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$20 Game of the Week: Bleach – Dark Souls (Nintendo DS)
by William Talley, filed in $20 Game Of The Week, Games on May.26, 2009
This is the follow up to Sega/Treasure’s Bleach: The Blade of Fate which was released in the U.S. in 2007. Based on the popular anime of the same name, Bleach: Dark Souls provides more fighting action featuring your favorite characters from the series. One would look at this and call it Bleach: The Blade of Fate Championship edition, and they wouldn’t be completely wrong, as Dark Souls borrows a lot of its content from Blade of Fate. However, there is a huge amount of new content in the game, and some gameplay refinements have been made, making this game stand out from its predecessor.
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You gotta love system fanboyism. In exchange for the feeling you get of supporting your favorite console manufacturer, you screw yourself out of the chance to play some of the best games available on the other guy’s system(s). Back in the 16-bit days, I couldn’t throw a stone without hitting a Sega fanboy bragging about playing Sonic 2, Streets of Rage, and Madden football while secretly wishing to play Final Fantasy 2 and Super Castlevania 4. Likewise, I knew many a Nintendo fanboy who, while singing praises of their Mario Karts, Secret of Manas, and Contra IIIs during the day, secretly cried themselves to sleep each night over their version of Mortal Kombat having no blood in it. Even in this age of console exclusivity shrinking, I can’t think of one Sony fanboy who didn’t secretly wish to play Mass Effect or Xbox 360 owner who didn’t want to play Meta Gear Solid 4 (even if they wouldn’t admit it out loud). During the last console generation, if there was at least one game that Sony fanboys would have gladly given their first born child for a chance to play, it was the Xbox exclusive Ninja Gaiden, and for good reason. Team Ninja’s 2004 classic not only reintroduced the series to a new generation of gamers, but it crafted one of the finest, hyperactive, gaming experiences on any console, past or present. Thankfully, Tecmo decided to relent, and give Sony PS3 owners a bone. Thus, Ninja Gaiden Sigma, the definitive version of Ninja Gaiden hit PS3s in 2007.
Koei’s Musou games (or Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors as we know them over here) are a guilty pleasure of gamers. Although they tend to be simplistic and repetitive, they are easy to get into, and they are quite educational thanks to their historical setting. Plus there has always been a certain charm to be gained by slashing up dozens of Chinese warriors or evil samurai with a guy who wields fans as weaponry. While the Dynasty Warriors games cover China’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms period (in which Three Kingdoms vie for ultimate power in the wake of the collapse of the Han Empire), Samurai Warriors deals with Japan’s Age of Warring States (in which Nobunaga went head to head against other warlords in an attempt to unify Japan under one banner). Fans often speculated what would happen if the casts of the two games teamed up. In fact, you can go onto any message board and find a “Samurai Warriors vs Dynasty Warriors Heal/Hurt” game. It would only be a matter of time until Koei and W-Force answered player’s wishes, and in 2007, the great warriors of Ancient China and Japan joined forces in Koei’s Orochi Warriors. While it’s not perfect, it’s the crossover fans have been waiting for.
When Delta Force was originally released in 1998, it signified a new breed of first person shooter games. Up until then, FPS games for the most part had been fast-paced blast-a-thons which rewarded quick reflexes and quicker trigger fingers. However, Delta Force was one of the first FPS games to emphasize using tactics, stealth, and planning to succeed. You are a member of a real-life military unit, taking part in realistically styled military operations. You don’t find guns and ammo conveniently laying around the area, you pick a loadout during the mission briefing and hope that it’s adequate. There are no armor pickups or medical kits waiting to magically restore you to full health when you run over them. Instead, you character takes one or two hits, then they go down for the count.
When you think of great real time strategy games and franchises, several names come to mind: Starcraft, Warcraft, Age of Empires, Total War, and Warhammer. One name that you may also think of (or should) is Command and Conquer. EA/Westwood’s RTS series made a huge impact on the genre when it debuted in the mid-90s, and today, it retains its status as one of the most enjoyable RTS franchises in gaming. Yes, there are games with deeper gameplay mechanics and better play control, but very few have contributed as much to the genre as Command and Conquer did. Now, fans of the series can play through the game’s glory years on this DVD, which contains every C&C game up to and including Generals, their expansions, a poster, and a DVD containing a documentary. This disc contains it all, from when GDI first threw down with NOD, to Red Alert’s alternate reality, to Tiberian Sun’s bleak post-apocalyptic future, to Red Alert 2’s goofiness, and to General’s more realistic spin on C&C. It even contains Renegade, the first person shooter spinoff putting players in the role of Havoc. Although it wasn’t well received as the rest of the series, it was cool being able to see many of the Command and Conquer units close up and get the chance to pilot some of the vehicles. Of course, Command and Conquer wouldn’t be complete without the series’ enigmatic villain, Kane. Be warned, it’s imperative that you visit EA’s website for information on the latest patches and fixes, especially if you’re a Windows Vista user. You’ll also want to visit 
Before SoulCalibur, Samurai Showdown bought weapon to weapon fighting to the fighting game genre. With the franchise’s historical Japan setting, progressively complex battle systems, and interesting cast of characters, the Samurai Showdown series stands as one of the fighting game genre’s most unique games, 2D or 3D. It also managed to create some controversy of its own, as fatality-style moves can chop players in half, leaving geysers of blood spraying (although these were censored from many American releases, causing even further controversy). As they have done with many of their other game series, SNK has collected Samurai Showdown in an anthology. This disc contains Samurai Showdown 1 – 5 as well as 6, making this the first time that the Atomswave-powered 6 is available in North America. As with most other SNK compilations, the game includes a color edit option, art gallery, and options to tweak the graphics and sound. All of your favorite characters are here, from Haomaru to Tam Tam, to Galford and Earthquake. The selectable fighting styles in games 2 – 6 make the game complex and deep, such to an extent that it might scare off fighting game newbies, but longtime fans of the series as well as fighting game aficionados will want to add this game to their collection. 
One of the major complaints about the Wii is that Nintendo doesn’t cater to the hardcore gamer audience enough. I’m hard pressed to disagree, as I only own 4 games that aren’t Virtual Console titles, and one of them is a port of a 4-year old game whose sequel was just released this past March. With that having been said, I can’t believe how anyone, casual or hardcore alike, could have overlooked this 2008 title from Majesco/Budcat Creations. It’s a classic-style shooter with a very flexible set of creation tools. In fact, I’d almost go as far to say that this is the Wii’s answer to Sony’s Little Big Planet.