Download - Defunct Games

NAME: JASTER \\ DORGENARK 

CRIME: INTERGALACTIC LARCENY 

TEXT 

“JASTER ” 

LAST SEEN: VEDAN\\ GUIN SYSTEM 

TO 65579 TO 

RECEIVE YOUR 

REWARDz 

THE DAYTRON CORPORATION POSTS A BOUNTY TO BE 

PAID IN FULL TO ANY INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBLE FOR THE 

CAPTURE OR KILLING OF THIS INTERGALACTIC CRIMINAL. 

www.roguegalaxy-thegame.com 

Rogue Galaxy is a trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Created and developed by Level 5. ©2006 Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. “PlayStation” and the “PS” Family logo are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. “Live In Your World. Play In Ours.” is a registered trademark 

of Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. The ratings icon is a registered trademark of the Entertainment Software Association. *Standard text-messaging rates apply, per your cell phone carrier/text-message plan. No Purchase Necessary. Open to legal residents of 50 U.S. & DC aged 13 or older at time of 

entry. Void where prohibited. To enter: 1) Between 12:00:00 am PT on 1/1/07 & 11:59:59 pm PT on 2/25/07 (“Promotion Period”), text-message either “Jaster,” “Zegram” or “Kisala” to “65579” using wireless device capable of 2-way text-messaging. You will receive a return text message including a phone 

number. Call the provided phone number to hear a prerecorded message from a Rogue Galaxy character on your wireless device. During message follow directions to enter Sweepstakes & receive 8 text messages about the Rogue Galaxy game; OR 2) To enter and listen to prerecorded message from 1 of 

the Rogue Galaxy characters above without sending a text message, visit www.spacepirateswanted.com during Promotion Period & complete & submit the Official Entry Form to receive 1 entry & 8 e-mail messages about the Rogue Galaxy game. You may opt out of receiving text or e-mail messages at any 

time by following instructions in the text/e-mail message sent to you. Eight (8) Grand Prizes; 1 prizewinner per Entry Period: one (1) Silver PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system & five PlayStation®2 games (SOCOM 3: U.S. Navy SEALs, Shadow of the Colossus, Ratchet: Deadlocked, Jak X: Combat 

Racing, and Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves). ARV = $229.94. Selection of games at Sponsor’s discretion & based on availability. Taxes are winners’ sole responsibility. Odds of winning any drawing will depend on the total number of eligible entries received for the applicable drawing. Subject to Official Rules 

& Entry Period details available at www.spacepirateswanted.com or by sending a SASE for receipt by 3/30/07 to: Rogue Galaxy RULES, P.O. Box 13198, Bridgeport, CT 06673-3198. For winners list, send SASE for receipt by 3/30/07 to: Rogue Galaxy WINNERS, P.O. Box 13198, Bridgeport, CT 06673-3198.

Publisher 

Tim Lindquist 

Editor in Chief 

Greg Off 

greg@hardcoregamermag.com 

Art Director 

Terry Wolfinger 

Senior Editor 

Thomas Wilde 

Managing Editor 

Alicia Ashby 

Editors 

Anthony Mertz Danny Cowan 

Dave Hulegaard David Brothers 

Geson Hatchett Iaian Ross 

Jason Venter James Cunningham 

Jeremy Peeples Ken Horowitz 

Steven Kent Thomas Shin 

Elizabeth Ellis 

Don’t Need No Stinking Generators 

David Silviera 

Artists 

Amadeo Garcia III Dane Miner 

Production Director 

Brady Hartel 

Production Artists 

John McKechnie Gary Harrod 

Casey Yates David Silviera 

Translator 

Elizabeth Ellis 

Ad sales 

Burr Hilsabeck 

415-412-5685 

burr@hardcoregamermag.com 

Ad coordinator 

Martin Gilbert 

Customer Service 

Judy Snow 

706-369-3743 

Hardcore Gamer® Magazine is published monthly by DoubleJump® 

Publishing, Inc. at 21407 NE Union Hill Rd, Redmond, WA 98053. 

Periodicals postage pending at Redmond WA and at additional mailing 

offices. POSTMASTER: send address changes to Hardcore Gamer Magazine, 

PO Box 146, Redmond, WA 98073. “Hardcore Gamer” and “DoubleJump” are 

trademarks or registered trademarks of DoubleJump Publishing Incorporated. 

All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced or 

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including 

photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system 

without written permission from DoubleJump Publishing. DoubleJump Books 

is a division of DoubleJump Publishing, Inc. 

DoubleJump Publishing and the authors have made every effort to ensure 

that the information contained in this magazine is accurate. However, the 

publisher makes no warranty, either expressed or implied, as to the accuracy, 

effectiveness, or completeness of the material in this magazine; nor does the 

publisher assume liability for damages, either incidental or consequential, 

that may result from using the information in this magazine. Questions 

regarding operation of the game software and hardware should be directed 

to the support numbers provided by the game and device manufacturers in 

their documentation. 

Printed in the United States of America 

DJPubba_Tim Lindquist 

I was playing Zelda a lot until we lost power here... just 

in time for magazine deadline week, too. Since then, I 

haven’t been able to play any games. All my time has 

been spent keeping the generator running, and gathering 

firewood. To top things off, while looking for a way to get 

power to the furnace, I discovered 18 inches of water in 

the crawlspace under the house. Joy. 

Now Playing: Keep the generator running. Stay warm. 

Wanderer_Thomas Wilde 

Since we were doing retro systems this issue, I finally 

sat down and wired up all twenty-four of my consoles 

to my entertainment center. Then the entire Pacific 

Northwest lost power for four days or so. I assume it’s a 

coincidence, but if it isn’t, I apologize to all involved. 

Now Playing: Dragon Warrior IV, Castlevania, Dungeon 

Siege: Throne of Agony, Mazes of Fate 

Lynxara_Alicia Ashby 

As I write this I’m still sorting through my Christmas 

presents! Not-so-secret Santas at the mag have given 

me copies of Culdcept and Skies of Arcadia, and boy 

am I looking forward to having some free time once the 

industry gets into the spring doldrums. Here’s to hoping all 

of you got great games over the holidays to enjoy, too! 

Now Playing: Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, 

Utawarerumono, Final Fantasy XII, Super Robot Taisen: 

Original Generation 2 

Racewing_Geson Hatchett 

Up until this year, I loved Christmas. Then I got to 

experience it both as an overworked games journalist 

and video game store assistant manager. It didn’t help 

that almost every game I was looking forward to has 

disappointed me. Now I’m a full-blown Ebenezer. Thanks, 

Sonic Team! Thanks, A2M! Thanks, Itagaki! Bah, humbug! 

Now Playing: Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (Charlotte!), 

Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation (Excellen!), 

Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam (Wii) (MacKenzie!) 

Shoegazer_Dave Hulegaard 

Now that the holidays have wound down, I’ll finally have 

some time in-between new releases to dive into some of 

my older games that have been collecting dust. Wait… 

what’s that Pubba? What do you mean Lost Planet is only 

a couple weeks away?? I was so close!! This isn’t fair!! 

Now Playing: Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess… 

solid. 

KouAidou_Elizabeth Ellis 

What is it with me getting sick at the most inconvenient 

possible times? I think I’m cursed. Fortunately, retro 

games are the cure for all ills, and best enjoyed while 

laying on the couch in a medication-induced daze. 

Now Playing: Pool of Radiance, Star Control II: The Ur- 

Quan Masters, Legacy of the Ancients 

Roger Danish_Greg Off Wolfie_Terry Wolfinger 

Now that the holidays are finally behind us, I can start 

to concentrate on what 2007 will be like. I imagine Halo 

3 will kick ass, Grand Theft Auto 4 will likely surprise 

and amaze everyone (as well as bring with it plenty of 

controversy). Sony will scratch and claw its way back to 

the top of the heap (my prediction), and Mario will be 

Wii-tastic. 

Currently Playing: Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters, God 

of War II, Zelda: Twilight Princess, Call of Duty 3 

4thletter_David Brothers 

As I sit and ponder time’s inexorable, slow march towards 

its unknowable destination, I have become aware that, as 

a being whose existence is woven into the very fabric of 

a slowly decaying universe, I am forced to share the same 

entropic fate that awaits everything. Since I will not be 

here to see what lies at the end of time’s long journey, it is 

my solemn wish that, before the very bindings that hold the 

elements of myself together break down, and the fragile cradle 

that holds my consciousness and experiences disappears, my 

words will live on long after me in the minds of those who 

may travel further along the river of time than I shall. 

James_James Cunningham 

There’s too much to do, work is insane, and there’s still 

some people on my Chistmas list I haven’t decided on 

gifts for yet. On the plus side, right this very moment 

I’m kicked back without one single person around, my 

cat balancing on the back of the chair, with a brand-new 

Elebits waiting for my attention. I’ll dive back in, but 

right now it’s lovely and peaceful. 

Now Playing: LocoRoco, Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii), 

Elite Beat Agents, Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin 

HonestGamer_Jason Venter 

It seems like I keep looking for the next big thing in 

games, that new way to play that will totally revitalize 

how I view my favorite hobby. At the end of the day, 

though, I keep coming back to the same gameplay that’s 

always worked for me. I’m not quite sure what I think 

about that... 

Now Playing: Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, 

Warhammer: Mark of Chaos 

Hitoshura_Iaian Ross 

I like maps. 

Now Playing: Nothing 

Sardius_Danny Cowan 

It was tough to decide with competition like Jaws 

Unleashed and 25 to Life, but my pick for Best Worst 

Game of 2006 goes to Final Fight: Streetwise. It’s 

amazing that one game can single-handedly murder a 

franchise, close a dev studio, and cause me to yell at my 

girlfriend in frustration, but Streetwise did. Pour one for 

Drug Zombie Cody. He’ll never work in the business again. 

Now Playing: beatmania IIDX 12 Happy Sky, Tony 

Hawk’s Downhill Jam, Ultimate Ghosts ‘n Goblins 

And I thought I was stressed from the holiday season... 

someone give Metalbolt a vacation! What’s new with me? 

I played bowling on the Wii at a Christmas party; the 

Showtime series, “Dexter,” had a very satisfying season 

finale; and my first ever graphic novel, Vatican City, Las 

Vegas, has been published and released into the world. 

Now Playing: World of Warcraft (my undead rogue is 

60 and chillin’) 

Metalbolt_Anthony Mertz 

Hey! UBI! Stop feeding PC gamers console games! Please 

don’t forget us: the PC gamer. Remember us? We need 

the M4 in a SWAT game (it is, after all, the weapon for 

US SWAT). We also have no use for blind fire tactics (just 

like real SWAT!). Please, UBI, don’t forget us. We loved R6 

because it didn’t mess around, but you’ve turned it into 

mini-Gears of War. You’ve ruined my month! 

Now Playing: Ghost Rider(PS2), TrackMania Nations ESWC 

Arlieth_Thomas Shin 

I haven’t been playing many new games due to finals and 

a translation project (read: Babelfish) I was working on for 

Melty Blood: Act Cadenza. This is because people are too 

lazy to translate Japanese. Like, everyone should be totally 

fluent after their 200th episode of Naruto! Also, while it’s 

cute that Arima Miyako is too young to read kanji, it makes 

translating her Bai Ji Quan moves a very painful process. 

Now Playing: Tsukihime (PC), Melty Blood: Act Cadenza 

(PS2), Cadash (Arcade) 

Ashura_Brady Hartel 

I find that if you change one letter in the name of a 

store, you can drastically alter its purpose. For instance, 

if you change the L in Big Lots to a T, it then becomes 

Big Tots. Excuse me sir, what do you sell here at this fine 

establishment? Gigantic Babies. That goes out to Mitch 

Hedberg, RIP. 

Now Playing: Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, Metal Gear 

Solid: Portable Ops, Metal Slug Anthology 

Jeremy_Jeremy Peeples 

It’s been a holiday season of gaming gladness and personal 

sadness. I lost my cat, Rocky. He lived a richer life in his last 

day than either of my other cats have in their entire lives. 

He was endlessly devoted to those he loved, and outlasted a 

few family cars, about five PlayStations, a few replacement 

cats, and two Dreamcasts. Goodbye, superdoo. 

Now Playing: Spud’s Adventure, Crazy Taxi, Kim Possible: 

What’s the Switch?, Pocky & Rocky!, WWE SvR ‘07 

Mads_Amadeo Garcia III 

You know the best part about living with a large family? 

We eventually get all the consoles or handhelds of the 

next few generations. In other words, I don’t really 

care for which system the Final Fantasy Tactics port is 

coming out because our household has three DSes and a 

Sony PSP! Please excuse me while I fangasm on a nearby 

colleague. Can I say ‘fangasm’? 

Now Playing: With myself, Bomberman Land, 

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, C and C: Red Alert 

VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED

Previews 

New Stuff 

Our big scoop is on a cute little 

game called Gurumin, but we’ve 

also got the goods on other hot 

spring titles like Izuna and 

Lunar Knights. We even 

bundled ‘em up with 

big upcoming titles 

like Crackdown, 

Cipher Complex, 

and Dragon 

Quest IX. 

HGM is giving you more dirt on more games! Check 

out our new On the Download section on page 72 

for the hottest games you can buy outside of a box, 

and our new Tournament feature coverage on page 

28. We’ll even throw in more Arcade coverage for 

you on page 70! Now how much would you pay?? 

On the cover 

VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED 

10 

Whether you’re old 

enough for nostalgia 

or young enough to 

not know what the 

hell we’re talking 

about, now is the era 

of retro! HGM’s editors 

and correspondents 

get together to run 

down the best games 

you’ve ever played, 

never played, and how 

to play the classics 

again. The party 

starts on 

34 

page... 

8 : News 

10 : pReview: Gurumin: 

14 : Preview: Crackdown 

A Monstrous Adventure 

16 : pReview: Izuna: Legend of the 

Unemployed Ninja 

18 : Preview: Fuzion Frenzy 2 

19 : Preview: Cipher Complex 

22 : Preview: Lunar Knights 

24 : pReview: Dragon Quest IX: 

Guard of the Starry Night 

24 : pReview: Dragon Quest SWORDS 

26 : Preview: Ghost Rider 

28 : tournamenting: the mgc 

30 : Mobile: 24: agent down 

32 : Mobile: centipede 

32 : Mobile: fight night: round 3 

34 : Cover feature: Retro A GO-GO 

56 : Review: Lost Planet: 

Extreme Condition 

58 : Review: Castlevania: 

Portrait of Ruin 

59 : Review: Ar tonelico: 

Melody of Elemia 

60 : Review: Full Auto 2: Battlelines 

62 : Review: Karaoke Revolution 

Presents: American Idol 

63 : Review: Heroes of Might and Magic V: 

Hammers of Fate 

64 : Review: Bionicle Heroes 

65 : Review: Tom Clancy’s 

Rainbow Six: Vegas 

66 : Review: Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 

68 : Review: Mazes of Fate 

69 : Review: Metal Slug Anthology 

70 : Arcade: initial d: Arcade stage 4 

72 : downloads 

74 : Japan: Utawarerumono 

76 : Japan: Chaos Wars 

77 : Japan: The Road to the Infinity 3 

78 : Cosplay 

80 : Fan Art 

82 : Funnies

will wright’s 

the man! 

The Producers Guild of America announced that the 

2007 Vanguard Award for outstanding achievement 

in new media and technology will be presented to 

game designer Will Wright, known for Sim City and 

The Sims. His creative vision has inspired some of the 

most critically acclaimed and popular video games 

in the short history of the medium. This is the first 

time in the Producers Guild 

history that the prestigious 

award has been given to a 

game designer. Wright and 

his team at EA Maxis are 

currently developing Spore, 

one of the most anticipated 

games of 2007. Spore will 

take players on an epic 

journey from the origin 

and evolution of life 

through the development 

of civilization and 

technology, and eventually 

lead all the way into 

the deepest reaches of 

outer space. 

next-gen 

lawsuits 

There’s no question 

that Nintendo’s newest 

Wii console is popular, 

mainly due to its 

innovative controllers. 

Soon after its launch, 

reports started 

surfacing about flying 

Wiimotes, a result of 

overzealous gamers 

wildly swinging the 

remotes and causing 

the wrist straps to snap. Unfortunately, what goes up must come 

down, and windows, furniture, and brand-new HDTVs were often on 

the receiving end of a flying Wiimote. 

On December 6th, three law firms filed a nationwide class-action 

lawsuit in federal district court in Seattle, Washington, against 

Nintendo of America. The litigation requests that the defective parts 

be replaced, stating that a faulty remote is in breach of Nintendo’s 

own product warranty. In mid-December, Nintendo started offering 

an exchange for a sturdier version of the wrist strap. 

Microsoft also had its share of unhappy users when a recent system 

update made a user’s Xbox 360 system inoperable. Said user filed a 

class-action lawsuit against Microsoft and is demanding a jury trial, 

citing breach of contract, a violation of consumer protection act, 

and negligence. 

CONTENT BY 

get ready 

to be immersed 

with ambx 

A blend of a scripting language, software engine and 

architecture, amBX has been designed to deliver all-new player experiences 

through enabled devices such as LED color-controlled lights, active furniture, 

fans, heaters, audio, and video, all placed strategically around a player’s 

room. The scripted effects delivered through the Philips amBX Peripherals 

will make the experience of playing a video game even more immersive. 

When racing, wind will blow through your hair and in your face, explosions 

will cause vibrations, and surround sound and lights will mimic the in-game 

world to further enhance the feeling of being part of the game. 

Currently, Codemasters will implement amBX in its racing titles, and 

Introversion will adapt its recent DEFCON and Darwinia products, while THQ 

and Gas Powered Games will deliver realistic land, sea and air effects into 

the gamer’s room, from the shell-shocking flash, bang and whoosh of artillery 

explosions to the helmetrattling 

rumble of fearsome 

tank tracks. Even titles that 

are not specifically tailored 

to the amBX technology will 

benefit, as the scripting 

automatically detects what 

occurs on the screen and 

reacts accordingly, although 

in a lesser fashion. 

sega hatches 

“alien” games 

Sega has signed an agreement with 20th 

Century Fox to develop some next-gen 

and PC titles set in the Alien universe, 

including an RPG and a first-person 

shooter, with the first product to be 

released in 2009. Sega is in talks with the 

film actors, including Sigourney Weaver 

and Lance Henriksen, to provide their 

likenesses and voices for the games. Alien 

vs. Predator is not part of the deal. 

Sega has confirmed 

that the Alien RPG will be developed 

by Obsidian, known for the recent 

Neverwinter Nights 2 and Star Wars: 

Knights of the Old Republic II: Sith Lords, 

while the FPS title is in the hands of 

Gearbox Software, which is currently 

putting the finishing touches on Brothers 

in Arms 3 for Ubisoft. 

8_NEWS HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED

A very welcome addition to the PSP library, Mastiff/ 

Falcom’s Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure is a 

splendid Action/RPG romp that takes a page from 

Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda series. Combining 

real-time action, exploration, dungeon crawling, item 

collecting, and plenty of RPG elements, this title is 

definitely going to fill a sorely lacking gap and should 

help give you another reason not to sell off your PSP. 

In Gurumin, players take on the role of an uber-cutesy 

young girl named Parin, who has been sent to live 

with her grandfather in a sleepy mining town that is 

strangely kidless. While her parents are off excavating 

an ancient ruin, and with no other children to play 

with, Parin takes to exploring the town’s streets and 

alleyways. Here she discovers and befriends a group of 

friendly monsters that only kids can see, who live in the 

village beyond a crack in the wall. She ultimately comes 

to their aid when an evil group of sprits, known as the 

Phantoms, invade the village and steal them away. With 

the aid of a weapon called the “Legendary Drill,” Parin 

embarks on a grand quest to destroy the Phantoms and 

save her newfound friends. 

As an Action/RPG, Gurumin harkens back to the days 

of 16-bit games when you couldn’t get by on just fancy 

graphics alone. The game’s puzzle solving, tight combat 

controls, and dungeon crawling are inventive, fun, and 

a joy to play. To top it off, Mastiff appears to be going 

all-out in producing a high-quality localization. It really 

reminds us of the glory days of Working Designs’s funloving 

translations. To this end, they’ve collected a hefty 

who’s who of videogame voice acting talent, including 

Tara Strong (Final Fantasy X, Ninja Gaiden, Kingdom 

Hearts), Dee Bradley Baker (Halo 2, Destroy All Humans!, 

FF X-2), and Amber Hood (Everquest II, Oni Musha II, 

Baldur’s Gate), with voice direction by Kris Zimmerman 

(Dead Rising, Tomb Raider: Legend, Metal Gear Solid 3: 

Subsistence). 

Surprisingly, Gurumin is not a new game. Developed by 

Nihon Falcom (of Ys and Popful Mail fame) as a Japaneseonly 

PC title in 2004, it was ported to the PSP by the 

developers and released in Japan in June of ‘06. Mastiff 

picked up on its whimsical charm and solid gameplay and 

took a chance on bringing it Stateside. At the end of the 

day, whether or not the game will be a success remains to 

be seen. The PSP market has become increasingly soft, and 

even though Gurumin fills a niche and is a blast to play, it is 

targeted to a very small albeit rabid base of fans. 

We’re looking forward to getting our hands on a localized US 

version of the game soon. With the release date just around 

the corner, Gurumin should give both PSP owners and RPG 

fans a reason to rejoice. 

PUBLISHER:: PUBLISHER:: MASTIFF MASTIFF • • DEVELOPER: DEVELOPER: FALCOM FALCOM • • RELEASE RELEASE DATE: DATE: 02/12/07 02/12/07 • • GENRE: GENRE: ACTION ACTION RPG RPG • • CATEGORY: CATEGORY: CUTE CUTE • • # # OF OF PLAYERS: PLAYERS: 11 

Preview by Roger Danish 

An overload of cute! 

10_PREVIEW_GURUMIN: A MONSTROUS ADVENTURE HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED 

GURUMIN: A MONSTROUS ADVENTURE_PREVIEW_11

* Limited time offer—see www.xbox.com/halo3 Xbox 360, TM hard drive, Xbox Live TM Gold required. Crackdown TM developed by Real Time Worlds Ltd. for Microsoft Corporation. 

Crackdown, the Crackdown logo, Real Time Worlds, and the Real Time Worlds logo are trademarks of Real Time Worlds Ltd. in the United States and/or other countries. All rights 

reserved. © 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, the Microsoft Game Studios logo, Xbox, Xbox 360, the Xbox logos, Xbox Live, and the Xbox Live logo are 

either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. 

WWW.CRACKDOWNONCRIME.COM 

Carry the scales 

of justice in one 

hand, and a two-ton 

sedan in the other. 

You’re a genetically enhanced 

agent of justice authorized to 

do whatever it takes to sweep 

the criminal scum out of Paci c 

City. From the streets to the 

rooftops, use anything you can 

get your hands on to show the 

thugs that crime doesn’t pay. 

And for the ultimate payback, 

combine forces in co-op play 

for twice the destruction and 

double the retribution. 

All Justice. No Restraints. 

INCLUDES INVITATION TO 

HALO ® 3 MULTIPLAYER BETA 

Limited time offer—look for specially marked boxes.*

Publisher: Microsoft 

Developer: Real Time Worlds 

Release Date: Q1 2007 

Preview by Jeremy 

Genre(s): Sandbox 

Category: Third-person shooter 

# of Players: 1-4 

With GTA-co-creator David Jones at the helm, this adrenaline-pumping 

sandbox game emphasizes over-the-top action and visceral thrills over 

the genre-standard car theft. Through sheer force, you’ll have to rid 

Pacific City of the crime syndicates that have plagued it. Just about 

everything you see can be used to clear the streets of crime. So if 

you’re low on ammo, just beat someone to death with a piece of a 

building, or leap over a large building to attack foes on the other side. 

Crackdown’s goal is to give players the freedom to do whatever they 

want whenever they want to do it. With that kind of gameplay behind 

an agile, Robocop-ish main character, this should be an easy and 

satisfying task to accomplish. Adding to the thrills will be over 100 

licensed songs covering a wide array of genres. RTW promises that 

they’ll give each character and location their own identity, and if that 

turns out to be the case, this could 

By using a XIII-esque cel shading style and comic book panels to tell 

the story, Crackdown seems like a graphic novel come to life. Its 

emphasis on environment-destroying explosions gives it an old action 

movie feel. Plus, unlike other games, these blasts have long-lasting 

effects on the game world. This should help make RTW’s dream of 

crafting a monstrously large game full of meticulous gameplay details 

come true. 

14_PREVIEW_CRACKDOWN HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED

Publisher: Atlus 

Developer: Ninja Studio 

Release Date: February 2007 

Preview by Sardius 

Genre(s): RPG 

Category: Roguelike 

# of Players: 1 

War has ended. All feuding territories have settled their 

differences. Even the finicky gods have started to 

loosen up a little. At last, all seems 

right with the world. 

That is, unless you’re a ninja. 

When you live a life of thievery 

and murder, world peace sort of 

leaves you out of a job. Such is the problem facing our heroine 

Izuna, a former ninja settling into a newfound life of joblessness 

with what is left of her clan in a sleepy little mountain village. 

Izuna’s kind of a clumsy girl, though, and it isn’t long before she 

single-handedly angers the gods and the world once again needs the 

skills of a ninja. 

If you’ve played Torneko: The Last Hope, The Nightmare of Druaga, or Pokémon 

Mystery Dungeon, you already know what to expect from Izuna: Legend of the 

Unemployed Ninja. It may not officially be a part of Chunsoft’s Fushigi no Dungeon 

series, but Izuna’s randomly generated levels, strict turn-based combat, and high 

difficulty level will remind you of the hardcore dungeon hacks of old. 

Thankfully, Izuna does away with many of the gameplay annoyances that made Rogue 

and its successors so aggravating to play, making it easier to focus on its charming 

story and unique characters. Customizable weapons and strategy-intense boss battles 

only sweeten the deal. Get ready to step into the unemployment line in February. 

16_PREVIEW_IZUNA: LEGEND OF THE UNEMPLOYED NINJA HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED 

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Preview by Lynxara 

Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios 

Developer: Hudson Soft 

Release Date: 1/30/07 

Genre(s): Mini-Games 

Category: Cartoony 

# of Players: 1-4 

The talented folks at Hudson Soft developed the various Mario Party games 

for Nintendo, and in Fuzion Frenzy 2 they’re pretty much doing the same 

thing for Microsoft. To match the 360’s sportier audience, the character designs 

have a bit more of an action-cartoon vibe to them, and they look much better on 

the 360 than they did on the Xbox. All six of the original playable characters return, 

along with rumors of a new, hidden seventh character. 

What sets Fuzion Frenzy 2 apart from the other Hudson titles in this vein 

is the way it incorporates Xbox Live into the gameplay, and its tournament 

mode. Fuzion Frenzy 2’s mini-games are strewn about seven planets, most 

grouped together by some obvious theme. You clear tournament mode by 

dominating so many planets (selectable when you start a tournament, 

up to five) by clearing all of the mini-games there and winning that 

planet’s Battle Royale. During tournaments you play “Card Get” games 

to gather up “Frenzy Cards” that let you manipulate the rules of the 

tournament as you go. 

Online or off, Fuzion Frenzy 2 is pure party game. If you don’t want to do 

the standard tournament mode, you can simply play individual games you like 

in Mini-Game Frenzy mode, or create your own tournaments in Custom mode. 

The mini-games themselves all use colorful 3D graphics, and seem designed with 

both young players and older gamers in mind. Usually, they involve collecting 

something or similarly outracing the other players to perform a particular 

task, with some hazards thrown around that can penalize you in various ways. 

It’s fun light gaming, and definitely good for making sure little gamers don’t 

up and start trying to play that copy of 

Saints Row you probably have sitting around. 

18_PREVIEW_FUZION FRENZY 2 HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED 

Preview by HonestGamer 

Publisher: TBA 

Developer: Edge of Reality 

Release Date: 2007 

Cipher Complex, Edge of Reality’s take on the whole “government likes you enough 

to grant you carte blanche but won’t admit you exist if you get caught” sort of 

game, is an in-your-face twist on the genre presently dominated by Sam Fisher and 

Solid Snake. Built on the Havok engine, it boasts stunning particle effects, detailed 

character models and a glossy sheen that makes something crystal clear: graphics 

and action weren’t afterthoughts. 

You can see it in the big details, like a hallway that fades into the sweet darkness. 

Two soldiers patrol the lonely chamber, guns diagonal across their chest, faces 

down. You can see it in the small ones: John Cipher stands at one end or the 

corridor, leaning against a wall with a bloody knife the size of a lead pipe hanging 

almost negligently from an arm so muscular it would make Arnold Schwarzenegger 

wake in a cold sweat. Biceps and veins bulge. 

As one soldier strays further from his comrade than is wise, Cipher steps out from 

behind the wall, lifts his hapless adversary with one arm and slams him against the 

wall. He’s like James Bond, if England’s finest ditched the martini for an extra 50 

pounds of pure muscle. The soldier’s bones crack against the concrete and he goes 

down in a heap. Already Cipher is moving on to the other patrolman. He hasn’t 

even broken a sweat. 

The blend of stealth, action and a visual kick in the abdomen are just what some 

gamers are seeking. It’s hard not to look at Cipher Complex as a long-overdue 

upgrade to the genre. The folks at Edge of Reality would certainly like your 

consideration and, after what we’ve seen, we’re ready to say they just might 

deserve it. Sometimes you don’t see the good ones coming. 

HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED 

Genre(s): Action 

Category: Stealth 


CIPHER COMPLEx_PREVIEW_19

TEXT 

“ZEGRAM ” 

NAME: ZEGRAM \\ DORGENARK 

CRIME: SPACE PILLAGING 

LAST SEEN: ZERARD \\ GUIN SYSTEM 

TO 65579 TO 

RECEIVE YOUR 

REWARDz 

THE DAYTRON CORPORATION POSTS A BOUNTY TO BE 

PAID IN FULL TO ANY INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBLE FOR THE 

CAPTURE OR KILLING OF THIS INTERGALACTIC CRIMINAL. 

www.roguegalaxy-thegame.com 

Rogue Galaxy is a trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Created and developed by Level 5. ©2006 Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. “PlayStation” and the “PS” Family logo are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. “Live In Your World. Play In Ours.” is a registered trademark 

of Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. The ratings icon is a registered trademark of the Entertainment Software Association. *Standard text-messaging rates apply, per your cell phone carrier/text-message plan. No Purchase Necessary. Open to legal residents of 50 U.S. & DC aged 13 or older at time of 

entry. Void where prohibited. To enter: 1) Between 12:00:00 am PT on 1/1/07 & 11:59:59 pm PT on 2/25/07 (“Promotion Period”), text-message either “Jaster,” “Zegram” or “Kisala” to “65579” using wireless device capable of 2-way text-messaging. You will receive a return text message including a phone 

number. Call the provided phone number to hear a prerecorded message from a Rogue Galaxy character on your wireless device. During message follow directions to enter Sweepstakes & receive 8 text messages about the Rogue Galaxy game; OR 2) To enter and listen to prerecorded message from 1 of 

the Rogue Galaxy characters above without sending a text message, visit www.spacepirateswanted.com during Promotion Period & complete & submit the Official Entry Form to receive 1 entry & 8 e-mail messages about the Rogue Galaxy game. You may opt out of receiving text or e-mail messages at any 

time by following instructions in the text/e-mail message sent to you. Eight (8) Grand Prizes; 1 prizewinner per Entry Period: one (1) Silver PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system & five PlayStation®2 games (SOCOM 3: U.S. Navy SEALs, Shadow of the Colossus, Ratchet: Deadlocked, Jak X: Combat 

Racing, and Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves). ARV = $229.94. Selection of games at Sponsor’s discretion & based on availability. Taxes are winners’ sole responsibility. Odds of winning any drawing will depend on the total number of eligible entries received for the applicable drawing. Subject to Official Rules 

& Entry Period details available at www.spacepirateswanted.com or by sending a SASE for receipt by 3/30/07 to: Rogue Galaxy RULES, P.O. Box 13198, Bridgeport, CT 06673-3198. For winners list, send SASE for receipt by 3/30/07 to: Rogue Galaxy WINNERS, P.O. Box 13198, Bridgeport, CT 06673-3198.

Konami may have skipped out on 

bringing the final game in the Game 

Boy Advance Boktai trilogy to the 

United States, but disillusioned series 

fans are likely to forget about their angry 

Internet petitions upon the release of Lunar 

Knights. As a spiritual successor to the Boktai 

series, Lunar Knights aims to resuscitate 

the franchise while simultaneously adding 

several new features to make the core 

gameplay better than ever. 

Take Boktai and Boktai 2’s characteristic 

sun sensor, for instance, which required 

players to expose their GBA cartridges 

to direct sunlight in order to trigger 

in-game effects. While it was a neat 

enough gimmick at first, many felt that 

it often impeded gameplay and presented 

needless complexity. 

In Lunar Knights, the sun sensor is an optional 

element that only comes into play if one of the 

original Boktai games is inserted into the DS’s 

GBA cart slot, and serves as a bonus rather than 

a requirement. Many other improvements have 

been made as well. While gamers can expect 

the same action/RPG/stealth gameplay hybrid 

that defined the Boktai series, Lunar Knights 

adds more depth to each of these components. 

RPG nuts will be pleased by weapon customization 

features and numerous sidequests, sneaky sorts 

will enjoy the simplified and understated stealth 

segments, and as for fans of action games... well, 

how do full-on, ship-in-space shooter levels sound? 

Lunar Knights’s earnest, almost puppy-like efforts at 

pleasing gamers of all breeds seem to be working in 

its favor so far. The end result should satisfy longtime 

Boktai fans and series newcomers alike when it drops 

in February. 

Preview by Sardius 

Light it up! 

Publisher: Publisher: Konami Konami Genre(s): Genre(s): Action/RPG Action/RPG 

Developer: Developer: Kojima Kojima Productions Productions Category: Category: Suntanned Suntanned 

Release Release Date: Date: 2/6/2007 2/6/2007 # # of of Players: Players: 11 

22_PREVIEW_LUNAR KNIGHTS HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED 

C 

M 

Y 

CM 

MY 

CY 

CMY 

K 

®

Platform: Nintendo DS | ESRB: TBA | Publisher: Square Enix 

Developer: Level-5 | Release Date: TBA | Genre: Action RPG 

Category: YES | # Players: 1-4 

This is not something I ever expected to be writing about, 

but in retrospect I shouldn’t be surprised. The DS is crushing 

not just all other portable competition in Japan, but basically 

every other system in the market, period. It’s not doing 

much worse over on this side of the Pacific, so it’s no surprise 

that Square Enix would be willing to green light a project of this 

magnitude for a portable system. 

Not much is known about the game itself yet. Pretty much the 

entire creative team behind the smash hit Dragon Quest VIII is 

returning, including composer Koichi Sugiyama, designer Akira Toriyama, 

series creator Yuji Horii, and Level-5 (with their trademark 

3D cel-shading). Despite this, the game itself is shaping up to be a pretty 

significant departure from anything previously done in the main series. 

Screenshots make it clear that the menu-driven combat style used in 

just about every previous Dragon Quest title is being jettisoned 

in favor of an real-time action system, said to offer wifi 

co-op for up to four players simultaneously. 

Platform: Nintendo Wii | ESRB: TBA | Publisher: Square Enix 

Developer: Genius Sonority Inc. | Release Date: Q2 2007 

Genre: Action RPG | Category: VERY YES | # Players: 1 

Before Nintendo graced the world with Wii, Dragon 

Quest fans in Japan could play a game called Kenshin 

Dragon Quest that let you battle monsters with a swordshaped 

controller and damage enemies by sweeping 

your arm. Now that the Wii’s here, it’s the obvious 

hardware to host a full-blown console game built 

around the same concept. In Dragon Quest Swords 

your remote becomes sword and shield, letting 

you battle it out with enemy monsters in real-time 

action sequences. 

Slash your remote to create a sword-slash in the same 

direction. When monsters close in to attack, hit the A 

button and bring up your shield. Point it in the right direction 

onscreen, and you’ll save yourself from a vicious 

pounding. Enemies too far away for a sword fight? Just 

aim your remote and press B to unleash a powerful blast 

of magic lightning. The first person exploration sounds 

great, and this is definitely a Wii game that’ll appeal to 

people who like to get a workout while they play. 

Previews by Lynxara 

24_PREVIEW_DRAGON QUEST Ix / DRAGON QUEST SWORDS HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED 

© 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. All trademarks are property of their respective owners. 

Fold so A meets B 

TM 

XBOX LIVE 

A 

DISTANCE TEARS FRIENDS APART. 

BRINGS THEM TOGETHER. 

B 

THE NEXT GENERATION 

IS PLAYING WITH FRIENDS 

ON XBOX LIVE. TM 

No matter where your friends 

are, they’re still only a corner 

kick away. Play what you 

want, with whom you want, 

on your terms and your couch. 

Video chat, play, compete, 

gossip, play, love, play. Enjoy. 

xbox.com

Publisher: 2K Games 

Developer: Climax 

Release Date: February 2007 

Genre(s): Action 

Category: Combos set aflame 

# of Players: 1 (4 on PSP) 

Preview by Metalbolt 

“Oh, no! Not another movie game!” was probably the first thought 

you had when looking at this page. Fear not! Ghost Rider (so far) is 

turning out to be a solid game. 

In the vein of Devil May Cry and God of War, Ghost Rider is an 

action beat ‘em up that focuses on outlandish combos. Using his 

fists, chains and shotgun, Ghost Rider puts the smack down with 

plenty of style, and fire. Lots of fire. His head is on fire, after all! 

The other half of the game is filled with fast-paced bike levels. 

These have plenty of obstacles to avoid (via jumping or sliding), 

lots of demons to kill, and of course, more fire. 

There will be plenty of unlockables as well. Never read the 

first issue of Ghost Rider? Now you can. Never read The End 

of Ghost Rider? Get enough points and you can read that too! 

There will also be concept art and interview videos with the 

game developers. There have been rumblings of unlockable 

characters as well, but I won’t ruin that surprise. 

If you’re into Ghost Rider, Combo Orgies, or skulls that are 

set aflame, watch for this sometime in February. 

26_PREVIEW_GHOST RIDER HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED 


FLY AWAY, WIRE. 

FLY AWAY. 

THE NEXT GENERATION IS A WIRELESS WORLD. Stand up 

for freedom and sit down wherever you want. With the Wireless 

Headset, Wireless Racing Wheel with Force Feedback, Wireless 

Controllers, and more, all optimized for the Xbox 360, TM 

you can 

play around while you move around. xbox.com

About Results 

The Midnight Gaming 

Championship is the 

first competition of its 

kind, giving gamers 

the chance to show off 

their skills at a variety 

of games for a chance 

to win cash and prizes. 

MGC is the brainchild of 

Jeff Gross, the President 

and founder of the Video 

Gamers League. VGL is one 

of the largest video game 

leagues in the country and has put 

together some of the best competitions 

to date. Players of all skill levels are encouraged to come 

out and compete. 

McDonald’s was the title sponsor of MGC, along with 

a who’s who of well-known companies like Coca Cola, 

G4TV, and Best Buy. MGC featured Tekken 5, Guitar Hero, 

and NCAA 07 competitions on the PS2. The qualifiers took 

place over nine weeks, with the top twenty-four winners 

going forward to the Championship. The Adrenaline 

Gaming Zone, through a close relationship with Rockstar 

Games, was able to add Rockstar Games Presents Table 

Tennis to the semi-final tournament. There was an open 

competition for anyone who wanted to compete at the 

finals, which were held in the private Diamond Club at 

Ameriquest Field. 

The sponsors put up the following prizes for champions: 

• a $1,000 Best Buy Gift Card 

• an Xbox 360, courtesy of GameZnFlix 

• a Sony PSP, courtesy of Best Buy 

• a $100 Arch Card, courtesy 

of McDonald’s 

• $500 cash, courtesy of 

McDonald’s 

• The Guitar Hero 

champion received a 

guitar autographed by 

the GH development 

team, courtesy of Red 

Octane 

• One lucky winner won 

a trip to appear 

on G4TV’s 

Attack 

of the 

Show 

Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis 

Don’t sell this game short, or you’ll miss out on one of the most addictive games for 

the Xbox 360. The competition used a college basketball-type elimination bracket of 

sixteen players, each going for a best two out of three wins in order to advance. The 

winner from the previous week’s tournament at the semifinals suffered a surprise 

defeat to F-minus, who moved on to the finals to face “puppy,” an eight-year-old girl 

who’s so good that it was scary. Once F-minus figured out puppy’s strategy he made 

pretty quick work of her, though, and took the title for that game. His winnings included 

apparel and a $100 Best Buy card from Rockstar Games. Adrenaline Gaming Zone added a 

bonus Game Face faceplate for the Xbox 360 courtesy of Nyko Technologies. 

Tekken 5 

Dozens of players turned out for Tekken, including some of the best 

players in the world like Hatman and Unkonkable. The tournament 

was speechless when new players like Crow, Jinmaster and DJ 

Kor pulled off completely new moves. The final match was a 

“best of seven” brawlfest. Christopher Villarreal, aka Crow, 

won the championship undefeated by spanking Rene Maistry, 

aka DJ Kor, to claim his $2500 in cash and prizes. 

Guitar Hero 

A lot of the players in the finals, like Forge Fanatic, were 

actually real-life musicians, and it showed. The final 

battle was between JW McNay, aka JW2, and 

Kevin Creadick, Musa, playing to songs like “No 

One Knows” on Expert difficulty. The bass was 

thumping and the crowd was going like it was 

a concert. JW2 walked away the victor, with 

the $2500 in cash and prizes including the 

autographed Guitar Hero controller. 

NCAA 07 Football 

NCAA 07 Football: This came in strong with a 

huge following of dedicated gamers. Games were 

long and full of trash talk from the competitors. 

Vistoth Am, aka The Punisher, took home the 

big prize of $2500 in cash and prizes after 

going undefeated and 

besting runner-up 

JimmyDee. 

a feature by Vernon Ross of www.agzonline.com 

the midnight gaming championship 

28_FEATURE_TOURNAMENTING: THE MGC HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED 

ADD HD DVD TO YOUR XBOX 360. TM 

THEN ADD SALT TO YOUR POPCORN. 

King Kong on HD DVD and 

Universal Media Remote included 

for a limited time. 

THE NEXT GENERATION IS A MORE BEAUTIFUL MOVIE. Plug in 

and tune everything else out with the Xbox 360 TM 

HD DVD Player. 

Experience six times the resolution of DVD at up to 1080p and up to 

six times the disbelief, for one clearly affordable price. xbox.com 

© 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. All trademarks are property of 

their respective owners. © 2006 Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.

REVIEW 

24: Agent Down is the second adventure based on 

Fox’s hit television series. In the game, CTU Los 

Angeles has been raided by a group of terrorists. 

They barricade themselves in the building, 

and threaten to start killing hostages if anyone 

attempts to come in. Now, it’s up to Jack and the 

remaining agents to save the day. 

Like the first title, Agent Down is a mixture 

of action and puzzles, the latter of which are 

carefully woven into the storyline. Most of the 

game takes place in Infiltrate mode, where Jack 

runs around the CTU building freeing hostages, 

taking out the bad guys and wreaking havoc to 

secure the safety of his fellow agents. He must 

quietly go about his missions without prompting 

surrounding terrorists to raise the alarm, resulting 

in a Metal Gear-esque feel to the gameplay. 

Jack has access to weapons like dart guns and 

knives, but 

the most 

cleverly 

used item 

is the Decoy. It can be planted in one spot while he moves away. Activate it, and a terrorist guard 

will go searching in that direction. Then Jack can sneak up on the guard or bypass him altogether. 

If you take the guard out, you can then drag his body somewhere less visible. You can call on 

Curtis to provide sniper cover, and take out enemies before they know 

what hit them. Opportunities like these bring amazing depth to the 

game, because you can choose how to tackle each level. 

When Jack needs to pick locks, defuse bombs, or hack computers, 

you begin an appropriate puzzle-like mini-game. A few of these 

include stopping a rotating light on a specific, also rotating target. 

It’s something like a roulette wheel with concentric wheels inside of 

it, each moving faster. There’s one 

where you have to keep an electric 

charge “afloat” over a certain 

distance. Defusing bombs is a 

matter of pushing pins into holes. 

All of them are new and challenging, just like the main game. 

The enemies are much smarter this time around and become very 

aggressive when the alarm level goes up. They will hunt you down as 

soon as they see a fallen partner, or until the threat level goes down. It’s 

important to stay cool and proceed with caution without taking too long. 

While each level emphasizes stealth action, it’s also timed. 

24: Agent Down has twenty-four total missions of well-designed action 

that clearly surpasses the first 24 

mobile title. The game flows from 

action to mini-game exceptionally 

well, and the simple one-thumb 

controls are responsive and 

intuitive. Like its source material, 

the game’s drama is constant. You’ll 

be hard-pressed to put it down until 

you’ve reached the conclusion. 

30_MOBILE GAMING 

Publisher: I-play 

Developer: I-play 

Release Date: Now 

Genre: The Jack... 

Category: Bauer Show! 

# of Players: 1 4.5 of 5 



EXPRESS YOURSELF THE WAY NATURE INTENDED. 

WITH YOUR FACE. 

THE NEXT GENERATION IS SEEING FRIENDS FROM MILES AWAY. The 

future of gaming is here, and it looks like your buddy Keith. Video chat with 

family. Personalize your gamer picture. Practice your smirks. With the 

Xbox Live TM 

Vision Camera, those closest to you get even closer. xbox.com

The first Centipede for mobiles was marred by slowdown and bad control. Fortunately, 

an updated version is now in the works, with an eye toward correcting the issues of the 

previous version. 

Purists will be glad to know that Glu has been diligently keeping the look and feel of the 

original while improving performance. Most of the sounds have been kept intact and the 

controls, while still lacking a trackball, feel comfortable and are suitably responsive. 

One of the big features of the new version is the ability to customize the appearance of 

your game with a variety of graphical themes. While you can play the game in its arcade 

original form, you can also choose to play arcade-quality Centipede with a modern 

graphical skin on it. The themes offered include “Contempo,” of what the game might look 

like if it were created today, and “Robo,” which gives it a futuristic sci-fi look. 

The other big feature is a new “power-up” option. After selecting the theme of your 

choice, you can choose to play the game with new weapon types added. These additions 

really enhance the classic shooter in a great way. You 

can pick up shooter mainstays like lasers, bombs, 

three-way shots and shields, just to name a few. 

Centipede is fun, but Centipede with modern powerups 

is even better. 

Publisher: Glu 

Developer: Glu 

Release Date: Q1 2007 

Genre: Arcade 

Category: Retro Remake 


Fight Night Round 3 is EA’s boxing simulation powerhouse that features real-life worldranked 

boxers going mano a mano. Included are greats like Oscar De La Hoya and Roy Jones 

Jr., but you’ll also find other boxers like Arturo Gatti and Mickey Ward that have had big 

rivalries throughout the years. 

The two modes available are Quick Fight and Career, where you can use a customized boxer 

to fight your way through three circuits. You can give your boxer a name, skin tone and colors. You can then add points to attributes like 

Power, Stamina, Heart and Speed to build a fighter that fits your style. Before matches, you can opt to train and this increases or decreases 

the point values of the different attributes. Training takes the form of three types of mini-games and each awards different point values, so 

you’ll need to decide what is important to you. For instance, if you choose Weight Lifting, you can increase power but at the cost of speed. 

For controls, you primarily use the d-pad, which is good for beginners. With the keypad, you can access extra punches. Your fighter can 

move forward or back, and by pressing up or down, high and low versions of punching and blocking are available. You can taunt or tie-up 

the opposing fighter to replenish stamina, or use an illegal head-butt that can give you a huge advantage or cause a disqualification. If you 

happen to get knocked down, another sort of mini-game ensues where you must move a cursor over a target before the 10-count ends. In 

the early going it’s not very difficult but after a couple of knockdowns, your aim can be completely off. 

The fighting is fine-tuned so that you can’t just button mash your way through a match. You must set 

up strong punches with jabs, and good combos aren’t necessarily obvious. The opponent intelligently 

counters your attacks from very early on in the rankings. Reaching the top spot is going to take some 

blood, sweat and tears. 

32_MOBILE GAMING 

The new version of Centipede won’t be available 

until Q1 2007 at the earliest, and it’s good to finally 

see a worthy version of this classic game ready for download. Given that arcade classics tend to do well 

on the download charts, and that this version maintains the core Centipede experience while offering a 

variety of enhancements, Glu may have the next big mobile hit on its hands. 

Fight Night Round 3 has excellent 3D graphics, with a wide range of motion for each boxer. The game’s 

ambience is dazzlingly console-authentic, with superior music, cut-scenes, sound effects, and blowby-blow 

commentary onboard. The controls do take some getting used to, but your reward is a great 

mobile boxing experience. 

Publisher: EA 

Developer: EA 

Release Date: Now 

Genre: Boxing 

Category: Fight it out! 


PREVIEW 

4 of 5 

REVIEW 

HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED

Intro by: Daniel Kayser of GameTrailers.com 

“What an awesome time to be a 

gamer!” I’ve been hearing that phrase 

a lot lately, and with good reason. The 

Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 

360 are ushering in the next generation 

of gaming while a plethora of PC 

and portable games along with the 

resurgence of retro gaming are adding 

tons of variety (and plenty of spice) to 

the budding culture of video games. 

But how did we get here? What has 

helped define what a “great game” 

really is over the years? How will 

inspirations of the past spark the 

games of the future? 

All of us here at HGM are, well, 

Hardcore gamers. We’ve grown 

up playing games that we not only 

remember, but cherish. I’m talking 

about games that made us fall 

in love with an industry very few 

believed in while instilling a lifelong 

appreciation for the art of 

interactive entertainment. 

In honor of this excellent 

time in gaming 

history, we at 

HGM decided to 

take a hard look 

back at the games 

that inspired us as 

individuals. Of course 

the Marios, Zeldas, and 

Final Fantasies of the world all have 

a place in our hearts and on our lists 

of personal favorites, but we wanted 

to compile a sampling of games that 

exist somewhere between the known 

34_COVER STORY_RETRO A GO-GO 

and the unknown. Somewhere between 

“Super Star” status and “One Hit 

Wonder.” Games that you may or may 

not remember (largely based on your 

age), but games that you should know 

since they impacted the industry in one 

form or another. While we all revel in 

the current state of gaming goodness, 

here’s our invitation to whip up a warm 

cup of nostalgia and enjoy this 

look back at some of 

HGM’s favorite Hardcore 

Classics. 


Building Blocks 

If It’s Wireless, Put It Down 

All right. That’s enough. 

Shut the computer off. Stop grinding your pally; the guild 

can last for a few hours without you. Shut off the 360; 

Locusts will have to remain unchainsawed for the time 

being. Don’t log onto your favorite forum, either. You 

aren’t actually going to win that argument you’re having 

about Final Fantasy 7, or about the PS3 and whether or 

not it has the ability or even the right to survive. Stop 

worrying about how you’re going to afford an HDTV, 

or whether or not Oblivion sucked, or whatever your 

particular, unique gamer war happens to be. 

(You know what a gamer war is. Every one of you has one. 

It’s that one topic, that one thorn in your side, that burr 

in your bonnet that always gets you into those long online 

arguments. You could be in a terminal coma and you’d 

jump up and get into a thread on the topic. If you’re 

voluntarily reading this magazine in the first place, no 

matter what else you have in your life, you have a gamer 

war. Forget it. It does not matter today. (Or any day, 

really, if we’re going to be honest about it.) Put it away.) 

Go to the attic, or the basement, or the dusty corner 

of your game room. Open the box where you put 

your childhood, and clear the cobwebs away. Ditch 

the Weebles, the denim jacket, and the Motley Crue 

cassettes; they’re incidental to the process. We’re after 

the old hardware. 

(If you’re too young to have an old console, then go 

buy a Flashback or something. We’ll wait. You can 

coast on our nostalgia.) 

Remember these controllers? Remember blowing on 

the cartridges, or seeing something ridiculous like 

ActRaiser and thinking this was as good as graphics could 

get? Remember blast processing, fighting Slimes outside 

Brecconary, that stupid reset trick on 

X-Men for the Genesis, or getting your 

teeth kicked in by Zelda’s second 

quest? 

Of course you do. 


by: Wanderer 

Old Memories At Bold New Prices 

It’s never been easier to pick up old games than it is right now. 

Between eBay, arcade compliations, the Xbox Live Marketplace, 

the Wii Shop Channel, the PlayStation Store, abandonware, 

GameTap, emulators, and DOSBox, you could be up to your 

eyeballs in old games in the time it takes you to read the rest of 

this article. It’s weird, but at a point in time where we’re talking 

at tiresome length about the next generation, we’re spending a 

lot of time revisiting the past. 

A cynic could note at this point that half the reason we’re doing 

so is because it’s cost-effective, and because game companies 

seem to have this thing about making us pay twice or more for 

the same title. Fortunately, I am not that cynic right now. 

Still, you can’t deny it. Everyone is cashing in on nostalgia right 

now, so we figured it was our turn. 

We didn’t want to do a top ten, though, or some other ridiculous 

and artificial ranking article. Oh, sure, the temptation was there; 

the temptation is always there, to go on autopilot and churn out 

the Top One Hundred Old Games That If You Have Not Played, 

You Are A Worthless Smear of Protein Who Should Turn His Gamer 

Card In To His Local Union Representative, Never Mind The Fact 

That Half Of Them Go For Two Hundred Dollars or More on eBay. 

We avoid that temptation, most of the time, because that’s 

extremely stupid. All those articles seem to be predicated on the 

false premise that there’s one way and one road to being, dare I 

even say it, a hardcore gamer; that if you don’t like this and this 

and this, you don’t get into the club. That’s crap. It’s been crap 

since second one on day one. If anyone tells you otherwise, tell 

them the same. 

This isn’t the top ten, the top hundred, or the top anything. It’s 

what we like, what we decided to talk about, and why. 

RETRO A GO-GO_COVER STORY_35

The Hardcore Gamer Hall of Fame 

We sat down and had an argument about this, and eventually, 

it was resolved by dint of the fact that some of us are more 

important than others. 

These are the most influential, important, historic, or just plain 

good games we could think of. They’re the games we’re still 

Super Mario Bros. 

PLATFORM: NES 

YEAR: 1985 

We’re all here 

because of 

this, moreso 

than anything 

else. SMB is 

the focus point 

that everything 

comes from. As 

the pack-in game 

with the NES, 

it contributed mightily to rescuing the entire 

video game industry from the post-Atari crash. 

Even more importantly, Super Mario Bros. is 

the first console game with an ending. 

In the 8-bit era, it touched off a relentless 

wave of sidescrolling 

platformers. In the 

16-bit era, SMB’s 

sequels led directly 

to the mascot 

explosion. Even now, 

any time you see a 

little cute thing with 

an enormous 

attitude 

problem 

jumping over 

a bottomless 

cliff, it’s 

because Mario 

got there and 

did that first. 

Street Fighter II 

PLATFORM: Arcade 

YEAR: 1991 

Doom 

PLATFORM: PC 

YEAR: 1993 

Capcom has spent a lot of time recently trying to make sure that 

anyone who owns a gaming platform has a copy of Street Fighter II 

(and a couple of our staffers have three or more), since it celebrated its 

fifteenth anniversary this year. This, on top of the multiple releases the 

game’s already enjoyed on the SNES, 

Genesis, PSOne, Dreamcast, PS2, 

Xbox, 3DO, and some select models of 

toaster oven, is getting a little silly. 

It wasn’t the 

first FPS. It 

wasn’t even 

the first 

FPS from id 

Software. It 

was, however, 

the game that 

put the FPS 

on the map, 

with everything that comes with it. Without 

Doom, we wouldn’t have half the games that 

make up the gaming landscape now, from 

Half-Life (and thus Counterstrike) to Halo. 

We also wouldn’t have an entire style of 

gaming. Doom embodies the balls-to-the-wall 

shoot-’em-up in a way that very few games 

in any genre manage to pull off. It’s pure 

adrenaline-fueled twitch gaming, and it has 

no real equal. Its recent rerelease on Xbox 

Live Arcade just reinforced the point. 

Perhaps most importantly, though, Doom 

taught us a very important lesson that is still 

relevant and 

wholesome 

to this day: 

chainsaws 

rule. Find 

some meat! 

Of course, they couldn’t have gotten 

away with this for so long if they 

didn’t have something special on 

their hands. Street Fighter II started 

playing, either by themselves or through the hundreds of games 

they’ve influenced since then. 

If we had giant, shiny gold trophies to give out, these are the 

games we’d give them to. They’re the building blocks of gaming. 

Respect them. 

Zork 

PLATFORM: PC 

YEAR: 1979 

“You are about 

to be eaten by 

a grue” is one 

of those gamer 

in-jokes that 

virtually everyone 

recognizes. 

If we should 

ever be driven 

underground by a violently dystopian world 

government and be forced to unite into a 

ragtag but determined rebel force, “You are 

about to be eaten by a grue” will be the 

secret phrase that lets you into the hideout. 

Like Doom, Zork wasn’t the first game in 

its genre (and Colossal Cave Adventure is 

pretty fun in its own right), but it set a lot 

of balls rolling nonetheless. It started off the 

interactive fiction genre, it led directly to 

modern adventure games, and it provided 

us all with hours of entertainment being 

devoured by grues. It seems a little less 

influential these days, now that the entire 

meaning of the phrase “adventure game” has 

changed so 

drastically, but 

that doesn’t 

diminish 

Zork’s 

importance 

at all. 

the 16-bit fighter explosion, which in turn spawned the most enduring 

and fervent fanbase in the industry. It doesn’t hurt that SF2 itself, in 

several of its iterations, is one of the most strategic games out there, 

with people who’ve spent a decade mastering it. It not only kickstarted 

a genre, but it’s got more staying power than most games can even 

dream of. 

By the way, this needs to be said: Capcom. Street Fighter 4. Now, 

please. Hire whoever you have to. 

The Legend of Zelda 

PLATFORM: NES 

YEAR: 1987 

Anecdotally, Shigeru Miyamoto based the first Legend of Zelda on 

the experiences he had exploring the fields and caves outside Kyoto 

as a kid. Along those same lines, every Zelda game since the first one 

has provided the player with a vast playground to explore, with little 

secrets and side passages to find almost everywhere you look. 

Tetris 

PLATFORM: PC 

YEAR: 1985 

This is what 

got your mom 

interested in 

video games. 

Maybe she tried 

a couple of 

Mario games 

first, but the 

moment she saw 

those blocks 

falling, she was hooked. She may even still 

be hooked to this day. 

Tetris is also the game that put the Game Boy 

on the map, beginning Nintendo’s dominance 

of the portable gaming industry. It started 

an argument between Tengen and Nintendo 

that ended with Tengen releasing its games 

on those characteristic black cartridges that 

looked like something out of 2001. 

More importantly, it started a seventeenyears-and-counting 

trend of not only showing 

up on any platform with buttons on it, but 

inspiring dozens of falling-block puzzle 

games. Some of them have been innovative 

and great in their own right, but few manage 

to live up to the simple genius of the 

original, and few versions of the original are 

as good as the version that shipped with the 

original Game Boy. At this point, Tetris will 

probably 

be around 

for as 

long as 

humankind 

has thumbs 

to play it 

with. 

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Zelda is a fairly obvious candidate 

for an article like this just on its 

fanbase. A modern Zelda game 

occupies a unique niche as How 

You Do This Kind of Thing; almost 

everything it does (barring the 

occasional misfire; Miyamoto’s only 

human, after all) is how things ought 

to work, from fighting to exploration 

to dungeon and setting design. If 

every game that came along was 

Wizardry 

PLATFORM: Apple ][ 

YEAR: 1981 

By the time you reach the end of your life as 

a gamer, you will have explored something 

like five hundred thousand dungeons, 

according to HGM’s Bureau of Impressive- 

Sounding Statistics That We Just Made Up. 

Wizardry started this tradition off with the 

Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, and 

in so doing, basically created what we now 

know as a computer RPG. 

Wizardry started many things that we now 

take for granted, from dungeon delving to 

character creation right down to something 

as simple as hit points. You can see its stamp 

on every CRPG that’s come out since 1981, 

clear as 

day, no 

matter 

where that 

CRPG was 

developed. 

Wizardry 

influenced 

them all. 

half 

as 

polished as a Zelda game, we would not be able to get anything done. 

More importantly, Zelda’s influence wouldn’t really show up in other 

games until the last generation. If you sit down and think about it, 

The Legend of Zelda is the first “sandbox” game; it allows you to go 

wherever you want, and you only need to follow what story it possesses 

if you feel like doing it at the time. Whenever you find yourself set 

down in the middle of a massive, persistent world, you are, in some 

way, back in Miyamoto’s pocket garden. 

Metroid 

PLATFORM: NES 

YEAR: 1993 

Metroid arguably 

has as much of a 

claim to being the 

first “sandbox” 

game as The 

Legend of Zelda, 

if not more. The 

only thing keeping 

it from getting 

that position is that it’s essentially meant to 

be somewhat more linear than Zelda, and 

because it’s had a different effect on the 

games that came after it. 

It’s a fairly standard gameplay trope at 

this point. You start out at the entrance to 

some kind of mazelike area — a dungeon, 

a mansion, an underground network, you 

name it — with no real abilities to speak of. 

Everywhere you go, you find obstacles you 

aren’t quite equipped to circumvent yet. As 

you explore, though, you’ll find well-guarded 

items, bits of equipment, or tools that’ll 

allow you to overcome what’s standing in 

your way. Get a little bit further in, and 

you’ll find more obstacles, and more tools 

with which to overcome them. 

This pattern’s been repeated in countless 

games at this point, but Metroid, in many 

ways, got there first. It provided a gameplay 

model that modern action games are still 

using today. The real tragedy here is not 

only that Gunpei Yokoi died before he could 

have created more 

classic Metroid 

games, but that 

his name isn’t as 

well-known as 

Miyamoto’s. 


Editor Ramblings About Old-Ass Games 

Besides the universally loved classics with which Wanderer just 

entertained you, there are tons and tons of other crusty old games 

which you folks may have never heard of, or perhaps never realized 

were any good. 

Sardius , s Picks 

Duck Tales 

PLATFORM: NES 

YEAR: 1990 

It’s based on a licensed 

property, it’s almost 

insultingly easy, and you 

can finish it in about ten 

minutes if you know what 

you’re doing. It’s also one 

of the best platformers 

to ever be released on 

the NES, which had no shortage of impressive 

sidescrollers to begin with. While Duck Tales isn’t 

a difficult game in the least, the gameplay is fun 

enough to make it worth playing through multiple 

times, and it’s insanely fun to speedrun. There’s 

also multiple endings, 

numerous gameplay 

subtleties, and hidden areas 

galore. All that aside, who 

doesn’t like Scrooge McDuck? 

A heartless dick, that’s who. 

Don’t be a heartless dick. 

Play Duck Tales. 

Bionic Commando 

PLATFORM: NES 

YEAR: 1988 

This is the perfect game. Bionic 

Commando takes a number of 

platformer conventions and forces 

you to examine them from an 

all-new perspective thanks to 

the implementation of what, at first, seems to be a 

liability. Your character cannot jump, and can only 

climb platforms and cross gaps by swinging off of 

background objects with a grappling hook. This turns 

out to be a crazy effective mechanic that breathes 

life into what would otherwise be a fairly generic 

experience. In essence, Bionic Commando takes a fun 

genre and makes it more fun in a unique way that has 

never been fully duplicated 

since. Capcom? Please 

don’t ever remake Bionic 

Commando. You got it right 

the first time, and if Bionic 

Commando: Streetwise is 

ever announced, there will 

be murder. 

Therefore, we thought it’d be a grand idea to give each of our editors 

the green light to extol endlessly about what games really turned them 

on back in the day. Then we thought better of it and limited them to 

five games each. We’re not so dumb, see? 

Ghostbusters 

PLATFORM: Genesis 

YEAR: 1990 

Here’s a pick I don’t 

expect anyone to agree 

with. Screw you guys, 

though. I love this game. 

The Ghostbusters 

license may be totally 

superfluous here (aside from allowing for some 

really goofy-looking renditions of Ray, Peter, and 

Egon... sorry, Winston fans, Japan apparently forgot 

black people existed in 1990), but the game itself 

is a brilliant, underrated platformer developed in 

secret by Compile, the creators of the Puyo Puyo 

series and classic shooters like Zanac and Blazing 

Lazers. Sometimes silly, other times inexplicable, 

this is a game that not only stands tall as the best 

Ghostbusters game ever 

made (though that’s not much 

of an achievement), it’s also 

an unforgettably bizarre 

adventure you won’t regret 

playing through. 

Money Puzzle 

Exchanger 

PLATFORM: Neo Geo 

YEAR: 1997 

Magical Drop III? Pssssh. 

This is by far the best 

grab’n-throw’n-match 

puzzler on the Neo Geo. 

Money Puzzle Exchanger 

takes Magical Drop’s basic 

doodad-matching premise 

and adds in a dash of math to up the challenge and 

make for a more addictive experience. The idea: 

match up a certain number of like-faced coins and 

they will disappear and leave behind a single coin 

of a higher denomination. With some planning, you 

can create big combos to put the hurt on a second 

player or computer opponent. 

I could do without the 

played-out anime motif, but 

otherwise, you won’t find a 

better competitive puzzler on 

the Neo or elsewhere. 

Snatcher 

PLATFORM: 

Sega CD 

YEAR: 1994 

Before Hideo Kojima went all 

crazy with the Metal Gear 

Solid series, he directed 

a text-based cyberpunk 

adventure game called 

Snatcher. The enhanced Sega 

CD port of Snatcher is actually 

one of the best things the 

United States never realized 

it had; compared to previous 

Japan-only versions, Sega CD 

Snatcher has extra scenes and 

a number of additions to its 

plot. Of course, it’s a Sega CD 

game, so nobody ever played 

it. It’s never too late to pay 

upwards of $100 for a copy on 

eBay, though! Come on, you’ll 

get a great localization by 

Metal Gear Solid’s translator, 

tense light gun shooting 

sequences, and a timid 

miniature Metal Gear sidekick 

for your money. Trust me, it’s 

totally worth it. 

T & C Surf 

II: Thrilla , s 

Surfari 

PLATFORM: NES 

YEAR: 1992 

Donkey Kong Jr. made it 

fun to play as an ape, but 

T & C Surf II: Thrilla’s 

Surfari makes it cool. 

The game is the sequel 

to a skateboard and 

surfing combo cartridge 

featuring a witch doctor 

and a gorilla. Here, those 

characters star in a plot 

that finds the witch doctor 

kidnapping Thrilla’s bikiniclad 

girlfriend. To save her, 

Thrilla must skate and surf 

through numerous jungle 

and desert stages, with 

stops along the way to 

battle boss monsters like 

scorpions and a giant shark. 

Mini-games provide an 

opportunity to swap tokens 

for extra lives, in between 

fast and frantic stages 

that test your reflexes and 

fortitude to their limits. 

Thrilla’s adventure will 

never be remembered 

as one of the system’s 

first-rate classics, but it 

definitely warrants a few 

hours of your time. 

Captain Skyhawk 

PLATFORM: NES 

YEAR: 1990 

Before it was known 

for platform titles 

starring bears and 

birds, piñatas or 

secret agents, Rare 

produced a lot of 

unique titles for the 

NES. They really 

showcased the 

developer’s ability to work within numerous genres. 

In Captain Skyhawk, you pilot a fighter jet as you 

soar through one mission after another, first bombing 

the heck out of alien outposts or delivering supplies 

to the resistance force in a down-to-earth isometric 

overhead perspective, then taking it straight to the 

high skies for air duels that feel like they’re straight 

out of Top Gun. Action comes fast and furious and 

there’s an amazing sense of speed. Simplistic visuals 

grow on you by the 

time you complete 

the first stage, until 

you’ll do everything 

in your power to see 

the unexpectedly 

timeless adventure 

through to its 

conclusion. 

Pinball Quest 

PLATFORM: NES 

YEAR: 1990 

The NES featured its 

fair share of pinball 

titles, but none of them 

provided me with more 

entertainment than 

Pinball Quest. The main 

attraction is arguably 

the quest mode. You 

progress from one 

pinball table to the next, breaking apart tombstones 

and battling monsters with stops in between to 

visit shops. Completing the last of the tables 

takes superhuman focus and endurance, since the 

challenge is significant and making mistakes causes 

you to drop back to a previous table. If the quest 

mode isn’t your thing, though, there also are themed 

tables for multiple players. These include golf and 

a carnival setting, plus 

a party-themed area. 

Alone or with friends, 

Pinball Quest provides 

an engaging pinball 

experience that many 

more recent titles in 

the limited genre have 

yet to capture. 

HonestGamer , s Picks 

Astyanax 

PLATFORM: NES 

YEAR: 1990 

Castlevania had its 

gothic atmosphere. 

Ninja Gaiden had 

cutscenes that told 

a riveting story. 

Astyanax has both, 

with visual polish 

and an atmospheric 

soundtrack throughout. Saving the princess Rosebud 

means venturing deep into one of the darkest worlds 

that the NES ever featured, with swords and axes 

your only defense against dragon-riding monsters 

that serve a dark sorcerer. The highlights include 

an infuriating trip through a swampland where 

monsters leap from the murky depths, capped off 

by a fight with a manticore. You’ll have to use every 

item upgrade to its fullest and have nerves of steel 

to reach the final encounters. Fortunately, less 

experienced gamers can make use of a stage select 

code that’s floating 

around the Internet. 

Doing so makes it 

delightfully simple to 

enjoy Astyanax in its 

thoroughly satisfying 

entirety. 

Swords & Serpents 

PLATFORM: NES 

YEAR: 1990 

There are plenty of 

compelling role-playing 

games on the NES, if 

you’re willing to look 

past the blocky graphics 

to become immersed 

in the adventure. 

Swords & Serpents is 

distinctive because such 

accommodations hardly seem necessary. It takes place 

from a surprisingly proficient first-person perspective 

that allows you to pass from one screen to the next, 

never knowing whether an enemy or a powerful 

artifact lurks around the next corner. Combat is 

seamlessly integrated, and progresses swiftly. Up 

to four players can play together, hacking at limbs 

as spiders, orcs, soldiers and more try to cut your 

adventure short. There 

are numerous floors to 

explore on a massive 

tower, making this one 

of the best dungeon 

crawlers around (from 

any gaming era) if you 

can find a buddy to 

share the adventure. 

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Lynxara , s Picks 

Arcana 

PLATFORM: SNES 

YEAR: 1992 

It’s not the most famous SNES RPG, but Arcana sticks out as 

a massive departure in style from most other console RPGs 

of its vintage. It was a first-person dungeon crawler with 

a battle system that really forced you to pay attention to 

more than making your damage numbers bigger. 

ToeJam & Earl 


YEAR: 1992 

In Arcana, human characters were governed by the typical 

RPG laws of the day: HP and MP depleted in battle until 

you healed or died. The twist is that you always had a spirit 

character in your party of four who could recover MP and 

HP whenever you took a step. How far into the dungeon did 

you dare explore before surfacing? Losing a single character 

meant game over, so every step forward courted disaster. 

Playing Arcana was thrillingly nerve-wracking, and beating 

the game felt like an enormous accomplishment. 

ToeJam & Earl is the deeply surreal and satirical 

tale of two lost, funky aliens who crash-landed on 

a dangerously insane planet called Earth. Playing as 

Earl or ToeJam (or together with a friend), you need 

to find the pieces of their spaceship to escape. The pieces are scattered across twentyfive 

dangerous levels infested with violently annoying Earthlings. Gather presents to 

defeat or outrun them. Be careful what you open; some presents are trapped. 

Trog 


YEAR: 1990 

What’s amazing about this game is that it just never 

gets old. The random levels meant you never really got 

the same experience twice. Even if you beat it, it was 

always tempting to pick the game up and see if you 

could manage it again. And again. And... 

... nine pieces already, I’ll finish it in no time, just one 

more level... 

Trog was a four-player spin on the old Pac-Man 

genre of “maze”-type games. It had two versions, 

but the one covered here is one where you 

controlled one of four dinosaurs that traveled 

a maze, collecting eggs and power-ups while 

avoiding hazards. The eponymous Trog is a race of cavemen who intend to catch and 

eat you. Collect eggs, clear level, repeat until game is finished. Trog sported unusual 

“PLAYmation!” graphics that were digitized claymation models, and really stood out from 

the typical arcade fare. 

Trying to emulate Trog to recapture the experience is pointless, 

because it was the social aspect that made Trog sing. How a 

given group of players would interact was totally unpredictable. 

A game of Trog could turn into an organized anti-caveman 

effort, or a festival of backstabbing and skullduggery. You never 

knew what would happen until you got to the arcade. 

Kirby , s Dream Land 

PLATFORM: Game Boy 

YEAR: 1992 

The original Game Boy 

was a terrible system, 

with ugly graphics 

and tinny sounds. 

Even if you owned 

one, you knew it. If 

you were tempted 

to buy a Game Gear, 

it’s because you knew 

just how ugly and 

terrible most of your Game Boy games were. It’s 

a miracle that any good Game Boy games exist, 

and Kirby’s Dream Land is nothing less than an 

immaculate conception. 

This is a stellar 2D platformer from start to finish, 

with wonderfully tight controls, catchy music, 

and surprisingly pleasant graphics. Even on the 

ugly old creamed-spinach screen, watching 

Kirby bounce and drift through his dreamy world 

of forests and cloud 

castles was fun. While 

the game itself is a bit 

short and easy, Kirby’s 

plethora of unusual 

moves made for a 

unique and memorable 

platforming experience. 

Excitebike 

PLATFORM: NES 

YEAR: 1985 

This game is pure 

zen. It is like the 

NES spewing up a 

perfectly-arranged 

rock garden, with stark 

pixels forming lines of 

feng shui that conform 

to the contours of 

thought and impulse. 

Also, it’s fun! 

Excitebike is a motocross-themed racer. You can 

play against CPU opponents or do time trials, but 

the gameplay always prioritizes clearing tracks 

very quickly. Go too fast and your bike overheats, 

so you’ll start wiping out on jumps, which costs 

you time. Each challenge was about finding the 

way to master the track and get a good time. 

It was also one of those games with controls so 

simple and perfect that anybody could pick it up 

and start playing it. 

One button makes you 

go faster, the other 

slows you down, and 

the D-Pad moves your 

bike around. The 

stark simplicity made 

mastering Excitebike 

a surprising challenge. 

Aladdin 


YEAR: 1993 

While it seems 

like good licensed 

games can be 

counted on 

the fingers of 

one foot, the 

Genesis version 

of Aladdin was 

one of the best 

action platformers of its time. Loosely following 

the movie, Aladdin ran through Agrabah and its 

surroundings armed with throwing apples and a 

good, sharp scimitar. Aside from being a really 

fun romp, the exceptionally smooth animations 

were straight from the Disney studio that 

made the movie, filled with lots of detail and 

personality. Running around the levels swiping 

Aladdin’s sword at baddies was a good time, of 

course, but the sheer volume and smoothness 

of the animation (on a Genesis cart!) was what 

really sold the 

game. The clever 

level design 

filled with tons 

of background 

gags just sealed 

Aladdin’s place as 

a Genesis classic. 

Earthworm Jim 

PLATFORM: Sega CD 

YEAR: 1995 

The ancient 

conundrum, 

“What would 

happen if you 

gave a worm a 

powered suit and 

a blaster?” was 

finally answered 

by Shiny’s brilliant 

run & gun platformer. It turns out that the result 

is one of the craziest, funniest, nails-tough action 

shooters around, with some of the best animation 

the Genesis could produce. Jim launched cows, 

fought Evil the Cat in Heck, defeated a goldfish, 

rescued Princess What’s-Her-Name, walked a 

dog through a meteor storm, and blasted the 

living crap out of everything that moved. While 

Earthworm Jim spawned a sequel and cartoon 

show, the original game was never topped, 

although it was perfected on the Sega CD thanks 

to new levels, an underutilized new gun, and 

vastly improved 

audio. Plus it 

taught the very 

important life 

lesson we ignore 

at our peril 

— watch out for 

flying cows. 



James , s Picks 

The Adventures of Lolo 1-3 

PLATFORM: NES 

YEAR: 1989-1991 

The single-screen puzzler used to be a common genre, 

requiring a near-defenseless character to run around dozens 

of levels avoiding hazards, pushing blocks, and using what 

meager powers s/he had to avoid death and the inevitable 

resetting of everything in the room back to its starting 

point. The Lolo games were 

prime examples of this, although they used an overhead 

rather than the more common side view. Each room had a 

number of heart tiles for Lolo to collect, all while avoiding 

monsters and the deadly gaze of the Medusa statues, and 

when they were all collected a treasure chest would open. 

Getting the chest destroyed all the monsters and opened 

the door to the next level, usually accompanied by a cry 

of “Finally!” and a small party. Lolo was fun, brilliant, and 

brutally tough in the best possible way. 

Milon , s Secret Castle 

PLATFORM: NES 

YEAR: 1986 

Everyone likes secrets. They’re fun to search for, 

let you feel all sorts of clever when discovered, and 

ferreting them out is what Milon’s Secret Castle is 

all about. Sure, Milon is armed with deadly, vicious 

bubbles and fights 

monsters in a sidescrolling 

platformer, 

but each level in the castle is covered in hidden goodies. 

Money bricks are easiest to find, but hidden doorways 

to stores selling items required to advance, extra health 

honey combs, and the Hudson bee shield are all much 

trickier. Getting through the castle takes perseverance, 

especially due to lack of saves or continues, but like 

a lot of early NES games it had that “I know what I’m 

doing this time, one more try!” quality. 

Impossible Mission 

PLATFORM: Commodore 64 

YEAR: 1984 

“Another visitor. Stay awhile; stay forever!” You can’t 

think of Impossible Mission without remembering 

the voices in the game, but it wasn’t just synthesized 

catch-phrases that kept people coming back. The 

randomized nature of enemy AI and level layout meant that every game was something 

different, with an easy room one game becoming brutal the next. 

Our secret agent hero had to search the furniture in 

a mad scientist’s lair while being chased by robots, 

all in the hopes of finding fragments of passwords 

to fit together in order to avoid doomsday. With 

a mere six hours on the clock before disaster 

strikes, and each death setting you back ten whole 

minutes, Impossible Mission’s combination of 

puzzle and platforming got the world destroyed 

more times than most C-64 owners can count. 


Jeremy , s Picks 

Virtua Fighter 

PLATFORM: Arcade, 

Saturn,32X 

YEAR: 1993,1995 

After a sea of Street Fighter II clones (and utter 

trash like Rise of the Robots) in the early ‘90s, 

fighting fans needed a change, and Sega provided 

them with it. Here was a game that truly tried something new when it first hit 

arcades, and while it only provided eight playable characters, they had completely 

different fighting styles and actually felt like distinct fighters. Of the heavyweights, 

Wolf was more of an all-around fighter, while Jeffrey’s heavy attacks favored players 

seeking a visceral thrill from his head butt barrage. 

Pai and Sarah were the fastest of the bunch, while 

Jacky and Lau were easy to jump in and dominate 

with. Kage and especially Akira rewarded cerebral 

players’ attentiveness by giving them many timingsensitive 

attacks that could defeat players in seconds. 

Virtua Fighter’s gameplay was so impressive that it 

led to me buying a Saturn at launch. 

Night Driver 


Atari 2600 

YEAR: 1976,1978 

I first played this 

barely-colored classic 

in the spring of ‘88 

while in Cape Cod 

on vacation with my 

grandmother, and 

despite only playing it that one time, I never 

forget my experience. Its simple graphics let 

my young mind create a lush racing world as 

I played, and gave me nearly two decades of 

memories during my single play with it. It also 

provided others (like Mark Pursey, the man 

behind Drivey) with the inspiration to create 

their own tributes to it. Despite its legendary 

status, Night Driver has been forgotten by so 

many who played it. Fortunately, its legacy 

lives on in the ‘04 Atari Anthology and in 

the minds of all who cherish their memories 

with it. Time has been kind to it, and while 

its minimalist graphics have certainly been 

surpassed, the suspsenseful gameplay they 

created has yet to be equaled. 

Strider 

PLATFORM: Arcade,Genesis 

YEAR: 1989,1990 

Pole Position 


Atari 2600 

YEAR: 1982,1983 

1988 was a big gaming 

year for me as it not 

only marked my first 

experience with Night 

Driver, but also my first 

time playing a home 

game of any kind in Pole 

Position on the 2600. 

After a four-year wait, the Sega Nomad sat in my hands in 

July of ‘99, and the most memorable experiences I had with 

that system were with Strider. Having only seen screens and 

heard it praised, I didn’t know exactly what to expect. Then, I 

tore open the box, took out the cart, and crammed it into the portable monstrosity as soon as 

humanly possible. Its sword-slashing and platform-jumping (and hanging) were unlike anything 

I’d experienced. Everything happened quickly, but it never got overwhelming, despite being 

a fast-paced game that challenged you in every way possible and 

never relented. You’d be swarmed by six foes at once and then 

immediately have to battle a screen-filling boss, then go back to 

fighting more enemies. Players never got a break, and most never 

wanted one. Strider’s challenging game design has held up well, 

and can now be enjoyed by a new generation of players thanks to 

Capcom’s first PSP and second PS2/Xbox compilations. 

Saturday Night Slam Masters 

PLATFORM: Arcade,SNES,Genesis 

YEAR: 1993,1994,1995 

While I wasn’t all that skilled at the other games we’d 

purchased, I took to Pole Position instantly. As a fan 

of all kinds of racing back then, I was addicted to this 

game that allowed me to do what my heroes did on 

TV. While my love of racing has cooled, my adoration 

of Pole Position hasn’t. I can play it at any time and 

still enjoy it. The play sessions might be shorter, and 

on a different controller than the 2600’s trackball, but 

they remain enjoyable and conjure up memories of my 

family hooking up the 2600 to our basement’s TV and 

playing it until daybreak. For that, I’ll always hold this 

particular game close to my heart. 

1993 was the year I became addicted to pro wrestling, and then got 

exposed to the wonders of Slam Masters. Sitting in the back corner 

of the local arcade was WWF Wrestlefest and to its right, this fourplayer 

fighting/wrestling game hybrid that combined the genres seamlessly and whose concept 

has never been repeated, even after a sequel. As a Final Fight fan, I loved Haggar’s inclusion, 

and he ended up being one of my favorite characters to use outside of Biff Slamovich, whose 

tombstone piledriver looked far better than the ones animated in today’s wrestling games. The 

SNES version brought the fast action home pretty much intact, 

while the Genesis version nixed the team elimination matches and 

placed barb wire bomb matches in its place for two-player action, 

using one of the rings from the sequel, and marking the only 

appearance of any kind of that game on a home platform. That 

bit of info gave me the inspriation to write a review of the Genny 

version, and that was the first review I ever wrote for a game 

— starting me on a path that has lasted seven years. 

Pool of Radiance 


YEAR: 1988 

If there was ever a game 

that struggled against the 

technological constraints 

of its day, it was Pool of 

Radiance. The Commodore 

64 version shipped on eight 

double-sided disks, which 

required constant swapping and multiple minutes of 

loading time. Assuming your disk drive didn’t overheat 

in the process, it was worth it: creating a customizable 

party of six, you travelled the land of Phlan, righting 

wrongs for profitable rewards with nary a rail in 

sight. The journal system (which put a majority of 

the game’s story-related text into a physical manual) 

allowed for a more in-depth plot than RPGs had seen 

in a while, when every character of text took up 

valuable disk space. Though it 

inspired a series of imitators 

and sequels (including the 

travesty Ruins of Myth 

Drannor), none of them ever 

matched the original. 

Legacy of the Ancients 


YEAR: 1987 

The Commodore 64 had no lack of RPGs. I know this, 

because we had most of them. Legacy of the Ancients 

sticks out in my mind, though, thanks to its intriguing 

framing device. As a native of the planet Tarmalon, 

you are charged with a quest to nullify the evil Wizards 

Compendium using the exhibits found within the mysterious 

Galactic Museum as your guide. You’ll travel the land to 

collect special coins that allow you to unlock the displays, 

which in turn provide you with special bonuses, or transport 

you to dungeons containing treasure and other important 

items. Third-person overworld travel was combined with firstperson 

dungeon crawling and arcade-style training games to 

create a highly varied experience. Sadly, its superior sequel, 

The Legend of Blacksilver, was never given a PC re-release. 

Indiana Jones and The 

Fate of Atlantis 

PLATFORM: PC 

YEAR: 1994 

In any discussion of LucasArts adventure games, the usual 

suspects will always come up as nominations for the greatest 

of all time: Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Sam & Max, Grim Fandango, or even 

Maniac Mansion for the more retro (and masochistic) gamer. While these are all classics, to be 

sure, my perennial nomination is Indiana Jones and The 

Fate of Atlantis. Based on an original story and full of 

globe-spanning intrigue and snappy, sarcastic dialogue, 

Fate of Atlantis managed to perfectly capture the feel 

of the classic Indy flicks with a Lucasarts twist. Add to 

that some breathtaking pixel artistry and a pathsplit 

which allowed you to replay the game’s significant 

middle portion three times using vastly different 

strategies, and you’ve got a recipe for pure enjoyment. 



KouAidou , s Picks 

Star Control II 

PLATFORM: PC 

YEAR: 1992 

It would be a crime to do a classic games 

retrospective and not include Star Control II, so 

it’s a good thing it happens to be one of my favorite 

games of all time. In control of a powerful alien ship, 

you travel the galaxy trying to liberate the human 

race (and numerous others) from the control of the paranoid but powerful Ur-Quan, 

unravelling the secrets of the universe as you go. Containing a combination of sandbox 

space travel and arcade-style combat, a plotline 

equal to any space opera you can name, hundreds 

of pages’ worth of interactive dialogue and dozens 

of memorable, unique races, it’s easy to see why 

most reviews of Star Control II quickly turn into love 

letters. In the fourteen years since its release, it still 

hasn’t met its equal. If you haven’t downloaded the 

freeware version at http://sc2.sourceforge.net/, you 

owe it to yourself, as a gamer, to do so. 

The Colonel , s 

Bequest 

PLATFORM: PC 

YEAR: 1989 

While we’re 

on the subject 

of overlooked 

adventure 

games, let’s 

talk about one 

of the best and 

least appreciated games in Roberta Williams’s 

eminent lineup. A murder mystery taking 

place in the 1920s, The Colonel’s Bequest 

puts you in the shoes of Laura Bow, a college 

girl with an inquisitive nature. When her 

friend Lillian invites her back to her uncle’s 

murky mansion in the Louisiana bayou, she 

finds herself surrounded by a classic lineup of 

shady suspects with murder on their minds. 

Multiple endings, early real-time elements, 

and a ton of side mysteries made multiple 

replays a must, and Sierra’s infamous “death 

around every corner” tropes felt much more 

suitable in a setting where mortal tragedy was 

de riguer. Primitive though the graphics may 

be, The Colonel’s Bequest’s artistry makes it 

impressive to look at even today. 


Shoegazer , s Picks Daniel Kayser , Thunder Force III 

Golden Axe 



s Picks 

Chrono 

Trigger 


YEAR: 1995 

As Squaresoft reached a point 

where it could no longer fit its epic 

tales onto a cartridge anymore, 

it still had a few tricks left up 

its sleeve that would allow it to 

exit the SNES era with a bang. 

Originally released in 1995, Chrono 

Trigger would become an instant 

classic and set the bar for RPGs for 

years to come thanks to its sci-fi 

storyline, unparalleled character 

development, and perfected use 

of the Active Time Battle system. 

Even before the days of Sephiroth 

impaling Aerith with his sword, 

Square was the master of tugging 

at the heart strings of the player 

by immersing them in a captivating 

story and creating moments that 

would keep nerds debating for 

years. Today, Chrono Trigger still 

stands as one of the greatest RPGs 

ever made, hands down. 

Baseball Stars 

PLATFORM: NES 

YEAR: 1989 

Whether you loved sports 

or not, there were a 

handful of games that 

every NES owner had 

fond memories of: Mike 

Tyson’s Punch-Out, 

Blades of Steel, Double 

Dribble and Baseball 

Stars. While there were 

many great baseball games, none even came close 

to matching the depth of Baseball Stars. 

Long before EA Sports was a household name, 

SNK packed its title with never-before-seen levels 

of detail, which included stat-tracking, custom 

league play, and complete managerial control of 

team operations. Best of all were the create-ateam 

and create-a-player options that required 

actual strategy. The perfect team needed the right 

balance of rookies, veterans and superstars if you 

ever wanted to be able to take 

down the mighty American 

Dreams. Winning games 

earned you cash to purchase 

attribute upgrades, which 

gave Baseball Stars replay 

value for years. 

Phantasy Star 

PLATFORM: Sega 

Master System 

YEAR: 1988 

After many sequels 

and online time sinks, 

there still isn’t a game 

in the Phantasy Star 

chronology that matches 

up against the original. 

The word “epic” gets 

thrown around a lot in 

the RPG category, but 

Phantasy Star truly deserved to be classified as 

such. It was light years beyond any other RPG of its 

time and introduced gamers to the awe-inspiring (at 

the time) 3D-scaling, multi-level dungeons. 

It was all too easy to become engrossed with Alis’s 

tale of tragedy, political strife, and interstellar 

travel: a tale that would sprawl out across three 

different worlds before a final showdown with 

the evil ruler, Lassic. However, with an M. Night 

Shyamalan-esque twist, the 

fall of Lassic was not the 

end of the struggle. Enter 

Darkfalz: a nightmarish boss 

character that took up the 

entire screen. 

YEAR: 1990 

There may have 

been a jillion 

horizontal shooters 

on the market 

back in the old 

days, but the 

Thunder Force 

series was a 

standout because 

of its superior design. It borrowed heavily from 

games like R-Type and Gradius, but with the third 

installment, it separated itself from the pack. The 

brightly-colored graphics, huge and challenging 

boss fights, a rockin’ soundtrack, and of course 

the powerful CLAWs all helped to create a truly 

impressive game. 

The ability to adjust the speed of your ship was 

incredibly innovative for its time. There were also 

genuine “holy crap!” moments such as one level 

where you get knocked off course and are about to 

hit a wall, when 

all of a sudden the 

screen stops, and 

shifts into reverse, 

forcing you to do 

a section of the 

level backwards. 

Simply awesome! 

Fester , s Quest 

PLATFORM: NES 

YEAR: 1989 

One has to wonder 

how exactly the 

development pitch 

for Fester’s Quest 

went down. It could 

have been intended 

as a Halloween 

tie-in, or maybe 

it was meant as a 

precursor to the 

movie that would hit 

theaters two years later. Or maybe it really was as 

simple as someone wanting to make a game about 

Uncle Fester being the last line of defense for all 

humankind as alien invaders attempted to take 

over the Earth. Come to think of it, that would’ve 

made Independence Day even more enjoyable. 

Taking a page from successful 8-bit era shooters 

such as Ikari Warriors, Fester runs n’ guns 

all over the city 

collecting power-ups 

and avoiding powerdowns 

in an effort to 

blast alien scum. It 

was as bizarre as it 

sounds, but incredibly 

enjoyable, with 

intense boss fights. 

YEAR: 1989 

Over the years 

certain games 

have helped define 

a genre. Think 

Super Mario 

Bros. and you 

think platformer. 

Think Tetris and 

you think puzzler. 

When it came to one of the most popular genres 

of the 16-bit era, beat-’em-ups, one game helped 

lay the groundwork that would define a generation, 

SEGA’s Golden Axe. 

The beautiful thing about Golden Axe, and most 

beat-’em-ups for that matter, is that there wasn’t 

much to it. You basically advance the screen from 

left to right by eliminating hordes of enemies in a 

button mashing exhibition of skill (or lack of skill, 

depending on who you ask...). Despite its lack 

of depth however, the overall charm of Golden 

Axe was found in its solid game play, multiplayer 

functionality, memorable characters, catchy 

anthem and spot-on 

depiction of a classic 

medieval setting nearly 

every gamer longed to 

experience. Down with 

Death Adder! 

Ikari Warriors 

PLATFORM: Arcade,NES 

YEAR: 1987 

Before Gears of War, 

before Rainbow Six, 

heck, before any 

great multiplayer 

game with guns, there 

were a few titles 

that introduced the 

concept of blowing 

stuff up with your 

buddy. SNK’s Ikari 

Warriors is one of the better examples of these. 

Released across a wide array of platforms, Ikari 

Warriors delivered frantic action fest for one or 

two players as you vertically scroll through rivers, 

swamps, jungles and other terrain using mad 

amounts of weaponry (and even tanks!) to blast the 

living crap out of everything in sight. 

At a time when Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Predator 

was lighting up the silver screen, wanna-be action 

gamers were pumping quarters into Ikari Warriors. 

Thankfully, the game showed up on the NES (and 

other home consoles) so that gamers could enjoy 

the non-stop, bullet-slinging action anytime they 

wanted to. Like the Predator movie however, the 

hell spawn of a sequel that was Ikari Warriors 2 

(do we have to go to space in every sequel?) lacked 

the fun and originality of its predecessor. Oh well… 

one hit wonders have their place in history too! 



Shadowgate 

PLATFORM: NES 

YEAR: 1989 

Very few games on the 

Nintendo Entertainment 

System involved more 

thinking than action. 

Shadowgate, developed 

by ICOM Simulations, was 

one of those games and it 

played more like a medieval 

fantasy novel than a typical RPG. The term “Text 

Adventure” comes to mind here, but while that 

might sound boring to the average modern gamer, 

the sheer amount of possibilities in Shadowgate 

made the gameplay anything but. 

As a “young adventurer” (you could get away 

with that back then…) sent to the ancient keep of 

Shadowgate, you must find the Staff of Ages and stop 

the Warlock Lord from summoning an age-old demon 

called the Behemoth! C’mon... this was pretty 

original back then! Solving riddles, experimenting 

with item combinations, lots 

of dying (creatively, mind you) 

and a vast sharpening of your 

literary skills all await you 

in Shadowgate! A must-read 

— um, I mean play, for any 

classic adventure gamer... 

Out of This World 


YEAR: 1992 

Back in 1992, when 

platformers were all 

the rage, a few games 

stood out from the 

crowd by offering up 

something unique. 

Developed by Delphine 

Software and published 

by Interplay, Out of this World was one of the first 

games to deliver a truly cinematic experience. 

Featuring vector graphics and animated cut scenes, 

the game offered a level of immersion not common 

for its day. While still an adventure game at its core, 

OotW managed to provide a refreshing blend of 

platforming and puzzle solving while kind of freaking 

you out by the game’s weird imagery and story. 

Personally, I was into OotW ever since I first laid 

eyes on it. I always wanted to prove that gaming 

could be more than just what it appears to be on 

the surface, and OotW helped usher in some unique 

cinematic trends still found in the gaming industry 

today. Besides, who the heck doesn’t want to play 

as a young physics professor named “Lester” who 

finds himself captured, unarmed, and in a strange 

alien world after lighting strikes his peculiar particle 

experiment? Awesome! 

BattleToads 

PLATFORM: NES 

YEAR: 1991 

Considering how much I (and 

many other gamers) love the 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, 

it’s hard to believe that a 

blatant rip-off of a game such as 

Battletoads could win me over. 

That’s exactly what happened 

back in 1991 when Zitz, Rash, and 

Pimple (yes... those were their 

actual names) found themselves 

on an intergalactic romp after 

partying too hard on a Lost Vega 

leisure space station (WHAT!!!). 

Crazy names 

and gimmicks 

aside, 

Battletoads 

delivered 

where it 

mattered 

most: gameplay. A rather 

interesting hybrid of the 

action platforming, racing, 

flying and even beat-’em-up 

genres, the game perfectly 

balanced numerous gameplay 

mechanics within a fun, often 

crazy adventure starring 

three memorable characters. 

I’ll always love the Turtles, 

but their amphibious cousins 

certainly delivered one heck of a 

memorable experience on the NES 

back in the day. 


DJPubba , s Picks 

Blaster Master 

PLATFORM: NES 

YEAR: 1988 

Quality Metroid or 

Castlevania action/ 

platform-style games are 

few and far between. 

If you missed Blaster 

Master on the NES, you 

missed a great game 

which took the best parts 

of the Metroid-vania 

formula and put you in 

control of a futuristic, well armed, wheeled fighting 

vehicle (the SOPHIA NORA MA-01) that is an absolute joy 

to control. The bouncy, ultra-maneuverable “Subatomic 

Omni-directional Probative Hyper-responsive Indomitable 

Abdicator” should be used in game design school to show 

how important fluid control and animation are to the 

fun factor of a game. Add quality level design and well 

thought out power-ups and 

upgrades, like getting longer 

jumps, hover ability, being 

able stick to different surfaces, 

etc., to the awesome controls 

and you may have one of the 

most under-appreciated NES 

games of all time. It’s too bad 

the sequels didn’t stand up. 

Kaboom! 

PLATFORM: Atari 2600 

YEAR: 1981 

This game can’t be 

properly appreciated 

if you don’t have a 

real Atari 2600 system 

hooked up and working. 

This is because you 

can’t properly emulate 

the required Atari 2600 

paddle controller with 

a keyboard, mouse, 

joystick, analog stick or anything else. 

If you are able to play it properly, and practice a lot, 

you’ll find out why it earned its spot here. This is the 

game that grabbed me by the short hairs of my brain and 

led me into “the zone” for the first time, at the tender 

age of 12. The object is to catch the bombs as they fall in 

a water bucket so 

they don’t explode. 

The game starts 

slowly but after a 

few short rounds, 

you’ll find yourself 

playing a furious, 

trance-inducing, 

adrenaline factory 

of a game. 

Ultima III: Exodus 

PLATFORM: Apple ][ 

YEAR: 1983 

The Ultima series defined the RPG genre. Nearly 

all of the basic concepts in today’s RPGs came from 

Ultima. Ultima III was the high point of the series 

with a massive world map to explore, countless 

dungeons, towns, enemies, weapons, spells, 

treasures and was the game that introduced me 

to the joys of power-leveling to achieve complete 

world domination. 

When you boot the game, you’ll be able to start 

creating characters right away, and once you have 

four to form a party with, your adventuring can 

begin. The best thing about the game is that it’s 

pure, undiluted gameplay. Instead of shoving a 

melodramatic story down your throat with a 20 minute 

intro and countless cut-scenes, the story unfolds as 

you play with the focus on adventure instead of the 

lines and lines of dialog that plague modern RPGs. 

Boulder Dash 

PLATFORM: Commodore 64,Amiga, 

Atari 800,etc. 

YEAR: 1984 

Part action game, part puzzler, and obviously a 

little inspired by Dig Dug, Boulder Dash has you 

controlling an alien named “Rockford” in his quest to 

gather crystals from under the earth. The fun comes 

from ingenious level designs which have you figuring 

out how to dig your way through the dirt to collect 

the pre-determined number of crystals while avoiding the enemy’s lethal touch 

or being squashed by falling boulders which become dislodged by your passing. A 

timer keeps the pace and you don’t know where 

the exit will appear until you’ve reached your 

crystal quota, which creates a new challenge in 

most levels to even find the exit once your quote is 

reached. Precise controls and not always needing to 

memorize the levels by repetition to beat them give 

the game a long shelf life. 

Tower Toppler 

PLATFORM: Commodore 64,Amiga,etc. 

YEAR: 1987 

Also known as Nebulus or Castelian, in Tower 

Toppler, you control a two-legged alien pig who 

arrives at the bottom of a tower in his submarine 

with one thing on his mind — reaching the top, of 

course. The thing that makes this game unique is 

that the pig remains in the center of the screen 

and the tower rotates around as you move. This 

gives the game an impressive 3D effect rarely 

found in contemporary games. 

This is one of those incredibly hard games that 

will only appeal to those kind of gamers who 

refuse to let a game beat them. It requires you to 

die a lot to learn what not to do or what path not 

to take. For normal people to enjoy the game, 

cheats are required. Unlimited lives and unlimited 

time are just the thing and then you’ll find it a lot 

of fun (although you’ll still die a lot). 

Devil , s Crush 

PLATFORM: TG-16 

YEAR: 1990 

One of the things that developers seem to forget 

fairly often is that just because you have the power 

to completely simulate a real-life activity, it doesn’t 

mean you have to. As a matter of fact, you probably 

shouldn’t. There’s nothing wrong with the Madden 

series that a few homicidal cyborgs couldn’t cure. 

More relevantly, Devil’s Crush embodies this 

simple, basic principle. It’s not just one of the two 

greatest video pinball 

games ever made. It’s also the greatest heavy-metal 

album cover ever made. As a game of pinball, it has 

a loose grasp of basic physics at best, but the game 

turns that into a net positive. Devil’s Crush, along 

with Alien Crush and Military Madness, is the reason 

to score that TG-16 off of eBay. It can’t pop up on the 

Virtual Arcade soon enough. 

Dragon Warrior IV 

PLATFORM: NES 

YEAR: 1992 

There are days where I’d like to live in a parallel 

universe where the Dragon Warrior and Phantasy 

Star series got all the press and acclaim that the 

Final Fantasy series wound up getting, at least over 

here. (Then again, that means I might have paid 

seven bucks to see Dragon Warrior: The Spirits 

Within. Never mind.) DWIV was the last and arguably the best of the four DW 

games that were translated for the American NES. 

Pick Axe Pete! 

PLATFORM: Odyssey-2 

YEAR: 1982 



By the time DWIV rolled around, the relentless grinding 

had been toned down some, in favor of a huge party 

that you gradually assembled over the course of five 

chapters. This game, to some extent, was my Final 

Fantasy VII; DWIV’s cast and scenario occupied a 

disturbing amount of my brainspace for several years. 

It may be the finest RPG on the NES, and it might’ve 

been the finest console RPG in the world right up until 

Phantasy Star IV came out. 

The Odyssey, looking back on it, was almost 

embarrassing. It existed almost entirely to play bad 

ripoffs of popular Atari 2600 games, including two 

different bold-faced Pac-Man clones (one of which, 

KC’s Krazy Chase, was actually pretty good). 

It had some occasional moments of inspiration, 

though, one of which was Pick Axe Pete! 

It wouldn’t exist without Donkey Kong, but 

Pick Axe Pete! has its own style. You play as 

a miner avoiding falling boulders, timing a 

jump or duck to avoid the boulders’ random 

bounce patterns, while trying to collect 

keys. At the same time, all the ladders are 

randomized, turning this into something 

between a twitch game and a protoplatformer. 

I played this for about... 1983. 

Yeah, that sounds right. All of 1983. 

Wanderer , s Picks 

A Boy and His Blob 

PLATFORM: NES 

YEAR: 1989 

David Crane, the 

creator of Pitfall, 

put this odd game 

together for the 

NES in 1989. It was, 

and probably is, 

the definition of 

“idiosyncratic” in 

a host of different 

ways. A Boy and 

His Blob is a deeply 

bizarre, decidedly 

flawed game that 

was nonetheless a complete trip. It’s easy to cheat 

yourself out of victory by doing too much jellybean 

experimenting in the first five minutes of the game, 

and there are a couple of 

treasure chests that can 

seemingly only be obtained 

via divine intervention. For 

all that, though, this is still 

one of the lesser-known 

treasures on the NES. It’s 

a short, one-way ride, 

but it’s one that you’ll 

remember fondly. 

Gyruss 

PLATFORM: NES 

YEAR: 1988 

Even now, your 

shooter options are 

dangerously limited. 

Would you like your 

quixotic battle 

against uncountable 

alien legions to be 

top-down or sidescrolling? 

Those, sir, 

are your options. 

Gyruss, on the other 

hand, allows you to 

save the galaxy while playing the role of some kind of 

xenocidal Scrubbing Bubble, much like Tempest. It was 

one of Konami’s stealth releases under the Ultra imprint, 

and as such, it has a 

little bit in common with 

the Gradius series. The 

graphics are top-notch, 

the bosses are inventive 

and bizarre, and the 

challenge factor is 

kick-you-in-the-beanbag 

intense. Fortunately, it 

has an odd backwards 

Konami Code. 


Ashura , s Picks 

Sonic CD 


YEAR: 1993 

Sonic CD is easily the alternate road that the Sonic series 

could’ve taken if Naoto Oshima was in charge instead of Yuji 

Naka. This weird little gem came about when Naka and half of 

Sonic Team left for America (making Sonic 2), and left Oshima to his own devices. What came 

out was a darker, slower-paced Sonic the Hedgehog with awesome music and an animated 

intro. In this game, Sonic must save the time-traveling Little Planet from the chainy bondage 

of Dr. Eggman. Instead of just heading to the goal, Sonic must go back and forth in time 

and fix the past to save the future. Each stage has 4 different iterations: Past, Present, Bad 

Future, and Good Future. Make everything a good future? Good ending! The game feels much 

different than its successors, especially with the alternate 

take on the spin-dash and the mostly abandoned infinitum 

dash. The levels themselves are more puzzle based, and the 

music (in the Japanese version) is haunting. Forget about the 

next-gen Sonic. Naka and Oshima were the ying and yang of 

Sonic Team, and without them the only thing left now is wang. 

This game was worth it when I traded 3 PSX games for it, and 

it still is now. Toot Toot Sonic Warrior. 

Pong 


YEAR: 1972 

Pong is this great 

game with two 

lines and a dot. The 

object of this game 

is that you have to 

keep that dot from 

ever escaping your 

sight by bouncing 

it around with the 

clever use of those aforementioned lines. It is 

rumored that if you ever let the dot continue past 

the confines of the semi-rectangular viewing area, 

Armageddon will befall man and your girlfriend will 

dump you for Phillip the Elevator Operator. Said to 

be much like ping-pong, not much is known about 

this classic as it has been lost forever due to global 

warming and the evil machinations of Adolf Hitler. 

Its creation predating the discovery of bacon, 

most current information about Pong is actually 

extrapolated from the little-known Ms. Pong, 

which is said to be exactly like the original Pong 

only the pixel is colored pink. Legends abound of 

an almost arcade perfect port of Pong for the Atari 

2600, though no one knows for sure. There were 

talks of a port of Grand Theft Auto for the Atari 

2600, as well. It went something like this: OH SNAP 

THE RED PIXEL JUST TOTALLY JACKED THE YELLOW 

PIXEL FOR HIS 

GREEN PIXEL 

AND... very slowly 

moved to the right 

side of the screen. 

Above is an 

artist’s conception 

of what Pong may 

have looked like. 

Popful Mail 


YEAR: 1994 

This 2D action platformer started life on the PC-88 of all places, 

and was later ported to the Sega CD with massive updates including 

beautiful sprite art and 20 minutes of animation. The game follows 

three adventurers that you can switch between at will: Mail, a greedy elven warrior looking for 

money, Tatt, a magician’s apprentice looking for his master, and Gaw, a purpley blob thing which can 

jump really high. This of course can alter the gameplay from melee, to projectile, to, uh... jumping 

high depending on who you’re playing. PM was one of the first games where 99% of the dialogue was 

spoken as well, so depending on which character you’re using at the time, the dialogue can change 

drastically. These bits of speech and animation are half the fun of the game, 

and a lot is owed to Working Designs’s localization in conjunction with Sega’s 

work improving gameplay for the Sega CD version. Castlevania: Symphony 

of the Night and its successors owe more to this game than it does Metroid. 

Gigantic Bosses, Item System, Status Effects, on-the-fly character changing, 

it’s all there. Do yourself a favor and seek it out. 

Twinkle Star Sprites 


YEAR: 1996 

Metal Slug 2 


YEAR: 1998 

The iron cavalrymen are 

back in hell! The evil 

DEMON GOD REBIRTH 

General Morden returns 

and Macro and Tarma must 

defend the Earth against 

his evil army with the help 

of two new members of 

SPARROWS, Eri and Fio, 

and of course the Metal Slug. If you’ve never played it, 

Metal Slug is a great series of comedic run-and-gun games 

similar to Contra. The concept of the game is simple: You 

run around in a flurry of chaos, collect weapons, shoot 

enemies, jump in vehicles, and save the Jesus-dudes. Er, 

I mean, refugees. Metal Slug 2 introduces many of the 

series’s staples, such as the item-carrying Rumi Aikawa, 

the hadouken-shooting Hyakutaru Ichimonji, the ‘oooh big’ 

and mummy transformations, Mars People, and everyone’s 

favorite: Camel Slug. Though it’s a little less balanced, 

difficulty-wise, than the first iteration, MS2 is my favorite 

just for all the other awesome it contains. Yes, even over X. 

Just one question: What’s a Rocket Louncher? 

Twinkle Star Sprites is what happens when a shmup and a puzzle 

game collide together and have a traffic accident (4 people died!) 

of epic proportions. In this game you play Load Ran (yeah), and you 

must fight your way through various weirdos which spout the most 

exquisitely crafted Engrish evar. You are presented with a screen divided in half, one side with you, 

and the other with your opponentos. The object of the game is to shoot anything which comes at you, 

which in turn shoots the things you just shot onto your opponent’s 

side. The bigger combo of destruction you create, the more stuff 

you throw at your enemy! Take away all their hearts, and you are 

the winnar. And so is the game. Find this one and take it to parties 

with you; I guarantee people will play it for hours. Unfortunately 

that’s the catch — this game is a little hard to find. Don’t be brue, 

reader; lucky for you they just re-released the sequel for PS2 (La 

Petite Princesse), and this game is an unlockable on it. Hooray! Let 

us all munch sweet tacos! 

Since Atari first licensed 

Space Invaders from 

Taito for the Atari VCS 

and little Ricky Stratton 

had his very own home 

arcade, consumers have 

clamored for the ability 

to play an arcade game 

in their home. Even the 

classic Colecovision boldly stamped “Plays 

Like the Real Arcade Game” on the retail 

boxes of its home conversions of now-classic 

coin-operated games. 

GAME NOT OVER 

to realize that a lot of those machines have just not aged 

well over the years and require a great deal of work to keep 

them in working order. At this point you are partaking in yet 

another hobby, that of restoration and repair, which takes 

an enormous amount of mechanical and electrical skill. 

Of course, there are several groups that still deal 

with pieces and parts such as joysticks, spinners, 

trackballs, light guns, steering wheels, sound systems, 

and buttons. These groups can sell you parts outright, 

or become hired hands that will actually 

recondition a vintage coin-op machine for 

you... for a fee. If you’re good with your 

hands, then by all means jump right in 

and watch your hobby and wealth of 

knowledge grow in spades! 

Of course, having one coin-op game in 

your home is fine, but once you have 

it, you’ll quickly learn that one just 

isn’t enough. That’s where the beauty 

of emulation comes in, which can lead 

to cabinets that pack dozens and even 

thousands of games into a single unit. 

In early 1997, what are now typically 

referred to as emulators began to 

appear. The most popular is M.A.M.E., 



Fast forward to the modern day, and you’ll 

notice the giant arcades of the ‘80s are now 

rarities. Most of the arcades have closed their 

doors, and your antiquated consoles have 

long since been sold in a yard sale or have 

melted in the attic. You still want to play 

the classics, and now they are nowhere to be 

found. You want to relive the good ol’ days of 

sitting on a stool in a dark room with a blue 

neon glow engulfing your pale body. Well, my 

friend, prepare to be floored, because your 

childhood dreams of having an entire arcade 

in your own home are now possible! 

First, you should know that there are several 

“arcade alleys” that you can choose. There 

are highly technical routes available for 

the do-it-yourself type that likes to dig 

into a hobby. There are also options for 

those people who are more timid around 

technology, who just want to take a stroll 

down memory lane. 

The first and most obvious option is to simply 

purchase an actual arcade coin-operated 

machine and place it in your home. However, 

if you are into the classics, you will come 

Plays Like the Real Arcade Game and Keep 

Your Quarter 

by: Michael Thomasson of GoodDealGames.com 

short for the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. 

This handy hobbyist-made program emulates 

the actual arcade games using dumps (end user 

supplied) of the original read-only memory 

(ROM), and has evolved to be enormous over 

the years. Those thirsty to replay all the games 

of the past can currently pick from just shy of 

4,000 individual games to play using M.A.M.E. 

By placing a standard computer within the base 

of an arcade machine, one can make a full-size 

unit that is capable of playing the majority 

of all the arcade games that have ever been 

created. However, we strongly suggest that you 

do not buy an arcade cabinet with a computer 

inside running M.A.M.E. with thousands of ROMs 

already installed. That would violate all kinds of 

laws and hurt everyone involved, including the 

M.A.M.E. developers. Instead, we’d rather see 

you take the time to populate your home-made 

cabinet with a collection of your favorite legal 


classics, and only use M.A.M.E. for the ones you absolutely can’t 

legally obtain otherwise. It’s much easier to stay legal nowadays 

than when emulation was in its infancy. 

If you have noticed a resurgence of classic gaming in the past 

decade, you are not alone. Dozens of publishers with a history 

to profit from have been releasing game compilations to cash in 

on the popularity of the retrogaming scene. Several releases for 

consoles and PC have been published, and many titles are now 

also available for download through services like 

GameTap, Microsoft’s Xbox Live service, and 

Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console. GameTap is an 

especially great option for access to hundreds 

of classics inside an arcade cabinet. Some games 

have fallen into the public domain as abandonware 

by publishers that no longer exist or whose assets 

were never sold prior to closing their doors and 

upon completion of bankruptcy. A few games have 

even been generously donated with permission of 

the original developers. However, it can be very 

confusing and often difficult to determine which 

games are legal and which are not. While it is 

doubtful that Mappy of the Micro Police, or an 

actual law officer, would come a-knockin’ on your 

door, many of us choose to respect such copyright 

issues. Other legal options are available. 

For example, My Big Games (http://www. 

mybiggames.com) has released two full-size units available at 

many big-box retailers such as JC Penney, Target and Wal-Mart for 

five hundred smackers each. These cabinets feature twelve fullylicensed 

games each by either Midway or Konami. However, they 

would definitely not have survived in an arcade. They are cheaply 

made and unlikely to satisfy any hardcore gamers. 

More durable and expanded options are available through Awesome 

Arcades in the form of their AC-605SP Arcade Center ($1799) and 

their smartly designed Personal Arcade Machine, also known as 

P.A.M. ($1300). A particularly nice feature of P.A.M. is that she is 

designed for a smaller room or office. Furthermore, the Personal 

Arcade Machine is portable. P.A.M. can be removed from her 

pedestal for easy relocation to a desk, bar top, or any other free 

space. These machines include a whopping one hundred fortysix 

games total. They currently play eighty-one legally licensed 

arcade games and sixty-five Atari 2600 console games. A full list is 

available online at their website (http://www.awecades.com), and 

their library is ever-expanding. 

The units by My Big Games and Awesome Arcades are fully 

loaded and ready to go from the moment you open the crate. No 

technical set-up is required for either of these units; no diagrams 

are needed, no tools are necessary, there’s no 

hardware to assemble, and there’s no software to 

install; there’s no hassle! You just plug ‘em in and 

play until your heart is content. 

SUPPORTING INFO 

The My Big Games Midway version offers the classic 

arcade titles Bubbles, Defender, Defender II, 

Joust, Rampage, Robotron, Root Beer Tapper, 

Satan’s Hollow, Sinistar, Splat, Timber and 

Wizard of Wor. 

Additionally, Blades of Steel, Castlevania, 

Contra, Frogger, Green Beret, Gyruss, Hyper 

Sports, Jungler, Scramble, Shao-Lin’s Road, 

Super Basketball and Time Pilot ’84 are available 

for play on the Konami edition by My Big Games. 


M.A.M.E. http://www.mame.net 

Other Emulators: 

Daphne http://www.daphne-emu.com/ 

site3/index_hi.php 

Daphne emulates only Laserdisc 

games, including Dragon’s Lair 

and Space Ace. 

Final Burn http://www.finalburn.com/ 

An alternative to M.A.M.E., Final 

Burn emulates many arcade games 

not emulated by other emulators. 

MESS http://www.mess.org/ 

Multiple Emulator Super System. 

Emulates 100’s of old console and 

home computer systems. 

Modeler http://www.emuhype.com/ 

Modeler is the origin of the V60 

CPU core emulation, used in Sega 

System 32 games. 

Nebula http://nebula.emulatronia.com/ 

Nebula emulates Neo Geo, games, 

Sega Model 2B CRX and 2C CRX 

games including Dead or Alive. 

Zinc http://www.emuhype.com/ 

Zinc is the emulator for arcade 

PSX-based games, such as the 

Sony ZN-1, ZN-2 and Namco 

System 11 hardware, used by Soul 

Edge, Tekken games, and more. 

Raine http://www.rainemu.com/ 

Raine emulates arcade titles 

like M.A.M.E. but requires less 

resources so it operates more 

efficiently on older computers. 

Visual Pinball http://www.randydavis.com/vp/ 

3D pinball program that plays 

rebuilt versions of classic 

pinball tables and emulates the 

scoreboards using pinMAME. 

If your home is just too small to house an actual full-size arcade 

machine, or your wife wouldn’t appreciate a hulking box in her dining 

room, then the $1799 Arcade in a Box (http://www.arcadeinabox. 

com) might be an alternate solution. This nifty box includes 

the computer and controls in a portable self-contained 

unit that simply hooks up to a television via 

an S-Video connection, and transforms 

your family room TV into a 

mega arcade. 

If you have a lot of quarters (23,900, to be exact) you can add the 

commercial UltraCade Showcase multi-game arcade system 

to your home. This heavyweight contains 86 games and 

can be upgraded with many more licensed game packs. 

While the UltraCade can be programmed to operate 

on “Free Play,” you may want to have your friends use 

the coin slot to try and recoup some of those quarters! 

UltraCade does have three other models available, 

but if you are going to plunk down this kind of cash for 

the “real deal” then go for it all! For a breakdown 

on all the models, visit http://www.bmigaming.com/ 

ultracade.htm. 



Control 

Interface 

Hanaho 

HotRod SE 

OzStick Super 

Single 

OzStick 

Ultimate 

Slick Stick 

Solitaire 

Treyonics 

Centurion 

Treyonics 

Devastator II 

Dual Joystick 

There are several companies that make new upright and 

tabletop units designed specifically to house a computer and 

run emulation programs. These can be purchased in kit form 

with most pieces already cut to scale, needing only minimal 

installation or construction, or completely assembled units 

ready to be placed in your game room! 

If you’re up for building your own, remember that different games have different control 

schemes, so you’ll need to have an interface with options! You could make your own 

interface with quality arcade parts (http://www.happcontrols.com/) or purchase a control 

interface from several different companies. Check out the following chart to learn more: 

Joystick 

Button 

Buttons Trackball Spinner Interface 

Lifetime 

Warranty 

Yes No 18 No No PS/2 No $99 

No No 8 No No USB No $129 

Yes No 15 No No PS/2 or USB No $199 

Yes No 15 Yes Yes USB No $399 

Yes Yes 24 Yes Yes USB Yes $449 

Yes Yes 19 Yes Yes USB Yes $399 

X-Arcade Solo No No 9 No No PS/2 or USB Yes $99 

X-Arcade 

Dual 

X-Arcade 

TankStick 

Yes No 18 No No PS/2 or USB Yes $129 

Yes No 18 Yes No PS/2 or USB Yes $199 

X-Arcade TankStick 

Treyonics Devastator II 

Treyonics Centurion 


Price 

Treyonics http://www.treyonicscontrols.com 

OzStick http://www.ozstick.com.au 

X-Arcade http://www.x-arcade.com 

Slik Stick http://www.slikstik.com 

Hanaho http://www.hanaho.com 

Arcade in a Box $1799 http://www.arcadeinabox.com 

Super Link: 

http://users.bigpond.net.au/paj/links_and_resources.htm 

Build your own arcade controls: 

http://arcadecontrols.com/arcade.htm 

So, if you remember watching Ricky Schroeder play Dragon’s Lair in his mansion 

arcade back in 1982 on “Silver Spoons” and you are still envious, you can finally 

emulate that experience. Now, all you need is an oversized indoor train set and a 

break-dancin’ friend named Alfonso and you’re almost there! 


Our guides 

aren’t for 

everyone. 

(Some people don’t play video games.) 

Rogue Galaxy 

Miss nothing. Learn everything. 

This comprehensive guide is 

packed full of extreme detail 

about every inch of the game. 

• Complete maps of every planet 

• Every weapon identi ed 

• Lists of every enemy’s stats 

• Every secret revealed 

• Too much to list here! 

SMT: Devil Summoner 

Learn the terrible secrets of the 

Soulless Army! 

• Crush every opponent 

• Find every secret 

• Collect every demon 

Beat them at their own game, in 

their own world. 

Disgaea2: 

Cursed Memories 

640 pages jam-packed with 

extreme detail. If you’ve ever seen 

our Monster Size guides, you 

know they’re fat. This one is our 

fattest ever. We went a little nuts. 

Genji: Dawn of 

the Samurai 

Whether you’re a novice or an 

expert player, there’s something 

for everyone in the of cal strategy 

guide for Genji: Dawn of the 

Samurai. 

Castlevania®: Dawn 

of Sorrow 

Set one year after the events 

of 2003’s Castlevania®: Aria of 

Sorrow, this sequel follows the 

protagonist Soma Cruz into a new 

castle, and a new adventure. 

Disgaea: Hour of 

Darkness 

Secrets, techniques for capturing 

monsters, all the item ranks, job 

evolutions, class prerequisites and 

much, much more. 

www.DoubleJumpBooks.com 

Rogue Galaxy is a trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Created and developed 

by Level 5. © 2006 Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. SMT, Shin Megami Tensei and Devil 

Summoner are registered trademarks of Atlus USA.Disgaea ©NIPPON ICHI SOFTWARE 

INC. ©NIS America, Inc. Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow © 1986-2005 KONAMI. “KONAMI” 

and “CASTLEVANIA” are registered trademarks of KONAMI CORPORATION. “CASTLEVANIA 

Dawn of Sorrow” is a trademark of KONAMI CORPORATION. Genji: Dawn of the Samurai is 

a trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. Developed by Game Republic. © 

2005 Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. DoubleJump and Monster Size are trademarks or 

registered trademarks of DoubleJump Publishing, Inc.

Review by Lynxara 

Publisher : Capcom Genre(s) : 3PS 

Developer : Capcom Category : BRR, Chilly! 

Release Date : 01/12/2007 # of players : 1-16 

Rating : T (Animated Blood, Mild Language, Violence) 

Lost Planet is a third-person shooter that lets you battle it out with rival 

pirates and insect-like aliens called the Akrid on the frozen ice planet 

E.D.N. III. You can opt to fight on foot, or using rather VOTOMS-esque 

mecha called Vital Suits. Refreshingly, Vital Suits aren’t simply your win 

button in combat. In some situations they dominate, and in others they’ll 

just get you killed. You can even remove the heavy weapons from 

a Vital Suit and use them on foot, à la Mellowlink, which is both 

surprisingly useful and tremendously satisfying. 

Much like Resident Evil, you’ll notice that you move rather slowly in 

Lost Planet (relative to the usual 3PS fare, anyway). This is actually not 

off-putting at all; it adds an engaging tactical element to the action. 

For instance, you quickly learn that you need to evade oncoming 

enemies with leaps and dodge-rolls. The left and right trigger 

buttons let you make instantaneous 90-degree turns, and you 

have to remember to use them. 

Falling more than a very short distance leaves you staggered 

and vulnerable, so you must make proper use of your “anchor,” 

a grappling line that lets you descend from ledges and scale 

otherwise-impossible heights. If this description is making you 

think of Bionic Commando, you’re right on the mark. At times 

Lost Planet feels like nothing so much as a snowy, 3D update 

of that incredible and 

oft-forgotten platformer. 

Lost Planet’s arctic setting easily could’ve degenerated into a gimmick, and in the 

hands of many developers that’s all it ever would’ve been. Capcom, to its enormous 

credit, did not churn out a game full of bland white empty areas. Lost Planet is 

brimming with inventive level designs, and offers a wide variety of environments 

for you to explore. Along with the windswept cliffsides (where you can actually 

fall to your death!), you can creep through abandoned parking garages full of 

destructible cars, and bizarre underground Akrid hives. 

Capcom really pushes the 360’s particle physics with this title, frequently 

putting enormous smoky explosions, falling torrents of ice, and sprays of snow 

from the ground all on-screen at once. Add in environments that are almost 

completely destructible and dozens of enemies moving onscreen at a time, and 

you have a gaming experience that truly feels next-gen from the graphics alone. 

There’s a gameplay kink to the game’s polar locale, too. In the upper left corner of 

your screen, you’ll notice a thermal energy reading in addition to the usual life bar. 

Your thermal energy depletes constantly. If you take damage, it depletes even more 

quickly in order to boost your life gauge back up to full. The only way to get more is to 

extract it from destructible objects or dead enemies, and the only way to stretch out your 

energy supply is to not get hit. Lost Planet encourages you to play 

as aggressively and perfectly as possible. Levels are long enough 

to be nerve-wracking, often lasting around fortyfive 

minutes, which only adds to the sense 

of satisfaction when you clear one. It also 

makes Lost Planet’s singleplayer rather 

unusually long and substantial for a 

modern action title. 

2nd opinion by Roger Danish • Alternate Rating : 4.5 of 5 

Lynxara has pretty much summed it up. Lost Planet 

rocks. Like Dead Rising, The talented people at Capcom 

are creating amazing and unique experiences on the 

360. I can’t wait to see what they do next! 

Lost Planet has 

a multiplayer 

component, and while 

it’s a solid effort, it’s 

just not as interesting as 

the single-player campaign. 

It’s basically the same sorts 

of deathmatch and capturethe-flag 

variants that most 

360 games offer for their online 

multiplayer. Being able to use 

Lost Planet’s unique weapons and 

Vital Suits in combat definitely makes 

it worth a try, but the novelty quickly wears off. If you’re 

like me, you’ll just go back to focusing on the single-player 

campaign, which cannot be praised enough. 

These few pages don’t give me the words necessary to 

praise Capcom’s enormous attention to detail with this 

title, but just as a final example: this game has the first 

original score I’ve ever heard in a 360 game that was 

truly interesting. Most 360 action titles don’t even bother 

with much in the way of music, because they know 

players can just import custom soundtracks anyway. 

Capcom had to know this, too, but they went to the 

effort of giving you a rousing score that perfectly 

enhances the feel of the game anyway. Lost 

Planet is full of superior, artful touches 

like that. It’s one of the 360’s growing 

number of must-have titles. 

Rating : 4.5 of 5 

4.5 of 5 

THE STORY OF LOST PLANET 

Most action games don’t bother to have 

much of a plot at all; Lost Planet has, 

amnesia aside, one of the most wildly 

inventive stories you’ll ever see in a 

video game. 

Humans came to colonize E.D.N. III in 

T.C. -80, and their efforts met with 

success until the emergence of the Akrid. 

The colonists were simply overwhelmed 

by the Akrid’s strength and numbers, and 

those who could afford to fled the planet 

immediately. Those who couldn’t were 

forced to stay behind and try to fight as 

best they could. 

Driven by sheer necessity, the humans’ 

ability to fight the Akrid improved. They 

discovered that Akrids’ bodies contained 

tremendous amounts of thermal energy, 

which is a precious resource on a frozen 

world like E.D.N. III. This only intensified 

the human will to resist. Advanced 

mobile weapons called Vital Suits were 

developed to increase human offensive 

potential. Time hardened the survivors 

into bands of roving nomads called “ice 

pirates,” who battled both each other 

and the Akrid. 

One such band of ice pirates finds a 

young man frozen inside a Vital Suit. 

Miraculously, all it takes is an infusion 

of thermal energy into the Harmonizer 

mounted on his arm to revive him. 

His name is Wayne, and his memory is 

spotty at best. All he knows is that a 

terrifyingly powerful Akrid called “Green 

Eye” killed his father during some sort of 

enormous disaster. 

Wayne remembers how to fight, and 

he’s the only Vital Suit pilot the group 

has. Wayne really wants vengeance on 

the Akrid, but there’s far more at stake 

than he realizes. It was no accident that 

Wayne’s division fell before Green Eye 

twenty years ago, and even on a halfdead 

planet like E.D.N. III, secrets won’t 

remain buried forever. 

56_REVIEW_LOST PLANET: ExTREME CONDITION HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED 

LOST PLANET: ExTREME CONDITION_REVIEW_57

Publisher : Konami 

Developer : Konami 

Release Date : 12/5/2006 

Rating : Teen 

3.75 of 5 

Review by Wanderer 

Genre(s) : Whip it Right... 

Category : ...Like You Should 

# of players : 1-2 

For the last few years, the best titles in the 

Castlevania franchise have been 2D portable 

games (although Curse of Darkness was decent), 

all of which are attempts to live up to the 

standard set by Symphony of the Night. 

They all follow the same basic formula. You 

start at the entrance of the castle, and must 

explore it to find the relics you need to get further 

into the building. These relics are guarded by bosses. 

Eventually, you’ll run into either Dracula or some 

schmuck who’s trying to resurrect Dracula and who 

will succeed three seconds after you find him. Kill 

Dracula... with violence. Watch the castle collapse. 

Bonus modes are unlocked. See you next year, everyone! 

I’m ordinarily fine with this. Now that I’ve beaten Portrait 

of Ruin, though, it’s becoming obvious that Konami has gone 

about as far as it can go with this formula. Portrait has 

perfected the formula, but if you’ve played the other five 

“Metroidvanias” as much as I have, it’s very much old hat. 

Portrait is set in 1944, at the height of World War II. The 

worldwide chaos has caused Dracula’s castle to reappear, 

and two hunters rush to the scene. One is Jonathan Morris, 

the son of John Morris from Castlevania: Bloodlines and the wielder 

of the mysteriously-depowered Vampire Killer whip; the other is his 

friend Charlotte Aulin, a powerful magician. 

Inside the castle, they find a series of magical landscape paintings, created 

by an insane vampire named Breuner. Each painting is kind of a pocket 

dimension, making each painting an area you can explore. This allows for 

a little variety in the game’s backgrounds, which is a nice touch. 

You control both Jonathan and Charlotte simultaneously, which adds 

some new gameplay and an awesome online co-op mode. A lot of 

the issues from Dawn have been improved as well; it’s much more 

challenging, the enemies’ item drop rate is much higher, the menus 

are better-designed, you have more accessory slots, and you can go 

online to purchase items from other players worldwide. You can also 

2nd opinion by Lynxara • Alternate Rating : 4 of 5 

find an amazing variety of upgradable subweapons 

and nonupgradable spells, which makes the game 

almost as customizable as Dawn. 

The biggest problem that Portrait has, in fact, 

is that it’s too much like its predecessors. If 

you played Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait will seem 

oddly familiar, even with its new features. You 

get many of the same special abilities, many 

of the subweapons are functionally identical 

to what you’ve had in past games, they’ve 

recycled a lot of sprites (for no real reason, 

Portrait is full of shoutouts to Symphony), 

and even a couple of the bosses are the 

same. Other series can and have gotten 

away with this much repetition, but 

we’ve gotten an exploration-based 

Castlevania almost every year like 

clockwork since the GBA launched. 

The series needs to break new 

ground. 

If you haven’t played as much 

Castlevania as I have, you should 

add a point onto my score. Dawn 

of Sorrow is one of the best 

games on the DS, and Portrait’s 

biggest problem is that it’s too much like it. 

Obsessive Castlevania fans (i.e. me) may feel 

like they’ve been here before, but other gamers 

(and me too, honestly) should have a blast. 


PoR is almost a perfect evolution of DoS’s spin on the Castlevania formula, but the level and boss 

designs are hopelessly trite. It’s a shame; the new online features and co-op are brilliant. 

58_REVIEW_PORTRAIT OF RUIN HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED 

If you’re like me and have already 

played Atelier Iris and Atelier Iris 2, 

you may want to take half a point off of 

my score. This is because Ar tonelico is, 

functionally, the same game you’ve already 

played twice before. The characters are quirky 

and shallow, the dungeon crawls are almost 

laughably easy, and the game’s real challenge 

is primarily in collecting all of the many items 

you can synthesize. Very little is different 

aside from the names and the dungeon 

environments, and what new elements 

are present feel more like elaborations 

on the core formula than real change. 

In addition to items, Ar tonelico lets 

you collect power-ups and costumes 

for your three song maidens, and 

“conversations” that serve to develop 

their personalities. Your song maiden (or 

“Reyvateil”) is in theory the heart of Ar tonelico’s 

gameplay; you can only ever have one in your party 

at a time, and she uses “song magic” either to 

attack enemies or buff up your party in various 

ways. Other characters are more general types of 

attackers, or protect your Reyvateil from damage. 

All this is really a bit academic, though. You’ll never 

need to exploit the finer points of the combat engine 

to accomplish anything other than maybe trying to 

get extra item drops from enemies. Fortunately, Ar 

tonelico limits random encounters with a depleting 

2nd opinion by KouAidou • Alternate Rating : 3.5 of 5 

This game is delighfully weird, but it really needed deeper characters to make the system work. 

Still, I can’t hate a game with Japanese gangsta rap on its OST. Can you? 



Publisher : NIS America Genre(s) : RPG 

Developer : Gust 

Category : Girls 

Release Date : 02/06/07 # of players : 1 

Rating : Teen (Language, Mild Fantasy Violence, Suggestive Themes) 

gauge as in Atelier Iris 2, so you never really have to fight more than 

you want to. You can use items you’ve acquired for a variety of 

purposes, ranging from customizing weapons to synthesizing new 

items entirely. You can in turn use items either in combat, or 

to create other items. This is the part of the game that can get 

addictive, as the item synthesis system is even better in this title 

than it was in the alchemy-driven Atelier games. 

By fighting battles you also accumulate Dive Points, and you can 

then go to Dive Centers and cash them in to enter your Reyvateil’s 

Cosmosphere. The Cosmosphere is simply, well, her mind. Once 

there, you engage in story events that unlock extra costumes and new 

powers for her. How deep you can Dive is only limited by how many 

Dive Points you have, which is a problem. It’s very easy to trigger Dive 

events that reference story events you’ve yet to play through. 

Even more of a problem: your three Reyvateils just aren’t 

interesting characters. The datesim-style gameplay is somewhat 

interesting as a gimmick, but doesn’t really work without a 

compelling cast. How deep you Dive with given characters ultimately 

just feels like a means to the end of collecting all seven of the 

game’s endings. It should be mentioned that you do unlock some 

“suggestive” still art of the girls later on in the game as a reward 

for deep Diving, but the imagery is extremely tame compared to, 

say, DoAXVB. Make of that what you will. 

Ar tonelico is not a bad game, although it does feel less interesting 

than it should be. It’s primarily a collecting sim with a vestigial RPG 

attached, and most of the enjoyment in the game comes from the simlike 

elements and beautiful 2D sprites. The soundtrack is far and away 

the best it’s been in any Gust game to date, and is almost worth the 

price of admission by itself. While the localization is a bit disappointing 

as NIS-A efforts go, Ar tonelico still has some good gags and an intact 

Japanese voice track to offer. It’s easily a better play than either of 

the Atelier games, but still frustratingly similar to them. 


3.5 of 5 

AR TONELICO: MELODY OF ELEMIA_REVIEW_59

Publisher : SEGA 

Developer : Psuedo Interactive 


Rating : Teen (Violence) 

2.5 of 5 

Genre(s) : Racing 

Category : Road Rage 


Review by 4thletter 

Full Auto 2: Battlelines is okay. It’s neither great nor terrible. 

It’s just kind of there. To be quite honest, I think I like the 

racing more than I do the car combat. 

The racing is fun, if a bit floaty. I’ve hit a wall or obstacle and 

spun in a complete 360 in mid-air more than once. Otherwise, 

the action comes fast and furious. Attaining high speeds nets 

you a cool, but not distracting, motion blur. That sensation is a 

temporary one, however, since you’ll most likely go careening 

off into a wall or gas truck post haste. The trick is to find a nice 

mix between all-out speed and careful driving. Judicious use of 

the handbrake on your turns can make what would’ve been a skid 

into a gas truck into a smooth turn around a sharp bend. Getting 

across the finish line isn’t quite as simple as good driving, though. 

You’re going to have to manage car combat while you push 

150mph. You have primary and secondary weapons at your beck 

and call, each with their own special characteristics. Shotguns 

deliver a lot of power at short range, while machineguns give you 

tons of low-strength shots in a short period of time. You aim with 

the right analog stick, and I think that that is where my biggest 

problem lies with this game. 

The aiming is clunky and awkward. You have to take your thumb 

off the fire button in order to aim the crosshairs, which is 

generally a bad idea. There is some good news, though: you don’t 

really have to aim very much at all in this game. You can leave 

your crosshairs set at the default and do a perfectly good job of 

smashing up the competition. Sure, aiming may come in handy for 

certain specific environmental destruction traps, or if someone 

is just off to your left or right, but if they’re that far over, they 

can’t hit you anyway. Better to just tap L1 and boost away from 

them period. 

The rewind feature makes it onto the PlayStation 3 intact, and 

it is quite useful. You can easily turn the tide of a battle by 

rewinding to a point a second or two before your death and 

making a slight course adjustment or firing your weapon. It’s a 

cool little feature, and one that I hope sticks around. 

Overall, though, Full Auto 2 is a competent, but fun, racer and 

a so-so car combat title. Seeing cars and buildings explode is 

always fun, but putting it into a genuine race atmosphere seems 

like an odd mix. Even the destruction derby-style minigame falls 

flat. Actually getting a bead on an enemy is a pain and a half. The 

game’s physics engine is much more suited to actual racing than 

car combat. It’s a decent game if you’re thirsty for something 

on your PS3, just don’t come in expecting the second coming of 

Twisted Metal. 

Rating : 3 of 5 

2nd opinion by Roger Danish • Alternate Rating : 2 of 5 

Full Auto 2 plays like a poor man’s version of Burnout with the inclusion of guns and the played-out 

rewind mechanic. Hold out for the real thing. 

60_REVIEW_FULL AUTO 2: BATTLELINES HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED

Review by Sardius 

Publisher : Konami 

Developer : Blitz Games 


Rating : Everyone 10+ 

Konami’s rhythm-centric Bemani series shone brightly upon its 

debut, but in the PS2’s twilight days, this luster has started to 

fade. Years of similar sequels to Dance Dance Revolution and 

Karaoke Revolution have failed to evolve the core gameplay for 

either series in any meaningful way, and with Karaoke Revolution 

Presents: American Idol, this lack of progress has never been more 

prominent or as detrimental. 

Though its name may suggest otherwise, KRP: American Idol is just 

as much of an expansion pack-styled upgrade as all previous Karaoke 

Revolution sequels have been, offering only a select few new 

features to make itself stand out. Thankfully, the gameplay in KRP: 

American Idol remains much the same as previous Karaoke Revolution 

titles. Blitz Games’s attempts to add to this engine, however, are 

where the real problems lie. 

Unlike previous Karaoke Revolution games, you are now rated by a 

panel of judges at the end of every song, making for a significantly 

tougher experience. While a middling performance may have allowed 

you to barely pass a stage in earlier Karaoke Revolution titles, that 

same act will probably get you ripped to shreds when it’s analyzed by 

polygonal representations of Randy Jackson, Simon Cowell, and...uh, 

some woman who isn’t Paula Abdul. 

These judging sequences — arguably the main selling point of the 

game that best distinguishes it from previous Karaoke Revolution 

releases — are awful, if you’re lucky. At their worst, they’re 

terrifying. Karaoke Revolution’s polygon character models may be 

well suited for singing and dancing, but during the judging sequences, 

you’ll see creepy facial expressions, laughably repetitive animations, 

and a scenic view into the depths of Randy Jackson’s throat. 

This is not to say that the criticism offered is of any significance, 

either. The judges have a habit of criticizing your lack of rhythm, for 

2.25 of 5 

Genre(s) : Karaoke 

Category : With Angry Brits 


one thing, even though 

the Karaoke Revolution 

gameplay engine only 

detects vocal tone, not 

rhythm. The attempts 

at humorously slamming 

poor performances often 

fall flat as well, and postshow 

standings are reported 

by a very obviously recordedfrom-TV 

Ryan Seacrest. American Idol 

fans will be disappointed by the poor execution of admittedly neat 

concepts throughout. 

None of these shortcomings would be worth any consideration if 

KRP: American Idol’s song list was at least halfway decent, but 

unfortunately, this is not the case. Here’s hoping you like crap-pop 

bands like Nickelback and Fall Out Boy. While it’s fun to win the 

American Idol finals by singing the wrong words to Nickelback’s 

heinously terrible song “Photograph,” (”Look at this Nickelback! 

/ Every time I do, it Nickelbacks!”) series fans looking for familiar 

classics — or at the very least listenable music — will find little of 

interest here. 

Lacking the sort of fun additions that made Karaoke Revolution Party 

worthwhile, Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol comes across 

as gimmicky and entirely unnecessary. It’s a shame that the series’s 

run on the PS2 had to end on such a sour note. 


2nd opinion by Lynxara • Alternate Rating : 2.5 of 5 

I’m amazed that Konami found a way to make Karaoke Revolution even less fun. The American Idol 

license is used about as well as you could hope for, but this was just a bad idea from the start. 

62_REVIEW_KARAOKE REVOLUTION PRESENTS: AMERICAN IDOL HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED 

Heroes of Might & Magic V was my first experience with the 

HoMM series, and upon playing it, I immediately lamented all 

the years that the series had not been in my life. Thankfully, 

there’s now an expansion set, Hammers of Fate, which provides 

a new campaign, a new faction, and fixes a few of the original 

game’s problems. 

The most important of these fixes is the addition of a map editor, 

a series standby that for some reason wasn’t included in HoMMV’s 

original release. As this is the kind of game that’s designed to let 

players get crazy with online multiplayer, this expansion pack would 

be worth buying purely for the addition of the map editor and its 

added multiplayer potential. Fortunately, there’s a decently tasty 

singleplayer campaign to be found there as well. 

Things have gone badly since the events of the war against the 

necromancer. Queen Isabel reigns on the throne, but her character 

has changed, and even her most loyal subjects feel that she may 

have come under the influence of dark magics. Her generals declare 

war on the dwarves, who have provided sanctuary for the only 

other heir to the throne, and it’s up to a small band of human and 

dwarven rebels to put a stop to her evil machinations. The plotline 

is covered over a series of fifteen missions. They offer a wide 

variety of challenges, from escorts to sieges to simple survival. 

The graphics have significantly improved from the original, 

resulting in better cut-scenes that, unfortunately, make the terrible 

scriptwriting stand out more. It’s at its worst when it attempts to be 

hip and humorous: try to imagine an overblown John Rhys-Daviesesque 

burr speaking the line “Elrath has sent us a few more butts 

2nd opinion by MrPennybags • Alternate Rating : 3.5 of 5 

Publisher : Ubisoft 

Developer : Nival Interactive 


Rating : Teen 

Review by Kou Aidou 

to kick!” and you’ll know what I mean. The voice actors do their 

best, but usually just sound embarrassed. 

Fortunately, the gameplay additions are all positive. The new 

dwarven faction has the ability to spend resources in battle to 

employ runic enhancements, providing for new strategies and 

structures. There’s also a new gameplay element, caravans, that 

allow you to directly recruit creatures from dwellings without 

having to send your hero out as a go-between. The latter is 

extremely useful, as it means your hero can spend more time being 

heroic out in the field, and less time babysitting your towns. 

There are also some charming little touches that have been added 

here and there, such as the descriptions that accompany the 

non-game-significant weeks (my personal favorite is ‘Week of the 

Hamster,’ which doubles unit growth for Battle Hamsters). Sadly, 

these touches are offset by occasional programming sloppiness, 

such as text runovers and typos in unit names. While none of this is 

terribly significant, it takes away from the product’s 

overall polish. 

While Hammers of Fate may have 

benefited from a few more weeks of 

quality control (and a new scriptwriter), 

it’s overall a welcome addition to the 

fabulous HoMM family. The map 

editor more than justifies 

its $30 pricetag, and the 

little changes don’t 

hurt either. 


Offers more of the solid, varied strategic gameplay that the Heroes series is known for. The presentation 

is still uneven (and unintentionally hilarious at times) but at least the characters’ mouths move now. 


Genre(s) : Strategy/RPG 

Category : Fantasy 


3.75 of 5 

HEROES OF MIGHT AND MAGIC V: HAMMERS OF FATE_REVIEW_63

Publisher : Eidos 

Developer : TT Games 


Rating : Everyone 10+ 

3.5 of 5 

Review by HonestGamer 

Genre(s) : Shooter 

Category : Kid-Friendly 

# of players : 1 

Bionicle Heroes Bionicle Heroes works because it removes the 

carnage so many gamers like but remembers to replace it 

with something equally cool: robots. 

Levels begin with a few available robots. From there 

it’s all about finding more of them and destroying 

the bad ones. Switching between any of the six 

standard heroes is easy, provided you’ve found the 

appropriate masks. If you take a lot of damage you 

lose whoever you’re presently controlling (savvy 

players will switch to less valuable characters when 

the end is near), but gaining him back is as simple 

as relocating his mask. 

It’s important to keep every robot nearby 

because every stage features areas only one 

character can access. Hidden passages abound, 

but you can’t reach them without purchasing the 

proper upgrades for each Bionicle. 

With or without upgrades, you’ll eventually 

experience what the game calls “Hero Mode.” 

This turns your robot invincible and lasts until 

you use golden-colored building blocks 

to construct a way across some gap 

or wall, or until you create a beast 

to help you in one of the numerous 

boss encounters. Such battles are 

unfortunately rather redundant, since 

they usually just require fighting small 

enemies until you refill your meter, then 

unleashing a special attack and repeating 

the whole process. If you proactively retrieve 

masks whenever you’ve taken too much damage, 

victory is assured. 

2nd opinion by Racewing • Alternate Rating : 3.5 of 5 

Fortunately, the game provides new content to keep 

you busy even after you win. You can go back through 

any conquered stage to collect items you’ve missed. 

In fact, you’ll need to if you want to gather 

everything. You can also play as new robots 

once you’ve bested them in battle or found 

all the right goodies scattered throughout 

the zones. That’s cool, but it can’t 

completely mask the game’s primary flaw: 

tiresome combat. 

Though each world you visit is brimming with 

detail and life (more than you might think is 

even possible in the case of the PlayStation 2 

version), combat is not. It mostly amounts to 

a lot of strafing and is worsened by your 

inability to adjust the camera or your 

shots while running and firing. At least 

you can lock onto targets. 

Because combat sometimes isn’t as 

satisfying as it should be, the stages 

suffer. Aside from offering a few 

rudimentary puzzles, their main 

purpose is to serve as an arena for the 

combat. Even though you can revisit zones 

to try for better rankings or more blocks, you 

probably won’t more than once or twice. Still, 

Bionicle Heroes is a surprisingly solid shooter 

that’s appropriate for anyone who doesn’t mind 

the repetition. Robots rule. 

Rating: 3.5 of 5 

Are these are the same people who gave me Sonic 3D Blast? This’s quality run-and-gun, and oh-soshiny 

on the 360. I didn’t expect to have fun with this, but I did. 

64_REVIEW_BIONICLE HEROES HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED 

Vegas is the first next-gen exclusive entry in the Tom Clancy 

series of games, so it’s got quite a bit of hype to 

live up to in this HD-era. Luckily, it is more 

than up to the task. It takes place mostly in 

the first-person perspective, save for a few 

context-sensitive areas that pull out to 

third-person. So, yes, this is yet another 

military/tactical FPS, but it’s a standout 

in the genre. 

The gimmick is that Las Vegas has been 

taken over by certain terrorist group 

and only RAINBOW can clear it out. You 

will fast-rope in and command your squad 

to victory or death, depending on your 

skill. The controls are standard first-person 

shooter fare, from weapons selection 

and acquisition to accessory activation. 

Commanding your squad is accomplished via 

the d-pad, which is really the only sensible 

choice. This does result in making moving 

and commanding at the same time somewhat 

rough, but it’s nothing insurmountable. You 

should be commanding from cover, anyway. 

Speaking of cover and commanding, both 

are just as important as always. You aren’t 

going to be able to rush into a room or down a 

crowded hallway without a gameplan. Commanding your men 

to move to a certain position on hot or cold status is simply done. 

Setting them up to bang and clear a room is super-easy, too. You 

also have the option of having them form up on a door while you go 

searching for another entrance, resulting in a two-pronged attack. 

2nd opinion by Shoegazer • Alternate Rating : 4 of 5 


Publisher : Ubisoft 

Developer : Ubisoft Montreal 


Rating : Mature (Violence) 

Review by 4thletter 

There is plenty of audio feedback from your squad, as well. They’ll 

let you know if what you’re planning is a stupid idea. If they tell 

you something isn’t tactically sound, listen to them. 

The plan may be more trouble than it’s 

worth. Luckily, if you get shot to pieces, 

you can just duck behind some 

cover until you heal up and are 

ready to get back into the fray. 

If this new Unreal Engine is the 

beginning of the future, consider me 

duly impressed. Rainbow Six: Vegas is one 

pretty-looking game, and it doesn’t play 

too shabbily, either. There is a stunning 

attention to detail at work throughout the 

game. The first stage in the game alone, a 

washed-out urban area, has enough debris, 

scratched up walls, dirty streets, and realistic 

grass to impress even the most jaded of 

graphics nuts. The requisite nightvision and 

infrared goggles are available and look quite 

impressive in hi-def. 

We’re left with a visually impressive package 

with perfectly solid team-based gameplay. 

The multiplayer is, as per usual with the 

Clancy titles, excellent, too. You could make 

the point that shooters are prevalent to the 

point of oversaturation nowadays, but that doesn’t detract 

from the overall quality of the title. It’s fun, and I figure 

that is all that matters. 


After a dismal last outing, the Rainbow Six series is back on track thanks to several new 

gameplay implementations and some of the fiercest multiplayer firefights ever. 

Genre(s) : FPS 

Category : Tactical 


4 of 5 

TOM CLANCY’S RAINBOW SIx: VEGAS_REVIEW_65

Review by Racewing 

Publisher : Tecmo 

Genre(s) : Sports/Simulation 

Developer : Team Ninja Category : Pixellated Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy 

Release Date : 11/13/2006 # of players : 1 (2-4 online) 

Rating : Mature (Partial Nudity, Sexual Themes, Simulated Gambling) 

When Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball was released, it 

blew my mind. 

Never before had a mainstream developer so brazenly sacrificed 

basic concepts of video game structure and design for the sake of 

somewhat tasteful fanservice, skin-shots, thinly-veiled lesbianism 

and general fluff. As this magazine’s resident fanservice connoisseur 

(trust me, it’s tough work), I was on cloud nine… for about a week, 

after which, I went back to playing games with actual substance. 

Now, the sequel is here, on next-generation hardware; however, 

instead of weeks, I have sadly tired of it in mere hours. DOAX2 

somehow feels like a phoned-in sequel, a project that Itagaki 

perhaps had second thoughts about mid-production. At every 

turn, there are aspects that could and should have been executed 

far better. 

DOAXVB pushed the Xbox hardware almost to its limit for the sake 

of fantasy fulfillment. DOAX2, on the other hand, is surpassed 

graphically by this Christmas’s crop of Xbox 360 hits. Gears of War, 

Sonic the Hedgehog, Smackdown vs. Raw 2007… all of these contain 

far more convincing graphical feats than the game that truly needs 

to contain such fidelity. Why is there clipping and flat polygon usage 

in an Xbox 360 game? Why do hands and feet look almost like solid 

masses on my high-definition TV? Why do the girls move stiffly, 

and act like they’re afraid to come within five feet of each other 

besides? Finally, for God’s sakes, what is up with the independently 

bouncing breasts? They don’t work like that, Itagaki. Seriously. 

Gameplay-wise, DOAX2 “fixes” things that weren’t broken. The 

functional volleyball from the first game is now an utter mess, 

with spotty AI and extra control mechanics that didn’t really need 

to be added. Pool Hopping now incorporates the color-coding of 

the face buttons, which makes no sense when you think about it. 

2.75 of 5 

Which would you rather 

concentrate on, guys — a 

hopping girl, or your controller? 

The new minigames don’t 

fare much better. Beach Flags 

is imprecise, Tug of War and Butt 

Bouncing are too simplistic and almost 

based on luck. Water-Sliding isn’t 

even fun to look at, let alone play. 

The best of the bunch is Jet Skiing, 

and even that can get frustrating. 

This is supposed to be my dream 

vacation? This is supposed to be my 

stress relief? This is supposed to be 

virtual worship and appreciation of 

the female form? Consider the ball 

totally, completely dropped. 

The one good thing about this game is 

what it does for your ears. The bouncy 

soundtrack makes a return, and the 

English voice acting is actually decent. 

(Extra props who whoever cast Zack’s voice 

this time. Boo-yah.) Sadly, this is the only 

place where Xtreme 2 truly excels. Your 

mileage may vary, but for me, this game was 

a mess of disappointments that could have 

been easily avoided with extra development 

time. Rent before buying. 


2nd opinion by Wanderer • Alternate Rating : 3 of 5 

I’m honestly torn. This is harmless fanservice, and its total lack of pretension or 

violence is endearing, but just like the original, it’s not actually much of a game. 

66_REVIEW_DEAD OR ALIVE xTREME 2 HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED

Publisher : Graffiti Entertainment 

Developer : Sabarasa Entertainment 


Rating : Teen 

2.5 of 5 


Genre(s) : RPG 

Category : Time Paradox 

# of players : 1 

You could be forgiven for thinking Mazes of Fate is a repackaged 

ten-year-old PC game, sort of like Astonishia Story on the PSP. 

It’s got all the earmarks of a classic first-person dungeon stomp, 

right down to a somewhat unfair difficulty curve. 

The weird thing is that it’s a brand-new game. Sabarasa 

Entertainment, out of Argentina, is the first Latin American 

developer to make a title for a Nintendo console. I’ve been 

following this game for a little while, and they’ve been up front 

about what they wanted to do. They played a lot of classic dungeon 

crawlers, and were hoping to make a game that was a distillation 

of what made those classic titles fun. 

Mazes of Fate, as such, is aimed strictly at hardcore retrogamers. 

Think of Wizardry, Dungeon Master, and Eye of the Beholder, and 

you’ll get some idea of what Mazes of Fate is all about. You begin 

in a small village, with no greater ambition than surviving long 

enough to become a hero. Early conversations serve as teasers 

for what’ll eventually become the game’s driving plot — a battle 

against a race of evil goatmen to save humanity from extinction at 

the hands of the gods — but you start off as J. Random Adventurer, 

with a hundred gold crowns, a simple weapon, and the life 

expectancy of a snowball in a cyclotron. 

You pick up on quests by talking to the people around town, who 

show up as hand-drawn images whenever you enter a building, and 

who you interact with through conversation trees. Most of these 

quests will take you into caves, crypts, dungeons, towers, and 

forbidden temples; in other words, you go to many of the usual 

places where evil things with fat loots tend to hang out. 

Exploring those areas forms the bulk of the gameplay in Mazes of 

Fate, and this is where the retro kicks in. You interact with your 

environment by pressing B, then moving a hand icon around the 

screen and pressing A, to pick things up, take objects, pull levers, 

or what-have-you. 

When enemies show up, you take them on by calling up a combat 

menu. It looks like the combat should be real-time, but it’s turnbased, 

and its conflict resolution system seems to owe more to 

pen-and-paper RPGs (or maybe to early computer games that were 

essentially based on pen-and-paper RPGs) than to anything else. 

You should expect to miss a lot, but then, so should the enemies; at 

the same time, you may drop an enemy in one lucky hit, but they 

can sometimes do the same thing to you. You need a few levels 

under your belt before you can really expect to survive without 

convulsively saving the game every couple of feet. 

That may be the biggest problem Mazes of Fate has. It’s an 

unapologetic throwback of a game, and it faithfully recreates 

an entire bygone subgenre... including a few of the bad parts. 

It’s riding the boundary between being challenging and being 

completely ridiculous. That, on top of a generally unpolished 

presentation (the script’s full of minor translation problems, and 

there’s a certain amount of input lag on all the menus), is enough 

to dock it a point and a half. There’s a hell of a sequel lurking 

somewhere in Mazes of Fate, but for now, how much you like the 

game may depend on how fondly you remember the PC RPGs of the 

late eighties. 


2nd opinion by Jeremy • Alternate Rating : 1.5 of 5 

Due to dim dungeons, a slow pace, and choppy battle, this is only recommended for Eye of the 

Beholder fans. Curious players should wait for a price drop, while the rest can safely skip MoF. 

68_REVIEW_MAZES OF FATE HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED 

Alongside Contra and Gunstar Heroes, 

Metal Slug has always stood for runand-gun 

action on an awesome level. 

Throughout its seven installments 

(Metal Slug 3D/Evolution doesn’t count, 

though I can’t quite bring myself to 

loathe it outright), expertly-animated 

hand-drawn sprites populate the 

screen, leaving you and a friend to 

shoot them down without getting 

shot yourselves. 

For the most part, all six Metal 

Slugs (and Metal Slug X) are all 

reproduced faithfully on the Wii. 

It even lacks much of the slowdown 

that the NeoGeo games had. There’s just one niggling 

bit that the developers left out: when enemies with large 

amounts of hit points are shot, they’re supposed to flash. In this 

anthology, that rarely happens. Sure, it adds some challenge, but not 

in the way it should. 

The presentation itself also shows signs of being rushed. The menus 

are bare-bones, not even going to the trouble of giving you visual 

diagrams of the control schemes. Also, is it asking too much these days 

for developers to provide high-resolution official art as unlockables 

instead of small, blurry images? The unlockable arranged music is a 

plus, lack of online play is a minus. 

Seven differing control schemes have been included, and the 

developers went all out. Some are welcome additions, such as the 

one that moves your character with the nunchuck while letting you 

shoot with the Wii Remote’s trigger, and chuck grenades by flicking 

2nd opinion by Ashura • Alternate Rating : 3.5 of 5 

I am probably the biggest Metal Slug fan here, and the lack of a classic controller config (or GC d-pad) and 

hit-flash brings MSA down. The collection is great despite its flaws, however, and well worth picking up. 


Review by Racewing 

Publisher : SNK Playmore Genre(s) : Retro Shooter Compilation 

Developer : Terminal Reality Category : Leave No Cute Soldier Girl Behind 

Release Date : 12/14/2006 # of players : 1-2 

Rating : Teen (Blood, Violence) 

your wrist. Some are just crazy enough to work, like 

the Nunchuk-Only mode that lets you play 

one-handed. Some are well-intentioned 

flops, like the Arcade mode that asks 

you to hold the remote as if it were 

an upright arcade joystick. Finally, 

some just outright fail, such as the 

one that asks you to tilt the Wii Remote 

left and right to move your character. 

However, depending on your point of view, 

these control setups are either 

MSA’s biggest draw or biggest 

flaw. For all of its ways to play, the 

developers neglected to include a 

traditional mode with digital control 

and three buttons. The closest it gets 

is with the Gamecube controller, and 

D-Pad support for it was disabled, along 

with Classic Controller support. This means 

that people wanting to play with a control pad or an 

arcade stick are pretty much SOL. 

Is this a ballsy move, or just developer idiocy? You be the judge. 

The lines have already been drawn regarding this one by the fans. 

Personally, I got the game for the Wii-specific controls, and have other 

ways to get my Slug on, normal-style. Therefore, I’m not complaining. 

If you absolutely, positively must recreate a “true” arcade Metal Slug 

experience, you’re best off looking for a different version of MSA in 

the months to come. If, however, you like your shooters with added 

comedy and play variation (trying out all of the different controls is a 

blast with friends), then you might want to give this a shot. You bought 

your Wii to play games in non-traditional ways anyway... didn’t you? 


3.5 of 5 

METAL SLUG ANTHOLOGY_REVIEW_69

Publisher: Sega | Developer: Sega Rosso | ESRB: Teen |Release Date: TBA 

Genre: Head to Head Racing | Category: Driving Way Too Fast | Players: 1-2 

Platform: Arcade (Sega Lindburgh) 

Preview by Arlieth 

Sega is bringing a longawaited 

update to the 

Initial D: Arcade Stage 

series to arcades, complete 

with new graphics, new 

hardware and plenty of 

new cars to redline down 

the hills of Akina, Tsuchisaka 

and Irohazaka. Featuring the 

new Lindburgh platform (also used in Virtua Fighter 5) 

and a 40-inch wide-screen HDTV, it is no longer referred 

to as “Arcade Stage ver,” in order to signify its status 

as a true sequel and not a simple upgrade. The vehicle 

physics have also been revamped, getting rid of the 

gimmicky speed glitches from Initial D: Arcade Stage 

ver.3 and removing much of the artificial balancing that 

evened out the capabilities of many vehicles. Initial D: 

Stage 4 contains a variety of courses, playable in reverse 

and with varying environmental conditions such as rain, 

snow and day/night, as well as new cutscenes using 

cel-shaded models of the characters from the anime (not 

that anyone really bothered reading the cutscenes, but 

it’s nice to know that Sega’s going all the way with the 

overhaul). 

Not all of the new features will be a step forward for 

players, however. Stage 4 will also introduce the IC Card 

system, which holds more data and is more durable than 

the magnetic cards used in the past. Because of this, it 

will no longer be backwards-compatible with previous 

versions, meaning that you’ll have to start over from 

scratch. With the IC Card’s enhanced capacity, however, 

it now has room for a new avatar feature in which players 

can customize and accessorize their likenesses (drawn in 

the Initial D manga style) with new haircuts and clothing. 

Players also won’t have to buy a new card every fifty 

plays, like before. 

Initial D: Arcade Stage 4 will also feature Sega’s All.Net 

online link system, allowing players to challenge each 

other from separate arcades! Combined with the IC Card’s 

avatar customization system, this allows players to suffer 

the indignity of being smoked by a fourteen-year old 

girl driving a super-tuned RX-8, anywhere in the world! 

Previously, this sort of online network was attempted by 

Taito for its Battle Gear 3 racer, but the NESYS network 

(which players logged onto by inserting a slick-looking 

key into the ignition) established in the United States was 

prematurely cancelled, and U.S. arcade operators found 

themselves unable to connect to the Japanese NESYS 

servers. (NESYS did not support online head-to-head play. 

It only provided network support for stats and scores.) 

Hopefully, Sega’s American All.Net servers will allow 

domestic players the opportunity to race head-tohead 

against the best in Japan, or at least across 

the country. It’s this combination of an immersive 

experience with the convenience of online play 

that is a key strategy to reviving the arcade coinup 

industry in the United States. Don’t expect 

the American version of Initial D: Arcade 

Stage 4 to arrive until late 2007, but in the 

meantime, keep your fingers crossed for 

All.Net’s online play support! 

70_ARCADE_INITIAL D: ARCADE STAGE 4 HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED

GAMES YOU CAN DOWNLOAD AND PLAY ON YOUR CONSOLES AND COMPUTERING MACHINES 

GUNSTAR HEROES 

Downloaded by James 

Developer: TREASURE. * * PLATFORM: WII 

Genre: Action Action * * Category: Twin-stick destruction 

# # of of Players: 1-2 1-2 * * Price: 1200 1200 Points Points ($10.00) ($10.00) 

GET IT IT AT: AT: Wii Virtual Console 

There’s been a lot written about Gunstar 

Heroes over the years, starting off with calling 

it the best run & gun shooter ever made and 

only getting more positive from there. Well, it’s 

all true, every bit of it. 

The level 

design is 

flawless, 

with every 

area offering 

something 

different. The 

standard enemies 

are fun to fight and swarm the screen in large 

numbers, which is fine seeing as you’ve got tons 

of firepower in addition to a number of hand-tohand 

moves, and it all controls perfectly with 

the standard three button setup left over from 

the Genesis days. Bosses are huge, creative, 

numerous, and require a variety of strategies 

to defeat. Gunstar Heroes deserves a spot on 

every Wii owners’ Virtual Console. It’s Treasure 

at its best, showing exactly why after all these 

years we pay so much attention to everything it 

does. This game deserves a permanent spot on 

every Wii owner’s Virtual Console. 

NEON WARS 

Developer: BlitWise Prod. * * PLATFORM: PC 

Genre: Arcade Shooter * * Category: CLASSIC Trippiness 

# # of Players: 1 1 * * Price: $20.00 

GET IT AT: http://www.blitwise.com/neonwars.html 

Ever since the success of 

Geometry Wars 2, arena shooters 

have been in the middle of 

a renaissance. While most of 

them stick to the tried and true 

twin-stick formula, Neon Wars 

does something new, taking fire 

control away from the player 

almost completely. Instead, the 

player guides the ship around as 

it shoots a constant stream of 

firepower at unending waves of 

enemies. Collecting stars powers 

up the weapon, eventually 

turning it from a slow-firing 

single-shooter into a high-speed 

spread of death. 

The lack of control over fire 

direction combined with the 

need to constantly collect stars 

makes Neon Wars a game of 

maneuvering. Because the ship 

targets the closest enemy, aim 

becomes a matter of deciding 

which group of enemies to 

close in on, assuming they’re 

not coming to you at top speed. 

With a bit of practice it feels like 

the game is reading your mind, 

usually shooting at just the right 

enemy without any conscious 

thought involved. If that’s not 

working, there are a variety of 

super-weapons to either clear 

the screen immediately or give 

you enough firepower to do the 

job yourself. 

KNYTT 

Developer: Nifflas * * PLATFORM: PC 

Genre: Exploration * * Category: Ambient 

# # of Players: 1 1 * * Price: FREE 

GET IT AT: http://knytt.ni2.se/ 

It’s not always necessary to 

slaughter everything that moves; 

sometimes it’s nice to be able 

to just kick back, explore, and 

soak in the otherworldly sights 

and sounds of a new land. Of 

course, it doesn’t help that Knytt, 

after being abducted by an alien 

spaceship, is kind of stuck on 

the planet until he finds all the 

missing saucer parts, but there’s 

no reason not to enjoy the sights 

along the way. Knytt can jump, 

climb walls, and send out a beam 

of light to point a straight line to 

the nearest saucer piece, and the 

rest is pure exploration. 

On land, 

jumping 

from 

cloud to 

cloud, 

through 

caverns and tunnels, but not 

through water (he can’t swim), 

Knytt makes his way through 

the large, side-scrolling world 

as best he can in a relaxed, lowkey 

adventure that’s a great 

change of pace from the usual 

adrenaline rush. 

ROBOBLITZ 

Developer: Naked SKY * * PLATFORM: Xbox 360, 360, PC PC 

Genre: Adventure * * Category: ROBOT MAYHEM 

# # of Players: 1 1 * * Price: 1200 Points ($15.00) 

GET IT AT: Xbox Live Arcade, http://www.roboblitz.com/ 

Space pirates get into everything 

if you’re not careful, and in 

RoboBlitz they’re attacking 

the space cannon that space 

technician Blitz is space 

protecting. Under attack from 

a variety of enemy robots, Blitz 

has to roll around the station and 

bring all the systems back online 

so that the cannon, currently in a 

sad state of disrepair, can repel 

the advancing horde. Each of the 

station’s broken-down systems 

requires two levels full of combat 

and simple problem solving, plus 

a boss battle, to bring back up 

to speed. Finding the computer 

chips scattered around each area 

lets Blitz upgrade himself from 

a slow, weak mech into a highspeed, 

heavily-armed robot of 

doom, complete with a spiffy 

double-flip slow-mo jump for 

those bullet-time moments. 

RoboBlitz is a good deal of fun 

when everything’s working right, 

with some creative weaponry like 

the homing missile that burns into 

enemies, launching them into the 

air where they explode in a lovely 

display of fireworks. Blitz also 

earns a bungie cord-like energy 

device, allowing him to connect 

items together, reel smaller stuff 

in from a distance, or sproing 

towards any surface at high 

speed. It’s just unfortunate that 

the floaty controls and spastic 

third-person camera can be so 

frustrating, because it almost 

overshadows the fun of linking 

two airborne enemies together 

and watching them explode. It 

doesn’t quite do it, though, so 

despite its issues RoboBlitz ends 

up being a good round of mech 

blasting adventure. 

ASSAULT HEROES 

ASSAULT HEROES 

Developer: Wanako Games * * PLATFORM: Xbox 360 

Genre: Action * * Category: Twin-stick destruction 

# # of Players: 1 1 -2 * * Price: 1200 Points ($10.00) 

GET IT AT: Xbox Live Arcade 

In Assault Heroes, a heavilyarmed 

buggy drives along 

blasting everything in its path 

using far more firepower than 

such a cute vehicle should have 

available. Movement and firing 

are controlled in the classic twinstick 

style, with the left analog 

used to steer and the right to 

fire. A click of the right bumper 

cycles between the three main 

weapons, each of which has its 

place. The machine gun puts 

out a steady stream of weak 

firepower, great for mowing down 

infantry and small vehicles, while 

the slow but powerful cannon is 

good on buildings, bosses, and 

larger armored tanks. Finally, 

the flamethrower’s powerful but 

limited-range constant stream 

of burning death is good on 

everything, but can overheat 

and conk out with constant 

use. If that’s not enough then 

grenades and a screen-clearing 

nuke are available to aid in the 

devastation. 

While the screen doesn’t get 

as crowded with enemies as 

Geometry Wars and the like, 

there’s still a lot going on at once. 

Spiderbots and infantry, all sorts 

of tanks and aerial threats, and 

huge, creative bosses abound. 

The colorful graphics and booming 

explosions are even better in coop 

play, although the doubling of 

firepower doesn’t equal twice the 

enemies so it can be a bit easy. 

Assault Heroes is the game Total 

Carnage should have been: an 

ass-kicking mindless blaster with 

overpowered characters facing 

ridiculous odds, made even more 

fun when taken on with a friend. 

Games like this are why we have 

Live Arcade. 

SCORE: SCORE: 5 5 of of 55 SCORE: SCORE: 4 4 of of 55 SCORE: SCORE: 4 4 of of 55 SCORE: SCORE: 3.5 3.5 of of 55 SCORE: SCORE: 4 4 of of 55 

72_ON THE DOWNLOAD HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED 

ON THE DOWNLOAD_73

PUBLISHER: AQUA PLUS • DEVELOPER: AQUA PLUS + FLIGHT PLAN • RELEASE DATE: 10/26/2006 • GENRE: ADV/RPG • CATEGORY: NEKOMINI MODE • # OF PLAYERS: 1 

Every game has a plot, but few have anything 

that could really be called a story, and fewer 

still tell their stories well.Utawarerumono is in 

that happy minority. That’s not too surprising, 

since it started life as one of Aqua Plus’s 

experiments in seeing how far they could push 

the gameplay aspect of the already storyheavy 

(and much maligned) datesim genre. 

Half of Utawarerumono is the familiar 

datesim process of going through dialogue and 

wandering from location to location to trigger 

events, but the other half is a full consolestyle 

grid-based strategy RPG. The way Aqua 

Plus brings the plot demands of these two 

disparate genres together is quite clever, and 

results in one of the more fully-fleshed and 

engaging game stories you’re likely to find on 

the PS2. 

In all fairness, the original Utawarerumono was 

part of the thriving genre of adventure-game throwbacks that still finds an audience in Japan. 

It was originally an H-game, but virtually all of those girl-get elements have been excised 

from the console version. Instead, new subplots and artwork were added to replace them, 

and the overall result is a far better and more logical story. It also means you get higherresolution, 

better-drawn artwork than most PS2 titles that use still art usually bother with. 

The original PC game’s combat system has received an overhaul courtesy of Flight-Plan, 

the developers of the excellent Summon Night series, and the result has all of the tactical 

depth you’d expect. The gameplay is more like Shining Force than Disgaea; which is to say 

it’s more about using what characters you have efficiently than running a sprawling powerlevel 

grind into infinity. Instead of making an army of characters from generic classes, 

Utawarerumono gives you one or two story characters who conform to each of the major 

SRPG archetypes (archers, caster, healer, etc). This helps give the game a livelier and 

more engaging cast than most recent SRPGs, since there are more named characters to 

go around. Most characters have a variety of inherent special abilities that need to be 

exploited properly on the battlefield, and stats you can customize by investing bonus 

points in them at level up. 

The green “energy gauge” that each character has is particularly interesting. It goes 

up every time a character takes an action on the battlefield. You can spend energy 

on special maneuvers, like team-up attacks with compatible characters when they’re 

nearby, and have sufficient energy to pay for the attack, or on combo chains. The 

team-ups are vital because they’re really the only way to damage more than one 

target at a time, and how you use them will frequently determine the overall course 

of a battle. Whenever a character attacks (or when Eluluu heals) and you have 

enough energy, a circle flashes around the target. Tap the circle button in time with 

the flash and your character attacks again, doing extra damage at a reduced rate. 

The combat engine is fond of letting enemies hang on to life with single-digit HP, 

so using your combos properly can save you a lot of grief in the long run. At high 

enough levels, you can finish combos with beautifully animated and catastrophically 

damaging “finisher” moves, but the timing required to do one is remarkably exacting. 

The story is probably going to be hard to appreciate when you play the game 

as an import, especially since it’s conveyed largely in spoken dialogue and text, 

with the odd battlefield cut-scene using the marvelously detailed, high-resolution 

battle sprites. Digging up a synopsis of the game won’t help you much either, since 

Utawarerumono’s core plot doesn’t really cover any new ground: it’s got the amnesiac 

protagonist, secret origins of the world, and political bickering between rival fantasy 

kingdoms all down. What’s special about Utawarerumono’s story is the way its told, 

with a truly novel-like attention to detail. It subverts quite a few game story 

cliches to fascinating effect, and takes a delightfully realistic view of what the 

logical end of a game character’s progression of power-ups would likely be. 

Despite the large cast, no character gets forgotten about and everyone gets 

fleshed out with a variety of personality quirks, preferences, and sometimes 

genuinely surprising revelations. Before long you are likely to find yourself 

genuinely interested in who the man called Hakuoro really is, and what this 

means for his adoptive family Eluluu and Aruruu. When the game’s 

ending rolls around, you’ll be sad to see it over so soon. 

Given how badly most RPGs overstay their 

welcome these days, and how blandly 

interchangeable their casts 

are, that’s high praise 

indeed. 

74_JAPAN_UTAWARERUMONO HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED 


If you’ve heard of 

Utawarerumono at all before 

this, you either hang out on 

the Megatokyo forums, are 

some other sort of datesim 

geek, or happened to hear 

about the anime. The 

Utawarerumono TV series 

was produced by Oriental 

Light and Magic, who have 

in the past produced some 

truly dire material when 

adapting video game licenses. 

For Utawarerumono they were 

in good form, though, and the 

result is a show that is not just 

watchable but often downright 

entertaining. The series shows signs of 

being low budget throughout its run, 

much like the game, but still manages 

some lovely battle sequences and oneon-one 

duels. 

ADV snapped up the license in August 

of 2005, and the first volume of the 

domestic DVD release goes on sale 

January 16th asUtawarerumono: 

The Mask of a Stranger. If you’re 

interested in the Utawarerumono 

plot but afraid of trying to slog 

through reams of Japanese text in 

the game, the anime’s domestic 

release may seem like an attractive 

option. Caveat emptor: while the 

anime sticks to the game’s overall 

plot, it’s not nearly as well-told a 

story. Up through the show’s halfway 

point it’s a good watch, but the last 

half of the series is so rushed as to be 

nearly incoherent. You may ultimately 

find yourself wanting to play the game 

so you can better understand what the 

hell was going on in the anime! 

It’s very worth picking up Utawarerumono if you’re willing to hang with the immensely long text sequences 

between battles. A kind soul by the handle “LegoTechnic” has written an excellent FAQ that tells you basically 

everything you’d ever need to know to play it as an Englishspeaker, 

complete with Shift-JIS support. Still, I hope some 

enterprising American publisher will read this review and get it in 

their head that this is a game worth localizing. Atlus? 

NIS America? Mastiff? 

4 of 5 

UTAWARERUMONO_JAPAN_75

Publisher: Idea Factory Genre(s): Turn-Based Strategy 

Developer: Aruze/Atlus/Idea Factory/Red Entertainment # of Players: 1 

Release Date: 9/21/2006 Category: Hey Kids Look It’s Yuri Hyuga 

Chaos Wars is sort of like the RPG equivalent of 

Namco x Capcom or Super Robot Wars, with the 

casts of the first two Shadow Hearts, Spectral 

Souls, Gungrave, and Growlanser all teaming up. 

The story involves a first-year student, Hyoma 

Kusaka, inadvertently fulfilling a prophecy 

about his family when he opens a magical gate. 

Strategy-themed combat on a host of different 

worlds ensues, as does a ton of text. 

Fortunately, Chaos Wars is a fairly intuitive 

turn-based strategy game, so playing it doesn’t 

require any real fluency in Japanese. It’s 

actually very much like Phantom Brave; the 

battlefield is hexless, you dispatch your fighters 

from a base panel at the beginning of a fight, 

and characters and monsters take actions based 

upon their stats rather than alternating between 

player and enemy turns. As you progress 

through the game’s missions, you’ll gradually 

accumulate more fighters for your “army,” which 

you can dispatch one by one at the start of a 

fight. Fortunately, the similarities to Phantom 

Brave stop short of implementing the bizarre 

“hopping” battlefield, so surrounding a weak 

caster with meatshields is once again a viable 

defensive tactic. 

Chaos Wars’s combat system is probably the 

most interesting thing about it. Instead of 

assigning characters one action per turn with 

at least one “free” combat option (i.e. Attack), 

everything you can do costs something. All 

WORTH IMPORTING? 


combat abilities cost their user a certain 

amount of SP, some of which regenerates 

between turns. At the same time, if you attack 

an enemy who’s within a certain radius of one 

or more of your allies, you’ll have the option 

to team up for a devastating combo attack. 

Of course, the natural consequence of this is 

that you may wind up burning all of a given 

character’s SP before their turn comes up. 

It also means that in order to use your best 

attacks, you’ll have to forfeit a few turns. 

At the same time, Chaos Wars has a bizarre 

sort of “momentum” system. Every time 

a character acts in combat, they may 

fractionally improve one or more of their 

statistics. You don’t exactly level up, 

per se; you just use a character until he 

or she stops sucking, and his or her rank 

consequently increases. 

That actually winds up being a problem. You 

see, characters level up very quickly in Chaos 

Wars, so it’s very easy to wind up ahead of 

the curve. That’s the only explanation I have 

as to why I steamrolled the game as hard as I 

did; by the time I hit the second world, I could 

not be stopped. Imagine Gamesharking your 

way through an average Nippon Ichi game, and 

that’ll be a lot like playing Chaos Wars. It’s 

long on fanservice (sort of), but very short on 

any real challenge, and without a challenge, 

there’s no real reason to play it at all. 

This will receive an American release right about when they open an ice-skating rink in Hell, 

unless it gets a fan translation. Die-hard strategy gamers and the hardcore American Shadow 

Hearts fans might get a kick out of it, but it’s not much more than a brief distraction. 3 of 5 

76_JAPAN_CHAOS WARS HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED 

Review by KouAidou 

Publisher: Sunrise 

Developer: Sunrise Interactive 

Release Date: 10/26/06 

Genre(s): Racing 

Category: Cyber Formula 


Future GPX Cyber Formula: The Road to the Infinity 3 is a game that makes 

a lot of promises, any arrangement of which would send any good Cyber 

Formula fan scrambling to the nearest import site to place an immediate 

order. It promises an all-new story mode written by Mitsuo Fukuda and 

Chiaki Morosawa, new character designs by Hirokazu Hisayuki, and new car 

designs by Shoji Kawamori. It promises a GPX mode where you can follow the 

story of any character featured in any historic Cyber Formula race since the 

13th. It promises an unprecedented amount of visual and audio fanservice, 

from music to voice clips to character profiles. 

It also promises new graphical and racing engines, and here’s where you might 

be fooled. I’m going to tell you now that “new” does not always mean better. In 

the case of RttI3, think of “new” in the sense that it is used in the following phrase: 

“beating my head against that brick wall was a totally new experience.” 

This is an ugly, ugly, ugly game. The crisp detail and reflection effects that made 

the original Road to the Infinity a delight to play and watch have been tossed out in 

exchange for something that would almost look more appropriate on the PS1. The 

cars are blocky, jaggy, and cheap; the backgrounds are stark and lacking in detail. 

The anime screencaps that help tell the various story modes don’t appear to be taken 

from a remastered source: they look muddy, blurry, and dark, especially next to the 

vibrant digital footage of Hisayuki’s newly-drawn character designs. 

The gameplay’s not much better. While the original RttI was accessible even to casual 

racing fans, with a multitude of cars that catered to a variety of skill levels, here, 

the cars all handle like 10-ton shopping carts. You’re screwed if you don’t know how 

to Drift, and God help you if you want to use a Grip racer. I guess it’s possible that 

the developers were going for a more realistic engine — cars that regularly do 

400 kmph shouldn’t exactly be great on corners — but who had the idea to pack 

a game full of anime-related unlockables, and then make the actual racing 

completely inaccessible to casual fans? 

What’s ironic is that, in all other ways, the game fixes just about everything that 

was weak with the original RttI. All the additional voice clips and customizable 

BGMs give the game a more personal feel, and the story modes would add a ton 

of replay value if individual races were worth playing in the first place. That it 

should simultaneously lose everything that made the first game attractive and 

fun in the first place, though, just makes it an exercise in frustration. 

WORTH IMPORTING? 

There may be some Cyber Formula fans out there dedicated (or skilled) enough to struggle through 

all this to access the plentiful unlockables and story modes, but the visual quality is so bad overall 

that even as fanservice, it hardly seems worth it. Maybe we’ll see a remake in the future that gives 

us the best of both worlds; until then, all but the most hardcore should pass. 


Same car, same track, same location, but 

the image on the left is from the 2003 game, 

while the image on the right is from RttI3. 

Yeah, apparently they just hate you. 

2 of 5 

FUTURE GPx CYBER FORMULA: THE ROAD TO THE INFINITY 3_JAPAN_77

y Metalbolt 

Jon Fotis and Destiny Burch, cosplaying Final Fantasy 6’s 

magitek armor being driven by Terra, have experienced the 

highest honor a cosplayer can possibly experience. They were 

hand-chosen for an award by the creator of the characters 

they were cosplaying. The man himself, Yoshitaka Amano, 

chose and presented them with the “Amano’s favorite” 

award at the Metrocon: Amano’s World cosplay contest. 

When he first saw it, Amano said: “This is exactly the size 

and the shape as I pictured it, as I was thinking of it. You 

guys did an amazing job with this. I love it. You guys are 

awesome.” When presenting them with the award, he had 

this to say: “Back when I was coming up with the general 

idea for [Final Fantasy 6] I was coming up with ideas that 

would make a good poster 

for the game. I thought 

the best thing I could do 

would be Terra and the 

magitek armor, and this 

weekend, my poster came 

to life... and the winner is 

Jon and Destiny!” 

Over one hundred man 

hours, six hundred dollars, 

and a torn ACL later, all of 

Jon’s hard work definitely 

paid off! 

Cos-play (kos-plä) 

v. A combination of the words costume and 

play. People known as “cosplayers” dress up as 

their favorite characters from anime, movies, 

and video games. 

Photos by: risingsun.net 

78_COSPLAY HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED 

POLITICIANS CONSIDER VIDEO GAMES TO BE AS DANGEROUS AS GUNS AND NARCOTICS. 

AND THEY’RE SPENDING $90 MILLION TO PROVE IT. 

Copyright © 2006 Entertainment Consumers Association. All rights reserved. 

Fight back at www.theeca.com

Fan art is all about giving exposure to aspiring artists who might not 

otherwise have a way to get their artsie parts seen. If you are one such 

artist, point your web browser toward www.hardcoregamer.com and 

check out the Fan Art section of our message boards. That is where you 

can post your arts to get them considered for this section. If your entry 

is picked to print in the magazine, we’ll give you an extra 100 points. If 

your entry is the pick of the issue, we’ll give you an extra 500! You may also 

email submissions to fart@hardcoregamer.com. 

A few things to keep in mind: There is no deadline for submissions because 

we’ll be doing this every issue. Keep it video game related, please. Only post 

drawings which you drewed yourownself. Don’t expect drawings of nekkid 

people or any adults-only type stuff to make the cut. Keep it rated “Teen” 

or below. You are the copyright owner of your artwork as soon as your draw 

it whether you make note of that fact or not. However, in submitting your 

artwork to us, you give us permission to reprint your art and make fun of it 

if necessary. 

Title : HGM Galaxy 

Artist : Javier Bravo 

Age : 21 

Location : Fontana, CA 

Title : Alien Moai 

Artist : Douglas De Guzman 

Age : 23 

Location : Las Vegas, NV 

Title : Dark Hero Akutare 

(Disgaea 2 home-made plush) 

Artist : Nukascrue 

Age : 25 

Location : Reading, MA 

Title : Death Jr. 

Artist : Ronald Townsend Jr. 

Age : 18 

Location : Orlando, FL 

Title : Akutare Family Christmas 

Artist : Nukascrue 

Age : 25 

Location : Reading, MA 

80_FAN ART HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 2_ISSUE 8_FISSION MAILED

C 

M 

Y 

CM 

MY 

CY 

CMY 

K 

 

®

Character Wayne by ©Lee Byung Hun/FANTOM CO., LTD., ©CAPCOM CO., LTD. 2006 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. CAPCOM and the CAPCOM LOGO are registered trademarks of CAPCOM CO., LTD. LOST PLANET is a trademark of 

CAPCOM CO., LTD. Microsoft, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox Live, the Xbox logos, and the Xbox Live logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. The ratings icon is a registered 

trademark of the Entertainment Software Association. All other trademarks are owned by their respective owners.

Love games? 

We love games. In fact, we were going to call the magazine “We 

really like games allot, monthly,” but that was kinda dumb. Plus, 

it’s supposed to be “a lot,” not allot. Anyway, if you love games 

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