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Cthulhu-based comedy has grown cliché. The Internet saw to that well before South Park turned H.P. Lovecraft's tentacle-faced, dragon-winged elder god into a My Neighbor Totoro parody. To give Zeboyd Games due credit, however, I can't find record of any other game where you actually play as Cthulhu. That's the idea behind Cthulhu Saves the World, where the octopus-mouthed monster falls to the earth and decides to conquer it through heroism. Reduced to a tiny 8-bit sprite, Cthulhu wanders an RPG kingdom littered with references to Lovecraft, minus the author's gibbous, squamous, non-Euclidean prose and undisguised racism. Quite garrulous for an alien deity, Cthulhu chats with everyone from townspeople to the game's actual narrator (by speaking English instead of some eldritch tongue that drives mere humans insane just to hear it). Like Zeboyd's Breath of Death VII, Cthulhu Saves the World is an accessibly fun RPG that never overstays its welcome. It quickly ushers players through menu-based battles with team-up attacks for the game's seven characters, and the dialogue is strewn with (mostly) on-the-mark deadpan humor. The graphics have an old-fashioned, Nintendo-era charm, as does the soundtrack. And despite Cthulhu's overexposure, this is the only place you'll find a Lovecraft icon questing about like a squat Dragon Warrior hero.

I will freely admit that I hate the anime-maid movement, but I like the English title chosen for this side-scroller. She's not a maid, she's THE maid, thank you very much. Of course, this maid is still an instrument of “moe” anime fandom, so she carries no pick, helmet, or weapon of any kind as she explores caverns full of pot-bellied, club-wielding ogres. Her only defenses are jumping and…well, cowering in terror. The latter actually serves a purpose: when curled up and trembling, she can't be seen by unsuspecting cave trolls. While she's sniveling, though, the player's field of vision dims, and ducking in fear won't do any good if a troll's already spotted her. The game looks like a typical Japanese indie game, with large, clean sprites and insufferably upbeat music. This alone gives it higher production values than 95 percent of the games on the Xbox Live Indie circuit. It's also downright cruel in its challenges: you're not there just to survive each stage, but to collect items and make it out with time to spare. It's not exactly the game version of The Descent, but it might appeal to fans of cheap, nastily difficult platform-jumping games. Cynical students of modern anime will also note the extra work that went into animating the maid heroine.

How much do you like the NeoGeo? That's the question behind the NeoGeo Station, SNK's latest adventure in promoting the arcade beast that defined the company in the 1990s and beyond. The NeoGeo Station's first round of ten titles covers many of the system's early successes, and they're all emulated right down to the original arcade games' bugs (which players can turn off in some cases). It's a fine gesture, but there's one problem: every game here is outdated. In fact, they were outdated by the mid-1990s. Fatal Fury, Samurai Shodown, The King of Fighters '94 and Art of Fighting were all made redundant by their sequels. The same goes for Baseball Stars Professional. League Bowling and Super Sidekicks are fair sports titles at best. Alpha Mission II is an average shooter, and Magician Lord is a style-over-substance action game with some amusing voice acting. Metal Slug, the first of Nazca's cartoonishly gruesome wartime side-scrollers, is the best of the bunch, and even it doesn't rate high next to Metal Slug 2 or 3. SNK also skipped some of the more interesting games from early NeoGeo lore: the enjoyably unique Super Baseball 2020 is nowhere to be seen, and there's nothing from SNK's goofball King of the Monsters series. Perhaps better NeoGeo games will follow, but the current lineup is wanting. Those in need of a nostalgic NeoGeo burst are better served by the PSP's NeoGeo Heroes Ultimate Shooting.

Bionic Commando: Rearmed is an excellent example of how to update a revered classic. Though recast with modern graphics and self-aware humor, it sticks to the principles of the original Bionic Commando as the main character's grappling arm, a novel feature even today, is expanded upon and used in many new interesting ways. Yet the game also preserved one of the original's minor annoyances: hero Rad Spencer, unlike every other character of the NES era, couldn't jump. Rearmed 2 changes that. It returns Spencer to duty with a bushy new moustache and various new moves, some pulled from the original (and lousy) arcade version of Bionic Commando. And he can jump. For those who insist than the original game was just fine without jumping and even improved by its absence, that feature can be turned off in Rearmed 2. Other changes are in store, as the sequel was created by developer Fatshark after the orignal's maker, Grin, went under. Fatshark removed the overhead interludes from the first Bionic Commando, and Rearmed 2's levels are no longer staged in branching order. That said, I imagine some will be buying this just to hit the jump button.

Remember when Electronic Gaming Monthly put together a fake Square-Nintendo crossover game called Mushroom Kingdom Hearts? Remember how many people wanted to believe it was real? Well, they'll never make that game. The nearest you'll come right now is Mario Sports Mix, a collection of volleyball, dodgeball, basketball, and the field and ice flavors of hockey. Square Enix isn't just the unseen developer in all of this; they've inserted monsters and character classes from Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest into the game, so you'll see slimes and White Mages backing Mario, Diddy Kong, and other Nintendo stars. All of the sports are simplified versions of the ones played in actual life, but Mario-style power-ups appears on the playfield, and every character has a specialized skill. Well, except for the Mii characters that the player can bring into the game. This is the game's way of telling you that you're not special. But you can vent that disappointment through various online modes.

I have nothing against Naruto. I think Naruto is a fine ambassador to young anime viewers. And yet it's had free run of the market for over five years. Shouldn't there be another show to usurp the throne and have legions of grown-up Naruto fans complaining about how much better their childhood series was? But no, Naruto is still atop the heap, and there are still games like Naruto Shippuden: Shinobi Rumble headed to our shores. A 2-D fighter for the DS, Shinobi Rumble boasts a story mode with various missions, along with 16 playable characters. That would be an acceptably large cast for a typical fighter, but it seems strangely anemic for the Naruto series, which has about 75,000 different characters, each with some arcane and heavily narrated style of combat. To its credit, Shinobi Rumble uses the DS for plenty of aerial combat, and elaborate combos recreate the moves of the ninja who are actually in the game. At the very least, it'll be better than Windy X Windham.

In a gutsy move, Koei didn't dramatically rename Trinity: Souls of Zill O'll for the North American market. While the “Trinity” part of the title is large and looming, there's no denying the rest of it. This is Zill O'll, and the hell with you if you and everyone else at the local GameStop can't pronounce it. OK, so Koei removed the “Zero” from the title, but it's not as though players need to be familiar with the rest of the Zill O'll series. Trinity follows three characters on a journey through a medieval-grade land rent asunder by war, dramatically detailed in sepia maps and arrows on the game's European website. It all boils down to massive amounts of carnage dolled out by the playable heroes: Areus is a balanced half-elf swordsman, Dagoa is the heavyweight, and Selene is the pale, nimble assassin who really should wear more armor if she's going to dice her way across the battlefield. Yes, it's the same trio of character types that's entertained brawler fans since the days of Final Fight. Developer Omega Force created most of the Dynasty Warriors games, and Trinity reflects that in the rampant destruction the characters can visit upon enemies. Omega Force pitched the game at North American audiences: the medieval-fantasy backdrops, the towering monsters, and the underdressed heroines all look straight from the covers of paperbacks with names like Sword of the Storm Lands and Curse of the Shadow Lords and Wizard King of the King Wizards.