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[img width=200 height=178]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-087/bf/U-087-S-10260-A.jpg&sizex=200[/img]
Fossil Fighters
Platforms:Nintendo DS, DSi
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Red Entertainment
Release Date: August 10th 2009
Genre: RPG
Number of Players: 1-2
ERSB Rating: E for Mild Fantasy Violence, Crude Humor
Overview
On the outside, Fossil Fighters sounds surprisingly similar to a Pokemon copycat, but after "digging" a little deeper I found it more enjoyable than Nintendo's other monster battler. I found hectic and addicting as you find new fossils and begin cleaning them with a drill and hammer. If you do it satisfactory then you are rewarded with a new fossil or parts to an existing making them stronger. Sounds like it would kind of on the childish side? True, but the elements of side quests and a love interest or two in the game is exactly what it needs to appeal to the older generation as well.
Story
The game starts by you going to an island, Vivosaur Island to be exact, to do some digging, cleaning and fighting! Kind of a weak story as you meet characters along the way in the likes of Dr. Diggins, BB Bandits, a crazy guy that shakes his hips as well as a few ladies, even some strange human-like race. The story was good, not great but really wasn't a huge deal to me as I was more inclined to go after new fossils and have some more battles than really progress through the story. I actually put more hours into the game after I beat the story and decided to work on my side quests and Fossil collection.
Game Play
Game play can be split up into two different areas. The first is collecting fossils. You use a sonar which beeps when you are near fossils on the top screen of the DS to give you a general location for the buried treasure. Then it is simply wonder over and throw your pick-axe into the ground and bingo. Sometimes you may have to battle a person to get your treasure. But we can touch on that later. You can also find jewels or other rare fossils which can be sold once cleaned.
After digging a few fossils up, take em back and clean them using the stylus as a pointer. Hammer at first then the drill to clean up gently. I almost feel like a dentist after completing this part of the game 
[img width=480 height=358]http://dsmedia.ign.com/ds/image/article/101/1015045/fossil-fighters-20090818005538702.jpg[/img] This was probably the most entertaining part of the game for me as you could always increase the strength of your "Vivosaur" by cleaning the fossil better.
The second part of the game play was the battles you take on. Some mandatory, others were not. Each player is sized up with the three vivosaurs you take into battle, and the weaker of the two players gets first turn. Status effects can come into play during battle and also attack/defense effects that each vivosaur has. Each team has different combos and can make for a pretty good time experimenting.
[img width=256 height=369]http://image.gamespotcdn.net/gamespot/images/2009/152/960571_20090602_790screen010.jpg[/img]
Sound and Graphics
Overall the sound wasn't terrible. But I am used to playing more RPG's and getting good composing etc so I think that is why it didn't really stand out to me as much. Most of the time I had it turned off and had other music on. The graphics are not good. I wasn't impressed with them at all and if you do compare it to Pokemon, you will be saddened to find out Pokemon had a large advantage. I read a review about it before and it said, "The art on the box is way, way more impressive than what you're going to get in-game. " and I would have to agree.
Trivia
Released in April of 2008 in Japan under the name Bokura wa Kasekihorida which means "We are Fossil Diggers"
Sequel also released in Japan in 2010 under the name Super Kasekihorida
Idea was thought of in 2004, and started being developed in 2005.
IGN didn't like the game much and gave it 5.3 while Gamespot gave it 7.5.
Closing
Overall I really enjoyed this game a ton. Sure it may be a little like Pokemon and the graphics may struggle slightly but it still was a blast. I spent over 57 hours playing through and still didn't get everything accomplished that I wanted to. I may or may not pick it up again later but I am hoping the sequel heads on over seas for us to enjoy. Adults and kids alike can pick this up and really enjoy it.
(Trivia courtesy of Wikipedia, Screenshots from IGN, Gamespot, RFGeneration.)
[img width=320 height=224]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-040/ss/ts/U-040-S-00220-A.jpg[/img]
Altered Beast
Platforms: Sega Genesis, Various Other Platforms
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sega
Release Date: August 1989
Genre: Beat 'em Up
Number of Players: Up to 2 Players at same time
ERSB Rating: N/A
Review
"Rise from your Grave" The first words of the game Altered Beast for the Sega Mega Drive & Genesis, still rings into my head whenever I plug my Genesis in and hit the button. I was first exposed to this classic side scrolling beat 'em Up gem by my uncle who had the first generation Genesis. If you had one of them, you usually had this game that was one of the first releases for the Genesis. When I was young, I never could get passed the 4th or 5th stage even though I had watched my uncle beat it through many times. Leave me alone I was only six!!
Story
The story starts off kind of strange. Basically you're a dead Roman soldier that gets resurrected by the man, the myth, the legend, one and only, Zeus himself. Before you can even smell that fresh air, you are told to go rescue his daughter. He is Zeus and he can't even rescue his own daughter? You must seek out Neff, Lord of the Underworld, to claim your prize.
[img width=550 height=385]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-040/ss/ex/U-040-S-00220-A_01.jpg[/img] Game Play
As you start the game you look like any other normal old-school Roman stud. You can use two options to bust your way through the levels, kick and punch. You can also jump which can be useless. There is also a button combo, down and punch, which lets your lay on your can and punch up to get the flying creatures. As you stroll through the levels you will run into brown and blue two headed lions or wolves or something. When you kill the blue ones, a "Power-Up", yes it even says it, will come out and if you get it, you will change in appearance slightly. Your muscles will get pimped out and you continue on. When you get three of these blue Power-Ups, you will turn into an "Altered Beast" I guess you could say. The first stage is a wolverine type thing, second a green dragon and so on. Each can shoot or do something unique to that creature. Once you are in your beast character and you encounter Neff in the level, you will engage in a boss battle to win that level. Most are easy enough and are pretty sweet and fun to take on, specially the second level with the freaky eye thing that sends eyes out all over the screen. But overall the game lacked any depth and was very quite linear, gain three Power-Ups and go kill the boss. Very few other things to do and the lack luster on the side fighting really didn't jump out and make you want to play it all day. Another flaw was that it was fairly short in length. With a good sit down you could finish it with out much trouble in a hour or less.
[img width=550 height=385]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-040/ss/ex/U-040-S-00220-A_04.jpg[/img]
Sound and Graphics
The sound for Altered Beast was for the most part outstanding for its' time. It had voices which few games did at that time. In fact this was one reason why it was such a hit at Arcades. Talking on games back in the day was really a stand out feature to sell the game. The graphics were on the fair side with most 16-bit games looking similar.
Unknown Facts
Altered Beast: Guardian of the Realms was released on the GBA in Nov. of 2002
Project Altered Beast for the PS2 was canceled in the US even though it was released in Europe and Japan. What a shame!
Altered Beast can be found on the Virtual Console for the Wii and XBLA for XBOX 360.
Tiger Electronics released a hand held version in 1988.
[img width=550 height=385]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-040/ss/ex/U-040-S-00220-A_07.jpg [/img]
Overall
Overall I would in fact recommend the game Altered Beast to anyone who likes a good Beat-em up game or is a fan of classic Sega games. It can be found at good prices, usually $5-6 dollars and is worth the hour or so you will stick into it. I personally believe you will enjoy this game and love taking a chance to replay one of the older great games out there.
[img width=200 height=179]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-087/bf/U-087-S-05960-A.jpg&sizex=200[/img]
Lock's Quest
Platforms:Nintendo DS & DSi
Publisher: 5th-Cell
Developer: THQ
North American Release Date: Sept. 8th 2008
Genre: Strategy
Number of Players: 1, 2 Online
ERSB Rating: Everyone for Fantasy Violence
Review
I am sure all of you have played a game where you build a fort and then try to defend it from massing armies, whether it is bugs or aliens or in the case of this game, Clockworks. Now this isn't your standard tower defense game by any means. From the creators of Drawn to Life bring you a wonderful adventure into the world of Clockworks and Archineers. Think of it as a combination of Architects and Engineers, that you use to create forts and then of course defend them. However there is more to this game than the standard build and defend mentality. Lock's Quest throws at us a great little adventure. Now lets take a look at some specific areas.
[img width=264 height=396]http://dsmedia.ign.com/ds/image/article/863/863772/lock-nation-20080401070352727_640w.jpg[/img]
Story
The story of Lock's Quest at first may seem kind of cliche in that a girl gets taken from you and you must rescue her. Except this time it isn't your love interest, it's your little sister. After some slow starts to the story, you find yourself wanting to play more and more just to see what happens. The story plays fairly straight through but does throw some curve balls in mix as well as some things you might expect as you travel through the kingdom of Antonia looking for your sister and trying to defeat the evil Lord Agony - Chief of the Clockworks.
Game Play
There is a ton of game play in this 100 day mission that brings to life a journey to rescue Lock's sister. The game can be broken up into two main stages of playing, although there are several other parts to the actual game. For the most part throughout the game you will take on the role of building towers and walls, placing traps and mines, and battling Clockworks. The first stage in this is to construct your towers and fort. This is fairly easy, using the stylus you simply click the tower you want, then click again to place it and rotate it if you need to. That is about it. You have a time limit to build and it is usually 2 minutes and sometimes 3. This goes fast and can be rather hard to set up your base in the first stages when you have a clean slate. After your time is up, a 2-3 minute stage of clockworks coming at you usually from one or more locations to attack your base. This is the cool part of the game as in this stage of things you can now defend your base by attacking the clockworks yourself, which leads to special attacks, or you can repair your towers to defend yourself. You heal automatically which is kind of nice I suppose, simply by running away from battle you will gain life back in a few seconds. Your special attacks are pretty handy and speed things up nicely. You will run around the entire time, it is crazy how much action is involved in this game.
After you kill a clockwork, a thing called Source is dropped and it shows up in a blue flame. This source is the main reason why you are fighting as the clockworks want your Source wells. Also randomly during your fighting the clockworks, a new scrap might be picked up and after the battle has ended you can navigate your way through a few screens to build more towers, traps, and helper towers from that scrap. It is a handy little thing, specially the freeze traps as I pretty much spammed them right in front of my towers and put some poison traps near the spawning points and breezed through most stages fairly easily.
[img width=264 height=396]http://dsmedia.ign.com/ds/image/article/888/888769/locks-quest-20080713091605155_640w.jpg[/img]
Other stages to play in Lock's story is a series of days where you man the turret to defend town. This is very much like the tower defense games all over the place that you might have seen. But they are a fun change of pace and add to the game instead of just building forts and defending those all day. Another stage I really enjoyed was one where you have control of Lock but there is not town to defend. You must go through the map and take down enemies in hand to hand fighting. This was a blast and I wish there were more of these stages, sadly if I remember right, there was only one or two.
The only few gripes I had with Lock's Quest is that sometimes during the building stage where you set your towers can make it difficult to see where your others are. For example, your building a |_| shaped town, sometimes they can be hard to see the sides if you have your front built already. It is a very stylus heavy game which for me is hard to play through and I am not a big fan of the stylus. But this makes good use of and gives you a heck of a hand cramp if you play it for to long. The game runs around 20 hours but it never really feels like it as you are always wanting to get to the next stage to see what happens in the story. I ran my battery down several times and I remember thinking that I just charged it, even though it was 5-6 hours ago.
Sound and Graphics
The graphics in this game are fantastic to put a good word on it. The game has a ton of stuff going on and it always ran smoothly. Think of this, you have at any given time, Lock running around, towers going off, 15-30 enemies on the map all attacking or walking, traps going off and it runs smoothly. I saw one review saying they had a map of over 300 things and it never hiccuped at all which is pretty amazing. The sound is simply awesome. From the battle music that really gets you in the mood to bash some clockworks to the menu music that doesn't get annoying at all which is a trend I am afraid, happening entirely to much. I thoroughly enjoyed the music and animations of Lock's Quest. The characters look good and animations work and run smoothly. Lock's hair even flows smoothly when he is running around. The clockworks also look good with a nice variety of types to have to overcome. The ones I hated most were the ones that charged your walls with explosives on their back. Not cool! Oh and also the ones that were ghosts I didn't care for much at all either.
Facts/Trivia
In July, at the San Diego Comic Convention, THQ debuted a promotional mini-comic based on the universe of the game entitled Lock's Quest: A Source of Hope - Volume 1 drawn by Edison Yan. IGN awarded Lock's Quest its "Best Strategy Game" award for the Nintendo DS at E3 2008. Source: Wikipedia
LocksQuest.Com has a playable Flash demo of the game.
Overall
Overall Lock's Quest is a great adventure to take on the go or sit in bed and play until you want to sleep. Be prepared that you will not be able to sleep after playing as it is very intense action. The music and animations are great and sound awesome coming from the heavy emphasis on battle. The graphics are also nice and look good on the DS. The heart of the fun is truly at the game play and it runs for 100 days in the mission and 20 hours in your life. A great value at $20 now and even cheaper on the internet, you would be silly not to want to pick this up and play it if you are a fan at all of Tower Defense games or just a great intense action title. Overall I give Lock's Quest a sore wrist and a score of 8.5
Screenshots from IGN.com.
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