In a week that appears to signal the end of the tremendous 2008 holiday gaming glut, it’s nice to see that there are still a few essential buys that are impossible to ignore, even if they are of a decidedly smaller nature than most of the big ticket items we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks.
The first thing I’m going to be doing this week is rediscovering my Shoryuken thumb for the sake of Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. Actually, “rediscovering” might not be the right word, as I never was able to pull off the damn dragon punch with anything approximating consistency. Why can my thumb not master the mechanic of forward-down-down/forward? I dunno, but I’ll be getting more practice at it this week with my boy Ken. Seriously, this is another stop on the nostalgia train that’s shamelessly torn through the downloadable console services this year, but it looks like another fantastic one. No fighter has ever come close to the pick-up-and-play appeal of Street Fighter II, and to see it all prettied up for an HD audience ought to be just enough to convince a whole bunch of people to lose their lives to it again for another month or so.
Of course, while I’m talking about the nostalgia train (which I’m sure looks a lot like a steam engine), I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the DS update of Chrono Trigger, which finally hits this week. You know, since it almost broke the internet when it was announced back in the summer, I’ve heard almost nothing about this re-release…I guess with so many new properties making their way to portables and consoles this time of year, we don’t really have time to be spending on the graphical tweaks of a classic RPG. Still, classic it is, and you’re going to be glad you have it next summer when you’ve got 30 hours to kill and no more Xbox games to play.
Other than those two? Not much to see! The DS’s Neopets Puzzle Adventure is actually a surprisingly challenging puzzler in a crowded DS market, so that’s certainly worth a look. Band Manager, on the PC, could be fun or it could be a snooze (but if it has to do with music I may give it a run-through), and the Wii gets a couple of cooking games where you cook food that you can’t actually eat (I may never understand the appeal of this). Am I overlooking something? Banjo-Kazooie, maybe?
It’s a slow week, so maybe this is the time to catch up on some of the stuff you missed over the last month and a half or so (surely there’s something, yes?). Happy Thanksgiving, all.
DS:
Age of Empires: Mythologies (24 November)
All Star Cheer Squad (24 November)
Emma in the Mountains (24 November)
Personal Trainer: Cooking (24 November)
Chrono Trigger (25 November)
Chrysler Classic Racing (25 November)
Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force (25 November)
Neopets Puzzle Adventure (25 November)
Syberia (25 November)
Cradle of Rome (26 November)
Imagine Gymnast (27 November)
Xbox 360:
NPPL Championship Paintball 2009 (25 November)
Banjo-Kazooie (26 November, Xbox Live Arcade)
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (26 November, Xbox Live Arcade)
Wii:
Cake Mania: In the Mix! (24 November)
Skate City Heroes (24 November)
Ski & Shoot (24 November)
AMF Bowling World Lanes (25 November)
Championship Foosball (25 November)
Chrysler Classic Racing (25 November)
Iron Chef America: Supreme Cuisine (25 November)
Safecracker: The Ultimate Puzzle Adventure (25 November)
The King of Fighters Collection: The Orochi Saga (25 November)
Winter Sports 2: The Next Challenge (25 November)
PS3:
Metal Gear Online Meme Expansion (25 November)
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (27 November, Sony Store)
PC:
Band Manager (25 November)
Call of Atlantis (26 November)
Chronicles of Mystery: The Scorpio Ritual (26 November)
Bolt (27 November)
Puzzlegeddon (27 November)
The Chronicles of Spellborn (27 November)
PSP:
NOTHING!
PS2:
ALSO NOTHING!