Two games that Majesco WON'T be publishing in the United States are Space Invaders Extreme and Arkanoid DS.  Taito's parent company, Square-Enix, will be bringing these classic remakes to our shores instead.  This may leave you worried about the price of these two titles, but fear not... they'll still cost $19.99 each when they're brought to America later this year.  Will we get the optional dial controller as well?  I'm not betting on it, but it'd be a sweet bonus!

The news isn't all good for Nintendo, though.  For instance, the upcoming Wii version of Super Mario Kart has a rather detached online mode.  There's no voice chat, no text chat of any real consequence (unless you consider canned catchphrases stimulating conversation), and no way to interact with other players unless they're in the same room as you.  I don't like making accusations of Nintendo games being too "kiddie," but in this case, they really ought to think about taking off the training wheels and letting players get the full online experience.  You shouldn't have to set up a friggin' conference call to play this game with your out-of-state friends!

Then there's talk of motion control being taken to the next level on the Playstation 3.  Someone experimented with head tracking on the Nintendo Wii, but the PS3 takes the silly headgear out of the question, replacing it with a camera that tracks the motion of the player's eyes.  That could be a real problem for Nintendo... if the Playstation 3 drops $200 in price, anyway.

With that out of the way, it's time to play Now... or Then!  It's a little like the Price is Right version of the game, except the cranky fat guy doesn't wear glasses or make wisecracks about the sponsors.  Anyway, we're going to look at two different games... the first is still in development but already very promising, while the second was released over a decade ago, but is still as addictive as it was in the 1990's.

NOW:  Between its admission of sucking the creativity out of its subsidiaries and making titles like Boom Blox and the tentatively titled Monkey Business, Electronic Arts seems intent on shaking its reputation as the world's most evil game developer.  We're all familiar with the Spielburg-produced Boom Blox, but what about Monkey Business?  Well, from what I've seen so far, this DS game is the perfect hybrid of 1960's aesthetics, 1980's gaming conventions, and 21st century technology.  As the intrepid British explorer Professor Hatsby, you'll trek through the heart of Africa, bounding over craggy cliffs straight out of an episode of George of the Jungle and matching wits with everything from abstractly drawn monkeys to brawny opera singers. 

Sometimes you'll need an added boost to get you through the game's most punishing trials, and that's when the sliding puzzle on the bottom screen comes in handy.  You can triple the professor's strength by switching to the puzzle mode, making a few quick matches, then switching back to the main game before time runs out.  A video on the DS Fanboy web site illustrates that the puzzle mode can be used to give ordinary bombs a nuclear-powered punch, but only EA knows what else it will bring to the gameplay.  However, there's no mystery at all about the quality of the Henry Mancini-inspired soundtrack and the expressive animation... it's almost like playing an episode of the Pink Panther cartoon!

THEN:  Gamers running the Macintosh operating system don't get a lot of breaks, but they did have one advantage over their PC owning friends back in the early 1990's... Ambrosia Software's Maelstrom.  Released in 1992, Maelstrom borrows heavily from the Atari classic Asteroids, while adding all the luxuries people had come to expect from the Nintendo age.  First aid capsules, allies in need of rescue, and point multipliers join the aimlessly floating chunks of rock and give the player added incentive to fight to the next stage.  Maelstrom is also pretty cutting-edge for its time, with simple yet attractive computer rendered graphics and soundbites culled from old Ren and Stimpy episodes.  Remember, this was back in the multimedia age, when it was fashionable to cram games full of digitized voices even if it didn't make much sense for them to be in there!

Unless all his opponents are parasitic Florida lawyers, this dude is totally screwed.

The King of Fighters is also being pulled out of the mothballs, with more lively character artwork than in previous installments of the long-running series.  Hair flows like water, clothing ripples with every leap, and there's a sense of exaggeration in the animation that was largely missing from the last game.  There's a YouTube video that makes the differences between King of Fighters XII and its predecessor more clear... just click on this link, then fast-forward to 1:11 for the good stuff.

So, how's about that Devil May Cry 4?  I played the demo on Xbox Live Arcade this morning, and was really impressed with the graphics.  It's hard not to be after you've seen the exquisitely detailed buildings towering over you and the massive bosses tearing through ramshackle villages in the hopes of crushing you under their flaming heels.  However, the rest of the game doesn't seem to have evolved along with the visuals.  The camera angles are still distressingly schizophrenic; an unwelcome throwback to the early days of Resident Evil.  Also, the control is a little clumsy thanks to the right shoulder button, which you're frequently forced to press along with the controller's face buttons to perform some attacks.