This week's releases are Nintendo-heavy with two Wii games and one DS offering taking center stage. If you fancy yourself being a pirate, an assassin, a tubby plumber or a prickly hedgehog, then this week's releases has something in store for you.
One Piece Unlimited Adventure
System: Nintendo Wii
Genre: Action Adventure
Price: $39.99
Company: Namco Bandai
Rating: Teen
Join wannabe Pirate King Luffy and his Strawhat crew as they try to solve the mystery behind a mysterious island while sporting some snazzy, new -- if not expensive -- outfits.
The One Piece manga has had its fair share of game offerings from an assortment of one-on-one beat-em-ups and even a party game. As the title implies, this game is an adventure romp, allowing you to take control of Luffy and his mates while you explore a 3D world and try to solve the riddle behind a mysterious orb that comes into Luffy's possession.
Having dabbled with the game, I can say that the game starts out a bit slow, largely because the characters start out with a limited amount of moves (and I mean limited, as in two-hit or even one-hit moves). But don't let that detract you from the game. The good news is that you can get more moves and combos by leveling up your characters' moveset, so you should be dishing out "skillz" such as Luffy's assortment of Gum-Gum moves (or gomu-gomu for you Japanese purists) soon enough. Just make sure you level all your characters equally or you'll be left with some pretty useless allies during key boss fights. Take it from someone who faced the first boss with one-move Chopper and one-move Usopp. That sucked eggs big time (fortunately, I leveled Nami up to hit twice so she and Luffy did enough damage before I had to cycle all the way down in my nearly-dead character list and dispatch the boss with Usopp's piddly little sling shot out of desperation).
Throughout your adventure, you'll also need to collect items to power up your orb so you can unlock other areas of the island. This involves a fair amount of abuse of nature, including assaults on bushes, rocks and coconut trees. Expect a call from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Plants and Rocks. If you want to take a break from earning nature's wrath, the game also offers survival and versus modes that allow you to unlock a stable of more than 40 fighters.
All in all, the game appears to be quite promising so far. Hopefully, it gets more interesting as I unlock the character's full assortment of moves and get into stuff like fishing, bug catching and item mixing to help keep things fresh and break the monotony. Graphics-wise the game does feature a fair amount of pixellation that evoked memories of my PS2, but that's likely exaggerated by my 63-inch TV (or as my Japanese friends like to call it, the Yakuza TV). One Piece fans would also likely eat this up, though I wish there was a way to unlock the Japanese language option (Yes, I'm one of those people). As someone who's mostly watched the Japanese version of the One Piece anime, hearing the characters speaking in English sounds just as weird as hearing Lord of the Rings in Japanese. Expect another writeup after I sink into the game like Luffy on roasted meat.
No More Heroes
System: Nintendo Wii
Genre: Action
Price: $49.99
Company: Ubisoft
Rating: Mature
Play the role of a broke nerd who wins a beam katana in an Internet auction and becomes an up and coming assassin. Yep, this one ain't for the kiddies. I haven't played this game so I'm including video by someone who has. From what I've seen, it almost has a Kill Bll meets anime vibe to it.The game's certainly got a good buzz from the hardcore gaming community -- even though it hasn't fared well sales-wise in Wii Fit-crazy Japan. If No More Heroes is as good as I'm hearing it is and you're one of those people complaining about the lack of hardcore games on the Wii, you might want to give this game a look. To ensure that we don't harm the eyes of innocent underage readers, I've decided to post a video from one of the game's tamer moments.
Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games
System: Nintendo DS
Genre: Sports
Price: $34.99
Company:Sega of America
Rating: Everyone
We're hitting all the demographics this week. This one is the DS followup to the Wii game that little kids just seem to love. How do I know? Because I had young relatives playing the Wii version of the game all day long last Christmas. I kid you not. The little ones just love Mario, Sonic and friends. JASON HIDALGO
