December 6, 2006 8:6 am - PS2, news

Simple 2000 returns: Tamsoft brings Edo detectives, hapless schoolgirls

Here's the latest D3 goodies from Famitsu (click the thumbnail for a larger image).

Oneechanbara vorteX scored a 27/40 (ouch), and Earth Defense Force 3 got a 30/40. There's a video of gameplay footage over at the OneeX official site, and...it looks like exactly like the previous two (or four, if you prefer) games. Oh, Tamsoft, you never (always?) disappoint.

Just announced is a new Simple 2000 game for PS2, "The Jo-okappiki Torimonochou" (The female-detective detective-story) ~Oharu-chan Gogogo!~. It's an action game puts you in the shoes of a gumshoe (naturally) named Oharu in old Edo (Tokyo during the Tokugawa years). It's by Tamsoft, by the Oneechanbara team, and it looks like it uses the same engine as those games. It's got to have one of the worst titles I've seen in the Simple 2000 series, but will the game be any better? We'll see.

And for those who missed the news on the forums, another Simple 2000 game was announced just recently. It's The Tairyou Jigoku, or The Overwhelming Hell. Famitsu preview, eG preview.

So you play this high-school girl who's searching for her cellphone, which was stolen by...a rabbit in a top hat and suit. And while she's searching for the phone, she gets attacked by bugs! Lots of bugs. Cockroaches, centipedes, crickets, spiders, snakes (not bugs, but...yeah, Japanese include snakes along with bugs under the blanket term "mushi.").

Our Erika can attack enemies by tossing them away or by smacking them with sticks and poles that fall during the levels. But if she becomes overwhelmed by the bugs, the words "zowa zowa" will start to feel the screen, being the onomatopoeia for her creeping fear and disgust (yeah). If the screen fills with those, the game is over. The genre is "panic action," and the game's meant to evoke feelings of fear and disgust. The screenshots where Erika's being overwhelmed by the bugs are creepy in more ways then one. Eyugh. And it bears more than a little resemblance to Necro-Nesia, doesn't it? It'll be delightfully terrible, being by Tamsoft. Comes out next February. Here's the official site. Check out that cover!

And I know I've tried this before, but I'm going to try again: I intend to move this site back to more frequent updates which means more news and more rapid-fire opinion/impression posts between longer entries.