For the drum set itself, it's really nice and sturdy. You can store the sticks right into the side, and the pedal is solid and has some weight to it. What I like the most is how the yellow snare head is sort of in the middle and much larger than the other ones. It's the head you'll be hitting most and it fits more naturally right in front of you like a real set. The other heads are positioned correctly as well, but I'm not really feeling how the cymbals aren't floating like they should be. It's makes it a bit hard to focus on the notes when you might end up missing the cymbals all together since they're small. But these are minor complaints compared to the gameplay.

Rock Revolution's notes don't cascade toward you at an angle like in the other games. I never gave it much thought until now, but this just does not work, especially on higher difficulties. It doesn't allow you to get a sneak peak at upcoming notes since your eyes are so focused on the bottom.

This leads me to the next problem. The drum heads, are not lined up to the heads on the screen, and the drum pedal has it's own note head rather than the scrolling line we've come to love in Rock Band. Trying to get this to work with the rest of the notes on screen is super frustrating. Also, this game is tough on when you hit the notes. There's also no room to breath at all on the notes, either. If you're even slightly off, you'll miss the note.

All that being said, I dug the drums. I'm curious to see how the new drum sets from RB and GH compare to them. The rubber heads had a good bounce to them and the pedal was nice and responsive. Unfortunately, I fear the final game will not want to make many people give them a try.

So we start out back in a dreary, dark hospital again. Everything will be fine, right? Of course not! Hospitals and Silent Hill going together are never a good thing for anybody, let alone the protagonist. The first thing I wanted to know about this game is how much "Silent Hill" is actually in it. By that I mean, how much disturbing crap is there for me to look at that will make my brain throw up? Well, I almost immediately noticed a skinned body hanging from the ceiling. So, it's looking like this really is a homecoming!

Now, one of the biggest complaints about the series was the combat and the controls. I won't got as far as to say they are "fixed" this time around, but they're way better. The first weapon I managed to get my hands on was a knife. When you draw it, the camera pans behind you and off to the right, much like any over-the-shoulder angle, but a bit further back so you can see more of the environment. I can then start stabbing away, unlike in previous games where I had to randomly swing a weapon and hope I hit something. It almost makes the game easier now that the combat is better, as sad as that sounds.

I will forever contend that what makes any Silent Hill game great is the atmosphere it creates. That's why I still consider the first game in the series to be best one. That game scares the crap out of me, even 10 years later. I can't play it without turning off the sound, and sometimes, will just turn the whole thing off entirely. Homecoming didn't make me change my pants, however, a very cool effect was the when the 'normal world' changes to the 'underworld.' It's very much like the movie - which yinz should see - where everything is peeling off the walls and floor revealing all the in creepy, fucked up cages and spinning fans and shit.

Overall, it looks like Konami learned from The Room and is taking trying to take everything back to the early titles in the series. Everything that should make a good Silent Hill game is here. How the story holds up, or, if it makes any sense at all, remains to be seen. The improved combat and player mobility should position this game towards the more mainstream audience and will give me hope for a survival-horror renaissance.

When I first picked up the Wii-mote at Konami's press event yesterday, I had no idea what I was doing or where I had to go. And whoever played the game before me must have felt it was necessary to pick up every little thing he or she found along the way. So my entire backpack was filled with tree vines, sticks, and seaweed. I ended up running around this small island with what looked to be some kind of monkey on my back trying to find something to do.

The game displays your vital stats in the upper left-hand corner. So over time, your energy or hydration meters, among others, will deplete over time. This can become somewhat annoying as your character will constantly let you know about it, too. So since "I'm Hungry" kept popping up on the screen, I decided I was going to try and eat something just so this guy would shut the hell up.

I picked up some sort of vegetable off the ground and ate it, but it didn't fill me up at all. I tried eating a coconut that fell from a tree I shook using the Wii-mote, but still nothing. It wasn't until I found a cooking area that I decided to sit down and try to have a real meal. So what to prepare? Well it was either sticks or the seaweed, that's all I had in my bag. I went with the seaweed.

When you cook something, you're brought into a timed mini-game where an icon will scroll across the top of the screen and, at certain points along the way, you have to swing your Wii-mote down like a knife to cut the food. The better, more precise cuts I assume means the food will replenish more energy.

In fact, this entire game is one giant mini-game. Everything you do requires some sort of extra action using the Wii-mote. From pulling vines from trees to getting coconuts. The game makes sure you're swinging at something. As you can see from the gallery below, it seems like there's going to be a good variety here.

Once I was done scarfing down seaweed, I notice a semi-built raft just on the other side the beach. Turns out I need to get off the island. So I need to complete this raft, which of course means I'll be doing a lot of sawing with my Wii-mote. I needed three different items before I could complete the project. A couple sticks, a twig, and vine. I'm still not sure what the twig is for, or how it's needed in conjunction with a stick, but whatever. I didn't have a twig at the time so I had to run all over the place looking for one when I had plenty of leftover sticks I could have used instead.

Building the raft was separated into three parts. First, I had to saw the ends of the sticks off by making a cutting motion with my Wii-mote. I then I had to tie everything together with the vines by targeting an icon on screen and making a quick slash movement. I finally had to hammer everything down by making hammering motions. Wee!

I actually found this game to be pretty fun. Now, the parts where you spend time running around isn't that exciting, but all the little mini-games worked surprisingly well together. I also tend to like games where I collect random stuff and have to try and figure out where to use it. Overall, though, this might only appeal to fans of thep revious DS games.

I figure I need to get this disclaimer out of the way. The last soccer game I played dates back to the Sega Genesis days (Fifa 97, I think), so I am in no means claiming to be an expert on this type of game. I also have never played any of the previous PES games, either. So I realize that most of what impressed me about this game may in fact have already been done in previous iterations. Just please bear with me.

My first jump out of the gate with this was a rough one. I didn't quite get the controls down until after about 10 minutes of turning the ball over and over. But when I did get the controls, oh baby was it smooth sailing! With sports games, especially hockey, the players never respond like they should on their respective playing surfaces. In hockey, if I have the puck, I can skate however and whenever I want and I'll never lose control of it, forget the fact the players themselves never feel like they're skating on ice. But with PES 2009, the players look and play like they're on a surface kicking a ball around and don't have a float-y feel like in other games.. You'll quickly realize you can't get the ball and speed boost past everyone or make blind passes and expect them to connect. This isn't the type of realism that's annoying, either.

If I decide to sprint with the ball, I leave myself open to defenders having a much easier time stealing it from me. Likewise on defense, I can choose to try and slide on the ground to kick the ball off an oncoming attacking player's foot, but I run the risk of potentially tackling him at the legs and getting carded. There was just this sense of strategy I've never caught in a sports game before. Like every time the ball was moving up field, it would turn into all these mini chess matches to see who makes the first move.

Everything about this game seemed really polished, from the framerate to the animations and controls. I now know why PES (or Winning Eleven as some folks call it) consider the series to be the best among soccer games. If you're familiar with the series already, then this years version probably seems like another $60 roster update. But if you're like me and new to the whole PES thing, you might want to check this out if you need a new sports game to play.

Konami brought what seemed to be their entire holiday lineup to New York City yesterday. There was a ton of stuff to try out, including a few new titles, but the first thing I wanted to check out, besides the open bar, was Order of Ecclesia for DS. To say I was looking forward to this game would be an understatement. In fact, it's the only DS game I plan on picking up the first day it comes out.

Along with the female lead, the most immediate change you'll notice when you start is the absence of any and all anime character art styles. I was never 'for' or 'against' them in the first place, but I know there was a contingent of fans out there that pleaded they be changed to a more mature look. See, bitching and complaining does work!

The new Glyph attack system is very similar to the soul system in Dawn of Sorrow. But rather than just collecting new, sometimes useable abilities and enhancements from enemies, the Glyphs make up your entire weapon arsenal. There are three slots to assign a Glyph. Your primary and secondary attack (Y and X buttons), and a special ability (right shoulder button). What's even more interesting is you can assign the same glyph more than once. For example, the first Glyph I acquired was the Confodere, a short sword, which I equipped to both the attack buttons. I'm allowed to then alternate attacks very quickly which makes killing much faster. However, each attack used lowers your total magic bar just a bit, which eventually refills itself after a second or two of keeping your weapons holstered. This prevents you from spamming the hell out of your attacks and making the game a breeze to play through (see: Crissaegrim).

If I assign, say, a throwing dagger to one attack along with my short sword on the other, I can do combo-like attacks and intermix all sorts of weapon types. The game is said to have over 100 weapon combinations, so it seems like there will be a lot of customization options. The only R button ability I got during my playthrough created a bubble-like field around our heroine. This allows her to gravitate to these specially placed pegs and, by pressing down and releasing, makes her zoom through the air to previously unreachable areas. As for stylus controls, I didn't have to use any throughout my time with it. The other two Castlevania DS games used very little as well, so I expect this game to do the same.

Also, it looks like you'll no loner be exploring one large map anymore. After I completed the initial trial stage, I was brought to *shock* an overworld map. What? Yes, as you complete stages, more and more areas open up for you to travel to, including a village where you can wander around inside the local's houses. There are 20 area's total to explore, but it's unclear right now how big they all are. The early parts I played through were pretty small, though.

I really wanted to just stay there and play this all day, but unfortunately other people wanted a turn. I thankfully won't have to wait too long to get my hands on a retail copy as the game comes out next month!

Long live 2-D!