Matt and I return once again to talk about the news, which is fairly scarce this week. Jason Schreier is leaving Kotaku, and Xbox has an upcoming joint announcement with Sega. What could it all mean?
As for games Matt has been trying out some indie titles while I've been on the opposite end of the spectrum playing a ridiculously high budget AAA title.
For the final segment we rank everyone's favorite blue hedgehog loving company Sega!
News - 1:07 to 24:58
What We Played - 24:59 to 52:34
Sega - 52:35 to 1:52:08
Specific Game Timestamps
Scourgebringer - 25:17 to 28:03
The Supper - 28:04 to 30:22
The Pedestrian - 30:23 to 34:28
Final Fantasy 7 Remake - 34:29 to 52:33
Showing posts with label Sega. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sega. Show all posts
Friday, April 17, 2020
Saturday, June 2, 2018
Game Time - May 2018
Game: Yakuza 6
Developer: Sega
Platform: PS4
I finished Yakuza 6 a few days ago and can't stop thinking about the ending. The seven game saga of Kazuma Kiryu is finally over, and I don't really know how to feel. Personally the conclusion didn't really do it for me, but with a few small tweaks it would have. I don't want to talk in vagaries about an ending you may not have seen, so I won't. I'll just say that the ending was not as impactful as it could have been. However, the game as a whole was excellent. The journey was interesting, but a bit plodding. That tends to be par for the course with Yakuza.
My playthrough clocked in at right around 26 hours, which I cannot believe. I felt like I was playing for at least 50. So either the clock is just wrong, or the pacing really got to me. That's one thing that always bugs me in Yakuza games is that the pacing is all over the place. It meanders along to try and add dramatic effect. Sometimes it works, but other times it prolongs already obvious plot twists and story developments. I still don't really know if this is a cultural thing or just actual pacing issues.
I'm glad that the story of Kiryu is done now. Now Sega can focus on the upcoming remasters and then move onto a new protagonist. While I absolutely love Kiryu, I think it was his time to give up the spotlight. I can't wait to see where the franchise goes next. Over the course of 7 games they built up a lot of interesting characters and relationships so it will be interesting to see what they follow it up with.
Game: Pixel Junk Monsters 2
Developer: Q-Games
Platform: PS4 (Also out on Switch)
As sad as it is to say, I bought the original Pixel Junk Monsters because it was one of the first PS3 games with trophies in it. At first I was all about the trophies, but I ended up falling in love with the little tiki man and his quest to protect his home with towers. Now, I've never been a huge tower defense fan, but something about Pixel Junk Monsters still feels different to me. Perhaps it's the more active nature. Instead of just placing a tower and waiting for waves of monsters to attack you take part in the action directly. The little tiki man acts as your cursor. If he stands over a tower he will begin to dance and the tower will upgrade over time. On top of that when enemies die they drop coins and gems which you will need to build more towers, so you need to always be on the move.
Pixel Junk Monsters 2 works largely the same as the original. The tiki man is back again, and he still dances all over the towers. However, this time you don't get to see the whole map. Instead everything is zoomed in just enough to obscure parts of the path. At first it's annoying, but it encourages even more movement and action so I'm okay with it. In addition just moving around to collect currency and upgrade towers the little guy can throw bombs and do sweet body slams now.
My favorite part has to be the visuals. I am obsessed with stop motion animation, and that's what the game looks like. Everything has a clay look to it, and the animation is fairly stilted. The default camera is the same as it's always been, but you can now push R2 to zoom in behind the tiki mans back, but gives a fresh perspective on everything. That's when you can really check out the awesome new art style. I fully expected this to be an easy rehash of the original, but it brings new art, and concepts to an already robust product. I haven't played a whole lot yet, but I'm looking forward to checking out more of it.
Game: Valkyria Chronicles Remastered
Developer: Sega/ Media Vision
Platform: PS4
Back in 2008 when Valkyria Chronicles was released on the PS3 I got it as a Christmas gift. It's the kind of semi-real time strategy game I'd be way into, but back then I had a lot going on and just didn't find the time to play it much. By the time I got around to it, I just kept finding excuses to play new games instead. I let one of my friends borrow it, and they ended up beating it fairly quickly. They absolutely loved it and kept trying to get me into it. I have a very hard time going back to old games once their time in the sun has passed, and normally try to stick with new stuff. However, now with the looming release of Valkyria Chronicles 4 I found my gaming schedule free after beating Yakuza 6 and decided I should finally give the game a shot.
I stopped by Gamestop and picked up the remastered version for PS4, and I've been having a blast so far. I've always been a sucker for strategy games, so I feel right at home playing Valkyria Chronicles. It essentially functions like turn based strategy games like Advance Wars and Fire Emblem, except with a little more direct input from the player. In battle you are given a set amount of medals, which allow you to move a character for each one you have. When you pick a character you are then put in direct control of them. They have a stamina bar, and can move until it is depleted. Like I said it's not too far off from most turn based strategy games, but the direct control of the moving and aiming adds a lot.
I've only done the first few missions, but I'm already farther than I got initially. The game is introducing new unit types and mechanics at a decent clip and I'm really digging it. So far the plot is relatively interesting, but I don't know if I'm fully invested yet. I'm sure I'll have more thoughts as I take the rest of June to try and finish it up.
Developer: Sega
Platform: PS4
I finished Yakuza 6 a few days ago and can't stop thinking about the ending. The seven game saga of Kazuma Kiryu is finally over, and I don't really know how to feel. Personally the conclusion didn't really do it for me, but with a few small tweaks it would have. I don't want to talk in vagaries about an ending you may not have seen, so I won't. I'll just say that the ending was not as impactful as it could have been. However, the game as a whole was excellent. The journey was interesting, but a bit plodding. That tends to be par for the course with Yakuza.
My playthrough clocked in at right around 26 hours, which I cannot believe. I felt like I was playing for at least 50. So either the clock is just wrong, or the pacing really got to me. That's one thing that always bugs me in Yakuza games is that the pacing is all over the place. It meanders along to try and add dramatic effect. Sometimes it works, but other times it prolongs already obvious plot twists and story developments. I still don't really know if this is a cultural thing or just actual pacing issues.
I'm glad that the story of Kiryu is done now. Now Sega can focus on the upcoming remasters and then move onto a new protagonist. While I absolutely love Kiryu, I think it was his time to give up the spotlight. I can't wait to see where the franchise goes next. Over the course of 7 games they built up a lot of interesting characters and relationships so it will be interesting to see what they follow it up with.
Game: Pixel Junk Monsters 2
Developer: Q-Games
Platform: PS4 (Also out on Switch)
As sad as it is to say, I bought the original Pixel Junk Monsters because it was one of the first PS3 games with trophies in it. At first I was all about the trophies, but I ended up falling in love with the little tiki man and his quest to protect his home with towers. Now, I've never been a huge tower defense fan, but something about Pixel Junk Monsters still feels different to me. Perhaps it's the more active nature. Instead of just placing a tower and waiting for waves of monsters to attack you take part in the action directly. The little tiki man acts as your cursor. If he stands over a tower he will begin to dance and the tower will upgrade over time. On top of that when enemies die they drop coins and gems which you will need to build more towers, so you need to always be on the move.
Pixel Junk Monsters 2 works largely the same as the original. The tiki man is back again, and he still dances all over the towers. However, this time you don't get to see the whole map. Instead everything is zoomed in just enough to obscure parts of the path. At first it's annoying, but it encourages even more movement and action so I'm okay with it. In addition just moving around to collect currency and upgrade towers the little guy can throw bombs and do sweet body slams now.
My favorite part has to be the visuals. I am obsessed with stop motion animation, and that's what the game looks like. Everything has a clay look to it, and the animation is fairly stilted. The default camera is the same as it's always been, but you can now push R2 to zoom in behind the tiki mans back, but gives a fresh perspective on everything. That's when you can really check out the awesome new art style. I fully expected this to be an easy rehash of the original, but it brings new art, and concepts to an already robust product. I haven't played a whole lot yet, but I'm looking forward to checking out more of it.
Game: Valkyria Chronicles Remastered
Developer: Sega/ Media Vision
Platform: PS4
Back in 2008 when Valkyria Chronicles was released on the PS3 I got it as a Christmas gift. It's the kind of semi-real time strategy game I'd be way into, but back then I had a lot going on and just didn't find the time to play it much. By the time I got around to it, I just kept finding excuses to play new games instead. I let one of my friends borrow it, and they ended up beating it fairly quickly. They absolutely loved it and kept trying to get me into it. I have a very hard time going back to old games once their time in the sun has passed, and normally try to stick with new stuff. However, now with the looming release of Valkyria Chronicles 4 I found my gaming schedule free after beating Yakuza 6 and decided I should finally give the game a shot.
I stopped by Gamestop and picked up the remastered version for PS4, and I've been having a blast so far. I've always been a sucker for strategy games, so I feel right at home playing Valkyria Chronicles. It essentially functions like turn based strategy games like Advance Wars and Fire Emblem, except with a little more direct input from the player. In battle you are given a set amount of medals, which allow you to move a character for each one you have. When you pick a character you are then put in direct control of them. They have a stamina bar, and can move until it is depleted. Like I said it's not too far off from most turn based strategy games, but the direct control of the moving and aiming adds a lot.
I've only done the first few missions, but I'm already farther than I got initially. The game is introducing new unit types and mechanics at a decent clip and I'm really digging it. So far the plot is relatively interesting, but I don't know if I'm fully invested yet. I'm sure I'll have more thoughts as I take the rest of June to try and finish it up.
Thursday, May 3, 2018
Game Time - April 2018
Game: Ni No Kuni 2
Developer: Level-5
Platform: PS4
Developer: Level-5
Platform: PS4
Ni No Kuni 2 is one of the first games in a long time that has made me feel like I'm crazy. It reviewed super positively, and pretty much everyone was singing its praises. I did beat it, but I didn't enjoy it very much. The combat never got much more exciting and it certainly never got any deeper. I was hoping that by the end of the game any of the characters would get worthwhile or meaningful development. That didn't come to pass either. It's weird, because on the surface it is a great game. It starts strong, and introduces tons of systems that seem interesting. However, like I said last month it's a jack of all trades, master of none scenario. There is a lot going on, but no one thing is focused on and almost all of it fell flat for me.
This isn't to say I think it's a bad game, I just don't understand the effusive praise and everyone treating it like it's the best thing to happen to JRPGs in a decade. It's fine. One of the things that I couldn't get over was just how easy it was. I saw all kinds of things online about people suggesting to use weaker characters, don't level, and pretty much don't use the tools available to you and it'll be a much more "fun" experience. I'm going to come right out and say that if your game is so easy that I have to actively try to handicap myself and not interact with all of its systems then it was poorly balanced.
In the end Ni No Kuni 2 just didn't grab me like the original. To me it was noticeable that Studio Ghibli was no longer involved. The game borrowed the Ghibli style, but when it came to voice acting and animation it just didn't feel right to me. The original game built an interesting world that felt like there was a lot of thought put into it. This game flies through everything and TWO of the continents don't even have anything on them aside from monsters. I don't like being that guy that dunks on the thing everyone is happy about, but I just don't get the praise. It's fine.
Game: Yakuza 6
Developer: Sega
Platform: PS4
At this point I have played every Yakuza game except for Yakuza 2, and the non-canon Yakuza Dead Souls. So I know a thing or two about Kazuma Kiryu and his crazy antics. It's wild that all he ever wants to do is leave the Yakuza, but somehow he just gets roped back in over and over. Lucky for Kiryu, Yakuza 6 will bring his saga to a close. I have greatly enjoyed my time with it so far.
Last year the excellent Yakuza 0 came out, which got a lot of people on board in the West. In my opinion this caused a few problems, mainly with the character of Goro Majima. He's essentially a different person in 0, but at the end they give context to how he acts for literally every other game in the franchise. I also feel like 0 does a poor job of making people like Kiryu, which is a shame because he is the protagonist of every other Yakuza game. However, the roughest part is that people will most likely have played Yazkua 0, and the remake of 1 and then jump right to 6. This sucks, because so far there have been a ton of callbacks and characters from the rest of the series. Hell, even some of the main characters from Yakuza 4 and 5 wouldn't even be known.
Yakuza 6 may also leave a bad first impression, because it's running on a different engine than every game prior to it. It's vastly improved, but as with all things moving over to a brand new engine it loses some of the complexity it had built over time. While Yakuza 0 and Kiwami introduced multiple fighting styles and a myriad of moves, Yakuza 6 only has one style and it plays more like a standard beat-em-up. There are a few moves to learn, but you can get away with mashing like an idiot. I really like Yakuza 6 so far, but I have a feeling that it may fall flat for people who weren't there for the rest of the series.
Game: God of War
Developer: SIE Santa Monica Studio
Platform: PS4
I borrowed the first God of War from a friend around the time it came out, and got about halfway through before dropping it. The gratuitous violence felt unnecessary and I didn't find Kratos to be an interesting character. I tried again with God of War 2 and similarly dropped it. God of War just wasn't for me, but when Sony showed they were releasing a new God of War based around Norse mythology it piqued my interest. Something about Norse mythology has always interested me.
I didn't really know what to expect of this game going in, but I ended up absolutely loving it. The combat was more fun to me, the violence was toned down a bit, and Kratos was actually an interesting character. It's been interesting to see video games grow up as a medium. A lot of the people who were there at the beginning have kids now and that's been showing up more and more in recent releases. The crux of the new plot is that Kratos moved far to the north after he killed the Greek pantheon and ended up having a child. The game opens shortly after his new wife's death where Kratos and his son Atreus are setting off to scatter her ashes from the tallest mountain in all the realms. It's a simple enough premise that quickly turns into a much more daunting task than it seems.
As is to be expected you're going to come into contact with all sorts of creatures and gods. This time around though the plot is less about murdering everything and more about Kratos and his son bonding. It becomes clear early on that Kratos wasn't around much and his son resents him for that. There is a lot of conversation and most of it is very well done. The combat is much more my speed too. It's a little more deliberate than the older games. Kratos now wields a magical ice ax that he can throw and recall at will. At first blush the combat seems simple, but as you learn more moves it gets quite a bit deeper. In the end I had dozens of moves, but only was using a handful I liked. It offers a lot of depth for those who are looking to use it, but you can get by with the basics if you need to. I absolutely loved this game, and am excited to see where the take the franchise next.
Thursday, September 7, 2017
Game Time - August 2017
Despite the fact that games were coming out, I took the time to finish my playthrough of Kingdom Hearts Final Mix. I did almost everything there was to do, and it took about 50 hours. Sometime in the near future I will be recording the August podcast about the experience. Let's just say that the game aged a lot better than I would have thought.
Outside of HD re-releases of PS2 games I played a ton of new stuff too. Sonic Mania, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, and Mario + Rabbids are all excellent games in their own ways. I didn't expect to like any of them as much as I did. Let me tell you why. It's game time!
Sonic Mania
It's crazy to think that Sega was once going head to head with Nintendo in the console market. The lovable plumber Mario was going up against the speedy blue hedgehog Sonic. Back then, Sonic was considered by many to be a great game. In fact, many people still hold the Sonic games on the Sega Genesis in high regard. It is the popular belief that Sonic lost its way when the series transitioned to 3D. I personally don't agree with that because Sonic Adventure 2 is my favorite Sonic game. However, even I can agree that the series took a turn for the terrible during the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox era. Sonic has been in a rut for years and Sega has largely been at a loss as to how to turn the franchise around. After years of failing to capture the Sonic nostalgia people crave Sonic Mania came along and changed everything.
As someone who didn't own a Sega Genesis I don't have a huge amount of nostalgia for Sonic 1-3 like a lot of people do. Even without that I think Sonic Mania is brilliant on many levels. For starters it feels exactly like the Sega Genesis games of old. On top of that it combines classic stages with new and interesting mechanics. It's baffling that in 2017 I'm excited to play and talk about a Sonic game. Fans of the franchise have been burned so many times, but are finally being rewarded. Sega did the right thing by hiring the creators of Sonic fan games to make an official game. The movement and speed are top notch, and the music is superb. I can't praise it enough.
There was a period before Sonic Mania released where I began to question whether the old Sonic games were ever really good, or if they were just the best that Sega had to offer in the early to mid 90's. Sonic Mania quickly put my suspicions to rest, and actually reinforced how good the games were back then. The stages are huge and filled with a multitude of paths that most other platformers just don't have. It's nice to see a Sonic game both capitalize on nostalgia while trying to keep things fresh. If it was just a trip down nostalgia lane I wouldn't be nearly as impressed.
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
Naughty Dog as a developer continues to baffle me. I thought that I was done with the Uncharted franchise after the 3rd game. It seemed played out, and had a decent enough ending. Then 4 came out and blew me away. The game ended in such a conclusive way that I thought we'd never see anything from the Uncharted franchise ever again. Hell, they even announced they were making The Last of Us 2. Yet, here I am about to tell you about the Lost Legacy. It's my understanding that it started off as a shorter downloadable experience, but the team had so much fun working on it that it morphed into a full game similar in length to the original Uncharted.
The Lost Legacy follows Chole, the smooth talking Australian thief from Uncharted 2. I always found her to be one of the more interesting characters that didn't get a whole lot of screen time. She's in India trying to find the Tusk of Ganesh. As with all Uncharted games she has a sidekick, and it just so happens to be Nadine Ross one of the main antagonists of Uncharted 4. At first they're at each other's throats, but as time goes on they get to know each other. It's an interesting dynamic that makes for a lot of interesting banter between the two.
At its core it's just another Uncharted game, which I thought I'd be sick of at this point. However, I enjoyed it from start to finish. Sure the climbing and shooting can get a little tired, but the character interactions and set-pieces are always top notch. If anything the Lost Legacy proves that Uncharted can be about things other than Nathan Drake. If they decided to continue the series and follow different characters 8 to 10 hour adventures I'd definitely be along for the ride.
Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle
I want to start off by saying that I've never liked the Rabbids. When they first appeared under the guise of a Rayman title on the Wii I immediately disliked them. Weird, dumb, screaming rabbits just aren't for me. To be fair, they weren't supposed to be. They're geared towards kids. So when Ubisoft announced that they were actually making the long rumored Rabbids + Mario crossover for the Switch I was blown away. I was even more shocked that the game looked good, and I can confirm now that it is actually good. It's really good...
Normally Nintendo doesn't let anyone touch their intellectual property with a ten foot pole, so it's crazy to see what Ubisoft got away with. Mario and pals were given guns and turned loose into a strategy RPG similar to XCOM. It's not nearly as difficult, but it has similar mechanics and ideas. Everyone moves along a grid. can hide behind cover, and shoot. At first it all seems a little too basic, but once abilities and upgrades are introduced it can get pretty tough. The main thing separating it from XCOM is how the movement mechanics work. Mario and friends can dash through enemies to do damage, and jump off of their friends to trigger special effects and move further.
I've been having a lot of fun with the game so far, and it's even making me like Rabbids a little more. While I still think that they're not funny, I no longer get upset when they're on screen. In fact I think Rabbid Luigi is the best character in the game. His dash attacks do a ton of damage and steal health from enemies! Rabbids crossing over with Mario is not something I ever would have imagined, but somehow it works. Hopefully the general positive reception of the game makes Nintendo consider other collaborations and genres to enter the portly plumber into.
The Season is Upon Us
In years past the release of Madden in late August would signal a deluge of Fall video game releases. While that is still the case, game releases never really "dry up" anymore. However, I would say that the Fall is still prime time for Blockbuster releases specifically. For me personally September is a bit odd, because there are games coming out at the beginning and the end of the month. Nothing is really happening in Between.
The more obscure Monster Hunter Stories is going to be delivered tomorrow. Why Capcom decided to make a cute Monster Hunter RPG is beyond me, but I enjoyed the demo so I'll give it a shot. Then I pretty much have no interest in anything until Danganronpa V3 drops on the 26th, and then Cuphead a few days later on the 29th. There may be some other indie releases I pick up, but nothing comes to mind currently.
I'm kind of glad that I'll have a large gap between releases, because I'm a bit behind at the moment. Next time I write one of these I'll hopefully have played a whole lot of video games.
Outside of HD re-releases of PS2 games I played a ton of new stuff too. Sonic Mania, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, and Mario + Rabbids are all excellent games in their own ways. I didn't expect to like any of them as much as I did. Let me tell you why. It's game time!
Sonic Mania
It's crazy to think that Sega was once going head to head with Nintendo in the console market. The lovable plumber Mario was going up against the speedy blue hedgehog Sonic. Back then, Sonic was considered by many to be a great game. In fact, many people still hold the Sonic games on the Sega Genesis in high regard. It is the popular belief that Sonic lost its way when the series transitioned to 3D. I personally don't agree with that because Sonic Adventure 2 is my favorite Sonic game. However, even I can agree that the series took a turn for the terrible during the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox era. Sonic has been in a rut for years and Sega has largely been at a loss as to how to turn the franchise around. After years of failing to capture the Sonic nostalgia people crave Sonic Mania came along and changed everything.
 |
| Gotta go fast! |
As someone who didn't own a Sega Genesis I don't have a huge amount of nostalgia for Sonic 1-3 like a lot of people do. Even without that I think Sonic Mania is brilliant on many levels. For starters it feels exactly like the Sega Genesis games of old. On top of that it combines classic stages with new and interesting mechanics. It's baffling that in 2017 I'm excited to play and talk about a Sonic game. Fans of the franchise have been burned so many times, but are finally being rewarded. Sega did the right thing by hiring the creators of Sonic fan games to make an official game. The movement and speed are top notch, and the music is superb. I can't praise it enough.
There was a period before Sonic Mania released where I began to question whether the old Sonic games were ever really good, or if they were just the best that Sega had to offer in the early to mid 90's. Sonic Mania quickly put my suspicions to rest, and actually reinforced how good the games were back then. The stages are huge and filled with a multitude of paths that most other platformers just don't have. It's nice to see a Sonic game both capitalize on nostalgia while trying to keep things fresh. If it was just a trip down nostalgia lane I wouldn't be nearly as impressed.
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
Naughty Dog as a developer continues to baffle me. I thought that I was done with the Uncharted franchise after the 3rd game. It seemed played out, and had a decent enough ending. Then 4 came out and blew me away. The game ended in such a conclusive way that I thought we'd never see anything from the Uncharted franchise ever again. Hell, they even announced they were making The Last of Us 2. Yet, here I am about to tell you about the Lost Legacy. It's my understanding that it started off as a shorter downloadable experience, but the team had so much fun working on it that it morphed into a full game similar in length to the original Uncharted.
The Lost Legacy follows Chole, the smooth talking Australian thief from Uncharted 2. I always found her to be one of the more interesting characters that didn't get a whole lot of screen time. She's in India trying to find the Tusk of Ganesh. As with all Uncharted games she has a sidekick, and it just so happens to be Nadine Ross one of the main antagonists of Uncharted 4. At first they're at each other's throats, but as time goes on they get to know each other. It's an interesting dynamic that makes for a lot of interesting banter between the two.
 |
| Chole and Nadine murder just as well as Nathan Drake. |
At its core it's just another Uncharted game, which I thought I'd be sick of at this point. However, I enjoyed it from start to finish. Sure the climbing and shooting can get a little tired, but the character interactions and set-pieces are always top notch. If anything the Lost Legacy proves that Uncharted can be about things other than Nathan Drake. If they decided to continue the series and follow different characters 8 to 10 hour adventures I'd definitely be along for the ride.
Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle
I want to start off by saying that I've never liked the Rabbids. When they first appeared under the guise of a Rayman title on the Wii I immediately disliked them. Weird, dumb, screaming rabbits just aren't for me. To be fair, they weren't supposed to be. They're geared towards kids. So when Ubisoft announced that they were actually making the long rumored Rabbids + Mario crossover for the Switch I was blown away. I was even more shocked that the game looked good, and I can confirm now that it is actually good. It's really good...
 |
| Mario now was a gun. That will never not be weird. |
Normally Nintendo doesn't let anyone touch their intellectual property with a ten foot pole, so it's crazy to see what Ubisoft got away with. Mario and pals were given guns and turned loose into a strategy RPG similar to XCOM. It's not nearly as difficult, but it has similar mechanics and ideas. Everyone moves along a grid. can hide behind cover, and shoot. At first it all seems a little too basic, but once abilities and upgrades are introduced it can get pretty tough. The main thing separating it from XCOM is how the movement mechanics work. Mario and friends can dash through enemies to do damage, and jump off of their friends to trigger special effects and move further.
I've been having a lot of fun with the game so far, and it's even making me like Rabbids a little more. While I still think that they're not funny, I no longer get upset when they're on screen. In fact I think Rabbid Luigi is the best character in the game. His dash attacks do a ton of damage and steal health from enemies! Rabbids crossing over with Mario is not something I ever would have imagined, but somehow it works. Hopefully the general positive reception of the game makes Nintendo consider other collaborations and genres to enter the portly plumber into.
The Season is Upon Us
In years past the release of Madden in late August would signal a deluge of Fall video game releases. While that is still the case, game releases never really "dry up" anymore. However, I would say that the Fall is still prime time for Blockbuster releases specifically. For me personally September is a bit odd, because there are games coming out at the beginning and the end of the month. Nothing is really happening in Between.
The more obscure Monster Hunter Stories is going to be delivered tomorrow. Why Capcom decided to make a cute Monster Hunter RPG is beyond me, but I enjoyed the demo so I'll give it a shot. Then I pretty much have no interest in anything until Danganronpa V3 drops on the 26th, and then Cuphead a few days later on the 29th. There may be some other indie releases I pick up, but nothing comes to mind currently.
I'm kind of glad that I'll have a large gap between releases, because I'm a bit behind at the moment. Next time I write one of these I'll hopefully have played a whole lot of video games.
Monday, February 6, 2017
Game Time - January 2017
2016 was a pretty good year for video games, but 2017 is going to be off the chain! Most of the time January is a slow month in terms of releases. Usually I would use the two months to catch up on my backlog, or go back to games I had missed from the previous year. This year I didn't get a lot of time to do that, because the releases are coming fast and furious already!
To kick off the new year I went on a trip to a fighting game tournament. Due to being on a plane I busted out my Vita and tried to see if I could finish Danganronpa 2. I started it when it came out years ago, but for some reason or another I didn't get very far. Upon returning from the trip I played it to completion. I don't think it's as good as the original, but it's still a decent product.
Halfway through the month, the new games started to flow. Gravity Rush 2 was the first one I picked up. It's a lot like the original, but better in almost every facet. The jump to PS4 did the game justice and it's doubly cool because now it will reach a wider audience. Sadly I have not finished it yet, because there is so much content and I have a problem where I need to complete every sidequest.
Yakuza 0 came out shortly after and it's just what you'd expect. It's a Yakuza game, but set in the 80's. All the goofy side missions and deathly serious Yakuza drama are back! I've had very little time to play it so far, but I have enjoyed myself so far. I set it aside to play Digimon World: Next Order, but that's a story for next month!
I've been buried in games, and I need to talk about them. However, this month I am going to try and keep each game to around three paragraphs. While I normally try and talk about each game for around sic or seven that can get a bit too wordy. I think I'll enjoy writing these a lot more when they're shorter, but we'll see!
Danganronpa 2
The original Danganronpa wasn't even on my radar when it released a few years ago. Mainly because I didn't know what it was. The cover had the franchise mascot Monokuma on the cover art. So seeing a weird looking anime bear I wrote it off as a bad game and didn't look up anything about it. Somehow I stumbled across video of it and ordered it immediately. It's a visual novel, so there's a lot of text. However, you can walk around the map freely as opposed to moving through menus. The concept is that children are being held captive in an area and if they want to leave their captor says they must kill each other. So inevitably murders occur and then you have to have a trial in order to figure out who the murderer was. This is where it turns into a more frantic version of Ace Attorney with a bunch of weird mini-games.
The first game takes place in a school, while the second takes place on an island. Danganronpa 2 is a direct sequel. At first it doesn't seem like it, but by the end there's so much about the first game they assume you know I don't know if you'd understand anything without playing it. To me, that's a bummer because I really didn't like the overarching plot of the first game. So when it carried all of that baggage over I was a bit bummed out. The part about Danganronpa I like is getting to know all of the characters and seeing their interactions. The class trials are great too. Solving the murders feels good, with the exception of a few frustrating mini-games. So when the plot dealing with the world outside the murders comes in I can't help but roll my eyes. The last chapter of Danganronpa 2 gets so far up its own ass that half the dialogue is intelligible to the average human.
If the last chapter of the game didn't exist I would recommend it to anyone wholeheartedly. However, now I have to tell people about it with the caveat that the plot falls apart at the end. I absolutely love the core of the franchise, and am glad that it is continuing into a third game. What gives me hope about the third game is that it drops all of the plot from the first two games and is a completely different things. There is still going to be kids murdering each other, and I honestly hope that's all.
Gravity Rush 2
As you may have seen I beat the original Gravity Rush in December. Gravity Rush 2 is obviously a direct sequel that takes place shortly after the events of the original. The gravity controlling girl Kat and her police officer friend Syd were caught in a gravity storm and taken far away from their home in Hecksville. Initially you don't have control over gravity, but after a lengthy intro sequence Kat is able to do almost everything she was before. I've seen a lot of people criticizing the opening, but I personally didn't really mind it. Walking around the mining town without gravity powers makes them feel all the more special when you do get them back. As the game goes on you receive two more styles that change how your powers work. I only got the lunar style, which allows you to jump ridiculously high and fly at ridiculous speeds. It's a fun addition.
The remaster of the original looked fine, but having 2 be developed from the ground up on the PS4 did a lot for it. Now there is much more to the world, and a whole lot more people roaming around on the streets. The new town introduced early in the game feels very lively, and looks beautiful. As with the remaster you no longer have to control anything with the gyro in the controller. You can still move the camera that way, but it would often make me spin out of control. I turned all gyro off as soon as I could in the menu.
With that said I think that the game feels better as a whole. Now that it isn't designed around a Vita specific feature it's much better off. The game seems better as a whole outside of control as well. It characterizes all of the characters worlds better than the original, and actually tackles classism in a tactful manner. I've already played it for a long time, and I don't think I've even halfway. Whether or not the game can continue to hold my attention until the end remains to be seen. The developer said that this game would end Kat's story and as of right now I don't have any idea how they can do that. I guess a lot more has to happen in the story still. I just hope they don't cram it all in very poorly at the end. Video games tend to do that.
Yakuza 0
Yakuza has always been a niche franchise and I don't really know why. Yes, it's very Japanese, but it has a lot of things that popular western developed games have. It's one of the earliest open world franchises I can think of. I mean, sure, the world is just a sub-section of a city, but it's still open. It took me until Yakuza 3 to get on the train, but ever since then I've been singing the praises of Yakuza everywhere I can. So I find it very odd that now that this entry is being widely praised here in the U.S. Perhaps it's because it's a prequel? I guess coming into a franchise five or six entries deep is a bit daunting, but the gameplay stays largely the same between them all. Regardless of how it happened I'm not complaining, because maybe now we won't have to wait years for each new entry to be localized.
So now you're saying what is Yakuza all about? Well, it's about Yakuza, the Japanese mafia. They're tough guys who take no guff and have tattoos that cover most of their body. You play as Kazuma Kiryu in all of them, however in Yakuza 0 you also play as Majima Goro (Another series regular). Yakuza is essentially the evolution of old school beat-em-ups like Streets of Rage. You get into a fight and just beat the living hell out of your opponents. You can grab weapons and your opponents with them, or just throw a flurry of blows and grapples. Eventually your character have blue flames emanating off them, which allows you to push triangle for a heat action. These actions are brutal finishers that do a ton of damage. They're all over the top and a pleasure to see every time. The combat has been largely the same for a majority of the franchise so its refreshing to see Kiryu get some different styles to use. It seems that there are four styles and I've gotten one that allows me to punch people so many times they can no longer block. It's awesome.
I'm only around 2 hours in, but this feels like some Yakuza ass Yakuza. I have seen a lot of melodrama, and even a few men take off their shirts before challenging me to a fight. It's all happened before, but it's still fun. The fact that it's set before all the other games during an economic boom is Japan is really cool. Everyone has a ton of money and is trying to make their mark on the city. So far everything has been pretty tame by Yakuza standards, but I'm sure it'll ramp up as I get farther in. I guess what I'm saying is that you should really check out Yakuza. There's never been a better time to get in on the action.
All I can see are Digimon
On the last day of January Digimon World: Next Order came out and It's pretty much all I've been playing since then. Something about it grabbed me in a way that I could not shake off. Following its release I had two days off and I completely destroyed my sleep schedule by staying up until 7 AM two consecutive days. So next month you can look forward to me spouting off all about what a wonderful game it is.
Other than that the only other game due out in February is Horizon Zero Dawn, the much lauded robot animal hunting game from Guerilla games. It's nice to see them making something that isn't Killzone for once, especially something that looks really cool.
I'm sure something else will pop up for me to talk about, but I'll have to wait and see. I've had a fun time chatting, but it's time for me to get back to Digimon now...
To kick off the new year I went on a trip to a fighting game tournament. Due to being on a plane I busted out my Vita and tried to see if I could finish Danganronpa 2. I started it when it came out years ago, but for some reason or another I didn't get very far. Upon returning from the trip I played it to completion. I don't think it's as good as the original, but it's still a decent product.
Halfway through the month, the new games started to flow. Gravity Rush 2 was the first one I picked up. It's a lot like the original, but better in almost every facet. The jump to PS4 did the game justice and it's doubly cool because now it will reach a wider audience. Sadly I have not finished it yet, because there is so much content and I have a problem where I need to complete every sidequest.
Yakuza 0 came out shortly after and it's just what you'd expect. It's a Yakuza game, but set in the 80's. All the goofy side missions and deathly serious Yakuza drama are back! I've had very little time to play it so far, but I have enjoyed myself so far. I set it aside to play Digimon World: Next Order, but that's a story for next month!
I've been buried in games, and I need to talk about them. However, this month I am going to try and keep each game to around three paragraphs. While I normally try and talk about each game for around sic or seven that can get a bit too wordy. I think I'll enjoy writing these a lot more when they're shorter, but we'll see!
Danganronpa 2
The original Danganronpa wasn't even on my radar when it released a few years ago. Mainly because I didn't know what it was. The cover had the franchise mascot Monokuma on the cover art. So seeing a weird looking anime bear I wrote it off as a bad game and didn't look up anything about it. Somehow I stumbled across video of it and ordered it immediately. It's a visual novel, so there's a lot of text. However, you can walk around the map freely as opposed to moving through menus. The concept is that children are being held captive in an area and if they want to leave their captor says they must kill each other. So inevitably murders occur and then you have to have a trial in order to figure out who the murderer was. This is where it turns into a more frantic version of Ace Attorney with a bunch of weird mini-games.
The first game takes place in a school, while the second takes place on an island. Danganronpa 2 is a direct sequel. At first it doesn't seem like it, but by the end there's so much about the first game they assume you know I don't know if you'd understand anything without playing it. To me, that's a bummer because I really didn't like the overarching plot of the first game. So when it carried all of that baggage over I was a bit bummed out. The part about Danganronpa I like is getting to know all of the characters and seeing their interactions. The class trials are great too. Solving the murders feels good, with the exception of a few frustrating mini-games. So when the plot dealing with the world outside the murders comes in I can't help but roll my eyes. The last chapter of Danganronpa 2 gets so far up its own ass that half the dialogue is intelligible to the average human.
 |
| Who's going to get murdered!? |
If the last chapter of the game didn't exist I would recommend it to anyone wholeheartedly. However, now I have to tell people about it with the caveat that the plot falls apart at the end. I absolutely love the core of the franchise, and am glad that it is continuing into a third game. What gives me hope about the third game is that it drops all of the plot from the first two games and is a completely different things. There is still going to be kids murdering each other, and I honestly hope that's all.
Gravity Rush 2
As you may have seen I beat the original Gravity Rush in December. Gravity Rush 2 is obviously a direct sequel that takes place shortly after the events of the original. The gravity controlling girl Kat and her police officer friend Syd were caught in a gravity storm and taken far away from their home in Hecksville. Initially you don't have control over gravity, but after a lengthy intro sequence Kat is able to do almost everything she was before. I've seen a lot of people criticizing the opening, but I personally didn't really mind it. Walking around the mining town without gravity powers makes them feel all the more special when you do get them back. As the game goes on you receive two more styles that change how your powers work. I only got the lunar style, which allows you to jump ridiculously high and fly at ridiculous speeds. It's a fun addition.
 |
| Lunar Style lets you go stupidly fast. |
The remaster of the original looked fine, but having 2 be developed from the ground up on the PS4 did a lot for it. Now there is much more to the world, and a whole lot more people roaming around on the streets. The new town introduced early in the game feels very lively, and looks beautiful. As with the remaster you no longer have to control anything with the gyro in the controller. You can still move the camera that way, but it would often make me spin out of control. I turned all gyro off as soon as I could in the menu.
With that said I think that the game feels better as a whole. Now that it isn't designed around a Vita specific feature it's much better off. The game seems better as a whole outside of control as well. It characterizes all of the characters worlds better than the original, and actually tackles classism in a tactful manner. I've already played it for a long time, and I don't think I've even halfway. Whether or not the game can continue to hold my attention until the end remains to be seen. The developer said that this game would end Kat's story and as of right now I don't have any idea how they can do that. I guess a lot more has to happen in the story still. I just hope they don't cram it all in very poorly at the end. Video games tend to do that.
Yakuza 0
Yakuza has always been a niche franchise and I don't really know why. Yes, it's very Japanese, but it has a lot of things that popular western developed games have. It's one of the earliest open world franchises I can think of. I mean, sure, the world is just a sub-section of a city, but it's still open. It took me until Yakuza 3 to get on the train, but ever since then I've been singing the praises of Yakuza everywhere I can. So I find it very odd that now that this entry is being widely praised here in the U.S. Perhaps it's because it's a prequel? I guess coming into a franchise five or six entries deep is a bit daunting, but the gameplay stays largely the same between them all. Regardless of how it happened I'm not complaining, because maybe now we won't have to wait years for each new entry to be localized.
 |
| I was going to pass on Yakuza 0 until I say this image. No joke. |
So now you're saying what is Yakuza all about? Well, it's about Yakuza, the Japanese mafia. They're tough guys who take no guff and have tattoos that cover most of their body. You play as Kazuma Kiryu in all of them, however in Yakuza 0 you also play as Majima Goro (Another series regular). Yakuza is essentially the evolution of old school beat-em-ups like Streets of Rage. You get into a fight and just beat the living hell out of your opponents. You can grab weapons and your opponents with them, or just throw a flurry of blows and grapples. Eventually your character have blue flames emanating off them, which allows you to push triangle for a heat action. These actions are brutal finishers that do a ton of damage. They're all over the top and a pleasure to see every time. The combat has been largely the same for a majority of the franchise so its refreshing to see Kiryu get some different styles to use. It seems that there are four styles and I've gotten one that allows me to punch people so many times they can no longer block. It's awesome.
I'm only around 2 hours in, but this feels like some Yakuza ass Yakuza. I have seen a lot of melodrama, and even a few men take off their shirts before challenging me to a fight. It's all happened before, but it's still fun. The fact that it's set before all the other games during an economic boom is Japan is really cool. Everyone has a ton of money and is trying to make their mark on the city. So far everything has been pretty tame by Yakuza standards, but I'm sure it'll ramp up as I get farther in. I guess what I'm saying is that you should really check out Yakuza. There's never been a better time to get in on the action.
All I can see are Digimon
On the last day of January Digimon World: Next Order came out and It's pretty much all I've been playing since then. Something about it grabbed me in a way that I could not shake off. Following its release I had two days off and I completely destroyed my sleep schedule by staying up until 7 AM two consecutive days. So next month you can look forward to me spouting off all about what a wonderful game it is.
Other than that the only other game due out in February is Horizon Zero Dawn, the much lauded robot animal hunting game from Guerilla games. It's nice to see them making something that isn't Killzone for once, especially something that looks really cool.
I'm sure something else will pop up for me to talk about, but I'll have to wait and see. I've had a fun time chatting, but it's time for me to get back to Digimon now...
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Memorable Melodies: Intro from Shining Force
Song: Intro
Game: Shining Force
Composer: Masahiko Yoshimura
For the past few years I've been working my way through all three parts of Shining Force 3 with a friend. Since I don'y have a Sega Saturn we're playing through on an Emulator, which makes the music sound awful. So instead of thinking of the horrifically out of pitch tunes in Shining Force 3 I chose to look back on the first song you hear in the original Shining Force.
There are two things I like about the song. The first is that it's simplistic, while at the same time building suspense. It plays when the game first launches and let's you know what's going on in the story. Then at the end it really starts to pick up and shows off the title card. The second thing I like about it is that it's a great representation of what the Sega Genesis' sound chip can do. Growing up I didn't have a Genesis, so I'm more accustomed to the sounds of Super Nintendo. I still prefer the sounds of the SNES, but the Genesis is a lot more grimy. It's got some killer bass, and Shining Force shows that it's capable of making noise that doesn't exclusively sound like electronic farts!
Thursday, June 30, 2016
Memorable Melodies: The Concept of Love from Jet Set Radio Future
Song: The Concept of Love
Game: Jet Set Radio Future
Composer: Hideki Naganuma
JET SET RADIOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
There was a point in time when Sega was putting out awesome video games. That time has largely past, but that doesn't mean that their old games are gone. The Dreamcast may have tanked, but in my opinion it was ahead of its time. Sega put out a ton of good stuff on the platform and its early demise was a complete shame. When I first saw gameplay of the original Jet Set Radio (Jet Grind Radio in the U.S.) it completely blew my mind. It was a game with attitude. Roller-blading rebels who used spray-paint against their oppressive environment took the forefront.
When Sega put the Dreamcast to bed they transferred the work from a majority of their working projects onto the original Xbox. One such game that made the transition was Jet Set Radio Future. I didn't own an original Xbox, so I never ended up playing the game until quite a bit after its initial release. I was going through a phase in college where I wanted to buy a bunch of games I had missed out on, so I picked it up cheap. It's the only original Xbox game I own.
The cel-shaded graphics and gameplay actually hold up. However, the thing that really stuck out to me about the game was its music. It's essentially all funk, and hip-hop. At first it's kind of weird, because a majority of video game music doesn't have any lyrics. However, once I heard each song a couple of times I was bobbing my head along to the beat as I performed dope skate tricks.
I still listen to the JSRF soundtrack on a regular basis. I love all the songs in the game, so it was hard for me to choose one to feature here. However, I think the most recognizable song is The Concept of Love. On top of being a great song it's also a solid question.
Man, Jet Set Radio Future is such an awesome game. I think an HD re-release of the game would be incredible, and it seems that series creator Hideki Naganuma feels the same way. The series has a defined sense of style, and I love it.
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Memorable Melodies: Lively Town from Shining Force 2
Song: Lively Town
Game: Shining Force 2
Composer: Motoaki Takenouchi
On Wednesdays I generally wait for a piece of video game music to pop into my head, and then write about that. This week nothing came to me naturally, so I sat and thought about it for a bit. Then all of a sudden, the town theme from Shining Force 2 exploded in my brain and I got super hyped up. Seriously, this song is amazing.
It helps that this song brings back a lot of fond memories. You meet a phoenix named Peter, who looks like a turkey with an afro at first. When he gets promoted he looks like a legit phoenix, but when you first meet him in the town he looks ridiculous. He chats you up and then starts following you around.
Back in the days of the SNES and Genesis the sound chip defined what all of the music on the system sounded like. To me, not having a Genesis, all of the music tends to sound like farting. I'm sorry, but it really does. This is why I am such a huge fan of all the music in Shining Force 1 and 2. It actually sounds like real music, and not a symphony of farts. It has a ton of layers, and sounds unlike any other song on the Genesis that I've heard.
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Party Game Sundays: Wacky World of Sports
I originally started this feature to tell the world all about the terrible games we were playing every single Sunday, but somehow we haven't played anything that was offensively bad since then. This past Sunday we continued with our surprisingly good games trend. I was told to pick a game out of the pile of games that Landers has at his disposal, and I chose Wacky World of Sports.
Looking at this box art I made an educated guess about the game. I figured it was a mini-game collection that was super terrible, but it was trying to overshadow that fact with it' over the top anime art style. Instead what I got was a surprisingly weird, but competent sports themed mini-game collection with an over the top anime art style.
Okay, I guess I use the term sports lightly, because none of the games are really sports, but they kind of are. There are ten of them, which range from things that could actually be considered sports like pole vaulting, to fanciful madness like rhythm based ironing. There are ten games, and each have a few variations. Surprisingly the variations actually make each mini-game seem different. For example one of them has the characters tossing fish as far as they can, while the first variation of it has you throwing the fish at specific targets to gain points.
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| Get ready to toss some tuna! |
I guess I've just become so used to Wii games having terrible controls, so it's always surprising to me when mini-game collections specifically control well. There wasn't a single time in this game that I felt like I wasn't performing because the controls were working against me. The only issue was with the instructions. Prior to each game the loading screen shows small icons with the wii-mote making the correct motion. The problem is that it's not always easy to understand, but we figured them all out eventually.
I actually really liked this game. The sports were all wacky just as they were advertised. My personal favorite was boxing. It starts off like regular boxing. You can throw out punches, block, and dodge. Dodging slows down time and allows for a counter attack. Where it gets weird is that at the end of each round a table appears in the ring and you take turns playing memory with cards. If you match seven pairs then you automatically win the round. If the matching round ends without a winner, then you have to go back to beating each other down. Extreme ironing was also quite fun. You're skydiving, while ironing. You gain points by thrusting the wii-mote and pushing A in accordance with the music that's playing. They're all just super weird and kind of creative games.
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| It took us a while to figure out the cheese rolling, |
Sure, the games are fun, but my favorite thing about the whole game is the art style, which really contributes to the wacky world. Apparently in this alternate world the Wacky World of Sports is an organization and you're trying to become the new champion. In the beginning you can only choose from four equally ridiculous characters. One is a ninja, whose name is Sasuke. As you can probably imagine he speaks in a terrible Asian accent. I personally played as the weird lolli girl, because I always have to be the pretty lady when I play these types of games. Landers played as the huge lumberjack who seemed like he had some type of mental deficiency. He begins each game by saying "it's axing time", but it sounded suspiciously like "it's sexy time."
As you play through the game's story mode you can unlock additional characters who are all equally stupid. I personally really like the highfalutin British guy who's way into cheese rolling and always says "Upperclass". Somehow the art style meshes really well with the crazy world the game is trying to create.
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| His name is Sasuke, but he looks like Naruto. Get it!? |
Wacky World of Sports was actually legitimately fun, which was the exact opposite of what I expected from it. Next week I'll try my best to pick a bad game, because I feel like we've been on a good streak for too long. In the meantime I'll leave you with this hot screenshot we took while playing.
Saturday, April 19, 2014
Party Game Sundays: Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games
Since it was Noukeo's Birthday we decided to play a game that we thought might not suck. In order to do that Noukeo purchased Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games. Prior to this past Sunday I had never tried a Mario & Sonic Olympic game, because I'm a very jaded person.
In the 90's when Mario and Sonic were in the middle of Nintendo and Sega's console war no one ever thought that they would be in the same game together, but if they were it would be the greatest game of all time. Instead the game that came out was Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games in 2007. Instead of taking the time to play it I wrote it off as a shitty mini-game collection. There must have been people who really liked it though, because they keep pumping them out now.
Even though I was jaded in 2007, I am even more jaded now. I have lived through numerous Party Game Sundays and have seen true despair. I now realize that while Mario and Sonic could have come together in a cooler game this is completely fine. Nintendo at least puts a little effort into their games, because they want the Mario brand to mean something. That's not the case with most of the games we play on Sunday, so I'm always down for anything Mario related. More often than not the game will be pretty good.
I've decided that the name of this game is too long and no longer want to type it. M&SOWG is actually a very fun game. As you may have guessed it has mini-games themed around the Winter Olympics. Things such as bobsledding, figure skating, and hockey are all available to play. The cool thing is that since there aren't an overabundance of these games each one is developed very well.
There were four of us playing, so we formed an Olympic team. We had to work together to score well and earn medals. We were playing in festival mode. We were trying to be the best team by the end of the month long festival. Each day would consist of playing two mini-games. We began by training in the game so that we could learn the rules. The event I remember the most at the moment was bobsledding. All four of us were in the bobsleigh and we had to tilt the wii-mote in order to turn. It was super weird, because if one person was being an idiot the whole sleigh would veer off course. The goal of most of the bobsledding events was to collect coins. It's always surprising to me when motion controls actually work.
Outside of the mini-games themselves the game was just well put together. You can go around the Olympic village and spend coins you've earned from events on various things. You can buy clothes and cosmetic changes for event objects such as snowboards and sleighs. If you play as your Mii you can even unlock sweet clothes. As you progress you can also unlock new music from both Mario and Sonic games and have it play during events.
We only played halfway through a festival, but I'd really like to play through the rest of it. We didn't get to play hockey, we just did the training. It was dumb, because we were just shooting the puck into ice blocks and not actually playing a game.
I could actually see myself playing M&SOWG on my own time. The newest game in the series is for the Wii-U and I'm sure it's of the same quality, if not better, so maybe I'll pick that up as well at some point.
In the 90's when Mario and Sonic were in the middle of Nintendo and Sega's console war no one ever thought that they would be in the same game together, but if they were it would be the greatest game of all time. Instead the game that came out was Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games in 2007. Instead of taking the time to play it I wrote it off as a shitty mini-game collection. There must have been people who really liked it though, because they keep pumping them out now.
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| This image is amazing. I don't know how I was ever down on this. |
Even though I was jaded in 2007, I am even more jaded now. I have lived through numerous Party Game Sundays and have seen true despair. I now realize that while Mario and Sonic could have come together in a cooler game this is completely fine. Nintendo at least puts a little effort into their games, because they want the Mario brand to mean something. That's not the case with most of the games we play on Sunday, so I'm always down for anything Mario related. More often than not the game will be pretty good.
I've decided that the name of this game is too long and no longer want to type it. M&SOWG is actually a very fun game. As you may have guessed it has mini-games themed around the Winter Olympics. Things such as bobsledding, figure skating, and hockey are all available to play. The cool thing is that since there aren't an overabundance of these games each one is developed very well.
 |
| I want to go bobsledding in real life. |
There were four of us playing, so we formed an Olympic team. We had to work together to score well and earn medals. We were playing in festival mode. We were trying to be the best team by the end of the month long festival. Each day would consist of playing two mini-games. We began by training in the game so that we could learn the rules. The event I remember the most at the moment was bobsledding. All four of us were in the bobsleigh and we had to tilt the wii-mote in order to turn. It was super weird, because if one person was being an idiot the whole sleigh would veer off course. The goal of most of the bobsledding events was to collect coins. It's always surprising to me when motion controls actually work.
Outside of the mini-games themselves the game was just well put together. You can go around the Olympic village and spend coins you've earned from events on various things. You can buy clothes and cosmetic changes for event objects such as snowboards and sleighs. If you play as your Mii you can even unlock sweet clothes. As you progress you can also unlock new music from both Mario and Sonic games and have it play during events.
 |
| I've always wanted to see Luigi snowboard. |
We only played halfway through a festival, but I'd really like to play through the rest of it. We didn't get to play hockey, we just did the training. It was dumb, because we were just shooting the puck into ice blocks and not actually playing a game.
I could actually see myself playing M&SOWG on my own time. The newest game in the series is for the Wii-U and I'm sure it's of the same quality, if not better, so maybe I'll pick that up as well at some point.
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Party Game Sundays: Let's Tap
After playing the gem that was Cruise Ship Vacation Games I demanded that we play the game I had purchased for our Sunday shenanigans. Last week something made me recall the game Let's Tap, which for some reason SEGA published. When I looked it up on Amazon they had one copy left in stock for the hot hot sale price of $13.50, which I promptly bought. The entire concept of the game is that you set a Wii remote face down on a box and tap your fingers on the box. I knew that if it worked as intended it could be really cool, but figured that the much more likely alternative of it not working and sucking terribly would be the case.
In a crazy turn of events tapping on a box to make a Wii remote vibrate works insanely well. I figured that it would suck, because almost all motion control involving a Wii remote is awful. I feel confident in saying that Let's Tap is one of the most fun games we've ever played on a Sunday evening. It's awesome slogan of "Tap into a new party experience" is actually quite fitting.
When you first boot up the game it demands that you set the Wii remote face down on a box so that you can play the tutorial. I, being a weirdo, brought two boxes with me to our Sunday gathering. One was from my wireless Logitech keyboard and the other was the box my Song of Fire and Ice book collection came in. Both of them actually worked very well, as did the board game boxes we had on hand. The tutorial has you tapping on the box in order to show you just what the hell it is you need to be doing.
Tapping the box lightly is what you want to do, because if you do it too hard the game pops up a message in the corner yelling at you for tapping too hard. You hardly need to tap at all in order for the game to recognize movement, which completely blew my mind. You even navigate the game's menus by tapping and then select an option by double tapping quickly.
Let's Tap has five modes, all of which can be played with up to four players. Tap Runner is the first mode and my personal favorite. Each player is a neon colored stick man, and they want to try and reach the goal first. Tapping lightly as fast as you can makes your character run. If you tap down hard you'll jump. The first few stages are fairly straightforward and have you jumping over hurdles, but as it progresses things get pretty crazy. Eventually there are boosts in the air that propel your character forwards and weird black holes that change your place on the map. This mode was definitely the most exciting. The way each stage is set up allows for crazy comebacks and insane photo finishes.
Rhythm Tap is a rhythm based mode just as it sounds. It reminded me quite a bit of Taiko Drum Master. Notes run past on a line and you need to tap when they reach the center of your circle. It's the same concept as Guitar Hero and almost every rhythm game before it, but you're tapping on a cardboard box. There are 16 tracks to play through and they're appropriately crazy and Japanese. The major downside to the mode is that you're competing for score, but you can rapidly tap the box the entire time and it doesn't penalize you at all. When played normally though it's very fun. It's more challenging than most rhythm games though, because when your opponent is off beat you can hear it on their box and it totally screws with you.
The other three modes aren't really anything special, but at least they're unique. Silent Blocks is a mix between Jenga and a match three game. Bubble Voyager is a multiplayer battle mode, where you tap the box to shoot missiles at your opponents. The final mode is by far the dumbest, which you might be able to guess from it's name of Visualizer. It's basically a windows media player visualizer, but when you tap the box something crazy happens on screen. This ended with us madly tapping for around ten minutes as I collapsed laughing from how stupid the whole scenario was.
While there are only two modes that are truly worth playing in Let's Tap I think I got my $13.50's worth out of it. I had a lot of fun and I'm almost certainly going to play this game again, which is not something I'd say about 90% of the games we've played so far during Party Game Sundays.
Let's Tap has an innovative way of using the Wii-remote and it actually works properly. It doesn't necessarily have a lot of content, but the content that it does have is super fun, or at the very least entertaining to try out once. If you have a spare cardboard box you should definitely consider giving Let's Tap a shot. It's a party game that doesn't suck!
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| Tap to make the crazy stick men move! |
In a crazy turn of events tapping on a box to make a Wii remote vibrate works insanely well. I figured that it would suck, because almost all motion control involving a Wii remote is awful. I feel confident in saying that Let's Tap is one of the most fun games we've ever played on a Sunday evening. It's awesome slogan of "Tap into a new party experience" is actually quite fitting.
When you first boot up the game it demands that you set the Wii remote face down on a box so that you can play the tutorial. I, being a weirdo, brought two boxes with me to our Sunday gathering. One was from my wireless Logitech keyboard and the other was the box my Song of Fire and Ice book collection came in. Both of them actually worked very well, as did the board game boxes we had on hand. The tutorial has you tapping on the box in order to show you just what the hell it is you need to be doing.
Tapping the box lightly is what you want to do, because if you do it too hard the game pops up a message in the corner yelling at you for tapping too hard. You hardly need to tap at all in order for the game to recognize movement, which completely blew my mind. You even navigate the game's menus by tapping and then select an option by double tapping quickly.
Let's Tap has five modes, all of which can be played with up to four players. Tap Runner is the first mode and my personal favorite. Each player is a neon colored stick man, and they want to try and reach the goal first. Tapping lightly as fast as you can makes your character run. If you tap down hard you'll jump. The first few stages are fairly straightforward and have you jumping over hurdles, but as it progresses things get pretty crazy. Eventually there are boosts in the air that propel your character forwards and weird black holes that change your place on the map. This mode was definitely the most exciting. The way each stage is set up allows for crazy comebacks and insane photo finishes.
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| Tap Runner is probably the best mode. |
Rhythm Tap is a rhythm based mode just as it sounds. It reminded me quite a bit of Taiko Drum Master. Notes run past on a line and you need to tap when they reach the center of your circle. It's the same concept as Guitar Hero and almost every rhythm game before it, but you're tapping on a cardboard box. There are 16 tracks to play through and they're appropriately crazy and Japanese. The major downside to the mode is that you're competing for score, but you can rapidly tap the box the entire time and it doesn't penalize you at all. When played normally though it's very fun. It's more challenging than most rhythm games though, because when your opponent is off beat you can hear it on their box and it totally screws with you.
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| Tap your finger to the hot beats of Let's Tap. |
The other three modes aren't really anything special, but at least they're unique. Silent Blocks is a mix between Jenga and a match three game. Bubble Voyager is a multiplayer battle mode, where you tap the box to shoot missiles at your opponents. The final mode is by far the dumbest, which you might be able to guess from it's name of Visualizer. It's basically a windows media player visualizer, but when you tap the box something crazy happens on screen. This ended with us madly tapping for around ten minutes as I collapsed laughing from how stupid the whole scenario was.
While there are only two modes that are truly worth playing in Let's Tap I think I got my $13.50's worth out of it. I had a lot of fun and I'm almost certainly going to play this game again, which is not something I'd say about 90% of the games we've played so far during Party Game Sundays.
Let's Tap has an innovative way of using the Wii-remote and it actually works properly. It doesn't necessarily have a lot of content, but the content that it does have is super fun, or at the very least entertaining to try out once. If you have a spare cardboard box you should definitely consider giving Let's Tap a shot. It's a party game that doesn't suck!
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