Atari has been digging into its classic catalog as of late for a new generation of games.  A few months back, it brought out the entertaining Asteroids Gunner, a twist on its rock-shooting classic from the 80’s.  And just recently, it broke out the old ball-and-paddle for Breakout Boost, complete with new modes and features.  Now another classic gets a remake, and this time it’s Circus Atari.  A game that originally started out on the Atari 2600 as a humorous collaborative effort, where you had to balance two people on a bouncing see-saw as they collected balloons, it has since been turned into a variation of Doodle Jump for the iPad.  While that’s bound to entertain a few folks, I can’t help but think what might’ve been had Atari taken the development in a different direction.

I love the Game of Thrones show.  Though I admit I still have to get around to finishing the A Song of Ice and Fire book, I’m just so intrigued by what’s happening between the first season and this current one on HBO.  I can’t get enough of it.  That said, I was a bit excited to see how Atlus’ video game adaptation would turn out, especially with direct involvement from series creator George R.R. Martin.  Well, after playing through it for hours on end, I can see where the appeal would lie for some – mainly in the story – but it’s trudging through the rest that will leave you wondering if this game was worth bothering with.

You may not be familiar with the name Cave unless you have a love for “shmups”, or shoot-em-ups if you will.  These are games where one lone ship faces off against some sort of armada, with big boss enemies to back them up.  The Japanese developer has been working on these types of game for some time, including releases like DeathSmiles (both 1 and 2) and Dodonpachi Resurrection.  Its latest, Akai Katana, is definitely one that deserves to join the ranks, and, thankfully, Rising Star Games has saw fit to give the game a discounted American release.  Wise choice.

When Minecraft was announced last year for Xbox 360, a lot of folks figured it wasn’t a surprise, since Microsoft is all about lining up exclusive fare for owners of its console.  But, still, isn’t it more at home on a PC?  Could the experience possibly be ported over to Xbox Live Arcade and keep its awesome resourcing system intact?  Well, after a long time in development, the game arrived this week on the Marketplace and answered that question with a well-deserved “yes”.

When StarDrone came out for the PlayStation Network a few months back, it introduced an interesting concept that could be used with the PlayStation Move controller, one that had you directing a star-shaped drone across universal maps, collecting stars and other content while getting from point A to point B while you directed it on its journey.  Though hardly as addictive as other PSN games, it had enough moments to give the game a look.  With that, Beatshapers has brought the same experience to the PS Vita, but with touch-screen controls and a few exclusive levels for good measure.  The only question now is whether it’s enough to warrant another purchase.  Sorry, but not this time around.

Deep Black: Episode One has been in production for what feels like ages.  The game was initially announced like four years ago, and back then it was known under the code name Underwater Wars (or U-Wars).  Since then, though, development notes here and there slipped out, but it almost seemed like the game would never release.  But, last week, it finally showed up, unannounced, as if 505 Games was slipping it under the door just to see who noticed.  After going through it, I can say that it has its problems, but it also has a few intuitive additions that make it stand out from the pack.  Whether that’s enough to make it worth a purchase depends on how much you can stomach the problems.

There was something about the Fatal Frame games that was utterly spectacular.  The series, which ran on PlayStation 2 across multiple releases, raised some genuine scares while avoiding the pratfalls of most survival/horror games, arming you with a special camera rather than a powerful array of weaponry.  The concept worked quite well over the years, prompting Tecmo Koei to give it another shot, this time on the Nintendo 3DS with the mostly unrelated Spirit Camera: The Cursed Memoir.  It was a great idea, but from the first moment it tries to take advantage of the system’s built-in augmented reality, things fall apart rather quickly.