Animal Crossing 3DS: A Thinly-Veiled Wish List of Never Happenings

Alright, quiz time!  Can you name a franchise that was suddenly demoted to the status of “casual game” when Ninty started winning and the term “kiddy” started going out of style?   I bet you can’t gu…Wait, where are you looking?  HEY, STOP CHEATING!

Yes, the answer is Animal Crossing.  The franchise no “hardcore gamer” ever had an issue with until the casual gaming plague hit the industry.

So those new to the franchise, or maybe gaming in general (don’t tell Mike if you are), Animal Crossing is one of Ninty’s top-selling franchises, introduced in Japan in 2001 for the Nintendo 64 under the title “Animal Forest.”  The game wasn’t released outside Japan until it was ported the next year to the GameCube.

The premise is simple.  You have moved to a village full of (SHOCK) animal villagers, and are set up in a home by the village’s thieving merchant, Tom Nook.  You are forced to do odd jobs and sell garbage in order to pay back the loan on your house, and as you earn more money can increase the size of your home (which you have to pay even more money for), all while collecting furniture and items to fill it with and show off to your friends.  There’s a little more to it than that, but if you care that much you can look it up yourself you lazy bums!

Due to the profitability of the franchise, it surprised exactly zero people that Ninty revealed Animal Crossing alongside the 3DS.  It also didn’t exactly wow anyone either, due to franchise issues that delve much deeper than whether or not the franchise is casual or not.  This, of course, being the fact that there have been minimal changes to the base game over the three released installments.  So is there anything worthwhile about this new installment?   Anything at ALL?

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How much Reggie can you fit into a kart? THIIIIIIIIIIIS MUCH! (not to scale)

Have you wondered what Reggie does in his spare time when he’s not off kicking ass and taking names?  He’s off playing that kiddy Mario Kart Wii game and mugging himself into every possible shot of the action!  Here are just a select few of these sightings…

Reggie gives other racers a generous head-start while he mugs for the camera.

Reggie forgets his list of names, and pulls a sharp 180 in the middle of the race to go back and get it…

Reggie makes sure the camera is watching as he takes a tight drift without even looking at the road.

Reggie shows off his wheelie doom-kart abilities.  Why?  Because HE CAN.  BUT! (PLOT TWIST) Continue reading “How much Reggie can you fit into a kart? THIIIIIIIIIIIS MUCH! (not to scale)” →

Nier

Nier is a hard game to review. On the outside it’s a fairly standard RPG with hack and slash gameplay, but the experience is anything but standard. The game is full of style and the only thing constant is surprise. The story premise features the familiar concept of humans destroying the world with technology. The game is set far in the future where all human advances have vanished and we’re left with the same basic stuff we had in ancient times, with a few evil bad guys in the mix and a deadly disease.

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Unboxing Complete

Pie Staff had been casually restoring content from the old flat and other odd bits, and today we should be totally moved-in now.

Here’s a recap of the crayon drawings and baby photos that Mike almost left behind:

Holed In

With the east coast of Australia underwater, the North American continent buried under snow and the Korean peninsula on the brink of nuclear war, gamers across the world have even more reason to bunker down on the comfort of their couches and the warmths of their computer. The dangerous world outside does present a problem though; how to acquire more games? The leader in digital distribution has capitalised on this captive market and this year’s Steam sales have been destructive to gamer wallets. It’s been a storm of it’s own to weather, one in our mind, to restrain ourselves and avoid the perils of credit card debt.

fuck
Pending transactions on my credit card bill.

There is some sort of addictive quality to cheap games. I’ve bought games I previously had no interest in like Mass Effect. I heard the second one won a few awards this year so I got that and then though I might as well get the first so I know what’s going on. Then there’s other games, like Assassin’s Creed that I thought I bought, but in the long line of transactions I guess I haven’t. There are other games that I’ve decided for one reason or another to just wait and buy at the last moment of the sale, like Eufloria. There’s other games like the Tomb Raider spinoff thing but I didn’t get that, despite it going on sale twice. There’s also SimCity 4. It’s on sale right now, I’ve already bought this game twice but my brain is telling me if I get it on steam, I wont need the CD!

And of course, in typical steam sale tradition, the only games I’ve played while hiding from the jellyfish that infest this retirement village my parents call home are SimCity 4 and Osmos, which I picked up from the Humble Bundle. Might post some Osmos impressions tomorrow or tonight, it’s an absorbing (lol puns) game.

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.


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Merry Fistmas

NOA REGGIE is busy tonight, flying thru the skies, proudly thrusting his Nintendo DS to light the way (DQ9 is paused for the moment). Reindeer don’t pull his sleigh; Reggie pulls them. He’s visiting homes, crashing thru rooftops (“I don’t need your weak chimney – if you don’t have one, you’ll get one“), making a list, taking names. If you’re not on his list…

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How do you know when you buy too many games?

How I know I’m not the only person who has the problem of buying games and never getting around to playing them. Well today in JB Hi-Fi I developed a simple method to determine if you buy too many games.

If you are shopping for games, and you see a game that you want but you hesitate and the reason you hesitated is because you’re not sure if you already own the game or not, then you own too many games.

Today I bought Fragile Dreams, I still had another $50 of JB Hi-Fi vouchers to spend to I nearly bought Zack and Wiki ($20), Guilty Gear XX ($20) and Little King’s Story (also $20). Not only that but I had to note them down on my iPhone just so I would remember them and on the phone I found an open note containing a list of MORE games that I was double checking I owned or not.

Turns out I did already own Zack and Wiki. What’s it like?