Toys R Us Sale: The Reviews

Sort of.

Pikmin 2 is just a winner. I'm only 7 "days" into the game but it's just as fantastic as the first one (which I only ever rented and therefore never beat). The only things that don't make sense are the "daily" changes to the areas in which you explore. There is no logic to the way things change on "Earth". You just have to spend a day and visit and explore and hope something is new. Those Pikmin are still to cute, almost even for Nintendo.

Advance Wars 2 is also doing quite well in my night time ritual in bed. I also never beat the first edition of this little turn-based unit fighter. But only because it got too hard towards the end (which I think I was close too). I'm interested to see what new elements they have added, which being the second game on the same console, probably not very much. I should have gotten the DS version for that, I guess.

Bust-A-Move DS has Nicole entranced. I've only experience the multiplayer (single cart wireless) and I like the controls and the graphics and sound. I immediately noticed that it is impossible to win, only to lose. Get a couple of bubbles away from clearing the screen and a new line drops in.

So that leaves you with the lone interaction with your rival by throwing diamonds into their window (which I haven't figured out how you get those so quickly) that adds garbage to their screen. Nicole immediately thought it was a cheap tactic.

Also, the "next bubble" seems scripted. Almost like the game has figured out which bubbles are causing you the most trouble and feeding the correct supplement to you in an almost parental-food-airplane manner.

This "holiday weekend" we'll be toting along the DSsess (for Bust-A-Move, Advance Wars and Mario Kart) and the GameCube (Metroid 2 and Pikmin). Otis will be getting back Matrix: Path of Neo but only because I am more aware of the existence of other games. And my parents have access to the interweb now, so I won't be totally cut off from civilization.