Gamertell

Here’s a brief review of all the Android-based games (and apps) I downloaded from the Android Market and tried while reviewing the T-Mobile G1 phone.

They are presented in alphabetical order to help make it easier to find in the Android Market. While a few are demos with fuller versions you can purchase,  all of these are free to download and try with most being free to keep. The applications are at the bottom of this post and I’ve taken screen shots of almost every game and app listed.

Click through for a list of 39 games and 10 applications for the T-Mobile G1 phone…

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Check out the gallery: Screen shots of games and applications on the T-Mobile G1 phone

Title: Video Games Live: Volume One
Price: $16.98 ($0.99 per song download)
Release Date: July 22, 2008
Publisher: EMI Records Ltd. (Angel Records)
Pros: An excellent collections of impressive performances. Often well-orchestrated collections and homages to game music with an honest air of respectability that even non-gamers can appreciate. The name implies there will be a Volume Two.
Cons: A few segments are a bit slow and some of the instrumentation plainly mimics or masks the vocals.
Overall Score: Two thumbs up; 91/100; A-; * * * * out of five.

No matter where you fall in the games as art spectrum there’s no denying that plenty of artistic efforts are put into many games’ production. Case in point is the Video Games Live tour which offers orchestral performances of video game music that would be difficult for any music snob to scoff at.

The CD (and digital download) release of Video Games Live: Volume One offers selected studio and live performances featuring the Slovak Symphony Orchestra, Crouch End Festival Chorus and various soloists as conducted by Jack Wall.

Click through for a track-by-track review…

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Check out the gallery: Video Games Live: Volume One CD art

The Intellivision game Tron Deadly Discs will make it to the Atari 2600, too! I cannot wait to try the disc-tossing fun in this game on Ol’ Woody. If it is anything like the Tron arcade game I will totally sweat through my favorite headband while playing.

A local store - Village Mall Video in Webster, NY (USA) - has already promised to sell Tron Deadly Discs for Atari at a discounted $28.29 instead of the usual $34.95 (those Village Mall guys are the radist dudes ever.) The game should be coming out…

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In Microsoft’s quest to bring more classic games to the Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA), one of the most recent additions, Tron, would seem a true treat for arcade fans.

Costing only 400 Microsoft Points (US$5), the XBLA version of Tron includes the four original levels, an enhanced graphics version of the same game and a multiplayer mode.

The four levels of the original 1982 arcade game are I/O Tower, MCP Cone, Battle Tanks and Lightcycle Race (overhead view).

In I/O tower, you shoot bugs to clear a path to the side entrance to the Tower. For MCP Cone, you shoot a descending and rotating mass of blocks to clear a path into the MCP Cone. The Lightcycle game, clearly the game’s classic, is an overhead, 2D view of the Lightcycle race from the move - block in your opponent with colored lines before you crash into a wall. In the Battle Tanks level you control a tank and must shoot computer-controlled tanks three times each before they shoot you once. In each level, you get one shot at a time, but your bullets bounce. As you progress the levels increase in difficulty (in speed, number of opponents or both).

Although I was nostalgically pleased this game was being released, it clearly demonstrates that not all arcade games translate well onto modern game controllers. The original Tron arcade game used a rotating dial to move your firing arm and a joystick with a trigger.

Without the wheel the game is…

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Check out the gallery: Tron for Xbox Live Arcade2

For those of you who dig retro games - and those who have retro gaming gear like the X-Gaming Tankstick - you might want to download these three Tron homebrews.

Each of the games has a slightly different take on the infamous light cycle segment of the movie. FLTron2.0 Onlineis Flash based game you can play online and GLTron is available as a download for Mac, Win32 and Linux. Armagetron Advanced may be the best all, a 3D version also available for Mac, Windows and Linux with a multiplayer local network mode.

You basically speed around a grid, laying a temporary solid trail that you hope you opponent will hit and avoiding their trail. It’s kewl, it’s futer-y and it’s fun. Give them each a try and let us know what you think.

Read [The Think Blog] Via [X-Gaming]

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