Cavia

I haven't been up on my download titles and the way I should lately, so I've been trying to rectify that over last week or two. I decided to comb through the PSP Minis store alphabetically and see what caught my eye. There's a whole lot of junk in there, quite frankly, but there are some nice titles if you look hard enough.

Method Playing

HIGH Walking from third-person combat into a text adventure game.

LOW Some overly-melodramatic cutscenes in the... Oh, who am I kidding, it's the fishing.

WTF Walking from third-person combat into a text adventure game.

I've got to say, that was one of the most original and exciting titles I've played in a while, mostly thanks to the wide variety of ideas and approaches the developers managed to cram onto one disc. I especially appreciated the time and effort put into fleshing out each of the characters, and I have no doubt that I will be able to clearly remember them years from now.

Project Gestalt

HIGH Seeing a group of friends actually behaving like a honest-to-goodness group of friends for maybe the first time ever in a video game.

LOW The extra cut-scenes in the second playthrough were uncharacteristically melodramatic.

WTF Watching big, manly Nier land on his butt like a clumsy five year old after a big fall.

Game Description: Nothing is as it seems in Square Enix's latest action adventure game, set in a crumbling world plagued by disease and dark, unrecognizable creatures. Players assume the role of the unyielding protagonist, NIER, resolute in his quest to discover a cure for his daughter, who is infected with the Black Scrawl virus. With powerful allies and a mysterious book, NIER encounters things that will confound even the mightiest of warriors. With NIER, experience seamless in-battle cinematics and explore hauntingly familiar lands, intense action-packed battles, and storytelling like only Square Enix can do.

This review is irrelevant... like this game!

HIGH The moment early in the game where the main character must turn on his allies is almost perfect.

LOW The rest of the game is just downhill from there.

WTF Super Saiyans? In MY Drakengard?!

We've all been waiting for the Resident Evil Wii news hinted at recently, and today we finally have it.

Capcom announced Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles for Nintendo's popular home console today. The Darkside Chronicles is a brand-spankin' new adventure, a sequel to Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles.

If that weren't enough zombie slaughtering news, there's more. Capcom also announced new Wii versions of Resident Evil Zero and the GameCube Resident Evil remake as part of a "Resident Evil Classics" line of titles.

Although the formula has long since been left in the dust, I feel comfortable in saying that if this game had hit shelves within a reasonable amount of time after the original, it would have stood a good chance of becoming a leader in the action genre.

As part of a new wave of "next-generation" 360 games which are short on content, questionable in structure, and passed off to the public at a high retail price, is certainly a title to be cautious of for gamers on a budget. If I could only afford to buy one title in a store full of choices, wouldn't be it.

Without the aid of a strategy guide, cheat codes, or any other manner of gaming aid, I managed to get all the way through Bullet Witch in just three hours. This puts me in a bit of a bind because, while it's a very fun game to play, Bullet Witch is just inexcusably short. Hell, I rented the game and I didn't feel like I got my money's worth, so how can I possibly recommend that anyone purchase it?