CAG Foreplay: New Releases (4/3/07) - The One That Didn't Get Away

CAG's rocksolidaudio & shipwreck preview the new releases for the week of April 3rd, 2007. This week we cover Guitar Hero II, giant chickens, tiny Native Americans, and of course some more virtual pets.


Brave: The Search for the Spirit Dancer Dev. VIS Entertainment Pub. Evolved Games Systems: PS2 MSRP: $29.99
Perhaps in trying to atone for their diarrheal trifecta of State of Emergency, Evil Dead: Fistful of Boomstick and The Powerpuff Girls: Relish Rampage, Vis Entertainment seems to have created a pretty fun 3D platformer. You play as a cute lil' Native American trying to save his tribe, in typical combat-puzzle-combat-repeat gameplay. The game has a nice definitive visual style, and seemingly just enough variety (buffalo stampedes, fishing) to stand out from Tak and the like. Grab it for the kiddos. - rock

Best Deal:
Family Video is about the best deal I could find as there seems to be some confusion as to whether the MSRP on this game is $30 or $40.

Purchase At Family Video $28.84 (99 Cent Shipping)


Cake Mania Dev. Digital Embryo/Sandlot Games Pub. Majesco Systems: DS MSRP: $19.99
No, not that Sandlot unfortunately - giant insects would have gone so well with Cake. Anyhow, if you're a big fan of the food service industry and Root Beer Tapper simply doesn't challenge your multitasking skills, get ready to frost, bake and decorate cakes while upgrading your kitchen until 80+ levels worth of customers are satisfied (both the PC original and Back to the Bakery expansion are included). Check out the quietly addicting Yahoo version to see what all the fuss is about. - rock

Best Deal:
There don't seem to be any specific deals for Cake Mania.

Purchase At Amazon $19.99 (Free Shipping on orders over $25)


Dogz 2 Dev. Ubi Soft Pub. Ubi Soft Systems: GBA MSRP: $29.99
Because little girls keep killing their virtual pets. That's the only reason I can think of for why we need another one of these every week. Plenty of new features and variants of dogs are surely included. How do I know this? Because of the "2" after the title. Well, they either added stuff or it's the same freakin' game they already released but with a clever new name. It's not like that stopped anyone from buying four different versions of Nintendogs. - ship

Best Deal:
There don't seem to be any specific deals for Dogz 2.

Purchase At Amazon $29.99 (Free Shipping)


Enchanted Arms Dev. From Software Pub. Ubi Soft Systems: PS3 MSRP: $59.99
By all accounts, this is the definitive version of the saxamaphone infused role-playing game that constantly touts itself as "one of the first next-gen RPG's". Yes, the praises never end. This version adds more creatures and tilty-controls, but the annoying, stereotypical characters and mediocre gameplay have been perfectly ported over from the Xbox 360 version. PS3 owners jonesing for an RPG don't have many choices at the moment, and that is what Enchanted Arms is banking on. - ship

Best Deal:
There don't seem to be any specific deals for Enchanted Arms although Family Video is a couple cents cheaper than Amazon.

Purchase At Amazon $59.99 (Free Shipping)
Purchase At Family Video $57.68 (99 Cent Shipping)


Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales Dev. Hand Pub. Square Enix Systems: DS MSRP: $29.99
3D adventuring, minigames and card battling with everyone's favorite yellow birds. There's a ton of FF periphery characters and references for series frequenters, but only the truly devoted will brave the waters of what is very much a kids game for those bites of fan service. Though there is Wi-Fi card battling... - rock

Best Deal:
There are a few deals for Chocobo Tales. Both Amazon and Family Video are offering the game for slightly cheaper than retail and if you are lucky enough to live near a Fry's, they are selling the game for $24.99

Purchase At Amazon $28.99 (Free Shipping)
Purchase At Family Video $26.99 (99 Cent Shipping)
See fidodido's Fry's ad $24.99

Guitar Hero II Bundle Dev. Harmonix Pub. Red Octane Systems: 360 MSRP: $89.99
Yes, it's expensive, but it's Guitar Hero II, in HD, with ten new songs (Rancid, The Toadies, Pearl Jam, etc.), online leaderboards and awesome achievements (finish a song left-handed, get a 1,000 note streak and much more). Is there any way you're not going to buy this at some point? It's about as fun as video games get, and anyone can play it. Next to Wii Sports, this is probably the best thing to put in the hands of your extended family for some guaranteed riotous entertainment. It's not as deep as Amplitude, and probably won't be as awesome as Harmonix's new game which should be announced by the time you read this, but it's worth selling your soul to get ahold of regardless. - rock

Best Deal:
There are a lot of different options for deals on Guitar Hero II. For price alone, both Family Video and Sam's Club are offering a $10 break off the MSRP. Red Octane is offering free shipping and a free gig bag if you order from their site. And if you are interested in Marketplace Points, Circuit City is giving away 1600 ($20 worth) if you choose to purchase from them.

Purchase At Family Video $79.99 (99 Cent Shipping)
Purchase At Sam's Club $77.88
Purchase At Red Octane $89.99 (Free Shipping & Free Gig Bag)
Purchase At Circuit City $89.99 (Free 1600 Point Marketplace Card)


Prince of Persia: Rival Swords Dev. Ubi Soft Pub. Ubi Soft Systems: PSP, Wii MSRP: $39.99, $49.99
Haven't played it, but I can't imagine Two Thrones needed or benefits from Wii control. Ubisoft really needs to come up with some original Wii games (that don't rhyme with Dead Meal) and stop with the unnecessary ports. Pick up Two Thrones for your Gamecube and play it on the Wii if you need a PoP fix, and wait until next week for Super Paper Mario if you're dying for a new Wii game. - rock

Prince of Persia: Rival Swords is also coming out for the PSP this week and I can't imagine Two Thrones needed or benefits from PSP control. - ship

Best Deal:
There don't seem to be any specific deals for Rival Swords.

Purchase At Amazon $39.99 (Free Shipping)
Purchase At Family Video $48.06 (99 Cent Shipping)


The Plan Dev. Eko Software Pub. Crave Entertainment Systems: PS2 MSRP: $19.99
The actual title (Th3 Plan) and the green binary code on the cover proudly proclaim to the world how hip this game is. A tactical/espionage/shooter that expertly demonstrates why European exclusives should, more often than not, stay exclusive. This game does offer up a sort of 3-in-1 Lost Vikings approach to handling your team of generics if you really want to try and justify purchasing this game. I should stop this preview right now lest I actually give you any ideas. - ship

Best Deal:
EB/Gamestop is offering this game for $14.99.

Purchase At EB Games $14.99


Rapala Tournament Fishing Dev. Fun Labs Pub. Activision Systems: 360 MSRP: $39.99
Rapala Tournament Fishing will be reeling in achievement whores and those that actually like fishing games this week. Here's a picture of a fish I caught when I was 7. - ship



Best Deal:
There don't seem to be any specific deals for Rapala Tournament Fishing.

Purchase At Amazon $39.99 (Free Shipping)


SingStar Pop Dev. SCEA Europe Pub. SCEA Systems: PS2 MSRP: $29.99, $49.99 (with two mics)
Like Singstar Rocks released last fall, Pop is basically a poorly tuned alternative to Karaoke Revolution, with more focus on the authentic presentation of singing in front of music videos and less on making the gameplay super-tight. It's still idiotic fun embarrassing yourself with a buddy, it's just a bit weird to have the artists' vocals alongside yours. They've added EyeToy support to watch yourself instead of the licensed music videos, but you're probably still better off just tracking down Harmonix's superior KR games. - rock

Best Deal:
There don't seem to be any specific deals for SingStar Pop.

Purchase At Amazon $29.99 (Free Shipping)
Purchase At Amazon $49.99 (Free Shipping)



On The DL with Shipwreck

Luxor 2 Systems: 360 MSRP: $10
To the untrained eye, Luxor 2 might appear to be a lot like fellow XBLA puzzler Zuma. Both games have you shooting brightly colored balls to stop the impending doom of more advancing brightly colored balls. Upon further inspection though, a winged-scarab has replaced the ball-spitting stone frog and, unbelievably, these are Egyptian, not South American temples. If you can come to terms with those differences, Luxor 2 should be another enjoyable puzzle game. - ship

Dragon's Curse Systems: Wii MSRP: $6
I honestly had no idea what this game was until I Wikipedia'd it. Turns out it's actually a graphically enhanced version of a platformer I played on the Sega Master System: Wonderboy III. Wonderboy transforms into several different beast forms that have their own specific powers. What powers you ask? How about the power to take you far away from the mucky-muck man? - ship

Star Fox 64 Systems: Wii MSRP: $10
Fox McCloud keeps his ass pasted to the inside of his rocket ship of triangles and blows up everything that flies in front of him. And that's the way we like it. (Over-sized box, rumble pack, and on-foot adventures not included.) - ship

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Systems: Wii MSRP: $6
Ah, the memories of playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the arcades. We were all overjoyed to see the turtles come to the NES so that we could enjoy them in our living room as well. That is, until we realized this wasn't the arcade game and was instead simply a way to systematically kill off your childhood heroes one by one. You basically had two strategies, immediately kill off your favorite turtle, or kill off the other three first and then kill off your favorite turtle. Wait, I guess you could kill him off second or third as well, so there might be a lot more replayability to this game than I remember. - ship


General Deals that could be applied to save you some money:

As always Best Buy's Gamer Gift Card $5 Coupon can be applied to save you $5 on any of these games. Check out all the details here.


Feedback:

Did we miss a good sale on a game? Did we miss previewing a game completely? Well, the only way that everyone can know a better deal is out there is to let us know about it. Post deals you've found or games that we missed in the thread so that CAGs can make sure they are getting the absolute best prices on new releases.

lol at te fish and cat tail

Every week there's some game in these reports I've never heard of. Nice job as usual.

lolz @ Lil' Ship and his makeshift gaf. Nothing like a closet hanger through the gills to show off that bass--good sized one at that.

Nice job, Shipwreck.

Whenever I see this I get so hot and bothered for the next day's podcast.

In other words, excellent and aptly named.

RSA FTW! Nice job on the reviews. GH II for the 360 is pretty much essential and makes this week great all by itself.

There needs to be more previews like the Rapala one..

"A fishing game is coming out this week. Here's a picture of me catching one when I was 7."

Yeah, let's see pics of all the mods when they were kids

Am I the only person in the world with no interest in Guitar Hero? I had a chance to get the PS2 versions cheap (at GR) and just, meh, no interest... Isn't it really just a glorified timed-button press game (like every other rhythm game)? (I have watched people play it in stores). I hate those...

[quote name='io']Yeah, let's see pics of all the mods when they were kids

Am I the only person in the world with no interest in Guitar Hero? I had a chance to get the PS2 versions cheap (at GR) and just, meh, no interest... Isn't it really just a glorified timed-button press game (like every other rhythm game)? (I have watched people play it in stores). I hate those...[/quote]If you hate rhythm games then, yeah, it's probably not for you. But I think it's pretty universally appealing to at least, in some small way, "feel" like you're rocking out to some rock anthems. Can even introduce you to new music.

[quote name='daroga']If you hate rhythm games then, yeah, it's probably not for you. But I think it's pretty universally appealing to at least, in some small way, "feel" like you're rocking out to some rock anthems. Can even introduce you to new music. [/QUOTE]

I dunno - sounded like a bunch of old music to me. Don't get me wrong, compared to all the other rhythm games I've seen, the music in GH is more to my liking. I'd just rather listen to the music though .

I've had moderate fun with games like Taiko and Donkey Konga. I'd play GH if I could ever get it dirt cheap like I did with those. Problem is, that will never happen.

Sigh... I guess I need to resign myself to being way outside the mainstream of CAG especially after heaing Cheapy on the CAGcast say we'll all be playing this game this week. I have to say FF Chocobo Tales sounds more interesting to me .

[quote name='io']I dunno - sounded like a bunch of old music to me. Don't get me wrong, compared to all the other rhythm games I've seen, the music in GH is more to my liking. I'd just rather listen to the music though .

I've had moderate fun with games like Taiko and Donkey Konga. I'd play GH if I could ever get it dirt cheap like I did with those. Problem is, that will never happen.

Sigh... I guess I need to resign myself to being way outside the mainstream of CAG especially after heaing Cheapy on the CAGcast say we'll all be playing this game this week. I have to say FF Chocobo Tales sounds more interesting to me .[/quote]I meant "new" in a relative sense. Many of the songs are older, but I've not actively listened to most of the tracks in the game so they're new to me.

When you get a song in your head, there's something nice about being able to "play" it rather than just listen, but to each his own.

I'll have to say, though. Despite there being no correlation between real life and the game, playing this has begun to reignite my desire to get an acoustical guitar and learn how to actually play.

[quote name='Dingleberry']lol at te fish and cat tail[/QUOTE]

LOL Is that a catfish?

[quote name='daroga']If you hate rhythm games then, yeah, it's probably not for you. But I think it's pretty universally appealing to at least, in some small way, "feel" like you're rocking out to some rock anthems. Can even introduce you to new music. [/QUOTE]
i dont care for rhythm games and so far i love gh.
i cant figure out how its as fun as it is, its definately greater than the sum of its parts.

Nice reviews again this week guys. Rock's were especially good, though the fish pic was awesome

[quote name='paz9x']i dont care for rhythm games and so far i love gh.
i cant figure out how its as fun as it is, its definately greater than the sum of its parts.[/QUOTE]

Interesting perspective there... Well, like I said, I'd definitely pick this up (and/or the PS2 versions) if I could ever get them cheap. Problem is, that will never happen .

Cakemania Ftw

Spot on with the TMNT game ship. I always killed off my favorite first, then gave up because the game was too damn hard.