A loss prevention specialist in a Florida Wal-Mart bagged themselves quite the trophy shoplifter this past week -- a fugitive named Daniel Larson, who was wanted for violating probation after a 2006 armed robbery charge. After being arrested and charged with larceny earlier in the month, he was released after presenting authorities with a fake I.D., and was placed on top of the Cape Coral, FL "Most Wanted" list.

His illicitly acquired freedom came to a sudden halt following his attempt to shoplift $120 worth of Nintendo DS titles from a local Wal-Mart. A loss prevention officer noticed the odd, rectangular shapes jutting out of his pants, and subdued him until authorities arrived. During police questioning, Larson claimed he was stealing the games to support his heroin addiction.

Then again, we wonder if that's really the true story. "Please, man," Larson might have said to the arresting officer, "don't tell them about my insatiable addiction for Imagine: Babyz games. I know! You could say I planned on pawning them to buy heroin! Please, come on, man. This would absolutely ruin me."
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Though it's been available in Japan since late May, Capcom's Phoenix Wright spin-off, Gyakuten Kenji, was playable in English form at the publisher's Tokyo Game Show hotel suite. Inefficiently dubbed Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, the game sees you ditching the spiky-haired idealist and donning a delightful cravat in service of the prosecution. In what could have been just another Phoenix Wright game, but presented from an opposing perspective, Ace Attorney Investigations diverges from tradition more than any other title in the series -- which is to say that it actually diverges from tradition just a bit. The focus is still heavily on plot, characters and clever yappin', but the sterile, first-person point-and-click investigation process has now been replaced with a third-person view. The control system is functional, but quite unnatural in one respect. You can maneuver Edgeworth through the 2D environments, displayed on the DS' top screen, by either dragging the stylus across the touch screen or simply using the d-pad (thanks for the option, Edgey!). When you've gotten him close enough to an item of interest, you tap a context-specific icon on the bottom screen to interact with it. So, it's less point-and-click and more walk-over-there-and-tap-the-button.

Continue reading TGS 2009: Hands-on: Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth

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Ace Attorney series creator Shu Takumi's next game is Ghost Trick, a puzzle adventure game which is very different from the chronicles of Phoenix and Edgey, but carries over that series' trademarks of humorous characters and sharp, brightly colored suits. There is no English demo for the just-announced DS title yet, so I can't really say anything about the dialogue, but I understood the story in the demo quite well just through animation and gameplay.

Continue reading TGS 2009: Hands-on: Ghost Trick

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Seeing that everyone around me was playing the same introductory sequence of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers that I had seen at E3, I loaded up a random save, fairly confident it would place me in another carefully chosen demo location. (Or at least that it would be some other part of the game.) Whether intentional or not, I hit demo paydirt with a sequence of the game that involved combat, exploration and heavy use of the game's telekinetic grappling hook.

Continue reading TGS 2009: Hands-on: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers

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