I really haven’t played a scrolling shooter in some time, the main reason being that it isn’t exactly an evolving genre. Pull almost any of the “new” games off the shelves and you have another Contra or 1942 waiting for you to dodge waves of bullets, collect power-ups, and obliterate massive bosses that take longer to beat than the actual stage you traversed to reach them. Zeit² tries to be one of the games that falls outside of the “almost any” pack previously mentioned. While it definitely has the same general rules as the genre dictates, it adds a twist with the introduction of time travel.

The Sims. Perhaps you've heard of it. The Sims is a game people play where ordinary, everyday people play as ordinary everyday people. A Sim can raise a family, meet neighbors, or get a job. Basically, Sims do just about everything the people who play them do. Re:coded is, in this sense, a game where the heroes of many worlds play as the heroes of many worlds. The digital characters fight heartless, solve a universe of problems, and try to determine the identity and purpose of mysterious figures. Basically, Kingdom Hearts Re:coded's digital Sora does just about everything Sora does.

For many years, puzzle games have been very well-defined and extremely rigid in their design. Whether it was shifting blocks, or simply moving on a set plane, every game had a finite set of possible moves and functions. As time has gone on, particularly in this generation, puzzle games have become more abstract, requiring use of a more fluid style of control and design. Auditorium HD is such a game, as it allows players to move and shift a flow of sound waves in real time toward different repositories to produce a song and complete a level. With an open-ended way to solve puzzles, and a wide variety of different tools to direct the flow of sound waves, Auditorium HD is a fascinating and deep puzzle game that remains interesting from beginning to end.

California Speed is just one of many arcade racing games produced by now-defunct Midway. This state-focused racer is like a cross between Cruis'n USA and San Francisco Rush, though it contains the flaws from both games without having any of the elements that made them unique and memorable. It has the finicky control of Cruis'n, the bad music of Rush, and the fog and pop-up of... well, they both have that.

Haunted houses, ancient pyramids, desert plains. While playing the block puzzler Ghost Mania, I watched all of these in the background as I dropped blocks down to shake ghosts out of haunted colorful blocks.

Dead Rising 2, though similar to Dead Rising, changed up the formula and improved upon the gameplay elements set forth in the original. Case West, the latest expansion for Dead Rising 2, makes further changes to that core formula in its short two and half hour quest. True co-op play featuring Frank West, a new rescue and objective system, and the ability to take photographs distinguish this experience from the main quest.

Wacca, wacca, wacca. If the sounds of Pac-Man make you nostalgic for a time when arcade games munched your quarters like the pizza shaped hero did pellets, here is a well-priced collection. Namco Museum Megamix is a collection of 24 games; eighteen classic arcade games and six modern revisions. Though the new games lack the heart and meticulously balanced gameplay of their older brethren, they do offer some brief multiplayer fun. The old games show their age, but there is so much stuffed into this game, it's a great value for its bargain bin price.

Released exactly one year apart, Bust-A-Move 2 Arcade Edition and Bust-A-Move ’99 (more commonly known as Bust-A-Move 3) are essentially the same game, with just a couple features added to 3. Like Tetris, the bubble-bursting puzzler has seen release on every system imaginable. Also like Tetris, if you’ve played one version, you’ve played them all.

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn is rich in gameplay and lore, packed with style built from the first two games, and although it shines very brightly, the experience is unnecessarily darkened by design regressions. Still, is it worth playing? If you like story centric, character driven RPGs, you bet.

Set thirty years after the events of the second game, The Lost Age, Dark Dawn is the third entry in the Golden Sun universe, and the first to hit the Nintendo DS. Players familiar with Golden Sun titles will feel right at home the moment the game begins, immediately greeted by revamped visuals and the sounds of familiar themes and characters. Don’t worry if you haven’t played either of the preceding Golden Sun titles; the game does a terrific job explaining histories of events and characters without shoving it down your throat.

It’s been awhile since the Medal of Honor series has had any amount of relevance. Unfortunately for fans, even with the release of the latest in this series, it remains irrelevant. Medal of Honor is, for lack of a nicer term, a Call of Duty rip-off. It borrows the same style of quest, features similar controls, and even bares semblance to the multiplayer mode. You would expect that if EA was to borrow all of these elements it would at least do them better, but what we are presented with is a game that doesn’t match up to that series at all. Without question, players would be better off checking out any of the past three games in the Call of Duty series instead.

Yes, you read that right, GoldenEye is back. But it's not back like you're thinking. If you're reading this, chances are you have some fond memories of the original title, released on the N64 by Nintendo and Rare. At the time, the game set the standards for console-based first person shooters, as the genre really had no significant presence in the market. Fast-forward thirteen years and the story is quite different. The first person shooter dominates the market, though its construction has deviated significantly from the design of GoldenEye 007 years ago. Most recently, the Call of Duty series has taken the market by storm, and has clearly had a huge influence on this re-imagination of story and gameplay of the original title. As such, GoldenEye 007 straddles the line between old school and new school first person shooter design, making for an experience that's not nearly as memorable as the title it borrows so much credibility from.

This is one of the most nerve-wracking games I have ever played… but not for the reasons you might think! As indicated on my About Me page, I have an allergy of bee stings, and as a result have a phobia of bees. To no surprise, the game is chock-full of stinging insects such as wasps and hornets, known collectively as The Herd. Naturally, it makes me a tad uneasy, but there’s also a certain satisfaction to shooting down a swarm of bees!

There’s one important question you have to ask yourself before bothering to read this review: do you like bullet hell shoot-‘em-ups? If the answer is no, save yourself the trouble and move on. If the answer is yes, or “What the hell is a bullet hell shoot-‘em-up?” please proceed, though the next paragraph might be more than enough for you.

Mario and Donkey Kong have been at it for a long time now. They started their feud in a platforming game, Donkey Kong, which gave way to a puzzle-platformer of the same name on the Gameboy years later. After that, the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series was established, featuring the same puzzle-platformer gameplay found in its predecessor. However, when the series made the move to the DS, Mario gave up chasing Donkey Kong himself, and took use of the minis, which in turn changed the gameplay to pure puzzles. Mini-Land Mayhem is the third entry to feature the minis and the pure puzzle gameplay, but strangely this latest version feels more akin to the platformer entries of the past, thanks to some creative level design, on-the-fly puzzle solving, and boss levels that evoke nostalgia for the original arcade game.

I’ll be the first to tell you how awesome Quake III Arena was back in the day, and still is even today. Fast-paced, twitch shooting, simple-but-effective weaponry, and small close encounter maps made for some of the best multiplayer shooting ever. However, Quake Arena Arcade, which is extremely similar to said game and a port of the ad-driven browser game Quake Live, is a waste. This is not because it's a bad game, but because the essence of the Quake III Arena experience isn't perfectly captured without the use of a mouse and keyboard.

Let's get this out of the way: Crazy Taxi, as it's available on PSN and XBLA is a modified port of a Dreamcast port of a now-classic arcade game. The Dreamcast port added in a second city to chauffeur customers around town, as well as the “Crazy Box” mode, which contains sixteen driving tests to hone and expand players' mad taxi skills. The PSN and XBLA version of Crazy Taxi is much like the Dreamcast version, with the extra city, time modes, and Crazy Box.

Back in 1988, Namco both developed and produced the sidescrolling beat ‘em up horror title, Splatterhouse. The game was considered so violent at the time that a special parental advisory warning was slapped on the packaging, even though the game had been drastically toned down for Western audiences. Recently Namco Bandai has resurrected the series, reimagining the once controversial title for modern gamers. Unfortunately, the end result is nothing more than a bland, mindless beat ‘em up riddled with issues that no amount of gore or nostalgia could compensate for.

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is something that will stick with me for a long time – it’s one of those amazing games that went past the sometimes gltichy gameplay, delivering to the player a story full of emotion and drama. The main protagonists, Monkey and Trip, each performed with such depth and character that you could easily imagine them being real people; well, real people in a post-apocalyptic future full of murdering robots.

I had a bit of fun playing Naruto Shippuden: Naruto vs. Sasuke. I'd call it an all-around action game. There's a lot of platforming, some fighting, a few hidden passageways, ninja stars and kunais, over-the-top special attacks, and boss fights. I don't know if action games get more “action-y” than that.

Magneto, we meet again - only this time, I don’t need quarters to beat you. Your hordes of henchman and sub-bosses with cheap unblockable attacks - no longer a threat to my allowance! Having to conserve my wonderful, room clearing mutant attacks that eat into my life energy - not this time. You’re getting beaten down as many times as I want, and I only have to spend $10 once, as an electronic transaction. The day is mine!

This year has been a big one for God of War fans, with the release of the highly anticipated third edition of the series, God of War III, and now a brand new adventure, Ghost of Sparta. The new title features a great story that offers some rare insight into Kratos' background, driving forward a fast-paced quality adventure that the series is known for. Though the title is a bit short and doesn't expand upon the usual God of War formula, die-hard fans will undoubtedly be thrilled by the familiar experience.

Naruto Shippuden: Dragon Blade Chronicles is a video game. It’s a game with voice actors. What’s more, it’s based on characters and their alignments in the Naruto manga. What else can I say about the game? It’s a game that took five hours to beat, which is probably a good thing, I would say.

I honestly didn’t see how Treyarch could have kept their promise that the next Call of Duty game, Black Ops, would have more action than the previous two Modern Warfare games. After all, people can only see so many nukes go off before it starts to seem mundane; however, I think even Michael Bay would have to take a breather while playing this game. In spite of all Activision’s recent troubles, Blacks Ops ensures that Call of Duty will continue to be a video game goliath, stomping through gamers’ hearts and minds.

Imagine a game of chess, but updated. Replace bishops with artillery, knights with tanks. Pawns become infantry. Now, instead of events happening turn-by-turn, set each piece to move a tiny bit over time. Or picture a real, authentic war room. A square or rectangular table sits in the middle of the room, and what seems like uniformed men playing with infantry, tank, artillery, plane, and/or building-shaped toys. The men push the toys around the table and said toys actually fight it out. Fans of Nintendo’s Wars series may want to picture a real-time, much more realistic (and complicated) version of the game.

Nippon Ichi Software is known for their unique, markedly Japanese titles that are big on humor and extremely unique in terms of gameplay. Z.H.P.: Unlosing Ranger vs. Darkdeath Evilman is no exception to this rule, as the game delivers some well-written dialog, and unique roguelike gameplay that slightly alters the basic concepts of the sub-genre. Though the game is a small diversion from standard Mystery Dungeon gameplay, it's likely that most gamers won't connect with the title due to its high difficulty level and unforgiving design.