In the early 90s, Final Fight style beat em ups were a dime a dozen. Few managed to separate themselves themselves from the pack. However, there was one that managed to make itself into something classic. Taito’s Sonic Blastman began life in the arcades as a punching game which used two large punch pads and specialized gloves to complete certain minigames. It was bought to Super Nintendo as a beat-em-up. You bashed your way from the city streets to outer space as you fought off hordes of villains. The arcade minigames came to the SNES game as bonus levels. A sequel was released a few years later adding in two extra characters (your prerequisite slow strongman and fast woman, with Sonic Blastman being the balanced team leader) and a two-player simultaneous mode so you and a friend can take on the forces of evil together. Sure there are many beat-em-ups, and many games about superheroes, but there were none like Sonic Blastman. Hopefully we can expect a Virtual Console release sometime in the near future, since Taito already has the not nearly as awesome Legend of Kage available on the service.

With Nintendo’s Wii and DS, the features that make them standout (the stylus and motion sensing control) also turn out to be their biggest liabilities. Developers often feel obligated to make use of them regardless of how well it can be implemented. As a result, we end up with games with mediocre playability due to the fact that the developers shoehorned Wiimote/stylus functionality into what would have worked just as fine (if not better) without it. This is why we should be thankful for games such as Mega Man DX, as it proves that DS and Wii games don’t necessarily have to make extensive use of fancy new features to be good.
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With the high anticipation of the PSP-exclusive game God of War: Chains of Olympus game on the horizon, talks of the demo release permeate through the web. I’ve managed to get my hands on some exclusive concept art for the upcoming game, revealing a few interesting points in the game – more importantly the concepts of the “Death Tree”. Whether this takes a page from 300 or not is anyone’s guess.

The game itself focuses on Kratos’s life whilst in servitude to the gods before the storyline of the first God of War game, and brings talk of new areas and new enemies adapted from Greek mythology for the Spartan to endure, including a trip to Hades. (presumably where said Death Tree is)

Chains of Olympus is slated for a November release, with the demo being available to Playstation Underground members in September.

This week we’re gonna look at one of the most prolific and underrated RPGs of the 16-era. It was unique for its time because of its hybrid RTS/Turn-based gameplay, massive scope, and a shifting alignment system which was years ahead of its time, even yielding one of 12 different endings based on your actions. Enix released the game on the Super Nintendo with a limited run. A ‘special edition’ was released on Playstation by Atlus, also having a limited run. Sequels to this game have appeared on the Nintendo 64, Playstation, and Game Boy Advance, but there is nothing better than the original.
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Xbox360Fanboy cornered Harmonix at E3 and found out some of the best news I’ve ever heard for any music game in the history of forever.

Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos announced that Rock Band has some serious plans for delivering content to players. First off, Harmonix plans to release new music tracks every week. They can be released in singles, multi track bundles, or more deliciously, full albums. As an example Alex announced that The Who’s Who’s Next would be available for download following the game’s release.

I was already thinking I’d want to get Rock Band for the drums. Knowing I can play as Keith Moon on my favorite album by own of my favorite bands is personally very exciting. I cannot expect you, dear reader, to understand. Maybe you can get excited at the idea of your favorite album to get added to the list. But right now the only one they’ve announced is my favorite album.

I call that a bargain… the best I ever had.

thanks to RJK for the news!

Some more E3 goodness being thrown your way, it would appear that Nintendo has saved one of it’s biggest announcements for the media event. It’s been proclaimed that Super Smash Brother’s Brawl will have a release date of December 3rd of this year.

However, it seems that’s about all Nintendo has released about the game. The company is keeping a tight lip as to any other real details, so seeing much else come about from E3 may be wishful thinking. Regardless, the game’s hype looks to make the later release date well worth the wait.

Here’s a short clip of the announcement with some footage from the game.

As I reported on earlier this week with Umbrella Chronicles, the head honchos from Capcom have seen fit to tease us all a little more with a new trailer for the long anticipated Resident Evil 5 game, which has yet to have a confirmed release date. A smaller trailer had been seen before which depicts a unidentified male protagonist roaming about a deserted 3rd-world village (ala: RE4), only to be swarmed upon by fast-moving unseen figures.

This new trailer gives a bit more insight to the environment that RE5 will take place in, and some hints as to what may be affecting people. It also gives a bit more exposure to the protagonist. (who was “spoiled” a few weeks ago to supposedly be Billy Coen from RE0)

More info will be shared as it becomes available. Here’s hoping this isn’t the last we’ve seen from E3 of the famous survival horror goodness that is Resident Evil.

In 1983, director Brian DePalma created a film starring Al Pacino that would forever change the way we would think about drug dealers, cocaine, Cubans, immigration, and pelicans. This film would be known as the story of a man named Tony Montana. It was the chronicle of his journey from yet another Cuban refugee looking for the American dream to the biggest drug dealer in all of Miami, all the way to his violent end as a desperate man consumed by a coccaine-fueled blind rage. This film would be the stuff of legends, serving as inspiration to entire generations of rappers, actors, gangsters, and other entertainers. This film is called Scarface. Nearly 2 decades later, Tony Montana’s story would continue on as a video game courtesy of Vivendi Universal.

Yes, I did a review for this game several months back, but it’s such a solid title that it’s worth looking at again. Sierra’s alternate look at a world where Tony Montana escaped the big shoot out at the movie’s end makes for a compelling set up. Not only that, it’s one of the few good games to make use of Grand Theft Auto’s style of open-world gameplay. It does a good job of putting you in the shoes of Tony Montana, excessive cursing, extravagant spending, and all. You have to make your way back to the top by making drug deals and waging war upon your rivals. You’ll visit all the familiar locations in the movie such as the Babylon Club, Freedom Town, and the Sun Ray Motel. Some repetition sets in with the drug deals, but the sheer fun of cursing out people and going into a blind rage make up for it. So for a $20 spot*, you can get what is a faithful tribute to one of the greatest movies of all time.

*Or you can spend a $50 spot and get the Wii version with new motion control actions.