The premise of Ick: The Game is simple; monsters like repulsive stuff and require their favorite items before moving into a house. Thus players must attain the correct materials — used band-aids, rotten vegetables, toxic sludge, etc. — to pile up monsters and points in broken-down huts of grime. (more…)

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is the excellent conclusion of Nintendo’s 3-D Metroid trilogy, developed by Retro Studios. This time around, protagonist Samus Aran is capable of sacrificing her own energy supplies to increase her firepower. However, stay in this mode too long and her power suit will become corrupted (hence the title), forcing you to shoot frantically to release the harnessed energy. (more…)

Tetris fans, your new addiction is here, and it goes by the name Planet Puzzle League.

Created to appease relaxed and hardcore gamers alike, this multi-faceted Nintendo DS title pushes colored blocks towards the top of one’s screen and requires their quick organization into groups of three or more. (more…)

Nintendo has announced the winner of its first-ever Short Cuts Showcase, an open-call competition that called for Nintendo-themed short films. After submissions were narrowed down to just ten finalists, a select panel of judges voted “Good vs. Wiivil,” created by Jack Paccione, Jr., to earn top honors. (more…)

Gamers fiending for the first XBox 360 title featuring ninjas, your wait is over. Starting today, June 12, M-rated stealth assassin game Tenchu Z is available at retail outlets around the United States. (more…)

Electronics giant Sony has confirmed that it has ceased offering the 500-dollar, 20-gigabyte version of the Playstation 3. A spokesman for the company said that the 60-gig model, which goes for $100 more, has been selling at a 9-1 ratio in comparison to its less-equipped brother. (more…)

In the wake of the scaled-back Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), which will be held from July 11-13 in Santa Monica, California and be accessible by invitation only, International Data Group (IDG) announced a few months ago that it would launch a new gaming exposition called Entertainment for All.

And to help drum up support for the event, Nintendo has announced that it will be the “flagship contributor” as E for All takes place from October 18-21 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. (more…)

The concept – getting your teammates to say five words in a minute with a limited amount of clues – is simple enough. But where 25 Words or Less (Winning Moves Games) truly differs from Catch Phrase or Taboo, for example, is the competition of outbidding the opposing team for the right to use each card of nouns.

To play, all participants split up into two squads, and each side takes turns sending up a representative to peruse any given card. The representatives glance over the words and, starting at twenty-five, try to outbid each other for the lowest amount of clues needed to have his or her teammates utter all five nouns. The bidding ends when one rep acquiesces and allows the other team to attempt the card with his or her allotted amount of clues. If the winning bidder cannot accomplish the feat in a minute, the opposing team wins the card. A team must tally ten cards to win.

It should be noted that twenty-five clues is far beyond the amount necessary to win even the hardest of cards. The upper hand usually goes to the bidder that can get his or her teammates to guess certain words in only one clue, as well as those bidders that know when to let the other team take the card. Hubris can be one’s downfall in 25 Words or Less (as is the case in real life).

In addition, it’s important to know the capabilities of one’s teammates. If one’s partners aren’t the sci-fi/nerdy type, it may not be wise to use “lycanthrope” instead of “Lon Chaney” or “silver bullet” in order to save a word while getting them to say “werewolf” (true-life example!). Still, slicing down clues is always important. If “monstrous ape” will suffice for teammates to say “King Kong” instead of “Fay Wray film,” go for it.

As you may have gathered, much of the fun here lies in the strategy of the bidding process. If you love some good, old-fashioned word association mixed with the verbal equivalent of a limbo stick, 25 Words or Less should be up your alley.

- Scott Morrow

25 Words or Less: People, Places, and Things Edition
$20.95, Winning Moves Games
http://www.winning-moves.com
Available online and at some retail outlets

Want to truly prove that you’re whole brained? Take a gander at Mental Floss, a game that challenges players with trivia of all types geared towards the left and right sides of the brain as well as spotting the “big fat lie.” (more…)