April 24th, 2007

Games Played: Saints Row (X360), Orbital (GBA), Robotron 2084 (arcade)

Games Bought: Used 360 Wireless Racing Wheel in Box w/ Project Gotham Racing 3 (X360) [$60.00]

Steal on that wheel. Awesome being in the right place at the right time.

Pre-ordered SNK vs Capcom: Card Fighters for the DS. I'm excited but tempered given all the reviews from the Japanese version. I have heard nothing if they fixed some of the play balance issues.

Orbital is brilliant. Totally f'n brilliant. It's part of the bit Generation games that came out in Japan for the GBA. You're a little planetoid who has to navigate oddly spaced "solar systems". You have two abilities: attract gravitational field and repel gravitational field. The rest is inertia. You use your gravity fields to whip around planets or to pull yourself in to where you are in planetary orbit. The physics come from balancing using your fields (or not using them) to get on a proper intercept course to your goals...

And your goals, similiar to Katamari Damacy, are to absorb smaller planetoids in the system to become larger so you can absorb more planetoids. You do this by running over the smaller ones. Alternatively, if you are of a sufficient size to absorb a planetoid, you can buzz by it and pick it up in your orbit. This will significantly add to your score and give you additional "lives" on the next stage. You beat the stage by putting a glowing "sun" planetoid in your orbit.

The graphics, like in the whole bit Generation series, are definately minimal. They are, however, beautiful. And the music is absolutely stunning despite the NES style five channel sound. The levels have a base music theme and when you add a planetoid to your orbit the theme changes. As you add more planetoids the music gets slightly more layered with additional sounds.

There are 30 stages and the replay value comes from beating all the stages by picking up "moon" planetoids that become active after you've grown in size big enough to pick up the "sun" planetoid in your orbit. Getting the "moon" can be very tricky on some levels since it's normally placed outside of a clean orbital path. I assume something unlocks once you have picked up the "moon" on each level. I haven't done it yet so I can't confirm.

And after beating the 30 stages a "special" solar system unlocks with 5 stages that are BRUTALLY hard. I haven't beaten one yet.

I can't recommend this game high enough. Get it from Play-Asia.