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angularbanjo

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angularbanjo

178

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#1  Edited By angularbanjo
@oldschool said:
How old are your kids (mine are 14 & 16 year old girls who have grown on up games, mainly Nintendo)? "  
I've got a boy (4 1/2) and a girl (3). My daughter is not way into games yet, but she does like fooling around with the voice/picture manipulation on the DSi, and she plays dressup games on my wife's Mac. My son swears by his DS, his favorites are the Lego games, Pokémon and Viva Piñata are also pretty hot. 
 
It's been really interesting to follow his gaming skills develop, and though he's not totally fluent with a 360 controller yet, he's pretty good with the DS. He's got a kind of patience when exploring new levels and areas that I think may be unique to children.  
 
What's also interesting is observing what mascots or characters they get into. Long before they knew his name, and long before they showed interest in playing themselves, Mario was a favorite. Yoda opened up the Star Wars universe for them, and Pikachu is pretty big, although they've never watched anything Pokémon related on TV.
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angularbanjo

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#2  Edited By angularbanjo
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angularbanjo

178

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#3  Edited By angularbanjo

The Wii festival continues. 

Game 1: Battle of the Bands   

 

BEFORE: What happened to Planet Moon? From Giants: Citizen Kabuto to Battle of the Bands in eight years. Anyway, I bought this for cheap after hearing some of the outrageous cover versions in the game. If the gameplay is anything other than absolutely horrible, I might enjoy this.

 

AFTER: Hey, this game is not bad at all. It's not a marathon session kind of game, but it was fun for the 15 minutes I played it. The music is very well done. The next time I have my bandmates over, I'll bust out some marching band versions of Insane in the Brain and Blitzkrieg Bop.   


Game 2: Okami

 

BEFORE: This is supposed to be an absolute classic. Hit me.  

AFTER: Wow. For a PS2 game ported to the Wii, this one sure has some impressive visuals. This is how you make games stand out on the Wii. Nintendo's figured it out, but I haven't really seen many third party titles pull it off this well. 11:30 PM is kind of the wrong time to read 20 minutes worth of text and then play a tutorial for 40 minutes, but this game has me intrigued. I'd love to play some more of this. Still, what if it had HD graphics...   


Game 3: ANNO - Create a New World

 

BEFORE: City building in all varieties is a long-standing favorite of mine. From the first time I got to play Civilization on a friend's PC, I've been fascinated by taking on the role of benevolent deity. Making broad structural decisions or minute tweaks and everything in between for the good of the people, and then pulling back to watch it all unfold. Civilization Revolution rekindled my love for these games last summer, and I even spent an inordinate amount of time keeping my Keflings content about a year ago. I've heard good things about the ANNO series. 

AFTER: I'm impressed by the solid controls and streamlined interface. Not too far away from the aforementioned Keflings in tone and style, but serious enough in economy management to keep the grey cells working. Just about half an hour in, I can already tell I'm going to enjoy this, and I hope my kids will grow to like it, too.   


Game 4: Pikmin 2

   

BEFORE: After hearing a lot of positive things about them, I picked up the New Play Control versions of both Pikmin games when they came out. From what I can tell, Pikmin 2 is in many ways a refined version of the first game, so I'm skipping straight to that one for the purpose of this Backlog. Apparently, Miyamoto's concept for this game grew out of his love for gardening. I'm not crazy about gardening, but I'm rather partial to Shiggy's games. 

AFTER: About half an hour in, one Duracell battery collected. A pretty slow-paced game so far, I'm sure it will ramp up in pace and complexity over the duration. I like the controls. This might be a good "My First RTS" for the kids.   


Game 5: Little King's Story

 

BEFORE: Pikmin with city building elements? Let's see. 

AFTER: Enough with the gibberish, already! It's plenty adorable, but I can see the unskippable lines of dialogue becoming a problem in the long run. Also not a fan of the archaic save system. Only 20 minutes in, though, so it's too early to tell, but I think this will be a mixed bag.   


Game 6: Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10

 

BEFORE: Of course the guy sleeps around. He's a star. He's also one amazing golfer, and this game promises the closest approximation of the sport on any console yet. I bought this with the bundled Motion Plus the day it came out, but I haven't gotten around to playing it yet. For shame. 

AFTER: The graphics scale pretty well to my HD set. Although it doesn't look as sharp as its 360 or PS3 counterparts, the controls elevate it to a league of its own. I'm having people over for New Year's. We might be playing this.   

 

Game 7: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

 
BEFORE: My brother is a Zelda nut. He played the hell out of Ocarina on the N64, and the first thing he did when he bought his Wii was play through Twilight Princess. I own most of the Zelda games, but this will be my first experience actually playing one. Again, for shame. 
 
AFTER: I tried so hard to be angry with this game for the first hour. After playing through Assassin's Creed 2, Uncharted 2 and Batman: Arkham Asylum this fall, the pacing, controls and the lack of direction here seemed antiquated and stiff to me. But there's something here; a huge heart, some kind of magic. It grew on me tremendously. Unable to put it down, I played through the first two hours, and I'm planning on playing through the next 38 or so before 2009 is over.
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angularbanjo

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#4  Edited By angularbanjo

Interesting. I imagine that must be a pretty horrible job at times. 
 
I'm a musician by trade, so the Battle of the Bands purchase was sort of motivated by that. That said, if the gameplay is too horrible to stand, I won't bother playing it long enough to enjoy the music.

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angularbanjo

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#5  Edited By angularbanjo

Battle of the Bands was a bargain bin pickup after I saw a few videos and really dug what they did with the music. Crazy marching bands and mariachi groups battling it out to a hip hop jam seemed to have entertainment potential. What's that Jeff keeps saying on the Bombcast, $5 is too good to miss, no matter what game it is. Of course, if the gameplay sucks, it goes straight back to Gamestop. 
 
I recently played the first level of Alone in the Dark for my last 360 Backlog, and that may be the one game so far not to warrant a purchase at that price. Get away from me, Satan!

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angularbanjo

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#6  Edited By angularbanjo

I struggled a bit with the RE4 Wii controls, actually. Maybe I'll get the hang of it with a little persistence. I love the atmosphere, will play more. 
 
Glad to hear about the bosses being better. I had a blast playing through it online, but the bosses really got on my nerves. Stupid quicktime events. 
 
RE5's so pretty, though...

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angularbanjo

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#7  Edited By angularbanjo
@Meowayne said:

" Oh, the original Samba de Amigo is supposed to be pure awesomeness.   

I don't know, Ryan seemed to have some issues with it in the Quick Look they did for the site. It's supposed to be way better, though. 
 
I'm open to game suggestions, if you have any gems I might have missed - and they're available around here for cheap enough to take a chance. 
 
The games I'm doing tomorrow are: 
 
Twilight Princess 
Okami 
Tiger Woods 10 
Battle of the Bands 
Anno 
Pikmin 1 & 2 
Little King's Story  
 
Probably a game or two worth finishing there.    
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angularbanjo

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#8  Edited By angularbanjo
@Willy105 said:
" Good grief that's a lot of games for one console. And all of them backlog! I would go insane. "
If you check my blog, you'll find the rest of the Backlog series. I've done all of my 360 backlog + all my PS3 games with trophies. I have a handful of trophyless PS3 titles slated for a future session, plus plans for a DS and PSP edition. 
 
Backlog can be intimidating, and writing about it is a nice way to get a quick idea of which games to prioritise.
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angularbanjo

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#9  Edited By angularbanjo

You should do that, it's still a worthwhile console to have. The graphical difference gets more jarring every year, though. 
 
And Meowayne: Thanks! I can confirm the brokenness of Samba, which is why I want it for Natal. It would be a fun game if it worked. Have you tried the original with the maracas? That's supposed to be marginally less broken, I guess.

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angularbanjo

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#10  Edited By angularbanjo
Apart from a little bit of New Super Mario Bros and the odd level of Rabbids Go Home, the Wii under my TV hasn't been getting much attention lately. Buying a Wii was what got me back into gaming two years ago, and though my Xbox 360 is by far my most played console, I've been quietly accruing games with the signature white covers anyway. I've currently got a pile on my coffee table of about 20 Wii games that I haven't yet touched, a few potential classics among them. 
 
For the previous backlog sessions I've done, the length of each game impression has been governed by achievements or trophies. Since there's no such thing on the Wii, I'm going to have to go by my gut. This might actually work out. 
 

Game 1: No More Heroes 

 
BEFORE: I intentionally picked a game that I'm somewhat in the dark about to start out with. I've read and heard so much about the strengths and flaws of this game that I really don't know how to expect. Action on the Wii? Not so sure about that. Quirky Japanese semi-pedo sex jokes? We'll see. 
 
AFTER: Played through the tutorial, beat the first boss, took about 30 minutes. This game is weird. The combat is extremely satisfying, with great sound design and rewards flying everywhere. The voice acting is hilariously over-the-top and totally Japanese, as is pulling your pants down to save on the toilet. And an after-boss cutscene where the petite agency girl you're talking to keeps her ass in your face most of the time. As I'm writing this the awesome J-Pop tune "Heavenly Star" video is playing on Travis' TV. The graphics are pretty terrible technically, the camera is last-gen wonky, and the framerate stutters a little too much, but all these negatives don't matter to me so far. I really want to get deeper into this.  Also, did I mention that it's weird? It's weird. 
 

Game 2: Samba De Amigo 

 
BEFORE: I have a Dreamcast, and Samba De Amigo seems to be one of the must-have titles for that console, though I can't be bothered to track down the original game with the maracas controllers. I pulled the Wii version out of the bottom of a bargain bin at a ridiculous price. The word around town is that the controls are pretty terrible. Let's find out. 
 
AFTER: Played through the basic tutorial and the first career challenge, about 20 minutes. Samba de Janeiro is still an amazing track. And, surprisingly, so is Smooth. They would be a lot of fun to play if the controls were reliable, which they aren't. Regular maraca shaking seems fine as long as you don't get too into the music and dance around too much, but as soon as dance moves and posing comes into the picture, accuracy suffers, taking the fun away. I love the idea and presentation, though. This should be a Natal launch title. 
 

Game 3: Order Up 


BEFORE: I seem to remember hearing positive things about this on some podcast. That's not much to go by, but enough to make me pick this up, it seems. I've never played a cooking game.
 
AFTER: Okay, I see how someone could like this. It doesn't seem to be for me, though. The tutorial overstays its welcome and some transitions are a bit on the annoying side, lenght-wise. Played tutorial and finished my first day as a diner chef. The cooking minigames are pretty fun, nothing special, though. The audio quality seems pretty terrible. It's for kids, I guess. 
 

Game 4: Klonoa

 
BEFORE: High expectations for this one, what with people all over the internet waxing nostalgic about the qualities of the PS1 original. 
 
AFTER: Yep, this sure is one late nineties platformer. The basic mechanics seem solid, and the presentation is colorful and jolly. I can't help thinking that I'd love to see it in HD, though. Will play more, I'm sure my son will adore this game if given the chance. Played through the first stage... er, vision. Ten minutes. 
 

Game 5: Super Paper Mario

 
BEFORE: Having played a fair chunk of the original N64 Paper Mario, my expectations for this game are pretty high. Should be equal parts platformer and light RPG, by what I've read. 
 
AFTER: Played for 30 minutes, end of chapter 1-1. The intro felt a bit long, but I guess that's what you get for playing five tutorials in a row. Awesome music, great writing, and nice little nods to Mario's 8-bit roots. I'm sure this game will take a while to play through, but I'm putting it on my list of must-finish games for 2010. 
 

Game 6: Resident Evil 4

 
BEFORE: A few weeks ago I played through RE5 in co-op with my brother. I liked it. How jarring will this supposed downgrade be? 
 
AFTER: Spent 40 minutes. It's Resident Evil with last-gen graphics. As expected, the game is about shooting zombies in the head and collecting the gold that they leave behind, and those parts are as satisfying as ever. The atmosphere is great, too. I doubt I have it in me to finish this, though. 
 

Game 7: Mercury Meltdown Revolution

 
BEFORE: Impulse bargain buy, the concept seems to be perfect for the Wii. 
 
AFTER: Nice Commodore throwback loading screen. Nice music. The game seems well thought out, but at this stage iPhone would probably be a better fit. Spent 10 minutes. 
 

Game 8: WarioWare: Smooth Moves 

 
BEFORE: I actually bought this with my Wii two years ago, opened it, put it in the console, played it for all of three minutes before I rushed back to the store to return it. I failed to make heads or tails of it at the time, maybe things will be different now that I'm a little more gaming literate. 
 
AFTER: Played for about 20 minutes. I think I get it now, I just don't see myself spending hours upon hours with this game. It's delightful in its totally Japanere, quirky manner, but when you have three seconds to point the Wiimote at a specific point on the screen and the sensor fails to pick up, it gets annoying quickly. I have no history with the franchise, maybe that's why I don't get the reviews it received back in the day. 
 

Game 9: Super Smash Bros. Brawl

 
BEFORE: No history with Super Smash Bros. No idea what to expect. 
 
AFTER: I played the first two stages of the "Subspace Emissary" story mode, and I really enjoyed it. Still fumbling a bit with the controls, but the action is fast, frantic and satisfying. I recognise the fact that half of the Nintendo callbacks and references go over my head, but I'm happy at the ones I do catch, like Mario's different special moves. Wow, this is a quality product. Need to play more.