Loyal robo-pets, soccer-playing androids and so many Baby Alive dolls have not come so far that an ancient advanced civilization in a game world can’t do better. In the world of Tokobot, archeologists have dug up the ancient advanced technology of magnetized, Bomberman-as-LEGO robots that take the player as leader of their a communal hive-mind. While I can’t elaborate much more on a story I don’t remember, we can view it as ancillary to the main action-attractions of this game. The versatile (and cute) AI’s follow you around and take the formations you choose to form bridges over gaps, ladders to unreachable heights, or spokes for your character to wield in whirling enemy death.

It’s an artistically-simple, but pretty enough game on PSP–meaning it’s a little weak for PS2 in Tokobot+ Plus, but graphics are graphics. The high point comes in the polygon deformation and transformation that ensues whenever you bonk your enemies, and the fluidity of animation in general. Cartoony and fun, the visuals indicate nonetheless accurately which objects you can interact with, how far to jump, and facilitate all the other requisite elements of a good platformer. Tecmo has never had a problem making a technically-competent game. Solve button-puzzles by assigning individual tasks to your wee charges, find and upgrade the Tokobots towards the ultimate goal, and um… enjoy.

With a vintage vehicle slated to roll off the line in two short weeks, Mega Man hype has hit a fever pitch. At least it has with me. Whether you celebrate with me or not, I’m starting early by revisiting the Blue Bomber’s other classic series, gathered (in large part) in Megaman X Collection. In reimagining their strongest-selling action series for the Super Nintendo in 1993, Capcom wound up creating an entirely more vicious, theatrical, and sophisticated animal. Unfortunately, it sort of broke loose and went on a rampage of mediocrity after X4–but, having come out before the PS2’s X7 and 8, the Collection only goes up to X6 anyway. That’s a lot of guaranteed good… seriously.The games paint a picture of humanity’s greatest hour, as a robotic race of ‘Reploids’ emerges to be tasked with all the hard menial labour we so want to escape, and with generally helping people. Early on, the series echoes Asimov’s short stories and foreshadows the dangers of mass production and free will among robots, which leads to an epidemic of virus-infected, ‘Maverick’ reploids. Later, I feel the creators lost sight of the most novel aspects of their creation and, most famously, just killed Zero off in every game to be brought back later. TOO much drama.The games are old, the graphics 16- to 32-bit 2-D. But like all Capcom efforts, they were well-executed at the time and remain the best-in-class today. They threw in the Rockman X3 CD audio and anime cutscenes for this release, and of course the later Playstation releases offer more where that came from. It’s all, uh, mega-rockin’. Plus there’s that crappy racing game that had previously only appeared in Japan and Europe to add some value to this package–but really, that’s what first, second, and third are for.

I admit, coverage here has tended heavily toward the most pick-up-and-play of titles. Today’s suggested gaming material ought to satisfy the want of blog and blog-readers’ alike for a game longer than a television commercial. It comes, after all, from a very cinematically-inclined developer. 

A tale of two warriors, tens of tournaments, tons of weapons and innumerable recruits, LucasArts’ turn-based strategy RPG, Gladius, equates to watching a Star Wars film somewhere between 20 to 50 times. While it boasts an original cast, setting, and storyline, Gladius’ battle system is greater still, built for solid, tactical appeal. As one would expect, sharp visuals (quite so by 2003 standards) and a blockbuster-scale soundtrack round out the package.

It’s easy, really, since your PS3 will emulate the PS2 and, depending on the model, more or less faithfully emulate its games. Now, the catch: when I’m eyeing a PS2 game I’d like to see upscaled, it’s most likely a game I’ve played before, its save file residing within the copious data on my Memory Cards. Out of the box, you’d have no choice but to start anew on your PS3 hard disk drive, because the PS3 doesn’t natively bear a Memory Card port. If I have to start over, I could just buy the newer, assuredly better version, right? (n.b.: not always right, so read on.)

Is this a scam to get you to shell out for another single-purpose, little plastic doohickey of dubious craftsmanship? Partly, but consider that the Sony Memory Card Adaptor for PlayStation3 is a fairly inexpensive investment, especially compared to new games, and well worth the money for anyone who’d still like to spin the oldies from the PS2’s tremendous game library.

Plus, as a first-party product with a very specific function, it can’t be that faulty… just, back up those saves early and often, wilya? It’s good practice anyway.

My soccer expertise may extend only as far as putting the spotted sphere into the netted receptacle, but I do know a fun game–better, apparently, than TopTenREVIEWS.com, and whatever reviews they pulled to get the mediocre average score seen here. The beauty of FIFA Street 2 is, someone like me can get out of it the same value as someone who posesses vast knowledge of line-side violations and player formations, or of the 320 professional ballers who make up the roster. (I don’t even know whether I’ve embarrassed myself in writing that sentence… )

This is not authentic football (yes! I know one F), and with no aspirations to that end, I have no problem understanding the self-evident truth of FIFA Street 2. EA BIG! has made it easy-to-play, pared it of anything but the primordial rules of competition, and given you the stats you need not to choose a crappy team (or purposely do so to equalize an uneven multiplayer playing field). Video tutorials and training modes ensure that you get a handle of Passing, Shooting, Tricking, and the rest, which mostly comprise single button presses and only ask that you do more complicated maneuvers for your own enjoyment. The graphics give national flavour to the venues, and as always, the players look and move pretty good. Character Creation and court customization can go a long way to making the Street games more fun–but like choosing a blue ball on the Amsterdam court, you’ll lose sight of the real fun if you tamper too much.

Just be sure to enjoy the beautiful game in 2, because apparently the recently-released third FIFA Street sucks.

What happens when an otherwise straight-laced racer gets the car chase treatment, with slo-mo stunts and spin-outs everywhere? When police choppers drop toxic barrels and the cops lay spike strips, but your flashy ride barely takes a lick? It’s Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2, the 2002 PS2/Xbox/Gamecube offshoot of EA’s long-running Need for Speed series that adopted wailing sirens, exotic sports cars, and the ability to use both as you either play the cop or the speed demon. Whether you throw everything you’ve got at some hapless speeder and bust them in ‘Be the Cop’ mode, or opt to test your memory of how to recover from a spin in the many Career modes, you’ll bank points towards the purchase fo specially-tweaked NFS edition cars and have a pretty damn good time of it, too. NFS HP2 omits the customization (read: ‘Pimp my Ride’) modes popularized in more recent games in favour of the real challenge of working with what you’re given and actually, y’know, racing. A good selection of original musical accompaniment and European-inspired tracks also encourage hitting the pavement, and probably help explain the game’s Greatest Hits status (which also makes it a steal.) Definitely a racing game worth owning.

In their rush to make it big first on the new hardware, a lot of the preponderance of early PS2 RPGs received some harsh critical panning. Shadow Hearts was not surprisingly among them–it showed hastily-drawn development lines around its every component, it had weak-to-crippling voice talent, and it barely eked past PS1 levels graphically-speaking. A sequel to Koudelka, a short PS1 RPG that had some reviewer difficulties of its own, Shadow Hearts may have seemed an unlikely candidate for a further sequel… but not to me.

I really enjoyed Shadow Hearts’ thematically-mature story of necromantic, murderous intrigue and dark contracts with destiny, despite all its less desirable qualities. When Aruze realized it had done something good, but just good enough, the idea clicked to work harder on the sequel, and Shadow Hearts: Covenant leaped and bounded past the previous production in all its values. Fully-voiced cutscenes with people who actually tried, seriously upgraded visuals that ditched the single-screen prerendered look for giant Christo-European locales, and an opening movie that kicks the crap out of everything edgey and angsty that Final Fantasy ever tried: this is what makes a Covenant. This is what makes you want to join it.

I can’t speak for the first two PS2 games, or about their Japanese PS1 predecessors, but I think Atelier Iris: Grand Phantasm is pretty charming… even if, for the most part, a lot of the charm has charmed us before. For all its many separate systems, Atelier Iris 3 is fun to learn and play, but understand that the greatest enjoyment of this game is had in completely exploiting the systems on an individual basis. Ignore any aspirations you have for a high-spun yarn and great technical merits, and be freed to mess around in a story vacuum and still accomplish something, as through the very addictive item mixing. With no random encounters and rarely any cutscenes to jar the flow, you’re free to take quests as you please or not; free to care, or just enjoy the challenge of the dungeons till your time is up.

Atelier Iris 3 combines the best of past innovations in quest-based dungeon-crawlers in a non-threatening, pleasant balance–not too tedious, and not too pushy towards your advancement. The RPG elements feel hand-picked with replayability foremost in mind, so although it really won’t win awards for originality, Atelier Iris 3 is a familiar sort of good.

If you’ve ever seen a captive marine mammal who reflected a small galaxy in its bulging brow, you had better go back to Sea World and Free Ecco. There have been several examples of the star-speckled-dolphin-turned-world-savior phenomenon, mostly dating from the Genesis era, when Ecco would do battle against the enigmatic Vortex in the world’s present and future oceans. These games held their appeal in casting the player as an acrobatic, lively, and decidedly free cetacean in a loosely-motivated, largely-undirected, but very daunting quest. A mystical, unnervingly-realistic entry into a scene full of anthropomorphic avatars, Ecco stood somewhat aloof and not fully understood for many years after the Genesis bowed out.

Like its predecessors, the latest (if now not-so-recent) Ecco the Dolphin game, subtitle: Defender of the Future, features endless blue skies and labyrinthine blue depths, where a lot of aquatic folk hang out but only a lone hero dares fight evil. That’s because evil consists of sharks as big as an oceanliner and eels that look like brontosaurus necks. It’s OK to muck around in Ecco’s first few levels and even later to take a moment and smell the sea lilies, but to linger unprotected in the open waters is essentially to become giganticized-sea-creature bait. But an empty air gauge and utter disorientation will kill you more than anything.

As you can see, this game is fun beyond compare disguised in an unexpected survival-horror nightmare It is very important you play it.

So over the past 10 years, you’ve somehow avoided owning the three Metal Gear Solid games and their respective expansions (that’s VR Missions, Substance and Subsistence). That’s understandable–they’re pretty content-heavy, psychologically-demanding affairs, and full of those lovable, unpausable cutscenes the length of a short feature film. But have you considered that your act of evasion might have been your way of fulfilling the need for Tactical Stealth Action we all have in our lives? …cause that’s what it is.

So maybe you wisened up, got the ones you could find, and you just have some holes in this lineup of admittedly rare games. Well, as beloved as they are for their intelligent, slightly-futuristic-but-still-believable stories of covert missions, interpersonal drama, and philosophizing on the fundamental nature of humanity, it’s not hard to believe that people don’t resell ‘em. So what’s one to do?

It’s all in Metal Gear Solid: The Essential Collection now. You already know it and love it, or you just have yet to discover you do. This release is serious, fan-respecting business befitting the nature of the games–it even bears a PS1 reprint of the original game for full authenticity.

I’d talk more, but I’ve got a date with Solid Snake, now.