Reviews & Articles

Pinball ... one of the earliest frontiers of electronic gaming. As such, game manufacturers realized a hook was needed to keep people interested and, more importantly, to keep them placing their hard-earned cash into the machines. Simply put, it needed to be fun. This is still true today. But we can’t forget that everyone has his or her own definition of “fun.” Pinball is something almost everyone agrees is fun. And ZEN Pinball from PlayStation Network is no exception.

Capcom was one of the few software companies at the Consumer Electronics Show, and I got to see quite a few of its games, including Mega Man 10, Final Fight Double Impact, Super Street Fighter 4, Lost Planet 2, Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth and Monster Hunter Tri. For more information about Capcom games, visit www.capcom.com/us/.

The beat-’em up (or “brawler”) genre was one of the mainstays of the arcade and early consoles back in the late ’80s and early ’90s. The genre is rather basic. You controlled a character moving from one side of the screen to the other as you beat your opponents senseless. It was fun for awhile, but I found it to be repetitive. You always go the exact same way, fighting the same opponents with different colorings and pretty much using the same tactics. And do you want a story to go with it? Forget it, because it isn’t and wasn’t going to happen or magically appear. Atlus and its crew recently decided to show the world that beating the living daylights out of people is not dead. Welcome to the fictional world of Kenka Bancho: Badass Rumble. And it’s a pretty darn good game.

I don’t mind the occasional casual game here and there. Sometimes, I just need to relax and cool off from mashing combos or firing headshots. And what better way to cool off than guiding some water through pipes? Droplitz proves itself to be quite refreshing in more ways than one.

I hate Tetris. There. I said it. And every ounce of that statement is true. I do not understand how arranging blocks of four is fun. It quickly becomes boring to me. After five minutes, I fall asleep. However, I have been playing a new puzzle game lately that doesn’t bore me at all: Droplitz.

Joining the growing ranks of role-playing puzzle games, Konami’s Puzzle Chronicles looks like it will be a good fit for anyone who was a fan of Puzzle Quest or other puzzle RPGs. The demo version I saw was on the Nintendo DS, though it should also ship for PSP and be downloadable for Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and WiiWare.

Space ... it is very big and very easy to fall back on as a setting when making a game. There’s nothing cooler than aliens, spaceships, black holes and blasting things with space lasers. Yes, everything is better when you do it in the uncharted cosmos that is outer space. Well, except for tedious repetitive tasks. Unfortunately, there are plenty of those to be found in Puzzle Quest: Galactrix.

When reviewing a game, I generally like to start with a bit of background to the story, but Burn Zombie Burn! really has no background. Rather, watch any zombie-killing movie, such as Dawn of the Dead or simply understand that “zombie = bad and must die,” and you will have a solid understanding of what you are getting into with this game.

Namco Bandai's Editors Day was held in sunny but still chilly San Francisco on this sunny Spring afternoon. I partook of a few pieces of Hors D'oeuvre and found myself a drink and a seat before the presentation began. Todd Thorson, Director of Marketing, took the stage to tell us that their expectations for Soulcaliber IV in 2008 far exceeded their expectations for number of copies sold, as did their entrants into the more casual Wii gaming market: We Cheer, Wii Active Life ( played with game mat and Wiimote), as well as We Ski.

I have never in my 15+ years of gaming played a game that was as riveting, complex and addictive as Final Fantasy VII. Despite the chibi-avatars and boxy graphics inherent in the visual capabilities of the mid- to late-1990s (The game debuted in 1997 on PC and PS), I was utterly and completely sucked into this world after the first half hour of playing.

The Gran Turismo series inspires devotion among fans like few others, especially in the world of hardcore driving simulators. ‘The Real Driving Simulator’, as it’s called, has become a genuine event for those obsessed with peeling around some of the world’s most exciting tracks in hundreds of the world’s finest cars. As such, Sony and Polyphony Digital seek to wring as much money out of the franchise as possible.

I'm going to come straight out and say it. I hate the title of this game - PowerUp Forever. It just screams mundane at me. But there's this test that simple titles should be able to pass: it's the "duh test?" Unlike a Mass Effect which requires explanation (and mystery) or a Call of Duty which at least tells you what the setting is, but not the gameplay, the simple title tells you everything you need to know about the game in the title. PowerUp Forever pretty much says it all... get those powerups and just keep going and going. The thing is, it was pretty cool.

Anyone who's played a few casual games will have heard of the phenomenon of desktop tower defence — a simple little flash game that has seen millions of man hours lost in a flurry of hastily built ramparts and squeaking enemies. I even introduced it to my office just before Christmas, and an afternoon was lost as yelps of defeat sounded from every PC in the room.

FlOw is an odd — yet strangely compelling — concept. Symptomatic of the kind of creativity that's heralding the PlayStation Store as a haven of addictive smaller games — look at Riff: Everyday Shooter, the ever-expanding PixelJunk stable and LocoRoco et al for more of this — it's a trippy and relaxing journey through, ironically, a pretty brutal process: natural selection.

I was a mall rat when 1942 hit the arcade scene back in 1984, which is to say when I wasn't busy annoying other mall rats, I was in the arcade. I have fond memories of the game, not because it was my favorite - though as I look back now, I did have quite a bit of fun - but because it was one of the few games I was actually any good at. There was also something infinitely cool about the big boss plane flying up underneath you before you took it out - that thing was so out of proportion!

It may be another odd curio to add to the PlayStation Store's list of collectible little masterpieces, but Riff is something else - an addictive chunk of simplistic gaming not seen since Super Stardust HD burst onto the console last year.