BBMReview

Noodleboro Games

After spending much time unpacking from our recent move, we were delighted to find the Noodleboro Manners game arrive on our new doorstep this week.  We quickly unwrapped the game and got down to business. 

The game board looks like a picnic tablecloth.  It comes complete with a picnic basket and tokens that have various images on them like lemonade or apples.  Players take turns using good manners to ask permission to pick a token and see if it matches the color on their side of the "tablecloth."  Sometimes you even get a token with an ant on it.  As long as proper manners are used, "please" and "thank you" most notably, then the game continues as normal.  If manners are forgotten, players lose a token and risk losing the game.

My daughters are ages 2 and 7 and we had a great time playing the game.  It was quick enough to keep the little ones attention and simple enough to play that the girls could even play by themselves. 

Perhaps the best part of the entire game package is the accompanying CD which takes you from the beginning of the picnic until the end, including an ant invasion.  The girls had a blast playing the game and then spent the rest of the afternoon creating their own musical show thanks to the CD. 

In addition to the game and CD, the Noodleboro game also comes with a very nice book about manners.  What's impressive about the game is that there are three different mediums to reinforce good manners: the game, the book and the CD. 

If you're looking for a game your young children will enjoy, that doesn't take hours to play, and helps to reinforce things you're already trying to teach your kids, then you might want to give the Noodleboro games a try.  The games are set to premiere this fall and they're not just limited to good manner games.  There are also games that reinforce sharing and listening.  Oh, why couldn't they have sent us one of each???

For being a fun game that doesn't just stop when the game is over, BBM gives the Noodleboro Manners game. . .

Virtua Fighter 5 (Xbox 360)

As a keen martial artist and a lifelong video game fan, combining the two is one of my favourite things. The Beat 'Em Up genre has been around for nearly as long as the first video games now, and have come a long way from their roots in the form of games such as Karate Champ (fans of Bloodsport will remember Mr Van-Damme playing this in the hotel lobby).

Virta Fighter 5 carries on Sega's pedigree lineage in the VF series, with the latest two iterations of the game being widely regarded as the finest fighting games ever created. The 2D purists will argue that Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike perhaps deserves that mantle, but there's no denying the fact that Virtua Fighter 5 is an awesome game!

Fans of the series will be pleased to see familiar favourites back again and spruced-up with glorious, shiny HD visuals. Stalwarts such as Akira and Jacky are still going strong, and the newcomers El Blaze and Eilieen (Lucha Libre and Monkey-style kung fu respectively) make their presence felt from the get-go. On the subject of styles, there's a wide variety represented with varying levels of realism; everything from Judo to Shaolin Kung Fu so there's bound to be something to please everyone.

The presentation and graphics are gorgeous, as you'd expect from a next-generation title, and one ported from a hugely successful arcade title. This is actually the Rev.C version, as opposed to the Rev.B which was used in the PS3 version, the geekier of you may be intrigued to hear. What this means to the vast majority of people who'll play this is negligible though, you just need to know the CPU plays a mean game and is no walkover! It's in Vs mode that the game really comes to life though, be it two people in the same room playing, or over the outstanding Xbox Live online implementation.

It's not an easy game to play at first, but if you put the time in working through the Dojo training area and the vast Quest mode - where you can customise your character's appearance and improve your Kyu/Dan ranking - it's a rich, rewarding experience and one which will last a long time. People new to the game won't find it too daunting to pick up, the premise of Virtua Fighter's system has remained unchanged throughout its history - a button to punch, one to kick and one to guard. That's it. The vast range of moves are executed with a combination of the joystick and buttons. The only difficult choice is which one of the 18 characters to use!

Fighting game fans rejoice, finally something worth sinking your teeth into on the 360! Just be warned that the learning curve (especially online) can be quite steep.

ESRB rating: Teen

Buy it now.

TSDAdam gives Virtua Fighter 5 a BBMReview rating of....