I logged onto the Wii shop channel this morning in hopes that maybe Nintendo uploaded the weekly bunch of VC games early. That’s really the highlight of my Mondays, so I was really hoping to get some classic goodness before I had to head off to work. When I got into the shop though, something was decidedly wrong.
Get up and go
Why haven’t I posted anything in the last week? I dunno. I guess nothing’s really happened lately that I care to mention. Also, I’ve been working hard on leading Denver to the Super Bowl in Tecmo Bowl, which I downloaded to my Wii on Moday. I’m a few games into the season, and quite frankly, I forgot how cheap NES games could be. Passing success starts at about 40% and gets worse as you go on, and the opposing players don’t get smarter, they just get faster while your guys get slower. Frankly, I don’t think the Broncos will make it this year. At least two player is still a blast eighteen years later.
Um, yeah. So I guess I did have a little something to say. Oh well. I’ll make some sort of post later this week, but probably not until Thursday at the earliest. I’ve got a tall comic order to fill this week.
I thought I had you
So I spent the better part of yesterday playing a couple Nintendo 64 games. Why? mostly because I felt like reminiscing and enjoying some really great titles (despite what some may want you to believe, the 64 had a ton of killer games). Also, my friends and I were chatting briefly about Kirby 64, and the topic of how round things shouldn’t be made of polygons (or some such thing) came up. That note made me curious about how well exactly they made that work back in the day. The answer, I’ll get to in a sec. That’s actually one of the main reasons I’m making this post.
Now, I was mostly playing games that came out near the end of the 64’s lifespan, and I’ve got to say that the graphics are startlingly adequate. Sure, there have been huge leaps in graphical quality in the last two generations, but were they really that necessary? Just take a look at two choice titles: Pokémon Stadium 2 and Kirby 64. If you boot up either of those games, you’ll probably be surprised at how nice they look. Pokémon Stadium 2 in particular has some very impressive character models, which look like they could have come out of a lower-end GC game. And the Kirby issue? Quite frankly, Kirby is impressively round, considering he’s made out of decidedly not-round polygons. I’m pretty sure most of the round enemies are just made of rotating 2D circles (I forget what that’s called, or if it even has a name), but Kirby is the real deal, and he looks (and moves) great.
Given, both of those games are pretty easy on the system otherwise, so I suppose grahpic quality could possibly have been optimized because of that. But then again, Conker’s Bad Fur Day and Donkey Kong 64 both had huge environments and a lot going on, as well as fantastic (for the hardware) visuals, so I guess that’s a bit of a moot point.
I’m not sure where I was going to go with this, but it seems like I’m trying to say something along the lines of how I was more than satisfied with where graphics were at around seven years ago. Yeah, smoother textures and higher poly counts are nice and all, but we haven’t seen a single Kirby game since the 64 era where you can mix powers, so what’s up with that? Oh man, and if you could mix powers and have more than one attack per power? That would kick so much ass that my head hurts thinking about it. Come on Nintendo, I know you’re cooking up a Kirby game for the Wii. Indulge me! Or at least release Kirby 64 on the Virtual Console so I don’t have to play it on these shitty, shitty emulators… Also, classic Game Boy games would be nice too.
Oh right, and jus’ta let ya’ll know, Wario: Master of Disguise? Not so great. Parish was a little harder on it than I would say needed be, but it most certainly does not live up to the majesty that is Wario Land 2 (best classic GB game EVAR), or even WL3 for that matter, which I found was the weakest of the series.
This post took me exactly half an hour to write.
Your smile is a thin disguise
Yesterday sucked in all the wrong ways, but you’ve heard enough crap out of me already for the whole year, so I’ll skip the complaining and get to it.
After a good twoish months, I’ve finally published a new article. It’s just one of those dumb video game reviews though, so don’t act all happy about it or anything. I’ve also created an archive page for the news from February 07. I realize it’s been months since I noted a news archive update, but whatever.
Elebits – Game review on the half-ass
So what’s the magic behind the Wii Remote that makes it more desirable than a regular controller, much like a delicious, fresh chocolate cake is more desirable than week-old brussels sprouts? I’m thinking for most people that it’s because they can play tennis and bowling without the need to remember sixteen-plus buttons. Yeah, that sounds about right. But today, I’m interested in a feature of the Remote that’s more of a draw to real gamers than the people that only pick up a controller when everyone else is doing it. I’m talking about its awesome ability to play first-person shooters.
The Wii launched with at least two FPS games, and a couple more were released not too long after. Three months later, I’d still never tried one, despite the fact that I really wanted to see how well the Wii Remote actually worked with shooters. Not long ago, my youngest brother suggested renting the quirky Konami title, Elebits, and wanting to give it a spin myself, I figured that it couldn’t possibly hurt. So I rented it, and the rest is history. History what is about to be explained!
Now I guess the review of Elebits is really the main focus here, but I really want to get to this pointer thing right away, because it really knocked my socks off. Like I said in the last paragraph there, I’d never really played a Wii shooter. Sure, Rayman Raving Rabbids has shooting levels, but they’re on-rails, and you never do much more than aim. They’re fun, but you can’t even turn the camera, so you don’t get the feel of truly playing a shooter. Even though the Wiimote’s pointing capabilities were really touted for Zelda: Twilight Princess, and you do a lot of arrow-shooting in that particular entry in the series, it still didn’t play like an FPS would.
With all that said, when my brother and I arrived home, we popped in the Elebits disc and went right into it. It didn’t strike me right away, but I didn’t even have to figure out the intricacies of the controls. It just happened. Moving, aiming, turning; it was all so natural that I was kicking major ass right from the start. Every other controller, from the N64 beast to the Dualshock to the XBox controller, even mouse and keyboard, required some kind of learning curve when it came to FPS games. With the Wii Remote though, I pretty much turned on the game and was playing flawlessly. I didn’t even realize that I had hopped in so seamlessly until I’d taken the game back, and that was when I started getting really excited about Metroid Prime 3.
So Elebits. If you’ve been on the internet and looked it up even just a little, you’ve probably seen that it’s gotten really mixed reactions from the public. And I can definitely see why. It’s a rather odd game, and the common comparison is that it’s like a shooter version of Katamari Damacy. Now that right there is gonna confuse the fuck out of anyone who’s never so much as heard more than the title of the game, so I guess I owe an explaination.Both games are about collecting things. You travel around a small area and pick up stuff, and once you’ve filled a certain quota, the area expands and you can continue collecting more junk in new places. The big difference is that in Katamari Damacy, you collect everything with a really sticky ball, and in Elebits, you’re hunting down tiny little creatures and sucking them up into an energy gun. Because it’s so overdone (see every other Elebits review), I’ll try to refrain from making comparisons to Katamari where possible. Sometimes it just makes sense.
The game’s plot is a bit dumb and rather unnecessary (unlike that in Katamari, which is extremely dumb, and irrefutably necessary), with the little elebits being the source of all power on the planet. One day a really big bolt of lightning hits and the Elebits go nuts, causing a worldwide blackout. Your job is to round up as many as you can in hopes of restoring power to whateverland. Yeah, I’d rather just play the game than hear an explanation of why I’m playing.
SO! Now that we’ve got a task, how is it accomplished? After some malarkey about the Capture Gun, you’re dropped into level one, which just happens to be your room. Of course, it’s not your room per se, but rather your character’s room. But I guess you’d probably figured out that much. If the Wii was magical enough to replicate your room in a game on it’s own, I think it would have been that machine people were getting shot over instead of the PS3 (Which is still confusing. Why would you want that overpriced hunk of scrap?).
The idea of the game is to find elebits. Obviously. But it’s not so simple. Whilst some elly-bits are in fact just taking a nap out in the open, the most of them are hiding in or behind the various objects scattered around the environment. That’s where your capture gun’s secondary function as a junk-mover come in handy. Just aim the gun at an object, and BAM you can lift it into the air with a magical beam of death. Or magic perhaps. Anyway, from that point, you can do what you wish with the object. Flip it around some, smash it against other stuff (physics!), or toss it across the room. Either way, you’ll likely have found some elebits in or behind it. Once you shoot enough of the little bastards (and thus increase your “wattage”), the lights will turn on, and after picking up even more, you’ll have cleared the stage.
The time limit isn’t even the biggest obstacle to overcome. Remember how I said you can lift stuff with your gun-beam dealie? Well turns out it can only lift so much without a li’l boost. So you need to collect special power elebits to increase its lifty power. But those elebits are hiding in appliances what must be turned on! And let’s remember for a second here that the whole whatever is blacked out. Yup. So the basic rigamarole in a stage goes like this: get normal elebits for watts, enough watts activate appliances, use appliances to flush out power elebits, power up gun by getting those power elebits, repeat. The best part is that some appliances are more tricky to use than just pressing the “ON” switch. The oven, for example, requires you to put in a frozen chicken and then let said chicken cook before the little ele-bastards pop out all over the place.
There are a wide variety of elebits to capture. As I mentioned, you’ve got the regular elebits who come in different colors and have different abilities, like being able to warp around or fly. The power elebits don’t really require more explanation than I gave earlier. Then you’ve got the pain-in-the-ass black elebits, who can’t be captured, and are just there to screw you over and break your capture gun. There are even huge black ones that show up when you’ve made too much of a mess, and they actively seek you out to punish you for your slovenly ways. Pink elebits come three to a level, two are hidden and one appears if you clear a certain requirement, and if you get them, you’ll open up new game modes for each level (Score Attack, Eternal, and Challenge modes).
Worst of all are the boss elebits. I mean, I only got far enough to have to face off with one of them, but he was a real jerk, so I assume the rest are no better. In any case, the one boss I fought would split into smaller versions of himself, which would hide away. Once you found one, you’d blast it to destroy a barrier around it, and then it would zoom right the fuck away. Of course, as you do better, the little copies get smaller, faster, and harder to shoot, and it really becomes troublesome. It wasn’t really hard, but it was rather annoying.
What might be the most notable facet of Elebits is that it’s the first actual game to make use of the WiiConnect24 feature. You can modify any stage you’ve completed and then anyone on your friends list can give the stage a download and vice versa. You can also share screenshots (which you can take in-game) with others, and I think there’s some other use for them, but nobody on my friends list has either played Elebits or created any levels, so I didn’t really get a chance to make use of the feature. I didn’t really even bother creating any of my own stages, to tell the truth.
The graphics and sound don’t really stick out at all, but then again, why would they? Elebits is a first-generation Wii game, so it’s obviously not gonna use all the console’s power. There’s also the fact that the graphics are relatively simple (maybe not Katamari simple), so it’s not like they really could have improved without completely changing the art direction. The music is peppy but ultimately forgettable, though the various elebit squeaks are always endearing. I don’t think I need to explain again how awesomely the controls work. Any real issues (like doors that won’t stay open) are with the game itself, and not at all at the fault of the control configuration.
Jenny’s coming after you!
Ba-ba-ba-band of the Month time, everyone! It doesn’t get any more half-assed than this one, either, so look out world!
I dunno. I guess stellastarr* is a pretty good band. They’re an alternative punk group, and their lead singer has a really distinctive voice and style. While it’s not the greatest act to ever grace this page, I think they’ve got an original sound and I like ’em.
Short story on this one. They’ve got a song on Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam. It’s called “Jenny” and I quite enjoy it. For more reasons than one, I had to go and download the song immediately. In the end, I scooped up the whole CD it’s featured on, and I’ve gotta say I liked what I got. I’d totally pick it up legit if I ever saw it at the Best Buy or something, because it’s a darn good CD. Not something that everyone’s gonna like, and I really emphasize that this time, but I’d suggest you give them a chance. It’s different and I like it. “Nuff said.
I guess I should probably have researched the band a little more before I did this thing, but I just stared listening to ’em this week, and I usually pick up on band info slowly as time goes by. If you really wanna know more, go check out their Wikipedia page. For samples, head on over to Last.fm. I’m out.
Who’ll be the lonely one?
Alright, let’s see. Got a few small reviews and random thoughts to round up today. Let’s start off with movies.
Saw Reno 911!: Miami on the weekend with a couple friends. I thoroughly enjoyed it in its entirety, despite copious/unnecessary amounts of man-ass. It had some incredibly hilarious moments (“No immunity to bullets!”), and featured plenty of actors that I like. I really liked seeing Patton Oswalt in a big role, and Paul Rudd is always welcome in my media. David Koechner should have seen more screen time though. Also, this movie has what is probably my very favourite use of The Rock. I never watch the show, but after this I may just start.
Before I started typing this post, I finally got around to watching Little Miss Sunshine, which has been sitting around the house for like a week now. Unexpectedly, I also really liked this one. I don’t know what it was about it, but I found it a really great movie. My interest didn’t wane at all throughout, and that’s always a good indicator, because I usually get bored with movies halfway through and start doing something else while they play in the background. But I digress. Steve Carell obviously provided an outstanding performance, but the rest of the cast is no less noteworthy, though I’m far too lazy to note them all. That’s why the link is there, people! To sum it up quickly, the climax is great, and any scene with Grandpa is a winner.
Oh, right, I bought Trailer Park Boys: The Movie back when it came out. After watching it a second time, I have to conclude that it is by far and wide the best movie I saw last year. Far and wide, my friends.
I’m trying to will up a couple articles here. It’s been a real long time. Both pretty standard topics for this site, but I won’t say what yet. Frankly, I’ve probably doomed them to non-existence by even mentioning them, so let’s forget about those for now. Just enjoy the long-winded blog posts for the time being.
It’s been on the radio for like forever now, but only two days ago, I finally heard “Welcome To The Black Parade” for the first time. Holy shit, was I ever disappointed. Everyone I’ve talked to about it likes it so much, but being a fan of MCR’s old work, I just can’t get behind it. I guess it was good that I held off on buying the CD before I listened to it. I’ll definitely have to illegally download the album before I make any sort of financial commitment to it.
Speaking of music, I heard Guster‘s “Satellite” playing over the PA at work the other day. This is notable because the music that plays at work generally consists of crap and Elton John. It was nice to hear a good song (aside from “Rocket Man” and “Tiny Dancer”) for once. What was not nice was an atrocious cover of “Maybe I’m Amazed”. I know a lot of people/bands have covered that particular song (but really, how do you even think you can compare to Paul McCartney?), but the one I heard was more a farce of the song than a tribute. It makes baby Jesus cry.
Somebody please read this article at X-E and tell me if it’s any good. I’ve tried to read it like three times now, but always end up getting a craving for cheeseburgers and abandoning it to go on a cheeseburger run and then forgetting about it. It’s a serious problem.
An amendment to yesterday’s post: the song “Begin Again From The Beginning” from the album Welcome The Night is a very Ataris song, even if the rest of the album sounds like a completely different band. Just thought I should mention that.
Okay, I think that about finishes up everything I have to say. Wario: Master of Disguise drops today, and I’ve been praying for a platforming Wario game for a good five-odd years now, so I’m probably going to be a little tied up with that this week. Posting may not happen for a bunch of days, but expect thoughts – possibly review – upon completion.
I’m not capable of love
Well, it’s happened. I bought me some car yesterday. A fine-ass deal, too. It’s a very nice little car; a ’92 Dodge Spirit that looks great and runs like a charm, and it only cost me about $1200. I’m still trying to come up with a suitable nickname for the thing though. I’ve got a few in mind, but they’re all so…obvious. I’m sure a good one’ll come to me sooner or later. Until then, picture!
I guess that it all happened because they dropped their old label and created their own, allowing them a little more freedom to do what they want. And that freedom ended up sounding like some horrid cross between HIM and My Chemical Romance. Though I guess “horrid” is very much the wrong word to use in this situation. For one, I like both HIM and MCR, and more importantly, the Ataris’ new sound isn’t all that bad. Also, I do like their new CD, Welcome The Night, even though it in no way sounds like the Ataris. Even Kris Roe doesn’t sound like Kris Roe anymore. In summation, it’s not a change for the worse, but I’m surely going to miss the old Ataris.
Those voices are calling from far away
So I did end up getting up and renting Sonic and the Secret Rings back on Sunday afternoon. Looks like it wasn’t all I was hoping for. Not a buyer anyway, which is good, because I’m really scrounging up my pennies at the moment. The Ryanmobile is on its way, and I’m also saving for some other choice objects. More on that in future post though. Now, a short review!
The game itself is great, focusing solely on moving fast and doing cool stuff like thrashing enemies and… jumping I guess. I dunno. But anyway, there are seven or eight worlds, each with a huge amount of mission stages to complete, some requiring you just to get to the end, others with a ring or kill count to fill. The only problem here is that you’re ranked with medals, and gold medals require nothing less than a perfect performance, and that’s really one of the big points that keeps me from buying the game (if you didn’t know, I’m a very obsessive completionist). I’m just not good enough. I’ve barely got any silvers to my name, and there are a ton left without any medal at all. Of course, to help the cause, Sonic gains experience points after every level, and when he levels up, he gains new abilities or enhancements like higher top speeds or item magnets. The level-up bonuses help a little but obviously the ones that help the most take forever to show up.
There’s also a rather robust multiplayer mode included in the game. Of course, by “robust” I don’t mean “good”, but rather “extensive”. Actually, it’s not too bad. Works out a lot like a Mario Party, with a bunch of 4-player games strung together by a boatload of mini-games. There are four or so different game modes to choose from, and most of them work out pretty well, though one in particular that requires you to pick out treasure chests can be really one-sided if one player is really lucky. The mini-games are all obviously made to work with the Wii remote, and to be frank, a bunch them don’t work nearly as seamlessly as the main game does. Sometimes the contols can be really shoddy, mostly because of crappy pointer sensitivity, but it’s not game-breaking. I played multiplayer with my youngest brother for a couple hours, and it’s pretty fun if you can figure out how to get around the half-assed control schemes.
Overall, Sonic and the Secret Rings is definitely a good game. Sure beats the crap our favourite blue hedgehog’s face has been plastered on lately (Sonic Riders? BLECH). It’s got a smooth single player game with exactly the kind of action you’d expect from a good Sonic game. The only issue I have is that the medal system asks for way too much from the player. I can’t even get silver medals on most of the training missions, and I really don’t suck at the game, so that’s saying something. I wouldn’t buy it, but it’s more than worth a rent or two. Hell, once it hits the half-price mark in a year or two (here’s hoping), I could see myself picking it up. But until that time, it’s just a renter. But don’t rent it if you intend to entertain guests with multiplayer, just grab Mario Party 8 instead (which comes out in like a week).
‘Till the day I die
Ugh. I wish I was dead. I don’t know about anyone else, but I really really hate being sick. All snotty and zombielike. It’s horrible I tell you! I just want to stay home from work tomorrow, but I’ve yet to miss a day of work in my life and I don’t feel like changing that anytime soon, so I guess I’ll have to go. Then when I get home I’ll explode in a glorious shower of mucus. Huzzah.
One good thing though, is that TRU got Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja in stock today, which I promptly scooped up. It’s a fairly neat game, but man is it hard. It’s a weird little dungeon crawler with a simple turn-based battle system and randomly generated dungons. Most people would probably write it off as tedious or something else like that, but it’s quite up my alley, really. I like most games that center around spelunking for treasure in one way or another, so is all good.
I was also eyeing up Sonic and the Secret Rings. I’ve been reading a lot about it, and I think it sounds pretty great, but I’m still on the fence about it. I think maybe it’s really just a renter though. But even that’s a pain in itself, because I haven’t been able to work up the energy to go out and rent a game in probably close to a year by now (someday, Excite Truck, someday).
Besides being sick, there’s another something that’s really bugged me recently. I was unloading a truck on Wednesday, and I noticed a strangely labeled box. As it turns out, there’s some sort of horrible Bratz/Shrek cross-promotion going on. Though proper use of the term “cross-promotion” is still debatable, as I’ve yet to see any Shrek crap that claims he’s “the only troll with a passion 4 fashion”. Why does this bug me? Frankly, I’ve grown to hate Bratz with all my earthly being, and Shrek continues to be the biggest animated sell-out ever. Seriously. Even Dora’s face hasn’t been plastered on as much junk as Shrek’s, and that is really saying something.