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The Legend of Zelda. Just the name alone brings back some of my fondest video gaming memories, spanning back 20 years to when I first played the original NES classics. Few gaming icons have survived the test of time with such critical acclaim as the Zelda series, often each major release is immediately dubbed ‘the greatest game ever’ and each Nintendo console generation always gets its  full-fledged title at some point. Twenty five years after the first Zelda game was released and almost exactly five years into the Wii’s life cycle, here we have it, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

It is a scientific fact that the one of first things most people think when the genre ‘flight simulator’ splurges in their faces is either ‘complicated controls’ if they have any decent PC flight sim experience under their belt, or just ‘boring’ if they haven’t. Flight sims are gradually being pushed aside by the self-replicating home console market which continues to grow like a hungry ameoba, gorging on all the profits and sales, forcing most games in development to be designed for current generation console hardware. As interest in playing sophisticated flight sims on PC generally declines for the masses in favour of instant couch action, the humble flight simulator is slowly realising his days are numbered.

You awake in a decrepit hospital room. Dazed and confused you make it to your feet, head pounding. Suddenly, an elderly, wheelchair-bound man appears at the doorway. He speaks of things, but they make no sense. Who is ‘she’, and why does she have me here? The stranger makes a quick getaway, obviously scared for his safety. Scrawled diary entries lie around the room, remnants of the hospital’s past existence; still none of it makes sense. You dare yourself to leave the room and finally commit to the act. As you step into a seemingly empty corridor, you hear a noise. As you quickly spin around, you see it – lunging towards you. You raise your crossbow, its weight feeling familiar, yet, new. You aim, and take your shot. Welcome to The Dark Meadow.

Those of you who may have come across the biblical tale of The Binding of Isaac may not have thought that it offers much of a basis for an addictive fast paced rogue-like, but oh, how wrong you were. For those of you who likely bunked off such Religious Education classes in school, the tale is that of an exchange between God and Abraham where God, being in his wild and old testament phase, for some reason instructs Abraham to sacrifice his own son Isaac. Praise the lord.

Warm Gun caught my interest the second I lay eyes on it. It looked a step above the standard iOS FPS; utilising the Unreal Engine 3, it was definitely one keep in mind. Now that it has been released, is it a must have for the system, or just another Luke-warm shooter that fails to deliver?

Siegecraft ($0.99, Universal for iPhone / iPad) is the latest game from one of my favorite developers on the AppStore, Crescent Moon Games. And they do not disappoint.

Siegecraft is sort of a medieval physics defense game. There are 4 “campaigns” which have 4-6 missions each, as well as a 5th campaign that has two “endless” levels. You operate various weapons, typically a crossbow and catapult, to defeat the oncoming enemies.

Back in 2008, when I first saw OnLive announced, I was blown away. The concept of a true, cloud gaming services which would allow console quality games to be played on my then-13″ MacBook was just too good to be true. More than three years later and the services has finally been released in the UK and I’ve had a chance to see if this really is the future of gaming, or just a good idea that doesn’t fully deliver.

Being compared to other games is not necessarily a bad thing, in fact – to be compared to one of the best selling console games of this generation is a gift, especially as an independent iPhone developer. Shadowgun set itself some high expectations after piquing the interest of many, following its announcement earlier this year.

Being a pretty big fan of Burnout Revenge on the previous gen’s consoles with its over the top explosions and crash levels, I was pretty pleased when I was presented with the newest instalment of the Burnout series last weekend. I have of late become a little tired with the droves of racing games that seem to be out at the moment, so having the opportunity to play a Burnout game that just focused on the Crash element of some of the early titles really grabbed my attention.

On May 4, 2010 out of nowhere, Wolfire Games announced the Humble Indie Bundle, which surprised gamers everywhere.

The first Humble Indie Bundle consisted of 5 fantastic games developed by Indie (independent) developers. World of Goo, Aquaria, Gish, Penumbra, and Lugaru. The games were offered for Windows, Mac, and Linux. All games offered without any DRM, and you could pay any price you wanted, and distribute it however you wanted, between the developers and charity.

The Bundle was a huge success, with over 100,000 people contributing, raising over $1,000,000 during the week available.