Party Game Sundays: Cruise Ship Vacation Games

This week we had four hot new party games to choose from. Three of them my friend Matt purchased, and one I brought to the table. We decided that we'd play what we thought to be the worst, and then wash it down with another better game as a palette cleanser.

The game we decided would probably be the worst was Cruise Ship Vacation Games for the Wii. The name alone made me think it was awful, but the screenshots on the back of the box made me feel safe in my assumption. As you may have guessed Cruise Ship Vacation Games is a mini game collection. Unsurprisingly it takes place on a cruise ship. You choose from one of ten mini-games and compete with friends or against the CPU. It was published by Activision, but it doesn't seem as if it was originally one of their budget titles. It just wasn't good enough to sustain a price above $8 dollars.

This cruise is off the chain!

The best part of the entire game was the character select screen. We each got to choose a character from a pre-determined list. At first we were just picking based on looks, but then we realized that each person had a paragraph of back story. I chose a character because he looked like Cosmo Kramer of Seinfeld fame. Upon reading his back story I realized that he actually was supposed to look like Kramer.

"Tired of being the "weird neighbor" in his apartment building, he took the money he saved up selling plasma and left on a cruise. He hopes to meet new people, try new foods, and discover new hair care products."

Those are the exact words next to the character! They didn't even try and pretend that he wasn't a blatant ripoff of a popular sitcom character. From there the descriptions only got weirder. My personal favorite was for an animal loving girl.

"She enjoys cows, pigs, mice, squirrels, and bunnies. Her primary complaint about the cruise thus far has been the absence of cows, pigs, mice, squirrels, and bunnies. She thinks she might be starting to like ducks."

SHE THINKS SHE MIGHT BE STARTING TO LIKE DUCKS! I literally can't make this shit up. Why has she started to like ducks? I've never been on a cruise, but I'm pretty sure there aren't many ducks on the open ocean. Sadly after the character selection nothing of note really happened.

You choose one of the mini-games to play and then compete, which is just like every other mini-game collection out there. Most of the things are just generic mini-games that seem ripped straight out of other collections. Skiiball, mini-golf, rock climbing, shuffleboard, ping pong, and blackjack are just a few of the games you can play. They're all fairly competent, but they just aren't fun. Rock climbing was probably the best game, because it was somehow turned into a weird Bejeweled knockoff. In order to climb up colored rocks you had to match three colored gems in a row.

There really isn't a whole lot I want to say about Cruise Ship Vacation games, other than that it has a stupid premise. A game based entirely around games and attractions you'd find on a cruise ship is a dumb concept and it's still dumb in practice. The mini-games are all functional, but the game's biggest crime is that it's just boring. None of the mini-games got me very excited except for shuffleboard and that was only because I was trying as hard as possible not to get negative points. Check out the trailer below to find out how truly exciting it was to play Cruise Ship Vacation Games...

Sidenote: The game's case and trailer both claim that it supports Wii-motion plus, which is something that I cannot grasp. None of the mini-games have any super intense motion controls that need to be precise or anything, so I can't even imagine how using a motion plus would enhance the experience. 

     -Manny

Review of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

This review is for The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword for the Nintendo Wii

Score: 4/5


The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword is mostly the game that I’d expect it to be. You play as Link the green suited Hero, on his epic quest to save princess Zelda. This isn’t a bad thing; it’s just what has come to be expected from a Zelda game.  What sets Skyward Sword apart from the other entries in this series is that it’s the game that finally delivers on the Wii’s promise of good and interesting motion controls. I’ve always thought that swordplay could be done quite well with the Wii’s motion controls, but somehow Skyward Sword is the first game that gets it right.

Since Skyward Sword actually has good motion it requires Wii Motion Plus to play. With the motion plus Link’s sword moves almost one-to-one with the Wii-mote. This leads to interesting changes in the Zelda combat. Instead of waiting for an enemy to let its guard down so you can attack it you must attack it with a well placed sword strike. You can swing the sword horizontally, vertically, diagonally, or thrust it forward. Alternatively if you hold the sword to the sky it will charge up allowing you to shoot a blast from the sword. Enemies will place their weapons, hands, or mouths in a way that lets you know which direction you should strike them. In fights with normal enemies the precision doesn’t really come into play. Sure you can take down an enemy with a few well placed strikes, but fiercely flinging the Wii-mote about will usually yield the same result.

Raise your sword skyward!

Boss battles are where the precision truly matters. If you attack certain bosses the wrong way you will be heavily punished until you learn to be more careful. One boss in particular will take your sword and throw it to let you know that you can’t swing the Wii-mote with reckless abandon as you do in most games.
Sometimes enemies require Link to block with his shield, which can be taken out by thrusting the nunchuck forward. If you thrust the nunchuck just before the attack lands on the shield the enemy will be staggered, which signals your chance to go crazy on it with your sword. This method is used to counter enemies who shoot projectiles. The shield introduced what I think is one of the most annoying mechanics in Skyward Sword. All of the shields have a health meter and when it hits zero the shield will break forever. This is something that’s never been fun in a game, so I really can’t see why Nintendo thought it would be a good idea.

Along with the sword and shield, motion control bled into every gadget Link finds in Skyward Sword. For the most part the arsenal is familiar with things like bombs, the bow, and the slingshot making a return. I was surprised by the new items and was a bit sad that they didn’t get more use. The one that gets the most use is the flying beetle. In order to hit far away switches, bomb walls, and pick up things you will take control of a mechanical beetle. In order to pilot it you turn the Wii-mote in the direction you want to bug to go. It works surprisingly well and is incredibly useful. On the other hand there were weapons such as the gust bellows, which is essentially a giant vacuum cleaner, which gets rid of sand. It’s used only a handful of times and it seems like a missed opportunity. The same goes for Link’s whip, but it gets even less use than the gust bellows. Skyward Sword tries to introduce a weapon upgrading mechanic. You can upgrade your shield and a select few gadgets by collecting materials around the world. This mechanic falls flat, because these upgrades are completely unneeded. They make the weapon slightly better, but the difference is barely noticeable. It seems like Nintendo was shooting for something much more grand, but it didn’t make it into the game.

Using the beetle worked far better than I expected.

All of this motion control works much better than I thought it would. It feels great when it works, but that’s where it fell short for me. I found myself needing to recalibrate and re-center the Wii Motion Plus far too often during my travels through Skyward Sword. Since the motion plus doesn’t use infrared it doesn’t need to be pointed at the Wii’s sensor bar. This means that the swordplay is never really affected by the previous issue, but that doesn’t mean it’s without its own issues. When you’re making broad strokes with the Wii-mote and Link is cutting down foes Skyward Sword’s combat feels amazing. The problem comes in when it doesn’t work as intended. There were certain times when I was making the stroke I should have been, but the enemy was still blocking my attacks. However, if I went crazy with the Wii-mote the enemy would quickly die. Things like that completely brought me out of the experience. However, I don’t think that these problems were caused by Skyward Sword. I’m fairly certain that they are caused by the Wii Motion Plus. As far as I’m concerned it’s a shoddy piece of technology that should have been built into the Wii-mote from the beginning anyways. Hopefully in the future Nintendo can find a way to make it work better.

Other than the motion controls everything about Skyward Sword seems fairly middling. The game opens on the floating island of Skyloft. Get used to it, because you’ll spend most of your time outside of dungeons there. It’s inhabited by a colorful cast of characters, much like every other Zelda game. These inhabitants will offer you side quests for upgrade materials and heart pieces. Everyone on Skyloft has their very own bird known as a Loftwing. This is how you move around the overworld in Skyward Sword. You take a running start and jump off the edge of Skyloft onto your oversized bird. It controls much like the beetle gadget, but it can go much faster. It still goes much slower than I’d prefer, but it’s a cool way to get around.

Link's Crimson Loftwing looks pretty cool.

There are quite a few sky islands you can travel to, but none of them are very interesting. Most of them only house one or two treasure chests with rupees in them. Other than that there will be giant pillars of light that mark places you can fall through the clouds. Jumping off your Loftwing at these pillars allows you to reach the surface world, which is where the dungeons reside. There isn’t much exploration on the surface world, which makes Skyward Sword seem much more linear than other titles in this franchise.

While the dungeons are interesting they are standard Zelda fare. You fight, shoot switches, and collect keys to make your way to the boss. Then you fight the boss in order to advance the story. This is highly reductive, but it’s what’s been done in almost every Zelda game. This isn’t a bad thing, or I wouldn’t keep coming back for more.

Fight the boss, save the princess.

Skyward Sword is a long game. It took me around 45 hours to complete the game. Normally I’d be thrilled with this kind of length from a game I enjoyed, but there was a point at around 30 hours in where I began to burn out. There are multiple sections of Skyward Sword that were clearly made to pad out the adventure. There’s a point where a game is too long and Skyward Sword reaches that point and then moves far past it. It could have easily been ten to fifteen hours shorter and I wouldn’t have minded a bit.

This isn't to say that Skyward Sword is a bad game. In fact, I’d say it’s a great game. I found myself having a great deal of fun with the game despite everything I've said in this review. It may sound overly negative, but that’s because I've played so many Zelda games. It’s hard to put something into one of these games that’s going to wow me. I think that this game made me realized that I've had my fill of Zelda for a while. The whole story and setting of this game were middle of the road, while the motion controls were pretty good. Skyward Sword is a decent Zelda game that’s a whole bunch of fun when it works correctly. However, that might not be enough anymore. It’ll satiate die hard Zelda fans, but I think it’s time for Nintendo to rethink the Zelda franchise before it gets too familiar.


Note: This review is also posted on Giantbomb.com

     -Manny

The Wii Motion Plus Problem

The Wii Motion Plus is a ridiculous concept to me. It's an add-on for the Wii Remote that adds more fidelity to the Wii Remote's motion capabilities. You hook the tiny box onto the bottom of the Wii Remote in order to enjoy the type of motion control the Wii originally promised. I never picked up a Wii Motion Plus add-on, because I had no desire to pay twenty dollars for it, and there were absolutely no games I wanted that supported it.

The stupid looking box at the bottom makes the
Wii's motion how it should have been in the first place

     

Nintendo is well known for releasing ridiculous peripherals that don't work out as planned and the Wii Motion Plus is one of them. It was released too late in the Wii's life to make any kind of difference. The magic of Motion controls had already worn off by the time the add on was released in June of 2009. Nintendo could have tried to push the Motion Plus, but they didn't. It is now 2011 and there are only four retail games that require Wii Motion Plus, and Twenty eight more games that have the option of using it.

     

There's only one of those games that's even worth playing to me. In November of 2011 Nintendo released Zelda: The Skyward Sword. It require Wii Motion Plus, and it's the first game I want to play that has anything to do with the add-on. The Motion Plus allows for 1-to-1 motion between the Wii Remote and Link's Sword in Game. I've always been a huge Zelda fan, which is why I want to play this game. In an attempt to try and save money this year I asked for Skyward Sword as a Christmas Gift. I didn't ask for a Wii Motion Plus, because I figured I could buy it on my own.

     

Much to my chagrin Nintendo has discontinued their Wii Motion Plus add-on. Now they only sell Wii-Remotes that have the add-on built in. The last thing I want to do is buy a new Wii Remote when the Wii is on its way out. Nintendo has made it clear that Skyward Sword will be the Wii's last major first party release. They're much more concerned with the Wii U. Wii Remotes with the built in add-on are going for thirty-five dollars on Amazon, but I opted to buy the discontinued add-on for twenty-five dollars instead. It won't arrive for at least five days after Christmas, which means I'll have to wait a bit before I can play Skyward Sword.

     

Nintendo has a history of doing this kind of thing and I'm getting sick of it. The new circle pad for the 3DS, is even more outrageous than the Motion Plus. I payed two-hundred-fifty dollars for a 3DS and then the price dropped. Now I feel like I got an unfinished handheld, because Nintendo is adding two extra shoulder buttons and a second analog stick. These moves are making it increasingly clear that Nintendo is falling behind the times. There are other places for gamers to turn and things like this could eventually become a problem for Nintendo.

     -Manny