I was a Ninja Turtles kid. The toys, the show, all that stuff. I never thought twice that the concept of amphibious lizards who know karate and eat pizza was ridiculous. Anyway, that series went gracefully into the night, or so it should have. The recent attempts at reviving TMNT fell hollow on today's Pokemon and Hilary Duff infused youth, while also managing to destroy older fans' image of the series, however inaccurate or undeserved.

But wait! Ninja Turtles have always been good concepts for a videogame, right? 4 turtles, four players, lots of beating up enemies and ninja moves! But no, aside from the re-release of the classic arcade game, Ubisoft seemed to have put out a mindless Prince of Persia lite for every home system ever conceived. (they may have forgotten the Colecovision, I'm not sure) Even the DS, which is often like a glittering fantasyland made of licorice whips for good games got a watered down version of the crappy home game.

Is the nouveau TMNT a complete wash? Is there nothing good to sift out of the steaming piles of childhood memories? No, dear reader, for the Game Boy Advance saves the day, with an excellently crafted and incredibly overlooked ninja beat-em-up.

The game basically has two objectives. Kick ass, and move right! Aside from that simplicity, the game does have a good combo and air juggle system using launchers and combo strikes along with roll/dodge moves that adds a lot of depth. Weapons are placed throughout the somewhat repetitive levels. The whole game has a very solid feel to the engine and physics that I haven't seen in this style of game since River City Ransom.

River City Ransom comparisons don't stop there though. Each of the four turtles can accumulate experience points and improve their abilities. Enhancements also can be purchased with money that enemies drop. There is a hub-like overworld from where you select levels, buy upgrades, and play an abundance of minigames with Casey, Splinter, and April. Last on TMNT's extensive feature list is the medals (read: Achivements) for doing things like a 50 hit combo, juggling someone 10 times, accumulating money, and other creative goals.

Sprites are clean, clear, and animation is very expressive. The levels are a bit repetitive, and the game is over before it really should be. It should go without saying, but if you hate these type of beat-em-up sidescrollers, TMNT won't be for you. However, for fans, GBA is by far the best way to go for TMNT gaming this time around.

The game hasn't been very widely shipped and you might have to do some worthwhile searching. (I found mine at a best buy, and have only seen copies at a local department store otherwise, every GameStop/EB and GameCrazy got NO copies in, morons)

I give TMNT an 8 of 10 for the very solid game engine, ample bonus content, and very impressive graphics. It loses points for the number of stages in the game, and lacking classic TMNT villians. (yeah, the movie was too, but that's another problem)

Let me get this out of the way. Boom Boom Rocket (BBR, get it?) is a shameless attempt to cash in on the recent rhythm game popularity. BBR even yoinks the famous DDR type style to give added subliminal connection to potential buyers. Don't be fooled. This is as simple as it gets push the button when it crosses the line gameplay. On top of that, the graphics are very blah, the music is all royalty-free classical style song remixes, and the game is far overpriced at 800 points.

Verdict: 2 of 10- Little to like here, might be okay if you had a 4 year old who wants to play the 360. The high price should turn almost anyone away, though.

(originally written April 12, 2007) Sony today confirmed that the $499.99 version PS3 will no longer be available. Sony's Dave Karraker cited "overwhelming demand" for the $599.99 model during launch for the move to one system at retail.

Opinion- As always, Sony makes a confusing move. Who stands to benefit here, other than Sony? One of the biggest problems people have had with the PS3 is its pricing, and the $500 model becomes even more attractive with the $480 Xbox 360 Elite competing with it. Speaking of 360, Sony seems to have just justified Microsoft's pricing by distancing themselves $120 from Xbox.

Removing options can never really be a good thing, and the "overwhelming demand" statement becomes rather hollow when you realize that the majority of shipments were for the more expensive model. The $500 PS3 was fully featured for gaming, unlike Microsoft's Core package, and I'm sure I'm among many non-PS3 owners who would have chosen the $500 version when software starts coming.

The real question is without the $500 version, does that become a begrudging $600 purchase, or another $600 model sitting on the shelf?

Square Enix seems to have indicated that their classic catalog of games will not be getting the microtransaction treatment so many companies have taken advantage of this generation. Square cites lack of Japanese interest in digital downloads as the reason. The statement was specifically targeted towards the Wii's Virtual Console, but the response makes future releases unlikely for PSN or Xbox Live as well.

Opinion:
It's quite obvious what the reasoning is for this move by Square Enix. They have been doing the remake raping of consumers for years, and it pays off every time for them. Square Enix doesn't want to release Final Fantasy on NES for $5 on VC when people are happily buying the PSP remake with Korean MMO style graphics for $30 a pop.

The real shame here is that we'll probably never see some of Square Enix's harder to find or unreleased in the US titles from years past, as the VC was the first real chance for Square to do this inexpensively and with minimum risk.

I hate to place the blame on consumers, but the Square-centric consumer has been about as picky with their buying decisions lately as swine running to Square's slop filled trough. Really, did anyone really need to buy Dirge of Cerberus, or any Mana game made in the last 10 years?

F.E.A.R. is a standard first person shooter with some horror/slo-mo elements added in. In general, I never felt very polarized either way about FEAR, neither loving or hating it. Nothing much stands out in the game, run through linear passages through office/industrial/slum environments shooting enemies with a variety of weapons.

The enemies are quite smart and did surprise me several times when I was surrounded before I realized it. The problem is that the closed in spaces you fight in rarely have enough different passages to take advantage of the AI. FEAR's weapons are all standard fare, SMG, Rocket launcher, Pistol, Shotgun. Weapons do control well and feel powerful. Two that stand out were the penetrator, which fires metal projectiles that make for some humorous looking enemies pinned to walls, and the laser sniper rifle which makes enemies explode in a bloody mess, going against any kind of stealth or subtlety long range rifles are suited for.

Another way in which FEAR attempts to be different is by including a slow-motion ability which basically means you can move faster than enemies, see them being blown apart (literally) by your attacks in slow motion. Nothing too exciting. The few scripted hallucination events in the game seemed tacked on and if you've played Eternal Darkness, will seem like nothing special. These could have made the game much more interesting, but seem like yet another missed chance.

I thought multiplayer was more fun, if also basic. The standard Deathmatch, the team version of that, and the flag capturing version of that are provided, also with slow-mo variants that nobody plays. Speaking of which, not many are playing online except for peak periods and weekends. Nothing much impressive here, just running around maps mostly taken from the single player game competing for kills. Weapons are pretty imbalanced and from my experience the AR/Penetrator dominates the game.

The game looks good, but not great (noticing a trend here?) with some lighting effects that never really are taken advantage of, nice detail on characters, and lots of objects that blow up and go flying when firefights take place. I didn't notice any framerate issues or glitches in my time with the game.

The 360 version includes two very forgettable extra modes, instant action which places you in areas from the single player game with a number of enemies. It's a lot like a terrorist hunt on Rainbow Six, without as much customization, and only single player. A "bonus mission" of sorts which took all of 10 min and made little sense, not to mention taking place in familiar recycled environments with recycled enemies is included as well. On the topic of not making sense, the story doesn't. I wanted to understand it and I did, but only after a quick trip to wikipedia where someone had written a synopsis. What I understood is the story borrows pretty heavily and blatantly from The Ring and The Grudge.

Final verdict? I'd say 5 of 10, meaning it' s the perfect average FPS. Nothing here done wrong, nothing here done very right or exciting either. It's hard to recommend FEAR with better shooters like Rainbow Six:Vegas out and Half Life Orange Box coming out. I'd say pay no more than $30, and don't set your expectations high on this one.

I really liked Indigo Prophecy. The mystery, the interesting characters, the unique dynamic of playing the killer/investigator, it all drew me in. But I was fooled. I didn't see it coming. Indigo Prophecy falls apart so fast that you'll hardly know what happened.

In less than an hour of gameplay, your character will go from an average Joe who works at a bank, trying to patch up things with an ex-girlfriend who finds himself at the giving end of a bathroom stabbing to an undead Neo clone making love to the woman investigating him for murder in a subway car. Yes, those are spoilers, but since the story makes no sense, it doesn't really matter. At right about the same time, the game transforms from a clever evolution of classic adventure games to a button mashing/simon says game placed on top of cinematic scenes. It's a real shame that this game wasn't given more time to fulfill it's potential.

On the plus side, there is more good than bad, time-wise. It's only the last few hours' sloppy wrapping up of the story which ruins things. You can enjoy the multiple story threads, well written dialog, and the well developed and believable characters for about 75% of the game.

On the mechanical side, sometimes the controls just don't act naturally, because whenever a camera angle shifts, your character seems to want to turn around and start walking another direction. It's tough to explain, but not as tough as moving your characters where they need to be in the timed sequences. I can't speak for other versions, but on PS2 there were numerous times when the audio would skip and stutter for 10-15 seconds at a time, while the game froze, and also when the incorrect lines of dialog would be played, out of sync, or on top of the character's actual dialog. This was a brand new copy I played, so I'm calling it a software issue, and you may not experience it.

I do like using the right stick for dialog selection and interaction with the environment, and Indigo Prophecy looks great, with lots of detail and good animation that communicated emotion very well.

Scoring Indigo Prophecy is difficult because of the split in quality. I can, however, ruthlessly give it a 6/10 for wasted potential, and say play it if you get the chance, for $10 or less.