Games Played 10/16/2008

Fatal Fury Special - X-Box 360
Galaga Legions - X-Box 360
The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age - X-Box
MotorStorm: Pacific Rift Demo - PlayStation 3*
Omega Five - X-Box 360
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords - X-Box 360
Samurai Shodown II - X-Box 360
Streets of Rage 2 Demo - X-Box 360
Tom Clancy's End War Demo - X-Box 360**

*Plays and looks the same as the first game. I am disappointed that there's hardly any progress in this series. That cockpit view where you could see the windshield gets splattered with mud in real time from the fake trailer of the original is still missing in the sequel. I guess the PlayStation 3 is just not powerful enough to accomplish that.
**This would have been another typical military real time strategy game if not for one twist: The ability to control your units using voice command that works perfectly. It is fun even though I get owned repeatedly playing it against other people online.

RANDOM GAME OF THE DAY:


Trizeal (2005)
Developer: Triangle Service
Platform: Sega Dreamcast
Purchase Date: 2005


Flying through the clouds.

Trizeal is one of those situational-weapon type of shooters where the ship can transform into 3 different forms, each with its own upgradable firepower. Just like Radiant Silvergun and Contra: Shattered Soldier (but hardly as fun as those games), to play the game successfully is to know when to switch between the available weapons. This is an arcade port and its release on the Dreamcast came with a rather pathetic announcement on the developer's website about the danger of them having to close down if the game doesn't sell well. Well, apparently they survived and they even released the sequel, Exzeal, in the arcades last year - it is also slated for release in Japan for the X-Box 360.

LIBRARY STATUS: 3 out of 5