It all started in Japan in 2006 when Nintendo released Rhythm Tengoku for the Gameboy Advance. A wholly unique, mini-game collection, the game sprang from the minds of Yoshio Sakamoto, one of the creators of the WarioWare series, and Tsunku, a Japanese record producer, songwriter and vocalist. Differentiating itself from other mini-game titles, Tengoku tested the player's sense of rhythm and reflexes as they worked their way through a series of kooky activities. The GBA title never saw release stateside, however, in 2009 Western gamers got a taste of the series when its sequel was released for the DS as Rhythm Heaven. Now, three years later, Nintendo is rounding out their Rhythm Heaven offerings by releasing Rhythm Heaven Fever for the Wii. With more than 50 new games to keep the beat to Fever holds true to the series, whether you like it or not.

The Rhythm series is pretty basic: try to beat a series of mini-games, and the better that you do, the more games and features will be unlocked. All of the games in Fever revolve around timing button presses to the music, as well as what's happening on screen, which can be anything from golf with a mandrill to badminton with a cat in an airplane. The games vary in scope and challenge, but each has their own soundtrack and bizarre characters.

THE HIGHS

Delighting The Ears And Eyes
The Rhythm Heaven series have always been known for two things: the catchy music, and the adorable characters, neither of which Fever skimps on. Each of the 50 mini-games has a soundtrack that could get stuck in your head any day of the week, and star (at least one) adorable character, from a monkey with a tambourine to a luchador doing an interview. Making the game fun to look at and listen to makes it a lot easier to repeatedly play through games that you keep failing.

Just Two Buttons
One of the easiest games to compare Fever to is WarioWare Smooth Moves, because both games have a host of similarities, from gameplay to developers. However, there is one thing that Fever has going for it over Wario's Wii outing, and that's a simple control scheme. Fever's gameplay boils down to two buttons, A and B: all you need to do is press the buttons in time with the music (sounds easier than it actually is) and you're golden. There's no shaking, no rattling, and no rolling in this rhythm game, so you can sit back and focus on trying to do your best.

THE LOWS

Hitting The Wall
As fans of the rhythm genre know all too well, games like Fever are great, to a point, and then they just become too challenging. There's a wall built into the player's skill level and it's based on how complex of a beat they can follow. Much to some people's dismay, not everyone can keep a beat. Fever offers some solutions, allowing players to skip levels that they are repeatedly failing, but repeatedly failing a seemingly simple level doesn't necessarily instill a lot of confidence. Rhythm Heaven and Rhythm Tengoku both had the same problems, the latter of which was further complicated by the fact that the entire game was in Japanese.

Two-Players... Kinda
Fever's box boasts that the game includes a two-player mode, which is a first for the series. Unfortunately, of the 50 plus games that are included, only ten of them can be played with a friend, and zero of them are unlocked from the start. Additionally, the ten that are included are simply variations on the single player games, with no unique offering for multiplayer enjoyment. It's great that the feature was included, but it seems to fall short of what could have been included to make two-player a more robust experience.

THE VERDICT
Rhythm Heaven Fever keeps faithful to its GBA and DS predecessors in just about every way, bringing everything fans loved to the big screen. From the catchy music, to the adorable humor everything's there, especially the challenging gameplay. Since the series has always been musically driven, there's a segment of the gaming population that is going to be alienated (the rhythmically challenged) making it really easy to hit a wall early on in the game and call it quits. However, if you can overcome that barrier, Rhythm Heaven Fever offers a substantial amount of content that's unlike anything else that's out there, at a great price. It's absolutely worth checking out, especially if you can feel the beat. Even if you can't, like most rhythm games, Fever is still pretty fun to just sit back and enjoy.

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So in what will either be a brilliant piece of self-promotion and gamer outreach or a beautiful disaster, last night Double Fine launched a Kickstarter campaign to produce an old-school point and click adventure game, led by Tim Schafer, the first for him in 14 years. This comes days after Minecraft creator Markus Persson offered to fund a sequel to Psychonauts out of his own pocket.

With a goal of $400,000 set at the beginning of the campaign, Double Fine has already exceeded that goal by half, at $600k as of the writing of this post. And the campaign still has 33 days to go.

So why are they doing this? What's it all about? How might it end up being a tremendous disaster (I don't think it will be)?

In a video at the top of the page (or if you're disinclined to watch, in the body of the page itself), Schafer explains that first and foremost, they wanted to make an adventure game in a market that seemingly doesn't have a whole lot of time for the genre (Telltale's output, of course, being the exception). So they opted to crowd-fund the game at a modest budget with a planned six to eight month development cycle (the untitled project has a planned October release), and a digital release through Steam in order to keep costs and publisher interference out of the way. Schafer assures fans that any excess money taken in from the campaign will go right back into the game as well as a documentary series about the process of making it.

The other major element of their campaign is that backers will not only get a copy of the game (there's all sorts of incentives to potential backers), but that the Double Fine development team will be showing their work and getting backer feedback throughout the process, and here I wanted to get all pessimistic about how much trouble it would be to keep that kind of two-way communication and feedback going throughout the development process (it's already tough enough making something with your fellow devs, much less adding the community into the mix) but I suspect that Double Fine has engender enough support from the fans that they can easily sidestep the pitfalls here.

So what's it all going to be? We'll see in a few months as the game starts chugging along. By the way, in the 15 minutes it took me to write this, the page reached $634k.

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Catch up with The Darkness if you're playing the game (or even if you're not) and our friends at Merge Games (The Binding of Isaac) want to give you something.

Buy one of the last copies of the Shadows of the Damned OST before I do

Limited to 1000 copies on its release last year, the soundtrack by longtime Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka is simply fantastic. Blending several different styles with a core flamenco theme (you know, on account of its lead character, Gabriel Hotspur Garcia), and it's just as eclectic and strange as the game, but a far better total package. There are a little under 300 copies left (probably more copies of the OST than of the under-marketed game currently in circulation), so you should grab one if you're willing to drop the $30 on it.

Here's the ad copy for the release which is on sale at e-tailer GHM:

Legendary composer Akira Yamaoka and Grasshopper Manufacture proudly announce the release of the Original Soundtrack to this year’s most outrageous game, Shadows of the Damned! This selection of songs from the universally praised score takes the listener on a journey to Hell and back with Yamaoka as the co-pilot. Indeed, Yamaoka's designed this soundtrack as a "sound movie" - an aural imagining of Garcia and Johnson's adventure into the world of the Damned.

“I wanted to craft a soundtrack that was more than just a collection of the most popular songs from Damned. I set out to create an experience that would take players back to the game, as if they were “watching” a movie,” Yamaoka explains.

The soundtrack features the hit theme to Shadows of the Damned Take Me To Hell (Broken Dream) featuring frequent collaborators Mary-Elizabeth McGlynn and Troy Baker, and the ending theme Shadows of the Damned featuring legendary punk band The Damned. The soundtrack is limited to only 1000 pressings, making it a collector’s item. And as special bonus, Yamaoka signing ALL CDs sold to international customers as thanks (Japanese exchange rate and shipping fees overseas)

Play the game! Read the comic!

With 2K Games' The Darkness II hitting shelves this week, I'm kind of surprised that the book's publisher Image Comics hasn't gone all out with some kind of digital sales for the long-running series. Right now, most of the single issues are the usual $1.99 through ComiXology, with several trades running $7.99. Still, it might be worth your time to check the series out, maybe jumping in with the Origins trade with a script by Garth Ennis (guaranteeing it'll be some nasty stuff—blood and guts being in his particular wheelhouse).

Or, if you want to get really deep into the quasi-religious/supernatural/horror mythology of Image, you might want to check out the free 30-page intro issue of Artifacts. In either event, check out some comics, maybe buy a few on the cheap, if you're so inclined.

Kind of But Not Quite Gaming News Extra! Merge Games is giving away the fancy The Binding of Isaac Unholy Edition

We recently brought you the details of the retail version of The Binding of Isaac which is coming to stores (or you favorite e-tailer) with a special Unholy Edition. Merge Games, Isaac's publisher, are giving away a copy. This is their own deal, but if you'd like to win a copy, simply head over to their Facebook page and "Like" it, to earn a chance to ask Edmund Mcmillen, the game's creator a question. The best ten questions will be answered by McMillen and receive a copy of the game. So there's that.

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Today, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts announced their list of nominees for 2011's game of the year, and it looks pretty close to most other GOTY lists you've seen up until now. Arkahm City, Modern Warfare 3, and Portal 2 top the list which has a slightly European twist with the nomination for FIFA 12. I wanted to comment on the lack of smaller, downloadable titles like Bastion, but Minecraft—although it's pretty much an institution—more or less fits that bill.

You can see the nominees after the break.

Batman: Arkham City
Battlefield 3
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
FIFA 12
L.A. Noire
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Minecraft
Portal 2
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

The BAFTAs also have an Audience Award, meaning you can vote for your favorite title from the list on the BAFTA Game Awards website. The winners will be announced on March 16th.

[Source: GameSpy]

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The Simpsons Arcade comes to consoles 20 years after the fact, while the much-anticipated (by yours truly, at least) Gotham City Impostors and Shank 2 make their debut. Oh, and Kingdoms of Amalur might just be the best open world game that doesn't have Elder Scrolls in the title.

Title: Kingdoms of Amalur: The Reckoning
Platform(s): Xbox 360, PC, PS3

I've been playing 38 Studios/Big Huge Games' Kingdoms of Amalur for a few hours now (maybe ten or more), and the trajectory of my experience was something like this:

Hour one: "Oh, okay. This game sure is... bright. Bright? Yeah, that seems to be the prevailing look here."

Hour two: "Why are they throwing all of these weapons at me? I'm never going to use them. Forget you and your overly-complex combat system. Also, I don't care much for the way the buttons are mapped."

Hour six: "Just switch out with my Fae blades, then over to my hammer, then back to my staff, and this enemy is dead!"

My review, which is coming a little later this week will obviously not encompass the entire game because there's so danged much of it but as a spoiler, allow me to say that while I've yet to really be drawn into the fiction (whose fantasy is a bit higher than I prefer) the combat is unparalleled in the genre and its many systems describe a brawny RPG experience in a surprisingly bright wrapper.

Title: Gotham City Impostors
Platform(s): PSN, XBLA, PC

I feel like I've been hyped for this game for months, and now that it's finally here, I need to find the time to actually, you know, play it. From the very beginning, the Monolith-developed class-based shooter has seemed like an alternately odd and kind of audacious take on the Batman universe without actually really having to be in any version of Gotham that we can recognize.

At this point, it's a matter of actually getting hands-on and seeing what it's like with other, certainly curious players and see how Monolith has been able to take their skill with developing brutal shooters with the F.E.A.R. series and translate it into this oddball, seemingly comic-manic game.

Title: Resident Evil: Revelations
Platform(s): 3DS

Another review on the way here, but as you might recall from my demo impressions piece, I welcomed the series' return back to its more methodically-paced roots, forcing you to conserve ammo and deal with enemies more strategically (i.e. running away).

And Capcom seems to know that some gamers might be wary of another 3DS RE title after the perhaps slightly over-priced Mercenaries underwhelmed last year. This is a full-fledged game on offer here and not simply an expanded arcade mode, plus it's got more of the ever-deepening Resident Evil mythos for people who are into that kind of thing.

I'm into that kind of thing.

Title: Shank 2
Platform(s): PSN, XBLA, PC

I was super-late to the party with Shank only downloading it last month after a half-off sale convinced me that it was maybe about time to try one of those games everyone had been talking about for a while there. And my experience was kind of mixed: while I thought the art style was pretty engaging, in terms of overall experience, it felt like a copy several generations removed from the kind of grindhouse action movie it was emulating, and I never really got a feel for the combat's nuances, relying on mashing the attack for whatever weapon I had in hand at the time and praying for the best.

Thankfully, developer Klei Entertainment seems to be aware of some of the shortcoming of the game, at least in terms of its combat and are looking to ease players into the action with more elaboration on precisely how one shanks in the world of Shank 2. If the devs are able to clarify that whole experience a bit more, I think Shank 2 could be the kind of game a guy like me could fall for.

Title: The Simpsons Arcade
Platform(s): PSN, XBLA (February 8th is the official date, but it appears to be available now on XBLA)

Jason put together a fine write up for the game in advance of its wider release on PSN after a limited bit of exclusivity for Playstation Plus members last week. His feeling: it's very much the same 20-year-old game for all the good and bad that that implies, and you're simply going to have to decide for yourself how much nostalgia means to you.

Konami is betting somewhere around 10 of your American dollars and I'd be willing to take that bet as well.

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Last week, the New York Videogame Critics Circle announced 2011 slate of winners, crowning Bastion with two awards (one for music, one for Best Indie), while showing some love for Sony's "Michael" ad campaign (you know, the one where Kratos, Snake, and a bunch of other game heroes go to a bar). You can find the full lineup of winners after the jump.

Manhattan Award for Most NY Centric Game: Crysis 2

Battery Park Award for Best Handheld Game: Super Mario Land 3D

Tin Pan Alley Award for Best Music in a Game: Bastion

A Train Award for Best Mobile Game: Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP

Herman Melville Award for Best Writing in a Game: Portal 2

Off Broadway Award for Best Indie Game: Bastion

Statue of Liberty Award for Best Open World Game: Saints Row: The Third

Great White Way Award for Best Overall Acting in a Game: Portal 2

Algonquin Roundtable Award for Best Book: All Your Base Are Belong to Us by Harold Goldberg

Mad Men Award for Best Videogame Commercial: Long Live Play – "Michael"

Big Apple Award for Best Game: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[Source: NY Game Critics]

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Nintendo adds new titles to the Nintendo eShop for 3DS, the Nintendo DSi Shop and the WiiShop Channel every week and we grab all info and put it here so you can stay up to speed on all of Nintendo's most recent digital titles.

This week we'll be slicing through sword-wielding henchmen on a mission to save Princess Cherry Blossom in Sakura Samurai: Art of the Sword and taking on zombie horde in GO Series: Undead Storm for 3DS. On the Wii we'll once again be hot the heels of a master thief in Carmen Sandiego Adventures in Math: The Great Gateway Grab. Head past the break for more from Nintendo.

Nintendo eShop
Sakura Samurai: Art of the Sword - Travel a world rife with beauty and danger to rescue the legendary Princess Cherry Blossom. Her kidnapper has placed dozens of blade-wielding henchmen in your path. (For Nintendo 3DS)

Nintendo eShop and Nintendo DSiWare
GO Series: Undead Storm - Six months after a mysterious meteorite strike, the undead have awoken and are taking over the city. What lies behind this zombie epidemic? Only you can uncover the truth. (For Nintendo 3DS / Nintendo DSi)

Nintendo Video
"Drown in the Now" by The Crystal Method (available Feb. 3 at 3 p.m. PST) - UVPHACTORY created a graphic black, white and red New York neighborhood that has been infested by small robots. The video culminates with Matisyahu's rescue via boat by The Crystal Method. (For Nintendo 3DS)

Iwata Asks
Swapnote - Read the latest edition of Iwata Asks for an inside look at Swapnote, a new application that allows Nintendo 3DS owners to write, decorate and send handwritten 3D notes to people on their friend lists via SpotPass and StreetPass. Swapnote is available to download from the Nintendo eShop at no cost.

Also new this week:
• Carmen Sandiego Adventures in Math: The Great Gateway Grab (WiiWare)

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Oklahoma House Democrat Will Fourkiller introduces a 1% surcharge on all Teen-rated and up games sold in his state to combat childhood obesity and bullying.

Fourkiller's bill, HB 2696, singles out what Fourkiller classifies as "violent" video games to deal with those issues of obesity and youth violence which the State Representative indirectly attributes to video games based on his time as a teacher, coach, and registered nurse. In an interview with news station KFOR, Fourkiller cites an incident where an unnamed assailant shot an officer while in the process of stealing a car after having played Grand Theft Auto, elaborating that hours of time with games can cause desensitization in the player.

The bill follows the model of tobacco taxes in many states that place and additional surcharge on cigarette sales in order to pay for anti-smoking campaigns in their states. Fourkiller's proposed legislation would apply 50% of the income from the tax to the Childhood Outdoor Education Revolving Fund as well as the Bullying Prevention Revolving Fund.

Fourkiller says that he's not singling out the game industry, but the tax does omit any other sort of "violent" media. Also, given the nebulous definition of violence in the bill, the surcharge would include titles with T ratings and above, i.e. Rock Band 3 would be taxed in the same way as Modern Warfare 3 under the proposed legislation.

Fourkiller's bill will be read before the House on February 6th.

[Source: KFOR via Gamespot]

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Activision and Beenox revealed the first official screenshot for The Amazing Spider-Man game tie-in today on the official Facebook page and, unfortunately, it's not as action-packed as we had hoped. That's not to say it doesn't look good - the suit is nicely detailed to match what we've seen in earlier shots, but I just wish there was more to look at.

Thankfully, the trailer that was released a month or so ago does reveal quite a bit more than this simple still shot. If you haven't seen that particular trailer yet you can check it out below since were in a pretty trailer-y mood right now. If Activision and Beenox don't feel like giving us some cool artwork I guess we'll just keep staring at what we've already got.

The Amazing Spider-Man hits theaters July 3rd, 2012 and the game will land for Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, DS and 3DS around the same time.

[The Amazing Spider-Man on Facebook]

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Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Soul Calibur V mark the beginning of onslaught of 2012 game releases.

Title: Soul Calibur V
Platform(s): PS3, Xbox 360

This is the one with Ezio from Assassin's Creed in it, in case you're keeping track. I'll go into this more in my review later this week, but Soul Calibur V kind of represents where Namco stands as a company right now in terms of seeing their iterative games evolve—which is to say, not very much. I'd like to dig into the fighter a bit more before rendering final judgement, but I'm stuck with a feeling that Namco's sequelized fighting games are stuck in something of a rut right now and perhaps need a major shake up to move forward.

I don't necessarily think that the series needs a radical reinvention, but it feels like the weapons-based fighter (the only one on the market, mind you) is in need of further elaboration more than anything else. If you play Street Fighter IV or NetherRealms' Mortal Kombat, you're essentially playing the classic earlier games in those franchises but with an easy to quantify and identify "more" and "better" integrated throughout and not "prettier" simply laid on top (although all three games we're talking about here do look great).

Again, I'd like to spend more time with Soul Calibur V because I don't feel anything immediately, dramatically different, and I think it deserves further consideration before I write it off as Soul Calibur 4.5.

Title: Final Fantasy XIII-2
Platform(s): PS3, Xbox 360

On the other hand, Final Fantasy XIII-2 definitely feels like a modest but real break from its predecessor, at least if my time with the demo is any indication. You can be sure that the majority of reviews you'll read in the next couple of days will describe this rare sequel to an FF sequel as a direct response to fan complaints about Final Fantasy XIII, and rightly so, given how the checklist of changes in this game articulate what players felt was wrong with the 2010 title. That painful death march of linearity has been replaced in the very story itself with a broken timeline, while much of the hand holding of XIII feels like it's been excised.

What XIII seems to be saying is, you probably already know how to play this game, so here is some more, but you know, better. For what it's worth, the reviews for the game have been kind in the majority, and not just as a sigh of relief that it's not XIII.

Title: NeverDead
Platform(s): PS3, Xbox 360

Konami's character action game NeverDead is a game with a hook, you see: your character, is Bryce, a down-on-his-luck immortal demon hunter with the ability to deploy his limbs as weapons. Sometimes his head is one of these weapons and on occasion it can be exploded at wayward souls. The actual synopsis of the game on its site kind of sidesteps the tongue-in-cheek tone the game seems to be going for in its trailers and screens released to date. If I had to put the game into a box based on what we've seen so far, I'd say it looked like developer Rebellion had essentially remade Stubbs the Zombie for the Devil May Cry Set—kind of.

This is one of those early year titles like last year's Shadows of the Damned that might easily get lost in the shuffle of major titles, but it seems quirky enough that if the gameplay is solid, it might find an audience down the line.

On the downloadable tip:

Double Fine Happy Action Theater (XBLA)

Puddle (PSN, XBLA)

Rhythm Party (XBLA)

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