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Subway
Do What You Want – OK Go
All the Small Things – blink-182
Spiderwebs – No Doubt
Are you Gonna Be My Girl – Jet
We’re Not Gonna Take It – Twisted Sister
Rooftop
All Star – Smashmouth
Breed – Nirvana
Jessie’s Girl – Rick Springfield
Hit Me With Your Best Shot – Pat Benatar
This Love – Maroon 5
Parade
Heaven – Los Lonely Boys
Helicopter – Bloc Party
China Grove – The Doobie Brothers
Rock And Roll All Nite – Kiss (*Cover)
What I Want – Daughtry
Greek Arena
Jet Airliner – Steve Miller Band (*Cover)
Black Magic Woman – Santana (*Cover)
Stray Cat Strut – Stray Cats
La Grange – ZZ Top (*Cover)
Youth Gone Wild – Skid Row (*Cover)
For our extensive hands-on and a video of On Tour in action, check out our impressions.
You can throw all of that talk out the window. Guitar Hero: On Tour is shaping up to be a surprisingly good entry in the Guitar Hero series, handheld or not. Based on what I played, it appears that what made the console Guitar Hero games so much fun hasn't been sacrificed in the portable version. In fact, there are a few reasons why On Tour may turn out to be more fun than parts of the console Hero games.
On Tour has the same familiar layout as the other Guitar Hero games. The note highway, colored notes, star power note sequences, hammer-on and pull-off notes, and other basics are all in there. The big gameplay difference is the absence of the orange fifth fret, a button which many beginning players dread. While getting rid of it may offer the appearance that the game brings a step down in top-end difficulty, I can say with confidence that the expert level of difficulty will be a good challenge for GH pros. I found that I hit a wall after only three or four of the first batch of songs, so I can't imagine it getting any easier after that.
The DS touch screen replaces the strum bar that you're used to seeing on the full-size plastic guitar controllers. To play notes, you need to swipe the included guitar pick stylus across the touch screen. Any kind of swipe will do, be they back and forth or all in the same direction. The game can detect "tapping" swipes where you lift the pick up after every note, or "scratching" swipes in which the stylus pick never loses contact with the screen. There was never a point during my extensive time with On Tour when any of my strumming/picking motions were not detected by the game, which is very impressive considering I did almost all of my play on the note-intensive expert difficulty. The swipes can be performed (almost) anywhere on the touch screen, and not just across the neck of the virtual guitar in the background.
The action of playing notes is physically more of a strumming motion than any other guitar games have to offer. It really feels like you're in control of every string plunk because your hand isn't locked into place. The console guitar controllers have a fixed strum bar that makes it easier to "bounce" your hand up and down when playing multiple notes in quick succession. Playing a lot of notes in a row with the pick stylus across the touch screen feels much more satisfying when you pull it off successfully. It really feels like you're scraping at strings instead of just flipping a lever up and down a few times. There's no annoying click noise, either!
The only real downside to touch screen strumming is that it's possible to accidentally activate star power. The star power meter is located on the left side of the touch screen and can be activated by touching it after it's ready to be deployed. I noticed that when my strumming motions began to drift toward the upper portion the touch screen, I sometimes wandered over to the star power meter area and activated it unknowingly. This isn't too bad of a problem if you can catch yourself and keep the pick low on the touch screen, but it might come up if you're not paying attention. Then again, if you're picking hard and fast, there may not be time to stop, tap the star power area, and get back on it without missing some notes. Maybe the design was intentional? Regardless, shouting into the microphone will also activate star power, as long as you shout loud enough.
I had the most trouble getting a handle on the guitar grip, which turns your Nintendo DS into a mini guitar. The tricky part of using it is getting your hand into a position that makes the device easy to hold and also still gives you free access to the four fret buttons. It took me a while to adjust the Velcro strap around my hand—I even tried holding it without the aid of the strap, with moderate success—until I found a configuration I was most comfortable with. Once I solved the grip, I could easily put one finger on each fret button (real pros use the pinky finger!) and quickly change chords, do hammer-ons, and rock out just like I've been doing since the first game in the series was released.
Far and away, the best part I've seen so far in Guitar Hero: On Tour is the multiplayer. The usual face-off, pro face-off, and co-op modes are included, of course, except this time around it's over local wireless play between two DS systems. The best mode, however, is the new guitar duel mode. Structurally, it's the same as battle mode in Guitar Hero III, with spiked notes and pretty much the same power-ups and attacks. However, the unique features of the DS, along with some balancing tweaks to make things more fair, are what could make On Tour top the charts.
Stringing together a sequence of spiked notes will earn you a power-up, of which a maximum of three can be stored. These can be activated at any time, in any order, by tapping the power-up icon on the touch screen. The biggest complaint to come out of Guitar Hero III's battle mode is that someone can activate an attack against someone else trying to hit the spiked notes, making it near impossible to send attacks back the other way. To remedy that, a shield power-up has been added, making it possible to defend against attacks and have a chance to get your own attacks in. I noticed that when I fell behind during a duel, I tended to get more shield power-ups than anything else, which helped me get back into the fight.
The attacks that pop up during duels are very well thought out. The screen swap attack will disorient you twice: once when the notes flip to the other screen (you still need to strum on the touch screen when this happens), and again when they flip back. When your guitar catches on fire, blowing it out with the DS microphone is actually fun to do, which is odd considering how many other games use the mechanic but do a poor job of keeping it entertaining. The one that will really get you is the "sign my fish" attack, which will not only require you to put down on autograph on it before you can resume strumming, but will also have you on the floor laughing at the thought that a deranged fan thought it a good idea to bring a fish, of all things, for you to sign during a guitar battle. In the event you don't think you'll have a friend with a copy of the game around to experience this, On Tour includes a single player duel career on top of the standard career mode.
The Guitar Hero experience, most will say, is only as good as the quality of the music. This presents an obvious challenge for the Nintendo DS hardware, which doesn't have the benefit of a decent pair of speakers, let alone surround sound. If you're picky about listening to MP3s encoded at 192kbps instead of 128kbps, chances are you're going to want to be extremely critical of the audio quality in On Tour. Indeed, the hardware sometimes struggles to output clean sound when activating star power, which will usually produce a very annoying audio blow-out.
But all things considered, developer Vicarious Visions has managed to squeeze master tracks of several songs into Guitar Hero: On Tour with quality that is surprisingly good for a DS game. It definitely sounds like DS audio, but all the songs are unmistakably recognizable. If you plug in a pair of headphones (highly recommended), you'll even be able to hear some of the subtleties of the music. I was easily able to fall into the rhythm of the music and sing along in my head just like I do with my big, expensive stereo system at home. It's a bit difficult to turn the volume "up to 11" without getting some distortion, but the audio was still technically impressive no matter how you slice it. (For a list of confirmed Guitar Hero: On Tour songs, read our new preview.)
Based on what I played of Guitar Hero: On Tour, it looks like it's going to be more than worthy of carrying the Guitar Hero name. Nintendo thinks so too, apparently, since it's going to be offering a Guitar Hero: On Tour Nintendo DS bundle—the first time it has ever packed in a third-party game with its hardware. That's a pretty big vote of confidence for something that a lot of people assumed was just going to be a cash-in attempt.
I'm waiting to catch a flight up to San Francisco to attend a special Guitar Hero event being held by Activision later today. With any luck, I'll be able to bring you hands-on details on Guitar Hero: On Tour, Guitar Hero Aerosmith, and (maybe) the newly-christened, officially-announced Guitar Hero World Tour very soon. Watch the blog for any breaking developments and the front page for news, previews, impressions, or anything else that comes out of tonight. Whatever Activision has planned for GHIV (particuarly the Wii version) has me curious about something, though.
World Tour is obviously a direct response to MTV/Harmonix's Rock Band. The multi-instrument experience was something Activision was probably going to do anyway, but for it to pull out all the stops like this may leave some of the casual market behind. Here are a couple of questions I have, which may or may not be answered tonight:
- Does the multi-instrument game mean the guitar-only players will be out of luck? People have no problems paying $100 for a game with just the guitar. But will they be okay paying $150 or more for an all-instrument bundle if they don't really want it? I hope Activision is still thinking about the little guy here and offers an easy way for people to get a simpler, cheaper GHIV experience.
- Why build a wall between the two music games by making controllers that aren't cross-compatible? Rock Band and Guitar Hero are competitors, so competition is understandable. Activision and Red Octane got a lot of flak for making the GHIII Gibson controllers initially incompatible with Rock Band. While the new controllers could work with Rock Band (we don't know yet), at least the Rock Band (four pads) drums definitely won't be compatible with Guitar Hero World Tour (six pads). This essentially means gamers who got Rock Band will need to backpedal from what may be a large investment to re-equip for GHIV or make those who haven't pick one or the other. Pricey game-exclusive peripherals can be justified if the game they come with is unique. GH and RB offer basically the same experiences. Can the industry support them both, or will a genre divided be more harmful than helpful?
Does anyone actually have some statistics to back up this "there's too many blue shells in the game" claim? Has anyone cared to get off their soapbox and investigate this?
No, of course not. Its easier to shout at the top of your lungs.
This isn't just to Windy of course, but I'm getting tired of the same old argument being trotted out without anything factual.
Every time I play Mario Kart Wii online, the one game I can't help comparing it to is Wipeout Pulse for the PSP. The two games are about as far apart as you can get on the arcade side of the racing genre family tree, but I see an underlying similarity that one game gets right and the other gets so, so wrong. Take a wild guess as to which is which.
Since their inceptions, the Mario Kart and Wipeout series have both used weapons and items as a means to spice up gameplay. The games have completely different styles and features, but they are still racing games and share basic items and weapons. Mario Kart has green shells and Wipeout has rockets. There are red shells and then there are homing missiles. For Nintendo's smiling banana peels there are anti-hovercraft mines. Mushrooms and turbo boosts are one in the same. The variations between the two games picks up from there, but the core idea behind weaponry is that it gives slower players a chance to counter faster players, and add an additional layer of strategy against those of equal skill.
Mario Kart is notorious for making "random" item pickups based on your position in the field. If you have a big lead during a race and hit a question mark box, you know you're going to get a banana peel or green turtle shell. (Not much of a question, is it?) This is especially ridiculous toward the start of a race, since someone in seventh or eighth could still be a few kart-lengths away from the leader, get a high-powered item, work their way to the front, and then use it to check out from the field. Conversely, someone bringing up the rear that really needs some help to get back into the fight may instead be presented with a blue turtle shell. Not only does it not help the guy using it, it can screw up the results of the race up front. It doesn't make sense!
Wipeout's system of item distribution is much fairer for the entire field. Instead of giving gifts to the back-markers and penalizing trailblazers, as is the case in Mario Kart, running over a weapon pad in a Wipeout game will give you a random item no matter your position in the field. More powerful weapons and items have a smaller probability of being picked up, balancing out the fact that the leaders and the also-rans have the same chance to pick up the same items. In Mario Kart, getting the good stuff is common for the rear of the field—too common. While it always prevents the people up front from decimating the field with lucky item grabs, it's still an unfair and unbalanced system.
Granted, the random system in Wipeout means leaders can sometimes get lucky with items and get a lot of turbo boosts and mines and easily pull away from the field. Statistically, though, it's rare that will happen. That's the beauty of the design. Certain items are useless to the leading player in a Wipeout race, especially the more powerful ones. The quake disruptor can take out everyone in the field if it's used by the player in last place. If you're leading, there will be no one ahead of you to take advantage of it, rendering it useless. The same is true with forward-firing power weapons like the plasma bolt and homing missile. While the leader can still pick up useful items, the percentage of picking up a less useful or useless item increases simply because there would be no one ahead of them to shoot at.
Wipeout also has boost pads littered about track, which are often positioned next to weapon pads so that you can only use one or the other. By skipping the boost and going for the item, the leader is taking a small risk. You know the boost will help you pull away a little bit, but you don't know if the random item will. Do you risk the sure thing for a big payoff that may not be there? This helps make Wipeout's weapon system balance itself out, since people in the back are more likely to want to get an item to help close the gap with from those ahead, making it statistically favorable they'll get something useful more often than the leader. Leaders trying the same thing may find themselves slowly being reeled in by those who forgo some item pickups and opt to hit every boost pad in an attempt to race back to the front.
In Mario Kart, on the other hand, the predictable item distribution means that it's only a matter of time before you get clocked with a blue turtle shell while winning, often in the late stages of a race when you have no chance of getting back to the front. Getting banana peels and green turtle shells while leading is actually a good thing, since you can block incoming shell attacks and drop them in high-traffic areas. That would actually increase your chances of staying ahead, making it more unfair for those directly behind you. You'll get these convenient items with every item pickup, which you can get around the next bend. And the next one. And the three or four after that.
With the "random" MK item generator, it's possible that players in second or third place could have a much harder chance of catching up. Even with red turtle shells, the leader can just block them with his or her endless supply of discarded fruit. All they can realistically hope for (or rather, wait for) is the blue turtle shell to knock out first place. Mario Kart Wii online players who are good at the game will know this is the case. For me, I dread leading a close race because of the inevitable blue shell of death. Yet, if I fall behind early enough I know that that getting back to the front is only a matter of time. The only way to ensure victory in spite of a late-race BSoD is to be so far ahead that I'm not racing anyone. Either way, the game is much less fun to play.
What I'd like to see Nintendo try with the Mario Kart formula is to tweak the item distribution system so it's similar to that of Wipeout. In other words, make it purely random. I wouldn't mind the blue shell at all if 1) it had an equal chance of being picked up by anyone in any position at any time and 2) it was a relatively rare item.
If straight random system was in place, I could just as easily pick up the blue shell while leading the race. Then what good would it do me? Not only would I have a weapon that would blow me up if I dared used it, I couldn't pick up another item until I did. This would give those behind me ample opportunity to catch up to me using any old weapon or item they happened to come across. In the rare occurrence that someone behind me got the blue shell, it would be a case of being on the wrong end of someone's fortunate slot machine pull. I can live with that instead of having a guarantee that every other race someone will hit a jackpot that neither he nor I will ever get to collect on.
For Wipeout's system to be effective in Mario Kart, a few things would need to change. First, the item selection would do well to be simplified. Some of the new ones are awful, like the thunder cloud. Crap like that doesn't make for good racing. It should be the basics (bananas, shells, mushrooms, stars, lightning bolts) and maybe a few specialty items like the bloober or bob-omb. That's it. That's all we need for good, clean, and fair online racing.
The second thing that needs to happen is to make some item boxes on the track a little harder to get to. In Mario Kart Wii, item boxes are everywhere. Too many items are littering the track and making it too easy to get caught up in someone else's mess. On top of that, the leader is always going to have clear access to items, leaving those behind for item boxes that may not be there. If half of the item boxes around a track were placed in a position that made players need to choose between grabbing an item or cutting a corner, the decisions on how to close the gap between positions would be made by the players on the race track, not the game's ridiculous rubber band methodology.
Of course, I understand that Mario Kart is designed so that players of all ages can pick up the game and get into it right away. Wipeout is definitely geared toward the hardcore crowd. It's just really puzzling to me how Nintendo decided to incorporate online rankings, something designed to tell you who the best players are, into a game where the best player in a given race can easily not win it because of the unbalanced item distribution system. How do I know that someone with a high ranking hasn't won most of their races by getting a blue turtle shell gift from that guy in 11th place?
The Wipeout method of item use during races ensures that anyone can compete for the win if the items and weapons fall their way. As long as people are competent enough to navigate the tracks with a good bit of speed, three or four items and weapons in the right place will give them a chance to compete for the win. Mario Kart method, particularly in the Wii version, ensures that everyone will win eventually, screwing someone over in the process. Most times, those winners will be handed their prize on a (tarnished) silver platter. I don't know about you, but I'd rather have a hard-fought, well-deserved third- or fourth-place finish instead of a win gifted to me by someone half a lap behind me.
Playing the game online and seeing the items ruin a lot of my races, in one way or another, tells me that Nintendo thought adding leaderboards would be all that was needed to appease the hardcore crowd. Perhaps it did. But Nintendo did not, and was never going to, change what really matters to cater to the hardcore crowd. Most of my friends agree that the game has changed for the worse in a blatant attempt by Nintendo to make it more accessible to everyone. In and of itself, I have no problem with that. But if the Super Smash Bros. games can truly satisfy everyone from top to bottom, why not Mario Kart?
Yup, now we've got one too. Here's what we've got planned for our newest addition.
The NWR Blog is a project that we've had going on in the background for quite some time. (If you ask other people on staff, they'll probably tell you it's been going on for too long.) Although there are still a few more things we have to do yet to improve upon it, we decided that now was the time to flip the switch and go live with it. Finally!
Our blog is going to be a more direct path to voice our opinions and insights on all things gaming to you, our readers. Now that we have it, you can expect us to use it frequently. You already know that we deliver fair, accurate, and unbiased Nintendo news on the Nintendo World Report front page, but now you'll be able to see what the staff thinks about big news events through their blogs, should they so choose to use them for that purpose. We know you guys love hearing what we think about things. Otherwise, Radio Free Nintendo or the NWR Mailbag wouldn't be so popular!
You may also see us chime in about major news that might not necessarily be Nintendo-related. Although we know Nintendo like few other sites, that doesn't mean we swear off other game platforms. We like all games, so it follows we like talking about all games, too. Of course, we'll try to put things into the perspective of the Nintendo fan and give an angle on things that people may not have thought of before.
And of course, the blogs will be good for all sorts of other things, like reading up on what projects staffers are currently working on, getting additional nuggets of information from event coverage, and maybe even letting some guest bloggers offer a different opinion on things. We have some special blogs in the works at the moment, but I can't tell you exactly what they are until they're ready to go. I hope you'll enjoy them, though!
This whole blogging thing is kind of new to us. I really don't know what to expect when a couple dozen dedicated staff writers from all across the United States and throughout the world have the chance to say whatever it is they want to say for all of you to read. (Now that I think about it, it's actually quite frightening...) But this, I know for sure: It's going to be a whole lot of fun. I hope you enjoy reading the blog about as much as we will enjoy writing stuff for it!
I'd argue that price IS important for a download only game. A physical game's price can fluctuate. At release it might be $60 and doesn't seem quite worth the money but I can find it years later used for $10 and it's easily worth it. You never know what price a person can get it at so it's fair to ignore it.
But have we ever seen a VC game lower in price? We could someday but right now it seems like VC titles, and thus I'd assume Wii Ware games as well, stay at one price. I can't find Star Solidier R in the clearance bin at Toys 'R' Us for 2 bucks. It will always be the same price unless Hudson decides to change it. So in that case I think price does come into play. You can't get a deal on this game.
With the help of Wii Fit, I've lost five pounds in seven days. If that seems like a big drop in weight from just stretching, balancing, and Hula Hooping, you'd be right. I've been doing some exercising outside of what the game offers, namely, light weightlifting and some hardcore Dance Dance Revolution action. I'd been in the mood to get active and lose weight before Wii Fit arrived, but now that it's here, it's becoming a handy tool in my quest for a better me.
We've always known our family bathroom scale was off some, but we didn't bother to care how much since it always said we were lighter than we actually were. It said I weighed 220 pounds, but the Wii Balance Board showed no such bias. It tagged my initial weight at 228.3 pounds, a significant difference. I kind of knew this all along, but seeing my Mii puff up to match my "obese" body mass index rating kind of drove the point home.
I object to Wii Fit placing so much emphasis on BMI, which is a ratio of your weight compared to your height. The index is a grossly generalized system that doesn't factor in that two people of equal height could have totally different weights and both still be perfectly healthy. (BMI usually classifies bodybuilders as overweight or obese. How does that work?) It's the first value you see when doing a daily body check. If you want to see your weight, you need to flip over to a new screen.
I know that I'm overweight, so I'm not trying to make excuses. The thing is, though, people's minds work in pounds (or kilos, stones, etc.), not arbitrary points. I would rather see myself drop 2.5 pounds between sessions instead of losing .35 of a BMI point, whatever that means. Going through an extra step to see your progress the way you want to see it, with no option to make it the default, is kind of stupid.
Whether or not you decide to hide behind your BMI number or be a man (or woman) and see your actual weight, every day that you check your weight is plotted onto a chart. After only a week, I can see a definitive downward trend in my weight graph. Although I can't really feel that five pounds I've shed, I can certainly see it on the chart. The purpose of the graph is for you to track your progress, obviously, but to also make you think about the times when the chart plots went up instead of going down or staying level.
When I checked in this morning, I didn't lose any weight from the day before, despite doing so each of the previous days. I burned plenty of calories over a good hour of DDR time (in sweltering Southern California heat, even), so what was the deal with the flat-line? I realized I had a pretty big dinner the night before, and some of it was probably still inside me at the time I checked myself. After digestion runs its course, with the help of a couple of Yoga repetitions on the Balance Board and some weightlifting on my back patio, I'm sure I'll drop a little bit more weight for tomorrow's check-in.
Wii Fit does a good job of reminding you to weigh yourself at about the same time every day, since your weight can fluctuate up to two pounds or so throughout the day. (That was probably why my weight spiked to over 230 pounds when I checked myself the evening of the second day.) The body check also measures your central weight distribution, which is another way of making sure your posture is correct. The task is a trivial one for me while I'm standing on the board, since I've got pretty good posture. However, the real benefit of doing the check is that is has made me realize how much I tend to lean on one foot or the other when standing in place. With Wii Fit's help, now I immediately catch myself doing and correct my posture. I feel a lot better standing up correctly, which is helping me getting through days a lot better.
I'm getting into a routine of doing the Wii Fit thing every morning a few hours after breakfast. So far I'm digging the Yoga exercises and the balance games. I don't yet see myself needing the strength training or aerobic exercises since I am getting those exercises done outside of the game. Still, in the event that I can't lift weights because of rain (highly unlikely in my neck of the woods) or decide that I need a break from dancing, I think what Wii Fit offers in those categories would work adequately.
That's what I like about Wii Fit so far. I can use it in the way I think it will best help me achieve my goal of getting under 200 pounds before summer ends. I know I could have done it without Wii Fit, since I dropped about 15 or 20 pounds on my own last summer. But with a little help in the posture, balance, and weight tracking departments, I might be able to improve on that.
We'll have the full review of Wii Fit up next week. It'll have a unique perspective on what the game is really about, so please look forward to it!
People will see Star Soldier R in one of two ways. Most people will see that it's just a five-minute high score contest with two levels and no other meaningful content, and brush it off as a waste of money. Even people who are fans of shoot-'em-up games will realize there's better value in similar Virtual Console games.
However, once you actually sit down and dig into Hudson's little shooter, the game shows its true colors. For only being five minutes long at its maximum, Star Soldier R is extremely addicting, highly replayable, and good fun. Those that can drop the assumptions about the game's length and relative value will see a well-designed experience.
However, once you actually sit down and dig into Hudson's little shooter, the game shows its true colors. For only being five minutes long at its maximum, Star Soldier R is extremely addicting, highly replayable, and good fun. Those that can drop the assumptions about the game's length and relative value will see a well-designed experience.
The idea behind the R version of the Star Soldier series is that you're up against the clock, simply pushing to get the highest score possible. It's almost impossible to not reach the end of the game's one-level, two-minute mode. Fighting through two levels, over five minutes isn't much harder, although you can still get busted for being lazy or sloppy. The point of the game isn't to beat it, since doing that is a foregone conclusion.
Instead, the idea is to push yourself as far as you dare and squeeze out the highest score possible. The game's risk-reward system makes this a real test of skill and nerves. You can make your ship move around the screen faster by retracting its wings, making it much easier to blow stuff up and snag pickups. In doing so, however, you'll risk being destroyed more easily. Additionally, up to five option ships can act as additional shielding by hovering around your ship. If you're feeling brave, you can send the options astray and use them as free-moving sentry guns for more offensive power, which is sometimes necessary to take down enemies quickly.
The game's stages are filled with stuff to destroy. Along with the usual barrage of enemies, you'll fly over a grid of structures which can be taken out by your main guns. As you destroy these objects, your combo counter will increase. The higher your combo at the end of the stage, the bigger your bonus score. Special yellow orbs, which break free when shot and lazily oscillate across the screen, can give you additional points.
Red and blue containers upgrade your main gun and your option ships, respectively. Besides having the obvious benefit of six-way fire when you've maxed out your guns, collecting additional containers will net you 10,000 additional points. Plus, having maxed out weaponry will help you take out the boss of each level more quickly. There's a time bonus added on to your ending score, and since the levels always scroll by at the same rate, the time difference is how quickly you can take down the bosses. This will make you try to figure out the best boss-killing strategies.
There are even lots of secret bonus scoring opportunities hidden through the levels. Hidden icons will sometimes pop up and get you 3,000 points for free. Blowing up a donut-shaped structure, while you're inside of it (without getting hit by it), will net you 50,000 points. Destroying two floaty sphere things simultaneously is worth a cool 80,000 points. These last two especially are significant bonuses which you'll want to get if you want to beat your own high score.
Trying to beat your high score is what makes Star Soldier R so addictive. When you play through the game and start understanding when and why you need to throttle up (or down) the speed or toggle the option ships, you'll see where you can pick up more points and jump back in to fight for them because you know you can do just a little better the next time. You don't need the online leaderboards, broken down into region, country, and worldwide rankings, to do that. They can help you chase that carrot just a little more, though.
Of course, the fact doesn't change that Star Soldier R doesn't have much going for it in the way of content. It's surprisingly addictive, but you can only get so much out of so little. One really big piece that's missing is friend-only leaderboards, which would have made going for a new high score just a little bit sweeter. Also, a two-player co-op mode would have been nice to have.
I've seen enough WiiWare games to realize that you need to check your expectations for what you're paying for. If you decide to get Star Soldier R, you're not going to get the same stuff you'll find from the other Star Soldier games on Virtual Console. The WiiWare game is a different experience, and a rewarding one at that, provided you understand what it is you're getting into beforehand. You'll find R to be a pretty fun game if you do.
Pros:
Lastability: 6.0
A tasty drink, this, but the goblet with which it is held be small. It's little too small for some people, I'd imagine. Still, its length won't be that big of a factor if you catch the addiction it contains.
Final: 7.0
Star Soldier R is a fun, focused experience, and if you know that when playing it you'll be rewarded with exactly what it's advertising. If you like the possibility of chasing the high-score carrot in a brief, replayable shoot-'em-up, it'll suit you perfectly.
you didn't spend time experimenting with the wind
Interesting to see the difference in how LostWinds is being seen as opposed to Portal. They are both roughly the same length (Portal is slightly longer, but not much). I think the difference is that LostWinds is shorter than it leads you to expect, whereas Portal is actually longer than it leads you to expect.
Additionally, Portal included a creepy, yet catchy pop song at the end.
A 3 hour game for $10 is the same time to price ratio as a 15 hour game for $50, and those are pretty common.
Thankfully for all of us, LostWinds hits its mark. The gameplay is fresh and novel, the game is beautiful, and most importantly it's a great deal of fun. It's a fantastic game in just about every aspect ... except for one crucial element. But I'll get to that later.
The concept of LostWinds is to use the Wii Remote pointer to “draw” wind currents on-screen to create wind gusts that aid our hero Toku. These gusts help him climb up ledges, move around obstacles, and sometimes break his fall. They also play a crucial role in puzzle-solving. Moving boulders around and directing streams of water and fire are important tricks to master if you want to progress through the game's areas, which feature progressively more complex puzzles to tackle.
Manipulating the wind is very easy to do. There's no need to quickly draw out wind gusts, so if you have bad aim with the Wii Remote you can methodically trace out straight lines or curves and you’ll get the full force of wind along your path. You can slow down the action dramatically by holding down the A Button, during which time you'll have ample opportunity to create your wind path. This is also handy when dealing with enemies, who can be defeated by smashing them against the ground with wind forces or blowing them off of the screen.
The controls have a learning curve, but it's mostly because there haven't many games before LostWinds that lets you indirectly control your main character in this fashion. Once you get the upgrades that allow you to perform multiple wind gusts in one go (and literally fly wherever you want for a limited period of time, which is pure awesome), the controls will feel so natural and comfortable that you’ll wish you could do the same stuff in Super Mario Galaxy.
Speaking of Galaxy, it's got company when it comes to looks. LostWinds is an absolutely gorgeous game. When you first walk into the central hub town and witness the pink-leaved trees, lazy windmills, and the softness of the landscape in the distance you’ll pause in respect. Everything above ground is lush and colorful. Though the color pallet changes to dark and muted when you venture underground, the details still remain in the background. In the mines, for example, the background suggests that they have no end in sight, yet you can clearly see old mine carts and other objects in the distance.
The star of the show is the game world itself. Although you're technically in control of Toku, most of your attention will be on the Wii Remote pointer cursor, also known as the wind spirit Enril. Passing the cursor over any object in the game world will cause it to react as if it were blown by the wind. If you streak the cursor across a tree, for example, the tree's branches will be pushed back in the direction of the wind gust and leaves will be blown off of it. Everything you do is reflected in the game world in some way, so there's never a dull moment. Because you're in control of this and will always see it happen, it feels as if the world you're playing in is alive.
This feeling makes LostWinds a fun and relaxing game to play. It's got some challenging bits in it too, so don’t assume it’s going to be a total a walk in the park. However, there is one nagging issue I have about the game that I just can't seem to get out of my mind; one that I feel blunts the game's enjoyment factor somewhat.
The intro to LostWinds sets up a grand story about the land of Mistralis, the evil spirit Balasar, and how Toku and Enril must work together to prevent him from taking over the world. The game progresses not unlike other platformers, in which the initial areas are something of a tutorial and the the difficulty slowly ramps up as you become more familiar with the game. After two or three hours of gameplay, you meet the first boss. Once you defeat him, you're given more insight into things with a continuation of the story. Just as it appears the game will move on to the next area, it abruptly tells you “To Be Continued...” and you're left with no more game to play, even with plenty of story left to go.
The beef I have with LostWinds is that I personally feel a little misled regarding the content of the game. It's not because three (extremely enjoyable) hours out of a WiiWare game is necessarily a bad thing (there's nothing to compare it to yet), but because there was every indication from the start that the game housed a full adventure, and not just what looks to be one chapter of a larger story. This is especially true since Frontier has announced a LostWinds “sequel,” further implying the first game was a complete work. This is far from the case. I wouldn't be as critical if the game were entitled “LostWinds: Episode One” or something to that effect, because then I would have known what I was getting into before I started. However, not knowing about it until the abrupt end of the game makes me feel if I was hit with the ol' switcheroo.
To be fair, this WiiWare thing is still new to everyone, including me. I probably should have expected to see a game of about this length given the size and price of the download. Then again, LostWinds looks and plays so much like a top-flight standard Wii game that getting only three hours out of it feels like disappointment, because I want to play more of it. A lot more of it.
The bottom line on LostWinds is that it's a marvelous little game which everyone should play, but with the caveat that it ends abruptly and will have you passionately craving more when it’s done. That such a grand game could be packed into Nintendo's draconian file size restriction might even be considered a technical marvel, all things considered. LostWinds is the perfect game to kick off the dawn of WiiWare, and considering what it brings to the table it's great to imagine the possibilities – not only for the next games in Frontier's series, but for future WiiWare games as well.
Pros:
Lastability: 5.0
LostWinds has every indication of being a full-blown adventure, but it ends like smashing into a brick wall. The game takes around three hours to complete, but it feels like a lot less. You can collect extra items which are hidden throughout the game world, but getting all of them doesn't unlock anything. This makes the game a one-and-done kind of deal, although you may go back and play it from time to time just to appreciate its beauty and play around with the wind.
Final: 8.0
LostWinds is a very fun ride while it lasts. Technically, it's brilliant. However, the fact that it cuts itself short in the way that it does cannot be ignored, even for a WiiWare game. Despite that, playing through it will bring you a sense of joy and wonder like few other games. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for something different to , and to those who are not quite sure what to purchase as their first WiiWare download.
Nintendo and Wii Fit branding will appear on one car each in two different races: The No. 16 IndyCar Series car in the Indianapolis 500 held in Indianapolis, Ind; and the No. 40 NASCAR car in the Coca-Cola 600 held in Charlotte, N.C. Both races will be held on Memorial Day, May 25.
“Wii Fit is an easy way for every member of the family to keep active and play together, and we felt this day of auto racing was a perfect match,” said Steve Bickham of Nintendo of America. “A day at the races is always lots of fun, but these drivers need to be in top shape to endure the 1,100 miles that Team Ganassi will race that day.”
The Wii doesn't need as much space as the 360 or PS3 does with their HD content and so forth. The competition might need 200gb of storage space, but would that much space ever really be used by the Wii?
I love that we have moved passed the subtlety and class of the "Wii Would Like To Play" ads and have jumped straight into "Cowboy Jed".
Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 is the only game that has utilized the Wii's potential close to the level it should be utilized.
