More. Best. Conspiracy. Ever.

Back when Super Mario Galaxy was first released, intrepid fans noticed something peculiar about the placement of the shiny sparklies on the game’s title. Look closely and you’ll notice the letters U, R, M, R, G, A, and Y stand out from the others, spelling something rather interesting: U R MR GAY. OMG CONSPIRACY!

Well, Super Mario Galaxy 2 has been announced, its box art released (not the final box, but only the logo matters), and the first thing internet folk do is look for another secret message from Mario. The shining stars have shifted position for the sequel, marking a brand new set of letters: U, R, M, I, A, Y. Read it backwards and you have a lovely internet speak response to Mario Galaxy’s accusation: YA, I M, R U?

Minecraft adds crafting

As far as sandbox games go, the indie community has a leg up on just about every mainstream project out there. Dwarf Fortress is the king of sandbox sims, by far, but the still-in-alpha Minecraft (inspired by a personal favorite game of mine, Infiniminer) is making huge strides. The single/multiplayer building game is getting new features at a rapid pace. The video below shows off new mechanics that are pretty exciting, including farming, item crafting, and… TNT!

There’s still some work to be one on Minecraft before it sees an official release, but there’s an in-progress build you can try just to see what all the fuss is about. I have to admit, I like the direction this game is going.

Sword & Poker

Can’t. Stop. Playing. Sword. And. Poker! Upon careful thought, the name may sound a touch vulgar, but I assure you, the game is pure family-friendly gold. Recently released on the iTunes App Store, Sword & Poker seems to be one of Japanese studio Gaia’s few English releases, which makes me very curious about their other games. Anyway, Sword & Poker is a dungeon crawling puzzle/RPG/poker hybrid that falls right in line with games like Puzzle Quest. You move through simple map-like floors battling enemies and collecting gold and equipment. Battles take place on a grid with a 3×3 arrangement of playing cards in the center. Both you and your opponent take turns placing cards around the center to form a poker hand. The more powerful the hand, the more damage you deal to your opponent.

Sword & Poker isn’t a one-trick pony, and that’s where its dangerously alluring qualities come into play. A shop opens up after a few floors, allowing you to upgrade your hit points and buy new weapons that do different amounts of damage depending on your hand. It’s not always “bigger weapon make bigger hurt”, either. For instance, I’ve kept this delicious hammer weapon equipped for some time, as it does enormous damage when forming straights and flushes, but creating simple pairs (and some pretty rare hands, too) only hits for a few points of damage. See the trade-off there? It’s a gamble, but it’s paid off very well so far. After another few floors, spells, status-changing weapons, and shields are introduced, along with enemies that can rearrange the playing grid, adding just the right amount of complexity at the appropriate time to keep you interested in playing.

Sword & Poker is extraordinarily well-balanced with a good mix of luck, skill and strategy, especially in later levels. It’s got that irresistable “just one more floor” quality of addictiveness to it, and I haven’t managed put the game down for very long. If you own an iPhone or iPod Touch, pick this gem up right now. There’s a free lite version, but if you play it and like it, you’ll have to start over when you get the full version.

Come, play Zero Gear with me

Mario Kart is fun, right? Well, at least Super Mario Kart, Mario Kart 64, and Mario Kart DS. The GameCube and Wii outings felt like they had lost their soul, turning races into roulette-style outings where the winner was determined by random power-ups. If you miss the good ole days of wacky races with your buds, Zero Gear is here to fill that void. Created by NimbleBit studios, the team behind a few of my favorite iPhone games, Zero Gear is a colorful casual online racing game with a decent sprinkling of power-ups, gameplay modes, and quirky gimmicks that keep you rolling back for more.

Zero Gear is a very casual game, meaning you can pretty much jump right into things and get your bearings within a moment or two. It also means the experience is less nuanced than you might like, so don’t expect learning to slide dash or tap the gas to round corners. It’s pretty much straight-up “hold the gas and go”, which isn’t as stale as that sentence makes it sound. The power-ups are creative, though somewhat limited in scope, and the different gameplay modes range from tag to football matches where you try and bump a ball into the goal to a Plinko-style pinball machine. You’ll have a big stupid grin on your face most of the time you’re playing, which is awesome.

Steam is offering both the demo and, for a few more days, free play of the full version, so download the game and see what I mean. I really want the concept to be fleshed out a bit more in the future with more power-ups, maps, race types — well, more of everything it has now. The multiplayer action is great, the cart customization is really fun, and the whole game is poised to be something grand.

Demon’s Souls — what am I missing?

A lot of hype pooled around the release of Demon’s Souls, a dark Japanese-made PlayStation 3 RPG brought to North America by Atlus. I watched the trailers, I read the blogs, I lurked in the forums, I did everything I could to sniff out why this game was supposed to be the second coming of the role playing game. Then, it was released, and I bought it. I excitedly plugged an hour or two into the game, sat my controller down and scratched my head. “This is like every other RPG I’ve ever played,” I thought to myself, “and the generic demon plot doesn’t help things, either.” So, yeah, big fail, right?

I’m not quite ready to give up. When every gaming website on the web started putting out their “best of 2009″ lists, Demon’s Souls was on many of them. This thread on NeoGAF keeps popping back on the front page of NeoGAF every few days: Demon’s Souls | Official Thread – Soulsuckingly brilliant RPG full of Demon’s Crack. And, well, I want to make use of that $50 I spent back in October.

Instead of slogging my way through a game I just don’t “get”, I thought I’d throw this question out there to anyone who owns it: what’s the big deal? Why is Demon’s Souls so brilliant? Why must I play it? And why didn’t I see that when I first gave it a try?

Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes says “hello”

Hybrid games, especially those of the puzzle variety, are my new gaming love. Puzzle Quest pretty much started the genre for me, then games like Bookworm Adventures and Clockwords: Prelude sealed the deal. Now a new contender comes along and makes me all bubbly with happiness: Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes. I blindly bought the game after Tiny Cartridge recommended it as a “sleeper hit” that was “this year’s Puzzle Quest”. A secret game that’s like Puzzle Quest that’s awesome? Count. Me. In.

Combining puzzle strategy/RPG elements, Clash of Heroes plays like Critter Crunch with armies to command, units to level up, and artifacts to equip. Combat takes place on both DS screens, with the enemy on top and your troops on bottom, each facing the middle. By picking up and dropping units in various columns (or removing them from the field), your goal is to combine three of the same type and color to form an attacking group. Depending on the class of unit, attacks take a number of turns to initiate and will have different affects. There are also special units that must be “loaded” with other units to start their attack, but the extra effort is always worth it.

Here’s the fun bit: it’s not just match making and attacking. Make a horizontal match, for example, and a wall is created, useful for protecting yourself while the enemy pounds away at your front lines. Removing units is a great way to earn extra moves for the turn by creating quick combos. And as you take damage (your character, not your army), a special magic attack is charged that can turn the tide of battle. While you’re working on your own battle plan, the enemy has its tactics, too, and you really have to keep an eye on the top screen and plan your moves accordingly. It’s a little bit of puzzle gaming, a little bit of attack posturing, and a little bit of defense, all wrapped into one gorgeous package that I just can’t put down.

Strangely enough, I think the game’s most unfortunate feature is the Might & Magic name. When something is this original, it shouldn’t carry the weight of another franchise on its back, especially not one as old as this series. Probably the reason most people overlooked Clash of Heroes was because, on the surface, it looked like another Might & Magic game. Not to down Might & Magic, of course, but Clash of Heroes =/= Might & Magic. Just sayin’.

Anyway, there’s my two pence. If you own a DS, you enjoy games that blur the lines between genres, and want to become a Capybara Games fanboy like I do, Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes will please.

3D Link’s Awakening update

What’s better than a finely-crafted, classic 2D game? Well, nothing, really. But what’s almost as good? A finely-crafted, classic 2D game re-imagined in 3D! A chap by the name of MithosK has been working on translating the world of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening into 3D, retaining all the simple Game Boy charm of the original. The game will still play like a top-down Zelda, but instead of flat visuals, the environments will have isometric depth to them.

Current progress looks promising. The overworld has been complete, and dungeon work (including those wonderful sidescrolling bits) is going smoothly. A “beta” of the game is available from MithosK’s site, a short little romp called Chicken Hunter that shows off what LA3D will be like once it’s complete. Progress is being made almost every day, so this is one of those rare fan projects I have faith in.

Mega Man 10 remix… already!

That didn’t take long, did it? The remixer’s website has a downloadable MP3 for you to nab, too. Nice job, Citolo!

The City of Metronome is still alive

Way back at E3 2005, a small Swedish company by the name of Tarsier Studios showcased an action-adventure game it had begun work on, The City of Metronome. Apart from its unique art direction and design, it promised a game where “sound is your weapon”, allowing you to record sounds you hear to attack enemies or solve puzzles. And if you couldn’t find the sound you needed, you could make it yourself by shoving bookcases down stairs, breaking windows, or annoying citizens until they shouted at you. The team was looking for a publisher to help bring the game to market, and despite the interest generated in the title, no one stepped forward.

Despite the grim outlook, I never really forgot about the game, prompting me to go on a little information hunt this morning. The results? The game is still alive, though as of early 2009 not actively being worked on. Tarsier is still looking for the funding to continue work, but the team is confident that will happen at some point. Primotech wrote a feature about the game during GDC 09, ending the piece with a positive “…it’s not a matter of ‘if’ Metronome will be released. It’s a matter of ‘when”. Those are words I like to hear. Experimental games are great.

The Primotech article above has more information on the specifics of Tarsier’s struggle, and you can always prod the official and less-official websites for tiny shards of information.