The Premise

”Magic: The Gathering” honestly needs no introduction. It is the father of all CCGs (collectible card games) and over the 15+ years it has been sucking the wallets dry of die-hard fans, a number of attempts to bring the game to the video game market have been made, with the most high-profile being “Magic the Gathering: Battlemage” and “Magic the Gathering: Battlegrounds.” Both these titles strayed into real-time strategy territory and strayed too far from the core mechanic to be effective. Aside from Wizard of the Coast’s “Magic the Gathering: Online” players not wanting to shell out a lot of money to collect the cards haven’t been able to experience the game in a legal digital format, until now....

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I wouldn't exactly say that I'm a Japanese RPG addict but man, my game collection is full of them. No matter what console I own, if a J-RPG hits the American market it eventually finds a home somewhere on my game shelf. To that extent you bet Nippon Ichi Software has a proud section all its own. J-RPG fans generally celebrate when NIS America announces a new release, but is there latest effort really worth getting in a tizzy about? Sadly it's not.

Cross Edge is the latest NIS release and basically one of the only ones you're going to find on the PlayStation 3. Not only that, as its name loosely implies, this game is a crossing point for several other games. Capcom, Namco Bandai, Gust, Idea Factory, and (of course) NIS all come together in a weird form of amalgamation...

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What's It All About:
When I saw the title We Cheer I certainly wasn't excited, as cheerleading is possibly the last thing I want to take part in for a video game. When I saw the cover art, which could easily be mistaken as the packaging for a Bratz doll, my interest dipped even further. It felt a lot like something from the Imagine series, aimed squarely at young girls looking for something pink and fluffy to play. But in reality, it's a rhythmic movement game in a cheerleading packaging, which is an unfortunate case of bait and switch that will drive away people who might enjoy the game, and draw in players who can't keep up with the title's demands...

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Let's face the facts: bringing Rock Star's legendary Grand Theft Auto series -- a legacy of quality games plagued with scorn for its controversial content -- to Nintendo's family-friendly Nintendo DS handheld system is, well, an odd decision. Carrying over similar gameplay and graphical prowess to the PSP for its line of Liberty City / Vice City offshoots makes much more logical sense, largely because of the Sony handheld's demographic of teen-to-twenty-something males. When Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars was announced at E3 in 2008, it was uncertain what direction Rock Star and Nintendo would take the mature series on a touch-screen gaming console … mostly because of the ominous “gimmick” stigma firmly fixed on its potential output....

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The Game:
For those of you not in the know, the Guitar Hero series actually started on the PS2. The series has been available on next gen consoles since Guitar Hero II, so it's easy to forget, but to date, Guitar Hero and Rock The 80's were PS2 exclusives. Not only that, but Guitar Hero, II, and Rock The 80's consisted solely of covers, and all the way up to III and Aerosmith, you could only play the guitar parts (which, at the time, was entirely the point). In other words, in the wake of Rock Band and Guitar Hero World Tour, there were a whole series of games that felt outdated in one way or the other. Activision aims to rectify these issues with Guitar Hero Smash Hits.

Smash Hits isn't a bad idea: Take tracks from the first few games, make them master tracks...

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