The Resident Evil franchise had come to very much resemble one of the undead, zombie denizens of the series’ Raccoon City, aimlessly shambling along as it was, with camera and control schemes old and decrepit enough as to be near to rotting away altogether. Many fans had abandoned the Resident Evil games when, after 2 phenomenally successful entries, an entire genre of survival-horror clones descended upon gamers, ravaging them with corny dialogue and improbable puzzles involving fragmented crests that open locked doors, and the like.

Resident Evil itself received a third and fourth entry (though Resident Evil: Code Veronica was not enumerated), which, their quality notwithstanding, were widely recognized as more of the same. Then, in early 2005, the languishing series was given a hard enough kick in the pants to bring it back from the (un)dead. Resident Evil 4 was an adrenaline shot right to the heart, and the newly revitalized survival-horror series would once again captivate gaming audiences, garnering many game-of-the-year awards and an incredible amount of praise (not to mention two enhanced re-releases) in the process.

Resident Evil 4 puts players back in the shoes of Leon Kennedy, one of the player characters from Resident Evil 2. Six years have transpired since the virus-generated zombie attack and subsequent nuking of Raccoon City, and Leon has gone from being a raw recruit in the R.P.D. to a raw recruit in the Secret Service. His first mission: get on over to a remote village in Spain where the president’s daughter, Ashley, is being held hostage by a mysterious cult-like group called “Los Illuminados.”

Why would a weird cult kidnap the first daughter, and why is a lone rookie agent dispatched to rescue her? Um, because this is a Resident Evil game. The more important question is: Are there zombies in this remote Spanish village? No, not exactly. MORE »

Have you ever wanted a karaoke machine at home? How about the karaoke equivalent of guitar, bass, and drums? That is akin to what the Rock Band is trying to provide. Packaged with a suite of peripherals including a microphone, a guitar-like controller that simulates fretting and strumming, and what amounts to a pared-down electronic drum kit, Rock Band is a case of the lines between rhythm action gaming and the joy of making actual music being blurred.

The essence of the game itself is very simple. Color-coded notes scroll down the screen not unlike Tetris blocks, and you must hit corresponding buttons in time to music, to “play” a certain track of the song. If you play well, the song will be heard as normal, but if you make a mistake, your track will skip a note, or you may hear a wrong note in place of the correct one. In effect, it is as if you are a part of the band, and it is great fun.

Right out of the box the game has nearly 60 songs to play, all of them from real world recording artists, predominantly from the rock, punk, pop, and metal genres. Bands featured here include Nirvana, Weezer, Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones, Kiss, Metallica, David Bowie, Deep Purple, and many more mega-famous and independent bands. Developer Harmonix is also promising new downloadable songs every week, a promise which they have delivered on thus far.

I personally purchased extra song packs from Metallica, Queens of the Stone Age, and Black Sabbath. In most cases these songs are the original recordings, but in a few instances they have substituted covers, which are mostly very well-done (the version of “Ballroom Blitz” here cannot compare to Tia Carrere’s from Wayne’s World, however).

The degree to which you feel more like you are playing a game or actually playing music depends largely on which role you choose to play, and which difficulty level you play the game.

The guitar and bass roles tend to feel a little more game-like, especially on the easier difficulty settings, where holding down one fret button and giving a single strum will match up to a series of hammered-on and pulled-off notes, and also due to the controller being the most contrived of the bunch.

The drums, on the other hand, are done in a much more realistic manner. The kit has 4 drum pads and a kick pedal. Two pads are set aside as snare and ride cymbals, while the remaining two function as either toms or crash cymbals, and the pedal serves as your bass drum or hi-hat. Playing the drums in Rock Band is thus remarkably like playing them in reality, requiring every bit the rhythm and timing you would expect.

As far as singing goes, the simulation is reality. You simply sing into the mic just as you would while doing karaoke. The game hears your vocals and rates you on how close you are in pitch to the original song’s lyrics. You don’t need to strain to hit those high notes, as it will recognize the same note at an octave or two higher or lower than the original.

Rock Band can be played solo, in a local group (same room), or in a group online. However, the greatest fun is to be had when everyone is together in the same room. In that sense, the game is a bit dependent upon circumstance as to how much of its true potential you will be able to unlock. There are quick play modes and solo career modes to progress through in which you earn fans and money with which to purchase new outfits and instruments for your avatar musician who is actually on stage in the game. These are all very accessible, so it is possible to jump in and out of the game very quickly.

There is also the “Band World Tour” mode, in which you take your entire band through a long career, from small town beginnings to jet-setting Budokan-rock musical excess. For this mode your entire band needs to be present, or, at the very least, the person you have designated as the band leader – to “kick out” band players who are not present to rock out and draft others who might be. In that sense this mode is a bit more involved, and requires a little commitment on the parts of everyone who wishes to participate.

I started a band of two featuring myself on guitar and my wife on drums, and while we make slow progress through the world tour mode, I can elect to take my guitarist and do a solo tour, or create new musicians and tackle other instruments and their associated game modes.

The character creation tool is also fairly flexible. I have managed to come up with credible look-alikes of James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Jimi Hendrix, and Phil Lynott, while my wife made her own pop idol.

Rock Band is available as a disc only for $60, or with the full kit of instruments for $170. Harmonix is promising to get out individual instruments for purchase soon, but for now the only way to play the drums is to purchase the full set. Guitar controllers from other music games or third parties are compatible, or not as the case may be, though I do recommend the game’s own guitar over any others, because of the extra fret buttons high up the neck for soloing, and the effects switch which is used to turn on things like wah-wah and flange. Both of these are only present on the Rock Band guitar. For vocals, any USB mic should work.

This is a unique case in gaming, wherein the fun is largely what you make of it yourself. The song list is to my mind the one place people might take issue with the game, not because it is lacking in any way, but only because everyone will hate at least one song here, and at the same time wish for more songs by Band X; that is just the nature of being a music fan. However, if Harmonix continues to add content each week as they have been thus far, and makes good on the promise of full albums, then anyone’s concern over the song library should be eased. In the meantime, I eagerly await an announcement regarding color distribution of M&Ms, sure to be coming soon.

Well, it had to happen sometime. It seems the tidal waves of quality this fall have subsided. Last week was entirely barren, and this week sees only 2 notable releases, both for PS3, one of which has been out on other platforms for over a month now.

Unreal Tournament III (PS3) – A long time PC favorite multiplayer shooter hits the PS3 from Epic Games, makers of the 360 hit Gears of War. The action is fast and furious, with near instantaneous re-spawning to get you back into the fray in a flash.

The Orange Box (PS3) – The most awesome package of software to just about ever be released makes its way to the PS3 this week. Half-Life 2, 2 episodic sequels, the awesome puzzler Portal, and the insanely fun Team Fortress 2 are all packed onto one disc for good-times-a-plenty.

That about does it for this week! Of course there are other things hitting the shelves, but no one wants to play the Pimp My Ride game, do they? Its likely to be sparse like this until into the spring, so now is the time to catch up on the gobs and gobs of goodness that the last few months has shown us.

On my short list: Rock Band, Contra IV, and Mass Effect.

Madcap mayhem, that is how I would describe the gameplay in Valve’s Team Fortress 2, now available on the PC and Xbox 360 as part of The Orange Box, or by itself for download over Steam, Valve’s large digital distribution network for the PC.

Team Fortress 2 is an online, multi-player only, first-person shooter. Like most games of this nature, the action could be described as “chasing around dudes with guns, and shooting them.” However, such a phrase could not even begin to portray the real game here. No, there are a large number of things that set Team Fortress 2 apart from the rest of the FPS pack.

To begin with, this game is, as the name implies, all about teams. Many games of this nature boil down to solo frag-fests. You may be divided up into two groups labeled as “teams,” but for the most part it is every man for his own kill count, and co-operatve strategy be damned. Not so in Team Fortress 2. The game types presented here makes teamwork essential. Capture the Flag and Control Points both make territorial control of the maps paramount. Additionally, the interesting and dynamic interplay between the game’s character types make communication between team members a prerequisite to success, which brings us to our next point.

Most shooters toss everyone into the game on an equal footing, usually carrying around some pea-shooter and looking for a better gun to upgrade to. TF2, however, differentiates each player from the get-go, by having players choose as one of nine unique character classes, loosely grouped into three groups: offensive classes Scout, Soldier, and Pyro; defensive classes Demoman, Heavy Weapons Guy, and Engineer; and support classes Medic, Sniper, and Spy.

Each class has its signature primary weapon (the Pyro’s flamethrower, the Solder’s bazooka, the Heavy’s Gatling gun) and one to three additional sub-weapons, usually something like a pistol, shotgun, melee weapon, or class-specific items and abilities such as the Engineer’s tools used to build sentry turrets, the Spy’s kit of disguises, and the Medic’s health gun. Accordingly, each class has several roles to play and niches to fill in the game.

Check out the trailer and then take the jump to find out more.

MORE »

With the holiday and all, we’re a little late in getting this one up. Also be sure to look for our in-depth look at Team Fortress 2 coming up midweek. Without further ado, and as always look both ways before connecting to the server, this week’s new gaming releases.

Two of the biggest games of the year are out this week! I hope your wallet is still holding up after this record season for amazing games…

Rock Band (PS3, Xbox 360) – Live out your rock and roll fantasies with this beast of a package. Rock Band has more than 50 rock songs from the 70s onward, including such greats as Metallica, Iron Maiden, Nirvana, Radiohead, Weezer, Soundgarden, Black Sabbath, and more. This package includes the Fender Stratocaster guitar controller, an awesome drum kit (4 pads and a pedal, with real wooden sticks), and a mic for your faux band’s vocalist. Developer Harmonix is also promising weekly updates to the game in the form of downloadable songs, several of which are already live, and full albums in the future! The first of these planned is supposed to be The Who’s Next.

Mass Effect (Xbox 360) – A long time ago, on a PC or Xbox far away, there was a little game dubbed “KOTOR” because of it’s insanely unwieldy title. That game went down in history as one of the greatest RPGs ever, and now it creators, BioWare, are back in the RPG arena with Mass Effect, the first of a planned space opera trilogy (no relation to Star Wars this time). Many fans have been waiting with baited breath over the past two years for this game to finally come out and take them away to another world, one of branching dialog trees and morally ambiguous lead characters who get to make decisions about what planets to defend from annihilation, and which to leave to their fate.

Final Fantasy XI: Wings of the Goddes (PS2, Xbox 360) – the long-running MMORPG from the company most famous for it’s non-MMO RPGs gets it’s fourth expansion this week. Two new character classes are introduced, along with bunch of new zones and a host of new mobs to xp on. Better gear than the Tu’lia Shijin drop? Ha ha, fat chance.

Geometry Wars Galaxies (Wii, DS) – The Xbox Live Arcade classic-from-two-years-ago has gone full-blown, and gotten released on a couple of Nintendo systems this week. If the original is any indication, these will be action-packed, and addictive as can be.

Trauma Center: New Blood (Wii) – Wannabe rockers got theirs this week, and now so do wannabe doctors. This is a follow up to the popular Trauma Center titles already available for the Wii and DS. The word on the street is that this one is quite a bit more challenging.

Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings (DS) – A sequel to Final Fantasy XII, not called Final Fantasy XIII? What, you say? These things are quite run-of-the-mill in the bizarro plane from which Squre Enix makes their game naming decisions, I can quite assure you. In addition to the zany title, this game got transmogrified from a full-on Japanese style console RPG, into a miniature real-time strategy game for the DS. It even features a pretty good 3D graphics engine. Worth a look.

Wii Zapper with Link’s Crossbow Training (Wii) – The Wii gets a wiimote-into-lightgun-plastic-mold peripheral this week, to go along with the rash of Wii lightgun games coming out lately. The real draw here, though, is the game that comes with it. Link, from Legend of Zelda fame, stars in this modern-day parallel of the ancient Duck Hunt. The whole package will run $20, which is not too bad for something of this nature.

The Fall release bonanza continues on strong this week, with several big games coming out.

Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) Mario needs no introduction. This is his first big outing on the Wii, and it is most assuredly a paragon of gaming excellence. No Wii owner should be without it.

Assassin’s Creed (PS3, 360) Ubisoft’s next big franchise? The game throws you into the middle of the third crusade, at the end of the 12^th century, as an Assassin who likes to get his parkour on while investigating and finally putting the hit on his targets. Reviews have been remarkably split on this one, ranging from 10/10 to 6/10. At least it looks cool.

Contra 4 (DS) Yes, you read that right. Contra. 15 years or so later, the Super Nintendo’s Contra III: The Alien War finally gets a real sequel. Forget all the failed 3D nonsense with the Contra name slapped onto it that has come out over the years since, this is the real deal. Developer Wayforward Studios are reverent scholars of the series, and have come up with a DS game that, not only lives up to its name, but also comes up with a sensible solution to the classic DS problem of how to use the second screen. They just make the levels twice as tall, and give you a grappling hook to quickly get to the top screen! That’s awesome, and now I’m ready to kick some alien ass.

Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (PS3, 360) IO Interactive are the guys behind the extremely well done Hitman series, and this is their latest offering. The titular Kane and Lynch are a couple of ex-con, straight-out-of-a-Tarantino-film types, no doubt out for revenge and/or a briefcase full of cash. If this sounds like a bad action movie to you, then you’re probably not far off judging from the reception the game has gotten so far. Still, there is something to be said for bad action movies, and by extension, bad action movie games. Rent it first, though.

Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus (PSP) Plus is not a sequel to, but rather an expansion of last year’s Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops. It adds a mission generator that randomly assembles mission stages from a pool of resources, and an online play mode. Fans of the original game might be interested. Not a bad deal, at $20.

Need For Speed: ProStreet (PS3, 360, Wii, PS2) This year’s Need For Speed curiously eschews illegal street racing for the noticeably lamer legal alternative. The series has historically been shallow racing fun, in contrast to the incredible depth of something like Gran Turismo or Forza Motorsport.

Orcs & Elves (DS) This first-person RPG originally appeared on cell phones. It was coded by Doom’s John Carmack himself, over 4 days. If you’re looking for something simplistic and a little retro, perhaps, you might want to give it a look.

Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles (Wii) Take the entire Resident Evil series’ narrative over its first three entries, and spin it into a lightgun game, and you get Umbrella Chronicles for the Wii. If you liked House of the Dead, you’ll love this.

There is a certain stratum of the populace whom, when posed the question, “What weapon is best-suited to vampire slaying?,” would give the singular answer: “The whip.” This is a group, who, for the most part was coming of age in the late ’80s and early ’90s, when the mighty and ubiquitous Nintendo Entertainment System (aka old Nintendo, regular Nintendo, etc.) dominated the video game landscape, and would be familiar with the Castlevania series and its unique conventions regarding vampire lore. Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles is a title crafted specifically for this age of gamer, now displaced by the first-person shooter generation and almost altogether bereft of the 2D action/platformer.

Castle Dracula appears out of the mists every 100 years, and it is up to the members of the ancient and venerable Belmont clan of vampire hunters, wielders of the legendary whip “The Vampire Killer,” to venture therein and vanquish its evil and cunning master.

Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles takes the two games widely considered to be the greatest entries in this long-standing series’ illustrious catalog, Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night, and bundles both onto one PSP disc at a ten dollar discount compared to most PSP games.

Rondo and Symphony came back-to-back in the series canon; they take place only 4 years apart in the series chronology, feature the same set of characters, and finally, mark the transition of the Castlevania series from the hardcore linear action of the Nintendo days to the Super Metroid-influenced, more free-form action game. This centers on castle exploration and item-gathering for progress, similar to modern titles in the series like Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin. One might say that these are the seminal games of the entire series. Rondo is much more like the classic formula, and Symphony much more like a Metroid game, so much so that successive entries in the Castlevania series have been termed “Metroidvanias”.

Oh, but that’s not all, oh no, developer Konami has also given Rondo of Blood, never before released outside of Japan (though widely imported and much-ballyhooed over the Internet) a modern-day graphics face lift. This newly-remade Rondo sports polygonal “2.5D” gameplay, in which all the classic side-scrolling action of the original title is preserved, but now displayed in a 3D space. The end result is a game that plays like a classic but looks more contemporary. MORE »

This is a big time of year for game releases, and I am here to point out some of the more deserving titles.  I’m sure there will be more of note than I see, so feel free to make your own additions to my list in the comments section.

Guitar Hero III (360, PS3, Wii, PS2) – Bringing the noise this week is Activision’s 3rd installment in the popular Guitar Hero franchise.  New to this edition is the Les Paul styled guitar controller with improved fret buttons, bundled with the game disc, and wireless on all versions except the Xbox 360, which inexplicably comes with a wired guitar controller. The set list this go-around includes both Guns ‘n’ Roses and Metallica, so I think that covers just about everyone.

John Woo’s Stranglehold (PS3) – The martial-arts and gunplay action fest finally makes its way around to Sony’s machine.  Pick up the collector’s edition and get the HD version of Hard Boiled on the same Blu-Ray disc.

The Simpsons Game (360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PSP, DS) – Normally games based on licensed properties are not worth anyone’s time, but I have heard surprisingly good things about this one.  If you are a big fan of the show and know enough about gaming cliches (in order to get a lot of the game’s humor), you might want to check this out.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (360, PS3, DS) – In a year without BioShock, Halo 3, or The Orange Box, this would be without a doubt the FPS to get.  Which is not to say the game lacks luster.  Not at all.  COD4 has some of the best visuals around, and the multiplayer experience promises to give even the Master Chief a run for his money.  I have it on good authority that this game is “freakin’ sweet.”  Note that this only applies to the game as runs on the 360 and PS3.

Virtua Fighter 5 Online (360) – Fighting game franchises don’t get more hardcore than Virtua Fighter.  If you are a serious study, willing to put in hours and hours and hours (and hours) to learn the hundereds of moves and combos available to each character, then you might be competent enough to venture online for the first time in the series’s history and not be owned relentlessly.

Manhunt 2 (Wii, PS2, PSP) – The game finally sees release this month, after being slapped with an “Adults Only” rating by the ESRB back in June, and subsequently being denied license to publish the game on any major platform.  Developer Rockstar (of Grand Theft Auto fame) has reworked the gore and violence present herein to be granted a “Mature” rating instead.  Notable more for pushing the envelope in terms of controversy than decent game play, this is as serviceable a stealth action game as it may be.

Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker (DS) – JRPG fans take note.  Spin-offs of the much-loved-in-Japan Dragon Quest series have a very good track record, and this game in particular has made a very good name for itself since being released in Japan.  Only for the DS gamer with lots of time to lose.

Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness (PSP) – The strategy-rpg series gets another quality entry.  The genre is really taking off on Sony’s portable, with Jeanne d’Arc and Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions also recently having come out.

Silent Hill Origins (PSP) – A prequel to the first Silent Hill game, and just as chilling.  Horror fans will have a good excuse to put on the headphones, close the curtains, and curl up on the couch with their PSPs.

Ever have one of those days where you wake up in a brightly lit, starkly furnished scientific facility, and are put through a rigorous battery of experiments using physics-defying wormholes to navigate chambers filled with lethal obstacles before breakfast? Do you want to?

If you answered yes, then Portal is just the experience for you. Aperture Science has created a nifty little thing called the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, or portal gun, for short. Test users are required. There will be cake at the end of the testing. You might even make a friend. And then possibly kill them.

The conceit of Portal is in the portal gun. Use it on flat surfaces to create two ends of a wormhole. What goes in one hole comes out the other, and momentum is preserved. The portal gun is your only hope to make it through the 19 test chambers of the Aperture Science Laboratory, and to finally get that elusive piece of cake.

Portal is essentially a puzzle game played in the first-person perspective. One would be forgiven for mistaking it for just another first-person shooter, as it does feature a gun of sorts, and comes as it does from Valve Software, developers of the well-known Half-Life series. Portal is even a part of The Orange Box, Valve’s value-tastic collection of 5 games for the price of one available on PC, Xbox 360, and soon on the PS3. For those with a PC, Portal is available as a stand-alone product over at Valve’s own digital distribution network, Steam.

However, Portal is definitely not an FPS. There is almost no combat element to the game; what little combat there is focuses upon knocking over and deactivating gun turrets that would otherwise kill you. No, the only gun you get in this game shoots nothing but reality-bending elliptical wormhole entrances and exits. The portal gun can be used in a myriad of ways, from taking a shortcut across a long room to redirecting projectiles of various types to new targets, to dropping a nice big Weighted Storage Cube on a cute & cuddly voiced, deadly machine gun turret.

The game is rather short, as a first-time run through the 19 test chambers will likely not take more than 3 to 5 hours (mine was right at two and a half), but the length is supplemented by 6 additional reworked-for-advanced-difficulty chambers available to those who have completed the game once, per-level challenges based on time, portals used, and steps taken, and an awesome Developer Commentary mode, in which each level of the game features commentary nodes you can activate to hear a bit about the design philosophy of the area of the game you are currently in.

The game also has a wicked sense of humor, which I won’t spoil here but I will say that the only speaking role in the game belongs to GLaDOS, a computer AI, who prods you through the tests with colorful commentary on your progress. Portal is something hard to capture in words, so I urge you check out the game for yourself. Trust me it’s nothing but cake for those that do.

Rather than fill a list with each and every game slated to be released each week, I’d like to shine a more finely tuned spotlight on a few more notable titles. Without further ado:

–> Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords is being released for PC this week. See my post earlier in this blog for more info on this crazy fun game.

–> Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation releases this week on the Xbox 360. This series has always been about arcade-y fighter jet dog-fighting mixed with nice visuals and a nonsensical narrative, and has always been quite fun.

–> Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles takes the two most highly regarded entries in the long-running whip-wielding/vampire slaying action series, Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night, and bundles them together in this PSP release. Rondo of Blood never saw a western release in its true form, and this package not only includes the classic 16-bit version, but a fully remade version featuring fully polygonal “2.5D” graphics. This is where it’s at for console old-schoolers this week.

–> Clive Barker’s Jericho is out this week, but by all accounts it’s a stinker, so caveat emptor. Those into the survival-horror genre might get the most out of it. It’s on PS3, Xbox 360, and PC.

–> Conan, of barbarian fame, gets an action game on the PS3 and Xbox 360 this week, but it is not to be confused with the promising-looking upcoming MMO title.

–> Eye of Judgment is an interesting game, being a PS3-based collectible card game, played either wholly on the console, or using actual cards on an actual game map, via the PS3’s camera accessory. The game is reputedly very good and preventing cheating, as players scan their physical cards using the camera before playing.

–> Front Mission comes out for the DS this week. If you are a fan of strategy-RPGs, check this out. It is a re-release of the first entry in a great SRPG series, and one of the few to make it out of Japan.

–> Mega Man ZX Advent is out on the DS this week, and takes the old blue bomber to some new places, introducing Metroid-like exploration to the action series for the first time.

–> Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trials and Tribulations also sees release on the DS this week. This is the third entry in the popular Ace Attorney series, featuring cartoony trials and investigations. The series is known for it’s comedic writing and inventive gameplay, which is more about thoroughness than twitch action.

–> Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction comes out for the PS3 this week, after having it’s release date shifted around a few times. Fans of 3D action-platformers should celebrate, as this is the newest, and first of the new console generation, in this well-liked series.

–> Tomb Raider Anniversary is slated to hit the Xbox 360 this week, and for those who don’t know, the game is a remake of the very first Tomb Raider, which was an amazing and awesome game in its day. All reports say that Anniversary does a good job of upholding it’s good name, and the PS2 version which saw release earlier this year was certainly very good.

–> Zack and Wiki comes to the Wii this week, which should be good news for Wii owners looking for a 3D adventure game. I hear good things.

I’ve never been a huge fan of puzzle games. Looking back over the years, there have only been a handful I liked well enough to want to own, games like Tetris (which was a Game Boy pack-in anyway), Dr. Mario, and Mr. Driller. Aside from these few, puzzle games have just never had anything to grab my attention and keep it for longer than a few minutes of gameplay. And now here is Puzzle Quest.

A multiplatform game, Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords is available on PC, PSP, Nintendo DS, and Xbox 360’s Xbox Live Arcade. The core of the game is a colored gem matching game, similar to Dr. Mario, Bejeweled, and scores of other games in the genre. The playing field is full of gems of four different colors, colored stars, gold coins, and skulls. Swap two things around, and if you manage to get three or more in a line to match, they disappear, creating various effects, and all the pieces above them fall down to fill in the empty spots, with new pieces coming into play from the top of the field. This is all fairly standard for a puzzle game. Where Puzzle Quest differentiates itself is in its quest mode.

As the title implies, Puzzle Quest features a narrative. At the outset of the game, you choose your character from one of four fantasy archetype classes. There is the druid, the warrior, the knight, and the wizard. Each class comes with a different set of skills and abilities to use in the thick of puzzle battle, and each accrues new skills differently. The plot of the quest is the standard high fantasy type we all know and love, and this together with the RPG-like character growth makes this game like digital crack for fantasy/role-playing enthusiasts. There is an overarching story of a dark lord encroaching on the lands of your kingdom, and in order to drive him back you must go on a multitude of errands for your queen, and the rulers of other kingdoms around, gathering support for the effort against the dark lord. Of course this means a lot of work slaying trolls and spelunking dungeons, puzzle-battling all opposition that presents itself. The game features a richly painted world map full of the standard Middle-Earth type locales for you to venture to and fro on in the course if your quest.

The puzzle portion of the game is always played against some opponent, be they a real live player over the Internet, or a monster from the quest portion of the game. Each player has a life total which the other is trying to deplete to zero in order to win. When colored gems are matched, the player gains mana of that color, which can be used to cast a number of spells and use other combat skills to either attack your opponent with direct damage, or manipulate the game board. Matching skulls does damage to your opponent, matching gold gives you gold to spend at the cities around the world on new skills and items to help you in battle, and matching purple stars gives you experience points. After a successful battle you receive more gold and experience points, and if you have acquired enough experience, you will gain a level, which bumps up all your various statistics and often opens up new skills and magic for use in battle.

It’s a simple formula, but in execution it is genius, and it makes me wonder why no one had combined the puzzle and RPG genres like this before. Puzzle Quest offers a lengthy main game, upwards of twenty hours or more if you want to fully complete the quest and make your character the strongest they can be. The music, also, is fantastic. There are a limited number of tracks, but all are suitably grand for an epic fantasy adventure. I find myself really enjoying listening to it, even after hours and hours of playtime with the game over the past week or so. This game is a winner, folks, and should not be overlooked in the midst of all the huge releases this fall and winter.

Other things to consider:

• The official site
• Trailer
• Gameplay

A double dose of the upcoming releases, covering this week and last! What to look out for this (two week period)!

* The Orange Box is a compilation of 5 games, including Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2 Episodes One and Two (each of which are seperate games from the original Half-Life 2), Team Fortress 2, and Portal. All of these games are of the utmost quality, and this is one hell of a deal for FPS fans. The Half-Life series’s narrative campaign sees three installments here, but Episode Two is the main draw, as it is the newest, and the versions of the other two games are re-releases.

Team Fortress 2 is a team-based multiplayer-only killfest where players choose from one of nine character classes to join the fray as, and has been getting rave reviews. Capping the collection off is Portal, an intriguing puzzle game played from the first person perspective using a gun-like device that can create wormholes. The player navigates three-dimensional puzzles by designating entrances and exits to these wormholes, and using them as insta-warps to transport himself to places otherwise unreachable. Quite hard to explain; it is best if it is seen in motion.

* Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords is an interesting melding of a typical fantasy roleplaying game quest with a puzzle game in the vein of Bejeweled. The puzzles serve as the means of battling enemies that appear in the quest, and as you go along, your character gains experience, gold, and spells and abilities to influence the outcome of the puzzle battles along the way.

* Playstation 3 RPG fans will want to check out Folklore, and PSP owners will finally get their hands on the long-awaited remake of 1997’s strategy masterpiece Final Fantasy Tactics, which sports an all-new and surprisingly archaic period-English translation, along with stylish animated cutscenes.

* Are you a fan of early ’90s Neo-Geo 2D Fighters? Well, the place to be this week is on the Wii’s Virtual Console, which sees Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury, and World Heroes all in one place, and for much less than the hundreds of dollars the home verstions of those games used to cost!

Full list of games for each console after the jump. MORE »

There isn’t much to say about Halo 3 that hasn’t been said before, in a million different places. If you are reading this, then you have Internet access, which makes it reasonable to assume that you have access to other forms of media, such as television, magazines, and the like. Taking as a given the fact of media exposure almost means taking as a given exposure to the Halo 3 marketing megalith. Even 7-11 Slurpees and Mountain Dew (with their new flavor Game Fuel) have cashed in on the hype. So what about the game? What exactly is this Halo?

For the layman, Halo is the flagship series of Microsoft Xbox console line. It is a first-person shooter/space opera in which a malevolent group of aliens known as The Covenant wage jihad on the human race, whose main hope in all of this is the last remaining member of the super-soldier Spartan program. You are the last Spartan, also known as the Master Chief, that iconic armor-clad and golden-visored individual whose visage you’ve no doubt seen plastered all over the place lately.

The game takes it’s name from a system of gigantic ring-shaped, terraformed world-vessels spread throughout the galaxy, large enough to ring a planet the size of Earth, that together function as an uber-weapon capable of extinguishing all life in the galaxy. The Covenant’s misguided religion has them on a quest to activate the Forerunner-constructed Halos, in order to affect the start of their “Great Journey.”

Halo features a distinctive visual style, a grand and incredibly fleshed-out narrative, and excellent enemy artificial intelligence, among other things, that make the single player experience very compelling in its own right, but none of these are the reason behind the series continued success and hallowed place in the halls of gaming. No, behind the phenomenon of Halo is the game’s incredible bevy of multi-player modes and options. MORE »