2. Marathon Trilogy (PC, Mac)
Before Bungie put on its Halo, it ran the Marathon. Even though it was released in 1994, it introduced many concepts that many of today’s shooters take for granted. Dual Wielding, mouse aiming, and AI controlled teammates were just a few of the many innovations that Marathon bought to the table. Now that Bungie is done with the Halo series, perhaps they will revisit the Marathon universe. For now, you can download the trilogy from here.

3. Rise of Nations: Gold Edition (PC)
This is easily one of my all time favorite PC Real time strategy games. Developer Big Huge Games has managed to use Civilization-style nation building gameplay to disguise traditional RTS 4X game play. Conquer the world as the nation of your choice, rewrite the cold war, take control of Alexander the great’s army, or design a scenario of your own using the game’s rich editing tools.

4. Lumines 2 (PSP)
Lumines is this console generation’s version of Tetris. Lumines 2 blends thumping music tracks with block matching gameplay and the result is something never before seen in the puzzle genre. The music is a mix of top 40 hits and more alternative tunes. With so many game modes, a sequence editor, and multiplayer, this is a title you’ll be keeping in your collection for months.

5. Knights in the Nightmare (Nintendo DS)
KITN may very well be 2009’s Nintendo DS sleeper hit. In fact, I’d go as far to say that it’s 2009’s sleeper hit on any system. The mash-up of different playing styles, fantasy-meets-noir storytelling, multiple endings, and deep strategy make this a can’t miss for Nintendo DS owners everywhere.

6. Dead Space (Xbox 360, PS3)
EA’s survival horror game brings in the fear that games such as Alone in the Dark and Resident Evil have lacked in their recent entries. The game’s atmosphere is disturbing, and the necromorphs are formidable villains. EA has built a franchise around this game, with comics, and animated film, and a Wii prequel. With the sequel arriving next year, survival horror fans, especially those who have been put off by Resident Evil 5, should check this out.

7. Blast Works (Wii)
Blast Works is almost the Wii equivalent to the PS3’s LittleBigPlanet. You have the freedom to design your own side scrolling shooter, complete with your own ship, enemies, and backdrops. Although there is a steep learning curve, the content creation is complex, and will extend the life of the game for months to come. The game’s Katamari Damacy-meets-Gradius gameplay isn’t bad either, and you can even unlock hidden games on the disc. Blast Works is one of the few games available for Wii that caters to the hardcore audience.

8. Saint’s Row 2 (PS3, Xbox 360)
While it may not be one of the most original games on the list, THQ’s Saint’s Row 2 manages to expand upon and in some aspects even improve what makes the open-world genre great. There are even more zany activities to do to earn respect, the customization options are even deeper this time around, and there are even more vehicles to steal/wreck/customize/pilot/drive, including helicopters. Saint’s Row’s parody on gangbanging is a great way to pass the time until the next Grand Theft Auto is released.

9. MadWorld (Wii)
I’m still wondering how a game like this got the green light from Nintendo, and how the people who made the cult classic Okami managed to come up with something like this. The Sin City-style graphics and the multitude of ways to bring death to your opponents make this game a must for people who crave M-rated action on the Wii.

10. Crackdown (Xbox 360)
As one poweteer stated, Crackdown was unfairly judged as “the free game that cane with the $60 Halo 3 demo”. Even so, Crackdown game players the chance to wreak a path of mindless destruction with a variety of weapons. Even if the game was light on plot, using your agent’s abilities to cause chaos kept players entertained for hours, and packaging the Halo 3 beta invite was nothing short of genius.

11. The Orange Box (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
This collection of 5 games; Half-Life 2, HL2 Episode 1, HL2 Episode 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal, represented the finest of what the FPS genre had to offer. Half-Life 2 and its two episodes had a story that was seamlessly told without use of cutscenes, Team Fortress 2 was a fun class-based multiplayer game, and Portal was a puzzle game disguised as an FPS that had players think their way through a facility while being taunted by a malevolent artificial intelligence. These games show Valve’s Source engine at its best, and gave console players a taste of what their PC counterparts have been enjoying for years.

12. The SimCity Box (PC)
This collection of Maxis SimCity titles includes the awesome Simcity 4 and the Rush Hour expansion, the not-so-well received SimCity Societies and the Destinations expansion, and the quirky puzzle game SnapCity. While some people will enjoy Societies’s unique take on Sim City, Sim City 4 alone makes this worth the price of admission for players who don’t already own the city-building classic. It’s deep urban planning shows why Maxis is among the best in the Sim genre.

Except where otherwise noted, all of these games can be found at almost anywhere that sells video games for $20 or less.

Now I love the mainstream as much as anyone. Like most other gamers worth their salt, I get a rise out of blowing someone away in Halo, running a touchdown in Madden, and carjacking and gunning my way to 6 stars while playing Grand Theft Auto. The current state of video gaming is great, and with new advances in gameplay and graphical technology, it’s only going to get better. However, if you look closely, there is a movement going on beneath the surface. Not only is the mainstream taking strides forward, but so is the independent scene. In the past few years alone, many independently developed releases have become just as critically acclaimed as the biggest mainstream releases, and with indie titles being released on outlets such as Steam and Xbox Live, there is greater incentive than ever. Far from being simple mods, independently developed games often feature innovative gameplay mechanics and presentation. Lets look at some aspects of the independent scene, and hopefully some of you more creative poweteers will get some inspiration.

Tools of the Trade
The recent rise of the independent game development movement is due to the emergence of open source software which is freely available, easy to learn, and fully featured. Packages such as Blender (a 3D rendering program), Gimp (a 2D image manipulation program) and the Eclipse IDE are every bit as capable tools as their more expensive counter parts. Microsoft’s XNA, a game development driven framework which uses c# (pronounced c-sharp) and LOVE, an LUA driven 2D game engine allow developers with programming knowledge to make amazing works. Ready-made frameworks such as the Retribution Engine and Reality Factory allow players with little to no programming knowledge to create complex games as well. At the bottom of this article is a list of tools you that are commonly used by developers.

Developers and Distribution
Compared to more mainstream development studios such as a Bungie, Square, or Rockstar, independent developers usually function in much smaller teams, as little as one person in fact, as is the case with Everyday Shooter’s Jonathan Mak. Back in the days, smaller game developers didn’t have the leverage of bigger budget titles, so independent developers have had to either form their own game companies, or sell their works to bigger companies for any distribution. Thanks to the internet, it has been easier than ever to distribute one’s efforts. Most independent console developers prefer to develop for PC and Mac, as they are more accessible than consoles. Traditionally, console software development kits from companies such as Nintendo and Sony carry high price tags for both licensing and royalty fees, and the console developers usually take out royalty payments. However, some breakthroughs have been made on this front, as Microsoft’s indie games network only requires a $99 annual creator’s club membership with Microsoft only taking a 30 percent profit. Also, console manufacturers have snatched up independently developed efforts for release on their console’s digital distribution networks. Examples of these titles include the aforementioned Everyday Shooter, and Jonathan Blow’s Braid.

But Why?
Of course not everyone is lucky enough to get their effort snatched up by Microsoft or Valve. Surprisingly, not everyone wants to either. So with the long and complex process that goes into a game, and little or no financial reward, why does one do it? Several reasons actually. It’s quite gratifying to have your own product out where others can enjoy it. Also, game development gives you hands on experience with various tools and programming languages, enabling you to build a portfolio to show potential employers. Most importantly, independent game development allows one to share their vision with the world. While I won’t go into the whole ‘games as art’ debate, many independent releases such as Limbo and the Path have a unique presentation style that forces players to form their own interpretation of the game’s message. On the other end of the spectrum, games such as Super Columbine Massacre are quite blunt about their message, forcing players to think about taboo events in a new way.

In the DVD documentary Beef, rapper DMX says that while the money is in the NBA, streetball players are have the best skills. If mainstream companies such as Capcom and Electronic Arts are the pros, the indie developers such as Jonathan Mak and 2D boy can be considered the street. Just like in music and movies, the independent scene is the go-to destination for gamers who want something different. Keep a close eye on these games, because a big name always starts as a small one, and you could be seeing the next great superstar right here.

Tools and Resources
http://www.blender.org/ – Blender, an open source 3D Modeling Suite.
http://www.makehuman.org/ - Makehuman, an open source tool for making 3D characters
http://love2d.org/ – Love, a 2D game engine which utilizes LUA
http://creators.xna.com/en-US/ – The XNA Creator’s Club
http://www.gimp.org/ – Gimp, a free 2D image manipulation program on par with photoshop
Retribution Engine- The Retribution Engine, a free tool for creating FPS games
http://springrts.com/ – Spring, a frame work for creating real time strategy games
http://sauerbraten.org/ – Cube 2 Sauerbraten, a multiplayer/single player FPS with an in-game map editor

Like Bionic Command Rearmed, Dark Void Zero is a downloadable title that manages to surpass the bigger name console game that it was made to promote. Available for $5 on the DSIWare store, it’s an excellent value for gamers who enjoy the classics.

In the short time they had been around, manufacturers took steps to make video games available in as many formats as possible. After their arcade origins, games were made available on home computers, and consoles. After making consoles which allowed interchangeable cartridges, the next logical step would be to make games that you could take with you on the go. From the tabletop electronic games of the 60s and 70s to the Nintendo DS, Sony PSP, and everything else in between, there has been no better way to pass the time.

Origins
Handheld gaming consoles as we know them are basically the synthesis of the old table top electronic games from the 60s and the electronic LCD calculators, which were increasingly becoming popular. These table top games were referred to as non-video electronic games and non TV games. In 1976, Mattel started a line of handheld sports titles, after then-marketing director Michael Katz challenged his development team to create a game the size of a calculator. The first release was 1977’s Auto Race, which was the first electronic game that was entirely digital. It was quite primitive. There were no buttons beside the controls to move the car and the on/off switch. Your car was represented by a blip on the screen, and you had to make it to the top of the screen 4 times (represented 4 laps) while avoiding the other cars. It wasn’t much, but Mattel followed it up with football. The games became a resounding success, and other companies such as Coleco, Parker Brothers, and Bandai followed suit. One company, Milton Bradley, took a huge step forward. In 1979, they released the Smith Engineering-developed Microvision, the first handheld game system with interchangeable cartridges. The unit was a moderate success, though it would eventually meet its demise due to the lack of available games, faulty hardware, a small screen, and the lack of support by software developers.

Gunpei Yokoi and Tiger
Even before, during, and after the great video game crash, the handheld video game scene was becoming more prominent. Nintendo’s Gunpei Yokoi in particular made significant strides not only in the field but in video games in general. Inspired by the popularity of LCD calculators, he created the Game and Watch series, which allowed a single game to be played on a double screen unit that included a clock and an alarm. These units were the predecessors to the Game Boy, Nintendo DS, and virtually everything else Nintendo did (By the way, that pic to the left look familiar to anyone?). Particularly, the cross-shaped directional pad which Yokoi invented for use to control on-screen characters made its way into the design of the Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, Super Nintendo, and other consoles. It’s important to note that Nintendo’s Game and Watch units are not to be confused with Nelsonic’s Game Watch series which were literally games within watches. Interestingly enough however, among them included Nintendo properties such as Mario, Zelda, and Donkey Kong.Tiger electronics was another pioneer in the field. The started doing electronic toys in the early 80s with the K28 learning computer. Throughout the 80s and 90s, they produced a number of handheld games based on everything from movies, to TV shows, to even console games. Thus, players who couldn’t afford to play games like Mega man 3 and Double Dragon could play what essentially was a crippled version of the game. Both the Game and Watch series and Tiger’s games made use of primitive LCD screens with preset sprites and limited animation if any at all. Still, they were light years more advanced than earlier, and things were going to get better.

The race heats up
1989 saw the North American debut of two handheld systems, both of which would change the shape of the industry: Nintendo’s Game Boy and Atari’s Lynx. The former system was the brainchild of Gunpei Yokoi. Although the Game Boy had a monochrome green-and-black LCD screen, it’s graphics were miles above anything else seen at the time, almost resembling NES games in terms of animation and detail. The unit itself included a headphone jack to listen to music in stereo, and an external power supply jack for an AC adapter or rechargeable battery pack. Two players could compete against each other using the gamelink, which was sold separately. It was bundled with the popular puzzle game Tetris, which became one of the highest selling games on a portable system. The system went through a number of revisions, either focusing on the color of the system, to its size. They eventually released a color version of the system, but we’ll get to that later.

The latter system began life as Epyx’s Handy Game, until the company was bought out by Atari and the Handy Game was re-dubbed the Lynx. Along with being the world’s first handheld system with a color display, the Lynx also packed in several nice features as well. The graphics were more advanced than anything else seen at time, featuring sprite scaling techniques that were almost on par with the emerging 16-bit systems. It also had a backlit display, and players could flip the unit upside down to play it left-handed. Players could link up to 17 other units to play multiplayer. Even with these features, the Lynx’s high price point ($189.99 vs the Game Boy’s 89.99 price tag), lousy battery life (six AA batteries gave the system somewhere between 4 – 5 hours of gameplay – keep in mind that this was before rechargeable batteries became the norm), and lack of support from third party developers and publishers (mainly due to Nintendo’s heavy handed licensing policies and the fact Atari couldn’t’t move enough units to attract third parties) caused the Lynx to be edged out by Nintendo. Atari slashed the unit’s price tag down to $99 in 1991, but they still couldn’t move very many units. In 1994, Atari shifted its focus away from the Lynx to the Jaguar. Although the system was pretty much dead at this point (losing out to both the Game Boy and Sega’s Game Gear), developers continued to make software for it, and at the end of the decade, Hasbro released the rights to make games for both the Lynx and the Jaguar to public domain, gaining the systems popularity amongst homebrew and independent developers. New games have been released for the system as recently as 2009, when Super Fighter Team released the horizontal side scrolling shooter Zaku.

1991 saw the release of NEC’s TurboExpress, a unit that allowed players to play the ultra slim Turbografx-16 Hucards on the go. All three systems had link cables to play 2 player games, although in the case of the TurboExpress, very few TG-16 games had been designed with TurboExpress co-op in mind. The system also had a TV tuner enabling the system to be turned into a color TV. Despite these advantages, the TurboExpress was wrought with problems from the get go. The game’s library was based on that of a system that wasn’t getting much third-party support anyway, and there were several hardware problems with the unit too. Thanks to the cheap capacitors used in the hardware, the systems suffered sound failure, sometimes even in new units. The LCD screen tended to suffer from a high rate of pixel failure, many times showing up in new units as well. Also, many of the on-screen text fonts were obviously meant to be seen on a television, not on a small 3 – 5 inch screen, so much of the text was hard to read. Some of the HuCards saved data to the internal memory of the TG-16 or TurboDuo. Since the TurboExpress didn’t have any internal memory, it was impossible to save these games. As cool as it would be to play your TG-16 HuCards on the go, it would seem obvious that NEC didn’t exactly think this through through enough. The $299.99 price tag (which was lowered down to $199.99 by 1992) and even worse battery life (six AA for three hours) didn’t exactly do it any favors either. It was discontinued around the same time the TurboDuo was on its last legs.

Despite having a monochrome screen however, the Game Boy managed to outperform both the TurobExpress and the Lynx. The following year saw the release of yet another system, released by one of Nintendo’s fiercest competitors.

Sega Gets It’s Game in Gear
During the early 90s, Sega’s Genesis was catching fire, gaining the lead on Nintendo. However, Sega realized that even if they were to surpass Nintendo in the home console market, it wouldn’t mean anything if Nintendo still had a strong lead in the portable gaming market. Thus in 1992, Sega released the Game Gear in North America. Like the TurboExpress and Lynx, it was a color unit. Since the architecture of the Game Gear and Master System were similar, it was easy for Master System titles to be ported down to Game Gear. There was even am adapter, called the Mastergear Converter which allowed Master System games to be played on the Game Gear. Like the TurboExpress, there was also a TV converter for the system. The Game Gear wasn’t popular in Japan (which wasn’t surprising, as the Genesis wasn’t exactly doing well over there either), although in the U.S, they managed to gain a surprising market share thanks to an aggressive marketing campaign against Nintendo’s Game Boy, one which was similar to the Genesis vs NES/SNES marketing campaign. The majority of their ads centered around Game Gear’s color screen vs Nintendo’s ‘spinach green’ (as one ad called it) monochrome screen. Even so, Nintendo’s Game Boy managed to outsell the Game Gear thanks to (wait for it) a high price tag ($149) and lousy battery life (5 – 6 hours) on 6 AA batteries. Support for the system ended in 1997, which was pretty much the same time Sega ended support for the Genesis as well. While the Game Gear failed to outsell the Game Boy, it did do better than every other portable system that was competing with Game Boy.

Handheld vs Portable
It should be noted that while all handhelds are portable, not all portable systems are handheld. Take your laptop for instance. You can take it with you, but you obviously can’t hold it in your hand. Lets consider 2 systems released by Nintendo and Sega during the mid 90s: Nintendo’s Virtual Boy and the Sega Multi-Mega, or as we knew it, the CDX. The CDX was one of many attempts to create a hybrid Genesis/Sega CD unit, although it’s price ($399) and short battery life kept it from being little more than an overpriced and over-sized CD player that could play video games (as long as you plugged it in and hooked it up to a TV of course). It wasn’t exactly designed with 32X compatibility in mind. Although the unit did technically work with the add-on, the combination caused a number of problems. At the time of the system’s release, consumers were pretty much losing interest in the Sega CD anyway. The Virtual Boy was the world’s first true 3D gaming system, although it’s colors were only red and black. You had to sit it on a flat surface and peer into the headset while holding the dual gripped controller. It didn’t do very well at all despite several price drops, and only 14 games were ever released for the system in the U.S. It’s critical failure was believed to be the reason Gunpei Yokoi was forced to leave Nintendo, although many speculate that the system had been rushed to the market so Nintendo could focus its resources on N64 development. Still, even the Virtual Boy made its impact in a way, as the dual-control pad design is similar to the design of control pads with dual analog sticks.

Game Boy Grows Up
During the mid to late 90s, the console race heated up and went into the 32 bit era. Although the Nintendo 64 was struggling to hold its own against the Sony Playstation and Sega Saturn, the Game Boy was doing better than ever due to the lack of any real competition at the time. Well scratch that, Tiger, the maker of all those handhelds from the 80s tried to enter the console market. After the horrific R-Zone (which was no different from their handheld LCD games save that now they were cartridge based), they tried again with 1997’s Game.com (that’s to be pronounced “Game Com”, not ‘Game Dot Com”). The system was geared towards an older audience PDA style features such features such as a stylus and touch screen. It could even be connected to a modem for limited connectivity. Though they had virtually no third party support, they obtained licenses to develop ports of console titles for the system. Thus the console featured games such as Duke Nukem and Resident Evil 2, although unsurprisingly, they were inferior to their console ports. It’s poor distribution and marketing (featuring a marketing spokesman being mobbed by angry gamers after declaring that the Game.Com plays more games than they had brain cells) led to its demise in 2000. Of course Sega tried one last time to be a contender in the handheld market with the release of the Sega Nomad, a unit which played Genesis titles. Of course this flopped as well, due to (say it with me) a high price tag and a low battery life. Not only that, the system was released at a time when consumer interest in the Sega Genesis was waning in favor of more advanced 32 bit systems. Nintendo meanwhile, finally went color with the Game Boy. Not only did it finally allow developers to make color games for the system, but it was backwardly compatible with older Game Boy games giving the system an instantly large library from the get go. The move was perfect to coincide with the increasing popularity of Nintendo’s Pokemon franchise. The system’s graphics were similar to the NES, and there were several sequels, remakes, and releases on the system. The port of Super Mario Brothers for the unit features an overworld map and a battery backup save feature, making it the definitive version of the game.

For the next several years, Nintendo’s only real competition came from Japan, as SNK entered the market with the Neo Geo Pocket and Bandai arrived with the Wonderswan. Although both systems had a decent library, they were both monochromatic portable systems released at a time when their biggest, and only competitor just released a COLOR system. Thus the following year, both systems released color iterations of their systems, with the Neo Geo Pocket color being made available in America. Both systems did almost everything right. They were available at low price points (69.95 for the NGPC and approximately $59 for the Wonderswan) and had good battery life. Both systems even had several high profile exclusives. The NGPC had SNK vs Capcom – Match of the Millennium and Card Fighters’ Clash while the Wonderswan saw remakes of Final Fantasy 1 and 2 (the ones that were ported to Game Boy Advance, PSP, and Playstation 1). However it just wasn’t enough in the end. The NGPC collapsed when SNK filed bankruptcy, and although the unit was advertised on TV and being sold at places such as Wal-Mart and Toys’R’Us, all unsold units were recalled. The Wonderswan began to collapsed when developer Square reconciled its relationship with Nintendo, thereby taking away the system’s competitive edge. Despite the release of the successor system the SwanCrystal, Bandai eventually dropped out of the portable system market and went back to being a third party publisher/developer.

Nintendo Advances
Left with no real competitors (at least in the U.S.), Nintendo’s Game Boy evolved further’ or rather I should say advance. In the summer of 2001, Nintendo released the Game Boy Advance, a 32 bit portable console. The unit was backwardly compatible with both Game Boy and Game Boy Color games, and the graphics were on par with the Super Nintendo in most cases. Much of the early lineup consisted of ports of older SNES titles such as Contra 3, Breath of Fire, and Super Mario World. Unfortunately some of them were hampered due to there only being 2 face buttons on the unit (as opposed to 4 on the original SNES controller). Contra 3 in particular, removed two of its stages due to the lack of buttons. There were also more original titles as well. Advance Wars’s brand of turn-based combat gained it a significant following among fans. The Mega Man Zero series was a Mega Man spin off that bought classic 2D gameplay to the new era. The system even saw ports of Doom and Wolfenstein 3D. A few years later, there was a redesign of the system called the Game Boy Advance SP which featured a backlit screen and a fliptop design. Even with the Game Boy Advance, cell phone gaming was becoming more popular among casual gamers, and hardware manufacturers were taking steps to make the medium successfully crossover into the mainstream, albeit to mixed results.

Nokia Gets Dis-N-Gaged
Since their creation in the 80s, cellphones were slowly and increasingly starting to modernize and towards the end of the 90s, people wanted more out of their cell phones. Things such as calendars, calculators, and contact storage were being added, and in 1997, Nokia bought games to the cell phone for the first time via a port of the game Snake. Thanks to its popularity, it came pre-installed on many Nokia phones. In 2003, Nokia made an attempt at a cell phone based gaming platform with the N-Gage. It showed a lot of promise, as the unit included features such as MP3 player and an FM radio along with bluetooth connectivity for internet and multiplayer. Unfortunately, right out the gate there were problems. The system’s $299 price tag just didn’t make it an attractive competitor to the Game Boy Advance which was selling for less than a third of what Nokia was asking for, especially with Nokia’s scant library of games vs the dozens that were already available for the GBA (and that isn’t mentioning the hundreds that were already available for the Game Boy and Game Boy color. From a game system standpoint, a clunky design (which among other things required players to remove the battery color to change the game cartridge) hurt the system’s image and the phone keypad face buttons don’t translate well to a video game console. From a cell phone standpoint, the system was available at game dealers rather than cell phone providers, so it was hard to obtain a cell phone plan for the unit, which looked unconventional to customers who were in the market for a cell phone. Also, the speaker and microphone were located on the side of the unit, forcing users to hold the unit on their face uncomfortably in a manner that was dubbed ’sidetalking’, making the N-Gage the butt of many an internet joke. Now to Nokia’s credit, they did everything they could to get the unit over. They redesigned the unit bringing it down to $99 (of course many features such as USB connectivity and MP3 playback were removed), it attracted quality third party support from companies such as 2kGames and Eidos and the games Pocket Kingdom and the WWII strategy game Pathways to Glory were well received. Sadly, it was too little too late, as by the mid part of the decade, the N-Gage was going up against the PSP and the Nintendo DS. In 2008, Nokia shifted gears and made the N-Gage a ‘gaming-on-demand’ service similar to Xbox Live Arcade. It too was folded up and will be relaunching as the OVI service, which would be comparable to the Itunes store and the Zune Marketplace. It would be a few years until companies got cell phone gaming right.

If gaming was taking a while to work on cell phones, then it would seem Palm Pilots wouldn’t get gaming right at all. Take the Tapwave Zodiac for instance. I won’t go into detail, but here are the basics: the unit played MP3s and video, ran on a version of the Palm OS, and competed with the Sony PSP and Nintendo DS. Unsurprisingly, it was discontinued in 2005, 2 years after its release. Also of interest to note was Tiger Telematics’s(not to confused with Tiger Electronics) Gizmondo. The unit which never saw a U.S. Release was launched in 2005 and discontinued less than a year later after selling only 25,000 units driving the company into bankruptcy. Although Tiger Telematics is more famous for the antics of one of its executives, Stefan M. Eriksson. Mr. Eriksson became famous not for the Gizmondo, but for wrecking a 2 million dollar sports car while driving under the influence. Later it was revealed that he had links to organized crime in Sweden, and that the car he crashed was suspected to have been stolen. Ouch. Read more about it here.

The Modern Era
Nintendo decided to change the handheld world once again with the release of the Nintendo DS. The DS stood for Dual Screen. The unit opened in a fliptop laptop style, and there was a top screen, and a bottom. The unit included a stylus, which could be used on the bottom screen. The unit came with a built-in Pictochat program where users could draw messages and send them over to each other via the unit’s wireless connection. The unit’s stylus was used for everything from menu interaction to character movement, and the two screens had a variety of uses as well. Some used them as an extra menu, others used them to expand the playfield, and others used them to display player data, much like the Dreamcast VMUs. Although the unit could play Game Boy Advance games (and some games, such as Guitar Hero used the GBA cartridge slot for extra peripherals and connectivity), it could no longer play Game Boy or Game Boy Color games. In true Nintendo fashion, Nintendo released a number of remakes of the unit. The Nintendo DS Lite was a smaller version of the unit with a slightly larger screen, and the Nintendo DSI, which was released last summer included a redesigned menu interface, AAC audio playback, SD Card Support, two cameras, and an online shop similar to the Wii’s shop channel. Sadly, the unit omitted the Game Boy Advance slot, and there is only one DSI exclusive game, the little known System Flaw. Even so, Nintendo managed to retain its dominance over the handheld scene, with titles such as Mega Man ZX, Nintendogs, Mario and Luigi: Super Star Saga, and Contra 4.

A few months after the DS, Sony released the Playstation Portable, a handheld device which perhaps out of all of Nintendo’s competitors, had the best success. Of course this wasn’t saying much, but at 5 years and counting, it lasted much longer than the Game Gear, Wonderswan, and the TurboExpress. Not only did the PSP’s library include ports of PS2 and PS3 games, but it also included several original titles and series installments. Games such as Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker and God Of War: Chains of Olympus do a great job of showing that the handheld could stack up to what the dig boys were offering, and games such as 30 Minute Hero gave the system a unique identity of its own. The unit was $249 at launch time, although it wasn’t a big deal. It drained power rather quickly, but it included a built-in battery and a cable which could quickly recharge the unit (as you see, power usage has gotten better since the days of the Game Gear sucking up AA batteries). The PSP’s games were primarily released on the Universal Media Disc format, a new format Sony tried to push for movies and entertainment as well. As such several studios released movies, cartoons, and TV shows on the format, and there were even porn titles available for the system. Unfortunately, the UMD as a media format wasn’t getting over well, as it UMDs didn’t have as much storage as DVDs, so many studios had to cut out DVD extras to get their releases to fit on UMD, and really, the PSP was the only device available that could play UMDs. Many studios pulled out UMD support as it just wasn’t feasible for consumers to buy a film on scaled down UMD when they could get it on DVD for roughly the same price in most cases. On the bright side, the unit supported expandable memory with the SD Pro Duo Expansion slot, wireless connectivity, and online multiplayer. When the PS3 was released, the two systems were integrated with each other, and users could access an online store where they can purchase titles similar to the Xbox Live marketplace and Virtual Console. The system went through a few revisions of its own. The PSP 2000 and 3000 series made the unit smaller, with the latter changing around button placement, while the ill received PSP-Go omitted the UMD slot to encourage digital download of games. It has an on-board 16 gig flash memory and can support up to 32 gigs via a Micro SD card. However, the unit carried a higher price tag than the 2000/3000 units and there was no way to transfer UMD titles to the system, so it’s not hard to see why this isn’t exactly flying off store shelves. Even with this mishap, the PSP remains the most successful Non-Nintendo handheld console. The system is also hit amongst various homebrew developers. Make that would be, if not for Sony’s constant stream of firmware updates.

The Future
The handheld market is looking good for the future as well. Nintendo has recently unveiled the Nintendo 3DS, a 3D version of the Nintendo DS. The graphics seem to be on par to at least the PS2, as games such as Metal Gear Solid 3 and Street Fighter 4 have been announced for the system. The former was even being shown on the unit as a tech demo. With the system to be released early next year, Nintendo looks poised to retain its control over the market.

Meanwhile with the advent of smartphones and 3G cellular networks, mobile gaming is on the rise. The Iphone is making several advances in this field, with games such as Plants vs Zombies and Doom Resurrection being available on the AppStore. The Zune Marketplace isn’t far behind either. Thanks to the XNA platform, developers can create their own games for Zune and Zune HD. Google Android is another mobile phone platform that is making strides in open-source tech. The Android Marketplace is expanding often, with new titles showing up.

Gee, for gaming that can fit in your pocket, this article sure packs a lot. Now that you’re finally done reading this, get out there, and grad some fresh air. Oh, and you can take your Nintendo DS or Sony PSP with you if you want.

The real fun begins when you land. The stages are made up of hundreds of blocks which have to be blown up to be destroyed. Here is cool part: your bombs can also injure you as well. Oh, and you’re blown back a few squares after setting them, and since they can explode quickly, this makes avoiding them quite difficult. Adding to the frustration is a constant energy drain. If you get hit, you lose even more energy, and you only get one life, so if you mess up, you’re basically screwed.

The level designs further add to the game’s difficulty. Most of them will have you bomb every block searching for a key, an exit, or a crystal, and some of them even repeat sections. You may even stumble down into an underground area which is PITCH BLACK. You can find various items scattered about the levels. Oh yeah, there is also the occasional boss battle.

With a needlessly frustrating difficulty level, Robowarrior pretty much guaranteed that no one who picked up the game would stick around long enough to finish it. However, the music in the first stage was pretty catchy though. In fact, there is a midi remix of it at vgmusic.com. Enjoy!

Interesting tidbit: this game was developed by Hudson Soft. It was known as Bomber King in Japan, where it was marketed as a sequel to Bomberman.

The graphics are excellent, as they are built on a modified form of Unreal Engine 2. You can even create your own missions and share them. There are several team-based multiplayer games, including co-op for you and up to 4 of your friends. The Gold Edition includes the Stetchkov Syndicate expansion pack, which includes new missions, weapons, and other goodies. If you’re a fan of tactical-style FPS games like Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon, you’ll love SWAT. Now maybe if Joesph Weekley and Joe Chivalia had played this game a few times…

Baseball Stars features 8 teams. Although there are no real teams or players, the teams have unique personalities all on their own. There is a team called the Ninja Blacksocks, a team called the American Dreams, and even an all-girl’s team. If you don’t like any of them, you can even create your own team, and have a total of up to six created teams. You can edit the names of the players on your team, change their stats, and trade them to other teams. The game also includes RPG elements. After winning games, you earn money which you use to improve your players and purchase new ones. You can even create a league and play a whole season. The on field gameplay wasn’t bad either. While the batting and pitching were basic, the fielding was quite realistic for its time. It featured outfielders moving toward fly balls, the ability to jump and dive, and fielders catching balls that went anywhere near them.

Romstar created a Baseball Stars 2 for the NES, but it didn’t have the ability to rename created teams, thus making it less popular than the original. SNK made a few Neo Geo sequels, but neither of them had the impact that this NES original had. Baseball Stars was ahead of its time on the NES. Even modern day games such as Madden and NBA Live copy some of its features. Hopefully it won’t be much longer before we see this on the Wii Virtual Console service.

GTAIV takes place in a new version of Liberty City which was made to resemble New York City more closely than in GTA 3 or Liberty City Stories. The 4 boroughs of Liberty are based on 4 of New York’s boroughs. Queens is Dukes, Bohan is the Bronx, Algonquin is Manhattan, etc. The Statue of Liberty has been changed to the Statue of Happiness, and New Jersey is known as Alderney. You play as a man named Niko Bellic, a former military personal from Eastern Europe. Seems that he has done some things back in the old country that he hasn’t exactly been proud of. Lured by his cousin’s promises of wealth, mansions, women, and prosperity, he makes his way over to America. However, he finds out that his cousin’s ‘mansion’ is a dingy apartment in the south of Broker, his taxi business is struggling, and he is thousands of dollars in debt. Before long, Niko gets caught up in the classic GTA-style mayhem.

Now don’t expect to be meeting past GTA characters such as Phill Cassidy, Kent Paul, or even Carl Johnson. This is a new continuity after all. However, the characters you’ll meet are just as memorable. Wait until you meet the McReary family, Little Jacob, Elizabetha Torres, and ‘Street Crusader’ Manny. Meeting is a huge part of what you will be doing in the game too. You’ll frequently be asked by your friends to take them out someplace, such as bowling, darts, or to get something to eat. If you don’t call them, they’ll call you, and if you don’t take them out, they’ll send you text messages and emails, bitching about how you’re never around. Remember the girlfriends in GTA San Andreas? You know, you’d take them out and you’d get perks like keeping weapons after you get arrested of killed? This is like that, but more annoying. Though it gets tedious, there is a benefit. After, a certain level, you get special perks from your buddies. For instance, Jamaican thug Little Jacob sells you weapons at a discount, Brucie allows you to take a ride in his helicopter, and Roman sends you a taxi cab to take you where you want to go. You can use your cell phone to arrange meetings, get the heads up on missions, and even enter the game’s online multiplayer modes.

Yeah, you heard that right. For the first time in the series, players can get online. It’s not just generic deathmatch and capture the flag either. There are 15 different modes of multiplayer, including my personal favorite, free mode. All GTA fans know how fun it is to raise their wanted level up to 5 stars just to see how long they survive. Well, free mode is like that, except with up to 15 other players. The entire city is open to explore, and the game is as fun as you can imagine it. You can even download two new episodes (The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony) on Xbox Live and Playstation Network, both of which feature new lead characters, new missions, and new storylines.

Several aspects of the formula have seen minor and major changes. For instance, police evasion is different. When you gain a wanted level, a circle appears on your radar, signifying the searching area. Your goal is to escape the circle and stay outside of it for a few seconds. However, if another police officer spots you, the circle reappears. You can escape into a pay-n-spray, but unlike past GTA games, it only works if police don’t spot you going in. There is a new cover mechanic, and mastering it is a must if you want to survive the game’s hellish gunfights. There is a new aiming mechanic as well. By holding down the left trigger, you automatically lock onto an enemy, and you can jiggle the right analog stick to hit individual body parts. By holding the trigger only halfway, you can enter a free aiming mode. It’s easy to get the hang of, and it works like a dream. You can still buy weapons, but the ridiculous Ammunation stores have been replaced by basement dealers. The graphics have received a much needed overhaul as well, due to Rockstar’s Rage engine along with NaturalMotion’s Euphoria animation engine. While it isn’t exactly the Cryengine or Unreal 3, it makes GTA4’s graphics look more lifelike and natural than any other game in the series. Bullets chip the paint and masonry off walls, cars damage was is shown realistically, and character faces show real emotion.

The game has done a superb job of drawing players into it’s world. You can surf dating sites online, look up criminals on an online database, watch TV at home, watch Kat Williams at a comedy club, and even play video games. The NPC animations are another impressive part of the game’s atmosphere. They are more lifelike and organic than ever before, and they react realistically to events around them. One time, I was was walking along the street, and a man ran past me, than a cop ran after him, and tackled him to the ground. Another time, I got into a fender with another driver, who pulled me out of my vehicle and started to fight me. A police officer then tackled him to the ground, put him in handcuffs, and asked if I was okay. Another time, a guy tried to carjack me. I thin pulled him out of my vehicle and punched him around a few times, and he took off running. Then, I pulled out my gun and shot him in the back of his leg. Finally, I got into a fist fight with an Asian guy. I had the upper hand, but then his friend drove up and joined in, so I once again pulled out my gun, and shot them both. I’m sure you’ll come up with your own stories. Things like this draw you into the game, and it gives you that feeling of being part of a living, breathing, world, as cliche as that may sound. It feels like even though you’re the main character, there are people around you going about their own lives and dealing with their own issues. This feeling is important for any game that features an open world, be it GTA, Saint’s Row, The Elder Scrolls, or even The Sims.

With all the changes and additions, one thing that thankfully hasn’t changed is the game’s radio stations. Since GTA takes place in a modern day period, there is no need for the music to be restricted by a certain past era, like in San Andreas. The stations play several types of music, from both classic and current hip hop, to world music, and even classic rock. My personal favorite is a jazz fusion station, hosted by none other than the god father of acid jazz himself, Roy Ayers. The game’s trademark sense of humor has been untouched as well. The game’s radio commercials, websites, and news reports parody everything, from Japanese anime to court TV. Fox News (or Weasel News as it is known in the game), Bill O’Rielly, America’s culture of fear and xenophobia are especially targeted.

At the time of its release, many gaming magazines and websites gave GTA4 a perfect score, generating controversy. While I won’t way whether or not I feel that it deserves a perfect score, I will way that the game has earned some very high marks. It is one of the best games of this console generation, and for the series, it ends up being as significant a change to the formula as GTA 3 was so many years ago. This gets me all the more excited to see what Rockstar has in store for teh next entry.

Enough about that. Master Chu and the Drunkard Hu is a 2 player screw-up of a platformer. The Hindu god Shiva has cursed Chu’s village, and Hu, in his despair turned to alcoholism. The two set out to stop Shiva with their array of slow firing shots, and a crappy fan/knife attack that fends off projectiles but is mostly useless. It should be noted that despite the fact that Hu is allegedly a drunkard, he has the same abilities as Chu. Of course since Chu also moves slow and his shots are also slow, it could be argued that Chu is also a drunkard, or maybe they’re both just stupid. Since both A and B are assigned to attacks, you have to press up to jump, which just isn’t practical at all for a platformer. Not only that, no matter how hard you press up, your character floats to the top of the screen. With things like spiders and bats on my case, this gets excruciating. Not only that, to complete the first 7 levels, I need to find 8 yin yang symbols scattered around each. If I have to continue on levels 8 or 9, I’m sent back to the start of 7. Good thing then that the bosses you’ll battle aren’t very tough and defeating them requires little more strategy than standing in front of them and repeatedly press the A button.

If Shiva’s curse made Master Hu turn to alcohol, being in this game will turn Hu into a cocaine addict. If Color Dreams was still around to day, they could have done a sequel to this entitled “Master Chu and the dope fiend Hu”. Since it’s an unlicensed cart, the chances of this, as well as any of Color Dream’s other ‘classics’ showing up on the Virtual Console are absolutely nothing. Good thing too. As much as we love those quirky Japanese/Korean/Taiwanese/Chinese/Vietnamese/Thai developed games, one must remember that for every Burning Rangers or Chu Chu Rockets, there are a thousand Master Chus and Drunkard Hus.

You and your two companions wield a selection of weapons which can be upgraded. You can pull off short attacks, or charge for more powerful attacks. The sprite and the girl can also use magic. Each of the spells are grouped under one of 8 elements. The sprite uses attack magic and the girl uses healing and defensive magic. Like the weapons, they are also upgradable. After you meet the girl and the sprite, a second and third player can take control of them (of course a multitap is needed for three players). Instead of going to a menu to swap weapons and use magic, the game uses an on-screen ring selection system which makes equipping weapons and using items quick and simple, thus keeping you in the action for longer. I never quite appreciated how intuitive this system was until I played other such games, even Mass Effect, that had me wading through several menus just to equip items.

The soundtrack is excellent. It has the same orchestra quality that the other 16-bit Final Fantasy titles had. The graphics are bright and colorful, and they make use of mode 7 for the flying segments. It’s also used in a particularly chilling scene when the mana base rises from below the ground, thus signaling do-or-die time. Few RPGs at the time contain water cooler sequences this cool, and not many RPGs released today do either.

Since there was only one Zelda title on the SNES (minus the BS Zelda games from the Japan-only Satellaview anyway), Secret of Mana did a good job of serving as a spiritual successor. After the sequel (which was NOT released outside of Japan, and is NOT Secret of Evermore contrary to belief) however, subsequent entries in the Seiken Densetsu series simply weren’t as well relieved as this entry. Secret of Mana However, remains one of Square’s all time classics. It’s available on Virtual Console, so check it out.

Oh yeah, here’s a little trivia: This was originally set to be called Final Fantasy Adventure 2 (which makes sense, as the U.S. version of the original release was called Final Fantasy Adventure) and was set to be a launch title for the aborted Super Nintendo CD add-on.

Details and more after the jump.

Featuring an expanded downtown scene, Late Night will allow players to become a bartender (or mixologist as the game calls it), local celebrity, director, band member, or even a vampire. Sounds a lot like Sims 2 Nightlife, and it doesn’t seem like a whole lot of new stuff has been added, but then again, neither did World Adventures when it was announced, and that changed the way the game was played. Besides, I’m looking forward to having bar fights (as shown in the trailer), chilling in hot tubs, and my musically inclined Sims finally being able to play other instruments beside the guitar. Oh and I can become a vampire too? Do sign me up. No word on when this is coming out (most likely by the end of the year), so until then, there is more than enough to do in Ambitions and World Adventures to keep me busy. Hopefully it won’t be much longer until we have pets, universities, holidays, seasons, warzones, and drugs (okay, maybe not the last two).

Oh yeah, and Sims 3 is coming to all three major consoles and the Nintendo DS this fall also, alongside the Fast Lane stuff pack for PC.

Fight Night has you lacing on the gloves as one of over 40 of boxing’s greatest fighters, including Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson (making this the first good boxing game that the latter has been in since Punch-Out on the SNES), with even more available for download over Xbox Live and PSN, including Sonny Liston and Evander Holyfield. Of course, if those guys aren’t enough, you can create your own, although its a bit different this time around. Sadly, there are no sliders this time around. You can either select from a preset template and edit it, or you can make use of the Playstation Eye Toy and Xbox Live vision camera to upload your own mugshot to the game. You can make use of EA’s gameface feature to upload your mugshot online, set points for facial features, and download it into the game. It sounds better in theory, as I had to constantly fiddle with lighting, and the system (which is also used in FIFA 10, Facebreaker, and the upcoming EA Mixed Martial Arts game) is far from perfect. I spent nearly an hour creating a guy who looks nothing like me. On the bright side, you can upload your created boxers for other viewers to download.

When I saw status bars on the top of the screen, I got a bit worried. The best thing about Fight Night Round 3 was that the graphical detail was so realistic that I could tell my fighter’s status simply by looking at the visual cues. Thankfully, I can go into the options, change the camera angle, turn off the HUD, and it’s 1996 all over again. The controls have been reworked, and the game opens with a tutorial that introduces you to them. The defensive has been altered as well, and rather than FN round 3’s parrying, you can now just block either high or low. For Fight Night veterans, they take a bit of time to get used to (for me it feels a bit strange not having to hold down the trigger to throw body shots and I ended up throwing a lot of haymakers when I first started out), but they are just as intuitive as ever. The haymaker has also been reworked, so you don’t have to do the full motion to pull off a power punch. The corner-man game has been altered. You assign points to each category. I personally liked FN3’s system better, as it was much more hands on. The game launched without button controls (which were added in a downloadable update) which upset many players, but button punching is for chumps anyway. Real men master the total punch control. Oh yeah, the commentary has been improved, and Joe Tessitore has been joined by Tony Atlas.

Legacy mode is an update to career mode. While there are several new cosmetic changes to the mode (being able to schedule fights, ranking systems, end-of-year awards, emails from your trainer, etc), its just as linear as last year’s game. Fight opponents, compete for belts, train, etc. The training games are even harder than Round 3, and I end up auto-training most of the time. For online players however, a world championship mode allow players to compete in an live online boxing league. It’s Fight Night’s answer to Madden’s Online Franchise and NCAA’s online legacy modes. ESPN classic fights have been added to the game via a downloadable update. However, the first person boxing mode from Round 3 is nowhere to be found.

Even with the unwelcome changes, FN Round 4 remains the undisputed king of the ring. It’s jam packed with so many boxing legends, the online modes are awesome, and the punching control remains ahead of its time. It’s just as fun as ever to beat the shit out of somebody, and hopefully next year’s Fight Night Champion will improve the formula even further.

Now here is where my praise ends. There is a time limit to every mission, so I get very little time to explore and find where all the good deals are. Travel between planets sucks up a lot of time as well, so you pretty much have to plan every trip in advance. Worse yet, there is no way to save manually, and the game automatically saves after I make each trip, so if I didn’t get everything I could during the trip, I can’t reload and try again. Thankfully, the game automatically saves each time you quit, so it’s not like you have to complete each chapter in one setting. You deal with both legal and illegal goods, but there is no real difference between them save for what merchants accept which. There is no penalty for holding illegal product either. You’d think the cops would at least stop me and pat me down, pop my trunk, or even hit me up with a search warrant, but no, I can just waltz around the solar system with thousands of dollars of black market organs or whatever else sitting in my cargo hold. Boy I tell you, if you think Border Security sucks, wait until thousands of years in the future when we have spaceport security. Also it doesn’t make sense that illegal merchants won’t buy or sell legit goods. I know they are supposed to be shady, but money is money right? Another thing that doesn’t make sense is that there are crates of product sitting around the areas waiting for you to pick up. How irresponsible is that? Imagine if this game was called Drug Trader and it was set in Harlem during the 1960s – 90s. If Frank Lucas, Alpo, Nicky Barnes, or Preacher found out that their henchmen were leaving boxes of their product around for anyone to pick up. They’d be fucking pissed!

To add some variety to the action, you can take missions and bounty hunting contracts which allow me to bust a cap inside a target and earn some extra cash in the process. These segments take the form of your typical FPS shooter, where I battle guards while seeking out weapon pickups, armor, and health powerups while making may way to the boss. However, even these segments fall flat, as apparently each and every criminal, corrupt official, or renegade trader employs the exact same guards and thugs to protect them and hides out in the same space station, derelict spaceship, or graffiti-covered subway. Seriously, they even have the exact same layouts! As a merchant I should have moral reservations about killing people for profit, but if these people are this stupid, they deserve to get murked. Worse yet, I start each contract killing with just a pistol, regardless of what I collected the last time. Although you’ll eventually find a shotgun and a machine (oh yeah, this game could use a greater variety of guns during these segments), but it would have been nice to be able to keep my stuff, or buy them during the trading segments. You only get three attempts to beat the level, then you’ll have to wait several hours to try again, so if you don’t make it on the first shot, you just wasted a lot of time. There are times where you can avoid combat and use subterfuge or diplomacy, but you’ll still travel through the same dull environments.

The graphics look a little too primitive for a game that was released in 2007, but that isn’t even the worst part of the game, especially considering that this is an independently developed title. While the game’s merchant system will attract people looking for something different, the gameplay is too flat to sustain it. At least it’s available for a good price, and for an indie game that’s a remake of a Palm Pilot OS title, it tries as hard at it can to make things interesting.

MGS4 is like one of those TV series finales or one of those comic book anniversary issues where everybody who was ever part of the series shows up. Any question you’ve ever had about the series will be answered by the end of the game. What happened to Meryl? What happened to Naomi? Did they find Olga’s daughter? Does Snake really have the Foxdie virus? How do the events of MGS3 factor into things? MGS4 contains many nods to past entries in the series.

The gameplay is classic MGS, although there have been several new techniques added. The camoflauge system of MGS3 has been replaced with a camosuit which can blend into the terrain, you can earn money to buy weapons from your new ally Drebin, and there is a first person perspective you can play the game in if you want. Throughout the first half of the game, you’ll be making your way through battlefields where rebel forces are battling forces of the PMCs. You can involve yourself in these conflicts and get the rebels on your side, of you can use the war as unseen cover. You never find out which part of the particular region that you are in, who is fighting who, or why they are fighting, but that isn’t important. You can see an underlying message about war, and this may even be a commentary on the Blackwater scandal which had gone on months prior. Although Hideo Kojima didn’t say so, he didn’t deny it either. All these things are here to help players approach the game however they wish and be rewarded for it. Whether you want to stick to the series’ trademark stealth action gameplay, take a run-and-gun approach, or make your way through the game without killing anyone, the game will allow you to take that path.

The game is divided into 5 chapters, each taking place in a different region of the world. Your main enemies are the Beauty and the Beast corps, which are women who have been mentally and emotionally scarred by war and have twisted themselves into robotic monsters. The battles against them are just as intense and memorable as the Foxhound leaders in MGS1, Dead Cell in MGS2, and The Boss’s children in MGS3. After you defeat them, you get to hear their disturbing stories.

There are two major issues that critics were very critical about. For one, the game goes into the install process automatically at the beginning of the game and after every chapter. This is something I blame more on Sony. Secondly, the cinemas tend to be lengthy. I don’t count this as much of a fault either, as the MGS games have always made use of long cinematics to tell the story, and you shouldn’t expect anything different from this one. Besides, the cinematics are awesome to watch, and they help move the story along.

Even with those two issues, MGS4 is another triumph for Konami. This makes an excellent send-off for Solid Snake even if the MGS series isn’t done yet (Konami has recently released Peacewalker for PSP and is working on MGS Rising for Xbox 360 and PS3). MGS4 represents everything that we love about the series, and it represents everything that we love about gaming period.

While The Third Phantom is no Final Fantasy Tactics, it is still a very solid package, and Bleach fans in particular will enjoy it despite its flaws. Other RPG gamers may find the conversations too long winded for them.

Hollows reside in a world known as Hueco Mundo (Spanish for ‘Hollow World’) where they can sustain themselves by feeding off the ambient spiritual energy. However, many hollows opt to consume each other. Remember, hollows eat spirits and are basically spirits themselves. Thus hollows eating each other compounds their hunger. Imagine eating a dope fiend and inheriting their drug habit along with your own. Soon, hollows consume each other so much they turn into Menos Grande (Spanish for less big). The first class of Menos Grande are the Gillians, which are huge black hollows with white face-masks. While they are very powerful and prove to be a handful for even a Soul Reaper, they are the lowest class of hollow, and even serve as foot soldiers to more powerful classes of Menos. They are a collective of the consciousness of several hollows, and each of them are fighting to gain dominance. When one asserts dominance, it then becomes an Adjucha. Although Adjuchas are more intelligent and can give orders to other menos, they must continue eating other hollows least they regress back to a Gillian and lose their individuality. Finally, there are the Vasto Lordes, which are the most humanoid-looking hollows. They wear partially broken hollow masks and can wield zanpakuto, putting them on par with captain-class Soul Reapers. Even among the Vasto Lordes, there is fierce competition, with the 10 deadliest Arrancar being given the title of Espada. As you can see, Hueco Mundo is survival of the fittest Darwinism at its worst. If the X-men villain Apocalypse were to visit Hueco Mundo, he would immediately ask the Espadas for autographs and set up cameras to film his own National Geographic special and reality TV series.

Ichigo and Friends
The first storyarc of Bleach introduces readers to Ichigo, along with several other people who show up throughout the series, in particular his close allies. Orihime Inoue is Ichigo’s quasi-love interest who lives by herself every since her brother was killed in a car accident. Shortly after Ichigo becomes a Soul Reaper, she gains spiritual abilities of her own. Using her hairpin, she can summon 6 fairy-like creatures, each of which being manifestations of her own spirit. She mostly uses them for healing and defensive purposes. Uryu Ishida is a member of the Quincies, a clan of archers who believe in killing hollows. This belief has put them in direct conflict with the Soul Reapers, to the point where a war between the two has wiped out most of them. While he starts out as Ichigo’s rival, he soon becomes an ally, assisting him in his adventures. Yatsuora ‘Chad’ Sado is the resident big man of the crew. Despite his huge size, he is reluctant to fight unless it’s to protect someone. Even when his own life is in danger, he is rarely fights back. Shortly after Ichigo becomes a Soul Reaper, Chad gains the ability to manifest a strange armor on his arm. Like Orihime’s power, little about it has been revealed. Rukia Kuchki is the Soul Reaper who gave Ichigo his powers. Her power has mostly been drained, so in the beginning of the series she serves as Ichigo’s ‘coach’. Due to a tragic incident in her past, she constantly has a sense of guilt hanging over her head. Soon, she is captured and bought to the Soul Society to be executed for giving her power to a human, and then things really get interesting.

Enter the Soul Society
The Soul Society rescue arc sees Ichigo and his buddies infiltrate the Soul Society to rescue Rukia, and here we learn more about Soul Reapers and the Soul Society. The Soul Society is made up of two areas; the Rukon District, a lower class urban area where most new arrivals live, and the Seritei, a huge complex which houses what is known as the 13 Court Guard Squads. Most of the Soul Reapers are part of one of these units, each of which is ran by a captain or lieutenant. Some of these regiments serve special functions. The squad 2 captain leads the Stealth Squad, or Punishment Force. Squad 4 is the medical and supply division, while squad 12 is research and development. Soul Reapers can awaken the power of their zanpakuto through a process called shikai, where they call out the name of their zanpakuto. Through training, Soul Reapers can further increase their power through a process called ‘bankai’, in which their zanpakuto changes into an even bigger and more powerful form. While Soul Reapers can die, their lifespans are longer than most humans and they can survive and even fully recover from injuries that would kill a normal human. Ichigo and his allies do battle with many of the Soul Reapers, only to find out that the execution was part of a plot orchestrated by a rogue Soul Reaper captain named Souske Aizen. After rescuing Rukia, Ichigo becomes an ally of the Soul Society.

The Bount
The next several episodes see Ichigo and his allies face the Bounts, a race of humans engineered by the Soul Society. The Bounts drain humans of their souls, similar to vampires. Their powers are granted by entities known as dolls, which are similar to a Soul Reaper’s zanpakuto, albeit they are sentient creatures and serve independent of their masters. While they start out trying to attack humans to amass souls, they eventually invade the Soul Society in order to extract revenge on the Soul Reapers for betraying them. What’s interesting about this arc is that is was not adapted from the manga, or even done by Tite Kubo. It basically serves as a filler arc to give the series creator more time to adapt his manga to tv. While it was met with mixed reactions, I enjoyed it, and even though it was longer than it should have been, it helped cool things down before the next big storyline.

The Story so Far
Bleach’s current storyline deals with the Arrancars, which are those evolved hollows I told you about earlier. After several Arrancars invade Karakura town, the Soul Reapers are forced to regroup. Ichigo and his friends train themselves in order to become strong enough to defeat the arrancars. We also learn that Ichigo’s father was once a soul reaper. We learn more about the Aizen’s plan, and the Soul Society and the Soul Reapers go to war with Hueco Mundo and the Arrancars. Currently Ichigo and his friends travel to Hueco Mundo to rescue Orihime who was captured by Aizen. When the series went on hiatus in the U.S, Ichigo had just defeated a very powerful Arrancar. It will be interesting to see where the series goes from here, although the fansubbers will be more than happy to spoil it before hand.

Bleach in other media
Much of the manga has been translated and is available in trade paperbacks pretty much anywhere you buy books. Several video games have been made, although only 4 of them (Shattered Blade on Wii and Blade of Fate, Dark Souls, and The Third Phantom on DS) have been released over here. There are also three animated movies; Memories of Nobody, The Diamond Dust Rebellion, and Fade to Black: I Call Your Name. Where the first two have been released on dvd and aired on Adult Swim, the third has yet to see any international release, although I don’t doubt that we will see it soon. For fans of the series’ music, there are several cd soundtracks of music from or inspired by Bleach, featuring music from the show and it’s many opening and ending themes. There is also the Bleach Beat Collection series, a set of albums inspired by various characters featuring songs that are performed by their voice actors. Unfortunately these are Japan only. One last interesting note, Borders bookstores carries ‘Soul Candy’, a small package of peppermints which is similar to the one that Ichigo uses in the show to separate his spirit from his body (thankfully this won’t happen in real life). It even comes in a bunny head package just like on the tv show.

Carrying on the tradition of shows like Cowboy Bebop, InuYasha, Dragon Ball Z, and Robotech, Bleach is an excellent anime that showcases interesting characters and intense battle scenes. It has something to offer everyone, from nerds all the way to jocks, and everyone in between.

If there was one major issue I have with the game, it’s the combat system. I’m not a huge fan of turn-based combat in real time games, especially here where it looks jerky and awkward. It also tends to get tedious having to walk so many miles across the land, as there are few options for fast travel. Thankfully these issues were addressed and corrected in the sequel, Oblivion. Even with these issues, Morrowind is to this day an expansive and engrossing game. If you give it a chance, you will find that it is easy to get lost in it.

GTA:CW takes place in the ‘new’ Liberty City that was introduced in GTA IV, sans the island of Alderney. The camera is top-down oriented and it rotates with you as you move and turn corners. The graphics are cel-shaded and cinematics are done in a comic-book style. It’s unique since every mission giver has their own theme music. You play as Huang Lee, the spoiled son of a Triad boss. When his father is murdered, he is tasked to bring the gang’s symbol of leadership, an ancient Chinese sword, to his uncle to make him the new boss. Seems simple right? Well nothing is rarely simple in the world of GTA, as his uncle’s bodyguards are ambushed and murdered and he is shot, kidnapped, and left for dead in a car that’s sinking to the bottom of a river. After making your way to safety, you set out to find out who tried to kill you, who killed your father, who stole the sword, and get revenge.

The bottom part of your screen functions as a PDA, which serves the same functionality as Niko Bellic’s cellphone in GTA IV (although thankfully you won’t have to deal with people calling to ask you to hang out out every 5 minutes). You can check messages, check your GPS, and enter the game’s multiplayer modes. Rather than shoehorning stylus functionality into the gameplay, it is used for several minigames. You’ll use your stylus to do everything from applying tattoos, scratching off lottery tickets, hot-wiring cars, sabotaging engines, and applying C4. Nearly every parked car requires you to either hot wire it, jam a screwdriver in the ignition, or hack the computer, adding to the tension when you have police chasing you. The main function of the stylus however, is the drug dealing minigame which you’ll have to do to make money. You’ll sell weed, pills, ecstasy, cocaine, acid, and heroin to various dealers around the city. There are times when some dealers will sell to you for a lower price of buy for a higher price, so the key is to buy low and sell high. Oh, and watch out for cameras and police busts too.

If there was one issue with the game, it’s that the characters just aren’t as memorable as the NPCs in other GTA games. Part of this is due to the fact that there is no voice acting, but most of these people just aren’t likable, and that makes it hard to care about the story. Even the ending is a bit anti-climactic. Even so, GTA:CW manages to finally makes Rockstar’s flagship series work on a Nintendo platform, and provides some much needed M-rated fun on the DS. Hopefully this will open the door for a Wii GTA game. This is also on PSP as well. The stylus minigames have been replaced by quick-time-event-style games, and there are all new graphics, missions, and an all-new soundtrack.

The star of this week’s Lost Classic bears a bit of resemblance to a certain DC comics icon, and it’s also one of Sega’s first female protagonists. Taking control of the title character, you set out on a mission to take out a fat guy who looks like the Kingpin. Hmm, lets see, we a hero that looks like Wonder Woman, and a villain that looks like Wilson Fisk. No wonder we didn’t see more of her after this 1985 release.

Flashgal is a side-scrolling game at its core. However, the screen is constantly scrolling to the right, regardless of your position on the screen, so it forces you to be on your toes at all times. The gameplay contains lots of diversity. There are levels where you’ll ride on a motorcycle, levels where you’ll fly a helicopter, and levels where you’ll wield weapons such as swords and guns. There is a good variety of villains to battle, and the graphics and sound are decent for a 1985 release.

Flashgal would have made an excellent early Genesis title, and it certainly would have made a better pack in than Altered Beast, but be that as it may, the only way you’ll get to experience this classic is by hunting down the arcade cabinet.

Castle Crashers is a tongue-in-cheek throwback to old school beat-em-ups like Golden Axe and Double Dragon. It was developed by The Behemoth, the people behind the similarly zany Alien Hominid. Taking control of one of four characters, you (and up to three more of your friends if playing co-op) set out on a quest to defeat thousands of barbarians, sorcerers, monsters, and other baddies in your quest to save the princesses. You can stop at shops to buy special items, and you can replay stages after you beaten them. There are well over 20 unlockable characters, including several who are available as downloadable content. You can even unlock Alien Hominid if you have a save file from that game. There is also a competitive multiplayer mode which you can play with up to 3 other players. Castle Crashers is headed to PSN later this year, so PS3 owners can see what the big deal is.