The Matrix: Path of Neo

Platform: Xbox
Publisher: Atari
Review Type: Touchy
Version: Retail

I guess by now it's no surprise that The Matrix: Path of Neo has problems. Janky controls and ugly character models make a game that probably cost a bundle, feel cheaper than the inevitable Sci-Fi Channel reincarnation of The Matrix (starring Richard Dean Anderson if we're lucky).

The game essentially fills in the untold blanks of the movies. It's as if the Wachowski's (if they truly did write the game) took this opportunity to explore the unfollowed ideas they cooked up when writing the original flick. I can picutre them brainstorming: What if Neo trains in a Mortal Kombat style kumate? What if Neo learns gunplay in a tea house gun fight like the one in the opening scene of Hard Boiled? What if Neo learns swordplay from a Japanese samurai master with supernatural powers? Yeah, there are tons of training levels in The Matrix: Path of Neo, which leads me to nail down the game's biggest problem -- the game reaching too far. Shiny and company tryied to shoehorn martial arts, gunplay and cinema style narrative storytelling into one package. Like the Brother's own failed sequels the game strives beyond its capabilities, aiming for epic cyberpunk grandeur and winds up falling face-first, just short of crap.

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Blitz: The League

Platform: Xbox
Publisher: Midway
Review Type: Touchy
Version: Retail

I'll be honest. I couldn't tell a good football game from a bad one. I'm not a fan of sports. In fact, I sorta hold a grudge against them for acting as a backdrop to some miserable childhood moments. I guess that's why I like the idea of Blitz: The League, a gridiron game made with absolutely no express written consent of the NFL. The result is heavy on seedy underbelly. Players curse, fight and "juice" up with perforamance enhancing drugs. Crooked owners make backdoor deals with politicians. You as coach make extra cash by betting on your own team.

The game could have used some sort of in-game tutorial to school football newbies before throwing them into their first game. I struggled through several games, losing by smaller and smaller margins before finally figuring out how to build a winning strategy for my team, the Los Angeles Pickles. God help me, I actually started to care about winning or losing. After this long weekend and several univited doses of televised sports, I'm surprised as suprised as anybody that a sports game could crack my iron will.

Evil Dead: Regeneration

Platform: Xbox
Publisher: THQ
Review Type: Touchy
Version: Retail

Fans of Sam Raimi's Evil Dead films should consider themselves lucky. In a world where the smartest TV shows get canceled and the best Beatles die first, who woulda thunk that a trilogy of cult splatter flicks that earned less than $19 million at the box office could have spawned a trilogy of video games?

Even more surprising is that of the three games only the first, Evil Dead: Hail to the King, truly stinks. Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick, an actioner built around the State of Emergency engine, was a passable diversion revolving around the Necronomicon, time travel and, of course, shotguns. The latest, Evil Dead: Regeneration is this time suspiciously similar to Midway's The Suffering. Ash finds himself in an asylum overrun with Deadites. Insert cliched line about utilizing brain and brawn to escape the confines of a haunted institution and eventually win the day here.

Evil Dead: Regeneration is significantly funnier than it's predecessors, with a share of good gags being doled out to characters other than Ash. But like its predecesor, it's voice over work from Bruce Campbell kept me motivated to carve my way through my demonic enemies.

My favorite moment of the game is the instructional level, a near pitch-perfect recreation of scenes from The Evil Dead II. The non-canon territory explored in the rest of the game only put a bad taste in my mouth after this tantalizing taste of my all-time favorite movie made interactive.

As a fan of The Evil Dead I've suffered through cinematic stinkers like Maniac Cop and Escape From L.A. for a tiny taste of Bruce Campbell so another palatable video game bow for the series is a welcome respite. And yet, I'm beginning to grow weary. If one day you catch me muttering, "klaatu, barada, nikto," don't be concerned. I'm just attempting to open a portal to the universe where John's still alive, Futurama's still on the air and where somebody at Rockstar has a The Warriors-sized boner for a certain low-budget horror/comedy trilogy. Try to stand clear of the vortex.

Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows

Platform: PlayStation 2, Xbox
Publisher: Midway
Review Type: Looky
Version: Screenshot


Games that drop at the end of a generation are supposed to look better than those that hit stores at launch. The guys behind Shadow of the Colossus had the right idea. Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows, on the other hand, brings the ugly like nobody's business. This screen displays a painful mix of bad art and poopy graphics that makes me, a fan of the original Gauntlet game who would love a solid contemporary update, cry like somebody shot my food.

Really, though. I'd like to know what's going on here. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like the warrior is being accosted by the monster from Basket Case...and one of them has a piece of cheese?

Infected

Platform: PSP
Publisher: Majesco
Review Type: Touchy
Version: Retail

Infected is way more fun than it ought to be. The game is a throwback to gory shooters like Smash TV and Alien Syndrome -- your basic run-and-gun fragfest with zombies as the bullet fodder. I got some serious State of Emergency flashbacks when I first fired this PSP disc.

For better or for worse, this portable title shares quite a bit of DNA with Rockstar's riot sim. But, I think that Infected achieves its goals better by keeping the game fast, simple and chaotic. State of Emergency's missions, much like those in Grand Theft Auto, were made frustrating by the inherent chaos and unpredictability inherent in random worlds. In comparison Infected feels lean. There are far fewer enemies, but they're tougher. Missions are more basic; think Robotron 2084-style civilian saving. An ingenious combo system kicks in when you fire your blood gun at multiple ripe targets. Best of all, Infected is visceral. Blood splashes on the screen when you blast a nearby zombie. Your ears are assaulted with sirens, explosions and the heavy metal noise of bands like Slipnot and Chimaira.

The game becomes contagious online, where a unique ranking system infects those you defeat with your virus. In order to kick your bug, the loser must beat three other players. A nifty in-game web browser, something like the bastard child of RFID and AIDS, lets you track how far your sickness has spread.

Recommended

City of Villains

Platform: PC
Publisher: NCSoft
Review Type: Touchy
Version: Retail

I've been playing World of Warcraft for over a year so I'm not entirely sure if my reaction to City of Villains isn't a result of conditioning. I've played other MMOs and this game feels more like Everquest than Blizzard's contribution to the genre. The one trait that all persistant world games seem to share is their tendancy towards complex and byzantine interfaces. Considering the depth of this kind of endeavor, I guess it's kind of unavoidable. Still, City of Villains felt like a step back in refinement after experiencing the clean, customizable World of Warcraft user interface.

It's no surprise, consider the praise heaped on City of Heroes, that character customization ranks high on my list of things I like about City of Villains. It's a bit of a bummer that my Night Elf, a character I've spent just under a month as, will always look almost exactly like all the other Night Elves in Azaroth. The breadth and depth of creativity that the City of Villains character creation menus allows is astounding.

I would have liked to see a little more diversity in some of the design. For example, do you really need that wide of an array of shoulder spikes? Couldn't you trade one set for a parrot, so a brother can make a proper pirate?

My biggest gripe with City of Villains is the issue of role play. The game doesn't really encourage in-character behavior. When you create your character none of the servers are labeled as havens for gamers who prefer a little more immersion and a little less a/s/l. And as a result, very few players are really pretending to be bad.

After teaming with some other super villains to rob a bank -- a mission that requires the punching, kicking and blasting at least a hundred security guards -- one of my teammates commented on the pleasure he takes in fighting "pigs." His quip did not go over well. Several players were deeply offended by this villain's, well, villainous comments.

And that's my biggest problem with City of Villains; most of the time you don't feel like much of a bad guy. You run errands for your boss. You clear rogue gangs and snakes out of the sewers. The job at hand is to literally clean up the town. It's not until our heist that I actually felt like a bad guy. And almost nobody else's heart was truly in it.

Spoiler: Enter the Matrix: The Path of Neo

Platform: PC, PlayStation 2, Xbox
Publisher: Atari
Review Type: Looky
Version: Cut Scene Video


Enter the Matrix: The Path of Neo was Shiny's chance to make up for cashing in with the rushed out, buggy and almost universally panned Enter the Matrix. Based on early reports, it doesn't look like Matrix fans are getting the game they'd hoped for.

If these cutscenes from the game's ending are any indication, no one involved with this franchise has learned anything from this fiasco. I won't spoil too much in this post, but I will tell you that this game's fabulously outlandish ending features an all-pink Wachowski brother, a giant-sized Agent Smith and the rock opera crooning of Freddy Mercury.

Spoiler video #1
Spoiler video #2
Spoiler video #3

Late to the Party: Wario Ware: Twisted

Platform: GameBoy Advance
Publisher: Nintendo
Review Type: Touchy
Version: Retail

Wario Ware: Twisted!, which came out this May, was an early hint at the kind creative thinking behind Nintendo's forthcoming Revolution console. The portable game makes clever use of a built-in gyro to add a new dimension to the fast-paced, gameplay of the quirky Wario Ware series. The game is played by titling, shaking and upending the GameBoy Advance. This introduction of motion to the Wario Ware formula, especially the occasional inversion of the screen, literally turns gameplay conventions upside down -- forcing the player to think on their toes.

It's hard to talk about this game without pointing out it's anarchic brand of humor. Through non-sequiter, potty humor and gameplay surprises, Wario Ware: Twisted! is quite capable of generating laughs. More subtly, the game utilizes a vast array of art styles. The main characters are rendered in cartoony sprite animation. Games bounce between a plethora of looks such as claymation, 8-bit and Picasso-esque line drawings. In one boss battle an Ultraman-like Sentai hero, drawn in textured ink brush strokes, battles giant noses by launching his fists into their nostrils.

The fast-paced of Wario Ware: Twisted! is very similar to the prior two games. I see them as a primer in the language of video games. They boil down the mechanics of play into tiny, bite sized bits, shuffle them and present them in a context completely devoid of context. Wario Ware, Inc.: Mega Micro Game$ was our review of the history of gaming. Wario Ware: Touched! touched upon and explored the possibilities of the unique DS input and Wario Ware: Twisted! is a tantalizing taste of next gen controls yet to come.

Recommended

Kingdom Hearts 2

Platform: PlayStation 2
Publisher: Square/Enix
Review Type: Looky
Version: Scans


The Japanese are very indulgent of their otaku urges. They don't just wonder what would happen if the Toho Godzilla faced the Americam CG Godzilla -- they make it happen.

The original Kingdom Hearts, a game that fuzed the Final Fantasy universe with the myriad creatures, characters and worlds of Disney, is a great example of this imaginative bent. I was intrigued by this mash-up of a virtual and animated worlds until reports surfaced that the game itself was dull and nearly broken.

And now, these scans surface, showing Sora, Donald and Goofy decked out in gear from Tron. I was already intrigued by the game's inclusion of Steamboat Willy. But a revelation like this, one that reaches down and tickles the core of my geek being, guarantees that I'll be playing Kingdom Hearts II.

The Warriors

Platform: PlayStation 2, Xbox
Publisher: Rockstar
Review Type: Touchy
Version: Retail

You know what happens when you make beaucoup bucks in the entertainment industry? You get to work on your dream project. Now, I can't say for sure that the madmen at Rockstar have always longed to adapt Walter Hill's 1979 cult classic into a River City Ransom-style beat-'em-up, but they sure cashed in their fair share of heart and soul into making The Warriors a spot-on tribute to an obscure but beloved film.

Rockstar excels at painting their games with an aura of authenticity. Through music, graphic design and voice talent, they've faithfully and lovingly recreated the world of The Warriors. From the grafitti-covered walls of Coney Island to the synth-sounds of Barry de Vorzon's score not a single detail is overlooked. Many of the original actors, like James Remar and Michael Beck, were brought back to voice there characters.

All this would mean nothing were the game not fun to play. The Warriors takes notes from classic brawlers, injecting the light platforming of Double Dragon and the RPG elements of River City Ransom to make the perfect genre update. Cribs from other games, such as a grafiti mechanic nabbed from Jet Grind Radio and exercise buffs straight from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas add extra variety, without taking on the feeling of busy work.

Unless the King Kong game kicks all kinds of ass, The Warriors is going to be the ruler against which all movie-to-game adaptations are measured.

Recommended

Guitar Hero

Platform: PlayStation 2
Publisher: Red Octane
Review Type: Touchy
Version: Retail


The biggest problem with most rhythm games is the music. Aside from the quirky tracks in Parappa the Rapper and Um Jammer Lammy, the music in bemani games mostly suck. I know that musical taste is subjective and that I can never expect a video game company to cater to my less-than-mainstream musical tastes. But, as I've stated before, I think games like Dance Dance Revolution can (and apparently, are trying to) do better than generic J-pop and Eurobeat.

Guitar Hero is essentially an American translation of the Japanese arcade game GuitarFreaks. You play the game using a guitar-shaped controller with five colored fret buttons, a two-way pick switch and a whammy bar. The game itself is created by Harmonix, the developer of music games FreQuency and Amplitude -- both exceptional games plagued, in my opinion, by mostly crappy music. Harmonix doesn't make the same mistake with Guitar Hero where great songs are the exception, rather than the rule.

Classic rock staples "Smoke on the Water," "Ironman" and even Jimi Hendrix's "Spanish Castle Magic" satisfy music fogies while newer schorchers and punk rock anthems like Queens of the Stone Age's "No One Knows" and "I Wanna Be Sedated" by The Ramones provide some noise for those who want a little more attitude in their tracks. The song list is long and diverse enough to satisfy almost any rocker -- hitting thrash, nu-metal and even a little bit of indie rock. For this alone the creators of Guitar Hero deserve an arena full of lighters thrust high.

The game is also a real blast to play, thanks in part to "Star Power" a power-up that you trigger by tilting the guitar vertically, as if you intended to blast the heavens with the Godly power of your shredding. Anybody who's played a music game will be able to coast through the Guitar Hero's Easy mode without breaking a string. After that the difficulty amps up and begins to demand the technical prowess vital to succeed in Frequency and Amplitude.

A killer set list and a solid contoller would have been enough to make Guitar Hero really rock. But Harmonix went for broke, throwing a stylish look and a lick or two of humor onto the stage, creating more than just a solid music game. Through over-the-top character design, rock poster style menus and cheeky pro tips, Guitar Hero actually comments on music culture -- a feat no one has bother to attempt since Parappa kicked off the music game genre back in 1996. It's about damn time.

Recommended

Virtual Skipper 4

Platform: PC
Publisher: Nadeo
Review Type: Looky
Version: Trailer


No, Virtual Skipper is not some kind of hentai game that allows you to nail Barbie's sister. It's a sailing sim. And a gorgeous-looking one at that. I just started reading Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey-Maturin series, so I've got sea travel on the brain. Or more accurately, I've been thinking about how great nautically-themed escapism is, considering the fact that I'm prone to motion sickness. Seeing more games like this -- non-violent, beautiful and somewhat enriching -- on store shelves could help change people's minds about video games. Or at least convince them that games, just like every art form, have equal potential for bloodletting and boredom.

Trailer here.

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories

Platform: PSP
Publisher: Rockstar
Review Type: Touchy
Version: Retail

It's a strange feeling; being so familiar with a place you've never really been. But there it is. Returning to Liberty City feels like a homecoming. I know the place like the back of my hand. And its this familiarity that keeps Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories from being the killer PSP ap many have touted it as. Don't get me wrong. It's a great, albiet sometimes frustrating, game. But it's not the game to buy a PSP for. The game is a port. It's a port rich with new content (like wireless multiplayer), but its still a port.

The good news is that Rockstar didn't scrimp on the usual care they put into their games. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories is rich with snappy, subversive writing, top-notch voice acting and and expertly assembled licensed soundtrack. But this is also where the difference between handheld and console budgets comes into sharp focus. For the PSP verision of their free-roaming mafia sim, Rockstar didn't spring for star power. There's no Sam Jackson or Guns 'n Roses here. Thankfully, the spendthrift alternative is equally cool (at least in my book). The game's radio dial is full of killer obscurities, like Bollywood legend Asha Bhosle's pot-smoking anthem "Dum Maro Dum" and electro classics from Giorgio Moroder.

Rockstar always goes above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to tone. The efforts of their level designers, voice directors and licensing ninjas combine to create vivid and oftentimes hilarious worlds that feel mindmelded straight from a trash cinema lover's addled brain. And that's why, no matter who abivalent I feel about how some their games actually play, I'll always come back to places like Liberty City.

Trollz: Hair Affair

Platform: Gameboy Advance
Publisher: Ubisoft
Review Type: Looky
Version: Box Art


Take a classic toy add a nostril-taming nose job, DaVinci veneers and new wardrobe and this is what you get -- hirsute Bratz.

In Trollz: Hair Affair, your job is to help rescue the boy Trollz from being shipped off to miltary school, where their locks will be shorn to regulation length. Could this coif-centric children's license be a sign that rat tails and mullets will again be en vogue with the pre-tween set?

Genji

Platform: PlayStation 2
Publisher: SCEA
Review Type: Touchy
Version: Retail

I'm playing Genji and my wife calls to me from the other room asking, "Is that a movie?" Based on the sound effects, a subtle score, Japanese dialogue and the ring of samurai swordplay, she assumed I was watching another chambara. The night before we'd watched Lady Snowblood, the Kazuo Koike penned revenge picture, so her assumption based on the audio was apt. But she wasn't seeing what I was seeing.

Visually, the differences between Genji and a classic samurai flick are striking. That's because the characters dress so outlandishly. It's a symptom that many games suffer from, particularly those developed in Japan. Seeing a character like Genji's lead Yoshitsune Minamoto decked out in an impossible and peacock-like amalgamation of hockey gear and battle armor immediately makes me yearn for simpler samurai tales -- stories without mythical beasts and magical crystals.

What's worse is that Genji's settings are rendered with such detail. The grassy hills and valleys of feudal Japan are painted in a glowing pastoral digital. I can just picture Ogami Itto of Lone Wolf and Cub, dressed only in a drab, dirtied robe, pushing his baby cart through the same woods on the way to the next rural village and his next morally ambiguous adventure.

But Genji is a different game than that. Its pure fantasy, casting the samurai as cosplayer. The game almost redeems itself with Kamui, a slow motion effect that can be executed in the midst of battle. A properly timed button press during Kamui results in a one-stroke, Musashi Miyamoto-style kill. Until they make a low-key Yojimbo game, that will have to do.

World Poker Tour

Platform: PlayStation 2,Xbox
Publisher: 2K Sports
Review Type: Touchy
Version: Retail

It always surprises me when my patience wears thin. Particulary because I'm such a steadfast gamer. I can spend hours immersed in digital tedium and think nothing of it. But sit me down at a poker table and I'll eventually throw up my hands and go all in just to get things over with. World Poker Tour evoked an indentical response from me. I won a couple hands, lasted through a series of eliminations and then when it came down to me and one other player, lost my nerve. I chock this up to a flaw in my personality, not the game.

World Poker Tour features a surprisingly deep character customization system that allows you to endlessly tweak the facial features and build of your 3D poker avatar. Funny thing is, for the life of me I couldn't create a character that wasn't ugly. After several aborted attempts I decided to try making a hot Asian chick, but she wound up looking like Condeleeza Rice.

For hardcore poker hounds the most important question about World Poker Tour would be regarding online play. Both the PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions can be played online. Voice chat and in the case of EyeToy owners, video chat, add a layer to the game not offered by the many poker games playable on the web. But unless there are organized, cash prize tournaments offered via the game, I'm guessing many will skip the console game in favor of virtual tables that actually pay out.