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.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

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.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

Sega’s Cyborg Justice for the Sega Genesis has in interesting premise: You (and a friend is playing co-op) can build a customizable cyborgs and pit him against an onslaught of enemy cyborgs. However, an interesting premise alone won’t help your game, especially if the gameplay is as dull, frustrating, and repetitive as it is in cyborg justice. You play as a human who has been transformed into a cyborg against their will. Now you must escape the cyborg’s planet, battling waves of identical looking cyborgs on the way using generic combat moves.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

Since Iron Man 2 hit theaters this past weekend, this special Maximum Letdown will take a look at one of his misadventures. This disc from Acclaim teamed old shellhead up with Valiant comic’s legendary hero X-O MANOWAR!!! No doubt many of you poweteers are jumping in complete joy over the fact that they finally bought Manowar to video game form. Okay, not really. Many of you are more likely asking just who in the hell is X-O Manowar. X-O Manowar, a.k.a Aric of Dacia is a former Visigoth tribesman who ended up in the modern era after escaping from an alien spaceship and stealing a suit of armor. He ends up teaming with Iron Man to stop Baron Zemo and Mistress Crescendo from stealing fragments of the cosmic cube. It’s crossover madness, but sadly the game isn’t nearly up to snuff. The graphics are horrid, the levels are generic, and the two heroes are interchangeable as they have the same punch, kick, and laser attacks. Supposedly there was some heavy CGI work employed, but the characters are so small and the backdrops are nondescript, it’s hard to tell where. Of course, being that this was an Acclaim game, the play controls are clunky. In short, while this crossover video game received a lot of hype, it failed to live up to any of it. Thankfully, Capcom would do the crossover thing right a few years down the line.

On a side note, isn’t it cold that the SNES and Genesis were left out the loop? Even the Game Boy and Game Gear got a port.

As you surely know, Sindra is a mad Castlevania fan, and her favourite installment of the series is Castlevania: Bloodlines.

Here at Pax East 2010 Sindra sat down to play the game in the Classic Gaming room and she got a game over screen for all to see.

Sindra getting Game Over in Castlevania: Bloodlines

FF XIII hits stores this week. It’s the first FF game to go multiplatform on day one, hitting both Xbox 360 and PS3. Like its predecessors, it will no doubt do huge numbers and will be nominated for many a year-end reward. Is it any wonder? Ever since FF VII, Final Fantasy has enjoyed the mainstream success reserved for American games like Halo, Grand Theft Auto, and Madden. However, during the franchise’s 16-bit it wasn’t always this way. Final Fantasy, along with RPGs in general, had a hard time getting over with an audience that was used to fast-paces sports, action, and fighting games. So to that end, Square theorized that maybe, it’s flagship RPGS were simply too hard for American audiences. So to that end, they released Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. It was aimed at people new to RPGs, so Square decided to ‘dumb it down’ a bit. Problem was, that it ended up getting so dumbed down that it got to a point where it actually insulted the intelligence of the RPG newbies whom it was aimed at.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

You might see this game in a Best Buy or Gamestop and you may be tempted to pick it up, wondering why I haven’t already featured it as a $20 GOTW. Before you do, you should know that there is a much better version of this game available on PC for the same price. It has better level design, a better save system, more responsive play control, a level editor, and an online community with custom content and high score lists. It’s called Crayon Physics Deluxe.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

Disclaimer: Powet.tv, its staff, and its writers are in no way Anti-Christian or Anti-Religious. If your religious beliefs (or lack thereof), be they Christian, Jewish, Catholic, Muslim, Bhuddist, Scientologist, Wiccan, or otherwise, drive you to be a better person, then more power to you. My beef is, without getting too preachy or political, with those who use religion to justify hatred, those who wish to force their beliefs upon others, and more importantly, crappy video games, be they religious or otherwise.

Today is marks Hallmarks annual day to bask in the fruits of rampant consumerism. More importantly for Christians, today marks Jesus’ birthday. Our regular $20 GOTW and Lost Classics will return tomorrow afternoon, but today, Powet has a special Christmas gift for you. Though there is much debate on just how separate church should be from state it seems that religion should be kept as far away as possible from video gaming as possible. Not because of offensive material (most of these games carry good messages) mind you, but more so because of how bad many of them turn out. Powet will be taking a special look at religious-themed video games, more significantly, NES games by Christian gaming company Wisdom Tree. While Wisdom Tree and other designers of these types of games meant well, most of the games themselves were just plain awful.
[Read the rest of this entry…]