Swinging the Wii Remote, a la Twilight Princess, makes Pax swing his weapon. In addition to a lot of head bashing, Pax also has a bunch of puzzles to solve in Mushroom Men, and some of them are pretty darn clever. Some puzzles also act as a quick and easy way to knock out bad guys that will otherwise be a headache to fight toe-to-toe. The gameplay is some of the most satisfying action that has been produced so far on the Wii and, with the constant creation of new weapons, it never gets old.

The most outstanding aspect of Mushroom Men has got to be the sound and visuals. Now, of course, great graphics has always been the Achilles' Heel of the Wii but the colorful and sophisticated environments as well as the gorgeous character designs make Mushroom Men look like something that should be on the Xbox 360. The visual style looks like something that would come out of one of Guillermo del Toro's sketchbooks (except much tamer). The music and sound effects were created by game sound studio GL33k and Les Claypool of Primus fame. All of the music and sound effects blend together to match each other perfectly throughout the game. For example, as you come across other mushroom men you will hear them humming along to the background music. Also, as you walk through pipes in certain levels you will hear echoed drops of water dripping to the sound of the music.

Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars is definitely a winner for Wii owners. The catchy beats and beautiful designs give it its own feel and the gameplay is fun and solid.

One reason to keep your PS2 around is this Ar tonelico II, a great, anime-style game. © Gust Co., Ltd. 2009 Ar tonelico® Melody of Metafalica & © 2009 Namco Bandai Games Inc. © 2009 NIS America, Inc. All rights reserved.

Ok, what the heck is going on? Why is it that the PS3 has been out for more than two years now and the best PlayStation games are still only coming out for the PS2? Not only that, but most of them are RPGs. It's kind of like the lifespan of the original PlayStation; toward the end of the PS1's life it started releasing wave after wave of RPGs that were all really good. Now, you kind of have the same thing with the PS2. You might not remember who NIS is, but if you recall, they are the same guys that brought us Atelier Iris 3 for the PS2 a couple years back. Ar tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica is yet another RPG for the PS2. At first you think "Here we go with yet another 2D, anime-esque RPG." But, in actuality, this one is very well done; so well done in fact that Namco Bandai games has actually gotten themselves a piece of the pie with this one by helping to publish the game in Japan.

The story is set way, way in the future and involves a society of people who worship a giant satellite that they call the Goddess. Yeah, it's totally an anime! One day the people rise up, secede from the Goddess' control and declare war on it by taking their destiny into their own hands with the dream of obtaining paradise on their own. The hero is Croix Bartel, a knight of the Grand Bell. This is a party-style RPG where you control multiple characters, but Croix is the main character. In this world, every knight has a female partner in battle called a Reyvateil. Reyvateils are females with arcane powers that can be produced through their songs.

Most of the gameplay is traditional RPG: you talk to many, many NPCs, you collect gold, you buy weapons and you level up as you win battles. What makes AT2 different is that the battles are done in quasi realtime. You and the computer both take turns attacking, but you are given a time limit to attack. During your time, you perform attacks using everyone in your party at the same time by pressing certain face buttons with the directional button. Different directional buttons with perform different attacks. Reyvateils will only attack with song magic, which can either hurt the opponents or help their allies.

Ar tonelico II will let you know exactly how far away danger is when questing through dungeons, a great feature in any RPG.

A much-needed feature in any RPG is this next feature that NIS has introduced to Ar tonelico II. When venturing through a dungeon, a gauge appears on-screen to let you know how close you are to encountering an enemy. The Encounter Gauge is such a godsend because in any other RPG, enemy encounters in a dungeon are completely random with no warning.

The art style in AT2 is a very good quality anime-style. The environments are rich with vibrant and fully-rendered 2D, layered art that almost looks hand painted. The characters are fairly simple and have the same style as the characters found in Final Fantasy: Tactics. One of the best things about AT2 is the soundtrack; all the music sounds excellent with some amazing and moving sound scores that range from beautifully orchestrated pieces to some really catchy techno beats.

Ar tonelico II is a very deep and very long RPG experience; venturing through the whole game, including side quests will probably take you about 90 hours to complete. AT2 is definitely made for the hardcore RPG enthusiast and requires a patient mindset to truly enjoy it. You have to really immerse yourself into AT2 but if you do, you will come out with the enjoyment of a very well-done RPG.