Castlevania: Judgment

Also known as:  Akumajou Dracula Judgment (Japan)

Developer: Eighting

I want to like Castlevania Judgment. The game looks beautiful and it's got some very interesting ideas tossed in with the fighting...The issue is that the execution of it all falls a bit flat. Sure, the game is fun to watch, and to a point, it's even kind of fun to play...But the fun doesn't last. The easy-to-exploit fighting system saps away at much of the replay value, making things feel repetitive much faster than it normally should. It’s also possible to complete the game one-handed…In order to get screenshots for this list, I wanted to see if I could get any good shots by sacrificing my ability to move around…Then I quickly found out that with no strategy, I could simply shake the Wiimote around like an old man shaking his fist at the dang neighbor kids playing on his lawn, and I was still not only winning all of my matches, but also picking up perfect victories here and there. In the end, Castlevania Judgment is a good try, but it ultimately falls short…that’s my judgment, anyway.

Review added: 08/19/2019

Chuck E. Cheese's Party Games

Also known as:  N/A

Developer: UFO Interactive

Chuck E. Cheese’s Party Games is a collection of mini games that might provide brief moments of nostalgia if you remember ever visiting a Chuck E. Cheese as a kid. Many of the classic games that I remember as a child make an appearance here, and I must admit, that it made me smile. Now, with all that mushy stuff out of the way – this game isn’t very good at all. You’ve got limited tokens to play games. The way to earn more tokens is to make a bunch of pizzas within a time limit. Then go back to playing games. If you get bored with the games you have, to can spin a wheel and hope that it lands on a space to provide you with a new game…over and over and over and over and over and over again. And yes, you earn tickets, and yes, most of the “items” that you can purchase require you to spend way too much time suffering through this mess to be worth it. Party Games is not a good collection of mini games at all. You may see a smile appear on your face briefly at times as fond memories enter your mind from when you played the real versions of some of the games as a child…but that smile will likely fade as soon as you return to reality and realize that you’re playing this instead of standing in the children’s casino of your youth.

Review added: 02/28/2021

Chuck E. Cheese's Sports Games

Also known as:  N/A

Developer: UFO Interactive

Chuck E. Cheese’s Sports Games is a HUGE jump up from the pizza-serving rat’s previous game that was supposed to simulate playing games in the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant. While I liked the concept of the previous game a lot, the execution of the game just fell flat. Instead of Chuck E. Cheese’s Sports Games being a simulation of visiting everyone’s favorite rat-infested child casino, this is more of a Wii Sports rip-off. The result is still flawed, but much better than the previous game. Some games like bowling, are mildly fun, but seem to require zero skill…I nearly got a 300 game on my first attempt at playing. Then games like baseball, tennis, and hockey are pretty boring. The other sports, which also include fishing, kart racing, water gun shooting, and a mystery game that I didn’t care enough to unlock, aren’t great…maybe the mystery game is, but looking at the other games in the compilation, I wouldn’t bet on it. The only game that I’d be willing to pop this in again to play is mini golf, which is done fairly well. If they had released Chuck E. Cheese Mini Golf, and just created more mini golf courses and such, I think they’d have a decent game on their hands. Anyway, Sports Games is a major improvement on Party Games, but it’s still not really anything worth going out of your way to play.

Review added: 02/28/2021

Chuck E. Cheese's Super Collection

Also known as:  N/A

Developer: UFO Interactive

Chuck E. Cheese’s Super Collection is a compilation of Chuck E. Cheese’s Party Games and Chuck E. Cheese’s Sports Games…though the box does not specify that anywhere. That means that if, for some reason, you loved those two games, and thought that this was a third , unique Chuck E. Cheese game, you’d get home and find yourself disappointed that you just purchased the exact same games that you already had. The only thing you really bought was the convenience of having it all on one disc. But anyway, I still have the same stance on the games included here – Party Games should have and could have been a nice trip down memory lane for those of us that visited Chuck E. Cheese as a child. Instead, it’s a bit of a mess. Sports Games is better, but it still falls short of being passable. Both games contain various mini games, which, I guess, is why this is a “Super Collection.” Unfortunately, I can start a collection of “artistic used toilet paper” and call it a super collection, too…but when only one of the piece of toilet paper very mildly resembles a bootleg version of the Mona Lisa, and the rest are just stinky, stanky smudges, the collection doesn’t seem so super. Ultimately, most of the mini games found here are the stinky, stanky smudge kind.

Review added: 02/28/2021