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Review Roundup: Tornado, Star Ocean: First Departure, Disney Sing It
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Tornado (Nintendo DS)
The story behind Tornado is aliens coming to Earth and basically sucking all of its contents. Then some space travelers find out what the evil aliens did and plan on replacing all of Earth’s belongings using tornados. The game is basically controlled using the stylus in the bottom screen of the DS. The player draws circles to create a tornado and controls the tornado by continually drawing circles and moving in the direction you want the tornado to go. As you suck up items with your tornado, it gains strength enabling you to suck up larger objects as well as use different power-ups found on the maps. Most of the levels consist of finding something or some things strewn across the map. The top screen is a map that just basically shows you where you have ran your tornado, but really doesn’t help in terms of finding the items you’re looking for. And to make it more difficult, you’re timed. And if you don’t complete the task before time runs out, the game is over. That’s right, no retry, just back to the main menu screen. Add that to having to build up your tornado level to access an item you’re trying to get plus no hints or ideas to where your items might be on the map (the view in the bottom screen doesn’t show much), you’ll be finding yourself pressing pause with two seconds left to restart the level more than you want to. It would have been better if there was no time limit, but you were still timed and given extra power ups or abilities for finishing the task quickly and making good time. There’s also an arcade mode where you can play the levels you already beat but with different objectives. But the problem still remains the same. The concept for the game is great, but players might get a bit frustrated having to continually replay levels.
Q’s Rating: 2.5 out of 5
Disney Sing It (Xbox 360, Wii, PS2, PS3)
There isn’t much to say about Disney Sing It except that it’s another karaoke game that features every tweens favorite songs. 
The game plays like most karaoke titles where the player sings into the microphone and tries to match the tone scrolling across the screen. The lyrics are under the tones and the video for the songs plays in the background. The songs? Well, there’s a total of 35 from the hit Disney shows and movies like High School Musical 1 and 2, Camp Rock, Cheetah Girls and Hannah Montana and Radio Disney favorites like Miley Cyrus, Aly & AJ, Jordan Pruitt, and Everlife. Along with single player mode, there’s a also a multiplayer mode where you can sing duets with a friend or challenge them head-to-head to see who would get the better score. The game is awesome if you’re like a 10 or 11 year old girl, but grown men would probably want to stay away from this one.
Q’s Rating: 3 out of 5
Star Ocean: First Departure (Sony PSP)
Star Ocean: First Departure was originally released in Japan 10 years ago but never made to the U.S. Now Square Enix has 
grabbed the game and remade it for the PSP. The story remains the same, but with excellent anime cut scenes, new environments, and a new battle system. The story is a great adventure that follows three friends as they try to find out why all their neighbors have turned to stone. On their way, they meet some space travelers who inform them that the cure is not available on their planet and they take off into space to hopefully find a cure for their planet. Of course on your adventure, there are plenty of battles and the battle system it pretty simple. You control one character while the computer controls the other two. By hitting X, you execute a normal attack and using the triggers executes special attacks. You can switch to any character by pressing O, but it still feels a bit limiting compared to other RPGs. Like with any role playing game, you can upgrade you characters by adding different skills that will help in battle and also builds up strength and whatnot. Square Enix did a great job updating a game that’s more than 10 years and it’s a pretty fun game that’s probably worth checking out.
Q’s Rating: 4 out of 5
Bonus: Here's a sneak peek at Star Ocean: Second Evolution, coming in 2009!
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