OK, quickly now, as I’m still buried under a few Wii and Vita games I need to review: Blades of Time for the PS3 and Thor: God of Thunder for the Nintendo DS, both picked up this week dirt cheap. The former is a sort of sequel/reboot/update to developer Gaijin Entertainment’s poorly received X-Blades, a perfect example of great (in fact, spectacular) visuals and gameplay that’s somewhat lacking in depth. Blades of Time looks better, has tighter gameplay, an awesome time winding feature for combat and puxzzles, some really cheap enemies and yet, scored low to average on nearly every site that reviewed it. Granted, lead character Ayumi talks WAY too much to herself for a good chunk of the game and for those expecting a simple hack ‘n slash, the game can be really tough about a third or so of the way in. Nevertheles, it’s worth a buy if you like fast-paced action games and ton of monsters to kill. Oh yeah, that compass you whip out to find your way around (and hidded treasures) is pretty sweet as well.

As for Thor on the DS? It totally SMOKES the PS3 and 360 versions thanks to developer WayForward Technologies being true gods of 2D programming. Parallax galore, a fun, fast combat system, upgradable gear and amazing use of the DS’ dual screen format (the best bosses are two screens tall!) makes this one an excellent buy for any fan of classic side-scrollers from the 8 and 16-bit era. It’s too bad neither game got the totalrespect they deserved… but I guess that’s one reason I’m still doing what I do here. Go check them out sometime!