PC Spotlight #56: Vertiginous Golf

Title: Vertiginous Golf
Developer: Lone Elk Creative
Platforms: PC
Price: $5
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The easiest way to describe Vertiginous Golf is to imagine that if the citizens of Bioshock Infinite's Columbia decided to take up golf, the result would look something like Vertiginous Golf. There have been other over-the-top golf games on various platforms, but the aesthetic and the expansive course elevates Vertiginous Golf.

From the moment you start the game, the game's atmosphere draws the player in. A normal menu doesn't welcome you. Instead you find yourself outside an old-style parlor and within, screens unfold from the walls, allowing you to select various menu options. Take a seat and you'll be transported to the world of Vertiginous Golf, where the courses are suspended in the clouds and full of steampunk-style obstacles. From rotating platforms and conveyor belts to helicopter drones and multi-tiered levels, the courses of Vertiginous Golf are over-the-top and just fun to explore and master. Not only are you able to overcome these obstacles with proper drives and power, you can also control your mechanical hummingbird companion and fly around the map, allowing you to better plan your hits.

Vertiginous Golf currently only contains one nine-hole course (able to be played solo or with up to four others) and a tutorial course, with more to come, but the game just feels incredibly polished and is a joy to play. You can purchase Vertiginous Golf from the developer's site.

PC Spotlight #55: Crashtastic

Title: Crashtastic
Developer: Mark Smith
Platform: PC, Mac
Price: $9.99
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Games like Burnout and Flatout have proven one fact: gamers like smashing cars into things and seeing beautiful destruction in their wake. Cause and destructive effect, it's just fun. Crashtastic is still in pre-alpha, but it promises a fun mix of creativity and chaos.

In its early state, Crashtastic consists of a handful of challenges and a sandbox mode. Challenges range from simply driving certain distance, completing difficult jumps, and overcoming other obstacles; the sandbox is still bare bones at the moment, with only a ramp, halfpipe, and straight piece of road to use. But the focus isn't the modes; it's on building your own vehicle. You have a number of different pieces to use, including rockets for propulsion, braces to provide support, wheels, and rods of varying length to craft your mobile (or not-so-mobile) masterpiece. Crashtastic shines here, allowing you to build as crazy a vehicle you can think of, and watching physics tear it apart when you try to drive it. Driving full speed into a wall and seeing your vehicle explode into pieces and your driver ragdoll around is always satisfying.

As stated before, Crashtastic is pre-alpha, and thus feels incomplete at the moment. Luckily more parts, more levels, and more polish is coming, and in its current state, it's still just fun to build something and complete the challenges in different ways. You can purchase Crashtastic from the developer's site; the game has already been Greenlit.

IOS Spotlight #34: Polarity

Title: Polarity
Developer: Bluebutton Games
Platforms: IOS Universal, Ouya
Price: $4.99
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With solid mechanics and good touch controls, Polarity finally gives IOS a proper first-person puzzle platformer.

Compared to the genre as a whole, Polarity isn't the most original or innovative or even the best in the genre. We've rotated level, manipulated boxes, lasers, forcefields, activated platforms in other games before. But the genre has always been lacking on IOS and Polarity does it justice with its varied puzzle mechanics. Across twelve levels, you'll be reorienting parts of the environment, swapping your polarity to turn force fields into barriers or carry boxes through, or jumping over gaps while manipulating switches to move platforms. The controls are simple but work: left side moves, right side adjusts the camera, and there are icons for jumping, for actions like picking up boxes and pressing switches, and for switching your polarity. While the camera feels too loose, even on low sensitivity, the overall control scheme is effective for solving the game's challenges.

Polarity isn't the longest experience, but that doesn't mean it's not challenging. Some level can take 15 to 20 minutes and they're all well designed and fun to interact with and solve. You can purchase Polarity for $4.99, and vote for the game on Steam Greenlight. Polarity is also available on Ouya

PC Spotlight #54: Pixel RU2

Title: Pixel RU2
Developer: C63 Industries
Platforms: PC
Price: $16.77 (on sale for $10)
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Pixel RU2 (Are You Squared) is a minimalist game that combines platforming, puzzle solving, and shooter elements to make a fun, if lacking experience.

The first thing to note is that Pixel is still in alpha and very early in development. Right now, the game consists of three levels (two finished, one playable but not visually complete) and a level editor. However the mechanics present are very promising. Your little cube can move and jump, swap gravity VVVVV-style, and fire projectiles. Colored gates block your path, only able to be passed once you swap colors; other obstacles alter the level's orientation or kill you outright. Enemy pixels fire at you relentlessly, forcing you to evade their bullets and destroy them with your own. The elements combine to give Pixel a unique style, as you solve color-based puzzles, altering gravity to turn walls into floors, all while evading and fighting other pixels.

Pixel RU2 has a lot of potential and solid framework thanks to its fun mechanics, but its current form is just lacking content, as is to be expected with alphas. You can purchase Pixel RU2 from the developer's site and Desura, or vote for the game on Steam Greenlight.

No Money, No Problem: DataJack

Title: DataJack
Developer: Epic Banana
Platforms: PC
Free
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Sometimes it's easy to consider freeware games as inferior to paid releases, for whatever reasons, as if because they're not given a price might mean they're less worth one's time. I've seen and played enough free games to know that a price tag doesn't correlate to a game's quality and in my opinion, the recently released isometric action RPG DataJack is up there with games like Nitronic Rush, Toribash, Stealth Bastard, Zineth, in terms of free games with quality and depth rivaling the best paid releases.

DataJack is not the most visually astounding game, not is it the most polished. Made by one man over five years, there are bugs and glitches, which kind of to be expected. But what matters is the gameplay and in that aspect, DataJack is more than worthy of your time. A mercenary for hire in a corporation-run cyberpunk future, you must use skills and weapons in a variety of missions, from assassinations to heists to hacking valuable information. How you build your character, and how you approach your job is up to you. Sneaking around the back of a complex, equipped with silenced weapons, a sword, and bionic legs for faster movement is a valuable option. As is blowing out the wall with C4 (the environment is destructible) and laying waste to those inside with gunfire, while taking reduced damage due to your armor implants. Or maybe you want to buy a powerful hacking device from the street dealer outside your apartment, disable your enemy's defenses digitally, and turn their turrets against them. You have a wide range of options, thanks to upgradeable and moddable weapons, implants, hacking programs, and more, and each missions is small sandbox that allows you to tackle your objectives from a variety of angles and tactics.

DataJack is fun, challenging, with tons of depth, and a great cyberpunk atmosphere. You can download the game from Desura or download it directly here. If you're interested, you can also donate through Paypal on the developer's site.

PC Spotlight #53: The Ball

Title: The Ball
Developer: Teotl Studios
Platforms: PC
Price: $9.99
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If I were to compare The Ball to film, I say it's a B-movie. It won't blow you a way with innovation, you won't be emotionally riveted by its story, but it's fun and entertaining and you get to steamroll undead Aztec creatures into bloody pulp with a giant ball.

Your character finds himself lost into the sprawling halls and trap-laden temples of an ancient ruin deep within a mountain. After only a few minutes, you find your only weapon: the Ball and the device that controls it. The titular Ball is an incredibly versatile tool. It acts as platform over spikes and other hazards, able to trip switches, a battering ram to smash through barriers. It can shield you from arrows and dangerous projectiles, move heavy obstacles, and when the otherworldly denizens of the ruins come for you, it becomes your instrument of destruction, crushing your enemies to bloody stains.

The Ball is a good six to seven hours of bloody puzzle solving and action, that's been expanded with free DLC (there's even a Portal crossover level!). It may not be the most immersive experience or the most engrossing narrative, but it's certainly gory fun. You can purchase The Ball from the developer's site, Steam, and other stores.

PC Spotlight #52: Luminesca

Title: Luminesca
Developer: Matt Glanville
Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux
Price: $9.99 (on sale for $4.99)
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Games have explored the skies and beyond. the flickering corridors of futuristic abodes and the candlelit halls of medieval castles. But few have let us explore below and experience the dark depths of the ocean. Even in Bioshock you were isolated from the aquatic world outside, but Luminesca lets you discover the mysteries and secrets beneath the sea.

Across two Chapters, you play a Lum, a small creature exploring the caverns and caves and the shadowy mechanical ruins below the surface. You're equipped with a spotlight to illuminate the sunless world around you, activate switches, and you won't be alone, as fellow Lums and other weird denizens of the depths roam the environment. Luminesca isn't the hardest game; sure you'll be solving physics-based puzzles, avoiding crushers and other hazards, and unlocking new areas, but I never felt in danger. The game's greatest strength is the ambiance, the Limbo-esque atmosphere of darkened structures to discover, the dark world lit by the unusual creatures around you. The world of Luminesca is a joy to explore and discover.

Luminesca is currently consists of two Chapters, the second being more challenging and puzzle-focused, with more to come. You can purchase the game from the developer's site, Desura, and other sites. Luminesca was recently Greenlit.