The gaming world has been very quiet this week in terms of news, as not much has been going on. So for this week, I will be talking the sales progress of some specific games and companies. Even though you don’t seem to see a lot of kids playing with Pokemon cards anymore, the series is still a hit among the youngsters. They are still selling quite well in America and they are a strong top 20 presence in Japan. While the sales figures may not be as high as they used to be, they still pack a punch compared to the money starved X-Box in Japan. The worldwide sales of Midway’s Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance has reached 2 million, which is enough to validate that the franchise is back on track after a string of dismal releases (none of which are worth your money, believe me). I doubt the mental stability of anyone who doesn’t think they have another Mortal Kombat being secretly prepared for a possible showing next year. Koei also has quite a bit to be happy about as their Dynasty Warriors franchise has sold over 5 million units worldwide. Many people who doubted the stability of the franchise’s following can finally be put to rest. The game was once considered a cult hit, but now it’s just short of a pop culture video game icon. The games have never been favored by many critics except Dynasty Warriors 4, which added some innovative twists to a gameplay engine that was definitely showing its age. So it seems that for the most part, all is well in the realm of game sales. I will make a small Nintendo prediction though. I believe that Nintendo’s Wario World will give Nintendo yet another decent boost in sales. These last few months have been very kind to the company and this mascot driven game should fare no different than the Mario and Zelda games before it.

    We are only a few months away from the release of Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando for the Sony Playstation 2. It is only proper to take a look at its predecessor, and why it sold as well as it did. The original Ratchet and Clank could have easily been dismissed as a Mario or Jak and Daxter clone, but it had innovation. Innovation is something that has been sorely missing from the platform genre for many years. Far too often a developer’s idea of fun would involve the simple act of hopping on an enemy’s head to dispose of it. This was fun in the days of Mario but we are now in the 21st century and things needed to evolve in some respects. The game was formed around the Jak and Daxter graphics engine which was used to render massive worlds with fluidly animated creatures and environments all at the same time. In most of the levels you could see the entire path of your mission in front of you, due to the excellent draw distance. This game engine is by far the best ever used for a Platform game and it even rivals the engine used in Mario Sunshine on the Nintendo GameCube. Graphics aside, this game was simply fun to play. Instead of the conventional hopping and bopping that most platform games utilize, this game was all about firepower. Yes, we are talking about guns, big guns to be exact. Now don’t go and think that it was simply a plan to copy the trend of mature games of recent years, because its not. The guns are used to dispatch enemies from a distance or close range, when your wrench just can’t seem to do the job. Certain weapons can only destroy a specific type of enemy, which leads to careful planning before deciding to run into a room with guns blasting away. Then there are the gadgets, which are used for various things like raising water levels or disguising yourself as an enemy robot to get past forcefields and other obstacles. The most interesting aspect of the game is the Clank missions. Some levels are uninhabitable for Ratchet, so his robot pal Clank is forced to go it alone. Since Clank can’t jump very high or pack much of a punch, the developers decided to go the strategy route. In most of Clanks missions you will be controlling a small army of robots. You can give them commands like attack, follow and wait. If a strategy isn’t planned carefully, you will end up with a bunch of dead robots. These missions are usually mazes that require you to get from point A to point B. The command interface for the robots makes these missions a lot more fun then they could have been. Ratchet and Clank is a large game and some of the younger gamers may become stuck in numerous areas since the difficulty level is somewhat unbalanced, but this game is recommended to anyone who simply wants a little more than the norm. The game earned a Teen rating from the ESRB, which should only limit gamer’s reach by a small age margin. You can expect Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando out late this year or early 2004, I can only hope it’s as good as the first, if not better.

    Shocking news for trekies and gamers this week revolved around a lawsuit filed by the game developer and publisher Activision against the Star Trek franchise owner, Viacom. Activision has had a long relationship with the group ever since the game rights were secured to them. We are not going to go into great detail about what exactly happened mainly because it’s something that should be handled in the courts. The current result though, is that Activison is no longer making Star Trek games after Elite Force 2 for the PC (which is out now). Although Activision will lose out on being able to develop games for Star Trek, the real loser out of this will be Viacom. Star Trek games used to be laughed upon since many of them failed to live up to the expectations built up upon the television shows. But in recent years, the games have taken a dramatic turn in quality. Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force seemed to be the start of Star Trek games that were actually worth buying. Elite Force took the familiar world of Voyager and turned it into a first person shooter that had a deep story and awesome multiplayer portion. Their next big success would come in the form of Bridge Commander, which put you in the captain’s seat on the bridge. Things really seemed to be looking up for Activision and their line of Star Trek games. Unfortunately it seems that the financial losses of Star Trek: Nemesis at the box office hampered their faith in the viability of the series. In the end though, it’s Viacom who is losing out.