Cannon Fodder

Developer: Sensible Software
Publisher: Virgin
Release Date: March 24, 1993
System: PC
ESRB Rating: N/A
Good Old Games Web site

In a nutshell: War ... cute, pixilated hell.

0:00 A few friends recommended this as one to check out when I came in possession of a few freebie downloads from Good Old Games. The old-school action looks right up my alley.

0:01 A helicopter flies over the jungle in an overly round, stereotypically early-'90s 3-D animation. "This is Tumba, on approach to flight zone," says the pilot over the radio. They touch down in the jungle and shuffle off, to calls of "OK, go go go, move move, come on ... oh you lousy bunch of..." from the commander. The chopper flies off and crashes in the distance. Crusher, Slice, Ice, Bambi and Daisy are the pith-helmeted guys left behind. The credits play immediately ... did I win already?

0:02 The title screen pops up with retro-tastic SoundBlaster 16 synthesizer and a confusing picture of a flower. Grainy black-and-white digital pictures of the team scroll by with jokey credits: JOOLS as James Dean, STOO as Elvis, etc.

0:04 More team credits scroll by. OK, this stopped seeming cute and started seeming a little self-obsessed. "A Virgin Publication." Publication?

0:05 I click and a bunch of pixilated, Lemming-like figures walk down a hilly path. The left side of the screen is cut off, for some reason, but some monitor-level adjustment fixes that.

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

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Bionic Commando (Xbox 360)

Developer: GRIN
Publisher: Capcom
Release Date: May 19, 2009
Systems: Xbox 360 (reviewed), PS3, PC
ESRB Rating: M
Official Web site

In a nutshell: It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing.

0:00 I wasn't too enamored with a quick five-minute demo of an early version of this game at CES, but it's Capcom, so it gets the benefit of the doubt for the full release.

0:01 An obligatory downloadable update, some loading, and the Capcom logo appears with the familiar old-school jingle. Yay!

0:02 The title floats on a light-blue background with soft, haunting piano music. I thought this was an action game. Why's the music going all emo on me?

0:03 I choose options from the circular menus using what looks like a length of pulsating black fiber-optic cable. Is that supposed to be the bionic arm? Ew.

0:04 Difficulty Settings are "Normal," "Hard" and "Commando." I'm guessing Commando is supposed to be harder than Hard, but it's really not clear on this circular menu ... Normal is normal enough for me, anyway.

0:05 I can see which button does what on an interactive loading screen. Then we fall slowly through the cloud cover to an overhead view of "Ascension City," by the bay. Gentle strings play in the background as a nuclear weapon goes off, disabling the camera. "Let me tell you about the man I met when I was still young..." Hmmm, that sounds familiar. So bionic soldiers were heroes, but the public turned on them. "They called them dangerous, crazy, not completely human. Bionics were a public menace." One was sentenced to death. "This is where our story begins..."

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

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Everyday Shooter

Developer: Queasy Games
Publisher: SCEA
Release Date: Oct. 11, 2007
Systems: PS3 (reviewed), PSP, PC
ESRB Rating: E
Official Web site

In a nutshell: What if Geometry Wars were even MORE abstract...
0:00 Despite absolutely loving a five-minute demo of this game at E3 '07, I somehow never managed to actually buy it or even request a press copy. That situation ends NOW!

0:01 A pleasantly small 38 MB download and quick install. All PSN games should be this painless to access!

0:02 "Everyday Shooter: A Queasy Game by Jonathan Mak." There's some utterly simple and charming acoustic guitar plunking in the background of the nice, basic menu screen.

0:04 First, some notes: "In the spring of 2005 I started work on what I called 'the new game,'" Mak writes. It was self-indulgent and "games-as-art-theory-innovation wankery," apparently. Then he went back to his roots: the top-down shoot-'em-up! Yes!

0:05 OK, let's do this. Options are Normal Play and Single Play. I'm married, so I guess Hetero-Normative play is for me. Eh? Eh? *crickets chirping*

Read the full review at Crispy Gamer

SOCOM: Confrontation

Developer: Slant Six Games
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Release Date: Oct. 14, 2008
System: PS3
ESRB Rating: M
Official Web site

In a nutshell: Now loading....

0:00 I've never actually played a SOCOM game before, but I figured SOCOM: Confrontation is as good a time as any to start. And Crispy Gamer agreed!

0:01 The usual "game" option on the XMB is accompanied by a "Game Data Installer" option. I decide to see what that's all about.

0:02 There's no progress bar on the installation screen ... it just says "Installing...". Cryptic. I guess I just have to assume it's working through the 2701 MB of data it has to put on the hard drive. Hopefully it'll make the game run faster in the end.

0:04 The back of the box says the game "requires" 3.1 GB of hard drive space, so maybe this installation isn't just an option?

0:05 Hoo boy... this semi-literate message board post seems to confirm that the installation is required and predicts I'll have to wait 15 minutes for it to finish. Yikes!

Read the full review at Crispy Gamer

Commando: Steel Disaster

Developer: Mana Comp Software
Publisher: XS Games
Release Date: Sept. 2, 2008
System: Nintendo DS
ESRB Rating: E10+
Official Web site

In a nutshell: Not a disaster, but hard as steel.

0:00 Yet another game I had never heard of until it showed up in my mailbox. The back of the box makes it look like a Metal Slug knockoff, which gets my hopes up a bit.

0:01 Synth-heavy metal-techno plays over a sprawling, two-screen image of a Commando with a huge gun slung over his shoulder. Normal and Hard are the selectable difficulties. I hate choosing the lowest available level, but I'm not quite ready to dive in to "Hard."

0:03 "Emergency! Emergency!" says Jessica. "Hey, what's wrong," asks Storm, the guy from the title screen. "Snow Lab is being attacked by X-1." Not Snow Lab! Apparently X-1 is OUR newest weapon, but it went berserk and attacked. The dialogue boxes don't have a space after the periods ... VERY annoying.

0:04 Just like that, I'm racing in on a snowmobile. I can jump over land mines and lean back to fire at rocket pack-equipped enemies in the air. This is fun!

Read the full review at Crispy Gamer

Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2

Developer: Bizarre Creations
Publisher: Activision
Release Date: July 30, 2008
System: Xbox 360
ESRB Rating: E
Official Web site

In a nutshell: I'm rooting for the triangles.

0:00 Considering I've played the original game probably more than any other Xbox 360 title, the question of playing this one for "more than an hour" already seems kind of moot.

0:01 Jumping right in to Deadline mode, the only mode available initially. I see one of my Xbox Live friends, DangerPenguin, is ahead of me with 325,635 points. I wonder if that's good. I also wonder who DangerPenguin is.

0:02 "Avoid the deadly enemy shapes." You have to love a game that can have an instruction like that. You HAVE to! Seems a lot like its predecessor right off: 2-D, overheard perspective, left stick moves, right stick fires.

0:03 In the first game, my score multiplier went up automatically as I killed enemies. This time I have to pick up little golden "Geoms" the enemies drop to increase the multiplier. I'm not a fan. Especially because I lose my first life trying to collect some.

0:04 Most interesting new enemy: A white line that reflects my shots back at other enemies. I can't figure out how to kill it, short of a screen-clearing bomb. Least interesting new enemy: An orange triangle that flies in a straight line. Snooze.

Read the full review at Crispy Gamer

Ace Combat 4: Shattered Skies

Developer: Namco
Publisher: Namco
Release Date: Oct. 23, 2001
System: PS2
ESRB Rating: E
Official Web site

In a nutshell: Skies like a plate glass window.

0:00 I've heard good things about this series but never actually touched it. If it's anything like Sega's Afterburner arcade game, it should be right up my alley.

0:01 "Have so far to go," sings an ethereal voice over scenes of a sea bird flying over the ocean. A jet flies by, knocking some feathers off the innocent avian. More birds, more jets, more shots of the ocean and we quickly reach the title.

0:02 On to the tutorial to learn some aircraft basics. "Amidst the blue skies, a link from past to future. The sheltering wings of our protector..." says a cryptic message during hte loading screen.

0:03 The plane is in autopilot as the game ponderously tells me how to raise and lower the nose of the plane. There's no way to speed up the extremely slow text messages... I just have to wait patiently until the game lets me try it for myself. Argh.

0:05 Interesting... Instead of simply drifting/turning left and right with the analog stick, I have to first rotate the plane and then tip the nose to turn. This is more realistic, I guess, but I feel like it will take some getting used to. I do like the heads-up display, which shows altitude and orientation via a series of simple, green lines on a first-person viewscreen.

Read the full review at Crispy Gamer

Blast Works: Build, Trade, Destroy

Developer: BudCat Creations
Publisher: Majesco
Release Date: June 10, 2008
System: Wii
ESRB Rating: E
Official Web site

In a nutshell: KatamaR-Type? Gradius Damacy?

0:00 I played a demo of this game for about five minutes at last year's E3. It was by far the most original game I played at the entire show.

0:01 A bass-heavy techno beat plays over a simple title screen, with labeled pieces of a cel-shaded plane marking the different options.

0:02 The controls configuration screen shows a total of three buttons: Shoot, Hide Attached Shapes and Pause. Now that's old-school.

0:03 Let's jump on in to the official-sounding Campaign mode. The difficulties are Rookie, Pilot and Ace. Since I'll be flying a ship, I feel like I should at least be a Pilot.

0:04 I know from my experience with the demo that shooting down the opposing ships lets me collect their falling carcasses and attach them to a growing ball around my ship, Katamari-style. It's a good thing I know this, because the game doesn't explain it anywhere that I've seen.

0:05 Right off the bat, I'm finding it hard to tell which enemies are dead, and thus OK to absorb, and which ones are alive, and thus not OK to touch. Some better color-coding or something would help.

0:06 I've already lost all three of my lives. The enemy shots seem to be magnetically attracted to the center of my ship.

Read the full review at Crispy Gamer

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition: Colonies Edition

Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Release Date: May 27, 2008
System: Xbox 360
ESRB Rating: T
Official Web site

In a nutshell: Kill aliens... in the snow this time!

0:00 I played at early demo of this game way back at X06 in Barcelona. I was on about two hours of sleep at the time, though, so I don't really remember much of it.

0:01 I'm a bit annoyed that I have to download an update for the game, but most of that annoyance melts away when I see the download complete in roughly 10 seconds. Now that's how you do an update!

0:02 No intro cut scene, just cut straight to a title menu on a black background. Gentle strings in the background give way to a thumping, drum-heavy beat in the options screen.

0:03 New game, normal difficulty. The game warns me that "the game will begin with this difficulty." Well, duh!

0:04 A big metal walker trudges through a frozen cityscape along with some supporting troops. Orange lightening in the distance. "It was T.C. minus 80, 80 years before the trial century. Humanity left a quiet world for the snow-covered E.D.N.3" (pronounced "Eden-3"). Why, exactly?

0:06 Cut to a shot of gas-masked, jack-booted soldiers in a corridor. There's some rumbling from outside, and then a giant brownish-orange thing rolls in like an armadillo, knocking the soldiers about. It unrolls itself to show a body resembling a scorpion and lets out a huge scream. Back to Mr. Narrator: "With the expansion of the colony, humanity encountered a new alien life form known as the Akrid." You don't say!

Read the full review at Crispy Gamer

Battefield: Bad Company

Developer: EA Digital Illusions
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Release Date: June 23, 2008
Systems: Xbox 360 (reviewed), PS3
ESRB Rating: T
Official Web site

In a nutshell: An FPS that's in good company. Get it? No? Aww, forget it.

0:00 I haven't played any of the previous Battlefield games, but I've heard a lot of buzz about them, so I figured, why not try a demo of the new one?

0:01 A grenade with an EA pin rolls next to some gold bars with the DICE logo. Lilting lounge piano over the menu screen. Snazzy.

0:03 After screwing around in the options, it's on to the single-player game. Easy mode is described with the following quote: "Not complaining or anything, but are these bad guys actually trying to kill us?" I choose Normal, which is "how Bad Company is meant to be played." Tasty.

0:04 Helicopters flying in to rockabilly music. "Welcome to the 222nd Army Battalion." It's the "B company," made up of people considered expendable or useless. "A mismatched bunch of rejects picked to serve our country as cannon fodder." Our protagonist, Preston Marlowe, got transferred here instead of going to jail. "This is my story."

0:05 I'm introduced to the sergeant and my squadmates, Sweetwater and Redford. The voice acting and animation are incredibly natural. I even chuckle a bit at a small joke regarding the chain of command. "You can ride with us... new guy," says Sarge.

0:06 In the field, we get orders over the radio to take a farm/supply depot. Sarge is depressed that he'll have to put off his fishing trip. Heh. It's funny, because he's trapped in a war zone.

Read the full review at Crispy Gamer

R-Type Final

Developer: Irem
Publisher: Eidos
Release Date: Feb. 2, 2004
System: PS2
ESRB Rating: E
Official Web page

In a nutshell: Side-Scrolling Space Shooter: The Final Frontier
0:00 I just got done reviewing the putrid spin-off R-Type Command for CG, so I'm finally unwrapping this one to remind myself why I liked the series in the first place. The last one I played seriously was Super R-Type on the SNES.

0:01 A bright sunny sky with the sounds of lapping waves. Jump to a fighter coming dangerously close to crushing some citizenry as it makes a hairpin turn right above a city street. Diagram shots of other fighters are intercut with video of a virus multiplying. The various fighters all charge up a shot together and take out an advancing wave of Bydo forces. Back to the beach. The back of a fighter is sticking up from the water. The title appears as the beach scene turns to twilight.

0:04 I go into the tutorial to learn how the series has advanced since the early '90s. Apparently now I can change speeds, and I won't die if my fighter touches the ground. There are also two levels of missiles now. Otherwise it's the same shoot-everything-that-moves gameplay that I used to love.

0:10 Another new feature -- absorbing shots with my protective orange "force" can charge up a screen-clearing shot. I can unlock a bunch of different ships, eventually.

0:12 "Start Game!" I can choose from three ships, and customize the missiles and color! I go with the basic "R-9A" model, but I fabulize it in purple with a purple trim.

Read the full review at Crispy Gamer

Giants: Citizen Kabuto

Developer: Digital Mayhem
Publisher: Interplay
Release Date: Dec. 21, 2001
Systems: PS2 (reviewed), Windows, Mac
ESRB Rating: T
Official Web site

In a nutshell: A spider-infested day at the beach.

0:00 I picked up a cheap, used copy of this game years ago after vaguely remembering it was pretty well-received, then I never even touched it. No time like the present to try it out, eh?

0:01 An alien with a beer stein is relaxing on a wooden recliner. He's crushed by a giant, roaring green alien. Then the title comes in. Uh... Word.

0:03 A spaceship flies over an ocean to an island chain. Soaring music. "Closer, okay?" says one Master Chief-looking space-guy "Right, see you around, Baz," says another. There's a miscommunication and one of the guys gets locked outside the ship's hatch without a jetpack. He falls onto the island with a cry of "YOU VICIOUS BASTARD!" Still, he plants a British flag on the soil while "Hail, Britannia" plays. A bird picks up the flag and flies off. I have no idea what's going on, but the voice acting is so emotive, I don't care.

0:04 My mission: "Find the helpless little SMARTIE BOY. Hurry! He's in danger! Go! Shoo!" I've never had a game tell me to "shoo!" before.

0:05 Already I'm controlling things. Gotta love a game that doesn't belabor the story. There are some nice majestic views of the ocean, but the ground itself is blocky and pixelated. I'll admit it: I've been spoiled by the graphics on the new generation of machines.

Read the full review at Crispy Gamer

Rez HD

Developer: Q Entertainment
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Release Date: Jan. 30, 2008
System: Xbox 360 (original on PS2, Dreamcast)
ESRB Rating: E
Official Web Site

In a nutshell: Panzer Dragoon + an art project + a rave = Rez HD

0:00 Despite being a huge fan of both rhythm and experimental games, my only exposure to this game was seeing a friend play the Dreamcast version at a party roughly five years ago. It was... it was not a wild party.

0:01 A featureless albino woman is trapped in a tube. A vaguely human shape of rounded square discs hovers around, and then a wild quick zoom out from a white room. I feel like I'm in a college film class.

0:02 The tutorial automatically comes on-screen. Hold A and move the cursor to aim, let go to fire. That's it?

0:03 You can target up to eight enemies at a time. Items can increase your "level" or provide a screen-clearing "overdrive." Seems relatively standard so far, though I like the sound effects. "What lies at the dark end of this network?" the game asks. Is it pie? I hope it's pie!

0:04 I turn on vibration for the full Trance Vibrator experience. Also, for some reason, the point display is "off" by default, but how else will I know how awesome I am?


Read the full review at Crispy Gamer

Super Stardust HD

Developer: HouseMarque
Publisher: SCEA
Release Date: June 1, 2007
System: PS3
Official Web site

In a nutshell: Asteroids: the Next Generation

0:01 The online user agreement is 15 pages! Who's gonna read that?
0:02 I feel guilty playing a game with HD in the title on a non-HDTV
0:03 Concept seems simple enough -- shoot rocks, get power ups.
0:05 My first two deaths come because I'm too busy staring at the beautiful spinning rocks. They're really mesmerizing.
0:06 Phase one is over? But there were still asteroids left. I think.
0:07 Ah, the rocks stay around for phase 2.
0:08 Game over already. 21,395th place on first try. Oh yeah. I'm the man.
0:10 Now that I know what I'm doing I go two phases without dying. Gotta be less timid.
0:13 I continue to be amazed at the exploding rocks. They just look so organic as they break apart and spin.
0:15 Up to phase four now, and while the action is pretty frenetic, it doesn't reach the fever pitch of Geometry Wars. This is a good thing and a bad thing.
0:17 I die just as the first Asteroid-sucking boss appears. 8,722th place this time. Moving on up in the world.
0:20 The music is nice and catchy without being repetitive.
0:25 I get to phase three this time without losing a ship. I'm playing in a trance. Then I snap out of it and die four times in a minute. You're either in the zone or you're not, I guess.
0:27 I love the edgeless sphere playfield. Makes it easy to find a way out and impossible to get caught in the corner.
0:29 Whoa! I stumble on a mega-bonus rock by hitting some rocks with countdown numbers. Little surprises like this are key to making a game like this last.
0:32 I just noticed my ship is always in the center of the screen and the whole planet rotates around it. Cool beans.
0:34 Gripe #1: It can be hard to tell the different power ups apart.
0:36 There's nothing worse than losing your last life with four bombs left
0:38 Gripe #2: There are power ups for the ice- and gold-destoryers despite there being no ice or gold to destroy.
0:41 I take back what I said about Geometry Wars. It does get that frenetic, just not as consistently. There are large portions of calm, which is nice.
0:43 Just as I'm hitting my stride and work up to a 5x-multiplier, bam, something lands on me.
0:49 The asteroid sucking boss gets a lot less scary with no asteroids around.
0:50 It took me the better part of an hour to beat the first planet. This is gonna take a while.
0:52 Finally, a chance to use the ice splitter weapon! I die as a I switch. D'oh! 7262th place.
0:54 OK, the ice crusher sucks, mainly because I haven't upgraded it. Also, how can an icy meteor dodge a laser? I ASK YOU!
0:59 I just now realized that some of those rocks are gold. The two types look way too similar.
1:01 Spinning the gold melter around not only looks cool, it's a great way to fend off practically everything. Cool!

Would I play this game for more than an hour? Yes.
Why? Great controls, mesmerizing graphics and a simple, fun concept.