You had me at “destructible environments.”

First Person Shooters are like the Marmite of the video game world: there's no middle-ground, they're both loved and hated equally. Where de_dust sends shivers down the spines of some gamers, it creates an unrivaled feeling of nostalgia in others; the trouble is, the people that love them are, more often than not, the weird obsessive type that plays nothing but the core FPS genre, no doubt screaming inaudible, random words down the microphone. Sometimes they even form sentences. Then there's the other camp: the people that don't play First Person Shooters and, for the most part, they're just as bad -- shunning the mere thought of playing an FPS because they “have no story” or “are only played by people who are 12 years old.” I used to fall into the latter category. Not because I thought I was above anyone, but because I'd had bad experiences in the past, especially when it came down to the multiplayer aspect that comes with most modern FPS's. With that in mind. I was unsure about Breach when I first saw it. It was a multiplayer FPS and there was no other option, I couldn't play the single player and then maybe play a few matches of the multiplayer if I felt like it. I either had to grit my teeth and survive the Xbox LIVE crowd or just continue on my way and never play it. I'm glad I chose to play it.

House, the TV show, was one of those things that totally blew my mind the first time I watched it. Firstly, British legend and TV icon Hugh Laurie was speaking in a fantastically convincing American accent, and secondly I understood most of the medical terminology that the characters were coming out with. Something that wasn't the case with most of the times I'd attempted to watch E.R. I fell in love with the TV show and the people that were involved. When I found out, probably about a year ago now, that there was a video game based on the show in development I was excited. If there was going to be a game linked in to the ethos of the show at all then it would have to be a point and click game, nothing else would have felt right, and with the game being developed for the Nintendo DS and PC it looked like that was what we were going to get.

A couple of months ago I reviewed Costume Quest, the latest game from Double Fine Productions. If you're reading this and you haven't read that review, then you should probably go back and read it because this is a review of the downloadable content (DLC) for that game. The new DLC has been named, rather fittingly, Costume Quest: Grubbins on Ice. It's OK, I'll just wait here for you to come back …

You've done what I asked? You've been back and refreshed your memory about what I said? Good. Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin.

Finally, a game the epitomizes Yorkshire in a single word. Drizzle, and lots of it.

The Xbox Live Indie games section is like a treasure trove, especially if you're thinking of a treasure trove that's been filled by a pirate who doesn't really have much stuff that's worth hiding. There are some bits of gold in there but they're very few and far between, with most of the marketplace being filled to the brim with stuff that nobody would ever want to play, not with the Xbox Live Arcade sitting so close to it. Gamers Nexus was asked to review Drizzle and, at first, I was apprehensive. I've never reviewed a Xbox Live Indie title before, it was simply that none of them had ever appealed to me. A game is judged based on its box art, as with everything else. I know you're not supposed to “judge a book by its cover,” but the overwhelming urge to do so is insurmountable, it's human nature to take a quick glance at something and instantly assess its value. It doesn't matter if that assessment is to do with danger, monetary value or, in this case, entertainment value. When you look at the box art for most of the Xbox Live Indie titles, it's easy to see why they don't have the same appeal as some of the Xbox Live Arcade games. With that in mind, I downloaded Drizzle and started to play.

The word alliance assumes that you have friends, for a gamer that's a stretch.

There have been literally thousands of tower defence games over the years, ever since the explosion of popularity that the Defence of the Ancients mod saw back in 2003, and even before that! Some have been good, some have been bad, but almost all of them I've been terrible at. That being said I've tried a lot of them, they are a style of game which I enjoy playing, I enjoy levelling up my units, trying to stop their advances in any way I can, and so I've bought a lot of tower defence games for PC, iPhone, and iPad. When Vectorform contacted Gamers Nexus in order to review their latest version of Galactic Alliance, this version made specifically for the iPad, I was all over it. I'd looked forward to having a go at Galactic Alliance ever since I'd seen it played on Microsoft Surface and, since I'll never be able to afford a Microsoft Surface, I'd assumed I'd never be able to play it. Thankfully, I was wrong.