Author: Infernal Monkey
An interview with the creator of Puzzle & Dragons Z
Ahead of its enhanced 3DS launch next week, Japanese site GAME.Watch recently held an interview with Daisuke Yamamoto, producer of the moderately successful mobile title Puzzle & Dragons. Described by leading shampoo scientists as an ineffective cure for dandruff, the free-to-play iOS/Android release has become the highest grossing app of all time, earning roughly 35 cents for developer GungHo Entertainment.
Puzzle & Dragons Z for the 3DS looks to expand upon the game’s addictive hybrid of match-three puzzle/RPG gameplay with a greater focus on its story mode. There’s also some new and exclusive monster designs for Pixiv fanart-fuel. Plus, the fact that it’s now a full price (¥ 4,400) packaged release results in less intrusive in-app purchases. Players can now access the title screen without having to pay off an additional home loan, for example.
Below is a faithful English translation of the interview. Continue reading “An interview with the creator of Puzzle & Dragons Z”
I turned my 3DS into a genuine Game & Watch knock-off
So for the past two months or so, this is what my 3DS XL looked like. Well, not always. I mean, sometimes it was open. Pretty much just a normal XL with some Mario stickers on it. Strategically placed stickers. Because see, underneath… Continue reading “I turned my 3DS into a genuine Game & Watch knock-off”
MUD – FIM Motocross World Championship, drink and drive
MUD, what does it stand for? It’s a mystery. The physical instruction manual – a rare thing for a Vita title – is literally a single folded piece of paper, which details absolutely nothing about the game. At all. There’s just legal information, safety precautions and phone numbers to ring in case your soufflé isn’t quite up to scratch. The digital manual doesn’t help either; it just mentions Monster energy drink a lot.
Actually, perhaps MUD is short for ‘Monster’s Urethra Declogger’. Continue reading “MUD – FIM Motocross World Championship, drink and drive”
I’ve got $10, let’s go game shopping – March 2013
Hey, whoa. So much for this being a monthly feature! I mean, it’s not like I made that sweaty, lustful desire public knowledge in the initial $10 write-up back in November, but it existed somewhere in my head. So now you know. Now you know the shame. Continue reading “I’ve got $10, let’s go game shopping – March 2013”
Tetris sure knows how to throw the loneliest parties
Well, it’s official – I am a filthy casual kiddy grandma gimmick gamer, intent on ruining the secret underground club of hardcore. Thanks to the 3DS’ heavenly OCD ability to keep track of absolutely everything you play, it turns out I’ve put just a bit of time into Hudson’s humble little DSiWare title Tetris Party Live.
Continue reading “Tetris sure knows how to throw the loneliest parties”
I’ve got $10, let’s go game shopping – November 2012
While they’re fun to work up an increased heart rate to over the internet, video games can cost a lot of money. This is not much of a secret; it wouldn’t be worthy of a TV special. Video games are typically much more expensive than a bag of ice, but less than three blocks of LEGO. With new release titles costing an average of $625,000 each, plus additional day-one paid DLC (to unlock access beyond their title screen) in the vicinity of three million dollars, just what can a mere $10 get you these days?
Continue reading “I’ve got $10, let’s go game shopping – November 2012”
SpeedX 3D – Not quite a 64-bit review
Hey, remember how at least 147% of all games released on the DSiWare service were stupidly overpriced ports of 99c iPhone games with less content and options? Prooobably not if you owned an Australian system, since no DSiWare games were ever released for it here. None. Never. Especially not the few that were. But enough about e-racism, SpeedX 3D is here for your 3DS! It’s one of those iPhone ports you know and shrug, but now in glorious three dee. Two more dimensions? Seven thousand times the price. Now the math(s) works. Atari’s marketing department would be proud.
100% pure llama meat
Data East’s accurate hamburger simulation Burger Time – where delicious steamed hams are prepared by stepping all over the ingredients – has a bit of an unfortunate history with box art.
None more so than the Australian packaging for the Commodore 64 port, however…
Continue reading “100% pure llama meat”
Decathlon 2012 – Running at three frames per 100 metres
“Sweet moves, Beef McGravy!”
“Thanks, coach! It was all thanks to your constant harassment and sharp-edged threats that I’m here today, competing for my country in the Olympics.”
“The what – the what did you say?! I’ll cut’cha with my axe! This is the Decathlon 2012, son! Go for bronze!”
Continue reading “Decathlon 2012 – Running at three frames per 100 metres”
Telegames presents Ultimate Delay Games
So, while browsing the barren wasteland that is the DS’ upcoming release schedule, I stumbled upon Puzzle Overload – a collection of 1001 various logic puzzles. Clearly enough to warrant a mental breakdown. “Wow,” I didn’t proclaim, quickly averting my eyes to the next game on th-waaait a second! Telegames! Telegames’ logo was on the box. The Telegames.
Telegames honestly fascinates me, and not just because they survived their eyebrow-raising attraction to both the Atari Jaguar and Lynx (responsible for bringing over a handful of big name titles such as Double Dragon and Worms along with all their original work). After framing their award for “only third party publisher who gave a shit,” Telegames would then go on to dominate the PlayStation and Game Boy Advance with games such as uh, Santa Claus Saves the Earth. They have managed to barely exist like this since the ColecoVision and 2600 days.
The (open) world needs more Red Faction: Guerrilla
2009’s sledgehammer-swinging simulator Red Faction: Guerrilla ended up being one of those games for me. As in a ‘whoa, this is what I dreamed the future of video games would be like as a kid’ type revelation. Emerged from deep within the dustiest corners of my mind; created over countless weekends of rental regrets. While I may have technically been playing the likes of Virtual Bart or Brutal: Paws of Fury, I was actually elsewhere – looking forward to a distant time where a game would reward me for driving a truck into the side of a building to somehow complete a rescue mission which should have required a certain degree of care and planning.
Continue reading “The (open) world needs more Red Faction: Guerrilla”
Jeep Thrills
I like the trees in this game. I really, really do. Or rather, I like some of the trees in this game; the purple ones. These trees stand out with their inexplicable glowing branches, almost like sickles that have cut into something unknown. Humanity has a deep-seated fascination with which they cannot comprehend, like the popularity of hit shitcom The Big Bang Theory. Merely catching these in the corner of your eye makes it virtually impossible not to veer off the road into their warm, Grimace-like embrace.
Jeep Thrills is somewhat thrilling. This is another budget release from Funbox Media, the same publisher responsible for thrusting all those explosive copies of Speed upon the PAL market. And much like that racer, Jeep Thrills is actually pretty old for the first world, originally released in America back in 2007. It’s also a PlayStation 2 port, just to complete the whole ‘yep this is a Wii game alright’ package.
Spyborgs
If there’s one thing every video game could be improved with, it’s mayor Mike Haggar from Capcom’s very own Final Fight. Even the crappiest of games would become instant stunner deals (Streetwise never happened) with his inclusion. Just… pile-driving everything non-stop. For example, imagine Data Design re-releasing Billy the Wizard as Mike Haggar the Wizard. He’d spin that entire castle right into the Earth’s core, before beating up on some garbage bins to restore his stamina with filthy, discarded roast chicken.Sadly, Spyborgs has a distinct lack of Haggar, but it is at least in the same genre as Final Fight. Side-scrolling beat ’em ups are a rarity in this day and age; especially ones that actually make it to retail. This final product is actually nothing like Bionic Games’ original vision for the title. It was initially unveiled as a ‘comedy’ adventure inspired by early 90s cartoons and what looked to be rather large bags of steaming horse urine. Thanks to a huge amount of internet backlash, Spyborgs’development went into chaos and somehow mutated into this no-nonsense, bog-standard brawler.
There’s a story, but it’s not very important and rarely ever gets in the way (this is a good thing). Essentially, someone’s being a dickhead and it’s up to the remaining members of the ‘Spyborg Initiative’ to save the day. See, just how much cooler would that have been as the ‘Haggar Initiative’? You better believe there’d be chest hair everywhere. Alas, there are three characters here, each with their own strengths and weaknesses (urr hurr no way) – a quick but fairly weak ninja, a slow but insanely powerful robot, and some guy with a gun fused to his arm to impress the ladies. While Spyborgs is best played with a friend in co-op, each stage will always have two of the three playable characters in action during single player. The CPU does its best to help out as the second player, and you can freely switch between the two at any time.
Mario’s Cement Factory
Before he became a plumber to partake in typical plumber-like duties such as punching bricks, crushing turtles, crotch-polishing flagpoles and breaking into castles to let off fireworks, Mario owned a cement factory. True story. He made sure to let people know it was his, calling it Mario’s Cement Factory. This wasn’t a joint business venture with his brother – no, this was all Mario. Presumably Luigi just owned a gun, which he’d point towards the back of his trembling mouth each and every night.
Mario’s Cement Factory is one of those few Game & Watch games re-released through the DSiWare service. I like the idea of having these available for 200 Points ($3 something in Kangaroo money) a pop, but also lay awake in bed at night with the thought of never getting another awesome Game & Watch Gallery cartridge compilation ever again. This is a faithful replica of the original 1983 LCD handheld, and as far as Game & Watch games go, it’s probably one of the more hectic.
For whatever reason, Mario’s decided to do this all by himself. Conveyor belts dump bags of cement into chutes on both sides of the screen non-stop. As the company was put together with a budget of fifty seven cents, these have to be manually emptied and can only hold three bags at a time before the entire factory comes to a grinding halt. Naturally, arriving at this dreadful situation kills Mario and perhaps the universe itself.
Pietriots 