So, in honor of the recent baby girl boom here at Game Lemon. (Game Lemon’s editor and resident Boy Band Fanatic, Vaga, likes to brag non-stop about his baby girl, but I did the baby girl thing almost 2 years ago…way before it was cool.) I think a Mother’s Day blog entry is in order. What are you getting for mom this year? What? You’re too busy playing video games to call your mom? Shame on you. You know she used to change your diapers right? Uh huh. Well, you know that, before you had the finger dexterity to do it for yourself, she also used to pick your nose for you, right? She used a tissue because she’s a lady, but still, it was a lot of work. And now you can’t be bothered to put down the wiimote long enough to buy a crappy ass bunch of flowers. Nice. Real freaking nice. If you’re going to be that lazy, here are some crappy games you can buy for mom the next time you hit GameSpot. You should find them in the bargain bin, but knowing GS, they will probably be featured on an end cap for the low, low price of 39.95.

Bratz Super Babyz

Nintendo DS

Mom’s love babies. And what could be better than a baby? A baby with whore-ish hair and make-up! I think the original tagline for this game was “Look, up in the sky, it’s a hot chick…No it’s a drag queen…. Oh no! It’s just a really slutty baby!” Seriously, this is all Nintendo has to say about this game: Play as Cloe, Sasha, Jade and Yasmin and use their special new super-powers to help the citizens of Stylesville fend off an invasion of aliens from outer space!

Um, no thanks. Warning: only buy this for your mom if you hate her.

If you like your babies sans eyeliner, then there’s also:

Babyz. Imagine. DS

Ooh. It’s like Harvest Moon, only instead of raising vegetables, you’re raising babies. Unless you seriously screw up. Just kidding, I don’t know for a fact that “coma baby” is included in this edition of Babyz…but it might be. Tragic. Speaking of tragic, this is what Imagine has to say about this game:

The first ever SIM game focused on babies, Imagine Babyz speaks to the caring nurturer in you! It points out important tools you need to be a good sitter while giving you tons of ways to make errands and housework fun—whether you’re dressing the kids up to go shopping, buying baby food, vacuuming their rooms, painting the walls pink or mowing the lawn. And the work pays off when you get to spend your hard-earned money on decorating your house! Ooh-la-la!

You know what, I completely disagree with the whole idea of a baby sim. If teenaged girls want to practice being baby mommies, they can do it the same way we did: with actual babies.

Warning: Don’t buy this for your creepy uncle. Come on. The dude has enough trouble trying to fit into society as is without getting caught on the bus playing a Baby SIM.

Or you could just get her a Lemmy doll. All moms love Lemmy!

My Kingdom for a Quarter!

If you are too young to remember the original Contra, congratulations, because you probably still have two solid decades of Viagra-free sex left in you. That’s something to be happy about. If you DO remember the original Contra, however, we have good news for you as well: you can now rekindle those undoubtedly awesome memories with Contra 4 for the DS.

Contra 4 looks and feels much like the original. The AI is not any smarter, the movement is not any smoother, there is but 1 new “move”, and many of the weapons are the very same ones you learned to know and love when you last played this game in that other, soon to be completely forgotten century. In short, this is a real nostalgia game. If you’ve never played the original, you’ll probably wonder what all the fuss was about in the first place, and I can’t really blame you, because Contra 4 does not abide by any rules of today’s video gaming. It’s a game that doesn’t let you save and reload, doesn’t care to hand you a handkerchief when you get your ass handed to you on a rocket propelled grenade, doesn’t care about playing “fair”, and is generally built to punish you and take your every last quarter. It’s brutal, it’s simple, it’s hardcore. And if you were lucky enough to have been gaming 15-20 years ago, it’s awesome. As for you all you kids under 20, don’t bother. It’s nothing personal, but chances are, you won’t really like this game. It doesn’t matter how much of a hardcore gamer you think you are. It doesn’t even matter how much of a hardcore gamer you really are. This kind of hardcore is just different.

Graphically the game looks much like the NES original, with attractive 2D graphics, with some fake 3D perspective thrown in in a few places. The dual DS screen allows for levels which are twice as tall, and the game does a good job of making use of that real estate, even in levels that scroll horizontally as opposed to vertically. Controls are exactly as you remember them - you can run, lie down, do the famous spinning jump, and, new in this installment, use a grappling hook to lift yourself to platforms above. And of course, every move can (and should!) be combined with lots and lots of shooting. Enemies in the form of enemy soldiers, beasts, and stationary guns of all kinds swarm you constantly from all directions, and bullets, grenades, and various other projectiles are constantly drifting through the screen. Get hit with one, once, and you die. Die enough times, and you have to use up a continue. Use up those and you are done. Wipe your nose, wussy! Can you say “arcade style shooter” yet?

One of the things that made the original Contra so successful was the awesome level design, and thankfully, Contra 4 doesn’t disappoint in that department. The levels are consistently fun, varied, and challenging. Environments change from jungles, to factories, water and air levels, and other usual suspects, and everything looks clean and attractive in that distinctive Contra art style. The famous base levels with their from-behind perspective are back, except now they have a bit of a fake 3D feel to them, which takes nothing away from their great target practice gameplay. Weapons (many of them classics from the original) will not disappoint you either, and picking up the same weapon twice will result in an upgraded version, which is very nifty. As with the original Contra, having a fully tricked out weapon by the time you get to the level boss makes all the difference in the world, although each one can also be taken out with the default gun (albeit with a lot more skill and effort). The bosses themselves are classically massive and, like school teachers, require you to basically memorize their attack pattern in order to dispatch them. Overall, the game is as hard as you might expect, but that only doubles the fun, and the great classic audio tracks that come along with it round out the package nicely.

Contra 4 is a great game to take on the road (which is where most of us working folk do our gaming), and, like viagra-free sex, is great for delivering lots of fun in short bursts. And if you haven’t had sex yet, please, stay away from this game. We don’t want you dirtying its memory with your negative comments, and besides, you have other things to worry about.

Grade: 9.0 if you were born before 1983, 7.5 otherwise.

Like DDR? Hate getting off your lazy ass to move your feet around the living room? Have we got a game for you!

Presenting Boom Boom Rocket for the Xbox Live Arcade. Now I know what you’re thinking: “Zig,” (it’s okay, you can call me Zig), “you’re into sports and shooters and stuff. What’s with a rhythm game all of a sudden?” Well, my fellow gamers, sometimes I like to rock to the beat like anyone else, and when I’m too poor to buy Guitar Hero, I go for the tiny doses of awesomeness that is Boom Boom Rocket.

For the measly price of 800 Microsoft Points (which I think works out to be around 16 trillion Yen), you can start exploding fireworks to techno-tastic updates of some classical music faves. All these flashing lights and bright colors are sure to make you feel more cheerful after a long day at work. And if not, just pretend that instead of fireworks, you’re exploding some annoying customer’s head. Works like a charm. Of course, you could always just go sit at a bar and drown your sorrows in a pint or four, but again, we’re going for cheap and not much movement here, so indulge me.

As the headline up there implies, this is a Dance-Dance-Revolution style mini-game without the deformed power pad. Instead of shakin’ your groove thing on the dance floor, you simply press the A, B, X, or Y buttons in time with the similarly colored arrows (or letters, if you choose) on the screen as they approach the boom line. Then sit back and be amazed at all the pretty colors.

Don’t get too relaxed, though. This game has some challenge. The accuracy rating is a bit unforgiving - you really have to nail the button-press just right to get a perfect - but the score multipliers you get for racking up streaks definitely feed your competitive side. With online leaderboards and wonderful achievements like the Johnny Three-Fingers award, there’s plenty to keep you busy in this game. If your poor little fingers get tired, you can put the game in Visualization mode and watch as it explodes fireworks for you in time to your favorite blowing-shit-up music (My choice? Any variation of the Halo theme. Feel free to experiment, though).

There’s even split screen multiplayer, only when the developers were creating that part, they must’ve forgotten that split-screen game types usually have some sort of delineation between one side of the screen and the other. It’s quite easy to get confused as to whose firework is going where and mess up the timing a bit, but it’s easy enough to take in stride since it’s really a simple game overall.

In short, if you’re a music fan, a firework fan, or a lazy DDR fan (and hopefully not epileptic), you’re sure to get a kick out of this game.

Grade: 8.8

We’re in the process of setting up a new review segment of GameLemon we affectionately call Lemon Drops. They’re mini reviews for the games that either don’t deserve full-fledged articles or are just too short that we wouldn’t want to ramble on and on (more than we already do) just to formulate a complete piece. Here you’ll see the likes of Xbox Live Arcade, Playstation Network, and Virtual Console titles, as well as some handheld goodies. Feel free to send us some feedback if there’s anything you want to hear about, and we’ll try to track it down to put a lemony spin on it for ya. Check back soon for the first installments.