I know what you’re thinking.  I thought the same thing when I first heard about this game.  It’s probably something like “why in the flying flaming flannigan hell would I want to play a game as an air traffic controller”, right?

Well, this game won’t be for everyone, but Air Traffic Chaos on the Nintendo DS  is a great little title that blends micro-management with mid-air collisions.  The result is a fun and sometimes frantic look into the job of an air traffic controller.

In the game, the top screen gives an overview of the airport while the touch screen displays arrivals and departures.  Touching on any of the flights allows you to issue different commands to that plane; these will vary depending on what the pilot wants to accomplish.  As the controller, you dictate when and where all of the planes move.  There can be up to four arrivals and four departures all at the same time, so it can get to be a bit hectic.

For each plane, there is a bar which indicates the stress level of the pilot, as well as one which shows your overall stress level.  The longer that you keep the planes waiting, the higher the stress levels get.  If you can’t keep everyone happy, you’ll lose your job.  Happily, you’re playing as Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, so if you mess up you can just play that day over again.  This comes in quite handy when you mistakenly order an arriving plane to go to a gate which is already occupied…causing a collision.

That’s one big issue I had with this game; once you issue a command, you can’t stop it from happening.  There is no option to correct it, or give a new order to counter it.  This means that you really have to be careful and think about every order you give.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it can get frustrating.

The touch screen interface is perfect for this type of game.  It captures the feel of playing similar games on a PC, though with less depth than those full size counterparts.  The game uses a bright colour palette, which helps to offset how tiny some of the sprites are.  Overall, the graphics are quite functional, and any complaints about them really come down to the size of the DS screens.  The music, on the other hand, is crap.  Music on a handheld system does not have to be poor (as proven by any portable Castlevania game), so I don’t know what happened there.  Most likely,you’ll likely wind up turning the sound off; it makes crashing the planes much more enjoyable!

In addition to a tutorial, there are multiple levels of difficulty for each of the airports.  These should help beginners learn the ropes and offer challenges to more advanced players.

If you like management or tycoon-style games, then Air Traffic Chaos is definitely one that any DS owner should check out.

This book is also a Marvel title and is written by Mark Miller and penciled by Steve McNiven. I have been waiting for this one for some time now. Unlike the Dark Avengers I have been buying this run of Wolverine titled “Old Man Logan”. I’m not sure why, but there was a long wait from the last issue to this one and I was very excited to get it.

The concept of “Old Man Logan” is that it’s fifty years in the future. At one point all of the villains unite to take over America (yes, the rest of the world is shit and the villains only want America). They defeat the heroes and then divide America up into their own territories. Logan’s a poor farmer who, because of some untold reason, has not “popped his claws” in fifty years. He has a wife and two children, I might be wrong about the kids. There might be more or less, but who cares?

Now, after fifty years, Hawkeye seeks out Logans help to cross America. Logan agrees to this for a price because as I said before he’s a poor farmer now and needs the cash to pay off his land lords the evil Hulk Clan. In this issue Logan explains the reason why he hasn’t “popped his claws” in fifty years.

There, I think that more or less gets you up to speed.

So, lets get the good out of the way. Steve McNivens art is great. Its original and very pretty. Matter of fact, his art may be the only reason I waited so long for the latest issue of this series.

Now, I get to rip this issue a new one. The whole thing starts out with X-Mansion  being attacked by a rouges gallery of who’s who in the Marvel world of villains. At this point one gets the feeling that something corny is going to happen to explain his herolessness for fifty years because there’s a bunch of children running for cover and I thought “for Christ sake, is killing one kid going to explain this?”  But fear not no children where harmed in the making of this comic.

Instead, it turns out that the villains where not in fact villains but Logans team mates. Huh? you might ask well, an unexpected villain has clouded Logans mind and forced him to kill all his friends who then gloats  “Did you really think you could do this alone? Take down forty super- villains? Talk about delusions of grandeur. But your friends. People who would hesitate.That’s a different matter entirely”.

This is where my first problem with this issue comes in, why would they hesitate? yeah the first couple might not know what to do but this is the mother f’n X-men we’re talking about. Someone would have tried to stop him. At the end of the day all Iceman had to do was freeze him. It just seemed to easy.It made me think that he should have killed the children instead. At least then it would seem plausible.

Next, why did it take so long to come out? Maybe there’s a reason, but this was an art driven story. The dialog is none existent. It’s not until the last quarter of the book that we actually get panel by panel dialogue. Really, the whole thing only took about five minutes to read!

This issue  seems a little anticlimactic to me. I have been enjoying this run of Wolverine and I’m sure that I’ll get the next issue, but I was disappointed in this one.

Dark Avengers #2. This title is put out by Marvel, is written by Bendis, with art by Deodato. Unfortunately for me I have to review this as a single issue because I missed out on issue 1. It was my fault, but the good people at my local comic store are trying to find me a copy or at the very least get me a re-print.

The concept is pretty simple as far as I can tell. Aliens (Skrulls) attacked earth, things are all upside down, Stark is guilty of… well I’m not really sure what he’s guilty of but it is alluded to in this issue that he had something to do with or didn’t do enough to stop the attack. Because of this S.H.E.I.L.D. is disbanded and a new super security group H.A.M.M.E.R. is started up headed by Osborn, of Green Goblin fame, and now has a costume that is a cross between Iron Man and Captain America and is calling himself…….(there’s not enough dots for this)….. The Iron Patriot, I kid you not.

In this issue Iron Pat is assembling his new group of Avengers, made up of super-villains who look like pre-existing heroes, to go and help out Dr. Doom. Now, maybe its just because I missed all of Secret Invasion and issue 1 of this title, but most of this didn’t make much sense to me. It wasn’t a bad read though. It was entertaining enough to keep the me turning the pages, which I guess makes it readable.

I had the same feeling reading this that I get when I turn on WWE for the first time in a long time, who’s that? Should I care what they are doing? and I’m hungry, what should I snack on?

Again, the whole thing is written very well with Osborn carrying the book and doing a great job at keeping his Avengers in line. I was at times confused about what the true intentions are of this new group. Everyone talks with that stereo typical bad guy bravado but Osborn seems to rein them in because he wants the public to see them in a positive light. I’m only to assume that this is for greater plan of his (theirs) because near the end of the book he allows Sentry Bob to rip the head off of their foe, Morgana. I’m not sure how the general public would react to that.

The art i s exceptional, I’m in awe of Mike Deodato’s use of shadows. The first two pages are probably 60% shadow and it looks great.

Matter of fact, everything about this book is good except for the supporting cast. I look at other titles that are group orientated and someone or someones usually stands out. Not this time baby. Everyone with the exception of Osborn is just blah and uninviting. At some point Venom can change his size from Peter Parkerish to Tyrannosaurus Rex size and he eats a guy. Have I been out of the comic world that long that Venom now eats people, next you’ll be telling me the Hulk is red!!!

At the end of the day, I think if you’re fan of comic book art and story telling you’ll enjoy this one. But if you’re just getting into comics as a whole, this one might confuse you.

what did you think?

Andrew

So in the podcast, I mentioned that WWF Wrestlefest is the best wrestling game ever.  And it is.  Fair enough.  Well, I’m surfing along the other day, and I found a site made by an awesome chap who has started a petition to get that game put onto the Xbox Live Arcade service!  For those of you who have played it and want to add a sig, here’s the link to the site.

http://www.bringbackwrestlefest.com/

For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, shame on you….or I’m getting too damn old…

Check out these pics, courtesy of www.klov.com.