Monday 31 March 2014

Nev's One Minute Gaming 05 - Unblock Me


This week I've been playing a puzzle game called Unblock Me. It has a neat & clean design with a simple goal - move the various blocks around to clear a path for the red block to exit the board. The controls are super simple too - just touch and slide the block with your finger to move it.

There are 2 modes - relaxed or challenge mode. The only real difference I see is that in challenge mode, it keeps track of how many moves you use to finish a board so you can compete with yourself to improve.

There are four levels of difficulty available - beginner, intermediate, advanced and  expert - the main difference being the number of spaces available to move the blocks into.

There are also 1000's of variations and so far they have released extra puzzles up to expansion 8 - that's well over 5000 different puzzles in the beginner category alone!

If you like this type of puzzle game, Unblock Me will keep you quiet for hours! I give it an 8

If you have a game you'd like to suggest for me to try, you can contact me on Twitter @Nevahaddict or leave a comment here for me.

Thank you for listening and until next time - have fun!



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Sunday 23 March 2014

Warlords of Draenor & Other Games


It's been a full & exciting few weeks for me since I got my new PC and the super duper graphics card that came with it! Just last week, the NDA was lifted on Wildstar so I can reveal that it was that game that had me so fired up to get the PC! I've been playing it a fair bit but I am struggling with some stuff.

It's not an easy, stroll through zones, collect XP type of game by any means! Oh heck no, this game is making me work for almost every single thing and I'm actually enjoying it! It's taken me a few tries with different characters to find a class I like straight off - strangely enough, given my problems with melee in WoW, it seems the Warrior in WS is my best class so far! I've pretty much decided to buy the pre-order for Wildstar in the next week or so but I won't be giving up on WoW either!

Blizzard announced 20th December as release date for Warlords of Draenor but have set-up the free level 90 boost as available with pre-orders now. I won't be pre-ordering for a while yet as I have plenty of other options to be playing in the meantime. Maybe I'm in denial or just straight disbelief but December? really Blizzard? You rushed us through all those patches so fast, I got burned out & totally discouraged because I couldn't keep up and now you're going to make us wait almost a year for new stuff? And you have the nerve to ask me to pre-order now? Yeah right! We all know my answer to that although I'm too polite to type it out here!

You may have noticed my last few posts have been about free iPad games - this is linked to the One Minute Gaming segment I've been doing - and I have to say, I'm having a blast playing all these 'silly' little games! I've got a few really good ones coming up, thanks to some suggestions from Mike & Scott plus I've found a few myself.

Also this last 2 weeks, I've been in St Louis and the first week of my visit, we enjoyed the excellent company of Selltacular & his wife, Goooomba - they popped over to St Louis to see us & we pretty much spent our time eating or trying to decide where to eat! It was great fun though & was wonderful to finally meet some twitter friends for real.

I've also been having a little dabble in League of Legends - it's very different from anything I've played before and my first impression is that it's all my WoW PvP nightmares built into one game but I'll give it a bit more of a try before I decide for sure!

Another game I played quite a bit before my trip to USA is Path of Exile - it's a bit like Diablo 3 but it's totally free. I haven't played much Diablo 3 but if PoE stays free then I don't think I'll be worrying about buying D3!

I also managed to get into an  Elder Scrolls Online beta just before my trip - I think I managed a couple of hours before I had to do something else and the game grabbed me so much, I haven't even been back! I will give it another chance if I can but I won't be paying for it on my current impressions.

So yeah, lots of new games on my horizon, all opened up by the new PC but also by the possible really long wait for Warlords of Draenor - Fall? Really? Bah!


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Saturday 22 March 2014

Nev's One Minute Gaming 04 - Puzzle & Dragons


For this week,  I've been playing Puzzle and Dragons - a match 3 game with a big difference! I've never played Pokemon but this game has little creatures that you fight with and can collect and fuse together to make stronger creatures.

The match 3 bit comes in when you fight with these creatures - each one uses a certain color for it's attack so when you match 3 of the right color, the creature attacks! There is a dungeon system too but it's very straightforward and rewards you with tokens, pal points and if you're lucky, an egg for a new creature.

There's also magic gems bonuses which seems to be the rarest currency item & indeed, that is the type you can buy in the real money shop.

It's a little confusing to me as the instructions are a bit scarce but it's easy to play the basic game & collect creatures. It's just the science of fusing them for stronger ones that is a little more in-depth.

You're given 20 spaces for your creatures but that won't be enough, I've already upgraded to 30 spaces and I'm probably going to need more! Luckily you do get the occasional magic gem as a bonus for free so it hasn't cost me any real money to upgrade! I'm sure once I work out what I'm doing with the fusing thing, I'll have lots of lovely new weird & wonderful creatures to collect!

Overall, I'd give this an 8 out of 10 and I'll be playing it on and off for a while yet I'm sure!

If you have any games you'd like to suggest, you can contact me via Twitter @NevAHAddict or leave a comment below. So until next time - have fun!


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Tuesday 11 March 2014

Nev's One Minute Gaming 03 - Despicable Me - Minion Rush


This week I’ve been playing Despicable Me - Minion Rush - another endless runner style game but it feels much faster than the few others I’ve played! It has great, colorful graphics & sound effects make it fun too!

The basic idea is collect bananas and avoid bombs, lasers and various other bad stuff but you can also knock other minions out of play to get bonuses, and of course, pay real money for tokens that let you buy more powerful items. You can get some free tokens by watching ads for other games but I’m not sure that’s worth it! Stick to spending your bananas instead - it’s cheaper that way! I'd rather spend my real money on a Minion Dave Plushie!

It’s a fast moving game & you’ll die a lot but you can at least progress to other levels and there is some variation within each level each time you play too. There are special mounts you randomly pick up which take you to bonus levels which use the iPad's tilt ability for control - I still haven't quite got the hang of those so it's not much of a bonus level for me! That stopped it from becoming too samey but my reactions are slow so for me, I’d give it a 6 out of 10.

If you have a game you’d like to suggest, let me know here in comments or you can poke me on Twitter @Nevahaddict.


Download Despicable Me - Minion Rush for free now!


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Monday 3 March 2014

Nev's One Minute Gaming 02 - Match The Dots

This week, I've been playing a puzzle game called Match The Dots -it's very simple and at first I thought it was going to be too simple but I soon changed my mind!

There are 3 types of challenge - a timed challenge, a limited number of moves challenge and special icons one too.

You're presented with a screen of colored dots and you have to swipe through same colors to form a chain. As usual in many games, the longer chains, the higher the score.

Sounds too easy doesn't it? Well at first it is but that's what's so addicting about it! You can just whizz through those first levels super quick but then the target scores get higher or the time allowed gets shorter so it gets harder.

You also have to switch your brain quickly from speed mode to strategy mode - I got caught out a few times with that one!

The graphics are colorful of course & very plain & simple and the gameplay is very straight forward. It's a great game to play absentmindedly whilst chatting on the phone or something but it's not a mind-taxing game at all.

I like it though & for it's simple elegance and easy play style, I'd give it an 8 out of 10.

If you have a game you'd like to suggest, you can poke me on Twitter @Nevahaddict or leave a comment here.

Until next time - have fun  :)



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