Tag Archive for 'Wii'

Megaman is back for real

Published on June 26, 2008 in Video Games. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .
mega man 9 screen

Yes, that’s what the new Megaman game actually looks like.

A couple blogs have linked to this forum post which confirms that Megaman 9 is coming as a Wiiware/PSN/XBLA downloadable exclusive game.  Rumored bosses include Magma Man, Galaxy Man, Jewel Man, Concrete Man, Hornet Man, Plug Man, Tornado Man, and Splash Woman.  The most exciting part is the news that it’s going to look like an NES game and go back to the series’ roots in terms of design and gameplay.  I can’t wait to play this… it’s most likely I’ll download it for the PS3.  Unfortunately, the Wii’s storage space is too precious, so I’d rather save it for Wii-exclusive titles.

Super Mario Galaxy (Wii, 2007)

Published on February 1, 2008 in Video Games. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

Like with too many other movies and games recently, I’ve kind of dropped the ball on writing a review for Mario Galaxy to the point where it almost feels so late that it’s pointless to do so.  However, reading a Gamasutra review by David Sirlin, a designer for Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix who had similar views and some interesting observations has inspired me to write some of my impressions of the game.

The game is absolutely brilliant.  We finally have a true sequel to Super Mario 64, with enough innovation to not just feel like a rehash.  The levels all float in space, and most are made up of a collection of little oddly-shaped planets, each with its own gravity.  In Galaxy we get classic Mario gameplay with the added twist of varied gravity mechanics.  There’s many gameplay surprises and unique levels, and even some 2D platforming segments.

Playing this game is pure joy, with some small exceptions – mostly segments involving the motion sensing capabilities of the Wiimote that are irritating to play and feel very much tacked on.  I’m two stars away from completing the game at 100%.  As incredible as the game is, the final challenges – returning to past stages to collect 100 purple coins – are tedious and feel unimaginative.  We’ll see once I finish everything whether these were worth it.

David Sirlin made an excellent observation about Galaxy, something I hadn’t even thought about:

Inertial Frames

When you jump straight up while riding a train in real life, you do not slam into the back of the train; you land on the same spot as you jumped from. Physicists say that you are in the same inertial frame as the train, meaning that you’re moving with it and your walking or jumping is relative to it.

You all know this instinctively and yet almost no platform games know this. I remember actually being shocked in the game Spider-Man 2 when my Spider-Man was on top of a car and I jumped straight up and landed on the car. “Wow, they know about inertial frames!” I said. At long last, Mario Galaxy knows about them too. You can finally jump straight up while riding a moving platform and land on the platform without worrying about it moving out from under your feet.

Read Sirlin’s review at Gamasutra for more.

Trix is for kids?

Published on October 9, 2007 in Video Games. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

N’Gai Croal of Newsweek’s Level Up blog posted about his appearance on CNN about the upcoming Manhunt 2, notable for having to be retooled to receive a lower rating, violent use of the Wii controls, and now the achievement of having been denied review by the British Board of Film Classification a second time even after self-censorship.

The real interesting thing about Croal’s post is that he realizes that during his interview, the anchor keeps making the assumption that all games, including the M rated Manhunt 2, are aimed at children.

Here’s an excerpt:

Chetry isn’t alone in her bedrock assumption that all videogames are primarily aimed at “kids.” After all, had we gone on the show to discuss Ang Lee’s NC-17-rated erotic thriller “Lust, Caution,” or the upcoming horror movie “30 Days of Night,” we doubt that we’d have been asked “Would you let your kids watch it?” It would have been assumed that those movies, like certain TV shows, books or plays, are not intended for children. Yet videogames often don’t get the same recognition.

The assumption that all videogames are toys for children rather than entertainment for a variety of different audiences is one of our pet peeves. It may seem innocuous, but it’s not only the foundation of continued attempts at the state and national level to regulate the sale and marketing of videogames, it’s also an excuse for developers and publishers to coast on the innocuous, the inoffensive and the tried-and-true rather than push the medium forward in multiple directions for multiple audiences–including adults. In other words, it’s not just videogame outsiders who hold this belief: many insiders do as well.

What’s even more interesting to me is how Croal links the issue to the general lack of innovation in games today. While I still believe that lack of innovation should mostly be blamed on financial reasons — entertainment’s habit of parroting formulas that have been commercially successful in the past in hopes of reaping additional profits — Croal’s argument is definitely compelling.

The assumption that all games are meant for kids is especially mind-boggling to me after playing through most of Silent Hill 2 with friends over the last couple days. It’s glaringly obvious that the game is for adults. The game features narrative, atmosphere, intelligence, and emotion with far more depth than most horror films I’ve seen. Anyways, I’ll write more about SH2 another time, after we actually finish the game.

Super Mario Strikers Charged (Wii)

Published on September 12, 2007 in Video Games. 0 Comments Tags: , .

My cousin Daniel visited this weekend from Berkeley, and brought down Super Mario Strikers Charged.

Overall, the game is very fun. It’s played differently than any other soccer game I’ve ever played; the pace is much, much faster, and there’s a huge emphasis on fouling. More accurately, you can’t foul in the game — you’re encouraged to attack players on the other team. The only penalty is the other team will occasionally be awarded an item if you foul hard enough.

Each team only has 5 players, one of which is the goalie, who you only control when he’s holding the ball. The field is also small. These things, along with item attacks, plus character offensive/defensive moves, and the superhuman force of some of the kicks, make the game play blazingly fast.  One charged strike from the team captain can almost instantly score 6 goals.

The only weak part of the game is the controls.  I didn’t like the button layout.  Having to constantly switch thumb placement from the A button to the Wiimote’s D-Pad simply isn’t very comfortable.  The game has exactly three Wiimote specific motion controls.  The first two are gestural, flicking the Wiimote to hit a player and flicking the nunchuck to switch items, and the third is using the Wiimote as a pointer to block the soccer balls that come at you when defending from a captain’s charged strike move.  Really, the game would have been far better suited to a standard Cube controller or the Wii’s Classic controller.

The game is also exceedingly difficult in single player, but multiplayer is a blast, whether playing VS or co-op.

My favorite part of the game by far is the animations for all the characters after they score, and the animations for the team captains when their team is either winning or losing.  Each captain also has his/her own theme music in a unique style, which is awesome.  My favorite so far is probably Luigi’s flamenco music.

You can see animations for a bunch of the other characters at Roliation’s YouTube gallery.

Call of Duty 3 (Wii)

Published on May 22, 2007 in Video Games. 2 Comments Tags: , , .

Call of Duty 3 was a game I had no desire to buy, rent, or actively seek out in any way. My cousin Daniel came to town, and being a big console first person shooter fan, he wanted to get one for his Wii, and it seemed to him that CoD3 was the best available option. So, he bought the game, and we played through a decent amount of it over the week he visited.

To put it plainly, CoD3 is one of the best Wii games out. Some may argue its just another case of Wii controls being tacked onto a game, but they work, and they work very well. The result these “tacked on” controls is one of the most immersive shooters I’ve ever played.

CoD3 doesn’t play like the typical shooter. The game places you in World War II warzones as a member of a squad as opposed to as a lone agent. The fact that these are literally warzones makes cover very important, and the ability to move crouched or to crawl on your belly to find covered positions to fire from becomes key to survival. This style of gameplay is a perfect fit for Wii first person shooter controls, which would be sluggish or unwieldy in a more traditional shooter like Quake or Resistance, because the controls don’t seem conducive to fast-paced “run and gun” style gameplay.  Maybe another Wii game will come around that’ll prove me wrong, but that’s my view at the moment.

The biggest downside to the Wii version of CoD3 is the complete lack of multiplayer support both online and offline.  I would have loved to see a multiplayer co-op mode.  The single player game is stellar and full of variety, but that’s not really an excuse.

While the Wii edition’s graphics don’t match the competition, it doesn’t affect gameplay.  The lower end graphics don’t detract from the game’s immersiveness.

I learned an important lesson here — I need to stop shitting on third party Wii games based on media coverage or personal jadedness.  It’s time to give third party Wii games a chance.

Umbrella Chronicles Gameplay

Published on April 16, 2007 in Video Games. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Kotaku posted this gamplay clip from Umbrella Chronicles, one of the upcoming Wii Resident Evil games.

Looks pretty fucking cool. Based on what Capcom has done with the GameCube hardware in the past, this Wii title is very promising. I hope it’s as intense and unnerving as RE:4.

Super Paper Mario (Wii)

Published on April 13, 2007 in Video Games. 4 Comments Tags: , , .

Super Paper Mario is the latest in the Paper Mario series, which begun on the N64 and has its roots in Mario RPG for the SNES. I had never played Paper Mario (N64), but I played the sequel on the GameCube, Thousand Year Door, as well as the Mario & Luigi RPG games on the GBA and DS, which are not sequels but are definitely related. So, I was anxiously awaiting the release of Super Paper Mario, the first Wii game to come out since launch that I was truly interested in playing.

Super Paper Mario differs from its predecessors in that it has simplified the gameplay by abandoning turn-based battles in favor of something closer to the classic Super Mario Bros. formula. The game is actually a 2D sidescroller with real-time Mario combat — stomping Goombas and kicking Koopa shells. The twist is that Mario has the ability to “flip” into the third dimension, revealing hidden depth in the 2D world and allowing you to move in it to overcome obstacles that seem impassable in 2D.

super paper mario screenshot

Mario flipping to the third dimension.

Since combat is real-time, you only control one character from your party at a time. You can switch at any time between characters after you find them, and each has unique abilities. For example, Peach can float using her parasol, a-la Super Mario Bros. 2, and Bowser can breathe fire. You also find sidekicks called Pixls throughout the game, and each gives you a new ability. One Pixl can be equipped at time. The game is further simplified by the complete exclusion of stat-boosting equipable items.

The simplification works because of the intuitiveness of the controls. The Wiimote is held like an NES controller, and other than the d-pad only three buttons are actively used during the game. The Wiimote is sometimes also shaken or used as a pointer. The use of the Wiimote feels like a natural fit for the game; it has definitely benefited from being pushed over to the Wii from the GameCube.

While the game is definitely a lot of fun, the level of challenge isn’t very high. Thousand Year Door was an easy game, too, but so far this one is far easier. In this regard the simplicity hurts the game, because the pace of play feels too slow in relationship to it.

super paper mario screenshot

Wow, Nintendo’s sure got my number.

Where this game really shines is writing and presentation. Super Paper Mario maintains the sense of humor of the previous games in the series, and it’s a joy to talk to every NPC to see what they have to say. The characters are full of personality, and the game has tons of funny little Nintendo references.

The game makes up for the Wii’s lack of kick in the graphics department through beautiful, highly stylized design. The game combines vectorized 2D animated sprites with cell-shaded 3D models that resemble simple papercraft. Each world has a unique environment, and some have unique visual styles. There’s items that cause a bunch of tiny 8-bit Marios to run onto the screen, or turn you into a gigantic 8-bit Mario that crushes everything. The visuals make me giddy with glee; Nintendo proves yet again that games don’t need to be made on cutting edge graphics hardware to look great.

super paper mario dragon boss

Cell shaded awesomeness for a boss battle inspired by Shadow of the Colossus.

Super Paper Mario was definitely worth the wait for the GameCube to Wii transition. Let’s hope the true Wii first-party Nintendo games I’m anxiously anticipating will be just as good.

Opoona (Wii)

Published on March 22, 2007 in Video Games. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .
opoona logo

I forgot to post this video after GDC. It’s a trailer for Opoona, an RPG that’s coming to the Wii from Koei. I can’t say I’m as excited about this as No More Heroes, but it’s definitely a promising third party release. What’s interesting is the game is completely controlled one-handed with the nunchuck.

Watch the trailer for Opoona

No More Heroes

Published on March 10, 2007 in Video Games. 2 Comments Tags: , , , .

At the moment, No More Heroes is the only third party Wii exclusive game I’m excited about. It’s the new game from Suda51, the guy that brought us the amazing Killer 7.

Hit up the trailer for some good ol’ fashioned ultraviolence.

[via Kotaku]

Trauma Center: Second Opinion (Wii)

Published on January 22, 2007 in Video Games. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .
Trauma Center: Second Opinion

Trauma Center: Second Opinion is a surgery game for the Wii. The game uses the Wiimote as a pointer in an interface that involves mainly pointing, clicking, and dragging. The nunchuck is used to switch between the surgical tools at your disposal.

Second Opinion is a remake of Trauma Center: Under the Knife for the Nintendo DS. While I haven’t yet played the DS version, the game feels more suited for that system. The controls in the Wii version are great for the most part, but it gets tiring and frustrating after long stretches, especially when you throw in stuff like holding down two buttons while drawing a pentagram on the screen to activate “Healing Touch,” a power that slows down time. Even in Normal mode the game requires superhuman speed and precision, and I’d feel more comfortable playing it on a touchscreen system.

In between operation stages, the story progresses through text-based dialogue cut scenes that aren’t particularly engaging. To be fair, this isn’t the central draw of the game, but they could have been a bit better, especially when you compare them to the stuff in Phoenix Wright.

Trauma Center: Second Opinion is a solid game, but be prepared for some frustration.