Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster. This Sesame Street game for Xbox 360 Kinect requires no controllers, and it allows kids to play the game by jumping, dancing, running, and being active in front of the television. The game allows children ages four to six to interact with the Sesame Street characters to learn about making friends, sharing, teamwork, and problem solving.

Monkey Quest. This computer game from Nickelodeon has exploded in popularity this past year for children ages eight to fourteen. Found online for both Windows and Mac, Monkey Quests connects players from all over the Internet. The child plays a monkey who goes on adventures to save the world of the game, which is brilliantly displayed in 3D. The missions are funny and engaging, and they are conducive to learning for the whole family, as there is an option for the whole family to play on screen.

The Magic School Bus: Oceans. This Scholastic game is best for ages five to nine, and is available for the Nintendo DS. The favorite show of many children, the game players join the zany Ms. Frizzle on an adventure under the ocean. The players interact with several species of underwater sea life, and learn about the creatures of the deep. The Magic School Bus always has plenty of energy and fun, and combines games and missions to keep the attention of elementary aged children.

Lego Harry Potter. This Warner Brothers game is the children’s version of the multitude of other Lego Harry Potter games available with each movie. For Harry Potter fans ages five to seven, the game is a recount of all of the major events in the last four films. Along with Harry’s intense missions, there are plenty of collectibles and even stimulating puzzle play. It is available for all gaming systems, and it is best suited for children in upper elementary school.

Super Mario 3D Land. For the Nintendo 3DS comes yet another game in the classis Mario Brothers series of racing and strategy games. In this edition, Princess Peach has been kidnapped from the evil Bowser. The player must use puzzles, logic, and strategy to free the princess from her captor; moreover, the game is completely in 3D, leading to extremely engaging game play for children eight and up. This edition of the ever-popular game will not disappoint.

Fiona Finch and the Finest Flowers

What really makes this particular game different from other flower growing games is that you can actually combine seeds and create new species. This twist brings a fresh approach and provides an additional challenge to your goals.

You start with some basic seeds and a plot of land. Where you want to plant the flowers is up to you. Once the flowers are planted, ensure they are watered. When the time is right, either prune your flowers for bigger and more expensive ones, or harvest them to sale. Don’t forget to save at least one plant so you can try different combinations of seeds to grow new plants. The ultimate goal is to win the flower contest.

Graphically, this game looks like spring. The colorful flowers all look different. The combination of seeds works rather well, but it is a little hard to tell which plants have actually sold and which ones haven’t without going into the barn.

The biggest complaint is that this game only has five areas, so it is a bit too small for the price. It would have been a winner if it had at least a few more complimentary areas.

The game is a good one for kids of all ages. The basic game play is easy for young kids to handle. Although, if they are going to play, it is probably better for them to play in the free play mode rather than the story line. This gives them the freedom to create their own gardens without the time pressure of meeting the demands of the judges.

Pick up this game for a discounted price for a real value. Unfortunately, because of its limited areas, it isn’t worth paying full price for.

I love the board game Settlers of Catan. If you haven’t heard of Settlers of Catan, it’s a German-designed game that involves earning resources and building from there.  In the game, players build settlements, cities, and roads to connect them as they settle the island. The more settlements and cities, the more points! There’s a whole lot more to the game, but I’ll leave that for you to discover on your own.

Many of my friends and family play Settlers of Catan, but we don’t have the luxury of living close to each other. As an alternative, we recently discovered an online version. PlayCatan offers an the online platform that allows you to play in a single player mode as well as to participate in group games. The game is pretty good, but it’s a little too much animation and “pretty stuff” for me. I would rather see my hand and play “to the point” rather than go through a series of menus and more in order to play one turn. While playing in person does not even begin to compare to this online version, at least I can get my Catan fix even though the people who I want to play with live across the Atlantic Ocean.

The base game can be played at no extra fees; however, like most games, this one isn’t entirely free if you want to do anything above the base game. There are monthly membership fees, but they are pretty low (around $2).

The Assassin’s Creed series falls under the gaming category of “historical science fiction action adventure.” All of the main games are third-person Action Adventure, featuring standard open-world gameplay. The game begins where Brotherhood left off. For the majority of the game, you’ll play Ezio in 15th century Constantinople. The landscape is beautifully convincing. The free running is better than ever before. General navigation has improved due to the addition of an item called the hookblade which can be used to zipline across the city. (It can be used in combat as well). You can also use a parachute to float down a building. These new movement options keep the platforming fresh.

Other positive changes include updates to recruitment. New consequences to the choices a player makes add strategy, which was lacking in previous installments, to this component of the game. Recruitment isn’t just busy work anymore. Also new to the series is the act of bomb-crafting. Players can use a variety of materials to create bombs for every imaginable job; bombs can be explosive, tactical, or simply distracting. In multi-player mode, Revelations allows players to use a much-requested Capture-the-Flag Mode.

For part of the game you’ll play present-day Desmond, in an attempt to free his mind from the Animus. The Desmond game-play involves puzzling your way out of areas by creating blocks and ramps to move forward. Unfortunately, this task is more tedious than it is challenging or entertaining. The Assassin’s Creed repertoire could have done without this new addition. It just doesn’t fit. The same applies to the tower defense mini-game, which involves defeating waves of enemies in a manner that just isn’t fun.

On the whole, Revelations brings back much of the old, which is good, but not enough of the new, which is the reason we buy new installments. Several of the “updates” seem out of place in Assassin’s Creed, and they don’t really make for a better game.

Bastion

Like many action games, Bastion is set in the aftermath of the “Calamity,” a catastrophic event that shattered the world known as Caelondia into several pieces and led to an infestation by malicious creatures. The game player takes the role of “the kid,” who awakens after the event on a piece of Caelondia. His first mission is to seek out the Bastion, or the shelter where everyone goes after a disaster. Once “the kid” realizes there is no one there, it becomes the goal of the player to reconstruct the world of Caelondia as it used to be. Many characters, as well as challenges, are introduced on ‘the kid’s” quest to restore the world.

The game is set up on a set of very concise and entertaining levels. In between levels there are several missions that the player can engage in. And even further, in between missions there are several mini-tests that the player can engage in to assess their knowledge and skill in using the many different weapons in the game. There are many other branch tasks, such as mysterious journeys to “who knows where,” and other searches and areas for weapons practice.

Perhaps the most acclaimed aspect of the game is its very unique feature called “dynamic narration.” Named Rucks, the old wise man character in the game also serves as the narrator. Rucks delivers the story, and he also gives many commentaries based on the actions or style of the individual game player. One reviewer for wired.com said, “(the narration) turns what could have been just another hack-and-slash adventure into a haunting, poignant experience.” This ever-present voice tells you what you are doing, feeling, and even offers stories and helpful information to help you along in your mission. It has been said that this unique aspect humanizes the game, and takes it to a whole new level of personality.

Like many games I review, Bastion has amazing, anime-based graphics, a sufficient soundtrack, an intricate and beautifully detailed story line, and a concise and organized set of goals, missions, and tests for the player. What really sets Bastion apart, however, is its distinctly human narration, that really gives the game its personality. If you are looking to play a game that steers away from the typical “slasher” story, Bastion is the best way to go.

Jojo’s Fashion Show: World Tour

The gist of the game is to dress the models for the upcoming fashion show. They do have preferences, and you have to match those preferences with the right fashion picks. After the models are ready, send them down the runway for the final showing. At the end, choose the highest bids to sell your fashions.

You can also make your types of fashions from a selection of colors and patterns. These can be added to the collections to spruce them up.

The worst part of this game is still the graphics. Its major problem is that graphic improvements are minimal at best. Most of the models look like paper cutouts. The fashions are unfashionable jokes rendered upon the player. Accessories are a mere blur. The real letdown is actually the catwalk. It lacks anything resembling an actual runaway. Instead, it is big and rectangular, without any shading that might have given it some depth. Add in the flat pop-up buyers, and the graphics completely sink this game.

Musically, you might as well turn this game off. The voice of the Rosalind still has the power to send shivers down the spine by its sheer shrillness. It needs some serious moderation.

Levels are boring, and they tend to be repetitive. There is an obvious lack of challenge in completing levels, since you can practically send out undressed models and still succeed.

Frankly, unless you really like dress-up, it isn’t worth buying. You won’t be buying it for the latest fashions that’s for sure.

The only way you should consider buying this game is if you can get all three of the series for the same price as one; however, the rest of the Jojo series is equally dismal in regards to graphics, fashion, and story. Frankly, it might be better to just skip the series altogether.

Diablo III hasn’t changed much since we last took a look at it, but we may see some more details squeak out at the upcoming BlizzCon conference taking place at the Anaheim Convention Center on October 21 and 22. If anything, we can expect to see some interesting interviews and titillating teases from Blizzard’s best, and maybe something about a release date. We’ll see, but for now, folks who aren’t attending the event will have to make do by following the company’s websites and fan pages, as well as the official BlizzCon Twitter feed.

Those lucky enough to receive invites to the closed beta have been blessed with the ability to play the game in (mostly) all of its glory, and are not bound by a non-disclosure agreement, which means that they’re free to share whatever they’d like about the game. Lucky for us, these players are all too eager to spill the juicy details of character creation (and leveling) on various websites and YouTube channels alike. If you have a Battle.net account and haven’t received an invite, don’t worry. Scuttlebutt has it that Blizzard has been giving away invites on Facebook, and you might want to get in on that action.

TrackMania is a racing game series produced for Windows PC, Nintendo DS, and Wii by Nadeo.  TrackMania Forever is the current version being offered online, which is attracting drivers around the globe. (There are currently over 10 million registered users, wow!)

With a free download, you immediately have access to a number of thrilling features:

• Play against other online racers in multiplayer races on one of the hundreds of thousands of player-made tracks. Download the car of your dreams with a click.
• Use a track editor to create your own track, and let others try racing on it.
• Earn points for doing well in races, and watch yourself move up in world rankings. (You’ll never lose points!)
• Use offline mode, in which you try to beat in-game tracks in an attempt to earn bronze, silver, gold, and even “author” medals for each track you complete to a certain degree of perfection.

The quality of this free game will surprise you. The graphics are great; the tracks are riveting, filled with loops, ramps, and off roads. Some of these tracks are truly insane; finishing a track could take a couple seconds or a couple minutes. Easing up on the gas for half a second might cost you the speed you need to make a jump 15 turns in; however, if you do crash, there’s no reason to worry about it; you get to retry the course as many times as you want during a given racing period. As soon as you see something is going wrong, you can start over.

How does multiplayer work? You will race on a track at the same time as dozens of other players, but you will only be able to see where their cars are going; you cannot interact with them. Each racing round lasts around 5 minutes, give or take a minute or two. If you really love Trackmania, you may end up chipping in a few bucks to avoid the one significant drawback to the free download: for every five races in which you participate, you have to sit back and watch one. This isn’t a deal-breaker for most players, who use the break to grab a snack without missing a race.

As the makers of TrackMania might say: this is pure arcade driving madness. Trackmania is addictive racing at its best.

There were many reasons Blizzard gave for making Diablo III an online-only game, but first, we need to clear some things up. “Online only” doesn’t mean that you cannot play a single-player game; you absolutely can. The only catch is that your game client must first connect with the Battle.net servers. Blizzard stated in an interview last week that the main purposes for requiring an online connection was to prevent cheating, and to make it possible for players who wished to play single player to then transfer their games to a multiplayer game.

Since players will be able to trade real money for items and such, Blizzard thought it necessary to take a hard and fast stance on the potential for duping and other cheats. Ask anyone who has played Diablo or Diablo II for any length of time on Battle.net, and they can attest to the fact that, even without there being real money involved, cheats simply ruined the online experience.

In addition, you can also ask any Diablo veteran if they would have, at one point or another, liked to use one of their single player characters on Battle.net. Absolutely. Unfortunately, there isn’t a fail-safe way to make sure cheats weren’t used in creating the character, so the easiest method Blizzard could come up with was to maintain a perpetual connection to their game servers.

“But I want to play the game anywhere.”

Let me ask you a question. When is your computer not connected to the Internet anymore? Go ahead, you can think on it…

Anything? No? Didn’t think so.

Today’s computers don’t have the issue that computers over a decade ago had – an inconsistent connection to the Internet. Today, if your computer isn’t connected to the Internet in some capacity, something’s wrong.

The moaning and groaning that these kids are doing is simply because they don’t understand the very nature of the kind of thing they’re complaining about. Ignorance is bliss, but it’s also headache-inducing when you’ve got to sift through it when attempting to gather information about the most anticipated game of the last decade.

The premise of Supremacy 1914 is, as you may have guessed, World War I. Players can try to re-enact WWI or, more commonly, simply play for entertainment. It is a bit like the game of Risk, in that the point is to accumulate 1000 points while trying to take over the entire map (of the world). Roleplay is possible, but “silent games” are the most common.

Just like in Risk, you can make allies as well as enemies in a game. Sometimes, if players have ganged up on a particular player, this player may no longer have a chance to win; however, there is no reason for anyone to get upset, because it happens to all players, and he or she is most likely playing in other games where the situation is reversed. It is easy to see which active games are “lost causes,” and to focus attention on the ones that have more favorable conditions for winning. This is one of the great characteristics of Supremacy 1914: every game is different.

How much time can one spend playing Supremacy 1914? The great thing about this site is that you can put as much time into it as you want. It is common to have several different games running at the same time, and then spending anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour each day to check in and make updates in the games. The games will most likely be in different stages, some just beginning while others are wrapping up. If a player becomes inactive for several days, a computer takes over the play, and the game tends to end more quickly; however, a player that has been replaced by a computer can simply return if a winner has not yet been declared.

So maybe you caught that I wrote “primarily free” when describing the game. Honestly, the most important features of the game can be accessed without having to pay a penny. If you do decide to become more involved in the game, making a cash contribution allows you to access extras, such as different maps. The majority of users choose to not pay to play.