With Alan missing, We give you a quick rundown of what we’ve been playing this week and what we plan on playing in the next two weeks which include: No More Heroes 1 and 2, White knight Chronicles, Mass Effect 2, and many more. As always you can watch us live every Monday, Friday and Saturday nights right here: www.justin.tv/frustratedfury

Divided into 2 parts:

Watch live video from Rage Quit Radio on Justin.tv

Watch live video from Rage Quit Radio on Justin.tv

The definition of classic.



Whoever said great graphics don’t make a great game must have played the Game and Watch collection for the DS. It’s simple design, and addictive gameplay make it one of the most fun titles that I have ever played for this system. The only problem is that you need a Club Nintendo account, and register enough Wii and DS titles to get 800 coins just to have the chance to play this great game. The real question here is is it worth all of the time and effort spent entering all of those codes for a game like this? My answer is absolutely yes!

Developer/Publisher: Nintendo
Genre:Action, Compilation
# of players: 1
ESRB: E for Everyone
Price: 800 Club Nintendo Coins

Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat, there is no story to speak of, and the music and sound effects on offer here are primitive, but it’s from 1982, so you can’t expect perfection. You are given three direct ports of Game and Watch games from 1982. The games included in this collection are Donkey Kong, Oil Panic, and Green House, as well as an alarm clock, which is nice to have, but adds nothing to the game as a whole. All of these titles are simple in their design(literally outlines of character movements are on the screen), as well as in their control scheme, but all of them are extremely fun to play. Let’s go over each one real quick, and talk about some of the good and bad things about them.



Donkey Kong:

If you are familiar with the NES game, then you will be quite familiar with this one. The idea here is the same, jump over barrels, and climb up ladders until you reach the top, then rescue the princess. The only difference with this version is that you have to hit a switch to activate a crane, then jump on the crane to release one of the four hooks that is holding the bridge together, rinse and repeat until the bridge falls apart, Donkey Kong falls, and you earn points. You use the d-pad to move left and right, and to also activate the crane switch, press up on the d-pad to climb up ladders, and press the a button to jump over barrels, simple, easy, and effective. The idea here is to get as high of a score as you can before you lose all of your lives, and you can do this by jumping over barrels, releasing the hooks, etc.

The Good: Controls are simple, Gameplay is challenging and addictive, A and B version are different in difficulty, which adds some replay value to the game, watching DK fall of the bridge never gets old.

The Bad: Crane is hard to reach at times, that’s about it.



Oil Panic:

The concept of this one is to fill your bucket with three oil drops that fall from leaky pipes in the ceiling, then follow the person who has the drum on the bottom of the screen, and dump the oil out of the window that they are under, and you earn points. The controls are simple, you move left and right with the d-pad, and press either y or a to dump the oil out of the left or right side of the screen. I think you know by now that the idea here is to get a high score, so I won’t say anymore about that. Keep in mind that if you miss one of the oil drops, or dump oil onto a pedestrian instead of the oil drum carrier, you will lose a turn, do it three time, and then you have to start over, that’s about it.

The Good: Same as Donkey Kong, with the exception of missing the drum, and hitting the pedestrian in the head with the oil, only to watch them scold you, is fun to watch every single time.

The Bad: Sometimes the controls can get a little clunky, especially when you are under alot of pressure, you will tend to miss your target more than you would like to.



Green House:

Quite possibly the most fun of the bunch(probably because I had a higher score in this than the rest of them), Green House is all about keeping worms and spiders away from flowers by spraying them with your bug spray. The idea here is to try and protect all of your flowers the best you can by keeping these insects away as long as possible. You use the d-pad to move up and down a ladder in the middle of the screen, and press the a button to spray the worms and spiders away in one of the four corners of the green house. Keep doing this to earn as many points as you possibly can, and that’s it.

The Good: Same as the other two, protecting four flowers is challenging and fun, and adds a unique sense of strategy to the game.

The Bad: As challenging as the gameplay is, it can get overwhelming at times, especially when there are enemies in all four corners of the house.



To sum it all up, the game and watch collection is a fun game to play despite it’s flaws. Granted there could have been more games, or a versus mode included, but as a free gift from being a Club Nintendo member, there is really not much you can complain about. Fun in small doses, and nostalgic as ever, it is well worth the coins I spent on it.

(B+)

- Matthew H

One quick tip, if you earn 300 points or more in each of these games, you will regain either all of your lives or turns that you lost during gameplay.

Sonic meets Prince of Persia.



As popular as Assassin’s Creed was on the home consoles, I had much more fun playing the DS version of it. The reason why I liked AC more on the DS was because the experience as a whole was much more streamlined and easier to understand. The fast paced action, combined with the fluent fighting and platforming controls, not to mention the great story, was a refreshing thing to see on the DS. After playing the second game in the series, I have to say that this was just as, if not more fun than the first game.

Developer: Griptonite Games
Publisher: Ubisoft
Genre: Action
# of players: 1
Price: $29.99


Here is the deal, Ezio, an Italian Assassin, is traveling to Spain in order to rescue a group of assassins that have been put into prison as a part of the Spanish Inquisition. What he ends up finding out is that the Templars are planning to set sail over the New Horizon in an attempt to try and find the New World. The story is told through brief cutscenes that can take place either before, during, or after every mission that you play. The sense of emotion, care, and religious struggle that is put into the story really makes you care about what is going to happen next. The voice acting is also excellent, every character brings their own sense of personality to their specific role.

I enjoyed AC II Discovery’s music and sound effects for the most part. Everything about the orchestral score made you feel like you were in Spain. I was getting this whole arabian nights/egyptian type of vibe from the game as far as the music goes, I really don’t know how else to explain it. The sound effects were very realistic, everything from the weapon sounds, to the noises that the guards make when you sneak up on them for a silent kill all packed a punch to them. The only sound that ever got annoying was the sound that Ezio makes when he falls from a high jump and dies. It wasn’t the sound itself that was annoying, but the fact that I had to hear it over and over again every time I failed to land correctly really started getting to me.

For a platforming game on the DS, the graphics were pretty good. All of the environments were beautifully constructed, and were very urban in their design. What I mean by this is that most of the places in which you visit all have this cultural feel to them, from the plants hanging off walls, to the stone you see on the castle grounds, all gave off this idea that centuries ago, this is what the world looks like. Each of the characters looked great, and were wonderfully animated, especially when it came to the stealth kills that Ezio would perform. Nothing is as satisfying and cool to watch as when you sneak behind somebody, and perform a stealth kill, you have to see it for yourself, that’s all I can say.



The controls were not too complicated to understand, but they do take some time to get used to. You move left and right with the d-pad, press up on the d-pad to climb walls, hold down either direction to run, attack/stealth kill with the y button, jump by pressing the b button, press down and b to roll, press down to hang from a ledge, block attacks with the right trigger, hold down the left trigger to crouch and use the x button to hide behind, or inside other objects. There will be times where you may climb something you don’t want to, or run too fast before you realize that you are completely surrounded by enemies, but for the most part, the controls work out just fine. I also had some trouble with counter attacking sometimes, but that is not caused by a poor control scheme, it was just a matter of bad timing on my part.

Despite being a short lived experience (around 4 hours or so), there was enough variety in the types of missions that you played in to make the game interesting, challenging, and a whole lot of fun. Basically, there are three types of missions to play, Normal, Stealth, and Chase, all of which are self-explanatory. The Normal missions usually just require you to get to the end of the level, and that’s it, but sometimes you would have to rescue a set amount of people before you could do so. In order to complete the chase missions, you have to get to the end of the level as fast as possible without dying. And finally the stealth missions, my personal favorite, basically you have to get to the end of the level without being seen, which means you can hide out in certain areas to say away from oncoming enemies, then pop out behind them and perform a stealth kill.

All of the missions on their own play out just fine, but I did experience a couple of problems with the running, and with the stealth mode. Sometimes when you are running, you will have to attain a certain amount of speed before hitting a jump, which is fine, but after you jump, you are not always sure where your character will land, basically making the chase missions more or less a game of chance than anything else. Also, in the stealth mode, the indicators for the enemies onscreen are pretty much useless and inconsistent. If an enemy sees you, all you have to do is walk away until you do not see his indicator anymore, and it’s likes he never saw you in the first place. There are also times where you seem to have a clear advantage by sneaking up to an enemy, only to find out at last moment that he has spotted you, it was irritating.

Once you are done with AC II Discovery, there are a couple of reasons to play it again. First of all, you can earn a set amount of points in each level by completing it in a certain amount of time, taking a certain amount of damage, killing a certain amount of enemies, etc. The more points you earn, the more cheats you will unlock. There is also the option to play some challenge levels, which can also you earn you some extra points. Finally, there are wanted pictures that can be collected in each level that will increase your health regeneration, which may not seem like much, but trust me, it’s worth it.



AC II Discovery is fun while it lasts, but is over rather quickly. If you can get over some minor control issues and glitches, then there should be no reason to give this one a try.

(B)

- Matthew H

Back again. This time we tried to be organized(at least a little.) We actually try to have a discussion on 3D gaming and of course, Justin TV decides to stop recording at the wrong times. So we have a short show this week, but we do talk about a few things: Army of Two: The 40th Day, Kingdom Hearts, Darksiders, and Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom. Please, don’t forget to check us out live every Monday, Friday and Saturday night right here: www.justin.tv/frustratedfury

Divided into two parts:

Watch live video from Rage Quit Radio on Justin.tv

Watch live video from Rage Quit Radio on Justin.tv

We’re back after our last episode was sabotaged…so this is episode 26.5. We talk a lot this week about Darksiders, Persona 3, The Impossible Game, and Kingdom Hearts 389 Days 12/4537 (or whatever…) As always, you can watch us live every Monday, Friday, and Saturday night right here: www.justin.tv/frustratedfury

Watch live video from Rage Quit Radio on Justin.tv

Watch live video from Rage Quit Radio on Justin.tv

Watch live video from Rage Quit Radio on Justin.tv

Watch live video from Rage Quit Radio on Justin.tv