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.

What Is It?

Kinect Star Wars puts you in various shoes in a few segments. You’ll fight through several missions in an incredibly lengthy 3-4 hour campaign. Beyond that, you’ll stomp around like a baby with Rancor Rampage, shout “NOW THIS IS PODRACING”, get destroyed (but still win) in duels and dancing. Oh, indeed. You’re going to dance, so put on your dancing boots with your Jedi robe.

Why Should I Care?

You’ll appreciate this game more if you have a great sense of humor, or aren’t older than 8 year of age. Does a toothbrush work any better because it’s shaped like C3-P0? No, it’s still a toothbrush. In fact it’ll probably fall apart in 2 weeks, and that’s what Kinect Star Wars feels like.

The main campaign will involve a LOT of standing around, so wearing pants with pockets is highly advised. You’re playing the role of a padawan (trainee) helping to fight Battle Droids and Trandoshans, somehow soldiers of a Sith threat. You’ll flail your right hand to force lightsaber movements, while pumping your left hand over and over to attempt Force powers. There are some space battles involved too, but you’ll spend most of your time dragging through the same waves of enemies over and over…and over.

It’s a setting that makes little sense. Time-wise, it’s set during The Clone Wars. However, Trandoshan enemies? The writers and designers must have loved the 4 seconds of Boskk in The Empire Strikes Back. Also, there are a couple of Darth Maul ripoffs that likely violate the “two Siths, no more, no less” statement Yoda makes in Episode 1. But to somewhat service the fanboy, you’ll hear lines (“Red 5, standing by”) and settings that have their roots (read: steal) from the original movies. It’s mind numbing to a certain degree.

Generally, one swipe will kill an enemy. But if you want to defeat anybody with a sword or metal pole, you’ll have to constantly jump over them for any shot of taking them down. And any real challenge is taken on by your incredibly annoying teacher. You’ll face maybe two or three legitimately difficult situations. And it won’t help that the motion sensing is generally awful. When we checked out Kinect Star Wars at Comic Con last year, we mentioned there would need to be a lot of work done. Despite the delay, not much changed. At best, motion recognition is spotty. You won’t feel like a lightsaber-wielding Jedi. You won’t have much control over your Force powers either (ironically). Kinect Star Wars won’t let you select a particular enemy among a group, so you’ll often times grab the enemy itself rather than a box to drop on them. It’s hard to have any sense of comfort.

That carries over to Rancor Rampage, where you’ll take control of Jabba’s pet to destroy various maps. It’s a few minutes of decent fun until the game won’t recognize that you’re doing what it’s telling you to do. Same goes for the Duels, where you’re fighting classic characters in turn-based fighting. Podracing works significantly easier, and feels much more comfortable than Kinect Joy Ride. Despite some odd controls, it’s one of the most impressive parts of the game (technically speaking).There’s another story mode here to become the ultimate podracer, but it won’t be too engaging. You are dealing with Episode 1 characters after all, so it’s not particularly interesting. Though, you won’t hear Anakin shout “yipeee!”, so there’s that.

So that’ll leave the most heinous part of the game to be the most enjoyable aspect of the game. It’s basically Dance Central: Star Wars, named Galactic Dance Off. You’ll dance through a small variety of pop songs, half of which have been rewritten with Star Wars lyrics. It’s actually hilarious to hear Princess in a Battle instead of Christina Aguilera’s Genie in a Bottle- and yes, there’s Slave Leia. Dance moves have also been named after various characters are Star Wars canon. There are definitely some missed opportunities, though. When Lando Calrissian comes out to dance, he doesn’t take off his cape. How does the Coolest Guy In The Galaxy not smoothly take off the cape? For shame.

What Makes It Worth My Time And Money?

If you happen to be at a friend’s house and they had $50 to waste, then sure. Get up and start dancing. You’ll enjoy doing The Force Push or the Jar Jar while in the shoes of Boba Fett or Lando. You may even dabble with the other modes, but you’ll head back to dancing. But YOUR $50? Pay a bill instead. It’s more fiscally responsible and likely more fun. You might even be able to write a check with a Star Wars pen.

Final Score: 4.5 | Recommendation: Skip It

Editor’s Note: A copy of Kinect Star Wars was purchased for the Xbox 360 by the reviewer. Campaign played to completion; all game modes tested several times.

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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.

What Is It?

Mass Effect 3 sees the final stance in the ongoing war against the Reapers, a collective alien force that periodically destroys the universe’s dominating species to make way for a new power. In the first Mass Effect, the Reaper Sovereign allowed the Reapers to enter the Milky Way Galaxy to begin their destruction, which focuses on organic life. In Mass Effect 2, Shepard had to stop the Collectors from aiding the Reaper cause, which increasingly focused on human life. Come Mass Effect 3, Commander Shepard needs to rally the entire universe to put up any sort of resistance to impending annihilation.

This iteration of Mass Effect continues with the changes seen in Mass Effect 2. The gameplay remains a great mixture of heavy action with a RPG soul. However, you’ll have the option to play through three types of mods: Action (automatic replies/cutscenes), Story (dialogue choices/minimal difficulty) or RPG (standard ME gameplay). Throughout, you’ll be able to upgrade your powers in branches and use spoken Kinect commands to issue commands and engage in conversation. You’ll also have a multiplayer mode that ties into your single player experience.

Recruiting continues to play a key role, carrying over from Mass Effect 2. After fleeing the Reaper’s invasion of Earth, Shepard works on recruiting every possible asset in the universe to put up a fighting chance. You’ll bounce around the galaxy and earn assets through relationships and side missions, all of which will benefit you going into the final fight.

Why Should I Care?

If you’ve been playing Mass Effect to any degree, you’ll want to continue the story and it’s a mostly great one. There have been solid improvements with how it plays and looks, along with some added intrigue with its multiplayer.

Mass Effect 3 has the grandest scale of the series and the darkest story. The conversations you’ll overhear are dreary; the Citadel is full of refugees and the last remnants of obliterated species. You’ll need to use your renegade/paragon level even more, because you’ll have to be a lot more convincing amidst the distrust. The tension creates a great atmosphere of intense fighting, political squabbling and deeper connections with your crew. Most of your side missions will be of greater interest too. Some can involve scanning planets (thankfully, not for minerals). It’ll be for artifacts, survivors and fuel- with fun Reaper involvement, so you better be ready to fly fast.

Reaper preparation is twofold: your assets and galactic readiness. Priority missions, side missions and planet scans will increase the assets you’ll take into your final fight. Multiplayer will have you fight waves of Cerberus, Reapers or Geth in various systems to increase your percentage-based galactic readiness. That readiness will determine what percentage of your assets get taken into the final fight. It’s an interesting concept that works fairly well- until you’ll invested so much time into single player that you’re guilted into playing hours of multiplayer just to use all of your assets. It’ll decrease 1% every 4-5 hours, but will never go below 50%. You would be well served not to become overly consumed with the single player.

Multiplayer works decently well. While it’s typical “hoard mode”, you’ll be able to upgrade various types of characters, powers and weapons in a four-member team. However, you’ll always be maxed at 10.5 rounds of action, mixing small objectives with standard defeat-all-enemies rounds. The main reason to spend time in multiplayer is to help your single player game; beyond that, there’s just so many rounds you may be able to stand. Still, it’s enjoyable enough because all players I was matched up with seemed to care and have your back, and involving various classes among your team gives you a much better shot at getting through to the extraction round.

And with that comes the game’s ending. For as engaging and well-detailed the series has been, Mass Effect 3’s ending acts as a complete disconnect. The final mission will be some of the most intense fighting ever experienced in the series. It’s incredibly consuming and the difficulty only makes it more worthwhile. But the last 10 minutes of the game slowly begin to take control away from you. Once you’ve made your choice, you’ll quickly be escorted through some slightly-related cutscenes before reaching the credits. The situation won’t entirely undo the game, but it’s likely to lead to a sense of bewilderment rather than satisfaction. Details are sparse and you won’t necessarily know how things came to be. Admittedly, it’s hard to get into more details without spoiling anything. Even so, the feeling of “what?” will likely make you say it aloud.

What Makes It Worth My Time And Money?

There’s no doubt that Mass Effect 3 is a fantastic game. The writing is great, the fighting is intense and it looks beautiful. Technically, it plays out well- save for the face import system which will force custom-Shepard users to not have their usual Shep (for the time being). Up until the last 10 minutes of the game, you’re going to have an incredible game to be playing through. It’s just a little hard to expect yourself to come back to this game for another round or two because of the lack of closure. However, you will be getting 60+ hours of a good time, and a must-have if you’ve been playing this series.

Final Score: 9.5 | Recommendation: Buy It

Editor’s Note: A copy of Mass Effect 3 was purchased for the Xbox 360 by the reviewer. Campaign played to completion; multiplayer mode was played for several hours.

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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.

I could go on about all that for awhile, but I’ll move on.

Like many JRPG gamers, I had a front-row seat for the disputes between cult-favorite localization house Working Designs and Sony Computer Entertainment America regarding production on WD’s acquisitions. SCEA’s publishing policies at the time were getting so harsh that they might have made 1980s Nintendo cringe, and this all culminated in 2004 with WD being forced to bundle Growlanser II and III together in a single package (which we came to know as Growlanser Generations) and cancel their effort at localizing Bouken Jidai Katsugeki Goemon outright. Without any remaining acquisitions to release, or the necessary resources to pick up any more, the company was effectively starved to death. Working Designs closed its doors not long after the release of Growlanser Generations, which still went on to be one of the greatest special edition releases ever. To myself and many other JRPG faithful, this was a defining moment in the gaming industry taking the shape that it has in the ensuing years.

Getting my hands on Growlanser Generations was pretty much the definition of a bittersweet moment. The box set was fantastic – as great as anything Working Designs had ever come up with, which says a lot – and the games themselves landed among my favorite experiences on the PS2 to this day. Still, WD’s closure was already a matter of fact at that point, and anyone familiar with the company knew that the game industry was worse off for it. It was really impossible to not let that cast shadows over the otherwise-wonderful experience that was Generations. We didn’t have Kickstarter back then. We didn’t have the ability to throw our money directly into WD to help them pick up some more titles to keep them afloat. All we could do is put our support behind Growlanser Generations as thanks for everything WD had given us over the years, and enjoy it knowing that it was bringing one of gaming’s greatest eras to a close.

Thankfully, publishers like Atlus and Nippon Ichi Software America picked up the slack, bringing an increased number of JRPGs stateside, and following Working Designs’ lead in terms of deluxe edition production in many cases. Atlus’ Growlanser V box set in particular was a great breakthrough for the company, and looks beautiful standing right next to WD’s Growlanser Generations. NISA has really stepped up this generation with a healthy number of deluxe-edition PS3 titles that I’m proud to display on my shelves.

Still, Working Designs’ absence was obvious. Company head Victor Ireland resurfaced in 2006 with a new company, Gaijinworks, but their official site only featured the company logo and a webmaster E-Mail link for years. Gaijinworks quietly localized obscure DS title Miami Law, and published some downloadable titles on the Wii Shop Channel, but their incredibly low profile made it a foregone conclusion that Gaijinworks would never serve as a full replacement for Working Designs.

Enter Monkeypaw Games.

Ireland and Gaijinworks have been working behind the scenes with Monkeypaw of late, and appear to have found a kindred spirit in Monkeypaw’s John Greiner. While the details of the collaboration will probably be revealed slowly over time, the partnership is leading with the North American release of Class of Heroes II. While its digital release is assured already, Ireland and Greiner still believe in the idea of well-constructed deluxe-edition releases like Working Designs put together in years gone by, and have thus launched a Kickstarter project in order try to bring the practice back. The goal is lofty at half a million bones, but has already piled up 5% of that figure as of this writing less than a day after it started. With the promise of a box set even crazier than any of WD’s output, one has to wonder just what Vic has in mind for this one.

One of Working Designs more elaborate Deluxe Edition Packages. Lunar Eternal Blue Complete even came with a replica of Lucia's pendant.

The importance of this Kickstarter cannot be understated. If it succeeds, we basically get the full return of Working Designs in the form of the Monkeypaw/Gaijinworks partnership, complete with amazing box sets and all the wonderful localization work we’ve come to know and love from Ireland and his team. Even just the news that it was possible brought me to tears in a way the gaming industry has never managed to before, save for a handful of the experiences brought to us by Ireland and Working Designs in years gone by.

This is a real test for the power of Kickstarter. If it can do this – if it has the power to elevate Gaijinworks and Monkeypaw into a complete restoration of Working Designs – then it really does have the power to let us, the players, the fans, truly change the industry for the better.

Dig deep, my friends. I know I will.

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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.

What Is It?

Super Stardust is a free roaming sci-fi shooter that plays conventionally with a modern twist.

The player’s starship is maneuvered using the left analog stick while all the shooting is done with the right analog stick. Shots are fired at whichever the right stick is tilted at, so essentially the game is mainly played using only the analog sticks.

The face buttons change the kind of gun equipped, and  there are only two: fire and ice.  This is similar to games like Ikaruga, where half the challenge is figuring out which guns will deal the most damage.

Each level has five phases, each one more challenging than the last.  The last phase always features a boss where speed and quick reflexes are the keys victory.

Why Should I Care?

Super Stardust is plain old-school with a simplistic quality that makes it playable to everyone.

However, because of its genre, it could be a little challenging to a number of players.  A lot of modern sci-fi shooters fill the screen with beams that players have to avoid in order to survive–so many that the genre might as well be renamed “survival shooters.”

Players with the best reflexes are the most likely to survive in Super Stardust and get a high score, but the game has this addictive factor that keeps players coming back for more even after death.

Two new weapons make an appearance in the series in the form of a black hole and a barrage of homing missiles.  Unfortunately, both use the touch screen by default, but thankfully can be re-mapped to face buttons.

While it’s nice that the game tries to use the touchscreen feature, the action is too hectic to bother rubbing your fingers on the screen.

What Makes It Worth My Time And Money?

Considering the Vita just came out, there really aren’t that many games to begin with.  Super Stardust Ultra is one of the few available games downloadable on the PlayStation Store, and it’s only $9.99.

That $10 gets you HD-esque graphics, a good techno house-esque soundtrack, and an addictive experience to boot.

Super Stardust HD was one of the best available downloadable games on PSN, so it’s no surprise Super Stardust Ultra is one of the very best for the Vita.

Final Score: 9 | Recommendation: Buy It

Editor’s Note: The game was purchased by the reviewer.  Over 10 hours was put into the game throughout the various modes.

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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.

What’s It About?

Starring a new gelatinous blob, DrinkBox Studios’ Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack greatly tones down the puzzle elements that were a big part of their last game on the PS3. The puzzles that you will run into are mainly focused around the game’s touch mechanics that ask you to move platforms to help your blob get around or push objects in the direction of the blob so he can ingest their mass to grow in size. To give you a break from the normal platforming levels, Mutant Blobs Attack also offers tilt control levels that are a bit of a mix between Labyrinth and its Katamari-style object consumption mechanics.

Why Should I Care?

Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack is just a great platformer that is very efficient with what it’s trying to do so that there’s no fluff that doesn’t belong here. The levels are much shorter than what you may have seen in About a Blob on the PS3, so you can get through them in about five to ten minutes with the scoring system encouraging speed runs for the best score and leaderboard position. Mutant Blobs Attack has the same weird 2D art style that About a Blob had, which looks really nice on the Vita’s screen. The soundtrack is basically the exact same one that About a Blob offered, so it’s pretty good, though I was more inclined to just turn off the music this time since I tired of it very quickly.

The physical button controls have a nice feel to them with the only issue happening when trying to jump right off of the edge of a platform, which usually results in a drop rather than a late jump. The touch controls can be a little weird when you’re trying to rush since it can be a bit unresponsive when you need to drag from a specific spot and the rotating platforms can sometimes move more slowly than you’d like. The other weird thing about the touch controls is that your blob grips to some moving platforms well and others are extremely slippery, so you’re never quite sure if you can move platforms quickly without your blob flying off into spikes or if you need to be slow and steady.

The Vita’s beautiful OLED screen makes the tilting controls work really well since there won’t be any issues with being unable to see what’s on-screen due to tilt angle.

Why Is It Worth My Time And Money?

Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack is the perfect type of digital launch game for the Vita that you can play in short bursts without having to spend a lot of money on at its current $7.99 price tag. With 24 levels, you can reasonably get through the game in about three or four hours with a bit more time required for getting gold medals and the last few collectibles to earn the remaining trophies. Sony is off to a good start with its PSN offerings on the Vita, which will be a crucial way to help fill in the gaps in the release schedule after the launch.

Final Score: 9 | Recommendation: Buy It

Editor’s Note: A review code was provided by the game’s developer. It took the editor about four hours to complete the game and earn a few extra trophies. 

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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?

What’s It About?

SoulCalibur V is the latest in Namco’s long running weapons-based 3D fighting franchise. This installment is adopting many elements from other successful fighting games like Street Fighter IV. There is a new Soul Gauge which allows you to perform two types of power attacks. There is the Brave Edge which are similar to Street Fighter IV’s EX moves and consume part of the meter when executed. Critical Edges act like SoulCalibur’s answer to Street Fighter’s Ultra Combos. These attacks drain one complete stock of your character’s Soul Gauge when used but will do significant amounts of damage if they land.

Along with these new mechanics, SoulCalibur V borrows a page out of Sega’s Virtua Fighter playbook by leaning more towards an execution and precision based system, as opposed to its purely-tactical history. To go along with that, each character on the roster now has an “Ease of Use” value associated with them. This means that now, some characters have movesets that rely heavily on precision timing to execute while others have far easier inputs to master. On the up-side new players will be able to find a character they can gel with easily enough, while series veterans may want to pick up one of the more challenging yet more powerful characters. The down-side to all this is that now you’ll have to suffer through the “You only won because you’re using an ‘Easy’ character!” tirade.

Another significant change to the gameplay was made to Guard Impacts. In previous games Guard Impacts were done by pressing the Guard button in combination with either forward or back and would repel or parry an attack. This time around the input is away plus all three attack buttons. Guard impacts repel High, Mid, and Low attacks, and drain part of your Soul Gauge when executed. However, they don’t allow you to Parry anymore.

Why Should I Care?

With all of these changes, SoulCalibur V is trying to go in a different direction than it has in the past. They are looking to become a more competitive fighting game, with more of an emphasis on skill and technique. For the most part, they have succeeded, but one of the side effects is that the game is now more focused on offense as opposed to having a more equal balance of offense and defense. It is possible that an aggressive player can quickly overwhelm a less aggressive player. You can end up on the receiving end of a barrage of attacks with a depleted Soul Gauge and not much you can do other than try to move out of the way. This is not the kind of game that is kind to turtlers, in any way. In a way it forces you to act and do something.

With all this talk of mechanics and balance, it’s also important to bring up one other point about SoulCalibur V: It’s a lot of fun! The mechanics all blend together into something that somehow feels like more than its component parts. While the shift to a more aggressive gameplay style may be a bit jarring at first, it is by no means a deal breaker.

Why Is It Worth My Time & Money?

SoulCalibur V offers up a brilliantly complete package of features and modes for you to play through. There is a simple story mode which focuses on Patroklos and Pyrrha, two of the main protagonists in this installment. There’s not much to this mode, just a series of battles bookended by cutscenes, but you’ll probably want to go through it anyway since a good portion of the game’s unlockable content comes from this mode.

As in previous SoulCalibur games, you have the ability to create your own characters. This mode has been both pared down and expanded in SoulCalibur V. The amount of parts available to customize your character has been pared down somewhat since SoulCalibur IV, and special items no longer have any effect on statistics. You can now apply patterns and stickers to most parts of your character, effectively giving you near limitless combinations of customizable parts. You can’t customize your character’s fighting style though. All you can do is pick an existing style and a weapon to use.

Finally, there is the game’s very robust suite of online modes. The typical Ranked and Player Match modes are present and accounted for. Player Match sessions can host up to six players per room. There are also global lobbies where you can look for random matches in your area, or join a tournament in progress. Of these modes, the global lobbies definitely feel the least used, but it’s nice that they’re there. Rounding out the online features is a Replay feature. The game automatically saves your last few games and allows you to upload them to your profile so anyone viewing it can watch. Of course, if the game’s networking code isn’t any good, all of these features would be pointless. Thankfully SoulCalibur V plays remarkably well. A three bar connection or higher is very playable. Seeing as you can search for games based on connection status, you should always be able to find a smooth game to play.

SoulCalibur V is a great game, and a worthy entry into the series. It may play differently from previous versions, but that’s progress for you. There may be a few rough edges to smooth out, but this new direction for the series could be just what was needed to keep the series from stagnating.

Final Score: 9 | Recommendation: Buy It

Editor’s Note: A copy of the Xbox 360 version was purchased by the reviewer. Approximately 30 hours of time was spent across all of the offline and online modes.

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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.

What’s It About?

Lumines: Electronic Symphony is the latest iteration of the Lumines series, and one that makes a point to show players exactly what made it so awesome in the first place. At heart, it uses the same simple concept that the 2005 debut did – an endless supply of 2×2 blocks fall from the top of the screen, the player rotates and moves them as needed to form other 2×2 (or larger) blocks of one of the two individual colors in play. Those single-color blocks are then wiped away by the timeline, which continuously slides along the screen. The speed of the timeline as well as the speed of the falling blocks is determined by the “skin” you happen to be playing on at any given time, which is influenced primarily by the music.

Electronic Symphony does change up the traditional Lumines formula a little bit. Voyage is the least changed of all, seeing only a new name in comparison to its original form. It is still the classic Challenge Mode through and through. Time Attack returns as Stopwatch Mode, but now comes in 30-, 60-, 120-, and 300-second flavors, and focuses exclusively on what kind of score you can rack up rather than how many blocks you can erase in the allotted time. Puzzle Mode is thrown out this time around, replaced by the brutal Master Mode, which isn’t so much about unlocking skins as it is about surviving under some pretty harsh conditions, usually involving extremely fast-falling blocks and a sluggish timeline. Getting through Master Mode will still challenge you long after you’ve unlocked every skin in Voyage and joined the million-point club.

Why Should I Care?

Lumines: Electronic Symphony feels like a game carefully-built from the beginning to tap into the exact same energy that made the first Lumines so special, and to that end it is a resounding success. Voyage greets you with the game’s lead-off skin, The Future of the Future, which not only makes an even better first impression than original lead-off Shinin’, but manages to epitomize the entire experience that is Lumines in a single skin. The rest of the tracklist picks up that momentum beautifully, providing a great variety of aesthetic experiences, along with some sudden tough challenges.

This isn’t just a repackaging of past Lumines titles, however – apart from the tweaks and changes to the game modes, some mechanics have been introduced and adjusted, as well. For example, chain blocks only used to erase all connected blocks of its color if it was part of a 2×2 square of that color. In Electronic Symphony, activating one of these chain blocks only requires one adjacent matching block, which can either be looked at as an improvement or a detriment depending on your playstyle.

A more profound change comes in the form of the shuffle block, which will completely change any mass of blocks it is in contact with when it lands. Your mileage may vary by how you play, but it can either serve as a minor inconvenience on the side of the screen, a legitimate quick way out of a bad situation, or the undoing of several minutes of hard work. More often than not, though, it seems to be directly inverse to however you’re doing at any given time. If the field is nearly bare and you’re in complete control, it can be just the nuisance that gets the game started in earnest. If you’ve spent awhile carefully-constructing a huge combo that you’re about to cash in on, it’s a monkeywrench that can have you on the verge of tossing your PlayStation Vita at the wall. On the other hand, if you’re overwhelmed by a mass of unmatching blocks and just about to overflow the field, it can be a welcome “get out of jail free” card.

Finally, you have avatar effects. Once just a little icon in the bottom of the screen representing the player, it now has a percentage number by it that slowly ticks up to 100% as you play. Once it reaches that point, you can tap the avatar on the touch screen to activate the effect, which depends on what avatar you’ve chosen. This can be an on-demand shuffle or chain block, a series of single-colored blocks in the queue, or something else entirely. An avatar will get different effects in Vs mode than in single-player, although some of these Vs effects are taken from the single-player list. Others are possible as well, like speeding up the pace at which your opponent’s blocks will fall from the top. In the long run, it will take a lot of time to unlock and figure out which avatar is best for how you play Lumines, but that’s all just another part of the long-term value of the game.

Why Is It Worth My Time And Money?

Any game on a system launch should serve a purpose. If you want to show off your PlayStation Vita’s signature features, you’ve got Little Deviants for that. If you want your new handheld to flex its graphical muscle, Uncharted or Wipeout fit the bill. What Electronic Symphony brings to the PSV launch is exactly what Lumines brought to the PSP launch seven years ago; a game that fits handheld gaming (and the PSP/PSV specifically) like a glove. It has plenty of meat on its bones to keep people coming back to it for months and years to come, and an undeniable aesthetic appeal to round it all out. It certainly isn’t the only great game on the launch, but if you can only afford one title to go along with your PSV purchase, Lumines should be front and center among your options.

Final Score: 9 | Recommendation: Buy It.

The reviewer purchased the game prior to the launch of the PlayStation Vita, and spent approximately 15 hours playing toward the review.

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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.

What’s It About?

Unlike the other Fabula Nova Crystallis games in the pipeline, Final Fantasy XIII-2 is a direct sequel to its predecessor, taking place three years after the conclusion of that game. The cast is markedly smaller this time around, focusing primarily on Lightning’s sister, Serah Farron, who was very much a side character in the previous title. Serah is accompanied by newcomer Noel Kreiss, literally the last human in existence, granted the chance to travel through time and change his species’ fate. The party is rounded out by long-time Final Fantasy mainstay Mog, who in this game transforms into Serah’s weapons and otherwise serves a support and guide role.

The game plays much like Final Fantasy XIII, bringing back its unique version of the ATB system as well as on-the-fly job class changes known as Paradigm Shifts. The twist here is that the third party member slot is occupied not by Mog or another regular character (although there is talk that FFXIII’s Sazh Katzroy might be coming to that third slot via DLC later on), but by any one of a host of monsters that can be captured in battle. Collecting and raising these monsters via the same Crystarium board that Noel and Serah use to level up is an extremely fun element of the customization system. There is plenty of experimentation available as you work out which three monsters complement your playstyle best at any given time, and then watch it all come together. In practice, it still feels almost exactly like FFXIII did, which might just be attributed to the Fabula Nova Crystallis franchise, but still offers a glimmer of hope that Final Fantasy as a whole might be settling into a definitive identity for the first time since the 1990s.

One new mechanic being introduced here is the wound system. What this does is accompany some forms of battle damage with wound damage, cutting the target’s maximum HP for the remainder of the battle. This might seem a bit much in a spinoff of the fastest-paced Final Fantasy game yet, but it isn’t so overused that it supercedes its intended role as a signal that you should probably start thinking about wrapping up whatever battle you’re stuck in. If anything, it’s actually a rather harsh hint system on how to play the game, as just like in the previous installment, an overly conservative starting gameplan here can extend what should be a reasonably short battle exponentially.

Why Should I Care?

In this new era of player-developer communication, Final Fantasy XIII-2 plays like a true product of fan feedback. One of the most common complaints about Final Fantasy XIII was just how linear it was. This is alleviated tremendously in XIII-2, with maps that are built for exploration and a narrative that abandons handholding almost entirely. That isn’t to call the game completely non-linear, but it doesn’t carry with it the same almost-patronizing atmosphere that its predecessor had. In fact, the only time you’ll find yourself watching the game more than playing it is when you land in an instance of “Cinematic Action”, which is basically a branching cutscene loaded with Quick-Time Events (or “press this button now” instances). It’s hard to say exactly why Square-Enix decided to include these here, as they feel like an especially awkward addition to Final Fantasy XIII-2, but they’re mercifully rare and won’t make or break your playthrough.

Why Is It Worth My Time And Money?

You’ll be disappointed if you approach Final Fantasy XIII-2 expecting another hundred-hour epic like the original. The main quest should only take you about 30 hours, and the endgame, while solid in its own right, won’t give you what Final Fantasy XIII did. What XIII-2 does well is provide you with a worthy extension of the FFXIII continuity and experience. You will get the chance to see how characters like Lightning, Hope, and Snow have developed in three years since the end of XIII, and hints at some more ambitious possibilities for the Fabula Nova Crystallis series (you don’t have to squint too hard to see consistencies with the Chrono franchise well beyond the core time-travel concept prevalent in XIII-2). In the end, you’re getting a great companion to Final Fantasy XIII that should have no problem giving you the customary 40 hours of gameplay generally expected of RPGs. It may be a bit short for Final Fantasy, yes, but it would have been lengthy enough if it had been released under any other name. Most importantly, it’s a fantastic offering from a genre we don’t see nearly enough of anymore.

Final Score: 8 | Recommendation: Buy It

The reviewer purchased Final Fantasy XIII-2 on its release date for the PlayStation 3, and spent approximately 45 hours playing toward the review.­

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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.

What’s It About?

The King of Fighters XIII continues the series’ hallmark of 3-on-3 elimination battles as opposed to the usual 1-on-1, best of three format that has been the genre standard. The idea is that all fighting games are inherently matchup-driven. The best way to avoid balance problems is to have a team structure in place that allows players to manage matchups, much like building a deck in a collectible card games. The result is a fighting game that allows its players to perfectly tailor their character selection to both their personal playstyle and their particular matchup issues. It never did lead to absolutely perfect balance, but it has always mitigated any issues extremely well, as is the case here.

From a storyline perspective, XIII concludes the Tales of Ash Crimson story arc, which has followed the titular character – the first real anti-hero to be used as a KOF main character – as he goes around gathering the powers of the Orochi clans. So far, Ash has stolen the powers of series mainstays Iori Yagami and Chizuru Kagura, with original protagonist Kyo Kusanagi next in his sights. Meanwhile, a clan simply known as “Those From A Distant Land” are preparing for the revival of Orochi, KOF’s most threatening big bad to date (at least in storyline terms), and have added Ash to their numbers.

Why Should I Care?

Both SNK Playmore and new KOF publisher Atlus went back to the drawing board for KOF XIII well aware of the fighting game community’s grievances against the previous game. All major issues, from the anemic roster to the poor netcode to the lack of variety in game modes have been addressed. Although the netcode still doesn’t stand up to the likes of GGPO, or even Super Street Fighter IV’s (generally considered quite effective if not ideal), it is still a stark improvement over XII’s with Atlus promising more improvements in the pipeline. In comparison, however, the character roster and features have expanded dramatically, with character selection much more reminiscent of what we’ve come to expect from the series. The single-player component is straight out of Super Street Fighter IV. In particular, the tutorial and trial modes will help a lot of newcomers learn the ropes of what has been regarded as the 2D equivalent of Virtua Fighter in terms of approachability.

The partnership with Atlus pays tremendous dividends in the form of the game’s story mode. KOF has long been the top series in the genre for its storytelling, but the in-house localizations have never been up to par, to the point of being known primarily for their broken English. Not only does Atlus’ assistance provide a much better translation than fans are accustomed to, it also provides a strong visual novel-inspired story mode that has the story of KOF XIII play out in branching paths. This means players will have to make decisions on which teams to follow over the course of the tournament and which locales to check in on from chapter to chapter, leading to quite a bit of replay value for players who want to see everything.

Why Is It Worth My Time And Money?

XIII marks a point in the series that many gamers have hoped to see it arrive at, and few believed it would. SNK Playmore’s long-respected gameplay quality crosses paths with high production values and masterful localization to bring the KOF series to within reach of its true potential for the first time ever.

Final Score: 9 | Recommendation: Buy It

The reviewer purchased PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 copies upon release and spent approximately 20 hours between the two playing toward the review. Most time spent was among the story, versus, and online modes.

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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.

What Is It?

For those fortunate few who chose to pre-order Sony’s first-edition bundle, Little Deviants was packaged in with the Vita.

The deviants are a bunch of ball-shaped aliens who want nothing more than to go back to space after crash landing on a planet that they’re estranged to. The thing about the deviants is that they’re a little crazy.  Those who are familiar with the minions from the film “Despicable Me” or the insane white “rabbids” from Rayman’s Raving Rabbids should know what kind crazy is being referred to.

The game itself is a bunch of minigames requiring the player to get scores high enough in order for the deviants to assemble a spaceship to get back home.

Why Should I Care?

The minigames themselves are pretty fun and showcase what the Vita’s features can be capable of.

For example, the first minigame puts players in control of a deviant navigating to an endpoint at a random field, but in order to get to it, the deviant has to find the key to unlock the gate.  Players control the deviant strictly using the touch panel on the back of the Vita to distort the land in order to have the deviant roll around the field.  With enemies and other obstacles blocking the path, it could be rather challenging.

Another minigame makes use of the front and back cameras in a space shooter game similar to Face Raiders game built into the Nintendo 3DS.  With the simulated augmented reality controls, players have to literally be standing in order to find and destroy all the enemies in the actual room players are playing in.

Another game features the navigation of a hot air balloon, requiring players to hold the Vita vertically like one would with a mobile smartphone.  The gyroscope controls then allow players to evade sky bombs while tapping on the screen to kill flying sharp-nosed robots that can burst the balloon.

These are just some of the handful of games that uniquely showcase the many ways the Vita can be played.

What Makes It Worth My Time And Money?

Most of the game’s value comes from the fact that it has a variety of fun games that are a joy to play.  It’s easy on the eyes thanks to the power of the handheld and its superb screen, but the crazy sounds might cause the player to go crazy too.

Combine that with the fact that it’s one of the cheaper Vita games available at $29.99 (or free, with the first-edition bundle), and players have quite a game on their hands.

The problem is there comes a point in the game where the minigames start to be recycled and players find themselves playing games they’ve already played before.  The fun in finishing each minigame with a respectable amount of points is wondering what kind of game is unlocked next, but finding out it’s a game you already played is a rather disappointing experience.

However way you look at it, though, it’s still fun for a while.

Final Score: 7 | Recommendation: Wait For A Price Drop

Editor’s Note: The game was purchased by the reviewer.  Over 10 hours was put into the game before beginning the review.

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