When I think back to the days when the Playstation, Saturn, and Nintendo 64 were competing for dominance in the console market, developer Naughty Dog created a new mascot, Crash Bandicoot, for Sony to use to market against Mario and Sonic. The rest is videogame history as Crash went on to star in several sequels and become a household name.

Role Playing fans have been waiting for a good RPG title to hit the Playstation 2. Even though Dark Cloud is available, I consider it to be more of an action game than a straightforward RPG.

Sony’s new PS2 racer is definitely not your run-of-the-mill racing game. In Kinetica, the contestants are not sitting in a car, they’re wearing it. The game is set in a future where underground street races have become insanely popular and new technology has developed specialized suits that utilize kinetic energy for racing.

If there is one genre on the Playstation 2 that has yet to see a great title, it would most certainly have to be Role Playing Games. While this genre used to be something only the hardcore geeks played in the US, the popularity of the Final Fantasy franchise on the Playstation breathed new life into all RPG’s.

“Come along and sing a song and join our jamboree. M I C K E Y M O U S E!” From the moment you load Dance Dance Revolution Disney Mix, players will be dancing to remixes of their favorite Disney songs. DDR Disney Mix is the newly released sequel to Dance Dance Revolution.

Don’t you just love load times? I mean–really, really love load times? If you are like me and despise load times, then you will probably be disappointed by Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Load Times… er I mean, the Wrath of Cortex. However, if you can get past the load times, you may find something to enjoy.

The original Resident Evil was the beginning of a completely new genre of gaming. The mix of horror and survival gave Capcom a new franchise and the gaming industry something to copy. These “cloned” Resident Evil games brought nothing new to the table and very few were able to even come close to matching the brilliance of Capcom’s Resident Evil.

Hot on the heels of the hit movie, Tomb Raider, Activision has released an all new Tomb Raider Adventure on the Game Boy Color. Tomb Raider: Curse of the Sword, is Lara Croft’s second venture onto Nintendo’s handheld system.

I consider myself to be a fan of all genres. From action, adventure, sports, RPG, strategy, and even simulation-I enjoy good games in all genres like all gamers do. Okay, so you know where I am going with this review. I have to say something good before smashing this title to bits and pieces.

Every year, US game publishers select what games they wish to translate and bring over from foreign countries, like Japan. The vast majority of these titles neatly fit into a specific genre that US gamers are accustomed to playing.