Jeez, this place has been dead lately. To be fair, the majority of our writers have just had to start school back up, which makes life a little hectic. Anyway, I’m sure that all of our devoted readers are just dying to hear my opinion on the games I’ve been playing in the last month. So, without further ado, I give you reviews for Bionic Commando: Rearmed, Castle Crashers, N+, and the first 20 hours of Tales of Vesperia!

Bionic Commando: Rearmed (XBLA)

At the risk of being lynched by retro fans everywhere, I’m just going to go ahead and admit that I never played the original Bionic Commando for the NES. That having been said, when I first went into BC:R, my first thought was, “where the eff is the goddamn jump button?!” It took a while to get used to, but after a few hours swinging around came naturally to me. Heck, I was even grateful for the absence of a jump mechanism simply because it made swinging around that much more challenging.

Anyway, the game itself is a breath of fresh air in an industry that has for the last 10 or so years condemned 2D platforming to portables (which, thankfully, seems to be a reversing trend thanks to games like this, Braid, and the upcoming Wario Land: Shake It!). For the most part, the game feels great. Sound and graphics are both more than acceptable. My only real gripe about the gameplay is that whenever you get hit you’re pushed backwards, which has led to many, many unwarranted deaths. If you’re an action/platformer fan, this game can’t come more highly recommended, especially at a wallet-friendly $10.

Castle Crashers (XBLA)

Hell. Yes. I was a little hesitant to throw down $15 for this game at first, but boy was it worth it. This has been the star attraction in my multiplayer library in my apartment over the last few weeks and it’s not hard to see why. For those of you that have been forced to dance in a cast-iron cage by Jabba the Hutt for the last month, Castle Crashers is a classic side-scrolling beat-em-up in the same vein as Streets of Rage or Turtles IV, but with a nifty level up feature and plenty of new items and spells to unlock. I’ve already spent many, many hours on this game both with friends and in single player. While the levels are a bit limited and extremely linear, the number of unlockables, the level up system, and the sheer fun of slicing the heads off of little cartoon bears lends Castle Crashers tons of replayability. Basically what I’m saying is, if you have a 360 and a connection to LIVE, this is utterly worth $15.

I agree wholeheartedly. Kel and I played this over the course of two days and loved almost every minute of it. It definitely has a few connection issues here and there when it comes to multiplayer, though. When the game starts to really chug, it’s about to kick everybody out. Pray that you’ve just finished a level when it does, otherwise you and your buddies get to play it through all over again. The only other complaint I have is that the screen gets pretty busy at times. The best example of this is a level where the “crashers” are riding on a carriage roof through a parade that rains down confetti like it’s going out of style. On top of all of this, enemies are hopping up on the tiny roof with you, chucking explosives and generally making you wish for a return to a simpler time when killer bees were descending upon you in a nice, stationary field of flowers. Those things having been said, I couldn’t be happier with this game. It looks and animates like the best Saturday-morning cartoon ever and leaves you with nostalgic memories of gaming past while still feeling fresh and new. Without taking up anymore of Wonko’s review, I’ll leave you with these important bullet-points: looks great, revitalizes the beat ‘em up genre, and has a great sense of humor. Buy it, buy it, buy it, and then buy it again. - Ampersand

N+ (DS)

I was a fan of the flash version of N back in my high school days when I was a TA for my English teacher and was basically allowed to sit at his computer while he taught the class. It was an amazing game… when it was free. While N+ does manage to build upon the original game quite a bit with unlockable ninja colors and several, several new levels, I just can’t recommend a $20 purchase of something that you can get for practically nothing. In short, it’s a fun little romp that’s kind of neat to have in portable form, but it’s probably only worth half the asking price.

Tales of Vesperia (360)

Holy crap, it’s awesome. It’s no wonder this game sold every 360 in Japan! Buy it. For the love of Count Chocula, purchase this effing game! There’s an effing dog that smokes a pipe!