Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier
First up: Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier for the DS. jRPG in a future setting. Raunchy cyborg women. Button-timing based combat. Customizable combos. Moving on.
Coraline
You bought the RealD glasses, and sat through this great Neil Gaiman story in the theater. If that wasn’t enough button-eyes for you, this week brings in Coraline as a cross-platform release. This adaptation covers the events and characters from the movie, using the same CGI visuals. The gameplay is traditional point-and-click-adventure-with-mini-games. The only playable character will be Coraline herself, but you will be able to interact with all of the interesting characters throughout the story. The plot of the movie is perfect for a video game, almost as if Gaiman anticipated both the movie and the game when he conceived the original novella, and wrote it in such a way that it could be easily adapted into both. Weather or not they pull it off is yet to be seen. I’ve been skeptically weary of movie to video game adaptations ever since E.T.
Velvet Assassin
If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll have noticed that games set in the events of WWII rarely show up as featured new releases. This is because WWII is a boring setting, and we’re all, frankly, just about done with it. This week, however, we have two unique WWII games that caught our attention. The first is Velvet Assassin for the PC. This game tells a dramatized version of the story of British MI6 agent Violette Summer. The game takes place within Violette’s flashbacks (as stealth-based, third-person missions) while she lay on her deathbed. In addition to this satisfying plot about an interesting woman, the game features a captivating visual style, 50 different ways to silently kill Nazis, RPG-esque character skill choices, and “morphine mode” which slows Violette’s memories to a drug-induced bullet-time, allowing her to more easily dispatch her past enemies.
Stalin vs. Martians
The second is our Icrontic Spotlight game for this week, Stalin vs. Martians, also for the PC. A parody of WWII RTS games, the main appeal of this game is its humor. One look at the game’s website might make one think that this is some late April Fools joke, but it is very real, and it’ll be on Steam this week. The developers tout this game as a response to the over-complication of the RTS genre, and it is thus going to be very simple, with no tech trees, no buildings (when you purchase units, they simply appear from off-screen), no more than one ability per unit, slick and colorful graphics, and simplified controls. The website declares the game to be “one of the best [RTS games] in years and years.”
PC
- CID The Dummy
- Pahelika: Secret Legends
- Stalin vs Martians
- Titan Online
- Warrior Epic
- Women’s Murder Club: Death in Scarlet
iPhone
- Dreams
- Trivial Pursuit
PS3
- Hannah Montana: The Movie Game
- X-Men Origins: Wolverine
- Coraline (PS2)
PSP
- CID The Dummy
- Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce
Wii
- CID The Dummy
- Coraline
- Hannah Montana: The Movie Game
- Cocoto Platform Jumper (WiiWare)
- Nobunaga’s Ambition (VC – SNES)
DS
- Coraline
- Elite Forces: Unit 77
- Hannah Montana: The Movie Game
- Puzzle City
- Roogoo Attack!
- Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier
- X-Men Origins: Wolverine
- Clubhouse Games Express: Card Classics (DSiWare)
- Paper Airplane Chase (DSiWare)
XBox360
- Hannah Montana: The Movie Game
- Velvet Assassin
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