Tag: Wii

“Durpthroughs” – Fatal Frame IV – House of Creepy Ghosties

Okay, here it is, a new round of Durpthroughs!  This time I take on another horror game, Fatal Frame IV, developed by none other than Grasshopper Manufacture (home of Suda 51, if you are one of those heathens).  Fatal Frame IV has a rather interesting history behind it, or rather, an interesting story of why it was never localized.  See, it WOULD have been localized if not for the fact that Tecmo was too cheap to go back and fix a bunch of glitches that were in the Japanese copy of the game (a couple of which prevent progress, and others that make it impossible to 100% the game no matter what you do).  NOE had actually started promoting the game in their region before NCL decided that it just didn’t make sense to localize a game that wasn’t to their standards.  So screw you, Tecmo!

Anyway, let’s hope I can pull through the entire game without running into anything game-breaking.  So grab yourself a bowl of popcorn, turn off all the lights, and enjoy the scares (or me shrieking like a schoolgirl, whichever fits your fancy)!

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Conduit 2 – One Man, Three Balls

Conduit 2 demands your attention. It’s a first person shooter with incredible controls, great graphics, good humour, addictive gameplay, a wealthy amount of options and customisation, and a whole lot of style. It’s a fairly short game, but it’s full blown entertainment from start to finish, and makes no compromises or excuses for it. Michael Ford is here to kick ass and take names, and he’s all out of names. Life’s too short for formality – there’s no time for “the” anymore – this is simply Conduit 2, and it’s time to shoot bad guys.

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Skateboarding (Go Vacation) – Impressions

Skateboarding is a huge part of Go Vacation, not only do several games focus on it, but it’s a primary method of transportation around the City Resort. When I was first thrust into the City Resort, I felt like a bit of a retard trying to control the skateboard. The concept of having to move both the Wiimote and Nunchuck in the direction I wanted to go was bizarre and felt awkward. Not only that, but to go forward, you have to shake the controller up and down to take off. This is unlike any other skateboarding game I’ve played; it’s very physical and everything is done by motion. Can’t I use the joystick and hold B? No. The reason for this begins to make sense very slowly, using motion for primary movement frees up the joystick and buttons for spinning and doing tricks while you’re in the air, and having motion turning lets you still move while spinning. The use of motion turning and accelerating also makes the entire experience of jumping, tricking and grinding more connected and active. It really gives you a solid feeling of balance, as you land from a jump and have to steadily correct the controllers to keep going. The simple act of going straight, keeping speed, and jumping from one place to the next is the challenge in this game. Whenever I screw up, it’s because I’m shaking when I should be turning or vice versa. The challenging aspect here is holding everything together and being consistent with your movements. It’s an amazing use of Wii controls to create a NEW experience, and after spending a few hours mastering the skateboarding mini-games I’m absolutely in love with it.


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Water Gun Battle (Go Vacation) – Impressions

I’ve been playing quite a lot of Go Vacation on Wii. It’s a great way to relax, which i’ve been needing lately; the game is very calm and features a lot of fun mini-games with quite a bit of work put into them. The scope is so huge that a review wouldn’t be enough to give an accurate impression of this game – there’s that many different methods of control and presentation. So instead of doing a boring wholesome review, here I’m going to talk about one of the fifty mini-games, Water Gun Battle, in the first of at least one writeup for Go Vacation.


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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.

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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.

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Nintendo Connection Tour 2011 – Impressions

Nintendo Australia are currently touring the country with a new Connection Tour, giving fans the chance to show up and play some highly anticipated unreleased games. I was lucky enough to find time to attend one of them in Parramatta Westfield, and I spent a good few hours playing Mario Kart 7, Super Mario 3D Land, Skyward Sword, Kid Icarus: Uprising and Kirby’s Return to Dream Land. Most of my time was spent mingling with fellow Nintendo fans, and basking in the glory that is Mario Kart 7. Here’s a recap of the whole event!

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SSB:Brawl 60fps Videos – Old Online Replays

Getting some housekeeping done by clearing these years-old Super Smash Bros. Brawl videos from my hard drive. This batch covers the latest 10 videos dated from June 16 to June 21, 2008. Included are few random Basic Brawls; a couple matches with fellow Pietriot, “Mario”; and some matches with Maxi from the crusty old Former Nintendo Fan Report Planet (FNFRP). See the link below.

If you remember “Mario” from FNFRP, you’re old like us =[

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Super Smash Bros. Brawl, 10 60fps videos (DivX)

Why You Should Buy Xenoblade Chronicles

Short answer: because it’s absolutely incredible, and being a part of such a masterpiece in game design and passion will enhance your overall quality of life. Let me clarify one thing first: you shouldn’t buy Xenoblade. You should already fucking have it. Nobody’s perfect, however, and I’m here to help shed a bit of light and improve everyone’s mood. Xenoblade Chronicles has been out in Europe and Australia for a few weeks now; I’ve been playing it since release, and I can confirm it’s the best RPG ever made. Here’s the long answer to why it should be a part of your life…

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The Capcom Five – Video Memorial

NEVER FORGET

Before they cancelled Mega Man Legends 3, before they ignored Wii Pointer controls in Monster Hunter Tri, before they rewarded Resident Evil fans with rail shooters, before Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop could handle 6 zombies at once, before they announce Resident Evil: Revelations including the free Mercenaries HD for PS Vita launching simultaneously with the 3DS version (hi-ho 2012 release date) – Capcom presented… THE FIVE.

Never one to forget 3rd Party achievements, I put this little post together to help last generation’s players and this gen’s newcomers remember the pain for years to come. Actually, before rambling about the quintet’s history that everyone’s heard before, I want to bring attention to the titles as they were announced: by sharing nice-quality versions of their debut trailers (well, 4 out of 5 of them). If we’ll remember ANY of it, let’s at least see clean copies of them; one last face-to-face before closing the casket. I know you can search for the moldy Flash videos originating from Matt C.’s IGN, but try to have some respect for the departed. Those videos came from a time when magazine, internet, and even Nintendo’s own coverage made “good” GameCube games look crappy.

Tracking down known copies of these trailers a couple years ago took some time and $rupees$. My search was narrowed to a couple auctions for rare promo DVDs from Japan, eventually making some sellers very happy. In addition, I managed to gather almost all the promo videos for these games since their announcement. One last step (took forever), each video was processed piece by piece – deinterlacing, cropping out blank borders, scaling the frames for consistency – whenever reasonable, trying to help them look their best. It’s only these past couple months that I seriously sat down to finish converting this junk. When hobbies start to feel like work… I tend to avoid them. Recently feeling an urgent sense of justice, I could delay no more.

So here’s what I got: a few custom screencaps, my personal thoughts/description of each game at inconsistent degrees of relevance, and links to the DivX-formatted media on my homepage. But seriously, I went overboard, so don’t read all of it.

This first one up was the first one to go down…

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Retroactive Video Updates

For citizens that like their online video to look like mud, I embedded clips into some old articles to help (quickly) illustrate the points I was trying to make (some dining establishments have pictures in their menus for a reason, right?). Trying to make a habit out of this to be consistent with future poasts.

You’re playing it wrong – The Crystal Bearers


Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz FPS Videos


Whatever the hell YouTube’s 480p setting is… isn’t. >=[

You’re playing it right – Rune Factory: Frontier

After 2 slow years – more than 220 hours of inconsistent on-off indulgent gameplay – I had gotten to a desired level of satisfaction in Rune Factory: Frontier.  Can’t quite say that I wasted lots of time, since I savored so much of it. Full of repetitive (but profitable) tasks, blushing faces, sexy voicework, and adorable chitchat, I consider this to be my “Animal Crossing”; a relaxed, low-intensity enjoyment of cleverly interconnected content that doesn’t get tossed out after the first-month’s internet hype has already died and found something new to whine about. My Game of the Years, indeed.

In one (real time) week of play (last month) did all the crazy stuff come crashing at the end of the game’s calendar year: got MARRIED on FISTMAS EVE, beat the MAIN QUEST, started another SPRING SEASON, skipped thru SPRING SEASON, and entered a world of brand new CUTE BATHING SUITS.  While the timing was incredible, I didn’t exactly plan it this way (the bikinis had been the Top-Priority! above all else)(and I didn’t cheat my way out of Runey management, BILL).  The rapid chain of rewards/events simply served to amplify the sense of accomplishment. So much hawtness in such a short time.

Below, I share my joy. (JUICY SUMMER TIME IMAGERY, AHOY)

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