Busy Gamer News

Too busy to devote 12+ hours a day to your gaming habit? Here's a review that's sensitive to your needs: Short and focused on just the things that a busy gamer like you really needs to know.


Busy Gamer Review-
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

Reviewed On: PlayStation 3.

Nathan Drake in a climbing puzzle

In a Nutshell: Uncharted is a neat mix of Tomb Raider-style puzzles and exploration and Gears of War duck-and-cover combat from the developers of the Jak and Daxter series. It's also one of the few really good games on the PlayStation 3 - basically, a solid third-person shooter with great combat mechanics, a reasonably good storyline and an Assassin's Creed-like climbing engine (though expect to fall much more often as Drake than as Altair). There is a nice survival horror style twist, and some of the combat moves make good use of the Sixaxis motion sensors - particularly the one where you throw off an assailant by quickly thrusting the controller forward.

Learning Curve: The game gives you the standard introduction to each new gameplay element, so if you pay attention you can throw out the manual and just dive right in. Even after setting the game down for a spell, picking the combat back up took only a little trial and error to get back into it.

The Save Game: The game auto-saves very often, and you can save manually as well. You do restart at the beginning of the nearest checkpoint, but they're so close together in most places that you won't lose much progress if you have to quit unexpectedly.

Family Factor: Teen and up. There is a lot of shooting and killing and, while not the bloodiest game on the block, it's not for younger kids. Play it while the little ones are napping.

Buy, Rent or Skip? If the game were even a few hours longer, this would be a must buy. Alas, you can get beat the 22 chapters in 8-10 hours and replay value is middling at best - so it's a must rent.

On a Personal Note: This is the section where I normally wax poetic about all of the cool unscripted moments in the game that really blew me away. There really isn't much of that in Uncharted. There are some climbing puzzles (prepare to fall a lot) and some cool water levels (accelerate your boat, stop, shoot, watch wicked cool ragdoll physics, repeat). But mostly the game is either highly scripted or your basic single-player combat shooter. My first pass through I picked up about half of the hidden treasures, and I didn’t feel compelled to go back through for the ones I missed. Did I enjoy the game? Absolutely. Did much of it stick with me afterwards (as it did with Oblivion, BioShock or Assassin's Creed)? Not really. Will I totally check out any sequels, should they arise? Probably, if I'm not too busy.

This is your basic "enjoy this game and move on." If you don't have a PS3, it's not going to convince you to buy one. If you do, it will keep you busy for a few days.

Too busy to devote 12+ hours a day to your gaming habit? Here's a review that's sensitive to your needs: Short and focused on just the things that a busy gamer like you really needs to know.


Busy Gamer Review-
Rock Band

Reviewed On: Xbox 360. Also available for PS2 and PS3.

Perform vocals, drums and guitar in Rock Band

In a Nutshell: Rock Band is a music rhythm game that extends the Guitar Hero game mechanic to drums and vocals. The Special Edition comes with a dual-fret guitar, microphone and drum kit with pedal. In solo career, you pick an instrument (except bass guitar) and play through about 60 songs in the usual Easy, Medium, Hard and Expert skill level categories (actually, Easy has about half the songs - it's that easy).

The real action is in the Band World Tour local multiplayer, where two or more band members jam and earn scores to unlock new venues and try to achieve the killer Platinum Artist rating by powering through all of the game's default songs on Expert - a 5+ hour task! There are also some tug-of-war and head-to-head modes, minus the gimmicky battle power-ups of Guitar Hero III.

The songs span a wide range of tastes from classic rock and metal to punk, alternative and indy. You probably won't love every song (we adore "Maps" and the new Oasis tracks though there are plenty who scorn them) but with such a wide range of music, you're liable to like much of it. The game has added life through weekly downloads offered via Xbox Live Marketplace and the PlayStation Store for $2 per song (a little less in bundles or for specially priced tracks).

Rock Band drums play like real drums

Learning Curve: This game is easy to pick up and hard to master. If this sounds like the definition for a casual game, you're right - this is the ultimate casual game. Non-gamers can quickly learn three-note guitar licks, simple drum patterns and crooning to match a voice modulation meter. Practice, like any band should, and you'll get better and hunger to master more advanced techniques and unlock deeper parts of the game.

It's worth noting that while playing a plastic 5-button guitar and modulating your voice correctly probably won't help you become a great musician, the drum portion of the game might. Real drummers report that in Expert mode you are essentially drumming like a pro. Harmonix or a third party should come out with a game that lets you practice like a real drum student (how about Drum School taught by Dave Grohl?!).

The Save Game: The game saves automatically after every song and when you change an option, purchase an item, change your outfit, etc. You won't lose any progress unless you corrupt your save file by shutting down your console in the middle of a save.

Family Factor: A few questionable lyrics aside (e.g., "Sell the kids for food," "Hooker/waitress"), the game is the ultimate family friendly game. Our 5-year-old sings along and occasionally pounds on the drums or finishes a vocal flourish with a shout. It's worth noting that there are options to select skimpy outfits and tattoos. You can wear whatever you like, but your randomly selected AI bandmates (if you're not playing all of the parts) might wear something risqué. Of course if you're seriously considering this game, this probably won't bother you.

The mike is optional; a headset works too

Buy, Rent or Skip? This is a buy, with a few caveats. First, you can’t really rent it unless you have a compatible guitar (the Xbox 360 Xplorer and Les Paul from the Guitar Hero series will work, but their PS3 counterparts will NOT). Vocalists can make due with a compatible headset and use a controller button for the rhythm sections. So if all you want to do is sing and/or play with a compatible guitar, you could opt to pick up just the game for $60 (possibly less used).

At this writing, standalone instruments from Harmonix are not available. When they do arrive, they're gonna be pricey: $80 for drums, $60 for guitar and $30 for the mike, plus the game itself. That's $230 vs. $160 for the bundle. If you only plan to ever play one instrument, that's still $120-140 (or $90 for vocalists, but remember you can always use a standard headset).

All in all, you'll have more fun with the bundle. Once you get some friends or family members hooked, you can play Band World Tour. If you're lucky enough to have a second guitar that works, give it to the bass player.

A quick note about guitars: The Rock Band pack-in Stratocaster is by far the smoothest axe I've played to date, and the most comfortable. It’s also larger than the Guitar Hero models, but compensates by offering a second set of frets near the strum bar for small hands and solos. The Xplorer (from Guitar Hero II) feels much clunkier and hurts my fingers to play for long periods. The Les Paul (from Guitar Hero III) is a good compromise between the two: The strum bar has the rhythm-keeping thunk of the Xplorer but with better size, plus it's wireless. Still, after playing the Les Paul for a few days, switching back to the Strat was instant relief to my fingers.

On a Personal Note: I tried to enjoy Guitar Hero - the original on the PS2 and the sequel on the Xbox 360 - but found them more punishing than rewarding and ultimately set them aside. So I was a little on the fence about Rock Band, but decided to give it a chance after hearing so much great buzz. I'm so glad that I did. Rock Band is much more fun to play. For guitar, Easy mode is the ultimate in relaxation for me. Very few songs present much difficulty once you calibrate the game to match your TV and master the three-finger technique (hold down greens and reds while hitting yellows). Medium takes a bit more practice, but can ultimately be just as satisfying. Just zoning out to a song on Easy (and now, sometimes, Medium) melts the day's pressures away.

I suspect the same will be true for Hard and Expert eventually, as I continue to practice and improve - but I could be happy continuing to play at the Easy and Medium skill levels. Except for the difficulty caps of the Band World Tour. And this is the one place the game lacks some balance. To progress in multiplayer as a band and unlock new venues and challenges, you need to earn a certain number of fans. Once you exceed the fan limit for the Easy skill level (which happens pretty fast), everyone in the band needs to move to Medium or better. The same happens later in the game for Hard and, I suspect eventually, Expert. It would be great if most of the Band World Tour was accessible to Medium players and a bit more of the game opened up in Easy.

It seems like you hit a difficulty wall pretty fast unless you're already an Expert at an instrument. This does force you to practice the higher skill levels to move forward with the game so you don't stall your band - or get replaced! So in some ways, this mirrors the real life band experience. Also, your superior bandmates can save your bacon up to three times, so it may be possible to squeak through a rough song that way.

The Harmonix Guitar is smooth

GrrlGotGame has a great voice and loves to sing, and she's doing great as a Rock Band vocalist except for the occasional song designed for a male singer ("Orange Crush," I'm looking at you). So we've been enjoying Band World Tour almost every night and hope to unlock the Big in Seattle achievement soon. Alas, doing so requires passing some Hard difficulty songs, and so I'm working hard to make the transition to 5-note streams and "cheating" on occasion by playing the bass, which is on the whole easier than lead guitar at the higher skill levels.

The key to preparing for Hard on guitar seems to be learning to play Medium with three-fingers (red-yellow-blue starting position) so the pinky is reserved for the orange notes later. Using this technique to replay the Medium songs a second time, I'm finding that the note streams are inherently easier to hit and my scores are consistently one star better (songs I previously max'd at 3 stars are 4s and my 4 stars are 5s). To be clear (since I had a difficult time grasping this myself): Except in rare cases when the note chart dictates otherwise, your index finger always hits green and red, your middle finger sticks to yellow, and your ring finger plays blue. Your pinky generally stays out of it; you'll need that for orange (and maybe the occasional blue, if the song requires quick changes or chords involving green and blue) when you move to Hard and Expert. Hope this helps someone. I've posted more Rock Band tips if you're interested.

I've also tried the drums, going as far as to mod a real drum pedal to make those bass notes easier to hit. It's fun and I expect to spend more time on it after I've mastered the guitar. Vocals are fun too, although I tend to play this mode when no one else is around since my voice wasn't made to be shared.

If you like rock music and rhythm play, this is arguably the best game out there right now.

-=Gamewatcher

Too busy to devote 12+ hours a day to your gaming habit? Here's a review that's sensitive to your needs: Short and focused on just the things that a busy gamer like you really needs to know.


Busy Gamer Review-
Assassin's Creed

Reviewed On: Xbox 360. Also available for PlayStation 3 and eventually PC. There's a cell phone game too, but it's not even remotely similar.

In a Nutshell: Run around the medieval Holy Land killing people. That's basically it, though there are several interesting (though surreal) story dimensions. You will spend a lot of the game in a vast sandbox, wandering around and picking fights and missions as you see fit. At first glance, it may appear to be the offspring from a bizarre mating of Ubisoft's Prince of Persia and Splinter Cell games - though the stealth elements are not as dominant, and that's a good thing. It is somewhat repetitive, though that's not always a bad thing and in this case makes the game a good choice for mindless stress relief after a particularly rough day at work.

Learning Curve: Pretty easy to pick up, though it may take some time to master advanced moves such as pickpocketing and double-strike kills. The game introduces new skills gradually and provides a practice arena for mastering new fighting maneuvers. You also get unlimited redos, and messing up a mission and then getting yourself to the restart point is sometimes more fun than completing it right the first time! Even novice gamers will get far and probably even complete the main story without too much frustration.

The Save Game: The game autosaves pretty frequently. No real progress will be lost by quitting anywhere, but there are a few gotchas to beware:

1. Always quit to the Animus screen (you'll know what this means after you play for about 15 minutes). Otherwise, you'll risk corrupting your save file if you accidentally shut the console off during an unexpected autosave.
2. You won't start exactly where you left off, so you generally need to travel a bit to pick up your game - so quitting and coming back does have a small penalty.
3. If you want to collect Xbox 360 achievements, be sure to trigger a save after any significant activities such as street fights, leaps of faith, beggar tosses, etc. The quickest way to do this is simply collect a flag in the city you're in, so you might find and save some just for this purpose.

Note to Ubisoft: What's wrong with triggering an auto-save every time you exit the game? Overall, this game is easy to get in and out of, but it's not as slick as a save anywhere solution.

Family Factor: As you'd expect, keep this game away from small children. The fighting is violent and intense. You also can't really explore the city with small children present since, even though collecting flags and climbing tall towers is pretty harmless, make one wrong move and you'll have a bloody battle on your hands. You could run and hide, but what kind of message does that send?

Buy, Rent or Skip? Most decent gamers can beat this game in a 5-day rental if they can commit at least 4-5 hours a night (20-25 hours total). If you're a completist who wants to investigate every nook and cranny of the game's expansive kingdom plus nine large city segments, find all of the hidden flags and unlock 1000 achievement points, just buy it.

On a Personal Note: I bought this game on a whim, half expecting to be underwhelmed (due to several lukewarm launch reviews) and I actually enjoyed parts of it more than BioShock. (It's my favorite busy gamer title of 2007!)The story is solid and the ending, though a bit short and unfulfilling, isn't as horrible as it's been made out to be. (MINOR SPOILER: I did expect a battle royale to break out in a different era with me in control, and - well, sigh - that didn't happen. Perhaps in the sequel.) Still, I love exploring the game's world and never get tired of dashing and leaping across rooftops, climbing tall buildings and spiking guards from behind or knocking them into the crowds below courtesy of a throwing knife to the abdomen. Battles, though somewhat repetitive, do ramp up in difficulty as you progress, and they're a great way to relieve tension after a stressful day.

I also love a good sandbox game, and that's exactly what this is. Not nearly as rich and varied as a Grand Theft Auto but not as frustrating and stingy on save points as a Dead Rising. Even after you beat the game, you can continue exploring for flags and bad guys to pick fights with.

It's worth noting that GrrlGotGame lost about six hours of progress to a corrupted save file, so do be careful to quit from the active game before turning off your console.

Too busy to devote 12+ hours a day to your gaming habit? Here's a review that's sensitive to your needs: Short and focused on just the things that a busy gamer like you really needs to know.


Busy Gamer Review-
BioShock

Reviewed On: Xbox 360. Also available for PC.

In a Nutshell: This is a first-person shooter like no other, thanks to the inventive selection of weapons and special powers combined with unique enemies and the ability to flip security elements (cameras, bots and turrets) to your side. It's more like a sandbox game, really, where you can experiment with traps and thrilling attacks to take down the Big Daddies - your big opponents whose every footstep induces a shudder (enhanced by the vibration of the 360 controller if you play the console version). As in Pokemon Snap, Metroid Prime and Beyond Good & Evil, you photograph and analyze enemies to gain the advantage. There's even a hacking mini-game that gets harder as you go, but you can even the odds with the special powers you pick up or simply bypass if with cash and auto-hack gadgets it becomes too difficult or is just not your thing. Set in a fantastic art deco city under the ocean, the environment ping pongs between sci-fi and steampunk - with each level more amazing than the one before. The game even has a real story, told largely through flashbacks and audio diaries you pick up along the way. Or you can just shoot stuff.

Learning Curve: If you've played a first-person shooter before, just jump right in. You start with a wrench and soon pick up your first plasmid power and a standard issue pistol. The game introduces new elements every level pretty much right up until the end, so you're constantly learning new tricks and gaining or enhancing your capabilities - but in small, easy-to-absorb doses. An extensive in-game help system fills in most gaps in your knowledge, and a quick skim of the manual delivers the rest. The only thing that proved confusing were the plasmid and tonic slots, since the first Gene Bank (for reviewing and swapping these around freely) doesn't appear until the level after you first need it. Fortunately, you can backtrack to most places in the game - just not the "Welcome to Rapture" intro or a place known as "Control Room," so search those areas carefully before progressing the story.

The Save Game: Except in one or two spots, you can save the game anywhere. This makes it very convenient to quit at any time - assuming you can pry yourself away from the highly addictive gameplay. So even with the great save system, you'll probably want to find a few days (15-25 hours of play time) that you can devote largely uninterrupted to this worthy title. The game also resurrects you if you die, with all weapons and powers intact plus at least a little health, so you can recover quickly when your attacks fail. Note for 360 players: If you use a memory card with no hard drive attached, you might avoid some framerate stuttering suffered by some hard drive users in later levels (including me!), but be aware that autosave won't work properly when your storage is full - and it prompts you to quit the game to clear space! If this happens, simply back out and then overwrite an old save file yourself.

Family Factor: Keep the kids far away from this one. Seriously, they will have nightmares. There is graphic violence, language, adult themes and a big hulking monster in a diving suit who can run faster than you'd imagine possible with a drill for a hand that's aimed at your abdomen. Most adults will have nightmares, too, though it's nothing you can't handle. Probably.

Buy, Rent or Skip? Just buy it. You can beat this game in a rental period if you really want, but you will probably want to play through at least twice to get both endings (and the Hard achievement, if you wimped out and played Easy or Medium the first time through). Plus, you may want to revisit the lost city of Rapture from time to time. I myself imagined what it might have been like to live there in its heyday (in the before time, when everything was pretty and you might awaken in your apartment to a cheery underwater cityscape), and there's always the wonderland that is Fort Frolic (after the fall when everybody went a little Jack Nicholson-in-The Shining stir crazy). Also, taking down Big Daddies in new and inventive ways never gets old. Alas, there is no multiplayer, which would seal the deal for most. But I would gladly pay more for a multiplayer sequel or add-on, and I'm a hard sell when it comes to those types of games.

On a Personal Note: This is simply the best game I've ever played, thanks to a design that lets you choose your style of play and experiment with new attacks. At one point, I went into a sort of fugue state where all I could do for about 8 hours was play. I'd save and shutdown only to reboot 10 minutes later. Normally I'd try to savor a game of this caliber, like I have with the Elder Scrolls and Halo series. I found that impossible here. No matter how hard I tried, I just had to soldier on. I can see why Valve banned the game in the office.

At the end of the last level, I delayed the finale and went back to claim all of the available achievements. With some careful sleuthing on Gamefaqs.com, I found that I had only missed one tonic and six audio recordings! I picked them all up, and then the next morning I completed the game easily (perhaps a little too much so) and started a new one on Hard that I plan to complete differently to secure the alternate endiing and final 40 gamerscore points.

I've kept this review mostly spoiler free, but I did want to share one of my most exciting encounters with a Big Daddy (no major story spoilers, but I do talk about the Big Daddy/Little Sister dynamic and some of the weapons and powers).

In Fort Frolic, there is a cage in a store where expensive tobacco products are stored. I hacked into it and then, while I was scavenging in the claustrophobic back corner of the cage, a splicer set off an alarm that I had rigged. She also apparently hit a Big Daddy (Bouncer) who was wandering by outside. He promptly attacked her and made quick work of it. The Daddy had a Little Sister with him, and they wandered into the cage together. I had recently powered up my photography tonics, so I went in close for a shot of the duo to fill up my research meter. Too close! The Little Sister started screaming about me invading her personal space, and Big Daddy instantly went on the warpath.

Fortunately, I had just upgraded my grenade launcher so that I would not be damaged (there's some kind of technological energy shield that protects the shooter from his own shrapnel). I retreated to the back corner and started lobbing frag grenades. The Bouncer rushed me and had me close to death a few times, but I kept hitting the health packs and shooting grenades. Amazingly, I did not awaken at a Vita Chamber - instead, cleaning up on cash and Adam - and I lived to tell the tale!

Experiences like this are common, and I have a dozen of 'em. And if you play, so will you.

Too busy to devote 12+ hours a day to your gaming habit? Here's a review that's sensitive to your needs: Short and focused on just the things that a busy gamer like you really needs to know.


Busy Gamer Review-
Surf's Up

Reviewed On: Xbox 360. Also available for PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3 and Wii.

In a Nutshell: Pull off surfing tricks with the characters of the computer-animated movie of the same name. Really, that’s pretty much it. Well, there is a leaf-sliding mini-game and you can unlock some movie clips and such. But mostly it's about the surfing.

Learning Curve: Easy. There's a brief tutorial section to teach you all of the tricks in the game.

The Save Game: The game saves after every surfing run and when you exit certain menus. Each run can take up to 5 minutes, so you can save pretty conveniently - or abandon your progress and try again next time. And since you don't have to hide this one from the little ones, you can just play through if they wander into the room.

Family Factor: Kids love it! And even a toddler can play. Occasionally the surfers bop into each other or crash into a rock or iceberg, but otherwise it's harmless. There is a little bit of moderate language (e.g., "crap") in the movie clips, so you might want to skip the videos if your child has a potty mouth problem or you're determined to avoid one.

Buy, Rent or Skip? Rent (even with the new budget price of $30), unless you have a small child who is enraptured by the game. It can easily be beaten in a few hours, and replay value is limited to collecting missed penguin idols scattered around the levels and split-screen multiplayer. But occupying a child when you and your significant other need a little alone time? Priceless.

On a Personal Note: This is the first Xbox 360 game where I earned 1000 gamerscore points. (I usually avoid the sports games, and most other games require a really tough achievement or a second playthrough that I skip). Also, my 4-year-old adores the game and asks to play it at least a dozen times a day. We've made it his reward for good behavior. He's even starting to get the hang of the trick systems, though we still have to unlock new levels for him. We finally started a second game save for him so he can practice unlocking things himself. He also loves the multiplayer, which we enjoy with daddy's game save since all of the levels, boards and playable characters are unlocked there.

Too busy to devote 12+ hours a day to your gaming habit? Here's a review that's sensitive to your needs: Short and focused on just the things that a busy gamer like you really needs to know.


Busy Gamer Review-
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords

Reviewed On: Nintendo DS. Also available for PSP. Announced for Xbox Live Arcade on Xbox 360 and expected eventually for PC.

In a Nutshell: This is not your mother's gem-matching game. You create a warrior, wizard, knight or druid and then level up your skills by winning battles enacted on a shared field of brightly colored gems, stars, skulls and coins. If you've ever played Bejeweled, it's a lot like that - only there's an opponent who is trying to mess up your game and outmatch you with the same gems. So there's a strategy component as you try to anticipate cascades and your enemy's next move. You also collect different types of mana (red, green, blue and yellow) to power spells and abilities that can level the playing field - or, in the hands of your opponent, you. You'll save up gold pieces to purchase better armor and weapons, capture enemies to learn their tricks, collect special runes to craft your own wares and build a citadel to rule over any cities you conquer. The story is a bit weak overall, but the quests are fun and the game is an instant diversion for dozens or even hundreds of hours of play - both in the main mode and impromptu battles against the computer or even a real person if you can find anyone else who actually has the game, which is available in disturbingly small quantities at retail.

Learning Curve: If you've ever played a Match-3 puzzle game, you'll feel at home in no time. The in-game tutorial walks you through all of the major game elements in the first hour or so. The main battle mode doesn't change much (though new spells and gear can breathe fresh life into it as you progress), but there are various side quests with different rules such as matching puzzles to capture enemies and mounts, a fun and often frustrating Match-3 variant used to learn new spells and other matching mini-games such as forging. Plumbing the game's depths and getting sidetracked for awhile is part of Puzzle Quest's charm, though it does steepen the learning curve slightly. Fortunately, there's an Instant Action option so you can skip all of the hoopla and just match gems against any opponent you like.

The Save Game: Puzzle Quest saves your progress after each battle and most significant interactions. This is important on the DS version, which does crash a bit - but you rarely lose much, if any, progress. (Reports suggest the PSP game may crash on occasion, too, sometimes during a battle - but I can't vouch for this.) Both portables have standby modes, so you can snap the DS shut or hit the PSP switch to sustain your game for as long as your battery has life. Keep it charged, and you should be fine.

Family Factor: While the game's RPG elements are inherently violent (you are battling monsters, after all), it's not like the gems drip blood. There's no real visual or auditory cue for the implied violence that's going on, apart from the appearance of skull gems and the minor explosions as they are consumed and do damage to you and your foe's Life Points. This is a game that small toddlers can safely observe as long as they aren't afraid of skulls or static pictures of ogres, orcs, trolls, minotaurs and other monsters.

Buy, Rent or Skip? If you're a fan of casual games and RPGs, this is a Match-3 made in heaven - buy it now! If you're new to either of these genres, give it a rental and see if you can put it down. Alas, this game is so hard to find, renting it from Gamefly will take some waiting and if you find it at retail, you should probably just pick it up. Don't worry: If for some reason you don't enjoy it, you shouldn't have too much difficulty unloading it.

The bigger decision is which version to buy. The DS and PSP versions are both buggy, though it may be easier to tolerate the DS' occasional freezes over the PSP's accidental omission of team bonuses and clunky control scheme. If you're the patient sort and don't care about portability, wait for the Xbox 360 or PC versions, which should boast online multiplayer and the best graphics and sound, plus they'll be patchable in case of any more insufferable bugs.

On a Personal Note: I downloaded the PC demo and was hooked from the start. I then set out to find a copy on the street. After badgering nearly a dozen stores almost daily for a week (and finally missing a copy that landed at an EB by just five minutes!), I finally gave up and ordered this game online. Those few local stores that did get the game only received a few copies per shipment, and many employees didn't seem to care or seemed powerless to request the game or additional copies in greater quantities.

What's most vexing is how buggy the games are. If they had been released on a patchable platform FIRST, such as the PC or Xbox Live Arcade, the developer could have worked out many of these bugs there before releasing it on the portables. It seems likely that Nintendo and Sony sought a period of exclusivity, though oddly not from each other. And then they both fumbled their opportunity by releasing buggy games in insufficient quantities. Yeah, I know, it's like the old joke about nursing home food: "The food here is horrible. And such small portions!"

Despite the potential roadblocks to enjoying this game, I find it a quite compelling to play during brief periods of downtime and even while watching shows and movies that don't require my full attention (e.g. reality TV, news, comedy). Though I'll probably consider buying it again for the PC or Xbox 360, I have to give the DS version the edge for being portable, fast-paced (due to stylus control instead of a thumbstick) and for giving you the stated benefits of having characters join your party. The PSP version looks and sounds prettier, but I'd rather have the gameplay, thanks.

Puzzle Quest is not a perfect game. Apart from all of the documented bugs, it would be nice if you could turn off hints and puzzle-blocking text that appears when you match 4 or 5 gems. Battles do get easier as you advance, though part of the appeal of puzzle games is repetition and relatively easy success. It's a great game to relieve stress and zone out for awhile. And there are unexpected twists to savor. One of the greatest joys I found was after mastering the Stun spell and using it successfully to keep my opponents from having too many opportunities to attack, I met a Fire Elemental who regularly blocked it and took my moves away from me. I had to devise a new strategy on the fly, avoiding any spells requiring red mana that he could block and swipe my turn.

I'm 30 or so hours into the main quest, and I've barely scratched the surface. And even if I do win, I'll probably trade my knight for a druid and start again from the beginning. This is a game I can see myself still playing years from now. Highly recommended, if you can find it.

Too busy to devote 12+ hours a day to your gaming habit? Here's a review that's sensitive to your needs: Short and focused on just the things that a busy gamer like you really needs to know.


Busy Gamer Review-
Crackdown

Reviewed On: Xbox 360

In a Nutshell: It's a third-person shooter like no other. You are a cybernetic government agent bent on cleaning up a futuristic city overrun by three rival gangs. You can go straight for the biggest bosses from the beginning, but you'll more than likely lack the stats to pull it off. That's right, it's a shooter RPG where you level up your agility, firearms, explosives, driving and hand-to-hand combat skills by using them and collecting special power-up orbs scattered around the cityscape. You'll start by jumping single-stories and eventually 30 feet or more into the air, making rooftop travel both practical and intensely enjoyable. Unlike Grand Theft Auto and its many clones, there are no real missions to speak of - just random street violence, timed races, stunt challenges, achievements and, oh yeah, gang capos and bosses to wipe out at your earliest convenience. The game calculates your chance at success when you approach one of these baddies' strongholds, so if the odds aren't with you: a) simply dive in and try anyway or b) mess around to level up enough to improve your shot. There are no wrong answers, just opportunities. If you die, you respawn. You lose your progress with that boss and any gang weapons you haven't stowed at a supply point - but not much else.

Learning Curve: Easy. You can jump in and play pretty quickly, but mastery will take some time. A disembodied voice in your character's headset will coax you toward the next mission and nearby objectives, or you can simply mess around and explore the game at your own pace.

The Save Game: You can quit and save your progress anywhere, with two caveats: 1) You lose any progress you've made toward taking down a boss or capo, so if you're two seconds from wiping out the head of the Volk's munitions trade when your five-year-old wanders into the room, you're going to need to leave it on pause or start your raid over later. 2) The game is incredibly hard to put down, so you may find that a few minutes of rooftop orb collecting turns into a few hours of intensely satisfying mayhem. The whole game can be beat in about 10 hours if that's all you want to do, but you'll probably spend much than that building up your stats and just having fun with car stunts, rocket launchers, races and exploration.

Family Factor: Not for young ones, though teens may be OK with some adult supervision. Violence against civilians is frowned upon and even punished in the extreme, so mostly you're just wiping out low-level scum bags without any regard to their civil rights or due process. If you're OK with that, you'll have a blast - literally and figuratively.

Buy, Rent or Skip? A solid rental, though you may want to buy it either for the Halo 3 beta (if you can still find a copy that includes it) or if you love true sandbox games. This is a good one to tinker with for weeks or even months, and it can even be played cooperatively with another gamer - just not on the same console.

On a Personal Note: I downloaded the demo and tried it for a few minutes (all I could spare at the time), but wasn't impressed enough to keep going. After hearing all of the buzz about leveling up and developing superhuman jumping skills (not to mention the Halo 3 beta), I was intrigued enough to pick up the full game. And I'm glad I did. This is hands-down the best third-person shooter I've played (I normally prefer the first-person variety) with the coolest city exploration. Jumping from rooftop to rooftop, tossing remotely triggered limpet mines at clumps of distant foes, using the Firefly rocket launcher to propel enemies into the air for 15-20 seconds (one of the cooler achievements), jacking gang member cars and then running them down to boost my driving prowess, these are a few of my favorite things. And I can do them for hours without getting bored. A great stress reliever, it's like solitaire with guns.

Too busy to devote 12+ hours a day to your gaming habit? Here's a review that's sensitive to your needs: Short and focused on just the things that a busy gamer like you really needs to know.


Busy Gamer Review-
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Reviewed On: Wii. Also available for GameCube.

In a Nutshell: Link is back, and he's badder than ever. Forget the kiddified cel-shading of The Wind Waker. This is an epic battle between the forces of light and dark, with giant boar-riding baddies who resemble Orcs and look like they could snap you in half like a twig. The game is full of interesting twists, often sending you on a quest only to quickly divert you to another more pressing matter. Dungeons are deep, dark and diabolical enough to warrant the extra expense for the official licensed guide, though frequent trips to Gamefaqs will offer mostly the same benefit without the maps and pretty pictures. There are vast amounts of gameplay - simply exploding an oddly placed boulder can open up a cave that takes half an hour or more to explore. The real game doesn't even start until after about 20 hours, when most of Hyrule will finally be open and you'll have access to the majority of your gizmos required to access obscure areas. Speaking of which, many of Link's classic toys (hookshot, boomerang, bombs) are back, though utilized in cool, new ways. And there's a new gadget called the spinner that unlocks a unique method of exploration and one of the most satisfying boss battles ever.

Learning Curve: Moderate. The game's controls are very easy to pick up, though they'll take some time to master. In fact, any fears you have about the Wii's motion-sensing remote and nunchuk will be quickly mollified by playing this game for a few hours. New items and advanced moves are unlocked very gradually over time, giving you plenty of practice before a new one comes along. Even so, a few of the later boss battles and puzzles may leave you scratching your head. The good news is that there are plenty of side quests and areas to explore, so you can take some time off from the main storyline until that moment of epiphany arrives.

The Save Game: You can save almost anywhere, with a few caveats. Saving stores your status, but not your exact location - so you'll appear at a predesignated spot in the town or province you're visiting. If you save while in a dungeon, you'll start back at the first room no matter how deeply you've explored it... unless you find a strange little bird called the Ooccoo. This will let you teleport out, saving your location in the dungeon. Just don't walk in the front door when returning, or he will meet you there and you'll lose your place!

Family Factor: Much of the time, you will want to keep the wee ones far from your Wii. Some of the cut scenes (which may be triggered without warning) are intense and show small children in peril. Beasties dot the landscape and attack almost constantly. You might be able to fish or roam a few small areas while your toddler watches, but most of the time you'll want to keep all but the older kids away.

Buy, Rent or Skip? If you can't resist donning the green suit of Link once more, definitely buy this game. There's so much to do, you'll need more than a rental period to play through the story and activities - including fishing, bug collecting, mini-games and a 50-room cavern filled with increasingly difficult opponents. But much like Oblivion, I have to caution that you will sacrifice your free time and sleep for days or even weeks as you try to find one more golden bug or just get to that creature who lets you save your spot in a dungeon before powering down. Also, the final level and ending are somewhat unsatisfying, and there's no provision to continue exploring after you beat the last boss - except to load your prior save. But the majority of the game is addictive and wholly enjoyable. If it weren't 40-60 hours long, it would be easy to recommend. But a game this good and deep and time-consuming can suck away your life, so it's wise to go in with your eyes open. If you can schedule a week's vacation to play through it, enjoy! Otherwise, meet your new best friends: the power nap and the triple-shot espresso.

On a Personal Note: Playing this game nearly every night and much later than I should have (or would have if I were currently employed), I developed a severe ache in my upper bicep and shoulder that waxed and waned depending on how many hours I logged. Ice packs and heat wraps helped, but I can't help but wonder if the Wii-mote will ultimately strengthen the affected muscles over time or if it's more prone to repetitive stress injury than my other game systems. Time will tell, but I hope it's the former since I really enjoyed this game on the Wii and sincerely hope there will be more experiences like it down the road.

Too busy to devote 12+ hours a day to your gaming habit? Here's a review that's sensitive to your needs: Short and focused on just the things that a busy gamer like you really needs to know.


Busy Gamer Review-
WTF

Reviewed On: PSP

In a Nutshell: If your full-time work isn't tedious enough, you can pick up some odd jobs from the folks at Work Time Fun, a demonic temporary placement agency. At any moment there are four job positions (aka mini-games) available, and you can unlock more by feeding your ridiculous pittance they call a paycheck into coin-operated vending machines that suck up $1 per capsule all the way up to $50. More often than not, you'll collect junk that's simply catalogued and filed away, but every so often you'll unlock a new job or gadget to play with. Alas, these "jobs" tend to be very short and not much fun. You can put caps onto thousands of pens, or try to shag baseballs for as long as you can without a miss. Chop wood (but not the fuzzy stuffed animals that bleed when struck!) or find just the right target to hit with a "happy bullet." There are also "tools" that are quasi-useful: a flashlight mode where you choose the color you want your PSP screen to illuminate the world, a sexy Ramen noodle timer and even a set of customizable eyeballs to pay attention to you when no else will. Finally, you're continually harangued by "friends" via e-mails that provide tips and inane chatter but occasionally penalize or reward you.

Learning Curve: Each of the 35 single-player and five multiplayer games has its own rules, but most are reasonably easy to pick up - though some can take far too long to master.

The Save Game: Like all PSP games, you can hit the power switch at any time to put your game into sleep mode. As long as your battery holds out, so will your progress. But the game saves your status (or lack thereof) as you go, and most mini-games don't last more than a few minutes - so at least you won't lose any of that hard-earned money from the pen cap factory.

Family Factor: The game designers tried to make this somewhat family friendly, but the sniper rifle (even though it shoots "happy bullets") and stuffed animals that bleed might be a little much for the smaller kids peering over your shoulder while you work. Fortunately, you can usually pick a less violent and tediously boring task until they lose interest, which shouldn't take long.

Buy, Rent or Skip? Skip it, unless you really enjoy zoning out to mindless repetition. And even then, this game is actually a bit too muddled and uneven to earn you any real Zen. OK, so the Ramen timer is actually pretty funny, but hardly 30 bucks funny. If you must see for yourself, rent it first (say, from Gamefly.com) just to be sure you understand what you're getting yourself into. Even then, it's not worth more than maybe $10 - so see if you can find a deal on it used.

On a Personal Note: I rented this game on a whim while I was unemployed, thinking it might be an interesting diversion while I job searched. Boy was I wrong! Even my worst job as a teenager wasn't as bad as this. I do sometimes enjoy vegging out with games that have a certain repetitive quality - I recall a job eons ago where I killed time with Windows solitaire while waiting hours each week for my publisher to sign off on completed projects. But playing this game really felt like a chore. Seriously, if you're looking for odd jobs, I can hook you up. Don't get suckered into putting caps on virtual pens for hours on end just to earn enough scratch for one lousy $50 trinket. WTF indeed!

Too busy to devote 12+ hours a day to your gaming habit? Here's a review that's sensitive to your needs: Short and focused on just the things that a busy gamer like you really needs to know.


Busy Gamer Review-
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Reviewed On: Xbox 360. Version for PC includes a free construction set for creating your own levels and enhancements, and support for third-party downloadable mods. A version for PlayStation 3 is in development and promises enhanced content over the Xbox 360 (although this content may be available for purchase as downloadable content from Xbox Live Marketplace). There's also a version in development for the PSP, The Elder Scrolls Travels: Oblivion, which will offer significantly different gameplay.

In a Nutshell: Explore a vast world in this incredibly deep single-player adventure game. The main quests require 20+ hours to beat, but the game can easily be played for more than 200 hours if you take on countless side quests and downloadable add-on missions (see related Rant about how purchased downloadable content that affects your game saves may be problematic on the 360).

Thanks to occasional online patching via Xbox Live (you do have broadband, right?), Oblivion is much more stable than its Xbox predecessor, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, which crashed at the drop of a hat unless you took great pains to manage in-world items. This game looks even better and does away with many of its forebear's limitations. For instance, joining one guild does not block you from joining any of the others. Join 'em all, if you enjoy side quests, Xbox 360 achievements and/or access to helpful rewards and free stuff!

The game is incredibly well-written for a video game with great storytelling mostly through in-depth discussions with non-player characters and in-game "books" that you can actually read, engaging quests and mini-games and thousands of paths to explore - figuratively and literally. You can be a fighter, an archer, a magic-wielding mage, a sneak thief, an assassin or any mix of these player types that you choose to pursue. Just creating a character (selecting your race, stats and various major and minor attributes) can take the better part of an hour as you work through the opening tutorial storyline.

Learning Curve: Moderate. The Xbox 360 controls feel like most first-person shooters, so getting around is pretty easy if you're at all skilled at Halo. Plumbing the hidden depths of the game, however, could take a lifetime - or at least the better part of a year even for a somewhat aggressive player.

The Save Game: You can save anywhere at anytime. You will need approximately 1MB per save, so you'd best have a hard drive or your memory card will fill up fast. Since the game has so many choices, and there's always the risk of a crash, you may want to keep old saves for awhile until you're certain that you made the right decisions - or at least the odd case where something gets horribly mucked up, ruining a quest or trapping you in a narrow alleyway. Fortunately, the game autosaves whenever you sleep or enter a location, so you're typically covered should your character - fashioned through days and days of careful leveling up - unexpectedly expire.

Family Factor: Older teens can handle the somewhat bloody medieval-style battles you'll engage in against humanoids and sometimes chilling monsters and beasties. Young kids should be kept far away pretty much all of the time; even simply traveling around town talking to civil servants or taking a rest in a rented bed can lead to sudden, unexpected battles. And walking or riding across the countryside spawns attacks from random creatures, many of which will take some work to escape or dispatch. If you want to play it safe, enjoy Oblivion only when the little ones are tucked away safely in their beds.

Buy, Rent or Skip? Your first instinct as a busy gamer - best expressed by Monty Python when faced with a killer rabbit - should be to "run away, run away!!!!" This game can and easily will consume every waking moment you can spare, and quite a few that you rightfully should not. Its depth rivals many massively multiplayer online worlds, and the urge to just play for "five more minutes" can easily take you into the wee hours of the morning, leaving you useless the next day at work or around the house. Oblivion, it might be argued, is quite well named since it can easily sap your real world stats! That said, if your personal willpower is sufficiently leveled and you feel you can take advantage of Oblivion's "save anywhere" capability, this game is immensely fun and rewarding. It's a must-buy if you can afford the personal cost - measured in hours sucked away and your ability to take on the day following a long-night's questing - that's required to play.

On a Personal Note: I took so long to review this game because: a) I had a life when it came out, so I used what little willpower I could muster to stay far away from it for long stretches, and b) I wanted to wait until I'd logged 40 or more hours before writing it up. I was also put off by my early attempts at thievery, which failed due to low sneak stats. It just seemed unreasonable that I would be caught by a street guard in the basement of an alchemy shop in the dead of night after successfully picking two locks without detection. However, since leveling up my thief skills, I can now pick most locks and steal from shops with impunity, sometimes right under the shopkeeper's nose!

Right now, I'm a Level 13 Khajiit (anthropomorphic cat) fighter/mage/thief/assassin who favors the blade, acrobatics, light armor, blocking, restoration magic, sneaking, athletics, alchemy (for poisons and stats-restoring potions), speechcraft (to sweet talk shopkeeps into offering their best prices) and mysticism (for detecting life when breaking into homes and shops or scouting a dungeon or cavern). My entry into the Dark Brotherhood came late, but it's a twist I wish I had chosen earlier due to its many benefits - enchanted armor and trinkets in particular. I waited until an odd little side quest gave me a reason to murder a character for both a hefty payout and a more satisfying story outcome.

Despite improved stability over Morrowind, I have encountered a few game lock ups personally. One happened the very first day I played upon activating a strange rune stone that I found near a quest city; that bug has reportedly been fixed. Another came just the other day when exiting a shop I had visited several times before without incident. Fortunately, my autosave was intact, so I lost no real progress and the game continued (albeit a bit sluggishly for a bit) after rebooting.

This is one of the few games for which I would recommend buying the official strategy guide. It's a convenient reference for creating a new character, and when you inevitably get lost on a mission or forget which Mage's Guild sells Destruction spells - which you WILL need in case you ever encounter a conventional weapon-dodging Will o' Wisp in, say, a tomb in the bowels of an abandoned fort (grrr!!). Another great resource is the free Unofficial Elder Scrolls Oblivion Wiki (though my last few visits have caused Internet Explorer 6 to crash; hopefully this is temporary issue).

Overall, Oblivion is the deepest, most fulfilling game I've ever played. I just wish there were more hours in the day.

Too busy to devote 12+ hours a day to your gaming habit? Here's a review that's sensitive to your needs: Short and focused on just the things that a busy gamer like you really needs to know.


Busy Gamer Review-
Burger King Games: Sneak King, Pocket Bike Racer and Big Bumpin'

Reviewed On: Xbox 360. Also available for original Xbox.

In a Nutshell: Burger King has put out three adver-games for the Xbox and Xbox 360, and the kicker is that they get you to pay for them TWICE. Depending on who's working the counter when you go in, you must purchase up to three value meals to get the three games plus shell out $4 apiece for the games themselves. (Each disc contains both Xbox and Xbox 360 versions.) So, are they worth it?

Sneak King is a single-player stealth game, though unlike Solid Snake and Sam Fisher you must tiptoe as the creepy plastic-faced King to deliver artery-clogging food instead of instant death. There should probably be a rule against surprising people who subsist on Burger King fare - you might trigger a cardiac arrest (bonus points?!). You'll explore four different environments (logging camp, construction site, suburban neighborhood and downtown block), each packed with hiding places such as trash cans and cabins for the King to pop out of while delivering his heavily branded fare. The challenges are surprisingly fun with difficulty that ramps up as you progress, but the game is hobbled by a hard-to-manage camera that's backwards from the accepted norm and can't be changed. Achievements on the 360 version are pretty free-flowing; you'll get the majority of the 200 available points in an hour or so.

Pocket Bike Racer has you perched on a tiny but fast motorbike as you blast through increasingly treacherous courses. You can play as The King, spokesmodel Brooke Burke, or a BK-branded mascot or employee. Winning a race hinges on how well you corner, collect boost energy and use power-ups to take down your fellow racers. Alas, the play is very uneven and the tournaments long and easy to foul up. Unlocking anything in this game except for a few gimme achievements is difficult. The game's redemption comes from online (2-8) and local (1-4) multiplayer modes, should you have any friends who visit or were similarly suckered into buying these games.

Big Bumpin' will be familiar to fans of Fuzion Frenzy, and for good reason: It was developed by the same studio, Blitz Games. You battle in bumper cars against three other opponents in last man standing, power surge, hockey and keep-away modes. Brooke Burke is back, this time with prerecorded taunts to unleash on your foes. Again, multiplayer is where it's at with support for 2-4 local or online players. Playing against the computer isn't nearly as fun as with real people, probably for the same reason Fuzion Frenzy wasn't much fun alone - the computer knows how to exploit every opportunity and can easily kick your butt.

Learning Curve: All three games are easy to learn. Sneak King is simplest to pick up - just avoid the view cones in front of people and deliver food to those marked as hungry while following any challenge-specific rules. Pocket Bike Racer is your basic racer but with an array of complicated power-ups to master. Big Bumpin' actually has several gameplay modes, which may take awhile to get the hang of, but bashing bumper cars isn't rocket science - just grab some friends and start bumpin'.

The Save Game: All games save any progress after each round, which can take up to a few minutes to complete. Pocket Bike Racer and Big Bumpin' have tournament modes which you'll need to see through, so set aside 10-20 minutes for one of these.

Family Factor: The King is creepy enough to scare very small children, particularly in Sneak King and the opening screens of all three games. Big Bumpin' has firetraps, saw blades, explosions and shocks to avoid, and people get shocked and bombarded by bottle rockets in Pocket Bike Racer. But even the mild cartoon violence, as it's been labeled, is pretty tame. Overall, these are fine for the whole family if you can handle the inevitable requests by young ones for the greasy food they promote.

Buy or Skip? Rental isn't an option and these games are easy to skip unless you really love Burger King and/or collect odd marketing experiments. If you had to pick one, it would depend on your taste in games: Get Sneak King if you love stealth and exploration, Pocket Bike Racer if you're addicted to racing games or Big Bumpin' if you can't pass up a party game. Better yet, find a friend who has them and borrow the games for a weekend.

With Wiis and PS3s out of stock all over North America, here's a game that's been overlooked by most on a console that should be a lot easier to get your hands on (if you don't already have one). I recently dusted it off after ignoring it most of last winter, and I was glad I did!



Too busy to devote 12+ hours a day to your gaming habit? Here's a review that's sensitive to your needs: Short and focused on just the things that a busy gamer like you really needs to know.


Busy Gamer Review-
Amped 3

Reviewed On: Xbox 360

In a Nutshell: Edgy, arcade-style snowboarding action. The opening is spellbinding and funny: Manfred Mann's Blinded By The Light fades up as you ascend a mountain ski lift... in a giant pink bunny costume! The song continues as you execute your first challenge, to the amusement of other boarders. Then some wacky cut scenes kick in as the game proves immediately that it's like no other snowboarding game you've ever played. Alas, later scenes lose their entertainment value as an inane storyline takes a few uninteresting twists. But the game is still compelling as you embark on a variety of challenges to gain respect, awe bystanders and unlock music, gear and new mountain areas to explore. There are seven mountains, and some contain as many as four areas. And there are hundreds of challenges to keep you busy. Besides, there hasn't been a new snowboarding game in a couple years, and nothing as fresh as this since SSX Tricky.

Learning Curve: Pretty easy to pick up if you've ever played a snowboarding or skateboarding game before. It's also much easier to play than its predecessors (Amped, Amped 2), which were both less forgiving and harder to master than pretty much any other game in this genre. If you're a novice boarder, you'll improve your skills in stages, and fortunately there are many challenges to choose from if you find one you're stuck on one. Spend some time on some easier tasks and then come back to it. As a last resort, you can actually modify the courses in Build Mode to make it easier to beat a particularly vexing mission!

The Save Game: This game saves constantly! Just select the Trail Map and it will auto-save anything you've done. A great game to play for a few minutes or a few hours.

Family Factor: The cut scenes are a bit off the hook; no doubt the producers watch a lot of Robot Chicken and Aqua Teen Hunger Force on Adult Swim. The videos' violence, crude humor and suggestive themes are where it earns its Teen rating. Basically, keep the pre-teens away from the main story objectives and the My Stash area, if you've unlocked any videos there. Simply sailing down the mountain and performing tricks and side-missions are pretty tame and fun for the whole family.

Buy, Rent or Skip? If you're a snowboarding fan who likes to explore every nook and challenge, this is a buy (and a great deal at $30-40 new or $20-30 used!). If you just want a quick diversion and plan to tear through the main story, you can rent it and beat it in 8-10 hours. But there's 20+ hours of gameplay here overall, plus decent replay value.

Too busy to devote 12+ hours a day to your gaming habit? Here's a review that's sensitive to your needs: Short and focused on just the things that a busy gamer like you really needs to know.


Busy Gamer Review-
Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis

Reviewed On: Nintendo DS

In a Nutshell: This is a puzzle platformer in the vein of The Incredible Machine and Eets, this time putting you in charge of little wind-up Mario toys to maneuver past many obstacles to each level's exit. There are 80 levels divided into eight floors (each introducing new themes and game elements), with a mini-boss battle against DK before advancing to the next set of challenges. It all builds up to a final DK boss level that's reminiscent of the original Donkey Kong arcade classic, but with a few new but enjoyable twists - such as hammers that you can toss, catch and re-use. And if you beat the game, you can unlock two bonus boss levels that are also updates of the original Donkey Kong/Mario arcade rivalry. For nostalgic Nintendo fans, these are worth slogging through the game to reach!

Learning Curve: Varies - some levels are easy to pick up, while others introduce a lot of new elements that must be learned and mastered to get a passable score. Fortunately, you only need a single Mario toy to exit the level to proceed, but if you want to play the bonus levels you'll need to score gold stars by picking up coins and earning time, chain and nonstop bonuses. The later levels are much easier than some of the middle ones - either that, or my overall mastery improved by the time I got there. Whichever it is... once you feel the game getting easier, you're pretty much home free.

The Save Game: As with any DS game, you can snap the portable shut to save your progress instantly (as long as your battery doesn't run out). The game also saves after each stage, which typically lasts only a minute or so. And there are two extra save slots if family members want to play too.

Family Factor: It's typical Nintendo fare, though very small kids may be disturbed to see Mario toys snap, smash and incinerate.

Buy, Rent or Skip? This is a solid rental. For one thing, you may not immediately like the game dynamic, which is clearly an acquired taste. Also, it can be easily beaten (except for the bonus levels) in a few days if you're persistent. The only thing that extends its value is the rich level editor that enables you to create, share and download new levels over a Wi-Fi Internet connection. If you've always wanted to be a game level designer, this is your chance! If you can't find a video store that rents DS titles, there's always Gamefly.com.

Too busy to devote 12+ hours a day to your gaming habit? Here's a review that's sensitive to your needs: Short and focused on just the things that a busy gamer like you really needs to know.


Busy Gamer Review-
Tomb Raider: Legend

Reviewed On: Xbox 360. Versions also available for GameCube, PS2, PC, PSP and original Xbox. Versions on the GameBoy Advance and Nintendo DS are significantly different.

In a Nutshell: Run around as Lara Croft. Jump, shoot, swing and slide. Pick up treasures. Try not to get killed. Unlock slinky costumes. Unfurl a well-acted, somewhat interesting story that explore Lara's troubled past.

This game is actually quite enjoyable, if you can forgive some minor quirks and confusing puzzles. You'll most likely be running to Gamefaqs.com in search of your next step or a hard-to-get treasure at least a half a dozen times over the course of the game. Motorcycle levels are a nice diversion, though pretty unchallenging. Levels are thoughtfully arranged and include fun diversions such as climbing a Yakuza skyscraper in Japan and rooting around a cheesy, rundown King Arthur museum in England. Small sections of the game require quick button presses in response to onscreen cues - with the penalty of a long reload if you miss a step. The boss battles are remarkably easy to figure out (well, except for one) though most are challenging and fun - except for the final boss, who is embarrassingly simple to dispatch.

Overall, the fun parts outweigh the frustrating parts.

Learning Curve: In-game help will ramp you up on Lara's moves slowly over the first few levels, but it's mastery of these core skills that will get you good enough to beat the game. You'll want to replay the earlier levels once you know your way around - they're actually much more fun when you're not constantly falling to your death!

The Save Game: You can save progress only after reaching a checkpoint. Most checkpoints aren't too far apart, but you may have to sacrifice some advancement (including rewards found since the last checkpoint) if a little one wanders into the room or needs you attention. Once you beat the game, you can replay levels and save rewards as you go.

Family Factor: The rating is T for Teen with warnings about blood, violence, language and suggestive themes. Basically, your standard action adventure fare - if your kids' entertainment includes shooting bad guys and very light swearing, you're OK. In fact, older kids might even help you figure out some of the harder puzzles! The Croft Manor playground section is tame enough that even young ones can watch - you do use guns to blast open a few secret areas, but otherwise there's nothing to disturb a toddler.

Buy, Rent or Skip? This game is a borderline buy. If you find it for less than $30, snap it up. Otherwise, rent unless you're a die-hard Lara Croft fan or you adore time trials and like to earn every unlockable item. The main game can be beat in 10-12 hours easily on standard difficulty, but replaying it at the hardest level and knocking out the timed runs will give you another 10 hours or so of play.

Too busy to devote 12+ hours a day to your gaming habit? Here's a review that's sensitive to your needs: Short and focused on just the things that a busy gamer like you really needs to know.


Busy Gamer Review-
Cooking Mama

Reviewed On: Nintendo DS

In a Nutshell: Cook recipes (mostly Japanese fare with a few Western dishes thrown in) by playing mini-games that simulate each preparation step. Measure water and rice, bread meats, butter frying pans and cook items Dance Dance Revolution-style with a meter that marks a short opportunity to perform an action. Cooking Mama doesn't offer any real world recipes that you could make with the game's guidance. In fact, some of the steps are pure game balancing: Do you really need to repeatedly blow on boiling vegetables and adjust the stovetop temperature three times to create a perfect potato salad? Then again, it's a lot more fun than real cooking.

Learning Curve: Easy. You can pick this game up in moments, though mastering some recipe steps may take awhile. Some are embarrassingly easy (like setting the time on the microwave) while measuring ingredients, saut驮g and grilling foods are a bit more difficult. Fortunately, a convenient practice mode lets you repeat troublesome mini-games until you get the hang of them.

The Save Game: Since it's a DS game, saving your progress is as simple as snapping the system shut (which works fine unless the battery dies). The game saves your highest rankings and any new unlocked dishes between cooking sessions. The most complicated recipes take maybe 10 minutes to complete. So you won't have any problems if you need to pull yourself away, except for the temptation to finish just one more cooking step before, say, preparing a real meal for the family.

The only downside is that the game offers no save slots or player profiles, so you can't really share the game with other family members without them contributing to your game progress. There is a wireless demo feature if you have more than one DS and your family is happy to only sample the game. Otherwise, your only choices are to get more than one copy, or clear the save file when you're done with it.

Family Factor: The rating is E with a warning about alcohol use, but the only booze is cooking sherry. The most shocking parts include burning your hand with a hot potato or hitting it with a mallet while pounding rice. It's done in a cartoon style that's less frightening than pretty much anything you'd see on Saturday morning television. If junior takes a peek, there shouldn't be any mental scarring.

Buy, Rent or Skip? It's short, so rent it if you can find a place that offers DS games rentals (if all else fails, sign up for GameFly.com). If you really love cooking and mini-games, you may want to buy. It's only $20, and you might be able to score a used copy for less.

Introducing The Busy Gamer Review
I started this site as an aid to adult gamers who still want to keep one foot in the gaming world while they're busy with work, family and all of the other distractions of life. The news feed on this site is short and focused only on the biggest, most useful or important announcements and fun trivia to give you gamer cred at the water fountain.

As I've wrestled with staying an active gamer myself, I've found I wished someone would look out for my needs whenever I pick up or rent games that are, in truth, often designed for kids and very young adults who can devote a 12+ hour day to their gaming habits. Me, nowadays, I prefer games that are easy to pick up and even easier to put down and return to when I have a few spare moments for game time.

So I'm launching a new feature: Busy Gamer Reviews. Each write-up is not an exhaustive exploration of the depths of a game. Instead, it's a brief overview with a focus on how hard it is to learn, how engaging the early gameplay is and whether you're going to struggle to find a save point when the baby wakes up or you realize you're running late for work.

Let me know what you think and whether these help you maintain some game/life balance.

Busy Gamer Review-
Test Drive Unlimited

Reviewed On: Xbox 360. Versions for PC, PS2 and PSP due in October.

In a Nutshell: A sandbox racing game where you can explore and race across the entire Hawaiian island of Oahu. If you have Xbox Live Gold, you can share the experience, including your pimped out rides, with dozens of other real people logged into a shared server space.

This game is amazingly deep and addictive. Race the clock or other online players, collect cars and houses and pick up models and hitchhikers to earn coupons for trendy duds. You can drive anywhere at any time right from the start, but some features - like motorcycles, paint shops and certain cars - will take some time and effort to unlock.

Learning Curve: Easy, if you've ever played a racing game. Some of the deeper features may take awhile to figure out - a few are even counter-intuitive. But there's plenty of fun to be had right out of the box.

The Save Game: Saving happens almost constantly. Press the Start button and the game will autosave. Once that's done, you can turn off your console. You'll start back at your  house, but you can warp anywhere you've been so picking up your progress isn't a problem. The lack of a Quit option does mean that you may find yourself unable to easily walk away, but that's another problem.

Family Factor: The rating is E10+ for language and violence, but the game seems pretty tame overall. If you go online, some people may intentionally run into you, and headset audio is piped through your TV so you don't know what someone might say in front of your kids. But you can choose to play online or block voice from all but your friends, so this is a minimal risk.

Buy, Rent or Skip? Buy it if you love racing games or want to explore every nook and crevice of Oahu. If you're not sure, a rental should convince you.