God of War: Chains of Olympus

Developer: Ready at Dawn
Publisher: SCEA
Release Date: March 4, 2008
Systems: PSP
ESRB Rating: M
Official Web Site

In a nutshell: Madness? THIS! IS! PORTABLE!

0:00 After reading a butt-load of glowingly positive reviews for this game, I feel like I'm going to have my official "game critic club card" revoked if I don't like it. Here's hoping it doesn't come to that.

0:01 This minute spent upgrading my PSP to firmware version 3.80.

0:02 See minute 0:01.

0:03 Here we go! Hero difficulty (Normal)... "Suffering for years, Kratos, the once-great general, now known as the ghost of Sparta, pledged himself to the gods of Olympus. In return, he only hoped to rid himself of the nightmares that had haunted him for far too long." But today, he's been asked to defend Attica from the Persian army. In other words, here's a bit of unnecessary story, now GO FIGHT. As should be the case in a game like this.

0:05 The first thing that strikes me about the game is how pretty it looks for a PSP game. The second thing is how long Kratos' Blades of Chaos are. They can reach, like, two times his height. Good gravy.

Read the full review at Crispy Gamer

Professor Layton and the Curious Village

Developer: Level-5
Publisher: Nintendo
Release Date: Feb. 10, 2008
Systems: Nintendo DS
ESRB Rating: E
Official Web Site

In a nutshell: Professor Logic and the Logical Logic Puzzles

0:00 I actually played a 10-minute demo of this game months ago at a Nintendo event. I was impressed with the concept if not with the difficulty of the first few puzzles. But I'm a puzzle addict, so it's gonna take a lot to stump me. I'm also very humble.

0:01 A haunting tune plays over a muted cartoon intro screen featuring a bouncing car and a askew houses. It reminds me of nothing so much as The Triplets of Belleville.

0:02 I enter my name "by hand" (i.e. using frustrating handwriting recognition) and the game segues into some nice full-screen animation on the bottom screen. A tall guy in a ridiculously tall hat hands his young friend get a letter.

0:04 The young one asks the old "professor" why they're settling an inheritance dispute. The voice acting is impressive, with some enchantingly precious English accents.

0:05 Baron Reinhold passed away. His treasure is hidden in the village. Whoever finds it gets his estate. Pretty boilerplate plot, but the animation and British accents keep me enraptured.

Read the full review at Crispy Gamer

PixelJunk Monsters

Developer: Q Games
Publisher: SCEA
Release Date: Jan. 2008
Systems: PS3
ESRB Rating: E
Official Web Site

In a nutshell: PS3-top Tower Defense

0:00 After a heated, split debate on the Game Trust mailing list, I had to check this one out for myself. I love the various Desktop Tower Defense games I've tried online, and I'm hoping this will capture the same feeling on my TV.

0:01 For some reason, the screen seems stuck in a widescreen ratio, meaning thick black bars sit at the bottom and top of my TV. Not all of us have fancy widescreen TVs, PixelJunk!

0:02 How to play: "d-pad or analog stick moves, X selects, O cancels." Can't get much simpler than that! I have to walk around and turn trees into enemy-destroying bases so I can protect a flock of cute, bouncing head things. There's lots of stuff to learn, but there's a tutorial. Let's go!

0:04 "They'll come soon! Get ready!" Creepy! I build an "arrow" tower and watch as a helpless monster wanders into its attack radius and explodes with a cute little yelp. Collect the coins it drops, build another tower, lather, rinse, repeat!

Read the full review at Crispy Gamer

Advance Wars: Days of Ruin

Developer: Intelligent Systems
Publisher: Nintendo
Release Date: Jan. 21, 2008
Systems: Nintendo DS
ESRB Rating: E10+
Official Web Site

In a nutshell: "Apocalypse Cute"

0:00 I've been a big fan of this series on the GBA, but I was a little scared it was getting too complicated and difficult with the first DS edition (I know, I'm a wimp). Here's hoping this one slows the trend.

0:01 The options screen has a microphone test. This scares me, as I can't imagine talking into the DS improving this game at all.

0:02 "Our world is destroyed. Fire rained from the sky. The land burned. The earth shook. The oceans raged... Dust covered the earth, blotting out all traces of the sun." Cheery! Are you sure Nintendo made this game?

0:03 Will, our protagonist, stands in the ruins, looking for any survivors. He finds some, but they're a band of murderous raiders, led by the improbably named "The Beast."

0:04 I already like the new zoom function. With just a tap of R, you can switch between up-close and far-off views. Handy!

0:05 Military dudes Brenner and Lin swoop in mid-tutorial to help save me from certain, outgunned defeat. "This world's dead, soldier boy, and so is your precious duty!!" taunts The Beast. The writing's not half bad, surprisingly.

Read the full review at Crispy Gamer

NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams

Developer: Sonic Team USA
Publisher: Sega
Release Date: Dec. 18, 2007
Systems: Wii
ESRB Rating: E
Official Web Site

In a nutshell: The world's foremost flying-dream-jester simulation

0:00 Despite having played the Saturn original many times at a Toys 'R' Us kiosk, I never understood the maniacal devotion some fans have for the game. This sequel puts the whole legacy at stake, in my mind.

0:01 A Big Ben-style clock tower appears over a highly fictionalized version of the London skyline. A boy sleeps soundly with a soccer ball in his arms. A girl in another flat does the same, albeit without a soccer ball. Twinkling stardust and the jester-like NiGHTS alights atop the clock tower. The title appears briefly, then NiGHTS is flying with seabirds a few inches above a river. Now he's reaching out to the boy in a deserted meadow. The girl's dreamworld is full of crystal, for some reason (Is she Shirley MacLane?). Jump cut to an evil-looking red jester, then more acrobatic flying cut scene, then the menu screen. Not bad, as intros go.

0:03 There are four potential control schemes: Remote, remote and Nunchuk, classic controller or GameCube controller. This is a worrisome sign to me. It seems as if they couldn't decide on one good control scheme, so they went for four mediocre ones.

0:04 I choose Will's dream first. He's practicing soccer on a dirty field with... his dad? It's unclear. Suddenly everything gets foggy. His dad (confirmed now by Will) is driving away in a car that turns into a plane. His soccer pals start laughing maniacally from a black void, then turn into wispy, red-eyed wraiths and chase Will. The poor boy is saved by a bright white light. Everything is suitably ethereal and dreamlike. Charming, really.

Read the full review at Crispy Gamer

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Developer: Infinity Ward
Publisher: Activision
Release Date: Nov. 6, 2007
Systems: Xbox 360 (reviewed), PS3, PC
ESRB Rating: M
Official Web Site

In a nutshell: Halo: Reality Edition

0:00 I'm not usually one for war games (unless they're of the Advance Wars variety), but after hearing everybody and their cousin Fred praise this one, I decided to borrow a copy and see what the big deal was.

0:01 "50,000 people used to live here. Now it's a ghost town." We're in Pripykat, Ukraine. An old man complains about the West. A TV reporter talks over scenes of anarchy. "Just as they laid waste to our country, we shall lay waste to theirs." Some guy does a voiceover in... Russian? More scenes of firefights and chaos. I can't tell if this is still in the Ukraine... looks slightly more... American?

0:03 An S.A.S. login screen... not sure what that stands for. "Good news first. The world's in great shape." Civil wars, 15,000 nukes at stake. Great... Khaled Al-Asad is a bad guy. Soap is a new good guy... oh, that's me. And I'm already in control. Nice.

Read the full review over at Crispy Gamer

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Release Date: March 9, 2008
Systems: Wii
ESRB Rating:
Official Web Site

In a nutshell: Fan-service fighting fun!

0:00 Given the amount of time I've spent playing the first two Smash Bros. games and covering news about this version, I'm scared that this is going to be anticlimactic. We shall see.

0:01 A required system update, creating a save file and a longish initial load takes up most of the first minute. The game tells me I can't save replay data over three minutes in length. Um, rats?

0:02 Slow pans across the characters and they look over an ocean. Jump cuts to close ups of Mario, Link, Pit, Meta Knight, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, King Dedede, Sheik, Roy, Samus, Wario, Yoshi ... I'm sure I'm missing some. Just watch this.

Read the full review at Crispy Gamer

Wade Hixton's Counter Punch

Developer: Inferno Games
Publisher: Destination Software
Release Date: March 15, 2004
Systems: Game Boy Advance
ESRB Rating: T
Official Web Site

In a nutshell: Super Punch-Out, starring and made for hicks.

0:00 Like most of you readers, I had never heard of this oddly named game, but I decided to rent this game after a guy I interviewed for a totally unrelated story mentioned he had worked on it.

0:01 Weird, synth-y techno plays over a cartoony title screen. The art style reminds me a bit of Dragon's Lair.

0:02 "Meet Wade Hixton ... just an average guy with no particular hopes and dreams..." He has the ability to fix anything with duct tape, though. O...K. He's wearing boxing gloves AS HE DRIVES. Anyway, his car breaks down. A tow-truck driver luckily comes by. It'll take a while to fix. The tow truck takes him to a pub. NO. Don't take rides from strangers, Wade!

Read the full review at Crispy Gamer

Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree

Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Release Date: June 11, 2007
Systems: Wii
ESRB Rating: E
Official Web Site

In a nutshell: Battle of the brains.

This review includes special guest commentary from my wife, Michelle.

0:00 I convinced my wife to play this with me so we could finally see who is smarter. "Oh we knew that already," she says. "It is clearly not me."

0:01 "I thank you most heartily for choosing our academy of big brains," says an amorphous, mustachioed peanut standing on a scale. He's "Dr. Lobe." Wasn't he a Bond villain? "Get ready to work your mental muscle." Dirty! "You'll never hear me yell, 'no pain, no brain' That's for lunkheads." Lunkheads?

0:04 The doctor says something through our Wii remote, but we can't hear it because the volume is too low. We turn it up and get him to repeat it. "Work that brain," he says. That hardly seemed worth it.

Read the full review at Crispy Gamer

Metapost: Game liveblogging

If you like the Games For Lunch concept, you might enjoy the tongue-in-cheek game liveblogging posted over at MegaTonik. My personal favorite:

N+

5:44 PM: I jumpe… I died.
5:44 PM: I jumpe… I died.
5:44 PM: I jumpe… I died.
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.
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7:37 PM: I jumped to the side, dodged three missiles, dodged 4 blue guys, hit a bouncy white block, jumped off the right side, hit the switc… I died.

Check out the whole thing.

Vampire Rain

Developer: Artoon
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Release Date: July 3, 2007
Systems: Xbox 360
ESRB Rating: M
Official Web Site

In a nutshell: In a nutshell: Like "Chocolate Rain," but with a few more vampires.

0:00 I have no idea what to expect from this one. Vampires falling from the sky, perhaps? With a title this bad, though, it has to be good, right?

0:01 A dark city street, and a waitress walking home. She turns, thinking she heard something. She has a very dark, very baggy face. She runs into an alley. We still haven't seen anything, but there's an eerie howling. Suddenly, a vampire crawls down from the wall above, Spider-Man style. Cut to a "for sale" sign. A government computer. A password. Some germs. Pictures of diseased faces. Blood cells. A fat guy. Lord Hessler, a guy linked to some disappearances (says a newspaper clipping). Crime scene photos. A SWAT team. ACCESS DENIED. Dr. Ernst Foley and Emily Foley and John Lloyd are missing. A chained hand. Bullet casings falling. A vampire mouth. Gun. Girl. Blood. Steely-eyed resolve. A zombie straight out of Resident Evil does an extended scream. More bullet casings. "NOW LOADING." WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?

0:04 The analog pad can't navigate the menus. You have to use the digital pad. This does not bode well.

Read the full review at Crispy Gamer