Nintendo 64

Duke Nukem is an aged marketing concept, where a hulking guy destroys everything in his path and highlights the destruction with cool one-liners. It was worked to perfection in the 80s when Arnold Schwartzenegger and Sylvester Stallone were dominating the box office. But in the 1990s, even Sly and Arnold have conceded to the times and have changed accordingly.

Duke Nukem may have entered the gaming scene as kiddy shareware fodder for the PC, but somewhere along the way, he evolved into a technologically advanced first-person shooter (FPS) with a politically incorrect bad-boy attitude that brought him recognition. Since then, developers have tried unsuccessfully to plug his mug into more lucrative, mainstream console systems, some of which came in the form of third-person auctioneers.

According to ESRB, this game contains: Animated Blood & Gore, Animated Violence

Game Description: The greatest action hero in gaming is back in Duke Nukem Zero Hour, exclusively for N64! A third-person time traveling extravaganza that takes Duke to even greater heights of Mayhem! Kick ass in this giant 32 MB game with 22 levels, four time periods, 25 killer enemies, eight bosses and an arsenal of up to 20 all-new weapons. Multiplay up to four people on 14 levels, with 29 skins and four game modes. This game is 4 MB Expansion Pak and Rumble Pak compatible.

Bottom line, there is no reason to buy this game if you own a previous version of Tetris (or 3 or more like Chi and I do). The New Tetris tries to offer something new with the focus on forming squares, but it could be too much of a departure from the norm for Tetris veterans.

After all its different incarnations, Nintendo apparently felt Tetris needed a face-lift as much as Leatherface does. The New Tetris, as it's called, is probably the biggest conceptual departure from the original Tetris theme that any "Tetris" game has gotten. Since it's inception, Tetris has been about clearing the most lines and getting the highest numerical score to see who is the best. In The New Tetris, a high score is still desirable, but it is tallied differently; the actual number of lines cleared are the focus and not points given for each, as in the original.

Shifting the focus over to building world wonders with lines accrued makes The New Tetris the first Tetris in the franchise to reach 'biblical' proportions. Why 'biblical'? Because the sheer amount of effort it takes to build one of these mammoths made me feel like I actually was a slave in Egypt!

Game Description: Go beyond all preconceived notions of the mind-boggling puzzle classic, as you take on all-new challenges in fresh environments. The aim is the same: place the falling shapes into lines, leaving as few gaps as possible. Once you complete a line, it disappears, giving you more space in which to operate. Whether you’re a seasoned veteran or a newcomer to the fabled Tetris series, you’ll appreciate the improved modes of play. With seven innovative environments and all sorts of new options and scoring possibilities, this is truly the next generation of Tetris.

To speak of Pokémon Snap's far-reaching appeal, I must mention that the Bronx Zoo angle came to me and Chi separately. I first thought that a photo-journalistic approach (linking the experience to bird watching) was the most fitting comparison. Like bird watching, photographing the Pokémon in their natural environments was key and getting a nice big shot of a rare Pokémon was like finding gold.

Fair criticism usually benefits from having extensive experience in the particular subject leading to a more knowledgeable (and less emotional) perspective. But every now and then, something like Pokémon Snap comes along that so defies normal conventions (of the videogame world) that it leaves critics baffled as to how to justifiably critique it.