Majesco has recreated with a gorgeous facelift the classic NES in the Wii’s new release of “A Boy and His Blob”. As a player you are given the role of a boy who has discovered an alien blob that can change its shape and helps you move forward through the puzzled levels, puzzles that can make a school child want to play more often. The game is not filled with obscure puzzles, but playing Bob you will meet situations where evil blobs in different forms will turn your days into nightmares. The interaction with Blob is made indirectly through an on-screen selector which displays the choices for a throwing bean. These jellybeans are unlimited and they have different colors; each color corresponding in its turn to an ability. The selection and throwing of the bean is made by pressing and holding B button and releasing it prints the bean a faster and longer wave of throw.
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Throwing jelly beans is the feature that transforms Blob and you are able to call him back using funny phrases or whistling. Throwing the beans enables you to reach the platforms above and this move is of a real help to you especially when you must determine the enemies to drop onto a switch located below. The graphics of the game looks very nice in creating the two main characters and not only them. The first level called “forest” displays lush backdrops of trees, green grasses and flowers accompanied by whimsical music. Going through the level you meet different situations where you can use the beans to facilitate you the apparition of ways to escape and to make you reach another level.

The next level represents caves, while the diversity of jellybeans has grown and you discover four new shape-shifting skills that lay at your disposal. These skills are rendered by using bowling ball, which destroy blocks that are in your way, the next one using the anvil, which enables you to drop them onto the blocks underneath; using the hop ball enables you to bounce to higher platforms, and the last one, using the parachute allows you to glide across wide chasms. This level, the caves, offers the most exciting and challenging puzzles that require reflexes and fast thinking as well.

The level called “gearworks” presents a line of producing projectile-shooting blobs and doors that are switch activated. The level reveals other abilities belonging to Blob, such as activating a shield to protect you from projectile attacks, and switches to help mounting the roof. Blob has also some other negative alien blobs that set a lot of traps for some of Blob’s friends. But these friends can be released with the help of jellybeans that transform the trap into a balloon that sets the friends free.

Other 40 levels follow for you to explore and eventually reach the Blob’s home land called Blobonia, but altogether make an exciting “Boy and His Blob” puzzled trip in a world accompanied by cheerful music and luxuriant environments.

Bohemian Interactive continues its former owned series of Operation Flashpoint with ArmA II with the same approach to realism, though it fails in its usability and accessibility. The game takes place in Chernarus, a fictional area located in Eastern Europe; the player’s role is that of a leader of the US marine recon squad who is sent as part of a larger force to lend a helping hand in a civil war between communist Russians, Chernarus democratic leaders and a number of guerilla groups.
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The game allows you to take command, this feature is quite new for the Bohemian Interactive games, and it proves to be working well so long as it gives the player a certain degree of involvement next to a whole range of responsibilities. The command system is loaded of options and flexibility but the negative thing is that you can not be instantly familiarized with it since it is covered by so many layered menus that it may take you few days before you start to know it better. During your performance you have the good feeling of being an important part of the plot as you carry a lot of individual contributions. The strategy you are supposed to build and taking the decisions are the features that give strength to the character and significance to the game’s world.

You face situations where you need to decide what is the best to do in the given circumstances, and your decisions do not have to lead to creating chaos or collateral damages that will stain your integrity, you must think of ways to avoid these consequences. The game is quite generous in this matter offering you choices to get to the objectives in your own way, adding also bonuses and opening new challenges that are based on your decisions. But there are situations when triggers don’t always work correctly in that they can make you loose a fight without you or your mates being involved in some way, and this is kind of frustrating.

The game is wealthy in providing chances to drive T-72s, laser designators to pick out targets on a distant location, and possibilities to climb to heights being armed with sniper riffles. The graphics is very impressive while defining the ballistics model, but the vehicle physics is not so well rendered. The game’s armory mode gives you the ability to take out anything for a test drive and run some interesting mini-challenges.

It is the ArmA II’s Real Virtuality engine which the game currently uses that allows you to see the expressivity on soldiers’ faces and the detailed elements that are part of the environment. As a conclusion, ArmA II presents a difference between the accuracy of the military hardware and the broken nature of the elements that constitute the missions, not to mention that the player has sometimes the feeling that the scores that he gathers are not always representative, and together with the inelegant interface of the game they all make the sum of the flaws that ArmA II offers.

The new release of Harry Potter’s Half Blood Prince was expected to lift up to the complex creations of the previous releases, but the gameplay reveals itself quite simple having the story telling a little bit incoherent, and leaving the players with the feeling of an unfinished game. It seems that one had to read the book before starting to play the game, since a lot of details fail to be delivered, thus failing to be comprehensible to the gamers. The editing of the scenes reveals awful images with poor acting, no talented actors’ voices, and the resemblance to the real actors is clumsily displayed. Out of all the recreations of Hohwarts, the Order of the Phoenix seemed to be the only one faithful to the purpose. For those who haven’t played this previous adventure, the Half-BloodPrince may seem quite a challenge to take shortcuts through the portraits lined on the walls, to navigate the moving staircase, etc.
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The game offers three activities based on wizard themes; as Half-Blood Prince you will spend a lot of time mixing potions in the dungeon, confronting the recipes full of ingredients, this activity enabling you to use the motion controls while pouring, stirring and heating the mixtures. But this assignment takes too much of your time, giving you the sensation of an everlasting burden. Quidditch, who missed his part in Order of the Phoenix, is now back but not so imaginative and not as funny as mixing potions. Your role is that of a seeker riding a broomstick with simple handling of controls while flying among the stars. In the novels, Harry needs to avoid opponents that attempt to knock him off his broom, but this hindrance is not at all present here.

The final task in Half-Blood Prince is dueling, and this activity looks to be funnier than others before, though it is not revealing too much. These one-on-one fights allow you to cast magical spells at your enemy and tricking the ways that can determine you to loose your energy. The controls for this part are based on motion, so it is up to the remote’s action that activates one of the six spells you have available. Protego though seems to be more satisfying since it gives you the possibility to cross your arms in order to form a shield that will protect you against a blow. The tactic is quite cheap, you amaze your opponent with a powerful spell for in the end to merely spam your weaker attack. As it is the case with nailing your enemy with levicorpus, he will float in midair, and then you simply shake your arm to release a string of attacks, that will drain the health out of the foe’s body.

The Harry Potter video games should stick to the visual beauty of the movies in order to match its excellent story, but this part of Half-Blood Prince doesn’t offer the fun to play as long as you got acquainted with the few simple tasks. The game is presenting itself as repetitive minigame actions, managing to display a Harry Potter wizard without the thrills that belong to the condition of a wizard.