The LEGO Universe closed beta has officially launched and I was lucky enough to be randomly selected to partake.

This massively-multiplayer online game includes customizable LEGO avatars and, so far, most of the elements you’d expect from any online role-playing game (except leveling up). The game does not yet have a hard release date but is expected to go live late 2010 and be available as a (Windows) PC-DVD or download.

Here’s a bullet-point list of the game’s features and my observations base on the first day of the closed beta. Also check out the LEGO Universe Photo Gallery of screen shots.

Remember, this is still in beta so things can still drastically change.

• Installed it took up approximately 1.22 GB.
• Windows only (so far) with minimum specs of 1.3 GHz processor, 512 RAM, 5 GB hard drive space. 128 MB VRAM, DirectX 9.0c, 1024x768 resolution.
• Avatar (aka “minifig”) creation involves dozens of variations of preset hair, eyebrows, eyes, mouths, chests (shirts) and legs (pants). You can also select color variaions of each, meaning there may be tens of thousands of possible combinations.
• There were more than one blank shirts to choose from (uploadable shirt graphics?)
• You earn more clothes as you complete in-game tasks or side missions.
• You immediately see others playing online, even for sweeping pans across the environment.
• You cannot attack other players but you can chat with them (text chat was active).
• There is a get-to-know-the-game intro level and area.
• You can smash a lot of stuff.
• Smashing stuff yields coins, hearts, Imagination spheres, usable objects (weapons, armor, etc.) and LEGO bricks of various shapes.
• You can grab items dropped by objects broken by other gamers.
• Destructible objects quickly regenerate.
• You get to hack-and-slash active NPCs
• Non-player characters were primarily stationary and offered advice or were activation points for missions.
• Complex building tasks (eg. your rocket ship, which fits in your backpack) require special hats, which you carry in your limited space backpack.
• You can stack dissimilar parts (eg. steam punk, modern and retro rocket parts).
• Simple building is done the same way as modern LEGO games, by holding down a button (in this case, SHIFT) while standing in a pile of separated LEGOs as they rejoin.
• Collected LEGO pieces go into a seemingly bottomless “LEGO Box.” You do not lose bricks removed from your property.
• You can build your own home (“Brick Mode”).
• There is a bit of land to traverse and varied environments on floating islands. (Castle in the Sky, anyone?)
• Movement is key based (which can get a bit tricky in limited space areas).
• Your avatar can jump, double jump and attack.
• You can pan around your avatar (Right Click) to view areas in every direction.
You collect coins - instead of colored bricks or pegs ala console LEGO games - to redeem for other items.
• You cannot swim (water is deadly) and you can fall to a zappy doom.
• You can disassemble at any time to get out of stuck map areas (already found a few).
• I’ve spotted ninja, space, construction, alien, pirate and medieval NPC characters (or variations of each) as well as several NPC animals.
• You can get a pet which will help you dig up buried treasures.
• Missions include: Collecting items, races, defeating creatures, creating (or reassembling) key objects and getting to key NPCs.

Photo Gallery [LEGO Universe Screen Shots @ Gamertell] Read [LEGO Universe @ Gamertell]

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Title: 2012
Format: *Blu-ray, DVD, PSP, Digial Download
Price: (SRP) $39.95 (2-disc Blu-ray), $38.95 (1-disc Blu-ray), $28.95 (DVD), $24.94 (PSP/UMD), $14.99 (iTunes)
Release Date: March 2, 2010
Publisher (Distributor): Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Rating: PG-13 for intense disaster sequenes and some language.
Pros: Amazing special effects, a lot of great cameos and bits of decent acting. A decent test of your HD TV.
Cons: Trite and overly punny dialog, sketchy science and primarily predictable plot.
Overall Score: One thumb up, one thumb down; 76/100; C; * * 1/2 out of five.

You’ve got two more years, buddy, because the world is going to end in 2012. No, really. Everyone says so.

In the science fiction disaster movie, 2012, the entire planet is in danger thanks to a massive neutrino burst warming the Earth’s core. And guess when it’s all going to go to pot? (Hint: Read the @#$%! name of the movie.)

Explosions, volcanoes, fireballs hurling from the sky, massive earthquakes, outrunning explosions, ginormous tidal waves, mass hysteria, dogs and cats living together, it’s all in here. And in high definition.

The Ragu of Disaster Movies

After a scientist alerts the US President (Danny Glover) that the Earth’s upcoming doom, a secret plan is formulated by the world governments to save the human race, 99.9% of which have no idea what lies ahead.

Enter down-and-mostly-out writer, Jackson Curtis (John Cusak), who happens to have written an unsuccessful book about people trying to survive during a major disaster and stumbles on this ultimate secret. And there just happens to be a map to salvation in the hands of a crazy guy (Woody Harrelson) broadcasting a pirate radio show about, of course, the end of the world.

Naturally, because no one can have anything going well for them in a disaster movie at any level, Curtis is also divorced, his wife (Amanda Peet) is remarried (Thomas McCarthy) and his kids (Liam James and Morgan Lily) are being a bit cranky towards him.

Most of the movie is filled with reverse chase scenes with the cast dodging giant disaster after disaster and trying to get to the next supposedly safe spot on the globe. With so many actors in this movie (I left out Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton, John Billingsley, George Segal, Patrick Bauchau and many, many others) you can bet that at least one is expendable per big-action sequence.

If Everyone Jumped At Exactly the Same Time…

The film’s premise is quite a bit of science fiction, fully embracing the idea that neutrinos short from solar flares would cause the Earth’s magnetic poles to rapidly swap which, in turn, would result in instant doom for everyone on board. If you can get passed the sketchy premise, you’re left with an intense action film with a few layers of character development and subplots which all eventually collide.

Nearly all of the special effects are truly amazing and the fact that you can see all the effect in high-def at home is a definite plus. They are often so good, in fact, (save some of the waves late in the film) that the acting often does not offer equal justice to the horrors, instead seeming more like people simply amazed at the really cool effects they are seeing off camera.

Unfortunately, the film’s dialogue doesn’t help, often cliche and packed with blatant foreshadowing.

There are, however, several pockets of decency. The fact that they got Harrelson to put on his crazy suit is pretty funny. Cusak does a good job with his usual semi-muttering, pseudo-cranky nice guy shtick which may not immediately put him at the top of the action movie list yet works pretty well here. Ejiofor’s scientist offers the film’s strongest, and most crucial, performance, making even this ridiculous premise seem plausible.

A Disk is Not Just a Disc

Since this is a Sony product, you can get the movie not only as a Blu-ray but also as DVD, digital download and even UMD (and the press sheet says you can download from the Blu-ray disc to your PSP via PS3 that I have yet to try thanks to Sony’s pricey memory card).

The Blu-ray comes with a few exclusives including in-movie trivia (“movieIQ”) and a picture-in-picture comparisons to story boards and pre-effects visualizations. Most are fair although the film’s final effects are often far more interesting.

More Ka-Boom for Your Buck?

There are really only two reasons to get this movie: The amazing special effects and the leapfrogging between Cusak’s and Ejiofor’s decent performances.

At it’s best, 2012 is an in-your-face action disaster movie with special effects you’ll love to watch - and pause here and there - and a few small surprises. At its worst it is unnecessarily filled with sap, gratuitous cameos (read: lackluster performances) and trite dialogue you’ll want to slap in the face.

This one really is only for those who need a modern, high-def disaster movie in their collection to plunk in when there’s nothing else to watch or to test their new HD TV.

Read [Alternate Disc-Tractions @ Gamertell] Site [2012]

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Product: HitMaster Gaming Stage Monitor (aka The HitMaster; HitMaster Portable Powered Floor Monitor)
Price: $99
Rating: Two thumbs up; 95/100; A-; * * * *1/2 out of five.
Pros: Excellent sound quality for the price, extremely sturdy, looks and feels like an actual stage monitor and able to connect it to multiple monitors and various audio sources (including MP3 players).
Cons: Does not include a male-to-male cable and no bass or treble adjustments.
Overall: Certainly adds to the faux stage experience and can be used for much more than just gaming.

Playing a music video game does not make you a musician but dammit if you sure don’t feel like one while you do.

You can rapidly smack buttons and strum to some heavin’ hitting in-game tunage. Companies have done well furthering that rock star feeling by creating more realistic guitar controllers and even one with strings.

Polk Audio wants to help add even more realism to your grand at-home jam illusion with its HitMaster stage monitor (those boxy speakers you see in front of each musician on stage at live performances or being smashed by archive footage of The Who).

Out of the Box

Printed on the box is the HitMaster’s promised compatibility with Wii, PS2, Ps3, Xbox and Xbox 360 as well as “stereo input of iPhone/iPod and other MP3 devices.” In actuality it goes way beyond that but more on that later.

In the box is the HitMaster monitor along with a 9 ft. RCA stereo, a 7 1/2 ft. power cable and a printed quickstart guide.

The primarily black HitMaster features black metal mesh protecting the speakers with the product logo (in red) and the company logo (in white).

Beyond the mesh the rest of the body, I believe, is wood coated in a thick plastic layer to prevent scratching. The “bottom” has four 1 in. by 3/4 in. rubber feat and the “top”  includes a thick vinyl/plastic handle with metal fasteners.

The back control panel is metal and includes a fuse, AC input port, power switch, left and right Line In and Line Out ports, a 1/8 in. input port, a power LED indicator and a rubber volume knob that ranges from 1 to 11.  (Yes, really. Eleven.)

To complete the monitor effect it has five sides so the speakers are pointed at the musician, er, gamer. It weights about 13 pounds but is easily carried thanks to the handle and measures about 9 in tall, 14 1/2 in. wide and 10 1/4 in deep.

In the “Box”

Under the mesh is a 6 1/2 in.  dynamic balance woofer,  a 6 1/2 in . composite clone driver and two 1 in. 3x4 horn tweeters. Promised frequency response is 40Hz to 20kHz with Maximum SPL of 103 dB 1M/1W. That all makes up what is called a single-point stereo array, meaning you get the effect of stereo from a single system.

On Your Floor and In Your Ears

Set up is easy, as any speaker should be. It’s plug-and-play for both the 1/8 in. and the left-right RCA ports.

For music games the sounds is just the right mix (and even decent enough that it can replace most TV speakers for normal use). It hits the highs and lows very well and, even if you crank it to 11, the sounds is never distorted (the top volume was purposefully kept low enough to avoid damage, static or audio artifacts).

Since it is a powered speaker system, you can vary the volume from the HitMaster precisely enough to synchronize with your TV or, if that audio simply sucks, “daisy chain” it with other monitors or speakers for more spread stereo effect. On its own, it offers a wide enough spread of sound that it can be placed across a room and hit pretty much every corner.

If you do plan to use use this as your main TV speaker, the bulk might make it hard to place anywhere other than right in front of the cabinet or, unfortunately, behind it. But, then again, the real intention is to play music games with it and get that I’m-on-stage feel while gaming, which it certainly provides.

Thanks to the RCA and 1/8 input ports, pretty much anything that makes noise in your house and has output ports can be connected to the HitMaster, making this far more useful than just a gaming accessory.

My complaints are relatively small and only with the provided cables. The RCA cables provided are male on one end a female on the other. For consoles that’s not really an issue since you can plug the audio directly to the HitMaster. However, if you already have some sort of audio system, you really need another male-to-male RCA cable. Also, the power cords is shorter than the RCA cable which is the opposite of what is usually needed since the consoles will likely be closer to the speaker than the nearest wall power outlet.

There’s also not any form of in-box fine tuning adjustments (base, treble or balance) but, in any situation, you’re really at the mercy of the game developers and console for the final mix (or lack thereof - eg. cannot separate instruments and microphone from each other) and output quality.

HitMaster or MissMaster?

There is no mistake that this system sounds great, especially for the price. It looks and feels exactly like a stage sound monitor and will certainly impress - and very likely intimidate - your friends. The sound quality is better than most TVs and, if the bulk is not an issue for your setup, could become your primary stereo speakers.

As we were told by Polk Audio, this is certainly not a toy. The HitMaster has enough heft and a sturdy enough construction to keep it real but light enough to quickly move. Heck, you can even plug your favorite handheld game system into it.

There’s no doubt that this will survive years of gaming and withstand many accidental hits caused by your new found in-home stage presence. Don’t believe me, then check the photos of my 3-year-old sitting on the HitMaster. Believe me, he’s already put it through his own battery of stress tests and it’s come out unscathed.

And if you get something like the USB string guitar with the game adapter or even Power Gig: Rise of the SixString, all we really need is for a company to come out with a robotic at-home roadie. (I’ll leave the shaky, poorly swept wooden floor and artificial groupies to you.)

Read [HitMaster @ Gamertell] Site [Polk Audio HitMaster] Photo Gallery [HitMaster Photos @ Gamertell]

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Title: Age of Zombies
Price: $4.99
System(s): PSP, PS3
Release Date: February 25, 2010
Publisher (Developer): Halfbrick Studios (Halfbrick Studios)
ESRB Rating: “Teen” for Blood, Cartoon Violence, Language and Tobacco Reference
Pros: Comical, appealing cartoonish graphics, start each level part with three lives, lots of different weapons, 5 worlds with 3 levels each, zombies groan and Steakfries occasionally talks, there’s a survival mode and unlimited bullets for default weapon.
Cons: Very easy to get cornered by zombies, shooting diagonally can be tricky at times, bosses are pretty easy to dispatch, not much replay value and no real sense of challenge.
Overall Score: One thumb up, one own, 77/100, C+, * * 1/2 out of 5

The minis games offer a strange new, and unifying, experience for PS3 and PSP owners. They’re small, affordable, almost casual games that can be played and enjoyed, regardless of what system you own. It’s an interesting concept, and one that other companies (*cough*Nintendo*cough*) should look into as well.

One of the latest releases a zombie shooter called Age of Zombies, which tasks players with relentlessly shooting down as many zombies as possible to save the past and future from the undead menace.

Saving the past, present and future from zombies!

Age of Zombies begins with our zombie slaughtering hero, Barry Steakfries, bursting into a lab owned by Professor Brains. Professor Brains has developed not only a time travel device, but also a plague that turns people into zombies. He’s infected a batch of them, and sent them into different eras, like the Stone Age or the Future. It’s up to Barry to do some time traveling to exterminate them all, and after matter-of-factly dispatching Professor Brains, he does.

Basically, you’re looking down on Barry and controlling his every action. You press PSP’s four face buttons, X, O, square and triangle, to shoot in the four different directions or diagonally or press the R button to shoot in the direction you’re looking. Barry is confined to a small area in each level, and must run around exterminating zombies until the gauge on the left is depleted, showing there are no more in that area. Occasionally, secondary weapons like grenades or mines will appear (which you can use with the L button) or a different, temporary gun will appear to help you wipe out all the zombies.

Just keep shooting and moving!

One of the reasons that Age of Zombies is quite appealing is its hero, Barry Steakfries. Barry is obnoxious, foulmouthed, extremely violent and quite possibly unbalanced, but at the same time is just so loveable. Whether he’s waxing nostalgic about getting to own a zombie caveman as a pet, or shutting a living King Tut look-a-like (who wasn’t a zombie, by the way), you can’t help but like him and root for him.

Of course, the reason that he’s loveable is because he’s so funny. There’s not much story to speak of, even the opening story segment lasts a few moments and there’s just a teeny bit of banter before and after each time period’s three stages. But there are plenty of one liners that Barry spouts off, and more often then not they’ll make you, at the very least, smile.

Unfortunately, Barry’s personality and smart mouth aren’t enough to disguise Age of Zombies failings. It’s really a pretty easy game, as long as you button mash, keep shooting and never stop moving. The only time you really start worrying is when a rather large number of zombies (let’s say 30-40) appear on screen, as then it’s easy to get distracted while running for a better weapon or secondary weapon and then get surrounded. But even if you are surrounded, it’s no big deal. You start each time period world’s three stages with three lives, and if you die you just reappear somewhere in the vicinity and pick up where you left off. Plus, while it is funny, the script alone isn’t enough to get you to replay three or four times.

Not much replay value, but fun while it lasts.

Age of Zombies does have quite a few things going for it. It’s definitely funny, it looks great and it’s quite affordable. Plus, you’ll probably get two or three hours of gameplay out of it, which isn’t bad considering it’s only a mini and costs $4.99. Unfortunately, once you beat the game there’s really no reason to go back. It isn’t terribly challenging, unless you make a wrong move and get yourself cornered by a massive herd of zombies. And even if you do, you start each level with plenty of lives and there are always extra, special weapons being dropped onto the playing field. I’d say if you have an extra $5 to waste and you need a brief, funny distraction, then go for it. If you’re not big on violence, vulgarity or games where you can button-mash to win, then keep browsing.

Site [Age of Zombies]

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Title: Calling
Price: $39.99
System: Wii
Release Date: March 9, 2010
Publisher (Developer): Hudson Soft (Hudson Soft)
ESRB Rating: “T” for violence
Pros: It’s actually scary, intriguing characters, solid controls, nice blend of horror and puzzle solving
Cons: Production values are a bit below the current level set by horror games, takes a while for the story to get moving, retreads familiar horror territory, linear
Overall Score: One thumb up, one thumb sideways; 84/100; B; *** out of 5

I am not frightened of empty-eyed children, be they Japanese or not. It’s hard to be scared by dead beings who are more afraid of eating lima beans or going to bed before Ni Hao Kai Lan ends than I am of them stealing my soul. And yet, I’m apparently alone in this, since so many horror movies and games these days center around little kids with big eyes and dark hair getting all up in your face.

Such is the case with Hudson Soft’s Calling, the latest survival horror game for the Wii. There have been plenty of these as of late, and Calling is happy to wedge itself somewhere between Ju-On: The Grudge (a haunted house simulator) and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (a psychological thriller), except that Calling is actually better than both.

You heard me…Hudson’s Calling is better than Konami’s Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, and that’s simply because it’s scarier.

Much scarier.

I just called to say I’ll scare you

It being Japanese horror and all, Calling’s premise is quite simple and fairly preposterous. There’s a website often referred to as “the black page.” Visit it, and you see a counter. Some believe the counter represents the number of people who have died after viewing the site, while others believe the site allows you to talk to the dead. These are both logical conclusions to reach, right? I believe a quick search at Network Solutions or a call to the site’s host would confirm or deny these theories, but what’s the fun in that? Instead, we get four people who have visited the site, only to find themselves awakened in the “mnemonic abyss,” which is a fantastic name for an emo band.

Here, though, the mnemonic abyss is an area between life and death where the living walk amongst the dead (you know, like an emo band). Although the game centers around the brave and determined Rin, you’ll control three other characters as well: the nerdy and timid Shin, the sad and elderly Chiyo, and the mysterious and grim Makoto. Why are each of these people in the menomic abyss, and how are their fates intertwined? It’ll take you 30+ hours of gameplay to sort it out (if you play at my speed and want to find all the hidden items to get the best ending).

I just called to say how much you’re dead

Like Ju-On and Silent Hill, you mostly play the game alone in dark, creepy settings, armed only with a flashlight (and oftentimes, not even that). At its heart, the game is about exploration and puzzle solving, as you’ll need to find objects and know how to use them in order to trigger the next event. It’s stuff like finding clues on a calendar to learn the code to a safe to find the key to unlock the computer lab. Only, the whole time you’re doing this, you’ve got random noises interrupting the silence to startling effect (there’s no soundtrack to be heard during gameplay…it’s just you and the empty echoes of your footsteps), the dead calling you on the phone, creepy images randomly flashing on the screen, and ghostly figures appearing in the room.

The flashlight is implemented quite well, using the Silent Hill control scheme of walking with the Nunchuck and pointing the flashlight with the Wiimote. You don’t need to worry about battery life, and that’s good, because that allows you to explore at your own terrified pace.

Your other main tool is the cell phone you’ll find (I guess the dead wouldn’t need them anymore, and that’s kind of a scary thought, anyway; the mnemonic abyss provides better converage than AT&T). You use the phone to take pictures, make calls, record conversations, and more, the audio for which is played through your Wiimote speaker. It’s an excellent element for gameplay and story; if I were trapped in a realm between the living and the dead, I’d certainly want my iPhone with me, if only to remind myself of a time when I was more worried about beating my score in Jungle Style Pinball and less about being consumed by the dead.

I just called to say I’ll KILL you

So, although the story and delivery are formulaic Calling succeeds for a couple of reasons. First, it’s scary. Seriously scary, and I don’t frighten easily. Filled with long (albeit repetitive) darkened hallways with many doors to open and objects to look behind, you know that something could jump out at you at any time. And yet, your guesses will often be wrong. The developers did a great job of sneaking up on you with the “startle” scares, while building heavy tension throughout.

In addition, they’ve added these moments where your character is so scared that he/she can’t move; you can only sloooooowly turn to see what’s about to happen, and what happens is usually big. You know it’s coming, but you have to get there, and that’s 15 flavors of awesomesauce. Play this game alone in the dark (although it’s just as much fun to run through with a friend), and you’ll likely leave a couple more lights on than normal when making your way to bed.

But the game is also sad. There’s a degree of melancholy and depth to the stories and the characters I wasn’t expecting. The overall presentation isn’t up to the level of Silent Hill, but there’s still more here than just the horror element to keep you playing. And considering this game is so much scarier than Silent Hill, it’s a fair trade. (Also, unlike with Silent Hill, Calling doesn’t have those horrible and useless nightmare sequences, and when you’re required to shake ghosts off of you, it actually works.)

And I mean it from the bottom of my creepy pale face

The game has its flaws, though. As mentioned, the production levels will seem a bit low if you’re fresh off of playing Silent Hill. The game also retreads familiar horror territory. I get that abandoned hospitals and schools are scary, but so are abandoned prisons and textile mills and anything else you have to walk through in the dark while being chased by angry dead people, so let’s get some variety, okay? It also doesn’t help that each of the locations within Calling is quite repetitive, and you’ll be retracing your steps often both as part of solving the puzzles and in order to even find the puzzles.

But Calling succeeds despite these flaws because it remains consistently scary and surprising, and because the mystery and puzzle-solving elements give you something to think about other than what creepy face will be next to suddenly appear in the doorway. Calling challenges your mind even as it’s messing with it, expertly blending its puzzle and legitimate horror moments. I’d be happier if it were priced at $30 instead of $40, but considering it’s likely the scariest experience you can currently have on the Wii, it’s certainly worth a buy…even if you’re not afraid of children.

“Leave me alone, little ghost girl, or there’ll be no Don’t Let the Pidgeon Drive the Bus for you tonight!”

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Title: Alice in Wonderland
Release Date: March 5, 2010
Company: Disney
Rating: “PG”
Length: 109 min (1 hour, 49 minutes)
Pros: Interesting characters you could watch for hours, moved at a steady pace, gorgeous costumes and environments, great casting and clever script.
Cons: Complicated and massive battle at end felt out of place, some of the CG effects seemed unnecessary and there were moments that seemed like they were thrown in just to make the 3D version of the movie have more 3D moments.
Overall Score: Two thumbs up, 96/100, A, * * * * 1/2 out of 5

Tim Burton and Alice in Wonderland is a winning combination, that much is clear without even seeing the movie. Burton is a master of surreal and otherworldly endeavors, and a movie inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass is the perfect opportunity to create another masterpiece. And it only gets better when you factor in a winning cast that includes stars like Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Stephen Fry, Alan Rickman and Crispin Glover.

Down the rabbit hole and returning to Underland

Alice in Wonderland begins with a young Alice coming to her father, as he’s meeting with some potential business partners. He asks her if she’s had the nightmare again, and he excuses himself to escort her back to bed. She confides to him that it was the same one again, with the blue caterpillar, disappearing cat and strange world. She asks if she’s going mad, and he checks for her a moment, admits that yes, she’s bonkers, but that all the best people are.

We then are taken to the present day. Alice is 19 years old now, and about to attend a party at the Ascot family’s home. She learns there that it’s not just any party, but an engagement party. For her. Apparently, her mother and the Ascots have determined that she should marry Hamish Ascot, their son. When she’s put on the spot by his proposal, she sees a white rabbit in a tailcoat, like the one in her dreams, running around, and she chases after it. The race leads her to a hole near some tree roots, and she falls into Wonderland once again.

However, things are complicated. The White Rabbit is unsure if he’s found the correct Alice, and the doormouse, dodo bird and Tweedles aren’t sure whether she is or isn’t Alice. Also, Alice herself is convinced that the whole affair is a dream. And once Absolem the Caterpillar declares she is “hardly Alice” and the Red Queen’s forces set down upon all of them, Alice finds herself alone and bewildered.

Great characters and concept, but the CG and 3D pandering sometimes go too far

Alice in Wonderland is primarily focused on its story and characters, which is perhaps why the movie is so enjoyable to watch and seems to move so quickly. Alice, marvelously portrayed by Mia Wasikowska, has plenty of personality and “muchness” which makes her both admirable and a joy to watch. You’ll find yourself rooting for her and for Depp’s Mad Hatter, who is a far more engaging and sympathetic character than he has been in any other Alice adaptation. Helena Bonham Carter makes the Red Queen delightfully conniving and devious, and Anne Hathaway acts as her perfect foil. Even smaller characters, like Tweedles, Dormouse and Cheshire Cat have a way of stealing your heart, and some scenes.

There was only one moment where the story seemed to falter. There’s a confrontation scene that occurs in about the last 20 minutes of the movie that just feels unnecessary and out of place. Yes, there is a need for a confrontation, but it didn’t need to be so frenzied, involving what felt like the entire population of Underland. Personally, I think it would have worked much better if it had been a solitary moment and altercation between the White and Red Queens’ champions.

There were two visual matters that bothered me. The first seems to be a common affliction among movies that are released in 3D enhanced versions. It seems like specific sequences or moments are created soley for the purpose of giving 3D viewers a quick thrill. In a movie like Alice in Wonderland, which focuses more on character development and story rather than cheap embellisments, these moments feel awkward and out of place. It’s especially more noticeable if you choose to watch the standard version of the movie.

Also, in some places it seemed as though CG effects were overdone. Take, for example, Stayn. Whenever he’d be on horseback, his whole appearance seemed awkward and off-balanced, and as though it would have been more practical and visually appealing if they hadn’t used CG effects to try and make it seem more outlandish. This didn’t happen too often, thankfully, but there were times when the abundance of CG alterations seemed overwhelming.

A delightful excursion you’ll wish had lasted longer

Alice in Wonderland is a whimsical delight. Whether you’re a fan of Tim Burton, the original literature or even just fantasy stories, it’s the sort of movie that will grab your attention and hold it for the entire running time. The movie will fly by without your even realizing it, and you’ll be left wanting more. I found that I couldn’t get the story, images and characters out of my head, even hours after leaving the theater. Burton’s latest work leaves a definite impression on the viewers and encourages creative thinking.

I would recommend leaving children at home for this Alice in Wonderland adaptation. Yes, it’s a Disney film and has a PG rating, but it is also quite dark and filled with more mature themes and concepts that children probably won’t appreciate or grasp.

Site [Alice in Wonderland]

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Title: RE: Alistair
Price: Free
System(s): *Windows, Mac, Linux
Release Date: February 28, 2010
Publisher (Developer): Sakevisual (Sakevisual)
ESRB Rating: N/A. (Appropriate for 10 and older).
Pros: Great artwork, interesting characters with a few slight unexpected twists, nice blend of simulation and visual novel elements, there are skip and auto functions, lots of save slots, CG gallery, the script is funny at times, the main character is easy to relate to and there’s quite a bit of replay value.
Cons: Pretty short and you’re left wanting more. Music isn’t anything special. Only three dateable guys.
Overall Score: One thumb up, one sideways, 88/100, B+, * * * 1/2 out of 5

Free games typically fall into one of three categories - “surprisingly exceptional,” “good, but I wouldn’t pay for it” and “I can see why this is free.” Sakevisual’s latest visual novel and dating simulation, RE: Alistair, definitely is a member of the surprisingly exceptional group. It’s only failings stem from it’s bland music and short storyline, and other than that it’s a really entertaining game. It also makes me wonder, if Sakevisual’s first game is this good, who knows what to expect from the next two, Ripples and Hanami x2.

Blessed Stones are a girl’s best friend.

Merui is a gamer girl, and her favorite is Rivenwall Online, a massive multiplayer online RPG where she is the knight RuiOfTheSword, and she and her online friend FionaWings explore a virtual world and beat up monsters in hopes of getting awesome stuff. One day, they’re out venturing as usual, and fighting a difficult boss in the hopes of Merui finding a Blessed Stone. Right when Merui is about to deal the final blow, some other player called Alistair jumps in, kills the boss and takes the stone.

Merui is displeased to say the least. If the Rivenwall Online censor would allow it, she’d show it verbally. She and this rogue, Alistair, agree to duel. Just as the duel’s about to start, the school’s internet goes down!

After classes, she returns to the computer lab, finds the internet is up again, and logs back in. She then realizes that she wasn’t the only one booted, that Alistair was booted from the game as well. She deduces that he attends the same school as she does, and after checking the school’s logs determines that three other people were online at that time, Derek, Shiro and Travis. The next time she meets Alistair, she tells him she knows who he is, and will exact her revenge. But, she doesn’t know which of the three he actually is. So they make a bet - she has one month to find him. If she does, she gets her stone. If she doesn’t, he gets all the gold she made in Rivenwall Online that month.

Engaging enough to keep you interested, quick enough to inspire replays.

As I played through RE: Alistair for the third time, I found myself wondering why it was so enjoyable. From first glance, it appears similar to most other visual novels, from the anime style graphics to the primarily story-based gameplay. As you play, you discover that it slightly deviates from your initial expectations. The characters, which each seem straightforward for the first few in-game days, each have their own secrets which can often only be uncovered if you try to win their hearts. I didn’t even suspect one of the guy’s secrets until I was halfway through playing the game while shooting for his ending.

RE: Alistair also takes a note from Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side, one of the most successful otome (girls’ dating game) and simulation games. Instead of limiting the player to just picking the correct answers to hopefully get a good ending and come to a good resolution, it also tasks players with meeting certain stat requirements. There are certain activities Merui can participate in and items she can buy, and by taking advantage of these actions she can make herself more appealing to certain characters.

The character of Merui is also part of what makes RE: Alistair great. She behaves like a real girl gamer and human being. She isn’t perfect - she’s got a bit of a temper, sometimes is less than patient and can be quite conniving when it suits her. But she can also be a good person, showing sympathy, kindness and compassion to other people. And her in-game counterpart, RuiOfTheSword helps gives players an insight into her gaming habits - Rui is a knight, a warrior class, who’s made it to level 56. Compare that to her friend FionaWings, who’s an Angel healer at level 54, and you can see Merui isn’t some casual player. All this makes it easier for girl gamers playing RE: Alistair to connect with the character and become more immersed in the game.

Find out if visual novels or simulation games are right for you, for free!

I’m honestly surprised RE: Alistair is a free game. It’s very well made, with quite a bit of depth and thought put into it. Even though it is quite short, that’s almost a blessing as it makes it much easier to go through multiple times and see all the endings. The story is well written, with believeable characters, the artwork is pretty and very easy to look at and the stat building simulation elements make you feel like you’re doing more than just reading text on a screen and occasionally picking answers. If you’ve ever been curious about visual novels or otome dating games, then make sure you visit Sakevisual and download RE: Alistair.

Site [RE: Alistair]

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I recently spoke with Mark Suskind, Polk Audio’s Vice President of Product Line Management about the company’s new HitMaster stage style audio monitor.

The HitMaster is being marketed as a gaming accessory that will add an extra element of realism to music games including Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

Essentially a complex speaker system in one box, the HitMaster is built much like those floor monitors musicians use to monitor their performance on stage.

“There’s been something like 45 million copies of Rock Band and Guitar Hero games sold… and most people are using the progressively poor quality flat-screen sound or poor PC audio,” said Suskind. “We wanted to let people have the total experience when playing these games and feel like you are on stage. This helps create that experience.”

Available for $99, the HitMaster is a single-point 80 watt stereo speaker with two 2.5 by 5.5 in. horns with two 1 in. neodymium tweeters surrounding a 6.5 in. woofer. The cabinet measures 14 in. wide, 9 1/2 in tall and 8 1/2 deep, comes with a handle and weighs approximately 13 lbs.

And, yes, the volume knob actually goes to 11.

“That one is my thing. There’s this movie [This is Spinal Tap] and I always thought it’d be fun. I started doing that a while ago with our subwoofers.”

Suskind quipped that Polk’s engineers did a lot of “beta testing of their own,” (read: they love to game, too) continually tweaking the system for optimum performance.

The HitMaster’s total frequency response is rated at 40Hz to 20kHz and it includes left and right RCA inputs and outputs, allowing a daisy chain of speakers. if you are afraid of the system blasting away your neighbors, parents or loved one, that “11” setting isn’t quite as deafening as the seemingly silly setting implies, putting out 103 dB (measured at 8 to 10 feet away).

“We wanted it loud but not excessive and we wanted to keep it a $99 product. Make it too loud and parents would take issue.” Suskind further explained that allowing the speaker to pump out much more and you’d experience “audio fatigue and noticeable artifacts” in the sound.

It also includes a 1/8 in. input jack which means you can also plug in your favorite MP3 player which has also lead to the HitMaster being used in some surprising ways.

“You can always come up with a few uses but you never really know how it will be used once it gets in people’s hands,” Suskind explained, also suggesting that it can be used as a high-end iPod speaker. “One person told us they use it for presentation purposes instead of crummy speakers on a PC or laptop… It has a handle so we’ve been told people take it from room to room in their house as they need it. It’s also being used for satellite and cable setups. It’s been used for Karaoke machines because the built-in audio is not very good.”

Thank to the RCA input and output ports, you can use a second set of speakers or daisy chain HitMasters. “We had 11 connected together at CES this year,” Suskind said.

But if you are thinking you can hear only your track when gaming, like Slash hearing only his riffs on stage, forget it. But don’t blame the speakers.

While the PS3 and Xbox 360 offer more than simple left-right audio output, Suskind explained, the Wii doesn’t and, even so, consoles are usually outputting simply split mono audio. If you want to monitor the mic in one and the guitar on another, for example, it’s a no go. “The audio is mixed in the game so it cannot be separated.” Besides, if you wanted surround sound, you’d need a speaker 30 to 40 inches wide and would probably pay a heck of a lot more for it.

“This is a real product. It’s not a toy,” said Suskind, pre-emptively dispelling the belief that every game accessory is a plastic play thing. “This has solid construction, corner protectors and a steel mesh grill over the speakers.” It has a hefty handle for a reason.

Also, by giving it an active audio system with RCA ports, the HitMaster can be used with any current game console. If you want to split the the left and right channels between monitors you’d simply use one cable per monitor.

The good news is that, if you do decide to invest in a HitMaster, you may get to use it for years after you put down your axe.

“Loudspeakers never really break,” said Suskind. “We have some that have lasted 30 years, so this will likely outlive the [game controller] guitars.”

Site [Polk Audio HitMaster]

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Title: Ponyo
Release Date: March 2, 2010
Format(s): Blu-ray, DVD
Price: $39.99 (Blu-ray+DVD), $29.99 (DVD)
Company: Walt Disney Studio Home Entertainment (Studio Ghibli)
Rating: “G” (General Audiences)
Length: 1 hour, 43 minutes. (103 minutes)
Pros: Gorgeous visuals, mostly amazing voice acting, beautiful soundtrack and it appeals to the very young target audience.
Cons: A couple annoying voices (especially to older viewers) and a little darker than most Disney movies.
Overall Score: One thumb up, one thumb sideways; 87/100; B+; * * * 1/2 out of five.

Hayao Miyazaki’s films can arguably be described as a bit too weird for American audiences to accept, lacking a clear, super-hero style main character and instead focusing on normal people in not-so-normal circumstances. Most times he exudes a mood more than a clear, linear story in his films, though this may be one of the most linear of his productions (thanks to the film’s literary inspiration).

Some elements in Ponyo may not immediately endear older American viewers but the overall story will prove entertaining to its true target: very young viewers.

Under the Sea

Loosely based on Han Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid, Ponyo stars a cute but strange looking magical fish and a little boy who finds her stuck in a jar close to shore. Mistaken for a goldlfish, the human-faced fish Brunhilda, aka Ponyo, soon becomes enamored with young Sosuke (and ham, of all things), wanting to leave her magician father’s literally protective bubbles to become a little girl.

That, of course, throws everything out of balance, causing the seas to rise and nature to basically freak out. The only way to set things right is either for Ponyo to return her to her aquatic life or to abandon magic altogether and become a human.

Like most Miyazaki movies, some of the characters are a bit outlandish, emotions run from mellow to explosive and so does the animated action. There’s a strong nature them that gets a little preachy for only a couple minutes and a lot of big-weather action but, ultimately, it’s a cute, emotional story with amazing visuals.

Turning Japanese

The American voice cast includes some rather impressive names: Cate Blanchett (Gran Mamare), Noah Cyrus (Ponyo), Matt Damon (Koichi), Tina Fey (Lisa), Frankie Jonas (Sosuke), Kurt Knutsson (The Newscaster), Cloris Leachman (Noriko), Liam Neeson (Fujimoto), Jennessa Rose (Kumiko), Lily Tomlin (Toki) and Betty White (Yoshie). Only Neeson’s voice seems, at times, too far over the top - although it fits the stripe suited character - and most surprising is Fey, who sounds as if she’s been voicing anime movies for decades. All of the movie’s on-screen old ladies (Leachman, Tomlin and White) are perfect choices for their characters. Cyrus’ Ponyo is often a high-pitched yell which might be an instant turn off to older ears.

As with all Miyazaki’s movies, the soundtrack (like the visuals) is a wonderful blend of subtlety and swelling excitement.

The high definition of the Blu-ray makes the disparity in the film’s artistic styles obvious, occasionally making the lined edges and solid coloring of the main characters a bit too bright against the lush and intricately detailed backgrounds. It gives it a slightly older-than-it-really-is feel but this is a hand-drawn animated feature and not an uber-computer shaded creation. It’s rarely an issue in terms of overall film enjoyment and may even lend itself well to Miyazaki’s tendency to create a purposefully mixed-up era on screen.

After watching the extra features - which primarily consist of interviews with Miayazaki or interviews with Disney execs about him - it’s clear that the most critical audience of this movie is not the target. Instead, he was trying to make a movie for 4-year-olds, featuring slightly older-than-that main characters and more fish than you can find in a 3D release of Finding Nemo. And there he certainly succeeds.

Another success of this release is the interview with Miayazaki. He’s not only offers decent insights into the film but is also rather candid about his own failings as a filmmaker, admitting that most of his movies have taken several years, in some more than a decade, to gather fans and acclaim. These bonus features will help to make this release much more entertaining to older audiences, especially Miayazaki’s US fans.

I’m Turning Japa-Three

This is one of those instances where an adult cannot properly pass judgment. It’s simultaneously cute, weird, strange and magical. It’s not my favorite Miyazaki movie but, then again, it’s not supposed t be.

Ponyo is, at times, a bit scarier and creepier than most Disney movies (maybe Dark Crystal aside) but my 3-year-old certainly didn’t seem to mind. Instead, he asks for the movie by name almost daily.

Your kids may, too, if you give it a chance. (Trust me, it won’t be anywhere as annoying as Barney or the Teletubbies).

ALSO OUT: To coincide with the Blu-ray-DVD release of Ponyo, Walt Disney Studio Home Entertainment has also released three other Hayao Miyazaki-Studio Ghibli films as Special Edition DVDs: My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service and Castle in the Sky.

Photo Gallery [Ponyo @ Gamertell] Read [Ponyo Movie Review @ Gamertell] Site [Ponyo]

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Title: Heavy Rain
Price: $60
System(s): PlayStation 3
Release Date: February, 23, 2010
Publisher (Developer): Sony Computer Entertainment (Quantic Dream)
ESRB Rating: Mature for blood, intense violence, nudity, sexual content, strong language and use of drugs.
Pros: Emotion inducing storytelling and some of the best visuals in a game to date.
Cons: Control scheme not for everybody, some character animations can seem robotic at times and voice acting has some accent cracking.
Overall Score: Two thumbs Up, 95 out of 100, a solid A, * * * * 1/2

Heavy Rain is a game that challenges the limits of valley between reality and video games.

The simplest choice can drastically alter the outcome and amazing plot crafting can force you to question just how moral of a decision you would really make in a time of crisis.

Looks Like Rain

At it’s core, Heavy Rain is a self-defined interactive drama. Conventional video game character controls are thrown to the wayside in favor of walking with the L2 button and a series of quick-time button presses that have you completing the most trivial of everyday tasks, all-the-while still keeping you interacting with the game rather merely watching a scene unfold.

You won’t be hitting X to jump on a ledge but will instead rotate a quarter-circle with the analog stick slowly to kiss your wife. It’s not a control scheme that will grab everyone, though I have to respect their choice as it does add an extra element urgency when times get rough.

I did find the reliance of accurate button presses and Sixaxis movements to be frustrating at times, especially when I felt I had pressed the correct combination and the system misread the motions causing an unwanted outcome. Because of this, I recommend even the most seasoned of players to choose the Moderate or Casual difficulty setting if they don’t mind sacrificing extreme challenge for a more controlled story.

Where Heavy Rain is still a video game, however, is in it’s visual fidelity and voice acting.

The wet and dreary town and its inhabitants are gorgeously realized in a virtual capacity. The likeness between character and actor is creepily real and, well, uncanny (see the Heavy Rain photo gallery). Yet, when it comes to physical interactions and speech, the characters don’t quite have the look and feel of the real people the designers worked so hard to portray.

The voice acting is done really well (kids actually sound like kids) but, again, there’s very little things that if you listen hard enough for will stand out, such as English accent breaks (especially in the kids) in American voices.

Quantic Dreams influences for plot shine through (the 2005 movie Crash to name one) with an unfolding story of four people and how their lives are interconnected and affected by the serial murders of the Origami Killer: Ethan Mars, a beat-up-by-life single father desperate to find his son, Madison Paige, a journalist looking for a big story, Norman Jayden, an FBI agent sent to find the truth and Scott Shelby, a burdened private investigator trying to find justice. Each character is periodically controlled throughout the story unraveling events through different eyes.

Embrace the Rain

I grew attached to these characters in ways I hadn’t expected to. As I made little decisions, I started to realize I was building up the morality of these characters and, when the time came to make the bigger, more moral reflective decisions (how far would Ethan go to save his son) I found myself reacting without hesitation (there is no question how far I would go to save my son). Decisions like whether or not to teach Ethan’s son to juggle or drink a beer and shoot hoops alone, fighting with the lead local detective over the use of excessive force or putting a bullet in a suspect’s head.

I found myself fused into these characters (of course, my friends had drastically different experiences).

The final piece of Heavy Rain is in the music (composed by Normand Corbeil) that does a standout job to help solidify the atmosphere. From the emotional string-pulling of Ethan Mar’s theme to the urgency of Looking for Shaun, the composition is something video game music enthusiasts should really give a listen to.

Stay In the Rain

For its faults in control scheme, voice acting, and somewhat unrealized visual prowess, none of it matters.

Heavy Rain won’t be remembered as the project that validated video games as art or changed the future of game design but, instead, will be remembered as a stepping stone in the direction of the validation of video games being something that can handle mature subject matters and invoke raw human emotions.

After all, at the end of the rainfall, all you will remember is how it made you feel.

Photo Gallery [Heavy Rain @ Gamertell] Site [Heavy Rain]

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Title: Last Escort: Club Katze
Price: $59.90
System: PSP*, Playstation 2
Release Date: February 18, 2010
Publisher (Developer): Mobile & Game Studio (D3 Publisher)
ESRB Rating: N/A, CERO D for Ages 17+
Pros: Slick and polished character designs, skippable dialogue and cutscenes, simple gameplay and fully voiced (aside from the main character’s dialogue).
Cons: Painfully linear, lack of character customizable options, intermediate Japanese skills recommended (but not required).
Overall Score: One Thumb Sideways, One Thumb Down; 67 out of 100; D+; *1/2 out of *****. 

Host clubs are no secret in Japan. Interested parties will find the streets of Kabuki-cho in Shinjuku (Tokyo, Japan) swarming with sharply dressed young gentlemen bombarding women of all ages in hopes of luring them back to their love nest that is one of their host clubs.

Last Escort is a unique series, usually on the PS2, that has enjoyed success on the Japan thanks to many a fine lady interested in getting a glimpse of what the host club scene in Japan is like without committing oodles of real-world monetary funds.

A Girl and Her Host

The main goal of Club Katze, as with Last Escort titles, is to woo a host through conversation and gift giving, while also helping him to achieve the number one spot of the club by spending all your hard-earned cash on ridiculously overpriced bottles of liquor.

Players take control of a young woman starting out in her career. Oddly enough, she’s given the task to “spy” on a local host club called Club Katze but she finds her trips become increasingly personal and less about business.

The game progresses over the course of approximately one calendar year where, week by week, players have the ability to pick activities to increasing attributes and encourage a host to fall for you by appealing to his interests. For example, maxing out the sports stat will increase your chances of capturing the heart of a particular host whose hobby may be sports (go fig’). Also, leveling up also unlocks different homemade items that players can choose to create in order to give to hosts as gifts in hopes of raising their affection level.

There are six hosts (possibly more to unlock), each playing to the heartstrings of a different girl. Visiting Club Katze is the only controllable way to interact with a host, however there are still yet events that are triggered outside of the club environment. Players choose one of three actions per visit to interact with a host: Conversation (correct responses yield better results), order a drink (help the host become “Number One”) and give a gift (homemade is best). Of course, everything, including your siple visit, costs yen, so you have to watch your wallet.

This Eye Candy is a Little Sour

Club Katze takes a step back from what was enjoyable in Last Escort 2 (LE2). While Last Escort 2 was linear, Club Katze is painfully linear. The formula for success remains the same but the amount of customizability has been removed. In LE2, players could decorate their rooms which would, in turn, effect host visits. While this was a small aspect of the game play, it was surprisingly amusing.

The majority hosts at Club Katze are pretty yummy in appearance, whereas some look downright sleazy. In any case, their personalities pale in comparison to their LE2 predecessors who were a lively and often comical bunch. Instead of paying attention I instead skipped through a good majority of the dialogue. Even the action of visiting Club Katze becomes a mundane chore instead of a thrilling venture. It would have been nice if visiting the club triggered specialized mini-games opposed to overused one-liners and dull babble.

This love simulation is no more than a plain text adventure with absolutely any frills. There’s no challenge in the game play since players are easily able to save at any time which would prevent them from committing to any mistakes. The art of stat raising provides about half of the gameplay yet requires no compelling strategy whatsoever. The most difficult part of this action is simply discovering what the host’s hobby is and then maxing out that stat as soon as possible which, in turn, provides neither balance nor customization. Where the main challenge of this game should be triumphing many hurdles that usually stand in the way of love, the lack of money in the game is the only real menacing pothole screwing up the lovebus on its road to the stale infatuation that the boys of Club Katze have to offer.
It may be that Club Katze attempted to provide an extremely serious approach for this installment of which it succeeded regarding the character designs (see lack of huge glossy, sparkly eyes), but miserably failed in creating a game that’s actually fun to play.

To Date or Not To Date?

I would urge interested parties - even fans of otome dating-sim games - to wait to invest their money in Konami’s impending Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side (TMGS) 3rd Story due out later this year (2010). I dare say that TMGS may be the perfect dating simulation geared for the female market and, if you can’t wait for 3rd Story, buy the previous versions of TMGS for the Nintendo DS: 1st Love/Plus, 2nd Kiss. Not Club Katze.

I would only suggest picking up Club Katze for those who want to know what the bottom-of-the-dating-sims barrel feels like.

However, if you don’t mind being hand fed a story by slick and attractive boy toys, then you may enjoy Club Katze’s eye candy.

Site [Last Escort -Club Katze-] Purchase [Play-Asia] Read [Gamertell]

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Title: Avatar Showdown
Price: 80 ($1) Microsoft Points
System(s): Xbox 360
Release Date: February 24, 2010
Developer:JForce Games
ESRB Rating: Unrated
Pros: Very cheap, places avatar in an interactive environment, quick fun with friends online or offline
Cons: Very few modes, no control of avatar movement, loses appeal very quickly
Overall Score: Two thumbs sideways, 70/100, C-, ** out of 5.

Avatar Showdown is an indie game developed by JForce Games and is one of the first games that allows you to fight with your Xbox Live avatar. It is currently available from the Xbox Live Indie Games store for 80 Microsoft points (US$1). I couldn’t think of a better price because, frankly, that’s all this game is really worth.

Become The Avatar

Avatar Showdown does let you take your avatar into battle but not like you would expect. You won’t be brawling like in traditional 2D fighting games. In fact, you can’t move your avatar at all. The game is all about testing your reaction time against the computer. You have to wait until a flash of exclamation points pop onto the screen and press any button to attack. If you’re faster than your opponent, you win. If not, you lose. It’s really that simple.

Fight Familiar Faces

The match will start with your avatar staring down one of many celebrity inspired avatars while they dish out slightly humorous one-liners. A Kanye West inspired avatar told me he was happy for me, but Beyonce’ has one of the best avatars of all time. You’ll also run into likenesses of The Joker, Forrest Gump, and Chuck Norris. Interestingly enough, I had the toughest time against Chuck Norris. You’ll need lighting fast fingers and some luck to get passed him. The final boss did give me a chuckle but I won’t spoil it here.

Pass The Buck

There aren’t many modes to choose from in Avatar Showdown. There are easy and hard difficulties in the single player mode, a two player mode and the ability to play online. If you manage to beat the game on hard, you’ll get a special weapon to use in JForce’s next game JForce: UNSTOPPABLE.

Avatar Showdown is a game you’ll get about 30 minutes of gaming out of if you just go for the single-player option. You may squeeze another hour or so out of it once you take it online against your friends.

Then again, it’s only $1 so we really can’t ask for much more than that. It’s good for a laugh and to see your avatar in a more interactive space. If you want to pit your Stormtrooper avatar against your friends Master Chief, go ahead and give it a try.

Purchase [Xbox Live Marketplace]

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Title: Shiren the Wanderer
Price: $39.99
System(s): Wii
Release Date: February 9. 2010
Publisher (Developer): Atlus (ChunSoft)
ESRB Rating: “Teen” for Alcohol Reference, Mild Fantasy Violence, Mild Language and Mild Suggestive Themes
Pros: Japanese DLC is included on the game disc, multiple difficulty levels including one where you don’t lose items or your levels when you die, there are some interesting characters to interact with, can control Shiren and his partner of the moment if you want and cutscenes look good.
Cons: Doesn’t have the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection support the Japanese version had, dungeons and monsters don’t offer much variation, story is only passable, rogue-like and Shiren fans may find it too easy and accomodating.
Overall Score: One thumb up, one down, 77/100, C+, * * 1/2 out of 5

Shiren the Wanderer Wii isn’t entirely a new game. It’s actually a remake of an old SNES game called Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer 3 that, unfortunately, was never released overseas. for a while, it seemed like the Wii port of Shiren the Wanderer 3: Karakuri Yashiki no Nemuri Hime wasn’t going to be released overseas either, as Sega never announced it. Thankfully, Atlus did, and while it’s quite unfortunate that all of the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection support is gone, it’s still a good rogue-like RPG for beginners and people who finished Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s Dungeon years ago.

A mysterious mansion that may hold treasures beyond your wildest dreams.

Shiren is an experienced warrior who wanders around the world, getting caught up in all kinds of adventures, with his faithful . Most recently, his Sensei, who is also his uncle and mentor, gave him the key to the mysterious Karakuri Mansion. Shiren then makes the small town of Otsutsuki his home base and begins journeying to reach the Karakuri Mansion so he can explore it and discover if the legends about it holding an extraordinary amount of treasure are true.

But, Shiren isn’t the only one who’s interested in the Karakuri Mansion. Asuka, from the second Shiren game, also gets involved in the quest and fights alongside Shiren, and a ninja named Oboro and a bandit named Jurouta are also investigating and trying to get into Karakuri. There’s also a strange woman Shiren keeps running into that seems to know quite a bit about the mansion.

Dungeon crawling is fun, but some of the Japanese version’s Wi-Fi features’d have been nice

Shiren the Wanderer is a very typical dungeon-crawling rogue-like. If you’ve played games like Izuna, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon or the aforementioned Chocobo’s Dungeon, you’ll feel right at home. There are relatively bland dungeons, filled with hidden traps and monsters, and you go around trying to find the exit. It’s a turn-based action RPG, meaning for every move you make, the monsters will make one move too. You’ll probably die a few times, but that’s expected in a rogue-like. At the end of each dungeon is a boss, which you defeat, so you can return to your home-base, regroup and then head to the next dungeon. It’s also worth noting that, like all Atlus games, the translation is great and often funny, so even though the story isn’t all that epic, there are some lines and jokes that are.

There’s one feature that Shiren the Wanderer players are going to either love, or despise. People who have never played a rogue-like before, or get frustrated after dying for the twentieth time in a standard Shiren game will be overjoyed to know that, no matter what difficulty level you choose, you’ll keep all the levels you’ve earned when you die. So each time you enter the dungeon, you’ll be stronger. This same information is unwelcome news to fans of previous Shiren games. The series is known for its difficulty and challenges, and experienced rogue-like players may find the retained levels feature infuriating. As long as you go through a dungeon enough times to earn sufficient levels, there’s really no way you can lose.

I can’t help wishing that somehow the Wi-Fi features could have been retained. Yes, the game comes with the bonus dungeons that owners of the Japanese version had to download and that does help make the loss a bit easier to bear. The loss of online scoreboards isn’t too heartbreaking either, I suppose. But the item trading and rescue features would have been nice to have, and I really wish the versus multiplayer mode was still there. I truly enjoyed the online matches when I got to play the Japanese version of the game at a friends, and I miss it.

A rogue-like for beginners.

The best word to describe Shiren the Wanderer is accommodating. Yes, it’s part of a series of roguelike games and once again stars Shiren and his talking ferret, Koppa, but it works wonderfully as a stand-alone title and, as someone who has never spent a great deal of time on previous Shiren games, I didn’t feel left out. It has multiple difficulty levels, and the easiest one goes to great lengths to make the dungeon-crawling experience as painless as possible. It even makes things easier for people playing on harder difficult levels by allowing partner characters to be directly controlled and character levels to be retained. This will disappoint rogue-like and Shiren the Wanderer fans who want a merciless challenge, but beginners and fans of Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s Dungeon will be pleased.

Site [Shiren the Wanderer]

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Title: Settlement: Colossus
Price: $9.99
System(s): Windows PC
Release Date: February 11, 2010
Publisher (Developer): Alawar Entertainment (Alawar Entertainment)
ESRB Rating: N/A. I’d say its appropriate for all ages.
Pros: Voice acting, trophies, Facebook connectivity, optional pop-up hints, tasks to complete, clear and organized, nice combo of hidden object and simulation, weather shows up in some areas, artfacts can be assembled to allow you to get more of certain resources, organized into chapters and secondary tasks to complete.
Cons: Difficult to pick out some items like branches or reeds, no hints as to what achievements are available rainy scenes make it hard to find items and some characters can look scary in some story scenes.
Overall Score: Two thumbs up, 90/100, A-, * * * * out of 5

A recent trend in casual games is to create amalgams, titles that cover two popular genres in an attempt to entice more people into playing. For example, Simplz: Zoo combined the match-3 and simulation genres, in the hopes of attracting fans of both games. The Flower Shop tried to easy new players into visual novel and dating simulation style games by combining those genres with a farming simulation. Alawar Entertainment is continuing this trend with Settlement: Colossus, a simulation and hidden object game that has players gathering necessary resources in hidden object puzzles so they can create a thriving settlement from the ground up.

Building an empire to atone for sins and please the gods.

Settlement: Colossus begins with an ancient, deposed emperor and his loyal followers traveling through barren areas searching for a new place to call home. He’s made mistakes in the past, and now he and his people are searching for a fresh start. Thankfully, they stumble upon the perfect plot of land, which happens to be near the ocean, a lake, a forest and ore and clay providing caverns. You then go through many chapters, building the new city up and helping the emperor atone for his past transgressions that brought the god’s wrath upon him until he makes things right.

Each chapter has certain goals, which usually unlock as conditions are met. Typically, you’ll be searching for the right amount of resources to sustain your people while also funding research to create new inventions and discoveries that will turn a tiny camp into an established and glorious city. So, for the most part you’ll be searching hidden object puzzles for resources. Once you have the right items, you can put them to good use making your people’s lives easier. Occasionally, about twice a chapter, mini-games that will ask you to solve puzzles will pop up to keep things from getting monotonous.

A totally manageable simulation, as long as you know what the materials you’re searching for look like.

One of the most striking things about Settlement: Colossus is, while the simulation scenes where you’re cultivating and creating a city appear whimsical, the hidden object puzzles featuring a striking amount of realism and detail. Details like animal life is encorporated into almost every scene, and elements like wind or rain even appear. It makes you appreciate the game more and enjoy spending time searching for items.

Being so authentic does have its downsides. For example, the scenes you’re hunting through for supplies look real, and actually have moving plants, bugs and occasionally small animals. Occasionally, there’ll even be a downpour. This makes finding necessary objects more difficult, as the movement is distracting and sometimes the extraneous objects can obscure necessary ones.

This is compounded by the fact that you sometimes have no clue what the item you’re looking for should look like. For the very first puzzle, the game points out the berries to you, so you know all berries will look something like that. After that, you’re on your own. Finding some materials, for example brushwood, reeds and clay, would be much easier if you knew what the items would actually look like when hidden in the scene.

Thankfully, there are two hint systems. One is an automatic one, where if the player hasn’t moved or clicked in a while, a faint sparkle will shimmer near one of the hidden objects. The other is an actual hint button that gradually fills up over time and players can tap to instantly reveal an item or give a hint about how objects should be used. You also aren’t timed when you’re searching a puzzle, so you can take as much time as you need. And the mini-games can all be skipped, after a certain length of time, if you’re stumped.

Settlement: Colossus makes city building and hidden object searches seem more realistic.

Some elements of Settlement: Colossus are quite whimsical, from the story of a 300 year old emperor trying to atone for his past and make amends to the gods, from the artistic design of some of the characters and mythical items that can be collected, but for the most part it’s a fairly realistic and accurate depiction of what must be done to create a thriving settlement and the areas you’d be searching through for materials. Players may encounter some frustrating moments, for example when playing certain mini-games or searching for new materials for the first time, but these are trivial annoyances that are easily overcome by utilizing the game’s hint programs or skip features.

The Facebook connectivity feature was also an interesting touch, but I chose not to implement it after initially testing it. Personally, I don’t think people have to be constantly aware of what I’m playing or what kind of achievements I’ve unlocked in games. It’s very simple to use though, and is an novel option that I’m sure other Settlement: Colossus players might like.

Site [Settlement: Colossus]

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Title: Plants vs. Zombies
Price: $2.99
System(s): iPhone, iPod Touch
Release Date: February 15, 2010
ESRB Rating: “Everyone” for Animated Blood and Cartoon Violence
Pros: Excellent port of PC original, catchy soundtrack, over 50 stages, lots of room for strategic creativity, tons of plant and zombie types, affordable for anyone.
Cons: Puzzle modes found in PC version have been cut due probably due to space limitations.
Overall Score: Two thumbs up, 95/100, A, * * * * 1/2 out of 5

Plants vs. Zombies was a great success when it was released on PC back in 2009. It joined the vast number of highly addictive yet surprisingly simple titles developed by PopCap Games. PvZ has made its way from the computer screen to Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch devices for $2.99. It retains everything that made the original great and needs to be a part of anyone’s mobile game collection.

Ready, Set, Plant!

PvZ is a tower defense game unlike any other before it. Its premise involves protecting your house (and your brains) from a zombie horde. The only thing standing between your house and the zombies are various plants that are ready to lay down their lives for you. The arsenal of plants you have are range from peashooters, watermelon launchers, cherry bombs and wall-nuts. Each plant is effective against all zombie types but bringing the right type of plants into battle will make things much easier.

Know Your Enemy

You’ll fight zombies that are as unique as the plants themselves. You’ll start by fighting the basic Garden - Variety Zombie and move on to more complex types such as the Dancing Zombie, Football Zombie and the Zomboni. They move from right to left across a grid that is five squares long and nine squares wide. Your plants must fight off increasingly difficult waves of zombies in a single level in order to earn more plant types and money to expand the game.

Seeds of Victory

The gameplay is very straightforward. Sunlight is the currency you use to create plants. You earn sunlight by planting sunflowers and grabbing sun that fall from the sky. You then use that currency to choose what plants you want to use. Selecting a plant and placing it is easily done by tapping on the plant’s icon on the left side of the screen, and touching the space where you want it. Multi-touch controls are not necessary to maximize your effectiveness in PvZ.

The coverage most of us have seen in PvZ leads most to believe the levels only take place on the lawn but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. There are some levels that take place at night which bring in totally new plant types and strategies. Plants you would use in daylight can’t be used at night until later in the game. There’s even some rooftop stages where you have to take into account the angle of your attacks. Mini games such as Wall-nut Bowling and Wack-a-Zombie modes help to break up the standard gameplay. Sadly some modes did not make the move to the iPhone/iPod Touch version. A take on Bejeweled PvZ style and a mode that let’s you play as the zombies aren’t present.

Blooming With Fun

Purchasing PvZ is really a no-brainer (no pun intended). It contains all the levels from the original and automatically saves whenever you exit to the main menu. There’s no need to worry about loss of quality here because PvZ on iPhone/iPod Touch looks and plays just like the PC version.

Purchase [App Store]

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Title: Poupeegirl DS
Price: $58.90
System(s): DS
Release Date: December 17, 2009
Publisher (Developer): Alvion (Alvion)
ESRB Rating: N/A, Cero A for All Ages.
Pros: Very easy to play, especially if you’re familiar with the Poupeegirl site. Lots of clothing to collect. Contests to enter to win ribbons (currency) and items. Can earn passwords to unlock exclusive items at the Poupeegirl site. Lots of customization options and opportunities to get new clothing. There are also multiplayer contests, if you can find someone else with a DS and copy of the game.
Cons: Can be hard to click the right characters on the street, contests can be quite easy to win once you have at least 20% of all clothing types and some characters look scary.
Overall Score: 8/10

Poupeegirl isn’t known for being a DS game, it’s known for being a social networking and dress-up site. Users create avatars, which they then dress up in fashionable clothes. But the clothes and accessories aren’t free. You have to earn ribbons, or purchase jewels, to acquire them. To earn ribbons, players upload images of their own clothes and accessories to a closet. You then can earn more ribbons, and make friends, by commenting on other people’s closets. There are also social aspects, like a forum and contests.

Poupeegirl DS, also listed occasionally as Poupee Girl DS, tries to recreate the same atmosphere and feeling in a portable, single player game. It not only accomplishes this goal, but creates a smoother and more entertaining experience.

Become a virtual style icon.

Poupeegirl DS begins with the player meeting Katherine, owner of the Katherine Shop and general mascot for both Poupeegirl DS and the official Poupeegirl site. You’ve just moved to town, and she helps you create and customize your character.

Once that’s done, you’re moved into your house. You dress up for the first time and hit the streets. Then, it’s up to you what you want to do. You can make friends with the other residents in town, getting a new clothing item as a gift each time you do so, accept mails from friends you’ve made to enter contests, run errands, answer questions and get more clothing, go shopping, sell clothes you don’t want anymore and enter contests. There’s a staggering number of clothing items to collect - I’ve been playing for a week and just collected 1,000 items, and all my item gauges state I’ve only collected about 40% of available items from each category.

Lots of ribbons to earn, friends to make and clothing to collect.

Poupeegirl DS is primarily a dress-up and shopping game, and Alvion did a good job of creating it so you don’t get frustrated trying to earn enough ribbons, the game’s currency, to acquire new items. You get free clothing items and ribbons all the time. Dress up for the day? Ribbons! Played the game for seven days straight? Ribbons and an item! Won a contest? More ribbons and items! Talked to a stranger on the street? Ribbons! To make things even better, there are frequent sales at the main store, the Katherine Shop, which lets you pick up items at a substantial discount. So there’s no frustration, or having to wait too long to afford items.

This is especially good, since most of the starting clothing items stink. The colors aren’t too bad, but the items just aren’t fashionable. Users of the Poupeegirl website would probably recognize them as Shell Spring items, that it, random, usually low-quality and value, items you get for tossing shells collected from people’s profiles into the Shell Spring. They aren’t too horrible, but you’ll have trouble winning a lot of contests early on until you buy better items.

As for the contests, they are both good and bad. They’re good, because you get two clothing items and ribbons for winning. Even if you don’t win, you get a clothing item. They’re bad because, after a certain point, there’s no challenge. I found I could win almost any contest with any kinds of clothing, so long as I stuck to only two colors (for example, black and red, brown and white, pink and beige, etc…). Even if I didn’t keep the theme, like Street Casual or Mote, or suggested colors in mind, I’d win.

Another great aspect is the game and website connect, in a way. You can input codes found from the Poupeegirl site to get new clothing items in Poupeegirl DS. You also earn codes in the game for achieving certain milestones (getting X number of items, winning contests) that give you exclusive dress up items for your avatar at the website.

Fans of the site will be pleased, as will anyone who enjoys dress up games.

Poupeegirl DS is a lot of fun. If you enjoyed playing dress-up as a child, or still do, it’s definitely the right game for you. You can play for three minutes or three hours and still not get bored. Plus, it’s very import friendly. Yes, there’s a lot of Japanese, but it’s mainly hirigana and katakana and almost all items are represented by a picture so you shouldn’t have too much trouble navigating and finding your way to success.

COMING NEXT WEEK: Important Importables reviews talks about Gundam games.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Last week Important Importables talked about Valentine’s Day in Japan

Site [Play-Asia] Site [YesAsia] Site [NCSX] Site [Himeya Shop] Site [Strapya World]

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Atlus recently did a demonstration presentation allowing the press to get an up-close look at 3D Dot Game Heroes, From Software’s homage to classic action RPGs. Gamertell was able to take part, and get a close up look at 3D Dot Game Heroes’ character editor, introduction and one of the game’s dungeons. It’s going to be a pretty affordable PS3 game when it comes out, costing only $39.99.

In the beginning of the demo, Atlus’ Aram Jabbari showed us the character editor. The controls seemed very user friendly, as he managed to put together a simple character in about five minutes. Each custom character has six basic images, called stand, walk 1, walk 2, hurray, attack 1 and attack 2. He started with stand, and created a basic image. (A floating smiley face in this case.) When creating a character you can use seven colors, and there’s a pretty wide selection of colors to choose the seven you’ll use from. Once you’ve finished making the basic stand image, you can copy that image to the other five positions and then tweak those to reflect walking stances, a victory pose and attacking appearances.

If you don’t feel like making your own character, Aram confirmed that there are many default character designs included with the game, so you can just use what’s available. You can also use other people’s character designs though, as character data can be saved, transferred to USBs and saved online. There’s no way to share via PS3 to PS3, but Atlus will have a character data exchange hub site created for 3D Dot Game Heroes to make it easier to share custom creations. Also, Aram confirmed that Japanese character data will be compatible with the US version of the game, so you may want to check some Japanese 3D Dot Game Hero fan sites for characters.

With the smiling custom character, named SLAYER, all set, Aram began the game. It’s here that he mentioned that 3D Dot Game Heroes can offer 20-30 hours of play time, if you factor in side quests, the Block Defense, Blockout and Dash Circuit mini-games and replaying the game on the From or Spelunker modes. From Mode is basically a hard mode, and the description that appeared on screen when it was highlighted was, “Your heart may break.” Aram went with the Normal Mode for the demo presentation.

The game begins in a 2D kingdom that was once troubled by an evil dark lord named Onyx who used an orb to terrorize everyone and try to control everything. Do evil things and such. A legendary hero stepped up to defeat him and bring peace to the land. Not everything was well in Dotnia though, as citizens kept leaving. So, the king declared it to be the era of 3D and Dotnia was transformed into a 3D land. The legendary hero then returned, and placed his sword in a forest near the castle so if a future hero needed it, it would be ready.

The game then shifts to the present day, where SLAYER has just woken up and is talking to a woman about how monsters are appearing more frequently. Well, SLAYER doesn’t talk - he’s more of a traditional silent protagonist, but the woman does a lot of talking. A guard then comes in and says the king wants to meet with SLAYER. SLAYER heads to the audience chamber, where the king informs him that the dark bishop Fuelle is trying to resurrect Onyx and you must collect the six orbs and visit the six sages to save Dotnia and the world. But first he has to get the legendary sword.

SLAYER then leaves the castle and heads to the forest with the sword, which is conveniently next to the castle. He slays some monsterous bunny creatures and defeats two hopping statue guardians. Then, he can approach the ancient sword, which has been left in a pedestal in the forest. He’s easily able to pull it, and can then set out to show he is capable of following in the footsteps of the legendary hero.

An interesting thing to note is how the swords worked in the demo. When Aram was controlling the legendary hero and putting the sword in the forest, the sword was larger, powered up and had the ability to go through objects like trees. However, when SLAYER had the sword it was smaller and less powerful. It turns out the sword is only at it’s largest and best when the character is at full health, and even then it must be powered up at the blacksmith before it can reach epic states. So screenshots and videos from 3D Dot Game Heroes where you see a humongous sword aren’t typical. They’re the result of a lot of hard work and playing.

Aram then loaded up a different save file showing one of the later dungeons in 3D Dot Game Heroes. This save also demonstrated the From Mode difficulty level. From the short look at it, it seems like From Mode is filled with more monsters that are much more lethal. He briefly went through an already completed dungeon, showing off a puzzle where you push a block to reach a treasure. He then warped to the boss room via a warp point and chose to fight the boss, a large, rocklike snake, again. (All bosses are replayable in 3D Dot Game Heroes.) While the boss was intimidating, it’s weakness was its flashing tail and Aram managed to dispose of it before it disposed of him. It was close though, as SLAYER was down to half an apple of health and the warning beeps were going off.

An interesting thing to note is that From Software worked to improve 3D Dot Game Heroes for the North American release. An install option was added, and while Aram didn’t know the exact size, he did state that it didn’t take too long to install to the PS3 and was probably only a couple of gbs in size. It also made quite a difference, as loading screens during the demonstration were incredibly brief. From Software and Atlus have also included the Japanese DLC tower defense stages on the game disc.

Loading screens are also quite interesting in 3D Dot Game Heroes, as each one is a parody and homage to old video game box art. There’s around 100 of them, and From Software made new loading screens based on classic North American video game box art as a special treat for players. From Software added a loading screen gallery for the NA version as well, so yay for us!

Aram also confirmed that there will be trophies in the final version of 3D Dot Game Heroes for players to collect. That and the desire to collect all the loading screen images will probably help add to the replay value.

The only downside was, aside from a conversation with a cat, the demonstration didn’t really show off 3D Dot Heroes’ script. The Japanese version’s script was supposed to be really funny and filled with jokes about classic games. Aram did confirm that the Atlus editors worked hard to make sure the inside jokes were retained and the charm would still shine through.

3D Dot Game Heroes makes its grand entrance on May 11, 2010 if you’re in North America. If you’re in Europe, then there’s good news! Atlus and South Peak are working together to arrange a simultaneous release so it should be out in Europe on May 11 as well.

Site [3D Dot Game Heroes]

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Title(s): The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum (aka The Bourne Trilogy, The Bourne Singles)
Release Date: January 19, 2010
Format: Blu-ray-DVD (flipper disc)
Company: Universal Home Entertainment
Rating: PG-13
Length: Respectively: 1 hour,  59 minutes (119 minutes) ; 1 hour,  49 minutes (109 minutes);  1 hour,  56 minutes (116 minutes).
Pros: Released on flippers discs, excellent transfers and plenty of extras. A lot of decent action, not too bloody and excellent acting.
Cons: Blu-ray internet extras are a bit lacking 9as with most Blu-ray movies). The second movie is the weakest of the three.
Overall Score: One thumb up, one thumb sideways; 83/100; B; * * * out of five.

The most recent release of the three Bourne movies - The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum - marks Universal Home Entertainment’s foray into the wonderful world of the flipper disc. These two-in-one, Blu-ray-DVD combo discs mean you can get the movie and enjoy it now, even if you don’t yet have a PS3 or Blu-ray player (assuming, of course, you have abandoned VHS and embraced DVDs).

Here’s what that means for you.

Bourne Again

First, a big fat, super fast recap that puts all three movies into a tiny nutshell.

In this spy-assassin action series, a guy (Matt Damon) wakes up, isn’t sure who or what he is and find himself running from the government he discovers he’s serving. He eventually figures out that his “name” is Jason Bourne and there are several chase scenes, misdirections, wordless fights with household items used as weapons and a few cool spy tricks.

There are enemies who become friends (or non-enemies), a love interest, lots of stern facial expressions and, with a few suspense-ending exceptions, rarely a giggle. Super spy is chased, gets framed, exposes the chasees and then is simultaneously being chased while chasing the chasers.

The series is packed with suspense but, surprisingly (and to help keep it PG-13) not blood and the audience, as well as Bourne, get a trickle of insight into who and what he really is until the end of the third movie. Secret government projects are covered up and old white dudes act all stern about it.

Each of the films has a slightly unique look and pace, with the fist (Identity) having the welcome-to-our-story advantage. The middle movie (Supremacy) has the most awkward and slowly paced of the three yet still proves a worthy middle movie offering Bourne some of the more exciting personal revelations. The third (Ultimatum) literally brings the action home and puts everything nicely to rest.

There is plenty of decent acting (Julia Stiles’ acting actually improves with each film), a lot of jittery action scenes and many grumpy old white guys. You can certainly see where 24 gets a lot of stylistic inspiration, although these films deal with a man simply trying to find himself while being chased instead of preventing a ginormous disaster.

Shiny Round Objects

Being a flipper you obviously have the option of standard def DVD one one side or high def Blu-ray on the other.

Each of the film shows well in high definition, with Ultimatum often being the most frenetic in terms of action sequences and disparate in terms of settings. Some of the first two film’s distant shots seem a little blurred but that may be more a matter of original film stock than transfers. On DVD, you’re getting essentially the same video as previous releases so don’t expect much improvement there.

If you are an extra junkie then the Blu-ray releases of these movies will prove exciting.  Each comes with a picture-in-picture option (overlay commentaries, alternate shots and other goodness over the movie), a Bourne Card Strategy Game, miscellaneous files and deleted scenes.

Each movie, for both the Blu-ray and DVD versions includes movie-specific featurettes (some avaialble on earlier DVD releases). The first two movies include background bios whereas the third primarily offers featurettes based on the make hard-to-shoot action scenes.

BD-Live interactivity is also included with each movie, which allows you and a friend, who must also own the movie, to watch the movie together or select scenes and record your own comments. This is a feature that the film industry seems excited about enough to include it on most Blu-ray releases but doesn’t always result in the most - or best - community videos. You might want to browse though to see if any have been added and the silliness people have to utter but expect cruddy delays and a distinct lack of insight (aside from company sponsored celebrity mini-features).

ReBourne Again?

This release makes it clear that the higher the def, the more exciting the action, the more tense the tension and the grittier the grit. If you don’t already own a home video release from this series, go for a Blu-flipper. Invest for the sake of having it in two formats. Otherwise, don’t expect too much more than you’ve already seen on previous releases.

Site [NBC Universal Store]

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Title: Tomena Sanner
Price: $5 (500 Nintendo Points)
System(s): Wii (Tomena Sanner US is available for iPhone/iPod Touch)
Release Date: February 8, 2010
Publisher (Developer): Konami (Konami)
ESRB Rating: “Everyone” for Comic Mischief and Mild Cartoon Violence
Pros: 1-4 player multiplayer, need only one button to play, funny commentary on the top and bottom of the screen, can trigger special animations with greats and misses at the right time, online high score table, lots of extra points and special items to collect in levels, nine levels and turbo and endless play modes available.
Cons: Dance party portion at the end is quite difficult since the button presses don’t match up with the music and it is difficult to keep up with commentary if you’re the one playing.
Overall Score: Two thumbs up, 90/100, A-, * * * * out of 5

Tomena Sanner is a huge surprise. It’s an awesome little game from Konami that most people probably didn’t expect to see outside of Japan. It relies on a single button and all kinds of silly situations, visuals and jokes to lure people in and get them hooked on the rush that comes from racing through levels just so you can dance your heart out. It’s the sort of game you’ll probably buy on a lark, then unexpectedly become obsessed with, replaying it over and over just to prove you’re more skilled than everyone else.

Racing for the right to dance!

Mr. Hitoshi Susumu has the soul of a dancer. He wants, nay, needs to show off his stuff! But in order to reach a dance party where he’s the focal point and can show off his amazing skills, he first has to run through crazy and outlandish levels, dodging and taking down anyone who gets in his way.

This is all accomplished with the push of one button. That’s right, a single button. When Hitoshi is nearing some kind of obstacle or item, you press the A button. If there’s a creature or obstacle in front of him, and the button is pressed at the proper time, he’ll jump, dodge or interact with the obstacle to get out of its way and proceed. Getting a “Great” results in a speed boost, and occasionally a special animated sequence. Pressing A when an item is in sight makes Hitoshi jump to reach it, and he’ll get points, a speed boost or reduction, extra time or even the ability to temporarily change size to

Ride a dinosaur and dance with schoolgirls while reading hilarious quips.

I’m sure many potential players would think Tomena Sanner simple and something to skip over due to its 2D, retro graphics and one button control scheme, but those people will be missing out on one of the best and most innovative Wii games. It’s challenging, but in a good way. Your first time or two playing a level, your scores will be low, you’ll probably fail when trying to perform the ending dance routine and it’s very likely you may not even reach the goal in time. But the potential for success, the commentary, animations and leaderboard glory, drive you to replay and push for greatness.

Usually, I dismiss the addition of online scoreboards for games, but in Tomena Sanner it’s actually a great, and even essential, part of the game. After you complete a level, it’ll tally up your score. If you’ve reached a new, personal best, the game will ask if you want to submit your score online. But, you only can see your score on the scoreboard if you’re among the top 30 users. In this case, the online scoreboard provides an extra motivational push to keep playing and perfecting your performance in each level and adds replay value to Tomena Sanner.

Also, like another recent Konami WiiWare release (Muscle March), Tomena Sanner is one of those games you’ll want to play and watch. There’s constant, pretty much always funny, commentary running along the top and bottom of the screen. But, if you’re the one playing, it’s impossible to keep up with! I actually found it distracting sometimes, because I’d sometimes catch a hint of the commentary scrolling along the bottom and start to read it, which would make me mistime a crucial button press. The commentary is an awesome addition, but you have to get used to ignoring it while you’re playing and focus on the actual game portion.

Finally, Tomena Sanner has a delightful multiplayer mode. Up to four players can play at once, and the screen divides up accordingly. But, while the screen’s divided, you’re all still playing on the same level. So you can end up messing up each other’s timing, or cause your opponents to fail, but dashing through and getting consecutive “Greats” when passing obstacles.

Weird name, awesome game.

Tomena Sanner is an interesting and successful experiment. The 2D, often outlandish, visuals combined with the insane commentary and ridiculous concept conceal what is a game that requires both skill and constant practice to perfect. It’s silly and fun, especially in multiplayer modes, but you really have to work at it if you want to become a Tomena Sanner master. All the effort is worthwhile though, especially if you manage to secure a spot for yourself on the Tomena Sanner leaderboards, and every new animation discovery is a delight to earn and watch. It’s a great game at a great price.

Site [Tomena Sanner]

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Product: B.O.S.S. (aka BOSS; Big Oversized Super Shell)
Price: $9.99
Rating:  Two thumbs up; 90; A-; * * * * out of five.
Pros: Improves overall fell of the WiiMote, makes it easier to hold and larger button sizes. In some instances also improved perceived button sensitivity. A decent price.
Cons: Covers the attachment port and is intended to be used only in the horizontal position.
Overall: A bargain buy for any Wii owner, especially those who play a lot of platformers.

This is one of those instances where the name has it spot-on. The BOSS is, indeed, a big oversized super shell. And in a good way.

Livin’ Large

Developed by PDP (Performance Designed Products LLC), the BOSS is basically a colorful, plastic shell that fits over a standard WiiMote.

At its widest the shell adds 1 1/2 in. to the width, 3/4 in. to the height (when holding the WiiMote with the Power button at the top) and approximately 1/4 in. to the thickness. The WiiMote snaps into the shell and is held in place by three plastic tabs, one oval shaped and two that lock into the WiiMote’s base. The WiiMote is removed by pulling a spring-loaded section of the back, which pulls out the two mini plastic tabs.

There is a slot to expose the WiiMote’s status lights, speaker holes that line up with the mini speaker and a translucent plastic for the remote singal to pass through. The bottom of the WiiMote, including the B trigger button and battery access, is exposed.

The text on the face of the BOSS indicates it is meant to be held with two hands, with the longest dimension from hand-to-hand, much like the Classic Wii controller and older console controllers.

On the face are larger-than-WiiMote buttons that also slightly rearrange the configuration to an older style controller scheme, putting the 1 and 2 buttons at a 45-degree angle from each other instead of on the same horizontal line. All other buttons and the + control pad are in te same locations, accessed by larger-than-the-WiiMote’s buttons.

More Than a Handful

It’s rare that give comment concerning other reviews in my own but I’ll make a rare exception here to say this: They are all (well, almost all) wrong. In nearly every review they refer to the BOSS as making the WiiMote too large to handle, even for adult-sized hands.

Not true.

I found the BOSS to make the WiiMote much more comfortable to hold, especially for long-term gaming, when being used in the intended orientation. Yes, if you try to play holding it like a TV remote control for along period of time your hand may begin to cramp due to the extra girth but, even then, the contours of the BOSS make it easier to grab.

The rounded edges fit perfectly into your palms, placing the +-shaped control pad and the 1 and 2 buttons at just the right width away from the edge. The design obviously takes advantage of the years of ergonomic hit-and-miss from the now classic style controllers whereas the WiiMote still feels a but cramped in my hands with buttons placed way close to each other, causing many miss-presses during active gaming.

As for younger gamers, my 3-year-old always wants to use the BOSS when playing the Wii. I’m sure the bright red design make it a bit more attractive than the sterile while, naked WiiMote but, even then, he has hardly an issue holding on, pressing buttons and controlling on-screen avatars or targeting reticules.

Controls worked as normal, with hardly any extra effort being required to press the buttons, with the larger 1 and 2 buttons and upward curved + pad improving sensitivity. I especially appreciate that the + and - middle buttons are more recessed in this design than on the face of the WiiMote. This worked wonderfully with platformers including New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

The only downfall might be that the peripheral port at the base is covered by the BOSS, meaning you won’t be able to use the Nunchuck, Wii MotionPlus or Classic Controller attachments.

The BOSS of You

This relatively inexpensive and colorful shell adds life and comfort to the rather bland WiiMote.

The design is certainly intended for horizontal use and, despite other reviews, ultimately proves neither too large nor to bulky. Curves and light weight keep this an ergonomic delight to use.

If comparing it to the Wii Classic Controller, keep in mind that this remains wireless and the Classic Controller still requires it to be tethered to the WiiMote and it is about half the price.

Photo Gallery [Big Oversized Super Shell @ Gamertell] Site [PDP]

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Title: bittos+
Price: $8 (800 Nintendo Points)
System(s): Wii (also available for PC)
Release Date: January 25, 2010
Publisher (Developer): Machine Studios (Unconditional Studios)
ESRB Rating: “Everyone”
Pros: Seven profiles/save slots, music is subdued yet appropriate, multiple control scheme options, simple to play, can move at your own pace, multiple game modes, mellow and wired difficulty modes, diamond blocks occasionally pop up to remove lots of bits and players can earn achievements.
Cons: You really do need to watch the incredibly brief tutorial video and it’d be nice if it explained right away that you need to make a certain number of squares to pass levels.
Overall Score: Two thumbs up, 95/100, A, * * * * 1/2 out of 5

Unconditional Studios and Machine created bittos+ to take familiar, block shapes from Tetris and other similar, block puzzle games and make players use then in a new, and somewhat unconventional way. While the goal, like in many block puzzle games, is to clear the screen and area, bittos+ does this in a manner that never seems forced or frantic, and allows players to enjoy the ambient music and sounds while pretty much undertaking the challenge at their own pace.

Form X amount of bittos (squares) to complete levels.

You need to be square to beat bittos+. Or, rather, think inside the box. The player is randomly given blocks made of squares, and coincidentally the shapes are all the ones you’d find in a Tetris style game. The goal is to make square shaped figures, usually 2x2 or 3x3 in size, which are called bittos. After you’ve successfully created bittos, you’ll receive points and they’ll eventually disappear from the playing field.

There are also bits in play. Bits are either on the screen at the start of a level, or accumulate from pieces of blocks that aren’t used to create bittos. The bits are red pieces that menace the player by taking up valuable screen space. However, they’re easily removed. If you can create a bittos next to one, it will disappear when the bittos does.

Essentially, you’re creating squares and rectangles. Each level has a quota, and you must create that many bittos to complete it. If you’re fast enough, you can chain together your bittos for more points. Doing well earns you achievements, which make you feel really good about yourself.

Simple, yet incredibly addictive.

I was really impressed by bittos+, but only after I experienced it. When I first saw the screenshots, I was quite skeptical and for some reason couldn’t grasp the concept. After I saw the first gameplay video and jumped into bittos+ for the first time, I was struck by its charm and the beauty and challenge that came from the endless creation of bittos. It’s an incredibly accomodating, addicting and amazing game. You’re constantly tasked with placing blocks and moving, and yet it all feels effortless and enjoyable.

The environment when playing bittos+ is quite important. The blocks are very clear and defined, and the bit pieces are a striking red that stand out among the other blocks. In addition, the background music and sound effects are quite soothing, and never distract you from your mission of constantly creating bittos. The appearance and ambiance of bittos+ compliment the gameplay nicely, making the game even more enjoyable.

There is only one thing that was a minor source of annoyance. When you begin bittos+ for the first time, you go through an extraordinarily brief and wordless tutorial, then are dropped into the first level. While the game is incredibly easy to figure out on its own, without any kind of instruction, it would have been nice if there were some explanation stating the square figure in the box on the left side of the screen is the square design you want to achieve, and that the little number on the right side of the screen, under the X-Y level number, is how many squares you must create to clear that level.

A stress-free, yet challenging, puzzle game.

I know this is going to sound funny, given that bittos+ is a puzzle game that does eventually get quite fast paced and frantic, but after a while I found it to be a relaxing, almost soothing experience. Without realizing it, I seemed to go on some kind of autopilot after I’d gotten used to the rhythm and pacing of bittos+. It was calming, and reassuring, and I didn’t feel the same stress and pressure that would eventually build with puzzle games like Tetris, Puyo or Bust a Move. True, it does get more challenging as you play, especially if you choose the wired difficulty level, but I can honestly say I always felt in control of the situation. Plus, the achievements provide ample incentive to keep playing and replaying the game.

Personally, I hope that if Nintendo brings demos back to WiiWare that a bittos+ demo is among them. I genuinely believe that it is the sort of game that you really have to experience to get hooked on it, as screenshots and gameplay videos alone don’t really do it justice.

Site [bittos+]

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Title: The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces
Price: $29.99
System: Wii
Release Date: January 12, 2010
Publisher (Developer): Xseed Games (Project Aces)
ESRB Rating: “Teen” for mild language and violence.
Pros: Decent graphics and audio effects, intense (and often unique) combat, customizable controls and cool airplane designs.
Cons: Premise is unbelievable, story mode is short and default controls could be more responsive.
Overall Score: One thumb up, one thumb sideways; 86/100; B; ***1/2 out of 5

Imagine a world without war. Now, imagine the people of that world so used to war and the corporations so reliant on wartime profits, that wars are staged simply as spectacle to keep the cash revenue flowing. Can’t imagine that? That’s because it’s ridiculous. I mean, sure, any way to make money would be embraced by shareholders but would citizens be willing to accept their family members dying for no reason or their churches all the time getting smashed into by downed planes? If that’s the case, then someone needs to stop this merry-go-round, because I would like to get off.

Regardless, that’s the premise of The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces, a flight combat sim from the Project Aces team. It’s based on a series of novels by Hiroshi Mori and an animated film by the acclaimed Mamoru Oshii (of Ghost in the Shell fame). I’ve never read or seen these, so I’m willing to concede that they likely do a better job of setting up the premise than this game did. Still, the story is presented well in quality anime cut-scenes and copious in-battle chatter, and you’re not buying this game for the story, anyway. You’re buying it for the dogfighting action; and up there, Sky Crawlers is absolutely thrilling (as evidenced by the reaction of Maumi Orishina, below).

Kildren, Live On Tour

You play the game as the never heard and never seen but often referred to Lynx. After a couple basic missions that basically serve as training, the “kildren” arrive (no, not a death metal band but young, ageless pilots who are genetically created to fight in this corporate manufactured war), and then the action really kicks in.

The battles are the typical of mix of aerial and ground objectives. Each is presented up front in very cool mission briefings that allow you to survey the battle map at will. You can also select your plane and deck it out as necessary, provided you’ve earned the proper upgrades from your previous missions. Certain planes and weapons are better for certain objectives, but if you’re like me, you’ll find one plane that suits you best and generally stick with it.

The game never bothers with the nonsense of taking off and landing; you begin in the air, and you end in the air, solidifying the pitch-perfect mix of flight sim and arcade aerial combat. A lot of the story and character development is actually revealed through dialogue while fighting battles, and you’ll often hear the warnings and cries for help from your comrades even when there’s nothing you can do about it. As a result, the combat feels quite real and personal.

Promoting Their New Album: Immelmann Turn

As expected, there are multiple methods of control (supporting the WiiMote-Nunchuck combo, a Classic Controller and a GameCube controller). There’s also room for customization, and that may be necessary as the default controls take some getting used to. You hold the WiiMote in your left hand, using it as the throttle. You tilt the Nunchuck in your right to turn the plane and use its buttons to fire. This never felt natural to me. The Nunchuck was quite unresponsive at times, and never allowed for very sharp banks even when it was working as it should. Bump up to the Expert control set and you can compensate for this once you’ve learned them.

Thankfully, you don’t need mad skillz to to survive the wild dogfights. This is because the difficulty isn’t that great on the lower skill levels, and because of unique control features that don’t require you to be a master of the Immelmann turn.

First, various defensive maneuvers are assigned to the Nunchuck control stick. If someone is on your tail, simply select the maneuver you want with the stick, and hit A. Your plane automatically pulls a stunt it can’t do under your own control, and the threat is usually gone.

Likewise, if you’re chasing down an enemy plane, a circle will appear on your targeting display. Keep the enemy in this circle, and your TMC Gauge will start to fill up. If you hit the A button while this gauge is filled past Level 1, your plane will automatically position itself for a better shot. The higher the TMC Gauge when you execute the move, the better positioned it’ll be. This adds a unique and wildly entertaining component to dogfighting, and eases the learning curve for those having trouble getting proper position on the enemy.

It’s Death Metal for the Emo Crowd

War games need to be big and dramatic to be successful and Sky Crawlers delivers there. Although the ground detail is a bit sparse and disjointed between important landmarks and general structures, it’s always pretty (in fact, one of the characters won’t shut up about how pretty it is). The aerial combat is well done graphically and aurally, with dramatic explosions, sound effects and combat animations.

The music is great, too, although without the usual bravado of military games. That’s likely done on purpose, though, as the whole presentation has a softer, more “innocent” feel than your typical macho war game. That’s kind of the point, after all.

Sky Crawlers has no multiplayer option, which is unfortunate, although a second player can join in to man your plane’s secondary weapons. It’s a fun way to get others involved for a little bit, but ultimately not terribly satisfying for them. After the battles, you can watch a video replay and save it if it’s exceptionally good, but I found these to be a mess of odd cuts and weird camera angles. I can’t imagine they’re all that entertaining, anyway. A quick, precompiled highlight reel would be better.

Available Now at Finer Game Retailers

All of this comes together to make an odd little anti-war wargame that also happens to be the best air combat sim currently on the Wii. It has its troubles, none of which should deter you if you’ve been pining for quality dogfighting action since finishing Blazing Angels. There’s not much reason to keep playing it once you’ve completed all the missions, but at only $30, it’s fairly priced.

The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces won’t take over your gaming world but it’s a title you’ll have plenty of fun going back to when you need a break from whatever else you’re playing.

Site [The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces]

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Title: Tom Clancy’s Hawx
Author: David Michaels
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
Release Date: January 2010
Price: $9.99
Pros: Interesting story with realistic supporting characters that is supported by the same intrigue as other Tom Clancy licenses.
Cons: Follows one character and it’s the most irritating, least interesting and least developed character.
Rating: One thumb up and one thumb down, 75/100, C, * * 1/2.
Overall: It’s a good story ruined by a main character who alternates between irritating and uninteresting.

Tom Clancy tends to put his name to solid gold military and spy fiction. So the question is whether or not the novel Hawx stands up to the fine traditions that both Tom Clancy and David Michaels have set down. Let’s see where it goes right and horribly wrong.

The System Works

The good thing is that the story is intriguing. You’re witness to a lot of different things and some of the emotional content is believable, especially the strain that going to war can have on different relationships. The relationships that are played up and strained the most are those of the family as well as the boyfriend-girlfriend relationships. There’s also a similar level of intrigue to pretty much everything that Tom Clancy has either written, licensed or will license.

Many of the supporting characters are also realistic, non-“cookie cutter” character archetypes. There is a certain urgency that makes it engaging, which makes you want to read. The story is a bit formulaic so you can tell when there is something big is about to happen, especially if you’ve read any novels by Tom Clancy, rather than novels based on licenses that Tom Clancy put his name to.

The formulaic predictability of the story isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It just means that there’s an aura of familiarity to help the reader cope with to Michael’s style if they haven’t read any of the other Tom Clancy license-based novels. The story itself works, if you can get around the main character and focus on the story.

Engines Failing

One of the hardest things to do with writing is making a good, meaning believable and tolerable, set of characters to pull you into the story. If you can tolerate the characters and believe them, you start to care about what happens in the story. The supporting characters are very well done and you start to, at the very least, believe them right from the start. You might even like them right from the start.

The problem happens with the main character. He’s the focus of the story and he’s one of the least likable, least believable characters to put up with in this genre. That being said, the story is hurt pretty badly since you’re primarily following him. Troy Leonsch is one of your stereotypically obnoxious, arrogant, self-absorbed, showboating jock types. Note, this is not putting athletes down but is referring to the stereotype about athletes since that is what the character is. He’s nothing more than a stereotype and occasionally even the writer has to punish the character a lot for having been written into a stereotype. There are occasionally times where the character starts to act human and then he just becomes irritatingly stupid and, at best, two dimensional. Even at his best times, he’s not that interesting. So you either end up hating Troy or just being bored by him.

If the story had the same shifting perspective as Splinter Cell Endgame or Tom Clancy’s Endwar the story would’ve been a stronger piece of work. Either way, with the emotional aspect, there’s usually multiple sides to the story and it would’ve been a good idea to show those perspectives outside essentially having someone say that either Troy’s being an idiot, an obnoxious jerk or that they have a thing for them. Shifting perspective would’ve been a venue for showing each of the supporting character’s thoughts on Troy. Either way, a lot of the side characters are better developed than Troy. So it’s still a wonder on why he is the one we have to follow.

Shot Down

Despite the quality of the story and storytelling itself, it didn’t work quite as well as expected. It’s pretty well-written but character flaws and focus choices make the product unravel bit by bit. The emotional content works really well but the focal character’s reaction and oblivious nature toward the emotion content doesn’t. Due to the focus and main character problems, the book is very average though the overarching story is a good one.

It’s hard to justify buying this book. Either look for it in a library to test the waters for yourself or, if you can’t live without things with Tom Clancy’s name on it, try to find it in some used book store like Half Price Books or try to find it as an e-book, since most them tend to be considerably cheaper than the hard copy.

Purchase [Borders] Site [HAWX (video game)]

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Title: A Boy and His Blob
Price: $29.99
System(s): Wii
Release Date: October 13, 2009
Publisher (Developer): Majesco (WayForward)
ESRB Rating: “Everyone” for Mild Cartoon Violence
Pros: Beautiful environments and characters, interesting method of storytelling, simple controls, easy to see what each jellybean does, soothing music and you can unlock extra levels and art.
Cons: It starts off easy, possibly easier than necessary.
Overall Score: Two thumbs up, 98/100, A, * * * * 1/2 out of 5

The original A Boy and His Blob was a game that required you to use your brain to survive. Challenges weren’t always spelled out directly, and you’d have to find ways to outsmart or out manuever enemies since the blob didn’t have any real weapon transformations. The result was a game that become a revered NES classic.

Wayforward and Majesco have revived that classic with the Wii game A Boy and His Blob, and in doing so have created an homage that honors the original and will easily become a classic based on its own merits.

A simple story of how friendship and teamwork can save a world.

A boy is in his treehouse in the woods, spending the night, when he sees something streak across the sky and crash to the ground. As he ventures out, he sees weird dark blob creatures in the forest. As he works his way through to the wreckage, he sees a pure white blob come out. At first he’s scared, but he then sees the blob is no threat, and a friendship is born. He calls the blob over, and the two embark on a journey to save both the boy’s world from the inky invaders and the blob’s home world.

The key is in the jellybeans. Pressing the Z button brings up a jellybean menu. You see an image of different color beans, and what form the blob will take if he ingests one. You can then use this to help the boy and blob get through the levels and overcome dark blob bosses.

The beauty is in the details.

The real joy in A Boy and His Blob comes from taking in the small, artistic details WayForward incorporated into the game. For example, if you press up on the Wii Remote’s directional pad when the boy is standing next to the blob, he will hug the blob and you’ll hear some adorable coos. In areas with fireflies, you’ll see the firefly’s light highlight characters. When the boy and blob are in a cave and the boy calls for the blob, his voice will echo. It’s this attention to the smallest aspects that makes A Boy and His Blob an even more memorable gaming experience.

It’s also interesting how Wayforward chose to present the game. There is no spoken dialogue, aside from the calls of “Blob!” or “Hey!” that the boy will utter if you need to call blob to his side. The story is told through actions. It only serves to add to A Boy and His Blob‘s charms.

I also enjoyed the extra challenges you can unlock. When you go through levels, you can collect chests by having the blob absorb them. When you return to the home base for that area, blob will regurgitate them, and they will open adding a new decorative accent to the area. Each object gives you access to a bonus level, and completing that level gives you decorative art or extras to view.

A game everyone with a Wii should own.

I knew A Boy and His Blob looked adorable, from screen shots I had seen before playing, but I had no idea what a truly enjoyable and challenging game it would actually be. I enjoyed it immensely, and get the feeling that many others would as well. It’s challenging, but not too challenging. Plus, it’s absolutely beautiful. Every Wii owner should experience, if not own, A Boy and His Blob.

A Boy and His Blob is also a fantastic title for people who like action games that focus on puzzle solving and using your brain to overcome difficult situations, rather than violence. The boy doesn’t have any violent weapons, but is able to use blob’s transformations, like an anvil or ball, to get past tricky areas or outsmart opponents.

Site [A Boy and His Blob]

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Title: Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain
Price: $29.99
System: DS
Release Date: November 25, 2009
Publisher (Developer): Aspyr Media, LLC (Big Blue Bubble, Inc.)
ESRB Rating: “Teen” for alcohol reference, blood and violence.
Pros: Classic dungeon crawling feel, fluid movement and animation, fun and rewarding exploration and plenty of spells and weapons to master.
Cons: Overly complex controls, extremely difficult enemies, lackluster/slow character upgrades and minimal story.
Overall Score: One thumb up, one thumb down; 75/100; C; **1/2 out of 5

Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain may be the greatest videogame title of all time, right? Doesn’t it just sound kick-ass? You’ve got fighting, you’ve got fantasy, you’ve got warlocks and you’ve got mountains with fire on top of them, apparently. What else do you need… other than a skeleton? If this game were called Fighting Fantasy: The Skeleton Warlock of Firetop Mountain, it would’ve ruptured my geek gland.

Obviously, with a title like this, the developers are aiming at the hardcore crowd. This therefore isn’t your typical DS game and probably shouldn’t even be on this system. It’s better suited for the PC or PSP (a version for which was canceled) gaming audience. But here it is on the DS, so fans of hardcore dungeon crawlers can celebrate, provided they’re willing to put up with some problems.

Fighting Fantasy: The Story of Firetop Mountain

You don’t go digging deep into a mountain for story, do you? No. You go looking for treasure and for adventure. That’s pretty much all you’ve got here, despite the fact that it’s based on the Fighting Fantasy books created by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone back in ‘80s. I’ve never read those books, so I can’t comment on how faithful this game is. If the point of the books was to lure you in early and then suddenly make them extremely difficult to read, however, then yes, this game is faithful.

You start the game off dorking around in a town called Stonebridge. This area pretty much plays out as a tutorial, teaching you the controls, combat system, inventory management and the like. As with most RPGs, you’ve got plenty to manage: attributes, abilities, weapons and such. Serious RPG fans will love the multitude of spells and weapons at your disposal, but likely be put off by how slowly your character levels up. Growth in this game is painstaking, and that’ll quickly come to haunt you.

Fighting Fantasy: The Gameplay of Firetop Mountain

You’ll also be haunted by the controls. It seems the developers couldn’t determine whether they wanted to go with a button- or stylus-based system of movement, so they went with both. You move with the D-pad and use the XYAB buttons to control the direction you’re looking. L and R are for attacking. Okay enough but you need to use the stylus to access your inventory and switch weapons, meaning you’re holding the stylus all the while. It’s not comfortable and it makes combat even more difficult than it is naturally.

And trust me, the combat is extremely difficult. The enemies get very tough very quickly and you don’t level up fast enough to take them on. As a result, your method of survival will mostly be to run past the enemy and just get out of the room. Considering the fact that enemies re-spawn, sticking around to try to kill them is a waste of time and energy. Pick your battles so you can level up, but don’t try to kill everyone; you’ll just abandon the game in frustration. And yes, many gamers will bail on this early.

One bit of advice on that; when you’re setting up your character, make sure your skills focus on ranged combat. Use spells, because your enemies will be using them on you; getting in close is extremely difficult. Also, a good deal of your treasure findings needs to be spent on health. You’ll be healing yourself a lot.

Thankfully, you will occasionally get a break from combat through lock-picking puzzles you’ll need to complete in order to open treasure chests. I like the idea of this, as it brings another element to the game and makes the thought of stealing treasure seem more devious, since you’re not just bashing open a chest.

Fighting Fantasy: The Graphics of Firetop Mountain

Although Firetop Mountain may be tremendously difficult to work through, it’s at least visually appealing in an odd sort of way. The environments are well-rendered in 3D at 60 fps, with nary a hiccup along the way. The enemies are only 2D sprites with stiff animation but I found that gave the game a disjointed quality that added to the overall creepiness of the surroundings.

So does the lack of a soundtrack. For the most part, the only thing to be heard as you progress are the sounds of your footsteps, which hammers home the thought that you’re alone against a mountain of enemies, quite literally. There are moments where the audio emptiness made the game feel incomplete, but for the most part, I didn’t mind the silent isolation.

Fighting Fantasy: The Summary of Firetop Mountain

Although the difficulty is likely to turn away all but the most gluttonous of dungeon crawlers, the game will reward those who stick around. If your notion of exploring dungeons is based on the Legend of Zelda, don’t even consider entering Firetop Mountain. Try the iPhone version instead.

The DS version, as I’ve pointed out, is a heavy, complex, extremely difficult game made specifically for those who want to feel they’ve earned the treasure that has claimed the lives of so many adventurers before them. The 10 hours or so of gameplay will easily double with the number of restarts required to get through it but you can do it, right? You’re a warrior. And the treasures that lie deep within the mountain won’t be nearly half as rewarding as the fact that you even made it through there.

Site [Fighting Fantasy]

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Title: James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game
Price: $49.99
System: Wii
Release Date: December 1, 2009
Publisher (Developer): Ubisoft Entertainment (Ubisoft Entertainment)
ESRB Rating: “Teen” for mild language, mild suggestive themes and violence.
Pros: Pretty like the movie, varied gameplay, you can’t fall off ledges.
Cons: Horrible camera kills the multiplayer option, has little to do with the movie, linear level design grows tiresome.
Overall Score: Two thumbs sideways; 74/100; C; ** out of 5

James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game is unique among movie tie-ins in that, rather than basing it on the movie, it appears to be based on the trailer. Or maybe just the one sheet or concept drawings. I don’t know but if you buy this expecting to play through the rather thrilling adventure that is Avatar, prepare to be disappointed.

I See Me Through Your Eyes

Since everyone on the planet has seen Avatar (the movie) at least three times, I won’t bother setting this up to much. Your premise here is the same as with the movie: Humans = greedy and bad; Aliens = blue and good.

Fair enough, because it’s likely true. If there are alien races out there who are more selfish and driven by profit than we Earthlings are, then it’s probably best we just cease all space exploration this very instant.

In this game, the humans are contenting themselves with stealing totems and artifacts and capturing the occasional banshee. This angers the native Na’vi, so a few of them take it upon themselves to reclaim their tschotckes, even if they have to kill a bunch of humans to get it (and they will).

Most of the levels take place on the planet floor and high in the trees, although you’ll also do some banshee flying.

Breathing New Life, Flying High

The bulk of the action in Avatar involves hitting security guards with your staff, although you can also attack from a distance with your bow. There’s a minimal amount of leveling up you can do to each weapon to make yourself more proficient with them, and you’ll need to, because the ability to use stealth attacks (ala Tenchu: Shadow Assassins) quickly passes to the need to just run around and smack people, and that’s somewhat unfortunate.

Thankfully, none of the ground levels require you to properly time jumps or balance yourself on tree limbs. This is all automatically handled. You can’t step over cliffs or slip to the forest floor, so you get to focus on the enemies and how to best take care of them. Aside from letting you enjoy the game, this also makes sense within the story since the Na’vi know how to move quickly and quietly through the forests. It wouldn’t make sense if your warrior character couldn’t.

Then, there are the banshee levels in which you fly along a predetermined path with some slight movement along the way. These basically require you to avoid the fire of enemy gunships by tilting the Nunchuck attachment while aiming your own projectiles with the WiiMote. Unlike in the movie, your arrows can damage armor but most of the damage will be done during chained button events. Hit the wrong button? Don’t worry, the event will repeat itself until you get it right. Or die.

If you own the Wii MotionPlus and/or the Wii Balance Board, you do get to use them during the game. The The Wii MotionPlus controls the hellfire wasp, which allows you to cause damage to the enemy from a distance without risking the health of your character (although there are numerous plants scattered about to replenish your health). The wasps are kind of cool, so use ‘em if you got ‘em. The Wii Balance Board can be used to control the banshee, but this is just awkward and pointless. Don’t bother turning it on for this game.

Your Love Shines the Way Into Paradise

The best aspect of Avatar is how lushly defined this world is. The graphics are brightly colored, richly textured, and quite attractively designed. The world is fun to explore, even if you don’t really get to explore it. And although there are some frame rate issues when the action gets intense, they never hurt the game so much that you wish Ubisoft would’ve sacrificed some of the visual appeal for smoother action.

What does hurt the game is the camera, which is frustrating to handle on single player mode and downright unusable when playing with a partner. I can’t begin to count the number of times the camera fixed itself in front of Rai’uk, not allowing me to see where I was going. When playing with a partner, it would end up behind some vegetation and just sit there as we were being attacked. It was so annoying that it at one point drove my six-year-old daughter to tears. How about that, Ubisoft? You made my daughter cry. I think you owe her an apology.

So I Offer My Life As a Sacrifice

James Cameron’s Avatar The Game isn’t bad for a movie tine-in, it just doesn’t really serve a purpose. As a chapter outside of the film, it doesn’t need to exist. The story is not compelling and it won’t make you feel bad for these particular Na’vi. Pandora is pretty to look at but it’s so linear throughout that you’ll feel more like you’re exploring a cave than a huge jungle.

The fighting is decent but is hampered by a poor camera, especially in two-player mode, where it’s almost unplayable. The game never gets boring, however, thanks to decent pacing and the frequent changes in gameplay style.

If James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game were a movie, I wouldn’t recommend you pay to see it in the theater. If you were to find it on TV, however, it’s a decent way to kill a lazy Saturday afternoon.

Site [James Cameron’s Avatar The Game]

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Title: The Flower Shop
Price: $19.99
System(s): PC (Also available for Mac and Linux)
Release Date: February 1, 2010
Publisher (Developer): Winter Wolves (Winter Wolves)
ESRB Rating: N/A, I’d say it’s suitable for ages 12 and up
Pros: Nice balance of farming and visual novel, cute anime-style art and storyline, occasionally a few witty and funny lines, can save anytime into multiple slots. Not too long, not too short. Charming. The ending images are especially beautiful.
Cons: Music is somewhat bland, no way to see endings you’ve beaten after you’ve beaten them, no explanation that Steve can get tired and need to rest. No tutorials to explain how to raise stats like “Culture,” “Coolness” or “Determination.”
Overall Score: One thumb up, one sideways; 85/100; B; * * * 1/2 out of 5

Hard work builds character, an adage that is part of the crux of Winter Wolves’ latest game, The Flower Shop. In this visual novel, slash dating simulation, slash farming simulation, players must help a young man who’s floundering in his own life. He’s sent to the country, and it’s up to the player to determine whether or not the experience of living and working on a farm, and meeting the hardworking people who live in the area, changes him.

Slackers get evicted from LA and sent to the boondocks!

Steve is a slacker. His first year in college didn’t go too well, mainly because he didn’t apply himself. As his girlfriend Jill points out, he doesn’t attend class or do the work, and probably only manages to squeak by because he copies the notes she takes in class. He also isn’t the best person, as Jill breaks up with him in the game’s introduction because he’s oogling other girls while he’s with her, at the place where they first met.

After a few days, Steve’s father shows up at his apartment. He’s disappointed in the way Steve is living his life, and the straight D’s Steve received last semester in college don’t help much. (Though Steve tries to assert that “D stands for Diploma.”) He announces that Steve will be spending his summer in Fairbrook, working at his Uncle Sam’s farm as a farmhand. So now, Steve has the opportunity to change his life in a single summer.

It’s all about proper scheduling

While The Flower Shop is billed as a dating and farming simulation, it’s really more of a visual novel with occasional simulation elements. You read what happens in Steve’s adventure, and then chose the appropriate text choices when the time comes. Once you can set a schedule, you’ll spend every morning tending to a small plot of farmland and every afternoon working, resting, jogging, visiting the library, stopping by the flower shop or talking to Jill on the phone. The farming simulation part involves clicking to water plants, removing pests, pulling weeds, planting seeds and harvesting fully grown crops. Visiting the other areas results in scenes with different characters and possibly dialogue choices.

The only real disappointments in The Flower Shop are the music and the inability to keep track of endings you’ve already seen. The music isn’t bad, just bland, and the clicking sound effects didn’t seem necessary. As for the endings, it’s always a nice feature when visual novels or dating sim games allow players to see earned endings from the options menu. It’s disappointing The Flower Shop didn’t offer that feature, especially since Winter Wolves’ previous game, Heileen 2 did. Aside from these two small qualms, The Flower Shop is a sweet game, and the multiple endings provide ample replay value.

There’s one thing I don’t get, and that’s the title. The Flower Shop doesn’t seem to fit. Yes, there’s a flower shop in the town, but it doesn’t have to be a main part, depending on how you play. Fairbrook might have fit better, but that’s just me.

Looking for your first visual novel? Try The Flower Shop.

I’d say The Flower Shop is a good, “lite” visual novel. It’s a neat and tidy little option for someone who wants to try a visual novel game, but isn’t sure if he or she will like the genre. It moves at a good pace, has the farming aspect to add variety and keep it from only being about reading and picking choices and is pleasant to look at and listen to. It isn’t too complicated, there aren’t too many paths to wander down and it provides a satisfying game experience that you can probably beat in a few hours. It’s charming, and should please gamers of either gender. It’s definitely a game to keep in mind if you want to play a dating sim on February 14, 2010.

Site [The Flower Shop]

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Title: Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes
Price: $29.99
System: DS
Release Date: December 1, 2009
Publisher (Developer): Ubisoft Entertainment (Capybara Games)
ESRB Rating: “E 10+” for mild fantasy violence, mild language and mild suggestive themes.
Pros: Original and entertaining strategic battle system, great mix of combat goals, lengthy story mode, quick battles and multiplayer extend game life.
Cons: Dialogue can be quite dorky at times and you don’t know enemy’s level until you accept a battle.
Overall Score: Two thumbs up; 96/100; A; ****1/2 out of 5

I’m not going to tell you that Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes is the best DS game of 2009. I haven’t played enough of its competition to make such a bold statement, but I can tell it is easily my favorite DS game of 2009. How much do I like this? I had one dungeon to go in The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks when I played my first game of Clash of Heroes. That was three weeks ago, and I still have one dungeon to go in Spirt Tracks.

I will Be King, You Be Queen

Clash of Heroes is set in the venerable Might & Magic universe. I’ve played a couple of those games on my Mac but this entry is quite a bit different. It’s not your traditional turn-based strategy game but, instead, an odd mix of that, RPG and Bejeweled-style gem matching games. If you’re thinking, “Oh, you mean Puzzle Quest,” then I’ll have to work harder to explain what makes Clash of Heroes so much better.

The story is set in the world of Ashan, where humans and elves generally live in peace. But when a village is attacked and its people slaughtered, the humans and elves turn on each other. The first character you play—an Elven tracker named Anwen—knows that this is a set-up, and battles her way past many foes to prevent war between the humans and elves.

Nothing Will Drive Them Away

After Anwen, you play as heir to the throne Godric, and eventually as the dead Fiona, the bitter Aiden, and the mysterious Nadia. Each character has his/her own battle styles and powers and each moves around a map of the kingdom via a nodal system. Some nodes contain events and battles (inlcuding easily avoided random battles), but most just allow you get from here to there. Plenty of treasure chests and materials can be found along the way, and you’ll need to collect these to buy new elite and champion units.

In fact, let’s move right along to the battle system, as it—far beyond the story—is what carries the game. Your army appears on the bottom screen, facing up. Your enemy is that top, facing down. Fighting on your behalf are usually three core unit types, along with three elite unit types and two champion unit types once you’ve acquired or purchased them. Elite and champion units must be matched up with two or four core units. They take more turns to charge into battle, but usually do more damage.

You’re given a set number of moves with which you can place your units, remove a unit or wall from the playing field, or call in more units (your reserves build up with each turn).

If you line three or more similar units side by side, they disappear to form a wall at the top of the bottom screen to curb your enemy’s attack. If you align three vertically, they begin to charge up for an attack. Charging can take from two to six turns, depending upon the unit, so you need to plan your attacks ahead of time. Once their charge reaches zero, they plow into your opponent’s territory. If their hit points are not dwindled to zero by walls or interfering soldiers, they will damage your opponent. Wear him/her/it down to zero, and you win the battle.

If that sounds complicated, it’s not. In fact there’s a lot more to it than that. You can chain your attacks for more power, each character has a spell that can unleash a much more powerful attack, you can equip artifacts for special abilities, and so on. It’s a very robust system that’s easy to learn, and plenty of fun all the while.

We Can Beat Them, Just for One Day

After playing through the first character, I was confident in my strategies and abilities. But then, the game turns itself on its head. Suddenly, you’re facing bosses that don’t behave like typical armies. Then, your battle goal is not to defeat your opponent, but to hit doors in a certain order or simultaneously. And along the way, you’re presented with puzzle challenges that require you to successfully kill your opponents in only one turn. Clash of Heroes changes itself up just enough to prevent the gameplay from growing tedious, and just enough to make sure you never begin to feel too confident.

The game is huge, and the story mode will keep you busy for quite some time. Towards the end, the battles become very difficult, and there are few that you’ll beat the first time through without luck. But even after you’ve completed the game, you can keep on going with Quick Battle mode, and Clash of Heroes also offers single-card and multi-card multiplayer action.

We Can Be Heroes, Just for One Day

In Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes, Capybara has delivered one of the most unique puzzle/adventure game experiences I’ve ever had on any system. The story is fine (although the dialogue is quite dorky in parts), but it’s the battle system that carries the game. Considering that your character levels up automatically and you never get to select a weapon or armor (you choose nothing beyond which soldiers to send to battle and which artifact to equip), the fact that Clash of Heroes is still so totally engrossing is really saying something.

I sound like I’m gushing and I hate that, so let’s find something bad to say. I mentioned the hoaky dialogue and it’s annoying that you don’t know an enemy’s combat level until you enter into battle; you’ll have to save often so you can back out when you find yourself in over your head.

But that’s it. Get this game. Whatever you bought instead of this the last time you were at the store, put it down and forget about it for a while. Don’t worry, you’ll be able to get back to it in a couple months.

Maybe.

Site [Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes]

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Title: Final Fantasy Vocal Collections Vol 2: Love Will Grow
Artist: Risa Ohki, Ikuku Nogushi
Price: $28.57 (CD Japan) - $32.90 (Play-Asia)
Release Date: First run November 25, 1995, reprint October 1, 2004
Rating: 8/10
Pros: Once again, Risa Ohki does a wonderful job singing, and Ikuko Nogushi’s voice is a nice compliment. Aside from another version of “Prelude,” the tracks covered are different than the ones from Pray. “Valse des Amoureux,” an original track, fits in surprisingly well.
Cons: Still occasional, awkward, English lyrics. Also, song titles were again changed.

Since Important Importables reviewed Final Fantasy Vocal Collections Vol. 1: Pray last week, it seems only appropriate that this week Final Fantasy Vocal Collections Vol. 2: Love Will Grow takes center stage. Once again, it is a compilation of instrumentals from Final Fantasy I-VI, only with new adaptations and vocals added.

Once again, multiple languages are employed in the new renditions of classic Final Fantasy songs, and once again Risa Ohki delivers a powerful performance that is practically impeccable. Her delivery and pronunciation is once again flawless, and you’d think she was actually able to speak Portuguese, French, English and Japanese. This time, Ikuko Nogushi joins her. It averages out to Ohki performing on half the tracks and Nogushi on the other half, with the two occasionally both performing on some songs. Her voice is equally wonderful, and her pronunciation just as precise. It’s a nice contrast, as Ohki tends to take on more of the alto parts, while Nogushi focus on soprano.

More vocal interpretations of Final Fantasy themes

Like Final Fantasy Vocal Collections Vol. 1: Pray, Final Fantasy Vocal Collections Vol. 2: Love Will Grow starts out strong with Ohki performing Long Distance, a rendition of the “Main Theme” of Final Fantasy IV. Personally, I think this is one of the best performances and songs on the album, and a perfect place to start. It is both emotional and epic, and gives Ohki a chance to show off her impressive vocal range.

While Pray seemed to be about evoking emotions and powerful feelings, I couldn’t help feeling that Love Will Grow was more about elegance and entertainment. The tracks seemed to be about fun and laughter, or decadence and regal intricacies. For example, “Have You Ever Seen Me?”, “Valse Des Amoureux,” “Estrelas,” “Home Sweet Home” and “The Prelude” were all lighthearted endeavors, while all the remaining tracks felt like epic, impressive pieces.

There’s only one issue, and it is the same that plagued Pray, some of the lyrics just don’t sound right on the English language songs. It’s a shame, because the the singers are both fantastic and doing their absolute best and the orchestra sounds amazing. The language and lyric issues vary from song to song. “Have You Ever Seen Me?” and “Love Will Grow” are practically passable, with few errors, but “The Prelude” can be difficult to listen to, especially with lines like:

“Dream in your heart, I feel in asleep night”
“So the sad will fall and fall”
“But I wish all the love is free anyday, for anyone.”

It’s a shame, since “The Prelude” is otherwise a wonderful duet between Ohki and Nogushi.

Track Listing

1. “Long Distance” (Rendition of Final Fantasy IV‘s “Main Theme”)
2. “Eternal Wind” (Rendition of Final Fantasy III‘s “Eternal Wind”)
3. “Have You Ever Seen Me?” (Rendition of Final Fantasy III‘s “Cute Little Tozas”)
4. “Valse des Amoureux”
5. “GAIA” (Rendition of Final Fantasy‘s “Main Theme”)
6. “Remnants of Distant Days” (Rendition of Final Fantasy V‘s “This Day Will Come”)
7. “My Home, Sweet Home” (Rendition of Final Fantasy V‘s “My Home, Sweet Home”)
8. “Estrelas” (Rendition of Final Fantasy IV‘s “Lute’s Melody”)
9. “God’s Cradle” (Rendition of Final Fantasy VI‘s “Relm’s Theme”)
10. “Love Will Grow” (Rendition of Final Fantasy III‘s “Finale”)
11. “The Prelude” (Rendition of Final Fantasy‘s “Prelude”)

Another wonderful collection for Final Fantasy fans.

It feels like with Final Fantasy Vocal Collections Vol. 2: Love Will Grow Square Enix took what was great from the previous collection, Pray, and tried to include more of it. The musical arrangements are wonderful, Risa Ohki and Ikuko Nogushi are fantastic singers, the lyrics have been improved in all cases save one and it’s, frankly, a wonderful listening experience fans of the Final Fantasy series will appreciate. I’d particularly recommend listening to “God’s Cradle”, “Long Distance” and “Valse Des Amoureux,” as they are my favorite arrangements from the compilation, though “Love Will Grow” does have a tendancy to grow on you.

COMING NEXT WEEK: Important Importables discusses how Valentines Day is celebrated in Japan, and suggests some Japanese candy that might be a nice treat for your loved one, or ones..

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Last week Important Importables reviewed Final Fantasy Vocal Collections Vol. 1: Pray.

Site [Play-Asia] Site [YesAsia] Site [NCSX] Site [Himeya Shop] Site [Strapya World]

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Title: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers
Price: $49.99
System: Wii
Release Date: December 26, 2009
Publisher (Developer): Square Enix (Square Enix)
ESRB Rating: “Teen” for alcohol reference, crude humor, fantasy violence, mild language and suggestive themes.
Pros: Briskly paced story, excellent graphics, nicely integrated minigames and an ambitious approach to game presentation.
Cons: Meandering gameplay, short, odd and somewhat irrelevant shop system and too light to be fully satisfying.
Overall Score: One thumb up, one thumb down; 78/100; C+; **1/2 out of 5

It’s quite possible I’m the perfect person to be reviewing Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers, as this is the first Final Fantasy game I’ve ever played. It’s true. Before this, the closest I’ve come to the franchise was seeing that movie from a decade ago.

It therefore wasn’t the name that piqued my interest in The Crystal Bearers, it was the trailer. It looked pretty wild, and quite gorgeous for a Wii game, so ignorance be damned, I decided to try it out. And I’m kind of glad I did. Kind of.

Leave It to Me

The Crystal Bearers focuses on Layle. He’s the kind of guy you’d likely want to punch in the mouth if you met him in real life but that makes him oddly entertaining in this game. He’s a “crystal bearer,” a member of a tribe of people imbued with the magical power of crystals who were once thought to be extinct. The world has turned to science, and the use of magic is forbidden. Does that stop Layle from using his powers in public? What do you you think?

I could lay out the whole plot here, but you already know the basics; peace threatened, boy chosen, battles fought, friends unite, world…saved? I won’t give it away. Suffice it to say the story is fine. It moves along at a decent clip, buoyed by decent acting and a script that never takes itself too seriously. It’s dark when it needs to be, but always with a gleam in its eye, like that our young hero.

Those Defeated in Battle Have No Rights.

There are two elements of The Crystal Bearers that will make or break it for gamers. The first are the controls. This game was built exclusively for the Wii and it certainly had the controls in mind. Combat isn’t a mess of button mashing, it’s about controlled WiiMote movements. Layle doesn’t punch or kick, he lifts and tosses. Almost all combat is handled by using his powers to lift and push/pull/throw/spin his opponents. I had no problem with this system, as the gestures weren’t so complex that they were difficult to pull off, and I never had to wave my arms in wide patterns to make them work. More importantly, they felt like an extension of the character. He does everything this way, right down to opening doors.

And yet, the combat does grow tedious, especially considering that monsters will constantly respawn after a set period, so you’ll fight them multiple times during your travels. In addition, there’s a sudden jump in difficulty level at one point that will really slow down your game if you’re not ready for it, and will prove exceptionally annoying if you haven’t mastered the gesture system.

Thankfully, the tediousness of the battles is broken up by the second make-it-or-break-it element, events that are essentially minigames. Some are quite fun, some, not so much, but they do a fantastic job of keeping The Crystal Bearers fresh throughout. Even better, they’re so tightly woven into the story that they never feel like a distraction. A couple times, I didn’t even know I was in a minigame until about halfway through.

You Really are Nothing but Trouble

Despite all of this, The Crystal Bearers was never as engrossing as it should have been. Is it because of the minigames? Maybe, I suppose, because although they do keep the game flowing, they also remind you that you’re playing on the Wii, and that apparently means your mother will want to sit down and play with you.

Is it because of the goofy shop system that has little impact on your character? Don’t suggest that to your little sister who’ll enjoy making new earrings and jacket patterns for Layle.

Is it because of the massive world you can explore and frequently get lost in because the game doesn’t have a map? Well, it doesn’t help. Exploring such a massive world is only fun when you have a basic idea of where you’re going. Too often I’d spend more time trying to figure out where to go than I did in actually going there, and that gets frustrating after a while. Even worse, I think that’s the point. The game seems to encourage you to wander around aimlessly, and that’s just not right.

I shall show you the crystal’s will, and its power

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers has a lot going for it. The graphics are fantastic, the story and characters are fun, and the action is varied and frantic…when you’re actually doing something. And yet, the game is never quite as enjoyable as it should be. It meanders and tends to get lost in its own ambition to appeal to the broad Wii audience. As a result, serious adventure gamers will find it too casual, while casual gamers will find it too adventurous.

If Square Enix had zeroed in on a specific demographic, I think The Crystal Bearers could’ve been one of the best titles available for the system. Instead, we get a “jack of all trades, master of none” sort of game. It’ll fill you up in the 10 to 15 hours of gameplay it provides, but won’t completely satisfy.

Site [Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers]

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Title: Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
Price: $49.99
System(s): Wii (Also for PSP and PS2)
Release Date: December 8, 2009
Publisher (Developer): Konami (Climax Group)
ESRB Rating: “Mature” for Blood, Drug Reference, Language, Sexual Themes and Violence
Pros: Game changes based on your actions/responses, perfect atmosphere, great story and take on the original game, multiple endings, Clocktower-style escape challenges added, you can’t die, can save anywhere and there’s novel use of the Wii remote.
Cons: Shorter than other the Silent Hill games, no monster variety, any puzzles you find aren’t challenging and more psychological than supernatural.
Overall Score: One thumb up, one down, 79/100, C+, * * 1/2 out of 5

The original Silent Hill was released over 10 years ago, in 1999 on the PlayStation. It’s unusual approach and thrilling story spawned a series of beloved horror games. On it’s 10th anniversary, Konami made an unusual announcement stating the company would be “reimagining” the original game. Even more striking was that this reimagining would not only appear on the PlayStation 2 and PSP, but also the Wii. The result is an unorthodox entry in the series that, while intriguing, may disappoint fans of previous Silent Hill games.

A new look at the first Silent Hill.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories starts in a manner similar to the original Silent Hill. Harry Mason and his daughter got into a car crash, and when he came to, Cheryl was gone. He then treks through the somewhat deserted resort town of Silent Hill, trying to find her again. Instead of searching through a foggy town, he’s now searching through one in the middle of a snow storm. Things aren’t what they seem in Silent Hill, and strange ice storms cause monsters to suddenly appear out of nowhere.

Instead of taking place in the present, players are playing through a series of flashbacks. Harry is really the office of Dr. Michael Kaufmann, a psychologist, talking about the experiences and relating what happened. What is said or happens during these moments in the clinic change what the rest of the game will look like, like who Harry will encounter and what will happen. Players must find out what happened to Harry and Cheryl in Silent Hill.

More similar to Clock Tower than Silent Hill.

When I first started playing Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, I experienced a strong sense of deja vu. It wasn’t because I remembered playing the original Silent Hill on the PlayStation. It was because Shattered Memories reminded me so much of the Clock Tower series of games, specifically Clock Tower 3. Both are psychological thrillers, with the protagonist being chased by otherworldly monstrosities. The basic gameplay in both consists of investigating, solving puzzles and running from the predator. It isn’t bad, just interesting and unexpected.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories does a number of things right. It uses the Wii remote in unusual manners, as it becomes a cell phone, monster detector and means of solving every puzzle and shaking off monsters. It also does a wonderful job of creating an incredibly eerie town. The atmosphere is great and it looks really polished and realistic. It’s also quite interesting to see how the game psychologically profiles you, resulting in different endings.

Unfortunately, Silent Hill: Shattered memories also does quite a few things wrong. First, there’s no variety when it comes to the monsters. They all are the faceless mannequin creatures. There also isn’t much variety when it comes to escaping. You pretty much run, and occasionally find ways to hide or throw them off your path. Another huge downside is that the game is extraordinarily easy, and you won’t have to think too hard when solving puzzles or even have to worry about dying if you don’t escape the monsters. (If they catch you, you restart the chase.) Shattered Memories is also one of the shortest Silent Hill games I’ve ever played, though the multiple endings do help encourage replays.

Go into this psychological thriller with an open mind.

Personally, I prefer entries in the Silent Hill series that contain equal parts of psychological and supernatural elements. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories focuses on the psychological, though it does rely on some supernatural imagery through most of the game. It isn’t what you’d expect from a Silent Hill game, both in terms of appearance, specifically the lack of monster variety, and gameplay, since all you can do is investigate simple puzzle and run, but that doesn’t make it bad. It is interesting and fresh, and a good thriller for mature Wii owners. Die-hard Silent Hill fans may initially be disappointed, but I have a feeling even they will warm to the title and appreciate Shattered Memories for what it is, rather than what it isn’t.

Site [Silent Hill: Shattered Memories]

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