GamerDad - This Week In Games #18: January 22nd 2006

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Home > Columns > This Week In Games > #18: January 22nd 2006

This Week In Games #18: January 22nd 2006

by Michael Anderson
January 25, 2006

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Michael Anderson reports in every week to keep parents informed about what's recently arrived in stores!

Want to know what new games have arrived in stores in the past couple of weeks? I'll tell you ﾖ and let you know what the early reviews are saying. I'll call out games that kids will probably love ﾖ even if the reviewers aren't impressed. Remember to look at the bottom of the article for game release more than a month ago that are just getting reviewed. I'll also alert you to games with very strong adult themes, so you can be ready to discuss them with your kids if needed. Finally, because there are plenty of gems to be found, I'll look for bargains to highlight, and a game that is older but still available, works on current generation hardware and is definitely worth checking out ... if you can find it.

Featured Game of the Week:
Donkey Kong Jungle Beatﾖ for the GamdCube, Rated E for Everyone, GamerDad Review Score 4/5. The review notes "Music is delightful and full of familiar jungle rhythms. Play control is both unique and intuitive. Plenty of replay value ... If you want to play a familiar 2-D genre in a whole new way, Donkey Kong's your gorilla!" Check out the GamerDad review here!

Dubious Distinction of the Week:
Bad monkey! ... Kong: King of Atlantis ﾖ for the GBA, Rated E for Everyone, Average Review Score ~25%. It's like peanut butter and chocolate ﾖ two great ideas just waiting to be combined. Huge monster ape and lost underwater city. You can see this, right? What?!?! You can't?!?! Oh well ... apparently only making terrible portable games based off the movie just wasn't enough ...

Now for some recently released games on the major platforms. Games are grouped with consoles together, then handheld systems and finally PC games. Within each section, they are grouped by ESRB rating, from E to M.

Gaming Consoles (XBox360, PS2, Xbox, GameCube, and Multi-Platform)

MVP 06 NCAA Baseball (PS2 & XBox, Rated E) ﾖ Early Buzz: the game is decent, but the loss of the pro baseball license hampers this title.
Ape Escape 3 (PS2, Rated E-10) ﾖ Early Buzz: Fun for newcomers but essentially nothing of value if you've already played the first two games in the series.
Samurai Shodown V (XBox, Rated T) ﾖ Early Buzz: Reviews started arriving last week, but the game got delayed a week at the last minute. It isn't any better this week.
25 to Life (PS2, XBox & PC, Rated M) ﾖ Early Buzz: If '25 to Life' is a hint, then I'd say the answers reviewers are giving is ﾑit should be a crime to make a game this bad.'

Handheld Game Systems

Zooo (GBA, Rated E) ﾖ Early Buzz: Simple interface tied to gameplay that is fun and addictive add up to a nice puzzle game.
Ape Escape Academy (PSP, Rated E-10) ﾖ Early Buzz: This game is bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S. I don't know what it means either ... but I know that early reviews say that this game is as much fun as sitting around picking bugs out of your friend's hair.

PC Games

MX vs. ATV Unleashed (PC, Rated E) ﾖ Early Buzz: the fun arcade dirt-track racing game gets ported to the PC with a track editor included, and the results are every bit as good.

Bargain Basement:

A super pre-order bargain for Heroes of Might & Magic V at Amazon.com was noted here back in This Week In Games #13. Since then, Amazon has cancelled all of the pre-orders, raised the price to $49.99 and sent emails noting the new price and claiming an error. As usual, when something sounds too good to be true, it often is.

Catch Me If You Can!:

Kirby Air Rideﾖ for the GameCube, Rated E for Everyone, GamerDad Review Score 4/5. The review notes "Since you can set the difficulty to insanely easy to ridiculously hard, young players and seasoned gamers will be able to enjoy this title together. With all those things to unlock, kids will have plenty to do and shouldn't get bored for a long time. Young children will like the colorful and fun Kirby characters and settings." Check out the GamerDad review here!

Catching Up with Game Reviews:

Big Mutha Truckers (GBA & DS, Rated E-10) ﾖ if you are really interested in this game, you'll be pleasantly surprised that despite being a cut-down version of the console game, it isn't as bad as you'd expect.

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Home > Columns > This Week In Games > #18: January 22nd 2006

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