Montana Fragfest

The Grand Theft Auto series has been a classic series for all gamers. From the top-down excitement of GTA and GTA2 to the mind blowing 3dness (and the infamous hot coffee mod). Chinatown Wars takes the top down of the originals and the 3D (and hookers) of the later games mixes them together.

The Good

This game is fun, VERY stylized, and adult. Why do people love GTA games? Because they are open-ended sand box games that allow you go drive around hitting people with cars and causing mayhem.

The top down style fits very well with the limited 3d capabilities of the DS. Also the stylization makes you really forget that you are on a portable unit.

The Bad

The story is pretty lame, which isn’t that big of a problem. As I said above, the story in these games are worthless, but they are challenges so you end up doing them anyways after an hour or two of driving around for no reason.

The aiming can get a little wonky at times. While someone right in front of me is blasting me away with a shotgun, the game decides the woman pedestrian at the edge of the screen is a bigger threat.

The Ugly

The corny ass dialogue and goofy cut scene art is enough to make a person stab their eyes The characters in the cut scenes look like a 5 year old did them, and the conversations are just juvenile.

Although I did laugh the first couple times I heard a hooker say “You wanna piece of my pie?”, hearing it 300 times again while walking around the city gets old fast.

The Skinny

This game is fun. It has some problems, but I’m really enjoying the new crop of mature games coming out for the Nintendo console. I loved GTA and GTA2 so this game fit very well with me.

So I recently got a Nintendo DS for my birthday (big thanks to the wife!) and the one game I really wanted was Brain Age (in this case it ended up that I got Brain Age 2). I’ve realized I’m getting older and want to keep my mind in tip-top shape so this seemed like the obvious choice (I’ve also purchased Mario Kart DS and will review it later when I have a chance to play multiplayer with some peeps).

What did I find? MY BRAIN IS LIKE 50 YEARS OLD!!! After having a it for a week or so my progress on most tasks has stayed about the same. Does this game really help your squishy bit of grey matter? I hope so because I need to get sharp! I’ll try to give you updates as they happen!