As it turns out, Wii Fitness for Dummies is a worthwhile investment for those planning on incorporating the Wii Fit into their daily exercise routine. The book was written by Christina and Bill Loguidice, both of whom are American Fitness Training of Athletics (AFTA) Certified Personal Trainers. Christina has a degree in English and a Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do. Bill is the Managing Director of Armchair Arcade, a popular video game-related site, and a degree in Communication. If any two people on the planet were qualified to write this book, it’s these two.

Wii Fitness for Dummies primarily focuses on three Wii titles: Wii Fit Plus, EA Sports Active Personal Trainer, and Jillian Michaels Fitness Ultimatum 2010. The book is broken down into four sections, with one dedicated to each of these titles and a fourth containing some additional follow up information. Each of the three aforementioned exercise titles are covered in great detail. Each section begins with a chapter titled “Getting Started” that introduces each program, walks readers through basic configuration, and explains the different parts of the program. The chapters that follow explain every exercise offered, explaining the correct way to perform each one and ways to get additional benefits from your efforts.

This book will likely appeal to two separate demographics: Nintendo Wii owners who want to start exercising, and people who exercise looking to add a Nintendo Wii to their routine. Fortunately, Wii Fitness for Dummies has something to offer to both groups. While those who already own and are familiar with the Nintendo Wii may find the parts about getting Wii Fit up and running a little dry, there are a lot of exercise related tips contained within that will help those people get the most out of their workouts. Likewise, those who already exercise regularly but are looking to add a Wii Fit into their daily routine may find the descriptions of the exercises redundant, but will surely appreciate the great detail that the Loguidices put in to walking people through each individual program. If you fall into other of those two demographics, reading this book can help you decide whether or not Wii Fit is a good “fit” for you — and if it is, it may also help you determine which specific exercise-related title may best meet your needs.

Wii Fitness for Dummies contains many black and white screenshots from each of the three games, along with several pictures of (I assume) Bill and Christine exercising their hearts out. Almost every two-page spread contains at least one screenshot, table, or photograph, so there’s plenty to look at other than the text. The book follows the conventions and lay-out of all books from the Dummies series; it’s organized logically and neatly, making the book easy to read and follow.

The last part of the book contains two “lists of ten”: the Ten Best Wii Fitness Accessories and the Ten Other Wii Fitness Workout Programs. I thought both of these were appropriate in include in the book. Additionally, I enjoyed the writing style of these last two chapters, which was slightly less formal than the rest of the book.

While it’s true that anyone can start exercising by simply picking up a Wii Fit and one of the games listed in this book, Wii Fitness for Dummies goes above and beyond by comparing the different titles, demonstrating the exercises, helping you set your fitness goals, and explaining how to assemble a workout that works best for you. For anyone considering the purchase of a Wii Fit or wanting to get the most out of one they already own, Wii Fitness for Dummies is not a dummy purchase at all.

I love a good tell-all autobiography. Sitting right next to me on my bookshelf are titles like “Clapton,” “Hawk,” and “The Men Behind Def Jam.” Of course, expecting something straight forward from one of the world’s most chaotic individuals was just setting myself up for disappointment. Instead, “Serious As Dog Dirt” is a scrapbook chronicling the past 13 years of Bam’s life. An avid note taker, “Dog Dirt” contains nearly 300 pages from Bam’s personal calendars, with hundreds of handwritten diary entries and photographs included as well.

Acting as a crude “Keep Out” sign is a small drawing at the top of page one with two crossed pistols and a banner that reads “North Philly Faggot”. In other words, “Abandon all modesty, ye who enter.” Bam’s PG-13 gloves got left behind with MTV’s network censors, as the pages of this book are filled with stories of sexual escapades, drug and alcohol abuse, and worse. Next to one photo of Bam and his not-yet-then wife, the author has scribbled, “I knew this bitch was the one.” And directly on top of his wife’s picture, he’s written the three words every woman loves to hear: “I fucked her.”

For Bam’s true fans, there’s gold in these here hills. Some of the notes share stories or give insights that fans will recognize. Many of Bam’s calendar entries relate to specific events. One entry notes, “Saw My Chemical Romance and Avenged Sevenfold.” Another states Bam “went to 50 Cents house in Connecticut”. One amazing thing about the guy that you’ll learn is that there’s not a blank day on his calendar. Ever.

As I mentioned, there are also hundreds of photographs filling every page of the book. Few (if any) are captioned, so you just have to enjoy them for what they are. With so many candid photos, this is probably as close as you’re going to get to flipping through the guy’s personal family albums.

My biggest complaint about the book is that much of it is hard to read — not figuratively, but literally. It seems like many of the calendar pages were shrunk down to fit the book’s pages, leaving much of Bam’s handwriting nearly microscopic in size. Other pages feature notes written in light-colored markers, or text right down the middle of the book’s spine. Sometimes his handwriting is legible, other times, no so much. There’s nothing more frustrating than buying a book and not being able to make out the words!

One of my favorite parts of the book were the “Jackass Sketches”. Bam notes that it was too much work to try to explain many of the Jackass stunts in words, so he just started drawing them. Fans of the show will recognize some of them, while others have yet to be filmed. One of my personal favorites is the appropriately titled “Shit Catapult”, where some poor soul gets catapulted into a pile of … well, you know.

Reviews of the book on Amazon are split down the middle. Bam’s hardcore fans are rating the book five stars, while more casual customers are giving it a one. If your dream is to own a copy of Bam Margera’s personal scrapbook, then “Serious As Dog Dirt” is the book for you. It’ll make a great companion to the “tell-all” biography that’s bound to appear someday.

I didn’t get my own NES for many years after that, but it didn’t matter as all of my friends had them. In the spring of 1986, the gaming world was all about Super Mario Bros. Only the coolest kids could beat every level, find every last coin, and knew every hidden secret. By the time we had all mastered the first game, the quirky Super Mario Bros. 2 arrived. Back then none of us knew about the game’s Japanese origins … all we knew was that, it was different. While it wasn’t as good as the original, it held us over until the arrival of Super Mario Bros 3 — one of the best and most popular video games of all time.

Super Mario Bros 3 had it all. It took every single good thing from the first game and improved on it. There were more levels, more locations, more items … just more of everything. At a time when gamers were beginning to drown in mediocre platform games, Super Mario Bros. 3 redefined the genre and set the bar so high few games would ever come close in their design.

Nintendo stuck with the same formula with Super Mario World on the SNES, but has been tweaking it ever since. Super Mario RPG dropped Mario in a role-playing adventure, Super Mario Karts found Mario and his friends behind go-kart steering wheels … and then there was Mario Teaches Typing, which nobody found fun. On the Nintendo 64, Mario and his pals entered the third dimension. Super Mario 64 was heralded as a breakthrough in technology and game play. I hated it. Say what you want about the old 2D platform games, but at least I always knew which way to go. I found Super Mario 64′s levels confusing and frustrating; and, I found the graphics nauseating, literally. I couldn’t play that game more than five minutes at a time without getting motion sickness headaches. The series moved on, of course. There were more RPGs, more racing games, and the Smash Bros series of games.

Over the years, mainstream gaming has slowly left me behind. The Game Boy Advance was the last platform to embrace Nintendo’s 2D heritage. Their latest handheld console, the Nintendo DS line, has moved into the third dimension as well. The 2D platform was forgotten in favor of 3D adventures and 1st Person Shooters.

And that brings us to the New Super Mario Bros, which is, as far as I’m concerned, a gift from the gods. It honestly feels like a present for all old school gamers. And more than that, it feels like an apology. “We’re sorry you’ve had to endure stupid Mario games for the past 20 years. Please accept this awesome new title as a token of our appreciation.” Forget about Super Mario Galaxy. Forget about Dr. Mario. Forget about Mario playing tennis, basketball, or competing in the Olympics. New Super Mario Bros (NSMB) for the Wii might as well have been titled Super Mario Bros 4. As SMB3 was to SMB1, NSMB is to SMB3. It’s everything that game was and more.

NSMB begins as many of Mario’s adventures do — Princess Peach has been kidnapped by Bowser (again). The deja vu should hit you right around the time Mario drops into World 1-1 and you find yourself holding your Wiimote sideways like an old school NES controller. (You can also play the game using the two-fisted Wiimote/Nunchuck combination, but … why?) Unlike some of the more recent Mario games, there’s not much of a learning curve here. With only two buttons reachable with your right thumb, Mario is controlled the same way you controlled him twenty-five years ago. Of course it wouldn’t be a Wii game unless Nintendo forced us to wave the wand around for something, and NSMB is no objection. To pick up certain objects or fly as Propeller Mario, you’ll need to shake the Wiimote up and down.

Propeller Mario? Yes, that’s one of the new costumes you’ll soon find Mario wearing. Some old favorites like the mushroom, fireball flower and invincibility star have returned and appear alongside new ones like the propeller suit (an updated version of Mario’s old tanooki suit), an ice flower (an updated fireball shot that encases opponents in blocks of ice) and a penguin suit (an updated version of Mario’s frog suit).

The goal of each level in NSMB is, like always, to get to the end of the level before running out of time, collecting as many coins as possible along the way. In addition to the regular coins there are three semi-elusive gigantic coins that must be collected in order to unlock the ninth world. It seems pretty easy to stockpile extra men in the early levels, but you’ll need them in some of the games more treacherous ones. I am ashamed to admit about another feature I discovered: fail a level enough times and Luigi will appear and offer to walk you through it.

NSMB allows up to four people to play simultaneously, although getting that many people in the game almost guarantees frustration. With only two it’s much easier to stay together. With four, especially on the game’s auto-scrolling levels, it’s almost impossible to keep everyone together and every game quickly turns into a contest to see who can kill whom the quickest.

It’s old and it’s new, a retro throwback with updated graphics and sound, a new romp with old rules through new levels. Gamers who cut their teeth in 3D worlds may not appreciate it, but for those of us who instantly think of “the toaster” when we hear the word “Nintendo”, New Super Mario Brothers is the greatest gift an old fart like me could receive.

That’s not to say anyone could confuse the two games by looking at them. The arcade version of Star Wars used color vector graphics — essentially stick drawings — to convey the action. In contrast, Star Wars: Trench Run opens with almost a minute of near DVD-quality video taken right from the movie, and contains graphics indistinguishable from last decade’s movie special effects. Likewise, Trench Run contains audio samples straight from the Lucas archives.

Star Wars (1983)

Star Wars: Trench Run (2009)

Where the original arcade game gave players a flight yoke with which to control their X-Wing fighter, Trench Run uses the iPhone’s gyroscopic controls. Waving your phone around causes your X-wing to dip, climb and swerve. The constant movement of your phone ensures no one will be able to see what’s on the screen at any given time. It also kind of makes you look like a goof ball; then again, most of us Star Wars fans are used to that. The game’s flight controls can be inverted as well. Shooting is performed by touching the right side of the screen. The bottom left allows players to “use the Force” and slow down the action temporarily, while the upper left swaps between 1st and 3rd person views. The motion controls work perfectly and, especially when flying an X-Wing, I thought they added to the game’s fun.

Star Wars: Trench Run looks and plays so great that it took almost ten minutes for me to realize how repetitive the game was. I shot a few TIE Fighters, flew through the trench, shot a few more TIE Fighters, flew threw the trench again, shot some more TIE Fighters, and then wandered off to go check my Facebook updates. I can’t see playing Trench Run for hours on end, but I do see myself playing it a few minutes each day, which is all a guy can ask from a mobile phone game.

The game’s overall quality makes Star Wars: Trench Run a must own title, especially for Star Wars fans. (It’s a lot more impressive than showing off that free lightsaber app over and over, trust me.) My first instinct was to say that $4.99 is slightly overpriced, until you realize that $3 probably goes toward licensing fees, leaving you a $1.99 game that’s impressive to show off and lots of fun to play for a while. May the Force be with your wallet.

In Moto X Mayhem, players must navigate a motorcycle over hills, through caverns and across chasms in a race against the clock. There are two islands for riders to blast through (Bear Island and Lost Island), each with their own types of terrain. The game is 2D; your bike is viewed from the side, in landscape mode.

Controlling your bike couldn’t be more intuitive. Gas is applied by touching any part of the right hand side of the screen using your right thumb; brakes are applied by touching the left, although as any true racing fan will tell you, brakes are mostly optional. Steering is not necessary, as you are constantly travelling across the screen from left to right — instead, you must control how far you lean. As jumps are made, you’ll need to lean either forwards or back to adjust to the proper landing angle. And yes, you can pull off both forward and backward flips by leaning really far. (No points for flips; they’re purely for style.) Additionally, players will need to lean forward to avoid falling backwards while climbing the steepest of hills. The game accepts two different control schemes: one involves steering the phone left and right like a steering wheel, the other is by looking down at the phone and tilting it left and right. I found the second control scheme much more responsive and easier to use.

Moto X Mayhem includes rag doll physics for your rider, which means each time you flip over backwards or land awkwardly your rider will be flung into the air and his arms and legs flop wildly. A humorous touch, you can actually use your finger to flick the rider to and fro and give him a good thrashing after each crash.

The game’s graphics are bright and colorful and the sounds, from your bike to the background ambient noise, is fantastic.

The game’s Achilles heel is its brevity. Almost every level can be beat in less than 20 seconds, and with 14 levels total, by the time you do the math you could have already beat the first half of the game. A couple of the levels have multiple paths, but other than that there’s very little replay value especially once you begin to memorize the layouts of each level.

Available for $1.99 via iTunes, Moto X Mayhem is well worth the money. I’ve been playing it off and on for a couple of weeks now, which is worth two bucks to me.

While there are many examples of bands dropping their original lead singers and going on to achieve fame and fortune with their replacements (does anyone really talk about the glory days of Iron Maiden with original vocalist Paul DiAnno?), few already popular bands have successfully continued after losing their front men. There’s AC/DC, Van Halen, and … well, that’s about it. The thought of anyone even attempting to replace Staley’s vocals made me depressed, so let me kick things off by making the following statement:

Alice in Chains’ “Black Gives Way to Blue” is the best album of 2009.

“All Secrets Known,” the album’s opening track, lays everything out up front:

Hope, a new beginning / Time, time to start living / There’s no going back to the place we started from / All secrets known.

While most people think of AIC’s vocals as belonging solely to Layne Staley, they were, in fact, a combination of harmonies between Staley and co-vocalist/guitarist Jerry Cantrell. “All Secret’s Known” focuses heavily on Cantrell’s voice and staccato riffing. The harmonies sound so familiar it’s uncanny; you can almost feel Staley’s presence on the track. The guitars are thick and layered and ominous. The album moves into “Check my Brain,” a track featuring one of the most interesting guitar riffs I’ve heard in a long time (it’s one note being bent in and out of tune). Again the vocals are familiar.

It’s not until “Last of my Kind” that new vocalist William DuVall takes front and center. His range and tone are remarkably similar to that of Staley’s. When on his own, DuVall compliments Staley; when harmonizing alongside Cantrell, he channels him.

At least three of the album’s eleven tracks, including “Your Decision” and “When the Sun Rose Again,” are throwbacks to the band’s softer, acoustic sound. The album is well balanced, varying tempo and ferocity — “A Looking in View,” the album’s first single, is as heavy any anything from the band’s back catalog.

The album’s closing track, “Black Gives Way to Blue,” serves as a final farewell to Staley. When Cantrell says he’s “haunted by your ghost” we feel it; when he says “I’ll remember you,” he speaks for all of us. The touching tribute (which features Elton John on piano) won’t leave a dry eye in the house when played live.

Black Gives Way to Blue stands as both closure to times past and, hopefully, new beginnings. The album is dedicated to Staley (and its sound reflects that) and is definitely therapeutic for both the performers and fans alike. How the band plans to continue in the future is anybody’s guess, but as of right now make no mistake about it: Alice in Chains is back.

Dirt 2, obviously the sequel to Dirt 1, puts gamers behind the wheel in the world of off-road racing. After picking your first name from a list so that the game can address you audibly, you’ll be turned loose with the pedal to the metal. “C’mon, Rob,” virtual in-game Travis Pastrana encourages me, “let’s see what you can do!” What I can do, unfortunately, is pummel the crap out of my virtual Subaru Impreza. Like a 2,000 pound version of Hansel and Gretel I leave a trail of Subaru crumbs in my wake. “Hey Rob, you’re going the wrong way!” Yeah, I get it.

Graphically, Dirt 2 for the Xbox 360 is simply amazing. I typically roll with a 3rd-person view when racing, but the cockpit view in Dirt 2 is real enough to make you taste dirt in your mouth. Speaking of dirt, you’ll be driving on it — a lot. I’ve been lucky in real life to spend most of my driving time on dry, sticky asphalt. In Dirt 2 you will learn that pavement handles like ice, and dirt handles like ice after a layer of snot has been applied to it. Drifting with the hand brake takes more skill than I acquired after more than a couple of races. The car models look fantastic, but you’ll need to work on your driving skills to see much of them (unless they’re passing you).

Throughout your virtual career you’ll attempt various types of races. In Baja you’ll line up “land rush style” and made a mad rush for the finish line. There are normal point-to-point races and rally car races too, where your navigator informs you of upcoming twists and turns (”60 degree left, soft right”). I’ve found driving into a tree at about 50mph shuts her pie hole for a minute or two.

When things go really wrong — and they will — you can use your “flashbacks”, which enable you to rewind the game’s footage and attempt a do over. Depending on your skill level you start with somewhere between three and five flashbacks — not enough to use on every corner, but just enough to save an otherwise good run from one stupid mistake, little hitting a bridge underpass head on with the throttle wide open (he says, from experience).

Dirt 2 is all about fluidity and motion, right down to the menus and the pause screens. Yes! Even when the game is paused, the in game camera slowly floats around, gently reminding you that it’s time to get moving. Of course, pausing the game also gives you a break from the constant camera movement, the loud sound effects and the pounding rock soundtrack, so it’s actually kind of nice. It’s kind of like going to the bathroom in the middle of a concert and enjoying hearing yourself think for a moment. “Hey Rob, get back out there!” Okay, okay!

For those who like to tinker with the virtual settings on their virtual cars, Dirt 2 allows it. There are seven different things than can be changed for those that wish to, although I found I did performed equally poorly regardless of my tweaks. Dirt 2 is more arcade than simulator, but there are enough options to keep the sim-drivers placated.

Other racers’ AI is surprisingly advanced. They crash too, and it’s not unusual to watch the leader slip, side, or roll his way out of your path. The PIT maneuver (which I learned from watching too many episodes of Cops) also works pretty well here. Weight-wise, it doesn’t feel like your opponents have any advantage over yourself.

With multiple skill levels, the ability to turn damage on or off, several different styles of racing and dozens of do-dads, race tracks and cars to unlock, Dirt 2 should keep racers racing happily for a long time.

“Hey Rob, get off the computer and let’s go race some more!”

Sheesh, this game never lets up!

It has been said that Layne Staley (vocals) and Jerry Cantrell (guitar, vocals) set out to capture the sound and mood of Seattle on Facelift; as a result, the album is moody, dark, emotional and heavy. By the time listeners reach the chorus of the disc’s first track (“We Die Young”), Alice in Chains’ sound has already been established: classic Cantrell riffs backed by drummer Sean Kinney and bassist Mike Starr, smothered with a layer of Staley and Cantrell harmonies. It’s the sound and formula the band would stick with throughout the years.

Songs like “Bleed the Freak” and ” Sea of Sorrow” set the album’s overall tone, a mixture of metal, hard rock and blues combined with the band’s signature vocal style. While the pace occasionally picks up on tracks like “Put You Down”, typically the songs are slower and riff-based, like the album’s biggest single “Man in the Box.” “I Can’t Remember,” the fifth track on the album, is probably the most similar to AiC’s later material.

Most of Facelift’s lyrics are metaphoric and abstract; while you’ll find plenty to sing along to, you may not know what you’re singing about. According to Wikipedia, Jerry Cantrell once noted that “We Die Young” was written about an experience he had seeing young children with pagers and cell phones dealing drugs, something you’re not likely to get from the song lyrics alone. Interestingly, the topic of drug usage doesn’t appear much on Facelift, something the band would deal with both publicly and lyrically as Layne Staley’s addiction eventually spiraled out of control.

All fans of Alice in Chains or grunge in general should definitely give this album a spin. Facelift is one of the greatest debut albums of the ’90s and contains lots of classic yet often overlooked Chains material.

Tracklist:

01. We Die Young
02. Man in the Box
03. Sea of Sorrow
04. Bleed the Freak
05. I Can’t Remember
06. Love, Hate, Love
07. It Ain’t Like That
08. Sunshine
09. Put You Down
10. Confusion
11. I Know Somethin’ (’bout You)
12. Real Thing

Quick history lesson. After the band’s third studio album was released in 1997, the group began to unravel. lead singer Keith Caputo left and was replaced by ex-Ugly Kid Joe vocalist Whitfield Crane. Shortly after completing the tour, LOA broke up. The chances of me seeing the band live a fourth time looked pretty bleak. All four members formed projects and continued making music, but the sum of the parts was obviously greater than the parts themselves (see: Sepultura).

Six years after Keith’s departure and almost five years after the band officially called it quits, Life of Agony reunited for two sold out shows, performed on January 03-04 in New York City’s Irving Plaza. Those who were lucky enough to get tickets (the shows sold out in a matter of hours) got to see something incredibly special. The rest of us who live 1,500 miles away and couldn’t get tickets (grumble) will have to settle for 2003′s River Runs Again, the recording of those shows.

For not having played together for five years, Life of Agony shows very little ring rust. Mixing songs from the band’s entire catalog, the band kicks off the live show with “River Runs Red”, the title track from their first disc, and heads from there into “This Time,” the opening cut from the same album. The track list is very crowd friendly, covering all the classic LOA tracks like “Bad Seed”, “Lost at 22″, and “Let’s Pretend”.

The band’s performance is very loose. There are a few screw ups, a little microphone feedback, and a whole hell of a lot of feeling, which is exactly the way I love my live albums. Caputo shows he is not afraid to change up his vocal delivery on some of the songs, and the crowd shows they have not forgotten the band’s work, by singing right along with every track. Crowd noise is audible on every track, and the band’s effort to both capture and deliver the live experience to the listener is definitely successful.

The beginning of the second disc shows some early pacing problems. The first four tracks include “Tangerine”, “My Mind is Dangerous”, and an acoustic version of “Let’s Pretend”, with “Lost at 22″ thrown right in the middle to keep the crowd awake. Fortunately, from there it’s a sprint to the finish with three River Runs Red classics: “Underground” (a crowd favorite), “My Eyes”, and the band’s first hit single, “Through and Through”.

If I had to find something negative to say about the release, it would be the three songs tacked on to the end of the album. The Super Massiv, solo Keith Caputo, and Among Theives tracks are interesting but not particularly good. Cut those three tracks and you’re down to an 83 minute release; cut a little stage banter (or “My Mind is Dangerous”) and now you’ve got a one disc release (I’ve already burned a copy like this for the car). It just feels wrong ending an awesome live album with three tracks from side projects. If you really have to have a 2CD release, cram all the LOA tracks on disc one, and fill the second CD with all those side projects (speaking of which, where’s Joey Z and Dan Richardson’s Stereomud stuff?).

They say “you can never go back.” Whoever “they” are haven’t heard River Runs Again. For at least two nights (and what now seems to be more, with a European tour in the works and rumors of new material surfacing), it’s as if the band never left. A must have for all fans, and the perfect place for those who have never heard the greatest hardcore crossover band of all time to begin.

“Unwilling to change for society, we’ll be who we wanna be. We are the underground.”

Disc One
01. River Runs Red
02. This Time
03. Other Side Of The River
04. I Regret
05 Weeds
06. Seasons
07. Hope
08. Method Of Groove
09. How It Would Be
10. Bad Seed
11. Heroin Dreams

Disc Two
01. Tangerine
02. Lost At 22
03. My Mind Is Dangerous
04. Let’s Pretend
05. Underground
06. My Eyes
07. Through And Through
08. Consequence (Among Thieves)
09. Were What I Say (Keith Caputo)
10. Fake – (Supermassiv)

Sega recently updated Space Harrier’s graphics and has released it as volume 4 in their Sega Ages 2500 series (a reference to the games price in Japan, 2500 yen). Currently the Sega Ages collections have only been released in Japan, so you’re going to need a Japanese Playstation 2 (or some other less scrupulous method) to play this game elsewhere.

As with all the other Sega Ages releases, while the graphics and sound have been revamped, gameplay is essentially the same. You control a guy with a big-ass gun — the basis of many an exciting video game. In Space Harrier, your gun also has a rocket in the rear, giving you the option of flying around the screen or just running really really fast along the ground. This gun packs a hefty punch, and you’re going to need it, because straight ahead are eighteen levels of things that want to kill you. Flying “into the screen” so to speak, Space Harrier was one of the first games to be marketed as “3D”.

I actually had to look up that last fact, as I have to admit I’ve never made it past level three. One of the most frustrating parts of the game for myself is that you can’t see through your own guy. Had Mr. Space Harrier been designed using a wire frame, like the character from Punch Out, I think this game would have been a lot easier. As it stands, I often seem to get shot out of nowhere, due to the fact my butt was blocking a big missle from view.

The control system is so easy that most children should be able to pick up and play the game. The left analog stick controls your character, while the square button shoots. That’s it. The complexity of Space Harrier is delivered through it’s level design and it’s barrage of enemies, not the control system.

It’s been over fifteen years since I played Space Harrier in an arcade, so I honestly can’t remember what the music and/or sound effects sounded like. On Sega Ages Volume IV, the game isn’t that sonicly impressive. Simple sound effects and repetitive music cycle throughout gameplay.

After playing Space Harrier for an hour or so, I’d have to say … this game doesn’t seem that exciting anymore. Shoot, move, shoot, move, shoot … that pretty much sums it up. In 1985, quickly moving 3D graphics alone may have been enough to earn our quarters, but in 2003 it just doesn’t cut it anymore. The graphics and sound aren’t updated enough to make the game exciting any longer, which leaves the game to stand on it’s gameplay — which doesn’t seem that exciting any longer either.