As a mystery story, White Wolf is somewhat dry. Nancy has been hired to investigate a series of dangerous incidents, including a few explosions, at Icicle Creek Lodge, but in order to fully investigate she’ll have to pull triple duty as a maid, cook, and detective. The plot unfolds steadily enough, but there’s never really the level of intrigue or danger that it so desperately tries to achieve. Sure, there are bombings—but nobody dies. Yeah, everyone’s a viable suspect with possible motives—but,...

Re-watching Star Wars: Episode III lately, I marveled at the complex politics that the ill-fated prequel-ogy introduced to every nerd’s favorite very, very distant galaxy. Indeed, before the vicious Empire and the heroic Rebellion, there was the noble Republic and the scheming Separatists, and, ho! Before all that, there were the Jedi and the Sith—the religious zealots, if you will, of the interstellar Crusades.

To be honest, my Game Boy Advance SP, once a knight in shining (quite literally, at last!) plastic, has seen little to no activity in recent months. In a sense, then, I can actually relate to the poor thing, but I digress.

As with the attacks, knowing when and how to perform each of these turns is vital during a race, since, depending how it turns out (pun sadly intended), a turn can lose or gain crucial seconds during a lap—consider, of course, that the difference between first and second is often a mere tenth of a second.

For veterans of the original, the dungeons become all new challenges (sometimes extremely frustrating ones), with different sequences necessary for progression and a horde of remixed enemies throughout—for instance, where there might have been a few keese in Ocarina of Time, there now stands a Stalfos.

The entire sailing element is a love-hate sort of experience: if you don’t mind occasionally spending five minutes crossing the entire ocean to get from point A to point B or constantly changing the direction of the wind, then you can easily dismiss the potential frustration and realize that it is actually a rather fun experience, and simply exploring the ocean, finding all the islands and their respective objectives, is actually enjoyable.

Dungeons, too, are nearly flawless. Void of the usual maze and switch puzzles found in so many RPG’s, the dungeons in Skies of Arcadia Legends, although not entirely difficult, contain what feel more like actual traps than useless obstacles whose only intent is to hinder your progress. Although disappointingly scarce, the puzzles are only the backdrop to the real meat and potatoes of any RPG: the battles (luckily, the frequency of random encounters has been toned down a bit since the past...

Metroid Prime is not a first-person shooter, however. Nintendo itself has hailed the title as a first-person “adventure,” and for good reason; throughout the game, the player must pay close attention to his or her surroundings, observing and thinking more than shooting.

The average player will tackle this game’s adventure in about 12 hours of total gameplay, while the hardcore Metroid player could beat it in half that time. And since Metroid Fusion does not benefit at all from the linkup with Metroid Prime, there are no real bonuses to keep you playing. However, speedy players will be rewarded with different endings, and finding every item in the game proves to be quite a time-consuming task.

This freeform sense of interaction with the environment helps immensely in immersing the player into the game’s sunny, tropical atmosphere, and lets the player become comfortable with Mario’s new moves, most of which involve the water pack.