Lost in Shadow could be very special

With platforming titles such as Donkey Kong Country Returns, Kirby's Epic Yarn and Disney Epic Mikey are all due to release this year, 2010 is a very exciting time for platforming fans. However, amidst this excellent roster of titles is HudsonSoft's less publicised Lost in Shadows, a platformer that is well worth taking note of.

E3 2010 in Review: Who 'Won' at E3?

I don't think there's any question that Nintendo has won the show this year. 3DS has captured the minds of gamers. It's not simply that it can play games in 3D, the quality of the graphics is impressive. Without knowing a price, or when it will be released, every gamer I know plans to get one at launch. If the system is available this holiday season, I will be preordering as soon as the option becomes available. Frankly, I don't believe it will be possible to get the system any other way. It will be 2006 all over again. It took months for the Wii's sales to drop off to the point where they could reliably be found on shelves. I firmly believe the 3DS will follow suit.

That said, I can't really agree with the general assessment that the Move is relegated to third place. Move and Kinect each have their own issues, but I find the Kinect's issues more troubling at present.

The Kinect is a remarkable piece of technology, and Microsoft should be given full credit for trying to innovate in the field of motion control. It's unfortunate that Microsoft, the software company as you say, isn't really doing anything innovative with this product. Yes, you can drive menus with your voice and your hands. This is pretty neat, but as reviewers have discovered, the voice commands aren't particularly sophisticated. The 360 makes no differentiation between two voices. The best I can say is that it's implemented well. It's implemented, perhaps, for the first time on a home console, but we've been able to execute Voice Commands on PC for over 15 years, there is no current evidence that 360 will offer much in the way of calibration or personalization. This is little better than a limited Voice Commands you can perform in some Nintendo DS titles. Controlling the menu system with your hand is a classy feature, but its implementation is really no different than that of a Wiimote. Yes, your hand is being tracked rather than an infrared beam, but similar things were done with the Eye Toy seven years ago on the PlayStation two.

Super Mario Galaxy 2: Update

I have a pre-ordered copy of Super Mario Galaxy 2 waiting for me at home. Quite a brilliant way to start the summer don't you think? I expect that I will be writing impressions and a review within the next few weeks and perhaps, I could well have another addition into my favourite video games of all time list.

Red Steel 2 Review

 This is a quick review of Red Steel 2 that I wrote for my unviversity newspaper that I have been meaning to post of quite some time. Enjoy. 

The original Red Steel was a heavily hyped mess rushed out for Wii’s 2006 launch, one that failed to deliver on all its promises of precise aiming, visceral swordplay, and impressive graphics. But non the less, it happened to become one of the Wii’s best selling third party offerings, and now the completely overhauled sequel is one of the best first person shooters (FPS) on the system and a shocking reminder of how good a Wii-exclusive shooter can be. 

Quick note about blog posts

Hello there, as you may have noticed I don't tend to post here as often as I have previously. Due to my recent commitments with university amongst other things I have been unable to blog as often as I would like. However I intend for this to change once my exams are finished and I have more time to write.

I have been thinking about the best way to go about my blogging, aside from writing articles and reviews which can be time consuming, I have decided that a good percentage of my future posts will be concerning news, primarly Nintendo related. As I am aware that it would be foolhardy to compete with terrific sites such as Gonintendo for news coverage, I hope to post news that I and hopefully others will find particularly interesting, as well as my brief opinions and thoughts on the subject.

Anyway, I have revision and work to get back to. In the next few weeks I plan on posting an improved and more in-depth edit of a review for Red Steel 2 that I wrote for my university newspaper. But until then I hope that the news and opinions that I post are interesting and encourage further procrastination.

ABAHB

Worlds of their own: Pokemon

The Pokemon games were among the first that I ever played. Back then I wasn't interested enough to read magazines and I didn't have many friends who followed gaming. But good Lord, they marketed the hell out of that game. Between ads for the game itself and the anime, my brothers and I were already obsessed before the morning when we opened up that box and saw a translucent Game Boy Pocket with a copy of Pokemon Blue version inside the cartridge slot, and promptly flipped out.

Despite the marketing however, my brothers and I never really watched the show or got into the trading card games that much. We saw the first two movies (and loved them to bits) but beyond that, the majority of my experience with the series comes from the “regular” series of handheld titles: R/B/Y, G/S/C, R/S/E, and P/D/P. Many of my friends played for the pleasure of winning and becoming the new champion, but I played for something else. To explore the strange new world were kids left their home at 10-years-old to traverse around the world, meeting new people, catching new Pokemon and achieve something extraordinary (And maybe save the world while they’re at it, too.)

Fifth Generation Pokemon: Pokemon White/Black to be revealed on April 15th

The first details about the future fifth generation of Pokemon games has emerged. We don't know much as of now, but as previously reported, Joystiq has stated that "every aspect will be reborn innovatively." So it is looking as though this is the series overall that people have been expecting. 

I'm glad that they are reverting back to colours and not more stones. I'm surprised it's for the DS and not the 3DS though. I expecting there to be some kind of 3DS functionality though, as Gamefreak have been in possession of the 3DS dev kits for quite some time now. 

The Wii Gets Its First Black Box, Others Follow.

In Japan, the black box isn't for the specific game, but the game's rating. Japanese Wii games rated 15+ are to be given black boxes. The black box will be an additional warning to parents along with the colour rating on the side and front. Nintendo first announced the change in box color before the release of Zangeki no Reginleiv, an extremely violent Wii game featuring 4-player co-op and limb dismemberment with full blood effects. The game has received a CERO D rating (17+), the first Nintendo game of its kind in Japan since Eternal Darkness for the Gamecube.

Hit the jump for more:

No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle – Launch Trailer

As of this moment I have not watched the above video, I have specifically avoided all media and spoliers bar the first trailer released. I fully expect this game to take months of analysis and multiple play-throughs to fully wrap my head around and I plan on being thoroughly suprised and impressed. The first title still makes me laugh, scream, think, and violently "recharge my beam katana"  to this day and I expect this to be no different.

"Entirely New" Pokemon Series Coming This Year. Series rebirth?

Nintendo has announced that Gamefreak is working on a brand-new Pokemon RPG, and it's due out this year in Japan. There are (of course) going to be brand-new Pokemon involved, and the series is going to experience some sort of rebirth. Expect new functionality and play types, according to Nintendo. Just how different will this game be? Only time will tell, I guess, but Nintendo is already confident that it'll be a huge hit.

Along side the promised rebirth of the Zelda series with the Wii iteration, Metroid:Other M and previously Super Mario Galaxy and possibly this new Pokemon title, Nintendo seem to be in the process of rebooting their key franchises this generation. Personally the anticipation of what they will do to these beloved I.P's has me more excited than anything else this upcoming gaming year. Although I hope they don't add too many new Pokemon this generation, because it would be almost impossible for me to catch them all. And people who can obviously cheated, everyone knows you can't catch mew.

Muramasa: A Moment in Art

Regardless of all the brilliant games that have been developed in recent years, I should really begin this by stating a fairly obvious idea that in my opinion is not cited enough. The gaming industry’s mainstream blossoming has reaped a mix of glorious benefits and monotonous pitfalls. The cost of mainstream game development continues to rise, while development teams can often compete with the population of small nation counties, and yet there’s a troublesome sense that tactile gameplay hasn’t gotten any better for all of this added attention – that the primary focus has shifted to immediate graphical prowess, rather than the functional and innovative gameplay that made this industry worth the original investment.

Amidst titles powered by massive budgets seeking to produce increasingly realistic worlds resembling our own, along comes Muramasa, a game immediately grabbing our attention exactly because of its visual style, but for entirely different reasons.

This is not going to be a long piece as I know there are much better articles out there making the same arguments as I, but I am going to post several videos at the end of this post that I hope will provide you with a small, yet significant impression of what I am trying to articulate.

Hit the jump to read on:

More Colour Please?

As I was shopping for cheap games to pick up before I started university I picked up Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 for Wii.  The game plays rather well, and at its time of release had the best FPS controls on the Wii and the best online Multiplayer, but something was wasn't quite right with it.

It’s gray, and very little of anything else visually.  Granted, graphics aren’t everything, but seeing one bland throughout most of the game is pretty strange.  After all, I’m sure there were some buildings in Germany during WWII that had some paint on them, or perhaps the sky was at least blue.  Perhaps somebody should tell game designers that the photographs from that time only came in black and white, and there actually was colour.  That’s not to say that Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 is the only offender though…

It’s all over the place.  Gears of War, one of 2006’s biggest titles touted for it’s great visuals, is gray.  Maybe it’s just me, but that is not a good looking game to me.  On a technical aspect, it’s impressive, but the lack of colour makes my eyes bleed.  Epic was going for a bleak future, but really, when there’s foliage, I expect to see some sort of green.  Not gray-brown-dark brown-black.

So we arrive at Unreal Tournament 3.  Earlier Epic Games said the game had a much richer colour palette than Gears of War did, and, well, it does.  There’s now richer grays and browns.  Playing the game on my PC, I noticed gray environments, dully coloured weapons (for the most part), and then you have brown characters.  Maybe you’ll get some dark red blood in there, but, really, it’s a fairly black and white game.  I don’t really understand this art direction for the series, as in the past it at least had what looked like the game trying to look like the real world, if not a bit futuristic.

The games above are all great games, but what’s with the lack of colour?  It can’t be the engine for the last two, as Bioshock proved to have a very rich look to it.  The one positive I can see for Medal of Honor is that it looks pretty clean (unlike the muddy mess that was CoD3 on the Wii), but it seems pretty plausible that they could do that with colour to me.  Maybe others don’t care about it as much as I do, but the lack of colour just turns me off, and I know I’d enjoy these games so much more if there was a larger color scale.

So, for those games that decide to go colourful, here’s a shout out.  Thank you Clover Studios for Okami and Viewtiful Joe.  Thanks Grasshopper for Killer7 and No More Heroes.  Heck, thank you Valve for Team Fortress 2 and Half Life (Hey, at least Half Life looks realistic in it’s color).  Thank you for putting some colour and style into your games.

Wii, DS and DSi North American holiday release list

Making a long post even longer: This is a pretty good idea of what North American users can expect this coming holiday. Although I live in the UK, I have highlighted the games I'm interested in bold font.
I'll write up my opinions about the games in this list and some of the titles we can expect early next year in my next post.
Oh, and incase you wern't aware I shamelessly took inspiration from the title of game pictured below to decide on the title of my blog.
*Cough* iwantedtocallmyblogaboyandhisblog.blogspot.combutthatwasalreadytakensadface *cough*

Wii

2K Sports
NHL® 2K10 - Sept. 15
Baseball Blast! - Sept. 28
NBA 2K10 - Oct. 6

2K Play
Dora the Explorer™: Dora Saves the Crystal Kingdom™ - Fall
Ni Hao, Kai-Lan: Super Game Day - Fall
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey™ Circus - Fall

505 Games
My Ballet Studio - November
Baby and Me - November

continued after the break...

New Super Mario Bros. Wii - Video Interview

I have had my doubts about this, I mean it appears to be a pretty low effort on Nintendos part in terms of the graphics (It doesn't look THAT much better than the DS SMB) but each time I see new scans /videos from an updated build and I learn more about it's features I feel more optimistic. I don't ever think this title will reach the level of hype I am holding for Super Mario Galaxy 2 but I'm still planning on picking it up, however I don't think It's going to be a day one purchase and I didn't appreciate the whole 'oh we can't have online co-op because the game makes full use of the Wii hardware' BS either.

But it's brilliant to hear that there are lots of hidden areas. Hidden areas are really important 2D Mario game, and I'm glad there are plenty of them in NSMBWii.

Video Games - E3 2009 - Wii

Scribblenauts: More fan made print ads

I came across these whilst looking at the 'We create magazine ads for the hell of it' thread at Neogaf and think there worthy of posting. Besides, almost anything relating to Scribblenauts is worth checking out.

This is going to. be. the. greatest. puzzle. game. EVAR!
/hype

[Click the images to enlarge]

Scribblenauts: Laughing at the target audience?

I've already seen so many brilliant Scribblenauts videos, but I think that this is possibly the most amazing discovery I've seen yet.



I love stuff like this but I see another connection:

5th Cell = Game Developers = Gamers = Virgins?

Haha Narf

Sribblenauts - Release hype

I have got to get me one of these Rooster hats, even if I have to search Ebay for one. I am considering importing this from America as I can't see myself waiting til the 15th of October for the European release date, and on top of that I'm starting university very soon so my play time consisting of riding velociraptors and sending out Yetis to beat up whales is going to be very limited.

The only people I can see not enjoying this are those kids in school who only knew how to draw a square box for art lessons.

No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle- New Trailer

Where are the Pre-Orders at?

Unpacking Metroid Prime Trilogy (PAL Version)

Below are some pictures I took whilst opening up Metroid Prime Trilogy. Although I would have liked the metal packaging the US version came in I'm still very impressed with the quality of the packaging used in the PAL copy (as far I know this is the same packaging used worldwide minus North America).
The game comes with a high quality card slip on cover with a highly reflective surface on both sides and an embossed title. The box itself features the same reflective surfaces and art minus the text. Inside it's the same as documented in the US release including an impressive art and story booklet and thorough manual documenting all 3 titles.
So overall it's a pretty sweet deal and It's hard to argue with 3 of the best games to be released in the last 10 years on one disk.

Oh and what's with all the complaining about some of the minor details in the first title being removed? Yes they added to the incredible atmosphere of the first title but people are forgetting that retro went back and used higher resolution and more vivid textures, proper widescreen support along with the superb Wii controls and interesting achievement system. Which in my opinion more than make up for the lack of trivial special effects.
But more importantly, the doors open more fucking quickly!

My Favourite Gaming Moments: Super Mario Galaxy - Gusty Garden Galaxy

Super Mario Galaxy is a modern classic, to say the least. The level design is pretty much perfect, the control is spot-on, the art style is beautiful, audio and visual presentation is astounding and everything is done with such confidence and innovation that it reminds you how of how games used to feel before things started to become mundane.

It would be easy to write a rambling article (Edit: upon reading turns out it is) about all the things it does to brand a permanant smile on my face. Sprinting to the edge of a planet and launching Mario into orbit with a long jump? Brilliant. Gravity traps and switches that turn the most basic 2D and 3D stages into head-spinning puzzles? Amazing. Watching a dome open up to reveal a new sphere within composed of water to a beautiful starry backdrop? Fantastic.

However there is one moment that stands out in my mind that solidifies everything I had hoped the title could be, the initial landing on the Gusty Garden Galaxy.

Before this moment Galaxy has already illustrated numerous extraordinary ideas and feelings of joy and suprise that as I approached the halfway mark, I began to wonder whether or not there could possibly be any more invention or new twists to gameplay. But even then I would have hardly felt short-changed as the excitement of the breathtaking platforming to the delightful novelties displayed so far had been miles better than anything I'd played in recent years. However its the moment I first touched down on Gusty Gardens that I knew that Galaxy wasn't going to go that way.

Landing in the Gusty Garden Galaxy to a blare of horns and some of the best orchestral bombast I have ever heard instantly made my mental list of my favourite ever moments in gaming. As I first landed and began to explore this galaxy full of vivid colours edged in starlight accomponied by this soundtrack, I took a moment to stop fooling around with the long jump and I looked up across the horizon and I could see that the games extraordinary ideas were laid out so cogently that anything could seem possible in this world.

As I think about all the titles I've played in recent years and all the titles that im looking forward too (Including a Galaxy sequel). Not since the original 3D Mario adventure on N64, have I played or seen a game so full imagination, playfulness, diversions and bizarre ideas that makes everything seem so simple. But when it all comes down to it, It's just a platformer. Albeit a platformer that has all the exploring, teetering on the brink and jumping off the edge of the planet in a world of uncomparable fun.

Platform: Wii
Release: Available World Wide
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo EAD

[Note: My Favourite Gaming Moments is a small series I'll probably be doing in which I rant about some of my fondest memories in gaming. And yes, I know that your life could go on with out this but its not as if i have anything better to do]