February 2012

Lumines has been away from handhelds for a while, appearing in two console-exclusive titles, but both failed to re-capture what made the original game so incredible back during the PSP’s launch in 2004. And here we are, eight years later, with Lumines: Electronic Symphony, proving that this franchise feels right at home on a handheld. READ MORE

Some series just have bad luck. Even though there were three fantastic releases in the Ys series over the past couple years, people will always remember the poorly-translated version of one of the worst games in the series on the SNES when they think of the title keeping them from picking up a new one. Few third-party companies supported the Dreamcast because of Sega’s irresponsible treatment of their audience with the Genesis’s unnecessary add-ons and pulling support of their own console, the Saturn. But at least they got a chance. READ MORE

Jagged Alliance: Back in Action has a lot going for it, but it also has enough going against it that I can’t recommend it to fans of the original or newcomers to the genre. It’s too hard for its own good, ideas are half put-together, and some of the design ideas, while fine on their own, are wildly incompatible with one another. I wanted to like Back in Action, and it makes me sad that I just don’t. READ MORE

In this installment of the Speculator, we talk about an Xbox tablet, God of War 4 and the portable sales wars. READ MORE

So in case you haven’t noticed yet, a lot of Snackbar Games writers have had Rhythm Heaven Fever for the past two weeks or so. It’s a great experience, the visuals are charming, the gameplay is easy to pick up, and the music is spot on. It’s a rhythm game done right. Playing it brings me immense joy as I love both rhythm and music games.

But while playing it last week I had a bizarre epiphany: there wasn’t a single Rock Band or Guitar Hero game that launched last year. READ MORE