[RETRO] Thanks, Nintendo E-Shop!

Just a quickie from me - how much has the Nintendo E-Shop improved recently! ? However, I have encountered one major problem, illustrated below:

Number one cause of rage quits ever in my life. What's everyone else's Mean Bean? I know you've all got one!

[REVIEW] Super Pokemon Rumble (3DS)

For years, I've always been incredibly wary of Pokemon spin-off games. It seemed that for a while, they were scraping the barrel with titles such as Pokemon Mystery Dungeon (of which there were five, I think) and the irritating manic-circle-drawing-fest that was Pokemon Ranger, which actually managed to snare thirty quid of my hard-earned cash as it is the only way to get the legendary Pokemon Manaphy. And I shelled out for the sequel, too. I played those games through to the end with a frozen grimace on my face, desperate for my prize at the end of it all.

So how did I end up with Super Pokemon Rumble? Normally I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole, unless there was a rare Pokemon associated with it, or some other massive benefit to myself. I played it briefly at GAMEFest where it raised a reaction of "meh", although I was horrifically hungover, so pretty much everything got that reaction bar the girls giving out free Mountain Dew. No, I popped into my (former) shop for a quick chat with the lads, and noticed that it'd been slashed in price from £34.99 to just £19.99, only a week or two after its release. For some reason, something just snapped, and I thought "What the hell."

To say that I was pleasantly surprised is a small understatement. I was, in all honesty, expecting to ten day exchange this game, but it's simple appeal has me hooked. There's some vague story that runs through it, but I shan't bore you with that. The idea goes something like this. It's sort of implied that you're some kid who collects wind-up pokemon toys - but you only ever seem to walk around as whichever toy is chosen to be first in your party. You proceed in a fairly linear fashion through levels where different types of wind-up Pokemon toys will come and attack you. You must hammer the A button until they are all dead. Sometimes you will be rewarded with a new wind up toy of the breed that you just demolished, sometimes not. The random nature of which toys can be collected means that levels get replayed, so you can collect 'em all.

But wait! Are you meant to catch them all? There doesn't seem to be any pokedex available in-game, apart from in the village. There's the Toy Shop, where it's implied that you can swap your Pokemon toys via Streetpass, although you don't seem to be able to choose anything, people just come and throw money at you. In the village there is also the release point, for when you have too many... But I've got HUNDREDS of the buggers, and I don't seem to be short of pocket space. And then, suddenly, I had my epiphany.

I had been reading FAR too much into the meaning of this game. The reason it seemed so simple on the outside was because frankly, it's simple on the inside as well. This is a good old fashioned frenzied button-bashing game, and it keeps it simple with a maximum of two buttons that can be assigned to your toy. The idea is to cause as much destruction as possible, then at the end of each little level you are rewarded with some wholly unexpected drum and bass. Oh yeah, probably forgot to mention the thrash metal introduction too. If you purchase this game, do yourself a favour and have your first game with the volume turned right up - the music is excellent!

So all in all, a rather pleasing little gem. It's completely mindless, and there's much of it I don't understand, but it's GREAT to just pick up and play in short bursts, lunch breaks, for example. Fortunately, I think my new colleagues already think I'm a bit nuts, so the sight of me giggling into my DS doesn't seem to faze them! :)

A joyfully violent romp, but they're only wind-up toys, so it's fine! 4/5

[EVENT] GAMEfest

Finally, after six or seven long, dull weeks of summer, another blog post! My urge to write has been dampened not only by my beloved Tropico 4 being put back to September 30 but also a metric shitload of university work to be completed before any gaming could occur. (For those wondering, I'm with the Open University, we don't get holidays!) Other little diversions such as the release of the ten NES games promised to the Ambassador Scheme participants proved to be fairly short lived, as I received a harsh reminder that games used to be MUCH harder, Back In The Day.(TM)

So around rolled GAMEfest, a three day event at the NEC in Birmingham showcasing the best that this Christmas would have to offer, and promising a first play of such favourites (can you hear me rolling my eyes? That's unintentional, I apologise) as Modern Warfare 3, Battlefield 3 and Gears of War 3. Considering that its UK release was approximately 72 hours away, a staggering amount of people queued to get a first glimpse of Gears of War 3 (to which I say, should have gone to Gadget Show!) and to the right is a quick snapshot I took of the Battlefield 3 queue, which I could almost not believe, despite it being there in front of my face.

So, not wanting to spend my afternoon queueing to get my ass kicked by some spotty teen at CoD, we went for a wander and started playing the first of many 3DS games we would try that day: Mario and Sonic at the London Olympics. Now I must admit to having a bit of a soft spot for the Mario and Sonic Olympics franchise - from the time I first played the Wii version and hurt myself breaking the world rowing record to the time I borrowed the Winter Olympics game on the DS and spent a very silly week playing the adventure mode, I've considered this game a harmless and enjoyable bundle of fun. Technically, I hate minigame collections, but these seem to have more of a purpose behind them and hold my attention by always promising that I might just do a little better than last time if I try again.

The next game we looked at was Sonic Generations. The 3DS and the 360 versions looked quite different, at least from the demo versions we looked at, and the word on the grapevine is that the 3DS version is going to contain different levels from the big console versions. One thing that they will have in common however is that they will contain a mix of classic levels from throughout Sonic's history, and the feeling of absolute speed is back, and stronger than ever. I wasn't feeling 100% when I played it, and felt my eyes weren't quite refreshing fast enough, but The Husband was absolutely stoked to be playing a new Sonic game, and was only dissapointed when the screen he was playing on decided to overheat and turn itself off... true story!

After swinging by the Metal Gear Solid stand to check out the port of Peace Walker, we went for a bit of a wander around the rest of QUEUEfest, and decided that an awful lot of things weren't worth standing around for, a good look over someone's shoulder was enough to remind ourselves that certain titles were coming. After a narrow escape by the Dance Central 2 stand, we wrung our hands in despair at all the new dance titles, (ABBA: You Can Dance anyone? The Black Eyed Peas game? Obviously they will make millions, but not in our house, thankyou.) stopped for a quick squizz on Soul Calibur V (looks very shiny indeed) and Pacman Championship on 3DS (shiny in a rather different way) and then headed to the Nintendo stand.

I've not really got a whole bunch to say about Mario Kart 7. I played a couple of levels lifted from the latest Wii incarnation, and yes, it plays like a dream, yes, there's customisable karts now, yes, there's all your favourite characters and yes, it's a good deal of fun. But there's nothing new to report. This in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, afterall, if they changed it too much, it just wouldn't be Mariokart, and then I'd be slating it for that. I'll definitely buy Mario Kart 7, but somewhere in my mind I'll be conscious of the fact that I've already been there,  done that, and literally got the t-shirt. Super Mario 3D Land looked a bit more interesting, even if I was having major brain fail at that point and couldn't do it. The 3D adds some tricky puzzles in, like platforms not appearing where you think they should until you rotate the scene. Not one to play with a hangover!

And finally, to the overall wonderful surprise of the day. I was tired, had a headache you could split rocks on and ready to go home, when The Husband spotted the WWE '12 stand. I've never played a wrestling game, and had no intentions of after seeing the floaty mess that was Allstars. After a short queue (part of which was spent sitting on chairs, thank god!) his Miz thoroughly kicked the arse of my Zack Ryder (WWWYKI) and I laughed hysterically. Out of everything I played that day, who'd have thought I'd now be looking forward to this the most?

So that's all over for another year now. What are you most looking forward to for Christmas?

[REVIEW] Legend of Zelda extravaganza!

While we sit and patiently twiddle our thumbs waiting for the next installment in the Legend of Zelda saga, Nintendo decided that it would be a superb idea to re-release the old N64 classic, Ocarina of Time, for the 3DS. Originally released at the arse end of 1998, it's been tarted up and given the 3D treatment, but at the same time feels fresh and exciting. Graphically, the game seems superior to the original, in fact, I'm fairly sure that if you go and plug your N64 into your 42 inch high definition telly and expect things to go back to the way they were when you were a teen, then you're very much kidding yourself. (Seriously, I tried it with my SNES, and it's not as pretty as it used to be. Knew I should have kept my old portable TV!)

The controls are nice and responsive, but you can see the metaphorical scars behind the ears where this old dear has had her facelift - the player has bugger all control over the camera, except to be able to centre it behind Link's head while in targeting mode. In these luxurious days of two analog sticks on PS3 and 360, and a kind of second analog in the form of the Wii remote, it's very easy to forget that THAT'S HOW IT USED TO BE DONE. Since the 3DS only has one analog stick, the revolutionary Z-targeting (as it was then) system translates perfectly.

All in all, as a slice of nostalgia, Ocarina of Time is perfect. The spectacles are perfectly rose-tinted, and the game seems to have been polished in all the right places. However, if we were to view this as a new game, (and I'm happy to, as I never finished the original!) I would be quite convinced that this is a good test of the 3DS's capabilities. The game looks beautiful, and is fairly easy to get sucked into. A fairly obvious 5/5 from me!

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The other Zelda game I have had a brief look at this week is Link's Awakening, released on the eShop for the 3DS. First released in 1993, this was probably the second Nintendo game I ever played. (The first being Tetris - I was a late starter, I didn't even get my SNES until about '97!) I was a member of a small nerdy clique at school, (I was the fat ginger one) and we used to enjoy playing on our GameBoys at lunchtime, partially to avoid eye contact with the bullies. My GameBoy was also a handy form of mental self-defence on the bus home as well. Kids can be so cruel.

Anyway, enough of my personal demons, onto the review! Link's Awakening is a little diversion from the usual Hyrulian power struggle between Ganon and the forces of good. Link is washed ashore on Koholint Island, and is told that he cannot leave until he wakes the Wind Fish with a song. To play this song, he needs to retrieve eight instruments, which give rise to eight dungeons in the traditional Zelda manner. The 3DS Virtual Console version is vividly coloured, which took me by surprise, and seems to be every bit as engrossing as I remember it, except without having to pick chewing gum out of my pigtails when I get home this time around. Another 5/5, if only for the memories!

 

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The apparent success of these two games makes me wonder, what else could work on the 3DS? Will we see other titles in the Legend of Zelda series become available? I'd certainly love to see A Link To The Past, as well as some of the other titles in the series that I haven't had a chance to play. While we're at it, what else would you like to see, either on the 3DS Virtual Console or reimagined and re-released on a cartridge? (Donkey Kong Country series plz!) Let me know in the comments!

[EVENT] E3, or not, as was the case.

An awful lot of press coverage has been given to E3 already, and I was desperate to give you my take on things, but a week has passed and a lot has happened to dampen my enthusiasm. For me, E3 couldn't have come at a worse time, in the week where I was seemingly working all the overtime in the world, and had a uni assignment due in at the end of it. The only announcements I got to see live were the EA ones which I saw whilst half asleep with a headache, and to write a story based on those would make for angry reading! Nonetheless, here are the main points I have derived from the conference, mostly from gossiping around the water cooler.

Need For Speed: Run With Us - Or whatever it's called. I shan't lie. I'm not a massive fan of the N4S series, but boy, do I sell a lot of them at my day job. The premise is simple. Drive around, often avoiding the cops, sometimes being the cops, sometimes just racing for the hell of it. The point is, this is a purebred driving game, which is why I recoiled in ABSOLUTE HORROR when it was revealed that in the new game, at certain points your character (your what now? There's never been an actual character before, surely!) gets OUT of the car and RUNS OFF! You must then perform a series of quicktime events to ensure that your character does the right jumps and rolls to be able to get to another car, which in the demo they showed happened to be a POLICE CAR. Well done that chap. Cue facepalm, and much shouting at the TV.

The Wii U - Just as when the MotionPlus was released and everyone started bashing Nintendo for not having the technology to put it in the Wii Remote in the first place, I have a similar feeling in the pit of my stomach about the Wii U. It looks near identical, but with rounded corners, uses the same controllers but is in full HD. Obviously, this is just my first impression, and a lot more lies beneath the surface. It's just what they actually DO with it that I'm dreading. The original Wii cornered the casual market so effectively that hardcore gamers were left feeling that their Wii had become a bit of a novelty, the slighly retarded, standard definition cousin that everyone said they were fond of but no-one invited to parties in case it got drunk and ran around with no pants on. Hopefully this time around Nintendo can get a few more developers on board if they don't have to release watered down versions of 360 and PS3 titles anymore.

And that's without mentioning the gimmick controller once!

Luigi's Mansion 2 - Nintendo did redeem themselves by announcing this title for 3DS, amongst a few others. I heard the news about this one from my overly excited husband who came rushing in to tell me all about it as I was getting myself settled in bed. My admission that I've never actually played the first one was responded to with a ten minute rundown of the entire game from start to finish. Other old favourites are in the works such as Mario Kart, a new Super Mario (but this time, not called New Super Mario. A bit confusing, I agree.) One thing I REALLY wish I'd seen was Tetris. There are some details on the Nintendo website, and to quote one of my other half's favourite sayings, it looks "wacky as fuck". Just when I thought that every possible game mode had been covered, the new version claims over 20. Just how many ways there are to fit tetraminos together simply boggles the mind!

Right, that's enough blagging blogging for now, I'm off to play some actual games!

[SNIPPETS] My poor neglected 3DS, and other stories.

This week, I got my first proper serious 3DS headache. I'd had my eye on Puzzle Bobble Universe since it'd come out, but I'd decided that £30 was far too much to pay for a game which has bascially been around since the dawn of time. As soon as the price dropped to 12.99 I grabbed my chance and purchased it, skipping off merrily into the distance. No need for a review here. It's Puzzle Bobble. I've played it before, you've played it before, even your Dad's played it before. Never in 3D though, so as with all 3DS games I try, I flicked the 3D slider up to give it a ten minute blast to see how the gimmick fared with this one.

The thing about Puzzle Bobble is that it's a fair bit addictive, and it was only when I felt a vein throbbing somewhere behind my eye did I realise that I'd not got around to turning the 3D off, yet it took a full two minutes for me to take my fingers off the buttons they were glued to, to be able to move the slider back down. All in all, Puzzle Bobble is highly recommended, but then again, so are two paracetamol and a tall glass of water.

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In other, slightly more positive news, the 3DS eShop should be landing very soon (according to rumours, slap bang in the middle of Sony's presentation at E3 on the 6th of June. Nice one Nintendo.) and according to Nintendo World Report, one of the first apps (are we calling them "apps"?)  to be made available is Pokedex 3D, although this looks to be more of a collecting game using QR codes and Streetpass than a handy reference tool.

Also on my agenda of things to look out for about the eShop - how well will the new prepaid cards work, and will they be available from the Nintendo Stars catalog? This is (sadly enough) a serious concern of mine. For years Nintendo have had little scratchcards inside their games which can be redeemed on the website for Star Points, which can be used to buy useless tat such as bags, statues, frisbees and paper fans, and DSi users can use them to buy Nintendo points, which in turn can be used to buy DSiWare. Fingers crossed a similar system will be implemented for the 3DS, if only for the fact that I'm a stingy bitch.

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Other things I have been doing this month:

• Getting around to watching Pirates of the Caribbean 2, 3 and 4 in preparation for hammering LEGO: Pirates of the Caribbean as soon as I get a bit of free time. (Free time? Yeah right!)
• Watching the Husband playing LA Noire and deciding that yes, it IS technically excellent, but I just don't fancy it myself.
• Having SERIOUS tech envy at aforementioned husband's new phone, the Samsung Galaxy S2. Only two months till my contract renews, and I can give an Android phone a go!
• Getting excited for E3 - especially when one of my colleagues mentioned yesterday how it was about four months away - my response? "No, it's next month. Hang on, that's next week! Squeee!"

 

So that's about it for now. See you next week!

[EVENT] Gadget Show Live, 12th April 2011 - The Game Zone (part 2!)

The Game Zone (sponsored by, you've guessed it, GAME) at Gadget Show Live was an entire hall dedicated to showing off the latest and most exciting upcoming games, hardware and accessories. A quick wander round revealed demo machines showing off titles like Shift 2, Dirt 3, Gran Turismo 5 and a whole bunch of other franchises. There was one franchise, however, for which we made an immediate beeline.

And here it is! A first exclusive look at Duke Nukem Forever! Alright, maybe it's not THAT exclusive. The game (or demo, at least) begins with the urgent need for Duke to have a wee, which when you consider that this game has been twelve or thirteen years in the making, is entirely reasonable! Those familiar with the Duke Nukem series will be familiar with the story, aliens have landed and are stealing all the women, which has thoroughly annoyed our chauvinistic Duke - they're HIS women, dammit! (Or something like that.) The game looks pretty slick, and has taken notice of other leaders in the FPS genre, with cheeky nods to other titles such as Half Life in the dialogue. In the time Duke's been away, he's been honing his skills and trying his hand at some new things (as illustrated here in my gallery of photos from the Duke Nukem stand!) but the tried and tested formula remains the same. Chew bubblegum. Kick ass.

A few other highlights from the 18+ section included the Gears of War 3 demo, guaranteed to delight fans of the series. Admittedly, Gears isn't really my kind of game but the visuals are slick and the gameplay seems to handle well. Codes for the beta are now available from Gamestation in the UK when you pre-order the game, so now there's no excuse for not having a go yourself. Also played in this section was Mortal Kombat, on PS3s that were set up arcade style with proper old school sticks and buttons. I am terrible at fighting games, but my other half showed me how it was done, and later on the demo at home proved that he still knows all the fatalities. Gory, gruesome and grim! (But highly recommended, obviously!)

After leaving the 18+ area, we took in the rest of the Game Zone, which included a rather neat retro area, where we had a quick game of MarioKart 64, some fake Pac Man machines, complete with a Pac Man with ARMS, a few Kinects, (where I got stage fright and couldn't quite bring myself to play Dance Central!) some chaps playing Portal 2 who looked like they'd been there for HOURS and finally, the 3DS section. With the 3DS having been out for three weeks by this point, I'd managed to get my hopes up that we would be able to see some of the games scheduled for later on in the year, such as Zelda, Steel Diver and the Resident Evil games. Unfortunately it was not to be, as the only games displayed were the launch games. However, every cloud has a silver lining, and we picked up a ton of StreetPass hits from the area, and on this week's Gadget Show, we caught a split-second glimpse of my other half inside the 3DS area! (Which can be seen here! Literally the first second of the footage.) Trust me to be standing behind the camera!

Oh well, maybe next time! :)

PREVIEW - Nintendo 3DS



Whatever happened to Catdog? Did it's/their inability to poop cause him/her/it/them to come to a somewhat sticky end? Did one argument go too far, ending in a fatal argument? Are they living in retirement in Mallorca, celebrating a successful TV career by the pool with a chilled Margarita at each end? (No, I've not been smoking - I've just woken up. Feels similar.)

Why the fuss about Catdog? Was just an amusing thought I had when I found out that one of the launch games for the Nintendo 3DS would be Nintendogs + Cats. Having never played the original Nintendogs, I have put myself at a good advantage over other gamers who may already be sick of the feed/bath/frisbee/repeat routine, as by all accounts, there's nothing groundbreakingly new here, apart from the cats, who seem to be tweaked dog AI wrapped in a cat skin. Can you imagine a realistic cat sim? "Here Tiddles!" *no response* "Fetch!" *no response* "Go away Tiddles, I'm doing something important!" *sits squarely on laptop keyboard, looks smug* Cats with pure and accurate cat AI = no goddamn fun at all.

So yeah, anyway, before I was distracted I was about to mention the Nintendo 3DS, which as of yesterday has a release date for Europe - Friday 25th of March. A price was not released at the press conference, Nintendo stating that retailers could "set their own prices". A quick google search reveals major games retailers such as Game, Gamestation and HMV will be selling the 3DS at £229.99, Play.com at £219.99 and some smaller retailers offering prices as low as £159.99 - unlikely that they will be able to deliver on this price, but only time will tell. Gamesbasement.co.uk has already been caught out by this - This morning, their price has jumped by £60 to the £219.99 price point as more and more retailers put their official prices up. No word from the supermarkets yet, but I would guess that they will be priced around the 219.99 point.

So what of the technical aspects of this new toy that costs more than a brand new 360? Well, it's in 3D, obviously. Thankfully, it's backwards compatible with the DS, since I can't imagine many people being able to afford to buy a whole new catalog of games straight away. The emphasis seems more than ever to be on community, with lots of multiplayer options and a new feature called StreetPass, where your DS can exchange information whilst in sleep mode in your pocket/handbag/whatever with whoever else happens to have a DS in the vicinity. Cue rude greetings galore. This is of course, only going to become a big thing if lots of people have one. (And those people get out and about with them - My DS has sat next to my sofa for probably around the last six months or more.)

Another completely new feature of the 3DS is the news that Nintendo have teamed up with Eurosport and Sky with the idea of bringing 3D sport to the handheld, an idea which has excited The Husband greatly. If this signifies a shift to more of an entertainment system rather than a purebred gaming system, I think this can only be a good thing.

Other sensible new features include a wireless switch on the machine, so you don't have to exit your game to turn it on, a home button that seems to promise some form of multitasking for the machine, a 3D "slider" switch that allows the amount of 3D depth to be adjusted, or turned off completely. There is also an extendable stylus (finally!), the ability to transfer your purchases from your DSi (finally!), an analog control (finally!), and motion control (well, I suppose every other platform's got it now).

All in all, I'm looking forward to the 3DS, despite the seemingly overinflated price - the US gets the 3DS for $249.99, which converts to approximately £160, but the damn things are region locked. I'm not bitter. I'm not, honestly. Well, maybe a little bit quite a lot, really. But I've got five paydays between now and then - Provided I don't need to buy anything for the next sixty-odd days, I should be fine.