Console Spotlight: A-Men 2

Title: A-Men 2
Developer: Bloober Team
Platforms: PS3, PS Vita
Price: $9.99
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A-Men 2 is described as a game that's "easy to play but still hard to master" and I couldn't agree more. It's a precision puzzle platformer; however I don't mean precision in the sense of pixel-perfect jumps and trap avoidance, but rather precise timing and strategic use of your characters' abilities.

A-Men 2 is first and foremost a puzzle game. You have a number of different characters at your disposal, each with their own abilities ranging from disguising yourself as the enemy and placing route-altering signs, equipping a rifle that can shoot enemies, building ladders and fixing machinery, to using a grapple hook. While there is platforming involving, switching between characters at the opportune moments, using their abilities at the proper times to assist other characters or kill enemies constitute the core of the game. However that proper timing is where I found the game also frustrates. It's satisfying to finally succeed and reach the waiting evacuation chopper, but to get to that point requires an exorbitant amount of trial and error. There's no flexibility in your attempts; there's one correct way to trigger the various switches and machines ans use your characters, at the right places, at the right times, and until you get that sequence down, you'll only be making frustratingly small intervals of progress at a time. It doesn't help that you can only save at certain checkpoints in each level and dying before them requires you to restart from the beginning.

If going solo isn't your style, you can also tackle A-Men 2 cooperatively with three other players. A-Men 2 may have charming visuals, a humorous self-aware narrative with characters who know they're NPCs in a game, and the mechanics themselves are fun, but the focus on trial and error leads to frustration more often than not. You can purchase A-Men 2 on the Playstation Store.

Console Spotlight: One Finger Death Punch

Title: One Finger Death Punch
Developer: Silver Dollar Games
Platforms: XBIG, coming to PC later this year
Price: $1 on Xbox Marketplace
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PC and IOS are where the bulk of the indies action is, but there are still notable games on XBIG, XBLA, and PSN (and even more to come thanks to Sony's aggressive indie strategy for PS4 and Vita). One such game is One Finger Death Punch, available now on XBIG and soon on PC.

Launch trailer here

The controls are simple: one button for left attacks, one button for right attacks. But that simple two-button scheme lays for the foundations for one of the most addictive games I've played in a while. OFDP is a game of skill and timing; button mashing will only leave open for damage. The animations, inspired by the well known Xiao Xiao stickman fight videos, are the highlight: incredibly smooth transitions between thousands of moves, all endlessly entertaining and just feel powerful. You feel like a martial arts badass as you survive waves of various enemies types across a 250 level campaign and a survival mode.

For $1, the game is an absolute steal. There is a huge amount of content, from different modes, different difficulties, skills to unlock, and weapons to use. One Finger Death Punch is not the deepest game, but who needs depth when a game is this fun and addicting?

You purchase One Finger Death Punch or try a free trial on the Xbox Marketplace here, download the extended PC demo here, or vote for the game on Steam Greenlight.