Hat Of Sheer Awesomeness!

By now it should be a given you’ll be buying Scribblenauts when it comes out mid-September.  If Scribblenauts doesn’t nab a Game of the Year award or two then something has gone horribly wrong somewhere, and its sheer charm and creativity make it a must-have.  Still, Warner Bros. and 5th Cell seem worried that Maxwell, the main character, is too intimidatingly awesome, and have taken steps to make sure that the player is properly prepared to control him.  Simply put, if you reserve the game you get a rooster hat.

This giant red hat comes exactly as you see in the game, with three red blobs sticking out the front and white ear coverings that, sadly, aren’t actual headphones.  Despite its technological limitations there’s pretty much nothing you can’t do with headwear like this, making it one of the most useful pieces of swag ever.  It’s only available at GameStop and EB Games in the US and Canada, but seeing as there’s one on every street corner that shouldn’t be too much of an impediment.

Always giving what the fans demand.

We kept missing the video of KOEI’s newest upcoming game, Trinity: Souls of Zill O’ll,  displayed on the giant screen hanging over KOEI’s sizable booth.  As a series well known Japan but not so familiar in the west, they’ve set this new installment as a prequel, and discarded menu based combat for a visceral, Diablo-style RPG.  Coming to the Playstation 3, Trinity features three very different heroes in the warrior, wizard, and assassin, all fighting on the field at once.  The player can level them up, gear them up, and freely switch between them, setting up some powerful combo attacks, such as having the wizard freezing enemies before the warrior smashes them to bits.  With Omega Force behind it, I’m hoping for a game that will spark the same joy as the massively underrated Crimson Sea series.

Warriors Orochi 2 PSP needed no introduction.  After nearly a hundred hours logged in the 360 version, I knew this clash of Dynasty and Samurai Warriors well, though I still hadn’t leveled, or even used, every warrior, or finished every level.  Now the PSP version will top the already insane content with ninety six total fighters and a dozen new dream missions.  Nothing has sacrificed to make this happen.  KOEI have been putting their legendary series on the PSP for a while now, and it’s reached the point where the gameplay is just as fast, fluid, and fun as the console brothers.  Two player co-op and versus is still here, including the Soul Calibur like three on three brawler.  With the entirely new fighters of Gyuki, Dodomeki, San Zang and Benkei, even the most hardcore of the hardcore Dynasty fans have something to sink their teeth into this August 25th.

Monster Racers for the DS was new to me, though it’s clear it takes its lead from a clever combination of Pokemon’s monster capturing and training, and a side scrolling race inspired by the versus mode of Sonic 2.  The result offers a surprising amount of depth.  With the variety of race terrain and increasingly more difficult challenges and tournaments, trainers need to hunt down the best monsters for the right events, training them up and then taking direct control of a side-scrolling race that can be played either against the AI or up to three friends.  The racing itself is a lot more than just getting to the other side.  Levels are littered with obstacles to trip you up, and power-ups to knock the wind out of a speedy opponent.  Playing it myself, a race in Monster Racers isn’t settled until one beast crosses the finish line.  Skilled play can recover from early mistakes, and take home the gold starting August 25th.

Mana Khemia 2 leads the pack for 2009.

Lots of goodies from RPG publisher NIS America. Some remakes, some new ones, and one highly anticipated sequel. It’s no surprise that I loved Mana Khemia on the PlayStation 2 and with the recent PSP enhanced version, there’s no excuse for not checking it out. Well NIS America has finally announced the US release of the sequel on the PlayStation 2. I’m also intrigued by Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! From the video it appears to be a dungeon defense game. There are lots of other goodies coming too, including two PlayStation 3 titles. Check out the full list. In other news, Puchi Puchi Virus for the Nintendo DS finally released. Check out our review (based on a reviewer copy sent last year).

That’s a long title…

Umihara Kawase Portable for the PSP was a buggy mess (as stated in our preview here). While Natsume is hard at work fixing those bugs for the US release of Yumi’s Odd Oddysey, the Japanese get another shot at portable fishing hook swinging in Umihara Kawase: Shun – Second Edition – Kanzenban. 15 new stages developed by the creators of the original game has been added; 5 of which are designed for first time players. Will this game be a buggy mess like it’s PSP sibling? We’ll find out when the game ships in Japan on March 26th.

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With Llamasoft providing the pyrotechnics.

Space Invaders Extreme is one of the best games released for the Nintendo DS this year, but it always felt like it could use a bit more “Oomph!”  One of the great pieces of news from the Tokyo Game Show is that it’s going to get an upgrade thanks to an XBLA port by Backbone Entertainment with background visualizers custom-created by Llamasoft.  Details on any upgrades outside of audiovisual quality in the primary single-player game are scarce, but there are new multiplayer modes for up to four gamers, either single-console or online.  It’s a bit of a wait to the projected release date of “2009″ to see what’s new and what’s changed, but Space Invaders Extreme is worth looking forward to.