14 posts tagged “video games”
If you've ever thought that a nice way of spending Christmas with the family would be gathering everyone together and taking turns playing that one Banjo Kazooie Christmas level on the N64 (and who hasn't?) then I've got some Christmas music to play while you're baking Metroid-shaped cookies.
Normally, I'm not a fan of Sleigh Ride, since it's one of those songs that gets played four or five times an hour on the Christmas music station. However, for some reason I can't get enough of this version, performed by the One-Ups. It reminds me of playing Animal Crossing on Christmas and finding the Jingle carpet, one of my fondest Christmas memories. That Jingle Carpet and I had a lot of good times.
However, if you'd prefer your video game Christmas music to sound a little more 1988, you may prefer this version of Let It Snow by BitShifter that sounds like it came directly out of Kickle Cubicle. Yes, that's right. I said Kickle Cubicle!
Have yourself a nerdy little Christmas!
Dr. Mario is back! He's on the Wii, and teaching a whole new generation that you can solve your problems with pills.
Have you ever played Dr. Mario and taken a Flintstones vitamin every time you kill a germ? It doesn't take long before you start to develop what I call Mario Focus. Even if you lose, you'll feel virtually unstoppable. Of course, there's also the hallucinations, but get those in check and learn the following guidelines, and you'll get your Mario doctorate in no time flat.
1. Learn which way the pill spins. When you press the button, you should know which color will be on the left and which one will be on the right. Learn this, and you're halfway to being the best Dr. Mario player in the universe.
2. Work your way down from the top. Those pills will start dropping pretty fast at the end of the game, and the distance it takes to get to the bottom gives you enough time to spin your pills properly. Don't leave any on the top!
3. If you screw up, don't get flustered. Getting rid of two poorly placed colors is easy. But if you lose focus and start dropping pills willy-nilly, it'll be a lot tougher to catch up.
4. Pretend that every color is important. If you've just got red and blue germs showing, imagine that one of them (preferably one between a red germ and a blue germ) is actually yellow, and place all of your yellows there until you uncover a real place for the yellows. It's fun to pretend things.
5. Don't get too clever. It is very cool to see those horizontal matches disappear, but if you can set up a vertical just as easily, do it. Set up the pills to get your combos, but remember the important thing is getting rid of the germs before their feelings are hurt, poor little guys.
6. Do all the yellow ones first. Yellow is the color of lemons and urine. Get that horrible color out of your pill bottle.
7. Time your drops carefully. If you can drop every pill on a downbeat in either Chill or Cough while Mario's hand is in the backmost position, you can unlock the nude Mario ending. It's shocking, but answers a lot of nagging questions.
8. Make sure your Wii-mote is pointed East. It's a well known fact that Dr. Mario is one of Japan's most nationalistic games, (next to Shenmue and River City Ransom) so you get extra rewards by pointing your Wii-mote toward the Land of the Rising Sun. If you do this on levels 20 and higher, you not only get more points, you will actually learn to speak Japanese.
9. Practice good hygiene. I have it on good authority that if you lose, the germs on the screen will be transferred to the Wii-mote over the internet and escape through the built-in microphone onto your hands. Scrub your hands! Get the germs off before they get into your skin. Dirty! Dirty! Dirty!
10. Buzzy buzzy goomba. Hail starman, or quake before the mighty spinies of lakitu's wrath. There are vines growing in the bricks, vines to heaven, sweet heaven awash in coins. Koopa troopa koopa troopa koopa troopa koopa troopa koopa troopa koopa troopa koopa troopa koopa troopa koopa troopa koopa troopa grab the power mushroom!
Does Wii Fit make you fit? Well, it does if your fatness comes from playing video games.
See, I've been spending the evenings not going for walks in beautiful, scenic, summery MInnesota, but instead basking in the faint glow of the Wii.
So all I needed to do was make one small change. Instead of playing a game about something cool, like go-cart racing, I play a game about something lame, like push ups. But since it's Nintendo, even push ups seem like fun. Take Step Aerobics, for example. For some reason, Nintendo presents step aerobics like this: You and a dozen of your closest friends and family members in Mii form are performing basic steps on a darkened stage. In the audience is everyone you've ever raced your Mario Kart against, including some leering weirdo known only as "The Perv." The music starts, and if you've ever played a Nintendo game, you've got a pretty good idea of what the music sounds like already, and you step on to your little board for 3 minutes, and it's kind of fun. Or, it's not fun, or if you have stage fright, there's a game that lets you Wii step on your own, change the channels, and police yourself as the little speaker in your remote keeps the beat and tells you when your time is up.
The Wii board is basically two scales stuck together, much the way the Wii is just two Gamecubes stuck together. What that means is that it weighs you every day, calculates your BMI, and generally makes you regret the existence of Toffee Almond Bars, but it also can tell how much weight you're putting on each foot. And that's the impetus for about half the games.
There are a few basic balance tests, and then a group of balance mini-games, all designed to let you know that you probably shouldn't be walking unaided, you clumsy twit. The balance games include a ski jump simulator, snowboarding, and a solitaire version of Hey! That's My Fish! You lean forward to go faster, you lean left and right to keep balance on the jump, slalom, or steer your Mii in a penguin suit around a slippery iceberg. The balance games also include a game where you have to navigate your embubbled Mii down a river without touching the banks, and it has me addicted. I can't believe they only put in the one map. I could balance my bubble-Mii all evening. The much ballyhooed soccer game is also a balance game, and it's OK. I can't get past the fact that you want the soccer balls to hit you in the face, but you definitely do not want the fuzzy panda heads to hit you in the face. Why fuzzy panda heads? Why not water balloons, or bowling balls, or pie, or PS3s? It takes away from the whole sport of soccer, if you ask me. Panda heads, what the hell?
The Yoga and Strength Training have a virtual trainer who tells you how to do the downward dog and the sun salutation and the angry hornet and the noodle doodle and whatever other yoga poses they make up. Because of the two-scales thing, the trainer can tell if you're unbalanced, so that when I'm "doing a palm tree", the trainer says, "You look a little shaky. You look a little shaky. You look a little shaky. The palm tree will stretch your ERROR YOU LOOK A LITTLE SHAKY." Unlike a real trainer, these trainers can't actually fix your pose, just nag you until you get it right. But also unlike a real trainer, these ones don't cost $60 a session.
But the best part about Wii Fit is that we've been playing it in the evenings, which is usually when I like to eat my bowl of ice cream. So in addition to doing exercise, I've got the tremendous guilt associated with letting down my uncanny valley personal trainer and anthropomorphized talking balance board, so it works out pretty well for me.
Also there's a game about sitting, and let me tell you, both Jenna and I are sitting rock stars.
We interrupt the scheduled blog post for this important information
Nintendo Wii - It end in wino
Micrsoft XBox - Mix box for cost
Sony Playstation 3 - Tipsy, snooty, anal
That is all.
For Valentine's Day, Jenna hooked me up with some Wii points, and now they're burning a hole in my virtual wallet.
I already spent five points on Bubble Bobble, mostly out of a desire to hear a midi version of Flight of the Bumblebee, but 1600 points remain, and I can't decide what to spend them on. I keep thinking it would be nice to get an N64 game that I don't already have, like StarFox or Wave Race, but I still secretly believe that the N64 games are a tad too expensive, and if I only wait three or four years, they'll go down to nine dollars. And a lot of people have mentioned that Super Mario Kart 64 is a great game to download, but I already played through it on my own N64 not all that long ago, and who is going to want to play Virtual Console games against me?
There are some tempting games from the 16 bit era as well. They just released the Super Nintendo version of Harvest Moon, and as you've probably already figured out, I'm a sucker for sheep-shearing sims, so that's another top consideration. Of course, then there's Super Mario World, which is just as good as the Super Mario Brothers 3 that I downloaded (which Katie and I just call Super 3 -- also, we sometimes call Luigi "Weege" -- out of sheer coolness) with the added bonus that I haven't memorized all of the stages. Again, however, the price point gives me pause. If I get one 800 point Super Nintendo game, I've already priced myself out of getting a Nintendo 64 game. And don't talk to me about buying more points. I need to skillfully manage the allotment of points I have right now and stop dreaming about future points that may or may not materialize. Tomorrow's points may never come, so spend your points wisely today, that's my motto.
That leaves the 8 bit games. Like I said, I've got Bubble Bobble and Super 3, so I don't want to overdo it on the NES games. Plus, I've got all kinds of GameCube compilation games that include all the Sonics/Mega Mans (Mega Men?)/Midway Arcade Classics/Namco Arcade Treasures that keep showing up. Sure there's Punch-Out!! which probably belongs in my collection based solely on the fact that it has a character named King Hippo, but in the end, Punch-Out!! is just about figuring out timing, and Mr. Dream isn't nearly as cool as 80s era Mike Tyson. Since the last two games I downloaded were 8-bits, I feel like I'm frittering away my points instead of making a bold, heady purchase.
Then there's all the games from the other consoles, your Neo-Geo, your Sega Genesis, your Turbo-Grafx. I have just come to accept that these consoles at one time existed, and certainly am unwilling to spend my precious, precious points on the likes of them.
Sometimes I think it's just nice to have the points.
In any case, it's a conundrum. Is it any wonder I'm not sleeping at night?
What video game is your personal Game of the Year?
Submitted by SimpleNate.
I 've only gotten to Level 7 of 48, but I think I can safely say that my personal Video Game of the Year is Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. I just can't get enough of this series. It's like playing chess. I sit and deliberate about each turn, except that each turn is made up of approximately 10 moves. I will sit and think:
"What if I attack the javelin guy with my steel axe?
What if i attack him with my throwing axe?
What if I use my archer to soften him up first, and then go after him with the steel axe?
What if I do throwing axe then archer, to give my archer extra experience points for the kill?"
and on and on and on. I'm mostly looking at the amount of damage each weapon will do and the chance that it will hit its mark, but there are pages upon pages of information here. You can check your characters' lineage, their speed, their biorhythms for crying out loud. Sometimes I feel like I'm only playing 10% of the game, but it still takes an hour to get through a single level. And not only that, but if any one of your characters dies, there's no reviving him or her, so I immediately hit reset and start the level over again. Every level I win makes me feel like I successfully solved one of a series of ever more complicated Rubik's cubes.
It's a little talky though. I brought the prequel of this game to my parents' house last Christmas because I had won it with all of the unlockable characters still alive and I just wanted to see the ending. I did no playing, just loaded up my save file and watched the the characters congratulate each other for winning the game. It took 45 minutes.
My mother said it was the most boring video game she'd ever seen.
In spite of that, though, I love this series. I love multiclassing my healers so they can start fighting when there's no healing to be done. I love arranging attacks around a heron so I can get an extra turn. I love forging my own specialized mega-weapons and giving them ridiculous names and colors. If there was a FERD camp, where people basically just checked out of their lives to play this single video game for a week, with no other interruption, I'd... hold on, I just got a great idea for a camp that will make me millions.
Well, except that an overly talky, graphically paleolithic, looong army organizing game is probably not going to appeal to a lot of people. In fact, I really can't recommend this game because I don't understand why I love this series the way I do. It's not the sound, it's not the graphics, it's not the twitchy action, it's not the pick-up-and-play aspect, it's not the tightly written story. Seriously, what's the appeal?
Anyway, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, Game of the Year.
Who is your favorite video game character?
Submitted by Korgoth.
I saw this question on Saturday, and, as I'm sure you've already guessed, I've done nothing but think about it for the last two days. Favorite video game character? Have I played a game where replacing the main character with, say, Pippi Longstocking would ruin the game? Pippi chomping mushrooms and stepping on turtles, Pippi eating a never ending supply of pills as she chases ghosts through a darkened maze, Pippi using a chainsaw to cut off a zombie's head, Pippi stealing cars and running over prostitutes. Clearly, I have not. Seriously, she makes every game better.
Would I play a game based on the character in that game, knowing nothing about the development team, plot, or genre of the game? No, and it's totally Mario's fault. How can Mario be a go-kart racer, line judge, and a doctor? It's beyond the realms of human imagination! I couldn't in good conscience play a game knowing only that Solid Snake will be in it, even if I was reassured that he'll have access to all kinds of cardboard boxes throughout the game. The character does not make the game.
Do I ever wish that a particular video game character would have had a starring role in other games? Would Hitman have been more fun if it starred Chibi-Robo? What if instead of collecting Pokemon, you collected the twisted, undead creatures of Silent Hill? Should Samus trade in her arm cannon for a Katamari? OK, maybe, but that just illustrates that it's the content of the game rather than the character that makes it interesting.
I would have to say, with no small amount of egotism, that my favorite video character so far has been Mii. And by Mii, I mean me, my Mii. I would love to play a Dance Dance revolution style game with bald little Cherney bustin' a move to the latest Justin Timberlake album. Or watch as my Nintendo avatar braves the Mushroom Kingdom on a quest to save Princess Peach from a deranged Mario who has locked her up to prevent her from getting kidnapped again. And wouldn't it be awesome if, after getting through the game once, I could play it again as my dad, or my son, or my mother-in-law, or any of the other Miis I have saved in my Nintendo?
I don't know why Nintendo hasn't worked Mii capability into every game they've released. I haven't finished Paper Mario yet, but I'm shocked that the cheering audience is not make up of Miis, and that there's no funny mirror encounter (like in the previous Paper Marios) with a Mii in it. If Nintendo wants to bring non-gamers to the Wii, exploiting those Miis is a great place to start.
(As a side note, my parents stayed here a couple of weeks ago and actually stayed up later than Jenna and me so they could play Wii Sports. I can't remember either of them playing a video game since Pac-Man. Nintendo must be doing something right.)
There are enough genres in Nintendo where a Mii could be put in without any problem. It could bring new life to RPGs like Pokemon, puzzle games, singing and dancing games, kart racing, Monkey Ball, Animal-Crossing-style games, and a whole bunch more I haven't even thought of.
Are you writing this down Nintendo? You don't need to pay me. Just send me a bobble-head that looks like my Mii and have it signed by Cranky Kong. Because Cranky Kong rocks.
Now that I'm a good ways through Paper Mario, with all its 8-bit nostalgia, I want to see more classic franchises on the Wii. I know, everyone wants Kid Icarus, but I think there are a lot of games from the NES era that would be a great fit with the new system. Here's a lesson for Wii developers: The Wii is a system that thrives on nostalgia. Even throwing in one level from your original game is sure to excite gamers. People will not always hearken fondly back to the days of NES, so Nintendo needs to capitalize on this now.
How about River City Ransom? The idea is that you walk down the street and punch everyone you see in the face. Then, after learning the mystic prophesies of the ancient ones, you learn to kick them, too. River City Ransom would have disappeared into the Double Dragon, walkin' and punchin' genre if it weren't for the rpg elements. You could purchase food, prophetic fighting books, even a sauna which would all alter your character's health in different ways, mostly involving stronger and faster punching (and eventually kicking). It made itself stand out, and the rpg elements only serve to add some innovation and that darling of the Wii-set, minigames. Of course, the meat and potatoes of the game would be punching and not being punched back. Think about how cool that would be if you were actually throwing the punches with the Wii controller. Plus, you could unlock the original game (for free, Nintendo!) and play through that either in classic controller mode, or in some wacky new control scheme. The buzz for the game is already built in, and if the main game is challenging and complex enough, the minigames feel like real bonuses instead of extra padding.
Another good one would be Castlevania. Castlevania is a unique franchise in that it refuses to undergo a complete retooling in order to showcase the power of new systems. The best Castlevania games look pretty similar to Super Castlevania, which was realeased in what, 1990? I know Wii developers don't give the Wii enough credit graphically, but here's one place where they wouldn't have to. Just keep the 2D castles and throw in some fancy cut scenes or special effects. Instead of thinking about graphics, Konami could think about using the Nunchuk for movement/jumping and the Wii-mote for whipping and casting spells. They could work in a lot more uses for the whip, like swinging through the castle and hitching a ride from a Medusa head. Maybe the DS is the ideal platform for Castlevania, but there are a lot of opportunities that shouldn't be missed on the Wii.
Then there's Earthworm Jim. Again, you have the whip element, although I don't know what kind of gesture you'd use to simulate using your head for a whip. This series was basically a platformer (although well-done and very funny), but one level sets it apart as a tailor made for the Wii: The Peter Puppy level. In the original game, Peter the puppy would walk along, oblivious to the world around him. Your job was to be his guardian angel. You guided him up see-saws so he could avoid whatever danger lay below them, you gave him a push to hurry him through a meteor shower, you moved dangerous obstacles out of his way, and you caught him before he fell from too high. And if you missed even a single one of those tricks, Peter Puppy changed into a vicious monster, and made a beeline to attack you, regardless of how many times you just helped him. You just had to take it and lose a life and then start over again, helping Peter get to his doghouse safely. That level really sticks out in my mind, because it was really hard to get through it, and there was an advanced version that required the kind of Herculean efforts you only hear about in tones of hushed awe. Now imagine doing all that using the Wiimote to move manipulate the streets in front of Peter, and you've got yourself an awesome game!
Jenna and I noticed at about the same time that I suddenly had quite a collection of games for the Wii. And we noticed it while we were putting together boxes for the upcoming move.
I knew immediately what that meant. It was time to separate the GameCube sheep from the goats. Again. Round one was easy. I picked out a bunch of games that I never play anymore and I felt I would not be going back to them. The clerk at GameStop was visibly drooling when I let Ikaruga go for $13 (I bought it three years ago for $20 and never got past the second level). He placed the other games on the shelf and held on to that one. I had no problem giving it up. It was easy.
This round was less easy. The buyback prices were not as favorable, there was no coveted super game in the pile. Just a bunch of games that I enjoyed playing and thought I could possibly play them again. Some were unfinished, like Simpsons Hit and Run. Others were classics, like Wind Waker. None of them brought in more than eight bucks.
But, I reasoned, if I don't have my memory card, I would have to play all of them over again from the start. I'd never have time for that! Think how long it would take to regrow my vast corn fields in Harvest Moon, or beat up Rhino again and again and again in Spider-Man 2. It was time to move on.
I talked myself into selling them, but when they offered me two measly dollars for Midway Arcade Treasures, I had to refuse. They're selling Root Beer Tapper alone for $5! And this has got the Rampage I loved to play so much when I was 12. So only six games went this round. I did all right.
But the next round is going to kill me.
Well, I think Nintendo has finally learned its lesson. Never again will those suits in Redmond release a console where they don't think carefully about price, release date, online compatibility, and ample production. My three month boycott of the nearly impossible to find system has clearly gotten through to them. So I got a Wii.
When the Wii launched, I told most people that I didn't want to stand in line and get herded around like a sheep for a damn video game console, and I believe the manner in which I scoffed was what you'd call derisive. Well, now when you see me you can go ahead and call me Mr. Hypocrite and slap me in the back of the head (or, if you've already been doing that, now you've got a reason) because that's exactly what I did yesterday. We were told that a secret shipment of the good stuff would be arrive early Sunday morning at one of my usual dealers, so we sat outside waiting for the sign that we could go in. When the doors were unlocked, we all came streaming out of our cars, up the escalator, past the registers, through baby clothes, cutting across the home decor, turning right at toys and waiting in line where we were to present our valuable tickets to the burly security guard. I then turned around and retraced my steps pretty much back to the car in order to get my ticket, but then it was back up the escalator, past the registers, through baby clothes, cutting across the home decor, turning right at toys and waiting in line for me. I finally bought a Wii.
While the purchase of a new video game system in our household is usually a time of joy and celebration about on par with our wedding day, my feelings yesterday were decidedly mixed. First of all, I sold the GameCube, which had given me nothing but faithful service for five years. The guy at the store seemed genuinely surprised that I would sell it back, like I was melting down our family photo album for precious metals or something. I confidently reassured the gentleman that the Wii is 100% backwards compatible, and I would be enjoying my vast collection of GameCube games, even though I would no longer be the owner of a GameCube itself. Thus, money changed hands, and I bade farewell to ol' Gamey forever, and left with Elebits in its place.
And then something horrible happened.
I felt a hankering to relive the glory days of Burnout 2, so I popped in the disk, and my Memory Card no longer held the file for it. In fact, it didn't have anything except a message that it was corrupted and needed to be erased and reformatted. I gasped. I really, audibly gasped. My crash records, my unlockable cars, my Smash Brothers trophies, my Rogue Squadron Progress, my achievements in video gaming and all the secret treasure they unlocked over a span of four years -- vanished. It was like that Twilight Zone episode, where they guy just wants some peace and quiet to read his books, and then everyone dies and he's the last man on earth, and he finally sits down to read a book, and he finds out that he has to start them all over from the beginning, and he still needs to unlock the footnotes by reading through all the maddening subplots of minor characters. Exactly like that episode.
I haven't formatted the card yet, but my preliminary search for help with this topic has come up with 1. You're screwed, 2. And you deserve it because you bought a third party memory card, and 3. You monster. If anyone knows of a secret combination of buttons I could press or a potion in the minus world that I could drink to retrieve my precious saves, please let me know, and rescue me from this abyss of sorrow.
Other than that, the Wii is pretty cool.
