You still haven’t given Bionic Commando Rearmed a shot and you own a 360 and PS3? Then get out of here you nerd. Okay, enough in-jokes from Bionic Commando, but I’ll help try to nudge you in the right direction if you haven’t jumped in yet.

If you’ve played and loved the NES version of Bionic Commando to death back in the day, then this game was pretty much made with you in mind. It is pretty obvious that the team at Grin responsible for this game adores the source material and they have a field day here. They understand that the NES version was translated poorly and they have a ball poking fun of it here. The game has a great sense of humor, but I imagine only the purist will be laughing along with it. I’ll tell you one thing, I was laughing my ass off after having defeated the last boss as it was exactly what I wanted to see. Fans of the original game will also totally dig the updated music in the game. It’s all an awesome throw back to the original title, with remixed themes that still keep their chip tune heritage intact. These guys just get it, plain and simple.

I borrowed a few games off a buddy of mine (smorg user JimmyP) during the NES Marathon and he gave me an extra copy of “Wizards and Warriors” that he had hanging around. If you aren’t familiar with the series then let me bring you up to speed. Wizards and Warriors is considered somewhat of a classic, but the people who say that have obviously under gone rose tinted lasik surgery. I decided to throw the game in tonight just to check it out for old time sake and about two hours later I had finished the whole thing.

See, Wizards and Warriors is much more frustrating than it is challenging. I totally forgot that the game grants you infinite continues and you always start out exactly where you died last. Basically, the game only ends when you had enough of it yourself. Considering how damn frustrating and senseless the game is laid out, I gather most people in this day and age wouldn’t last more than 10 minutes with the title.

I bought the late GBA title Drill Dozer a few months ago based on the fact that it was made by GameFreak (the Pokey-man guys) and was super cheap at Target. Aside from that, I knew nothing about the game other than what I heard from EGM’s glowing review a few years ago.

Drill Dozer is essentially an SNES game that somehow got stuck in limbo and emerged 10 years later on the GBA. Well, that’s how it feels anyway. It’s a somewhat slow paced action/puzzle platformer that features a rag tag group of some rather unlikable character designs. The game reminds me of an SNES title (aside from graphics) because the whole concept is designed around the L and R triggers, sort of like the first few SNES games where Nintendo built games around those two triggers (see F-Zero and Pilot Wings).

It’s funny, we hyped the absolute shit out of Metal Gear Solid 4 around these parts, and since the actual game has dropped we haven’t written a single Nerdlog post about it. I’m here to remedy that.

Steve and I have already beaten the game. We’ve talked about it at length through the Smorg and through IM. To cut to the chase, we love it. Frank is currently in the middle of it, and I let Sith borrow my PS3 and the game so he can play catch up. I guess that’s the thing about MGS4, it’s hard to talk about the game without going into specifics. Once you go into specifics, you go into spoilers.

Suda 51, head of the “rock band” game studio Grasshopper, is a developer after my heart. Take his often over looked Gamecube/PS2 project Killer 7 for example, a game more genius than most people seem to realize. Killer 7 is probably one of the most streamlined game experiences out there. While people bitch about the lack of being able to walk anywhere they please in a game that appears 3D, they’re missing the point. In every single 3D game the player always has moments where they’re wasting time running in circles, bumping into walls, or fighting with the camera. Killer 7 did away with all that nonsense and had the player focus on what was important which was getting from Point A to Point B and shooting the living hell out of everything. Gears of War designer Cliff Blezinsky (the artist formerly known as Cliffy B) once described Gears as a “vertical platformer.” Instead of moving from left to right, you’re moving forward and backward. I don’t really buy that train of thought when it comes to Gears, but it totally describes what Suda did with Killer 7 years before. Which leads us to No More Heroes.

Thanks to people bitching Killer 7, not to mention its rotten sales and poor reviews, Suda decided to go (mostly) the traditional route of 3D with his recent Wii title No More Heroes. Here we have what appears to be a standard 3D brawler, coupled with your average Grand Theft Auto inspired sandbox city. What we really have on our hands is something much more akin to Shadow of the Colossus in that the whole goal of the game is to hunt down and defeat 10 insanely creative bosses. Everything in between the boss battles is nothing but fluff and mostly optional.

Last Valentines Day I bought my wife a copy of Super Princess Peach for the DS. While I was always interested in the game upon hearing about it many years ago, the lukewarm reviews steered me away from diving into Peach’s first solo adventure. Since my wife is a fan of Peach (and her DS) I thought the game would make a decent gift. While she loved it, I only played it for moments at a time, likely due to the fact that I was on Nintendo platformer overload. I was hot off New Super Mario Brothers, and was trying to juggle between Yoshi’s Island DS and Peach. Needless to say, I didn’t finished either Peach or Yoshi.

About two weeks ago I had a desire to pick up where I left off and play through the rest of the game. The best way to describe this game is that the Mushroom Kingdom is PMSing, and it’s up to the emotional wreck that is Princess Peach to save a bunch of Toads, Luigi, and Mario. The whole theme of the game is that by using the touch screen you can force Peach into different moods. Touching the “fire heart” will turn Peach into a ball of furious rage, while the “water heart” will have Peach crying a river. It isn’t just Peach either, all of the bad guys in the game are either crying, super happy, or just ticked off. Taking a cue from Luigi’s proton pack and Mario’s water gun, the developers chose to give Peach a lively umbrella to use on her journey. Apparently the umbrella is really some kid, but those story segments are usually so lame I don’t pay attention to them. Instead of bopping on baddies like her hero Mario, Peach has to bash everyone in her path Mary Poppins style. While you can use the umbrella all you want in order to smash, float, or shoot, Peach’s emotional commands, activity via touch screen, use up something called a “vibe meter.”

You have to hand it to Nintendo, because I’m at the point where I believe they seriously have figured out a way to print money. For example, let us take a look at their latest invention, The Zapper. The Zapper is nothing more than a piece of plastic that magically turns your remote and nunchuck into a gun. It’s supposed to be a light gun, but it’s really just smoke and mirrors, as your remote doesn’t function any different with it. For those of us smart enough to figure that out, Nintendo has attempted to sweeten the deal by packing it with a down and dirty mini-game called Link’s Crossbow Training. Well it worked, and I bought one. Unsuspecting people will snatch it up, hardcore fans of the Zelda series will have a tough time saying no, and at 20 bucks, it makes for a perfect gift to give out for the holidays. Yes, Nintendo has indeed figured out how to print money, and its bloody brilliant.

Upon booting up Crossbow Training, it is painfully obvious that the Nippon Giant spent close to zero dollars creating the game. The game runs off the Twilight Princess engine, using all of its art assets, stage layouts, and even music. Aside from a couple of new menus, and a music track or two, people who have played Twilight Princess have seen all of this before.