Who would have thought that such a simple twist on tower defence games would produce such as marvellous game as Plants vs Zombies. Whilst some of PopCap’s recent efforts may have been a bit lacking in originality (I’m looking at you Peggle Nights!) Plants vs Zombies shows that the casual game developer has a lot of great ideas still hidden away.

As the name suggests there is a battle raging as the Plants have to stand up tall in the face of the barbaric Zombie invasion. The battlefield, your very own back garden at first and later the roof of your lovely homestead. If just one Zombie breaks through your defences then it is game over, your humble Plants failed to hold out.

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I remember playing some jigsaw puzzles as a kid, often when on holiday to some wet part of the UK. You would spend hours trying to find the last dozen or so pieces you need to finish the puzzle before you give up the hunt knowing it is a waste of time. Thankfully for all you puzzlers a solution is at hand with Gaia 3D Puzzle. It is pretty much a jigsaw puzzle game that you can play on your PC, what is great is that you can use any picture on your hard drive as the picture for the puzzle.

I decided to use a screenshot from World of Goo, upon selecting which picture I wanted I was able to chose what size I wanted the puzzle to be. You can have anything from 12 pieces to 1938, imagine that, nearly 2000 puzzle pieces, and you will never lose one of them. Brilliance. Other options before you start playing allow you to change what shape the pieces are and whether you can rotate them, this all makes for a nice challenging game if you so wish.

Of course, once you start playing it is all very easy, simply click and drag the puzzle pieces into the place you think they should go. Once you match two pieces together a very satisfying ‘thunk’ sounds off and the pieces are nice and secure. While some might say that the charm in jigsaw puzzles lies in trying to force two pieces together, this is much simpler and less stressful, I would take this option any day.

I must make a brief mention of the fantastic camera, while it won’t be truly useful when trying to complete the puzzle you can zoom in and tilt the camera to get some great shots of the puzzle as you put it together. You also get some nice light reflection at different angles, it really makes for some nice images.

This game is not going to appeal to everyone, but it is great fun taking apart and putting back together some of those amazing screenshots you will take of games, and it will be very good when you have a nice photo which you just want to make into a jigsaw. I am not sure if $20 is the best price for this, but it will be money well spent for some people. A good game overall.

Just as a pretext, this is a future review. That means that it’ll be relevant to PC in approximately a month. Yes, I have a time machine. And no, you can’t use it. So there.

Inevitably Saints Row 2 is going to be compared to GTA IV. So just to get that out of the way first; yes, Saints Row 2 doesn’t live up to Rockstar’s looming behemoth of a title. However, the great thing is it doesn’t need to. It takes such a depature from the story driven gritty crime approach and instead comes at it sideways. It seems as though everything was constantly scrutinised with the question ‘is this fun?’ in mind, and if it wasn’t, it was dropped. Luckily, it definitely helped.

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How is it that Goo can contain more charisma, charm, cuteness and lets not forget gooeyness than pretty much any other video game character ever? I will tell you why, it is because the two men who created World of Goo are masters of their craft. From all accounts Ron Carmel and Kyle Gabler have spent their time sitting in a giant pool of goo becoming so intimately attached to it that they could create the perfect Goo ball.

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Ok so I know that many people have issues with Peggle, they deride it for being a game of chance and nothing more. They claim that is gay for featuring a Unicorn and many other cute characters. They chastise it for lacking a story-line. None of that matters though, Peggle Deluxe was one of the best puzzle games when it came out, and Peggle Nights is just as good.

It is just as good, but sadly it doesn’t offer us anything new and innovative. Sure we have a new character and a trophy room along with more challenges and a state page, but there are no magnificent leaps forward in gameplay. All of the characters have new ‘night time’ alter-egos and make some new comments and such like throughout the game.

Ultimately though Nights is just Peggle part 2, and really that is no bad thing. If you didn’t like the original game, well sadly Nights still won’t be your cup of tea. What Nights does provide is a new set of challenges and a great way to while away a few hours of your day while you wait for something a bit meatier to arrive. Sending a ball bouncing around some pegs trying to get a high score either appeals to you or it doesn’t. When you see the ball bounce on the rim of the bucket three times before eventually dropping in it is a great moment. Those bonus points don’t hurt either.

There isn’t much more that can be said about Nights that hasn’t been said about the original Peggle, I loved the original, and I love this new one. If you want some new Peggle challenges and a new character then get Nights and enjoy.

Cosmic Sunder Elements takes you back in time to an age when games like Space Invaders ruled the world, yet it combines this with a twist of modern Peggle styled delights. Cosmic Sunder takes you on a journey around a host of different worlds and areas and poses you a challenge on each level. The challenge may follow the same basic principle, which is to clear the screen of the various blocks and elements while making use of the plentiful array of power-ups.

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You all want a review of the Spore Creature Creator? Well head on over here and scroll down to read my take on it. I say controversial things like:

the Creature Creator can be considered to be a game in and of itself

And also get accused of ‘playing god.’ Read I say!

Race Driver GRID, what a game. It is a game that drove me to write nearly 2000 words in my review of it, that is pretty hefty for me! I start of like this.

What happens when a game tries to combine two different play styles? The simple answer is that the game will either crash and burn, or become a big hit. Race Driver GRID has the potential to be a big hit, a great looking graphics engine and damage modelling; exciting fun racing and a well crafted Career mode are just some of the things going for it.

And you can find the whole thing here.

After much tooing and frowing and back and forth’ness my review of Dawn of War: Soulstorm has finally been published on GAME.com

Due to some issues of not being a GAME employee it has been published as a ‘Featured Customer Review.’ But don’t worry it is mine! I say things such as:

The latest ‘expandalone’ from Relic and Iron Lore in the Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War series, Soulstorm is the third expansion for Dawn of War and is potentially the biggest one yet. Introducing two new armies and a massive new single-player campaign this is an immense proposition.

Soulstorm builds on the same basic principles of all the games in the Dawn of War franchise, build your base, attack using cover, capture control points and crush the enemy. Subtle differences in gameplay arrive with the introduction of the two new races and the addition of flying units.

And the rest can be found here.

My review of TrackMania Forever, both Nations and United has been published over on 411 Mania and I say some funky little things like this.

TrackMania is a whole load of fun, there is noting about this game that makes you think “oh this isn’t fun…” as you are constantly racing around outrageously crazy tracks making your car do stuff that shouldn’t be possible but that just is brilliant to witness. The actual driving is fun purely because you are not worrying about gears, downforce and all the other stuff that comes in racing games today. Without a doubt this is the most fun you are going to have with a racing game for a long while.

So go and check it out right here.