This is the latest in Powet Editor Zac Shipley’s series on video game culture in Madison, WI for TheDailyPage.

Rock Band 2 retains title as the Golden God of music games
Music and video games have been naturally complimentary since the latter became complex enough to emit more than a single beep. Rhythm games have allowed players to experience music by tapping out beats on controllers, using dance pads, or even shaking maracas. But there has been no game as successful at simulating the truly American art form of rock ‘n’ roll as Rock Band. >More

Based on the comic book of the same name, Bucky O’Hare was one of those shows that had a cult following without achieving much commercial success. Taking place in an alternate dimension where animals live as humans, it told the story of spaceship captain Bucky O’Hare, his crew, and their quest to defeat the Toad Empire, which has been brainwashed by the supercomputer KOMPLEX. It only lasted one season, but it was enjoyable for what it was. The obligatory marketing blitz followed, and Konami, riding the success of their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle games, snatched up the gaming rights. Along with a solid arcade beat-em-up (which featured the show’s voice actors and served as a conclusion to the events of the cartoon series), they released this equally solid NES platformer which seems to draw inspiration from Capcom’s Mega Man.
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In the late 90s, Metal Slug was to the Neo Geo’s answer to the NES and SNES Contra games. It was a side-scrolling 2-d blastfest which bought back memories of classic shoot-em-ups of old, while at the same time injecting a twisted sense of humor. After picking a character, you (and a friend if playing co-op) must blast your way through enemy soldiers, terrorists, zombies, mummies, aliens, and whatever else stands in your way. There is a storyline involving a rebel army and martians, but that’s not important. You’ll find several weapons and vehicles to help you in your journey. There are also POWS that you rescue for additional points. The main series has spawned 6 games (along with Playstation and portable entries) with a 7th heading for the Nintendo DS this fall. Each game in the series has added zany new levels, characters (Metal Slug 6 even includes Clark and Ralf of Ikari Warriors and King of Fighters fame as selectable characters), weapons, and vehicles. As with several of their franchises as of late, SNK/Playmore has collected the majority of the series on a compilation pack. This disc includes Metal Slug 1 – 6 as well as Metal Slug X, a remake of Metal Slug 2 released on the original Playstation. Beside motion controls on the Wii and Ad-hoc wireless play on the PSP, there isn’t much in the way of extras. However, fans of the series will be happy to have the series wrapped up on one disc, where they can see how far the series has come along. Action game fans will enjoy the challenge and classic gaming feel that the series is known for.

What if Taito had made a Mega Man game, but instead of a little blue robot, you played as a Arnold Schwarzenegger look-alike*, and instead of an upgradable arm cannon, you used an upgradable boomerang to fight enemies? Well the end result would resemble Taito’s NES side-scrolling platformer, Power Blade 2. A sequel to 1991’s Power Blade, PB 2 once again casts players as Nova, a secret government agent in the year 2200. The Delta Corporation has created a new cyborg warrior and wants to sell it to the United States. The president refuses, and the Delta corporation is threatening to sell the robot to an enemy power. This doesn’t sit too well with the Department of Defense, so they send Nova on a secret mission to destroy Delta. It’s not going to be easy, as scores of enemy robots will stand in his way. However, Nova has his trusty boomerang at his side, ready to take on anything.

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This little known title from Capcom is basically a homage to 80s action films. You play as a secret agent, sent into South America in order to stop a terrorist group and rescue its prisoners. You travel your way through several stages, shooting enemies and rescuing hostages. It even takes a few pages out of Rolling Thunder’s playbook, as you have to enter doorways to collect ammo and rescue hostages. While it may not have revolutionized the 2-d platformer genre, it was still an enjoyable experience for what it was.Hopefully this should show up on the Wii Virtual Console soon. Or better yet, Capcom will show some more retro gaming love and give gamers an next-generation update/sequel a’la Bionic Commando Rearmed, Street Fighter IV, and Mega Man 9.

Capcom is one of the most celebrated developers in the gaming industry. Throughout the years, they have released dozens of games. Many of these titles have become classics amongst gamers, achieving only cult status at the worst (Okami, Killer 7, Pheonix Wright), while at their best Capcom has created games that have spun off into mega-franchises (Mega Man, Street Fighter, Devil May Cry). One of their most prolific titles from the past decade casts players in the role of a hapless protagonist who has been thrust in the middle of a town infested with zombies. Using what little they have at their disposal, players must discover the truth behind the madness, assist any survivors, and live through the madness long enough to escape in one piece. The game I’m referring to of course, is 1998’s Playstation classic Resident Evil 2. The eagerly anticipated sequel pushed the series to new heights, becoming an instant best seller, and was regarded as one of the best games on the PS1. Capcom followed it up with more hits, including 2005’s Resident Evil 4, which changed the face of the series. Oh yeah, a while later Capcom released Dead Rising for the Xbox 360. While this sleeper hit carried the same basic premise of RE2, it was completely unrelated to Resident Evil. In fact, it gave gamers an experience that was unlike any previously seen survival horror video game.

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Bionic Commando Rearmed hit Xbox Live and PSN last week, so in honor of this special occasion, this week’s $20 GOTW and Lost Classics will take a special look at the new game, as well as a previous entry in the series. Enjoy!

In 1987, Capcom released an arcade game called Top Secret, which we over here would know it as Bionic Commando. It was a side-scrolling platformer in which the protagonist used a grappling arm to traverse the game’s 4 levels. It wasn’t a terrible game, but it was nothing special. When an NES sequel, which was known in Japan as Top Secret: Hitler’s Revival was released the following year however, that was when the series really took off. Players took control of Nathan ‘Radd’ Spencer, who was sent behind enemy lines to rescue Super Joe from the Imperialist Nazis who sought to resurrect Adolf Hitler. Players traveled through several stages to uncover the enemy’s plan and stop them. [Read the rest of this entry…]

Bleach, shown Saturday nights on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, is one of the most watched anime shows among adults and teens. If not for its late night time slot and liberal amounts of blood and cleavage, it would be popular with younger viewers as well. Based on Shonen Jump’s manga of the same name, the series centers around Ichigo Kurosaki, a teenager who has the ability to see the spirits of the dead. When a mysterious woman visits him, he is attacked by a creature known as a hollow. To defend himself and his family, he takes his strange visitor’s power and uses it to become a Soul Reaper, (or Shinigami as they are known in the Japanese version) who are samurai-like warriors who have special abilities they use to defeat hollows. While the series has nearly reached 200 episodes in Japan, it recently returned to U.S. TV last March after a brief hiatus, and at the time of this writing, it’s only at 77 episodes, so North American fans who don’t watch the online fansubs still have much to look forward to. While it may not be as huge and popular as Naruto, Dragon Ball Z, or Pokemon, Bleach has devoted a fairly large fanbase, and there is a decent variety of merchandise available for fans. There have been action figures, a collectible card game, English translations of the original manga, and most importantly, video games. Thus far, Sega has published two Bleach games on U.S. shores, one of which, Bleach: The Blade of Fate for the Nintendo DS, is this week’s $20 game of the week. As a special bonus, we’ll take a look at the other game, Bleach: Shattered Blade for the Nintendo Wii. Both of these games are fighters, and both vary in degrees of quality. Die hard fans of the series probably already have these two games, but more moderate fans will probably be on the fence about them. So if you want the word on how well these games play, continue forward.
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