Teenage Zombies: Invasion of the Alien Brain Thingys!

Platform: Nintendo DS
Verdict: A lively afterlife.
Rating: 7/10
Zombies eh? Can't live with em, can't live without em. One minute they're lurching from beyond the grave to munch through our cranium for tasty think-jelly, the next they're mankind's last hope against big brained invaders from planet Mars.
At least, that's the simple premise for the b-movie loving, comic strip aping Teenage Zombies: Invasion of the Alien Brain Thingys! Instead of the typically popular zombie infatuated slaughterfests that pitch your shotgun against their vacuous head, this time around you play as the undead.
Teenage Zombies is like a Cartoon Network animation adaptation, even if it hasn't yet or ever will grace the idiot box. With three zombie kids to hot-swap between at the press of the touchscreen, Ignition Entertainment's side scrolling platformer attempts to inject afterlife into the under nourished genre.
Looking ever so slightly like Earthworm Jim's mutant offspring, Teenage Zombies has a lovely hand drawn style with the three brain hungry teenagers each exhibiting wildly varying characteristics and undead abilities.
With earth invaded by technologically superior floating brains, the Teenage Zombies are in culinary heaven, just so long as they can get through the seemingly intraversable levels.
Thankfully these young rotting pals can work together to get on. Lefty can extend her arms to reach higher platforms, Halfpipe can jump off ramps and crawl through narrow gaps while Fins has a tentacled appendage that allows him to walk up walls and monkey-bar across certain terrain.
Each level thus presents itself as a light-weight puzzle, asking you to pick the right zombie for the right task. And in this it gets things pretty right.
Unfortunately such potential is often left wanting with picky collision detection requiring some pixel perfect platforming where others would forgive and some rather rote and stilted one button combat sitting alongside overly slow character movement.
Still, it's a fun new IP that sticks its dismembered tongue out at all the bland brand games on the DS, and for that I salute it with one hand raised and the other on some disinfectant spray.

n+

Platform: Xbox 360 Live Arcade
Verdict: A touch of zen
Rating: 4/5
Ninjas, they get a tough deal in life. When most action heroes just wade through bad guys with an arsenal of guns, ninjas have to traverse complex, insurpassable terrain utilising inhuman feats of acrobatic derring-do. When they finally get to fight it's often lonesome ninja with sword vs giant robotic squirrel with lasers for eyes and a heart of doom. If I was a ninja i'd go on strike.
n+ features one such super assassin, tasked with merely surviving a series of over 300 rooms where death lies waiting like a snickering kid. Each room has an exit and a switch to open it, getting to them alive is your goal. In your way lies a multitude of robots, mines and death defying leaps, and you don't have a sword.
Fusing old school 2D platforming with modern rag doll physics and momentum based gameplay, n+ is a wonderful minimalist game that orders you to master the art of jumping and seat-of-the-pants acrobatics, or pay with your comedic ragdoll death.
Using momentum, n+ allows your ninja to pull off spectacular jumps with careful timing. With wall jumping, improvised platforming and a touch of panicked luck, n+ at your best is a graceful ballet between homing rockets, death lasers and a twisting ninja. At your worst it's an exercise in frustration that thanks to polished programming, is always your fault.
Littering each room is a series of yellow dots that increase your time limit (disguised as an ever decreasing health bar). It's not imperative to collect them all before finding the exit but the collect-em-up nature of score chasing can often turn the simplest level into the most difficult - a choose your own difficulty level if you will.
Oddly addictive yet simplistic, n+ is a polished experience with expansive features like online multiplayer, a map editor, the all important leader board and saved replays (for when you pull off that seamless, super human run).
Initially debuting on the PC and darling of the indie scen, n+ proves how worthwhile Xbox Live Arcade is by bringing such gems to the masses. A ninja achievement indeed.

Super Mario Galaxy

Nintendo Wii
After the disappointment (for some) of Super Mario Sunshine, Galaxies is Nintendo’s long awaited true sequel to the ridiculously good and rightly revered Super Mario 64.
Topping perfection is an unenviable task and while Galaxies doesn’t have the jaw dropping switch from 2D to 3D that Mario 64 revelled in, it certainly attempts feats of the same magnitude.
Set in space, in and around tiny planets and wildly imaginative worlds, Galaxies takes the notion of up and down and throws it into a blender with some dysfunctional laws of gravity. The result is a game full of mind bending, upside down platforming and pure reaction based gaming that shows the world Nintendo can still make proper games and that Mario is undoubtably still king of the Mushroom kingdom castle.
10/10

Sonic Rush Adventure

For Nintendo DS
Super Sonic.
It's been sad to see Sonic's demise over the years after such a bright start - ever since going 3D he's never been the same but thankfully the limitations of handheld gaming have kept his 2D spirit alive and Sonic Rush Adventure is one such game.
Using the DS' dual screens, Sega have upped the experience by creating huge levels that sprawl over both of them. With expanded screen space, Sonic hurtles through corkscrews, plunges into the sea and flies over the heads of enemies at the blink of an eye.
The adventure tag in the title refers to the over arching story of Sonic and Tails crash landing on a small island. Working with the plucky animals that live there, they must investigate other islands, find raw materials for ship building and create successively bigger craft to eventually return home.
Moving between islands depends on your ship of choice and each has its own unique mini game – be it the speed run of the jet bike or the cannon firing fun of the sail boat.
There is a mildly frustrating requirement to retread levels for more supplies and the cut scenes are cringe worthy but the huge fast paced levels feature multiple paths for repeat runs and thankfully don't fall into the old elemental clichés of many a platformer. Welcome back Sonic.
8/10