MCP: WEEKLY GAME FIX- 1/07/08

Sorta. Finally we have some titles worth… well, at least worth a rent. Harvey Birdman is on the top of my list this week, if only because of how strong Phoenix Wright is. Plus, we’ve got at least one forgotten classic and one possible new one on the downloadable front.

How are you guys liking this column so far? Send me any comments right here, and hey! Companies! Send me your release lists so I don’t miss any.

Tuesday, January 8th –

World Championship Paintball (PS2)
Buy it from CHUD here!

Do people really love paintball so much that they’d want to play it in videogame form? Isn’t the whole point of paintball that because we can’t shoot people for real, we use silly little paint pellets? Why would you want to do that in a game? The game touts 160+ pieces of gear to supply your team with, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s fucking paintball. Who cares?

Wednesday, January 9th –

Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity (Wii, PS2)
Buy it from CHUD here!

Sonic takes a second wack at a racing game, but it’s going to have to be something special to erase the memory of the original game from people’s minds. It just wasn’t that good. Course, it was a big hit and kids dug it for what it was, so here’s the inevitable sequel. Control Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and all the other forgettable background characters from Sega’s series as they fly around on their hoverboard thingys. You’d think that if you were as fast as Sonic you wouldn’t need any other form of transportation.

Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom (Xbox 360)
Buy it from CHUD here!

Yeah, I’m a not a big fan of this based on the demo (see why here). Course, judging from some of the emails I’ve received, some of you don’t share the same opinion. (Also funny was the one irate fanboy who bitched at me for not finishing the demo before writing a "review". It wasn’t a review, dipshit, it was just my initial impressions.) But even though Microsoft is pushing this as their big RPG for the season, it doesn’t change the fact that there are better ones out there right now. Games with names that rhyme with Davidian. (Great, now I’ve got "Let freedom ring with a shotgun blast!!" stuck in my head)

NFL Tour (Xbox 360, PS3)
Buy it from CHUD here!

Say bye-bye to NFL Street, say hello to NFL Tour. No longer will you be playing on streets and playgrounds around the country. Instead you’ll be playing in stadiums with huge crowds and lots of pyrotechnics. This will also include real NFL players, presumably on their off season. While I don’t really see a need for this series at all (EA, you don’t make enough money barely updating Madden every year?) this is what people who like their sports more arcadey will like.

Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: The Beginning of Destiny (PS2)
Buy it from CHUD here!

Damned if I can figure out what makes this different than of the other dozen Yu-Gi-Oh games. All of my little cousins have since moved on from the craze (I think) so hopefully this will pass me by.

Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law (Wii, PSP, PS2)
Buy it from CHUD here!

Capcom takes a different sort of swipe at the lawyer genre with this game, based on the popular Adult Swim character. If you’re not a fan of the show there doesn’t appear to be much of a chance that you’ll enjoy this. There seems to be much more of a focus of showing you new footage from the cartoon (with the original voice actors) than actual interaction in the game. Course, those of you that find the show pretty amusing (like me) will definitely have to check it out. There doesn’t seem to be much difference between the Wii, PS2 and PSP versions, except of course for the fact that the Wii version uses the remote as a pointer, so you should be good no matter what you try.

Nitrobike (Wii)
Buy it from CHUD here!

The guys who formerly made Excitebike 64 create their own arcade racer for the Wii. You should know what to expect, as it takes the basics of its former game and changes it just a bit by throwing a rocket on the back of your motorcycle. It will also be one of a handful of Wii games to have online multiplayer, so there you go!

Jackass the Game (DS)
Buy it from CHUD here!

Jackass the Game proved to be marginally fun on the PS2 and PSP, so why not the DS? Yeah, it’s yet another mini-game collection of sorts, where you try to create gags for a new season of Jackass. The game’s very short, though, and since this version won’t have the best part of the other games (you could unlock video clips from the show), if you’re really in need of a fix of these lovable assholes you might want to pick it up on another system. Or just watch Jackass 2.5.

Dance Dance Revolution: Disney Channel (PS2)
Buy it from CHUD here!

Even the biggest DDR freaks don’t want this. This version’s all Disney Channel music. That means Hannah Montana, Kim Possible, and other garbage that you wouldn’t know about if you didn’t have kids or young children in your family. Know why I have absolute seething hatred of the Disney Channel? It’s not the shows, which aren’t even as bad as some of the crap that parents are forced to watch. It’s the merch, like this. The whole goddamn channel’s an advertisement for their products, and bad enough to make me reconsider ever letting my (non-existant) kids ever get near a TV. It’ll be only slasher films for them!

Luxor: Pharaoh’s Challenge (Wii)
Buy it from CHUD here!

If you haven’t played Luxor on any other system yet, here it is for the Wii. Expect the same exact puzzle game with added remote functionality. It’s not as good as Zuma, and you could just play it for free online, but you know how casual games and the Wii go…

A pretty damn good action-adventure game that looked and played a lot like Zelda, except that you started off with a Yo-yo instead of a Wooden Sword. Alright, actually, it was a complete Zelda ripoff. The characters, the look of the maps, the heart containers, it was all here. Shit, even the opening screen where you choose your save slot must have confused some people into typing ZEDLA to get the second quest. The controls were also a little wonky, but the story made up for it… it was pretty good for a NES game. This is definitely one that time forgot. One thing that might confuse some people is that the original game box came with a piece of paper that you had to dip in water to reveal a code. Good luck finishing the game without it. (Oh, all right, the code is 747)

(Fellow MCP editor Jon Cassady heard about this release and wanted to chime in with his own thoughts-

"While running on the "Zelda engine," Startropics was one of the original "out there" games released by Nintendo. The story, which was damn near artistic for its time, compelled me to stay up the extra hour to figure the puzzle, not for the sense of completion, but to find out what happened next. Startropics, in fact, succeeds where Zelda II failed, a perfect mix of NPC interaction and action/adventure.

Maybe the game is pure nostalgia for me, especially when you consider the play-control (remember that term) was pretty shitty for its time (no diagonal movement). Plus as someone who borrowed the game from my friend, I had to call him to ask what the code was.

The virtual console sells games on based on a mix of great games and nostaligia. I’m not sure what exactly the ratio is for Startropics, but I know I’ll be downloading the game tonight.")

THE KING OF FIGHTERS ’94 (NeoGeo – 900 Points – $9)

This was the first King of Fighters game ever made, a huge deal if you were a SNK fan. Now you could pit Fatal Fury characters against ones from Art of Fighting, Ikari Warriors, or Psycho Soldier (damned if I can remember that last one). For those of you who preferred Capcom’s (ahem, superior) fighter to this, KoF was the game that let you fight team vs. team, instead of the usual 2 out of 3 matches. 9 bucks is a little steep but it sure is cheaper than it was on the Neo Geo.

A pretty damn impressive looking side-scrolling shooter from Hudson. It really is the best looking game in the Arcade yet, which might be considered faint praise, so I urge you to check out Hudson’s site (here) to check out the trailer. It’s apparently as addictive as it is pretty… looks like we’ve got a winner here. Two great shooters in two weeks? Kudos, Microsoft… keep it up.