Ting Ting Ting.   Thwump thwump.  Chata-chata-chata.  Ah the sounds of pinball.  It’s like sweet, sweet music; as the sound draws you into an arcade or corner of the bar.  While Pinball can date as far back as the 1800’s, modern day pinball had a boom in the early 1970s.  One of the leaders in table manufacturers was Williams, who also created such popular arcade games Joust and Robotron.   Now Wii owners can experience all the classics from the comfort of their own couch with Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection.

The game sets to emulate the arcade experience right down to the interface, with your character able to walk around a virtual arcade choosing a machine to play at.  With Wii-Mote in one hand, and nun-chuck in the other it’s like you are standing at a pinball table.  Each controller’s button will operate the flipper, and each controller’s motion will bump the table.  So if you need to hit that ball a little to the left simply push the wii-mote in that direction.  The machines are all accurate recreations of their real life counter parts; every bumper, graphic and sound effect is here.  In fact the game includes a digital version of the original arcade flyer for each machine, which used to lure prospective buyers.

Some of the machines offer free play, but others will be asking for your virtual quarters.  How do you fill your fantasy pockets with these coins?  By completing goals on the tables and competing in the Williams Tournament.  These tasks can range from successfully unlocking multi-ball on a table to achieving a certain score or hitting a specific marker.  The Williams Tournament will have you competing in successive tables to achieve certain scores.  The tournament isn’t for the weary either, while the first 2 tables or so the scores are fairly easy - the last bunch will have you pounding on flippers for hours.

Pinball is the original button masher, with many people simply content to keeping the ball out of the bottom of the machine.  Truly skilled players know there are certain targets and goals used to achieve maximum score.  Every table in the game offers a detailed walk through of every scoring location and goal to help get the most out of your pinball experience.  This is a very welcome addition to the game as I know I never have any idea what to do in a pinball game.

With 10 tables and up to 4 players you’ll have plenty to keep you busy in the virtual arcade.  A game of pinball is something that never gets old, it’s something you can always go back to.  I found Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection strangely addictive, almost entrancing and  it’s hard to argue with a $30 price tag for something with mostly infinite replay ability.  Just don’t tilt the table.

Score:  4 out of 5

The first project from Kaos Studios (creators of Desert Combat), Frontlines: Fuel of War is very much influence by the aforementioned mod.   The story revolves around the time the world’s oil begins to dry up, and involves the nations who must fight for the last remaining territories that have the precious resource.   In the single player game has you taking the role of a soldier in the Western Coalition (the United States and the European Union) to face off against the Red Star Alliance (Russian/People’s Republic of China).  The multiplayer on the other hand plays out like a Battlefield 2 match, though there’s a few unique twists.

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After a Holiday 2007 that was filled with games like Halo 3, Mass Effect, Uncharted and others, the games of early 2008 have a large shoe to fill. Turok is one of those games that’s reception could change depending on the time of year it’s released. Turok itself isn’t a bad game…but it isn’t a great game either. There are times when the game shows a truly awesome moment. And there are times when it’s simply downright frustrating and annoying.

Turok is the 4th game in the franchise. While the first title in the series was fairly well received, the latter titles left much to be desired. The story puts you in the role of Turok trying to track down is old teacher Kane for some unknown reason. Suddenly the space ship Turok is on comes under attack and crash lands onto a planet filled with dinosaurs and other creatures. The original Turok was subtitled “The Dinosaur Hunter” and the latest game is no exception to the rule. There’s a good variety of dinos to hunt, though not all of them necessarily need to be massacred. In fact, by utilizing flares you can use the dinosaurs as weapon to attack an enemy. The other neat thing about the dinosaurs in the world is they will stalk and hunt you. You won’t necessarily see them, but you can hear them, and before you know it you’ll be knocked on your ass fending off the dino attack. There’s a button press mini game that is played to survive every attack, as well as during a few cutscenes in the game. There’s a good variety of animations and differences in the mini games that keep it interesting.

Like I said before, there are several scenes and moments in the game that will simply put a smile on your face. Sneaking up behind enemy soldiers and knifing them in the back is one. Launching explosive arrows into groups of unsuspecting enemies is another. But there are times in the game where things are simply so unbalanced that it’s just downright frustrating. Part of the problem is the screen shake in the game. When you take hits from gunfire your viewport is skewed a bit. The bigger problem is when an explosion goes off near you and knocks you off your feet. You become disoriented, and can’t shoot or move for a few seconds. The even bigger problem here is most times an enemy will be able to get off another rocket or grenade before you even get back to your feet, thereby knocking you back down before you really get back up. Before you know it your screen is a blurry red mess and suddenly you are dead.
The single player campaign was mildly entertaining, as was the story. There’s a solid voice acting cast with the likes of Ron Perlman as the cynical sidekick Slade. The game features a pretty indepth multiplayer mode complete with dinosaurs that roam the playing field. There’s also a small co-op campaign online which consists of 3 short missions. It would have been nice if the actual campaign was co-op, but what we get is pretty solid.

Turok is a game that many people will overlook, and while it’s not something everyone should play, fans of shooters or the previous titles will enjoy what the game has to offer.

Score: 3 out of 5

If you’ve read my Geometry Wars: Galaxies review for the Wii, you know I thought very favorably of it. What’s even better is the fact that there’s a portable version of the game available for the Nintendo DS. In that tiny little cart you’ll find a virtually identical version of Geometry Wars: Galaxies. That’s not to say there aren’t differences, but from a gameplay and content perspective you’ve got every Geometry Wars fan’s dream.

Obviously the Nintendo DS isn’t two Gamecubes with some duct tape, so graphically speaking the game doesn’t look quite as good. You won’t get any fancy grid effects, and there won’t be as many colors, but you do still get a great particle engine and plenty of baddies on the screen at once. The game does slowdown at times, especially when things start to get really hectic, but it’s nothing too bad and it’s something you get used to.

The Controls on the DS allow for a few options. The first has the game displaying on the top screen while you use the d-pad (or buttons for us lefties) to move and the stylus on the bottom screen to aim. There’s a small ship icon which corresponds to your ship up top, and moving the stylus around it shoots in the appropriate direction. The second method has the game screen at the bottom and has you using the stylus directly on the game board. The problem I found with this is it can be difficult to see the action on the screen. The final method allows you to have the screen on either top or bottom and you use the d-pad and buttons in a familiar dual analog stick type fashion. I actually found this method to be the best once I go the hang of rolling my thumb along the buttons to aim.

Besides a bit of slowdown the only flaw I found with the game is the sound. While it does an accurate job of recreating the effects, there seems to be a limit as to how many sound cues the DS can play at once. This causes you to miss critical cues of different types of enemies spawning. The Nintendo DS and Wii version of Galaxies allow you to connect the two to unlock an additional galaxy. The galaxy has one of the greatest levels in it which has a giant black hole in the middle that can’t be killed along with constantly spawning enemies. It’s an interesting and hectic challenge.

For Geometry Wars addicts this is the version of the game you need to have. The pick up and play nature of the game is perfect for the DS. On top of that you get online leader boards via the Nintendo WiFi connection to feed your competitive side. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some isosceles triangles to blast apart.

Score: 4 out of 5

Buy it @ Amazon.

In a time when DS games had you performing surgery or solving murder mysteries Cooking Mama stood out as a quirky title about making food. I always figured it was one of those titles that tried to cash in on the DS craze so I avoided it. Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends was recently released and I figured it was time to see what all the fuss was about. The most ironic thing about the game is I found myself playing it while waiting for things to cook in the real kitchen.

The basic premise of the game to cook fast, and to cook accurately. The idea is you are presented with a bunch of recipes, and each recipe is broken down into a step. Each step is basically a mini-game. Does the recipe call for diced onions? There’s a little dicing mini game to play. Does the recipe require skewered eel? Then there’s a little eel skewering mini game. Perhaps you need to blend corn? You get the idea. With 80 some recipes in the game, there are over 150 different mini games. And while the variety of the mini-games follow a few basic patterns, there seems to be enough variety to keep you interested for quite some time. From dicing, stirring, chopping, tossing, spreading, and combining ingredients each mini-game has a unique hook to it that is strangely addicting. Some games require a memory type mechanism, others require your ability to recognize blurry pictures while most of them are basically using the stylus to mimic some sort of motion. Cooking Mama 2 has you cooking not only with Mama, but Mama’s friends for a variety of different recipes. Each step in a recipe has a set time it needs to be completed in, and the faster and more accurate you complete the step the higher your rating is. Eventually you’ll earn medals and unlock content to help customize your kitchen and cook new recipes. Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends also has the ability to have a cooking contest with friends using just 1 cartridge. Just think, you can have your very own Iron Chef Cook-off without the mess!

While the game is strangely addictive, there are a few quirks. In some of the mini-games it isn’t very apparent what the game wants you to do. I also would have loved to see the actual recipes for the dishes so you can actually cook the food (in real life). And while Cooking Mama 2 is a solid title on it’s own, but from what I hear it’s not all that different from the original.

Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends is your quintessential Nintendo DS game. It’s quick pickup and play design, combined with some inventive uses for the stylus make it strangely addicting and fun. If you are looking for a game that’s a great distraction, and to fill those few minutes while you nuke a pizza in the microwave, look no further than Cooking Mama 2. And who knows…soon you might be cooking “Even better than mama!”

Score: 3.5 out of 5

Buy it at Amazon!

For your everyday onlooker, Geometry Wars isn’t exactly that impressive to glance at. It’s a game though that once you begin to play, you truly understand its beauty. It comes as no surprise that many websites picked Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved as one of the Xbox 360 must have launch titles. So while Xbox 360 fans have been itching for a true sequel, it’s Wii owners who get it first with Geometry Wars: Galaxies.

The beauty of the original Geometry Wars was it’s simplicity. As a dual analog shooter (left stick moves, right stick shoots) the game was easy to pick up and play. The problem (if any) with the original was that once you got to a certain point in the game, it never changed or got more difficult. Galaxies sets to fix that with multiple level layouts, more enemy varieties, and even multiplayer. The core difference in Galaxies’ gameplay is how the multiplayer works. In the original Geometry Wars, you earned a multiplier (2x,3x,4x,etc) by killing multiple enemies in a row without dieing. In Galaxies your multiplier works by collecting Geoms. What are Geoms? Geoms are little pieces of badguys left behind after destroying them. Besides increasing your multiplier (which still reset to 0 when dieing), the Geoms serve as the in game currency to unlock levels and new abilities for your AI. That’s right, the other major additional gameplay mechanic is your little sidekick. The little guy, I call him Fred, follows you around and assists in the levels. Fred can be upgraded to perform various functions, whether that’s shoot where you are shooting, or become an auto turret and take down those pesky geometries. There’s about 10 different functions that he can serve, all which can be upgraded by killing baddies.

Galaxies is broken up into, surprise, galaxies! Each galaxy offers different planets to unlock and each planet has it’s own point total goals, enemies, and layouts. The layouts of the levels can vary between your normal square to one of many non standard shapes, both big and small. There’s lots of neat little things that happen on levels. Some levels have moving geometry which you have to work around. Others have enemies that lay down mines which you can trigger to set off chain reactions. And of course, there’s just the tried and true GW formula of shoot everything and never stop moving.

The one main problem with Galaxies is the game is a dual analog shooter without dual analog sticks. The developers made an admirable attempt to utilize the Wii controls to kind of use a point and shoot hybrid type control scheme. Unfortunately the Wii controller simply can’t provide a smoother circular motion and feels like a constant battle to aim and shoot where you want to. The Classic Controller becomes a necessity, but even then, I find the analog sticks and the hard corners of it detrimental to the fast pace of Geometry Wars.

Despite the controller flaws, the game is still Geometry Wars at heart, and that’s a good thing. The planets are very intuitive, and the unlocking nature of seeing what happens next is incredibly addictive. Add in co-op and versus play and the ability to link the game up to the DS and you’ve got a full value package at $39.99. The bottom line is this… if you are an arcade shooter fan - you need this game.

Score:
4 out of 5

When you have an actual movie theater in your basement, you tend to consider yourself a fan of movies. So when I heard popular board game Scene It was making it’s way to the Xbox 360 I knew it was time to fire up the popper. Scene It: Lights, Camera Action is also the first Scene It to feature Hi-Def movie clips and unique games. Best of all, the game comes with four easy to use gameshow style controllers adding to the experience.

Those of you that have played the Scene It board game (or one of the 30 variations of it) should feel right at home, but the core of the game is changed a bit though. For one, the Scene It Xbox game doesn’t actually have a game board, instead to win you compete through 4 rounds of play and score points by answering questions as fast as possible. Players don’t take turns answering questions, instead both teams can answer most of the questions at the same time, with the fastest response getting the most points. There are also other challenges where players are required to buzz in and answer, with a wrong answer allowing the other team to answer in too.

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It’s hard to believe the Gears of War franchise is only a year old. When the game launched last year on the Xbox 360 it immediately took the crown as the game to have. The graphics were top notch, the gameplay was solid, and the co-op experience was the best to date. A year later Microsoft and Epic have brought the game to the PC crowd, and it seems to have survived the translation.

The PC version of Gears of War supports Microsoft’s Games for Windows Live platform. Unfortunately, much like Halo 2 for Vista, it doesn’t support any cross platform play to extend the community. This is also the first title that allows for GFWL on XP machines. This was a huge complaint with the original GFWL titles as a lot of gamers didn’t want to install Vista. The game does support DX10, though I can’t really tell the difference between that and the DX9 mode visually. The real draw of the new version of Gears is the new chapters of content. Many noticed that there wasn’t exactly a smooth transition between Act IV and Act V, and these chapters help fill that void.

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Marble Madness pioneered a new genre of gaming back in 1984 on the Atari. Combining platforming, puzzle solving and incredible patience it was your job to navigate your marble from one end of the level to another. The game inspired numerous titles like Super Monkey Ball, Marble Blast Ultra and Mercury Meltdown. The latter was a launch title on the PSP and received fairly positive reviews and now Ignition Entertainment brings a sequel to the Nintendo’s Wii called Mercury Meltdown Revolution. I guess they didn’t get the memo it’s now called the Wii.

The basic premise of Mercury Meltdown is simple. Navigate your blob of mercury through various levels to reach an end goal as fast as possible. It sounds very straight forward, but there are plenty of curves in this game which add some strategy and puzzle solving elements.

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Back in May of 2006 I wrote a review of Rockstar’s Table Tennis. The game came out just as the Wii hype was taking place, and people immediately said - “Why isn’t this coming out on the Wii?” Fast forward to today when the game finally makes an appearance on Nintendo little white console. But is it the game people hoped it would be? Not quite.

For the most part the game remains completely unchanged in terms of content. There’s still the same characters, courts and outfits to unlock. In fact the entire single player campaign is identical to the Xbox 360 counterpart. Where the game differs is the online multi player component, namely there isn’t one on the Wii. Read the rest of this entry »