Games of the week for 08/24/08: Skeleton Warriors edition

10:51 PM on 08.24.2008   |   Jim Sterling

30 comments

The eighties may be the era that the Internet generation looks back on with rose-tinted specs, but I was a child of the nineties, and I find the decade sorely under-represented. With that in mind, and whether you want to or not, enjoy the camp awfulness that is the Skeleton Warriors opening theme. I actually sat down and watched several episodes of this a few months ago, and I decree that it is still as good today as it was in 1994. An epic to match Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and maybe even Too Human.

On the subject of Too Human, some videogames were played this week by your friendly Destructoid staff. Hit the jump for this hot exclusive!

Dyson: The only game I've been playing this week is called I Love Jim Sterling. Next week I'll probably be playing Jim Sterling Has Spurned My Love, but I'm hoping that the third in the series, Jim and Dyson Have Make-up Manlove, comes out by then.

We'll see; I know Jim hates sequels.

Orcist: I thought that I'd take a break from Persona 3 this week, but I was wrong. I'm stuck in Final Fantasy III, Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, and Ninja Gaiden II. There's nothing like a swift kick in the ass to curb one's enthusiasm for a game.

I came crawling back to Persona. She treats me right.

Chad: For the first time ever, I only touched one console this week. And that console was the Xbox 360. Why? Well ... BECAUSE THERE ARE 70,000 INCREDIBLE GAMES ON XBLA RIGHT NOW! I played Geometry Wars 2, some more Braid, Bionic Commando: Rearmed, and addictive-as-hell Galaga Legions.

Oh, and one more thing: I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE YOU ALL AT PAX!

Nick: This week has certainly been Rock Band 2 week, having spent some time at MTV, then taking a preview build with me to play at my leisure. Sean (HMXSean) from Harmonix came into town (Baltimore) to demo the game for some folks from ScoreHero.com, who were nice enough to let me sit in and watch; these dudes are killer at playing this game, sight-reading note charts that were blowing me away. I also played the "Bringing Sean to seedy bars in Baltimore" game, which was totally fun.

Also: Ratchet and Clank Future: Quest for Booty on the PS3, Dropcast for the Nintendo DS, and Bionic Commando Rearmed multiplayer on XBLA.

Jim: I barely have time for videogames with working 15 hours a day on Destructoid and plodding through the immigration process (as well as performing a second "IRL" job) but I've found time to enjoy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates on the DS and I absolutely adore it. Combat's a little finicky and I hate how items stick to your head sometimes, but it reminds me of FF IX in terms of art style, graphics and humor, and I love that. Also, Cu Chaspel is so deliciously demented and camp -- it's been ages since I've encountered a videogame villain who I look forward to running into, and I never thought the next time that'd happen would be in a DS game. God, I love Square Enix. 

DMV: Etrian Odyssey and Resistance: Fall of Man. I'm playing Resistance through on co-op with Necros, and I find it laughable that the story only talks about the main character and his story, and then the second player is a black man. Just as racist as Resident Evil 5, I say!

Oh yeah, and Quest for Booty.

Conrad: I broke my high score in the Pacifism mode of Geometry Wars 2 (now over 462 million) and am still totally hooked on it. Other than that, a little bit of Culdcept Saga and Bionic Commando: Rearmed. I grabbed Galaga Legions also, but I'm not much of a shmup guy and it's kicking my ass.

Justin: For some reason I had the random urge to track down a copy of Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne. I'd played a demo of it years ago and enjoyed it well enough, but I'm not entirely sure why I felt the need to play it all of a sudden. Still, it's a pretty fun turn-based strategy game, although I've been kind of sucking at it so far.

Colette: Earth Defense Force every night, as Niero and I have reached 96.5% and are determined to finish, and some Culdcept Saga during the week, in which myself, Hito, Dale and Conrad partook of some manass ( I think I have a clear idea of who enjoyed that the most).

Dale: A touch of Culdcept Saga earlier in the week (see above), a bit of Yggdra Union (almost done), and the rest was spent on those Sega Saturn games I still haven't quit, like Magical Drop 3 or Guardian Heroes. Feel free to beat me up and/or take my lunch money.

Niero: I played Mario & Sonic Olympics on Rey's Gameday, more EDF than any upright mammal should endure, and have been singing along to frogs shaking asses and DJs screaming STOP ... SCRATCHO! (Rhythm Tengoku Gold Import).  I also got my ass handed to me by Rubicante in Final Fantasy IV on the DS, which I'm enjoying a hell of a lot more than any previous handheld remake.

Jonathan: Sounds like I'm a lot farther along in Rhythm Tengoku Gold than our illustrious Robot King. Just finished unlocking the last "game with in a game", of which there are many. Can't wait for the US version to be released so I can check out all the stuff they changed.

What else? Bought Braid, played it for a few hours, waited for it to start being fun, then gave up. Everything about the game is incredibly well done, but it's just sort of bland. It's the English Patient of 2D puzzle platformers. Also went back to play some Dead Rising to see how much better it looks that the upcoming Dead Rising: Shop 'til you Drop. It does look a hell of a lot better, but I'm still psyched for Shop 'til you Drop. The two big flaws of Dead Rising are the camera and the repetitive combat. Those are the two big things Shop 'til you Drop looks to fix; plus, any game that plays like RE4 Wii can't be all bad.

Then there is Bionic Commando: Rearmed, which, if I had reviewed, would have recieved a 9.5/10. Surprisingly, the music is the one thing keeping it from a perfect 10/10. The music in the final sounds different than it did at E3, less true to the compositions of the original. Still sounds great, just not as great.

Finally, played through Mega Man 1 and Star Parodier on the Wii...again. Both those games are so kick-ass. I can't imagine ever tiring of them.

Colette: Don't blame Niero's lack of Tengoku progress -- he's only watching me play through the game, which I need to catch up in! I just got to the sixth tier of games.

Grim: Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Eternal Darkness, and I rebought the original Pikmin ... and played it from start to end in one sitting. That game is like cocaine for me.

Samit: EA finally sent me my Madden NFL 09 review copy on Monday, so I've spent most of the week playing through that. Let me just say right now that the selling point of this year's game, Madden IQ, is absolutely broken. I turned it off after a few games. Want more details? Tune in later this week for the full Destructoid review, featuring myself and Brad Nicholson!

Aside from that, I played some Rock Band online, and I also spent a good amount of time with the demo for Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09. I'm not a huge golf guy, but I gotta admit, the demo was a lot of fun -- new features this year, like Tiger's personal coach, Hank Haney (he gives you feedback after each round, and provides you with drills to increase your skills), and a tool to tweak your clubs (say, to correct a bias if you tend to swing toward the left), are great additions. And of course, the game looks as great as ever.