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!

Is that a zombie at my door? Plants vs Zombies

I'd been wondering why the game Plants vs Zombies had been so popular for years now (since supplanted by Angry Birds, which I honestly don't think is that great a game.) Starting on the PC and then ported to virtually every other game system, I recently got the game for the DS, and now I realize why this Popcap-created game is still popular...it's very. very fun.


An organic version of the tower defense formula, you use dozens of imaginatively created plants to defend your house against waves of many different types of zombies who want to snack on your brains. By gathering sunlight beamed from the sun or generated by sunflowers, you can plant peashooters and walnuts to fire upon or block the zombies advance on your house. However, you can only have a certain number of plants on which to call upon in each level, although you can buy more spaces to hold plants (or 'seed packets') as the game progresses.

As I said before, this game is a hell of a lot of fun, not to mention very funny. There is an in-game encyclopedia that describes all of the plants and zombies in the game, and it is well written and hilarious. The game can be nerve wracking, as you frantically gather sunlight and plant plants to stop the zombie hordes. Although it seems limited, with the playfield only being around your house, there are different scenarios that keep gameplay fresh, such as zombies attacking at night (in which you use deadly fungi and mushrooms, since they don't require sunlight, although they need to 'recharge' before another one can be planted). Or the zombies try to attack from the backyard, where you have a pool and need to put down a lily pad before you can set another plant on it.

The game uses the stylus for everything,and this works very well, in my opinion. There are also minigames that can be unlocked as you progress, and even a mode where you can create your own custom made zombie, or 'zombatar'. If you still have not played this game yet, I highly recommend this version. Now if you excuse me, I hear some zombies coming, and I've got some planting to do.

Predators

AWESOME MOVIE ALERT!

Saw Predators in the theater today. I am a huge fan of Predator and this movie is as good as, if not a little better, than the first movie. They even reference the first movie in the new one, kind of making Predators the "true" sequel and pretending the 'meh' Predator 2 does not exist.

Lots of action and gore, good acting and script, and both the humans and Predators hunting them are badass. Also a cool plot twist near the end I did not see coming.If you are at all a fan of the first movie, or just good action/horror movies, go see it. Four stars.

Also:Predator 'dogs'.Really nasty f***ers.

Die Dracula Die!

I have been a fan of the Castlevania series since the first game came out on the Nintendo Entertainment System. I think I passed on Castlevania:Simon's Quest (although I rented it), but really enjoyed Castlevania III, which I still believe is one of the best Castlevanias behind Symphony of the Night. I played Caslevania IV on the Super NES and the excellent Genesis version. I also played Castlevania 64 (certainly the weakest in the series) and the two recent 3D versions for the past console generation, which unlike many people I liked a lot. I have all three Castlevanias for the Game Boy Advance, and when I got a DS I got Castlevania:Portrait of Ruin. I was not sure, after playing the GBA versions, if C:PofR would just be more of the same 'Metriodvania.'

I'm very glad to say that I love C:PofR. The graphics are noticably better, the demons you fight are as imaginative as ever (there are some returning faces, though. Horrible, monstrous faces.), there are great boss fights, and the fact you can switch between two totally different characters on the fly (or have them fight together) is great. Plus the titular 'portriats of ruin' add some scenic vareity to the game. So yeah, Konami has done it again. Once I'm working again I'd like to get the two other DS Castlevanias, I haven't gotten tired of whipping demons yet.

On a related note, what do you think about a 3D Castlevania on Nintendo's 3DS (come on, you know it's coming)? And anyone excited for the upcoming Lords of Shadow?

Games for makeup!

My wife goes to this forum called Makeup Alley, where women, and the occasional gay man, obsess over, well, makep. They also do swaps, usually for makeup, but for other stuff too. A woman was swapping a bunch of GBA games, and my wife, knowing my own obsession with video games, asked if I wanted anything off the list. Many of the games were serious under 10 kiddie games, but a few looked very interesting, Namely the three games pictured up top. Now anyone who reads this blog knows I'm not a big Mario fan, but Super Mario 3 IS a fun game, and I'd never played a Mario Kart game before. And I've always loved Sonic, even though the poor guys' last 10 games were terrible.

So Donna was willing to trade a limited edition Mac lipstick (which was pretty expensive, so she tells me) as well as some hair product samples. The woman who was swapping the GBA carts agreed to the three (I had actually been expecting one, which would have been fine for me, as none of these games are cheap, even used. But Donna assured me that the lipstick was NOT cheap by any means, she just happened to have gotten a duplicate for Christmas.)

So I got the games in the mail last week, and they are all pretty cool. We have not gotten a response from the woman who got the lipstick, I hope she likes it, honestly. And thanks to my wife, I got 3 good GBA games, technically free. She's even played some Super Mario Bros. 3, which is just as hard as I remembered it. (I played the games as part of Super Mario All Stars for the Super Nintendo.) All in all, pretty cool.

In movie news, I saw Knight and Day at the movies and liked it a lot. Lots of action with some funny dialogue thrown in. Also saw the Wolf Man remake (re-imagining?) on DVD. Thought it was pretty good, can't compare it to the classic original 'cause I haven't seen it! Really should get on that.

Oh, and I got the 20th anniversary Transformers The Movie soundtrack on cd with bonus tracks for only 5 bucks at half.com. I also have the soundtrack on tape, but that's 20+ years old and probably melted by now. I heard The Touch on that Transformers:War for Cybertron commercial and remembered how much I love that song and the rest of the soundtrack. Gonna rip the songs from the cd to my MP3 player so I can listen to them anywhere, too.

And yes, I really want T:WfC, but don't have a PS3 or X360 yet. I'll just have to wait till all are one...I mean, till I get a new system.

By the way, is it really freakin' hot, or is it just me?

Shootin' In Style

I recently played the game P.N. 03 after having bought it a year ago (yeah, I'm retarded) for about 4 bucks at Gamestop. I had read horrible reviews of the game when it had come out, as one of the infamous "Gamecube-exclusive Capcom 5". We all know how that turned out.

Anyway, I did not have any great expectations for the game, having almost stole it from Gamestop. But I quite like it. Basically, you're shooting bunches of robots wearing one of several versions of a mechanical suit, called an Aegis suit. Each suit having one "special attack" at the onset, although you can buy more special attacks for the suits. You can also power up the suits in different parameters and even buy extra continues at a shop. (Yup, this game has limited continues.)

You're "currency" is points you get by blowing up robots, and if you shoot a bunch of them in an alloted time limit, you rack up a "combo" and get bonus points. Frankly, this hooked me, as points mean something, and there is plenty to buy from the store (much of it expensive.) You can even do trial runs between missions to rack up extra purchasing points.

The graphics aren't anything spectacular, but they are well done, and the techno sountrack is nice to listen to while blasting various robots. What I really like about this game, besides the point system, is it's simplicity. You shoot and dodge missles and lasers, (or duck and take cover), and blast the 'bots with your own laser or special move (which are like the special moves in street fighter:up, down, shoot or something to that effect.) I am just so tired of all the overly complicated games made nowadays where you have to remember 20 different button combinations to play a damn game. With P.N. 03, I can just zone out and trash some bots, trying to get enough points to get the next cool Aegis suit.

Also, the heroine of the game, Vanessa, seems to be dancing along to the beat of the music as she turns robots to scrap. That's just cool.

So yeah, I recommend this game if you have a Gamecube or a (yuck) Wii. It's cheap enough, just don't expect to get your mind blown, and just enjoy the dancing. And shooting.