Despite only having two full installments to date, the Cave-developed, vertical-scrolling shooter Mushihime-sama (literally meaning “bug princess”) series has captured my heart like few other shmups (shoot-em-ups) have. I’m already a complete sucker for danmaku, or “bullet hell” shooters, but Mushihime-sama Futari Ver 1.5 manages to refine the genre to the peak of excellence. (continue reading…)

Motor City Patrol is an epic tale of cops & robbers a game where you drive around a lot and stop other cars. Oh yeah, and you have a gun (which I never used). There’s not much to it, but I nonetheless have great childhood memories from playing it. That’s why I decided to see how nostalgia held up against reality. (continue reading…)

Wow, time flies. September started strong with a trip to Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle (tweeting from the floor was pretty fun), and I even picked up a bunch of people’s Twitter accounts through Dragon Quest IX‘s tag mode. The presenters were really cool and a pleasure to talk to. The swag was more plentiful than expected, plus there were a lot of good demos on the show floor. I couldn’t believe the scope that such a young convention has reached in a relatively short amount of time.

Suddenly, it’s somehow mid-October already, so I thought I’d take a look back at what’s been keeping me busy on the gaming front for the month of September. (continue reading…)

Tonight I’m bringing you another game that “serious” gamers may have overlooked due to the “kiddy” factor. Looney Tunes: Space Race is a cel-shaded Mario Kart clone set in space (meaning floatier physics) based off of a cartoon license. That could be a setup for disaster, but it’s actually surprisingly fun and solid. (continue reading…)

Cosmic Smash combines real-life sports squash & racquetball with break-blocking video games Arkanoid & Breakout into a unique solo experience. It was originally released as an arcade game in Japan and Europe, and then it was given a Dreamcast release only in Japan.

The game is super simple in that your job is to (continue reading…)

Just by looking at the cover, you can probably see why The Munchables from Bandai Namco might be passed over by the typical “gamer.” One glance and it could be labeled as a “kiddy game” and ignored. To be fair, the characters look like potential Pokémon rip-offs and the Wii does have a lot of shovelware (cheaply made games unconcerned with quality that are put out to make a quick buck). It can be difficult to know what’s fun and what isn’t.

That’s where we at ICG try to help. (continue reading…)