G4

Welcome to G4's Knuckle Up, where we bring you a byte-sized view of our five favorite mobile games every week. The phone and tablet space is filled with incredible games that will keep you busy for minutes, hours, or even days -- we'll let you know what we're playing and why we're playing it. Here are our five favorite games this week: 

GAME OF THE WEEK
HUNDREDS
iOS ($2.99 - Limited Time)

Hundreds is a perfect example of minimalist game design, and it’s a great way to kick off 2013 here on Knuckle Up. We’re loving this ultra simple game of circles, and you’ll love it too... at first. A little backstory before we dig into Hundreds: the designer of this game, SemiSecret, is the very same studio that brought us endless runner Canabalt, and at the most recent Indiecade, Hundreds was an official selection. It’s a strong pedigree, to be sure; however, does this puzzle game stack up against its competition?

The concept and goal of Hundreds is simple: touch floating circles to increase their size (and the number inside them). Get enough circles ballooned up to total 100, and you’ve beaten the level. Sounds easy, right? Each puzzle presents a scenario designed to make attaining 100 more and more difficult as the game progresses. Oh, and let’s not forget this critical piece of information: when you touch a circle, it turns red as it expands, and if you touch another object while it’s red, you’re dead.

Hundreds is a beautiful juxtaposition of simplicity in design alongside increasingly complex solutions. It’s no wonder folks are already raving about it on social media, and often, they’re playing with a friend due to the fantastic multitouch capabilities. Even though it may seem basic at first glance, Hundreds is anything but, and well deserving of our Game of the Week.

Read More »

Defiance, Trion Worlds online open world shooter, is coming to consoles and PC in April and we have the latest gameplay trailer for you “Massive Co-Op” below. The trailer showcases some of the guns, vehicles, and huge boss battles that await you and your friends (and their friends, and their friends) in the ruins of alien ravaged San Francisco. There’s a pretty fantastic moment where someone on an ATV power slides through several enemies that’s worth the price of admission alone.

In case you forgot, Defiance is part of what the suits are calling a “transmedia experience” which will link the game to a SyFy original television series of the same name.

Check it out:

Pretty cool right? I think I need to see a little bit more of the game before I'm 100% sold but I’m definitely interested to see how the game and the TV show sync up. Are you?

Cloud gaming is the future and although we're not quite there yet, very soon we will be. As cloud gaming becomes more and more prevalent, do you every wonder about when it all began? 1998? 2001? What if I told you the roots of cloud gaming could be traced all the way back to the 1950s? You wouldn't believe me right? You’d slap me in the mouth and send me on my way but it’s true! After the jump, check out this pretty impressive infographic titled “The Rise of Cloud Gaming" courtesy of Big Fish Games.

Read it closely, there are lots of interesting little nuggets. For example, I never knew that Local Area Networks (LAN) were developed in 1973. That seems ancient. After you check it out, let me know your thoughts on cloud gaming in the comments. You can also view an interactive version of the infographic here.

Read More »

Razer has unveiled the “Razer Edge”, the first gaming tablet designed for PC gamers by PC gamers. Originally announced at CES 2012 as Project Fiona, the Razer Edge will utilize technology from both Intel (3rd generation Intel Core processors) and NVIDIA (NVIDIA GeForce graphics) by way of a Windows 8 operating system (full specs below). Technospeak-translation: You'll essentially be able to play PC games on this tablet, as if it were a PC computer. For more details on the different Razer Edge modes, read on.

Read More »

On just another day way back when, X-Play staffers started noticing that an odd fellow had shown up to their office that morning. It was an NPC from The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, and while some people were concerned, others saw only the possibilities.

Everywhere X-Play went, they'd get asked over and over what it was like spending working hours playing games, reviewing games, previewing games and beyond. It got so overwhelming, they decided to put out a video to answer the question once and for all. Find out what they had to say in this revisit of an X-Play Classic.

Sure, X-Play might have started out small and humble, but once the good times got rolling, Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb rode an international drug-fueled rocket ship of destruction that was completely unsustainable. When the huge crash came, you can bet E! True Hollywood Story was there to document it all. Watch the video below to find out what went down.

Sure, most times gamers see Kratos, he can get away with stabbing first and asking questions later, but in domestic life, he's got to play by the rules just like everyone else. He doesn't always find the adjustment back to civilian life so easy though, as demonstrated in this video from the X-Play Classics vault.

Do you suffer from a compulsive need to hold on to loot? Even when it's completely worthless, perhaps unsanitary and definitely rendering you wildly overencumbered? Then maybe the story of Davokhiin can help. Sure he might be the hero of The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, but he's also got a real problem letting things go.

Resident Evil: Retribution, the 5th installment of the Resident Evil film franchise, comes to DVD, Blu-ray, and Blu-ray 3D tomorrow, Friday 12/21, and we have an exclusive behind the scenes clip to whet your undead appetite! In the clip, titled "A Great Visual Journey", we get a behind the scenes glimpse into the design and build of the world of Resident Evil: Retribution.

It's pretty cool clip, seriously lacking in Milla Jovovich and those little outfits she always pours herself into for these movies, but pretty cool nonetheless.

Check it out:

Did you see Resident Evil: Retribution? What'd you think? I actually haven't seen it yet and I need something to watch this weekend.

ZombiU, the exclusive Wii U first person survival horror game hardcore Wii U gamers were looking forward to, was released in late November. During our hectic holiday schedule someone (definitely not me) forgot to promote our review here on The Feed. When my editor asked me where the ZombiU review pimp post was I said "a dog ate it... a zombi dog!" Hilarious right?

Anywho, if you're been wondering if ZombiU will make a great stocking stuffer this year, check out this snippet from our review:

"Your go-to melee weapon is the setting-appropriate English cricket bat, which while durable, isn't the easiest weapon to wield, and is one of the reasons I relied more on the limited firearms or in some sections just avoided zombies altogether. Moving around worked well enough, though the same can't be said for object interaction. Whether it's going through doors or looting the undead, it can be a challenge precisely centering your camera for the needed button prompt to appear."

Despite some control issues, we actually wound up liking the game quite a bit. Check out the full review here.

Have you had a chance to play ZombiU yet? Wait, do you even have a Wii U yet? Inquiring minds want to know!

FUSE, Insomniac Games' upcoming 4 player co-op game, has a new trailer "The Dalton Rules" which lays out the 3 rules Dalton, a snarky, energy shield equipped, Overstrike agent lives by. It looks like someone breaks one (or more) of Dalton's rules in this trailer so I can't imagine he's very happy about that.

Check out the latest FUSE trailer and see if you've broken any of Dalton's rules today:

What 3 rules do you live by? Mine include always sitting with my back against the wall and never purchasing off-brand toilet paper.

After a decade of bringing you brutally honest reviews, interviews with gaming's brightest luminaries, and wanton displays of intern abuse, X-Play's time is coming to an end.

This January 23rd at 6/5c, we'll bid farewell with an hour-long show full of favorite moments from over the years, new comedy and surprise guests.

Kingdom Rush, the addictive, fantasy based tower defense game from Armor Games, is available for free on iPhone today (12/18). FREE!! Why are you still reading this? Download it now. You've gotten gifts for everyone else this holiday season, isn't it about time you treated yourself to something? 

Need more convincing? Check out X-Play's Kingdom Rush (for iPad) recommendation below:

Seriously? You're still here? Download this game already will ya!?!

Total Recall, director Len Wiseman’s 2012 remake of Paul Verhoeven’s memorable (I say classic) 1990 sci-fi actioner, is available on DVD and Blu-ray today. While there was certainly some fan outcry regarding the decision to remake Total Recall, Weisman’s movie turned out to be a fun, polished production that paid homage to the original film while putting a different spin on Philip K. Dick’s short story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale."

This week we had an opportunity to sit down with Len Wiseman and discuss the daunting task of remaking a popular movie, managing fan expectations, his approach to directing action scenes, and some of the keys to balancing his personal relationship (he’s married to Total Recall star Kate Beckinsale) in a professional environment.

Initially Wiseman wanted no part of remaking Total Recall. “My first response was absolutely not” he said, “because the nostalgia of a movie like that. At a certain point you are remaking nostalgia which is very tough to do. When I read the script and found that the (remake) was not traveling to Mars, I was both shocked and extremely interested because it was going in a direction I couldn’t foresee and that was exciting. I became more aware of (the story) in a different kind of arena. A bit closer to how the original short story alluded to Mars but never went to Mars. That’s what Verhoeven did with his adaptation of it. They took it, set most of it on Mars. So the fact that it was different, that’s what really attracted me. But then you still have the nervousness, whether it goes to Mars or it doesn’t go to Mars; you’re still remaking nostalgia. Which is always nerve racking."

In order to create his own vision of Total Recall, early on Len distanced himself from the original movie. “The script was very different than the film that I remembered as a teenager. I wanted to absorb all that and get my ideas before I went back and watched the movie again. Later into the process I did watch it again and was kind of shocked at certain things I did not (originally) pick up on. I think as a teenager I was just going to watch the next Arnold (Schwarzeneger) movie. I wasn’t looking at it as the Phillip K. Dick story that it was. I wasn’t really looking for the sci-fi theme. It was interesting seeing it as an adult. But I really wanted to stay away. I watched it and then that was it. It wasn’t something that we went back to or that the writer’s went back to."

Check out an exclusive behind the scenes clip from Total Recall after the jump.

Read More »