Games of the week for 8/2/09: Speed Racer edition

9:00 PM on 08.02.2009   |   Topher Cantler

32 comments

When I was a little kid, Speed Racer was my favorite cartoon. I come from a long line of mechanics and race car builders, so I'd been around that kind of stuff my whole life and it made more sense to me than Rocky & Bullwinkle. All these years later, I understand why my grandfather and uncles couldn't put a button on our car's steering wheel that would make it go underwater, but one thing that still doesn't make a lot of sense to me is why Speed Racer isn't in Tatsunoko Vs Capcom.

Maybe it's got something to do with licensing after that horrible movie they made. Don't get me wrong, it was fun to watch, and I even bought it. It's gorgeous on Blu-Ray and will probably be remembered as the last time Christina Ricci didn't look like a coked-up Martian, but otherwise it doesn't do much for me. I would have rather had Speed in a fighting game, with a super that involved Spritle and Chim-Chim, or Trixie dropping bombs from her helicopter. Those were some of my favorite Tatsunoko characters.

I was in the middle of watching some old episodes of this pre-anime anime when Jim asked me to cover Games of the Week for him tonight, and there was ... oh wait, that's right, I was supposed to be talking about games. Yeah, we played some of those this week. You can see what they were after the jump.

Hamza Aziz: I'm playing drunken barbeeeeeeque weekend at friends because i love them and love oyhu and l,ove everyone and am in lvoe with a wonderful girl and god i shouldnt be typing right now but fuck

LOVEEEEEEEEEEEE

Also played Final Fantasy u7 for the firs ttime ever earlier. I played the theme park ride and it was cool and was all pew pew pewy and shit.

Dale North: Fate/unlimited Codes for the PSP is my new timepasser

Colette Bennett: A little bit of Lost Planet co-op with Niero (I know, we're years too late). We also erased our Pixeljunk Monsters save and decided to replay it, since it's our favorite old co-op standby.

Topher Cantler: Many, many fightans. More KOF XII, Marvel Vs Capcom 2, Project Justice and Super Puzzle Fighter; which isn't actually a fightan gaem but I'm throwing it in there anyway. So there. Also, I spent some time with Wii Sports Resort, which finally showed me the motion control I expected almost 3 years ago. Then I played Space Invaders: Infinity Gene for my review coming up this week, and Shadow Complex, which is every bit as awesome as Nick has been telling you it is.

Chad Concelmo: Man, this has been a great week for me and my Wii. Me and my Wii. That is SO going to be the name of a sitcom someday. I can see the opening credits now: me and my Wii in the park, riding a scary roller coaster, having our two bedroom doors hit when we try to open them at the same time. Classic.

All week I have been playing nothing but the exquisite Little King's Story and the ridiculously fun Wii Sports Resort. Both games are two of my favorites of the year!

Matthew Razak: I dug into Wii Sports Resort with some friends and finally capped off Flower, Sun and Rain. A very odd ending that I didn't understand until I read up on the game and realized it was a sort of sequel to another Suda game, which makes a whole lot of frickin sense now since they were introducing characters like I was supposed to know what was going on and I didn't so I just figured it was Suda being even weirder than usual, but no, it was my lack of playing the other game.

Also Conduit multiplayer and ten seconds of Assassins Creed, which I stopped again because it was the same thing as I was doing before.

Hamza, unlike the rest of these fellows I return your LOVEEEEEEEEEEEE. Group hug.

Nick Chester: Been playing a lot of Shadow Complex this week, which I can't officially review. And since I want to gush about how much fun I'm having with it, I will just keep it to myself.

I played a ton of stuff at a Sony event earlier in the week: Ninja Gaiden 2 Sigma, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Tekken 6, The Beatles: Rock Band, and EyePet to name a few. Also touched the PSPGo and played the first area of God of War: Chains of Olympus on it. It's as sexy as I remembered it being at E3, but much lighter. It felt fragile in my hands. I'm not sure if that's a good thing, but I want it. Badly.

Also started my old-school beat 'em up marathon with Jaleco's SNES "classic," Rival Turf; played quite a bit of Wii Sports Resort and Boom Blox Bash Party with some friends last night; and dabbled briefly in Capcom's digital download PSP fighter, Fate/unlimited Codes, which Dale should have a full preview of this week.

Jim Sterling: Played Left 4 Dead 2 (with the writer of Portal. Not showing off!) which is a really fucking good game. Also played more 'Splosion Man, which is still freakin' awesome. Oh, and Fat Princess, which is excellent outside of the many server issues.

On an unrelated note, I just bought the Neca 18" Alien figure. It's fucking awesome.

Jordan Devore: I got all of the cakes in 'Splosion Man, spent way too much time playing Viva Pinata, and actually turned my Wii on to try Wii Sports Resort.

Samit Sarkar: For the first time, I tried out Call of Duty: World at War. A friend and I played co-op in the Nazi Zombies mode. It was...alright, I guess. At home, after trying fruitlessly to play The Bigs 2 online, I decided to pop in some games that I actually like a lot, such as MLB 09 The Show (Samit Sarkar is now 20-0 in the 2011 season, and it's near the end of August!).

Today, I started playing Mirror's Edge. It's pretty much exactly what I've heard -- the parkour is fun, and pulling off a string of moves looks and feels bad-ass, but the enemies make me want to raaaaaaaaage. I've already turned the difficulty down to Easy. But it's not bad so far.