Peggle:Watch it now, the eagle in the sky, how he dancing one and only

When you cross a dominant gene of The Price is Right's Plinko with a slightly recessive gene of Pinball, 75% of the time you end up getting Peggle from PopCap Games.  PopCap has been one of the leading companies spanning almost every current console and having one of the biggest hold in the PC/Mac Internet community for small simple puzzle games.  Bejeweled, Book Worm, and Zuma are some of the other popular puzzle games they have to offer all of which are very addicting and bring back the olden days of "highest point" boards at your local arcade this time using the web as the ego show off landscape.

The point of Peggle is pretty simple.  From the top of the screen you aim at pegs and blocks as you guesstimate your angle of the dangle.  After you release the ball physics takes over and flashbacks of an unexcited Bob Barker come to mind as the ball bounces back and forth lighting everything it touches in it's path until it falls to the bottom of the screen.  Once the ball is ready to be shot again the previously lit pegs are taken off the board and you begin to make due with what's left.  The main goal is to light all of the orange colored pegs and blocks before you run out of ammunition accruing extra points and ammo if you can pull off extravagant things like hitting a multitude of pegs and blocks before the ball falls to the bottom.

It's a repetitive but fun routine as you try to guess good bounces to take and challenge yourself to added difficulties such as clearing an entire level by starting with only one ball.  As you clear the adventure mode, you unlock Peggle masters that each have their own abilities when hitting a green peg like Tula's Flower Power instantly lighting up 20% of the remaining orange pegs.

Overall it's a simple concept and balances random chance with a bit of strategy and luck and a multitude of versions can be found depending on what you've got to work with from the PC, to the Nintendo DS, to Xboxlive.  There's even a free WoW mod that you can play during moments that you are sitting around waiting.

From young and old, to new and experienced gamers, everyone could find themselves plinking and plopping and ponging along with Peggle.  And even those hardcore gamers need to take a break during their 20 hour gaming sessions and what better way to do so than with another simpler game.  You're not going to put in 80+ hours or pull off an amazingly coordinated button mashed combo but you will find yourself attempting to hit that ultimate high score.

Rating: 4.5 {on a scale of -10 to 10, 5 being must play}

Yes - Owner of a Lonely Heart

Star Ocean: The Last Hope: I could spend the rest of my days playing through what might have been in love

Star Ocean: The Last Hope from Square-Enix and developed by the small company Tri-Ace is the 5th (and possibly last) installment in the Star Ocean series only out for Xbox360.  A nice reminder of RPGs of the past, SO: TLH is a good example of a stereotypical Japanese RPG especially if you don't normally play RPGs.  A rich and cutscene-a-plenty storyline, just enough repetitive fighting to level your opposables to a thumb wrestling championship, and item management that would go better with an day shift manager, TLH is good RPG for new and old gamers alike.

Made by the same company that brought us Infinite Undiscovery, TLH is a much better step toward what fans of RPGs expect to get from a single game.  And for those that never owned a Super Famicom, PS1, or PS2 to be able to play the other Star Ocean games, TLH is very much a standalone since it is a prequel taking place a few centuries prior to the first Star Ocean.  The story does tie into the other Star Ocean games and helps explain the somewhat surprise ending for Till the End of Time but anyone new to the Star Ocean series can still find themselves not needing to research anything from the older games.

For those unfamiliar with previous Star Ocean games the core background to the games follow with an Earth that was scorched from nuclear war.  The survivors put all of their efforts into space exploration trying to find a new planet to call home.   You are a part of the first exploration party and the actual game portion is the adventures you encounter while out in the "star ocean".  

Star Ocean was one of the first RPGs to change from menu driven turn based combat system to a real-time type.  Encounters, whether randomly popping from out of nowhere or actually touching an enemy on a map/dungeon, were still done with the classic cut-away screens unlike Castlevania, Zelda, or Secret of Mana that kept combat and wandering in real-time.  On top of it, the combat for SO was all party based.  Besides unique combat, other factors such as the large crafting system made this series a building block for later days with the later advent of MMOs.  Take that Doom!

The biggest selling point for all RPG video games is the storyline and the meshing of the player actually feeling like they are "role-playing".  An entire book's worth of dialog can be crammed into an  RPG making a way to bridge the gap of tedious page flipping in some old dusty book that weighs a ton and smells like mothballs.  If the storyline has substance then working through all the battles over and over just to go up a single level makes it all worth it or ends up taking away 80+ hours of your life you'll never get back (Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Battletoads thank you).  TLH has a novel's worth of dialog and contained within 3 DVD discs are a plethora of cutscenes to fill out the story nicely.  On top of the usual read-along just as much voice acted dialog is done in case you hated reading everything and wanted to forget what books were altogether.  

Combat is better than the older SO games and doesn't evolve into impossibility like some of the previous SOs.  Previous SOs were so difficult, especially toward the endgame, that trying to figure out a trickeration type strategy to just finish the game was a usual implementation for disheartened gamers.  I remember playing SO2 and seeing a strategy in which a single party member was utilized and only one ability was used (ah, AIRSLASH) and not even bothering with other party members or any other abilities.  The strategy worked so well that the whole game could be completed this way.  This time all party members pull their weight with or without your direct input and do a decent job with self preservation even on harder boss fights and endgame.  Not as much saving, dying, reloading, and repeating till your head spins, thankfully.

Repetitiveness isn't as big a factor since combat is a challenge and rewarding when mastered.  Enemy difficulty keeps pace when sticking with the storyline instead of having to take extra time to "level".  There are some nice additions such as combos that can be done with fellow party members and in addition, they can even be micromanaged and changed to fit your damage needs. 

The overall look of combat is a big step up from previous SOs and is very fluid in it's delivery.  And it's not only the combat that shows off the graphics as the rest of the game grinds on your 360's hardware constantly.  Cutscenes aren't above the visual quality of the rest of the game showing that the entire game can not only look fantastic but help to give the feeling that a lot of work was done making the gameplay look spectacular.  The cutscenes don't act like separate movies inserted here and there but instead are like a part of the gameplay and story keeping the player enthralled with everything and not making the gameplay a disappointing experience when the player is given control again.

This SO had very few low points that stuck out.  With all RPGs, the way in which directions on what to do and where to go next is a big part of the presentation.  TLH utilizes a lot of the cutscenes to do this but in a few cases trying to figure out the next step for progression isn't the easiest thing for your cereal box decoder ring.  There are also handfuls of awkward and head scratching "situations" that only anime fandom would ever consider a necessity. These can be seen with some of the characters like the personal crafting utilization program: Welch.  One big teeth grinder comes from the monotone character Lymle as the creators decided to add in a South Park type tagline to the end of EVERY sentence she decides to speak ('kay).  After about 20 minutes of being forced to hear the joke being taken too far, the cuteness gets loaded into a weapon of scary proportions as you begin to look into the barrel instead of looking down the sights.  

Small hiccups aside, from start to finish Star Ocean: The Last Hope is an experience that fans of all of the classics will enjoy, worth the play through for any RPGer, and a good choice for those that have never ventured into needing experience points.  Hours upon hours of cutscenes, gameplay that's enjoyable, minimized repetitive leveling, atypical combat that's fun, and a good return on the investment for time given, SO: TLH is by far an RPG Xbox 360 owners have been looking for ever since the console's release.  

Rating: 7.5 {on a scale of -10 to 10, 5+ being a must play}

O + S - We Do What We Want To [only actual video available is Permanent Scar]

Resident Evil 5: Zombie no go go, unless you tell am to go, Zombie no go stop, unless you tell am to stop

"Now lets all just stay calm and hopefully we can take care of this 'Zombie' problem in a civilized manner"

Who knew a pregnant woman who barely plays video games with a hardcore gamer would both squirm with anticipation of getting through a normal work day to be rewarded with a zombie-blasting-fun-shotgun-reloading-handholding-good-old-time? For all your marriage needs Resident Evil 5 for PS3 and Xbox360 from Capcom is there fulfilling all that marital bliss people talked about you having after exchanging vows about sickness and genetic altering viruses and boy, was everyone right on about it all being worth it.

Without saying all the same stuff again about the love of zombie in all of its forms (Previous Review of RE5 Demo) I'm going to just stick to my reaction of RE5 after finishing the game with my diamond in the rough on a par 4.

A quick synopsis for this game will remind you of any RE typical virus problem creating zombies that must be dealt with.  After zombie after zombie are destroyed you take arms up against the person in charge of distributing the virus.  This RE takes place in a fictional African country as this makes for a great 'test' site for the newly created virus without the fear of a military superpower intervening.  Instead, you and your partner are a part of a small group that investigates biological terrorism around the world and is assigned to this lovely country after rumors start of people making meals of other people.

RE5 is everything I'd hoped for with a little extra gravy on the side.  It makes for a very hard decision when comparing to its predecessor, RE4, on which is better. The shock value on what a huge step forward RE4 was made for a high bar to live up to but with the addition of the Co-op mode, the beauty of this generation of consoles, and sticking with all that worked previously, RE5 has at least matched RE4 in greatness.  

The solo play is quality as the AI of your uncontrolled partner has the aim of a true champ and avoids death fairly well.  Your AI companion however, does not understand what it means to conserve ammo and will blow through just about every bullet you hand them.  For anyone who's played any of the RE games, you know that ammo is scarce and is one of the things that will make or break your survival as zombies attempt to chomp on your pooper and neck alike.  In some instances your AI buddy will be such a good shot that it almost feels like cheating.  This makes the game a bit easier than I prefer but others may appreciate all the help they can get.  

The Co-op mode is one of the best 2 person Co-ops I have ever seen. The overall game is so fun that even someone that is typically not enthralled with gaming can start to play RE5 and notice smiles appearing on their face.  After completing the game with my wife I realized that this game's development was actually centered around the idea of you playing with someone and making the experience of two people better than just one.  Many of the fights in the game are meant for you to coordinate times to reload, when to take shots, exchanging of equipment, and covering one another from all directions which is best done with a real partner and not a skynetty one.  The controls are easy enough for anyone to pick up and quickly learn as they are identical to RE4's 3rd person over the shoulder shooting controls.   

Hopping right into playing with a partner isn't the fastest thing to do as RE will save all of your progress no matter who's game you are joining and no matter where they are in the story.  What is nice about this is all the extra unlockables that are bought with a how-smooth-was-success based point system is saved to your account and not just the person's story you are playing.  

The cutscenes and storyline are solid and mesh very well to make the experience a complete one.  There is still some of the extra unnecessary unusualness that RE/Capcom likes to have such as extreme physical attributes (punching through a person) and over the top characters.  Even with this strangeness, the voice acting is done very well and the music and sounds of the game also make for a seamless movie played out as a game or game played out as a movie depending on your half full/hall empty outlook.  Different pistols sound like their real counterpart and the ooga-booga zombie sounds still have the same old scariness that comes from when you know damn well it's in the shadows somewhere.

Completing the game just like RE4 unlocks some extra modes of play but not as many as RE4.  RE4 had a very difficult extra storyline that could be played after the game was completed and RE5 is missing something like that.  I'm going to guess that since the new trend of games now is to have to purchase extra expansions, they will probably release something like this at a later date.  

Lots of head disintegrating action, smooth transitioning cutscenes, fun gameplay, and an opportunity to make a real life partnership even stronger make Resident Evil 5 a game everyone should take the time to find a partner to play it with.  Yeah, it being RE5, I think...   

Rating: 9.0 {on a scale of -10 to 10, 5 being a must play}

Fela Kuti and the Afrika 70 - Zombie (video is only 10 min of the full 12+ min song)