Why Not? A Reboot of Bonk's Adventure

This is my most experimental segment where I look at the popular games of the past and ponder what next gen treatment would look like.

Description:  Bonk is what happens when Katamari and Mario share legal custody of a child.  It is one part ridiculousness and three parts platformer.  The cool thing was that Bonk was not trying to be its own separate Mario or Sonic, but just a goofy bald kid who head butts dinosaurs.

Here is why I think a next gen treatment is necessary

Bonk has always thrived at juggling, momentum and rhythm within the platforming world.  That kid's noggin has been a great tool for dinosaur destruction.  Now imagine a 3D platformer world where you are encouraged to get bonk combos and successfully bounce off of different baddies.  It would have the addictiveness of a Tony Hawk combo mixed with Mario.

No Comment.

Also the folks over at Hudson Soft were more than ready to create imaginative power ups and weird weapons.  Some of these weapons like the fire pepper and the bouncing flower fit right in to Mario's kitty costume.

A crazy platformer, with a charming bald kid who fights dinosaurs.  It has indy/family/fun written all over it.

Android Games That Don't Suck: Crazy Snowboard

Game: Crazy Snowboard
Publisher: Ezone

When a game is free on Android it means 1 of 2 things.  1) You can't win unless you shell out some major bucks or 2) It is just a spam bot waiting to destroy your system.  Sometimes, a game comes along that is neither of those things.  Crazy Snowboard is one of the few.

Crazy Snowboard is free, but you have to put up with some ads that pop up.  You can pay the 1.99 to get the ads off, but they were not that intrusive.

Then there is the next struggle with competent Android games. Since Crazy Snowboard is neither a tower defense game nor a card building RPG then it is assumed that it has bad physics and boring gameplay.  Crazy Snowboard manages to beat to those odds.

You have a career mode where you have different missions to accomplish like collecting coins, earning a certain amount of points or knocking over snow men.  But that is only half the objective.  You also need to score points and multipliers with tricks.  You score high enough and you gain stars (the official currency of casual gamers).  Stars help you get money which can buy new boards, boarders and moves.

It is fairly easy to pull off multiple combos and spins with a flick of the thumbs.  The game's move engine is setup similar to a console snowboard game.  But if you don't like touchscreens you can set up your MOGA controller to play the game.

Not bad for a free game.  If the filling landfills of uninspired tower defense/puzzle hybrids could take a cue from Ezone's game then it wouldn't be such a diamond in the rough search for quality.