Sunday Roundup: 8/3/14

Man, was I happy to see this game sitting on the shelf! I found this one while randomly checking out related games on Amazon, and decided I need to buy it should I find it, dare I say, out in the wild. Ha… Anyway, Animal Kingdom: Wildlife Expedition looks to be a sort of safari photographing game, kind of reminding me of Endless Ocean for the Wii, just with lions and tigers and other land mammals. It’s a Natsume game (Harvest Moon guys) so I’m expecting it to be full of cutesy drawings and overly animated facial expressions.

A bit of a splurge in terms of price, but I was on vacation, so who cares about money! Batman: The Brave and the Bold is based on the animated cartoon series of the same name. It is a brawler/beat-em up game for two players. I have been looking to buy it forever because it looks fun and it’s by WayForward, whom I believe have created a lot of great titles. Anyway, when I was reading the back of the box I discovered there’s some connectivity between this version and the DS game. So now I have to add that to the want list as well. Geesh…

The Disc Replay in Lafayette was my haven for many years, so when I drove down to West Lafayette/Purdue University to visit a good friend and his wife, I knew I was stopping by to pick up some games. I discovered the store had moved when I first got to the mall area, but thankfully a quick Google search told me it was just down the road a ways. So at this “new” Disc Replay I found myself at my second home away from home. Shelves upon shelves of great games, including Battalion Wars for the GameCube. Man, I’m gonna miss that store a lot… next year… next year…

Another game I was looking at picking up for years, Castlevania: Judgment is a fighting game featuring the better known heroes and villains of Konami’s Castlevania series. The game incorporates a strange art style, which I’m not sure I like at all. It takes the iconic images of the Belmont clan and even Dracula himself and makes it kind of Anime-esque with long’ish hair and heavily stylized features. As far as gameplay goes I’ve heard mixed to negative comments about Judgment, but I’m still willing to check it out. I mean come on, it’s a Castlevania fighting game! At least the soundtracks decent!

Developed by Deep Silver, the company behind Dead Island, Cursed Mountain is a survival horror game exclusive to the Wii (Well, a PC port came later, but at the time it was exclusive!). I’ve seen the game randomly at several GameStops, but the time or price was never right for me. With gift card in tow, however, I took the plunge about bought this bad boy. I’ve also seen the game pop up on a few “hidden gems” lists of Wii games, so I feel like it’s a justifiable game to add to my collection.

Man, what a find! The sole game I picked up in my hometown’s GameStop, Deadly Creatures has been on my radar for a long time (which seems to be a theme with this week’s haul of games). I would occasionally see the game on sale for around $15 or $20, but never wanted to pay that much for it. At just five bucks however, the magic price was rolling and my wallet was open. The game itself has you playing as a scorpion or tarantula trying to survive the natural world hazards of the desert. It’s such a strange premise and interesting game that I had to have it!

Easily the find of the week! Seeing Electroplankton on the shelf was like seeing a treasure chest at the end of a rainbow. Okay, maybe not that dramatic, but it was a thrilling find nonetheless! Released in limited quantities in North America due to strange distribution methods, the game saw only marginal sales. Because of that, it now often retails used for nearly $30. At just eight dollars, I was more than happy to buy. It’s complete too, and it’s a game that I honestly never thought i would find, at least at this great a price!

Gungriffon Blaze is a game I specifically recall passing on several times when Game Crazy was still around and they had it on sale for just $1. One dollar, and I didn’t think it was worth it. Well here I am nearly 10 years later paying 500% more than I could have it I just bought it earlier. I didn’t know then that it was a Working Designs game: these are the same people that brought over many quality Japanese RPGs to the original PlayStation, including the Tales of Destiny series as well as the Lunar games. Clearly not as prestigious as those aforementioned games, but it’s all there, with the logo, manual, and box.

Another Natsume game that I never heard of! Even strangers, there’s a sequel that also released in North America! Metropolismania is a simulation game which has you building up a city while meeting certain requirements. From the sound of it, the game reminds me of Sim City, but apparently some odd things can occur in your city as well, including visits from aliens. The fact that the game has a sequel is enough for me to give it a try! It’s a super early PS2 game too, so I’m sure it won’t be all too pleasant…

The sole PS1 game from this trip (sad!), Mr. Domino lets you play as walking domino pieces with faces and different personalities. If that wasn’t enough for you already to be excited, the gameplay has you running through a variety of stages while avoiding traps and slamming into other dominoes. Man, they just don’t make games like this anymore. And check out that cover art. Smiling dominoes are the best kind of dominoes.

A solid find! The Operative: No One Lives Forever and it’s sequel are regarded as some of the best first-person shooters of their time. You can’t quite see it here on the cover art, but you certainly can in the sequel, but the game takes place in the 1960’s, and one of the highlights upon the game’s release was how it portrayed that era in culture. I was upset with myself that I passed on this game and the sequel (which is PC only) some years back while in Lafayette, so I’m happy to finally claim one as my own. The games are also both on PC as well, but I’m seeing they might be hard to come by nowadays.

I first heard of this game from someone’s collection blog. They said the game was surprisingly good, featuring multiple beasts you can transform into, and a plot that was worthwhile and interesting. For just a few bucks I decided to give it a go. I’m not sure how it’ll hold up to today’s standards, but it looks promising enough. Also, it’s kind of hard to mess up the hack-and-slash nature of these sort of side scrolling games: you really just need to be able to mash buttons and kill stuff, and it looks like this game accomplishes that easily.

On a whim, I picked this one up, It’s one of those rare games that I never heard of, but upon inspection decided to try. It’s published by Aksys Games, who have brought over a lot of fun Japanese games to the States, including Bit.Trip and the BlazBlue series. The game looks a lot like Guitar Hero or Rock Band for the DS, but with an all female cast. I’m actually thinking the game will be pretty fun! Sure, the target audience is probably girls, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be enjoyed by everyone.

Another solid find, and at a GameStop no less! Sam & Max: Season One completes the duo of games on the Wii for my collection. It is another point-and-click game, and comes with all five episodes originally released separately on the PC. I remember the second game (Beyond Time and Space) being very laggy and unresponsive on the Wii, so I hope this version got it right. Which would be kind of weird, considering this game was released first. Anyway, at just $2 this game was a must buy.

Completing the trilogy of games on the PS2 for me, Silent Scope 3 is probably not nearly as fun as the other two games. I read online that you cannot use the lightgun with the game, which, if you’ve seen my video review of the first Silent Scope, makes a huge difference. Anyway, Silent Scope 3 will probably be put on the backburner for some time, considering I have plenty of other on-rails shooters to go through, including the second game in the series.

I’ve had this notion in my mind that I should be collecting all of the sub-par Sonic games for the Wii, just “because.” Well, I’ve officially started I guess, as this is the first game I’ve bought that fits the criteria. The other games (Unleashed, Secret Rings) are abundantly available, so I’m sure I won’t have a problem securing them. I read online that Sega took these games off retailers shelves due to poor Metacritic scores. That probably won’t make the games any more desirable considering their availability nowadays, but you never know!

I have this strange obsession with purchasing remakes of retro games for new consoles. I’ve almost amassed the entire Atari collection of hits remade on the PS1, and I’ve recently been coming into ownership of several DS remakes. Space Invaders Revolution was apparently overseen by Space Invaders developer himself, Tomohiro Nishikado, but that doesn’t give me any more faith in this game being anything more than a remake of a classic, somewhat boring, game.

Interesting. The back of the box claims this game is “The sequel to the best selling Star Wars game of all time.” I didn’t know the original Battlefront was that successful. I thought Knight of the Old Republic was going to take that crown. Anyway, picking up this one makes the couple of games complete in my collection, sans the PSP game and possibility of a sequel coming for the new consoles. I did play the original game in a demo station at Game Crazy way back when it was first released, and actually really enjoyed it. Perhaps I’ll pop these guys in on a rainy day.

The only reason I picked up this one was because it completes my Time Crisis collection on PS2. I remember my friend getting this game in high school and playing it at his house. It focuses a lot on action, which I suppose is good for a GunCon/Light Gun game, but I always liked the Time Crisis series for focusing on absurd plots and enemies. The original was so novel because it felt like an interactive action flick. Oh well, as least it’s another light gun game for consoles, which are a guilty pleasure of mine.

With this added to the collection, I’ve almost scooped up all four Touchmaster games on the DS. I’ve also managed to not buy any of the games in order of release up to this point. Fun and pointless facts! Of the games, this original game is usually considered to be the best, with the most enjoyable collection of touch-based minigames included.

I use an app on my phone to collect and sort all the games in my collection so I know at any given time if I have a game or not. Trace Memory was not in my collection on the phone, but I knew I had a copy lying around somewhere. Actually, I think it is Laura’s copy of the game. Regardless, I decided to pick this one up just in case, and because it was only a few bucks. An early DS title, Trace Memory implements a memorable storyline as the main feature of the game, and a sequel was released on the Wii but never say a port stateside.

The second Trauma Center for the Wii, New Blood was the first to actually feature a new storyline, as the original Wii game was just a remake of the first DS game. As far as the series goes, I still am on the hunt for the second game on the DS, Under the Knife 2, and the third for the Wii, Trauma Team. This came came with the cover and instructions, but not the original case. I’ll swap it out with a new one here soon, so don’t mind the nasty stickers on that picture!