How do you evolve a genre that has remained consistent for as long as it has existed without alienating fans? Japanese RPGs have grown in terms of quality and scale, sure, but they all follow a very basic formula and rarely do they deviate from it. Xenoblade Chronicles changes all of that. By taking a few pages from the Western RPG playbook and giving them a JRPG spin, it manages to take a genre and push it out of its comfort zone. The results are simply spectacular. READ MORE
For the last 14 years, The Mario Party series has followed a pretty standard formula that hasn’t seen much variety through the previous eight iterations: gather four of your friends, roll dice, play your minigame, yell at friends, lather, rinse, repeat. Winner is determined by how many stars and coins you have.
A lot of people would probably be thinking, “Huh, another Mario Party game. Same old boring stuff as it usually is.” For once, they’d actually be wrong.
From kicking a ball away from a bunch of gophers on a date, to interviewing a muscular wrestler and posing for the fans, to high-fiving monkeys in a watch, Rhythm Heaven Fever is as ridiculous as it is quirky. And I mean that in the best possible way. READ MORE
We here at Snackbar know how painful it can be to play a board game like Monopoly. Like a roll of the dice that takes multiple hours of your life to complete, there are often no real choices to make that aren’t incredibly obvious. Thankfully, Fortune Street is not exactly like Monopoly.
Don’t get us wrong, though: it’s still a heck of a lot like Monopoly. READ MORE
There’s plenty of fishing games available on the Wii, so what makes this game any different than the others? Not much, but progression and multiplayer add to the appeal and interest. READ MORE
