I've been having a tough time keeping track of all the titles coming out and I'm really really happy you've made this list, it would make me happy to see this every fiscal cycle or whenever needed, but could you please include the release date for the games?

I had no idea Rygar was finally out.  It seems to be getting predictably slammed by reviewers.

I first heard about NASCAR Kart Racing this week.  What a stretch, but it got me thinking.  If any game developers out there want my advice on making a Mario Kart ripoff without owning a suitable cast of characters, here it is:  Pirates vs. Ninjas vs. Robots Adventure Kart Racing, featuring cannons, throwing stars, laser beams, and unlockable characters including a Sasquatch and a T-Rex.

And rightfully so. The game is pretty horrendous. Both myself and my wife have put a couple hours into the game and we both despise it. The true travesty is that the game actually was reviewed so highly when it existed as a PS2 game. There are so many poor conventions in the game, it's unbearable. The stiff control, boring gameplay, obnoxious semi-static cameras, and terrible graphics really do it for me.

Even a cash-in game like this has a feature missing from Mario Kart Wii. That's gotta hurt. :-[

I loved Rygar when it first game out on PS2.  You have to realize that 3rd person 3D action games were not an established genre back then, so the scope of it was very impressive to us at the time.  A lot more games have come along since then to refine mechanics and presentation of such games, so Rygar seems very dated.  That makes it all the more confusing that Tecmo would want to release it again for Wii after so long.

While this might be true, it seems that many reviewers actually noted these issues and actually just dismissed them, presumably for the reason you've stated. A number of reviews went as far as to compare the game to both Onimusha, and Devil May Cry 1, both of which I played fairly recently. In comparison, Rygar doesn't even come close to stacking up. I guess it just comes down to personal preference, though.

I will agree that it is quite odd that Tecmo just dumped this game on the Wii and did absolutely nothing to make it better. There is clear potential with the formula, and some minor tweaking to both the camera and controls could've brought the game into this next generation successfully. One way or another, I strongly discourage purchase of this game. If you are truly curious, just buy the PS2 game, which is likely a dollar or two at Gamestop at this point, and skip the Wii version outright. It's not like it takes use of the Wii Remote in any meaningful way anyway (a particular diskarmor can be manipulated when fully extended with waggle).

I really enjoyed Rygar. Really I think it was the precursor to God of War.

The more interesting thing is they delayed the game from late last year to now. I think IGN talked about it because they didn't want the game to be 'lost in the crowd'. However that same exact situation has happened if not worse.

House of the Dead: OverKill , Deadly Creatures, Tenchu : Shadow Assassigns and even Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers will outshine this game. The same demographic that would buy rygar would buy these games. This has proven to be a very solid month for Wii and Rygar potential sales will be dwarfed by those games.

$40 is allot for a 7 year old game. They should have bitten the bullet and released it at $19.99

That depends on how far to the west you mean, one of the PS2 games got released in Europe as Zombie Hunters IIRC.

Really? I didn't find it worse than God of War but maybe that's because I consider GoW a par game instead of a goty candidate as the reviewers seem to do (no idea why it's considered great, it seems decidedly average to me). On a humorous note, some moron user at G4 called Rygar a GoW ripoff.

That's cute.

I remember renting and really enjoying Rygar when it first came out on PS2, partially because it did seem like more Onimusha / Devil May Cry (just slightly less good). It's really strange why this game is coming out in its near-directly ported state right now. It seems like a crystal clear example of some 3rd parties' early views on what they should release on the Wii... amidst lots of examples of what other 3rd parties have slowly learned they should release on the Wii. R.I.P., Rygar.

I'm very much in the same boat as you KDR, I don't think GoW is some phenomenal GOTY-type game. Rygar is easily many steps below that in all regards, but clearly an inspiration for the game. With that in mind, its obvious that releasing a game which has been done a million times since then, and far better, was a  big mistake on Tecmo's part.

In the PS2/GameCube/Xbox generation, my two favorite games are probably God of War and Metroid Prime.  GoW was one of the few games that took the fun of platformers of old and properly translated it to 3D.  Gameplay aside, what I loved the most was that they never tried to soften the edges on Kratos' character.  He was unapologetically violent and uncaring throughout, aside from the ending with his family.

Yes, I'm also a big fan of God of War and own both of the PS2 games.  I too like his brutality and the game's interesting manipulation of your own moral qualms, but I wish the writing and acting weren't so one-dimensional.  In terms of story and character development, God of War is what people meant when they compared the film 300 to watching a video game.