TwiddleGeek

I’m a little over half way through Phantom Hourglass, despite having restarted in English. With it’s pop-up furigana, Phantom Hourglass is a great title for language learners — though I must admit I’m enjoying it more without the extra task of translation. Especially with weird puzzles such as blowing into the DS mic, yelling, or even in one instance closing the DS itself. Frankly, these things are confusing enough to figure out in English. I can’t decide if it’s novel or just plain strange.

Phantom Hourglass goes all out to make good use of the DS platform though, that’s for sure. The stylus controls are wonderful, and this is coming from a hardcore old-school gamepad kind of guy. Running, fighting, shooting, throwing — everything can be done seamlessly using just the stylus. A few button combinations make life a bit easier, but you’ll never have to rest your stylus to push a button. Also put to good use is the dual screens, my favorite example is a fight where, on the top screen, you see yourself from the perspective of an invisible boss.

Phantom Hourglass does a great job of blending the traditional 2D Zelda like Link to the Past with 3D Zelda titles like Wind Waker. While the 3D scenes are brief and mainly limited to boss battles and sailing, they’re put to good use. Though I love sprite based games, the world itself looks great with real depth and textures rather than flat sprites. Having the game engine be 3D gives a freedom for camera movement and direction where sprites would not, and it’s all pulled together with wonderful art direction.

Aside from being rather short, and patently easy, Phantom Hourglass is simply a lot of fun. It’s everything we’ve come to expect from traditional Zelda adventures with a few new quirks thrown in for good measure. From what I’ve seen so far, I don’t think anyone could go wrong in picking up this latest adventure.

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Chibi-Robo is one of those quirky little titles that seem to be tailor made to a Nintendo system. Like Animal Crossing and other games of the type, it’s hard to describe it and make it sound like fun, but it really is. You are Chibi-Robo, helper to the Sanderson family. You spend your days (and nights) going around the home, cleaning stains, picking up litter, and generally helping out around the house.

It’s the exploration, however, that really makes the game fun. Scattered throughout the home are various items such as frog rings to give to Jenny, and to get to them you’ll be climbing loose cords, flying via a chibi-copter on your head, blasting evil spider-like bots, and generally never straying too far from an electrical socket to recharge. Along the way you’ll meet other characters, like toys come to life, who will give you tasks and chores to do. These little scenes range from amusing to horribly long winded and boring, often being the latter.

Chibi-Robo isn’t a terribly long game, even if you do the side-quests, but the day / night cycle does give the game a nice, brisk pace. I never found myself lost for very long or wondering what to do, and the timer made me often come back and retry certain areas more than once. Coupled with being limited by your battery, it keeps things interesting in a game that’s impossible to lose. You’ll soon find yourself addicted to collecting Happy Points, climbing up the ranks to Super Chibi-Robo.

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Diamond and Pearl bring some new life to a series that was going stale from too many sequels. Making the jump to the Nintendo DS, Diamond and Pearl introduce some new features and refine some old staples, making good use of the new technology throughout.

For example, trading and battling friends is now completely wireless, a feature that many are sure to find worth the purchase alone. Touch screen battle commands speed things up and add a bit of creativity to otherwise dull menu commands. Online battling and trading is also included, though its execution is somewhat limited. Battling friends works well enough, but you won’t be having random trainer battles anytime soon. Trading is implemented a little creatively, with a Global Trading System where trainers can leave trade requests, like a Pokemon bulletin board. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these requests simply aren’t reasonable and clog the system.

The lengthy, at least 35 hour story and gameplay remain largely the same as previous outings, but new enough to be worth another visit for series vets. There’s enough places to see and enough new Pokemon to catch to keep anyone busy. If you’re new to the series then this is easily the best place to jump right in. Absolutely not just a kid’s game, even hardcore RPG fans can find something to love in the simple but addicting catching, training, and battling mechanics. While something a little more revolutionary would have been nice, Diamond and Pearl are still solid evolutions of a favorite series and great examples of portable RPGs.

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For those who have been around the web for awhile, Tom Fulp is a pretty famous guy. Creator and owner of Newgrounds, the best Flash movie / game portal in existence, Tom has some impressive achievements under his belt. After programming the flash game Alien Hominid along with art by Dan Paladin, it wasn’t long before Tom and Dan formed their own development studio and expanded Alien Hominid.

What I really like about Alien Hominid is the fast and frantic pace, combined with the unique and stylistic visuals. This game can be brutal, death comes fast and heavy — but extra lives are awarded just as plentifully. In fact, what really makes this a joy to play is that you can start from any stage you’d like once you’ve progressed to that level. In effect, infinite continues. Combined with the heavy multiplayer support you’ve got a great pick up and play action game. The gamecube version I played seemed to have some noticeable slowdown during boss battles, but I’d recommend the XBLA HD version anyway, which can be had for a mere $10.

The real downside to Alien Hominid is that it can be beaten in a single afternoon. The 200 or so PDA minigame levels do help extend the life a bit, but not by much. Each puzzle lasts about 5-30 seconds and can be resumed in 5 level increments. While it’s enjoyable enough in it’s own right, it can be played through in about an afternoon as well. I also have to wonder if action fans are going to sit through 200 levels of a mini puzzle title. Regardless, Alien Hominid is cute, full of attitude, and a throwback to the sprite based action of yesteryear.