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Topics - Halbred

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TalkBack / IMPRESSIONS: The Legendary Starfy

« on: June 02, 2009, 11:25:39 AM »

It's charming, it's fun to play, it reminds me of SpongeBob, what's not to love?
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/impressionsArt.cfm?artid=18680

Didnt know what to expect from this one: Starfy has been a mainstay in Japan for ages, but is only now coming over to the States with The Legendary Starfy. The series has garnered comparisons to the Kirby series, and while there are a few similarities, Starfy is very unique and charming in its own right. Starfy might not be the hardest game in the world, but one cant help but deny its appeal.

The demo I played had lil Starfy swimming around a marine sidescrolling landscape. Swimming is as easy as holding down B and using the D-pad, and Starfy can use a spin attack by pressing Y. If you spin too often, Starfy will get dizzy and wont be able to move for awhile. The spin is, however, his main attack method. I navigated Starfy through an underwater maze as he rescued fish friends for a lazy crab, collected what appeared to be salmon eggs, and was swept through water currents, all in a quest to save his friend from an enormous octopus. Our hero can also double-jump and glide when out of the water. The Kirby comparison came to the fore when Starfy came across an animal ability, which he instantly used to turn into that most fearsome of marine mammalsthe seal! Starfy looked a little bit like a Pokemon after his transformation, but doing so allowed him to move through the water with the D-pad only (rather than holding down B) and use a wicked icicle attack on enemies and barriers. After going back to normal, Starfy was rolled up in a snowball and sent spinning down a series of slopes punctuated by pits that you had to lump over. Eventually, Starfy broke free from his snowy prison to face a giant boss character who looks suspiciously like King Dedede.

Unlike everything else in the game, the boss was rendered in 3D and looked great. Thats not to say the rest of Legendary Starfy does NOT look fine (it does), but the 3D boss meshed well and impressively with the rest of the game. It made me wish there were more 3D effects (backgrounds, anyone?). The game controlled like a charm. The music was catchy and entertaining, and Starfy himself is a likable hero. For a 2D sprite, Starfy conveys his emotions well.

The Legendary Starfy will hit our shores on June 7th.

TalkBack / IMPRESSIONS: Dead Space Extraction

« on: June 02, 2009, 11:02:46 AM »

This prequel packs some punch!
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/impressionsArt.cfm?artid=18678

This was the one game I really wanted to play coming into E3 09, and play it I did. Im here to tell you that Dead Space: Extraction is possibly the best rail-shooter in the Wiis library and manages to capture everything that made the original game so damn freaky and unique. It looks gorgeous, plays great, and freaks me out.

Extraction is the canonical prequel to EAs Dead Space (as is the comicand the animated movie) and tells the story of how the planets colonists were driven insane by the Marker before being overtaken by the Necromorphs and subsequently infecting the giant mining vessel, Ishimura. The player does not step into any one role. Instead, you occupy the shoes of several crew members throughout the course of the game, so your viewpoint of the action changes over time. Control is best described as a combination of the Dead Space interface and the control scheme of Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles. Weapons are mapped to the D-pad, and you use the A button to pick up objects in the environment with your Kinesis ability. Statis, the time-slowing ability from the original game, is activated with the C button, but just like the original game, you have to be careful about how you use it. The games arsenal closely matches that of the first game and includes such favorites as the Plasma Cutter, Line Gun, and Flame Thrower. You also get a pistol-like weapon that has unlimited ammo, but is the weakest gun in the game. Best to conserve and use the better guns. When attacked by a Necromorph, you can use Statis on it, blow its limbs off (again, the best way to kill these critters), or fight it off with on-screen prompts if youre grappled. A quick motion with the Nunchuck activates a melee attack.

The guns are great because you can turn the Wii Remote ninety degrees to use the guns secondary fire mode. With the Plasma Cutter, doing this merely alternates the beam between horizontal and vertical. With the Flamethrower, you blast a big ball of fire in one shot, and with the Line Gun, you drop a mine. Honestly, this action isnt all that intuitive for everything besides the Plasma Cutter, but its something I eventually got used to. Just like in Dead Space, the games story is told through text and voice logs that you pick up and read or listen to in-game. Since Extraction takes place before the events of Dead Space, the in-game story is more dynamic, and youll often encounter other characters in your fight to get off the ship.

Necromorphs pop up all over the place, and I found myself scrambling to shoot off all the legs before the bodies got to me. There were only a few areas in the original Dead Space where Isaac was overwhelmed by enemies, but if the demo was any indication, youll get pummeled a few times per level. And while I only saw two enemy types, trailers have shown other canonical creatures and a few new baddies.

Extraction looks fantastic. The environments and enemies, in particular, are almost carbon copies of their next-gen counterparts. The developer has done an incredible job of showing off the power of the Wii and making Extraction as true to the look and atmosphere of the original game. The sound is similarly excellent, with great voice acting and more spooky ambient noise than you can shake a Necromorphs severed arm at. The game launches on September 28th, and Im pumped.

TalkBack / IMPRESSIONS: Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

« on: June 02, 2009, 11:01:07 AM »

A very short demo, but a promising game.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/impressionsArt.cfm?artid=18675

We try to avoid the term remake, said the rep at the Silent Hill booth. We prefer the term reimagining. After playing through the short demo of Shattered Memories, I cant help but agree. There are few, if any, similarities to that old PSOne horror game here, save the infested town and omnipresent flashlight. You star, as in the original, as Harry Mason as he tried to find his daughter, Cheryl. This new version of the titular horrorscape is covered in ice, and mountains of rubble and rock spring up to block your progress to areas youre not supposed to go yet. Snow and silence envelope the town. Harry receives a phone call, and in order to hear it, you put the Wii Remote up to your ear so you can listen to the speaker. It may seem corny, but the gimmick is surprisingly effective. Static and cut-outs disrupt the voice on the other line, and Harry hangs up in frustration.

The player moves Harry with the analog stick and aims his flashlight with the Wii Remote. Almost all environmental interaction is done with the A button but when attacked by an enemy, you are instructed to throw it off by mimicking such a movement with the Wii Remote and Nunchuck (move them away from you) in the direction the monster attacked from. Harry displayed a lot of skill in climbing over walls and opening doors, but not much else. The inventory system was not explored, and I hope that combat doesnt just involve pushing enemies away.

Shattered Memories looks fine, although Harrys character model could use some refinement. Hes a little jagged around the edges and holds his flashlight with a very awkward wrist angle. The one creature in the game looked ridiculously generic (meaty ragdoll) save his twitching head and lunging ability. At one point, Harry picked up a flare then dropped it in a narrow corridor, and the creatures were briefly held back. I was concerned about the games soundtrack, which in other entries further illuminates the atmospheric horror. Unfortunately, the show floor was too loud to make anything out, and the rep didnt have a lot of information for me about it.

In general, the demo wasnt that informative given the lack of gameplay variety (climb over this wall, avoid this creature, go through that door, etc.), and the immersion factor was downplayed significantly because of the surrounding noise. But it certainly caught my attention and got me interesting, and Ill be eagerly awaiting more information on the Wii debut of one of my favorite horror franchises.

TalkBack / IMPRESSIONS: The Conduit

« on: June 02, 2009, 10:43:29 AM »

I have been won over.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/impressionsArt.cfm?artid=18670

Last year at PAX, you readers may remember my disappointment in Segas alien invasion game. I got to play the demo today, and while there are some areas that could use improvement, The Conduit turned out to be pretty awesome. You take control of Michael Ford, an agent working for a secret government agency who is mankinds last change to destroy the horrible extraterrestrial threat that has befallen the planet. Yeah, couldnt be more generic, right? But hey, sometimes thats not a bad thing. Theres definitely nothing like The Conduit on the Wii, and it fills a much-needed niche in the systems library.

The demo put me in the middle of a desolated cityscape. Buildings torn down, rubble on fire, dark skies and crushed carsyou know the drill. Immediately my attacks were in hot pursuit. This alien infantry looked like something out of Turok 2s Hive of the Mantids level (especially the drones) which I found refreshing. The game is not shy about enemy types. I fought drones, warriors, a mini-boss, flying critters that looked like Halo Drone knockoffs, and a heavily-armored warrior that looked likeokay, it looked like it was from Halo, too. But thats okay! I swear I had fun killing them all.

Control is similar to Metroid Prime 3, although aiming is a little more restrictive, as the targeting reticule eagerly zips back to the center of the screen. This may seem irritating at first, but you quickly get used to it. Movement is, of course, designated to the analog stick. Lock-on with Z, shoot things with B, jump with A, do various other actions with the other buttons. Let your fists do the talking by shoving the Wii Remote forwards, or chuck a grenade by flicking the Nunchuck. Its all very intuitivethe only actions I struggled with were using the All Seeing Eye (ASE) (for locating invisible stuff, like mines) and reloading, but thats because I cant tell the Plus Button from the Minus Button to save my life. The nice part is that the controls will be fully customizable, so theoretically you can map shooting to the One Button if you want. Just like Halo, you can only carry two guns at a time, and youll have to scour the battlefield for ammo and alternate weapons. The ASE proves a valuable asset, but you have to be careful about when you whip it out--you can't fire a gun and use the ASE at the same time.

The first mini-boss is a hulking beast with three weak points who tries to stomp you and tosses little mosquito things your way. I came to that battle with a pistol and a shotgun, so it took awhile. After killing it, the real trouble startedthe Drones and the armored warrior enemies took me down. The demo was great fun, and I was very impressed with how the game has turned out. It looks amazing and I never experienced any slowdown. Im hoping the aiming sensitivity can be adjusted, because I didnt like how the reticule zipped back to the center of the screen. The guns I played with also seemed either totally underpowered (assault rifle) or overpowered (shotgun). The pistol was hard to aim, but seemed to get the job done alright.

The Sega rep at the booth said that The Conduit will have 12-player multiplayer, but youll still be tied to Conduit-specific friend codes. However, heres something awesome: Lets say that Metts and I are playing the game, and one of his friends is playing, too. The game will ask if I want to add Metts friend to my list, and the game will swap our Conduit-specific friend codes automatically. Now thats pretty cool considering the existing friend code restriction. The Conduit launches in three weeks, so mark your calendars.

TalkBack / IMPRESSIONS: Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles

« on: June 02, 2009, 10:22:20 AM »

It's basically the same game, graphics included.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/impressionsArt.cfm?artid=18667

The sequel to Umbrella Chronicles plays exactly like its predecessor, apart from some distinct control changes. The game can now be played exclusively with the Wii Remote, as weapon switching is mapped to the D-pad. Grenades are treated like a 3rd gun that is also mapped to the D-pad, so you dont have to hold down A + B to throw them anymore. Zombies are still hard to shoot directly in the forehead, of course. Harder, in fact, and I wonder if that area of the gameplay is fully tuned yet.

In the demo I played, Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield are wandering through the ruins of zombiefied Raccoon City in a stage that was essentially identical to the Jill & Carlos areas in Umbrella Chronicles. The only real gameplay switch is that the first player (in my case, Claire) controls the camera. In one sequence, Claire is knocked out by an explosion and the action just continues while player 2 (Leon) does nothing. Eventually Claire gets back up, and the game continues as normal. Its odd that control was pulled away from both players during that particular area. Youd think player 2 (Leon) would hold back the horde while Claire recovers, or something. However, sometimes one character will walk ahead and it will be up to his or her partner to cover them should an unfortunately-timed attack occur (and it will).

Capcom wants you to think that Darkside looks like an Xbox 360 game, but in practice it looks just like Umbrella Chronicles. If changes are present, I certainly cant see them. Whats more, the demo was entirely too darkI wouldve liked to have messed around with the TVs settings. Overall, the gameplay is similar to Umbrella Chronicles with some streamlining, and it doesnt look or sound any different. Despite that, the demo was quite fun and showed off more of the first-person zombie-killing that made the original so fun. Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles should be out by the end of the year.

TalkBack / PREVIEWS: Sin & Punishment 2

« on: June 02, 2009, 08:06:05 AM »

Sequel boasts a variety of gameplay devices.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/previewArt.cfm?artid=18659

Have you been waiting with bated breath for information on Sin & Punishment 2? Well now your whistle can be whetted. Players will be able to take on enemies on the ground, in the air (with a jetpack) or on a hoverboard, each with situational advantages. If you get tired of shooting things, you can pull out a sword for close encounters. The game will primarily use the Wii Remotes pointer to aim and lock onto targets, while the analog stick is for movement and evasion. Players will be encouraged to perform better and better in the same level to rack up points and chain hits together to achieve a good score. No word on multiplayer at this time. Treasure is developing the game and hope to release it during the first quarter of 2010.

TalkBack / REVIEWS: Avalon Code

« on: May 16, 2009, 03:54:16 PM »

An adventure in endless menu navigation.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=18456

Avalon Code is a beautiful, high-production-value RPG on the DS that I really, really wanted to love. It has real-time combat, funny and unique characters, an intriguing storyline, and tons of weapon/gear customization options. But this is only half of the gamethe other half consists of endless menu navigation and the moving around of Tetris-style blocks. This aspect of Avalon Code becomes tedious and unenjoyable, and it really drags the rest of the game down. Add the repetitious dungeons and occasionally frustrating world navigation and youve got a downer of a DS game.

You star as a girl (or a boy) who inherits the Book of Prophesy, which has the power to change the existing world and make a new one when your world ends. The end of your world is apparently happening very soon. But before the violent finale, you must seek out four spirits who normally live in the Book but whose pages have been scattered throughout the world. These spirits represent the four elements and will help construct the new world. At least, this is what I could piece together. The story is never explained very well, plays out too slowly, and merely provides a context for the games unique and overbearing menu system.

Overworld exploration and combat is generally fun and satisfying. The game is presented from a birds eye view, and most maps are wide-open spaces littered with a few monsters and objects to look at. One drawback is that the overworld maps are really too big; it takes a long time to get from one end of even a town to the other.

You move around with the D-pad, perform an evasive roll with the shoulder buttons, and attack with the X and Y buttons. You can equip two weapons at any one time. In towns, you can interact with people, objects, and signs with the A button. Eventually youll learn a little juggling mini-game which you start with the A button. This mini-gameJudgment Linkis a fun field exercise, but virtually impossible to play with any strategy during the in-game tournaments. Tournaments involve a hacky-sack like exercise in which four characters (including you) try to hit the object higher and higher, and hopefully cause the competition to miss a hit. The layout is poor, and its never obvious when the ball is coming your way.

One of your primary gameplay tasks is to defeat dungeons, which merely consist of a series of rooms in which you are tasked with hitting all the switches or defeating all enemies for a final score. Often, performing special actions (such as destroy all the boxes in the dungeon as well) will grant you more points for a room. Unless youre hideously low on health, dungeons are rarely problematic, but there are a lot of them in fact, almost too many. This dungeon element is what could be considered onehalf of Avalon Code, and its done fairly well.

The other half of the game involves the Book of Prophesy itself, also known as the Touch Screen. It is always displayed, and you are free to peruse its pages at your leisure. To be fair, the book is organized nicely, and theres more text and backstory than you probably have time to read. Anything you Code Scan (using the B button) is recorded in the Book and given its own unique page. Every person, enemy, and item in the game has unique elemental properties. These properties are represented as Tetris-style blocks arranged on a 3x3 grid. You can move these blocks around or swap them between pages to give different things different elemental properties. In theory, this is great. Want an enemy to have lower health? Remove its Fire element and replace it with an Illness element. Want to create a more powerful weapon? Replace its Copper element with Steel and add some Flame for good measure. You will sometimes find recipes for tempering your equipment, but its just as useful to experiment.

Totally cool, right? Turns out its not. You can only put four elemental blocks aside at any one time, so you will constantly be swapping blocks from page to page, and trying to remember which element you put where. Just when you think youre in the clear, youll discover that the block youre trying to impart is too big for that pages grid. None of this would be such a hassle if you werent asked to move stuff around so often, but you are. Cure the sick, heal the injured, change your weapons element to hit a switch, make this enemy easier to kill, answer questions from the Book itselfyoull find yoursef dipping into the Book all the time, and shifting blocks around just as much. Bizarrely, you can level up each page of the book by reaching some secret element combination or killing so many enemies of that type. Leveling it up sometimes results in a larger grid being drawn, but your ability to hold onto pieces (a maximum of four) never increases. Its very frustrating.

Avalon Codes graphics are fully 3D all the time, and are gorgeous at every turn. The music is similarly excellent, featuring catchy epic themes and nice ambient sound effects. The writing is great, and gives life to many unique characters (although the dwarves talk like Neanderthals). The more you play Avalon Code, the more repetitious it becomes, and the more frustrating that Book of Prophesy gets.

Avalon Code has high production values and heart, but element-swapping really saps the fun out of the experience. There are better RPGs out there.

Pros:

Beautiful art direction

High production values

Combat is fun

Cons:

Book of Prophesy takes up all your time

Element-swapping is a tedious affair

The game quickly becomes repetitive

Story is interesting, but not well paced

       Graphics: 8.0
   Absolutely gorgeous, although human characters (including yours) could use a few more frames of animation. They keep repeating the same motions.

       Sound: 7.0
   Great tunes and ambient sound effects imbue the colorful worlds with life.

       Control: 7.0
   Combat and overworld control is great. Sometimes sliding element blocks around with the stylus can be wonky, in that youll try to place a block and it wont register, or it will be placed incorrectly.

            Gameplay: 5.0
   Despite the fact that theres a lot to do, you will quickly discover that youre doing the same thing over and over again. How many times do I have to change my weapons element to hit these switches? Argh!

Lastability: 6.0
The game will take you a while as the story is quite long, but you may grow bored and frustrated with the games repetition well before the end.

Final: 6.0
Avalon Code is a beautiful RPG, but its also repetitious and ultimately pretty boring.

TalkBack / REVIEWS: Age of Empires: Mythologies

« on: May 16, 2009, 03:44:30 PM »

A fully-equipped strategy game on the DS? Oh, yes!
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=18455

You wouldnt think something like Civilization could fit onto a tiny little DS game card, but Age of Empires: Mythologies gives you all the turn-based strategy you could want and more in a handy portable format. It offers three campaigns, quick play games, a wealth of multiplayer options, tons of unlockables, and a slew of achievements.

The games scope is vast, encompassing three historical groups: the Egyptians, Greeks, and Vikings. During Campaign mode you must move through history, but in the Skirmish and Scenario modes (basically quick-play) you can choose any group from the get-go. Mythologies plays out using familiar genre tropes, including resource management, skill research, and roshambo army mechanics (light infantry beats ranged infantry beats spearmen, etc.). The game further divides army classes by whether or not troops are heroes, mythological monsters, or basic humans, and even these higher divisions have roshambo qualities. Luckily, the game constantly displays who is good against who or weak against what, so theres no memorization necessary. There is a certain Pokemon feel to it. When your heroic ranged infantry troop attacks a mythological heavy infantry troop, you almost expect to see Its super-effective!.

The three campaigns differ mainly by how each group acquires resources. Egyptians are pretty balanced in terms of troops/building cost and power, Greeks are expensive but powerful, while the Vikings are cheap but require large numbers of troops to be effective.

Another interesting aspect of the game is God Powers. Each group worships a pantheon of gods, and by building temples, you basically control a God Power resource (each group increases God Power differently). By stocking up on God Power (as you would crops or gold), you gain access to mythological monster troops, one-time-use God Powers that affect the entire battlefield, and the ability to level up your group.

God Powers are generally pretty bland, like increasing your crop production by 10% for two turns while the enemys crops go bad. And once you use a God Power you can never use it again during that campaign. But worry notthere are lots of God Powers to research, and if youre having trouble winning a match, theres no shame in calling on the awesome might of Athena, Loki, or Ra. But its the mythological monsters that are most useful; seeing a map populated with big bad critters is pretty kickass, although youll quickly learn which ones are useless and which ones are powerhouses.

The game is played on a grid and is turn-based. During your turn, you can move and attack (or build) with each of your units. Heroic troops have Hero Powers that can be used multiple times, but must recharge for several turns before another use. If you make a mistake, you can just undo the move and start again (which is very helpful). Before you confirm an attack, the computer will tell you whether its a good idea or not (also helpful).

Often, many tiles will be blacked or grayed out due to the fog of war. If you move a troop into the blackness, the area around them will be cleared up. Its irritating when two thirds of the battlefield is obscured, and powerful enemies start encroaching on your tiny little island. There are, of course, God Powers that briefly pull back the veil should you require some help.

Control can be a bit of an issue. There are times when it seems like the developers couldnt decide between an all-stylus option and an all-button option. They tried to cram both together and the result is a little awkward. Menu navigation works great with the stylus, but moving troops is best left to the face buttons. There is no way to zoom out and see the entire battlefield save a sketchy geometric map displaying icons representing basic army positions. Happily, a lengthy but detailed (and much appreciated) tutorial will guide newbies through the gameplay.

The multiplayer options are very impressive indeed. You can host a game locally with up to three friends in two different ways: the normal wireless way and the Hot Seat, in which up to four players pass around a single DS and conduct their moves. The game even blacks out the map between turns! Mythologies also supports DS Download play.

The Nintendo WFC options are pretty standard: friend code or complete strangers. The very fact that all these options are available is excellent. Unfortunately, I couldnt find anybody to play with over Nintendo WFC, so I cant speak to its playability. Hot Seat games are fun, even though I only played with one other person. Mythologies offers a bunch of achievements which you can use to buy unlockable content including new gods to worship, new units to deploy in quick-play mode, and new quick-play and multiplayer maps.

I was really surprised by how much content Age of Empires: Mythologies contains, and the game itself is fun and inventive. Even the multiplayer options have more legs than most other DS games. Strategy fan or not, this is one DS game everyone should try.

Pros:

An abundance of gameplay modes ensures a long lifespan

All the micromanagement of a console or PC RTS shrunk down for the DS

Graphics are very pretty, and some spoken dialogue adds spice

Multiplayer options are robust and appreciated

Cons:

Stylus control not so good on the battlefield

Dark areas of the map often box you in a bit too much

Troop management becomes a bit of a chore on a big battlefield

       Graphics: 8.0
   Battle animations are simplistic but lively. The developers didnt skimp on troop spritesno color-swaps between campaigns. Everybody looks different, which is great. The static battlefields themselves could use some sprucing up, though.

       Sound: 7.0
   The music loops a little too often. This complaint is balanced out by excellent voice sampling. Every time you move a troop or attack, then verbally acknowledge the action.

       Control: 7.0
   The stylus is excellent for menu screens, but not troop movement. It can be a little wonky when selecting troops or where you want to move them. You can (and probably should) play the entire game with the face buttons. However, the consequence is that moving around the battlefield grid is much slower using that method.

            Gameplay: 9.0
   Even though your goal for any individual mission is pretty simplistic (destroy all enemies, survive so many rounds, dont let your heroes die, etc.), no two battles are alike, and you will face a wide range of challenges. Figuring out the strengths and weaknesses of the three groups (Egyptians, Greeks, and Vikings) adds another level of strategy.

Lastability: 9.0
With a wealth of solo player options and just as many multiplayer offerings, this DS game will last you a long time, especially if youre going for achievements and unlockables.

Final: 9.0
I dont typically like strategy games, but this one caught me totally by surprise. Its at least worthy of a rental for those that arent strategy fans, and genre fans should run out and pick it up right away.

TalkBack / Let's Play GC on the Wii!

« on: April 26, 2009, 07:43:33 PM »

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/blogArt.cfm?artid=18286

For Cthulhu's sake, developers. How lazy can you get? The Wii is already backwards compatible with GC games. Did you not know that already? Why are you re-issuing GC games on current hardware? I'm not just looking at you, Capcom. You'll port anything that moves. How many times do you want us to suffer through the original Resident Evil? Nintendo, you're just as bad these days. New Play Control games are great, but they should not be significant releases. It's not like you guys are throwing a lot of effort into these ports.

Now, granted, I never played the original Pikmin when it was on the GC, so I'm glad I was able to get the opportunity to play it on the Wii. But you know what? Pikmin on the Wii is $30. It's on the GC (used) for like $10. The graphics are the same, the gameplay is a bit improved with the pointer functionality, but is it twenty dollars better? I'm looking forward to Metroid Prime on the Wii because I loved Corruption, but honestly, I'm just fine with the GC controls. These efforts would be improved if you included the entire GC "series" of a franchise on a single disk. Give me Pikmin & Pikmin 2 on one disk, or Metroid Prime & Echoes on one disk. Is that so much to ask?

And what about you, Capcom? You guys are releasing REmake and RE:0 on the Wii with to-be-determined Wii Remote functionality. I imagine that escaping from zombie grapples will be accomplished by furiously waggling the Remote. The only thing that would make me seriously consider re-buying REmake and/or RE:0 is if you totally redesigned the controls and camera angle to imitate RE4. And get rid of the ink ribbon saves. For RE:0, you could add split-screen co-op. That would renew my interest.

You know what? Here's a better suggestion. Instead of releasing REhashes (snicker), why not give us a new canonical RE game? Oh wait, you are. Darkside Chronicles, a sequel to Umbrella Chronicles that will cover the events of RE2, RE:CV, and according to Game Informer, a bonus mission with Leon S. Kennedy in South America. I guess that's nice, but let's face it: it's not exactly the follow-up to RE4 that Wii owners have been hoping for.

Look at it this way, dear readers: you buy a PS3 and are all excited about the potential for new kinds of gaming experiences. Sony re-releases God of War on a single disk with no significant upgrades besides lame online leaderboards for Challenge of the Gods playthroughs. You'd be writing Sony an angry letter! In a way, Tecmo did this with Ninja Gaiden. That's an Xbox game that they basically ported to the 360 with a few throwaway missions featuring Rachel, and then again on the PS3 (with DLC). It's a joke, and gamers deserve better.

So here's my plea, developers. Get on the goddamn ball and make NEW games for the Wii. I'm sick of going into Best Buy and seeing a mountain of shovelware and half a dozen good games that I already own. And now I'm beginning to see shovelware, good Wii exclusives, and...GC remakes. This is not an ideal situation. I want good, NEW content for my console, not recycled stuff from the last generation. I can already play those games--the Wii is backwards compatible, remember?

TalkBack / Resident Evil 5 (PS3): An Informal Review

« on: April 13, 2009, 06:03:46 PM »

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/blogArt.cfm?artid=18201

RE5 is RE4 on steroids, and Im not just talking about Chris Redfields Goku-like forearms. RE4 made significant strides for the series, which had until then had become more redundant with each new release. From RE1 to RE:Code Veronica, the franchise had used the same control scheme, gameplay flow, and scare tactics. It steadfastly refused to evolve, and fans were growing weary of the tank control scheme and irritating inventory system. Even the GameCube REmake, which was followed up by RE0, failed to truly reignite the masses. These were pretty games to be sure, but they still featured 3D character models moving through a 2D, pre-rendered environment, tank controls, and frustrating ammo scarcity. So we were all blown away by RE4, which revolutionized the series in terms of gameplay and tone.

RE4 chucked most of the RE staples out the window. Instead of avoiding fights to conserve ammo, players are given too much ammo, and are encouraged to blow zombified villagers away with extreme prejudice. Money earned by finding treasure lets you buy new guns and upgrade your old ones. In order to counter the new emphasis on gunplay, RE4 throws tons of bad guys at you, just enough to make players feel overwhelmed. Protecting a surprisingly intelligent AI NPC further stresses you, because its not just you the zombies wantthey also want the Presidents daughter. Instead of cinematic camera switches, the camera is positioned over the shoulder, and you have the ability to aim your gun, resulting in many exploding heads. And instead of zombies, you fight Las Plagas, horrible bug-like parasites that incubate inside human hosts and burst out at the worst possible times. Aside from the return of RE2 stars Leon S. Kennedy and Ada Wong, RE4s story doesnt have a whole lot to do with the main RE storyline. But it does set up RE5 very nicely

RE5 brings back series vet Chris Redfield, who helped bring down Umbrella in the first place (destroyed the Arklay Mansion, the Antarctic research facility, and the Russian branch, including Umbrellas top-secret T-A.L.O.S. project). Hes a member of the BSAA, a group dedicated to stopping bioterrorism. He travels to Africa after hearing rumors of a new Uroboros project, but also because his old partner, Jill Valentine, might be there, too. Chris immediately meets up with his new comrade, Sheva Alomar, and the two quickly discover that a new pharmaceutical company, Tricell, has taken Umbrellas place in researching bioweaponsand theyve taken a liking to both the Las Plagas and the original Progenitor virus. And of course, series villain Albert Wesker must be involved somehow. RE5 specializes in throwing tons of enemies at you (more than RE4) in the middle of awe-inspiring setpieces. Most of the larger areas are built with two players in mind; in one area, for instance, Chris takes on a horde of villagers while Sheva snipes arrow-slingers from above.

Most notably, RE5 brings two-player co-op to the series, and this gameplay innovation is incredibly satisfying. You can play with a friend by your side or online, with the former option splitting the screen. The split-screen isnt distracting, but I actually prefered online play so that I could have the entire screen to myself. Instead of a weird Australian merchant, buying and selling is done between levels (or deaths), and you have more control over how you want to upgrade your weapons and shuffle your inventory. Each player has nine inventory slots and the NWES slots are instantly accessible via the D-pad, so you can switch from your handgun to your Magnum in an instant (which is much nicer than the menu/equip hassle of RE4). It does, however, somewhat limit your inventory options. But let me tell you something: in the heat of battle with two human players, you dont give two craps. The game was designed around two-player co-op, so much so that Shevas AI behavior (when you dont have a friend to play with) is disappointingly limited by comparison. Sure, she gets the job done on her own, but she tends to waste ammo and relies on her handgun way too much, switching to other weapons only when she runs out of bullets. Shes also not a big help during the games final moments, which is very annoying. Whenever possible, play with a friend. Whats nice is that you can start a game session with the AI, but online (or local) comrades can pop in at any time, take the reigns for awhile, and then drop out. Online partners are forced to pick and choose items from their own inventories, so there is no swapping between parties. This can be a drag when your partner picks up a weapon you dont have yetthe item moves to their games inventory, but not yours! Fortunately money and loot is awarded to both players, no matter who picks it up.

As your arsenal increases in terms of both weapon diversity and individual upgrades, your enjoyment increases exponentially. Thank Cthulhu you can revisit completed stages and blow through them so you can experience the thrill that is a fully-upgraded Desert Eagle equivalent. Fully upgrading a gun unlocks the ability to purchase its final featureinfinite ammo. I highly recommend it, because you wont have to waste inventory space on ammo boxes. Upgrading certain guns unlocks the most powerful gun of that class, too (ever seen a triple-barrel shotgun?). The only limiting factor is deciding how often you want to play through the game, as different levels net you different amounts of moolah. Luckily, you can quit a level at any time and save your inventory, so after netting a big haul you dont necessarily have to finish the mission. But there are other reasons for going backBSAA emblems are hidden throughout most of the missions, and shooting them all results in some pretty kickass unlockable content. There are also three difficulty settings for each mission, and you are ranked based on how well you did. Ranking determines bonus points awarded, which you can trade in for yet more secret stuff. Achieving an S rank on Veteran mode is a real challengeI recommend playing through with a buddy who knows what s/hes doing. Speed runs are also crucial for getting the best rank, as well as the best infinite ammo weapon (speed run through the whole game in less than 5 hours¹).

As if the story mode doesnt provide enough content, the Mercenaries mode from RE4 makes a triumphant return. The only real difference is that the maps are flooded at all times with baddies and you have the option to play with a partner (locally). The difficulty has been ramped up significantly since RE4, though, and its much tougher to unlock new maps and characters. The most important factor in getting a good score appears to be keeping a good combo going (the shotgun helps). The new maps are especially cool; one is even filled with liquid hot mag-ma. But like I said, Mercenaries is tough and definitely takes some practice. Whats more, I consistently got better scores while playing with a friend, so keep that in mind.

And then, just when you thought you could put the controller down, Capcom goes and releases a downloadable Versus mode. Theyre asking five bucks, and honestly, Id pay double that. Versus is basically Mercenaries online, with the added bonus of being able to kill the other players. There are two modes, each of which has a team modifier. Survivors challenges you to hunt down other players on the map and focus on killing them. Zombies also roam the map, but killing them doesnt net you any points or bonuses. They do add a certain amount of chaos to the battle, and its fun to take advantage of a zombie hold by killing the player theyre grappling with.Slayers focuses on zombie-killing, but you can kill other players if you want. Slayers is more like straight-up Mercenaries in that your focus is killing zombies and getting a good combo going.

You can choose from a wide variety of characters in both modes (after unlocking them with bonus points), and each comes with a set item inventory. You can pick up additional weapons in Survivors, but not Slayers. Both modes, like Mercenaries, feature sand statues that you can destroy for additional time. Aside from being great fun on its own, Versus awards players with bonus points upon winning (or losing) a match, which makes unlocking additional characters a lot easier. But aside from that, it makes nabbing those expensive infinite ammo options more viable. As you might guess, the stop-to-aim control scheme hinders Player vs. Player attacks somewhat, as they become standoffs with two players shooting each other at point-blank range until one of them dies. Personally, I prefer Slayers to Survivors, and Team Slayers at that, but both are fun and will keep fans playing long into the night.

Also, Jill Valentines never looked sexier!

All in all, RE5 is the ultimate RE experience. If you liked (or loved) RE4, youll have an absolute blast with RE5. The story mode has more replay value than you can possibly realize, and the addition of co-op is beyond awesome. I daresay that its more fun to play the story mode online than it is to play co-op (split-screen) or solo. And when youve had your fill of blasting Weskers cronies, Mercenaries is a fantastic, surprisingly deep mode that keeps you on your toes and improves your skills. And finally, online Versus is just icing on the cake. Yeah, youve gotta pay a little extra, but to me its worth every penny. If you want value for your gaming dollar, RE5 has you covered. ²

¹PROTIP: Upgrade your best Magnum all the way, then unlock its infinite ammo option. This is your new handgun. Play through the first Marshlands mission a few times, and stock up on Rocket Launchers (and cash). Bring a rocket launcher to every boss fight, and always aim for the head with your magnum. Fully upgrade and unlock infinite ammo for your favorite sniper rifle (I recommend the Drugnov), which makes the final few chapters much easier. Ignore all boxes and barrelsthis will save you a LOT of time. Bring five flash grenades on every missionthey will instantly kill any Plagas mutants, including the annoying crab things.

²You might be inclined to buy the Special Edition, which costs an extra $30. I did, and I cant really say Ive utilized its special features too much. The box includes a little Chris Redfield figurine (kinda cool), a Tricell tote bag (meh), a BSAA patch (what am I gonna sew it to?), a necklace with a pewter Africa on it (yay?) and a Special Features disk, which includes the sort of bells and whistles youd find on a DVD (making of, still images, etc.). Its okay, but the asking price is a little hard to swallow.

TalkBack / REVIEWS: Monsters vs. Aliens

« on: April 12, 2009, 09:40:44 AM »

High production values cant hide an incredibly short lifespan.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=18183

Monsters vs. Aliens is based on the Dreamworks movie thats currently in theaters. The fact that its a licensed game should give you pause, but as it turns out the license is used very well, production values are very high, and the game is genuinely fun to play. Whats unfortunate is that Monsters vs. Aliens is also ridiculously shortI beat the game in less than two hours, and theres virtually no point in replaying any portion of the game after that.

The story involves an evil alien, Gallaxhar, coming to Earth to fetch his missing Quantonium, which he intends to use to build an army of clones and take over the universe. His robotic forces are immune to terran attack, so the government gets their best, um, monsters together to take out the alien threat: B.O.B., a shape-shifting blob; Missing Link, a fishman straight out of the Black Lagoon; Dr. Cockroach, a brilliant lab-coat-wearing bug; Insectosaurus, a Godzilla-sized hamster with bug arms; and Ginormica, the newest member of the team, a fifty-foot-tall delivery girl.

Whats great about the gameplay here is that every character has his or her own stage in each level of the game, and they all play differently. Ginormica is either running around beating up baddies in a platformer area, or skating down a highway using cars as rollerskates. B.O.B. and Missing Links levels are similar in that they can both stick to walls and ceilings, but while B.O.B.s stages focus on finding your way through a maze and imitating background objects (trace the outline on the touch screen!), Missing Link is all about combat. Dr. Cockroach solves devilishly inventive puzzles, and Insectosaurus rampages through cities like old daikaiju movies. The best part is that every character feels different and has to overcome unique obstacles. The gameplay never sours because youre constantly switching gears. The puzzles are certainly differentyour goal is to manipulate angled mirrors in such a way as to guide a beam of light around a grid so that it hits all the green blocks but misses the red ones. A variety of mirror types and special switches eventually come into play, as well.

There are a few minor concerns with the gameplay itself, however. Skating through the countryside with Ginormica is hindered by the requisite use of a touch screen slider to move left and right, which is FAR less desirable and practical than using the D-pad. Some of the later stages involving B.O.B. and Missing Link also rely a bit too heavily on find this switch to open this door navigation puzzles, and their camera is sometimes too close to get a good view of the action. The Insectosaurus stages couldve been improved by the removal of a time limit; granted, collecting DNA increases your time, but finding some of those fish bones wouldve been easier had I not felt rushed.

Fortunately, the game looks fantastic. Aside from Dr. Cockroachs puzzles, the entire game is 3D. The animations are very impressiveespecially B.O.B., who oozes, squeezes, and generally behaves like a blob of jelly does. Watching buildings come crashing down in Insectosaurus stages is a blast, and Missing Link has a host of combat moves that are simply fun to watch. Cutscenes have voiceovers with the actors from the movies(Seth Rogan, Hugh Laurie, Rainn Wilson, etc.), and everyone is present except, oddly, Stephen Colbert.

As for collectables, there are two varieties. DNA can be hoarded and traded for character-specific upgrades like more health or attack power. Since you can replay any level whenever you want and re-collect DNA, you can acquire all the possible upgrades pretty quickly. The other, harder-to-find items are fish bones. There are five scattered around every stage, and they can be exchanged for bonus content like alternate costumes (which are really just the same costumes with different color schemes), a Sound Test mode, and bonus Dr. Cockroach puzzles. Like DNA, you can replay stages to grab any fish bones you missed the first time.

The biggest problem with Monsters vs. Aliens is its unbelievably short length. Within ninety short minutes I had beaten the game, gotten all the character upgrades, bought all the unlockables aside from some bonus puzzles, and completed all the bonus puzzles I had bought. So despite the fact that Monsters & Aliens is a lot of fun, its tough to recommend it as any more than a rental.

Pros:

Gameplay always feels fresh

Mirror puzzles are very fun

Production values high; license used well

Cons:

Ridiculously short

Skating is hampered by touch screen controls

Time limit on Insectosaurus stages make things artificially tougher

       Graphics: 8.0
   Characters repeat the same animation cycle endlessly during cutscenes, but during gameplay the visuals are wonderful.

       Sound: 7.0
   Gotta love the voice actors from the movie, and the music is serviceable and enjoyable (though not memorable).

       Control: 7.0
   Options exist for combining the touch screen with face buttons (slide to jump, for example), but let that sleeping dog lie. The only place the game really gets touch screen control wrong is when its required for Ginormicas skating stages.

            Gameplay: 9.0
   Constantly changing and never boring, Monsters vs. Aliens is a great example of engaging gameplay variety. I just wish there was more of it.

Lastability: 2.0
This game wouldnt last me a plane ride from Anchorage to Seattle.

Final: 6.0
Regardless of the high scores above, the final score cant help but be dragged down by Monsters vs. Aliens poor lastability. Its a unique case in which I love a game but cant recommend it. Its worth a rental, but thats about it

TalkBack / REVIEWS: Bird & Beans

« on: April 11, 2009, 05:47:27 PM »

It's a cell phone-style game on your brand-new, high-tech DSi.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=18171

Bird & Beans is one of the launch games on the DSiWare service, along with Art Style: Aquia, WarioWare: Snapped, and a few others. While it only costs 200 points ($2), it isn't worth any more than that. It is a fun distraction, but there's virtually no content, and it has the air of a cell phone game; something to play on the elevator, but nothing you'd play for more than a few minutes.

The title pretty much sums everything up. You control a bird who has a chameleon-like tongue. Your actions are limited to moving left and right and slurping up beans as they fall from the sky. The bird's tongue extends upward at a diagonal angle, and continues to extend for as long as you hold down the A button. Each consumed bean gives you points. The lower the bean is in the sky when you eat it, the lower the point value. If you get hit by a bean, you die and it's Game Over. If a bean hits the floor, that floor block disappears, limiting your movement. Blocks reappear over time automatically, or by eating a flashing bean (which restores the entire floor).

After beating the high score for the first time you'll unlock Bird & Beans 2, a variation on the original that has the bird blowing leaves around instead of using his tongue. When the leaves hit a bean, the bean explodes into more leaves. The trick here is that you can create a combo by continuously hitting beans with the same leaf pile.

Your high scores are saved, and you can view them from the game's main menu, but that's it. There are probably free Flash games on the Internet that approximate these games. It's best to save your Nintendo Points and wait for something worthwhile.

Pros:

Fun arcade/cell phone feel

It's cheep (HA!)

Unlockable second game extends lifespan somewhat

Cons:

Gets old after about five minutes

No 1-ups makes for an extremely short game

Second game is kind of frustrating!

       Graphics: 3.0
   The game is sprite-based, and while that isn't inherently bad, it's the quality of the sprites that's unimpressive. This game would look primitive on the original GameBoy, aside from its pretty colors.

       Sound: 4.0
   The sound is instantly forgettable, but a background theme is present.

       Control: 10.0
   With only left, right, and the A button, not much can go wrong. In all fairness, the game is very responsive.

            Gameplay: 5.0
   The game is fun in short bursts. For what it is, the gameplay holds up pretty well.

Lastability: 3.0
If you work on the 10th floor of a building, or you have to take a bathroom break and forgot to put a game card in the DSi, this'll get you through that short time. But you won't be tuning to Bird & Beans again once something better comes down the DSiWare pipe.

Final: 4.0
I have buyer's remorse over a free game, so that should tell you something.

TalkBack / IMPRESSIONS: Nintendo DSi

« on: April 06, 2009, 03:08:48 AM »

Zach gives us his glowing impressions of his newly-purchased Nintendo DSi.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/impressionsArt.cfm?artid=18120

I've been excited about the DSi since its announcement, especially its friendlier menu system. The system's updated aesthetic design, which includes the addition of two .3 megapixel cameras, has received the most attention, but it's the more Wii-like interface that really caught my eye. This morning I ran over to my local gaming store and grabbed my DSi. It's not like I had a choice; I sold my DS Lite and a game to help fund my DSi purchase. So far the DSi has exceeded my expectations.

The most obvious change right "out of the box," so to speak, is the systems finish. No longer will it be tarnished by fingerprints and dirt that gets under the transparent cover. The DSi is sleek, with a matte finish thats slightly sandy to the touch, which I can only assume further reduces the appearance of prints. Thats great news for me; I spent way too much time wiping off my DS Lites shell. Interestingly, where the DS Lite only has two indicator lights (for power level/online play), the DSi has three: one for power level, a battery charging indicator, and one indicating online play. Little icons on the upper screen tell you what each light means. When closed, the DSi is impressive in its conservative design. A single camera lens decorates the lower-right corner of the unit. Along the sides of the unit, the DS headphone jack is on the front, the stylus storage and SD slot are on the left, volume buttons (not a slider anymore) on the right, and the power adaptor port, game card slot, and weird two-hole connector on the back.

Open up the DSi and youre treated to much the same aesthetic as the DS Lite. The speakers have been repositioned, sitting about a fourth of the way up the screen. Theres another camera lens positioned where the mic was on the DS Litethe mic now sits just to its right. The face and shoulder buttons are shallow and have a good click to them, unlike the soft, cushioned buttons of the DS Lite. The power button is more like that of the DS Phat in that its a button, and it sits just to the left of the lower-left corner of the bottom screen. There are now five brightness settings instead of four.

But the most drastic changes have occurred in the DS software. Even the systems startup sound has changed. Youre immediately presented with a menu system thats obviously taken its inspiration from the Wii. The DSi has a home menu that you can scroll through with the stylus or D-pad. The upper screen displays the first picture you take (more on that later), while the lower screen displays your options. From left to right you have System Settings, DS Game Card, DSi Camera, DSi Sound, DSi Shop, DS Download Play, PictoChat, and then Downloaded Games. You can get to the camera function right away by tapping L/R. Its a really nice setup and works much better than the bare-bones menu system of the DS Phat/Lite.

The camera is excellent. You can store photos on an SD card or use the systems internal memory. The DSi lets you store 412 photos internally, but the SD card gives you pracitically limitless storagemine has 3,000 photo slots. Despite its low resolution (.3 megapixels), the quality is generally better than a camera phone if you have adequate lighting, and you can even zoom in on pictures in the Picture Gallery. You can switch between the internal (looking at you) and external (looking at everything else)camera on the camera menu screen. After taking pictures, you can play around with lenses and colors, and even doodle on your picture. Whats even better is that you can take the SD card out, stick it in your Wii, and mess around with your pictures on the Photo Channel (send em to your friends!). Theres also DSi Sound. You can record yourself, and then play around with pitch, speed, and adding silly effects. Its surprisingly engaging. If you have AAC music files on your SD card you can play them on your DSi.

The DSi Shop channel is the same as the Wii Shop Channel , right down to the way games are organized. It takes a little while to connect, but its not a big deal. DS Download Play and PictoChat are standard. Whats really nice about all this software is that you can go right back to the menu without having to turn off the system. Most of the software has an exit button, and those that dont (like downloadable Aquia) have a quick-fix of sorts: giving the Power button a tap sends you back to the main menu.

I downloaded Bird & Beans and Aquia with the 1,000 free DSi points I nabbed for signing into the DSi Shop for the first time. Bird & Beans is basically a cell phone game: beans fall from the sky, and you have to lick them up with a bird and his enormous chameleon-like tongue. Its a high-score-fest, really, but its pretty fun for quick gaming jaunts on the throne. Aquia, on the other hand, is a great puzzle game with a twistyou have a vertical column made up of blocks, and you have to push your own blocks into the vertical column. However, doing so will push a new block out the other side, so you have to figure out where everything will end up in a single move. Its not very pretty (neither is Bird & Beans), but despite its simplicity, it gets the job done. I can only hope that more robust offerings are coming down the pipe.

The system is incredible overall, but there are a few minor gripes. First, once again, you cant play DSiWare games from your SD card, so if the internal storage fills up (and it will), youll have to do the whole "fridge-cleaning" shuffle that we hated on the Wii. Hopefully a future firmware fix is in the cards.Thats another nice thing about the DSiit supports firmware updates (in fact, youll activate one when you try to sign on to the DSi Shop Channel).

The DSis touchscreen doesnt seem any more robust than it did on the DS Lite, which makes me worry about scratches and dead zones for a game like Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. The power cord is different from the DS Lites, so you cant swap them. I also worry about the systems limited storage space. If Nintendo of America begins supporting a " Virtual Console " for the DSi, I can see the meagre internal memory being eaten up pretty quickly. Ill need a bigger SD card, but more importantly, Ill want the same fix Nintendo rolled out for the Wii last week.

Overall, I cant recommend the DSi highly enough. If you dont have a DS, this is the version to get. If you have a DS Phat, youre now officially living in the stone age (upgrade, man!). The cameras and new DS menu software are so good that you might want to sell your DS Lite. If youre worried about the lack of GBA support, go buy a used GBA! The DSi is here, and you know you want it.

General Gaming / RE5 Postgame scenario

« on: April 01, 2009, 07:18:05 PM »

I finally beat RE5 last night. EPIC ending, truly. And when I say "ending," I mean the last half hour of gameplay, because you end up fighting Wesker a lot. The cutscene fight was definately my favorite moment in the game (much like RE4).

I unlocked a bunch of cool stuff, including the Mercenaries (finally). But before I delve into Mercs, I'm gonna go back through and find all the BSAA Emblems so I can unlock more bonus features and gun upgrades.

Here's what I don't get, though: What's the difference between Chapter Select and New Game Plus? Since all your equipment carries over anyway when selecting any given chapter, and then you can just select the difficulty and character before starting it, is there any real difference?

Aside from that quirky question, it's a great game. The final Wesker fight is tricky if you're playing alone, though, because Sheva's AI doesn't do what it's supposed to do.

TalkBack / REVIEWS: We Ski & Snowboard

« on: April 01, 2009, 01:05:38 AM »

But we're not very excited about it.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=18077

We Ski & Snowboard is the sequel to Namco Bandai's earlier powder-filled outing, We Ski. While it looks pretty in spots and makes good use the of the Wii Balance Board, there isn't a whole lot of depth to be found. WS&S is basically a free-roaming trip to the slopes that lets you do whatever you want.

The game technically doesn't require the Wii BalanceBoard, but using the control stick just isn't the same. The Board imparts a feeling of immersion that I greatly appreciated (being quite the skiing aficionado myself). You still need to hold the Wii Remote and Nunchuck while on the board, using them as you would ski poles. Moving them up and down pushes you forward, while tilting them out puts you in a tucked position. Unfortunately, the button-pressing that's required for several moves (like stopping or mogul runs) breaks the immersion.

The Balance Board is great, though. Leaning makes you turn and tuck, and jumping is performed by quickly "bouncing" on the Board. When you're riding a snowboard, you turn the Board so that it's perpendicular to the TV, but otherwise the controls are the same. If you've played Wii Fit, you'll be familiar with how to use the Balance Board in WS&S. The mountain is full of trick areas, like loops and grind rails for both skiers and snowboarders, but tricks are performed by waggling the Remote and Nunchuck. But the game's greatest failure is that there's no real sense of speed; in real life, you're shooting down a slope with the wind in your face and it's over before you know it. In WS&S you never feel like you're zipping down the slope, even in tuck position. It takes forever to get from the top of the mountain to the bottom; not because the mountain is huge, but because you're going so darn slow.

The game is also too open-ended. Without a set goal, your motivation to continue steadily declines. Sure, you can run errands for people or go on race challenges, but the prizes for completing them are not really worth it (new gear to customize your avatar) or completely missing altogether. Otherwise, you just cruise around the mountain by yourself, pressing the Minus button to go to the map to select an area to warp to. Then you just skiforeverdown the slope to the resort. I suppose it's interesting to explore the different nooks and crannies, and competing in some of the challenges is fun (slalom, baby!), but overall there's not a lot here. Different sections of the mountain aren't unlocked as you progress, since they're available from the start; you don't learn different maneuvers over time, since you can ski like a pro from the get-go. While this makes the game very accessible, it also erodes any incentive to keep playing.

Graphical quality varies, but is unimpressive overall. Trees are particularly horrible; they're "slot trees," whereby a bird's-eye view would reveal a forest full of plus signs. Your skis (and snowboards) leave a trail behind you, which is kind of cool, and the rock formations are interesting but poorly textured. The matte painting backgrounds are the nicest-looking touch in the game. These problems are minimized if you choose to ski at night, when illumination is provided by light poles. The encroaching darkness covers up many of the game's graphical failures, and your eyes will often be drawn to the fireworks going on at the resort below. WS&S lets you use your Miis, but they look out of place with Namco Bandai's more anime-inspired avatars.

There's an option for local multiplayer with up to four players (three if one is using the Balance Board), but for each person you add the framerate drops accordingly. Split-screen gameplay is further diminished by the fact that it's not always obvious where you're going. Online multiplayer would have been preferable so that you could have the whole screen to yourself.

In the end, We Ski & Snowboard reminds me how much more awesome real skiing is. It's fun at first, but with a lack of challenge, mediocre graphics, and no real sense of speed, it gets old quickly.

Pros:

Excellent use of the Balance Board

You can do anything and go anywhere right off the bat

Local multiplayer

Cons:

Having to press buttons for certain moves breaks the immersion

Everything is open from the start, giving you little incentive to keep playing after you've seen all the slopes

Split-screen means slowdown

Graphics are sub-par

       Graphics: 6.0
   WS&S is pretty "blah" from a graphical standpoint. The trees look terrible, and scenery textures are generally poor.

       Sound: 5.0
   There's virtually no music except during course selection, and sometimes AI-controlled skiers and snowboarders will shout things. But otherwise all you can hear is the swish of your skis (or snowboard).

       Control: 7.0
   The Wii Balance Board is used to great effect, but pressing buttons really takes you out of the experience.

            Gameplay: 5.0
   There's just not a lot here. You can race people, complete various challenges, andget your picture taken. None of these activities feel worthwhile because there usually aren't any rewards for completing them.

Lastability: 5.0
You can replay challenges whenever you want to get a better time or improve your technique, but it's really tough to stay motivated.

Final: 6.0
The low production values and lack of drive keep We Ski & Snowboard grounded. Wii Fit makes much better use of the Balance Board, and the sense of speed in its ski jump game is much more satisfying.

General Chat / Mt. Redoubt Erupted

« on: March 29, 2009, 02:03:34 AM »

It's actually been erupting for days, but until today, Anchorage was not hit by the ashfall. It's not deep by any means, but it's persistant in the air, which means everyone needs to wear masks outside, and you can't drive because the air filter will get owned. This could continue for several weeks--the volcano shows no signs of slowing down.

This wouldn't be as big a problem in the summer. Rains would eventually wash everything clean, but in the winter--yeah, it sucks.

TalkBack / REVIEWS: Pokémon Platinum

« on: March 26, 2009, 07:17:42 AM »

St. Mary's is going to have to set up a Pokémon wing
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=18054

Let's get one thing clear: I sank over 200 hours of my life into Pokémon Pearl. In my effort to collect them all by any means necessary, I forwent reasonable bedtimes, movies, TV shows, and succinct bathroom breaks. I accomplished my goal, though, in doing so, I became once more burned out on Pokémon. Two years passed and then Pokémon Platinum arrived. Platinum is the DS equivalent of a double-dip, and lines right up with Yellow, Crystal, and Emerald as the "definitive" version of each generation. For those of you who haven't played Pearl or Diamond before, Platinum is by all means the version to go with. While its bonus features aren't spectacular, it certainly offers more than its predecessors. However, for Pokémon fanatics like myself who have already blown entire weekends perfecting their craft on the DS, Platinum probably doesn't offer enough new material to warrant a comeback. I won't bore you with NWRs take on the core gameplay; instead, I'll talk about whether or not the double-dipping details are worthwhile.

First of all, I should say that Pokémon Pearl and Diamond are the ultimate Pokémon games, and if you've never played the series before because of its kid-friendly aesthetic you should reconsider. Pokémon is the deepest, most involving RPG I've ever played; it offers so much gameplay variety and is open to so much player choice that anybody, regardless of their age, sex, or background, will find something to love about it. Do you want to collect them all? You can do that. Want to focus on building the ultimate team and maxing their stats? You can do that, too. Want to just build a team good enough to beat the game and see the story through? Thumbs up, here. Want to create several teams for the various game types in online multiplayer? Got you covered. Any way you approach it, Pokémon delivers in absolute spades. Furthermore, this newest game expands on Pearl/Diamonds hefty 498 species, although only two are genuine evolutions of older creatures (the others are alternate formslike Deoxys).

Platinum's main addition to the series is an improved online experience. In addition to battles and trades, Platinum introduces the Wi-Fi Plaza, where players connect to the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection and interact for a set time limit with 20 random people. You cannot trade or battle in the Plaza, but you can play minigames with people, and exchange and play with Touch Toys (noisemakers). Most importantly, by using the new Vs. Recorder, you can upload and download videos of impressive Pokémon battles with online foes. It's kind of a cool Pokémon YouTube feature. On the standard trading front, GTS trades are now equipped with an e-mail confirmation feature, so when a trade occurs, the system will send an e-mail to your computer or Wii.

The main game has some aesthetic changes as well. The overworld is now more detailed with better lighting and snow patches decorating the ground. Many areas have also been modified in terms of architecture or layout. A few of the gym layouts have been completely retooled, especially Heathrome. During battles, your opponent's Pokémon look subtly different than they did in Pearl/Diamond, and your Pokémon now animate from the back. Platinum owners will get to capture both Palkia and Dialga, and lots of previously trade-only Pokémon now appear in the Sinnoh Pokédex, including the three Legendary Birds, Eevee, and Porygon. However, to keep players trading with Pearl/Diamond, a few previously available Sinnoh Pokémon are nowhere to be found in Platinum, including the Skuntank and Purugly lines. Additionally, a few of the legendaries have gotten makeovers. Regigigas is found at level 1; Rotom and Giratina are available for capture before beating the game. Rotom has five potential evolutions (like Eevee) and Giratina and Shaymin have alternate forms accessible only when they are given special items to hold. When they are not holding those items, they revert to their normal forms.

The biggest new addition is the Distortion World, which is only accessible towards the bitter end of the game. It's a weird 3D environmental puzzle in which you bounce around floating pieces of landscape (sometimes you're sideways or upside-down) in order to find your way to Giratina's alternate form. Aside from a new way to capture the legendary Ghost/Dragon, the Distortion World is just a spectacle.

If this all sounds great, then by all means go for it. The Vs. Recorder is the coolest piece of new technology, and while I like the idea of continuing to expand the Pokédex, some player may just not be willing to put all that effort into it all over again. If you were burned out on Pearl/Diamond two years ago, I can tell you that these features aren't really reason enough to go back quite yet. But for the rest of you, Pokémon Platinum is the best Pokemon game ever made, and everyone should try it out, especially Pokénewbs.

Pros:

New aesthetic features spice up the game's look

Wi-Fi Plaza is interesting, and the Vs. Recorder is awesome

For new Pokémon players, Platinum is definitely the way to go

Cons:

Online expansions don't make any noticeable improvements to the core gameplay

New Pokémon aren't so much new as alternate forms of existing Pokémon

Probably not enough new content to bring back burned out Pearl/Diamond Pokéfanatics

       Graphics: 8.0
   Call me old-fashioned, but the sprite-based look fits Pokémon just right. I love how the developers incorporated 3D buildings and structures into the game. The aesthetic changes throughout Sinnoh give Platinum a distinct look from Pearl/Diamond.

       Sound: 8.0
   The themes have stayed the same for the most part, but they're just as catchy as they were two years ago. The sound effects are great, although it's about time to update the limited cries of the Pokémon from Red/Blue/Yellow and Gold/Silver/Crystal.

       Control: 8.0
   It's the same as it ever was. I wish the shoulder buttons could've been utilized in assigning more items for toggling. As it stands, only the Y button can be assigned to an item. That's no good if you want to use your map AND your bike a lot.

            Gameplay: 9.0
   Pokémon gameplay has been and continues to be Geodude-solid (groan). If anything, the stuff apart from battling seems unnecessary, especially the beauty contests, which incorporate a poorly thought-out dance routine to the mix. Of course, you can safely avoid these distractions.

Lastability: 10.0
When I turned Pearl back on to trade with Platinum, I noted (with horror) that Id logged 217 hours into it. If that ain't lastability, I dont know what is.

Final: 9.0
Pokémon Platinum is the ultimate Pokémon experience, and now is the best time to jump onto the bandwagon if you havent already. But if you played the hell out of Pearl/Diamond, you probably don't need this newer, shinier version. If anything, you can just find people on Nintendo WFC who will give you the alternate Pokémon forms, saving yourself the trouble of slogging through the entire game a second time.

TalkBack / REVIEWS: New Play Control! Pikmin

« on: March 19, 2009, 08:08:01 AM »

Who picked the Pikmin before Olimar showed up?
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=17993

I never played the original Pikmin for the GameCube, but my friends told me that, generally, it was a very good game. My own hesitation sprang from the fact that I may be the worst real-time strategy player on the planet. My experiences in the genre began and ended with the first two Warcraft games; Starcraft was too much of a challenge for me. Of course, I was quite young, and with age and experience comes patience, so maybe Id like the genre more now. Even so, those early failures have prevented me from even touching the genre for years afterwards. A foolish mistake, perhaps, and one that has (until now) stopped me from experiencing the joy that is Pikmin.

Pikmin is the story of a miniature space delivery man, Olimar, and his quest to recover the scattered parts of his ruined ship after an unfortunate encounter with a meteor fragment. Olimar crash-lands on a planet not entirely unlike our own, populated by a wealth of arthropods and familiar vegetation. The problem is that Olimar is about two inches tall. Flowers tower overhead, beetles stomp around like dinosaurs, and the smallest puddles become hazardous lakes! However will our hero repair his ship? With the help of Pikmin, of course! These tiny plant-like critters eagerly follow Olimar around and are perfectly willing to do his bidding. He can command up to 100 of the little fellows at a time and dole out orders accordingly. Have your yellow Pikmin bomb a roadblock while the reds take out a giant beetle and the blues build a bridge! Each Pikmin color has its own strength: reds are fire-resistant and deal more damage than the other colors, so they are good fighters. Blues can wade through water unharmed and build bridges. Yellows can carry and use bomb rocks for blowing up roadblocks.

You recruit Pikmin by finding power pellets (theyre everywhere) and having your Pikmin drag them back their homes (Onions). The pellet is sucked up and more Pikmin pop out and await Olimar to pluck them from the ground. They key here is that the color of the power pellet doesnt matter very muchmore important is the predominant color amongst the Pikmin who are carrying it. If you want to recruit more reds, have reds drag the power pellets! If you give a red pellet to a blue Pikmin, he will turn the pellet into more blues. However, matching pellet and Pikmin colors will yield additional troops. Pellets come in all sizes, each helpfully displaying the number of Pikmin required to move it. Some require many Pikmin to drag it back to the Onionup to twenty! Defeated enemies can also be carried back to the Onions, and the more Pikmin than required that are carrying an object, the faster it will go!

Pikmin have three power levels: leaf, bud, and flower. The longer you leave a Pikmin seed in the ground, the more powerful it will become. Additionally, Pikmin will drink nectar they find on the ground, which powers them up. The power level determines their running speed, carrying speed, and damage potential: an army of flower Pikmin will never stray behind Olimar and haul swag fervently!

Olimar has thirty days to collect all thirty pieces of his ship, and each day lasts roughly fifteen minutes. Since each landscape you visit is so different, you can spend entire days just exploring and getting the lay of the land, and, indeed, this may be good planning on your part. Most structures and enemies dont reset overnight, so its good to spend a day blowing up roadblocks, building bridges, and taking out the most headache-inducing enemies so that youre free to roam around looking for spaceship parts in subsequent days. And if you feel like youre lagging, you can restart your game from any previous day, although that will overwrite any progress youve made since then.

The game utilizes the Wii Remote wonderfully, and you really only need to worry about four commands. You move Olimar with the control stick, dismiss your Pikmin into groups (for easy sorting) with C, throw an individual Pikmin with A, tell the entire group to do something with down on the D-pad, and call your Pikmin with B. Calling Pikmin re-activates dismissed Pikmin and stops active Pikmin from whatever it is theyre doing to come back to you. The rest of the D-pad controls the camera. The Wii Remotes pointer functionality works great for aiming your tosses and recalling distant groups of Pikmin, and really streamlines what I imagine was a more complicated process of estimation on the GameCube.

Of course, leading a group of one-hundred Pikmin has its downsides, too. With a group that large, accidentally running into sleeping enemies becomes a liability. Also, Pikmin have a bad habit of getting caught up on the environments geometry and automatically dismissing themselves because they arent brainy enough to go around a tree root instead of through it. Yellows could be a whole lot more accurate with their bomb-rock placement. If you dont act quickly, your entire squad could get blown to smithereens because the idiot yellow placed the bomb way too close to the group. It quickly becomes apparent that the best way to do things is to take your Pikmin through levels color-by-color rather than in a mixed group, giving each color group a certain task and letting everyone work separately, but simultaneously, to accomplish a goal. There will definitely be times where you will need to oversee a groups successalmost every enemy encounter requires your presence (which can slow things down, honestly)but on the whole, the Pikmin are good about completing tasks given to them.

Pikmin's daily time limit is concerning, though. Rather than feeling a sense of freedom and wonder, daily searches feel more like frenzied rushes filled with worry as the sun moves across the sky (helpfully displayed on a meter at the top of the screen). If you ignore the ticking clock and dont get your Pikmin safely to their Onions at sunset, the planets nocturnal horrors will run around and gobble up the stragglers. I actually restarted my game after 12 in-game days because Id only found 10 parts, and it took me about that long to really get comfortable with a routine.

Fortunately, the game bombards you with helpful tips and tutorials, so its a pretty easy game to get the gist of. And once it clicks for you, Pikmin is a very fun, rewarding game. Theres just something about watching your army haul back a bounty from a hard days work thats very satisfying.

Pros:

A simple RTS that anyone can get into

The elegant control scheme makes commanding your army a snap

Beautiful levels and enmies that are both comical and fearsome

Cons:

Pikmin often get stuck or goof off

The time limit feels artificial and is frustrating

       Graphics: 8.0
   The graphics are barely changed from the GC version, with the only addition being true widescreen support (no sidebars here) and tutorial schematics showing the Wii Remote instead of the GC controller. Even so, the organic worlds are beautiful. The creatures you encounter look a little blocky at times, especially the red beetle things.

       Sound: 8.0
   The music isnt exactly catchy, but its pleasant and fits the game well. Your Pikmin make cute little soundsits almost tragic when reds and yellows drown, or any of your troops are eaten by an enemy!

       Control: 9.0
   The controls couldnt be simpler, although you may have to move the camera around to get the best view of where the pointer is in relation to an enemy. Using the on-screen cursor to toss Pikmin onto larger enemies takes some getting used to because you have to estimate how high a Pikmin will go, not how far.

            Gameplay: 7.0
   I cant stand the time limit! Luckily, achieving your goals is always fun and satisfying, which motivates you continue playing. But really, just five or ten more days would have given Pikmin a much more relaxed pace.

Lastability: 9.0
It will take you a pretty long time to learn the layout of the levels with enough detail that you can successfully acquire all 30 parts of your ship without a hitch. And after playing the main game for awhile, Challenge mode gives you a whopper of a variation on the main game. I wont ruin that surprise.

Final: 8.0
Pikmin is a great game thats weighed down by the frustrating time limit and hiccups in Pikmin behavior. It's hard to imagine how people played the original game with a GC controller, because the Wii setup is just so elegant. It can take a while to get into the flow of the game, but once you do, you're hooked. If you already have Pikmin for the Cube you probably dont need this version, but if youve never played it before, nows your chance!

TalkBack / REVIEWS: Castlevania Judgment

« on: March 09, 2009, 03:38:08 PM »

It's not as bad as you think!
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=17921

The mainstream gaming media basically eviscerated Castlevania Judgment the day it was released (and even before), bemoaning the franchises bizarre attempt at a 3D fighting game and heavily criticizing the motion controls, messy camera, and Takeshi Obatas art design. Well, theyre all right. Castlevania does not translate well to the 3D fighting genre, the motion controls are horrible, the camera is too erratic, and the character design lies somewhere between atrocious and comical. However, once you accept Judgment for what it is and isnt, you can have a pretty good time with it. You just have to be willing to spend some time learning the ropes.

The story is absolutely inconsequential, so I wont talk about it other than to say theres a time rift and different characters from the Castlevania franchise are all fighting each other for no obvious reason. Dracula is involved somehow; its not really clear. The game is divided into different sections: traditional Story and Arcade modes, an interesting Castle mode (more on that in a minute), and online matches. Sadly, I cannot comment on the online content, because I couldnt find anybody to play with.

The games control scheme is its biggest hurdle. Do not play this game with a Wii Remote and Nunchuck, because youll be whipping yourself in the foot. Shaking the Remote to attack is awkward and tiring, and the button configuration makes the game nigh-unplayable. The GameCube controller is an option, but the button layout makes certain attacks awkward. Your best bet is the Classic Controller, which, in spite of its own problems, is your only viable choice. Jumping and blocking are handled with the shoulder buttons, while attacks are mapped to the face buttons. You move around the 3D battlefield with the left stick and dodge with the right stick. Learning the ropes (whips?) of attacking takes some practice. The B button will be your primary attack button. Like Smash Bros., pressing different directions on the left stick in conjunction with the attack buttons results in different attacks. The A button charges attacks. Using it and the B button along with analog stick directions (or while jumping) produces different results, too. If you hold down the A button until your character flashes, the ensuing attack will (usually) be unblockable. The Y button is used for sub-weapons, and the X button is your super attack. Sub-weapons (Holy Water, Knives, etc.) are useful only when fully charged, and even then youre better of simply attacking the usual way. They are an interesting addition to the standard fighting formula, but haphazardly implemented.

However, there is no lock-on button, and unlike a technical fighter such as Soul Calibur or Tekken, characters do not automatically face each other. This makes it very easy to run away from the opposition, although the camera will swing around like a drunken monkey as it tries to keep you and your opponent on-screen at all times. Because of the erratic camera, evading attacks is difficult: what you perceive to be the backwards direction may be different from the cameras perspective. Very often, you will evade directly into an opponents attack. Movement problems are compounded by the various items sprinkled around battlefields, from barrels and crates (which hold items) to traps like spikes or scythes. Because the camera doesnt give you a broad enough view, I found myself inadvertently stepping into disaster time and time again, or just falling right off the stage. The game already has a Soul Calibur bent to it, what with the weapons and certain character designs, but it either needed to be a more traditional 3D fighter or limited to two dimensions like the old King of Fighters games or Street Fighter.

Once you learn your and your opponents attack combos and adjust to the camera, the game becomes significantly easier. But in order to really feel like you know what youre doing, you need to put some time into it. This is not a learn-as-you-go game, which I found irritating. The tutorials (accessed via the main menu) help drill skills into your head, though, and with its help youll be chaining combos with move cancels and recovering from falls in no time. Spending some time in practice mode helps, too, but without going through Training mode, Judgment has a pretty high learning curve, even compared to a more technical game like Soul Calibur IV. Another good place to pick up your skills is Castle mode, which resembles the old Soul Calibur Mission and Conquest modes, where you move from room to room fighting enemies under special conditions. They range from ridiculously easy (break five objects in the room) to unbelievably hard (keep enemies from breaking any objects for twenty seconds). But as long as you avoid the uber-hard challenges, Castle mode is pretty cool, and it unlocks cosmetic accessories for your characters.

This game's character design has been largely ridiculed, and for good reason. Absolutely none of the characters, except maybe Alucard and Shanoa, look like their canonical counterparts. Some, like Death, look like they belong in a different franchise. Others, like Aeon, look straight out of Death Note. The main problem is that each characters costume is way too busy and modern. I dont think they had intricate belt-coats in the 1600s. Yet incredibly, theres a Soul Calibur influence to the design. Carmilla is basically Ivy with a red (instead of purple) corset. She even has a whip. Grant DeNasty, whos supposed to be a pirate, looks like Voldo here, even to the point of being covered in bandages and adopting bizarre postures for attacks. And then there are the non-canonical characters like Cornell (Castlevania 64) and Golem (from no game in particular). There are plenty of other canonical characters that could have filled those shoes, like Soma Cruz, Shaft, or Charlotte Aulin. The designs of some of Judgments canonical characters, like Maria Renard or Eric Lecarde, are hideous. Rather than redesign Maria based on her teenage Symphony of the Night form, Judgment gives you the little kid Dracula X form instead. Eric Lecarde looks like a 12-year-old boy, and giving him the Alucard Spear just emphasizes his small stature that much more. Even Dracula looks kind of silly, what with the gold and the spikes. .In all, these are not Castlevania characters.

At least Konami was kind to the musical score, which features remixed versions of classic Castlevania themes, including the seminal Bloody Tears and plenty of Symphony tunes. Additionally, the voice acting is good, but in a campy way. Few combatants sound out of character, but theres definitely a strong anime influence (Maria's voice is straight out of Inayusha). Castlevania fans are also rewarded with bonus content for both Judgment with Order of Ecclesia when the two are hooked together, although the DS bonus content isnt all that great.

If you work at learning the game, and view it as something thats not necessarily Castlevania proper, Judgment can provide a decent romp. If you're looking for a good lighthearted fighter, Judgement is outclassed by Brawl. However, if you like Soulcalibur but dont own a PS3 or Xbox 360, Judgment is your only real alternative, and its not as terrible as people have been saying.

Pros:

It's a full-fledged Wii fighting game

From a technical standpoint, it looks great

Soundtrack classy and diverse

Once you figure it out, the fighting system works quite well

Connect Ecclesia to Judgment to unlock bonuses in both

Cons:

Pretty much unplayable without a Classic Controller

Frustrating camera with no opponent lock-on

Character design is atrocious, hilarious, and not Castlevania in the slightest

Apparently nobody plays online

Some Castle mode challenges are basically impossible

       Graphics: 8.0
   There is definitely better on the Wii, but on the whole, these are good character models with smooth animations. The battlefields are diverse, too. There are times where a brighter look wouldve been appreciated, though.

       Sound: 9.0
   Judgment has a great a great soundtrack that's filled with remixes of beloved classic tracks.

       Control: 7.0
   The controls definitely take some getting used to. Using a shoulder button to jump just doesnt seem kosher, and the use of sub-weapons seems haphazard at best. There really should be a lock-on button, but once you get used to how the game is played, its not a deal-breaker.

            Gameplay: 7.0
   The fighting system, once you train and practice, is surprisingly robust. The Arcade and Story modes are just what youd expect, and Castle mode is a combination of fun and frustration. I wish I couldve found somebody to play with online.

Lastability: 8.0
Taking all the characters through Story and Arcade will take awhile, as will Castle mode. More characters are unlocked as you progress through the story.

Final: 7.0
There are some really scary aspects to this gamelike the art directionbut when you remove all the anti-hype, Judgment succeeds at being a perfectly playable, albeit obtuse, fighting game. Wii owners should definitely check it out. It wont please everybody, but I can guarantee its not the crap-fest it has been made out to be.

TalkBack / REVIEWS: Puzzle Quest: Galactrix

« on: March 05, 2009, 06:36:27 AM »

In space, no one can hear you clear a row of jewels.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=17883

In the future, when space travel has opened up unknown realms of the universe and alien civilizations sprawl out before humanity, conflicts between species will be solved with Bejeweled. This is the main tenet of the newest Puzzle Quest game which, if you havent figured it out already, takes place in the vast reaches of space. Theres a plot, I guess, and an irritating RPG structure, and an incredibly annoying map system, and Bejeweled.

You take on the role of a more-or-less freelance space jockey, running errands for various interplanetary species, repairing warp gates, mining planets for resources, and doing battle with space pirates. All of this is accomplished, miraculously, by shifting honeycomb-shaped jewels around on a board. The trick is that each task requires a different variation on the main game. Mining requires you to make as many matches and chains as possible before locking the board (no more matches can be made). When repairing a warp gate, you need to match colors in a specific sequence in an allotted time. Fighting enemy ships has you and the baddie taking turns chaining combos and blowing up bomb blocks to deal damage to the opposition. The Bejeweling itself is a lot of fun, but all of the fluff surrounding it detracts from the experience.

Youll do a lot of reading, talking, and guiding your ship icon around a whole slew of identical maps, tapping on planets to proceed with tasks. Youll equip items to your ship, or read about your shipmates, or sell mining resources for cash which you use to buy new items. Youll fly from one planet to the next, one warp gate to the next, doing the exact same tasks for the entire game. Completing missions and defeating opponents nets you experience which you can use to level-up your pirate-fighting skills. Vs. battles have you managing several colored energy bars (which are replenished by matching like-colored jewels) corresponding to shield strength, HP, and various weapons levels. You use weapons to deal damage directly, replenish your shields, or drain enemy weapon levels. The Bejeweling itself takes a backseat to resource management, which is problematic. The difficulty of pirate battles ramps up quickly, but its not because the Bejeweling itself is any harder; the enemies just have more shield strength, higher HP, and items that damage you without relying on bomb blocks. Leveling up attempts to remedy this problem. When you level up, you are allowed to add attribute points to particular areas, which just means that when you clear a certain jewel color in Vs. battles, youll get so many more points for that resource color. For example, if you invest heavily in Shields, clearing three blue jewels (which would normally net you three shield points) gives you six points instead.

Something I dont like about Bejeweled, as opposed to other puzzlers like Panel de Pon, is that youre not free to set up chains. The only allowable moves are those which clear a row of jewels, so chains are more of a random occurrence. Still, getting a nice chain is always thrilling, even if you werent able to meticulously engineer its occurrence.

The touchscreen interface leaves something to be desired, too. I often had to press a desired area unusually hard to get blocks to swap spots, and there were some places where blocks would swap the wrong spots when I didnt tap that spot in the first place, which in Vs. battles leads to a penalty. When navigating menus on the galactic map, tapping an option would sometimes close the menu and send my ship flying away at great speed instead, which is both puzzling and annoying. There were many times when it took several tries to make the menu option work.

The game offers two-player multi-card play, but it might be hard to find somebody with another copy of the game. Online battles wouldve been appreciated. The game wouldve been better as a stand-alone Bejeweled cart, with traditional game types like Endless, Time Attack, Vs., etc. As it stands, Galactrix adds way too much unnecessary clutter to the core puzzle game. I know thats kind of the point, but it just comes off as being unnecessary.

Pros:

Bejeweled is fun

Bejeweled is also fun with a friend!

Nice character portraits

Cons:

Plot, characters, planet-hopping is unnecessary and tiring

Bejeweled not as fun as Panel de Pon

No single-card or online multiplayer support

Stylus control leaves something to be desired

       Graphics: 4.0
   The Bejeweled boards look a little fuzzy. Galactic maps are devoid of life. Character portraits, which appear during story sequences, are well-drawn, but they dont animate or even change posture.

       Sound: 4.0
   I think the keyword for Galactrixs sound design is minimalist. Music is present during puzzle sequences, but its not going to get your blood pumping.

       Control: 5.0
   Tapping things works great most of the time, until you experience some irritating lag between touching a jewel and seeing it move, or suddenly flying your ship away from the planet menu, or inadvertently switching the wrong jewels. These are key stumbles for a game that relies entirely on the stylus for control.

            Gameplay: 3.0
   Bejeweled is fun. The restnot so much. The RPG elements, in particular, really suck the life out of the game. Why am I worrying about shield strength? I just want to flip some darn jewels around!

Lastability: 4.0
Whether or not you enjoy Puzzle Quest: Galactrix will depend entirely on your tolerance for navigating menus and reading text in order to get to the next puzzle. If your tolerance is low, this game is not for you.

Final: 4.0
The control issues simply shouldnt be there, and I wouldnt have more fun with a straight-up collection of Bejeweled games. At least then it wouldnt be trying to be something its not.

General Chat / Do you know what Queen Anne likes?

« on: March 03, 2009, 07:28:44 PM »

She likes reindeer, but not caribou.
She likes books, but not reading.
She likes Hellboy, but not Superman.
She likes the Wii, but not the Xbox or Playstation.
She likes Tyrannosaurus, but not Albertosaurus.
She likes hammers, but not nails.
She likes Chewbacca, but not Han Solo.

What else does Queen Anne like or dislike?

Nintendo Gaming / IMPRESSIONS: Castlevania Judgment

« on: March 02, 2009, 08:52:35 PM »

It's been on my review assignment que forever, but I just now got around to renting it. Played it for about an hour last night.

It's not as horrible as most reviewers are saying. It's not Soul Calibur, or Street Fighter. It's more on-par with the 3D King of Fighters games. Like KoF, Judgment probably would've been more fun on the 2D plane.

Character design is intriguing in that some characters look great, others look absolutely silly, and still others look like they're from a different franchise entirely. I'll keep on keepin' on and you should see a full review by the weekend.

General Chat / Halbred's Paleo-News Thread

« on: February 19, 2009, 03:26:30 PM »

So exciting. Lots of stuff goes on in the world of paleontology. Just this week, in fact, two big stories cropped up:

The first paper details a new basal sauropodomorph from the Valley of the Moon in Argentina, famously known for Sereno's Eoraptor and Herrerasaurus. The new critter, Panphagia, looks barely different from little Eoraptor but tells paleontologists what features evolved first in sauropodomorph dinosaurs. Basically, this dinosaur is a sort of "Archaeopteryx" between basal saurischians and the big guys like Brachiosaurus. Here's a link to the open-access article:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0004397

The second paper is about pterosaurs and how they breathed. You guys know pterosaurs as "flying dinosaurs," but of course, the only flying dinosaurs are birds. Pterosaurs are ornithodiran archosaurs closely related to dinosaurs, but not actually dinosaurs themselves. They were the first vertebrates to achieve powered flight. This paper investigates how they breathed, and come to some awesome conclusions. First, the pterosaur sternal plate and sternocostapophyses (sternal "ribs") acted as a sort of pump to facilitate respiration, and the prepubes contributed to this pump as well. Even more importantly, pterosaurs developed complex pneumatic diverticulae systems that not only invaded the bones but also subcutaneous tissue. This would have made pterosaurs extremely oxygen-efficient (they would have been oxygenating their blood all the time) but also lightweight. This, in turn, probably helped allow pterosaurs to grow to giant sizes in the Late Cretaceous. Here's the link:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0004497

Questions? Comments?

TalkBack / REVIEWS: Inkheart

« on: February 19, 2009, 02:14:11 PM »

Like a good bedtime story, this game puts you right to sleep.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=17787

Is insomnia getting you down? Prescriptions drugs can be expensive. Inkheart for the DS is far cheaper, and works just as well! Inkheart is a point-and-tap adventure game based on the recent Brendan Fraser movie that, in turn, is adapted from a childrens book. In the story, Frasiers character can make objects and people from books come to life just by reading them aloud. If he wanted to, he could make Jurassic Park a reality. Youd think that would make for a pretty kick-ass video game, but youd be very wrong. Ive reviewed pure, unadulterated crap before, but its only sent me into a violent rage. Inkheart does the opposite: it numbs the palate until you fall into a waking slumber.

The game involves a menagerie of boring characters being kidnapped, and Brendan Frasier is being forced to call up a dark ruler from another world against his will. In order to avoid disaster, you must endlessly point and tap. The majority of the gameplay involves wandering through a 2D backdrop (not unlike in the old King's Quest games) using the stylus, and tapping various pieces of scenery in the hopes it contains a clue. Because the environments are hopelessly low-res and the clues arent right out in front of you like in Mystery Case Files: MillionHeir, to discern what you can investigate you must press the A button to make every clickable object in the room twinkle. Often, you must tap something multiple times: for a medicine cabinet in the game, you must tap to notice the cabinet itself, again to open it, and then once more to take out some sleeping pills. Just as often, you must wander the same backdrops over and over again, because a single backdrop will contain four or five similar goals (find X, then Y, then Z). Once in a great while, youll be treated to a very simple, brief mini-game such as riding a sled through traffic, tracing a line on the touch screen, or tapping circles when they turn green. After you complete them in the adventure, mini-games are saved to the main menu. All of the mini-games are more fun than the main game, which apart from tapping things, involves endless reading. This is apt, considering you hold your DS like a book while playing. Unfortunately, the writing is boring and utterly fails to excite and hold sway as, say, the Phoenix Wright series does.

Character sprites are hilariously horrible. In fact, theyre not even really sprites. Theyre more like hideous collections of largish pixels which do not so much mimic as parody human movement. They look like something drawn on the Apple IIGS, or DOS, only without the quality of Number Munchers.

Inkheart does offers two-player wireless play (mini-games only), assuming both players have a copy of the game, which is kind of insulting. I really cant, in good conscience, recommend this DS game to any but my worst enemies.

Pros:

Minigames are far more fun than the main game

Control is spot-on, though it's hard to screw up tapping things

Cons:

Devoid of engaging or meaningful gameplay

Insultingly primitive sprites

Backdrops are boring and low-res

An early puzzle assumes player knowledge of fairy tales

I could do this all day

       Graphics: 3.0
   If the Fiji Mermaid were real, you would only believe it if you saw it. The graphics in this game are akin to the Fiji Mermaidtheyre so bad, you have to see them to believe it. Now, I will mention that the DS other screen displays still character portraits. They are of reasonable quality.

       Sound: 3.0
   The music is of fair quality, but, again, induces drowsiness, and loops too often.

       Control: 9.0
   If you are having a difficult time tapping things with the stylus, its user error or faulty hardware. Having to constantly press A when investigating is a chore, though.

            Gameplay: 2.0
   Your characters sprite moves with all the speed and grace of an injured sea cucumber, which makes the constant backtracking and thing-finding absolutely mind-numbing. Minigames are great, but they are far too few and in-between.

Lastability: 1.0
The main game is so boring that youll stop very quickly. Multiplayer is available, but good luck finding another person with the game. As an alternative to the game itself, you could play a different game with Inkheart: see how long you can stay awake. The record currently stands at 20 minutes.

Final: 2.0
This is a terrible game. If Brendan Fraser could summon little 8 lb., 5 oz. Baby Jesus, Inkheart would make him cry.

100

General Gaming / World Tour Drum Kit & Guitar Coming Soon

« on: February 12, 2009, 03:41:14 PM »

This is good news for gamers who had to, oh, I don't know, take back their band kit because the drums didn't f*cking work.

Ahem. Sorry.

Anyway, Activision is releasing 1st-party guitars and drums for World Tour on February 15th, though no price points were announced. My hope is that the drums FUNCTION PROPERLY. If they do, I'll be buying them.

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