Just use the Wii-handcuff!
(via shizzle)
Gaming
Carnival of Gamers #20
Michael has posted the December edition of the Carnival of Gamers. Check it out for this month’s blogging round-up. There were a lot of good submissions.
(Seems like there something up with the links in the blog post. I sent Michael an email, I’m sure they’ll get fixed. Fixed!)
What I’m playing
I’m at a point in Ouendan right now that I simply can’t finish, so I think it’s a good time to step away for a little while and get back to some other games. This is what I had been playing, before Ouendan took over my gaming time:
Marvel Ultimate Alliance – This was a rental for this past weekend. I played the first couple hours exclusively with my brother-in-law. He’s much more versed in the Marvel Universe, so he was much more familiar with the different characters available. I just know that Colossus has always been my favorite X-Men, so I played with him for the majority of the game while the bro-in-law was switching between a lot of the characters. The game is definitely a fun little beat-em-up romp. Not especially deep, but it does have some nice RPG elements. This is one I’d like to get some online co-op time with.
Gears of War – Speaking of online co-op, I’m still trying to get some online co-op in Gears of War. I was all set to do some co-op GoW’ing with Zonk but his 360 met an untimely malfunction and that prevented us from giving it a go. He’s all back up and running, so we’ve tentatively set up a future gaming time so I can finally give the game its final paces. I may also jump into some ranked games to grab some more achievements. Too bad the players found in ranked games are mostly from the dregs of society. You know how it is.
Burnout Revenge – I also picked up Burnout Revenge. I know I’m late to this game, but it’s still a blast. I’m slowly making it through, trying to get “Perfects” on every race. Once I unlock a couple of the faster cars, I’ll be jumping online to see if anyone is actually still playing this game.
And finally, now that I’ve evicted Ouendan from the DS, I’ll be going back to Contact. I was enjoying it before, so hopefully it won’t be a problem jumping back into the action. And as always, I’m still working off my debts to Tom Nook in Animal Crossing. I’ll be jumping on the WiFi to see if I can’t game the turnips market, so if you’re still playing AC:WW, let me know and you can come over and visit my town.
I’ve promised myself I won’t pick up any new titles until I see what Santa brings me, so this is pretty much what I’ll be playing until then. I’ll have to post my wish list soon. What are you guys playing?
I wish I knew how to quit yOu(endan)
What sets Ouendan apart from other games that rely on patterns is that it’s actually fun doing the same level over more than once. Even though the patterns are exactly the same, the music is so infectious and the rythm tapping is so satisfying that you never feel cheated when you fail at the level once again. It’s just “oh well, let’s do that again.” No biggie. That is the hallmark of a great game.
Another bonus is that it passes the “Wife Test.” Mrs. Buttonmasher loves this game. She is very casual gamer, so getting her involved with this game was something I didn’t think I could do. But all it took was one round at the easy level and she’s already hooked. In fact, she’s probably better than me at it. I only get to play when she’s done.
Speaking of the music, even though I have no idea what they’re singing about, I am now a huge fan of Japnese Pop music. I found all the soundtracks from the game and there are on heavy rotation in both iTunes and my iPod. It is so easy to listen to. Even the little buttonDaughter loves it.
So even though I have a pile of good games I could be playing, I just can’t quit playing Ouendan. I owe the Nintendaddio a huge thanks for recommending this game to me more than once.
Fish or cut bait?
Blog or play games?
After a relaxing extended Thanksgiving weekend (Happy belated Thanksgiving, BTW) I’m back to the old grind. Now I’m faced with the age-old question: Do some gaming or do some blogging?
I’ve got a large number of posts in varying stages of completeness in the queue, but I’ve also got two rented games that are already overdue but both immensely enjoyable calling my name. I’ve got Burnout Revenge, which is pretty sweet the second time around and I’ve got Lego Star Wars II which is a total blast. Decisions decisions.
Over the long weekend I took my 360 home to my parents house to hook it up to my Dad’s HDTV. He’s got an older Toshiba TV (this model, Toshiba 42H81
So I had a good weekend of gaming. I got Mrs. buttonMasher hooked on Ouendan. I downloaded all the Ouendan songs and they are on heavy rotation on the iPod. I also played the heck out of Lego Star Wars, co-op style, with my bro-in-law and really enjoyed it. It’s great to have a good Star Wars game after so many duds (I’m looking at you, Star Wars Bounty Hunter). The subtle humor they use re-telling the Star Wars story is a welcome laugh.
I also notice that I’m slowing morphing into a Gamerscore addict. I looked at the achievements for Burnout Revenge and lamented the fact that a large portion of them included playing the game online. That’s not a huge deal, but I imagine there probably won’t be many people playing Revenge online when they could be playing something else. (Wonder what that could be?) Anyway, if you’re on my friends list, I may be sharing a clip or two with you from Burnout Revenge. Gotta get those easy points!
So now that I’ve blogged a little, it’s time to go fishing. I mean gaming. You know what I mean.
Gears of War, a week later
I’ve noticed this a lot with games lately, but it seems like there is so much detail paid to setting the scene, creating the mood and starting the story that the rest of the game never lives up to the first few hours. I’m sure it’s not intentional and more of a consequence of schedule pressure and deadlines, but it’s unfortunate. Gears of War suffers a bit from this problem, but a bigger issue is a disjointed story. If you hadn’t been paying attention to the trailers and teasers before this game launched or if you hadn’t read the manual, you’d have no idea what was going on with the story. Then things happen so fast that there isn’t time to fill in the story. Things just happen, without a whole lot of explanation.
That being said, the pacing of the game is excellent. There’s no backtracking, no pointless objectives, just non-stop action. Checkpoints were seamless and the action moved quickly. This is the way action games should be paced. I just couldn’t believe how short the game was! I didn’t time myself, but I bet I didn’t spend more than eight hours here. That’s disappointing. Sure, I’ll spend some time trying the game at the higher difficulties and play a bunch of multiplayer, but the single player is just too short.
The actual game play is a mostly good with a few flaws. There have been many different descriptions of the in-game action. Some call it “stop-and-pop.” Hiding under cover and knowing when to pop out and shoot and when to blindfire, keeping yourself safe, is the name of the game. Me, I’d describe the game as a next-generation whack-a-mole. There were countless times where I’d be hiding under cover, being shot at by three different bad guys. I’d pop out to shoot and have to guess which of the three was going to pop up first. The first time it happened, I thought to myself, “I’m playing whack-a-mole.” What a buzz-kill that was. Where was the innovation? Where was the new game play? I sure didn’t find it.
After finishing the single player, I jumped on to Live to try out some multiplayer games. Most games are four-on-four, with different objectives like “killing the leader.” Most of the guys I ran around with were pretty cool and the games were fun but nothing special. The games are quick and demand teamwork, but with the pick-up ground aspect of matchmaking doesn’t really lend itself to developing that “teamwork.” Another problem with the matchmaking is the fact the game kicks you out to the main menu after the match is over. There’s no lobby or any other way to socialize. The games themselves are enjoyable but the overall experience was uninspired.
I was gonna try to jump into some co-op, but I haven’t been successful with that yet so far. Hopefully I’ll be able to give that a fair shake soon, to complete the experinece but overall, I’m satisfied. Not overwhelmed and definitely not blown away. This is not a 10/10 game. I would recommend this game with qualifiers. It’s short, yes, and it’s multiplayer experience is less-than-stellar, but it’s still a fun game.
So this new Zelda game…
It might be sorta, kinda good.
I was cruising my favorite meta-review site, Metacritic, checking out the new Wii titles when I browsed over to the new Zelda: Twilight Princess page. Right now, it’s clocking in at 9.8. I guess that would mean it’s a pretty solid launch title, right? Three reviews scoring it a perfect 100 and another at 99. IGN’s review hasn’t been integrated into MC’s score, but they gave the game a 9.5. Wow.
So this has to be the highest rated launch title, right?
I haven’t read any of the reviews, as I want to go into Z:TP completely unspoiled, so I’ll have to take these scores at face value. It just happens that said value is very high.
Waiting for my Wii
As I mentioned earlier, I was planning on picking up a Wii from Amazon.com. I figured I could get in on a preorder and be happy with that. There was talk that Amazon would resume taking preorders at some point. I held out hope. I believed!
Then I got this email from Amazon this afternoon:
Important News For Amazon.com Video Games Customers
The Nintendo Wii will be available for purchase on Amazon.com on 11/19, Sunday morning (PST). We will be limiting purchases to one per household and we anticipate that we will sell through our inventory very quickly as we’ve received email notification requests over 100 times greater than the number of units we will have available for sale (i.e., for every Nintendo Wii we’ll have for sale, over 100 people have signed up to be notified).
At this time, we do not have any information on future Nintendo Wii offers, but we will post updates on future availability in the customer discussions on the Nintendo Wii product page:
http://www.amazon.com/Nintendo-Wii/dp/B0009VXBAQ.
Thank you for your continued support of Amazon.com.
I guess I’ll be camping out in front of the computer Sunday morning (PST) whatever that means. Arrgh! Looks like the arrival of my Wii may be delayed for a while. A hundred-to-one ratio of Wiis to people who want them? I’m screwed.
Hacking the Wii giftcard
Target is handing out Wii GiftCards in anticipation of Nintendo’s release of this remarkable console. The cards are a bit thicker than your regular credit card and house some pretty nifty electronics. Pressing the button on the outside of the card turns on a ominous blue Wii glow that lasts about ten seconds. I’ll pop the case on this little thing and check out the internals. After that we’ll add a bit of functionality to the LEDs.
Instructables (via MAKEBlog)
Wii is hitting the game-o-sphere
And it’s exploding! These guys got their hands on Wii’s, pre-launch. Lucky!
Here are some links for your reading pleasure.
Seth at The Gamechair got his Wii and put it through its paces. He mentions playing the bowling game in Wii Sports with his wife. It got me thinking about Mrs. Buttonmasher. She really likes bowling but I’m not a fan of actually going to the bowling alley, so this may serve as justification for my purchase of the Wii. Score one for making the missus happy! He also has some impressions of Excite Truck, Wii Sports and Zelda Twilight Princess. His piece about Zelda is an exceptionally good read.
Joystiq got their Wii and live blogged the whole experience. Looked like a lot of fun, I can’t wait to have mine in-hand. Everyone has mentioned the “Fitness” games on the Wii Sports They also looked at the manual in between Zelda play sessions. Speaking of Zelda, they also posted a point/counter-point discussing whether the new Zelda has “fallen flat” or not. Vladimir Cole says it did by basically bashing the fact that you can’t read signs from afar. Hardly a reason to say it falls flat. Christopher Grant provides the counter-point, pointing out that, “Twilight Princess offers the same brilliant core gameplay mechanics that have driven the series for the last twenty years.” Of course it does. Finally, they have a list of ten things you probably didn’t know about the Wii and its games. 5 heart pieces for a whole heart in Zelda?
Brian over at Kotaku unboxes his Wii. It’s like watching a nerd strip-tease. He also has a bunch of good stuff up, including his impressions with the controller, how backwards compatibly with Gamecube games look (a fresh coat of paint, he says). He didn’t seem impressed with Wii Sports. He did, however, have some good things to say about Zelda.
Destructoid (another blog favorite of mine, but renders horribly in Opera 9.1) did us the favor of posting links to all their videos and impressions in one place for your perusal.
I’m sure more Wii experiences will be hitting the blogs and I’ll try update this post as they come in.
As for my Wii plans, I’m still deciding. I currently have an Amazon.com gift certificate balance that would knock a big chunk of the price, so I may place an order with them. I’m on the “email alert list” for when they start taking orders but I haven’t heard anything yet, so I’m still waiting on that. Using Amazon for my Wii needs might delay the arrival of my Wii but I’ll have other diversions to take up my time until then.
Regardless, after reading people’s impressions of their new Nintendo console, I am getting excited about playing on myself. Very excited.
(On a side note, I noticed I’m still using the category “NREV” that I made when the Wii was still being referred to as the “Nintendo Revolution.” Guess it was time to update the category name!)