Purchase a Bloons code from Amazon

Reviewed for GamingAngels – Dec 18, 2009

Sometimes you just want a simple distraction, something that doesn’t require reaching a checkpoint. I was looking for something along these lines for a trip I recently took, and since I had a bit of money left in my PSN wallet, I decided to check out a couple different Minis games. The first one I purchased was Bloons, which caught my attention first because of the price, and secondly because a friend had mentioned it when I asked Twitter for suggestions.

Bloons gives you control of a delightful little monkey who throws darts at balloons. Each level gives you a target amount of balloons that must be popped in order to proceed. In the beginning, its relatively simple, aiming with the digital pad left and right to throw your allotted darts. As you progress, you will discover special balloons containing items such as bombs or ice, which when popped will destroy or alter your level. Some types of bricks you encounter will also have special properties, like breaking when hit or be rubbery, causing darts to bounce off them. Eventually I discovered that I could also push up or down on the digital pad to increase and decrease the height I wished my darts to soar to. (I skipped the tutorial, otherwise I would have known that sooner.)

Overall, Bloons offers quite a challenge and is well worth the money spent. There are around 70 levels of increasing difficulty to be mastered and with the added feature of a level editor, you can always try to create your own should you feel the desire to. It’s a great game to play for a level or two at a time or for as long as you want.

Purchase a Zombie Tycoon code from Amazon

Reviewed for GamingAngels – Dec 26, 2009

In my opinion, you can never have too many video games with zombies. Usually, you are spending all your time shooting them in the head, severing their limbs and trying to figure out how to stop the outbreak from spreading. We spend all this time destroying them, but what about the people who create and control them?

Zombie Tycoon pits you as a budding ZEO (Zombie Executive Officer). You are given access to three zombie units with which you will terrorize the streets, destroying buildings and eating brains as you plan your global domination. Each of the game’s ten levels boasts a new map with various obstacles and items to collect. With the over 100 items, you can arm your zombie minions to the teeth, equipping them with items such as balloons to lift them over crevasses or gas masks to keep them safe from the toxic fumes people are defending certain buildings with. Capturing hospitals will give you tokens allowing you to increase the size of your respective armies. Each group can be controlled separately using the respective Square, Triangle or Circle buttons, or by using the X button to tell them all to attack the same target.

If you think it’s going to be easy to blast through, then you better be a strategy genius. Eventually the humans decide to fight back, as well as rebuilding hospitals giving them back control. You really need to keep on top of where your zombies are and make sure they aren’t being killed off by someone wielding a chainsaw while you have them attacking a building. You must have your squad near a hospital in order to use the tokens, and if a whole unit falls, you must find a token to revive them before you can build more of that particular group. Sometimes it is best to barrel through, while other times you should venture out a little, regroup, then move out a bit further.

For $8, Zombie Tycoon is well worth the money, as it provides great strategy and a healthy amount of game time.

That pack of werewolves is looking awful hungry

Status: Enjoying it & having fun dying often

Purchase a Dracula Undead Awakening code from Amazon

The third game in my PSP Minis collection comes in the form of a top down shooter. Dracula: Undead Awakening puts me in the shoes of a vampire hunter and has me mow down monsters swarming from all sides.

There are three major settings to choose from: Grave Park, Frozen Earth, and Castle Hall. You’ll be moving about the screen with either your analog nub or the arrow keys and using the buttons on the right to shoot either up, down, left or right to destroy the oncoming hordes of ghouls. Shooting is pretty standard; hold down the button on the right that corresponds with the direction you wish to aim and hold it down.

Enemies defeated will leave behind health packs, new weapons and ammo that you will need to stay alive and rank up. Every once in a while, you will will see a Perk has become available to you. Depending on which weapons you have and the level of your character you will be able to select one special bonus. These range from more powerful shots, earning extra points or health, and a wide variety of other upgrades.

If there's a princess in this castle, odds are she's Undead

Dracula: Undead Awakening has a few different types of game modes. No matter which mode you choose, you will have to stay alive as long as you can. There are no extra lives to pick up, and staying alive is the only way to level up and claim the top scores for each mode.

I quite like having a mindless shooter to play and kill time with while waiting for doctors who are running late or sitting on airport tarmac in Atlanta during a snowstorm (worst plane trip ever). It really is all about luck and skill, but even for myself, never getting past Level 1 didn’t matter so much as just seeing how many points I could rack up. Think Geometry Wars, but on the PSP and with vampires and werewolves. Pretty amazing for only being 13 MB large.

*Review code was provided by Chillingo, and does not affect the outcome of this review.*

(Reviewed for GamingAngels – March 8, 2010)