SKATE (T)
Rating: ****
Electronic Arts
Xbox 360
Five years ago, I never would’ve dreamed that a new skateboarding game could compete with the Tony Hawk franchise, but over the last few years the Tony Hawk series has gotten a little, well … stupid. The original Tony Hawk Pro Skater was a finesse game, but with the advent of the Underground spin-offs and their overwhelming Jackass influence (Bam Margera should never again appear in pixels), the series has firmly planted its groin on the handrail of wackiness.
Skate brings skill back to skateboarding. The controls focus on delicate handling of the thumbsticks, and where a Tony Hawk game would automatically fasten your board to whatever you were grinding, Skate makes you work for your tricks. Both graphics and physics are overwhelmingly realistic, and the open-ended world is so much fun to explore you may never even bother with the core missions. But if you do, you’ll find yourself competing in the X Games and a number of other daunting challenges, and none of them will involve Wee Man or lame, engine-propelled wheelchairs.
MEDAL OF HONOR: AIRBORNE (T)
Rating: **1/2
Electronic Arts
Xbox 360
Between the Medal of Honor, Call of Duty and Brothers in Arms franchises, I have killed more Nazis than there ever were. But here we are again, first-person shooting our way through war-torn Europe -- only this time we don’t merely spawn on the battlefield, we parachute there. Aside from that small, titular and rather insignificant change, it’s just more of the same tank detonating, sniper sniping, German blasting action we’ve seen countless times before.
DK JUNGLE CLIMBER (E)
Rating: ***1/2
Nintendo
Nintendo DS
The innovative GameBoy Advance title, DK: King of Swing gets a Donkey Kong Country makeover in DK Jungle Climber, and the result is an engaging platformer/puzzle game that pushes the DS to its attractive graphical limits. For the uninitiated, the game’s unusual shoulder-button control scheme will take some getting used to, but climbing your way to infinite bananas is definitely worth the trouble.
SONIC RUSH ADVENTURE (E)
Rating: ****
Sega
Nintendo DS
Sega’s spry hedgehog mascot has had an uneven track record lately, but when Sonic’s games are done right, they still create quite a rush. This particular gorgeous entry in the series dashes back and forth between insanely fast 2D platforming and many 3D mini-games and boss battles. What ensues is one of the Blue Blur’s best adventures since his Sega Game Gear days. Excellent level design insures that you won’t miss much during your speedy exploits, and whatever you do miss is worth revisiting.
When Las Vegas Weekly contributor Matthew Scott Hunter realized his career as a lab technician was seriously interfering with his gaming, he pink-slipped himself into a successful career as a freelance writer. Bug the hell out of him at [email protected]