Ring Of Honor Wrestling: Being a pretty big pro wrestling fan I would love to see Ring Of Honor be made into a video game. Plop it down on every system and give me the chance to play as the man who single handedly made wrestling cool again….”American Dragon” Brian Danielson (Yeah I probably misspelled his name). I could really see this coming out in the future. Hey if ECW got a few games then I think ROH deserves at least one. Also, They have to have the real entrance music for the wrestlers.I wanna start banging the floor everytime I hear “The Final Countdown” by Europe.

Autumn Festival Gets Released World Wide: Okay so Autumn Festival already exists and I know its a game intended for young girls but by golly I have a pretty big collection of the cards from the various sets and It’s really the only game I’am actually good at. So seeing the game being enjoyed by other young girls world wide would make me happy Konami, It would make up for Yu-Gi-Oh! 5d’s World Championship 2009. Because that game sucks.

Figure Out The Zelda Timeline: Here is one for Nintendo. Legend speaks of a time line that connects all the Zelda games together. Choose from either the split time line or single time line theory and send the player on a quest to try and connect the games by having us run around dungeons and complete tasks without giving us enough information. Then after and only after we spend several hours trying to figure out what to do and call the Nintendo power line to get help through the automated tip line. Tell us there is technical difficulties and to call again later. Based on my real life experience!

Ringu: Yeah I know I have been bringing this idea to the table for a few weeks now but I would really love to see this game get made. Just dont make it a survival horror game like the dreamcast or an arcade game just make a straight point and click adventure for the DSi. Kind of like Indiana Jones and The Fate Of Atlantis. I think that would work. I could see the other films in the series get made like that too. Except Rasen, That movie was horrible.

The Simpsons Arcade Game: Remember Chuck E. Cheese? I sure do and any child growing up in the early 1990’s had one reason to visit America’s favorite giant mouse and that was to play The Simpsons arcade game. Don’t make it a hidden feature in another game, just give us the straight game Konami. If Konami won’t release Autumn Festival at least make this game for me. I would throw down $20 for a chance to play as homer again (Lisa was the best though) and try to rescue maggie. I just had an awesome idea. Release this game and release a few other arcade legends..Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles In Time and the original Ninja Turtles arcade game and I would buy that for sure.

Presentation wise, Sankyo Fever Fever is really impressive. The machines look great and the sound sounds good to me. Menus are easy to navigate through and it’s easy to set up and start playing. The game offers a tutorial mode for the first time players but once you learn how to play pachinko it will stay with you forever, like riding a bicycle. Using the left and right buttons on the directional pad you can increase or decrease your power bar to control how far your ball will go in and gives you a better chance of landing into the center hole below the slot screen to make it spin. You can also try to land the ball into multiple payout bonus holes which just increases your payouts.

When you start playing you can choose from two halls. The only difference is the money spent to play in each one. Each floor in the halls contain twelve of the same machine. At first I thought this was a negative. Why have twelve of the exact same machine? It was then when I pressed the select button that I found out that the game keeps track of how well I did on each machine. That way a player can see how well the wins and loses are. There are even graphs that keep track of how well you play on each machine. I never pay any attention to these though but a normal pachinko player probably would.

The bottom floor is where you can deposit your current money into your main account and collect your password to continue your game where you left off. Each of the machines on each floor play a little different but I’m sure everyone who plays will find one machine they like. This is the kind of game I love to play at night when I try to relax after a hard night of work and don’t be surprised if you find yourself doing the same thing. It’s simple, fun and relaxing. If you’re really into pachinko, looking to learn without fear of losing your hard earned yen or just looking for a nice game to play that anyone can enjoy. Sankyo Fever Fever! is a wonderful choice.

But if even for one second I turn on Cartoon Network and watch five minutes of Pokémon, I lose almost any credibility I have as an intelligent adult. Now I know that does not seem fair, But Pokémon is a children’s animated show. I’m an adult. I need more stimulation for my mind then just a half hour of cartoon characters running around really getting nothing accomplished. I need something I can learn from or form opinions with that I can share with other intelligent adults.

Video games also have that standard set of rules. If I play Pokémon or anything else a child would play, I seem unintelligent and nerdy. But if I play something casually like Tetris or Missile Command I can be seen as an adult who plays a video game every now and then just to kill time or when I have nothing better to do at night.

As an intelligent adult, I’m expected to know a lot about my local sports teams, Seems fair. I’m a man, Men watch sports. I watch Detroit Tigers baseball and Detroit Red Wings hockey. I can name off the roster for both teams. Seems normal, I also can name off the adventurers from Final Fantasy 6 on super famicom too. Maybe not so normal.

Video games are a medium. Like movies, Music and Television video games have a level of age appropriateness. For example a 26 year old man should never play Yu-Gi-Oh!..Ever!! My rule of thumb, if there is cartoons attached to it then keep it for the kids. Some games can be for all ages these are called games made by Nintendo. I gave up the yugi and the Pokémon and by golly so can you!

But that does not mean you can’t play video games anymore. It just means the type of games you should be playing will be changing. Instead of role playing games where you catch small creatures, you should now be playing role playing games where you kill small creatures. Instead of cute little sports games, you should be playing actual licensed games by MLB, NFL, NHL or NBA. (To a lesser extent WWE, TNA or UFC).

I like to read books, I love Tess Gerritsen. I love music, movies and surfing the web. To me a video game is a last resort to combat boredom. I know I can spend my time and money on more appropriate things. More productive things. When I do play video games though I do want to play something that makes me think. I love a good puzzle game or Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. I enjoy a video game. But I even enjoy it more knowing I’m being an adult about it.

Not throwing away my responsibilities and life for the sake of virtual bleeps and blips. For the sake of Games To Dust I do need to review games every now and then that require I actually play the game. Sometimes I enjoy it and sometimes not so much.

My final word on the topic is this. Its okay to play video games it really is. But at least act your age about it! No normal adult in any society or culture cares about which X-box achievement you just accomplished or which games you rank first in on the leader boards. When the games turns off so does my care for it.

As always I welcome opposing view points.

One thing I can say in my personal opinion, I really think the art work and character portrait design are done much better then in One Piece Going Baseball. The point of the game is that you relive various adventures that the Straw Hats have gone through ( Basically think of it as an improvised run of the series ), Trying to fight battles, Solve puzzles, And answer One Piece related quizzes.

All you really do is drag you ship from point to point on the map and click on it to see if anything happens, sometimes you trigger an event or gain an item. But for the most part you just start really long conversations with other people. The point of each stage is to complete the map by going through all the events. Sometimes its easy and sometimes it’s darn near impossible. For example, the quizzes are crazy. Unless you pay that much attention to the show you’re going to lose a few challenges.

The battles are strange too, Instead of a top-down Zelda-like angle. You get a 3/4 point of view which can make lining up an attack a little difficult and trying to jump while moving forward is just impossible. The bosses move so slow that you can easily attack and run and most time battles feel just like an annoyance rather than anything to look forward too.

Once you complete events or talk to the right person, you earn items and people who either join your crew or become items for the matching game. Matching game? Yeah, the real purpose of the game is to collect all the items to gain new attacks and abilities. You find items and match them up to the proper silhouette, all of which are connected to a certain character.

That’s all you really do in the game. If you’re looking for a game just to kill a weekend, One Piece Dragon Dream is probably it. The controls work well, the graphics are decent, The music is nice and fits in the game. It has good production values but offers very little in replay value.

I can really say that the hardcore One Piece fans will enjoy the game. I believe though that most casual players will put a few hours into it and move on.

The graphics and animations are done well and the controls are a go! The biggest flaw I really saw in the game was the extreme difficulty of some of the boss battles. Especially since you can only carry so many recovery items you do have to plan and be careful about what you do during each area. The game does set you on a predetermined path despite a map screen, It’s also a little annoying to constantly back track to get items that increase your max life or furyyoku or whatever Shaman King energy is called.

Yoh can become possessed by a few spirits at a time to give him special attacks, Abilities, or to simply increase his stats. Though for the most part, you’re going to probably stick to the spirits from the show. Apparently Yoh does not upgrade much in Shaman King since the majority of the game has you using the same weapon. Any who, The whole of the game is just simply run through each area, Maybe solve a few puzzles and fight a few bosses.

Shaman King Master of Spirits is really worth the play through really just because its a great game. I even liked the voice over’s! “Anna’s going to be so mad!” yeah, she will be when I get done with the next game review…..

Shaman King Card Game…Right Now!!!

Like Yu-Gi-Oh! Konami published a trading card game based on Shaman King. Even released a few video games based on it. Well today its time for Shaman King Card Game 3 for the Game Boy Advance.  Oh lord where do I even start? It’s only redeeming factor is it does follow the rules of the actual card game.

The game is divided into two modes, Story and scenario. Scenario has you playing the actual card game with all new characters not in the show. Okay, Why does it take 15 minutes of dialogue just to let me play one game that I’m going to lose like 30 minutes later? Story mode has you play the card game as Shaman King Characters.

Now, I did not do well at this game since Anna kept kicking my butt. So in a way I don’t have much to say about it except it is annoying. If you want to play the card game, Why not just buy the cards? I kind of thought about that too about an hour after I bought Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship 2009 for the Nintendo DS. Oh well guess every game can’t be a winner. I know its a short review, But I did not get very far into the game so, I did not get much to experience.

On the plus side anime month is almost over. I can’t wait!

You get to choose which of the girls you want to play as even though it only affects which kind of sub-game you play when you challenge the boss of the stage. Tomomi and Mikage have a strange power that lets them teleport or fly when they hold hands. The plot here is that their teachers and friends have been warped to a fantasy world and only they can save them. Now, before I go any further let me go on record as saying I’m probably not the right gender or the right age group for this game.

Unlike Mario or Sonic, You don’t jump on enemies to destroy them. Instead, You throw candy at them that they will eat and will allow you to use them as platforms to reach higher ground or hidden goodies. In the later levels ( I say that loosely since there are only like 5 levels ) this actually becomes necessary to advance and caused more then a few deaths. Another thing that is not like Sonic or Mario is that when you get hit by an enemy you don’t bounce back a little, You drop straight down! This is not so bad except when you are trying to jump over a pit or jump from cloud to cloud and an enemy hits you…Instant death.

Another weird thing are these pink doors are hidden in every level. They take you to this horoscope slot machine mini-game and you pick your astrological sign and hope you hit the jack pot. But more times then not you only get a 1-up. Then to really slap you in the face, The game drops you back at either the start of the stage or the mid-way point depending on how far in the level you are. Other goodies include fruit which just gives you back hearts which are used as your life meter. Miracle Girl manga books can be found to give you hints about the upcoming stage and this red ball with the letter “B” on it. Pressing the Y button while having this ball just spins you around and throws your gold hearts around to kill all the enemies on screen.

In every level sooner or later you come to a flower that calls the girl you did not select to give you verbal commands in the form of which color platform you need to jump on. Meaning you need to know a little Japanese to get anywhere as jumping on the wrong platform means instant death. Below is the translation.

Shiro! = White ( Shiroi )

Aka! = Red ( Akai )

Believe it or not, I actually got like fifteen game overs just trying to finish this game. On paper this game looks easy but it does have a few difficult spots that can be annoying. All I can say is just don’t try to rush through the game your first time through. Besides that almost everything else works perfectly.

The fact that this is actually a good game comes to me as a surprise since allot of games based on anime tend to be bad. Now it’s not an epic adventure but its enough to keep you entertained for awhile. There is a two player mode in which you play against someone else in a button pressing game. But, the fun factor here is very limited. All in all Miracle Girls on Super Famicom is a miracle to me because its basic concept is simplistic and easy going, But enough of a challenge to make me think.

This week I hired a new assistant to help me write articles as well as give a second opinion to our readers. I hired…A GIRL!? Yeah, One thing bothers me about video games not just in Japan but also in America and I image it’s a world wide question but…Where’s the ladies!?

Seriously? I mean it took me two weeks of filing through new applications just to find a qualified applicant. 56 men applied to be the writer for “Second Opinion” and only 1 girl applied. Tracy Wilhem of Flat Rock, Michigan writes the “Second Opinion” articles weekly now with my “Games To Dust” articles. But, I still think about why don’t more women play video games? Is there a cultural difference between not just which side of the Pacific you live on but what gender you are too?

Tracy gave me alittle insight into this as she told me she owns a Nintendo DS lite and a Nintendo Wii. She owns a few more games then I do but she is still very casual about video games. I told her I was wondering about the lack of female players in video games and she filled in me in with her opinion. “The reason why not so many don’t girls play games is that not too many games are made with a female audience in mind. We don’t need an American Idol game to be made or anything, But we still don’t want to have to learn something complicated like X-Box 360 or Playstation 3 games. Women would like to play Rock Band or Little Big Planet. But, those games tend to take a lot of time to practice and master.”

I can see Tracy’s point of view as allot of women don’t like to play anything that makes you feel stupid for failing. Also, I notice allot of women who play video games play Nintendo based consoles like the DS and Wii. Once again Tracy’s qoute..”Girls love the DS and Wii because the games are easy to pick up and play and have more of an interactive experience. The DS has a touch screen and a microphone that you can use and the Wii uses remote control wireless technology to make you become a part of the experience, It’s also cool that allot of the games make you active like Wii Sports and Wii Play. Even Mario Party is awesome to play on the Wii with a couple of girlfriends”

I imagine this to be a universal feeling for women all over the world. Especially in the male dominated video game industry. I would love to see more women play video games, As I found out through my 2 year journey into video games there are some fun games out there. But I hope to maybe see that one game that does bring the female masses into gaming.

Till Next Week!