The X Button

Universal Defender

Yes, it's that time of year. New releases are thin on the ground, and I've decided I'd sooner write about a Jurassic Park title than an Xbox Live game that's just Pong with anime-girl artwork. Jurassic Park: The Game is also notable for the horrible shitstorm it caused when two Telltale Games staff members reviewed it glowingly at Metacritic. The reader backlash was swift and possibly a little two harsh, as the game's been savaged by many who are simply upset at Telltale's covert operations. Is it really that bad? Well, it adapts the most appealing part of Jurassic Park by setting itself during the events of the first movie. Jurassic Park: The Game avoids nearly all of the established characters and sticks to new events, as park veterinarian Gerry Harding and his daughter Jess are stuck on the island after hacker Dennis Nedry (who's only seen in the game post-mortem) shuts off the power. The two of them band together with other stranded park staff and secret agents, finding their way through the puzzles and quick-time events of an adventure game.

Telltale's made some decidedly enjoyable story-driven adventures in the past, but the developer can't quite do the same for Jurassic Park. Perhaps that's because the franchise doesn't lend itself to clever puzzles and witty humor as well as Sam & Max or Wallace & Gromit. While the game is blessedly free of scenes where raptors are defeated by the power of teenage gymnastics, it's still much like a cheap licensed novel in the story department. This tends to drag down the game mechanics as well, as they're solid but not terribly remarkable. And it also highlights one of the grander annoyances with the Jurassic Park films: no one is armed all that well.

Ask a Sonic the Hedgehog fan about the best game in the series, and you'll probably get a long and frightening explanation about how one of Sega's icons went from stunning action-platform games to mediocre 3-D hackery where he's in love with a human princess. Somewhere in all of that, however, you'll probably hear either Sonic the Hedgehog 2 or Sonic CD praised as the apex of the whole franchise. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 already arrived on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live, and now Sega's giving the same treatment to Sonic CD. While many showcase games for the Sega CD were tedious full-motion-video slogs, Sonic CD simply took the mechanics of a traditional Sonic and enhanced them with CD-based music and a unique time-travel mechanic. Sonic still spins and dashes through colorful stages of evil robots, but convenient signs allow him to travel to the past and future of each level. If the right enemies are destroyed in the past, the future levels are also altered, and so is the overall tone of the game.

For Sonic CD's debut on PSN and Xbox Live (and more), Sega upgraded the game's graphics to a hi-res mode, though players can switch it off if they prefer the original. The game's Japanese soundtrack is also intact, which should soothe longtime Sonic geeks still smarting over the music used in the American version back in 1993. Sega also adds Miles “Tails” Prower as a playable character once the game's completed, which brings the whole experience just a little closer to Sonic 2. The Xbox Live version of the game should be up at this writing, and it's hard to imagine Sega screwing up a remake that needs as little meddling as Sonic CD.

Voltron: Defender of the Universe takes no great risks in pumping the player full of nostalgia. It has the exact same title as the '80s cartoon staple (spliced from a more violent anime series), and it even starts with the cartoon's original opening. Not a newly animated CG version of the intro or anything like that, mind you. It's the same slightly washed-out footage that opened every episode of Lion Force Voltron in the 1980s. This carries over into the game itself, where clips of the show play, phrases like “Megathrusters are go!” flash on the screen, and the pause button summons Peter Cullen's baritone to reassure you that Voltron will be back after these messages.

Beyond all the courting of Voltron fans, the game is routine. All five lions are playable in Robotron-like overhead stages, where one analog stick controls the creature and the other controls the direction it fires. Take too many hits, and the lion's pilot jumps out and runs around (also using Robotron controls) until the lion cools down enough to re-enter. It never quite reaches the giddy appeal of a cornball giant-robot cartoon, though there's something to be said for having five players tear through a battlefield at once. Less inspiring is the one-on-one mode that pits Voltron against a single Robeast. It looks (and plays) like a tech demo from 2004, and it's unfortunate that it's the showcase for the fully formed Lion Force Voltron. I can still sympathize with the designers, though. It's hard to create intricate levels when your lead character towers above just about every enemy and obstacle in the established universe.

I can't help but see a bit of Cadash, Taito's old side-scrolling adventure game, in the Trine series. Much like Cadash, Trine distills the elements of a fantasy title down to platform-jumping and combat, though it adds more puzzles. And much like Cadash, Trine has several distinct character classes with distinct specialties: jovial Pontius is an armored knight with several melee weapons, weary Amadeus is an creative wizard, and incorrigible thief Zoya has arrows and a grappling hook. Trine doesn't have Cadash's references to Carl Sagan (for the TurboGrafx version) or uniform dialogue that refers to a female character as “a brave man,” but some things are lost over time.

Trine's three playable characters return for sequel, and it's once again a journey through 2-D stages rendered in beautiful 3-D style. The glowing environments brim with detail, and the various characters all offer good variety, using weapons and spells to solve puzzles just as often as they destroy foes. The storyline offers little attraction, though it's good-natured about it all, and Pontius sounds like he stepped out a Discworld cartoon. It's also not half-bad as a multiplayer game, though only the Mac and PC versions can share a gaming session. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are still worlds apart.