World 2-35: Tentacle Wars: The Purple Menace

Tentacle Wars: The Purple Menace

http://www.kongregate.com/games/gamezhero/tentacle-wars-the-purple-menace

Honestly, I never did figure out exactly how this game works. Somehow I managed to beat it though! It was pretty fun for the first couple of levels, and then it became pretty intense and hard to figure out. Since I couldn't figure out how the game worked, I can't really write a review on this game.
Based on personal enjoyment, I'll give Tentacle Wars:

World 2-34: Reachin' Pichin

Reachin' Pichin

http://www.kongregate.com/games/KingDotCom/reachin-pichin

Reachin' Pichin is another launch game. This one was themed around a creature created in a lab to soar through the skies, yet when he hatched he couldn't even manage a single jump. So it is your job to help Pichin grow and evolve.

Unlike some Launch games, Reachin' Pichin offered pillows for Pichin to bounce off of to gain some extra air, and you could even upgrade the amount of bounce you would get through the lab. There were many upgrades and skills you could obtain in this game, and you could even view your future evolutions (well, at least the shadows), but I never did figure out how to make him evolve. Eventually it just happened for me.

The music and graphics in this game are very cutesy, and actually became quite bothersome over time since this game was fairly long. The one thing I really didn't like about this game, other than how long it took, is that you couldn't just mute the music. You had to choose between full music and sound effects, or no sound at all.

World 2-33: Meteor Launch

Meteor Launch
http://www.kongregate.com/games/KingDotCom/meteor-launch

After playing Burrito Bison, I was really in the mood to play some more Launch games. Meteor Launch was my next target, and it was a good one. It had a very cute theme. The story goes that there was a boy on a tropical island who loved looking at the stars every night, and then one night a star landed right on his island! So he did what every tropical star gazing child would do - he spent 18 days launching it back to space, so he could gaze upon the stars once more. It's not often that a launch game has a story at all, let alone one as creative as this.

The currency used in Meteor Launch is fireflies, which you can spend at the store for launch upgrades. The upgrades were also fairly creative, featuring a net to catch fireflies more easily, and adding grass to your meteor to attract the fireflies as well. I'm not sure exactly how long this game took me to complete, but I'd say it was well worth it.

World 2-32: Burrito Bison

Burrito Bison

http://www.kongregate.com/games/JuicyBeast/burrito-bison

This was a pretty sweet game. It's a launch game, the kind where you have to continuously launch your character as far as you can, gather up money, and spend it on upgrades until you are finally able to blast through the air and soar all the way to the finish line. I don't remember how long it took me to complete the game, but my best launch time was 1:09. I also purchased every upgrade.

Burrito Bison had a wacky Mexican theme, featuring gummy bears as the main enemy. It was fairly well done for a launch game, and I had a lot of fun playing this one, even after reaching the final goal. The colours matched the theme perfectly, as did the music and sound effects.

World 2-31: Collapse It

Collapse It
http://www.kongregate.com/games/Smrdis/collapse-it?acomplete=collapse+it

"Collapse It" is a puzzle/physics/gravity game with 34 levels. Your objective is quite simple - place bombs inside the bricks on each level to blow up the structures in such a way that all the people on the screen will be killed by all the rubble. As with most games of this genre, I find myself "gravitated" towards them for their simplicity and addictive nature. There are a couple different types of bombs, such as the standard bombs that you stick directly into the bricks, and drop bombs that come tearing through the sky to attack people from above. There are also a couple different brick types that will alter your strategy as well.

Overall, "Collapse It" is a pretty quick and fun game that would be ideal to fill up maybe half an hour of your time.

World 2-30: Diablo II: Lord of Destruction

Diablo II: Lord of Destruction
~PC

Once again, I have mastered Diablo II: Lord of Destruction (at least on normal mode). This time around I decided to try a Paladin for the first time, finishing off Baal at level 34. To be more specific with my build, I tested out what is called the "Hammerdin" character by putting the skill "Blessed Hammer" up to level 20. To properly pull off this build, you need to get your offensive aurora "Concentration" to level 20, as well as the defensive aurora "Vigor", but I believe I only got both to around level 6 each before I unlocked Blessed Hammer. At that point, I switched off to offensive play, since I am naturally an attacker - not a defender. By the time I completed the game, I hadn't gained enough levels to max all three skills out, but if I continue in hell mode those will be my next steps. Although I must say, auroras feel a bit awkward to me during solo play, because the only person other than myself gaining anything from my boosts is the mercenaries I hire. Then I am left standing around waiting for him to polish all the monsters off. As I said, I like to charge enemies too much, so I was always busy mashing all the enemies around me with my awesome hammer spell rather than worrying about building up my auroras.

As a first time Paladin, I found this build pretty fun while I was building up my Blessed Hammer skill. After some time, it started to get pretty boring. I'm a Sorceress at heart, so I'm used to having a whole bunch of different spells to cast at any given moment to most effectively take down the enemies I am facing. Blessed Hammer has a huge advantage in this regard, because it seems to work just as well on one monster as it does the next, and it's also a really strong attack. Much stronger than I remember my sorceress's best spells being.

Once again, I highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend this game to anybody and everybody. Not only is it amazing from music to character appearance to expansions of characters and more, it also completely involves you in the game and gives you hours and hours of lasting fun. Diablo II is definitely one of my all time favourite games.

World 2-29: Altered Beast (Arcade)

Altered Beast (Arcade version) via Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection
~PS3

Altered Beast has always been a classic in my books. There's nothing incredibly special about it, but the music always gives me a great sense of nostalgia, and the game play is simple and straight forward which makes it easy for anybody to pick up and love. The story is basic, where some sort of royalty (probably a king) asks you to rescue his daughter, so you set off on a mission to save her. There doesn't seem to be any names for any of the characters, but it works well for this game.

Altered Beast features flashing beasts which drops orbs that you must collect in order to power up and transform into a new beast in each level, true to the title of the game. It's fairly short, as there are only 4 levels (and only 3 monsters to transform into - the last level featuring Gold and Silver versions of the first beast transformation).

As a side note, the arcade version is a lot more fun than the home console version. The graphics are much smoother, the colours are better, and while my favourite music sequence that plays between levels is faster than the home version, the whole game just turned out better for the arcade. I would recommend this game to anybody who likes a simple arcade classic that doesn't have much of a learning curve.