Puffins: Island Adventure

Developer: Other Ocean
Publisher: Majesco
Release Date: June 1, 2009
System: Nintendo DS
ESRB Rating: E
Official Web site

In a nutshell: OMG, Puffins are so cute! Don't you think Puffins are so cute? You're right they're sooooo CUTE!

0:00 Before you ask, NO, I did NOT buy this game for myself. What kind of self-respecting grown man would publically admit a love for puffins so strong that he spent good money on a DS game just to show it? Luckily, Majesco sent me a copy so I didn't have to do that.

0:01 Some quick logos and then a catchy sea shanty plays over a simple, static title screen. "Touch to Start." I do with BOUNDLESS ANTICIPATION!

0:02 On the top screen, a table showing potential grades in eight different events. On the bottom screen, a file selection. In the background, sounds of wind.

0:03 "Create Your Puffin!" With pleasure! I can choose from seven hair styles (all black), three eye colors, and eight beak colors, each more colorful than the last (if you arrange them in order of colorfulness with a sensitive-enough scale). I name my puffin Ace, as per usual.

0:05 The options screen includes "Left/Right Handed" and "View Credits." If the Story Mode is as complex as this options screen, I am SO THERE!

***-->CONTINUE READING AT CRISPY GAMER<--***

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Mechants of Brooklyn

Developer: Paleo Entertainment
Publisher: Paleo Entertainment
Release Date: March 17, 2009
System: PC
ESRB Rating:
Official Web site

In a nutshell: The best first-person shooter of early 1993

0:00 I believe I played this game for five minutes or so when cruising the CES show floor in January. I wasn't terribly impressed with my short demo then, but I wasn't terribly unimpressed either.

0:01 Crazy hip-hop infused beats play from my speakers like it's the mid-'90s, and a bare-bones title screen reads DRUG WARS BETA. I can find/create servers for the new Drug Wars online game or play the Merchants of Brooklyn single-player. I choose the latter.

0:02 Selectable difficulties are Lame, Normal, Brutal and "Oh Shi..." They don't actually type out "shit," they just use the three dots. Uh ... Normal, please?

0:03 A decently long loading screen precedes swelling string music against an oddly black screen. "In 3100 AD, global warming caused the polar ice caps to completely melt." Brooklyn becomes "a watery grave of an old civilization." Humanity connected the tops of the buildings through a network of sky bridges. Law enforcement abandoned the poor people in the "lower city." Clones from Brooklyn Institute of Technology are being used as a new working class, but they made too many and they rebelled or something. I can't make out the words ... it sounds like the narrator is speaking from an underwater phone booth.

0:05 VERY choppy cut-scene animation as a guy is led out of a cell in chains. The graphics look super-smooth, like this was a cut scene from an early-'90s game. Anyway, the big guy (me?) is led to a battle arena, where he's bloodied by the opponent. Fade to black as I hear a chainsaw. The dude cut off my hand? Holy hell! Now I'm looking up at ceiling lights as I'm wheeled into a hospital room. A big cigar-chomping guy in a suit pushes a frail doctor out of the way and fits me with a shiny, silver bionic hand. Driving rock metal guitar comes in as I'm led through a glass sky bridge. The camera pans up to show hover-cars and futuristic buildings in the sky. My shackles are undone as I step onto the open elevator and hear gentle bells from somewhere.

***-->CONTINUE READING AT CRISPY GAMER<--***

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Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier

Developer: Banpresto
Publisher: Atlus
Release Date: April 28, 2009
System: Nintendo DS
ESRB Rating: T
Official Web site

In a nutshell: With a name like Super Robot Taisen OG Saga Endless Frontier, it's got to be incomprehensible and Japanese?

0:00 I know nothing about this game except for the fact that it came with a soundtrack CD in the mail a few months ago, and has since been making me feel guilty from the bookcase.

0:01 An old-fashioned sword and a futuristic robo-sword (?) clash on the top screen against a blue sky. Some entertaining pop synth plays as the title appears.

0:02 "What made the world the way it is? Some say it has existed for tens of thousands of years. Others say it was always like this. But no one knows the truth..." Apparently, our universe encountered people from another world decades ago. The war and confusion this brought ended eventually, but now, 23 years later, a place called Endless Frontier has people of different races and time periods living together. That's right, TIME PERIODS! Don't ask me, I just work here.

0:03 "Well, here we are. Let's get goin', Aschen," says a cowboy-looking feller named Haken. "Roger," is the reply from a busty girl in a futuristic green jumpsuit. Uh...

0:04 Just like that I'm in control, walking the cowboy around a gray spaceship-looking corridor from an overhead, RPG-style viewpoint.

0:05 Rocks are in my way, but I destroy them with a quick sword strike. I find a healing pill, a mind pill and a Power Drink amidst the rubble. Awesome-sauce!

***-->CONTINUE READING AT CRISPY GAMER<--***

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New Play Control! Donkey Kong Jungle Beat

Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Release Date: May 4, 2009
System: Wii
ESRB Rating: E10+
Official Web site

In a nutshell: A game designed for a bongo controller minus the bongo controller = just a game.

0:00 I loved the original GameCube game, but the bongo-beating action made it hard to play for an extended period of time. I'm worried the game won't be as fun without them, though.

0:01 For a last-generation game, the initial menus look pretty good on my new widescreen HDTV. A lot better than New Play Control! Pikmin, anyway. Also, the game lets me use a Mii to identify my save file. Let's see the GameCube version do THAT!

0:02 The game tells me to shake the Nunchuk and Remote. When I do, a spotlight appears against a leafy green curtain, which moves to reveal ... Donkey Kong! Two small, white monkeys bid him to move forward, which I do with a gentle tilt of the analog stick. The A button jumps over obstacles. Huh ... I figured I'd be shaking the controller to emulate tapping the bongos. I guess by "New Play Control" they really mean "the Old Play Control that platform games had before that wacky bongo controller."

0:03 I have to do clap DK's hands to get a monkey out of a tree, but the game doesn't tell me how to do this. In the GameCube version, you actually clapped in real life. Here, it seems you jump and hit B to do a ground-pound. Oh, the monkey tells me I can also clap by tilting the analog stick and shaking the Remote. I like how you can choose the direction of your claps ... pretty sure that wasn't an option in the original.

0:06 I rescue a few more monkeys with a few more claps, then "Beat on a Barrel Tree" to "test [my] strength." The title drops down into DK's hands!

***-->CONTINUE READING AT CRISPY GAMER<--***

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Go Play: Lumberjacks

Developer: Panic Button
Publisher: Majesco
Release Date: June 9, 2009
System: Wii
ESRB Rating: E
Official Web site

In a nutshell: All the nonexistent thrill of lumbersports, captured accurately in a Wii game.

0:00 I know that these games are designed for groups of two or more tweens, and I am one 26-year-old man. Still, it's been sitting on my shelf for weeks now, so away we go.

0:01 The box art intriguingly features a scoreboard with the names Jack, Jill, Bart and Nozawa. Nozawa? Really? That ... doesn't seem to fit with the others.

0:02 The preview screen features a burly man in flannel hitting a tree and shouting "TIIIIMBERRRR!" After quite a bit of loading, the title screen comes up with the same lumberjack in the foreground. Behind him, a slight girl holding a chainsaw that's almost bigger than her. Also there's a pirate, for some reason. The calliope synth music is truly awful, as you might imagine.

0:04 Plain ol' Easy, Medium or Hard for difficulty. Since this is designed for tots, I go with Hard. "HAAAARD!" says an unseen voice, creepily.

0:05 Sawing is first up in Free Play, with the Solo Cross Cut.

0:06 Look at that, my choices for characters are Jack, Jill, Bart and Nozawa. The latter is a ninja, and the second-to-last is a pirate. What is this, Pirates vs. Ninjas Lumbersports? "Velly Good!" says the extremely stereotypical ninja as I choose him.

***-->CONTINUE READING AT CRISPY GAMER<--***

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