Nintendo’s Heavy Hitters

It was pretty clear which titles Nintendo was leaning so heavily on this year.

The hardest part about rounding up everything for the Wii, 3DS, and DS systems this year is that Nintendo really didn’t try to outdo themselves whatsoever. Yes, there are some big exclusives, but overall things felt a little…barren. The year has now finished with Skyward Sword, Super Mario 3D Land, and Mario Kart 7, but other than Pokemon Black and White Versions on the DS in March and perhaps Ocarina of Time’s remake during the 3DS launch, there hasn’t been anything to really go on about.

Still, I should give the briefest summaries of the largest titles, starting with Skyward Sword. I’m up to the third dungeon and finding myself hard pressed to find time to play, not necessarily because I’m too busy but because my motivation to play is low, thanks entirely to Fi, the constant tutorial system that’s brought the game down from a solid recommendation to a cringe-worthy affair. Don’t misunderstand though, the game controls wonderfully and looks fantastic, but being forced to hold the game’s hand for so long, despite being a seasoned vet, is painful.

Super Mario 3D Land is an entirely different story. I can’t recommend it enough for Mario fans, platformer fans, or people with a 3DS and no clue why it’s so great. Super Mario 3D Land proves that the 3D function of the 3DS can truly be something special and walks that perfect line of fun and difficulty. As a Mario fan, I was able to complete the game 100%, but I know that such will not be the case with many other players. If you don’t have this game by now, then you must not have a 3DS.

Mario Kart 7 is much he same. I’m still waiting to get my copy, but that’s only because I had to wait until Christmas since there was a high chance someone was planning to get it for me. The consensus out there is that if you’re not tired with the Mario Kart formula, then Mario Kart 7 is one of the best games in the series with some of the absolute best tracks and an enjoyable hang gliding mechanic, whereas if you’re not really a fan or want something more advanced than Mario Kart DS, you’ll be disappointed. I loved Mario Kart DS and want its excellent wifi multiplayer back with a simple handheld game, so I’m set. Judge for yourself accordingly.

Pokemon Black and White Versions turned out to be predictably good and yet stagnant as always. I found myself sinking my teeth in once again and really finding a connection with some of the new faces, but still, it felt like the same old song and dance that we’ve seen before, and yeah, I’m getting too old to be catching them all again. Give me a new incentive, one that doesn’t require trading with half a dozen other versions and waiting for event-specific Pokemon to complete the central driving force behind the game. Still, I discovered that Black and White Versions make great companions when on exercise bikes. At this point exercise bikes should just come with Pokemon installed in the handlebars.

The Quieter Releases

Does it make me boring to actually like this game?

It’s not all high profile games with Nintendo, but the smaller, quieter titles are quickly forgotten in the rush of things. For instance, Kirby’s Return to Dreamland, a great return to form for the franchise at last, has all but been forgotten now that the rest of the holiday releases have arrived. Kirby fans decided that Return to Dreamland was a nearly perfect game, and after playing the demo at PAX I can easily see why they’d think that. It’s fun, the controls are tight, and there’s flawless drop in/drop out multiplayer.

A title that’s been getting hammered a bit though is Fortune Street, a game I played at PAX and actually really enjoyed. The easiest comparison is to Monopoly, though add in Mario and Dragon Quest characters for good measure. Criticism has been leveled stating that the game is slow, boring, and looks shoddy. I disagree on all accounts, mostly because it’s not like Fortune Street is being billed as a competitor to Skyrim or Skyward Sword or something like that. If you love Monopoly and the concept of trading property and stocks, then yeah, you’ll absolutely love Fortune Street. If you’re looking for an engrossing single-layer experience, then you’re just being stupid.

And speaking of Dragon Quest, the DS got the remake of Dragon Quest VI, wrapping up a string of really great remakes from the Super Famicom era. I just recently acquired the title for my birthday but haven’t had a chance to plow through it yet, though it’s high on my list since it’s a gorgeous game that shows how to do sprite work on the DS, all while being a solid RPG, as the pedigree would suggest.

Launching the 3DS

The sooner you attach Ocarina of Time to something, the sooner I'll be pleased.

Nintendo’s only big stumble this year has been the launch of the 3DS. Billed as a revolution to the handheld market with 3D capabilities and graphical power that competes with the GameCube, Nintendo decided to go with a $250 asking price, a move that, combined with a pitiful launch library, resulted in abysmal sales to the point that every gaming journalist was quick to ask, “Is this the end for Nintendo?!”

Well, no, it wasn’t. After listening to customer complaints and realizing bold action was required, the price was slashed to $170, which is when I grabbed it. However, those who bought the system before the official price drop day were given a bonus in the form of the Ambassador Program, essentially giving early adopters 10 free NES games and 10 free Game Boy Advance games. The NES games were pretty standard with Super Mario Bros, The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid standing out as some of the better titles, but it was the GBA list that made me most happy with titles like Wario Land 4, Fire Emblem, and F-Zero: Maximum Velocity.

Ocarina of Time’s remake is perfect in essentially every way, and Star Fox 64 3D is a near-identical recreation of the N64 original with the added bonus of the 3D graphics. Between those two, Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7, I’d say the 3DS has a pretty strong launch year library with a perfectly accessible price point and tons of great games expected in 2012, such as Kid Icarus: Uprising, Paper Mario 3D, Luigi’s Mansion 2, and Animal Crossing 3DS. I’m happy, so why aren’t so many others?

Why I’m Still a Nintendo Fan

I really doesn't take much to make me happy, and Nintendo knows this.

It all comes down to one simple program: Club Nintendo. In a time when just about every single game company is struggling to find a way to cut out the used games market and force gamers to buy new, Nintendo is the only company that’s thus far doing it right, all thanks to a simple concept. With most games, I’m punished for purchasing used. With titles on Nintendo systems, I’m rewarded for buying new. See the difference? Subtle, but effective.

Let me explain a bit better. If I were to purchase Battlefield 3 for either the Xbox 360 or PS3 used, I’d be unable to access the multiplayer features without buying a pass that unlocks them, whereas if I bought it new I wouldn’t have to worry about features being absent. Inversely, when I buy Mario Kart 7 this week, I will get a code that can be entered at my Club Nintendo account for coins, which can then be saved up and redeemed for items such as Wiimote holders, decorative fans, Game & Watch games, Mario-themed washcloths, amazing poster sets, or most recently, select games appearing on the Virtual Console and eShop marketplaces. At this moment I can snag the original Super Mario Kart on the Virtual Console for a cool 100 coins, or roughly two Wii games worth of coins (a poster set is 400 by the way, of which I have three).

I can’t stress enough how effective this simple tactic is to encourage me to purchase my Nintendo games new every single time. If there were a similar rewards system for Sony or Microsoft or individual companies, I’d be hard-pressed to buy used ever again because I love incentive programs. To my knowledge, only Nintendo has figured out this reward over punishment concept. Funny how that works.

Besides just loving Club Nintendo, I’ve found that I love my 3DS. I haven’t had an issue with the battery because I do a lot of my gaming in small bursts in bed, at the gym, or just hanging out. Sure, on a long trip I’d be frustrated, but I’m not enduring any long trips with my 3DS (and can’t due to motion sickness). I’m having fun with my system, and already I’ve bought two (soon to be three) killer games for the system, quickly beating my DS’s first year lifespan. That actually makes it more useful to me than my DS thus far.

Looking Ahead to 2012

Of course I'm already setting money of to the side; like I wouldn't?

Nintendo’s lineup for next year on the 3DS looks promising, as I’ve already mentioned, but their Wii showing is nearly nonexistent. Rhythm Heaven is lovely and Xenoblade Chronicles will come out to underwhelming sales (prove me wrong, you know it’ll have a terrible launch), but beyond that what is there to look forward to?

Oh right, the Wii U, Nintendo’s next console. The controller looks pretty crazy and the system is supposed to be Nintendo’s first HD console, but beyond that we don’t know anything else besides a launch window of possibly right around E3. As usual, I’m cautiously optimistic, so we’ll have to wait and see if another risky console gamble pays off.

And that’s it for Nintendo. There’s a lot to love here, but it’s Nintendo, so sometimes it isn’t obvious right away why they’re still in business. But enough from me, what are your thoughts? Did Nintendo have a good year? Or are they indeed doomed? Go ahead and leave a message while I go snag Mario Kart 7 really quick.

Oh boy, that looks exciting! ...Why isn't it?

Ever since the Game Boy days and the very first Pokemon versions, Red and Blue, fans began speculating where the series could go. What new Pokemon would be right around the corner? Would they ever make new types of Pokemon past the original 15? New attacks? More complicated battles? But biggest of all, we wanted to know when Pokemon would show up on the consoles.

At the time of Pokemon’s rise to popularity, the N64 was poised to be the perfect system for us to get our fix. Games began releasing as if to taunt us, such as Pokemon Snap, a great title that was sadly only about taking pictures of Pocket Monsters and limiting the creatures in-game to roughly 60 or so. Then Stadium and its sequel came out, though those titles were largely about the novelty of seeing the once pixilated characters in full 3D on the TV screen, fighting with elaborate battle animations and such (“elaborate” being relative for the time).

Eventually, when Nintendo Power started showing bits about the GameCube Pokemon games, specifically that they’d have a full story and everything, you couldn’t help but get excited. Sadly, that too would be a letdown as you couldn’t catch all 386 Pokemon at the time in either game since there were no random battles, somewhat eliminating the point of the open-ended world with limitless team combinations. Still, they weren’t awful as they packed in a lot within that simple story, so it wasn’t a total cop-out.

Alright Piplup, I've got high hopes. Don't fail me now!

No, that would happen when the Wii got its first Pokemon game to tie in with the release of Diamond and Pearl versions on the DS. At this point in time, a 3D Pokemon game needed to be more than any of the previous installments. It needed to impress us with amazing graphics, excellent sound, and a rich, full experience to justify a purchase or even really a rental, though really, if a Pokemon game is doing its job correctly a rental will never suffice.

Needless to say, I stand before you a disappointed Pokefan. Why is that? Because those three things I mentioned before –graphics, sound, and completion- were severely lacking with the new update. What we wanted was a version of the Game Boy/DS games for the Wii. What we got was a mild update to Stadium, which is pathetic considering the title called it a “battle revolution.”

Revolutionary!

Now it wouldn’t do any good to just say that the game was a disappointment and leave it at that. No, I’m going to hit those three points and explain what they needed to do and how they were lacking. So are we ready for a closer look? Well too bad because here we go.

Since the very beginning, Pokemon games have stuck to a very basic formula where there are hundreds of monsters but each creature only has four attack slots. Battles are always turn-based and consist of a simple battle animation for each attack, so a jet of water shooting at the opponent or seeing a shadow flung upside-down and dropped. When it came to the 3D games the same rules applied for some reason, so despite being in 3D, when a Pokemon performs an attack like Headbutt the animation still stops them from making physical contact with the other side of the arena.

This total disconnect always bothered me. The anime showed us these elaborate battles with Pokemon leaping around and dodging and performing amazing maneuvers in real time. The games however were slow and somewhat archaic by comparison, but it was understood that there were certain limitations due to graphics and memory restrictions and such. Those restrictions are no longer an excuse, so why haven’t we had more dynamic 3D battles?

Revolutionary...?!

Here’s my suggestion for how the game should look: Imagine the arena is set up like normal, perhaps with rocks and hazards and such, then the two Pocket Monsters are released and they size each other up while you decide to give them their first move. From there the attack phase goes normally with the Pokemon directly contacting each other with character-specific interactions and damage animations, so that if for instance Pidgeotto used Sky Attack on a Machamp, you’d see Machamp recoil from the hit and act accordingly as it looked up and saw the attack coming. After that first turn, the in-between phase would look like the two Pokemon battling back and forth essentially bouncing off of each other and dodging out the way or blocking or circling around or such without any damage being dealt until the next round of commands is issued. The goal is to make combat more dynamic without sacrificing the basic formula. Wouldn’t we all be happy with a more exciting presentation instead of seeing Pokemon jog toward the screen, punch, and then see the reverse shot when the opposing Pokemon falls back?

Next we have the horrible sound, something that’s still an issue even though we’ve moved so far past the humble Game Boy beginnings. For some reason that I can’t figure out, every Pokemon has a distinctive battle cry when they come out of their Pokeball, during certain attacks, and when getting knocked out. However, Pokemon from the original Blue, Red, and Green versions have had their voices entirely unchanged since the beginning, and all new Pokemon have to hold back what they could sound like in favor of something that more closely resembles the 8-bit chippy bleeps and screeches.

Wow, for a battlefield full of powerful legendaries, that sure looks pretty relaxed. Maybe the revolution is all via debate?

We’re past this by now; we have to be. The Wii isn’t the most powerful system out there, but it’s a heck of a lot stronger than the N64, and even that had games with fully spoken dialogue such as Star Fox 64. Heck, the GameCube had a vast number of games with tons of spoken dialogue beyond just RPG’s. Take Smash Bros for example where there are hundreds and hundreds of character grunts and sound effects. All I want is a Pokemon game where each Pokemon has a unique battle cry similar to what you’d hear from the anime, so that’d be around 649 different battle cries, plus perhaps maybe three variations of each, so we’re looking at 2,800 3-second voice clips? That doesn’t seem unreasonable really. Remember, the hope is to someday bridge the gap between the show and the games so that they seem one-to-one instead of seeing Ash do so many awesome things and devise all these brilliant strategies, only to then play the game and feel like something’s lacking.

So the graphics and sound have been taken care of, but that still leaves us with the story. I’ve complained enough about the handheld games and their insistence on retaining the same formula over and over again of “get starter Pokemon,” “collect eight Gym Badges,” and then “defeat Elite Four.” Oh, and of course “Catch ‘em All!” Despite my desire to see something new, (and nothing like the Coliseum games, please), at the very least what I and many others would love to see is a 3D Pokemon game that has those four aspects present. So far we’ve been able to battle trainers and Gym Leaders in Stadium and catch a few of the exorbitant number of Pokemon in Coliseum, but when Battle Revolution came out we were given only the bare minimum with generic battles and that’s it. At least Stadium gave us mini-games and a means to store and trade Pokemon easily from one version to the next.

Wait, is he actually doing something? I can't tell.

What Battle Revolution should have been was a fully fleshed-out version for the consoles. Nintendo and Game Freaks could have played their precious game of releasing two matching versions with exclusive Pokemon between the pair if they really wanted, but we deserved to see these games in 3D. Who wouldn’t want an open-world map where you can actually see the creatures wandering around, waiting to be battled and caught? The technology is there. The demand is certainly there. Where is this perfect game?

There are three simple ways to improve Battle Revolution, or rather the next console Pokemon game. But what do you think? What are you most wishing for in terms of a console Pokemon game? Were you pleased with Battle Revolution? Leave a comment and let me know. In the meantime, I think I’ll just go back and play Stadium some more.

Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword:

This could very well be the best Zelda if all goes well.

The biggest title Nintendo had showcased and the one that I’m most excited for is Skyward Sword, the next Zelda title, currently scheduled for the Wii this November (specifically the 20th). I saw this a while back at E3 where it was touted as the first Zelda title to really be made from the ground up as a Wii exclusive, complete with Wii Motion Plus controls (for better or worse).

Getting to play with the demo a few times, I’m happy to report that while the new controls will take a lot of getting used to, the game itself is exhilarating. Probably the greatest addition to the controls is the most insignificant to many players, but when I discovered that Link can now sprint when the A button is held, I was ecstatic. The only real downside to the controls is that the learning curve will look far different than most Zelda games as, just like you used to do when you were a kid, half of the difficulty will be in learning to play the game. Actually, scratch that, that’s not a downside whatsoever. Excited!

The graphics also shine far more in person than I expected. I was hesitant when I first saw trailers, but now that I’ve seen the game in motion, everything fits wonderfully. It’s simply a gorgeous game, pure and simple. And while visually it shares a lot of colorfulness with titles such as The Wind Waker, the tone still has some rather adult themes to it. A boss encounter with the Big Bad of the game was surprisingly sexual in a very subtle way. My full recommendation goes out to Skyward Sword at this point.

Mario Kart 7:

After Mario Kart Wii, I'm ready for something a bit more my style. Hopefully.

Another title I’m now more than pleased with, Mario Kart 7 has a lot riding on its shoulders. Mario Kart DS was the first title I bought for the DS and remains my favorite Mario Kart game, but now that I’ve played a few races of Mario Kart 7, there’s a chance that grand spot may be usurped.

It all comes down to hang gliders. Adding hang gliders and submarines to the series sounded rather strange, but they integrate seamlessly. When going off of jumps and such, gliders will instantly pop out of your kart, allowing you to fly a short distance back to the track and possibly zoom ahead of the competition. The same is true for the submarine propeller which appears whenever underwater. Both just feel like they’ve always been part of the series, or at least always should have been. This one is a definite Day One purchase for me.

Super Mario 3D Land:

How can I ever say no to a new Mario platformer, honestly?

Sure, this is a strange name, but the gameplay is perfectly in line with the Mario franchise. The level I played reminded me of a nice combination between parts of Super Mario Galaxy 2 and parts of New Super Mario Bros Wii. I made sure I picked a demo stage that featured the Tanooki Suit, and thankfully it’s a welcome return, even if it is sans full-flight. Just being able to flick the tail and lengthen your jumps is a great homecoming.

I did notice that the game felt incredibly slow, as in Mario’s running speed. He just never feels like he’s in a great hurry to get anywhere, evedespite there being a stage timer again. Even so, the platforming works great and the 3D is subtle enough that it works, making for another Day One purchase on my end.

Kirby’s Return to Dreamland (full preview via The Escapist):

Easy isn't always a bad thing.

I didn’t really expect Kirby’s Return to Dreamland to appear at PAX, but thankfully it was off in its own little area, just waiting to be tried out by anyone in reach. Myself, my wife, and Kyle and his soon-to-be wife all hopped into a game and started playing. Immediately things feel smooth and like a real return to Dreamland, as Kirby has his inhale/copy ability back at long last. Also, no artistic gimmick, for better or worse. Just straight Kirby action like we grew up with all those years ago.

However, the twist here is the four-player simultaneous play, much like New Super Mario Bros Wii. Except here since everyone is capable of infinite flight, you don’t really have the risk of causing other players to simply fall to their death. Unfortunately, with four players the game also becomes faceroll easy. We were able to just rush through the stage mashing the attack button as fast as we pleased and nothing stood in our way, though it was only the first level, so who knows how hard the rest of the game will actually be.

Fortune Street (full preview via Destructoid):

There's not a bit about this image I don't fully endorse.

The biggest surprise from Nintendo’s playable demos was Fortune Street, a title that’s apparently number 7 in a long line of games native to Japan. Square Enix and Nintendo are taking the chance and giving the US a taste of the series, which feels like a perfect mixture of Mario, Dragon Quest, and Monopoly. Most people walking by thought it was a new Mario Party title, actually getting kind of mad for no good reason, but it certainly isn’t a Mario Party game as there are no minigames to speak of.

Instead, the goal is to go around elaborate game boards and collect properties, then improve them in order to increase your assets and overall money, ultimately gaining enough to be determined the winner of the match. It’s incredibly simple despite the finer points (which are more complex, such as dealing with the stock market and making deals with players), and oddly enough my wife and I found ourselves addicted to the game’s charm. Somehow it tapped right into a nerve that made both of us want to dump money into properties we owned on the chance that the other would randomly land on that space and give up a ton of cash. Oh that’s sweet when it happens.

I really hope Fortune Street does well here in the US. It’s not going to be a big seller, partly because it’s just a strange game and partly because I doubt anyone’s heard about it (I’m a devoted Nintendo fan and I didn’t know it existed until I saw it with my very own eyes). Still, I wish it the best and want a copy for Christmas.

And that’s everything I sampled personally at Nintendo’s booths. I didn’t get to spend much time with Star Fox 64 3D (though it’s basically Star Fox 64 with better graphics), and Kid Icarus: Uprising got lost in the hustle and bustle of the show floor, so I can’t really comment much on either of those, nor can I say anything about Kirby Mass Attack on the DS other than they were giving out cotton candy when you played the title, so the line was too long to bother with.

The bottom line for Nintendo is that this upcoming holiday season is going to be great. I’ve still got my Wii primed and ready for the Christmas titles and my 3DS is trained up and expecting a glut of new titles every month, so I am about as happy as one can really be. But these are just my interests. What about you? What are you looking forward to from Nintendo? Or what are you disappointed or skeptical about? Leave a comment and let me know. In the meantime, I need to go freeze myself in a glacier until November. See you in a few months!

All my best friends in one easy place. How can I not be happy?

It has never been a secret around here that I am very attached to Nintendo and generally prefer their systems and games over any other systems or games. For full history (and I’ll try to keep this short), we go back to when I was only 2-years-old, roughly. It was my dad’s birthday, so my mom decided it would be fun to get him a Nintendo Entertainment System. Neither he nor I knew that the system would really turn out to be for me. I sat and played Super Mario Bros endlessly. I’d rent and borrow any games that people would loan me. I played as much as possible (somehow avoiding most of the games the AVGN hates to much, except TMNT, which is awesome if you know how to play it).

When it came time for the next generation of consoles, back then being something completely new, there was the choice of the Sega Genesis or the Super Nintendo. I couldn’t afford either, so I waited and waited and waited. Finally, probably half way through the SNES’ life, my cousin decided to sell his SNES to me, a system that he had modified to play Super Famicom games (who knew I’d eventually want to play Dragonball Z games on the system?).

I received a Game Boy not long before that as an amazing birthday gift, and then a Game Boy Color when my cousin decided he needed to get rid of that, too. From there came the N64, another system that I had to wait painfully long to finally buy, eventually snagging one when Mario Kart 64 came out, bucking the trend of buying my cousin’s hand-me-down systems. He would taunt me about purchasing Ocarina of Time Day One, implying how much better he was than I. It pained me but my parents refused to let me blow the entirety of my money on the one game. They forced me to rent it instead, then borrow it from a friend under the assumption I might not like it. Little would any of us know that it would become my favorite game ever, regardless of how clichéd that is to say.

Finally remaking this was just begging me to spend every cent I had.

That was the final straw for me before I had a steady flow of disposable income to call my own, so the GameCube was a purchase I made as soon as it was available. The Game Boy Advance was bought a little later just because I felt like it and had some money that was burning a hole in my pocket. That system lead to a number of impulse buys such as Advance Wars and Golden Sun, risks that definitely paid off. My GameCube would get the most love of just about any system in my house over the next few years as Super Smash Bros Melee brought about a competitive streak/pettiness inside of me that no game since has matched.

Flash ahead to the DS cropping up, a system I wouldn’t have the money for just yet, only to be rewarded for my patience with a system under the Christmas tree that same launch year. The Wii, however, I bought instantly and never looked back. That was my blow-by-blow for Nintendo systems. I never owned a Virtual Boy, didn’t buy a Game Boy Pocket or Advance SP (until only a few months ago for my wife) or a DS Lite. Each and every system has been played to the point that the money spent was well worth it.

That should set the stage for where I am now with Nintendo. I’ve been through it all. I was there in the early stages, the rough patches, and the recent successes. I’ve seen how the company handles itself in good times and bad and most importantly I’ve seen the progression of gaming, not just small snippets here and there. All of this leads me to say as follows: Nintendo has a history of people just plain not getting them.

I can point to this very much during the GameCube era. I was labeled as “Nintendo Boy” by my drama teacher in high school, a hardcore Xbox/Halo fan. I was never really sure what to do with that, whether I was supposed to feel guilty (as it as always meant to be hurtful when shouted by my teacher and his followers), or rather if I should feel proud of my loyalty through the roughest times.

And the GameCube era really was the roughest of times for Nintendo, at least in the public’s eye. Nintendo and its system were labeled as “kiddie,” a completely pointless and just blatantly ignorant observation based on the fact that the GameCube did not have Halo or some such pew pew shooter. To explain the kiddie moniker, Nintendo, especially during the GameCube lifetime, were all about fun and accessibility over something adult for the sake of adult. Games were becoming more realistic and trying to prove that graphics were absolutely everything, whereas Nintendo was making games with as many vibrant colors as possible. Guess who loved Super Mario Sunshine? This guy right here.

I'd gladly clear graffiti off buildings with a water pack that doubles as a propulsion method. Go chew a mushroom and get off my back.

I argued with more people than I care to remember regarding the GameCube’s “kiddie” attribute, each time having to point out a short list of games geared toward older players such as Resident Evil 4, Eternal Darkness, and even Metroid Prime. Speaking of Resident Evil 4, it was supposed to be an exclusive, and I was proud to say it was exclusively on my system, as were Nintendo. Of course, Capcom being Capcom decided to do what they always do and said “Hell with it, let’s put this on the PS2 with more content.” In fact, one of Nintendo’s supposed biggest faults in this current generation is their lack of support toward 3rd party developers. I say that you can look to Capcom’s actions here for a solid explanation as to why Nintendo looks out for Number 1 more than the 3rd parties. They touted this exclusive title and Capcom broke their deal. Shame on Nintendo for basing things on the honor code.

Granted, Nintendo weren’t always the nice guys, as Sony can tell you regarding the PlayStation. The NES era, while packed full of classics, was also packed full of garbage. Overpriced garbage I might add. Back then Nintendo had zero competition and could decide on prices and quality, and they picked “high” and “whatever gets this out the door” as the only qualifiers.

Still, currently, Nintendo does have far less of a hand in promoting games on its system unless they’re 1st party titles like Mario and Zelda. I can argue here that this is all because Nintendo is only a game company, unlike Sony and Microsoft who just have relatively small game divisions compared to their massive size. They can take bigger risks and throw money at any situation. Nintendo, historically, has been unable to do that.

This doesn’t mean that Nintendo has been penniless though. A lot of people kept saying that Nintendo was about to go out of business and become the next Sega when it became clear that the GameCube wasn’t outselling the Xbox and PS2. However, “not outselling” and “failing to perform” are two very different things. During the GameCube/PS2/Xbox cycle, Nintendo was nowhere near flopping, even if the GameCube was a complete failure, which just wasn’t the case (a complete failure means discontinuing before the next console, not getting integrated into it). See, Nintendo’s always been more or less bulletproof thanks to their handheld market, which they’ve never lot a grip on.

Mario usually helps with this quite a lot.

That is until now. As soon as the 3DS was announced, fans were clambering to find out more. “What games will be on it?!” “When will it come out?!” “How much will it cost?!” That last part is what did a number of the usually eager fanbase. $250 is a lot to spend on a portable system. It’s one of two reasons I never had an interest in a PSP. The other was an entire lack of excitement for the games on the system, which the PSP and 3DS also have in common for me. Launching the 3DS without any immediately significant games is no good, but it’s once again not without precedence. More on that in a moment.

First, I want to talk about another aspect of Nintendo that a lot of people, specifically now, are feeling. There is the assumption that Nintendo does not like its fans, does not want their money, and does not want to learn. People got mad when the GameCube was released without a DVD player in it (awesome, it kept the price down and I already had a DVD player). Then the same thing happened with the Wii (awesome, kept the price down and I already had a DVD player, and ironically I watch Netflix on my Wii as I don’t have to pay for a Gold account to do so, which I had to do on my Xbox 360). Operation Rainfall is a great example of fans demanding something from Nintendo and getting, essentially, told to shove off.

But why?

The motivation behind Operation Rainfall is to get Nintendo of America to release three Japanese RPGs here in the United States, two of which have already been localized for the UK. Despite demands, despite petitions, despite being a generally great gathering of like-minded gamers, Nintendo has said the usual “We don’t have plans now, but wait and see someday.” A lot of people see this as Nintendo being just downright stupid as there are thousands of gamers wanting to give their money to Nintendo but being refused. Just hold on though, because there are two parts that make rational sense as to why Nintendo has hesitated here.

I'm still all in favor of fans getting their way.

Let’s talk Earthbound. Why? Because I love Earthbound. You probably love Earthbound as well. A lot of people love Earthbound. Except most of us all loved it after the fact. It was a colossal failure on the SNES and has been the main game people can point to as to why Nintendo aren’t willing to try something new on the RPG front here in the US. Sure, we whine and complain a bunch, constantly wanting more games to be localized, but then comes the other half of the equation we always, ALWAYS seem to forget: Fans of geek culture never turn up when they’re supposed to.

Take a moment to think about Scott Pilgrim vs The World. Great movie, right? Oh yeah, I loved the hell out of it. I saw it in theaters twice and then bought the DVD. Guess what other fans forgot to do? Go see it and buy the DVD. Scott Pilgrim ended up getting completely trounced in the box office for no good reason as hundreds of thousands of geeks said they wanted to go see it. Kick Ass was the same deal. Simple fact: We’ve proven that we can’t be trusted to show up when companies take risks on us doing just that. Want some game-related anecdotal evidence? How about No More Heroes or Mad World or Zack and Wiki or A Boy and His Blob? All great games, all applauded for coming to the Wii, none sold enough to matter much. Oops.

So when Nintendo says kindly that they have no immediate plans to release certain games in the US, remember that there’s a precedence already set. Do I want the Operation Rainfall games to show up in the US? Absolutely. Will I buy them? Not a chance. Does that make me a bad gamer? I don’t really think so.

Now we’re back to the immediate state of Nintendo. The 3DS hasn’t been selling amazingly due to the high price and the lack of AAA games for the system, games that Nintendo has announced but hasn’t given us yet. Thus far we have Ocarina of Time 3D (I bought that one, in case you were wondering), and soon Star Fox 64’s remake, a new Kid Icarus, a new Mario game, a new Mario Kart, a new Paper Mario, and a new Luigi’s Mansion. And of course a new Smash Bros somewhere down the line. I couldn’t be happier with that line of promises. Best of all, those titles will be staggered just enough that even I will be able to afford them. Happy day indeed.

C'mon, you can make this happen, I believe in you.

See, another thing to learn about me, I never understood the constant complaining of people saying that the Wii had no good games. I can disagree completely there. I can come up with at least 10 games on my immediate shelf that felt entirely worth the system’s existence, all released at a staggered pace. I got the most time out of Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 and Smash Bros Brawl, but Donkey Kong Country Returns, No More Heroes, Metroid Prime 3, and Super Paper Mario were all great to me as well. And the best part is, my collection isn’t done yet. There are still a handful of Wii games I’d love to own soon, like Masamura: The Demon Blade, A Boy and His Blob, and Kirby’s Epic Yarn. I just haven’t had the money yet to buy any of them. Most of my games come secondhand from my Xbox 360 relatives, and from that system I can only count about 5 that I own and really loved with a handful of others that are on my “buy if they’re cheap” list. And I still have Skyward Sword to look forward to this year.

“But Chris! I don’t like Nintendo games!” Yeah, alright, what’s your point? Then don’t buy a Wii. I don’t like Modern Warfare and yet people everywhere love those games and flock to them like moths. And I can understand exactly why, but I don’t get mad because the Xbox 360 is flooded with similar titles. I just get happy playing what I feel like.

Back on the 3DS, the price suddenly drops by $80 and everyone rushes to point fingers and ridicule. By Nintendo dropping the price they’ve effectively signed a statement reading, “Yup, we’re getting desperate so please buy the system.” In all reality though, would we rather they slash the price of the system to encourage new buyers, or would we rather they acted too proud to see when something needed change. They’ve already announced the games we want, now the system costs something we can all get behind. And if you bought the system early, you get 20 free games from the Virtual Console as a thank you for supporting the initial launch.

I still don’t understand the hesitation behind the 3DS’ eventual library of games. Systems never launch with strong titles anymore. The Xbox 360 had pretty much nothing that made me want the system immediately and the PS3 still doesn’t have anything that can convince me I need the system right now. Remember, Nintendo is just one company, so they can only make so many games at one time. They didn’t make Capcom release crap like Resident Evil Mercenaries or watered-down versions of whole games like Street Fighter IV. And they didn’t tell Ubisoft to remake Rayman 2 and pump out more Rabbids games. Let other publishers take the blame for stupid and frankly lazy choices, not the company offering the platform. Do we applaud Apple for Angry Birds? Hell no. Do we boo them for flashlight apps? Hell no.

To refresh you, I got a DS the Christmas season it came out. I didn’t have a single game for it until Mario Kart DS came out. I bought that, Animal Crossing DS, and Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time all within a month of each other nearly a year after actually getting the system. New Super Mario Bros would follow a bit later as well as Metroid Prime Hunters and Pokemon Diamond/Pearl. I just think it’s a shame they pushed Pokemon Black and White onto the DS instead of holding them back for the 3DS. That small move and we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

Let's try for another one like this, eh?

My point is that I know the best is yet to come. I know the good games are on their way, even if Capcom doesn’t like Mega Man fans anymore. I know that Nintendo still knows what they’re doing. Cutting the price doesn’t look like a company getting desperate; it looks like a smart company being aggressive with their risks. Nintendo president Iwata doesn’t sound like someone who isn’t listening to fans. On the contrary, he sounds like he’s more than ready to work with them to make the 3DS a success.

I bought a 3DS today along with the Ocarina of Time remake. I’m ready to buy the next game that comes out on that short list of first-party games up there. And then the next. And so on. I’m excited for the Wii U. I’m optimistic about Nintendo’s future, even if so few people seem to remember where Nintendo’s come from. Here’s to you Nintendo, for all those years together. Let’s make it many, many more.

Concept image for the game's logo.

In attendance were Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo of America Reggie Fils-Amie, Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto, and longtime Zelda game producer Eiji Aunoma. The attitude of the room seemed hushed as only about a dozen or so press personnel were present, though the tone of the four key speakers was equally muted. The reason became apparent when they mentioned that sales of the Legend of Zelda franchise had slipped past a point of salvaging and as a result they were putting the franchise on an indefinite hiatus upon completion of the new title directly following Skyward Sword.

With this doom and gloom in mind, Fractured Timelines was shown off for the Nintendo Wii, utilizing the same engine seen in Skyward Sword, though with an art style far darker than either Skyward Sword or Twilight Princess. Carrying on the notion of basing each game’s style off a famous artist, as Skyward Sword is based off Paul Cezanne and impressionist art in general, Fractured Timelines is inspired by Vincent van Gogh, drawing upon a much darker and abstract palette than the series has ever seen before.

One of two concept pieces shown, this one featuring what appears to be a reappearance of the Wind Fish.

Not much was shown other than a few concept pieces showing what may or may not be the Wind Fish (last seen from Link’s Awakening), and a city spread out in front of Link, though the name of the city hasn’t been spelled out quite yet (speculation is that this is Hyrule in the near-future).

The big question, beyond the reason behind shelving the series, was where this game fits into the timeline, if anywhere. Aunoma stepped forward to field this question, saying that, “Given the scope of the plot, you could say [it] fits into the timeline any and everywhere.” What does this mean? Well, with a name like “Fractured Timelines” and the reappearance of the Wind Fish, there’s a high chance that the game will rely on either time travel or parallel dimensions, a theory that already exists within the Zelda community thanks to the end of Ocarina of Time.

Shigeru Miyamoto was eager to talk about some of the new items we could expect to see, mentioning things like the “Acrobat Gloves,” which gave Link the ability to swing from ledges and such; the “Magnetic Gloves,” an item that lets you push and pull certain objects in the room; and the “Friction Boots,” similar to the Pegasus Boots from previous titles but with a twist that allows them to catch fire in order to solve certain puzzles. You could tell Miyamoto wanted to say more, but he just couldn’t give away all the details, otherwise, as Reggie stepped up and said, “There wouldn’t be anything worth keeping secret.”

The plot itself wasn’t given away, though when I asked if any characters would be returning from previous games, Iwata laughed and blurted out “Midna!” before anyone could stop him. The small group laughed as the four regained their composure before Aunoma reiterated a previous claim that if enough fans wanted Midna back, then they’d absolutely put her in the game.

The other piece of concept art shown. The city hasn't been confirmed to be Hyrule, but your guess is as good as mine.

As to the release date, it is a ways off with a summer 2014 goal currently set, though for a project that’s meant to send off a series as long-winded as The Legend of Zelda, that date could very well be pushed back. Another reporter asked about the possibility of the game appearing on the next home console, only to get the response from Reggie of, “We have no plans of a new console past the Wii at this very moment, so the chances of it being ported is unlikely.”

I’m pretty sad to hear that the Zelda franchise has been given a definite ending point, but if this means one last great title for the series, it should be worth it. Keep your eyes peeled and your ears open for something new. In the meantime, leave a comment and let me know how you feel about the whole experience. Are you excited? Nervous? Disappointed? Leave a comment and let me know. In the meantime, I have to go pre-order Final Fantasy VII for the PS3.

Want more posts on Zelda? Check these out:

-My 10 Favorite Zelda Characters

-Zelda: A Retrospective Part 1

-Let’s Think Deep: Schrodinger’s Zelda

My heart remains with the NES even after 20 years.

Just when my gaming reached its darkest time

When the Wii was announced I was excited about gaming again. After going hardcore with the NES, the PC and the Playstations over a 15 year period, I was burned out. I wanted something new. The Wii gave me an excuse to get excited about gaming again. I was all about the “get up and play” experience that the Wii promised. I played the demos in the stores and in early 2006 a Wii was mine.

For once I was a part of the cool crowd. The Wii was the first console I had purchased at launch. I usually waited until the first price drop to buy a new console but I was itching to enjoy games again so I got up early one morning and found a lonely Wii at Meijer. From that day on for the next nine months I was a Wii addict. I hit more tennis balls and bowled more strikes than I care to remember. I downloaded a few WiiWare games that were fun but after 14 months or so the Wii had fallen flat in my house, but why?

Unless you like Mario, you’re out of luck

There was certainly no shortage of Wii games. Regardless what you consider a “good” game, there was a large collection of titles, but it just so happens that 75% of those titles were first-party Nintendo titles like Mario, Zelda and Metroid, and I quickly discovered that…well…I just don’t like Nintendo games. Prior to the Wii, the last Mario game I played was Super Mario Bros 3. I hadn’t played any Zelda titles since 1987 and I never got into Metroid. I was not a fan of the core Nintendo franchises and in the case of the Wii, that’s about all there was to play if you wanted any quality.

The Wii had all the ingredients to be great but it just fell couldn’t deliver.

Since the last Nintendo I had prior the Wii was the NES, I was expecting a lot of good, third-party games. Given that the Wii had some cool controls and more features than any previous Nintendo console, why shouldn’t it be host to a ton of great games? Even with the few games I enjoyed, the whole Wii experience did tell me once and for all what games I really liked playing, and they weren’t Nintendo games. The only hope the Wii then had was the WiiWare and Virtual Console. However, thanks to emulators, I could play any old console game for free.. Furhtermore, the WiiWare titles didn’t have demos and I do my best not to buy a game sight un-played, even for $10. After the novelty wore off, there wasn’t much redeeming value in the Wii.

I’m just not a Nintendo kid anymore

After three years of disappointment from the Wii, I got an Xbox 360 and it did what I thought the Wii should have done; deliver great arcade gaming experiences. The Wii’s failure told me indefinitely that I am an arcade gamer. I wanted short bursts of intense gaming action, and unless I wanted Mario, Zelda or a mini-game extravaganza, the Wii was not going give me that experience. Believe me, I tried to make the Wii work for me. I wanted to see my investment succeed but no matter how hard I tried, it just didn’t satisfy.

For better or for worse, the Wii exposed me for the gamer I was in light of the gamer I thought I was or the gamer I wanted to be. In the end, if that’s all the Wii has given me then I guess I should be thankful. I thought the Wii was going to be a different Nintendo, but I should have known better. Shame on me. The Wii may have broken sales records and is responsible for bringing a new audience to gaming, but this is one gamer that the Wii lost and Nintendo will probably never regain. If it’s all the same to you, I’ll just stick with my NES and keep trying to finish Battletoads.

Want more thoughtful introspections on video games? Check these articles out:

-I Get Your Genre: First-Person Shooters

-Let’s Think Deep: The Mind of a Fanboy

-5 Arcade Cabinets I’d Like to Own

It certainly looks colorful enough. Is that all it takes to make a decent sports title?

I’ve talked about Mario’s outings via the sports medium before, touching on how golf and tennis have treated him great, soccer has been pretty cool, and baseball isn’t really his thing. Mario Sports Mix delivers not one but four sports at once, blowing away any dedicated sports titles in pure number but failing next to Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games (Mario Sports Mix is at least better than those two). In the package are volleyball, hockey, basketball, and dodgeball. Among them there are no real standouts for best sport since they’re all essentially the same game strategy-wise, i.e. keep mashing “shoot” and eventually you’ll score a point or two.

You may remember that Squeenix made a Mario sports title once before with the DS’ Mario Hoops 3-on-3. You may also remember that said title was okay at best. Squeenix used that DS game as the center of Mario Sports Mix, meaning they play exactly the same with three characters playing against three other characters. Final Fantasy characters are mixed in here and there, like a Moogle, a Black Mage, and a White Mage, but it’s something I can’t really care about. Those are Squeenix’s safe characters since they’re just a default image. Iconic, yes, but so are Toads and Koopas. People realize the Black and White Mages are the Toads and Koopas of Square-Enix, right? Despite this being a Mario game made by Square-Enix, characters from Super Mario RPG don’t make an appearance, so no Geno, no Mallow, no Axem Rangers, and to that I say, what a waste.

You also aren't really finding any stand-out choices from Mario's roster of characters, either.

Each character plays about the same with some being faster and some being stronger, but once you factor in special moves, everything sort of becomes a wash. Everyone’s animated well and they all sound like you’d expect, but it’s all things we’ve seen and heard before. These are flat characters in terms of personality, so it’s important to do something to lift them up from non-dimensional to interesting, and Square-Enix didn’t perform that duty here.

Mostly, if thus far your feelings are “This sounds like a game I’d want no interest in,” the reason is probably because your age is in the double digits or you’ve been playing games since you came out of your mother’s womb. Mario Sports Mix is made exclusively for the younger audience with controls that have zero depth (albeit the controls work for what they need to), so if you’ve come to enjoy games with substance, this is one instance where you won’t find any.

No fist-fights in hockey? Even Blades of Steel had that critcal gameplay element down right.

Were Squeenix to title it Mario Sports Party Mix, it’d be a little more accurate. This is a game meant to be played with a group of at least two other players, mostly because the computer AI is pitifully brain-dead when on your team, whereas the enemy AI yo-yos from “faceroll” to “rolfrape” pretty much any time the computer feels like switching its game up. There are some additional minigames thrown in, but even with those there isn’t much that will call you back for even a second visit to Mario’s gaggle-o-sports.

To recap, the graphics and sound are good, the controls are simplistic, but the game doesn’t do anything really innovative or original, delivering a title that will under deliver to even the youngest of players who may have a superior game like Super Mario Galaxy 2 or Mario Power Tennis. Heck, even Mario Party 8 has vastly more to do and to come back to. Mario Sports Mix isn’t a cash-in, but it’s clearly not meant for anyone but Mario’s youngest or newest fans. Everyone else will probably find themselves too bored to care.

At the very least, we can check three new sports off Mario's list. Football's all that's left.

Want more game reviews? Check these out:

-Why I’m Never Going To Space: A Review of Dead Space 2

-Little Changes, Big Smiles: A Review of Little Big Planet 2

-Not Quite An Epic Wi9n: An Epic Mickey Review

The Good

You'll be hard pressed to find a more colorful title anywhere else.

Can we not just take a moment and celebrate the return of the platformer? Super Mario Galaxy 2, Metroid: Other M, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, Donkey Kong Country Returns. Man, I am a happy platforming camper! Let’s dissect those titles just a bit.

First off, Super Mario Galaxy 2 was and still is my choice for 2010 Game of the Year. I’m even going so far as to say that it’s my favorite Mario game, period. Hefty claims, sure, but I was so, so pleased with the final product that it’s hard for me not to sing its endless praises. You get your money’s worth from Galaxy 2, and while a lot of people keep complaining that it’s just more of the same from the first Galaxy, what the hell are you talking about? The basics are the same, but there are new elements added and over 95% of the game is entirely new. If you love Mario, you’ll probably love Galaxy 2. If you hate Mario, duh, you’ve been hating on Galaxy 2 for the worst part of 2010 and need to just step aside and enjoy whatever game you like instead. This is just MY favorite.

Metroid: Other M is mainly positive but what people have been talking about most is the stupidest aspect from the game: Samus talks. A lot. I’m of the camp that Samus absolutely should be allowed to talk, but not very much. No, it doesn’t ruin the game, but there are some elements that the Japanese team from Team Ninja fumbled pretty bad. Samus’ reasoning for running around the game depowered? Her superior officer, a guy named Adam, hasn’t okayed certain powers yet. Yikes. Samus, one of the strongest examples of a female not used like an idiot in video games, runs around in lava because her male superior said she couldn’t turn her heat suit on. That’s just, yikes. Otherwise the rest of the game is perfectly solid. But, ugh, can we get a collective facepalm here? *collective facepalm* Thank you.

With Kirby’s Epic Yarn, the emphasis was placed more on creating a game based around fun rather than a challenge. It was impossible to die in any level, making a handful of hardcore fans turn away, but those that stayed got a chance to see the Wii shine as a graphical marvel. Why? Because everything really, truly looks like it’s made of yarn.

Donkey Kong Country Returns is the near opposite of Kirby with platforming segments that’ll make you want to punch your co-op partner right in the face. Thankfully, Retro Studios pulled off a perfect recreation of the style from the original Donkey Kong Country games, making for so many good times.

By the way, thank you for bringing minecarts back. I appreciate that, I really do.

And while I didn’t do a review or anything of it (don’t ask me why, I must be a bad editor), Monster Hunter Tri sold exactly one gazillion copies and has quickly become the most-played title on the Wii. So good job Monster Hunter! Keep up that…monster hunting I guess.

In the DS department, holy cow, can we say Dragonquest IX and Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver? Two massively successful RPG’s both attuned to the DS sensibilities of simple gameplay and deep, lengthy adventures with craptons to do. Both games can easily reward you with hours in the abundance of hundreds worth of gameplay. You’d hardly have a reason to buy any other titles. Except Super Scribblenauts. You should have bought that one, too.

Hey, our good buddy Akira Toriyama! I get get behind this!

The Bad

So the big letdowns from Nintendo this year sort of come down to what they didn’t do. The Wii’s sales have begun to take a heavy downward slide, and while I could go on and on about how hardware sales don’t really mean much, the basic gist is that the Wii has hit its peak. Why don’t we have a Wii HD? I have no clue, but yet another year without one just gives ammunition to graphical nuts that demand every game look as amazing as possible, otherwise they have no reason to play it.

In addition to the omission of a new main console update, Nintendo has continued to do a really, really sucky jobs promoting 3rd party developers on the system. There have been some great games released for the system, such as Masamura The Demon Blade, and too few people ended up playing it to reward the developer with a reason to make another title for the Wii any time soon. You may argue that it’s not Nintendo’s job to promote 3rd party titles, but keep in mind that Microsoft and Sony do that all the freaking time and as a result, sales go up on their systems and on the games promoted. Nintendo is just shooting themselves in the foot with 3rd party developers at this point. Anyone remember what happened in the GameCube era? We got a lot of good Nintendo titles, Resident Evil 4, and not much else. All because Nintendo was being stubborn.

My point here with Nintendo’s “bad” category is that while they didn’t do anything inherently wrong this year (thankfully they already got their stupid motion control system release out of the way), they didn’t particularly do anything to inspire confidence that their console titles will be much to look forward to in the future. Also, yet another year they haven’t hired me as a Localization Writer/Editor. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!

C'mon Reggie, you know I'm gold with a keyboard!

Somewhere In Between

With Nintendo, they usually just shift toward a definite “Good” and a definite “Bad.” Of the games that came out this year that fall somewhere in the middle, Epic Mickey sort of defines the middle ground. It isn’t a bad game by any stretch of the term, but it also isn’t quite the title people were hoping it would be. Plus, Warren Spector started griping about people griping about the camera, and that just bugs me. A bad camera is a bad camera, no matter what. Deal, Warren.

What's all this "we" business all of a sudden?

Another Not Quite Bad, Not Quite Good title was the Wii remake of GoldenEye. This was supposed to be the exalted return of the FPS to a Nintendo console but it turned into a big heavy “meh.” You can certainly do worse, but it’s not even interesting enough to mention more than what I just did.

Finishing off the Somewhere In Between are Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Crystal Bearers and No More Heroes 2, both titles that have their fanbases but both titles that I completely forgot existed since the beginning of the year. But hey, go play those if you feel inclined. They’re probably in the cheap games pile by this point, so you have nothing to lose.

Looking Ahead

Where Nintendo really hit the hardest is their lineup for next year. I’m sad they have no plans for a better home console (announced anyway), but I am getting a 3DS at launch even if I have to give up a lung, a kidney, and a testicle. Might as well since Nintendo has me by the balls so frequently.

Anyway, enough of that imagery for you, the 3DS had demos for a new Kid Icarus title, a new Paper Mario title, a remake of both Star Fox 64 and Ocarina of Time, possibly a new Metal Gear Solid game, and perhaps the most impressive graphical feat, a Resident Evil title that’s sure to make a lot of those aforementioned graphics nuts very, very pleased. Damn do I want a 3DS.

Well, I'm a happy if not hypocritical camper.

The Wii doesn’t really have anything new I’m hoping for other than Skyward Sword, the new Zelda game, though that assumes it doesn’t get pushed back as usual to make room for…actually I’m not sure why Zelda games get pushed back so frequently. Make with the new Zelda titles already! Dance, monkey, dance!

Oh, and lastly, new Pokemon games. The 5th generation is already out in Japan, but the US will be getting Pokemon Black & White in the early months of 2011, so keep an eye out for when those come out and dominate the sales charts yet again.

What sort of rating does Nintendo get this year? I’m a diehard fan, so of course I’m handing Nintendo its A’s like I fixed the test in its favor. From a business standpoint though, Nintendo is scraping by with a D, which means it’s passing but it’d have to retake the course for credit toward its major. Simply, Nintendo needs to make friendly with the 3rd party developers as soon as it possibly can, otherwise it’ll be all alone again and we’ll have to watch as Microsoft gobbles the market (yeah, eat it Sony fanboys!).

Want more undying love for nintendo? Check out these articles:

-Let’s Think Deep: The Great Zelda Schism

-Smash Bros: A Retrospective

-Tips From a Grandmaster: Super Mario Galaxy 2

I'm sold on the concept, but does it have any substance?

For those not aware, Epic Mickey is the brainchild of Warren Spector, and by “brainchild,” I mean “twisted experiment.” The project got a lot of press a while back when promotional and concept art pieces surfaced that showed the direction the aesthetic would be taking; namely, the world of Disney never looked so messed up. Things were promising with the only facts known being that the game would star Mickey and it would require him to travel around a version of Disney Land that even Tim Burton would look at and go, “Hmm, maybe a bit on the dark side, ya think?”

Now that the game is out we know what the whole buzz was about. I got to play the title at PAX this year and quickly dismissed it for a few reasons I’ll get into later. What is perfectly clear now is what Epic Mickey’s strength is: The story will be enough to power you through any of the game’s less-favorable aspects.

I suppose any time someone makes Mickey look like the bad guy, they're moving in a step toward the right direction.

Oswald the Rabbit, a long-forgotten Disney creation, is the king of a place called “The Wasteland.” Mickey gets pulled into this strange location and encounters a handful of other Disney characters that for one reason or another aren’t really remembered anymore. At its core, the story rests upon the concept of dragging Mickey into an abstract World of Disney and forcing him to come face-to-face with characters he greatly overshadowed. If that concept sounds fascinating to you, congrats, you’re probably already sold on the game as a whole, so don’t even worry about the next part I’ll be discussing.

As a gameplay experience, Epic Mickey is about as innovative as you’d expect a half-2D/half-3D platformer to be. For much of the game you’ll run around quasi-familiar locations with a paintbrush that can shoot either paint or thinner, allowing you to alter the landscape by either adding something that wasn’t previously there or by removing something entirely. This aspect, at the very least, allows for exploration and experimentation to occur. Kids will love this massive helping of free roaming, as will the collectors inside some of the older gamers. But to the rest of us, the gameplay crutch Epic Mickey leans so heavily upon will be repetitive and superficial at best, and downright boring at worst.

It does look fantastic in the graphics department, even though people will still complain about the lack of an HD Wii.

In terms of a platformer, the controls aren’t awful. When I played at PAX I opted to play a 2D level and after dying a bunch of times at a really uninteresting and downright boring section of the level, I just set the controller down and walked away. Some people will really love the platforming. Given some time to acclimate myself to it I might be inclined to agree with them. As is stands now, meh, I’ve played better.

Epic Mickey is a tough game to look at and offer a review. As a concept it’s fantastic. Getting to see Disney characters from the long-long ago is a treat and the idea of Mickey having to face these forgotten creatures is a hauntingly creative idea, even more so when you think that Disney greenlighted this project in the first place. But when viewed from a gameplay standpoint it doesn’t match up to the superior Nintendo titles released this year such as Super Mario Galaxy 2, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, or Donkey Kong Country Returns. Parents looking for a good game to purchase for their kid’s Christmas morning can do a lot worse though, so more power to them if they see Mickey and feel it’s a safe option. In this case they’re entirely correct.

Want more game reviews? Check these out:

-The Missing Link: A Review of Donkey Kong Country Returns

-Nixon’s Back Baby: A Call of Duty: Black Ops Review

-Platforming Served Well Done: A Review of Super Meat Boy

It's about darn time DK returned to true platforming. Welcome back my friend.

Donkey Kong Country Returns is exactly what it sounds like in every sense of the word. Donkey Kong returns with Diddy Kong, both absent from true platforming since Donkey Kong 64, as well as the Donkey Kong Country spirit, last seen in 2D over 10 years ago on the SNES. Everyone was sort of skeptical when Nintendo sent Retro to work on Metroid Prime, but that turned out fantastic. And wouldn’t you know it, they did the same thing with Donkey Kong and made an excellent game.

Whereas Kirby’s Epic Yarn ended up being a game where difficulty wasn’t the central force, Donkey Kong Country Returns will have you screaming in fury at your own shortcomings regarding your platforming ability. DKC Returns is hard. Very hard from what I’m gathering. And good, because I’m fresh off of Super Meat Boy, so I like my platforming hard and my apes of the aggravating variety, whatever that means.

At the very least, there's too much fun stuff going on to make you too discouraged.

As you’d expect, Donkey Kong’s bananas have been stolen by another group of complete fools, this time Tikis instead of Kremlings. I’m sad to see the evil crocodiles absent here, but it does free up a lot for level and enemy variety. Besides, the Kremlings’ story is done. Time for something fresher.

And despite being touted as a complete return to form, there’s a lot of new bundled up in here. The highlight for me is the use of two planes of action where, at times, DK is hurled into the background and back to the foreground. It’s a simple concept, but it works great here. Each level is incredibly detailed with an abundance of things going on everywhere. It’s not going to win any graphical contests since the graphics aren’t pushing any boundaries, but it looks beautiful as a Donkey Kong Country game.

It also sounds like you’d expect a DKC game to sound like with a handful of remixed themes and new music that fits in perfectly with the aesthetic. Controls, too, feel good. You usually won’t have reason to blame the game for lost lives, even if you’re forced to use some waggle controls here and there. Why the basic roll attack was delegated to flicking the Wiimote is an odd choice, but oh well, can’t win ‘em all.

Plus, there are still giant animals popping up everywhere for the heck of it.

Continuing the trend of Nintendo platformers, there is a Super Mode in place here should you fail too often. Die enough times in a level and a silver Kong will appear to assist you by just beating the level, though it won’t technically count and he certainly won’t pick up any bonuses. You’re on your own for bonuses, which are thankfully plentiful just like in the old games. While you can speed through the main game relatively fast, collecting everything will be what keeps you around longer than the price tag would suggest.

As mentioned before, Diddy Kong joins DK again, though you can’t play just as Diddy unless you’re playing co-operatively with another player. Basically, Diddy just adds two extra hearts to your life meter and allows you to hover for short periods of time using his rocket barrel. The good news with co-op is that it works a lot smoother than New Super Mario Bros Wii, i.e. the levels were built with two players in mind.

And who wouldn't want to share this with a friend?

I can’t stress how well Retro nailed DKC with Returns. There’s not enough bad to complain and too much good to come up with interesting things to say. If you own a Wii and love platformers, this has probably been a very good year for you thus far. Super Mario Galaxy 2, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, Metroid: Other M, and now Donkey Kong Country Returns? Someone at Nintendo must be looking out for us. The point here is that DKC Returns is absolutely worth your time and money, so go buy it as soon as possible. Retro Studios does good work, so let’s just hope they get another Nintendo property soon. Star Fox anyone?

Want more game reviews? Check these out:

-Nixon’s Back Baby: A Review of Call of Duty: Black Ops

-Platforming Served Well Done: A Review of Super Meat Boy

-More Like a Tall Tale: A Review of Fable III

This thing should be harmless, right?

Those of you somehow not aware, the Kinect is Microsoft’s new “peripheral” for the Xbox 360, an elaborate camera that can track the player’s movements and translate them into on-screen controls. Basically, the goal is for the player to be the controller. In theory, this is fairly harmless. In practice, this is little more than a gimmick, just like the Sony Move and the Nintendo Wii’s motion controls before it.

I’ve already written about motion controls, so I don’t want to repeat a lot of what I said back then, but right now we’ve moved past simple motion controls. Just look at the big Wii titles this year: Donkey Kong Country Returns, a 2D sidescroller, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, a 2D sidescroller, and Metroid: Other M, a 2D sidescroller. All use minimal motion controls. Even the biggest title of the year, Super Mario Galaxy 2, my personal pick for Game Of The Year, uses the motion controls only as a means to enhance the game’s solid controls. You still move Mario around with the control stick and jump with the A button, but you can use the Wiimote’s cursor to point at Starbits to suck them up or flick the Wiimote to perform an extra spin jump. Overall, the game isn’t hinged on the controller being capable of motion controls.

The Kinect, however, by nature forces every game to cater to the lack of a controller. Joy Ride, a launch title for the new hardware, is a kart-racing simulator similar to Mario Kart. You steer it by putting your hands out and pretending there’s a steering wheel in front of you. You can throw power-ups when you grab them and push your body forward to perform boosts, but by default there is no way to brake. Therefore, the game keeps a perpetual foot on the pedal and hits the gas for you. The reviews I’ve read say that the game works most of the time, but the controls aren’t nearly tight enough to stay competitive next to other excellent racing games that already exist. If given a normal controller, Joy Ride wouldn’t be worth playing at all. This is the definition of a gimmick. The only purpose to play the game is to control it just your body and after that initial “Wow I’m controlling this with my body!” reaction wears off, then what?

It also helps if you're getting paid to jump around.

A number of other Kinect launch titles seem to have the “Simpsons Did It” syndrome, though in this case The Simpsons are replaced with Nintendo. Kart racer, sports simulator, random collection of mini games, fitness trainer, animal companion, crappy Sonic title. They’re all here. It feels like only a matter of time before we see Kinect Music. Simply, the Kinect isn’t treading any new ground here other than removing the controller from the equation.

So what does this mean for gamers who don’t care about novelty titles and want more of the same style of games we prefer? Mostly, nothing. We don’t have to purchase a Kinect to keep playing the newest Halo, Mass Effect, Gears of War, Assassin’s Creed, or what have you. But Microsoft has made it abundantly clear that we aren’t the primary focus of the system anymore. We need look no further than the recent dashboard update to see just who the primary target is now: The Kinect Audience.

FYI: This is the Kinect Audience.

The very first thing that the system now does is boot with the new Kinect logo sequence, doing away with the previous Xbox 360 logo sequence for swirlies and the Kinect branding. Next, despite being a user who has blatantly played numerous titles for the system (as the system can see since I’ve racked up a healthy Gamerscore), I’m forced to sit through a brief tutorial on how to move through the menu. No, it’s not a huge thing, but yes, it is insulting to have my Xbox assume I have no clue what the A and B buttons do. It’s condescending and once more demonstrates the direction Microsoft is taking their system: Away from me. I’m not impressed with a controller-less interface. I don’t get excited at the thought of waving my hand to move a menu screen when I can instantly perform the same action with a button press.

Where does the system go from here? This is a question I’m trying to figure out but I can’t quite answer it just yet. All the basic game types have been covered, save for just more shovelware, so what new games will we see? I’ve read from a few different places that Microsoft plans to make games that utilize the Kinect but also use the standard Xbox 360 controller, a plan that makes zero sense to me since the whole point of Kinect was to eliminate the controller.

Here are the types of genres I can think of that the Kinect can’t currently work with: First Person Shooters, Third Person Shooters, Sports titles such as Madden (unless it’s just a series of mini games), Racing games (Joy Ride and Sonic Riders demonstrated the massive limitations of the hardware), Tight Platformers, Adventure Titles (or any title that requires copious amounts of free-roaming and backtracking). RPG’s, and God of War-style Hack-n-Slash titles. Everything I’ve mentioned requires the player to have precise controls or at the very least the ability to freely move their character. The Kinect hasn’t shown that it will allow that, meaning that every Kinect experience requires the player be firmly rooted in one spot or put their movement on rails.

Seriously, I thought the Wii already showed what sort of limitations motion controls have. Why do we want to limit them further?

Still, there are a few genres that could really benefit from this: Real Time Strategy titles (assuming you can ever be torn away from the winning combo of the Mouse/Keyboard), Fighting Games (if the tech can keep up with the players properly), Boxing Titles (once more, if the tech can keep up), and any title that makes the on-rails aspect enjoyable. I could conceivably see an on-rails title where the player has to perform specific quicktime actions to advance in the game being something really fun, but thus far that doesn’t exist.

It’s important that we look back in time a few decades, back to the 90’s, when Sega used to make video game consoles. While they had huge success with the Genesis and some decent success with the Game Gear, their entire structure began collapsing when they introduced the Sega CD, then the Sega 32x, two add-ons that required you to already own a Genesis in order to play them. To buy a Sega CD meant buying two systems, and then only a handful of games were made for use with the CD technology. The stats were even worse for the 32x, and worse still for games that used both the Sega CD and the 32x. In just a few short years, Sega found itself stretched far too thin and ultimately imploded, resulting in one last chance with the Dreamcast.

From where I’m sitting, the Kinect is just a re-imagining of the 32x, an addition to an already great system. The Xbox 360 is perfectly fine, but now that the Kinect is being pushed as the Xbox’s primary function, everything will be retooled to work best with Kinect. Resources that once were spent making the games for gamers that made the Xbox a success in the first place will be gutted to shift focus to Kinect support. It just makes me sad since it feels like Microsoft is coming out and saying, “Look, thanks for buying our products and all, but we found another group of people to suck money from, so GTFO.”

What this also means to me is that instead of innovating, the video game industry has clearly shown that it wants to go in the direction of “Making Toys.” The Wii came out and while Sony and Microsoft laughed at it, Nintendo just said something to the effect of, “Hey, we’re just doing our own thing, so buy our thing and then worry about the other two systems later.” Fast-forward and the Wii easily outsold the other two combined. Now that we’re at the point where the next systems should be revealed, and I for one am glad they’ve decided not to start the console cycle over again, we’re instead told, “Hey, remember that whole motion control fad? Us too!” Even Nintendo has seemed to figure out that it was just a fad, as I mentioned with their shift in direction toward reviving classic titles, plus the 3DS, a system that’s building itself on classic games over anything else.

So you're telling me for $250 I get a new gimmick and the chance to play tons of my favorites plus new titles? Okay, where do I hand you my money?

Basically, the Kinect does not and will not lend itself to precise controls. At this point in my gaming career I’ve developed fairly good skills and excellent reflexes, so I need my titles to respond instantly and correctly to whatever I input. Any title that doesn’t allow for this precision is only wasting my time, hence why I hated the DS Zelda games. Microsoft needs to answer this question for me: “Why would I want to play a game that has sloppy controls when a controller works perfectly fine?” Right now the answer is a resounding, “Because we told you to.” It’s a gimmick, pure and simple, and a gimmick doesn’t have a lasting appeal.

The Wii’s market is already established, so if Microsoft can poach some of the casual market before they grow tired of gimmicks, so be it. Nintendo’s success with the Wii gets overshadowed with the “They tapped into the casual market!” excuse. Yes, the Wii hit a market that didn’t previously exist, but you’re forgetting another portion of the Wii market that doesn’t exist for the Kinect: Nintendo loyalists. I bought a Wii not because it was the wave of the future but because it would provide me with Mario, Zelda, and Metroid games. The Kinect will not give me any titles I care about, so why should I purchase it? I already own a 360, so I have no need for the gimmicky addition. The Wii’s market and the Kinect’s market are not identical, no matter what anyone would have you believe.

But this is all just me talking. Clearly I’m not the target for the Kinect, but are you? I want to know what you think on the matter. Are you excited for the new hardware? Can you think of great uses for the technology? Leave a comment and let me know. In the meantime, I have more Super Meat Boy to play, and that requires absolute precision with controls, so no Kinect for me.

Want to keep Thinking Deep? Then check these articles out:

-Let’s Think Deep: The Great Zelda Schism

-Let’s Think Deep: The Virtual Utopia

-Let’s Think Deep: The Moral Of The Story

-Let’s Think Deep: Rethinking Remakes

-Let’s Think Deep: Achieving Perfection

Oh boy! Yarn dragon! Sold!

The Kirby series has always and will always be full of hardcore fun gameplay with super inoffensive graphics. Okay, maybe inoffensive is the wrong word. How about…super cute? Yes, the graphics are super cute. Always. This turns a lot of gamers off of the series as they dismiss anything with abundant color and a general tone of “happy” as “for kids.” Kirby is absolutely for kids. Why? Because kids like to have fun. Therefore, I guess I’m still considered a kid. Sign me up for more Kirby because these games are great.

As the title suggests, Kirby’s Epic Yarn places you in control of a Kirby made of yarn in a yarn world full of patchwork and strings of yarn everywhere. And you know what? The game looks exactly like it’s made of yarn and patchwork. Wii titles tend to suffer from a lack of processing power, so when a title comes along and figures out a proper way to skirt around these limitations, and even more so, it does it well, that’s something to be applauded. Kirby’s Epic Yarn succeeds as a graphical wonder, rivaling all the high-budget titles on the PS3 and 360 pushing “gritty realism.” Kirby isn’t pushing the gritty part, but real, yes, it really looks like you’re controlling real yarn and walking on real cloth.

That looks pretty danged sweet right there.

Nintendo first-party titles somehow seem to understand the importance of controls that work for their system, and from what I played at PAX, Kirby yet again handles perfectly. While he doesn’t have his signature inhale/copy move, he does show off a handful of transformations such as a parachute, a car, and a fish-like thing. By now you’ve also seen footage of the Kirby-tank, so I won’t go into much detail about that other that to say it’s cool and it’s fun.

That’s the best part of what I played: Kirby’s Epic Yarn is fun. The controls don’t hinder the experience at all, and there is no health bar. Rather, you earn points for playing well and each time you’re injured you lose points, showering them around you similar to the Sonic games. The entire game is controlled with a single Wiimote held like an NES controller (this seems to be a current favorite control-style for recent Wii games. Wonder why?), and because of that the game stays very simple. From this simplicity comes the ability to just enjoy yourself.

What makes this all even better is the ability to play simultaneous co-op. Player 1 controls Kirby and player 2 controls a new character named Prince Fluff (imagine a blue Kirby with a little crown). Kyle joined me in a co-op game and for the most part we found it worked really well. He was really happy while playing the game since he felt it was fun and simple, as I’ve been saying. He usually laments his gaming abilities, but playing co-op on Kirby’s Epic Yarn got him excited to snag this game when it comes out so that he can play it with his girlfriend, another gamer who laments her skills. Kyle and I managed to breeze through the demo, which consisted of two levels and a boss battle.

Also, in co-op, you don't get two Kirby-tanks. One person drives and one person controls the arm. And it actually worked pretty well.

The downside is the speed. Kirby’s Epic Yarn is by nature slower than most games these days. Kirby doesn’t bolt across the screen; he meanders at his own pace. The levels we played weren’t particularly frantic, save for the Kirby-tank section, and nothing really had us stopping to take a breath. The boss battle was the part that showed the main shortcomings of co-op though. If you try to use the attack button to pick things up with your yarn lasso, you can pick up your partner, carry them around, and throw them wherever you’d like. The problem here is that if you’re fighting a boss and it’s shooting fire at you that you’re required to pick up with your yarn lasso, you’ll usually grab your partner and toss him into the fire attacks instead. While this didn’t break the experience, it did sort of frustrate us a bit. We still managed to beat the boss without much difficulty but we didn’t feel too super when we did it.

If you need a yes or no recommendation, yes, Kirby’s Epic Yarn is a fun game and absolutely worth a purchase when it’s released on October 17th. Don’t expect an extremely difficult challenge though. If you prefer first-person shooters and extreme violence, this isn’t a game you’ll enjoy. I’ll enjoy it, as will Kyle, but that’s just because we like having fun while playing video games. Usually anyway.

Want more game previews? Check these out:

-No Freaking Way: A Duke Nukem Forever Preview

-The Monkey Comes Back: A Preview of Donkey Kong Country Returns

-The Force Unleashed 2 Preview: The Same, but Different

Oh don't look so perplexed. You just gained the ability to speak, that's all.

As you’ve probably already heard, Metroid: Other M is developed by Team Ninja, the same developers behind Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive. You can rest easy knowing that Samus has not been sexualized past what she was already. You may be disappointed to learn that her other defining characteristic, staying silent, is completely done away with. She talks in cutscenes constantly, and apparently what she says is clichéd and obvious, as if she’s describing the scene like you were reading a book instead of watching it happen.

That seems to be a general complaint: The writing is dull and clichéd. It’s tricky because for a Metroid game to have Samus speak, you can’t just have “acceptable” dialogue for her. The consensus is Team Ninja couldn’t clear the bar for Samus’ character. They did soar right over the bar in terms of cutscenes though. The Wii’s processors must be spinning like crazy to keep up with whatever voodoo Team Ninja pulled off to craft cutscenes that look as nice as they do. Those alone might just be worth the $50 purchase.

Dang, that's pretty sick right there.

The other big question comes down to whether the controls are good or not. Fusing 2.5D platforming with some First Person Shooting, Metroid: Other M takes a huge risk. Just like Metroid Prime before it, Other M either meshes perfectly with the player or pushes them away completely. You’ll either love the new gameplay style or you’ll hate it. Yes, I’m being wishy-washy, but that’s what I’m reading from everywhere. Some people think the game plays great, others think it needs a tune-up. There have been multiple complaints about some of the FPS sections where the game forces you into the fixed camera point from Samus’ perspective until you can find whatever thing you’re supposed to find, a task multiple reviewers claim took them over ten minutes in places. So be warned about that.

Other than that, reviewers are looking favorably on this title due mostly to the graphics but also from the more-or-less solid gameplay. The cutscenes are regarded as the selling points and while Samus needs to hush up, the story is said to have some pretty good twists in the later half. This one will certainly be a love-it or leave-it game.

At the very least there is a ton of action.

But what do I think? I’m just happy that Team Ninja didn’t just put Samus in a bikini and parade her through some waterfalls, but I do wish she didn’t talk. I’m not going to be elitist and just not play Other M because of things I disagree with though since that’s just pointless. I’m sure I’ll love it when I play it, but Other M just means one thing I really hate: The Prime series is officially done. I want Retro Studios back at the helm of Metroid and I want to see what comes next. Metroid Prime 3 was too good a game to leave me hanging.

And that’s all there is to say about Metroid: Other M until I have it in my hands. The game isn’t terribly long, and the difficulty is said to be much simpler than previous Metroid games, so don’t feel too daunted by this one. Just don’t complain about the change of form. We’ve all been proven wrong in the past.

Want more game reviews? Check these out:

-Scott Pilgrim vs This Game Review: FIGHT!

-Wake Up And Smell The Puns: A Review of Alan Wake

-Outlaws to the End: A Review of Red Dead Redemption

Also, be sure to read the Metroid Retrospective as well!

Yes sir, times are good for gamers.

This year’s E3 was full of a lot of win, assuming you were a Nintendo fanboy such as myself. While some announcements were completely out of left field, others were pretty expected. Donkey Kong Country Returns was somewhere in the middle, having been leaked as a thing currently in development by Retro Studios not long before E3. Leakage aside, what really matters is, we get a new Donkey Kong Country game! What an exciting time we live in! So then, let’s take a look at what we know from the preview and what we suspect will be in the final product in a little segment we like to call, “Game Previews.” What? You expected something fancy?

Nothing Like That Retro Feel

What the previous DKC games had going for them was their ability to make memorable sidescrolling platform levels with their own signature charm and difficulty. I did a whole article on the three games, essentially declaring my love for them. Thankfully, when Retro Studios was asked to reinvent what Rare did with the originals, they got down to business making sure they made the game the fans wanted. This, blissfully, looks like that game.

Ooh, doesn't this just look sweet?

Thus far it appears that the main “gimmick” of the game, if it can be called that, is the use of very simplistic depth during gameplay, meaning most of the time you’ll be in the foreground but sometimes you’ll be forced to hop around in the background as well. This isn’t too complicated to deal with and has worked fairly well in games previous, such as, uh, okay, I can’t think of games where that happened off the top of my head, but they exist.

Also, we get to play as Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong again, and it really is about time. Interesting that a series called “Donkey Kong Country” only had one game where you could actually play as Donkey Kong. Strange. Anyway, instead of a one-hit-KO thing, you’ll get two hearts when you play and four if you find Diddy. Sadly, you won’t really be playing as Diddy as much as you’ll be teaming up with him to perform special moves and such. I can live with that though, because they made sure to bring back minecarts, and when minecarts are brought back, all is forgiven.

Shown: Forvigeness for any and everything.

There are some other things missing, though. Mainly, the Kremlings. Those are entirely gone. King K. Rool isn’t the Big Bad here, and that makes me a little sad. I’m not sure exactly why that decision came down the pipe, but no matter, I suppose it had to be done. Also gone are underwater levels since, according to the main developers at Retro, they would have made the game too slow. Good then, because underwater levels suck in every video game.

Right now we don’t know a whole lot more about the game. Animal buddies such as Rambi haven’t been shown, though developers at Retro have mentioned they know fans want the animals back, so there’s an extremely good chance we’ll see some of the more recognizable ones such as Squawks and Expresso come back. I wouldn’t mind seeing Winky return as well, but that’s just wishful thinking on my part.

And that’s pretty much all we know about Donkey Kong Country Returns. I know that it can be preordered from Amazon, and that it’s expected to come out before the end of this year. I’ll be asking for it for Christmas, but how about you? Any other DKC fans out there excited for this one?

Whoa, that looks pretty tight.

Do I love Mega Man? Yes I do. I even wrote about how much I loved Mega Man 2, specifically. Not long ago Capcom decided to bring the Blue Bomber back to his NES roots and copied the style of his original games exactly for Mega Man 9. Everything was just like it was on the NES, graphics, sounds, controls, and even screen-stutter if you really wanted the authentic experience. Mega Man 10 continues this trend, but is it any good?

New Game; Classic Look

In a word: Yes. Mega Man 10 is worth the money you’ll pay since Capcom actually does know a thing or two about making classic Mega Man games when they discover that such an action is rather profitable. Mega Man 9 decided that the best part of the Mega Man games was the difficulty, and Mega Man 10 seems to follow suit. You will die a heck of a lot, even if you’re a seasoned gamer. You’ll probably even have to resort to hoarding energy tanks just to beat the final boss. There just isn’t much sympathy to the non-hardcore gamer.

Except there is this time. Mega Man 10 has an Easy Mode that allows you to play the game with fewer enemies and covers over insta-death pits. The game still won’t be “easy,” but it will be “easier,” and definitely gives you a chance to get better with the controls and the level layouts. It’s nice to see a Mega Man game be a bit friendlier to those of us that enjoy Mega Man but don’t have the same patience our childhood selves had to sit in front of a TV dying all afternoon at a frustrating level.

A baseball-themed Robot Master? Meh, sure, go for it.

What’s actually new this time compared to the Easy Mode is that Proto Man is available to play as from the get-go instead of being downloadable content after release. That’s good to hear since I thought it was kind of lame to have to pay for something that really should have been in the game in the first place. So yes, it’s nice to see it here instantly. You can also download Bass as a playable character at some point though, so there’s something to keep you playing.

The new Robot Masters are the usual fare for the tenth installment with everyone focusing on Sheep Man as the clear standout much like Splash Woman was for Mega Man 9. The boss battles are fun, just as always, and the level design is challenging without being completely unfair, also just as always. This is how a game is designed for the old school fans out there. The story is pitiful, but at least the gameplay is solid.

You can’t do much better than Mega Man 10. It can be downloaded from WiiWare, Xbox Live Arcade, or the Playstation Network for $10, meaning you aren’t really out a whole bunch if you’d really like to play some good Mega Man. The extra Challenge Modes certainly sweeten the deal quite a hefty bit.

Remember, Leon has proven that Kung Fu is an acceptable defence against zombie-ish villagers.

If you’ve been following me on Twitter (which you should), you may have noticed that I’ve been playing Resident Evil 5. I’ll have a full article on that tomorrow but for now I’m more concerned with its predecessor, Resident Evil 4. RE4 is without question one of the best games of all time and easily within my top 10, if not top 5. Why was that? Well hold on because I’m about to tell you since RE4 is today’s Game You Should Have Played.

A Classic By Any Other Name

The Resident Evil series is regarded by many to have begun the survival horror genre in video games. The games themselves, while being classics, aren’t exactly what you’d consider fantastic. Characters are stiff, the camera is a pain to deal with, and the dialogue can be laughably awful. Despite all this, the series pushed forward as an overwhelming success for years to come with a few sequels, some prequels, and more remakes than I’d care to remember. Problem was, after a while the formula became somewhat tired and dated. Enter Resident Evil 4 to change all that.

And enter this thing to make you hate your life again.

RE4 takes Leon Kennedy, last seen in RE2, and sends him to a rural village in Spain, tasking him with rescuing the President’s daughter, Ashley. It’s simple enough, but within a few minutes Leon has explained the needed backstory of the series and fallen into a heck of a lot of trouble involving the local villagers being possessed by something called Las Plagas. They are not zombies, though you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference from a few feet away.

You don’t Need Much Backstory For a Game Like This

The story itself is nice since it takes the series and decides it doesn’t have to be in a mansion or Raccoon City at all. In fact, it doesn’t have to be anywhere near any of those things, nor anything relating to the Raccoon City Incident or the T-Virus. Wonderful. I went in to RE4 having no clue to the series’ story and that has made all the difference.

Sure it's cheap to use a rocket launcher against zombie-ish monks, but hey, they started it.

Also gone are the series’ rigid controls and camera. No more pre-rendered background to deal with, breaking way to allow Leon full roam of his space. The camera stays over his shoulder, a style used all over after RE4, and allows you to aim with a surprising amount of accuracy. This is where the series becomes less about survival horror and more about action horror, but I’m all in favor of such a shift. Let Silent Hill deal with the actual scary things; I’m fine with a gun that can do some damage if I need.

One of the other big contributors to the shift is the inclusion of Quicktime Events within actual Cut Scenes. You’ve heard me complain about Quicktime Events in numerous articles at this point, but RE4 was still early on in the use of such a game mechanic, especially in a Cut Scene. They were smooth and original for the time, and the knife fight scene is still one of the game’s highlights, but they never overstayed their welcome. They just ensured you were paying attention even when characters were talking.

No other game has completely reenergized a series the same way RE4 has. It was such a hit with critics and gamers, Capcom decided to break their promise with Nintendo to keep it a GameCube exclusive and ported it right over to the PS2. Naturally, as soon as the Wii showed up, RE4 found its way over to the new platform with updated controls and extras. There are even versions for the iPhone and the PC. Essentially, I’m telling you that you have no good excuse for not having played Resident Evil 4 unless you’re a kid since, yes, it is very gory. I had a heck of a time finding screenshots that didn’t contain extremely graphic violence, so thank me for that.

"Yes Ashley, please, step in that bear trap. That's real helpful."

Everything about RE4 is near perfect with everything it does. Sure, having to take care of Ashley is rather frustrating, especially when you get through a tough section only to accidentally knife her and get a Game Over. But otherwise the characters are enjoyable, the setting is eerie enough without getting too bogged down in itself, and you never feel cheated by the game at any point. Bosses are still fun and the difficulty is high but fair, plus there is heavy replay value due to unlockable weapons and such. Also, the Mercenaries mode just ate hours of my time.

I just can’t recommend RE4 enough. RE5 on the other hand…well that’s an article left for tomorrow.

Is the Wii a bad system? Let's Think Deep.

At this moment in time, the Nintendo Wii is set up to be known as the “winner” of the current console cycle due to the unexpected amount of sales and complete reversal from the previous console cycle. I for one couldn’t be happier for reasons I’ll get to eventually. Regardless of sales numbers, the Wii is nearly universally panned by gamers due to the high amount of shovelware populating the system. But does that make it a bad system? It got me thinking. What exactly makes a system good? Sounds to me like this would be a good opportunity for us to Think Deep. So Let’s, hmm?

“But The System Has So Many Bad Games”

The complaint I hear most often regarding the Wii has to do with the controls. Specifically, they don’t work. Publishers constantly release games that force the player to use either the Wiimote motion controls or even worse the Balance Board from Wii Fit that “works” about 25% of the time. This results in games that would otherwise end up being decent games turned into broken messes. It was a Godsend when Nintendo decided that Smash Bros Brawl would support GameCube controllers in addition to just about every other controller type they had. The complaint about controls is a valid one, but that doesn’t instantly mean the system is bad.

Right now we have the luxury of living in an age where there are three perfectly excellent systems to choose from. Even better is the effect the Internet has had on everything since reviews can come out before a game is even released, meaning that you know whether a game will be good or not. Think back to the time of the NES when the only system you could choose from was the NES. It wasn’t very simple to get reviews or news about specific games, so when you went to buy or rent a game, you did so almost entirely on the artwork and the description on the back of the box. How many NES games do you think were great? The NES was full of shovelware titles, as someone like the Angry Video Game Nerd can attest to, but I doubt anyone would ever call it a “bad system.”

Are you going to be the one to say the NES sucked? I don't think so.

Now we have the ability to know everything about a game before we even play it, plus there is an excess of reviewers out there contributing to the overall rating of a game (thankfully my silly little summaries aren’t counted in a game’s Metascore). The bad games get more press than they used to and the numbers we’re dealing with are heavily skewed. Simply put, the rating system isn’t perfect right now, but it does give us the ability to know more about our games in a way we didn’t have 20 years ago.

The Hardships of Luxury

So what does this mean for our friend the Wii? It means that everyone knows when a bad game comes out and gives the gaming community an opportunity to see the system’s shortcomings. The question remains though, “What makes a system good or bad?” Do bad games make a system bad? No, otherwise every system would be considered awful. As of now, all systems are roughly within the same general average game rating area between 65 and 75%, and that number is constantly shifting as new games come out. While the Wii may not be at the top of the list, it doesn’t mean it’s a crummy system.

The is the counter-argument for any Xbot speaking ill of the Wii.

Here’s the thing: People believe their favorite system is the best because it’s their favorite. What are your favorite games? If you love God of War and Metal Gear Solid, you probably believe that the PS3 is the best system and the other two are inferior. Huge on Halo and Gears of War? The 360 is clearly the best. Are you like me and love Mario and Zelda? How could the Wii not be the best system out right now? It’s all relative to what you like playing most.

To answer why I’m happy to see the Wii in first place right now, it all has to do with my favorite games. No, I don’t think the Wii is the best system out there, but I do consistently prefer it’s biggest and best games, such as Super Mario Galaxy, Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime 3, and especially Smash Bros Brawl. I’m ecstatic to hear that Nintendo’s doing so well because it means my favorite franchises will be around for a long time to come.

This is very much like the Console Wars of the early 90’s where it was either SNES or Genesis for the win. It didn’t matter what people said one way or the other about graphics or sound; it came down to whether you liked Sonic or Mario better and that was the decider. After the Genesis, Sega sort of lost its mind and ran everything that’s considered good about it into the ground. Sure, the Dreamcast was a nice glimmer, but it still failed due to Sega’s poor tactics in regards to marketing and just plain doing their fanbase justice. It’s only just now that they’ve announced Sonic 4, a game that fans have been telling them to make for over 10 years. I just can’t imagine the amount of agony a Sonic fan must have endured for over a decade, watching Mario fans get more or less exactly what they want while Sonic turns into a Werehog (which would mean “Man-hog” by the way).

Like him or not, this guy has ridiculous staying power.

The Year of The Usual Promises

2010 is promising to be a big one once again as Microsoft is releasing Project Natal and Sony is releasing whatever the heck its motion controller is called. If the Wii’s controls make it a bad system, why are its competitors, companies run by intelligent people, rushing to match the same “gimmick” that defines the system? Money, of course. The Wii has managed to bring in a share of the market that was previously untapped and created new gamers from the casual sector. If this means I have to deal with a few dozen shovelware titles so that I get a new Metroid this year, so be it.

It’s becoming very tiresome to hear every company or analyst decide that “2010 is the Year of the PS3” or the “Age of the Xbox” or whatever. Do systems ever have a year that is undeniably its year? Other than the Atari or the NES? And even if it has a good year, does it instantly make up for the previous years or any years to come? No, it’s just a gage for fans to based judgment off so that they can argue that their system is winning or losing or what have you. I love the Wii, but I’m currently playing tons of great games on the 360, and in a month I plan to spend an epic weekend with one of my best friends beating God of War III on the PS3. In the meantime, I still spend my nights playing my DS before bed.

So which system do I think is best? I couldn’t tell you. I can’t even decide which I enjoy playing the most. It comes down to my tastes at the time. I am plowing through game after game on the 360 because I missed out on a lot at the beginning of the console cycle, but I keep going back to my Wii to play Brawl every so often. Both systems have a valued place in my home, but I couldn’t tell you which is the better system. I think both have too many faults for me to consider either of them “the best,” but they’re nowhere close to “the worst.”

When Project Natal is released and has the typical smattering of titles built to demonstrate its capabilities and titles built to get money, will it ultimately decide the 360’s fate? No way. Fans will stick around and haters will claim the system is falling apart. It’s a cycle that will never end.

Has there ever been a system that you feel is perfect? For me, I was always happy with my GameCube. It was one of my favorite systems despite its lack of first-placeness. But what are your favorite systems and why? I loved my GameCube because I was addicted to the games and felt its titles were best suited for the sort of games I play. Still, that’s just me. I don’t think we’ll ever have a perfect system, but we can have systems that do what their fans need them to. Now it’s time to hear from the fans, so leave a comment about what makes a system good for you. Represent!

With that many colorful characters, how can this game go wrong? Answer: It doesn't.

Capcom has made a nice handful of games for their Capcom vs series over the past decade with Marvel vs Capcom 2 being one of their most beloved, generating an HD remake this past year. Japan saw the release of Tatsunoko vs Capcom last year as well, but the ability to release it anywhere outside of Japan was sketchy at best due to the problems with copyrights laws and who owns what from the Tatsunoko brand outside the land of the rising sun. We are fortunate that not only were these licensing issues sorted out with minimal lost of the original game, the US release has four new characters and all new art for each character ending. That’s good news.

The Real King of Fighters

What makes the Capcom vs games stand out among other fighting games, including Capcom’s own, is that they basically adhere to the same principles that make the Smash Bros game sell so dang well: Favorite characters fighting each other without any inherent story structure. Marvel vs Capcom had a huge collection of favorites from both sides of the equation, and Tatsunoko vs Capcom strikes yet another great balance between known characters and unknown characters to create a rather diverse roster to choose from. Ryu and Chun Li are there, as are Mega Man and Zero, but so are a handful of Tatsunoko’s best.

Oh right, you may still be unaware who Tatsunoko are. I’m still mostly unaware myself. Tatsunoko is one of Japan’s anime leaders and have been for quite a while, so the company has a heck of a lot of recognizable and loveable characters to choose from. You may not recognize any of them at first, but after playing a bit you’ll learn to love them.

If I had a dollar for every time I performed a slide kick to a guy in a bird costume...

That’s yet another benefit of the US version: it’s been rebalanced. Capcom took notice of how the game had been played and altered it just enough to fix anything that needed fixing, such as possible exploits for people to hit infinite combos. Balancing like that makes me happy, mostly because I find no fun when on the receiving end of an infinite combo. It’s even more important since an online feature has been added now, meaning you’ll thank Capcom when you aren’t getting your butt handed to you by some jerk that found a glitch or two to ruin the game with.

Tatsunoko vs Capcom is a smooth presentation. It’s a great fighter for the Wii and will do a lot of good to help people with Smash Bros addictions but no new outlets. Consider this your new option over Turtles Smash-Up.

Want more video game reviews? Check these out:

-Some Kind of Black Magic: A Review of Bayonetta

-The Blue Bomber Strikes Again: A Review of Mega Man 10

-Who Needs Heroes Anyway: A Review of No More Heroes 2

Most guys still consider "Professional Assassin" as a possible career choice someday, and this is why.

I love me some No More Heroes. I mentioned it was one of the 5 games you should own for the Wii. I was reluctant after playing the first game, but it got under my skin and decided to stay with me. I’m gearing up to replay the first game once more. Why is all this? Because No More Heroes 2 just came out and boy does it progress the franchise.

The plot to No More Heroes 2 is- wait, first, no kids for this game. It’s on the Wii but in no way does it act kid-friendly. There is Tarantino-levels of blood and violence here, an abundance of strong language, and an added emphasis on naughty things that kids shouldn’t know about. There’s your warning, parents. Keep the kids at bay.

No More Heroes, But Plenty of Style

So the plot has Travis Touchdown climbing his way to the top of the assassin ladder once more, this time starting at number 51, a nice reference to Suda 51, the game’s awesome creator. The fact that they took the number of assassins from 10 to 50 already has me excited since it means more fun to be had. I approve of that. Further add to my excitement the omission of the overworld area in place of an easy to navigate menu screen and instantly the game has taken the first’s great concept and perfected it. Kudos Suda 51. Kudos indeed.

What's good? Beam katanas. What's better? Two beam katanas. Simple.

No More Heroes 2 exudes style. This isn’t like most games you play and that’s a very good thing. Characters are quite original and dialogue is constantly fun. All of the streamlining works great to get you playing the actual game more and not slogging through mini games and random missions to accrue money just to continue with the game. There are no fees to play story missions now, so you have more time to slash away. Brilliant.

There is still plenty of variety to be found here, much like the first. There are a ton of mini games to keep you busy, though they are done in a retro 8-bit style with 8-bit music, making for a nice change of pace from the usual swath of destruction you’re cutting with your beam katana. Some of these games even play fun by themselves. Can I give more praise? Probably not.

I’m going to go ahead and tell you that this is one of the best Wii games out at the moment. Go play the first No More Heroes, but if you can’t find it or don’t have the money you don’t have to worry as much since the sequel doesn’t exactly require you to be familiar with the story. It does require you to be a fan of Otaku style references and games completely different from mainstream things. No More Heroes didn’t sell as well as it should have, but No More Heroes 2 makes sure to correct any problems the first had, meaning you have no reason not to be playing this game. Unless you’re not 18.

For a guy that's supposed to bear those crystals, he sure does look confused about what a crystal is.

I’m kind of curious about something. How many of you loved Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles on the GameCube? I bought it Day One thinking it was going to be the absolute best game I’d ever play for the rest of my life. I was pretty naïve back then.

Don’t get me wrong though, I absolutely loved the game for what it was and even played through it all again a few years later, but at the time my expectations were sorely unmet, partly because it promised a revolutionary multiplayer experience that cost way too much to enjoy: an experience that I never got a chance to try out since I didn’t have three other friends with Game Boy Advances and GBA Links to the GameCube. Regardless of all that I loved the first Crystal Chronicles game and saw a lot of potential in terms of story. Since then I’ve been waiting for a more substantial Crystal Chronicles title to deliver in terms of story. Well, here it is.

A Game For Some, A Joke For Others

The Crystal Bearers is the new title in the franchise for the Nintendo Wii. I had seen teasers for this one even before the Wii was out and already I was sufficiently psyched up since it looked awesome. Now that the game is finally out I can safely say that if you were like me and wanted the story-driven Crystal Chronicles game, you won’t be severely disappointed. If, however, you were looking for a game with amazing combat or anything, ANYTHING, that resembled either the Final Fantasy games as a whole or the Crystal Chronicles sub-franchise, yeah, move along, nothing to see here. The focus is story and it does it well. There are characters that you’ll like and some you’ll hate, but the point is that they’re all engaging. There is fun to be had.

It's harsh but sometimes the truth can hurt.

Unfortunately, the fun doesn’t go as far with the battle mechanic, though it does churn out a heck of a lot of enjoyable times just playing with whatever you can pick up. The main character, a guy named Layle (because video games need people with crazy names “just because”), is capable of telekinesis, so he goes around levitating things and throwing them around and whatever. Not incredibly deep, but the concept works well enough to get you through the game with a bit of practice. Sadly, the Wiimote will get in your way a few times since, as we’ve figured out by now, it isn’t the perfect controller Nintendo wanted it to be unless you’re playing Metroid Prime 3 or something. Just be happy when it works, which is most of the time, and forget when it has some hiccups. Nod and smile and keep going for sake of the story.

That cactus never stood a chance.

The other big downside is the shortness of the title’s playtime. It is going to sound odd but this is a Final Fantasy game with a very short playtime. I’m talking around 20 hours, roughly. Does that sound short to you? It will, especially since you’ll be enjoying the game so much. Oddly, the short playtime is a very good thing. While not all THAT short, it’s still short enough not to overstay its welcome but long enough to get you addicted to it. I’m not going to say it’s the perfect length, but it strikes a decent balance.

There isn’t a whole lot more to talk about. For a Wii game it looks fantastic as the world is solid and colorful and characters are lively and stand out and all that jazz. I recommend The Crystal Bearers and I’ll leave it at that. Parents, this one’s safe enough for just about any age of youngster out there, so don’t worry about it ruining their minds other than possibly being too “weird” for them to grasp. Still a fun game with a great story to like. For me, I’m satisfied.