Midnight Mansion 2: The Haunted Hills by Actionsoft is finally available for the Mac. Our hero, Jack Malone, is ready for an all-new adventure filled with creatures, puzzles and traps. Pixel Perfect Gaming had the pleasure of reviewing Midnight Mansion and previewing Midnight Mansion 2; both are excellent games containing countless hours of gameplay.

You can read our review of the original Midnight Mansion here: Midnight Mansion Review

You can read our preview of Midnight Mansion 2: The Haunted Hills here: Midnight Mansion 2: The Haunted Hills

You can purchase Midnight Mansion 2: The Haunted Hills for Mac for $25.00 at Actionsoft’s website.

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In a recent Press Release dated August 5th, Jakub Dvorsky of Amanita Design announced concerns regarding the rampant piracy of Machinarium. According to Jakub, their estimate of feedback from players who actually own the game is only 5-15%.

In an effort to combat piracy, Amanita Designs is offering a special deal they believe pirates can’t refuse: receive the latest version of Machinarium and its fantastic soundtrack for only $5.00 (Windows, Mac OSX, or Linux platforms).

PixelPerfectGaming.com contacted Jakub at Amanita Design to ask a few important questions regarding the recent pirating of Machinarium. Gamers are concerned that developers like Amanita Design may change their mind about DRM free games and adopt a more corporate approach. We decided to get to the bottom of things.
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Interview with Jakub Dvorsky of Amanita Design

PPG: Recently, on August 5th, Amanita Design released an announcement regarding the pirating of Machinarium. We weren’t aware of this problem ourselves. When did Amanita Design become aware of this problem?

Jakub Dvorsky: Pirates started to work hard immediately after the release of the game so hundreds of download links for the full free game appeared on the web almost instantly and we knew that.

PPG: If you don’t mind divulging your methods, how was Amanita Design able to track down the people pirating the game?

Jakub Dvorsky: Well, I wrote to our press release that it’s only our estimate – it means we didn’t use any scientific method to define that number. The estimate is based on the huge amounts of download links and we also spent some time reading forums all over the web where people discussed the game and where they downloaded it.

PPG: What is your opinion of the people pirating your title?

Jakub Dvorsky: I’m quite forgiving, because I used to be a pirate as well. I think it has something to do with the age – when I was young I had no income, but plenty of time to play many games so I was pirating it. Now I earn money so I pay for games and I hope everybody else who start making money realize that it’s time to stop stealing and start supporting the development of the games he likes.

PPG: Going forward, how will this affect future Amanita Design titles and its pledge to stay DRM free?

Jakub Dvorsky: I can assure you that nothing will change. We will continue developing  cross-platforms independent DRM free games. Despite the piracy our games  sell well and we are thankful to all people who paid us and supported us.

PPG: On a more positive note, can you tell our readers what future titles Amanita Design has in development? We’re hoping a sequel to Machinarium is being considered.

Jakub Dvorsky: It’s too early to reveal anything, I’m sorry:)

PPG: Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. PixelPerfectGaming.com  fully supports anti-piracy efforts and wishes Amanita Design luck in its endeavors to eradicate it.

Jakub Dvorsky: Thank you very much!

Actionsoft, creator of the classic PC/Mac shooter Insectoid, is developing a sequel to Midnight Mansion. You can read our review of the original Midnight Mansion here.

Midnight Mansion 2: The Haunted Hills is a continuation of the first game. Our hero, Jack, discovers a hidden passageway in his retirement mansion and decides to investigate. The sequel to MM offers new enemies (like trolls), brand-new locations to explore, and a host of deadly pitfalls and traps not seen in the original.

The same Montezuma Revenge gameplay that made the original so charming is still intact in this sequel.

MM2′s release date has not been determined as of this writing, but you can look to PixelPerfectGaming.com for a full feature review in the not-so-distant future.

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Developer’s- website

Bob Came in Pieces is a unique puzzle game that uses physics to your (dis)advantage. As a small pod with thrusters, you must navigate through tight tunnels,  push heavy crates (some almost as large as the environment), and solve complex navigation puzzles.

By chapter two, your little pod (guided by little exclamation marks explaining gameplay) will be shoving boxes out of the way to enter tunnels, pushing balls down wooden tunnels to release log doors, and pushing and then lifting objects out of the way to reach the portal (i.e. exit) at the end of the level.

Surprisingly, the gameplay goes far deeper than mentioned above. Using something called the Ship Builder, this menu screen is where you can outfit your ship with the parts you recover during each level. Your parts act as extensions to your ship, and they can be rotated and stacked based on the puzzle you’re trying to solve. During Chapter 3, there is a log sitting behind two pieces of metal, but the hole to reach the log is too thin for the craft to reach. By using the Ship Builder (indicated by two wrenches rotating on the playfield) you can stack enough extensions from the parts you found to reach the log.

It is quite easy to attach the pieces. There is a module window that contains all currently recovered parts. By left-clicking and holding the mouse button over the piece of your choice, a green indicator will appear over your ship showing where the piece can fit. Drag the piece with the mouse over to this indicator and release the button where desired. Easy, simple, and no fuss.

Problem is, your ship will be more difficult to steer depending on where the parts are installed (remember my comment about physics earlier). It won’t be uncommon to find yourself caught in a tree or sliding down a hill.

BCIP is very colorful and pleasant on the eyes. Since the polygon count is fairly low for each enviornment, high-end hardware is not needed to run it. The music is a collection of upbeat tunes that really fit the experience. The first few chapters come to mind when Bob begins to explore the planet for the first time. It really draws you in to the experience as you try to navigate a world far more alien than Bob himself.

Bob Came in Pieces is a game the entire family can enjoy. Not only is it fun, but its full of challenges that will keep you busy for hours. Kudos to Ludosity Interactive for a job well done.

BCIP can be purchased for $9.95 at Gamersgate.com.

Direct- link

Score: 7 out of 10
Mike ‘STGuy1040′ Pittaro

Platform: Mac (Also available for PC)
System specs:
OS: Mac OS X 10.4.11 or later
Processor: Intel Mac
Memory: 1 GB RAM
Graphics: 128mb video RAM and Shader Model 2.0
Hard Drive: 500 MB free space

Publisher / Developer: Ludosity Interactive

“We are delighted by the response to Torchlight,” says CEO Max Schaefer. “We’d like to thank the greatest gaming community in the world, Valve, Perfect World, World Domination (Mac port), and all our other distribution partners for making this possible.”

Visit http://store.steampowered.com/ to sign up for a Mac steam account. Then head on over to the- Steam store to find out what Mac gamers have been missing.

The Humble Indie Bundle

Taking on the role of Melissa, you embark on a search for her older sibling, Jessica who went missing two years ago. What sets Melissa off on her quest is a tattered postcard that she receives that seemingly was sent by Jessica, 8 months prior (16 months after she went missing). Upon arriving at Billinger Island’s Naval Museum, you are thrust into a wild adventure of diving for artifacts and finding missing items for a forgetful local (which earn you money for buying supplies and also experience for upgrading your divers-more are added as you venture further into the quest).

What separates Deep Blue Sea 2 from other similar titles is the inclusion of the hidden object levels (which are optional). Taking on the challenge of finding the missing items gives you money that you can use to purchase much needed supplies to continue recovering artifacts that you need to complete the various match 3 levels.

The match 3 gameplay is great, feels right and is a smooth experience. I really like is that you aren’t restricted to waiting for the matches to finish to make another like in many games of this type (which can make the play field seem quite hectic if you are a more experienced puzzle gamer). Since you are diving, you are limited in air supply (you did purchase additional oxygen tanks at the shop right?) so recovering the artifacts can become hectic and sometimes worrisome when you are nearing the end of your oxygen (don’t worry, no one drowns here, you simply return to the surface and must restart the level if you run out of air).

As you play, new divers will make themselves available to you and this becomes another unique feature that is missed in other match 3 games. Not only does choosing the right diver come into play but you need to make sure they are upgraded accordingly because later levels can become quite a challenge if you aren’t using the right diver. While not on the level of something like Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords, it is still a welcome addition and one that makes you wish more publishers would push the envelope of match 3 gaming.

Match 3 fans will love Deep Blue Sea 2, hidden object fans will want to try the demo out first but they may find they are fans of the other casual genre too.  Bottom line, casual game fans will find something in Deep Blue Sea 2 that will make them want more so get it now.

Review by Carl “triverse” Williams

Rated 8 out of 10

Deep Blue Sea 2 by The Game Equation – website
Genre: Match 3/Hidden Object
Available: Now
Platform: Windows and Mac OSX

Life in Northrend (since the Wrath of the Lich King expansion) has been fun, but challenging. In fact, your idea of fun nowadays might be chatting with guildies, farming materials like ore, or soloing instances for rare items to pass the time by until the new Cataclysm expansion is released later this year.

Sometimes these activities become mundane and the ‘alt bug’ begins to bite us. For the uninitiated (are there any of you left?), an ‘alt’ is a new character you create that may be secondary (or more) to your original high level ‘main’ toon (the first character you created that made it to level 80). Toon is another way of saying ‘character’ in the World of Warcraft (WoW) just to explain the lingo being used.

Veterans of WoW are probably rolling their eyes at this point over the rehashing of commonly known lingo. The purpose of this column is to keep fans of WoW updated on upcoming patch news, expansions, opinions, and personal experiences from the immersive world of World of Warcraft. Plus, it will also serve as a guide to help newcomers not familiar with WoW to grow more accustom to the lingo and game mechanics before taking the plunge.

Join us as we journey into the world of Azeroth where the Alliance and Horde battle for ultimate control. As the impending doom of Cataclysm approaches, a new way of surviving will be required. Will you be ready to survive the cataclysmic environmental changes and new horrors that await? We’ll be there to share in the experience with you.

Mike “STGuy1040″ Pittaro

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

Blizzard has recently announced its new skill set for the Death Knight in the upcoming Cataclysm expansion. These new skills will strengthen the heroic class as he/she makes his/her journey to level 85 (the new level cap in Cataclysm). Check out the new skills and talents that will be included in the new expansion:

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will bring with it several changes to class talents and abilities. In this preview, you’ll get a glimpse at some of the new abilities, spells, and talents in store for the death knight class, along with an early look at some improvements we plan to make to the rune resource system.

New Death Knight Abilities

Outbreak (level 81): Outbreak infects the target with both Frost Fever and Blood Plague at no rune cost. This ability allows death knights to apply diseases quickly when they are switching targets or when their diseases have been dispelled.

Necrotic Strike (level 83): Necrotic Strike is a new attack that deals weapon damage and applies a debuff that absorbs an amount of healing based on the damage done. For context, imagine that the death knight can choose between doing 8,000 damage outright with a certain ability, or dealing 6,000 damage and absorbing 4,000 points in incoming heals with Necrotic Strike — the burst is smaller, but a larger overall amount of healing would be required to bring the target back to full health.

This ability is meant to bring back some of the old flavor from when death knights could dispel heal-over-time (HoT) effects. It also gives the class a bit more PvP utility without simply replicating a Mortal Strike-style effect.

Dark Simulacrum (level 85): The death knight strikes a target, applying a debuff that allows the death knight to copy the opponent’s next spell cast and unleash it. Unlike Spell Reflection, Dark Simulacrum does not cancel the incoming spell. In general, if you can’t reflect an ability, you won’t be able to copy it either.

Rune System Changes

While we’re satisfied with the way the rune system works overall, we’re making a few major changes to the mechanics that will ultimately help death knight players feel less constrained. Here’s the rationale behind the changes, followed by an explanation of how the new system will work.

• In the current rune system, any time a rune is sitting idle, death knights are losing out on potential damage output. By comparison, rogues spend most of their time at low energy levels, and if they’re unable to use their skills for a few seconds, that energy builds up and can be spent later, minimizing the net loss from the interruption.
• A death knight’s runes, on the other hand, cannot be used until they are fully active. If a death knight ever goes more than a few seconds without spending an available rune, that resource is essentially wasted. Because the death knight is pushing buttons constantly, it can be difficult to add new mechanics to the class because the player doesn’t have any free global cooldowns to use them. We can’t grant extra resources or reduced cost, because there is no time to spend them. Missing an attack is devastating, and it’s impossible to save resources for when they’re most useful.
• Additionally, each individual death knight ability has a fairly low impact on its own, making it feel like most of the death knight’s attacks are weak. The death knight’s rotations are also more easily affected by latency or a player’s timing being just a little off. At times, it feels like death knights aren’t able to take advantage of their unique resource mechanic, which can diminish the fun.
• The new rune system will change how runes regenerate, from filling simultaneously to filling sequentially. For example, if you use two Blood runes, then the first rune will fill up before the second one starts to fill up. Essentially, you have three sets of runes filling every 10 seconds instead of six individual runes filling every 10 seconds. (Haste will cause runes to fill faster.) Another way to think of this is having three runes that go up to 200% each (allowing extra “storage”), rather than six runes that go up to 100% each.
• As this is a major change to the death knight’s mechanics, it will of course require us to retune many of the class’s current abilities. For example, each ability needs to hit harder or otherwise be more meaningful since the death knight is getting fewer resources per unit of time. Some abilities will need to have their costs reduced as a result.

Talent Changes

Next we’ll outline some of the death knight talent-tree changes we’re planning in Cataclysm. This list is by no means comprehensive, but it should give you a sense of how we’re intending each death knight spec to perform.

• One of the biggest changes we’re making is converting Blood into a dedicated tanking tree. While we feel that having three tanking trees was successful overall, it’s less necessary in a world with dual-specialization. In addition, the current breakdown isn’t as compatible with the Mastery-based passive talent-tree bonuses we want to add (see below). We’d rather spend time tweaking and balancing one good tanking tree rather than having a tank always wondering if they picked the “correct” tree out of three possibilities.
• Blood seemed like the best fit for tanking. Unholy has always had a strong niche with diseases, magic, and command over pets. Frost now feels like a solid dual-wield tree with Frost magic damage and decent crowd control. Blood’s niche was self-healing — fitting for a tank — as well as strong weapon swings, which could easily be migrated to Frost and Unholy.
• Our plan is to move the most interesting and fun tanking talents and abilities to Blood. For example, you will likely see Vampiric Blood and Will of the Necropolis remain, while Bone Shield will move over from Unholy.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Blood
Damage reduction
Vengeance
Healing Absorption

Frost
Melee damage
Melee Haste
Runic Power Generation

Unholy
Melee damage
Melee and spell critical damage
Disease Damage

Healing Absorption: When you heal yourself, you’ll receive an additional effect that absorbs incoming damage.

Runic Power Generation: This will function as the name implies, and the new rune system will make generating Runic Power more appealing.

Disease Damage: Unholy death knights will be able to get more out of their diseases, which are integral to the tree’s play style.

Vengeance: This new mechanic is designed to ensure that tank damage output (and therefore threat) doesn’t fall behind as damage-dealing classes improve their gear during the course of the expansion. All tanking specs will have Vengeance as their second talent tree passive bonus. Whenever a tank gets hit, Vengeance will grant a stacking Attack Power buff equal to 5% of the damage done, up to a maximum of 10% of the character’s unbuffed health. For boss encounters, we expect that tanks will always have an Attack Power bonus equal to 10% of their health. The 5% and 10% bonuses assume 51 talent points have been put into the Blood tree; these values will be smaller at lower levels.

You only get the Vengeance bonus if you have spent the most talent points in the Blood tree, so you won’t see Frost or Unholy death knights running around with it. Vengeance will let us continue to design tank gear more or less the way we do today; there will be some damage-dealing stats, but mostly survival-oriented stats. Druids typically have more damage-dealing stats even on their tanking gear, so their Vengeance benefit may be smaller, but the goal is that all four tanks will do about the same damage when tanking.

We hope you enjoyed this preview, and we’re looking forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in mind that this information represents a work in progress and is subject to change as development on Cataclysm continues.

Press Play have gone all out with Max and the Magic Marker and paid attention to the greats in the side scrolling games genre and taken some basic elements and turned others on their ear. For instance while Max can, and needs to, jump on platforms that are genre standard, sometimes getting to those platforms is not so standard. Another unique method of play is the way you dispatch enemies. To defeat enemies, you guide Max to a safe location on the screen, if there is one, and draw an object to drop on the enemies (no matter how hard I tried, everything I drew came out as a blob). The key here is how much ink you use for the object in question and the height it drops from. The ink, ah yes, the orangish stuff you collect in those little bubbles (other things you are collecting are secrets in blackish bubbles and “ideas” in the blueish-silver ones). You have to have ink to do anything with the marker so don’t pass up any of them.

Other innovative uses of the marker are abundant and even sometimes outside the box. Come to a chasm that Max just cannot jump across, just draw a bridge to span the pit and walk across. Same thing for items that are placed too high to reach by normal jumping, draw a staircase or whatever you feel is needed to accomplish your goal. Little details like this are all over the game levels so keep an eye out, if you are stuck, you probably aren’t paying attention to the surroundings.

Gravity plays a huge part in the way you are going to complete the various puzzles Max faces. Even though you must keep collecting ink to store up for attacks and completing the puzzles, you won’t get far if you ignore gravity very long. Draw a bridge that doesn’t quite reach the other side and it will just fall. Same thing if you draw a ramp or stairs that don’t rest against something in the level, very interesting situations abound if you didn’t grab every bit of ink in a level. Using gravity to your advantage and you can come up with unique ways to accomplish various tasks. Don’t feel like doing the boring bridge to cross a chasm? Draw a triangle on the ground, put a straight line across it and stand on one end and drop a heavy blob of ink on the other and propel yourself across. Depending on your artistic, and ink, level you may not be able to be so elaborate. Very rarely are you left with a lot more ink than is needed to complete a task at hand.

Music was handled by Analogik who did an awesome job with the in-game tunes. Very fitting to the fun style that Press Play have injected into Max and the Magic Marker. Sound effects are just as noteworthy, water sounds like water, creatures give a good grunt when defeated, etc. The same amount of care that was put into the graphics and gameplay was obviously taken with the music and sound effects which help round out this great game.

The monster you created that started this series of events will periodically drop in and take your ink, don’t worry, this happens at preset locations when you pass a certain sign (only once or twice I had to actually kill myself because I didn’t have ink to do anything to progress). The level design is great and fit in with what you would expect from someone like Nintendo for the most part (Nintendo wouldn’t be so kind as to give quite as many hints as to what to do next for instance). If you are looking for a platformer that recreates that sense of accomplishment most of us felt when we played games like Super Mario Bros for the first time then definitely get Max and the Magic Marker today.

Rated: 8 out of 10
Review by: Carl “triverse” Williams

Max and the Magic Marker by Press Play – website
Rated: 7 by PEGI / E for Everyone
Platform: PC, Mac and WiiWare  (Browser based demo available)
Price: $20 (Available at the Press Play Store)