Being an old school gamer myself, I’m particularly fond of games like A Boy And His Blob that look stellar and feature simpler, core gameplay mechanics: encounter an obstacle, come up with a solution, feed your Blob buddy a jellybean, and away you go! (And by “simpler,” I mean “less complicated” and not “less challenging.”) Punch-Out!! for the Wii, discussed above, is another example. Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet isn’t a remake of a classic game but features the same sort of intense, frenetic, twitch-based gameplay of classic, 2D side-scrolling shoot ‘em ups like Gradius and R-Type.

I’m a big supporter of games like these.

A Boy And His Blob for Wii, the upcoming Okami sequel for the DS, Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, and a few others I can’t recall at the moment are making me seriously reconsider my early game playing retirement.

Super Punch Out featured a whole new cast of characters, with maybe one or two returning fighters if I remember correctly. Now it seems they’ve gone back to the original roster (for the most part).

The Street Fighter series did the same thing with Street Fighter IV. After introducing a whole new cast of characters in III (diehard fans were none too pleased), the series went back to its roots by bringing back all of our favorite World Warriors from II for the fourth installment.

I really feel like their ought to be a happy medium. A bunch of new characters to keep things fresh, a few of the most popular fighters from the previous installments, and one or two unlockable, secret characters and/or downloadable additions to the roster so developers can test out new ideas or satisfy fans who feel left out that their guy didn’t make the final cut.

The bobbing and weaving aspect of the game, while cool, sounds like it’d be pretty tiring; I’m guessing most players will turn that feature off after checking it out for a bit.

So far, all the reviews have been positive, and the core gameplay mechanic (watching for your opponent’s “tells” and countering) has been faithfully preserved.

No Tyson though…

Sorry to hear that. As I mentioned, I’ve never actually played the games myself, so I’m afraid I can’t vouch for their quality.

The new game looks fantastic though, don’t you think?