I hold a degree in psychology from the University of Chicago, and was certified to teach middle grades math at the age of 21. During my brief teaching career, I worked with students from third grade to eighth grade, both as a professional public school teacher and a private tutor.

To me, the most interesting aspect of this job was that I could give the same problems to a third grader that I could I could give to an eighth grader. The problem and the solution remained the same, but the sophistication of the tools is what varied. A third grader might make a table or draw a picture to arrive at a solution, whereas an eighth grader might use formal algebra.

But the focus was always on problem solving. That’s the important part of math. What are we doing, why are we doing it, and what does it mean? The schools I saw that were succeeding were the ones approaching the material this way. The schools that were failing were focusing on calculations and repetition.

A school with horrible test scores often had students that could do a full sheet of complicated multiplication without calculators faster than kids at rich suburban schools. But if you asked them how many legs thirteen sheep had, they couldn’t tell you. They wouldn’t recognize it as a multiplication problem because for them multiplication problems only existed in rows and columns on white sheets of paper.

So let’s find out how this works for Kids Learn Math. Is it actually teaching anything, or is it just drilling?

Let’s Review

Right off the bat, there is something wrong with the game. It asks you to write your name and birthday in order to create a profile. In lieu of pushing number and letter keys, it tries to recognize your handwriting. It took my several tries to get it to recognize any letter I wrote, and repeatedly failed to see that I was writing the number 8. That should be an easy number to get, one would think.

Thankfully for the actual games, there are onscreen buttons to tap.

The menu navigation is pretty awful as well. When finishing a mini-game, it asks you want to play it again. You think, yes, but I want to try it on medium difficulty. So you say no and you are taken back to the main menu. Then you have to click games from a spinning wheel to open that sub menu. Then you have to click of a tent in the games menu to open that sub menu. Then you have to click on the game to open that sub menu.

I’m just saying, maybe don’t send us all the way back to the beginning.

I have a daughter in fourth grade at a math and science academy. The box says that this game is for grades one through four. Hey, she is still in that range! I gave her the game to try out. I checked on her 15 minutes later and she was playing Mario Kart. “What happened with the math game?” I asked.

“It was fun, I guess. Mostly little kid stuff.”

“How come you’re done so soon?”

“It wouldn’t let me play more.”

“Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?”

So here are two more problems. The game starts out locked. Most of the mini games are locked, and the ones that aren’t are only open to EASY difficulty. A fourth grader who wants to start with an appropriate challenge, cannot.

I don’t know why this is. You have to put your name and birthday in there when you make a profile. That game should be able to use MATH to figure out how old you are and what problems are appropriate. I didn’t trick it. I told the game I was born when Carter was president, but it started me off at the lowest level.

So, big deal. You play through some baby games and unlock stuff that is actually working those math muscles. One problem with that: the main game for KLM is the “career mode”. It is how you unlock all the mini-games. The game only allows you to play it ONCE per day per profile. That is about five to ten minutes of gameplay allowed per day, give or take.

You can play the minigames that you’ve unlocked, but each of those lasts maybe two minutes. If you want to play a bunch in a row, well, you get taken back to the MAIN MENU each time and have to click your way back through all the sub-screens again.

The only way to play the game for a decent amount of time and at an appropriate challenge level is to do a multiplayer mode. There are a few ways to do this: multi-card, single card, and hot seat where you just pass the DS. With the multiplayer, you can actually play several games in a row, and all the difficulties are unlocked from the start. The games are still underwhelming, but so it goes.

You can also do what amounts to practice problems. These are all unlocked from the get-go, with all their difficulties unlocked.

So, for fun, you can have your Nintendo DS ask you to solve 1056 x 89. I find multi-digit multiplication and division much harder to do on a screen than on paper. In fact, why would I be solving these problems at all? The DS is a computer! If I can use a DS I should be able to use a calculator. Calculators are much faster than trying to push tiny touch screen buttons on a handheld device.

Being adept at such calculations is a questionably useful skill. You should have an idea of the scale of these numbers and their product. You should probably know how to do them by hand, but practicing to the point of mastery is a waste of time. We have computers. If I go to any building in America, chances are I can find three devices I can use to solve any multiplication problem.

That the problem here. KLM isn’t really teaching kids things and isn’t really encouraging learning. What it does is it practices skills and enforces things they have already learned. It isn’t going to teach your kids how to multiply, but might make them better at doing it. Most of the mini-games are these weird tangents that you’d get from a substitute teacher’s worksheet package.

The games with potential are pretty underwhelming. There are a few geometry games with things like tangrams style puzzles that are almost engaging. Most of these are the proverbial “swing and a miss”. In particular, a pattern recognition game wherein you are expected to put fruit on a stick. It places three sticks next to each other, each with a few pieces of fruit on them. Each stick usually has a different pattern, and sometimes have as few as two pieces of fruit on them. Two data points is not enough to recognize a pattern, especially when juxtaposed with two contradictory patterns.

Most of the mini-games aren’t even this engaging, however. One of these mini-games might want you to circle the fish that has a multiple of 4 on it, or throw a dart at a balloon with a number on it and then subtract that number from 100.

Why?

There is no context. There is no practical application. There is nothing to grab onto and see how everything around us is math.

It’s just numbers on the side of fish.

Short Attention Span Summary
This game will not teach your kids math. It is a practice of math skills. It’s the electronic version of those awful mimeographed math worksheets with addition problems written inside balloons. Beginning levels are too easy for a fourth grader, but too difficult for a first grader without strong reading and math skills. Basically, it would be useful for a mom to give her homeschooled kid as a math supplement on days where she is busy with her Etsy business or whatever it is those homeschool people do.
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Let’s Review
I think the best way to introduce this game is with the beautiful poetry of the Monster High theme song, which also opens Monster High Skultimate Roller Maze:

“Monster, Monster High, Monster High, Monster, Monster High. C’mon don’t be shy, Monster High, the party never dies.”

Leonard Cohen wishes he wrote that!

1. Story

So, the story of MHSRM is that they decided to release a tie-in game to a cartoon special used to advertise toys, even though the special hasn’t aired yet.

No, wait. I mean to say that the story of the game is that years ago a room full of people decided that the only thing wrong with Bratz dolls is that none of them had a Dracula for a dad.

No, wait. . . The story here is that the monstrous kids of classic monsters decide to have a roller skating race for some reason. I don’t think anything is on the line. There don’t seem to be any bad guys or good guys. There aren’t even any mazes despite what it says in the title.

So the story is that some stuff happens.

2. Graphics

This is a $30 Wii game. It looks like that thing. It’s perfectly adequate, but a few sections of track are dark and make it hard to distinguish what is road and what isn’t.

3. Sound

We get the delightfully awful Monster High theme song during the opening credits and some thoroughly forgettable racing music during the races.

The characters speak to each other a bit during the races, but nothing major. Basically, it is the “oh no!”s and “yes”s of Mario Kart. They seem to sound like their cartoon counterparts, though, and that is always a plus.

4. Control and Gameplay

MHSRM plays liked dumbed down Mario Kart. It is a series of short races with item boxes to attack your rivals. You can play it with just the Wiimote or with the Wiimote and Nunchuk. I always chose the latter, because the former makes your steer by turning the controller like a key. I’m not brave enough to do that thing.

Holding down B propels your skater. Pushing A uses an item that you ran over. Pressing C uses your special power, provided your meter is full. You can charge your special power by collecting coins. It would be nice if the instruction manual mentioned this thing.

The controls of the game are perfectly acceptable. The gameplay is where it is lacking. For one thing, it seems like there should be a lot more game, but we’ll get to that later.

Here’s the deal: Races are competed as teams of three. You have to compete as a team of three no matter what you choose (with only one exception that I found). The only difference is that in Race mode you have to switch skaters a few times during each lap of a three lap race. In Relay mode, each character races one lap of a three lap race.

Did I mention that races are always three laps?

Race mode also makes you compete on the same tracks in the same order each time. The Easy mode (called CREEPY or something like that) offers you track A, then B, then C, then D. The Normal mode (called something slightly sillier than CREEPY) makes you play track A, then B, then C, then D, then E. The Hard mode (called something noticeably sillier than CREEPY) makes you play track A, then B, then C, then D, then E, then F.

Don’t like Track A?

Tough.

Because, you know what? It is the only track unlocked at the start of the game for time trials and quick race. Also, there are only six skaters unlocked at the start of the game (and, as you remember, you have to pick half of them).

All in all, after tediously unlocking everything, there are only twelve skaters in the whole game and six tracks. Every race is a three lap race where you must choose a three skater team. It’s like the game is stubborn and doesn’t want to offer you any choices. It’s like playing GoldenEye at a friend’s house, but he insists on playing Slappers only, one hit kills, in the Facility.

You want to play with pistols in the Bunker? What are you a filthy Commie?

I thought, well at least I can try to race against a human being in multiplayer mode. That’ll mix things up a little bit.

HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAAAAAA!

I was so naive then.

Imagine Mario Kart. Now imagine a fun version of multiplayer for Mario Kart. Racing against your friends and swearing at them? Yes, that’s pretty good.

Deathmatch style, three hit kills sort of thing? Loads of fun.

Coin collection challenge? Whatever floats your boat, compadre.

Multiplayer for this Monster High game? Well, it plays exactly like Race mode, except that each player controls one of the characters on THE SAME GOLDURN TEAM!

Who decided this? Who thought, well competing against friends is fun, BUT NOT AS MUCH FUN AS WATCHING YOUR FRIEND SKATE HALF THE TIME. Or, possible, watching two of your friends skate for 2/3 the time.

Direct competition? No thanks! I’d rather watch helplessly as my friend blows my lead and runs into a wall for 30 straight seconds. I’d rather watch them deplete their skater’s stamina because they aren’t paying attention and don’t switch to my character. Yeah, LOADS OF FUN!

Are you trying to teach kids a lesson about cooperation? Because it ain’t workin’.

5. Replayability

It’s fine for an arcade style racer, but the controls are shallow and there are only six tracks. I would guess that it is maybe a week’s worth of fun. After unlocking everything, I don’t really see what would bring you to play it again.

6. Balance

It’s relatively easy. The challenges lie in things like getting hit by another player’s item without warning and not being able to see the track clearly enough to make a turn cleanly. The latter can be helped through memorization; the former is not going to change. You don’t have a shield, and you can’t block an item with an item. At least, I haven’t been able to do that thing.

7. Originality

It’s dumbed down Mario Kart except that your cart is shaped like a teenage girl whose parents are monsters with liberal dress codes. Why you gotta skate in such short skirts? It is INDECENT!

8. Addictiveness

It’s fine. There is some amount of fun to be had in unlocking new characters, even if those characters are already racing you as opponents.

The too simple controls and lack of options kill any addictiveness.

9. Appeal Factor

My daughter likes Monster High, loves roller derby, and adores Mario Kart. She might not be representative of all nine year olds, but is probably not a huge outlier.

Then again her favorite movies are Temple of Doom, Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, and Kindergarten Cop. Maybe she is a weirdo.

10. Miscellaneous

The Monster High cast of characters is fairly large. There are about two dozen more characters they could have included here. But they didn’t. Plus, the ability to create one’s own character was included in the last Monster High game, but left out of this one.

Some options would have made this game much more enjoyable. The ability to do a race as a single character would have been nice. Head to head multiplayer would have been nice. Being able to choose number of laps would have been nice. A couple more tracks would have been great.

Different versions of the current tracks based on difficulty level could have been cool. Having a few different versions or palette swaps of the skaters would have been nice (these are fashion dolls, after all).

I would have liked the ability to fire items behind me if I were in the lead. The ability to drift or turn in different ways would have been cool. The ability to jump or do tricks could have been cool. If there were some sort of Jet Grind Radio style skating that would have been rad. Or maybe some MONSTER ROLLER DERBY.

Monster High Skultimate Roller Maze needs more game.

Or at the very least, a freakin’ maze.

The Scores
Story: Bad
Graphics: Mediocre
Sound: Mediocre
Control and Gameplay: Mediocre
Replayability: Bad
Balance: Below Average
Originality: Below Average
Addictiveness: Below Average
Appeal Factor: Good
Miscellaneous: Below Average
FINAL SCORE: BELOW AVERAGE GAME

Short Attention Span Summary
This is a good enough game for fans of the franchise, but I would recommend buying it when it is reduced to $9 at Target. It’s not terrible, but there isn’t really enough to do to justify a full price purchase. It feels like less than half a game.
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Satellite’s gone, way up to Mars. Soon it will be filled with talking cars. That’s right, Transformers Prime: The Game is finally here for the Nintendo DS. Finally, I’ll get the chance to play as all my favorite robots: Turbo, Scooter, Small-foot, Cy-Kill, Creepy, Snoop, Wee-Bey, Bird, Stringer, Poot, Stinkum, Chalky, Orko, and Cheetara!

All right, so maybe I haven’t watched more than four minutes of a Transformers cartoon in the last 20 years. I think I might have seen some Beast Wars. (I watched it for a little while; I love to watch things on TV.)

Plus, I saw at least one and a half of those big Michael Bay movies about the robots. That’s got to count for something right? I hate to think that I suffered for nothing.

All in all, I should say that I am an expert in this DS Game based on a cartoon based on a game based on a movie based on an earlier cartoon and comic series designed to sell toys to children.

1. Story
TFPTG certainly sounds like a very specific fetish for people with gender identity issues. However, the story doesn’t take advantage of this, and is about kids and giant robots and stuff. Then again, I’m not 100% sure if one of the kids is male or female; so maybe I’m wrong about this thing.

Anywhoozle, there are some giant robots who can turn into cars that are friends with some kids of appropriately varying ethnicities. The cars also vary appropriately in their makes and models. Everyone is included, even the wily motorcycles.

So these robots are exploring space or a satellite or an asteroid or… something. Then the giant robots fight some other giant robots (who I guess are the bad giant robots), then something explodes, and all good guy giant robots fall to Earth.

The bad guy giant robots were fine with falling from space because they have the common sense to transform into things which can fly. (If I could be anything in the world that flew, I would be a bat.)

Then again, the good guy giant robots seem perfectly okay despite falling for a couple of dozen miles. I think the lady robot might have even called Felix Baumgartner a wussy for all his safety equipment.

Back to the story! So there is a semi-truck is in charge of the good side of robots, even though the other robots’ cars have jobs of higher status. Who would respect a truck more than an ambulance? You’re not going to pull over because a semi has its sirens on. Oh that’s right, he doesn’t even have a siren. The truck, who probably has shiny voluptuous women on his mud-flaps, is named Optical Primus. He likes to punch that evil Megatech robot.

As it turns out, the bad guy robots are the Decepticals and they are bad guys because they want to take over Earth for some reason. Megabus is their leader, despite me beating him up every third level. He’s a giant robot with a team of giant robots. He has a plan to stop the other giant robots from stopping him from taking over the Earth.

That plan? A GIANTER ROBOT.

That’s commitment right there.

I don’t know if this giant-er robot changes into stuff. But due to his size, I would imagine that he turned into the island nation of Madagascar.

That’s part two of Megazord’s plan, though. Part one is kidnapping. His team kidnaps the good guy robots’ pet children and the robot’s robot doctor. (He’s a robot who doctors for robots.)

I guess they want the robot doctor to help fix the really big robot, and if he doesn’t their vicious leader Megaton will do something bad to the kid or kids whom they have kidnapped. I’m not really sure, but I think he threatened to hit the kids with a flower. Every hour! He’s not very good and certainly not very much fun.

2. Graphics
For the most part this game looks great. The animated cut-scenes are really smooth and look like you are watching a cartoon. These cut-scenes are great, except that sometimes they’re not.

Other scenes are done in more of a comic book style, where everybody stands still as the dialog is played, and it cuts to another frame every couple of lines. It’s kinda like watching those old golden book VHS tapes.

The in-game scenes are also a mixed bag. The characters have a nice design, and it is easy to tell one thing from the next. The downside is that the camera is a nightmare. Camera angles are inconvenient at best. At worst it’s: oh heavenly father, what can I do? What’s she’s done to me is making me crazy!

3. Sound
Who’s that on the other end talking? Jeffrey Combs and Peter Cullen! The voice actors from the show are here, and the dialog is done well.

The lines are all read admirably, but the script manages to drag and be muddled. That’s not a problem with the sound so much as the script, though.

My only gripe with the audio is that there is too much of the transformer noise. You know that EhOOOEh-Eht-Eht. Too much of that, and it always sounds the same. You think turning into a robot spider might sound different from turning into a 1975 Buick Skylark, but here we are.

4. Control and Gameplay
The gameplay is functional, but bland. It’s a lot of hang back and shoot, autolock and punch, press these buttons for a combo.

There are quite a few nice touches. The different robots vary in their fighting abilities. Bumbly Bee shoots really quickly and is quite useful. Optimist Prime is slower but packs a bigger wallop. Each giant robot has its own feel, despite having the same button configuration. This is a good thing.

It would be nice if you were given the option of choosing the robot you want to use for each level, but keeping a cohesive storyline would prove more difficult if you had the motorcycle lady fight Megaman instead of having her fight the spider-helicopter.

(I think the spider-helicopter and the motorcycle are mortal enemies because they are both lady-robots. Lady robots are notoriously catty to one another. Robo-witches be crazy.)

Anywho, the main problems with gameplay are bad camera angles and lousy AI. Enemies who can fire projectiles, usually won’t. If they do, they will occasionally fire into a wall right in front of them. Generally, it seems like they trained at the Stormtrooper academy of aiming.

Basically, a good number of enemies can be defeated by staying back a bit and shooting them over and over. The only downside to this strategy is that the charged shot option isn’t accurate from any distance, even with target locking. Thus, it takes a long time to clear the screen.

Melee fighting is a mixed bag. More notable enemies can launch into long combos where you feel more or less a helpless victim. Perhaps the most useful attack in the game comes from hitting the melee button while in vehicle mode. The attack seems to hurt everybody around, whether or not it looks like it hits them. The attack is so powerful that it momentarily freezes the DS screen. It is a little awkward to turn into a car before punching something, but so it goes.

The vehicle controls can be quite frustrating. Having buttons mapped for punching, shooting, jumping, transforming, aiming and a shield means that there are no buttons left for GAS and BRAKE. As such, it can be hard to get the cars where you want them to go. Most of the vehicle levels seem to recognize this thing and are remarkably easy and straightforward.

However, the robot doctor has an escape level where platform jumping is required. Various switches whose effects don’t last means that time is limited in several sections. All this adds up to one nightmare scenario: you have to platform jump as a car. 3D platform jumping with lousy camera angles and subpar driving controls, well, if that isn’t a ring of hell then it is located near the outskirts of Hades.

Falling lowers health, so if you do it too much you die. Then, you have to start at the beginning of level and repeat any annoying sections over again. It is especially annoying that my first round of car jumping was more successful than the second and third times through the level. Oh, please, Saint Germaine I have come this way! Do you remember the shape I was in? I made these jumps before as an ambulance! Cut me some slack.

5. Replayability
You can replay a level once you’ve beaten it. It would be nice if you could replay the levels as a different character, or if they had varying degrees of difficulty.

But no.

As such, the main source of replayability would come from wanting to achieve a higher grade. You are scored after each level. If you get a C the first time around, you might want to try to get a B or A or S. I assume S is the highest score. For years I tried to get an S in school, but only managed to achieve several A+s and three A++s. What is your secret S? Must I finish the spelling test more quickly?

6. Balance
I don’t feel like I’ve gotten any better at this game since the first time I played it. The shooting and the brawling are fairly standard and not much of a challenge. The driving portions are slightly challenging, but for the wrong reasons. The driving/platforming bits are ridiculously challenging, and make me wish I could just let the robot doctor finish fixing that really big robot.

7. Originality
This game plays like a lot of N64 games. It’s this 3D brawler with combos, a few special moves, a driving portion which is mediocre at best, a frustrating camera and a story that is all over the place.

8. Addictiveness
Frankly, the game isn’t as much fun as drinking sangria in the park, feeding animals at the zoo, or seeing a movie.

There are a lot worse ways to spend your time, but I certainly didn’t find it addictive.

But I am old and curmudgeonly.

9. Appeal Factor
These Transformers are so appealing that they have had three massively successful films. Three box office smashes without a single coherent narrative or interesting scene. Underestimate the appeal of these talking cars at your own peril!

These Transformers will be hangin’ round for a long time even if I gave them up years ago.

10. Miscellaneous
Playing through the first several levels of this game caused severe pain in my thumbs. Perhaps it is just me getting old. Still, I would like to blame this game for making me old.

Thanks a lot Transformers, now I am old!

The Scores
Story: Mediocre
Graphics: Great
Sound: Great
Control and Gameplay: Mediocre
Replayability: Poor
Balance: Poor
Originality: Poor
Addictiveness: Poor
Appeal Factor: Incredible
Miscellaneous: Bad
FINAL SCORE: DECENT GAME

Short Attention Span Summary
There is enough here for fans of the cartoon to enjoy, at least for a couple of hours. Non-fans don’t really have a compelling reason to play the game unless they want to test their skills in the realm of platform jumping as a sentient car.

Goodnight Ladies.
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Personally, Zuma’s Revenge! probably wouldn’t be the first thing I’d want to call a video game. That is unless, of course, the game is meant to be played on the toilet after drinking the water in Mexico.

I guess I don’t see any reason why this game couldn’t be played on the toilet.

1. Story

Zumba’s Revenge tells the heart-rending tale of lifelong jazzercise aficionado Jessica Mortensen who, on one fateful night, was struck and killed by a van full of marijuana -addicted teenagers. She is resurrected by her rodeo clown brother using dark carnie secrets. Now she must take revenge on those who’ve done her wrong, dance-fighting the pot-smokers to death with a little Latin flare!

What’s that? No B? You sure?

Drat.

In Zuma’s Revenge! you play as a frog who is in some sort of Hatfield-McCoy blood feud with strange guys in tiki masks. Some sources call them tiki gods. My standard for what gets called a god is somewhat higher than a dude who spends all his free time battling frogs.

All I know is that there are a bunch of beads that come from somewhere and get pushed along a string. You get rid of the beads by matching three (novel concept there) and you die if the beads reach a skull. I’m not really sure why the frog is bothering these tiki guys. I’m not really sure if the gods are crazy of if the frog is a jerk. I’m also not really sure if any of them are Zuma, or why they solve all their problems with combative bracelet making.

2. Graphics

Everything here looks fine. The game looks nicer on the DS than it does on this review’s pictures. All you really need to do here is animate circles, so there isn’t too much to screw up.

It is worth noting that the different power ups have a distinct look to them and that really helps to avoid confusion.

All in all, Zuma’s Revenge has better than adequate graphics. (I expect that review quote to be on the box.)

3. Sound

Gosh. . . um. . . This is perfectly acceptable puzzle music. Pretty good, I guess. I wouldn’t expect anybody to be humming the theme song the next day at work, but I know people with songs from Tetris on their iPods.

4. Control and Gameplay

The stylus here works really well. At first, I didn’t read the directions and was sliding it across the frog to shoot the beads at the other beads, but you really just have to touch the screen where you want to shoot and the frog will shoot there.

The game handles wonderfully, and is designed well. It is easy to tell power-ups apart, it is easy to switch which bead you’d like to fire, and it is easy to slide your frog during the boss battles.

The only problem I encountered with the controls was during the boss battles. During these, you have to avoid projectiles from the tiki men while still playing the bead game in order to clear the beads in order to have open space to shoot the beads at the tiki boss. You move the frog by dragging him around with the stylus. This thing is easy to do. However, touching the frog with the stylus also changes which bead the frog is going to shoot next. During the heat of battle, it is easy to shoot the wrong ball. The option of moving the frog with the d-pad would have completely eliminated this problem.

In addition to the storyline “adventure” mode, there is also a Challenge mode where you can unlock crowns for fast completion, an Iron Frog gauntlet style mode, and the Daily Dungeon.

The Daily Dungeon is weird. You spin a slot machine and are treated to an Astro level a Blitz Level and a Boss Battle. For each day that you spin it, these levels are different. The Blitz level is just a minute long high-score fest. The Boss part just lets you replay a boss fight (provided you have already beaten Adventure mode.) Astro is fantastic, though. It’s the same game as every other mode, except in SPACE! You can’t see the path that the beads are taking which affects gameplay somewhat.

But more importantly, the frog is in a spacesuit.

Jason X and NewsRadio have already proven that everything is better in space, and Space Frogs would not be an exception.

5. Replayability

There are 60 levels in adventure mode, 70 levels in challenge mode, a frog gauntlet called Iron Frog, the weirdo Daily Dungeon feature, and the desires for top scores.

All in all, there is a better than decent amount of replayability, here.

6. Balance

The learning curve of this game is smooth. I went from not knowing what I was doing to developing strategies over the course of playing the first ten levels.

7. Originality

Zuma’s Revenge! is a port of a PC game. As the title implies, that game was a sequel to Zuma. Zuma is, more or less, one of the many clones of a game called Puzz Loop.

So, it is pretty original unless you’re already played a different version of Zuma’s Revenge, Zuma, Zuma Deluxe, Puzz Loop, Puzz Loop‘s port called Ballistic, its sequel Puzz Loop 2, its remake Magnetica, any one of the Luxor games, Tumblebugs, The WiiWare game Potpourrii, Butterfly Escape, or. . .

Wait a second. . . For a game where a frog fights tiki men, Zuma’s Revenge isn’t very original.

8. Addictiveness

Zuma’s Revenge is a game that I don’t really want to stop playing as I’m playing it. It’s also a game that I have no desire to play again once I’ve stopped. It’s kinda like how my daughter takes a bath. She never wants to get in, but I can’t get her out in under an hour.

9. Appeal Factor

These casual puzzle games seem to have their market. I don’t really care for them myself, but a lot of people do.

Still, this seems like the sort of thing you’d want to play on your phone. It doesn’t provide a compelling reason for dragging around the DS.

10. Miscellaneous

The game box comes with a handsome slip-cover.

The Scores
Story: Decent
Graphics: Enjoyable
Sound: Enjoyable
Control and Gameplay: Very Good
Replayability: Above Average
Balance: Classic
Originality: Worthless
Addictiveness: Decent
Appeal Factor: Good
Miscellaneous: Decent
FINAL SCORE: ABOVE AVERAGE GAME

Short Attention Span Summary

Sadly, Zuma’s Revenge does not feature a proper follow-up to the classic Cortez the Killer. In fact, one would not find any memorable guitar solos here. It also contains no Tales of a Sexual Gladiator.

So, really, what is the point?
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Except for today.

We won’t be doing that today.

Feel free to suggest a future discussion topic by emailing WBXylo@gmail.com, subject: H-TKO! .

Topic #8: What do you get if you multiply six by nine?

Cheat Sheet!

Today we will be giving out the correct answers to the last seven discussion topics here at Hi-Technical Knockout!

1.Sometimes in feet the second toe is longer than the big toe.

Is this a problem?

No. Of course not. The final boss of the greatest video game of all time is less challenging than the penultimate boss. Therefore, this cannot be a problem.

QED

2. Everybody is familiar with the story of the perfect man who came from heaven, was raised by a humble Earth family and did only good.

And while you are at it pitch me a better one.

These games suck because the developers of these games are not Superman fans. At least not in such a way that they understand the core of the character. Superman’s greatest ability is the ability to inspire others to do good.

These complaints are for pussies. All-Star Superman makes Superman more powerful, puts him with a bunch of characters with similar powers, makes him unquestionably noble, and can be related to easily. It could inspire a rad game and frankly, you could do any number of good Superman video games. You could do crazy Silver Age stories, you could make it about saving your friends from trouble, you could make it about keeping Jimmy Olsen out of trouble, etc. etc.

3. I assumed after seeing them together in a sports mini-game collection and a party fighting game, that we would see Mario and Sonic together in an rad 2-D platformer.

Are the platforming adventures of Mario and Sonic incompatible?

Here’s what you do. You introduce some sort of Marvel vs. DC Access type character. You have a Mario level that plays like a Mario level. Than you play a Sonic level that plays like a Sonic level. Then you mix things up and struggle with Mario in a Sonic level and Sonic in a Mario level.

Eventually, you fight in an amalgam world with chaos emeralds and tanooki suits. Goomba in Robot suits! You fight Bowser, you fight Robotnik, then you fight a Bowser-Robotnic Hybrid. Tails and Luigi get drunk together in the Sidekicks Lounge. Call me Nintendo!

4. New and exciting fighting games don’t seem to exist anymore. We only get sequels of a franchise or mash-ups of two or more franchises.

Or am I way off base?

Fighting games are dead until we have holodeck technology. Deal.

5. Which are worse, Movies based on Video Games or Video Games based on Movies?
Support your argument with specific examples.

Video Games based on Movies are worse than movies based on games. Easy peasy.

But Goldeneye, based on a terrible movie, is among the best games I’ve ever played.

Alone in the Dark may be a terrible movie, but I’ve seen much worse. Bad movies get released all the time.

Some games are so bad that they only get released because of a connection to a movie tricking people into buying them. It is easier to release a bad movie than a bad game.

6. Super-heroes get all the games. Nuts to that. I want to be a super-villain.

Which comic book super-villain would make for the best video game?

Bullseye. Bullseye would make the best GTA clone around. Not only is he an amoral assassin with ties to Daredevil, Punisher, Kingpin, Elektra, The Green Goblin, and any number of Marvel characters, he also happens to be able to turn ANYTHING into a weapon.

The world would be your oyster.

7. Most protagonists in video games have interesting jobs. Lara Croft is an archeologist, Master Chief is a space marine, Ryu Hayabusa is a ninja, this sort of thing. It’s rare that we see a protagonist with a more realistic, boring job, like Mario the plumber or Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist. Pitch me a protagonist with a boring job and make their game exciting.

The question fails to realize the success of DINER DASH style games, which basically take a mundane job, present it as is, and deliver a game that is like crack cocaine to a large segment of the population.

Therefore, the mundane job that we need to be able to play in a video game is that of Earth Elemental.

Stay tuned next week for your regularly scheduled Hi-Technical Knockout!
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http://diehardgamefan.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/KNOCK1.jpg

Today’s discussion topic was brought to us by Mark-B-Gone. Did you know that you too can suggest discussion topics to H-TKO?

It’s true!

Feel free to suggest a future discussion topic by emailing WBXylo@gmail.com, subject: H-TKO! .

Topic #7: Video-Game Vocations

Most protagonists in video games have interesting jobs. Lara Croft is an archeologist, Master Chief is a space marine, Ryu Hayabusa is a ninja, this sort of thing. It’s rare that we see a protagonist with a more realistic, boring job, like Mario the plumber or Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist. Pitch me a protagonist with a boring job and make their game exciting.

Our first contestant on Hi-Technical Knockout is Robert Capra. Robert Capra is half-goat and half-man. He was recently approached by MTV to host the show, “Hey, remember the 00s?” He had to turn them down due to a scheduling conflict, payment disagreement, and due to both parties being fictional.

He is coming off a victory in last week’s Villain Challenge.

Jobs? What are… oh the things-that-buy-video-games. Yes, I’m familiar with the concept. Unfortunately as a nigh immortal, slightly-mythical creature (I assure you, it’s a birth defect, not a lifestyle choice, regardless of what you may have heard) I am literally rolling in filthy lucre and have no need for one of these “jobs”. However, I have friends who do, so I must draw my inspiration from them.

Karl (not my real name) works pushing boxes at a major chain of superstores. Boring, but that’s pretty much been done by Sokoban and just about any action game in need of a puzzle. Erin (not my real name, but oddly enough, still a guy’s name) works as a lawyer. I’d argue that it’s a boring career, but I’m afraid some of you would have an… “Objection!” (get it? hahahahaha… I referen…ohgodlet’sjustmoveon). Then there’s Phil (probably not my real name) who works in a call center answering calls about stuff. Let’s go with that.

I would call it “Call Center Carnage.” It would be like Die Hard, but in an office building. Terrorists have taken over the building and Phil must use a combination of stealth, office supplies, his trusty fencing foil, and knowledge of metal-working to defeat the bad guys and save the office.

The first level would see Phil using a phone cord with handset attached as a stretchy grappling hook/garrote. He’d use stealth and subterfuge to make his way out of his cubical hell and on to the next floor; choking out guards and stealing office supplies to build makeshift weapons.

You’d progress from floor to fully destructible floor killing terrorists, saving co-workers (or not, I mean, who really cares about co-workers), and gathering implements to create new weapons what for the killing and such.

The weapon designing would be key. Once Phil has a hair dryer, a trash can, and some destroyed office furniture for kindling, he’d be able to create a makeshift forge and craft new weapons. Rapid fire staple guns, yardstick longbow with fountain pen arrows, and just about anything from Office Guns.

As he killed people in brutal, merciless, and pointless fashions (both consecutive and concurrent), Phil would quip endlessly. “I hope you see my… point” *stab in eyeball with pencil*. “I’m sorry, your wait time will be… eternity” *strangles with phone cord*. “Please hold while I notate this case…” *bashes face with keyboard* “Get out! The call is coming from… inside your ass!” *impales with handset*.

Overall, I think Call Center Carnage has a good basis for a franchise. Pointless violence, cheesy dialog, the ability to destroy your workplace and vent your frustrations and inability to rise out of the repetitious cycle of day-in-day out bland workaday drudgery… wait, crap. Did I just recreate Wanted?

No, because bullets can’t curve. That’s just stupid.

(Please note: This hypothetical game in no way represents any kind of real threat, terroristic or otherwise. Please tell the nice men in the van across the street that this was done solely for entertainment purposes, and that I would like my dog returned to me. Thankyou.)

Next up, we have one Guy Desmarais. Guy is the criminal kingpin of South Town, Quebec. Every year he holds a tournament wherein truckers, ninjas, lumberjacks and sexy dames punch each other for his amusement.

Guy. . . Guy. . . I got nothing against Guy.

I have worked in the IT department of many companies, so I know a little bit about how an office works and which jobs are tedious or downright lame. Still, that’s nothing compared to being an intern. Technically, being an intern is not even a real “job” as most interns are not being paid. Worst of all, most of them are made to do anything around the office, no matter how little it has to do with the actual craft they are trying to learn.

With that in mind, I offer you the next game to win DHGF’s “Platformer of the year” award. I call it “Alex the Intern”, because I believe that Alex hasn’t seen enough action as a name since Alex Kidd retired, and because the guy is an intern. Very logical thus far.

Now imagine a 2D platformer, where every stage is built upon a different goal or task that the intern must perform, with the backgrounds and enemies changing accordingly. For example, there can be a simple platforming level about Alex needing to go to Starbucks downtown, which would set the level in the streets. There, he would need to dodge angry taxi drivers, zombie student who walk with their iPods at full volume and thus simply charge at you without looking, and hobos trying to harass you for some change.

Another level could be more of a puzzle-type thing, like in Wario Land. Alex needs to make some photocopies, but he needs the photocopier’s code, and then a key to the room, and he must navigate around the building while dodging various people who try to give him more tasks and low level employees who are jealous of the attention he’s been getting lately and want to see him fail.

How about a level where Alex must race to the post office before it closes down, with a timer counting down at the top right of the screen? The player would need to dodge obstacles like other people trying to make it there in cars or bikes while Alex is simply running. Taking out these enemies would mean more points at the end of the level.

There are many boring tasks that can be made exciting when you turn them into a 2D platformer. Things such as fetching pants from the dry cleaner for your boss in rush hour traffic, or trying to find a decent lunch around the office when you’re only given 15 minutes to eat, or simply trying to get to work in the morning when there are thousands of people trying to push you around in a subway station… it can all be easily translated into a good platforming level with just a little bit of imagination.

Now I need a good 2D artist and a programmer. I will gladly write the game’s story and dialog. WHO’S WITH ME?

Kennedy’s Ruling
I just have to say that I would play the shit out of both of these games. Both seem like good iPhone or downloadable WiiWare/Arcade/whatever style games. Capra’s seems more epic and cohesive, whereas Guy’s is more varied and pick-up-and-play.
*200 points to both contestants.

But neither of them mentioned Zork.
*35 points deducted. (What the hell, guys?)

Capra says you don’t have to save the hostages in his game.
*25.25 points awarded to Capra. I hate saving hostages.

Capra’s game features dry, cool action hero wit!
*27 points awarded to Capra.

Wanted was dumb.
*15 points awarded to Capra. (Rule 73: Mark Millar is an A-hole.)

Guy’s game milks fun from the mundane.
*49 points awarded.

The sequel could be Tammy the Temp!
*5 Points awarded. (It sounds pornographic! Guy has a filthy Quebecois mind.)

It makes me want to play Paperboy. I hate Paperboy.
*12 points deducted.

Robert Capra’s Total Score: 232.25 points

Aaron Glazer’s Total Score: 231 points

Winner: Robert Capra in a squeaker!

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http://diehardgamefan.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/KNOCK1.jpg

Today’s contest will be a comic challenge, or rather a comics challenge. Comics, as many of you know, are combinations of words and pictures juxtaposed in such a way as to tell a story. Very often these stories are about over-people who wear impossibly tight clothes and solve a variety of problems by punching very hard.

Such things, known as “super-hero comics” have been around for over 70 years. Recently, they have developed radical new approaches to the comics medium, such that eight panels worth of story can now take over one year to tell. Also, now one can see a variety of seams in the impossibly tight clothes of the over-people.

Truly this is a remarkable time to be alive.

Feel free to suggest a future discussion topic by emailing WBXylo@gmail.com, subject: H-TKO! .

Topic #6: Video-Game Villainy

Super-heroes get all the games. Nuts to that. I want to be a super-villain.

Which comic book super-villain would make for the best video game?

Our first contestant on Hi-Technical Knockout is Robert Capra. Robert Capra was born in a log cabin in 1809. Mostly self educated, he became a lawyer and skillfully navigated the Trent affair of 1861 preventing the British from officially recognizing the Confederacy.

Despite being a “furrie”, Mr. Capra is not known to “yiff”.

Oh man, geek-brain overload… so many ideas! My go-to guy, Doctor Doom, would make a great Valkyria Chronicles kind of game where he starts as a young, oppressed gypsy and grows to rule Latveria (and the World, obviously). But as great a game as it was, VC had limited commercial appeal. A Mister Sinister game in the Pokemon style could be fun; collecting mutants and making them fight while splicing their DNA together to create new mutants. But I pretty much explored all of that in once sentence, so I think I need something more in-depth. Taskmaster would go well in a God of War style game, killing off his opponents and gaining their skills (For that matter, you could replace him with Amazo (or Ultra-OMAC-No-I’m-Really-Not-Amazo-Because-I-Only-Have-One-Eye-And-A-Head-Fin), MODOK could do well just about anywhere (I see an indy style 2D side-scroller), and Conquest (from Invincible) would be great fun, but repetitive. None of them seem to have that je ne sais quoi that makes for a great game.

I want something with story, something epic. The first idea that comes to mind is Thanos and his quest for the Infinity Gems (re-written by Abnett and Lanning, obviously), but coding the in-game abilities of all the gems would be difficult at best. No, we need someone a bit more down to earth, but with a sprawling story. Which is why I’d have to go with Apocalypse.

You’d start off as a young En Sabah Nur alone in the desert, adopted by nomads and taught that you must be strong to survive (Basically, the tutorial level). You’d continue to gain power in different locations and times and leveling up until discovering the Celestial’s ship. At that point, the game really takes off.

I envision it as taking place in several different eras. Each time period would be a sandbox where you would track down mutants and test (fight) them. If you deemed them worthy, you could turn them into one of your four horsemen, otherwise the punishment would be death. As you gather horsemen, the game would allow you to swap out between characters at any time and play in a squad-like fashion. And if you find a new character you think would make a better horseman, you could have the two fight it out one on one to see who’s stronger.

The ability to choose horsemen would really be the highlight. Think Colossus would make a good War? Go for it. Maybe try and see if you could overpower Magneto to make him Death? Give it a shot. And it wouldn’t stop at just X-Men characters, all of the Marvel Universe would be fair game. Captain America would make a great horseman, and for some reason, I just see Squirrel Girl as making an excellent Famine.

At the end of each era you’d claim part of the globe as yours, slowly building your way up to the full fledged Age of Apocalypse. Because, really, what good is a villain game if you don’t end up ruling the world?

Next up, we have one Aaron Glazer. In the old days, whenever you would want to cover your Aaron in a thin shiny coating, you would take him to an Aaron Glazer. Nowadays, of course, such things aren’t necessary.

I believe his girlfriend lives in Canada.

Being a comic book villain in a video game isn’t a new concept – it is, after all, entirely possible to ignore mission in a Grand Theft Auto series and essentially turn into the Joker on a rampage. Unfortunately, though, most villains are so tied to their heroes, the games would get incredibly tired. Being Doom wouldn’t be right without the Reed Richards obsession (which, in essence, means you get 4-stages, one for each of the Fantastic ones), and the same is true for Lex Luthor, although, admittedly, the business mogul parts of the game and constructing of death traps would be quite fun. Deathstroke the Terminator offers an awful lot of fun hand-to-hand goodness, but is, essentially, light on plot. Magneto so rarely engages in battle as to really end up being a bit of a letdown. So, since solo villains are disappointing for this exercise, how about a team?

The team to be, the team to beat, so to speak, for this game, would be the Dark Avengers. Norman Osborne as both the Green Goblin and Iron Patriot, Ares, Sentry, Bullseye as Hawkeye, Moonstone as Ms. Marvel, Venom as Spider-Man, Daken as Dark Wolverine, and Noh-Varr. The game would give you the opportunity to play through missions with each of these characters, but to end up choosing whether to stick with Norman and his Dark Avengers or to turn and work with the heroes trying to overthrow him. The potential for branching gameplay paths would be immense, as would the different playability options – you have the agile wall crawler Venom, the hack and slashing Daken, the Tank in Sentry, Ares as a mix between the last two, Ms. Marvel as a ranged flier, Hawkeye as a ranged martial artist, and Noh Voarr as a jack of all trades. If you stay evil, you could unlock Iron Patriot/Green Goblin and, as either Nick Fury or Captain America if you choose to become a hero.

The plot practically writes itself. Start off as the villainous Thunderbolts during the Secret Invasion and take out the Skrull Queen to take over, then go on a variety of villainous quests to consolidate power against various heroes from Spider-Man and Wolverine to Daredevil and Hercules. As these levels progress, you could choose to stay or stray with orders, setting up the final battle with the entire Avengers roster and fighting the real or Dark Avengers with your chosen character at the Siege of Asgard.

The story and characters should allow a ton of customization options and a fun, free flowing game, if one that’s more structured than a sandbox game. The villains learning to use their powers the way the heroic counterparts do gives an excellent reason for them to level up and learn new tricks, while the Avengers tag, especially as the movie comes out and the title remains Marvel’s best seller, makes damn sure that this is a quality title that will sell.

Kennedy’s Ruling
I never really cared for Apocalypse, but Capra proposes a game that sounds intriguing. In my mind, it would play like Shining Force: A Legacy of Bad Intentions.
*100 points awarded to Capra.

Glazer’s game sounds a lot like something that would actually get made.
*110 points awarded To Glazer.

But it would turn into a cash grab re-hash of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. The main difference would be that MUA2 was based off of the terrible “Civil War” storyline, whereas this would be based off the terrible “Secret Invasion” and “Siege” storylines.
*50 points deducted from Glazer.

Plus, many of the fans would feel cheated in that they are playing as ersatz Avengers in lieu of the real things.
*37 points awarded. Fuck those guys.

Despite this being about characters from comics, nobody mentions Swamp Thing. Don’t they know that Swamp Thing is rad?
*10 points deducted from both sides.

Capra does propose a Taskmaster game.
*30 points awarded for talking about Taskmaster.

And THANOS!
*15 points awarded for nihilism.

Glazer puts Bullseye in his game. Bullseye was the first character I thought about when I thought up this question.
*42 points awarded.

Capra wants Squirrel Girl to be a horsemen of Apocalypse.
*27 points. This needs to happen.

Robert Capra’s Total Score: 162 points

Aaron Glazer’s Total Score: 122 points

Winner: Robert Capra!

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http://diehardgamefan.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/KNOCK1.jpg

Today’s contest will be an academic dissection, an examination of the profound and life-changing ideas. It will challenge the very notions of self, and what it means to be a man.

In short: we are going to compare two things and decide which sucks harder.

Feel free to suggest a future discussion topic by emailing WBXylo@gmail.com, subject: H-TKO!

Topic #5: Movie Games or Game Movies?

Which are worse, Movies based on Video Games or Video Games based on Movies?

Support your argument with specific examples.

(You know the preceding was a totes serious question because of the Enlightenment style Random Capitalization. Keep track of more random capitalizations in my Closing Arguments. )

Our first contestant on Hi-Technical Knockout is Sean Madson. The name Sean is of Irish and Hebrew descent. Loosely, it means “God is Gracious.” Madson, of course, means “son of a crazy angry dude.” Altogether, this makes the name Sean Madson mean “lunatic Jesus”.

So, let’s see what lunatic Jesus has to say.

Movies based on video games are far, far worse and for three reasons. The first is Uwe Boll. If you don’t know who that is, then I dare you to watch House of the Dead or Alone in the Dark and not claw your eyes and ears out at the horrid cinematography and awful scriptwriting that permeates every facet of that man’s work. Every adaptation that has his name tied to it is doomed from the start and sets film making back about 20 years.

A single director’s work aside, the second reason is that it is still far easier to fit the premise of a film into the context of a video game than vice versa. Take the Nintendo 64 hit Goldeneye for example. It takes the basic plot and locales from the film and manages to craft a damn good first person shooter out of it. All the major characters are there. Many of the iconic scenes were faithfully recreated (though with some creative liberties taken). There’s a tank in there. It’s like Rare had a checklist of all the things that were present in the film and went “Now how can we make this awesome?” Though, it would be more accurate to say that the game is good in spite of the film rather than because of it. After all, the Bond franchise didn’t suddenly make Tomorrow Never Dies an awesome game. Nor is the case with Enter the Matrix. Or Fight Club. Or as cliché as it is to mention, E.T. I guess what I’m getting at is that a film is just a premise in which to build your game upon. All the same rules apply to these games as they do to other games as far as what makes a fun game. Yes, most of them suck. But there are a ton of titles based on Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Indiana Jones that turned out pretty awesome and in some cases, with an added Lego influence.

While a movie isn’t too hard to stretch into a video game (just add henchmen!), it’s much more difficult to cram a storyline that in a lot of cases can be dozens of hours in length into a 90-120 minute film. This leads to my third and final point: Hollywood loves to take too many creative liberties of the absurd variety. I can understand deviating from the original video game’s plot a little bit to give a little something fresh to the fans. But in most cases they veer so far off the path that it’s not even recognizable anymore. Aside from the title, I would like to know: what makes Super Mario Bros. (the film) have any sort of connection to Super Mario Bros. (the games)? Also, why is John Leguizamo, who played Luigi, the main character in that movie? And why do Goombas look like… well, like THAT. Just thinking about it makes my head spin. You know your movie is shit when Bob Hoskins and Dennis Hopper both think it was a complete waste of time (though how they wouldn’t have figured that out after reading the script is beyond me).

Super Mario Bros. isn’t the only guilty party, but probably the most drastic example (along with its buddy, Double Dragon). There are some liberties taken in other franchises that from the outset seem subtle, but change the whole premise entirely. Doom was supposed to be about a Mars base that accidentally releases demons from hell. Instead, we get a zombie infection and a complete waste of time save for one first person sequence that was alarmingly entertaining the first time I saw it. Max Payne had a film noir storyline about a cop whose wife and daughter were murdered and how they all tied into this mysterious drug called Valkyr. And while they did manage to get that part right, they missed out on the primary gimmick of the game: bullet time. They had one scene in the film that used it, and it was pretty lame in execution. Mark Wahlberg’s performance didn’t help matters much, though he was on deck to be cast as Nathan Drake in the Uncharted film. Though it remains to be seen if he’ll stay on with the project now that the director and writer David O. Russell has been removed (the same guy who wanted to also cast Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci as Drake’s father and uncle and make it like the Sopranos). I’ve not played much of, or cared much for the Tomb Raider games, but the second film has a scene where Angelina Jolie PUNCHES A SHARK IN THE FACE and then proceeds to RIDE IT TO THE SURFACE. I’m pretty sure that never happened in the games. Either way, I stopped watching the movie at that point.

Not all hope is lost, however. There have been a few gems over the years, though they are more or less guilty pleasures rather than something I could recommend to the masses. I thought the original Mortal Kombat film was quite enjoyable. Yes, the special effects look like something Syfy channel would cook up, but the film adheres pretty closely to the game’s plot and there are some amusing one liners. I wouldn’t say it’s a breakthrough in cinema, but what would you expect? It’s based on a fighting game where plot took a back seat to dismembering your opponent in kung fu battles fought between movie stars, ninjas, and four armed behemoths. There’s also the big budget release of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time which again is not exactly a showcase of modern movies, but is pretty decent for what it is and follows the basic premise of the game. The Resident Evil movies aren’t too bad either, and this is coming from someone who’s not a fan of the franchise. If you like anime, Halo Legends, Dead Space: Downfall, and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children are pretty good too.

I don’t think films based on video games are forever doomed to suck. I think they are just in a period of growing pains, similar to the way comic book movies were before Hollywood really started taking them seriously. That said, there are some movies with premises based around video games that are pretty damn good, such as eXistenZ, in which Jude Law must protect a programmer of a virtual reality video game from assassins (and you thought comment boards were volatile). Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is actually based on a comic, but has heavy video game references and influences and my favorite movie of 2010. Grandma’s Boy is about a 35-year-old game tester that moves back in with his grandmother and is quite humorous if you’re into the kind of dirty humor the film provides. If none of these tickle your fancy, well don’t fret too much. At least video game movies aren’t in the kind of state that live action films based on anime are in. Death Note turned out okay, but gave you seen Dragonball: Evolution or Speed Racer? How does the prospect of Keanu Reeves in Cowboy Bebop sound to you? Thought so.

Next up, we have one Aaron “why so?” Sirois. If we here at DHGF get in a game where cartoon characters from Japanese TV shows punch each other, there is a good chance that Aaron will have to review it.

Get checked today!

Believe it or not, good games based on movies do happen. Fans of the Nintendo 64 remember with fondness their exploits on Goldeneye, the older generations had games like Batman, Aladdin, The Lion King, and the Super Star Wars games.

Recently, there are a few more I can list off of the top of my head as well. X-Men Origins: Wolverine had plenty for fans to love, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was like Bully at Hogwarts, and the various Lego games have their fans. I myself gave high marks to the DS adaptation of Alice in Wonderland.

Yes. It is true that a vast majority of movie tie-in games are absolute dreck, but good ones do show up from time to time. The same can not be said for movies based off of games.

Think of the best video game movie you can come up with. You’re probably coming up with Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil, or maybe the Prince of Persia movie. Look inside yourself. While these movies might offer some tidbit to movie goers, they can’t really be called anything but mediocre at BEST.

Let’s get more specific. Rottentomatoes has a list of every video game adaptation and ranks them. The highest ranking movie is Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Firstly, I’ll let that disturbing fact sink in. Secondly, I’ll reveal that it scored a grand total of 44%. That still certifies it as “rotten” on their scale. That amounts to a 49 on Metacritic. I’d call that absolute failure. It doesn’t help that the rest of the landscape is populated with Uwe Boll films, Super Mario, Double Dragon, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat Annihilation, and many others.

The only real thing going for the movies is that there are only about thirty of them and there are probably hundreds if not thousands of awful movie games. By the simple law of averages, you’d expect a good one or two to sneak through. That would be the deal breaker for me right there, and I’d be willing to give the movies a pass but for one problem. There still aren’t any good movies. Until they manage to produce something of quality, they take the cake as the worst.

Kennedy’s Ruling
Madson argues that films based on games are worse for three reasons:
1. Uwe Boll, terrible director and friend of DHGF.
2. It is easier to fit the premise of a movie into a game than to fit the premise of a game into a movie.
3. Absurd liberties taken with the intellectual property.
These premises seem strong, but are far from universal. Uwe Boll does not direct all video game movies, and liberties need not be taken with such franchises. Furthermore, many video games have stories that would be perfectly digestible in a 80-100 minute chunk. Free examples: fast hedgehog hates a scientist turning woodland creatures into robots, an elf who can throw a boomerang perfectly every time must defeat a pig-wizard in order to save the world, a dude must punch a bunch of other dudes to save his girlfriend, and hell, the plot of Mortal Kombat is just Enter the Dragon with supernatural elements.

Still ,the argument has its merits.
*60 points awarded.

Aaron argues that Video Game Movies are the worst because there have been good Movie Video Games but no classically “good” Video Game Movies. But I believe him to injure his own point by bringing in the numbers. There are indeed far more Movie based Video Games than vice versa. As such, movie based video games can be expected to occupy spaces farther from the mean on a normal curve, having more extreme extremes in both directions. This allows Aaron to cherry-pick from those some sigmas ahead of the curve (I.e. Goldeneye) and ignore those on the other end (e.g. E.T., Evil Dead, Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game). The smaller sample size of films based off of video games would allow for fewer deviations from that mean.

Still, the argument has its merits.
*60 points awarded.

Madson mentions a hot woman punching a shark in the face and riding it to the surface, and then pretends that it is a bad thing. The only thing that would make that more awesome is if she had a robot buddy that made the shark eat Nazis.
*30 points are deducted. (That’s mad, son!)

Madson pimps existenZ.
*50 points awarded. (Cronenberg’s Rule)

Madson realizes that not all of his points against Video Game Films are universal or immutable, and as such there is always hope for the future.
*38 points awarded. (That’s what I said!)

Sean Madson’s Total Score: 118 points

Aaron gives the example of the Genesis version of Aladdin as a good movie game. To this day, I still bounce apples off of my crelbow because of that game.
*40 points awarded for his fakirs, his cooks, his bakers and birds that warble on key!

Aaron mentions Street Fighter the movie as terrible, but fails to account for how rad Raul Julia is.
*10 points are deducted.

Aaron says that he’d be willing to give Video Game Films the edge in quality if just one of them panned out into something good.
*10 points deducted for flip-flopping. (John Kerry ‘s rule)

Aaron Sirois’s Total Score: 80 Points

Winner: Sean Madson
http://diehardgamefan.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/KNOCK2.jpg
http://diehardgamefan.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/KNOCK1.jpg

Today’s contest will feature fighting about fighting, which makes far more sense than fighting about the art of fighting without fighting while playing the Art of Fighting.

Wait, we might be doing that thing later on. . .

Basically we’re gonna be dancing about architecture.

Feel free to suggest a future discussion topic by emailing H-TKO via WBXylo@gmail.com .

Topic #4: The Mortality of Kombat

New and exciting fighting games don’t seem to exist anymore. We only get sequels of a franchise or mash-ups of two or more franchises.

Is the genre stuck on a nostalgia loop, and if so, how can we stop it?

Or am I way off base?

First addressing this issue is Mark B Natural. In addition to reviewing dozens of games here at DieHard GameFAN, Mark writes the irregularly scheduled column, Playing the Lame with the help of a troop of bonobos. These majestic primates are named Lemmy, Hunter and Terra. Everyday, at noon, the four of them eat waffles and grapefruit.

But enough about Marky Mark and his monkey brunch.

The short answer is “You’re somewhat off base”.

But we’re here for the long answer, so let us press on.

Insofar as “true” fighting games go, aside from the people making the Dragonball Z games, American developers have mostly abandoned the fighting game genre, and that’s largely for the best; while games like Def Jam: Fight for New York and Mortal Kombat are perfectly fine, Def Jam Icon and Tao Feng are… not so much. American developers seem to have embraced MMA as the “new” fighting game genre, so to say, and they’re doing fine with it for the most part. Says I, they can have it, as I’m not a fan (of the games) and never will be; if I want to enjoy MMA, I’ll watch an actual fight, not spam the A button for an hour to try and make Frank Mir tap out.

Though I will note I’m vaguely curious about Skullgirls.

“True” fighting games are more of a thing in Japan, and they’re basically going in two directions. The first direction is more conventional, which is what we see stateside in big numbers; everyone can appreciate Street Fighter IV or Tekken 6 or whatever. That’s fine. Occasionally, we see a new franchise, like BlazBlue or Fate/Unlimited Codes make its way over here, but it’s mostly the same old shit, because that’s what people pay attention to.

The second direction is, well, the experimental stuff.

I’ve mentioned Battle Construction Vehicles a few times, here and there, but it bears mentioning once again, for the standard reason: it’s a fighting game where bulldozers and backhoes fight to the death. I’d, uh, say that’s pretty new and exciting. Japan also gets stuff like Spectral vs. Generation, a fighting game based around two franchises fighting each other which is novel because the franchises are RPG’s, and like Melty Blood, a fast-paced 2D fighting game featuring characters from erotic manga (yup) that’s astonishingly high quality and well developed. Hell, we’ve even seen some of Japan’s more crazy efforts, like Wartech: Senko no Ronde on 360, which is seriously a fighting game/shooter hybrid, I kid you not, and Arcana Heart, which is basically Sailor Moon made into a playable fighting game.

That said, these games are, well, weird and experimental. Ubisoft likely made dirt on Wartech and I suspect both Atlus and Aksys have been burned on Arcana Heart at this point, and who in the hell would release a game about fighting construction vehicles in the US? It also doesn’t help that some of these games are… unpleasant in some respects, so it’s hard to rope players in when the more mainstream reviewers shit all over your product. As such, yeah, we’ll basically keep getting the same cookie-cutter games every year, and they’ll generally be fine and mostly inoffensive all in all, while Japan keeps getting the weird stuff to themselves unless you like importing.

Though you’re welcome to come over and play BCV if you want. Can’t promise you’ll like it, but, y’know.

Warning: A new challenger is approaching!

That’s gotta be, that’s gotta be KANE! No wait, it is James Hatton! Hatton is the former host of Inside Pulse’s longest running podcast, the Rabblecast and a beloved pervert of the New Jersey region.

Resisting. . . Urge. . . To . . . Explain . . . Joke.

Are fighting games relegated to the status of nostalgia and sequels? Sadly, with the video gaming industry the way it is, you could say that about almost any genre. A look at the upcoming releases shows that well over half are either sequels or licensed titles and there is one obvious reason behind that: Money. If you want innovation, find the random lucky title that the big producers try to throw out there, or go indy.

The truth is that fighting games probably do see the worst of this since independent game producers aren’t really working on fighting games. Not to mention, fighters were the game du jour (along with rhythm/dance gaming) during the last golden age of the coin-op era. The death of arcades conversation has been done to death at this point though, so why don’t we focus on just the innovation aspect.

I’ll be the guy to say it: FIGHTING GAMES ARE BORING NOW! Arbitrary buttons connected to moves with arbitrary combinations being connected to “special” moves, and mystery button combos being linked to “finishing” moves has all been played, replayed, and speared through the chest while screaming “GET OVER HERE!” again and again. It’s utterly played out.

We, as gamers, have matured and evolved. During the halcyon dreamy days of fighters, there was hundreds of games to choose from that tried to offer new things around every corner. The creamy and delicious Street Fighters and Souledge/Caliburs rose to the top. The clunky and less fun Pit Fighters and Primal Rages sunk to the depths. People decided the winners of the era, and so they decided the gameplay and characters that stuck. Ryu will always shoot a fireball by doing some variant of quarter circle forward. Fifteen years ago, you could have fifty games with fifty heroes with fifty quarter circle forward fireballs. Now? The reviewers would scream, “FOUL.. SEEN IT!”, the gamers would groan at how boringly simple it was, and they would both be right. Fifteen years ago you could get away with it, but not anymore.

So are fighting games dead, but for the countless rehashes of Ken, Liu Kang, Mario, Marvel/DC heroes, and the very occasional random frenetic import like BlazBlue? Yep. Dead as disco with the exception of the few hardcore fans that will never leave.** The saving grace of these games is that you stick because of nostalgia. Quarter Circle Punch feels good when you make Ryu do it. Hearing Scorpion scream reminds you of your childhood. If you plugged these exact same mechanics into an entirely different looking game, you probably would find it a smidge boring.

Is there a chance for these sorts of fighters to come back with characters that will amaze and impress us again? Yes, but it is going to take something new and special for us to not feel like we are just retreading the same brutally similar ground. Maybe it is in the KINECT or MOVE or whatever they evolve into, but it isn’t now.

** – Don’t take offense, I still love text adventures, there’s nothing wrong with an out of date obsession.

Kennedy’s Ruling
Both combatants offered me some hope for the future of fighting games.

*100 points awarded.

Both also mentioned BlazBlue. This makes me think of Owen Hart. . .
*10 points awarded.

. . . And his tragic death.
*10 points deducted.

Man it’s been 12 years, almost to the day, since Owen died. I’m fucking old.
*20 points deducted.

Soon I will be dead. And here I am, wasting my life writing about video games. This is so depressing.
*10 points deducted.

Well, at least I’m not wasting any time in church. Video games never tell you that you’re a bad person.
*20 points awarded.

. . . Except for that Cookie Mama. Why is she so mean?
*10 points deducted.

Mark made me google Skullgirls. It looks completely nuts.
*35 points awarded.

Mark mentioned Sailor Moon and “erotic manga” in the same paragraph.
*38 points awarded for boom anime babes that make me think the wrong thing.

Mark B invited me over to his house.
*30 points are deducted for bribery.

Mark B’s Total Score: 123 points

Hatton talks trash about Primal Rage.
*27 points awarded (Golden Shower Rule).

Hatton mentions using the Kinect for fighting games, but did not incorporate my idea of using the x-box controller as a rudimentary flail.
*35 points awarded (Insurance purposes).

I hate mystery button combos. Stupid Killler Instinct.
*20 points awarded.

Hatton makes a laundry list of games and characters but makes no mention of Fighters Megamix or Eternal Champions, my favorite 3d and 2d fighters, respectively.
*30 points deducted for lack of bribery.

Hatton’s Total Score: 132 Points

Winner: James Hatton (It’s an upset!)

http://diehardgamefan.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/KNOCK2.jpg
http://diehardgamefan.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/KNOCK1.jpg

Wait. . . I’m confusing my column with talking vehicle vehicle, Knight Rider. . . AGAIN.

This column is about two Diehard GameFAN staffers battling in a contest of wits and contains significantly less Hasselhoff.

You’re welcome.

Feel free to suggest discussion topics to WBXylo@gmail.com

Topic #3: Of Hedgehogs, and Plumbers

I assumed after seeing them together in a sports mini-game collection and a party fighting game, that we would see Mario and Sonic together in an rad 2-D platformer.

I’m still waiting.

What the hell, guys?

Are the platforming adventures of Mario and Sonic incompatible?

First addressing this issue is Guy Desmarais. Because he is Quebecois, we know that he speaks French, fights beavers, is a badass hockey-playing lumberjack and pronounces his name is such a way that the nickname “cream of some young Guy” only works somewhat.

There is just no way to put Mario and Sonic in the same platforming world without breaking the basic gameplay of either series. Sure, they could coexist in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but that was a game that thrived on having different style of characters in order to see which one reigned supreme. This is great for a fighting game, but when it comes to platformers, this is a terrible idea. No matter which approach is taken, it is bound to fail. In order to crush everybody’s hopes before they could get any higher, I have decided to list every horrible way such a game could turn out.

The first one would obviously be a hybrid of the two franchises. Now what exactly defines these two franchises? Kennedy specifically asked for a 2D game. In this case, Mario is all about timing, jumps and power-ups. Sonic is about going very fast while dodging enemies and collecting rings. A hybrid of these styles would mean that we would get a fast paced game where tricky jumps need to be executed at high speed? Would we see typical Mario stages with loops and trampolines tacked on? Would Sonic get to try a power flower? Even worse, would we simply get a slightly faster Mario game, or a slightly slower Sonic game? No matter which way you spin it, a hybrid of the two would end up disappointing everybody because the only way to do it would be to dilute the spirit of both games. Focusing on the forces of each franchise would simply turn the whole thing into an unpalatable mix because Sonic’s and Mario’s strengths are direct opposite. How can you be precise on a jump if you’re going too fast? This incompatibility means that we would have to throw one of the two characters as a guest star in the other’s world.

Let’s start with Sonic visiting Mario’s world. If we want to include the hedgehog without breaking its original design, it means he needs to run on coins and lose them when he gets hit. So far so good. However, it means that he needs to speed through levels, which is highly improbable because Nintendo has always designed Mario levels around obstacles. Sonic would have to stop every second or so to dodge a pipe that is in the way, or a series of blocks forming a wall, or lava pit. The other problem is that coins are much more present in Sonic’s world than coins are in Mario’s world, mostly because Mario gains an extra life for every 100 coins. In order to sustain Sonic, the game would need to include way more of the currency than usual, which would get us an insane amount of extra lives, which would in turn make the game ridiculously easy. To balance this, I guess we would need to make this one of the hardest Mario games in history. How does Nintendo make games harder for Mario? That’s right, they add more speed-stopping obstacles, which brings us back to an earlier problem.

Let’s try with Mario being dumped in Sonic’s world. Sonic relies on speed and agility to make his way around loops, trampolines and hills. Mario simply does not run as fast, and his speed would need to be increased significantly in order to make him fit. Mario also defeats enemies by jumping on top of them, something which takes away rings in Sonic games. If you take away that power, all Mario is left with is his power-ups, of which there are none in Sonic’s world. If you add them, it breaks the original gameplay, so this is a big no-no in this scenario. The only thing we are left with then is a fat plumber with a mustache who can’t run fast enough to get around a loop, and who cannot really navigate around terrain all that well. Quite simply, this game would suck.

As you can see, there’s no way to incorporate any of the characters in the other’s world without changing something about the basic gameplay of each. The flash game Super Mario Crossover has shown with many other characters that it is very hard to incorporate characters from other franchises in a new world without making things either incredibly easy or incredibly tough. Sure, a game like that is fun for a laugh, and it mainly works because of the nostalgia factor. However, the fact remains that such a game, objectively, wouldn’t be very good.

So I’m sorry Kennedy, but such a game is not coming. You’ll have to keep pitting Mario against Sonic in a fight or in a swimming competition.

Next up, we have Matt Yaeger. Matt Yaeger was born with two hands and to this day has that same number. Matt sometimes wears blue shirts and I once heard a rumor that he “˜bombs and skanks.”

Matt Yaeger is a valued member of the DHGF due to his near complete immunity to Bieber fever, a virulent pathogen that has in recent months claimed the lives of three staffers.

“Are the platforming adventures of Mario and Sonic incompatible?”

Short answer? Yes. They aren’t compatible.

Long answer? I know this will piss some people off (and I may have to hide from Bebito) but Sonic the Hedgehog sucks, and while watching folks kick a dead horse is sometimes funny, watching SEGA flog the corpse of their ages old mascot is just sort of sad at this point. The only thing sadder than that is watching the fans of the blue hedgehog get violently angry about what color his eyes are.

Sonic is that guy who was cool in grade school who still acts the same way as an adult and thinks he is still cool.

Mario is like a piece of pizza. Even the next day when it is cold it still tastes good. Different, but good. Sonic is like a glass of milk that is sour after awhile. Sure you could drink it but you’d feel gross after. A meal of cold pizza and sour milk is a terrible meal.

Aside from terrible analogies, I have some actual reasons as well. Mario is about figuring a way to make it across a level though jumping and different abilities. Sonic is about speed, and does not work in 3D. Mario does. Creating a game with them both would mean either limiting the game to a 2D plane, or making a terrible another terrible 3D Sonic game. Level design would be a nightmare, Sonic needs loops and ramps, Mario needs levels broken up into different jump gaps to navigate, as well as pipes and stuff.

What about power ups? If Mario or Sonic had both a Chaos Emerald and a Power Star they could rule the universe and that is just too much power in the hands of one mascot.

What would the motivation be? Mario saves princesses while Sonic hates Dr. Robotnik (never Dr. Eggman. Ever). Like Sonic gives a crap if some chick can’t keep herself from getting kidnapped 17 times. That and the egos of Dr. Robotnik and King Koopa would never let them work together for very long.

Plus, I’m fairly sure Mario might be racists against blue hedgehogs. I’m not 100% sure of this, but how many Italian plumbers do you know that would let their daughters date a blue anthropomorphic animals? Exactly.

It’s a failure in multiple areas. Profit division between SEGA and Nintendo. Level design. Motivation of characters. Racism. As you can see it just wouldn’t work. As a fan of the Mario series I must also add that I hope that this would never come to pass. Sonic games have been terrible except for the ones that try to exploit nostalgia.

Closing argument; Mario has had several good RPG games. Bioware couldn’t make a decent Sonic RPG game. Any mixture of the two would only make Mario look bad and Sonic…well look like Sonic.

Matt makes the argument that because he cannot imagine how a plat former with Mario and Sonic would any good, there must not be a way for such a thing to work.
*10 points awarded to Matt Yaeger, due to Rule 1787: (U! S! A! U! S! A! )

Guy mentions the possibility of Sonic getting a power flower-
*25 points without awarded

. . . Without pausing to reflect on how awesome that would be.
*8 points deducted due to the rule of the unexamined life.

Guy mentions the possibility of disappointing everybody with a dilution of the Sonic franchise. The capacity of Sonic fans to feel hope and joy was crushed many years ago. They are no longer capable of disappointment.
*15 sympathy points awarded to Buffalo Bills fans.

Guy mentions Super Mario Crossover.
*50 points awarded.

Guy threatens me with swimming. I am terrified of Sonic going anywhere near the drink.
*10 points deducted.

Guy’s Total Score: 57 points

Buffalo Bills Fans Total Score: 15 Points

Matt Yaeger: Analogies:: Rob Liefeld: Pouches
*10 points deducted.

Yaeger doesn’t trust Italians with power and thinks they are racist. He also compares Mario to Pizza.
*No points awarded.

Yaeger eschews the name Dr. Eggman.
*67 points awarded (Semolina Pilchard’s Rule).

Finally, Yaeger issues the blanket statement that Sonic sucks not realizing that Angels: Elvis Costello:: Sonic: ML Kennedy. Id Est, I want to wear his red shoes.
*10 points deducted.

Yaeger’s Total Score: 57 Points

Winner: TIE: (Matt and Guy each score 57)

Loser: Bills Fans (Typical)

http://diehardgamefan.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/KNOCK2.jpg
http://diehardgamefan.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/KNOCK1.jpg

It’s virtual Thunderdome! Two men enter, one man leaves!

Except that no one really enters anything in particular. And there are three men, if you count me. . . And everybody gets to leave. Well, they would get to leave, if they had actually entered. . .

THUNDERDOME!

Two men write! One other guy writes about what they write!

We are so goddamned hardcore.

Feel free to suggest discussion topics to WBXylo@gmail.com

Topic #2: Is It Getting Heavy?

Everybody is familiar with the story of the perfect man who came from heaven, was raised by a humble Earth family and did only good.

Yet, Superman is the star of some notoriously bad video games.

Why is this?

And while you are at it pitch me a better one.

First addressing this issue is Michael O’Reilly. Michael writes the column “Movers and Shakers” here at DiehardGameFAN wherein he discusses the various body wiggles one can do in order to control things inside the TV. (They say I’m mad when I do that thing.) O’Reilly is known for his repeating F-C-Bflat power chords and as such is a staple of classic rock radio.

I was asked to take some time and pitch a Superman game. That’s easy I thought. GTA + Flying + Metropolis and blammo, you’ve got yourself a Superman game. But then I read the fine details. Mr. Kennedy wanted a GOOD Superman game. Well then, that’s a whole other kettle of fish.

I am now faced with a problem. It’s one that every Superman creative director has faced since one of them decided he should be able to fly. Superman evolves. When the writers of the Superman comic books wrote themselves into a corner they merely gave him new powers. Super strength, X-Ray vision, Flight, Super Speed, Freeze Breath, Heat vision, skin impervious to most weapons. In order to let him fly in space the character developed a kind of shield. No seriously. His only weaknesses are various forms of Kryptonite and some kinds of magic. In his most popular form Superman is a god. He walks amongst mortals while wearing a disguise, true, but this is just a sham for him to live a somewhat normal life. If he chose to he could conquer the planet and rule atop a throne made from the skulls of his vanquished foes. Wonder Woman can’t stop him. Batman can’t stop him. Green Lantern and Flash cannot stop him. Nobody can.

In order to challenge the character of Superman his writers have been forced to resort to going to absurd lengths. His biggest arch villain is amongst the smartest beings in the universe, except for the fact he cannot recognize his own vanity and stop hating Superman for defeating him over and over. Even here Superman’s writers said “OK, we have to make him a genius too, as he should not be able to defeat Lex Luthor with strength alone”. And so suddenly thanks to the knowledge of Krypton that his father gifted to him in his Fortress of Solitude, Kal-El is a genius. Doomsday did succeed in killing Superman, or so it was thought, but that wouldn’t do, and so the writers gave Superman the ability to use the Sun’s radiation to regenerate himself. So Superman is effectively an indestructible immortal god, ever evolving, always Charles Darwin’s greatest student.

And who wants to play that game? Seriously? God Mode all the time. Superman is miscast as a hero, he should be the villain. Every Superman game ever developed has faced that problem. He lifted a continent full of Kryptonite in his last movie appearance for god sake. How do you contain the awesome power of Superman?? In the past developers have taken away his powers through some BS reason. Kryptonite Fog, etc. But if you do that then people will complain that you aren’t giving them the true Superman experience. And they’d be right. You can make an accurate Superman game, but it would get boring quickly. Can you make a good one?

As he was originally developed, without most of his superpowers, I think you could. In fact I think that game has already been made. It was called Prototype. Super strength, super speed, leaping ability. Ignore the story and character and that’s the original Superman. But can you make a good game based on the Superman as he exists today? Not right now. Some might say well they never got Batman right until Arkham Asylum, why not Superman? The difference between the two is night and day. Batman is just a man. A smart man, an Olympian athlete sure. But he cannot fly, he cannot freeze you with his breath. He must use your strength against you. And that makes for an excellent game, if you do it right. It just took a long time to do it right. Some day, I have no doubt, the technology will exist to make an awesome Superman game. It just won’t come anytime soon.

Next up is Alex Lucard. He owns the site and sends me free games. Did I mention how charming and handsome he is?

Contrary to many internet rumors started by me, Alex Lucard is not a pseudonym for any number of TV’s famous wrestling vampires. He is neither El Vampiro Canadiense, nor GanGrel. I’m pretty sure he isn’t Kevin Thorne or Ariel. Though there is a resemblance to the latter from behind.

The problem with Superman is that he is hard to write. In pre-crisis DC he was a character that could juggle planets and it was nigh impossible to write a story where you could either relate to Superman or believe he was ever in any danger. Even post-Crisis this proved to be true. Is Superman really going to be threatened by Toyman or Dr. Sivana? No, not really. This proves doubly true when moving Superman to other forms of media. If you watch the commentaries on the Justice League animated series, Bruce Timm and the rest of the DCAU staff talked about they had to severely power down Superman to make any of the episodes believable instead of “Superman solves everything in five seconds.” There aren’t really a lot of villains that can stand up to Superman. Lex Luthor relies on brains, but that doesn’t translate well to an action sequence or video game.

So when making a superman video game, it’s hard to think of any real challenges for the guy. This then translates into awful video games like Superman 64 where Superman is in some weird virtual reality thing so it’s not really him. There’s that horrible Taito arcade game, the 2600 game which sucked, the awful Superman Returns movie tie-in, Man of Steel which we’d all like to forget and many other horrible games that all revolve around Superman not actually being superman and doing stupid battles against enemies made specifically for the game because the neither the designers nor the comic book writers themselves have come up with any enemies for Superman that have truly lasted. Mongul was shunted off to Green Lantern, Darkseid has become painfully generic and two-dimensional, a far cry from his peak with “The Great Darkness Saga” and he was recently shot to death by Batman, a fact that sticks in the craw of Batman and Darkseid fans alike for a myriad of reasons. Doomsday was a one-joke character that existed only to kill The last Son of Krypton off and although Dan Jurgens eventually gave him a great back story; he’s been hit or miss (most often miss) based on who writes him.

So let’s look at the most memorable Superman comics and games before we go on. In the four of four colour periodicals the best known Superman stories include “For the Man Who Has Everything,” “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” and John Byrne’s “The Man of Steel” reboot that signaled the official beginning of the Post-Crisis era. What do all these comics have in common? The fact they focused far less on Superman’s powers and more on his emotions, personality and foibles. The best Superman stories are not those that involve him punching a parademon through the moon, but those that show he is emotionally and spiritually an Everyman even while on the outside he can take his space dog into a black hole, accidentally eat red kryptonite and because a half-griffon for 48 hours and still save a race of alien miners by crushing their giant robotic oppressors into scrap metal. “For the Man Who Has Everything” is 95% pathos, character development and empathy for a being that is usually utterly unrelatable and when you finally get the first real piece of violence from Superman in the comic, all you need is a single word – “BURN.” to make you cheer for a character about whom you would otherwise say, “Of course he’s going to win.” The problem is that most of DC’s higher ups have realized that Superman + violence = boring as well as being hard to write, so they’ve tried to do more emotion based stories. However, it’s emotion based stories without any real thought, follow through or substance which gives us crap like “For Tomorrow,” “Grounded,” and the current “I’m renouncing my citizenship because everyone thinks I’m an American shill even though I’m a FUCKING ALIEN FROM A DEAD PLANET.” These are stories that mimic the shell of the classic Superman stories of yore, but are hollow and range from forgettable to outright offensive because they lack the love and understanding of the character. This is why Superman I and II are so loved, while Superman Returns is so reviled. The latter tries to be an homage to the older, greater, more memorable Superman flicks, but because it is merely an homage, it falls flat. Meanwhile people are still saying “Kneel Before Zod” thirty years later.

So the key is to do character driven, emotional based Superman content if you want it to succeed (at least based on history) but how can that translate into a video game. Well, that’s the question? CAN IT? Let’s take a look at the three games with Superman in it that are generally considered decent to outright good games. First is The Death and Return of Superman, which is considered a classic 16-bit brawler. However the majority of the game focuses on the four faux Superman that arise after his death rather than on him. Because these characters are not nigh omnipotent, it makes the thought of them losing to cannon fodder go down easier. There is Justice League Heroes which is a second rate Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance clone and where story really does take a back seat. The game is considered one of the better Superman titles because of the engine it uses rather than the story involved (which is pretty generic) and because of the wide range of interchangeable characters in the game. So really Superman could have been Captain Marvel or Ambush Bug and the game would have still been received in the same manner. Finally there is Mortal Kombat Vs. DCU which is a very good fighting game with an excellent story, but again Superman had to be depowered to fit into the game and he is merely one of a cast rather than a stand out character. Although he is a top tier character for obvious insane reasons.

So all three games with Superman that are considered good share one big trait: Superman is part of an ensemble cast rather than the main focus. There HAS never been a Superman game where he has the starring role. So how can this be done in a way that the game is believable, relatable and still fun? Here’s my idea: A Superman time management game/dating sim. Now before you raise that people’s eyebrow at me – let me explain.

First, this game would be set pre-Crisis so Superman can be insanely powerful and the various mini games making up the time management aspects could reflect this. Second, the game wouldn’t be about Kal-El saving the universe from some uber bad guy, but more a look at the everyday life he has to live juggling his life as Clark Kent and getting that article on Nambian Independence Day into Perry White before the Daily Planet’s late edition goes to press with the insanity that comes with being Superman. Third, because the game is Pre-Crisis, you don’t have to be married to Lois Lane and the dating sim aspects can allow you to woo Lois Lane, Lana Lang, Lori Lemaris, Maxima, Wonder Woman, Cat Grant, and maybe another curve ball or two like Power Girl thrown in for fan service (and resulting in comic books fans everywhere debating in whether that counts as incest or not since Peeg is an alternate reality first cousin of Kal-L and if that follows through to Kal-El. I can see Scans Daily’s comment thread now!). So the flow of the game would be a bunch of mini games showing you what exactly it would be like to have to be Superman, thus not only making him relatable, but giving you variety, a huge change of pace from the usual button mashers he is thrown into, and hopefully being fun and amusing all at once.

For example, who are you going to go on a date with? Lois or Lana? Can you get your article on Lex Luthor’s latest white collar crime spree in before dinner? Then at dinner can you excuse yourself and play the “destroy the meteor swarm about to annihilate South America” mini game before your date notices you’ve been gone way too long for a simple potty break and then also complete the dating sim challenge to excuse your absence in a way that is believable and makes them more attracted to Clark? Or will you woo directly as Superman instead of Clark? Maybe even one girl for each facet of Kal-El’s personality? Do you take Edge Morgan’s practical joke in meek stride or do you light his toupee on fire with your heat vision when he is doing a live news report on TV? Do you take time to run a charity race against the Flash (done in old school Track and Field style), save a kitty from a tree, travel to an alien world where living fire hydrants have come to take their revenge on dog furrie people, or do you travel to Morocco to do an article on their fine cuisine and cultural heritage? After all, there’s like a hundred or so emergencies happening around the world at once. What does Superman choose to do and who does he choose to let suffer because he can’t be everywhere at once?

All of these could be done with a wide variety of mini games. Hell, you could do the Daily Planet world report articles Carmen SanDiego style, x-ray vision based mini games to uncover white collar crimes, a few brief beat “˜em up sequences for actual combat, and even a “save the falling citizens” like the classic Activsion game Kaboom. Hell, you could even do a side scrolling obstacle course where you are chasing a bad guy fleeing from a crime. Variety is the key to making this work, especially since there has never been a super hero mini game collection before and certainly not one that forces the gamer to actually juggle the realities of living a double life time management style. Think the old NES Wall Street Kid game but with ice breath and the ability to punch out Despero.

Long story short, Superman works best where the reader or gamer can become emotionally invested in him rather than watching him use Saturn’s rings as hula hoops. This best can be translated by making you be Clark and Kal-El and go through the sheer volume of various bizarre tasks that seem to make up the majority of his life. That way you’ll get messages boards with gamers debating over what character is the best choice or Superman or which over the top insane mini game they liked best rather than which Superman video game makes one want to commit suicide the least.

Kennedy’s Ruling
O’Reilly tells everybody waiting for a good Superman game that they should try to hold on the best they can. 100 Points. He then goes on to state that Batman can not stop Superman; that is demonstrably false. Minus 40 points for taking the name of Batman in vain.

His call that Superman should be the villain is blasphemous. However, it makes me want a game based where I can play as The Plutonian from Mark Waid’s Irredeemable. 30 points.

Finally Michael mentions Prototype and says that we can’t see a good Superman game because its time is not now. Minus 35 points for trying to sneak John Cena into Hi-Technical Knockout.

O’Reilly’s Total Score: 55 points

Lucard answers the question thoroughly. So thoroughly that he violates rule number 18003386300. “I found so much good information that I put it all in: overkill.” This balances out to 47 points.

Lucard’s game sounds like one I’d like to play and reminds me of a story in “Astro City” about The Samaritan. 84 points.

Time management games stress me out. Minus 50 points.

Lucard mentions two great Alan Moore stories. Plus 100 points. Neither of them features Swamp Thing: minus 80 points.

In his discussion of great Superman comics, Lucard makes no mention of All-Star Superman. Minus 30 points. He also misses “What’s So Funny about Truth, Justice, and the American Way?” Plus 30 points; that story suxor.

Lucard’s Total Score: 101 Points

Winner: Alex Lucard

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http://diehardgamefan.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/KNOCK1.jpg

It shall feature Random Encounters, Twisty Passages, Virtual Abnormality, Battles to the Pain, Chewing of the Digital Fat, and the occasional Mutual Admiration Society!

Only here at Diehard GameFAN!

Feel free to suggest discussion topics to WBXylo@gmail.com

Topic #1: The Big Toe theory.

Sometimes in feet the second toe is longer than the big toe.

Sometimes in video games, the penultimate boss fight is more interesting/challenging/memorable/better than the ultimate boss fight.

Is this a problem?

First addressing this issue is Mark B. Mark reviews more video games than I play. He must constantly be playing video games with one hand and writing about video games at the same time with the other hand. This would require at least two faces.

Therefore I am thoroughly convinced that he is the Bi-beast.

I would say that it depends on the intent; that is, if the developer intentionally does this thing, that’s honestly not an unreasonable thing, if done correctly.

See, here’s the thing: video games, for all of the debate about this concept, can on some level be considered a form of artistic expression, not unlike a film, play or novel in some respects. While the expectations for the medium are different, in that gameplay and interaction with the product are an important part of the medium, the narrative flow is, in this day and age, often an equally important part of the experience, if not sometimes more so. Games like Mass Effect 2, 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors, Persona 4 and so on wouldn’t have been half as enjoyable if their narrative had been complete trash or completely ignored, and in the case of something like Bioshock the narrative is pretty much the main thing that players remember over anything else.

So, suppose in your narrative, you have a “final boss” who is exceptionally powerful insofar as his or her connections and money are concerned, but is weaker than, say, The Incredible Mister Limpet. Now, obviously he should have a member of his staff to act as “The Dragon” to his “Big Bad”, so there’s some sort of challenge to be had, but it’s entirely reasonable for the final boss to be a complete waste of carbon in that context. Dude, he’s busy running a city/country/world/galaxy spanning criminal empire and reaping the benefits, of course he’s a shitty fighter. He has oodles of money and more heavily trained badasses working for him than you could count without taking off someone else’s shoes, why WOULD he need to learn nine different ways to make someone stop living with his fist? No one’s ever made it past the armies of relatively loyal and stupid goons in his employ, he has no reason to believe someone would be able to do so now, right?

So in that respect, this isn’t a terrible idea. A few games have done this thing with reasonable success, like Urban Reign, The Darkness and Bully, as it stands to reason that those particular bosses would, well, suck out loud. From a narrative standpoint, beating them is the most important thing. We know they’re complete losers, and the challenge isn’t important here, it’s all about the boss getting what’s coming to them, whether they’re all-powerful or not.

If this is unintentional, however, IE the boss sucks because the developers ran out of good ideas, then that’s generally not so acceptable. Take DOOM, for instance. Now, DOOM 3 had the good sense to move the Cyberdemon battle to the very end of the game (and make the bastard fifty stories tall, but whatever), but in the original game, the end segment hierarchy of bosses came together perfectly well, all in all. At the end of “Knee Deep In the Dead”, you faced down two Barons of Hell, both of whom could hit hard and make you wish you could avoid them entirely. At the end of “The Shores of Hell”, you faced down the Cyberdemon, a massive demon who fired rockets like crazy and pretty much was capable of completely ruining you if you weren’t paying attention. This was all really awesome and gave a great lead-in for “Inferno”, the final chapter of the game… and the Spider Mastermind, who was a major letdown, boss-wise, from the Cyberdemon.

Woo, he has a chaingun. I have the BFG 9000 and enough plasma energy to make shit dead fifty times over. Come on, really?

It’s an intent issue, not a difficulty issue. If your final boss is a complete loser because, in the confines of the game world, he’s supposed to be, then, great, awesome, make him a complete loser. But if he’s supposed to be a destroyer of worlds and you make him a complete pushover, then yeah, in that case? THAT’S unacceptable, because that means someone didn’t bother to actually pay attention, and that’s terrible.

Next up is Sean Madson. Madson is, of course, a famous actor, poet, and photographer. He is best known for his starring roles in such films as Reservoir Dogs, Free Willy, and Species.

It’s all about context. If it works to the benefit of the story, why limit yourself to having the final boss be the toughest guy all the time? Think of it like this: you’ve already done all the hard work clawing your way to victory and without a break get thrown into another battle. What is going to be more satisfying? Getting your ass handed to you within minutes, forcing you to redo the whole encounter all over again, or to have the source of all your troubles quivering in front of you, trying fruitlessly to avoid an end that he/she/it knows that’s coming? Example: the end of Final Fantasy VII. (SPOILERS) After an epic battle consisting of Super Novas and Knights of the Round played against the One Winged Angel song, you are thrown into a one on one duel with Sephiroth (sort of). This dude has been riding your ass the entire game, trying to blow up the world. AND HE KILLED AERITH! And you have one move at your disposal to give that guy what he deserves: Omnislash. (/SPOILERS) Satisfying, right?

It doesn’t always have to be a one hit blow kinda thing either. It can be disguised as a regular battle, much like the fights that are impossible to win. How about a fight that’s impossible to lose? Such is the case with the conclusion of Final Fantasy X. (SPOILERS) So after defeating Jecht/Sin/Braska’s final summon you are thrown into combat with Yevon, the little parasitic bastard that started all your troubles. This final battle is nothing more than a token boss fight since you are revived even if you fall, but they added it in there to be an emotional scene for Yuna. She has to kill all of her Aeons in order to prevent them from getting possessed by Yevon, even though they helped her every step of the way just to get to this point. (/SPOILERS) So yes, even though it’s far easier than the fight that came before and you can’t lose, it serves a purpose to the story and is effective at that.

Notice the examples I gave of beneficial moments were all RPG’s? Outside of that genre, it becomes more difficult to justify. I remember the first time I played the original Mortal Kombat. The main villain in that game was Shang Tsung, but nobody remembers their fight with him. Why? Because prior to your encounter with Shang Tsung you had to fight Goro. And that guy was a dick. He could pick you up and pound on your chest or throw you on the ground and step on you and THERE WAS NOTHING YOU COULD DO ABOUT IT. Because he was Goro. However, when you finally brought that behemoth down, it stands to reason that the next fight would be more difficult. You were quaking in your boots as your portrait slid its way up next to this terrifying old man. Only for the whole thing to be a total cakewalk. In fact, the guy was so flimsy that the only way he could pose any threat to you is if HE TURNED INTO GORO HIMSELF! Sure, it usually ended in a flawless victory, but where’s the pride in roughing up someone who probably needed Life Alert to pick himself back up?

Kennedy’s Ruling
Tricky. Both contestants had the basic thesis of “it depends on context”. A wishy washy answer that is probably true.

Let’s start them off with 100 points each.

Mark B. backs up his arguments with TVTropes style labels and talking about Doom. This is worth an extra 15 points.

He also gets a 30 point bonus for referencing Don Knotts.

Mark B.’s total Score: 145 points

Madson receives an 85 point bonus for bringing up how rad Goro is. He is deducted 15 points for not mentioning Kano.

Unfortunately, the strength of Sean’s argument hinges on Final Fantasy games that many people have played. Due to a previously existing condition here at DHGF known as “Lucard’s Rule” he is docked 100 points.

Sean’s Total Score: 70 points

Winner: Mark B

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http://diehardgamefan.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/KNOCK1.jpg

Let’s Review

Lego Battle: Ninjago is the follow up to 2009′s Lego Battles, an attempt at real time strategy whose gameplay bears little resemblance to the popular Lego [insert popular film franchise] games. As such, I’m sure it disappointed a bunch of little kids who didn’t have the patience to build virtual Lego bases and develop virtual Lego armies. This is especially true considering that you can achieve this effect with actual Legos and friends.

(Then again, playing RTS games and having friends might be mutually exclusive. )

Ninjago seems to cross-breed the style of its predecessor with the Star Wars/Indiana Jones/ Batman style Lego games. It features a lot of random object smashing, widget collecting, red bricks, and a home base to hang out between missions.

Does this game provide wholesome Lego fun for the whole family?

1. Story

The main story here seems to be cribbed from common tropes of both fantasy and ninja fantasy. A powerful father figure makes a bunch of magic stuff. His older son uses the stuff and it corrupts him. His younger brother defeats him in some nebulous fashion despite the older brother having these powerful boons.

Older brother gets banished to some other realm, but is mischievously lurking.

Younger brother, now an old man, assembles a team to get these boons to fight the brother who may or may not still be banished. It involves a lot of fighting skeletons.

Oh and somebody’s girlfriend or sister or something is kidnapped.

The story isn’t particularly intriguing, and I didn’t get much in terms of characterization.

That being said, the cut scenes are fairly cute, and the presentation of the story is good enough for what it is.

2. Graphics

The cutscenes look pretty good, but suffer from a bit of blurring. Other than that it looks like the other Lego games. The main difference is that it sticks to a semi-overhead view.

It is easier to tell one ninja from another in the same way it is easy to tell Scorpion from Sub-Zero. (I.e. they are different colors!)

3. Sound

The aural presentation is heavily dependant on relatively standard Ninja music. It isn’t annoying, but isn’t terribly exciting. There really isn’t much else to say about it.

“Boy, this music sure is okay!”

“I really don’t hate this music!”

4. Control and Gameplay

Using a stylus and a touch screen would seem to be an ideal form for a real time strategy game. It almost works. Problems arise between the small screen and a less than accurate touch detection. Basically, it is hard to pick the right Lego dude or object on the first try if there is anyone or anything else by him or it.

The game also seems to spend forever teaching you how to play it, but when push comes to shove, it remains confusing. This is especially when seen through the eyes of a young kid (READ AS: the target audience).

The controls mostly work and aren’t the source of game’s problems.

The problem is that this game is not fun. Maybe it is just me, but I find this game dreadfully boring. I find RTS games either uninteresting or stressful. I find the DS versions of the popular Lego games somewhat tedious.

So it shouldn’t surprise me that this thing isn’t my cup of tea. Lego ninjas fighting Lego skeletons should be exciting? Right? No it’s not. It’s dull. Dull. Dull. My God it’s dull, it’s so desperately dull and tedious and stuffy and boring and des-per-ate-ly DULL.

Multiple missions are simply fetch quests wherein you must guide a group of slow moving characters through an uninteresting landscape.

The RTS style missions only let you create one of each style ninja, so it isn’t particularly customizable. It is basically a lot of creating the same five characters over and over.

Some missions start you off with all your ninjas, and other missions require you to rebuild them and re-evolve them to ninja form (they start in a sort of villager form). The whole thing seems random and sloppy.

I was downright giddy when the time came I got to fight a dragon. Actually doing it was underwhelming. Basically, the game started me with my ninjas and no ability to make anything else. The ninjas attack automatically.

Basically, the game fought the dragon for me.

It let me be in charge of when to use the ninjas “Spinjitzu” powers.

I still have no idea what some of these powers do.

After playing through enough missions, you get the option to play new missions using the skeletons. This is also less than fun, and the heroes and the villains seem to share some common antagonist.

Just whose side are the little blue blobby guys on anyway?

5. Replayability

There are a ton of missions to do. Training, story mode, multiplayer, skeleton story mode and so on. There are doodads to collect, red bricks to gather, “True Ninja” statuses to achieve, characters to unlock and so on.

There is a lot to do here. I imagine you will want to go back to this game a lot if you are an appallingly dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, lacking in initiative, spineless, easily dominated, no sense of humour, tedious company and irrepressibly drab and awful. And whereas in most games these would be considerable drawbacks, in Lego Battles: Ninjago they are a positive boon.

6. Balance

The game is all over the map in terms of Balance. It spends a long time explaining how to play this game, but leaves out many important details. Some levels seemingly play themselves, whereas others can be lost before you figure out how and why.

Still others I find myself quitting midway through because I have no desire to play.

7. Originality

This game is a sequel that uses elements from other franchises in service of a warmed over storyline and a watered down genre.

8. Addictiveness

I feel bad putting this game down. It seems competent. I wouldn’t call it poorly executed.

Here’s the thing, though: I would rather not play this game than play it.

Were I picking my daughter up for school and were I to arrive 30 minutes early with this game and the DS in my pocket, I would rather sit in the parking lot quietly for half an hour than power up the DS.

9. Appeal Factor

Ninjas! Skeletons! Lego! The game has MAGIC NUNCHUCKS!

Is there anything more appealing than magic nunchucks?

10. Miscellaneous

This game combines all the excitement of sitting in church with the exhilaration of filing taxes.

The Scores
Story: Mediocre
Graphics: Enjoyable
Sound: Mediocre
Control and Gameplay: Mediocre
Replayability: Above Average
Balance: Poor
Originality: Poor
Addictiveness: Bad
Appeal Factor: Great
Miscellaneous: Bad
FINAL SCORE: MEDIOCRE GAME

Short Attention Span Summary

Listen, this game isn’t terrible. I hate it. I don’t want to play it. I enjoy doing laundry more than this game. But it isn’t terrible. I’m sure there is somebody out there that loves this thing. I’m sure this is somebody’s favorite game.

But I think that person is a stupid head.

http://diehardgamefan.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Lego120.jpg
http://diehardgamefan.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/lego250.jpg

I’ve been reviewing things here at DHGF since its inception, or re-inception, if you will. For the most part, the games I have reviewed have been ranked on a scale of “The Worst Thing Ever “to “I guess that didn’t suck too hard.”

This is why Monster Tale completely baffles me.

It is fantastic.

1. Story
Monster Tale centers around a young girl named Ellie. She falls into another world, discovers a boon of power and a mysterious egg. From the egg hatches a baby monster, so Ellie decides to help it find its mother. She names the monster Chomp.

From there we are introduced to a whole monster world, populated by colorful creatures who have been enslaved by a group of children who had previously fallen into the this world. The monsters believe these kids to be gods, and as such the kids have set themselves up as absolute rulers of the land.

Their reign could not only spell the downfall of the monster world, but also Ellie’s home world. Thus, Ellie takes up arms against these kings and queens, fighting hordes and hordes of various creatures. Along the way, Chomp evolves into any number of different forms depending on his diet, exercise, education, and leisure time activities.

The story here is really cute and can be enjoyed by people of all ages. It is appropriate for kids, and they’ll like it because all the characters are children and monsters. More “hardcore” gamers will appreciate quite a few subtleties to the game’s dialog and story, as well as the fact that the main villain bears more that a passing resemblance to Princess Peach.

2. Graphics
Monster Tale is not the sort of game that is going to have photo-realistic graphics and cinematic cut-scenes.

I am very thankful for this thing.

The graphics here are pitch perfect for the game’s style and story. The designs are just spot on. The kids and monsters are instantly distinguishable, the levels are distinct from one another and carry through a consistent theme. Ellie is cute without being obnoxious and, despite having around 30 different forms, Chomp is recognizable and adorable in each.

Differing elements come into play, i.e. Earth, Fire, and Water, as Chomp can evolve back and forth between these elements. The other monsters can have such alignments as well. Monsters of the same family can be aligned with different elements. Rather than just pallet swapping green for red, each class of these creatures differs slightly in appearance. It”˜s evocative of Eternal Darkness“˜s Sanity, Strength and Magic system and carries the same Rock, Paper, Scissors effect on gameplay.

3. Sound
The score to this game is reminiscent of a classic Genesis RPG. While it hasn’t had an earworm effect on me (yet), if I hear a few notes I can instantly say “that’s Monster Tale“.

Given a bit more time, I should be able to listen to the game and say, “that’s Monster Tale, the wicked treehouse screen”.

There are a few voice clips in the game, but for the most part the dialog is text-based. Text that makes that satisfying old school “ddddd” noice when it whirrs across the screen.

What can I say? Monster Tale knows what I like.

4. Control and Gameplay
This thing controls like butter. The button layout is intuitive and everything works like it should. This is 2D platforming, action adventure exploration at its finest.

You ever play Super Metroid? Controlling Ellie is a lot like that. Ellie has a bracelet that shoots in lieu of a cannon arm, but the effect is the same. She even upgrades it with more powerful shots, including a charged one. She even learns the ability to roll as though she were a morph ball and learns to wall jump. Acquiring these new skills open up new areas of previously explored levels.

In a word, Moster Tale is Metroidvania. To complete this feeling, Ellie’s close range attack is using her satchel as a whip.

If you hate backtracking in games, you might find Monster Tale irritating. Then again, you would hate most Metroidvania style games. Thankfully, though, this game is so much fun to play, that traversing previously traversed areas never feels like a chore. A lot of that is due to the addition of Chomp.

I’ve always found Metroidvania games uniquely addictive, but Monster Tale has managed to take things to a whole new level by what basically amounts to giving Samus a Pokemon buddy. Chomp evolves, learns new tricks, earns new traits, and is generally fun to hang around. Can’t quite hit that monster with your satchel or bracelet gun? Don’t worry, Chomp will smack him in the back of the head, or you can command him to charge like a torpedo, or pound the ground like Donkey Kong, or turn into a giant bomb to explode that fool, or shoot fireballs, or any number of different thing.

And all this is only the top screen.

You can also send Chomp to the bottom screen. While there, he will recover health, attack the occasional monster or flip a switch now and then. For the most part, however, the bottom screen treats Chomp like a virtual pet. You can buy Chomp everything from turkey legs to soap, from boxing gloves to video games, from ancient scrolls to toy cars. These will increase his stats and unlock new forms into which Chomp can evolve.

Dear God, they’ve managed to cross-breed virtual pets and Metroidvania. That is bloody brilliant.

5. Replayability
A lot of the replayability comes from Chomp. There are so many forms to unlock, traits to unlock, attacks to unlock, that Monster Tale should keep you busy for a long time.

Without taking those thing into consideration, it still got a fair amount of replay value. My daughter started playing the second save slot, and I find a tremendous amount of fun in beating monsters and levels I had beaten just hours previously.

6. Balance
At first, this game might seem too easy. There are save slots all over the place, each of which fills up Ellie’s health, Chomp’s health, Ellie’s shooting ability and so on. The game’s map also show exactly where to go next. While that may sound like cheating to some, it completely removes the tedium of backtracking to folks with no sense of direction (i.e. yours truly).

But this is all a trick. I went from hardly ever taking damage to taking a little damage to taking a lot of damage to fighting my way to save points. The game slowly but surely gets progressively harder. It is as smooth a learning curve as I’ve ever encountered.

There are some options to grind. Shops sell upgrades to Ellie’s weapon’s and abilities, as well as the various toys, food and accoutrements for Chomp. You can focus all your attention on one or the other, and the game’s balance will adjust accordingly.

7. Originality
This game reminds me of classic Genesis games, NES games, SuperNintendo games, virtual pets, Pokemon, Eternal Darkness, and more.

It may seem like it is made from parts of other games, but they all combine to form something new. It is almost like a Tarantino film wherein homages and tropes come together to create an original experience.

8. Addictiveness
My seven year old daughter and I have been taking turns prying this game from the other’s hands. It is incredibly addictive. I have not been this addicted to a video game since Shining Force.

It is one of those “turn around and somehow it is three hours later and I am surrounded by empty Diet Pepsi cans” games.

“I’ll play till the next save point. No wait, that save point was too close. I’ll play some more.”

My daughter was getting frustrated at one point in the game and set the DS down to regroup. I said, “maybe you should take a little break. . .”

She snapped back, “No, I just need to finish this one part!”

9. Appeal Factor
If this game doesn’t appeal to you, I don’t know if I want to be your friend. On the surface it may appear girly or kiddie, but don’t let that fool you. It plays like a lost 16 bit classic.

It’s got monsters, shooting, and a pet sim. What more could anybody want?

10. Miscellaneous
This game features a Monster Night Club. Therefore, it is rad.

The Scores
Story: Great
Graphics: Great
Sound: Great
Control and Gameplay: Classic
Replayability: Good
Balance: Great
Originality: Good
Addictiveness: Amazing
Appeal Factor: Incredible
Miscellaneous: Great
FINAL SCORE: GREAT GAME

Short Attention Span Summary:
Monster Tale has reminded me that video games can be fun and might be the best game I’ve played for the Nintendo DS. I am stupid in love with this game.
http://diehardgamefan.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/monster-120.jpg
http://diehardgamefan.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/monster250.jpg

Let’s Review

When I was given the opportunity to review a game about the Beast, I was ecstatic! The Beast is one of the ten greatest Marvel Comics characters of all time.

Probably right below the Thing and right above Hawkeye.

The Beast is so awesome he makes Wonder Man awesome through osmosis.

Can you imagine being that awesome? He’s like a bigger, harrier Spock that loves to party!

Alas, our vampire overlord tricked me. This game has nothing to do with Hank McCoy. It is instead a video game spin-off of the movie version of an adaptation of a book based off of a classic fairy tale where a pretty girl wants to have sexual intercourse with a big furry monster.

Don’t worry though; he’s not furry in this version.

The movie Beastly stars Number 4, that girl from High School Musical, one of them there Olsens, and NPH. The game Beastly stars tedium, N64 era graphics and unmitigated pain.

1. Story

Beastly is an update of the classic tale of “Beauty in the Beast” set in modern Day New York and centered around high schoolers. The game lets you play as an ancillary character in the story, one whose insignificance is so vast that he or she is not given a name.

(You choose the character gender, but it doesn’t seem to affect things.)

Long, painfully dull story short, the character you control becomes facebook friends with the movie’s principal cast and cyber stalks them. Your actions in this game vary from completely unimportant to the story to the entirely illogical.

Truth be told, I’ve never encountered anything quite like this game. It’s as though the spirit of LJN has traveled through time and possessed the makers of Beastly in an effort to make the worst movie tie-in video game of all time.

Seriously, the core of this game goes as follows:
1. Walk over there.
2. Keep walking over there; it is far.
3. Talk Listen to a Character that was actually in the movie.
4. Walk someplace else.
5. Stand in a certain spot and do nothing.
6. Stand in a different spot and do nothing.
7. Play a horrifyingly stupid mini-game.
8. Watch a clip from the movie.
9. Unlock a still from the movie.
10. Stand someplace else.
11. Unlock another still from the movie.
12. Repeat until the end of time.

The game is completely linear, telling you exactly where to walk and what to do at all times. There is no freedom what-so-ever and nothing interesting to do were you granted that freedom. Beastly forces you to play and beat each mini-game in order to progress, even if it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. Why do I have to play a poor man’s, d-pad button pushing version of Dance, Dance, Revolution in order for stuff to happen to other characters? Really? My character doesn’t even seem to have a name! I’m supposed to believe that a witch won’t turn another dude into a monster because I can’t master a simplistic Bemani game? (I can, of course, because the game is stupid easy.)

My daughter watched me play this game. She told me to write in my review that this game is, “dumb and doesn’t make any sense.” She was particularly confused by this part where you break into a zoo.

(I don’t know why I have to break into a zoo, I’ve stopped asking questions at this point. )

It goes like this: The game then forces you down a path in the zoo and doesn’t let you continue until you go to a number of different animal habitats and read facts about the animals. The game tells you such important things like, “Unlike apes, monkeys have tail (sic.).” Then you are forced to try to go into a building despite the fact that a guard is right there.

You tell the guard, “It’s okay; I work here.” He responds by saying, prove to me that you work here: how thick is a rhino’s skin? How many species of monkeys are there?

Seriously, game?

The bulk of the story is that you are a complete milksop who is bossed around by casual acquaintances while a version of Beauty and the Beast is happening to people you kind of know. It’s like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead without any of the good.

2. Graphics

The video clips from the movie look nice. The CBS Logo that is in the games opening is not without its charms.

Everything else in this game is ugly.

Beyond bowling shoe ugly.

Even for a Wii budget title, this game is ugly. It is blocky, it has invisible walls, the perspective is bad, and the scale is way off.

Seriously folks, desks in this game come up to your character’s neck.

The chairs attached to the desks look like they were designed for the Rephaim.

It is bad.

It is a bad, stupid and ugly game.

I do not like this bad, stupid and ugly game.

3. Sound

Well, the music doesn’t want to make me kill myself. So there’s that. It is not interesting or catchy or good or anything.

(Of course, uninteresting music can be a problem when you are forced to play a bad DDR ripoff.)

The biggest problem here, though, is that the audio of the movie clips is way, way, way, way quieter than the rest of the game. In order to hear the details of the plot, which my character has very little to do with, I had to grab the TV remote and blast the TV. Then, as soon as the clip is over, the background music is BLARING!

Did anybody actually play this thing before they started throwing discs in boxes? Is checking the audio levels really that difficult?

4. Control and Gameplay

Wow. . . Uh. . . . Wow guys. A good chunk of this game is spent walking. You walk by pointing the
Wiimote at a spot on the screen and holding B until your character get there. Occasionally you have to press A to listen to another character, or take a picture.

That description fully explains everything that goes on in the main part of the game.

A thrill a minute, eh?

Seriously, you spend most of your time meandering around, and they can’t even figure out a decent control scheme for WALKING!

There is a part in this game where you are at a night club. You are told to go into the night club. You amble all the way to the front of the night club. The bouncer says to wait in line, so you saunter to the back of the line. Then you wait.

Then you wait again.

Then you wait some more.

Then you get tired of waiting and try to get into the night club again.

You finish this part of the game without actually getting into the night club.

It’s as though Beastly is inspired by that part of Super Paper Mario where you have to run in the hamster wheel for god knows how long. It thrives on the mundane. But why stop there? Perhaps I could fold this character’s laundry or trim his fingernails?

Did I mention yet how bad the minigames are? The first one you play is basically a shooting gallery, and has the worst controls this side of Calvin Tucker”˜s Redneck Jamboree. You are at a school election rally, wherein various students are holding signs with Kyle’s, one of the candidates, faces on them. Some of the faces have eye patches or mustaches on them. You’ve got to click on the defaced ones with a tiny hand and not click on the normal ones. Somehow this makes the crowd support Kyle, and you win by achieving a certain level of crowd support.

This is one of the minigames that makes a little bit of sense.

Right after that, there is a “sort of” minigame where you have to ask people to go on the class trip to Machu Picchu.

No, really.

Later, there is mini-game where you have to click on rose illustrations when they are the right size in order to cast a spell on Kyle to turn him into the beast. You play this game after dancing in a night club at a party for Kyle. It comes out of nowhere and raises the question of, “Why is my character cursing Kyle?” We’ve done nothing but help Kyle the entire game up to that point. We’ve met the witch that is supposed to curse him. The player controlled character spends half the rest of the game trying to figure out what happened Kyle. Dude! We just cursed Kyle, and saw him become a beast!

Some time after that our character. . . Hold up. I’m tired of this. The unnamed protagonist of Beastly is now called Chester. I don’t care if you pick the boy or the girl. He/she is Chester. Screw all that.

Chester.

So, some time after cursing Kyle, Chester is trying to figure out what happened to Kyle. Chester, being a completely useless twat asks somebody what to do. She tells him to check his locker for clues. Naturally, Kyle’s locker is on the other side of the school, so we have to walk to it.

Upon reaching the locker, some random character tells Chester, “Hey, that is not your locker.” Chester, being a complete milksop, is forced to walk all the way back to the other side of the school and ask the girl what to do now. The girl tells him to kiss off.

So, Chester decides to pull the fire alarm. Pulling the fire alarm turns all the students instantly invisible. Then Chester has to walk all the way back to Kyle’s locker. Upon reaching it, he realizes that he doesn’t know the combination to the locker. Actually, Chester doesn’t even know which locker belongs to Kyle.

This leads us to a minigame wherein we are forced to unlock six lockers with three digit combinations. You start by seeing all the lockers. You click on one, and are taken to a screen with the lock. Rather than input the combinations in a way that makes sense, the numbers are spinning at all times. You have to press A to stop the first number. If you stop on the wrong number, you are kicked back to the locker screen. If you get the right number, you press A to stop the second number from spinning. Get it wrong, and you are kicked back to the locker screen and have to start from the first number again. Get it right, and you press A to stop the third number from spinning. Get that number wrong and you get kicked back to the locker screen, and you have to start all over again.

Talking about this game is hurting my stomach.

Later on in the game you go on a trip to Machu Picchu, wherein you walk around Machu Picchu and then answer questions about it.

There is also the world’s worst motorcycle riding minigame. Honestly, handheld Tiger games put this thing to shame. It made want to throw Beastly out the nearest window and boot up Mach Rider. You ride down a straight as an arrow street that is absolutely maggoty with road cones and potholes. Sadly, you could not cause a horrific accident and have Chester spend the rest of the game in a coma.

Yet, I prefer the motorcycle minigame better than the “Spot The Difference” minigame, a game which is all about MACHU freakin’ PICCHU!

To sum things up, the gameplay is universally terrible and the controls are all sloppy.

5. Replayability

Ha, ha. . . No.

6. Balance

Beastly is a collection of loosely related, poorly made and uninspired mini-games. While its routine tasks of “walk over there where that arrow is telling you to go” can’t possibly provide any challenge to anyone at any time, some of the minigames can be frustrating. It took me an embarrassing long time to figure out how to open the lockers in that combination game, and even longer to figure out the timing of the spinning numbers. There is a dart based minigame that is particularly obnoxious. The timed spot-the-difference minigame has us comparing a line drawing style picture to a photograph like picture and proved to be irritating as all get out.

Basically, this game has the balance of a drunken amputee that just got off the dizzy dummies on “Wipeout”.

7. Originality

None. This game is about as original as masturbating in the shower.

8. Addictiveness

HA!

9. Appeal Factor

I guess if you really loved the movie and wanted to watch video clips from it and look at stills. . . No. You can just go on the internet and look at that stuff, and read some poorly written (natch) fanfic. This game shouldn’t be played by human beings.

10. Miscellaneous

Beastly won’t let you have multiple save files. If you are playing as a boy and want to start a new game as a girl – you can’t. Not without killing off your original Chester.

You can’t manually save at all. It only autosaves.

The game refers to a flashlight as a torchlight despite taking place in America!

The game makes you answer questions about how much a rhino weighs and when Machu Picchu was built.

The game can’t figure out a decent mechanic for walking.

One of the minigames in Beastly has Chester take photographs. I don’t know why. We never see them or use them later. You take photographs by standing in a predetermined spot at pressing A. It does not matter which direction you are facing. I hope it appreciates all these nice photos of blank walls.

Sometimes the movie clips have nothing to do with what is going on in the game. Other times it appears to be a blatant contradiction to what the game is showing.

Please don’t buy this game.

I almost didn’t survive this experience. I tried to lie back and think of England, but it didn’t work. So, I spent most of the time playing it thinking about the movie Action Jackson. After a spell, I realized that there needed to be a buddy cop movie that starred Action Jackson teaming up with Robocop where they fight Axel Foley’s evil twin brother, Maxel Foley.

In conclusion, I call the movie Detroit’s Big Three.

(I’m not going to let Storm City near the video game tie-in.)

The Scores
Story: Awful
Graphics: Awful
Sound: Awful
Control and Gameplay: Awful
Replayability: Awful
Balance: Awful
Originality: Awful
Addictiveness: Awful
Appeal Factor: Awful
Miscellaneous: Awful
FINAL SCORE: AWFUL GAME

Short Attention Span Summary

This game is awful. It is boring. It’s ugly. It doesn’t make a damn bit of sense. You are playing a game about Beauty and The Beast wherein your character is neither Beauty nor the Beast nor the witch that curses the beast, nor Beauty’s father, nor even a close friend of one of these characters. This is like a Star Wars game where you play as Wedge Antilles’s mom and read postcards about fighting the Empire.

Crap, I gave Lucas an idea for a new Star Wars game.

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In preparation for playing NewU Mind Body Yoga & Pilates Workout, I haven’t bothered to work out regularly for the past seven years. Such is my commitment to you, gentle readers. All things considered, however, I’m in pretty good shape…for a guy who writes on the internet. I only have to buy one seat on an airplane. I’m six feet tall, under 200 lbs, I walk to work, and occasionally dance with my daughter until I am glazed with sweat.

Still, I found myself sore after a particularly cut-throat game of hide-and-seek. Perhaps it was time to start an exercise program of some sort.

(Besides that, I was the only staffer left with the semi-requisite Wii Balance Board.)

So, is NewU Mind Body Yoga & Pilates Workout the workout I need?

Let’s Review!

In a world of competitive yoga, only the strong will survive and only the most relaxed will make it through to the next round!

There is no story, naturally.

We are afforded a few modes. Basically, it goes like this:

You make a profile. You put in your name, tell the machine your sex, pick a picture that most resembles your body type, give it your age and height, and the balance board. Unlike Wii Fit, the machine doesn’t make fun of your weight, or distort your avatar to some sort of bloated grotesque. The main downside to creating a profile is that there are only three body pictures per gender. It is either skinny guy, muscle guy or chubby guy for the males. No morbidly obese guy, no skinny-ish guy with love handles, no small vampire shaped guy with a lady butt, or so on. For the ladies, I swear I couldn’t tell the first two pictures apart. The pictures looked like thin girl, slightly less thin girl, and girl I find somewhat attractive. I would expect some sort of options for spoon shaped women or apple shaped women or boyish women or what have you.

These are nitpicks though, and wouldn’t seem to have much bearing on the game in and of itself.

After making the profile, you choose a goal. These range from strengthening your lower body to increasing flexibility, from decreasing stress to post-natal body recovery. The after-birth option is only for the ladies, completely ignoring the problems of the male sympathy belly. Picking these goals affects the exercises selected for your personalized yoga-lates class.

You can change your goal at any time, which is a nice option. Plus it will mix up the routine somewhat.

After picking a goal, you pick a teacher. There are three to choose from. All are women, two are 32, two are dancers, and basically it doesn’t have a meaningful effect which one you choose. They have personality profiles, wherein Kiren comes off as more spiritual, Jemma comes off as more bubbly, and Mila comes off as someone who is just teaching yoga until she finally gets the part as the feather duster in the touring company of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast so that she can fall in love with the guy that plays Lumiere and get married and live happily ever after like what happed to that girl from Trading Spaces.

Maybe I’m projecting.

The biggest difference between the trainers is how goofy they look when they congratulate you for doing an exercise well. Kiren looks the least silly, Jemma looks the most silly, and Mila gets a really odd look on her face like she fears that she will never fall in love with a candle.

After picking a trainer, you pick a location. That is to say, the background that is going to be blue-screened in behind your yoga teacher. There are variations on nature with some water thrown in. There isn’t a yoga studio, a run down dojo, or an underground fighting ring or anything like that. It depends on whether you want a beach-like background, a forest-y background or the awesomely named Smuggler’s Cove.

I think you can guess which one I favor.

Now is when the actual “game” starts.

You can choose to do your yoga-lates class, to practice a single move from your class, meditate, work on your pilates core skills exercises, do one of the challenges, or view your progress.

From the class menu, you can choose to do your standard class, a quicker version of that class, or a custom class. The customization is a little frustrating, as it basically only lets you pick from moves you do in your normal class and adjust the reps or duration.

Let me tell you how this thing worked for me. When I initially created my profile, I put in that I have done some yoga before. I’ve watched people do it before, and I have done all the Wii Fit yoga stuff. So I started my class. The first exercise was to sit down and breathe. I’m an expert at breathing, having done it since Jimmy Carter was president. I aced it.

Next was a Sun salutation. I had done the Wii Fit version of this, so I didn’t bother to click on the “watch this exercise” option.

This was a mistake.

When I started, I was completely overwhelmed. I was told to breath, bend over, step back into lunge, transition to downward dog, move into baby cobra, jump to the left, step to the right, put my hands on my hips and so on in a rapid fire pace filled with Yoga jargon. I had no idea what was going on. I couldn’t change my yoga-experience settings, so I deleted this profile and started anew.

I turned my experience down to none.

Once again, I aced the breathing.

In the next exercise, I was told to breath, bend over, step back into lunge, transition to downward dog, move into baby cobra, step back into lunge, and so on in a rapid fire pace filled with Yoga jargon.

Honestly, I had to fake my way through the sun salutation every time. I want to watch the monitor as I do it, but that is an impossibility when I am supposed to be in downward dog. Furthermore, the poses and moves are changed somewhat by implementing the balance board. It adds two inches or so.

After half-assing my way through the exercise, the game congratulated me on a job well done. This makes me question the usefulness of using the balance board in this routine. It clearly doesn’t provide useful feedback, and makes the exercises more complicated.

Other than the Sun Salutation, the rest of the routines are easy to follow. Some require the balance board, some just the wii-mote (with support of the Motion Plus but not requiring it). For most of the exercises, the feedback is questionable. This is as much a limitation on the system as it is the game. The only useful feedback I got was from certain yoga poses, wherein the trainer will tell you if you are leaning too far to the left or right. These poses, however, are already in Wii Fit, which you already have if you already have the balance board.

There were a few times, as well, where the game tells me that I stopped exercising and can restart whenever I wanted. This was never the case.

Graphically, the game looks a lot like what TV shows of the mid “˜90s thought future Virtual Reality looks like. It is made up of actual video of the three trainers doing the exercises, superimposed over the selected background. The graphics are mostly functional, but a bit evocative of the Phillip’s CDI, a little Burn Cycleish.

The main problems with the visual presentation of the game is that it affords you no control of the camera angle. The angle switches at will in the middle of exercises, and it would be really nice if you could have simultaneous views of multiple angles for new exercises. It can make it difficult to follow precisely what the trainer is doing, and many of these moves work best when attention is paid to little details like foot placement and angle of the spine.

Also, Mila’s black yoga pants make it hard for me to tell which leg is which from the side view. I could just be a spaz, though.

Aurally, the game has relaxing music and the teachers explain the exercises to you and congratulate you on strong performances. The downside is that the instructions don’t always match the exercises. At times, the timing is a little off. Other times, the descriptions don’t quite match the exercises. I’ve often been told to clasp my hands when the teacher’s hands are a solid foot apart.

The audio has also lost some of its volume for me in the middle of an exercise. It can get quiet and murky.

After a few days of learning the exercises, I just chose to blast Nirvana in the background during my yoga class.

And drink coffee through the whole thing. . .

. . . I think I’m doing it wrong.

The game has a good amount of replayability to it. The exercises get harder after a few days of success, and there are over 100 of them to unlock. You can change your fitness goals to switch up some of the exercises. There are various challenges to complete apart from the regular classes and there are multiple meditations.

I can’t say I understand the meditations. The shortest one is five minutes, but another is twenty minutes. Where I come from, lying on the floor relaxing for 20 minutes is called a nap. I find that a couch is much more comfy than a floor, and you are less likely to have a dog step on you.

Sure, napping doesn’t profess to develop my third eye, but I’m pretty sure it is just as functional as meditation in this regard.

It’s hard to say how this game ranks in terms of balance. Some of the exercises are painfully simple while others I can’t quite follow. In either instance, the game tells me I’ve done a fairly good job. Sometimes, Jemma does the cabbage patch, even.

As such, you can’t really rely on the game’s judgment of how well you are doing.

In terms of originality, well, there are a bunch of other exercise games out there. This one features neither the creepy-sexy robot people of Wii Fit, nor a celebrity, so that distinguishes it from a lot of the competition.

Is the game addictive? It’s hard to say. You are only supposed to play it for about half an hour to an hour per day, not counting the naps of course. The game offers some trophies for jobs well done, and certificates for completing levels of training. The game does provide some decent exercise. My routine didn’t burn off a ton of calories, but did make me feel more energetic throughout the day.

So, there’s that.

All in all, what you are getting here is a slightly more customizable Workout DVD. You can change your goals, your trainer and where you train, but the feedback isn’t much more than what you would get from a DVD. In fact, it seems like the game is less descriptive of the yoga poses than many yoga DVDs out there. The game also seems less concerned about safety than Wii Fit, never mentioning things like clear the space around you for this exercise, use a spotter, don’t be afraid to grab a hold of the wall or so on.

The game is usable as an exercise program, but it’s nothing special.

The Scores
Story: Decent
Graphics: Mediocre
Sound: Mediocre
Control and Gameplay: Mediocre
Replayability: Good
Balance: Mediocre
Originality: Mediocre
Addictiveness: Decent
Appeal Factor: Decent
Miscellaneous: Decent
FINAL SCORE: DECENT GAME

Short Attention Span Summary

NewU Mind Body Yoga & Pilates Workout is basically a just a standard workout DVD. It offers some feedback, but very little of that feedback is useful. What it does offer is customization, wherein you get to chose where you work out, with whom and what your goal is. It also has the advantage of getting progressively harder as your progress progresses. Progressive, no?

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For Storm City Games, it’s all about the kids.

To think otherwise would just be cynical, right?

I mean, its not like they would just add some low level animation to some drug store coloring book art in order to charge twenty bucks for four public domain stories.

Right?

Doing a thing like that would be taking advantage of the parents of toddlers for a quick and nasty cash grab. Certainly, we have to have more faith in Storm City.

Let’s Review

See this video? That is pretty much the entirety of the game. It shows you just about everything you need to see, and is nearly as interactive.

But perhaps I am being too cruel. Let’s go through this thing in detail and see what we have to find.

Once Upon a Time consists of three modes.

The first mode is LISTEN TO THE STORY. You select, or your child selects, one of the four stories and the game tells it to you. The four stories consist of “Three Little Pigs,” “Ugly Duckling,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” and “Puss in Boots.”

These are done sort of like books, wherein each story takes place over the course of several pages. Unfortunately this story-telling is inferior to similar DS kiddie games. Noah’s Ark, for instance, allowed the player to click on various parts of the pictures on the pages and have something happen. That same game feature the written story on the screen, so the little ones could try to read along.

Once Upon a Time offers neither of these things. There are no words on the screen. The pages are not clickable. You can’t even control when the pages are turned.

As such, it is less of an interactive book, and more of an under-whelming, under-animated DVD.

The second mode of Once Upon a Time is PLAY GAMES.

The first of these games is called the Animations Game. With this thing, you select, or your child selects, one of the four stories and the game tells it to you. The four stories consist of “Three Little Pigs,” “Ugly Duckling,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” and “Puss in Boots.”

Its exactly like LISTEN TO THE STORY with one obnoxious difference; any time animation happens on the screen, you are supposed to shake the Wii-mote.

You have to shake the remote like crazy to get the game to register it. If you miss a few of the animation, or more likely shake with a reasonable amount of energy, you lose. The game cuts back to the title screen. I guess you win the game when the story is over. But you can just listen to the story and shake the wii-mote randomly with the first mode, so I fail to see the point of this thing.

Honestly, the amount of shaking required to “play” this “game” is pushing the limits of little kid strength and stamina, and seems like it would likely cause kids to crack themselves in the head with the controller.

The second game is a standard “memory” game. Six cards are on the screen. When you make three pairs, you get a new set of six cards. You are only allotted so many wrong guesses before this game sends you back to the title screen. It is more luck based than education based.

The third game is also a memory game. You are shown two cards and then they are flipped over. A third card shows up above the first two. It matches one of the previous two cards. The entirety of the game is click the card on the left or click the card on the right.

Both memory games run ridiculously slowly. It’s as though you were playing these games on a 10 year old computer while running virus scans. They are tedious, even for the most patient of kids.

The fourth and final game is “Puzzle.” You see a picture next to a square with a grid of nine squares. Nine “puzzle piece” squares are on the bottom of the screen. They are smaller than the representative picture, and not very detailed. If you put the pieces in the right place you get a new puzzle. If you temporarily set a few pieces in the wrong part of the grid, you lose and are sent back to the title screen.

With all these mini-games, Once Upon A Time tells you how many points you’ve scored. Unfortunately, this is written out on the screen in lieu of being announced. The game doesn’t keep a record of high-scores, and the target audience can’t read them, so one wonders why they were included.

The third and final mode of Once Upon a Time is TELL YOUR OWN STORY. Here you work your way through the pages of the LISTEN TO THE STORY stories. Putting the cursor over a part of the picture will cause the game to name it. That is to say, point the remote at a tree and the game will say “tree.” Pushing the A Button will cause you to turn the next page; there is no turning back.

The box of this game has labels for READ, PLAY and CREATE. I suppose this is supposed to represent the CREATE portion. Again, I’m not really sure what the game is going for here. Are you supposed to tell this story yourself in your own words? Are you supposed to tell a similar story involving pigs, a small crimson clad child, a footwear-adorned feline, or a cygnet? In either instance, what is the game adding to the experience?

Beyond all that, the controls aren’t responsive. You occasionally have to move the pointer off and back on an object to get it to register.

Visually, the game veers between mediocre and frantic. The illustrations are akin to what you see in an off-brand board book that you could pick up at CVS. The storybook screens are often cramped with too many unnecessary things. The nicest thing I can say about the animations is that they are unimpressive.

I mean, look at this Red Riding Hood picture.

It is particularly frustrating that the cover art for the freaking game box is head and shoulders above the actual art in the game.

Aurally, the game is awful. There are maybe three songs for the whole game, and they are droning, brain burrowing monstrosities. The woman that reads the stories is about as exciting as watching bread toast. Even the few sound effects the game provides are poorly done. The noise for not making a match in the memory game is the same as the noise for making a match.

Seriously? What, you couldn’t afford a BEEP and a BOING?

All in all, this game gives you three modes. Two of those modes aren’t playable. One is listening to a story, the other is looking at the same story while randomly getting words thrown at you.

The mode that is playable gives you four games. One is more or less unplayable. Two lag so much as to be absolutely no fun to play. The last is a bad puzzle game.

Parents, save your money. You can spend five bucks on coloring books and crayons, squeeze way more fun out of those, help develop fine motor skills, and have fifteen bucks left to buy Virtual Console games that can actually be played.

The Scores
Story: Dreadful
Graphics: Bad
Sound: Dreadful
Control and Gameplay: Dreadful
Replayability: Below Average
Balance: Bad
Originality: Dreadful
Addictiveness: Dreadful
Appeal Factor: Mediocre
Miscellaneous: Worthless
FINAL SCORE: VERY BAD GAME

Short Attention Span Summary

The cover of the game box is the only thing here that has artistic merit. Those characters look cute and interesting. This game, however, is a flat-out waste of money. It does nothing new. It does nothing interesting. It does nothing well.

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Shooting stuff is fun.

It’s a simple fact of life. At least, shooting is fun for that segment of the population that appreciates the Three Stooges, CCR, and MMA. I would imagine shooting is less fun for that segment of the population who pay money to see young actresses keep their clothes on for the duration of a movie, but then again there is no understanding some people.

It must be noted, however, that while shooting things is fun, shooting things in a video game does not automatically make it fun. Bullet hell games can be joylessly difficult, first person shooters are often a chore, and light gun games-

-Well light gun games are almost always fun.

Provided they work, of course.

So does Reload work?

Let’s Review

Reload is a shooting gallery game. It’s called “reload” because the game will yell at you to reload whenever you run out of ammo. There is a separate button to do this thing, but just firing the empty gun will automatically make your character reload.

With Reload, you shoot at 2-dimensional targets: no animals, no people, nothing that bleeds. There are only flat targets that look like people, flat targets that kind of look like people, flat targets that look like targets, and skeet.

As such, any violence in this game is a few steps removed from actual violence. You are playing a video game where you shoot at videogame representatives of flat targets that are made to represent people. Layers of alienation protect the game from being akin to murder.

In a sense this is odd; let’s go on a tangent. Follow me, won’t you?

The makers of the U.S. version of The Office refer to their style of filming as “tofu hotdog”. They are trying to make a show that looks like a documentary, whereas most documentaries are trying to not look like documentaries.

And a tofu hot dog is the only thing that is trying to taste like a hot dog.

Reload is saddling itself with limitations that it need not. A shooting gallery uses wood cut-outs because realistic people shaped sculptures made out of ballistic gel are way more expensive. Real people are, of course, EVEN MORE expensive than those things, unless you use the homeless like in Surviving the Game. Although, then you run the risk of the crafty Ice-T ruining your whole operation.

Reload simulates the simulation, in lieu of skipping the middleman and just simulating what shooting galleries simulate. I’m not really sure why. The game is still carries a T for teen rating, even though there is no implied violence, just implied-implied violence. Even the “evil” cardboard cut-outs on the screen never do any worse than throw a paintball at you.

Or maybe shoot a paintball.

I’m not really sure.

There isn’t an animation for that, paint just splatters on the screen if you take to long to shoot those targets.

Maybe they spit it.

I guess nowadays there are more military games out there than military training games. By adopting the style of the latter, Reload can be a more simplistic game to play (and I am sure to code). There is quite a bit of appeal be able to play a game without twenty minutes of instruction.

Reload offers single player and multiplayer modes. With single player you have the option of playing a “career mode” or playing levels that have already been unlocked with career mode.

With multi-player you have the option of playing levels that have been unlocked via career mode. You can play with multiple remotes at once, or share a single wii-mote with the “hot-seat” option.

Now, if you were paying attention to the last two paragraphs, you might have seen the main problem with the game; everything has to be unlocked via career mode. This wouldn’t be a big problem, if it weren’t for the fact that career mode is completely linear, one level after another. If you want to play some multi-player games with a machine gun, you are going to have to invest a lot of time in career mode first. You’ll have to play through multiple handgun training levels, rifle training levels, skeet shooting levels, hostage rescue levels, and so forth.

Depending on your abilities and preferences, this can be tedious. Unlocking the next level of career mode requires a bronze medal or better. Some levels, I can do this thing on the first try without any difficulty. Very often I thought I did terribly, and ended up getting a silver medal. On the other hand, I often found myself without any medals for things like skeet shooting. I hate skeet shooting, but in order to progress in the game, I had to play skeet shooting for more time than things I actually enjoyed.

Another downside related to this thing is that the stages tend to be too long. One level will often have more than five rounds, and each of those rounds might consist of a number of waves. Playing a lot of these can be tedious, particularly if you are stressing about maintaining a high enough score to make it to the next level.

Many levels require quite a bit of target discrimination. A few of the stages are rail shooters, wherein you have to shoot the cut-outs of “bad guys” and not shoot “hostages” or “civilians”. In other levels like this, you will be stationary while a number of bad guys and hostages will be moving left and right at various speeds, various distances away. These levels are quite unforgiving. Particularly the one that gives you a shotgun, crowds the screen with civilians, tells you not to shoot these civilians and lasts EIGHT ROUNDS!

You’re allowed to hit seven hostages before Reload gives you Game Over. I killed a lot of hostages before I finally passed that level. Several dozen.

In fact, I found myself only firing twice on the last round just to preserve my bronze medal score and not kill any of the hostages.

By the by, the game uses the terms hostage and civilian inter-changeably. I find that kind of hilarious. The main way to tell them from the bad guys is that they wear brighter colors. The bad guys will carry guns or sometimes have dynamite strapped to their chests, but these things can be hard to see if the character is far in the background. As such, the rule of thumb is don’t shoot anything yellow, orange or purple.

Because of the game’s unlocking set up, it becomes more replayable the more you play it. More and more stages are unlocked for single and multi-player. Really, the game becomes more worth playing the more you play it. If you like this sort of a game, this would make it merit a buy instead of a rental. This is particularly true taking into consideration its under $20 price point.

The game also gives out trophies and badges, keeps track of high scores and a total score which can be shared and compared with an online leader board. This can be an interesting little thing; I jumped from 80th online to 40th in 90 minutes. It was exciting.

The internal high-scores are a little frustrating, though. The game keeps track of high scores for every level, but not who got them. There is no spot to put in your initials or anything of that sort. Even with the career mode levels, the high scores aren’t identified. Of course, you don’t enter a name when you start career mode, and there is only one slot for career mode.

Basically, you can have bragging rights with strangers, but not the people in your house.

In terms of visuals, the game is fine. The guns look like their real world counterparts. The cut-outs look like cut-outs; the targets look like targets. The game doesn’t raise the bar very high, and hardly bothers with animation, but what is there is perfectly acceptable.

Aurally, the game doesn’t offer much. The main song sounds like a direct -to-video action movie from 1989. A voice reads the instructions that are already written on the screen, and will tell you to reload. He’ll occasionally say things like “excellent shot” or “better luck next time”, but these things don’t always correspond to the proper occasion. The voice will tell me the former when I shoot three bad guys and a hostage with my shot gun. He’ll tell me the latter in the middle of level where I performed perfectly well.

You can play Reload with a wiimote, the wiimote and nunchuk combo, or with the wii zapper. All of these ways work. Essentially, all you need to do with any of them is point the remote at the screen and hit B. Id est, the controls aren’t very complicated.

The zapper makes life a lot easier though. My hand is a lot steadier with a gun shaped controller. Without it, I found myself trying to grip and steady the Wii-mote with two hands and it just isn’t shaped well for that. The only downside to the zapper is that I find the trigger more sensitive, and find myself more likely to put a load of buckshot into an innocent person’s eye.

All in all, Reload is a worthwhile budget game for the Wii. It doesn’t promise a lot, but delivers on what it does.

Because in the end, shooting stuff is fun.

The Scores
Modes: Mediocre
Graphics: Decent
Sound: Mediocre
Control and Gameplay: Enjoyable
Replayability: Good
Balance: Enjoyable
Originality: Mediocre
Addictiveness: Above Average
Appeal Factor: Good
Miscellaneous: Decent
FINAL SCORE: ABOVE AVERAGE GAME

Short Attention Span Summary

Reload is a target shooting game. It doesn’t re-invent the wheel. It won’t blow you away with its audio or graphics, and doesn’t have enough unlocked from the get-go. On the other hand, the game is dirt cheap and the controls are simple yet effective. All in all, it is pick up and play, arcade style fun.

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Man I love the Gummi Bears. SING WITH ME!
Dashing and daring,
Courageous and caring,
Faithful and friendly with stories to share!
All through the forest,
They sing out in chorus,
Marching along as their song fills the air.

Oh.

I guess this game doesn’t have anything to do with the Disney TV Show. It’s about candy and I guess I like those, too.
Chewy and chewy
And chewy and chewy
These fruit flavored bears that I kill with my mouth
These bears are not polar
They stick in my molar
They sit in a bag and that’s all that they do!

More specifically, this game is about the candy and how much that candy likes to engage in the teenage date activity of mini-golf.

What could go wrong?

Let’s Review

Gummy Bears MiniGolf lets you pick a gummy from a variety of colors, and then give that bear a five letter name. I chose a blue one and named it Tummi. After that it is time for golf. Apparently, Tummi is really bad at mini-golf.

It goes like this: first you select which of the four courses you’d like to play. Since three of those four courses are locked, this choice is easy. Next you are shown the course. You can position your bear with the d-pad. Left and Right position your bear left and right. Up and Down turn the bear. X and B move the camera up and down.

To hit the ball, you have to swipe the stylus up the touch pad. And here is where the problems begin.

First off, the game doesn’t tell you that is how you hit the ball. The game doesn’t give you a single clue as to how the controls work. There are a few throwaway lines in the paper manual, but that’s it.

A kid who doesn’t read the manual is going to get stuck on the first course.

Second off, the controls don’t work. There is absolutely no consistency in shot strength. The manual says the faster you swipe, the harder you hit the ball.

I disagree.

I’ve had the same swipe sink a long putt, launch the ball off the course, and barely move the golf ball. It’s kind of a problem. Especially considering that the ball will only drop into the hole when the ball is moving at a snail’s pace.

Because of this thing, it is surprisingly difficult to make par for any hole. The first course is three holes. You need to get par or better overall in order to unlock the second course. You have to do the same with the second course, to unlock the third, and the same with the third to unlock the fourth. The only difference is that each course has more holes than the one before it.

Although, I should say a lot of what I am saying is based on assumption. I’ve only been able to unlock the second course. I haven’t seen the third or fourth courses. My daughter tried many times on the first course, but grew tired of the game before she was able to unlock the second course.

I convinced my wife to try the game out when I went to the store. I wanted to make sure that it wasn’t just me being terrible at this children’s game. When I got back from the store, fifteen minutes later, I heard “you’ve got to be kidding me!” and she shut the game in disgust.

I’m fairly confident in saying that using the stylus as a putter does not work.

The game is also pretty spotty in recognizing good things from bad things. The game will say “fantastic shot” for getting close to the hole. But it sometimes compliments how close you are to the hole when you just blew the world’s easiest putt. You have a short putt, the stylus controls go wonky and don’t detect any speed on the swipe and the ball moves a nanometer. “Great shot” the game says.

Are you mocking me Gummy Bears MiniGolf? I will not abide being mocked by CANDY!

Sometimes, the game becomes indifferent to you playing it at all. I’ve had several instances where in lieu of “good shot” or “nice shot” the game just tells me “shot”.

Graphically, the game is nothing special. The holes are underwhelming, without so much as a moving windmill on the first eight holes. Who knows what the rest of the game has?

In terms of audio, it is the same kids game music I’ve hears many times before. What is this generic music? Is there some sort of aural equivalent to ClipArt out there?

In addition to holding the majority of the game hostage, Gummy Bears MiniGolf does a few other things to artificially enhance replayability. Each hole has a number of coins on it. If your ball hits the coin you get it. Collect them, and you can shop at the gummy bear stores. It amounts to shirts and hats for your bear, different colored balls, and weird putters that look like candy canes or birds.

I enjoy dressing up my candy as much as the next guy, but is ball color really something that needs to be an unlockable?

Seriously, Gummy Bears MiniGolf, seriously?

I tried to like you, and this is how you treat me?

The game also gives you little awards for completing some actions. I guess this is something that the kids enjoy, but I don’t really go in for it. You get a trophy for your characters first par, its first bogey, hitting the ball out of bounds five times, and so on. Unless these trophies affect gameplay, I don’t see the point in them.

There is multiplayer for Gummy Bears MiniGolf, but it is exactly the same as single player. The only difference is that you have to pass the DS back and forth. The game doesn’t even congratulate the winner. It just shows a score sheet at the end. Even though you have to name each Gummy, the score sheet lists them as Player 1 and Player 2. What the heck game? You forgot that this all important three hole match was between Sunni and Gusto? C’mon!

The only other thing there is to talk about is the option to design your own course. I thought that this could be exciting, but I was a fool. You can customize your own course, but not design your own hole. As such, you get to create your own unique course consisting of holes previously unlocked.

Lame.

The Scores
Modes: Bad
Graphics: Mediocre
Sound: Below Average
Control and Gameplay: Bad
Replayability: Mediocre
Balance: Bad
Originality: Mediocre
Addictiveness: Bad
Appeal Factor: Good
Miscellaneous: Dreadful
FINAL SCORE: POOR GAME

Short Attention Span Summary

Gummy Bears MiniGolf is too hard for kids and too kiddish for adults. It is also too hard for adults. Basically, the game just doesn’t work and is clearly the product of either Duke Sigmund Igthorn or Lady Bane.

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Picture a zookeeper. One day, he walks around the zoo and feels dissatisfied with the current crop of animals. One monkey is kind of a jerk. These bear cubs aren’t nearly as cute as the last batch. This lousy panda won’t mate no matter how slutty he dresses the other panda.

The zookeeper says, “I need to start fresh.”

Then he proceeds to drown every animal in the zoo.

Then he goes home and drowns his family.

Because he loves them.

I think it’s a great story to tell kids.

Let’s Review

1. Story

All right, so my parable isn’t the real story of Noah’s Ark; the biblical version is way crazier and crueler. The way it goes down is that Yahweh is angry that the people he made aren’t acting like he wants them to act. He decides to flood the entire Earth and kill pretty much everything. It’s like deleting your Sims data, only wetter.

God doesn’t want to have to bust out his magic people clay again, so he asks a 600 year old man to build a 450 foot long boat to store two (or seven) of every animal. He gives Noah seven days to built this massive ark and collect samples from each of the millions (or billions) of species on Earth from Australia to Greenland. I mean finding all 300,000 species of beetles must have been one heck of a task.

God then floods the earth, killing all the adorable kittens, playful puppies, cute little pandas, silly capybaras, ugly ducklings, flowers, chinchillas, babies, infants and toddlers.

A few months later Noah, his wife, their three sons and the three wives of those sons land the ship on a mountain. After a little while, Noah becomes a bit of a drunk and occasionally runs around naked. His son, Ham, sees him naked, so Noah curses Ham’s son named Canaan.

I don’t really understand that part either.

Noah dies at the ripe old age of 950.

The story of Noah and his party boat is silly, even by Old Testament standards. I wrote a lot more about it five years ago.

Naturally, since this is a kid’s game, all the drunken nudity and depictions of things actually dying are censored. Instead we just get a Santa Claus looking dude helping some friendly and colorful animals onto his cruise ship. God causes a flood to get rid of “evil”.

And that is why we have no evil to this very day.

2. Graphics

The graphics here are cute and kid friendly. Everything is at about the same level of cartoony-ness as Scribblenauts.

Sadly, Noah doesn’t save any werewolves, Unicorns, Pirates or Cthulhu.

(Scribblenauts – 1, Noah – 0)

There isn’t much going on in terms of animation. While nothing is really static, there isn’t a whole lot of motion in the game. Most characters a limited to a few movement cycles. For instance, Noah will watch you play a mini-game, occasionally mime surprise, and will clap every now and then. Sometimes instead of Noah watching you, it will be Noah’s wife. (I believe her name is Emzara, but the bible doesn’t care too much about describing women.)

3. Sound

The game is full of generic DS music for the Kindergarten set. Nothing memorable, but nothing offensive.

The narrator and all the voice over-folk are all adequate.

And British.

As such, the pronunciations are a little different. So, if you get this game for your little one, don’t be surprised if she starts saying zebra as though it rhymed with Debra.

4. Control and Gameplay

All right, as this is an “interactive story book”, the game wants you to hold the DS sideways to trick you into thinking that it is a book.

DECEIVERS!

Also, since this is an “interactive story book” with a few minigames thrown in, it should come as no surprise that the thing is almost exclusively controlled by the stylus. The D-pad does a few things, like turn the storybook pages, and allow you to exit out of the mini-games.

Other than that, it is a lot of tappa tappa tappa.

Speaking of the mini-games, here is what you get:

Storybook: Read the Story of Noah’s Ark.

Here you can listen to and read along with the kid-friendly version of Noah’s story. It isn’t too many pages, and each one has a few touch screen actions to allow you to interact with the pictures. You can make rabbits go up and down on a see saw, or try to capsize the ark.

Learning Zone: Practice Spelling and Writing with Noah’s Wife!

This has two sections. One is a spelling bee that is an actual bee and the other is a section where you trace capital letters of the alphabet.

For the former you see a word on the left screen, and move a bee cursor over the letters of that word to spell it.

For the latter, you basically just have to spray paint in the capital letters of the alphabet, while looking at a picture of an animal whose name begins with said letter. It doesn’t really teach you how to form that letter, but it did teach me two animal names: Quoll and Xerus. (Usually, with these things you get Quail and X-ray fish. )

Coloring Book: Color in Noah”˜s Animal Friends!

Apparently, Noah only considers four of the animals to be his friends. Anyway, this is the standard paint-bucket coloring book with limited color choices. Any kid website has something like this thing, except usually better.

Musical Animals: Make Music with Noah and his Animal Friends

This section has two mini-games. The first is a dumbed down version of Simon, where you never have to remember a sequence of more than four animals. The second game in this section is the GREATEST THING EVER!

Wait for it. . .

HIPPO PIANO- This hippopotamus’s teeth sound just like a piano!

Truly this is a remarkable moment in gaming history!

You see, you touch the hippos teeth and they make the noises of piano keys.

Man, this game should’ve opened with that! Screw Noah! More Hippo Piano!

Man Hippo Piano is so awesome. This game should have been called The Adventure of Hippo Piano Across the 8th Dimension.

Play Time

This is the catch all section for the rest of the mini-games. The first game is a relatively common mini-game where you catch flying objects in a basket. The second is a “Find Mii” style game where you have to click on the proper animal within a time limit. The Third game is a match game wherein a conveyor belt has three different types of food, and you must drag that food to the plates of the animals who would want to eat those things.

I thought the lion would like to try the seal’s fish, but apparently not.

In the fourth game, you control a whale underneath the ark. By tapping on the whale, he shoots water out of his blowhole forcing the ark into the air and over obstacles.

Wait a goldurn minute. What stake do whales have in all this flood business? This whale owes Noah nothing. He doesn’t get to ride in the boat or nothing.

That’s bogus.

In the final game, you control a dove. You collect olive branches and avoid thunder clouds. It’s the sort of stupidity you would expect from an NES game about Noah made by LJN.

5. Replayability

This game is aimed for little kids. This fact should be obvious in that it wants you to learn how to make capital letters. But even taking that into account, there isn’t a whole lot here that needs revisiting. Being an adult, I did everything there was to do in this game and more in under an hour.

A kid can probably suck a few hours out of this thing, but so what? The quality of the games here is on par with the lesser games on PBSkids.org. The main difference is that PBS Kids has a lot more games and is free.

6. Balance

This is a game for five year olds. It isn’t supposed to be hard. The games are simple enough to play for most little kids. No reading is required.

Some of the games cannot be failed, and others don’t really pay much attention to how well they are played.

7. Originality

The only mini-game here I haven’t played a million times was the whale boat levitation thing. It wasn’t very fun.

Frankly, I don’t know how you can even make a Noah’s Ark game without using the Wolfenstein 3D engine.

This game has neither slingshots nor goats! For shame!

8. Addictiveness

What could be more addictive than reading bible stories?

C’mon people!

There isn’t a bad guy or a villain, though I would nominate God for that role. Because there is no main story to the mini-games, there is no sense of accomplishment for doing well on them. Noah will tell you good job if you do thing halfway decently on some of the mini-games, but it isn’t really satisfying.

There are no points. There is nothing to unlock.

I was hoping to unlock the book of Ecclesiastes based on my virtuoso performances on Hippo Piano.

9. Appeal Factor

Most people know this story. As I understand it, most monotheists have Noah in their holy books. A few weirdos even believe this stuff actually happened exactly like it says in Genesis.

It’s hard to pinpoint the appeal of this game.

I imagine the target audience is the same one as those people that buy those creepy children’s bible story collections that are in the waiting room of my daughter’s Advocate Health center. You know the ones, right? “The sheep says “˜baaaa’ and God tells us we have dominion over the animals.”

10. Miscellaneous

HIPPO PIANO IS THE GREATEST THING EVER! Ever! The hippos teeth work just like a piano!

Except there aren’t any black keys. . .

I guess that makes sense though., because hippos aren’t really known for their sharp teeth.

The Scores
Story: Dreadful
Graphics: Decent
Sound: Mediocre
Control and Gameplay: Mediocre
Replayability: Below Average
Balance: Decent
Originality: Dreadful
Addictiveness: Poor
Appeal Factor: Decent
Miscellaneous: Incredible
FINAL SCORE: MEDIOCRE GAME

Short Attention Span Summary

Noah’s Ark is pretty much your standard, allegedly educational, kiddie game. If you spit at the Vtech aisle at target, you’ll hit eight things just like it. More time should have been taken to focus this game around the Hippo Piano aspects.

You see, because it is a hippo whose teeth are a piano.

Why can’t the hippo be in charge of the ark? That would be totally rad. Isn’t it just as likely as a 600 year old man being the captain?

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