SNK’s Baseball Stars did for video game baseball what Tecmo bowl did for video game football. Actually that isn’t right. Tecmo bowl merely made video game football more fun and realistic. Baseball Stars not only made video game baseball more fun and realistic, but it also introduced features that were unprecedented at the time. By being one of the first video game sports titles to feature built-in memory, it contained some features that were unseen in other sports titles at the time. It is considered by many to be the best baseball game ever released on the NES, and many of the features it introduced still impact sports games today.
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With the release of Grand Theft Auto 3, the GTA series went from a cult hit to a pop culture icon almost overnight. However, as titles such as Vice City Stories painfully illustrated, the series was beginning to run its course. Though it was far from mediocrity, it was becoming obvious that the series would need to be reinvented if it was to maintain its relevance in the new generation of game consoles. Thankfully, this was a fact that was not lost on Rockstar, and they went right back to the drawing board for GTA IV and came back with nothing less than a masterpiece.
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A word to the wise: just because something comes from the Far East, makes no sense, and flops commercially, does not make it a cult classic, a good game, or even an above average game for that matter. (Oh, and before you hit us up with any hate mail, I should let you know that I count Madworld amongst my top 10 games from last year, enjoyed No More Heroes, got a good laugh out of Katamari Damancy, and even loved Killer 7 enough to try to make sense out of its plot, and I even featured 3 of those 4 games as previous $20 GOTWs). Crap is crap, regardless of which side of the Pacific Ocean it comes from. Such is the case of this clunker, produced by Taiwanese company Joy Van and released in the United States by our friends at Color Dreams.
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Like Audiosurf, Beat Hazard’s gameplay is driven by music. You can load a song, or go through a whole album in survival mode, and the gameplay syncs up to your music. You can use any MP3 in your sound collection, but PC gamers have to download an $1 update that allows them to play with non-protected Itunes tracks, AAC files, and MP4s. You pilot your ship while avoiding enemy fire and asteroids. You gain powerups that upgrade your weaponry, and volume powerups that turn up the volume. While the track isn’t very loud at first, the volume powerups make it louder. However, as the track gets louder, the action gets more intense. Its gameplay is familiar to anyone who has played Geometry Wars. The left analog stick controls movement, the second stick controls the weapons, and the right trigger activates bombs. PC gamers can use a mouse and keyboard, but you’ll definitely want to use an Xbox 360 control pad. Although there isn’t much variety in game modes or enemy types, you can rank up and compete on online leaderboards. If you or someone you know is epileptic, you may want to keep as far away from this game as possible, as the flashing strobe effects get intense. Even if Beat Hazard doesn’t break much new ground, It’s fun and addictive, and it’s a great new way to experience your music collection.

Square’s Secret of Mana (or Seiken Densetsu 2 as it’s called in Japan) is an action RPG similar to Gauntlet. In fact, it could have almost been considered an early dungeon crawler even before Diablo (of course while Diablo focused on level grinding, SOM focused on story and exploration). Despite its simplicity, SOM managed to be every bit as engaging as a Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger, and it became every bit as memorable as other games from the 16-bit era.
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Now I know we got some Poweteers who are Simmers too. We’re not even two months removed from the release of Sims 3 Ambitions, and now EA has just announced the latest addition to the latest addition of it’s franchise.

Details and more after the jump.

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Last console generation, Fight Night and its sequel set new standards for Boxing video games. When the series debuted on Xbox 360 back in 2006 (and on PS3 later that year), the bar was set even further. However, the series was in jeopardy after series creator Kudo Tsunoda was booted from EA after the dismal performance of 2007’s Def Jam Icon (a move which makes about as much sense as the Browns having QB Josh Cribbs play Linebacker then shelving him after one game because he isn’t making as many sacks and tackles as he did passes and completions). Thankfully FN Round 4 manages to retain the high standard of boxing that the series is known for, even if EA Canada made a few unwelcome changes.

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Even though it’s a bit immoral, I just love the drug dealing mechanic in GTA Chinatown Wars. It’s quite satisfying trying to make a dollar out of 15 cent by slanging dope. Now what if someone were to take that mechanic, make an entire game based around it, set it in space, make it into an FPS, and make it 200 percent more retarded? Well the end result would most likely be Space Trader – Merchant Marine, which is likely a remake of the old Palm Pilot OS game. I got this game as part of the Meridian 4 game collection that was only $24 during a Steam special (this special also included Shadowgrounds, Chains, and Larva Mortus). Although its economy-based gameplay premise shows promise, it’s bought down by too many flawed mechanics.
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