Category: Games

[originally posted at Total PlayStation]

Who are you? Who do you want to be?

All video games are about role-playing. Not just RPGs, the eponymous genre that typically involves fantastic locales and lots of statistical exchanges. In every game you play a role. Maybe it’s a plumber in a mushroom kingdom, or a grizzled marine in outer space, or a psychopath in a cape and cowl. In any case, a large part of a game’s appeal can come from the role you inhabit and the locations and situations that role will experience.

[originally posted at Total PlayStation]

“Look, do you want a two-hour lecture on quantum physics?” a man named Miguel asks a man named Peter. What sane person would say yes to a question like that?

Spider-Man video games seem like a natural fit for the open world genre, with New York City and its towering skyline practically serving as a jungle gym for the swinging superhero. Some of his more successful video game endeavors have captured that sense of freedom. Spider-Man: Edge of Time eschews this structure for a more linear time-traveling narrative with two Spider-Men, which is down from the four featured in last year’s Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, also from Beenox.

[originally posted at Total PlayStation]

The metaphor of outer space as the old western frontier is not a new concept – “space westerns” have been represented numerous times in many forms of media, and it’s not hard to see why. The emptiness of space makes for a fitting analog to the open prairies, and the rugged loner archetypes of the old west feel as natural in the cockpit of a spaceship as on the saddle of a horse. From its opening sequence, Rochard sets the tone immediately with a country blues tune, and it takes the metaphor one degree further with its main character, John Rochard (voiced by His Dukeness, Jon St. John), a good ol’ boy space miner filling the role of the lone cowboy. He’s down on his luck – what western hero isn’t? – and his company desperately needs a big find. Of course, he gets his break, but not without a whole mess of trouble.

[originally posted at Total PlayStation]

The premise for Space Channel 5: Part 2 sounds like something out of a fevered nightmare following an extended binge on dance music videos and The Jetsons. You manipulate Ulala, star reporter of Space Channel 5, as she attempts to save the space president and the entire galaxy from an evil mastermind who wants to mind-control everyone into dancing against their will. Along the way you’ll pick up assistance from various space citizens bedecked in retro space gear, funky aliens, and Space Michael. Michael Jackson, that is.