On the Download: May 6-12

With nothing extraordinary released on the PSN or Nintendo eShop, this week's edition of On the Download highlights some iOS offerings and one big XBLA release.  For Steam users who have not picked up Valve's excellent puzzle game Portal 2, it is on sale for only 7 dollars this weekend.  A phenomenal deal if I say so myself.

Gameloft has made a name for themselves by making carbon copies of the most influential and popular games in recent memory such as Call of Duty, Legend of Zelda and Starcraft.  Gameloft's tactics have also acted as a double-edged sword of sorts.  While Gameloft may trick the casual gamers by creating extremely similar games for iOS and other downloadable services, many core gamers such as yours truly do not hold the developer in high regard.  More or less Gameloft has become the poster boy of plagiarism in video games and the punchline to many jokes.  Gameloft's third entry in their complete ripoff of Halo, N.O.V.A. 3, has just launched for iOS.  N.O.V.A. 3 (short for Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance) follows hero Kal Wardin as he returns to Earth to stop the evil Volterite Protectorate.  The main campaign spans 10 missions that take players from a war-torn Earth to the frozen Volterite City.  N.O.V.A. 3 also includes a red vs. blue style multi-player modes with up to 12 players across 6 different maps.  If you are dying to have Halo on the go with you, N.O.V.A. 3 will cost you 7 dollars.  For those who have standards, it is much easier and more fun just to play Halo.

At the end of 2011, Frontier Developments brought a great WiiWare game in LostWinds to iOS.  Now about four months later, Frontier has brought LostWinds 2: Winter of the Melodias, another great WiiWare game, to iOS.  In Winter of Melodias, Toku and the Wind Spirit Enril must save Toku's mother, Magdi, from the clutches of Balasar.  Toku must harness the power of Sonte, the Spirit of Seasons, to instantly change Mistralis between the Summer and Winter.  This new power allows Toku to solve puzzles and interact with the environment unlike anything he has done before.  The first LostWinds worked really well on iOS so I do expect LostWinds 2 to be the same in quality or even better.  For 4 dollars, LostWinds 2 is another game to download for your iDevice.

The gaming phenomenon known as Minecraft has finally reached consoles with Minecraft's exclusive release on XBLA.  If you do not know what Minecraft is by now, where have you been for the past year?  Mojang's open-world sandbox game has captured the hearts of millions to the point there is a whole convention dedicated to this game.  The XBLA version of Minecraft was developed by 4J Studios.  Minecraft for 360 supports Kinect and cross platform play with anybody who owns the game on the PC.  In the PC version, players have the freedom to create however huge a world that they want.  In the 360 version, they are limited 1024 x 1024 blocks, but this limit will most likely be expanded in future updates.  Also the 360 version of Minecraft is quite a few versions behind the PC version due to how easy updating a game is on the PC compared to updating a game on the 360.  Do not worry as all the features found in the current version of Minecraft for the PC will make its way to the 360 eventually.  To make up for the shortcomings, Minecraft for the 360 has a good amount of content exclusive to this version of the game such as a newly designed crafting system and control interface.  For those who skipped out on the PC version of the game to pick Minecraft up for the 360, it will cost you 1600 Microsoft Points.

On the Download: December 18-24

As Christmas draws ever-so closer, the sales on your favourite downloadable game service keep ramping up.  With sales on Steam, the App Store, Xbox Live and PlayStation Network Store, there is definitely a deal for every gamer out there.  You just have to look.  Even with all these sales, developers still have a few new games for us before we enter the New Year.  So let us dive right into the games released this week.

Developer WayForward, creator of Shantae and the Mighty Milky Way and Mighty Flip Champ games, made their name on the Nintendo DS creating quality games reminiscent of some classic games from the NES and SNES eras.  With the 3DS released this year, WayForward moved development from Nintendo's older handheld to its new portable beauty.  As the spiritual successor to Mighty Milky Way and Mighty Flip Champ, Mighty Switch Force shares the same charm, humour and excellent 2D aesthetic as those two games with a little more emphasis on the action than puzzles.  In Mighty Switch Force, you play as Officer Patricia Wagon.  Your goal is to recapture a group of escaped inmates known as the Hooligan Sisters in order to restore peace to Planet Land.  You will have to use Wagon's various pieces of equipment to interact with the environment and enemies in order to solve puzzles and complete your mission.  Originally expected for a release early next year, WayForward dropped Mighty Switch Force earlier than expected.  For 6 dollars, Mighty Switch Force would be a great Christmas present for any 3DS owner starving for exclusive downloadable games.

If you had to pick the greatest puzzle game of all-time, what would you pick?  What one puzzle game sticks into the mind of whoever plays it?  From the music to the gameplay, what puzzle game is engrained into the minds of gamers young or old, male or female?  If you guessed Tetris, you are correct.  From the brillant mind of Alexey Pajitnov, Tetris has become one of the most iconic games of all-time as it is on everything from the computer to your iPhone.  In the hearts of many gamers, there stands one definitive version of Tetris and that is Tetris for the original Game Boy.  So for many of you including myself who logged into the Nintendo eShop today, it was a pleasant surprise to see Nintendo release the title for the 3DS Virtual Console.  If you do not know anything about Tetris, please open another tab in your browser and google it and fall in love with a masterpiece because I am not going to explain this game to you.  Tetris is only 4 dollars on the Nintendo eShop, so it is a perfect game to download.  One exception being that if you already own Tetris.  Even if the Game Boy version is the definitive form of Tetris, it is essentially the same game you love on whatever device you own it for.

LostWinds, a game from Frontier Developments, was originally released for WiiWare back in 2008 has now made its way to iOS.  In LostWinds, you play as a young boy by the name of Toku.  You must wield the unique powers of Enril, a wind elemental, to maneuver the lustrous environments, stun and even dispatch enemies and solve puzzles on your way to release the world of Mistralis from the evil Balasar's curse.  LostWinds got a lot of critical praise back in 2008, but did not make much of a splash as gamers never really took to WiiWare as they did to XBLA and PSN games.  Now on the iDevices and at the appealing price of only 4 dollars, LostWinds should reach a much broader audience of core and casual gamers who own these devices.  If you have a few extra dollars after all these great sales, pick up an innovative game that deserves a lot more love than it got back in 2008.