Perhaps one of the last great Super Nintendo platformers, Kirby Super Star went above and beyond other games of its kind in terms of content. While most games simply offered huge overworld maps, this game divided its content up into 9 different games, each with their own distinct gameplay features. Although it can be beaten in a weekend, the game is still one of the best in the series. For those of you who don’t know about Kirby, he’s a little pink puff ball who swallows enemies. He can then either take on their powers for himself or spit out the enemy for use as a helper character, who can then be controlled by a second player.
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One of the best kept secrets of the original Sega Saturn was the Panzer Dragoon series. It was a mash up of 3-d polygonial graphics (which were ahead of their time even to this day) and old-school rail shooting action. You took control of a dragon rider, and it was your goal to bring down an evil empire. The story might have been all too typical, but it was window dressing for the intense sky-high combat. There were two more entries in the series before the Saturn was laid to rest, and the fate of the series was up in the air. That is, until 2003, when the series returned on the Xbox with a vengeance.
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Maybe you’ve been listening for the last several weeks to the radio program, and actually sat through the credits. Or perhaps you visit the website for archives, and came across one of the various available YouTube trailers. Or, if you’re like me, you just so happened to be watching watching basic cable when one of their spots came on. If not, you probably had no idea that Chicago Public Radio’s This American Life is making the jump to television, airing the first of six episodes tonight at 10:30 pm ET on Showtime.

The most surprising thing to me? Ira Glass, far from having “a great face for radio”, is somewhat evocative of David Foley (if he had aged much better), maybe with a dash of John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants thrown in there for good measure. It’s gotta be the glasses.

Earlier I said it airs tonight, but — if you have a Digitial TV service with OnDemand — the first episode has actually been available since March 1st. I took at look at it yesterday.

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My review of the new movie based on Frank Miller’s "300" graphic novel.

A new box set was recently released for this movie which is based on the ever popular Final Fantasy VII PlayStation video game and it even includes the rare Final Fantasy VII Advent Rising anime special. Is it worth getting? Check out what Cloud has to say in this review to find out if this set’s right for you.

Buy the DVD set from Amazon

Check out some scans of the box art and exclusive postcards after the jump. [Read the rest of this entry…]

The Legacy of Kain series was one of last generation’s most prolific franchises. Ever since Blood Omen on the original Playstation, gamers everywhere enjoyed the exploits of Kain, the nobleman who was unjustly killed and turned into a vampire. Being able to kill enemies by drinking blood and using an array of evil powers provided a refreshing change of pace from usual action games of it’s time. However, each succeeding entry in the series, from Blood Omen 2 to the Soul Reaver games, would have a few little things holding it back from being on the level of Castlevania and Mega Man in terms of gaming franchises. 2003s Defiance went a long way to addressing these problems.
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It won’t be out on this side of the ocean until June 22nd 2007 but this movie was released in Australia and many parts of Europe last year. Here’s a look at what we can expect from what will surely be this summer’s greatest blockbuster.

If you really can’t wait to check out this great movie you can go ahead and import the Dead or Alive DVD from Amazon UK. Note that this movie is region 2 and PAL encoded so it won’t work in all DVD players. If importing’s not your thing then you should just get yourself in the mood by buying a Dead or Alive video game from the normal Amazon and help support the site.

Learn about how Hitomi is technically a guy and other trivia about this movie after the jump.

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Before Knights of the Old Republic, Battlefront, Republic Commando, heck, even X-Wing vs Tie Fighter, there was the Super Star Wars trilogy. Solid 2-d platforming action similar to Super Castlevania, multiple playable characters, a near-perfect recreation of the film’s original score, and mode 7 vehicle sequences helped to bring the original trilogy to gaming consoles in a way that couldn’t be matched to this day. The difficulty was high, but it was on a Ninja Gaiden level where your pitfalls would only make you want to try that much harder to get through the games. Yeah, we rave about how good Lego Star Wars, but this is the best interpretation of the original trilogy that doesn’t involve kid’s toys or advanced gaming technologies.