Maximo Vs. Army of Zin

Developer: Capcom Production Studio 8
Publisher: Capcom
Release Date: Jan. 20, 2004
System: PS2
ESRB Rating: T
Official Web site

In a nutshell: Minimum Maximo difficulty.

0:00 I absolutely loved the original Maximo: Ghosts to Glory ... until I ran out of continue coins and got stuck halfway through the LAST LEVEL! ARGH! Hopefully this one keeps the fun and challenge while losing the progress-stopping brick walls.

0:01 The title screen appears almost immediately with a bouncing, hand-drawn black army in red light advancing towards me from the background. It's cute and menacing at the same time. Creepy violin music.

0:03 The selectable difficulties are "Normal" and "Hard." Given how hard the last game was, I figure Normal will be hard enough.

0:04 A skeleton bird flies out of a red moon and over an absolutely massive CGI cut scene battle between men and skeletons. "Unholy demons," cries an armored warrior. "While I live Castle Hawkmore will never fall!" The battle done, the few remaining men gather up the dead skeleton bones. "Seal the vault behind me!" cries Mr. Armor Man. "But Lord Morrigan, you'll be trapped." No matter! He demands that his heirs guard the vault with their very lives. "It must remain sealed ... forever."

0:06 500 years later, Maximo gets attacked by a group of forest bandits. Then a distressed woman runs in and asks for help with some village-attacking monsters. Then a mechanical knight joins the party. Maximo looks past him "You're late, Grim," he says with a smile. "I always come ... in the end," says the Grim Reaper, who appears behind the skeleton and slashes him to bits. COOL! Anyway, Grim can't find Sofia's soul in the underworld. "Then she's alive?" Possibly ... Grim is mad about souls getting compressed into jewelry, for some reason, while Maximo wants to help the woman's village. The voice acting's a bit cheesy, but the animation is top-notch.

Read the full review at Crispy Gamer

Chore Wars

Developer: Kevan Davis
Publisher: Kevan Davis
Release Date: July 2007
System: Web browser
ESRB Rating: N/A
Official Web site

In a nutshell: Kyle and the Quest for Cleanliness

0:00 Even though it's not strictly a videogame, I've heard a lot of good things about this as a fun way to keep up with household tasks. I'm hoping it can motivate my wife and me to actually keep up with our chores.

0:01 "Honey, can you help me with a Game for Lunch?" I ask my wife, Michelle. "I guess so ... what is it?" she replies. "It's called Chore Wars," I reply back. She already sounds incredulous. "Are you serious?"

0:05 We start by paging through the FAQ together. Michelle: "This is very silly." Me: "I think it could be fun." Upon further reading, Michelle repeats: "This seems very silly." Uh oh ... I'm already losing her!

Read the full review at Crispy Gamer

Personal Trainer: Cooking

Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Release Date: Nov. 24, 2008
System: Nintendo DS
ESRB Rating: E
Official Web site

In a nutshell: It will personally train you to cook.

0:00 I am definitely not a natural in the kitchen, so I'm hoping this game will help make me less reluctant to hover over a range.

0:01 The game starts with an all-purpose warning about raw meat, seafood, eggs, food allergies, letting kids cook and using oven mitts. OK then!

0:02 "Welcome to Personal Trainer: Cooking," says the black-and-white, hand-drawn chef on-screen. "Before we go any further, please adjust my voice to the speed you like." There's a slider on the touch-screen. The slowest and fastest speeds are pretty awful-sounding. The default seems all right to my wife and me...

0:03 "Getting ready. Don't touch the power button." This chef's voice is nice and soothing. On the top screen, the unnamed chef (let's call him Mr. Chef) dances back and forth. "You're ready to start cooking tasty dishes from all over the world!" Damn right I am!

0:05 The game points us to the "Important Points" section of "Cooking A-Z." This includes important tips like "Amounts of cheese are estimates." and "How to hold a kitchen knife." Nice photos to accompany, but I don't think we're THAT hopeless.

Read the full review at Crispy Gamer

World of Goo

Developer: 2D Boy
Publisher: 2D Boy
Release Date: Oct. 13, 2008
Systems: PC (reviewed), Wii
ESRB Rating: E
Official Web site

In a nutshell: Not as disgusting as the title would lead you to believe. Quite the opposite, in fact...

0:00 For an indie game, World of Goo has been getting massive, massive amounts of hype. It was this RPS piece that finally pushed me into sitting down with the demo, though.

0:01 The game displays some cute, SimCity-esque messages while loading up: "Distilling beauty ... Challenging everything ... Debating games as art ... swapping time and space." Heh. The title screen has a small globe in silhouette and some soaring music. On to Chapter 1, "The Goo Filled Hills."

0:02 "Summer," says white text on a black title card. The first level is "Going Up," which is described as "Easy as Goo pie." A sign in the background tells me to "Drag 'n' drop to build to the pipe." Down below there's a sort of black latticework structure. On it are thick, black balls of goo traveling all over the place. They have eyes. Creepy!

0:04 At first my dragging and dropping does nothing ... the goo balls just drop back to the ground. Eventually I notice some thin, wispy lines when I drag the goo close. When I let go, those lines become new struts on an ever-expanding, teetering tower. When I reach the pipe hanging above, all the goo balls that are still traipsing about get sucked up. I have the option to submit my score to the "World of Goo Leaderboard of Excellence." Nice name.

Read the full review at Crispy Gamer

Choro Q

Developer: Takara
Publisher: Atlus
Release Date: Nov. 4, 2004
System: PS2
ESRB Rating: E
Official Web site

In a nutshell: Super Happy Fun Racing RPG Good Time Game!

0:00 I don't know how GameStop expected me to resist a game whose box says "Intense Racing Action," "Robust RPG Adventure" and "$2.99 Used" on the back.

0:01 An extremely outdated CGI cut scene shows a bunch of tiny cars racing around a track with a bunch more cars sitting in the stands. The inspiration for Pixar's "Cars"? A bunch of different foreign words for "Freedom" appear over a montage of these tiny, tiny cars zipping around some interesting racing tracks. High energy cheesy guitar music precedes the title screen. Pretty standard PS2-era intro.

0:02 The title screen has some extremely happy music and a cars driving around a very tiny globe with happy, vibrant colored houses. It looks like MySims more than "INTENSE RACING ACTION."

0:04 I think this is the first racing game I've ever played with an "Auto Cruise" button.

0:05 Cartoon "Brrrrrrr!"s fill the screen when I set the controller vibration. I have a feeling I'm going to like this game.

Read the full review at Crispy Gamer