Shawn Wallbaum

Using the force since 1977.When the demo for Star Wars The Force Unleashed was released it looked
like an incredible game. The thing I hate about demos is that they can
set you up for disappointment if the game doesn't live up to the
preview's promise. As a result, my approach to this game was one of
caution. The story is sandwiched between episodes three and four and
tells the tale of Darth Vader's "secret" apprentice. The story line of
the game is certainly not Shakespearean, rather it's a fairly
straightforward read that adds a bit of spice to the Star Wars canon.
Unlike most Star Wars games, this one takes a darker road, beginning
with the protagonist. (That means main character, gamers. - editor)

The
game drops you in Darth Vader's dark shoes/boots on the Wookie plant of
Kashyyyk. After destroying trees, throwing around Wookies and taking
out the ineffectual Jedi whom the Wookies can't protect from your
badass dark side, you stumble on a child prodigy. Following the
Jedi/Sith mandate of a Master and apprentice, Darth trains the boy on
the ways of the dark side. The grown apprentice, named Starkiller, (the
original name that Lucas wanted to use for the Skywalker family) is
then sent out into the universe to follow his master's commands.

Over the years there have been many Mario games that feature Mario in
different sports, including Mario Super Baseball, which was released on
the Nintendo GameCube in 2005. Like many other Mario sports games it
had a fun arcade feel, great graphics, comic voices, special super
moves and lots of fun stuff to do. Now the Wii gets its own turn with
Mario Super Slugger, a game that has its share of fun for the baseball
and Mario lover
Publisher Namco has done a great service by making
this game feel like a first-party Nintendo game by using all the great
Mario characters with a nice polish. Following in the footsteps of
Mario Superstar Baseball, Mario Super Sluggers takes the best part of
its predecessor and molds them to the Wii's controller. You can play
exhibition games on Princess Peach's new baseball island resort, or in
a RPG-type challenge mode where that rascal Bowser Jr. causes players
mayhem. There is also a collection of mini games that hone your basic
baseball skills and a welcome return of Toy Field, which adds a dash of
darts to the pitch-and-hit experience.

Back in 2005, game developers Pandemic and LucasArts released
Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction on the original Xbox and
PlayStation 2 systems. This game was one of the few that was able to
take the sandbox game-play of the Grand Theft Auto series and put a fun
and exciting spin on it. As in the first game, Mercenaries 2 is a
third-person sandbox game with a few additions and improvements
including an online co-op play mode, an upgraded physics game engine,
the ability for characters to swim and a cool option to burn stuff in
hopes of creating more chaos.
The game has three characters from
the previous game to choose from including Chris Jacobs, Jennifer Mui
and Mattias Nilsson. You get to choose what character to play and each
has his or her own unique abilities to get the job done. The story
places the player in pursuit of a drug lord named Solano who contracted
the services of a mercenary (that's you) and then gives you the finger
instead of paying you your hard-earned cash. With the overthrow of the
Venezuela government, Solano takes the reins as a dictator, and thus
takes control of the country's oil supply. As this chaos ensues, other
factions arise against Solano and as a betrayed mercenary, you side
with any of them to seek your revenge and maybe make some pocket change
along the way. At its heart, Mercenaries 2 is a game about finding
trouble and blowing stuff up.

Come in, commodore.The home PC landscape in the 1980s was quite a bit different than it is now. The average consumer believed that home computers were just video game systems with keyboards and to a degree that was true. One home computer, however, helped change that myth and it was called the Commodore 64.

The first Commodore in the line was the Commodore Vic-20 that debuted in 1981 with pitchman William "Captain Kirk" Shatner asking consumers: "Why buy a video game when you can have a computer?" The Vic-20 was a huge success selling millions of home computers at a price comparable to video game systems of that era.

The Vic-20 was a good value for the dollar, but its limitations were obvious to those who wanted some power with their computing and were willing to pay extra for it. Commodore heard the cries of the public and in 1982 the Commodore 64 was released. The case it was released in, the famous "brown breadbox," was the same as the Vic-20's only a different color. The idea behind this was to keep costs down by cramming all the new 64 components into the Vic-20's shell.

What’s wrong with this picture. It's hard to believe that the Madden Football franchise has turned 20 years old with Madden 09. Back in 1989 the first Madden game was just called John Madden Football from EA Sports. Over the years the Madden games have always dominated sales in video game football. In mid 2005 EA Sports signed an exclusive licensing deal with the NFL for use of players, teams and stadiums that will last through 2012. In acknowledgment of EA/Madden's sheer domination, other franchises like Sega's NFL 2K and the ESPN series have folded. Some companies have tried a different approach with football, but nothing has even touched the Madden football series.

With this year's Madden game there is a bit of old and new. The regular features from past games include a new and improved "franchise mode," Madden moments let you "relive" highlights from the 2007 season. You can also choose plays by formation, as in previous editions. However, in this installment you can also choose the type of plays, so you might want to bone up on those for maximum strategy.

New to the Madden franchise is the Madden IQ test, which starts the game with John Madden himself giving you instructions. Madden puts you through the paces in a cool Tron-like simulation. This is a series of tests that simulate offensive and defensive passing and rushing difficulties to hone your skills.

Next week in the stars cabaret vip room. In yet another sequel to the popular fighting game genre, Soul Caliber IV takes on the next generation systems in style. Included in the original fighting character list is Darth Vader for the PlayStation 3 and Yoda for the Xbox 360, but each Star Wars character will be available on both systems through an online download. The third Star Wars character is called the Apprentice for the upcoming game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. With the returning characters, there seems to be enough changes and tweaks to give it a fresh playing field.

Where Soul Caliber IV shows its true colors is in the character creation mode. As the player uses his/her custom character the more the game opens up and unlocks different fighting options. Variety in game play and characters seems to be the goal here, and the gamemakers seem to be right on target.

Depending on which version you choose, the Xbox or PlayStation version of this game, they seem to balance out each other in what they can do. The PS3 version allows you to download the entire game to your hard drive to give quicker load times, but a new download for the 360 will allow you to do this with ANY 360 game so this is a moot point. Of the guest Star Wars characters, Yoda on the 360 seems to be the better character to fight with. He can jump around and is more agile, whereas Vader is slower and harder to maneuver, especially when using combos. When using their force powers they can throw around other fighters. The one odd thing is that a character like Vader isn't able to use a choke hold and that Yoda isn't able to throw around BIG objects like an X-wing. The last and most mysterious Star Wars character is a new one from a game that's not even out yet, the Apprentice or Starkiller from Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

Resistance 2: One of the few highly anticipated titles in ’09. Each year, the major video game and computer software companies gather to showcase what they have in store for the coming year at E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo). The show began in 1995 and has been mostly held in Los Angeles with a few different locations tossed in over the years. The show itself was once a huge production with tons of booths for companies and the general public to mingle and try all the new games and consoles, but now it's a different story. Having restructured in 2007, the show is much smaller with the trade show being replaced with smaller events and a name changed to E3 Media and Business Summit. The 2008 show, held at the Los Angeles Convention Center from July 14-17 was hardly the colorful gaming event it once was.

Here is a wrap up from the big three players at the convention: Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.

Sony started its E3 show with a demo of Resistance 2, which was impressive considering that the first Resistance was one of the better launch titles for the PlayStation 3. Also a smart thing for Sony was to re-introduce the "Greatest Hits" titles for the PlayStation 3 which will include: Fight Night 3, Resistance:Fall of Man, Assassin's Creed and more titles for under $30. Responding to Microsoft’s partnership with Netflix, Sony has started its own video download service with movie studios like Warner Bros., Sony Pictures, and Lionsgate. There was also a preview of the new updated PlayStation Network and a sneak peak at Sony's new title, Home. The approach with Home is to interact with other players and do things in a virtual world like Second Life. On the PlayStation Portable (PSP) front there will be a new bundle for retail in the fall including the PSP system, UMD movie of National Treasure 2 and Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters. Topping it all off was news that Sony will phase out the 40gb version of the PlayStation 3 for a 80gb system at the same price point as the 40gb system ($399.99).

Fly me to the moon. Anybody who played PC games in the early '90s could tell you that the original Civilization, which was released by MicroProse in 1991, was the most interesting strategy game. A single player game, Civilization let you build a small settlement into a mighty empire. You were allowed to explore, use diplomacy, or go to war. This formula has been updated for PCs and the next generation consoles (Xbox PS3, etc).

Civilization Revolution is one of those games that would seem to be hard to translate to a console. But in this case, the developers were able to take the best parts of the PC version of the game and keep the console owners happy at the same time. The developers mainly cut the game's micromanaging so that players can concentrate on global planning. Developers wisely limited the use of controller buttons, helping the game adapt to the console platform. Design changes aside, the game is in essence the same; construct a Civilization and dominate the world.
The game starts in 3,500 B.C. with a primitive Civilization and ends in a technological future. Between the two time frames you choose how to reign over your virtual nation. Also, in getting started you need to choose a leader. You can choose from celebrity chiefs such as Caesar, Abraham Lincoln, and Cleopatra (Abe in a wooly mammoth pelt? Cleopatra in anything, or nothing…) Each character has its advantages and disadvantages; one may excel at warfare while another might have a large cultural influence.

After the video game crash of the early 1980s, Nintendo was able to dominate the video game market with its original Nintendo Entertainment System until the Sega Genesis was released in 1989. The Genesis was part of a wave of the first 16-bit game systems released that also included the TurboGrafix 16, Neo Geo, and the Super Nintendo.
 
The Genesis initially competed with Nintendo's 8-bit system and had trouble selling in both the U.S. and Japan. Sega of America made a smart move by dropping the price of the system and including with the system its own Mario-type mascot in the form of Sonic the Hedgehog. Sega also went head to head in print and TV ads with Nintendo, showing off the quality of the Genesis next to the NES, and the Genesis finally took off.
The biggest test, however, was to compete with Nintendo's 16-bit giant, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) which was released in 1992. Sega had a big advantage due to a two-year head start with its Genesis and a slew of games including big entertainment names like Michael Jackson and sports giants like Joe Montana, Arnold Palmer and Mario Lemieux. Having been labeled the "cooler" game system through marketing, the Sega Genesis had almost 50 percent of the gaming market in 1992 and owned the video game market through 1993. From that point, Sega started losing market share to Nintendo, which was releasing some fantastic games. To compete with the Super Nintendo, Sega introduced the Sega CD late in 1993.

It’s okay to tell your kids about these swingers. When developer Traveller's Tales put out two Lego Star Wars titles, audiences snapped them up. So, it only made sense to tap yet another George Lucas goldmine and take Indiana Jones to Lego land, with a focus on the three original Indy films. So could the Indiana Jones games be at least as good as the Star Wars ones?
The original Lego Star Wars games seemed at first like children's games, but ended up being quite fun. The presentation for the Indy game is just as fun and is extremely well done. It does a solid job of presenting the stories of the original three movies.
Lego Indiana Jones looks great and has some solid colors, well-drawn animations and shows a nice touch with the visual effects. This game really looks fantastic on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and even the good ol' PlayStation 2. The sound is also quite well done; you get to hear John Williams score from all three movies, along with some nice sound effects. There's nothing like hearing the crack of Indy's whip with a well-played move. The sound effects can get a little bit repetitive, but manage add to the action going on around you.