Kidzworld's Official Blog

Over the next week, we get not one, but two baseball games coming out. There are tons of differences between the game we could look at for you to decide which one is best, but I just want to see how biased each game is toward specific teams! So here are the official rankings in both games of how good each team is. I was of course shocked to see the Atlanta Braves weren’t #1 in everything.

MLB 2K10 Team Rankings

1. Boston Red Sox
2. New York Yankees
3. Philadelphia Phillies
4. Los Angeles Angels
5. Los Angeles Dodgers
6. Texas Rangers
7. St. Louis Cardinals
8. Tampa Bay Rays
9. Minnesota Twins
10. San Francisco Giants
11. Colorado Rockies
12. Milwaukee Brewers
13. Chicago Cubs
14. Atlanta Braves
15. Arizona Diamondbacks
16. Chicago White Sox
17. Baltimore Orioles
18. Seattle Mariners
19. New York Mets
20. Kansas City Royals
21. Oakland Athletics
22. Florida Marlins
23. Washington Nationals
24. Cincinnati Reds
25. Detroit Tigers
26. Houston Astros
27. Toronto Blue Jays
28. Cleveland Indians
29. Pittsburgh Pirates
30. San Diego Padres

MLB 10: The Show Team Rankings

1. Yankees
2. Red Sox
3. Phillies
4. Dodgers
5. Rays
6. Braves
7. Angels
8. Rockies
9. Cubs
10. Rangers
11. Diamondbacks
12. Twins
13. White Sox
14. Giants
15. Blue Jays
16. Cardinals
17. Mets
18. Brewers
19. Reds
20. Orioles
21. Mariners
22. Astros
23. Athletics
24. Tigers
25. Padres
26. Marlins
27. Royals
28. Nationals
29. Pirates
30. Indians

Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing is the biggest kids’ release of the next week, and because maybe the coolest thing about kart racing games is all the characters, here’s a full list for you:

1. Sonic the Hedgehog – No surprises there.
2. Miles “Tails” Prower – Side note: It took me years and years to get the joke on why his name is Miles Prower. Do you get it?
3. Knuckles – Again, not too surprising.
4. Doctor Eggman – His real name is Dr. Ivo Robotnik. I guess “Eggman” was just a bad nickname he got in school.
5. Amy Rose – She was introduced in my favorite Sonic game ever, Sonic CD, for the SEGA CD. As a kid I had a combination Laserdisc/SEGA CD player, and I swear those are both real things.
6. Shadow the Hedgehog – I realize he’s the anti-Sonic and everything, but it still seems odd that a hedgehog can have a gun, like Shadow does.
7. Big the Cat – Another Sonic side character, and he looks about as much like a cat as Sonic looks like a real hedgehog. I mean, look at him.
8. AiAi – He puts the “Monkey” in “Super Monkey Ball.” Otherwise, the game would just be “Super Ball,” which actually might be trademarked already.
9. Amigo – From “Samba de Amigo.” For those keeping score, that’ s Monkeys 2 – 3 Hedgehogs.
10. Ryo Hazuki – The main character from the Dreamcast cult hit, “Shenmue.” Yeah, don’t worry if you’ve never heard of it.
11. Beat – From “Jet Set Radio,” another cult hit for the Dreamcast.
12. Alex Kidd – Oh boy, this is even more obscure. He was SEGA’s main man until Sonic took the stage, and hasn’t been in his own new game since well before you were born.
13. Billy Hatcher – From “Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg” for the Gamecube. He, uh, wears a chicken suit. Hm.
14. Zobio and Zobiko – A zombie couple. Too early for Halloween and too late for Valentine’s Day.
15. Ulala – From “Space Channel 5,” another Dreamcast game you’ve probably never played, but should. I miss the Dreamcast now.
16. Jacky Bryant and Akira Yuki – From the “Virtua Fighter” series.
17. B.D. Joe - From “Crazy Taxi,” which hopefully you’ve seen in an arcade or something. Do arcades still exist?
18. Robo and Modo – Now here’s one I hadn’t even heard of. They’re from “Bonanza Bros.,” which apparently came out in 1990. Ooooookay.
19. Opa-Opa – A living spaceship. Cool.
20. Chuih, ChuBei, ChuPea, and ChuBach – All from “ChuChu Rocket!,” another awesome game for the Dreamcast.
21. Banjo and Kazooie – Xbox 360 version only. Sorry, Nintendo fans like me who played the original “Banjo-Kazooie” on the N64.
22. Avatar – Not like James Cameron’s Avatar or the animation show Avatar, but your New Xbox Experience one. Obviously, also Xbox 360 only.
23. Mii – For the Wii.

Level-5 is the developer of our latest featured game, White Knight Chronicles. They’re an often overlooked RPG dev, with some amazing games for Sony systems in particular over the years. Here’s a quick rundown of them, and why you should pick them up if you see them for $5 in a bargain bin somewhere.

• Dark Cloud (2000) – PS2. Actually very similar to White Knight Chronicles in that it’s a regular RPG with city-building elements. A real under-recognized gem.
• Dark Chronicle (2002) – PS2. Sometimes it’s called Dark Cloud 2. It has the same city-building stuff combined with RPG stuff, and then adds in this odd photography system. It has awesome, stylish graphics.
• Dragon Quest VIII (2004) – PS2. Again, great cel-shaded graphics. Japanese magazine Famitsu called it the fourth best game of all time at one point.
• Rogue Galaxy (2005) – PS2. It’s pretty unfair to say it’s a sci-fi version of Dark Cloud 2, but I don’t have a lot of room to talk about it here, so I’m just going to say it’s like a sci-fi version of Dark Cloud 2.
• Jeanne d’Arc (2006) – PSP. A tactical turn-based RPG instead of an action one like the others, plus it’s (loosely) based on the story of Joan of Arc. One of my favorite PSP games.
• The Professor Layton series (2007-today) – DS. Not an RPG, but rather a game of puzzles set around a storyline, with some adventure-y elements. Definitely a must-have for DS owners, unless you’re really ticked off by brain teasers.

Another week of only three games coming out, but still some neat stuff. Pixeljunk Shooter is getting some insanely good reviews. The first thing I think when I see the game, though, is that it’s not exactly a “shooter” at all. It involves shooting, but that’s totally not the point.

It turns out there was a contest to decide the name of the game, back when it was a prototype and was only being called “Pixeljunk 1-4.” People got a look at this video, and got to decide what they thought it should be called. The leading name by votes on their website was “Pixeljunk Elements,” by a long long way. But the developers were afraid that the name wasn’t action-y enough, and that people might think the game was about the weather. Other leading contender names were “Pixeljunk Caves,” “Pixeljunk Depths,” “Pixeljunk Atlantis,” “Pixeljunk S.O.S.!,” and “Pixeljunk Blaster.”

The developers were planning on calling it “Pixeljunk Depths,” but they said that the name was too hard to say. So anyway, they picked “Pixeljunk Shooter,” which received only 8 votes, and said that that name won the contest, which ticked a lot of folks off, and me too a little bit. It’s not that much of a shooter, it’s more about the water/lava puzzles.

Regardless, great game, definitely worth trying for $10 on the Playstation Network.

Almost all of the songs in The Beatles: Rock Band have now been revealed, but one is being kept secret for now, likely an endgame surprise. Here’s the list, in order of the songs’ original release, and with which level the songs will be played in:

# Twist And Shout / Cavern Club
# Do You Want To Know A Secret / Cavern Club
# Can’t Buy Me Love / Ed Sullivan Theater
# I Wanna Be Your Man / Ed Sullivan Theater
# Eight Days A Week / Shea Stadium
# Paperback Writer / Budokan
# And Your Bird Can Sing / Budokan
# Yellow Submarine / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# With a Little Help from My Friends / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# Within You Without You / Tomorrow Never Knows / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# Revolution / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# Birthday / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# Dig A Pony / Rooftop Concert
# I’ve Got A Feeling / Rooftop Concert
# Boys / Cavern Club
# A Hard Day’s Night / Ed Sullivan Theater
# I’m Looking Through You / Shea Stadium
# If I Needed Someone / Shea Stadium
# Ticket to Ride / Shea Stadium
# Drive My Car / Budokan
# Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# Getting Better / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# Good Morning / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# Hello, Goodbye / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# Hey Bulldog / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# Dear Prudence / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# While My Guitar Gently Weeps / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# Helter Skelter / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# Something / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# Come Together / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# Don’t Let Me Down / Rooftop Concert
# I Want You (She’s So Heavy) / Rooftop Concert
# I Me Mine / Rooftop Concert
# I Saw Her Standing There / remainder unknown
# I Want To Hold Your Hand
# I Feel Fine
# Taxman
# Day Tripper
# Back In The USSR
# I Am The Walrus
# Octopus’s Garden
# Here Comes The Sun
# Get Back