Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker (or DQM for short) is what I would call a Pokémon type game. These titles generally start off with you controlling a young outcast who wants to become the world champion of this and that by means of capturing wild creatures, training them to be stronger fighters by throwing them into a ring of combat with other wild creatures that in turn you want to capture to battle even stronger monsters later on. If I were to do this in real life the RSPCA would come arrest me (and rightly so).

As you can probably tell I’m not the greatest fan of Pokémon, for some reason it just doesn’t grab me. So when Square Enix (the creators of the Final Fantasy games) sent Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker along for me to review, I wasn’t exactly jumping up and down with joy.

Green Bays is the group of islands on which this game takes place; the islands are inhabited with over 200 monsters for you to capture, train and battle. The legendary Master Scout Challenge is held once every few years and is organized by Dr Snap, the Commissioner and very first master scout. He is also the inventor of the special scout ring which is the magical device which enables you to interact with the monsters. For some unknown reason this year Dr Snap has told all of the contestants in the Master Scout challenge that they need to find ten rare Darkonium Crystals (mysterious star shaped rocks) if they want to progress further into the finals of the Challenge.

After a bit of exploring and chatting to the locals on the first island it’s time to head to the beginners island on your jet ski and capture your first few monsters. You can command up to three in battle but you can store more on your substitutes bench in case you need them during a tense battle with a super tough monster, bear in mind though that monsters on the subs bench will not accumulate points when not in battle, so monster rotation is necessary if you want an evenly balanced team (it’s what Liverpool are doing in the Premiership at the moment and they’re currently fourth).
Once you’re all monstered up your next challenge is to go and make your Monster Scout pledge to a special stone at the top of the mountain.

The trouble is that along the way there are some tougher monsters and your only hope of success is to stay at the base of the mountain and compete in lots of easy battles with the basic Slime monster until your squad is really tough, well, tough enough to progress further anyway.
Basically coming across a difficult set of monsters and then having to strengthen your squad for another twenty battles to progress further is what you generally do all the way through the game. On its own that isn’t exciting and becomes quite repetitive very quickly, but it’s the other features which make this game standout from being just a loose Pokémon clone.

Your monsters can battle unarmed, armed with special equipment such as a pair of stone talons or a big wooden staff or you can also train them up with magical abilities. As you can imagine, depending on the type of monster, some are good at hand to hand combat whilst others are more suited towards magic.

So what happens when you want a tough physical monster to be really good at magic? No you don’t enlist the help of Paul Daniels; instead you take them to the local genetic synthesising centre which will happily clone two different monsters together to make a sort of hybrid monster. Don’t forget that you can’t synthesise two boy (+) or two girl (-) monsters together. They’re probably being a bit too politically correct here in this day and age, but then I don’t suppose it should be down to a kid’s videogame to introduce the idea of same gender relationships. Err, time to move on I think.
The only downside to the genetic synthesising is that you effectively lose one monster from your party when you combine two together. Sort of makes sense and also means you’re off hunting for another new monster to add to your squad. Clever!

The feature I like the best is that you can visit many of the locations at night, and during these twilight hours different monsters are around to encounter and the villagers mention other things when you chat to them. So all in all then, if you like Pokémon games you’ll probably love this. I can imagine you’ll be playing with friends using the local DS Wi-Fi or even going online using the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection to compete in the Wildcard World Cup, I recommend you get yourself a strong squad together before attempting that though!

Square Enix have really gone to town on the graphics for Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker, they’re so close to being the best I’ve ever seen on the DS, perhaps apart from Nintendo’s Zelda the Phantom Hourglass, but it’s a close run thing. My only grumble with Dragon Quest Masters Joker is that there only seems to be about 15 different human characters to interact with. Not only that but they seem to miraculously appear at every location before you arrive there yourself, even though you have a rather nippy jet ski at your disposal. I can’t think that it would’ve been too hard for the developers to create a few more peeps to chat to rather than recycle the same ones dozens of times over.

I give this a monster breeding 7 out of 10 (8 if you’re a Pokémon fan).

Get the game now
New: Buy Dragon Quest Monsters Joker from Buy.com
Preowned: Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker - Pre-Played from Gamefly.com
Rental: Rent Dragon Quest Monsters Joker - free rental trial from Gamefly.com

Tags: Dragon Quest Monsters Joker, dragon quest ds, dragon quest, dragon quest monsters, dragon quest monsters joker

In the final push and shove to the release of what’s probably going to be the biggest game of the year, Rockstar are releasing their final trailer online for all to see at 10pm tonight. You can also get it on Xbox Live if previous trends continue.

We’re not sure exactly what it will show but it’ll probably be another mix of geezers waving guns at each other, shouting, driving cars and shooting people.

And if you fancy getting yourself 1000 free Microsoft points, pre-order your game at HMV.co.uk, you’ll also get a voucher booklet saving you a further £130 off selected items in-store.

Got new news on Guitar Hero for the ever-better DS. Apparently the game will deliver a unique Guitar Hero experience by challenging handheld gamers to rock out and prove their shredding skills on the most diverse set list of master tracks ever offered in a Guitar Hero game, including classic rock, alternative and pop favorites such as Nirvana, OK Go and No Doubt.

The game will be packaged with a Guitar Grip peripheral that fits snugly into the DS and a unique Guitar Hero pick-stylus that brings a new dimension to handheld gaming and the core gameplay that defines Guitar Hero. Guitar Hero: On Tour has been designed specifically for the DS platform and will offer the DS audience an all-new compelling music experience. It will probably be lost of fun but you may look very weird on public transport though - almost as sad as that girl on the DS advert who asks if her dog wants its belly rubbed on a packed bus!

This week on the Gamesweasel video podcast Matt Cuttle talks about:-

• The Xbox Family
• Call of Duty 4 Variety Map Pack
• World of Warcraft vs Playstation Home
• No More Heroes review
• Condemned 2 for the PS3 and exclusive T-shirts
• Army of Two review

If you’d like to win Condemned 2 for the PS3 and exclusive T-shirts then check out our competitions page before 7 April 2008. Always great to hear from you, our email address is gamesweasel@btpodshow.com .

Tags: army of two , army of two review , call of duty 4 variety map pack , no more heroes , no more heroes review , the xbox family , world of warcraft vs playstation home , gaming

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On this weeks Gamesweasel gaming mp3 podcast we discuss:-

• The Xbox Family
• Call of Duty 4 Variety Map Pack
• World of Warcraft vs Playstation Home
• No More Heroes
• Far Cry 2
• Condemned 2 for the PS3 and exclusive T-shirt
• Army of Two

For your chance of winning one of 5 copies of Condemned 2 for the PS3 and exclusive T-shirt head over to our competitions page by 7 April 2008. We want to hear from you, so send those emails over to gamesweasel@btpodshow.com .

Tags: army of two , army of two review , call of duty 4 variety map pack , far cry 2 , far cry 2 features , far cry 2 release date , no more heroes , no more heroes review , the xbox family , world of warcraft vs playstation home

[DOWNLOAD MP3] | [AUDIO PODCAST RSS FEED] | [SUBSCRIBE IN ITUNES]

This week on the Gamesweasel video podcast for the PSP Matt Cuttle talks about:-

• The Xbox Family
• Call of Duty 4 Variety Map Pack
• World of Warcraft vs Playstation Home
• Review of No More Heroes
• Condemned 2 for the PS3 and exclusive T-shirts
• Review of Army of Two

If you’d like to win Condemned 2 for the PS3 and exclusive T-shirts then check out our competitions page before 7 April 2008. Always great to hear from you, our email address is gamesweasel@btpodshow.com - head over to the Gamesweasel blog for news on the new Halo 3 maps , microsofts free XNA Game Studio and the new Crisis Core Special Addition announcement.

Tags: army of two , army of two review , call of duty 4 variety map pack , no more heroes , no more heroes review , the xbox family , world of warcraft vs playstation home , gaming

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What do you get when you mix sword-fighting combat, slightly open world gameplay, a massive wedge of humour and some comic book graphics? No More Heroes, that’s what. This one’s made by the same guys that made Killer 7. Whilst I found that far too strange to play despite its cool look, this one I could identify with more, even though like a good curry with rice it’s a mix of good flavours and mediocrity.

You play as big-time loser Travis Touchdown, a man who only really wants one thing - to get jiggy with French blondie Sylvia Crystal. Anyway, she’s got you into fighting assassins to work your way up the list from 11th to 1st place and once he begins, he can’t really stop and so on he goes, fighting one colourful boss after another after fighting off hordes of henchmen.

Combat is pretty simple, using buttons to slice and throw and gestures to finish guys off. You wave your beam katana which owes a massive nod to the weapon of choice of a jedi, using high and low attacks depending on how you tilt the Wii remote. You can charge your attacks and even get power-ups as a fruit machine spins on screen, It’s great fun fighting all the bad guys in a Kill Bill style which although violent, is so comic book it’s funny.

I would be quite happy fighting through level after level, finishing off one boss after another - unfortunately the game pads these levels out with having to drive around the city of Santa Destroy on your motor bike to get jobs, earn money and qualify for the next meaty level. When driving round the city the game judders, buildings and roads pop into view and the bike doesn’t handle too well. Its no GTA that’s for sure.

However, the game still has lots of charm, including the ability to settle down in Travis’ pad, viewing the restling masks and clothes you’ve earned, petting your cat and even watching music videos. You can also go to the toilet which of course is the way you save your game!

No More Heroes is stylish, fun and worth sticking with for the 11 proper missions. Not everything works great in the game but when it does get into a groove it’s fantastic. It gets a very good 7 out of 10.

Get the game now
New: Buy No More Heroes from Buy.com
Preowned: No More Heroes - Pre-Played from Gamefly.com
Rental: Rent No More Heroes - free rental trial from Gamefly.com

Tags: No More Heroes, No More Heroes review, review of No More Heroes, No More Heros, No More Heroes Wii, gaming

Great, another shooter for the PS3 and Xbox 360 - just what we need. But hold on a minute, this one actually puts a different spin on a third-person shooter because it’s not just about watching your own back and maybe controlling a squad of other players . This one sees you fighting battles with one wingman, your buddy. You’re like Morecambe and Wise, Laurel and Hardy, Mitchell and Webb - only with guns and scary metal masks!

The game takes place over a 16 year period. The two chareacters Salem and Rios both begin as fresh-faced commandos but soon you’re faced with a montage that shows them age, get battle scars and become meaner than ever before. They’re also not being told the whole truth in the game so as you play, espionage and treachery starts to unfold quicker than Paul Burrell’s web of lies.

As far as combat goes, in this game you not only have to consider a weapon’s strength and range but also its aggro. Managing aggro is what makes the difference between success and failure and it works like this. Fire on an enemy and your aggro will increase. Keep firing and enemies will concentrate their fire on you, allowing your partner to invisibly sneak behind them and pick them off. If you manage to stay in this mode for a certain amount of time you get infinite ammo or, if you’re the one doing the sneaking, you become invisible for a short amount of time, allowing you to go in close and kick some ass with your bare hands!

So, covering your team mate or getting him to lay down fire for you is key to this game and it does change the way you’d play a game of this nature. You move and fire, flank enemies and even swap weapons with your team mate. You can even rip doors off cars to use as shields and parachute from planes, either controlling the chute or showing all the people below the business end of your rifle.

In single player mode this is a fun and a different spin on what would otherwise be a pretty standard shooter. However, you can also play the single-player campaign co-op either online or split-screen or play head to head in deathmatch mode.

This is where the game really shines as you work together to snipe targets at the same time and lay down covering fire for each other as you move through the levels.

The game looks very nice too. The main character models and even the cannon fodder enemies all look great on all platforms and the scenery is rich in detail too.

If you’ve finished playing co-op Gears of War and fancy a new online co-op challenge with a buddy, then this one comes highly recommended. Army of Two gets an excellent 8 out of 10

Get the game now
New: Buy Army of Two from Buy.com
Preowned: Army of Two - Pre-Played from Gamefly.com
Rental: Rent Army of Two - free rental trial from Gamefly.com

Tags: Army of Two , Army of Two review, review of Army of Two , Army of 2, Army of II, gaming