Nintendo Direct (UK) 15.01.15: Not-so-live Impressions

It's January. Let's watch a Nintendo Direct!

• 00:32 - Thanks, Iwata! Okay, what have we got here?

• 00:37 - Dynasty Warriors? Well, it's not the Mushroom Kingdom Warriors I was hoping for, but... (I think I'd totally play that actually. :D Hyrule Warriors is surprisingly enjoyable so far). 
• 01:03 - Huh? That guy looks weird. Still have no idea what this is. Man, imagine if it was another Odama game. (Almost picked that up last year. It seems hard as balls though, especially after seeing the NWR guys playing it.).

• 01:14 - Oh, shit. It's one of those paintings from The Day of the Doctor. Is that a Zygon?
• 01:27 - Welp, it's a strategy game anyway. Looks like for 3DS.
• 01:34 - Grid-based combat confirmed. This must be Fire Emblem X uh, Shin Megami Tensei, was it? JiliK: SRPG expert.
• 02:12 - It looks pretty nice anyway.
• 02:19 - Nope, this seems to be another Fire Emblem game altogether.
• 02:51 - It's another game from the Fire Emblem Awakening team. I should really give this series a go. The GBA version I already have on my Wii U would probablly be a good start.
• 03:31 - Nice to see Iwata looking better. I've totally tuned out of his Fire Emblem pitch though. :D
• 03:52 - A puzzle game now. Puzzle and Dragons?
• 04:12 - Puzzle and Dragons Z. Mysteries abound, made of a deep energy (energy). Foes all around... *ahem*

• 04:20 - Oh, this game's just fucking Bejewelled? No thanks.

• 04:37 - Aww shit. Mario!
• 04:46 - Damn it Nintendo, the New Super Mario Bros. music is not a way to sell me on anything. Bah Bah!
• 05:22 - Yeah, this is totally just Puzzle Quest. Tried it, but I'm not sure even Mario's going to get me into it.

• 05:29 - Oh, it's a retail bundle? They can't be charging full price for this, can they? Those games should €10 a piece on the eShop, at most.
• 06:49 - They're being bundled on the eShop too. Yeah, that doesn't bode well for a low price. So, Pokémon Shuffle?
• 07:04 Holy crap! It's ANOTHER Bejewelled clone!

• 07:16 - With RPG battles! What the fuck, Nintendo? :D 
• 08:16 - Waiting for the other gross, freemium shoe to drop.
• 08:34 - And there it is. Items and turns available to buy on the eShop. I can't imagine this will require them as much as many other free-to-play games, but still: ewww.

• 08:55 - Wait. Did Iwata say Wii instead of Wii U there? This is Wii U home screen. I see some Wii-bannered Wii titles though. Downloadable Wii games finally?
• 09:07 - There we go! Dare I ask how these are going to be priced? :D Not sure there are too many Wii games I still need to pick up really. I've got a heaving shelf of them already, unless these are being upscaled. (I bet not though.)
• 09:15 - I've got to say, the amount of milage Iwata's getting out of that "directley" motion is impressive.
• 10:03 - Nice to see they're offering Metroid Prime Trilogy as (probably) one of the first titles. Not sure I'd be up for that without the ability to run it through Dolphin though. Kirby's Adventure though? Absolutely.
• 10:40 - Oh. These are all out soon. I'm going to say, €29.99 with no upscaling.
• 10:50 - Okay, €19.99; Not too bad. And half-price for the first week too. Shit, I'm totally going to buy Metroid Prime Trilogy, aren't I?
• 10:57 - Punch-Out, Sin and Punishment 2 and Pandora's Tower too. Crap, really shouldn't have bought that last one on release day. Still haven't played it. I didn't even get offered the freakin' coins Club Nintendo were supposed to be giving out for owners of the full Project Rainfall trifecta, pretty much the only reason I bought it in the first place. ♫ Nintendo Direct Rants... with JiliK ♫ 
• 11:09 - Shibata now. No word on any potential upscaling. I'm not going to hold my breath for it.

• 11:08 - Man, this Shibata amiibo is even worse than Rosalina.
• 11:39 - Okay, the next round of amiibos. (He says, like someone whose bought into this dumb toy line, hook, line and sinker. :D) Yeah, don't think any of these are for me though. I do have Toon Link, Sheik, and Rosalina pre-ordered though (screw that guy).

• 11:58 - Yes! Now that's what I'm talking about. Didn't really care for the Smash Bros. Mario and Peach amiibos. These look great though. Damn it, these freaking amiibos are going to break me.
• 12:03 - March 20. That's before the Smash Bros. ones they've just announced. There's going to be let up on these things is there?
• 12:18 - Okay, that's cool. These Mario ones are going to be interchangeable with their Smash Bros. counterparts. Now, if only they'd release a decent Link one. I want the spinner in Hyrule Warriors, but that pee colum. Ugh.
• 13:08 - Yeah, Mario Party 10; Time for a snooze. :D

• 14:47 - This amiibo mode is super weird. Doesn't turning Mario Party into (pretty much) a physical board game remove what little that series has going for it in the first place?
• 15:08 - I guess that Mario Party 10 box art is okay, but for true artistry in box art, I go to Amazon.fr:

• 15:21 - Bandai Namco. I wonder what this is. Man, this'd be a strange place to see Tekken x Street Fighter popping up. :D
• 15:29 - Those look like SoulCalibur characters. Oh no. This can't be another SoulCalibur action game, can it?

• 15:34 - Oh no.
• 15:49 - Free-to-play too. Super. Also, are they echoing that guy. Also, why is he wearing sunglasses?
• 16:20 - Project Treasure. Hmm, those characters sure look a lot like SoulCalibur ones.
• 16:38 - Ah, Splatoon! Really looking forward to this.
• 17:55 - Cool-looking hub, plus customizable characters.

 

• 18:24 - Really like the look of these shopkeepers. That squid guy is rad as hell.
• 19:46 - Okay, Xenoblade Chronicles X now, by the looks of things.

Another Bloody Reblog: Pick-ups 11/11/13

(Originally posted on Tumblr)



Windjammers, Twinkle Star Sprites, Parasol Stars / Wii Virtual Console

So like many a duder, after watching a bunch of Giant Bomb’s Extra Life marathon, I really wanted to get my hands on Windjammers. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a Neo Geo or a spare hundred bucks lying around. What I did have was a disused UK Wii, and a Japanese VC release of Windjammers with my name on it. There were certainly a few tense, confusing moments, but over the course of a couple of hours I managed to change the region of the console, set up a new Wii Shop account and grab a copy of the game for an extremely reasonable 900 yen. Haven’t had a chance to play it with anyone yet, but I’ve had a lot of fun with the single player so far. Took me a little while to get the hang of though (and man, that time limit can be freaking brutal).

Having opened the gateway to the promised land of the Japanese VC, I also grabbed the other rare Neo Geo game on there that I was desperate to have: Twinkle Star Sprites - a really fun cute ‘em up / competitive puzzle game mash-up. Again for a paltry 900 yen. After that, I went down the dark hole of researching what else would be worth getting on there and more importantly, what would be playable without needing translation. Not a simple undertaking when you can’t understand a single Japanese character, but with a combination of Nintendo.co.jp, Google and guesswork, I’m making pretty good progress. Already discovered that Parasol Stars was up there - the super-rare follow-up to Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands. For only 600 yen! Japanese Virtual Console, I think I love you.



The Firemen / Super Famicom / £22.71

But before any of that went down, I already had my first physical retro import ever on the way: The Firemen for the Super Famicom - an arcadey fire-fighting game that did actually see a release in Europe, but now retails for obscene sums on eBay. Perhaps not the wisest purchasing decision - it’s pretty much a blind buy and I don’t even have a way to play it at the moment - but seeing the auction ticking down with no bids and with such a low price, I just couldn’t resist. I’ve got a Retron5 pre-ordered anyway. It’ll be fine. :D



Super Play Issues 3, 6, 8, 11 / £25.98

And finally, continuing with the SNES retro love, I picked up a few more issues of Super Play on eBay last week, the unofficial SNES magazine that begat N64, NGC and NGamer. Always enjoy reading through old gaming magazines, and this was a pretty good one, though it doesn’t quite have the same goofy sense of humour that you get in N64 and it’s successors.



Gotta love that Wil Overton cover art though!

Backlog Assault: 2011 Wrap Party Finale

In the last few years I've built up a pretty crazy gaming backlog. This year, I've decided it's high time I do something about it. Join me as I begin to regret more than ever all those impulse Steam buys and 99 cent PS2 bargains: (/nostalgic intro)

Metroid Fusion:

Platform: Gameboy Advance
Bought: 03/12/09  From: eBay  Price: €9.50
Beaten: 02/10/11

Backloggery Dump:

• --/12/09 - I've just entered Sector 6.
• 15/07/11 - I've just gotten the space jump. Now, where to next?
• 16/07/11 - Ugh, trying to beat Nightmare at the moment. The third boss in about fifteen minutes of game time and another pain in the ass too.
• 01/10/11 - Finally managed to beat Nightmare, collected a few power ups and now I'm back in Sector 6.
• 02/10/11 - SA-X? More like S-U-X.

Thoughts:

While I don't think this was quite as well-crafted or as memorable as the Super Metroid follow-up I was hoping it would be, I thought it was quite a solid Metroid in it's own right, and well tailored to playing on the go, with a more guided, streamlined structure than the other games in the series. Some of those bosses though: bloody hell. :D

No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle:

Platform: Wii
Bought: 01/08/10  From: HMV.co.uk  Price: £17.49
Beaten: 11/11/11

Backloggery Dump:

• 01/10/10 - I'm getting my ass beaten by New Destroyman at the moment.
• 07/11/11 - Chasing after No. 4 on the rankings list now.
• 11/11/11 - Gave Jasper the beating he richly deserved tonight. Cheap little bastard. :D

Thoughts:

As far as the core game goes, NMH2 is more of the same simple-to-grasp, but satisfying combat wrapped up in all manner of batshit-insane Suda 51 madness. Of course the big change this time around is the omission of the open world, which certainly helps streamline the game, but I can't help thinking it takes away a little of the game's personality. Couldn't they have just worked on improving it? I miss kicking dumpsters to get new t-shirts. :D 

Gone also are most of the motion-controlled jobs, required to earn money in the  original game, this time replaced with a set of pretty entertaining 8-bit games that make earning some cash way less of a grind this time around. Less entertaining is the 8-bit gym training. Requiring some ridiculously accurate timing, I found this leaving me out of pocket without any stat boosts to show more often than not. Also slightly less-than-appreciated by me was the game forcing you to play as Travis' sort-of- protégé, Shinobu for two or three missions. It's not that those sections were bad though; I just much prefer how Travis handles. Despite those minor niggles, I enjoyed my second trip to Santa Destroy quite a lot, and I certainly wouldn't mind another visit on the Wii U.

Max Payne:

Platform: PC
Bought: 30/12/09  From: Steam  Price: €1.87
Beaten: 19/11/11

Backloggery Dump:

• 12/11/11 - I'm about to board the ship in Part 2, Chapter 3.
• 16/11/11 - Up to Chapter III, Part 4. It was kind of a slow burn at first, but I'm really liking this a lot now.
• 19/11/11 - Screw you, helicopter!

Thoughts:

Having looked forward to playing this for about 10 years, I was a bit disappointed to find the bullet time mechanic wasn't nearly as overpowered or as useful as I was hoping for, even if it does look pretty cool. Aside from bullet time at all though, this was a really enjoyable shooter. And I was pleasantly surprised to see some puzzle moments mixed in there, calling for some unexpectedly outside the box thinking to solve. Even more of a pleasant surprise was how trippy the less-than-enjoyable dream sequences become when you add some blaring dubstep to the mix. :D But don't let that give you the wrong impression about the game's own soundtrack; that title screen music: amazing.

Well, that's finally it guys, probably for good (I mean I did make this sweet graphic.), but feel free to check out these other classic entries in the Backlog Assault series:

Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: the Crystal Bearers
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Lego Star Wars
Star Fox Adventures
Mario Kart Wii
'Splosion Man
Peggle Deluxe / Puzzle Agent / Screamer / Red Faction
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
GTA: VCS / New Super Mario Bros. Wii / Everybody's Tennis / SSX 3
Perfect Dark Zero

Backlog Assault: Retro Wrap Party

Before I finally lower the curtain on this whole Backlog Assault thing (or at least last year's leg of it), I thought I'd borrow the format and use it as a bit of clearing house for a few chunks of game-related writing I've had rattling around my computer for ages now. After all, if there's one thing I learned from Sesame Street, it's the importance of recycling. :D

Title: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories
Platform: PS2

Bought: 29 January 2009
From: eBay
Price: €8.47
Beaten: February 2009

Backloggery Dump:

• Just finished D.I.V.O.R.C.E.
• Finished "Nice Package".
• I've finished "Farewell to Arms" and I've only got one last empire building mission to do.
• I've beaten the story and done a few of the side missions. Pretty enjoyable overall and the soundtrack was awesome.
  

Previously on JiliK's Blog:

03/03/09 - As I was finishing up Final Fantasy X-2 and wondering what I'd turn my gaming attention to next, I felt the overwhelming urge to grab this off eBay and jump back into my favourite GTA locale - Vice City. The city, the style, the awesome soundtrack - they're all in place and despite a few shortcomings, it's another enjoyable crime-filled journey through the streets of Vice City.

The game does have a share of minor technical problems - The low res textures on far away buildings have a habit of not being swapped for hi res ones until you're right next to them. When there's too much going on there's the occasional framerate dip where everything moves as if it's floating in molasses. Sometimes all the cars disappear from the road - not helpful if you're stuck in the middle of nowhere and you've just trashed your ride.

I also can't help missing Tommy and his posse from the original VC. Vic is a bit of a sick in the mud in comparison and the likes of Kent Paul and Ken Rosenberg are nowhere to be seen. Thankfully though, all those niggles fade away into the background when you're careering through a sea of flaming Cholo cars with "Living On The Ceiling" by Blancmange blaring out of your speakers - I've missed you, Vice City.

Final Thoughts:

Back in 2009 this was final PS2 GTA I hadn't played and without a HD console, it was the last one I could play for the time being. Because of that, I really tried to savour this one, even completing a bunch of the side missions before putting it down; something I rarely bothered with in the previous ones. Even so, I think this is probably the weakest of the five available on the PS2, feeling much more like an expansion pack to me than Liberty City Stories did. It's still not a bad game by any means though and I still love the Vice City setting more than any other in the series. Top notch soundtrack too.

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Title: New Super Mario Bros. Wii
Platform: Wii

Bought: 12 November 2009
From: Gamesnash.ie
Price: €46.99
Beaten: 18 December 2009

Backloggery Dump:

• 22/11/09 I'm up to World 4-2. Fantastic so far, but what can't Mario throw shells upwards any more?
• I'm up to World 5-2 and I've managed to grab all the star coins in Worlds 1 to 4. 
• 14/12/09 I've beaten Bowser, but I've still got one level left to beat in World 9 and some star coins to grab.
• 19/12/09 Done and dusted.

Previously on JiliK's Blog:

24/11/09 - NSMBW actually arrived on Thursday, a full day early in all it's awesome, red-cased glory. I've been enjoying the hell out of it of far and I'm kind of surprised to see that it actually does pack a decent challenge, especially when it comes to grabbing the star coins in each level, which can sometimes require Super Mario World levels of platforming ingenuity. The level of fan service and affection for past Mario outings here is also really impressive; You can't help but smile when yet another seemingly forgotten enemy/obstacle/sound effect pops up and takes you right back to your misspent childhood, sitting in front of a TV, control pad in hand.

The music was the thing I was most worried about before the game landed on my doorstep. There's been so much fantastic music featured in the old games, but the little snatches of the soundtrack I heard in trailers and such didn't do much for me. While I still not in love with some of the more prominent tunes in the game, there's still a lot of great music in here, like the underwater theme, which is just godly.

I'm a bit disappointed by the boss fights so far though. While I'm happy to see the Koopa Kids back, the battles aren't too far removed from the ones you remember from the old days - stomp times three and you're done. With Kamek showing up to spruce things up before the final boss battle in each world, I kind of expect Yoshi's Island-kill-a-frog-from-the-inside levels of insanity, not minor alterations to the basic fight you just had a few levels ago.

And while I'm bitching, why can't Mario throw shells up any more? It was an awesome method of dealing with those pesky lakitus. I guess it's compensated by the fact that Yoshi can now swallow and throw back frikkin' hammers, but only just. :D

Thoughts:

I finished NSMB in December '09 and while I loved every minute of it, in the end the soundtrack left me pretty disappointed. A few tunes aside, it's a huge let-down after the soaring majesty of Galaxy's score and the decades of classic ditties that came before it. I really enjoyed what they did with this game's last boss though. I was expecting another run of the mill tussle with Bowser; what I got was a mad dash through a tricky level away from a rampaging, giant lizard.

Oh, and those star coins were totally worth collecting by the way. ;)

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Title: Everybody's Tennis  
Platform: PS2

Bought: April 2009
From: GameStop
Price: €9.99
 Beaten: 10 March 2010

Backloggery Dump:

• I'm working my way through Semi-Pro in challenge Mode at the moment.
• 03/03/10 I've made it all the way to World Class in Challenge Mode.
• 10/03/10 I've beaten everyone in World class and that should about do it.

Previously on JiliK's Blog:

24/04/09 - Looks like a nice, solid tennis game so far. There's more than a whiff of Wii-style inclusiveness in everything from the cute characters, to the relaxing music, to the menu design. I started off on the training mode, trying to hit panels on the opponent's side of the court, quite fun. The Challenge mode looks to be the where meat of the game is. For my first match I went for a little girl on girl action on the beach (sorry, I'll stop). The AI character put up pretty decent challenge. It's definitely not the lightweight casual game the presentation might suggest.

Thoughts:

I finally got around to playing this a year later and despite its casual-friendly appearance, it provides a pretty satisfying game of tennis. The single player mode has you moving up through a series of increasingly difficult classes, unlocking better characters and other stuff as you win each match.

Some matches are significantly more difficult to win than others, with some condition being imposed to make them tougher. Some of these feel like a fair challenge, others, not so much. Trying to beat a super-advanced opponent with one of the bottom tier characters or having to play a whole game from the top of the screen are exercises in pure frustration.

Should you fail to win under the special condition, the next time you play the match, the condition will be removed, which makes you feel pretty cheap the second time round. I can understand the developers not wanting to scare away any casual players, but perhaps they could have let the me choose if I wanted to activate wussy mode or not like Devil May Cry did (or so I've heard - I'm too much of a wuss to play it :D).

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Title: SSX 3
Platform: PS2

Bought: April 2008
From: GameStop
Price: Unknown
Beaten: 24 June 2010

 Backloggery Dump:

• I've beaten all the races and with that, I think I'm pretty much done.

Thoughts:

I hadn't played an SSX game before this, but it's pretty much what you'd expect - a mix of racing and Tony Hawk-style trickery.  Unfortunately, it also includes a bunch of douchy playable characters, and a douchy in-game DJ cranking out phat beats in place of a straightforward soundtrack. The soundtrack itself though isn't bad. There are some great tracks on it, but they have a tendency to be sup par remixes, rather that the original versions. The other characters are very much douches though - go near your rival in the head to head races and he'll deck you without fail every fucking time. An enjoyable, if not amazing game, with some really nice graphics for the time.

Backlog Assault: Mario Kart Wii

In the last few years I've built up a pretty crazy gaming backlog. This year, I've decided it's high time I do something about it. Join me as I begin to regret more than ever all those impulse Steam buys and 99 cent PS2 bargains:

Title: Mario Kart Wii
Platform: Wii

Bought: 01 April 2010
From: HMV.co.uk
Price: €40.00
Beaten: 20 June 2011

Backloggery Dump:

• ??/04/10 - I've finished the 50cc cups and I'm about halfway through the 100cc ones.
• 15/07/11 - Got golds in the last two 150cc cups tonight. Not sure I'll bother with mirror mode though.

Previously on JiliK's Blog:

12/06/11 - I guess I've missed out on the main draw of the game with my crappy broadband connection, but I really didn't enjoy the Mario Kart Wii single player. The AI rubber-banding and the unbalanced power ups, the things people have been complaining about for years, were not only not improved in that game, they were worse than ever.

Thoughts:

So, I finally decided to dust off Mario Kart Wii the other day and finish up the 150cc cups, of which there were about six left to do. And I'm sorry to say that I didn't enjoy it any more than the last time I played it over a year ago. As it was the 150cc cups I was trying beat, the AI was, of course, more ridiculously cheap than ever, ramming me like they were playing Burnout and raining blue shells, red shells and lightning down on me like confetti and usually combining the two, just to be sure. :D

This might honestly be the most unfair, unbalanced Mario Kart I've ever played. I mean, previous entries were pretty cheap, but I'm not sure the AI was ever as aggressive as this and I don't remember getting hit by two or three power ups in a row ever being such a regular occurrence. I guess Nintendo is trying to make Mario Kart as chaotic and unpredictable as possible in an effort to make it more fun. Maybe it is when you've got a bunch of people playing. As a purely single player experience though, it's complete bullshit and after this, I think I might be done with the series for good.

Backlog Assault: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers

In the last few years I've built up a pretty crazy gaming backlog. This year, I've decided it's high time I do something about it. Join me as I begin to regret more than ever all those impulse Steam buys and 99 cent PS2 bargains:

Title: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers
Platform: Wii

Bought: 11 July 2010
From: HMV.com
Price: £19.49

Beaten: 25 February 2011
Final Game Time: 11:16
Price/Hour: £1.73

Backloggery Dump:

• 21/02/11 - Started this tonight. Good God, the camera controls!
• 25/02/11 - Well, that didn't take too long. A fun little game, if a bit lacking in substance gameplay-wise.
  

Thoughts:

With the tiny amount of coverage this got at the time of it's release, part of the reason I picked this up was to figure out just what the hell it was for myself. Now that I've beaten it, I can state conclusively that this is an action-adventure game set in the Crystal Chronicles universe; Think Zelda with no dungeons, but lots of moogles.

It's true there isn't too much meat here in terms of gameplay. Most of the game consists of you traversing the overworld, talking to one person here, another person there - just moving along the story by triggering cut scenes. Accompanying that there are a few boss battles and a whole bunch of other "playable events" ranging from rail shooting to airship steering to ferret chasing to dancing. If you feel like supplementing that with some optional stuff, you can have a wander around the overworld, where you can find some pretty fun mini games to complete and groups of enemies to fight.

Combat takes place in real-time and makes use of your telekinetic powers to pick up enemies, throw them at each each other and clobber them with nearby objects. I found it mostly enjoyable, apart from the d-pad-controlled camera on occasion. With a more limited range of movement, the d-pad isn't a great substitute for analogue camera controls, especially with the fast pace of combat here. You run into an even bigger problem during the first boss encounter of the game, where you need to move the camera up and aim the pointer at the same time, using the same controller, before you miss a narrow opportunity to throw a sword at the boss. Think patting your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time.

The biggest problem of all with the combat though is that it's almost entirely optional and mostly pointless. One one hand, for taking on a group of enemies in the overworld and closing the portal they spawned from (for the first time in an area only), your health gets increased by one and you might get a few items you can combine into stat-boosting accessories. On the other, you can safely bypass almost every enemy in the game and the few bosses you encounter are never any real challenge. The benefits you gain from fighting aren't really useful when you almost never need to fight or beef yourself up for difficult bosses down the line.

Having said all that though, I still enjoyed the game for what it was. The playable events, mini games and the few battles I partook in were all quite fun; The story's interesting; The characters are likeable; The soundtrack's fantastic and the game world itself, with it's lush grasslands, dusty plains and sweeping blue skies is a joy to wander about in. Look, I brought some more holiday snaps (full album here):

This Week I 'Ave Been Mostly Playing...

You know, this would have worked so much better if I had posted this on Sunday. Well anyway, this is a new bit I'm hoping to do weekly (let's see how long that lasts EDIT: Jeez, one week. Surely a new low. :D), where I talk what I've been playing recently, so let's get to it.

With New Super Mario Bros. hopefully arriving on Friday (thanks to a super-late pre-order), I was pretty sure I wouldn't have time for many other games for a while after I got stuck into it, so I made a special effort to finish off as many old games first including:

ArtStyle: Cubello (WiiWare)

I'd already beaten seven or eight levels in this a few weeks ago, certainly enough to realise that the game's robot announcer was annoying the shit out of me; however there were still about 22 levels to go, so I muted that fucker, fired up a few podcasts and got going.

This is actually a great game to play while you're listening to something else - it's mindless, but fun and you're really not missing out on much by not being able to hear the sound. In it, you use the Wiimote to launch coloured blocks at a rotating structure of blocks; Match four blocks and they disappear, at which point you get four more random coloured blocks to launch. The aim of each level is to eliminate every block until all that's left is the big centre block, which I'm assuming is the "cubello" (Hey, it's not like I read the instructions or anything).

After a couple of nights, I managed to make my way to the end of the game. There were a few nasty levels in there, but they were mostly pretty manageable and as I played through it, I began to notice that the levels were usually set up so a certain strategy could be used to clear away the structure more efficiently, you just needed to keep your eyes open. One thing that really annoyed me, though, was that after you fail a level, the remaining mass of blocks come and bump into your TV screen. To me, it felt like a subtly obnoxious way calling you an idiot.

The Ultimate Doom (PC)

This wasn't even one of the games I was trying to finish last week, but I randomly started playing in the middle of the week and kept going to very end. I can't say it was because the game had me gripped though; If anything, I just wanted to get it out of the way now that I was back playing it again. I really loved Doom II back when I first played it in '98 and while I enjoyed the action just as much here, the endless wandering around, searching for which arbitrary door was opened by the switch I just activated drove me insane. Maybe I'm just not as patient now; maybe the level design just isn't as tight here. Either way, I was damn glad to see off that last Spiderdemon and leave Hell behind.

New Super Mario Bros. (Wii)

NSMBW actually arrived on Thursday, a full day early in all it's awesome, red-cased glory. I've been enjoying the hell out of it of far and I'm kind of surprised to see that it actually does pack a decent challenge, especially when it comes to grabbing the star coins in each level, which can sometimes require Super Mario World levels of platforming ingenuity. The level of fan service and affection for past Mario outings here is also really impressive; You can't help but smile when yet another seemingly forgotten enemy/obstacle/sound effect pops up and takes you right back to your misspent childhood, sitting in front of a TV, control pad in hand.

The music was the thing I was most worried about before the game landed on my doorstep. There's been so much fantastic music featured in the old games, but the little snatches of the soundtrack I heard in trailers and such didn't do much for me. While I still not in love with some of the more prominent tunes in the game, there's still a lot of great music in here, like the underwater theme, which is just godly.

I'm a bit disappointed by the boss fights so far though. While I'm happy to see the Koopa Kids back, the battles aren't too far removed from the ones you remember from the old days - stomp times three and you're done. With Kamek showing up to spruce things up before the final boss battle in each world, I kind of expect Yoshi's Island-kill-a-frog-from-the-inside levels of insanity, not minor alterations to the basic fight you just had a few levels ago.

And while I'm bitching, why can't Mario throw shells up any more? It was an awesome method of dealing with those pesky lakitus. I guess it's compensated by the fact that Yoshi can now swallow and throw back frikkin' hammers, but only just. :D

Overlord (PC)

After buying Overlord and its expansion for €4 the weekend before last, I finally finished downloading it last Saturday (Oh, the joys of a 1 Meg connection). I only wanted to see if it was working, but I ended up spending a good two hours playing. Sadly, my current hardware was only to play it with the graphics turned down significantly, but it ran pretty smoothly and I've had a lot of fun with it so far.

The game's very much like Pikmin, where you control a Sauron-style overlord who rolls around with his posse of minions, who you can command to do your bidding, well to a point anyway. You can target something, dispatch your minions and they'll kill or destroy the target and bring you back the spoils which can be gold, health or mana. You can also remotely control the movement of your minions by holding down the left and right mouse buttons and moving the mouse around to steer them. It's as clunky as it sounds, but it can be useful, especially for areas you can't reach.

In the game, I've decided to be a good guy, at least for the moment, so I'm leaving the townspeople alone and dealing with the evil halflings that are running amok instead. The last mission I did was retrieving the humans' stolen food food from a sizeable hobbit hole, er, I mean halfling dwelling. Basically, this consisted of killing every halfling in sight and just because I'm a dick, laying waste to anything that would break in there, which was pretty much everything.

Animal Crossing (Gamecube)

I decided to pay a visit to my long-abandoned town in the Cube version of Animal Crossing on Sunday, not least because there's still a bunch of NES games in it that I never unlocked. Since I started playing Let's Go to the City earlier in the year, I had been under the impression that very little had changed graphically between the two, but on my return to Wiiville (I got AC in late 2006, I was pretty excited), I was taken aback by how bad everything looked. I'd forgotten the blocky characters, blurry textures and low-res menus. I guess the Wii version has something going for it after all. :D

Well, not much had changed in the 99 weeks since I last showed my face in Wiiville, aside from a generous helping of weeds and some pissed off animals. I bought a bunch of stuff in Nookingtons to get raffle tickets and tried my luck at the fishing tourney, but none of my catches measured up. After that, it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to time travel to the end of the month to check if there as actually a NES game on offer in Nook's end-of month raffle at all. There wasn't, which gives me the feeling it may be another 99 weeks until I check back again. :D

Kururin Squash! (Gamecube)

After I had finished with Animal Crossing on Sunday, I decided to whip out my copy of this and try to get past the level in World 5 I'd been stuck on for months. I could finally see that my problem was trying to collect as many coins in the level as possible, so I decided to just ignore the coins and make a beeline to the goal. Navigating my way through the narrow paths and tricky obstacles was no mean feat, but I finally cracked it after several attempts and moved onto the World 5 boss. As far as I could tell it was the main bad guy and from what I remember (it's been a while), I fought him a bunch of times before, but the cut scene after seemed to have an air of finality about it and sure enough, the credits rolled directly after it - another game down and I didn't even know I was near the end.

Trauma Center Get!

I picked up the first Trauma Center for the Wii last week and ever since I've been up to my elbows in blood and guts. I've also been playing lots of Trauma Center. (*groans*) I'm really liking being a pretend surgeon so far. It's really an arcade game at heart, demanding skill and speed and rewarding rankings based on your scores. I find being ranked a "Rookie Doctor" for an operation is a real motivation to go back and try again, especially when you've familiarised yourself with the procedure.

Trauma Center may look like a casual game, but there isn't any hand holding here. You'll be told what to do once and expected to remember it for the next operation. We're talking five or six steps here that often need to be executed with speed, multiple times per operation. And just when you think you its going to be all plain sailing the game will throw a sudden crisis at you mid-procedure to really test you. In these types of high pressure scenarios especially, you need the motion controls to work well. Thankfully, for the most part they're accurate and responsive but there is one notable exception.

Up to now, I've had a lot of trouble trying to push the defibrillator towards the screen. Slow movements are needed for the action to register. When you need to concentrate on getting the controls to work rather than on the game, the sense of immersion the motion controls give rapidly vanishes. I hope that Wii Motion Plus can fix problems like this.

The story here kind of surprised me. I'm actually finding pretty interesting in a melodramatic, soapy kind of way. So far there's been a few surprising little twists and turns and it's quite a bit darker in places than I would have expected.

Overall, aside from the disappointing defibrillator, it's been really good so far and well worth the now budget price.

Metroid Prime 3: Mission Final

So, I finally finished Metroid Prime 3 last night. My stats aren't anything to write home about as you can see above, but I thought I'd capture the moment for posterity anyway. :) Overall, it was a really enjoyable experience, but not without it's faults. I might put together a review when I get the chance (EDIT 14/02/16: Yeah, how's that coming? :D), but for now let's bask in my achievement. *starts basking*

Zack & Wiki Get!

Well, Internet, I finally caved into your peer pressure and picked up a copy of Zack & Wiki for the Wii today. :) I might be a bit late to the party, but so far I'm really enjoying it. It's bright and colourful, with a funny, light-hearted story and just like they've all been saying, it puts the motion controls to pretty good use.

Like some of the Wii games I've played, it can take a while to get the motions the game requires exactly right. Once you do though, the sense of immersion is wonderful. Look! Look! My movements are effecting that thing on screen!

New Fragile Trailer

Out of the three current gen consoles, I only have a Wii. While the last two years have been a bit on the patchy side as far as third party games go, there's a massive influx of promising new stuff coming out of Japan for the console. One of the games I've been following is Fragile, a neat looking action RPG from Namco, set in a post apocalyptic future. I'm kind of worried that the combat will let it down but the atmosphere and soundtrack look like they're going to be something special. I just saw this trailer and thought I'd share it. Damn, just listen to that music! (Wait until around the 0:50 mark.)