Gamestyle reports:
''Neves is Portuguese for snow, a fact unrelated to the concept of this game. Of far more relevance is that Neves is seven backwards, and such verbal jiggery-pokery means that its puzzling time. Gamestyle digs out the DS and warms up the brain.
Good puzzle games keep things simple. Blocks of different shapes need to be ordered into straight lines. Two coloured blobs need to be re-arranged to get three of the same colours in a row. Technology has gotten more complicated, but the genius of a successful puzzle game idea is rooted in a clear and straightforward concept. Some of the puzzle games in the last few years have attempted to add extra bangs and whiz to go with the technology but this has not added much success to a genre where the concept is key. Case in point: Zoocube.''
Akinai Games has announced NEVES Plus, their latest addition to Nintendo's WiiWare game service. NEVES Plus is a deceptively challenging Puzzle game that packs over 500 tangram-style puzzles appropriate for gamers of all ages. The game will go live on WiiWare in Q2, 2009.
Neves is based upon the one thousand year old Tangram dissection puzzle. If the name seems odd then fear not, it is 'seven' in reverse. Each level presents you with a predetermined silhouette and the player must position seven shapes together to match the silhouette. Silhouettes vary from an athlete to a rocket and there are hundreds of configurations to wade through.
VideoGamer writes: "Have you ever noticed that as the world develops, technology advances, and consumer goods get cheaper... that the gifts in Christmas crackers are still as crap as they've ever been? I mean, when I was about six years old, finding a small pack of colouring pencils, or a half-size plastic comb in amongst the debris of paper hats and rubbish jokes that fell out of one of these festive fireworks might've been vaguely exciting, but now, twenty (something) years on, when advances in vacuum-forming technology and cheap foreign labour have brought us to a point where kid's comics are giving away handheld remote-control cars on the cover, and daily newspapers come with a free DVD, why is it that crackers, which seem to have increased exponentially in price over the years, still have the same cheap plastic tat in them?! I'll tell you why: because the people who make them know that we'll still buy them, even if the gifts are terrible, that's why! Well not me bucko! Not anymore! Do you hear me?!"
