This week I’m looking at the new generation of movie games starting with the high quality Wolverine, the creative Ghostbusters, and the action packed Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen.

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Our nation’s birthday was this past Saturday, so in celebration, this week’s $20GOTW and Lost classics will feature games based on Sony’s Syphon Filter, a franchise about keeping the world safe from terrorism. When it debuted on the original Playstation in the late 90s, Syphon Filter gave players its own brand of espionage action. It may not have been Metal Gear Solid, but Syphon Filter was the closest thing players got to playing through an episode of 24. Syphon Filter’s storyline covered 3 PS1 games and a PS2 entry which featured online play. In 2006, Sony bought Syphon Filter to the Playstation Portable, creating one of the best games available on the system.
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2000 was a good year for Squaresoft and its fans. Square released a parade of hits that year, from Vagrant Story to Chrono Cross, and this game was among them. The Front Mission series is a turn based strategy RPG featuring mechs, which has its roots on the Super Nintendo. However, this is the first time that the series has hit U.S. shores. Front Mission 3 contains 2 different storylines, chess-like gameplay, and deep mech customization. Fans of games such as Final Fantasy tactics and Advance wars will love this game’s strategy action, and robot lovers will get a kick out of the many ways they can outfit their mechs.
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Lost Planet, along with Dead Rising, was part of Capcom’s strategy to make an impact on the Xbox 360 market, and it did, gaining critical acclaim for its fast-paced single player campaign and solid online multiplayer. Later on, the game was ported to PC (allowing cross-platform multiplayer with the Xbox 360 via the Windows live service) and PS3, although they received a somewhat lukewarm reaction compared to the Xbox game. A sequel to the game was recently announced, along with a movie (with a screenplay written by writer/voice actor David Hayter), so there is no better time than the present to explore the Lost Planet.
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Throughout its limited lifespan, the Dreamcast didn’t have too many RPGs that made it over to American shores. However, the few it did have were classics. Grandia II was definitely one of them, and even after the premature death of Sega’s system it lived on through PC and Playstation 2 ports (although those two were a bit rough around the edges with the PC version containing several bugs and glitches). While it’s your standard Japanese RPG for the most part, Grandia II’s story, gameplay, and monsters help set this game apart from its peers. While it’s no Final Fantasy 7, genre fans will want to add this game to their collection.
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Show Notes after the cut.
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Bioshock is one of those games that you can’t pigeonhole into one category. Is it an FPS? While you play it from the first person viewpoint, and there are guns to shoot, you would be doing this game a great disservice if you write it off as a simple Halo-style blastfest. Is it an RPG? Well, the stat upgrade and skill development systems are almost as complex as any RPG skill tree. Is it a survival horror game? Well, there are things that are just as gripping and disturbing as any Silent Hill game. Considered a spiritual successor to Irrational games’ System Shock 2, BioShock is a blend of several different genres that features a powerful narrative, unique gameplay mechanics, and a breathtaking underwater setting.
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Remember the old days of the FPS genre? You know, Doom, Wolfenstein 3-d, Duke Nukem and such. This was back when you developers didn’t have to reinvent the genre with some fancy graphics engine, Havok physics, or even complex AI. No sir, all you needed was a gun and a bunch of enemies to shoot. Rise of the Triad is a lesser known relic from that era. Created by a subsection of Apogee developers known as the Developers of Incredible power, Rise of the triad was another fun early FPS blast fest. It also added a few unique tricks of its own to make it all the more enjoyable. I’m shocked that no one developed a console version of this game as they did with Doom and Wolfenstein.
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