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Video: RB2000 featured in new, improved Robo Catcher
Ah, a childhood favorite revisited. Years back, our hearts were taken by the one and only Robo Catcher, and now it seems the famed toy snatching game has seen a revamping that features JR Robotics' RB2000 as the main grabber. The entire unit has also been freshened up in the design department, and the addition of a joystick control system brings it up to speed with all of its "just a claw game" rivals. Hop on past the break for a look at what you're missing out on here in the states.
NIS targets casual audience with obscure puzzle game
We remarked on Puchi Puchi Virus's vivid 2D art when we saw the first screens in March, but we never thought we'd saw the game again. It was just another low-profile Japanese puzzle game. But Nippon Ichi has surprised us by announcing that they're localizing Puchi Puchi Virus for a U.S. release in February. The press release mentions a website, but that site has yet to go up.Since NIS's usual fare has very little casual appeal (and by 'casual' we mean 'people who have less than 15 hours a day to spend playing games), they have decided to bring out a nice, light puzzle game as their first DS release. Of course, they're still being true to themselves-- it's just about the most random Japanese game they could find.
Puchi Puchi Virus has surprisingly excellent art
Puchi Puchi Virus is a puzzle game from Keys Factory, a company that generally sticks to game accessories. It's published in Japan by JALECO, who published things like the NES port of Maniac Mansion and Irritating Stick for the Playstation-- we didn't even know they still existed. The gameplay looks like a slightly novel puzzle game based around capturing same-colored items inside a wide beam. But the art is stunning. The DS can do some excellent 2D in the right hands, and Puchi Puchi Virus has some of the best we've seen recently. The characters are vibrant and presented in an anime style, while the backgrounds are more in the whimsical, highly-stylized form of modern Western animation like Dexter's Laboratory.
