Kart racing games tend to be able to beat the king of them all: Mario Kart. While that game started, all a few entertaining offbeat ones have raced by, but this is Sega’s serious attempt at it, and it works. You can play as almost every major Sega mascot, such as most Sonic characters and familiar faces from Space Channel 5, Super Monkey Ball, and others. You race around tracks that reflect the design and setting of various Sega games while using power-ups to stay ahead of the pack.
The game has a power sliding ability that will increase your boost, which is the key to getting in the first place, but also picking up capsules that hold random power-ups such as a homing missile, mines, shields, speed boosts, and various other power-ups we have seen countless times. The game has a great sense of speed, and sliding around corners and doing various stunts is exciting, but the overall experience is borderline juvenile and very easy, even in the hardest mode. There are various missions you can complete as well as buying characters with Sega Miles, but this only goes so far.
The ideal way to play is with friends, but you need several controllers to do so because there is no online play. Why this was stripped from the PC version beats me, but it really brings down the experience since crowding around one computer isn’t very convenient. Once you do get some friends aboard, the game is a blast, and power-sliding and knocking enemies down makes for great laughs.
But when it’s all said and done, the game is a really average kart racer and has dated graphics as well as some annoying sounds. The game just feels the same no matter what you do as a single player, and I highly doubt anyone over 10 can play all 50+ missions without going crazy. If there was just some online play in here, it could sweeten the deal some, but the single-player can only be tolerated for so long.
When Midway announced Mortal Kombat: Unchained for PSP, Nintendo fans screamed that they wanted one as well. They got their wish with a port of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and Puzzle Kombat from MK: Deception thrown in. Here you have a perfect port for both responsive controls and a useful bottom screen that shows finishing moves and special moves. All the characters from UMK3 are here, plus some unlockables. There’s not much to say other than the controls work well, and I could pull off fast combos online while dishing out fatalities and animals left and right.
A couple of small gripes are that the -ality position isn’t listed on the bottom screen, so you kind of need to experiment, and the time to pull off the fatality is like 4 seconds, so you get one try. I also found the graphics slightly blurry due to the low resolution and small screen, but it’s only noticeable to people who play the classics a lot. I also found the Puzzle Kombat graphics were toned down a bit, even more so than on the PSP. Overall, this isn’t a huge package, but enough to satisfy fans, and online play is the best way to go.
Being able to make the fight screen on the top or bottom is a nice feature, but the problems from UMK3 still exist, like ridiculous AI, combos that are hard to pull off, and forgetting to try to beat Shao Kahn unless you cheat. I just wish there were some more modes that could have been thrown in or maybe a few more arcade ports, but what’s here works well and feels great to play and come back to.
Colors: Cosmo Black, Aqua Blue, Flame Red, Pearl Pink, Red
MSRP: $169.99
Nintendo is well-known for making hardware that takes huge risks. While they usually fail software-wise, they tend to soar in hardware sales. The 3DS started out pretty poorly, with crappy launch titles and a steep retail price of $250. About 6 months later, Nintendo dropped the price to $170 (the same price as the Wii and DSi XL), and suddenly sales rose, and third-party developers jumped on board. I wonder why… Now that the 3DS is in full swing, I finally got one for Christmas this year and have several games to tinker around with with this bad boy. I actually have to say the hardware is well-built and very impressive, despite my early speculation that the hardware would be a complete failure.
The whole system is just completely new because not only is it capable of 3D, but it also has more powerful hardware, so they like GameCube/PS2 quality. The main menu is designed more like the DSi, but leans more toward what the Wii looks like. You can now use the Mii Plaza, plus a bevy of built-in apps that are pretty neat. When you start the thing up, you will notice some hardware changes, like an analog stick, which completely changes the way DS games are played. The top screen is only capable of 3D, but it’s slightly bigger (3.53″), kind of like the DSi XL (4.2″). The bottom screen is the same size, which I found disappointing, but there was something about technical issues that kept the touchscreen from being 3D.
The system has a 1 GHz processor, which is about 10x what the other DS systems are capable of (133 MHz), and the GPU is also more powerful. To show this power off, the system comes with AR (augmented reality) cards of famous Nintendo characters that you use in the built-in game AR Games. Setting the question mark box down in front of the camera acts as a menu with different games like shooting targets, billiards, being able to pose the characters to take 3D pictures, and other crazy games. This is actually very impressive, and it’s so neat to just see these guys pop out of real life onto the 3DS. My only complaint is that you can’t do anything with the characters other than pose them.
The second game is Face Raiders, which takes your face and puts on flying helmets that you shoot down. This is kind of freaky and fun at the same time, but it helps show off the great AR abilities of the system. Other than this, the menu is in 3D, as is most of the eShop, but I can’t explain how much it just pops and makes playing games that much more fun. It didn’t hurt my eyes at all even with the 3D depth slider all the way up, but you have to view it almost straight on, or the view shifts and the 3D goes away, so the whole idea isn’t flawless. The 3DS is capable of downloading some apps that are pretty fun, but overall, the eShop is lacking in good games. The majority are remade original Game Boy games that no one really misses, but over time they will expand, I hope. The 3DS also features StreetPass, which will exchange information on games you own when you pass people in the car or while walking, which is lots of fun. The system also has a pedometer that awards coins that can be used in certain games to unlock stuff. SpotPass allows you to download and unlock items in games when near a center or outside. This is so much fun and adds some unique qualities to games.
Even when playing games for an hour or more, my eyes didn’t even hurt, and yes, even when I was tired. Some games work better than others, but overall, the 3D effects really add to the experience and make most 3DS games unique from regular DS games. Of course, you can play regular DS games, but the top screen puts black bars on the side to compensate for the larger screen, but I found this was kind of stupid and should be full screen. The battery life is also shorter because of the more powerful hardware, but it has some pretty good power-saving features to extend this. One other advantage is that the 3DS takes SD cards and has internal storage, plus it has a 2.4 GHz wi-fi card for super-fast internet speeds. 3DS games also (finally!) save to the SD card instead of on the cartridge due to the size capacity of the 3DS cards (plus price hikes).
When it’s all said and done, the 3DS is well worth the money, and there are enough great games to consider a purchase. The 3D is revolutionary and actually works with the games, but just make sure you try an in-store demo before buying because the 3D will not work for some people or it may hurt your eyes. For the low price and great features, I would go pick one up right now!
I have never been a huge fan of Dead or Alive outside of the characters. The fighting system is convoluted, overcomplicated, and not always explained very well. Dimensions breaks this barrier with a great Chronicle story mode that introduces these complicated techniques little by little so you can absorb them, and it works great. The story mode is entertaining, but nothing to write home about. You play as various characters trying to stop Alpha-152, which is Kasumi’s evil clone. DOATEC is trying to use this to destroy the ninja clan, Mugen Tenshin.
The fighting system is actually complicated, but after the story mode, you can actually use it. There are the usual combos of kicks and punches, but you can juggle opponents and stun them in a critical state. You can throw and hold opponents, and holding is kind of a counterattack. You can actually counter a counter in this game. If someone counters your attack with a hold, you can counter back or get out of the hold. Understanding how to do this takes some getting used to, but it adds some strategy to online fights. You can also do a super stun, which is called OKing an opponent, and this means they can’t counter. There are also special stances that the characters go into, which can be used to strategically add extra combos without the opponent knowing. You can also delay attacks in combos to kind of trick the other player into thinking you’re done, so they stop blocking.
The fighting system is fluid and smooth, with great animations and controls, but my favorite part is that the combos are listed on the bottom screen, so you can tap them or just use them as a quick combo list. This is really handy and actually makes playing the game more enjoyable, so you aren’t constantly pausing the game to remember a combo. On top of this, you can now tag teams, which is fun and adds some great combos to the fray. I liked the extra modes, such as tag team and infinite mode, and of course the showcase mode, where you unlock figurines to take pictures in 3D.
There are a lot of costumes to unlock to make the females look sexier or the males look cooler, and StreetPass and SpotPass are wonderfully integrated into the system. I’ll have my 3DS in my pocket all day when going out, then come home and have a few challengers ready to fight online that I passed when going out. I might even drive by a few SpotPass areas and come back with some downloaded costumes. Dimensions really utilizes these features, and I have a blast using them.
With all that said, the 3D effects are amazing and really show off the features of the system in this way, but overall, the graphics are smooth and crisp and look very detailed. I highly recommend Dimensions because it’s the best fighting game on the system right now.
Mortal Kombat 4 was probably the most carefully watched game in the series due to abandoning the 2D root and going for 3D. No one knew what was going to happen to the series, and a lot of fans lost hope, thinking the silky smooth controls and excellent digitized graphics would go by the wayside in 3D. However, the game featured excellent visuals (for the time), and the silky smooth controls stayed despite some slippery and awkward animations. The fourth game also introduced some new characters who I thought were some of the weakest in the series. So despite the weaker roster, we got some pretty good fatalities and excellent stages to fight in.
The new characters like Kai, Jarek, Fujin (a weak attempt at making another Raiden), and Tanya were pretty “blah.” They didn’t have the same impact as the classic characters, but some returned, like Scorpion and Sub-Zero, Sonya, and Johnny Cage, who came back for the first time since MK2. The run button and combos were carried over into 3D, which were smooth as well as a first stab at moving in a 3D environment. You would hit a button to kind of strafe to the side to avoid attacks, and this added a whole new level of strategy. Weapons were introduced in free form now, and every character had one. Get hit, though, and you lose the weapon until you can pick it back up.
The fatalities were extremely brutal, some of the best the series has seen, and they looked even better in 3D. This leads to a new level of detail and creativity that can’t be done in 2D. This was also a slow departure from other “alities,” and the series stuck with just fatalities. A new boss was introduced as Shinnok, and Goro returned as the mini-boss. The game carries over a lot of elements that make it still feel classic, but then injects some new stuff as well. I really felt the game was well balanced and was exactly what the first MK in 3D should be. Overall, MK4 is a classic and did an amazing job of transferring over to 3D, which was very difficult. This, of course, paved the way for all future MK games, but we can always look back on MK4 as children.
What better way to end an era for a fighting genre than to throw it all into one big game? MKT does just this, so for people only familiar with the 3D era, this is what Armageddon was based on. Every MK character up to Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 is in here, plus all the mechanics from UMK3 that everyone loved. The game introduces a new aggressor meter, which is the predecessor of the power meter in the new MK. Getting attacked will increase it (which is just text at the bottom that fills up, which I really hate), and then you do extra damage while in aggressor mode. The combo system is still intact, as are the weapons from UMK3.
The 2D games were silky smooth, and the graphics look great in Trilogy. Every level, as well as a lot of fan-favorite music, is in the game (you can pull the soundtrack right off the disc). Using the run button, pulling off a 5-hit combo, and then blocking, jumping around, and using all the signature moves brings back a great feeling of nostalgia. There are some secrets hidden here, such as a special code screen (1-button Fatalities are awesome), plus some original outfits like Raiden and Kano’s original outfit, which also unlocks their original Fatality. Of course, the game is best played with two people, but a single player is also a lot of fun.
There are a few minor problems, like Shang Tsung’s morphs requiring loading, loading times between menus and fights, and the game freezing sometimes, which is no good. I also wish maybe Test Your Might would have come back, but this really just feels like Mortal Kombat: The Greatest Hits. I also hate how cheap the computer can be on even normal difficulties, plus Shao Kahn is one of the cheapest bosses in gaming history, so good luck beating him. Overall, this is the ultimate MK experience for the 16-bit era that made history. If you loved the older MK games, then Trilogy is exactly what you need, plus this is probably the last time you’ll see Animalities and Brutalities.
The Driver series has been pretty rocky ever since the first game came out in 1998. The PS1 classic was one of a kind but sparked some bad-to-average sequels. San Francisco is the comeback for the series, and it is very strong and will please fans of the original. The story is kind of weird and takes a supernatural spin, with the lead guy (John Tanner) getting into an accident and falling into a coma after wanted criminal Jericho smashes into his car. Tanner can now leave his body and float around the city, entering any car he wants, and this is what the game is wrapped around.
Most of the game consists of various side missions such as dares, speed chases, races, protecting vehicles, etc. You can leave the car on the fly, move around to any car, and smash into the car you need to take down. This can also be used in races to slow opponents down so you can win, but don’t consider this cheating since most of the races are very challenging. Sometimes you have to swap between two cars constantly and keep them in 1st and 2nd place, which is pretty exhilarating. Or you can just enter cars in oncoming traffic and smash them up to win the race. This can also be done on other various missions, and it’s great fun and never really gets old to take a big rig and smash it into cars to take them out.
However, this all gets old very fast because there are 50+ missions to finish, and as you unlock more of the city, you get more side missions to complete. Dares consist of doing certain things, like drifts, speed limits, jumps, etc. The reason for completing these is willpower, which you can use to buy cars and new garages to unlock more cars. The selection of cars is awesome, with pretty much every popular car you can think of. They even added the DeLorean, and if you hit 88 mph, you get willpower! Driving in first-person view looks great, and the car handles well. Drifting, jumping, and doing crazy stunts are great fun. The city is huge, and you really won’t get bored here during the first half of the game. After the last half picks up, you will be more engaged in the interesting story and probably stop with the side missions because they almost repeat forever.
On another note, the main missions are really interesting, and towards the end of the game, you really get to use your supernatural powers. Overall, the main missions have more diversity than the side missions. The voice acting is great, and the characters are people you actually get interested in because of the drama the story brings you through. While the whole story is hokey, you still get a kick out of being able to veer away from the realistic type of game while keeping it feeling pretty real with awesome licensed cars. You can boost in these cars and unlock a thrill cam, but the boost feels useless at low speeds because it doesn’t boost you at all, and you can’t really use it to boost out of a spin.
Multiplayer is pretty fun, but overall, you will get sick of the game due to the constantly repeated missions, and there’s only so much you can do with a car. I highly recommend this to anyone into cars, action, or just plain old arcade-style racers. If you can stomach the repetitive side missions, or if that’s just what you like, then you will find a good 25+ hour game here with the huge city of Frisco ready to explore.
You are Nyx, who is a winged goddess that falls in love with Icarus, but the sun-god Helios releases rage upon the gods and burns the earth into a fiery apocalypse, but you insist on defying the gods to save Icarus. While the story isn’t very deep, there is one there, and you do want to see what happens to Icarus at the end. Not very often will you run into “cut scenes” that have just some text across the screen and gibberish being spoken. This is an indie game after all, so you are probably coming for the unique gameplay.
While originally designed for the Wii, it works well on a mouse and keyboard. You control Nyx’s power with your mouse and hers with the keyboard. You can jump up to five times and also glide for about 8 seconds, and these are keys to gameplay. Jumping around is the main part of the game, and you must time everything carefully. The game is not a breeze, and even the platforming is tricky thanks to the game’s ability to make you multitask. With the mouse, you can move certain blocks around, shoot lightning, move fireballs, and pull around pillars. There is a lot to the gameplay, so you have to really play it to understand how deep it is. You have to be able to move Nyx around while also manipulating the environment with the mouse, or you will never get anywhere.
While the unique combo works well, it does get very difficult at points. The first couple of levels are novel and neat, but then the game quickly feels repetitive and tiresome until you start learning new powers later on in the game. While the gameplay is unique and deep, it’s really the same thing over and over again. Jump around 50 platforms and move this block or pillar around. Each level looks the same, and the art style has a Greek mythology theme to it, but the textures are flat, and no visual upgrades were given for the PC version. I also felt the physics was a little floaty because everything moved like there was little gravity.
The checkpoints are a little unfair because they are put in weird spots. Instead of sticking them right before a really hard section, you have to go through an easy section to get back to where you died. There are also only a couple of boss fights, and they are fairly easy due to the better accuracy of a mouse over the Wiimote. Overall, NyxQuest is a fun little indie game that really challenges your multitasking skills.
Rhythm games may not be all the rage anymore, but the unique ones really stick out. You can’t pick your own songs; there are no fancy instruments; it’s just you and the controller/keyboard jumping to make a good techno beat. The idea of the game is to get through each of the three worlds through 12 levels each while jumping, kicking, and sliding your way through each level. If you get hit just once, you reset back to the very beginning. While on the early levels, this is fine; the later ones take up to 4 minutes or more to complete, so getting reset is so frustrating.
Obstacles range from blocks you have to jump over to low-hanging objects to slide under, stairs that require quick taps, and even some stops to fool you, like a bouncing cube that you slide under and jump over. There are spring pads and other obstacles to block your path, but precise timing will be required to get all the gold blocks to get to the bonus stages, which are 8-bit variations of the 16-bit/3D levels. It’s very unique, charming, extremely addictive, and fun. I am currently stuck on 1-11 and have been for weeks, but I keep going at it because I just want to play every level.
The music is pretty good and full of life, despite it being the same track through each level. During parts of the level, you will pick up a giant plus sign that will add tracks to the beat and also add to the visuals. BIT.Trip is really a game for casual players and hardcore platformers who miss the days of the 16/8 bit era. The game has a brilliant level design that adds a lot of challenges while still being manageable. I haven’t really played a 2D platformer this addictive in years.
The visuals are stunning, with wonderful 16-bit to 3D translation, and the game has a wide color palette that sticks to the 16-bit and 8-bit eras. Everything is made of blocks, but it has built-in 3D and can really be a mind-trip sometimes, especially when you first start playing. Don’t let the hard levels keep you from playing, because being able to play the later levels is rewarding and challenging. I highly recommend this game to any 2D platformer or even for someone just looking for a fun arcade game.
Racing games are usually highly criticized because there is an overabundance of them. Everyone quickly pushes out the crappy racers and holds the good ones up high enough so everyone else can see through the overcrowded genre. DiRT 2 is an amazing rally simulator, and I don’t think there is another rally racer that does this better. The first thing DiRT fans will notice is the complete visual change from the last game. It uses a lot of elements from GRID and has a more Americanized visual attitude by using real-world famous drivers with voice clips to help you out. Gone are the more serious-style menus, and I kind of miss those. The virtual menu is pretty neat, though, which has you walking inside your tour bus for various options and outside to select your cars. It’s a neat idea, but the whole Americanized badassery with the drivers is a turn-off. Not to mention the voice clips are really annoying to hear over and over again, and there’s no option to turn them off.
Once you select a series of events (there are a ton of them) from one of the several areas around the world, you get to pick up your car. Each car has different stats, but you have to buy upgrade packs for different types of events. There are so many different types of cars for raids, rallies, races, trophy trucks, dude buggies, and the list goes on. You can’t upgrade your cars (still), but that is OK because you can now adjust settings such as downforce, gear ratio, suspension, etc. before the race starts (you will have to adjust these occasionally).
You can also select different liveries, rearview mirror toys, dashboard toys, and horns. These are to actually just show off the amazing physics engine, but it’s neat to see a toy dangling around in real-time physics on your dashboard and mirror. Once you hop into a race, you’ll notice the superb cockpit view that was revolutionized in the first game. Everything can be seen, not just your hands. You can look down and see your foot moving on the pedals, your hand shifting, and all the switches and parts of the interior. You can even see your screen swaying to your left in the Raid cars. It’s astounding how Codemasters got everything so detailed without having to have some sort of crazy hardware requirement.
When you’re actually racing, everything comes to life with the physics and sound design. You can hear rocks singing off your car, dirt scraping under your tires, water splashing up on the windshield, and your wipers kicking in and wiping it off. It all looks amazing and adds to the realism. Your car will get damaged in real-time, and dirt will stick and cling to the car as you drive. Depending on what difficulty you chose, you can view your replay at any time and rewind time, which was borrowed from GRID. This helps a lot during tough and long races. Sliding around and drifting around corners is all about skill, and that’s what’s so great about DiRT 2: that you win entirely based on your skill. The AI is also great since they will crash and go crazy when trying to catch up to you; they may even get totaled and have to drop out of the race altogether.
You never really get bored with the game because you’re always leveling up from the XP you earn in races (even completing “missions” such as jumping a certain height, etc.) and constantly unlocking new tracks, locations, and different event types. DiRT 2 also supports Windows Live and the Xbox 360 controller, which is great for people who love that. I want to give DiRT 2 a perfect score, but I wanted more than just racing-type events, and the sudden change in style really bothered me. I also wanted to be able to actually upgrade my cars and have more toys, liveries, and unlocks. There’s a very small amount, and that’s a little disappointing. The game can also be very hard thanks to such realistic physics where you’ll be retrying some events 20+ times to get first, but if you drop your difficulty too much, you won’t earn much money.
I highly recommend DiRT 2 for rally fans, racing fans, or anyone who just loves simulators. There’s enough here to make fans of the last game jump for joy, but some of the sudden changes will make them grumble in annoyance.
thebinarymessiah.com 
Try multiplayer. A lot of fun !