Duel Masters:The Red-Headed Stepchild

Has anyone heard of the card game Duel Masters? Not as cloyingly cute and childish as Pokemon, nor as mind-boggingly confusing as Yu-Gi-Oh, Duel Masters is a fun game which shares a lot with Magic:The Gathering, which is a good thing IMO. Actually, I have never played the physical card game, but I do have three very fun video game versions of the game:Duel Masters Sempai Legends Limited Edition and Duel Masters Kaijudo Showdown for the GameBoy Advance, and Duel Masters Limited Edition for the Playstation 2.

Very recently I stole...ummm bought Duel Masters Sempai Legends for 50 cents at FYE. Yes, 50 cents brand new. I could not remember if I already had the game (it was Kaijudo Showdown I had), but figured at 50 cents I'd get it anyway. That's less than a candy bar, for cryin out loud.

Anyway, I got all three games for very cheap, and if you have a GBA, DS Lite and/or Playstation 2, you can get a all three of these games for less than 5 bucks, I'm sure. And if you like card games like Yu-Gi-Oh or Magic:The Gathering, you will probably like Duel Masters. I know I do.

As I mentioned, Duel Masters plays out a lot like Magic:TG. You have a deck of 40 cards consisting of spells and creatures from 5 alignments:nature (green), light (yellow), water (blue), darkness (grey), and red (fire). Each alignments has it's own strenghs and weaknesses. When you duel someone, you sacrifice cards in your hand to build up mana of each of the five colors. This mana is permenent, and when you have enough, you can tap the mana to summon creatures to battle for you and spells to cast. Creatures have defensive and offensive stats which are compared when two creatures battle. Sounds a lot like M:TG so far, right? Well, instead of hit points, your duelist has five shields for protection which need to be broken. Once that is done, your duelist only needs to be hit once and it's lights out. Also, like M:TG, there are creatures that block attacks and ones that attack only. Duel Masters also has creatures called slayers which win the fight no matter the stats of the creatures.

In the games you play this spikey-haired kid who basically goes around towns and challenges random passerby to duels. You can also enter tournaments and buy or trade new cards. There are 'stories', but I don't pay much attention to them. I'm here to duel.

The creatures are extremely imaginative; light years better than the teletubby like Pokemon and at least on par with the creatures populating the Yu-Gi-Oh world. You get to see them battle it out on the field with different attacks, although obviously the PS2 version has much better graphics for monsters and spells.

It is unfortunate that Duel Masters never became more popular than it did. The game was created by Wizards of the Coast, and the games were put out by Atari. Still, for anyone who likes stratagic card games in video form, starring creatures with strange but also awesome sounding names, I highly recommend Duel Masters. The price is certainly right.

No $100 PSP for you!!

I was very excited to read recently about a new version of the Sony PSP at a $100.  I believe this was revealed at Gamescom. The only major difference between this one and the current PSP versions was there would be no Wi-Fi. This doesn't matter to me, as I would just use it to play games....I still don't care for online shenanigans.

I was later disappointed to learn that the new PSP would only be released in the European market, and not in North America. Apparentely, Americans love their Wi-Fi too much to part with it. Phooey. Does anyone know if this version of the PSP is real, that it really isn't going to be sold here, and if so, agree with me that this is a damn shame?

Good stuff:Atelier Iris

Me and the missus are at the vacation house in Maine. So beautiful, so relaxing, so quiet. Nice thing about it is that we only spend money on gas, tolls and food....so even though we don't have much cash, it's a pretty cheap "vacation."

Anyway, I started playing Atelier Iris:The Azoth of Destiny, the second in the Atelier Iris series, and I LOVE it. It's part turn based RPG/part alchemy game. Fight monsters, gather materials, and make all kinds of cool stuff. The sprite graphics are absolutely gorgeous, and fighting and alchemy is fun. I also have the third game in the series, Atelier Iris:Grand Phantasm, and if it's as good as Azoth of Destiny, I've got a lot of alchemy to do when we get back.



Ah, Playstation 2, do you ever stop giving?

So you want to be a doctor...

Got this game:Trauma Center Under the Knife 2 at Sears for the sweet, sweet price of 6 bucks. I've been interested in trying one of the Trauma Center games and no way could I pass this up at that cheap price. Haven't played it yet but have looked through the instruction manual (I love that new game manual smell!) and operating using the stylus looks really cool. Good thing I have a steady hand...must be from all the video games I play.

Good portable shmups (for cheap!)

I love me some shoot 'em ups, or shmups for short. Used to be called shooters, but 1st person shooters took that monicker away. Used to be during the 80's and early 90's that the still thriving arcade environs had several shmups. Soon Street Fighter clones became more popular, and soon after THAT most arcade machines were racers or Dance Dance Revolution. But I still remember guiding that one spaceship (or two, if you were playing with a friend) against an enemy armada tossing millions of bullets at you. And the explosions. The wonderful, wonderful explosions.



Nowadays shmups are few and far between except on XBox Live Arcade. Since I don't own a XBox 360 yet (and am still leery about downloadable content, something for another blog), I have found barely any relatively new shmups. For those interested, I have found 4 really good shmups, and they are also very cheap if you can find them...I also got them sans box or instruction manuals, but since they are shmups, it's pretty easy to figure out what to do:shoot everything and don't get hit!



For the Gameboy Advance, are Iridion 3D and Iridion II. Iriidion 3D is pretty good; the graphics give the impression that you are moving into the screen and the enemy is coming at you. Again, good game, but it relies a lot on it's 3D 'gimmick' and is somewhat bland as a result. Iridion II is a huge step up though, with simply amazing graphics, incredible sound (I was surprised to hear such great music coming from the GBA speakers) and great gameplay. This top down shooter is a gem if you can find it



For the DS (of course, you can play the Iridion games on it if you have the DS Lite) are Nanostray and Nanostray 2, both great, great shmups. The first game is a top down shooter; you have four seperate weapons you can change on the fly using the touch screen. Each weapon also has a powered-up version which uses up energy, although this can be recharged by picking up blue coins. The game has eight levels each with a tough boss at the end. The visuals are excellent, some of the best on the handheld,and the music gets your heart pumping.



Nanostray 2 is just as good as the first, with a few differences. Now there is a sub boss in each of the eight stages as well as an end boss. You also have a standard shot that cannot be powered up, but you do have a secondary weapon that you pick before you start a level (out of seven different weapons). These use energy, but are more powerful than you standard shot. The screen scrolls from left to right and the action occurs on the bottom screen, so you can use the stylus to move your fighter. This works much better than you would think and is the way I play the game, but you can use the buttons if you want.



These are all highly recommended for shmup fans, but as I mentioned, are pretty hard to find. I did find all four at local Gamestops, although you may have better luck finding them online. Happy shooting!