E3 2007: Godzilla knocks over Jenga tower; hybrid post title collapses as well

Jenga

I'm sure you can all fondly recall the youthful joy of playing Jenga amidst enforced family gatherings, ever so tenderly gripping the branded wooden block with your chubby pre-mature fingers in order to tentatively remove it from the tower. Given the frantic rabble-rousing that Atari's initial announcement of Jenga for the Wii caused, I am proud to announce that the Wii version of Jenga, your Pep-Pep's old-time favorite game, is actually more frustrating than the original. Shaky precision with the Wiimote left me tugging at the blocks more than was realistically accurate for a Jenga block, which immediately defeated any connection between the virtual and the real Jenga for me. If you still are hankering to yank this game off of the shelves, Jenga does include a variety of block towers composed of varying densities to alter the physical difficulty of removing the blocks, adding a slight sense of challenge to your Jenga mastery. Players also have the option to experience the Jenga in a variety of colorfully pointless backgrounds which could be seen as a neat addition but in my opinion are just flat out distracting. I suppose I'm being a bit critical for this kind of casual game, but for me it seemed like a dressed up, less functional version of the original Jenga experience. Perhaps the DS version of the game will have more bang to its buck, but I'll let my grandparents give this game to me for Christmas before buying it myself.

Godzilla: Unleashed

I have to admit, it's pretty damned entertaining to envision all the rabble rousing Godzilla monsters going at it with you entirely in control of how many buildings and cars they pummel and punt. Godzilla: Unleashed has a total of 23 TOHO A-List monsters to wrestle around with which you can unlock when playing the campaign mode. Utilizing both the Wiimote and the nunchuck, players can overlay combat moves and actively build up energy for a "critical mass" attack which differs for each of the respective monsters. Each of the levels take place in a different major city in which giant alien crystals have catalyzed and destroyed the buildings surrounding them, transforming the environment into a post-apocolyptic world slowly being defeated by the elements. It's a cruel, cruel, world for these gargantuan fellows.

As I watched the monsters combat against one another, Godzilla swinging his tail around the side to bat Mothra all up in his piece, I noticed the characters seemed to react very slowly and sturdily as opposed to the quick action you would normally see in other fighting games. The buildings and urban surroundings react to the monster's movements with a window breaking here or a top two floors being knocked off there in an entirely dynamic fashion. Players may also use their environment to their advantage by tossing opponents on alien crystals for extra damage or swooping up a building or two to ravish over another monster's head. This game seems as though it has some sort of potential, quite possibly more so for Godzilla fans than non-fans, with it's wide variety of monsters and unique city destroying battle technique. I think the overall aura of the game could have been significantly pumped if it were on a system with better graphics, as the Wii system projects a sort of arcade feel from the mid-1990's. Regardless this game may still be worth a look.