Want to know how to make some solid money? Trademark something, make a movie or two, create some toys out of it, then slap that trademark on a million items and you’re set! Or, maybe it’s not always that easy. It has been for Star Wars though. It’s one of the easiest brands to market. So it likely took half a second to realize there would be a Star Wars game for Kinect. And with some lengthy delays, Kinect Star Wars is here.

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Ah, trilogies. There’s something about a three game series that will almost always guarantee that the third game will throw out all the stops. Refinements are at all time highs; what doesn’t work has been figured out. And it allows a developer to end their story and leave their gamers with a sense of satisfaction. Does BioWare give us all of that with Mass Effect 3? Well, let’s see. Read the rest of this entry »

Time to get a little bit personal.

Calling me a jaded gamer might be the most accurate assessment possible. I don’t think too much of the current state of the gaming industry. I’ve long railed against the west’s influence on things, stepping away from the diversity and direction that gaming had in the 90s and replacing it with an endless parade of soldiers, gangsters, jocks, and enough rust to give the entire global population Tetanus. In just the last few years alone, I’ve also had the fighting genre taken from me and warped into something I don’t even recognize. Arcade racers became encumbered with unnecessary “consolization” that ended up detracting from that fast-to-learn, slow-to-master nature that gave them the arcade label in the first place. Japanese RPG localization has plummeted to a level that would’ve been unimaginable in the years immediately following Final Fantasy VII, and worse, many of the conventions that made them so distinct appear to have become an unspoken taboo. Things like turn-based battle systems and the ability to control your entire party in combat have been left behind, and I’m not even sure why.

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Developed by Housemarque in 2007, Super Stardust HD was one of the most innovative sci-fi shooting games and one of the best overall games made available in the PlayStation Network.  The game didn’t waste any time trying to tell some intergalactic nonsensical story. Instead it was simply about getting the high score and having fun doing it, and that’s what Super Stardust Delta is all about.

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DrinkBox Studios’ blob platforming series arrived on the scene early last year with the puzzle platform Tales From Space: About a Blob. The follow-up brings the series to the Vita just in time for its launch.

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Namco’s Soul franchise has developed quite a history for itself since its 1996 debut with SoulEdge. It has been an underrated PlayStation title (Soul Blade), a smash hit on the Dreamcast launch (SoulCalibur), a highly-divisive multiplatform release (SoulCalibur II), and much more. Throughout its run thus far, it has made honest efforts at allowing players to create their own fighting game characters effectively, guest-starred a range of characters from Link to KOS-MOS to Darth Vader for broader appeal, and played with single-player modes in ways no other fighting series does.

Now, with a new producer at the helm in the form of long-time Namco staffer Daishi Odashima, SoulCalibur V is here to herald in a whole new tale of souls and swords…but how does it hold up to its predecessors?
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The Lumines franchise has certainly established itself at this point, despite only arriving on the gaming scene relatively recently as part of the 2005 PlayStation Portable launch. It was an unlikely headliner for the system’s inaugural lineup, but it ended up winning the hearts and minds of the gaming public as a game tailor-made for what the PSP was supposed to be at the core. In the minds of many players it is the natural successor to Tetris. Although many other installments followed, including a PSP sequel and a litany of console ports, none really managed to capture the feeling of playing the original Lumines for the first time on the PSP.

Now that Sony has its sophomore handheld effort on shelves, it would be wrong not to accompany it with a new Lumines title. Enter Lumines: Electronic Symphony, the one game every PlayStation Vita owner should make sure to get with their system.
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As long-running and robust as the Final Fantasy series has become, it certainly is fair that Square-Enix has explicitly come to consider each installment as a franchise unto itself. This way of thinking has already been put into practice numerous times, starting with Final Fantasy X-2 and the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, but also more recent examples like Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. What makes Final Fantasy XIII-2 such a different case is that XIII was built to be a franchise – dubbed Fabula Nova Crystallis – from the very start. While XIII was a great game in its own right, its sequel might serve as a more accurate indicator of Fabula Nova Crystallis’ long-term viability as a franchise.
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The King of Fighters franchise arrived in the fighting genre not long after Street Fighter II started a full-scale movement. Since then, it has represented some of the best of SNK’s fighting offerings, but long held a reputation for being “married” to the NeoGeo hardware, maintaining its 90s appearance even as franchise installments landed on other platforms like the Atomiswave. Finally, 2010 brought us The King of Fighters XII in HD for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and the Taito Type-X2 arcade hardware. While it was generally regarded as a quality fighting game, the poor netcode in the console versions made it a tough sell for players who didn’t have dedicated fighting communities in their areas. Now, KOF is back with its sophomore effort in its HD era.
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The release of a new gaming system on the market means a splurge of both interesting and uninteresting titles to choose from.  Little Deviants is a zany game that showcases the many features of the PlayStation Vita and is a whole lot of fun for a few hours, but after those few hours, the experiences become all too familiar. Read the rest of this entry »