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Inside Mac Games has posted a new review of Her Interactive's latest edition in the Nancy Drew adventure series. Nancy Drew: The Deadly Device puts players in the role of the famous sleuth as she tackles the case of a murdered physicist involved in a top secret Tesla-inspired facility.

Here's an excerpt:

Gameplay is pretty straight forward. You move Nancy around the facility, inspecting the offices, lounges, laboratory, and other rooms. You will also need to interact with the employees, finding out what they think about the person murdered and the prime suspect. This game is driven by the investigation. Often nothing will happen or no new information can be found, until a certain task is completed or a clue uncovered. But the game isn’t specifically linear, there is generally more than one path to investigate. The player usually has an idea of what needs to be done next, although there were a few instances where it wasn’t so obvious. If there is a question, Nancy keeps a journal which includes a list of tasks that need to be completed as well as keeps track of important information, such as codes found, and other information gathered.

IMG Review: Nancy Drew The Deadly Device

Her Interactive

Nancy Drew: The Deadly Device

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Mac Game Store has added Alawar Entertainment's Hyperballoid 2 to its growing list of game titles available for download and purchase. The Breakout style game features 200 levels, four different worlds, 45 bonus items, and over 280 kinds of bricks to demolish.

Hyperballoid 2 is more than a sequel to one of the best old school Breakout games around, it's also a new high for the genre that pushes the boundaries of visuals, gameplay and user customization. If you want a Breakout game with superb high resolution graphics, outrageous new powerups and silky smooth controls, you've got it. And if you want to create new animated levels complete with realistic physics and modified bricks, you've got that, too, along with the ability to share your handiwork with the rest of the world. Clear your schedule now and set your imagination free because Hyperballoid 2 is ready to play!

• Beat 200 levels
  
• Conquer four different worlds
  
• Capture and use 45 bonus items
  
• Demolish over 280 kinds of bricks

Requirements:

• Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later
  
• Intel Mac

Hyperballoid 2

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GameStar.ru recently posted a new interview with Stoic's Alex Thomas about the company's upcoming strategy role playing adventure game, The Banner Saga. The interview includes information about the game's Viking theme, Kickstarter funding, and some more details about gameplay elements.

The story is going to advance via gameplay elements such as taking over or losing cities, victories and defeats in battles, your army's structure, etc. How is it going to look like in the end? Gameplay events could start repeating themselves after all. And you even stated that this approach to storytelling is more convenient than classic story branching. Isn't that a bit too complicated? From the developers' perspective, that is. Or you'll end up simply sending players on numerous missions and that'll be the end of?

The core gameplay of the single player game has less focus on managing large armies and taking over cities. Instead, you'll have a huge caravan of peasants traveling with you, and your combat teams will be relatively small. One of the more exciting aspects of the game to me is that you'll hop between different groups of people experiencing different parts of the same event, on the same timeline. The timeline is the important feature, in that the decisions you make don't change the whole world around you, but change how you experience the world. Things happen whether you are there or not, and you might be able to influence them. This lets us create a single storyline without over-complicating the story, but still gives players the sense of involvement. Multiple playthroughs should produce very different results.

GameStar.ru: The Banner Saga Interview

The Banner Saga

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Gamercast has posted a new review of Soldak Entertainment's starship action RPG, Drox Operative. The game puts players in the role of an elite starship captain and features warring alien races, fierce space battles, a dynamic and evolving galaxy, and co-op multiplayer.

Sometimes simply sitting back and watching the world around you doesn't always work out as effectively as you might want, races may be too peaceful to one-another which is where you may have to intervene with some nasty tricks, like cause civil unrest on planets, spread rumours, sabotage water supplies and more dastardly deeds, however you aren't the only individual in the universe able to do so, so don't be surprised when another race starts spreading vicious rumours of you. Don't worry though, because the game is dynamic, so may never encounter the same experience –good or bad- more than once.

Sitting back and watching the action unfold is simply one way to play Drox Operative, and if you want you can get in the thick of the action, you can work your way around the system wiping out every race until only one remains, protect friendly races from pirates, or just blast around fulfilling quests for your associates like colonising planets, making the galaxy a safer place, or carrying out diplomatic missions that may mean the difference between a war between two races or ongoing peace. The missions can get a little repetitive, after-all there is no overarching story to the game, however because they aren't the definitive crux of the game you never feel as though you are entering a grind-only zone.

Gamercast: Drox Operative Review

Soldak Entertainment

Drox Operative

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