
You've probably heard of (or even played) other strategy games like Starcraft or Command & Conquer, and they were great fun, so why should you get this one? Because after playing Total Annihilation (TA for short), you'll never go back. (120 unique full-3D units battling among acid lakes and abandoned cities intrigue you? Read on.)
The story isn't really important here (basically, you fight as Arm or Core to rid the galaxy of the other guys in a 4000-year blood feud), but the giant robots, tanks, etc. allow for some spectacular explosions and heavy weaponry. A nuke's explosion annihilates everything on an 800x600 screen, unless your opponent has missile defenses, which are vulnerable to a strategic bomber strike, unless your opponent has flak cannons... and that's just the beginning!
TA's most important feature is its impeccable balance and rush defense. Instead of starting with a single construction unit, you have your persona, the Commander, the most powerful weapon on the battlefield. Your Commander can take down nearly anything the opponent sends at you for ten minutes by himself, meaning no early-game rushes will win you the game. And once you can defend yourself, you'll see that neither of the sides has the upper hand. There are no game-breaking units, because everything has a delicate speed/power/cost balance; during the course of a typical game you will use over two dozen unique units!
TA also stands out for its amazing realism. Warfare among the trees can start forest fires, which damage units around them and spread according to the same wind speed and direction which turns your turbines at varying speeds. Explosions produce shrapnel which arcs realistically and damages units hit by it. Every weapon has an area of effect, and shells often miss fast-moving enemy units and crash into hillsides or even your own troops! Aircraft act like real planes: bombers can take out several targets at once, but then have to swoop around for another pass, fighters do barrel rolls to avoid enemy fire, and seaplanes run along the surface until they have the speed to get airborne.
For seasoned strategy veterans, you'll be happy to know TA has over TEN DOZEN unique units. That's more units for each side than all the races in Starcraft have combined! Instead of researching new technology, just build a different factory to access a new slate of units! Your options include two levels each of vehicles, robots, aircraft and ships; free downloads on the company website give you everything from hovercraft to minelayers to resurrector units to underwater fusion plants.
The maps in TA are bigger than any of the competitions (up to 63 by 63 screen lengths), allowing for full-scale, 4-6-hour epic battles. Players routinely run into the 500 unit limit! To control all this, the interface is amazingly easy: just hold Shift to queue up unlimited orders for anything, from factories to infantry to construction units. Want your guy to repair this building, move to that area, build a radar tower, and then patrol the area? Would you believe five clicks? (Not just waypoints, but a starting target, repair order, and patrol route direct from the factory!)
In conclusion, there has never been a better time to pick up the "best game of all time" (PC Gamer magazine). For ten bucks, you can find more fresh gaming experience than you can in the forty bucks you'd pay for the latest two-dimensional Warcraft knockoff with 30 guys that all look the same. And when you're ready, you can check out the still-active fan following (over 300 players every day on the MSN Gaming Zone).
2406616
My son loves playing with these kinds of building sets, but when I learned that this SmartLab Triple Blast Warehouse set uses cards and not blocks for the walls, I wasn't sure how it well it would hold up. It was hard to picture a 12 year old building anything made out of cards, and not having it come down by the third piece. But SmartLab figured out how to do this.

The cards you use to build walls have small clear plastic basis that you slide them into to hold the wall cards vertical. Then you can set lay the floor pieces across the wall pieces and they will stay put. The floor pieces are thick enough that you can place additional wall pieces on top of them, to continue building the structure vertically. These cards have sort of a building-under-construction graphics pictured on them. So as you build your structure, it ends up looking like a giant warehouse with pipes, walkways, signs and ladders throughout.

Once you've build something, then it's time to blow it up. With your set of building cards comes a yellow detonator triple button controller. Attached to this detonator is 3 long cables and at the end of each cable is what they call a blaster. The blaster is a piece with 2 spring loaded ends that pop out and hit the cards on either side of it, knocking them down. Each of the 3 buttons on the main detonator controls one of the blasters. You can chose to set off the blasters one at a time, or press them all at the same time to set them all off at once. Before you can set off the blasters, you activate them by arming the blasters, using a small button beside the 3 detonator buttons. Once you've pressed the arming button, a siren goes off and says that the blasters have been armed. You can then press the detonator buttons to set the blaster off, knocking everything down. Each time you set off a blaster, they make a crashing sound effect, to add more dramatic sound to the cards falling.

This toy has a lot of replay ability in it. Kids can try and make buildings all shapes and sizes to see try and blow up. The blasters don't even need to set on the base. You can set them on the pieces inside the building, several floors up. So you can blow up top levels prior to the lower ones. It's a really neat idea for a toy and very mush exceeded my expectations. This set would be a great gift idea. My son is 12, and he's about the oldest age I'd suggest this toy for. I'd say from age 8 to 12 is the best age range that kids would enjoy this. Even the fun looking packaging gets kids excited about playing with this. It's a really neat idea for a toy, that kids won't get bored with after 5 minutes.
2403227
This is a tremendously fun game that almost anyone can play.

The goal is to get rid of all your cards.  Each player starts with a pile of face down cards in front of him or her.

Each round, the players take turns flipping their topmost card.  If that card matches the face-up card of another player, a contest ensues.

Both try to grab the plastic totem in the middle of the table before the other.

The winner gives all of this discards to the unfortunate, slower competitor.

It sounds simple, and it is, but the cards are fiendishly well designed.  You have to pay careful attention to know when your cards match (and, when they don't).

If you grab the totem when the cards don't match, you have to take *everyone's* discard piles!  *UGH!*

I've bought more than a dozen copies of this game to give out to friends and colleagues.  Everyone loves it!
1162640
I have spent countless hours on this game and never got disappointed. You can be on a mission to hunt down men who are taking people hostage with a bow and arrow, or a sniper from afar. You can just rampage in with a grenade launcher and just blow everything up in your path. You can stealth and use cover to take people out silently. Or you can throw some bait into their midst and set a wild tiger on them if you like, but be careful! It can kill the hostages too! There's so many ways to go about doing missions on this game, it's a real treat. The story line is somewhat interesting, the main enemy is interesting, entertaining, and hilarious!  There is a lot of cruel and innocent humor throughout the entire game which is always having me chuckling and laughing.
958682
Desert Storm II is unique due to the fact that you operate a small team of four elite soldiers both in single player mode or in multi-player mode.  One by one, you have to select and move your soldiers into position.  Soldiers have access to a large variety of weapons and can swap items between one another.  What I like most about this game is that the weapons operate as they would in real life.  For example, if you plant a C-4 explosive and then detonate it when you are close, you will kill yourself.  Novices will love the machine gun options.  You can adjust the gun settings for semi-auto, fully auto, and grenade launch (for guns equipped).  Skilled players will love the sniper rifle, which has the capacity to zoom in on an enemy even from great distances.  It seems that anything that is possible in real life, is also possible in this game.  You will never find yourself saying, "Why can't I...I should be able to..." Each mission offers a new style of excitement. You will face off against infantry, tanks, helicopters, and you will defuse or blow-up weapons of mass destruction.  This game offers challenge without the frustration. I recommend playing the "training" sessions before going into war.  The training sessions will teach you how to operate the weapons and all their advanced features.  I would highly recommend this game for a teenager or more mature player due to the level of strategy and realism.  Adult players will be satisfied.  This game is worth every penny.
4953144
There are certain games that I have come across since my inception into the video game world (with the Christmas gift of an NES console and Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt in 1988) that seem to surpass the simple moniker of "video game."  These are beautifully crafted pieces of art that reach a level of perfection rarely seen in any medium.  Still, the most important element of such games is that they are FUN.  Graphics, yeah, sound, blahblahblah, etc., but does the game make you feel that you haven't wasted those precious hours of your life?  Gunstar Heroes is such a game that the answer is most certainly "yes."  Upon the first few moments of play, you may think that it is too simplistic (the game is equipped with automatic-fire for every weapon), or just Sega's attempt at cashing in on Contra (though no one did so more disgracefully than Konami themselves).  A few moments later, that will all have been washed away and (assuming of course that you're a fan of 2-D blast fests) you'll be giddy at the realization of just how much FUN you're having.  By the time you get to the Dice Board, you'll be in awe at the mastery of concept and design that went into this particular work of art.  It is criminal to own a Sega Genesis and not own this game.  I recently purchased four games at a used game store--3 Dreamcast games and GH.  GH was the most expensive of the four, and I didn't mind that a bit.  One of the greatest video games of all time.
397177
First let's get something out of the way - this is NOT a space shoot-m-up.  If you just want to blow things up, this isn't your game.  This is a game with a 100 page manual.  This is a game that will stick any old mission in front of you and expect YOU to figure out whether you can do it or not.  This is a single player game that you can spend 300 hours in and still learn something new in your 301st hour.

What?  Haven't run for the hills yet?  Good.  Then this game might well be one of the best you've ever played.

This is a game that starts you out in one (possibly two) tiny ships with only a few credits to your name.  Scan some asteroids, shoot up a few other tiny ships, and maybe trade some goods and you'll find you've got enough money to get a bigger/faster ship which lets you accomplish still more lucrative goals.  That lets you buy more and/or bigger ships for still better goals.  Eventually you'll get enough money to start buying factories and huge ships.  Then stringing factories together into complexes and buying carriers full of fighters.  It does take some time, though.  400 hours seems fairly typical.

The game is largely a sandbox but there are some major plot missions in the game.  They just aren't your typical RPG-style missions.  Instead of going from step one, to two, to three, to four you'll find yourself doing step one, then two, then going off and building up your empire for a good 50 hours, then coming back to do step three.  You won't always get a warning that you need to build up, either, or how much to build up.  You just try the mission and, if it seems impossible, re-load and think it over as you build up your power.

The game can be modded, too.  It's not as easy as some other games but it can definitely be done.  You won't get any Steam achievements after modding but, if you want to be able to blow up Firefly transports with TIE fighters launched from your Narn cruiser, it's a small price to pay.

A word on versions, since I see quite a few out on Amazon.  Egosoft has been giving us new versions for free for years now, including new content.  It won't matter if you get version 1 or version 2.5, Steam will upgrade you to the latest version.
4437729
Let's be real here. Shooters, particularly sci-fi fps's are a VERY over saturated market. Though DOOM could stand out with the name alone as one of the series that helped define the genre, this game goes far beyond branding to sell itself. It raises the bar for violence, intensity, speed, brutality, and absurdity unlike any other game on the market right now. It doesn't need to rely on the big name. It reminds you why it's a big name in the first place.

This is one of the most enjoyable gaming experiences I've had in a long time. This is DOOM for the modern era, succeeding in blending old school feel with cutting edge visuals and level design. Graphics are incredible, and performance is magnificent with a very steady 60fps. That, paired with extremely precise controls, make this game a dream to play.

If you're familiar with DOOM I and II, you'll have no problem settling in and crushing demons at a break neck pace. If all you know is DOOM 3, this is nothing like that. This is a whirlwind of blood, guts, and shotgun shells. Don't buy thinking you're getting a horror game.

As for the collector's items, the case is awesome with a nice, metallic finish with the lovely Revenant upon it. The statue stands a foot tall, and is every bit as detailed as the in-game model - a must have for every DOOM lover. It's constructed of flexible pvc, so you needn't worry about it getting chipped or broken. It lights up, the fan rotates, and looks awesome.

In short, if you want to be the most badass space marine in the history of video games, this is for you.
1894006
This is simply an awesome game.
FIRST - there are not many 3 player games that are this much fun.  Alhambra is a total blast.
SECOND - i have a developmentally disabled son and it is hard to find games that we can play as a family that keep everyone interested.  This one does.  There is money...but the math is done by combination of colors rather than denominations.  There is strategy, and geometry type skills that the kids don't even realize they are using.
Really a fun game and players of varying ages and skills can play and enjoy the strategy together.