I will be getting the Deluxe Edition from Steam for $60 which includes the game, the soundtrack, making-of video, bonus Babylon Civilization as well as a free map pack when you pre-order (which I will be doing). To add to that, the game is fully integrated with Steamworks which will give you cloud support, achievements, and all the other great stuff that anybody that plays games on Steam has become dependent upon.

So here is my problem with the Special Edition. I love the convenience of having the game on Steam; I am not one of those people that needs a physical copy of the game and actually prefer to not have a disc. The Deluxe Edition on Steam gives me everything the Special Edition has except for the figurines and the art book. I would love to have those two item but there is no way I can justify spending the extra $40 for those two items and then add the inconvenience of having the game on a disc on top of it.

As many of you know from listening to our podcasts, I’m an avid fan of the Zelda franchise.  Though I’ve gotten a lot of crap from Cory and Dr. Whomiller over never having played “the best Zelda” (A Link to the Past), I still think I know a thing or two when it comes to the world of Hyrule; more specifically, what a good Zelda game should consist of.  Without further ado, here’s my recap of the Skyward Sword demo that I got to play at E3 this year.

The demo starts you off in a forest of some sort, where you’re thrown into a basic environment so you can get your bearings and become familiar with how Link is controlled, and how to use his various new weapons.  I encountered a couple of familiar enemies during the demo, such as Deku Babas and Keese.  Combat has been improved upon in the sense that it takes a degree of strategy now to actually defeat foes.  The Deku Babas will now open their mouths either vertically or horizontally, and it’s up to you to predict how they’ll attack.  They can only be defeated with the correct corresponding slash; for example, if a Deku Baba opens its mouth vertically, it can only be killed with a vertical slash.  If you execute a horizontal attack when the Deku Baba is open vertically, Link’s sword bounces off the monster and you’re left vulnerable for a moment while you recover.  Whenever this happened to me, the Deku Baba usually immediately counter-attacked, so you’ll definitely want to use the correct attacks against each enemy.

After I hacked and slashed my way through a patch of Deku Babas, I made my way through a cave where I tested out a new weapon, Link’s whip, on some startled Keese.  It really goes without saying, but the whip relied heavily on subtle movements from the WiiMote (exactly as the Master Sword does).  I’ve heard a lot of people complaining that though Nintendo is claiming the controls are 1:1 for this game, they aren’t.  Well, after getting to try it out first-hand, I’d have to say it’s pretty darn close to 1:1.  Even slight movements of my wrist were detected, and on screen, Link mimicked everything I did.  The whip was a little strange to control with this aspect; it felt as though the tip of the weapon responded to the movements you would execute, rather than its handle.

Another new weapon Link has acquired in Skyward Sword is the beetle, which is more or less what it sounds like: a mechanical beetle.  This device has become the replacement for the boomerang.  You launch it and it will retrieve an item for you, simple as that.  If you’ve played Twilight Princess, however, you’ll notice that the beetle can be controlled much like the falcons you can call on occasionally.  When I played, I used the beetle to pluck a piece of fruit out of a nearby tree.  Once you pick up items, you’ll switch to an overhead view and a target will display below the beetle.  Essentially, you can use this weapon to pick up various items and use them as bombs against enemies.

There are several new gameplay mechanics that have been implemented into Skyward Sword as well.  Link can no longer roll; instead, he is given the incredibly useful ability to dash.  This useful technique, however, is limited with a stamina meter.  From my experience with it, your stamina doesn’t deplete very fast, so expect to be dashing most everywhere in this game.  Link is still quite agile and acrobatic, which comes in handy while battling monsters; he can still back-flip and jump from side-to-side like no one’s business.  Again, battles have become more strategic.  You really need to be aware of what you’re doing and you also need to anticipate your foe’s movements to successfully defeat them.  They’ve also changed the way you throw bombs – you can roll them like a bowling ball now, as well.  The demo ends right around the time you finish a battle against a Stalfos.

Now, there are a lot of things I haven’t mentioned yet that I should, like the art style and game’s overall graphics.  Skyward Sword has stepped away from the more mature look of Twilight Princess to something closer to Ocarina of Time.  The subtle cell-shading in the game is a familiar throwback to Wind Waker, as well as a few other things, such as the cartoonish design of some of the enemies (namely Moblins and Stalfos), and the way monsters disintegrate after they are defeated (they fade to black and then explode in a colorful smoke, ala Wind Waker).  Most everyone in the Golgotron Crew is complaining about how the graphics look worse than Twilight Princess, which was just a Game Cube game ported over to the Wii.  With this statement, I don’t agree.  I would say the graphics in Skyward Sword are better than its predecessors, but the new cell-shaded art style makes it seem like the game looks fuzzy.  To me, it looks like it’s less cell-shaded and more like it’s a watercolor painting.  It is said that the graphical design of the game was inspired by Paul Cézanne, an impressionist artist, and comparing screenshots with the French artist’s work, I’d agree.  I think the game definitely has a graphical improvement over Twilight Princess, and looks absolutely beautiful.

So there you have it, folks.  All that’s left in this article is for me to rant about how excited I am for this game.  I’ve never been disappointed by a 3D Zelda title(even though I was slightly put-off by Wind Waker initially because I wasn’t sure about the graphics) so I’m sure I’ll be pleased with this.  I had a lot of fun with the demo for Skyward Sword and can’t wait to play the full game in 2011.  To everyone else that doesn’t agree with my love for this game, I can only say this to you: Haters gon’ hate.

I got to try out OnLive for about 15 minutes at E3 last week, and I have to say it didn’t suck.  The video resolution was a bit low but I was completely surprised when I switched from playing Batman: Arkham Asylum to Unreal Tournament 3 in about two seconds flat.  I was looking forward to getting some more hands-on time with the program from home, but those plans have been completely spoiled.  OnLive currently does not allow you to connect to the service if you are using a WiFi connection.  This seriously blew my mind.

OnLive explains why wireless isn’t allowed in the FAQs on their website; here is what they have to say:

OnLive technology does indeed work well with good quality Wi-Fi connections, and in the future OnLive will support wireless. But OnLive is a very new technology that uses the Internet in ways it has never been used before. During initial stages of the rollout of the OnLive service, we need to be able to understand and address Internet connection issues as they arise. Since wireless connections are subject to interference and drop-outs, when users are connected to OnLive through wireless, it adds another layer of network issues that are hard for us to separate out from Internet issues. Once OnLive is better established, we will be able to allow wireless connections. Bear in mind that at such time as wireless is supported, OnLive will require a good quality Wi-Fi connection to provide a steady gaming experience.

I get that wireless CAN be unreliable, but what about all the people that have a good wireless router like I do?  I honestly haven’t had my PC or laptop plugged into a router in over 2 years, except on very rare occasions.  We have a total of three PCs, a few laptops, two Xbox 360s, one PS3 and other various devices in our household.  With the exception of one of the Xbox 360s, everything is running on wireless.

I really think that OnLive is shooting themselves straight in the foot and then in the testicles with this decision.  The entire reason for people to use OnLive is because they don’t have a computer that can run games like Assassin’s Creed II, Left 4 Dead, and Crysis.  Most people that might be interested in the service will probably be using netbooks, laptops, or run-of-the-mill PCs.  If they are using a PC they’ll probably have it plugged in, but if they are using a netbook or laptop I can only imagine that a vast majority of them will be using wireless.  By not allowing WiFi, OnLive is seriously limiting their already small potential audience.

I really don’t want to, but I am going to have to dig through my closet to find a 25-50′ CAT5 cable so I can give OnLive a test run.

I got my hands on Okamiden at E3 and it did not disappoint.  Okamiden will be released on the Nintendo DS and is the sequel to Okami which was released for the Playstation 2 in 2006, and then for the Wii in 2008.

The series shift to the Wii was easy to understand using the WiiMote as a new control element.  The main puzzle-solving tool in Okami is the Celestial Paint Brush which requires users to use ink some paint bridges, clean up the landscape, and even attack enemies.  While Okami for the Wii was somewhat frustrating to control with the WiiMote, Okamiden using the DS touchscreen is much more clean and crisp.

This time around you are playing as the children of Okami’s main heroes.  You will control Amaterasu’s wolf cub Chibiterasu and Susano’s son Kuni.  Having two main playable characters will add some new elements to the puzzle-solving aspect of this adventure game, which has drawn many comparisons to the Legend of Zelda series.  Taking advantage of the DS hardware is just an added bonus.

Although it probably should, Okamiden won’t sell more copies than either of the Zelda games for DS.  I believe Okamiden will be much better than either of those games.  While Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks are good games that play very well on the DS, they are only shells of their console counterparts.  Okamiden on the other hand, looks to be true to the original and that is what it should be.   Just because it’s going on a hand-held doesn’t mean that it needs to be watered down.  Put this one on the top of your list for 2011.

The video below is from the  Captivate 2010 press conference for you to see the cell shaded goodness for yourself.

Ah yes, the wait is over.  After a major dry spell of games worth mentioning for the Wii, Super Mario Galaxy 2 is upon us.  The first Super Mario Galaxy game was released in 2007 and took the Super Mario Bros franchise to the next level.  Super Mario Galaxy came off the “love it or hate it” Super Mario Sunshine and launched Mario into outer space.  Rather than standard environments with solid ground throughout, Nintendo was able to experiment with new platformer elements in outer space.  With Galaxy 2, Nintendo has built upon the success of the previous game with additional characters, power ups and overall game fixes.  But is it enough to warrant all the perfect scores and calls for Game of the Year?

Let’s take a look at the new things that have been added to Galaxy 2.  First and foremost, right smack in the middle of the cover art is Mario’s dinosaur pal Yoshi.  This was a great addition to take advantage of Yoshi’s different traits and gameplay elements in this gravity-based platformer.  Yoshi and his ability to float and eat just about anything has opened a lot of new doors for new levels to wrap your brain around.  Yoshi has also been given his own set of power-ups to diversify the gameplay even more.  Hot peppers cause him to have a short burst of speed while balloons fill him with air to float around like a blimp.  The Ghost House Lamp is by far my favorite; eating a golden lamp causes the floor to light up in a circle which moves and follows underneath the player.  The tricky part is that it runs out like grains of sand around the edges and you will find yourself having to start these levels over again if you don’t find another lamp in time.  Nintendo threw in a nice bit of nostalgia from the SNES here by having Yoshi change to Red, Blue and Yellow; the colors of the bonus Yoshis in Super Mario World.

Mario wasn’t left out when it comes to new power-ups.  You will still find your old favorites like the Fire Flower (which still has a stupid timer on it) and Star Power (which has a timer on it, as it should).  Mario can now turn in to a rock and roll around to crush Goombas and Koopa Troopas.  It also allows him to plow through rocks and other destructible objects.  The Ghost/Boo suit is one of the only things being panned from this game as being pretty close to worthless.  The new Cloud suit more than makes up for the short-comings of the Boo suit.  One waggle of the WiiMote will create a cloud right under Mario’s feet; it is limited to only 3 clouds at a time before you need to power up again, which forces you to use them wisely.

Then there are several updates to the overall presentation of the game that were desperately needed.  In the original Super Mario Galaxy, you had to navigate through a ridiculous home world to get to the different levels in the game.  The jumping puzzles and unlocking of the new levels was fun for a while, but it got really old really fast, especially when the bonus levels called “Comets” opened up.  The Comet levels would open and then close as soon as you completed a different level, causing you to have to constantly navigate through the home world, back and forth.  This has been fixed by taking it back to basics.  While there is still a home world (a planet shaped like Mario’s head), it has been simplified for Galaxy 2.  You now use this home world planet to move through a Super Mario Bros 3-style level system.  The comet levels now also stay open at all times, so you don’t have to go and complete them right away after you unlock them.

Some of the complaints that I have for the game besides the previously mentioned Ghost/Boo suit is the design queues that were taken from the recent New Super Mario Bros Wii and DS games.  The cameras in these levels do not feel as free and open as they should for a Galaxy game.  There are a lot more levels that lock you into side-scrolling, which takes away some of the immersion from trying to wrap your brain around the 3D world and its crazy gravity.  It’s not all bad, as some of the side-scrolling is pretty fun but sometimes feels like filler or an after thought.  I would have liked to see some more levels or added goals to the existing levels rather than some of the locked-in side-scrolling.

The one thing you need to know about Galaxy 2 is that you are getting more of the same and that’s not a bad thing.  You want a story?  We don’t need no stinking story.  The Princess gets captured by Bowser and it’s up to you to save her.  If you need more story than that, keep on moving along.  This is a video game, not an interactive movie that many of today’s games have become, and it makes no apologies for it.  The controls remain mostly the same from the original Galaxy game and that’s OK with me.  They were good enough for the first game, no need to mess with what isn’t broken.  However, there isn’t anything wrong with updating and putting some polish on some other classic elements.  Nintendo went all out on the nostalgia when it came to the music for this game.  You will find updated tracks from all of the classic Mario Bros games.  These tracks are very well done and trust me, you will remember it when you hear it.

This is a very worthy entry into the Super Mario Bros franchise.  It adds unique gameplay and control styles to make it a Galaxy game, and at the end of the day it’s Super Mario Bros and you know what you can expect.  This is definitely a must-have for any Wii owner and a good enough title to purchase a Wii if you don’t have one just to play this game.  The difficulty is balanced very well.  Newcomers to the series will be able to pick it up and veterans can expect a solid challenge if they want to get all 120 stars.  I cannot agree with ALL of the perfect scores that are being handled out, but this is a very good game.  Game of the Year?  Maybe.  Let’s wait until December to find that out.  I think I will have a better idea after I play Red Dead Redemption.

This game had me glued to the TV from 9:00 pm when I started until about 9:00 am the next morning when I finally finished.  The episodic structure of the game works very well as it sets defined story arcs within the game.  It also offers a natural rise and fall of action within the game and the breaks between each episode gave me a chance to have a short breather.  If you happen to not play the entire game in one sitting, the episodes would be great times to turn the game off as the next time you start playing you will be greeted with a “Previously, on Alan Wake” to get you back up to speed.

I should mention that the introductory episode is about as perfect as I could imagine.  The game actually starts you in a nightmare that Alan is having where a mysterious talking light instructs you on how to use the flashlight to remove the darkness from one of the “Taken” enemies which then leaves it vulnerable to bullets.  This nightmare sequence is ended by having the player frantically running away from a giant tornado that is chasing down Alan.  It is at this point that Alan wakes up on the ferry just in time as they arrive in Bright Falls.

The basic story of the game is that Alan Wake is a famous writer that is suffering from writer’s block so his wife suggests going to Bright Falls in hopes that it will inspire him.  Needless to say, crazy shit happens, people die, and Alan wakes up in his car a week after his arrival in Bright Falls with no memory of what happened.  What you soon find out is that he spent that entire week writing a book, and everything he wrote is coming true.

The way the story unfolds throughout the game is quite enthralling.  In all the different areas Alan will find pages from the manuscript, many of these pages detail events that haven’t happened yet, while others describe events that you’ve already experienced.  One thing that I love in this game is how the story can jump back and forth and you, as the player, have all the same information as Alan Wake; nothing more, nothing less.  At different points in the game I wondered if all the thing happening were real, if it was all a nightmare, if Alan was just insane, or maybe some combination of those possibilities.  One thing is for sure: the game will have you wondering these things all the way through to the end.

Aside from the story, the game has some really good gameplay.  I love how this title uses the flashlight.  When you aren’t fending off the seemingly endless supply of Taken that the game throws at you, the flashlight helps you find secret stashes of batteries and ammo.  I also found the use of the flashlight in battle more thrilling than using guns in most other games.  The variation of enemies forces you to balance focusing the light between different Taken to maximize your survivability.  Where some Taken will try to get in close, others will throw hatchets from afar and they will often come from a different angle.  I quickly figured out a strategy where I would blast one enemy with the flashlight to momentarily stun it while focusing the light on another enemy until the darkness dissipated so I could give a couple of shots from my gun to finish it off.  The game can get extremely intense when you are facing four or five Taken and you only have one or two batteries to work with.

The flare is the real hero though.  Everything about it amazes me.  The game will tease you with a Safe Haven in sight only to have the generator die as soon as you get close with four enemies following close behind.  The sound of lighting the flare is one of intensity and momentary relief for the few precious seconds of safety that it brings.  Since I played the game in the dead of night in a dark room, the sudden burst of light from every flare that I lit would cause just the slightest amount of pain in my eyes, but that only added to the experience.  In the most dire situations, I would even throw out three flare that I had saved up until that point in hopes of making it to a Safe Haven alive.

I also can’t forget to mention the gun reloading mechanic in this game.  This may sound silly, but hear me out.  When you reload your gun in Alan Wake you have two options; you can press the button once which will cause Alan to reload the weapon, or you can tap the button repeatedly to have Alan reload the weapon faster.  This subtle mechanic had me tapping the button so fast when an enemy quickly approached me when I was out of bullets.  This simple game mechanic has since been imprinted into my mind.  I have found myself continually tapping the reload button while playing Red Dead Redemption, even though it has no effect.  I didn’t even realize I was doing it until about five hours into the game.

While Alan Wake gets almost everything right, it isn’t without a few faults.  The biggest problem with the game is the facial animations, in my opinion.  I have no idea what happened during development that no one realized the characters’ faces looked like shit.  It really is a shame because the voice acting is solid, but faces look like they’re dead and being moved by wires.

The second problem with the game is that of re-playability.  The game took me just under twelve hours to complete, which I feel was just the right length.  But the game is done after those twelve hours.  There are certain manuscript pages that you can only get on the Nightmare difficulty, which is unlocked after initial completion of the game.  If you are going for achievements I can understand playing the game again but other than that, I see little point.  It might be a game that I will want to revisit in a year’s time to experience again, along with the DLC episodes that will be out at that time.

tl;dr: This game is spectacular from beginning to end.  If you have an Xbox 360, there is no reason on Earth that you shouldn’t be playing this game.  Alan Wake is my second favorite game so far this year (Mass Effect 2 being my favorite).  I can understand that most people might buy Red Dead Redemption because it has more game for your dollar, but I think Alan Wake is easily better in every way.

Obligatory Score: 9.5/10

NaturalMotion’s first entry into the world of sports video games has drawn inevitable comparisons to many games in the genre, namely Madden.  The analogy of it being like Madden’s XFL or AFL game are as tired and cliché as Madden itself.  While it would not only be hypocritical of me to damn the Madden franchise, it would be just as hypocritical of me to say that the comparisons aren’t sound in some ways.  Backbreaker’s biggest flaw, of which it has many, is that it’s not Madden.  Many gamers, especially those of the Madden faithful, have already damned it for that reason alone.  But the game should be celebrated and given a shot to (okay, get ready for the tacky football/sports cliche here) get through the rookie slump and eventually come out on top in the league of ever-growing sports titles. 

First, let’s talk about the good: Backbreaker’s physics are dope, to say the least.  The game uses the Euphoria engine.  For those of you who just aren’t well-versed in what that means, “Euphoria is a game animation engine created by NaturalMotion based on Dynamic Motion Synthesis, NaturalMotion’s proprietary technology for animating 3D characters on-the-fly ‘based on a full simulation of the 3D character, including body, muscles and motor nervous system.’”  What does that mean?  It means that EVERY tackle is unique and that characters respond to their environment versus relying on a canned animation.  So, tackles are different every time and that players respond (most of the time) realistically to other players on the field.  Basically, this means that the game is the most realistic sports game ever…  on the field.

Now, the bad: It’d be wrong to say that this game was incomplete with all the work done on the engine.  However, the game lacks what many consider to be “standards” of the genre.  By and large, a majority of these things are things that we probably take for granted, like coaches and players on the sidelines, cheerleaders, referees, real-time commentary and a TV-like broadcast experience.  These things are all omitted on an incredible scale and some would qualify as this ruining the game by not trying to create a “realistic football experience”.

From my perspective, so much was done with this game to change the way that the experience is felt that, one can hardly fault NaturalMotion for taking out things that take away from the feel of being on the field.  For example; the camera.  The camera is strategically set behind the player to provide a more intense and action packed feel, versus the “broadcast style” view of other games in the genre.  This is meant to put you “into the game” and give you the feel of being a player on the field and not a spectator.  So, if the game’s creators had intended to create something that puts you on the field and not on the couch, why would there need to be commentary, or ESPN stats, or old referees running around?

This brings me to the negative aspects of the camera.  Sometimes you get lost in the action; the camera puts you right into the action so that when tackles happen, THEY HAPPEN.  Either you feel like you dropped a player like a 3rd Period Science Class, or you were on the business end of a 7-man football equivalent of a traffic accident.  However, if you’re a Free Safety on the wrong side of the field when a run goes strong side, you may not get a sniff of a tackle and feel like you were left out of the action.  This, however, is very much how you would feel if you were really on the field.  You can eliminate the loneliness of being on the wrong side of the field by switching to the player closest to the ball carrier, but the switch can be very disorienting leaving you scrambling to find where you are on the field.  If you can look at it from the perspective of attempting to put you right on the field, it can be a refreshing take and a hell of a rush to play.  If you’re a Madden/2K5-aholic and need to be on the sidelines, you’ll have a hard time making the adjustment.

Passing can be a bitch, but that’s kinda how football is supposed to be.  Remember, IRL quarterbacks aren’t running around with “vision cones” and “vibrating fanny packs” telling them when they are about to be the meat in a linebacker sandwich.  Yes, selecting your receiver and viewing the whole field can be hard and, having a quick release is impeccable.  Whoa, that’s football.  Weird.  Just like real life, it’s hard to pass a football, make a completion, and score a touchdown while evading 11 other guys on the field.  Madden can be no cupcake of a game with its difficulty curve, but most of the time it’s difficult because the AI becomes INVINCIBLE during times of defeat making every game either incredibly close or a blowout with a tremendous comeback (ie predictable, boring and canned, in more ways than one).  Backbreaker makes the game of football hard the way it’s hard on the real field, not by making you overcome the most notoriously rubber-band AI in the genre.

Ultimately, Backbreaker lacks many things that make “broadcast style” sports titles what they are.  While this can be viewed as either an oversight, or a rookie mistake by the developers, it also could be looked at as a new way to put you into the game and give an overall different experience when compared to Madden and its many imitators.  Where Backbreaker works, it works well and provides a unique, fresh and exciting way to play video game football.  Where it doesn’t work is almost for the same reasons because there are some who will be turned off by the idea of not being able to see all of the action.  Backbreaker is a great first effort for a football game that fumbles (damnit, I’m sorry) the ball at some points, but as an expansion franchise, we just have to give it some time to hire the right coaches and players to get it into the playoffs, which I feel this game can do if people are just willing to give it a chance to win.  This game belongs in this league.

Essentially, this remake is a piece of shit dressed in pretty graphics compared to the original. If you really have a hankering to kick some shell, get the rom, or dust off the old cartridge and play it like it was meant to be played. I looked it up, the original goes for the same price on ebay, $10, and we’ve all got a dusty SNES sitting around somewhere. Don’t waste your time on this half-assed revisit to the classic. Stick with the old graphics, and get the better game.

The question that needs to be answered is if you take pieces of all those games and mix it all together, is it still awesome?

Typically the answer is no. You usually end up with something that looks and feels like it was glued together by a 6 year old at summer camp. These games are also usually tied to a blockbuster summer movies and are rushed to market to match the movie release date. Since we know that Darksiders was based on a Metallica song from 1983 and not a movie, it was given the time it needed to get polished and put together properly. This is what you are getting with Darksiders, a graphically impressive game with solid controls and a well designed interface. The art direction is well put together and the cut scenes are even more impressive. While the 360 version launched with some frame rate and tearing issues, a patch has already been released to correct those issues.

The game play is very similar to what you would expect from God of War or Devil May Cry. You have different button combos and weapons that you can use to string together lengthy combos on multiple enemies. Defeating enemies releases their souls which you capture to cash in later for more moves and upgraded weapons. The puzzle solving elements and dungeons are straight from the 3D Zelda games with their own twists and advancements. One example is the addition of the teleport gun which works very similar to what you found previously in Portal. Also while traveling through the landscape, you have those “Ah ha” moments when you see some where that you can’t quite get to but know that you will eventually gain the equipment or skill needs to get to where you are going.  You also unlock your trusty steed Epona…I mean Ruin later on in the game to make traveling through the environment much faster. I will be the first to admit that this game is not perfect however. They could have left out the swimming levels that no game developer can see to get right. One other common complaint is the lack of interaction and NPC’s in the environment. Hopefully these will be items that are addressed in sequels to this title. It is also quite short for an adventure game tracking in at just over 20 hours. The amount of replayability is high however as a result of this short play time and multiple difficulty settings.

The bottom line here is that this game is getting knocked around for stealing ideas from other games when it should be praised for making it work. This is the mature, high definition, Zelda game that fans have been demanding for years. This game has sold over 500k copies under its first 30 days at market. While it is a multiplatform release, it is a brand new IP and the first release from Vigil Games. It was also released in the shadow of two of the most anticipated sequels of the year, Mass Effect 2 and Bioshock 2.  Vigil has now proven that there is a market for this type of violent adventure game. It is time for Nintendo to step up to the plate and take The Legend of Zelda franchise to the next level. Darksiders is a solid first offering from Vigil Games and is defiantly worth picking up. I am looking forward to 3 sequels for each of the other 4 Horsemen.

Super Mario Kart laid much of the ground work for what you see in the more recent Mario Kart titles. Many of the features that you see in the Wii version are all here. You race a series of 5 tracks and earn points depending on where you place in each race to find out if you have what it takes to win each Cup title. The difficulty is broken up into 50cc, 100cc, and 150cc races over 20 total tracks. All the usual suspects are here including Mario, Luigi, Bowser and a Nintendo newcomer at the time, Yoshi. You will also find all the traditional items like red shells, green shells, and banana peels to help get the competitive edge. There is a great multiplayer element here with the Balloon Battles and head to head racing. All in all this game is what you would come to expect from a good Mario Kart title. But is it worth your hard earned cash?

The answer is no. Put your nostalgia aside, you won’t get much more than a couple of hours of play time out of this game. This was the first game in the series after all and there have been many improvements of the years that have made more recent titles much more enjoyable. The first thing that you will notice when you fire this one up is the game play. It almost feels as if you are spinning the game environment around a fixed character rather than navigating the tracks. The tracks are also very short. Even with doing 5 laps on each race, you won’t spend more than two and a half minutes on the longest of tracks if you expect to win. While it is commendable for Nintendo to stay true to its roots and release 100% original titles on the Virtual Console, some games could benefit greatly from online multiplayer and leader boards. You might be able to find out who the best Super Mario Kart player is in your neighborhood but things get much more competitive when you compare to a bigger audience.

There are a couple of bright spots in this game that could be brought back to make current games more enjoyable however. On the top of this list is the ability to jump over banana peels and incoming shells. Being able to avoid the dreaded red shell should not be under estimated. Then there is the feather power up. This item allows you to jump over walls and over gaps on certain tracks to make up much needed ground or stretch your lead. The cheapness factor was also not ramped up in this game yet. There are NO blue shells to haunt you in your sleep from this title.

My final say on this one is to skip it on the Virtual Console and to go pick up a SNES and a copy of Super Mario Kart from your local pawn shop or thrift store. If you absolutely must have this game, spend the extra cash for the SNES and the cartridge. You will thank me in a couple of years when you have the cartridge sitting on your shelf instead of a digital download on the Wii that you traded in for the next generation console.