The Advance Wars series was one of the best kept secrets of the Game Boy Advance. Its easy to learn yet hard to master gameplay made both GBA iterations hits among players, and the series’s first DS entry, Dual Strike, wasn’t bad either. However, did anyone else beside me feel that the game’s atmosphere was a bit too cheery and colorful for a game about war? I mean say what you will about Army of Two’s fist pounding, but for crying out loud, we’ve had people high-fiving, bragging with Internet slang, and cheering each other on as if they just won the super bowl rather than participated in something that results in the deaths of thousands. Thankfully the crew at Intelligent Systems shares my sentiment, and has completely changed the face of the Advance Wars series. While the game has been retooled from top to bottom, the turn-based strategy action has thankfully been left intact. While it may turn off some audiences, both longtime series fans and new players alike will eat this game up.
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Keep Playing: Rewind is a new sub-segment from our own Keep Playing series of game reviews, focusing on games of the 8 and 16-bit era and the like.

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While it’s incredibly cheesy by today’s standards, Kingpin: Life of Crime blew the doors open for mature content in games. While Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil were quite graphic, Kingpin’s content went way beyond simply ripping out spines and blowing apart zombie brains. The sex, profanity, and drugs went a long way towards proving that video games weren’t just for kids anymore. What made this game even more daring was that it had been released just after the Columbine massacre, immediately attracting a lot of controversy. The game’s developer Xatrix went on the defensive, including a warning that the game wasn’t for kids as well as a low-violence install option. Thankfully, beneath the R-rated content, there is a very good game that manages to retain some of its shine even today. While it can most certainly be considered a spiritual successor to the modern Grand Theft Auto games, it also contains several elements from a few other genres, making this difficult to pigeonhole into one category.

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Resident Evil 5 is in stores now. Of course, what new sequel would be complete with a look at one of its predecessors, if for no other reason than to see how far the series has come? When it was released, Resident Evil 4 had forever altered everything that we knew about the series in the same manner that RE 5 is doing now. Gone were the tank like controls and slow pacing, and in their place are fast intense action sequences with an almost arcade-style feel. While I have featured RE4 as a previous $20GOTW, this Wii edition deserves a special mention in its own right, as it pretty much can be considered as the definitive version of Resident Evil 4 thanks to all the content it contains. Don’t worry folks, this will be the last Capcom related $20GOTW/Maximum Letdown/Lost Classics I’ll do for a little while, I promise.
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Welcome back to Maximum Letdown, Powet’s go-to guide on games that either had that one fatal flaw, didn’t quite live up to the hype, or just plain suck. Because today is St. Patty’s day, I’m gonna give you something extra: a math lesson. If you’re an RPG fan you’ll want to pay attention to this, as I’ll tell you the formula to making a good game (hint: the exact opposite of this). There is even some homework, so break out your pencils and notepads, because there will be a pop quiz on all of this.

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So, it seems that not only are BottleRocket and Namco not working together on the newest Splatterhouse game set for release this year, but now the former bed-buddies are getting nasty with one another over the issue.
Last month, Namco cut ties with BottleRocket, the original developer of the new Splatterhouse game, abruptly and out of the blue. No reason was given for why Namco packed up and left so suddenly, though each side has their own story to tell. Now BottleRocket is shooting back at Namco.

“Splatterhouse had been in development for over eighteen months and up to having the title taken away from us we had not missed any contractually defined milestones. So either there were no performance issues during that timeframe or Namco’s management of the title was inept.”

BottleRocket doesn’t seem to be pushing the issue past mere words, though, as they admit to fearing the larger development corporation could easily crush their smaller one if slander starts affecting their image.

The new Splatterhouse game is due out April 28th.

Right on the heels of Resident Evil 5 being released overseas, and tomorrow here in the states (though some got it sooner), it seems the momentum of the Resident Evil franchise is still running strong and plans to for some time.
Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles has been announced for the Wii, and will follow up big brother Umbrella Chronicles as another rail-shooter in terms of gameplay. Darkside Chronicles will be filling in the gaps left by the previous title by exploring the Resident Evil 2 part of the story. As seen, Leon and Claire will make their candid appearances as primary character to control, while other characters and additional story will be shown and explained. Game producer Masachika Kawata also hinted to the inclusion of other game scenarios from the series being explored as well. Code Veronica, anybody?

No release date has been set, as the game’s development has been rumored to not even be halfway done yet, though we do at least have some nice eye candy to show for what has been completed.

RE: Darkside Chronicles