Galaga Legions DX - PSN Review

Namco Bandai did an excellent job in creating a fun, neon-filled experience with Pac-Man Championship Edition DX, which I reviewed to a score of 7.5 here. The question was: could they have the same amount of success with their follow-up attempt, Galaga Legions DX? The short answer is yes, for the most part it is a pretty good game.

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Outland - PS3 Review

Outland is a game that became very popular on the PlayStation Network when it first released, scoring quite a few positive reviews. The premise is fairly simple, with action and platforming making up the majority of your tasks.

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The Pinball Arcade - PSN Review

I really like pinball games - we will just get that one out of the way here. Mind you, when I would go to the arcade with my dad as a kid, he was the one who spent all of his tokens on those, and maybe a couple of rounds of air hockey with me, while I dumped most of mine into actual arcade cabinets like Double Dragon, Ninja Gaiden and Solar Warrior. However, I would always make sure to save a few tokens for playing against my dad - who usually won.

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Battle Fantasia - PSN Review

Good morning, everyone. We are going a bit light here at Chalgyr's Game Room this week (and the last few as you likely noticed). Vacations, lousy weather, training conferences and more have been conspiring against spare time lately. So, I thought I would kick out a light review for today that I have had drafted for a while now, and we have a guest contribution from Jim again on Thursday this week. Barring any more surprises (like frozen/burst pipes in my basement a couple of weeks ago), we should be back to normal (as 'normal' as I can be at least) next week.

Thanks for dropping by!

At a glance, Battle Fantasia seems like it would be right up my alley. Medieval themes, nifty-looking visuals and the promise of some RPG elements in a one-on-one fighting game.

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Elemental Monster: Online Card Game - PSN Review

Alright then - I am back from Florida. Which, for the record, was a whole lot nicer than Michigan. It is roughly five degrees out this morning. Guh! Ah well, I decided to toss out a quick review to help get the ball rolling this week. I will have another brief guest post tomorrow morning as well.

I think by now I have safely established my love of collectible card games. While none really top my history with Magic: The Gathering, there are a lot of different ones out there. They have been showing up all over mobile devices like the iPad, and there are some good PC ones too - but outside of Magic: The Gathering, there have not been too many console CCG's to date.

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Joe Danger - PSN Review

You know those games that get great reviews, and look like you should really enjoy them because they seem to be well made games with an entertaining theme? We all see them from time to time, and I am sure all of us eventually find one or two that seem like they should just be a lot of fun, and yet for some inexplicable reason, just do not resonate the way you had hoped and thought they would.

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Final Fight: Double Impact - PSN Review

I remember dropping plenty of quarters into the cabinet for Final Fight when I was younger, and though the console ports were never quite as good - I picked them up and enjoyed them just the same. Early on after I got my Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, I found myself flocking to some of the old arcade titles that showed up to download. I still have most of my older consoles and have these versions of Final Fight or Double Dragon - but they are not quite the same thing as the arcade ports.

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Dead Nation - PSN Review

Coming right off of Halloween, this one seemed appropriate for a quick Monday morning article.

I am not someone who was ever really smitten with the zombie craze of the last few years. There are a few exceptions in both movies or games, but generally speaking zombies make for boring, mindless antagonists that gleefully shamble about like rotting Lemmings.

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The Guided Fate Paradox - PSN Review

First off - Happy almost-Halloween! Bit late for a background update to match the season, but I went ahead and made a quick one. Now, onto the main event:

The Guided Fate Paradox is a title I caught a trailer of in passing a few months ago, and I have been looking forward to it since. I cannot put my finger on just what it was about the game that caught my eye back then, and even asking most of my friends about it, most have not heard much about it aside from what I have been telling them. Their loss - but I will encourage the JRPG fans among them to give this one a go as soon as it releases on PlayStation Network on November 5th.

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Super Stardust HD - PSN Review

I owned an Xbox 360 before I had my PlayStation 3, and most of my friends who had an Xbox 360 were hooked on a little game called Geometry Wars. I played the demo and liked it enough for the most part, but it never quite clicked with me for some reason. Fast forward another year or so, and I had a PlayStation 3 and one of the first titles I picked up was the similar but much flashier looking Super Stardust HD.

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Skydive: Proximity Flight - PSN Review

Heights in video games seldom 'get to me', as there are usually several disconnects that keep me from getting completely immersed in the situation. Skydive however, is all about the heights and there were a few moments when I found the ground rushing up to me and I was pulling back a bit harder than normal - or leaning with my body as well as the controller to try and bank around a mountain's edge.

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Girl Fight - PSN Review

Girl Fight is not trying to set the bar for creative storytelling here, as it was obviously marketed to a very specific demographic. The permise circles around a collection of lovely women gathered up by a nebulous group by the name of THE FOUNDATION. These subjects are then virtually reconstructed in a device called The Mainframe, and these women are pitted against one another in an attempt to escape.

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WipEout HD - PSN Review

I am not by nature a huge fan of racing games. Mario Kart is a pretty good example of how realistic I want them to be. I have played some like Forza, Gran Turismo and Project Gotham Racing, and I am neither terribly good at nor particularly enamored with them. They are generally fun in small bursts, but I do not log hours upon hours with most racing games.

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Military Madness: Nectaris - PSN Review

Military Madness: Nectaris is one of the older games out there for the PlayStation Network, and one of those I have had sitting on my hard drive for a very long time. The turn-based strategic combat of Military Madness years ago always appealed to me, so I was anxious to dive back into this game and give it a go.

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Journey - PSN Review

Journey is not your typical video game. It does not try to be, and that is a good thing. It is more of an experience, often compared to titles like The Unfinished Swan, or to some extent, Limbo. On the one hand, because Journey uses a fairly unique style and presentation, I can understand those comparisons, but Journey is also very much its own game.

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Hamsterball - PSN Review

This is a cute, quick little game that was yet again one of my earlier PlayStation Plus freebies. It sort of reminds me of the old Marble Madness game I played for the NES a million years ago - except I did not enjoy this title nearly as much as I recall Marble Madness.

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A-Men - PlayStation Vita Review

Sometimes games just immediately click with me, and then either follow through on their promise or start to let you down the longer you play them. A-Men was a title that I enjoyed right out of the gates, but actually started to overstay its welcome a bit by the time I was done playing it.

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Thunder Wolves - PSN Review

I really had no idea what to expect from Thunder Wolves when I first started to play it. Aerial combat to be sure - you are piloting a helicopter after all. However, beyond that? I had very few expectations. Thankfully, I would say that Thunder Wolves proved to be a pleasant surprise.

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Time and Eternity - PSN Review

So just a quick footnote, but I finally crossed 200,000 views in total last night. Thanks for all of the visits, everyone. Hard to believe how things have turned upward from maybe 5-15 visits a day to 700+ a day. Now, onto the review...

There is a frustrating feeling I get with games at times, like movies or probably any other entertainment media, where you feel like there is a good idea really fighting to get out - but for whatever reason it does not quite get there. Sometimes it is talent, sometimes it is a particular bit of direction - a game mechanic, the way the animations look, awful music - that derails the process. Other times it is a lack of budget or being constrained for time.

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R.I.P.D. The Game - PSN Review

Generally games based on movies crash and burn in glorious fashion. The movie R.I.P.D. has already been getting beaten up as a half-hearted ripoff of Men in Black and Ghostbusters. So obviously a game based on the movie is going to have some concerns - but still the subject matter seems full of potential as shooting undead (or in this case, Deados as they are referred to) works for plenty of other gaming franchises.

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