Another week, another set of reviews covering this week's Virtual Console releases. This time around, I check out Westone's sidescrolling Genesis RPG Wonder Boy in Monster World, which just so happens to be a sequel to that TurboGrafx-16 game Dragon's Curse released on VC earlier this month. As for Chris Remo, he brings us his thoughts on the TurboGrafx-16 muliplayer-centric action puzzler Battle Lode Runner, the first previously Japan-only game to hit VC. Last but certainly not least, David Craddock chimes in with his thoughts of Konami's SNES shooter Gradius III.

With Westone's Wonder Boy in Monster World on the Genesis acting as the sequel to the studio's Dragon's Curse on TurboGrafx-16, it should come as little surprise to learn that much is shared between the two games. This sidescrolling action-based RPG improves on the issues Chris Remo described in his review of the TurboGrafx-16 edition of its predecessor, though some of them still exist to varying degrees.

Much like Nintendo's Legend of Zelda, Wonder Boy utilizes a heart tank-based health system. Lead character Shion begins the game with three hearts and gains more as players advance, some acquired after defeating a boss and some necessitating a bit of extra work and exploration. In an amusing coincidence, Shion used an ocarina in parts of his adventure nearly a decade before Nintendo's green-clad protagonist would do the same.

Chris Remo and Chris Faylor were both busy with other assignments this week, so I took it upon myself to provide all three of this week's Shack Virtual Console reviews. This week saw the release of Nintendo's NES classic Punch Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream, Hudson's Bonk's Revenge on TurboGrafx-16, and Sega's Virtua Fighter 2 for the Sega Genesis. How do these oldies fare today? Read the reviews to find out.

The Sega Genesis' Yamaha YM2612 sound chip was never very adept at producing high quality sound effects, and Virtua Fighter 2 sounds worse than most games. At best, the victory cries are comparable to the gargled cries of a person with a throat full of phlegm attempting to sing. The various "Hiyas!" and grunts emanated during battle sound like quick bleeps during a sound test. The Genesis was not incapable of producing decent sound, but developers needed to understand how to coax results out of the chip. Sega, even when developing for its own console, did not understand this simple truth, and the results are evident in VF2.

Following last week's lackluster Virtual Console releases, this week's odd assortment of games seems to fare a little better. I check out Namco's hilariously bizarre TurboGrafx-16 beat 'em up and side scrolling shooter hybrid Bravoman, Chris Remo weighs in on Namco's NES version of its classic top-down shooter Galaga, and David Craddock rock-paper-scissors his way though Sega's distinctive Genesis platformer Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle. Read on to see what games are still worth playing and which may be better left to nostalgic recollections.

With only two action buttons and a d-pad, it does not take long to become familiar with the extent of Bravoman's moves. Apparently his powers include super-stretchy joints, which allow his limbs to reach across the screen. The longer the attack button is held, the further the limb reaches, with the same principle applying to the jump command. Holding up or down on the d-pad while attacking triggers an offensive respectively catered to that height--either a high kick, a low head butt, or if the d-pad isn't used, a straight-forward punch.
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Given all this, you might be fooled, as I was at first, into thinking the game is just a slightly quirky simple beat 'em up. However, it turns out Bravoman is more than a stories-tall champion of justice--he is also a submarine capable of firing missiles and bombs.

After only a single game showed up last week, the Virtual Console on Wii is back to a more plentiful release schedule this week, and we've got reviews of all three games. Chris Faylor has a rundown on Nintendo's classic N64 shooter Star Fox 64, I review Westone's the ambitious but flawed TurboGrafx-16 adventure Dragon's Curse, and David Craddock examines Konami's notoriously punishing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles NES game. Go ahead and start from the beginning to find out what--if anything--is worth your Wii Points this week.

"Your mission is to defeat the five ghostly goons and save your country," Dragon's Curse informs you. "Beware of the dragon's power as they can turn you into a totally gruesome creature," it warns. It then delivers a large block of expository text that is later proven to be unnecessary, since the events it describes actually end up happening within the game.

Working your way through the game's introductory dungeon is almost insultingly easy, as your avatar takes very little damage from enemies, has a massive life bar, and can kill anything in a single strike. In a somewhat Metroid-esque twist, after beating the first boss you are stripped of most of your power and transformed into some kind of lizard thing.

"You've been cursed by the dragons," the game notes. "Now you are a gruesome creature," it points out. "You are are a desperado in your fight to return your good looks and to save the world from the clutches of these dragons," it advises.

Curses!

Due out today for PC is Monte Cristo Multimedia's Silverfall, an action RPG extremely similar to Diablo II and Titan Quest. Too similar, in fact. Read my review to find out why Silverfall is nothing but one in a long line of action RPGs that does nothing new for the genre that Blizzard Entertainment built.

Everything ... about the gameplay feels cut and pasted in. Questing offers typical action RPG fare: kill a certain number of creatures and return for a reward, kill a certain boss monster so the local town will be safe, retrieve a certain item from a certain spot. You find loot with which to adorn your character, selling all the rest in the hopes of getting some health potions or perhaps items that will better allow you to find unique gear. It feels redundant, and that is because it is. There is some saving grace in multiplayer, which includes a cooperative mode. Even that gets old quickly, because due to the overbalancing of the game's magic, your group will probably end up using the same spells anyway. In short, the gameplay offers nothing new: I've thrown fireballs before; I've called down meteors, I've used rings of ice to hold enemies in place; I've summoned pets that have no discernible characteristics.

There is a Silverfall Demo on FileShack.

This week, only one new game made it to Wii's Virtual Console download service, Koei's 1995 Super NES release Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV: Wall of Fire. Romance IV is packed with content and gameplay options, but is it a little too dense? Continuing our series of weekly Virtual Console reviews, Chris Faylor gives us his take on the game.

The number of choices a player has open to them is both impressive and overwhelming, supporting any number of different approaches. Instead of wasting the time and resources on a drawn out war, why not shower a potential ally with gifts and propose an alliance? Alternatively, you could spread gossip, commit arson, or even plant a few double agents in the opposing army, their eventual betrayal in the midst of battle lowering enemy morale and bringing more troops to your side.
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The lack of documentation leaves the functions and consequences of many available actions unclear, encouraging a trial and error approach to the multitude of available actions. This is an impractical way to actually play the game, however, as many of the choices, such as the development of agriculture, have no immediate effect.

In what is planned to become a recurring weekly feature, we've checked out this week's trio of retro Virtual Console releases for the Wii so we can give you the lowdown. Yesterday saw the release of Ancient's RPG/adventure/brawler Beyond Oasis, first released in 1995 for Genesis; Namco's TurboGrafx-16 version of Splatterhouse released in 1990; and Nintendo's classic 1985 motocross racer Excitebike.

What actually seals the deal for Beyond Oasis is its combat system. Though the game is played from an overhead perspective, its surprisingly deep combat takes some influence from sidescrolling beat-em-ups. Armed with his goofily named Ali Knife, Ali has access to a broad array of moves, all performed with combinations of the d-pad and the face buttons for attacking and jumping. Depending on his proximity to an enemy and the length the button is pressed, the attack button stabs, slashes, or kicks. As it should, kicking an enemy will cause that enemy to fly backwards, potentially hitting and damaging other enemies. Beyond the basic attack, there are combos, jumping kicks, running attacks, spin attacks, and more.

This week, Reggie's got a review of SCE Studio Liverpool's decidedly hardcore racing sim, the PlayStation 3 exclusive Formula One Championship Edition, released to North American retail shelves today.

At first, F1 might seem to be a difficult game for newcomers to grasp, although there are plenty of options to help out the newbie player with how an F1 car handles and what to expect on the track. Racing options such as Time Trials, Quick Race, and the Grand Prix Weekend offer plenty of opportunities to accidentally smash up a car or end up in last without taking the additional risks that Career Mode will offer. Fortunately, there are some learning aids--training wheels in the form of automatic braking, the option to toggle off damage modeling, and removing penalties are among the game's settings. Much of this works exactly as advertised and with the help I soon managed to put up a respectable showing in eighth place. As the player grows in experience, these aids can be discarded, switching to a fullly manual transmission mode, turning off the steering assistance, or removing the virtual race line that shows the best path along a track. By default, all of these options are enabled so veterans may want to dive into the options right away to change these if they already know what to expect.

Today, after nearly a year and a half of being an Xbox exclusive, Jade Empire arrives on PC as Jade Empire: Special Edition. Is the game worth picking up if you haven't played it before? What about if you already own the Xbox version? Read my review to find out.

You earn quite a few styles as the game progresses, and in the Xbox original, it was more than a little annoying to constantly pause the game and remap fighting styles, as they could only be assigned to the four d-pad directions. The default keys for combat styles in the PC Special Edition are the number keys running along the top of the keyboard, which becomes convenient as you earn fighting styles faster and faster as the game progresses. The only time you will need to remap keys is to move older styles further down the list of commonly used styles; you'll spend quite a bit of time leveling up skills only to find better alternatives along the way, but even so, there's no reason to completely disregard a style you've spent so much time upgrading, as it could still come in handy at some point.

Today, AM2's PlayStation 3 version of the arcade fighter Virtua Fighter 5 hits retail shelves in North America. Reggie delivers a full review of the latest entry in Sega's venerable fighting franchise, which is also slated to hit Xbox 360 this summer.

Make no mistake, VF5 is purely a fighting game and every piece of it has been focused towards that end. That means no cutting to an unexpected twist or text aside following your match. Nothing but the bare fisted bludgeoning that the player can deliver to the CPU or to a friend who joins in.

The deep fighting engine that has been a hallmark of the series is something that might seem intimidating at first, but the intuitive feel lends itself easily to experimentation with a vast array of moves and attacks. Beginners who haven't spent as much time with the series, or those who have been weaned on Tekken, Soul Calibur, and Dead or Alive, will find Virtua Fighter's controls simple to get a handle on. Veterans will likely dive right into the Arcade mode; the controls that haven't dramatically changed since the first title as AM2 continues to polish the system from one iteration to the next.

Next week Microsoft will release Crackdown, an exclusive Xbox 360 title from Realtime Worlds, the studio formed by DMA Design (aka Rockstar North) founder David Jones. The game puts players in the role of a superhuman law enforcement agent with the goal of ridding a large open city of crime, aided by guns, explosives, cars, and rather powerful thigh muscles. I've explored just about everything there is to explore in the game, and so I offer you my full review.

Crucially, jumping is hardly any kind of limiting factor when dealing out desctruction. While sailing through the air, you can still lock on to and shoot enemies, toss aimed grenades, reload, and throw things basically just as easily as when on the ground, meaning you can be in motion a great deal of the time. Crackdown makes very few concessions of any kind towards reality, and the ability to conduct all of your job-related duties (you know, blowing stuff up) with full effectiveness while jumping is largely what gives the game its superheroic quality. Rather than feeling simply like the aforementioned heavily armed tank, you become a nimble jumping heavily armed tank, whatever that is. It is immensely satisfying to take a running jump over a barrier while locked on to and firing rounds into an enemy, then plant a satisfying kick into his face to finish him off.

This week marks the first front page review by our latest Shack contributor, Reggie Carolipio, whom many of you may know from the ShackReviews section as SixDemonBag. Welcome, Reggie! Not coincidentally, this week also marks the release of one of the still-strong PlayStation 2's most anticipated games, Level 5's massive galactic RPG Rogue Galaxy. In his Rogue Galaxy review, Reggie has taken an in-depth look at the game, detailing its many piratical intricacies.

Level 5 has demonstrated that it knows RPGs. With its take on Enix's Dragon Warrior series, turning Dragon Quest VIII into an incredible adventure steeped in old traditions and new challenges, it told a familiar story with entertaining characters, a brutal monster of a villain, and with a stylish visual flair coloring a world made for adventure. In its new PlayStation 2 RPG Rogue Galaxy, Level 5 hopes to inaugurate a new series to tell its own stories while giving players the experience of reaching for the stars from the comfort of a pirate ship. Although they might not be jousting with other pirates as some have experienced with Overworks' Skies of Arcadia, Rogue Galaxy has a lot more in which players can lose themselves as it once again tells a familiar story in an exciting way.

With its world-tilting gameplay, Sega's Super Monkey Ball series of 3D platformers is a perfect candidate for Wii, and designer Toshihiro Nagoshi and his team at Sega's Entertainment R&D1 one have come through with a new iteration of the game for the Wii launch. Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz features ten worlds and fifty minigames utilizing the motion-sensing Wii controller, and is available now. We've taken a comprensive look at the game; check out our full review.

The controls indeed have something of a learning curve, but it is not long before the game's difficulty starts to kick in--and with it, your skill will ramp up as well. Super Monkey Ball newcomers who play Banana Blitz--as well, as perhaps, some skeptical veterans--will quickly find that, despite its colorful visuals and goofy music, Banana Blitz is a true gamer's game. The single-player campaign makes no concessions to the Wii's "gaming for the masses" angle; it delivers an increasingly brutally challenging platforming experience that is rare in modern platforming. There will be moments when, despite this game using the one-handed remote controller configuration, you will find yourself gripping the controller in both white-knuckled hands, in part to remain as steady as possible and in part to keep yourself from chucking the thing across the room, as you fail the same level in the same place again, and again, and again. But when you clear the stage, and it is due to perserverence and intense concentration, you will be supremely vindicated.

This week, Vivendi is releasing Scarface: The World is Yours, developed by Radical Entertainment (The Simpsons: Hit & Run, The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction). The game serves not as a game version of Brian De Palma's 1983 film but rather as a sequel that follows an altered ending to the film. Unlike most film-sourced games, which tend to be quick linear affairs, Scarface is actually an ambitious open world game in the vein of Grand Theft Auto. It even brings some new things to the genres. Unfortunately, it has some problems as well. Read my full review for more.

This followup to Oliver Stone and De Palma's screen story, itself a retelling of Howard Hawks' 1932 classic Scarface (in turn a loose adaptation of Armitage Trail's 1930 novel Scarface), will undoubtedly be met with a variety of reactions. Devotees of the film are likely find it in poor form, as it blatantly stomps all over the film's crucial messages and themes of unchecked hubris and blind ambition, the attractions and dangers of a life of excess, and the self-destruction that frequently accompanies a meteoric rise to power. Then again, many diehard Scarface fans identify more with the gritty street smart take on an American Dream bootstraps tale. For them, this game's story, crafted by screenwriter David McKenna (American History X, Blow), may be ideal. Take your pick. Perhaps Tony's pseudo-resurrection is entirely appropriate for the video game medium, whose narrative bread and butter is superhuman one-man-armies able to plow through countless enemies while only briefly hindered by things like dying. Take from this what you will any further reflections on video game storytelling to date.

Introversion Software, which calls itself "the last of the bedroom programmers," has made a name for itself with its extremely inventive digitally distributed PC games. The UK-based developer released Uplink in 2001 and Darwinia in 2005, both to positive critical and fan reception. Today, Introversion releases DEFCON, a highly atmospheric and intense strategy game simulating global thermonuclear warfare. For those who know little about DEFCON or are intrigued but unsure as to whether its ambitious concept plays out effectively, I have gone ahead and reviewed the game. We've also got the game client, which includes a multiplayer demo, on FileShack.

In the multiplayer setting, players can form or break alliances with other players. These are uneasy at best, particularly given that the game already encourages a sense of nervousness and unease. Once, while playing as Eastern Europe allied with the United States up against Russia, I became rather worried at the site of my ally's enormous fleet of bombers sailing towards my cities. Before I realized that in reality they were simply passing through my territory to reach the enemy, I had launched an enormous salvo over to his missile silos and cities, and before he had the chance to comprehend what was going on, there was little he could do about the multitude of long range warheads sailing over the Atlantic to his shores.

It's taken a few years but we're finally going to see Prey in stores this week. You were already able to play the demo, but is the full game just as much fun? Yes, says David in his review of the game.

You certainly won't find any cars or tanks to drive in Prey, but at times you can fly around in a small biomechanical spaceship, in yet another way you'll be required to overcome puzzle obstacles. In one instance, the small flying pod required me to zoom around to different power plants in order to deactivate them, thereby powering down a large whirring fan located above me, which would allow me to pass through it. The controls to shut down the power plants were protected by force fields, which provided an obstacle to my physical body—but not my spiritual essence. There's a bit more to it, but I don't want to give anything away. I enjoyed this puzzle, because Prey wasn't content to force me to use only the pod I had inhabited to proceed; it blended puzzle-solving skills I had used before and combined them with new features, which amounted to giving me a higher feeling of satisfaction when I was able to complete the area.

Shipping this week is Titan Quest, Iron Lore's action RPG which has a lot of people excited though also concerned it is little more than a Diablo clone. David reviewed the game for us and says sure, the game is very similar to Diablo 2 in a lot of ways. But that is hardly a bad thing

Just in case some of you Shackers are afraid of commitment, there are a couple of ways that you can actually retract skill points, which is quite a handy feature. The first of which is with the Undo button. When you level up and spend a point on a skill, the Undo button lights up. Let's say you accidentally clicked a spell you have no further use for, or perhaps didn't even want in the first place. Click Undo, and you get your skill point back. Here's the catch: once you close the Skill window, Undo can no longer be used. Plan and spend wisely! But not too wisely, it would seem. Scattered throughout the game are Mystics, who, for a price, can give you your spent skill points back. The more you retrieve, the more you'll have to spend, but it's nice to know you can work on other more advanced skills if you find those early game skills are no longer serving their intended purpose.

Half-Life 2: Episode One has obviously been released, and if you're still on the fence about whether you want to pick it up, check out Shack's full review of Valve's latest effort. Here's the short version, though: Buy this game.

Update: We now have a new screenshot gallery for Episode One featuring high-resolution shots taken directly from the game.

All in all, Half-Life 2: Episode One doesn't offer a revolutionary experience over its predecessor. What it does offer is significant improvements in just about every meaningful area of gameplay: pacing, variety of puzzles, overall density, and so on. It's a much shorter experience, but it is by no means like five hours taken out of a larger game. No, this is a larger game compressed into a five hour block. That in itself is something of an achievement; it really is absolutely packed with action to a degree that you simply never see in games that take twenty hours to complete, because that kind of development would be impractical. It makes up for the fact that a lot of assets have been reused, if touched up, and the weapon selection is identical to that of the previous game. You'll be doing so many new things in those environments, and you'll be in so many different situations with those weapons, and it's packed so full that you won't feel short changed.

From the creators of the Burnout series comes BLACK, a new Xbox / PS2 shooter full of non-stop action. While it doesn't feature any multiplayer modes, and it's a brief experience David still thinks its a must-own game.

The guns themselves are great fun to use. Automatics take center stage, though power users will have plenty of fun with the Spaz shotgun and Magnum behemoths, as well as the RPG and others. Your gun is your sidekick in this game. You don't even open doors normally; you shoot them down. If your character needs help, the fire button is there to give it to him. The weapons are also used to add an element of strategy to the game. You can't pick up and carry every single weapon you see. You can carry two at a time, plus frag grenades. The game does a good job of making you consider possible situations when you see a new weapon lying nearby. For example, carrying the Uzi and the RPG will help you deal with both close and long range foes, but if you're in tight corridors, would the shotgun be a better choice? Or will you need that RPG at all?

Read the full review here.

Following up on my recent preview of iNiS' Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! (DS), I've done a full review of an even more unique DS music-based game: Toshio Iwai's Electroplankton (DS). I even include a few sound clips made with the game!

I've been letting clip one loop as I write this paragraph. It just so happened that two plankton fell into a really pleasing descending harmony. This is one of Electroplankton's great strengths. You're never quite sure what you're supposed to actually be doing with the thing, and then suddenly--ah, that's it. As the little guys suddenly get it together, you realize that's what it's all about. It's currently 5am as I write this; one dim light is on in my studio apartment, I hear the occasional car pass by my window, and behind it all a short and haunting melody plays quietly.

Enticing! What are you waiting for? Go read the review!