Mark your gaming lunar calendar: 2008 will almost certainly be known as the Year of the Music Game. As you likely know, several noted game publishers have recently announced new entries into established music game franchises, or have committed to more serious efforts at carving up that lucrative pie. Trends that latch onto an idea and scramble to produce near carbon copies are not new; that is, in fact, the definition of a trend. Videogaming has exhibited similar patterns over the years. Ultima begat Wizardry and most of SSI’s library (Pool of Radiance, etc.); Mario begat Sonic, Bonk, and Bubsy, and so on. The history of trends reads like the Old Testament. Even the music genre owes heavy debts to the decade-old Parappa the Rapper and Harmonix’s own Frequency and Amplitude. The difference that I want to highlight here is that these trends rarely cost more than the standard price of admission and also occupied what I would consider a reasonable amount of space. With the arrival of Rock Revolution and the "no longer limited to Guitar" Hero, that will certainly change.

I’m not sure that the market can support three band-sized sets of plastic instrument games, but I am giddy at the prospect. Rock Band is fun, but Revolution’s expanded focus on drums sounds promising. At this juncture, I’m leery of Guitar Hero and its bandwagon approach. However, I am also aware that my reticence will probably fade on launch day, swathed in the heat of hype.

R-Type Command is an indelible joy to play. I would understand any person arguing me that it is not a very good game. In fact, I would agree. The truth is, I’m a schmup fan from way back, and playing one in a turn-based structure has proven itself nothing short of eye-opening. Command seemingly aspires to please Irving, and only Irving. Hexagons and the evil Bydo Empire? Surely heaven is built from these things.

Not to be obvious, but on the subject of shapes and ships, have you seen this game? Are you as excited as me?

- Irving

The epic power outage series renders its conclusion this week. The real question to be asked is whether Irving simply wasn’t paying enough attention or didn’t care to begin. Answer? A little of both.

I’ll use this moment to apologize for the "lights out" series. We really needed our artist free to finish a different project we’ve been working on. That project will be available at HereosCon at the end of June. We plan to return to a normal comic schedule over the next few weeks.

On a side note, Beau let me borrow his copy of The World Ends With You for the Nintendo DS. Once you get over the emo factor of the main character, a delightful game awaits. The story is a bit weird and the art style is very reminiscent of Kingdom Hearts. It’s a different RPG, and breathes fresh air into a market clouded with repetitious level grinding and cardboard characters. The game is structured in a way that makes it flexible to the player’s play style.

For example, take the combat system. You control two characters at the same time: the main character on the bottom screen and his partner on the top screen. Your main character uses a variety of touch screen controls to attack, while the partner character controls her attacks with the d-pad. It’s overwhelming at first, but the game allows your partner to be computer-controlled until you feel comfortable controlling them both. It’s completely up to you whether you want to control them both or not.

Then there is the setup to combat. You press a button to scan the screen and the monster icons will appear. You then tap on as many or as few opponents as you want to face. There are no random encounters, although a few times you will be forced to fight for storyline reasons.

Anyway, I could go on for awhile about the quality and polish of this game is but I’ll spare you. Do yourself a favor and go pick it up sometime. Is it worth the standard Square-Enix ten dollar DS upcharge? Well, that’s up to you to decide. I think that thirty dollars should be the ceiling for DS titles, but what do I know? Find it used or cheaper online and have a blast.

- Dover