Myer in Australia held a 3 hour demonstration of 3DS on Thursday for the public, and I was lucky enough to get there in time to play it. The line was huge: when I got there I was number 242 and had to wait an hour to get to the front of the line. It curved around the store into obscure aisles and I spent half the time looking at backpacks and Lego. Then I got 15 minutes to play a few games on the system and it was definitely worth it.
Category: Impressions
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Racers Islands: Crazy Racers – Demo Impressions
I was on the fence about getting this game, it looked pretty average but it seemed like it could provide some silly colourful racing fun. Thankfully a demo came around today and I could try it out.
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Mario Sports Mix Impressions: Basketball
Yesterday I took us through the dreadful hockey component of Mario Sports Mix, today I played all the way through the game’s basketball campaign, which is probably a sign that it is slightly better quality than hockey. What is not better though are the ‘screenshots’ of me taking photos of the screen with the worst digital camera on the market (iPhone 3Gs). After receiving positive feedback on yesterday’s shots for their clarity and resolution, today I present you with this:
Mario Sports Mix Impressions: Hockey
So being the (field) hockey superstar that I am, when I jammed the Mario Mix disc into my Wii’s slot I went straight to Hockey. Over the next 4 days I’ll try out the other sports and give impressions of them but all I’ll say right now is that if the rest of the game is anything like hockey, then Mario Sports Mix has forever ruined Mario’s good sportsman-like reputation. Since I know some of you don’t click the ‘continue reading’ button on our site, this picture which I’ll leave on the frontpage shows everything wrong with hockey in Mario Sports Mix. The photo was taken on my iPhone because that’s the only image quality you weak scumbags deserve.
FlatOut Wii – Impressions
Initial Play Time: About a half-hour
Game type: Semi-realistic arcade street driving
FlatOut is a budget Wii racer developed by Team6 Game Studios and published by Zoo Games in the USA. Sporting a debut price of $20, FlatOut can be summed up as a Budget Burnout or Casual Burnout – and in some ways this is a good thing, cuz you could’ve done worse by getting $50 of debut-disappointment on any of the FOUR Need for Speed titles on Wii. There are obvious limits on the scope and features of the game, but I could immediately tell Team6 was very serious about this project based on one of the very first screens the game loads: a note on the detectable range of Wii Remote tilting angles.
A Shadow’s Tale – Impressions
The game is incredible. It hit me with its immersive atmosphere right at the title screen. The haunting sounds, smooth gameplay and vague weird presentation is making me feel attached to the shadow world. It’s a really fascinating place, and traveling through it is really simple, the game is basically played in the background as a standard platformer. Moving around objects in the foreground alters the background and that’s how puzzles are implemented in the game. Motion controls haven’t been used much yet, just basic pointer interaction. Everything is flowing so well, the game is pure gameplay non-stop, area after area. Lots of clever level design too. The character movement feels like the old Prince of Persia games, except not as clunky and the jumping is more refined.
DSi XL – Impressions
My curiosity got the best of me and I decided to get myself a Bronze DSi XL the other day. The system didn’t look too big when I first took it out of the box, but when I opened it up the size of the screens was a bit of a shock. It’s like two mini TVs in there. After booting it up, I wasn’t too impressed with the image quality in the menu, despite the immense brightness of the screens, things looked a bit blocky.
However, my fears were put to rest after putting some actual games in it, they all look fantastic. Pokemon, Zelda, GTA, Another Code, all shining brightly and majestically. There were no problems at all reading text or with image stretching, in fact it all somehow looks better. Animal Crossing was one game that blew me away, it suddenly felt a lot more playable and the colours shone through very nicely.
Fragile Dreams – Impressions
Initial play time: Less than an hour
Game type: Anime-ish story-driven flashlight exploration action-RPG
== Package ==
The bonus soundtrack selection is cute. The sleeve art is cute. The vocal tracks don’t have the slight WAV-error crackle I keep hearing in all the MP3 rips I used to find on the interweb. The reversible boxart is sexy-cute, ditching all those back-cover description stuff in favor of a girl in a trash-bag dress. I can almost see her naked.
Pietriots 