Thinking about Rayman Origins (part 2)

Rayman Origins has come down in price in the sales...

I'm here trying to research the differences between versions of the game.

So far noone seems to care about saying anything except HD on the HD twin formats.

I want to know more! Like loading times for example!

Zelda 1 gets even better the more confident you get at it

I've been playing this game from start to finish several times over the holidays and I haven't gotten bored yet. It's really intimidating when you don't know what you're doing but when you get good and know what you're doing you look for more rational ways to go around doing things.

Today for example after beating level 2 I went straight to level 8 and sought out the magical key. It was scary to be doing it so early in the game, being equipped as I was.

Most important of all, I am having a ball playing this game!!!

Thinking about New Year's Resolutions and Wii Fit

I hardly ever use Wii Fit. I think it's great and I have improved myself with it before but I never really committed to it on a long term basis. I think if I did it would work really well for me. I'm just thinking about a realistic resolution: Use it every day or if I'm out of town then do some exercise on the quiet.

There's a guy in Skyward Sword who started exercising at night so that he would be able to work during the day with newly gained confidence. That's what happened to him! He got more confidence! I think that's a good thing to work for. It could open doors for me down the road you never know.

Hmm... I'm not sure about Kirby Mass Attack

I finally got a chance to play Kirby Mass Attack for the DS today. I can't say I'm all that sure I like it. Aside from plain stupid and useless things like tutorials and achievements it's just the way it's controlled I'm not sure I like. It's the kind of thing I worried about when I saw trailers for the game and I have to admit my apprehensions are true. I don't like dragging and flicking Kirby around with the stylus and I'm afraid about marking the touch screen.

I think about the only stylus controls I like are the occasional jotting down of things or just plain tapping.

Reflecting on 2011: Ghost Trick

Wow, remember this? This was one of the very first games to come out in 2011 and I devoured it. I love adventure games but this was something special altogether! It's like, say you know those Rube Goldberg machines? Imagine one of them but pretend a ghost is possessing some of the mechanics and making them work.

I love the way adventure games can allow for this kind of flexibility to the gameplay and make you enjoy it on several levels.

It seems like forever ago since this game came out. It's absolutely wonderful though and deserves to be played.

Christmas with Jingle from Animal Crossing

Whenever I meet Jingle from Animal Crossing, it's always during a time when I have to set the clock to meet him. I have to set the clock because I'm always busy on those exact hours when he shows up. It's nice to meet up with him though. This year I got some festive carpet and wallpaper from him in the Wii game so my house is nicely decorated. Happy Christmas everyone!

What is a gamer?

Sounds like a big serious question doesn't it? It's just something I'm wondering about myself and if there can be a definition for it, like say you were explaining it to a space alien or something. I came up with the following sentence so far:

"A video game player is someone who plays games on a screen without having to worry about the mathematics."

3DS GBA Ambassador games

So we've finally got what we've been waiting for since about September or whenever the Ambassador scheme was announced. I downloaded every single one of them, most I've played in the past, some I haven't. There's no major new thing that I'm excited to play but they're all worth a go. I'll always pick up the first Wario Ware before any of the other games because it's just great to pick up and play!

European trailer for Boom Street

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJGXXsXNH04

There's a Mii character there named "Anis" *snigger*

Apologies! It mightn't be pronounced the same as "anus". Just me being a li'l immature there.

It's a nice looking trailer and it's good to get the excitement going for this game!

Reading Tim Rogers' Skyward Sword article

http://kotaku.com/5869411/

It's a top 10 list for "Stupid Things Terribly Wrong" with the game.

I like the article and I have a few issues with the game myself. I won't trouble myself with point 1 or point 2, although in point 2 I think his problem would become N/A if there were to be no dialogue at all in a Zelda game, which is something I'd like to see.

With point 3 I have to admit my mind did wander a lot in the middle of a conversation with another character; on top of that I'd like to add that the text itself isn't shown very clearly and it scrolls far too slowly with no option to hurry it up.

Point 4 I agree with wholeheartedly and then some. You couldn't not agree with it!

With point 5 I started to really enjoy the game when I finally got my hands on that sword, but it took ages to get to it.

Point 6 is something that made me worry when I saw the first trailer for the game. I wanted the game to be more colourful than Twilight Princess certainly but I wondered if they were trying to make everyone happy by doing different things and risk ending up making noone happy.

Point 7 I don't have a strong opinion about but I would like to see a new Zelda that was more action and less puzzles (like Zelda 1)

Point 8.... well this is my first MotionPlus game and I don't mind it really. I like the way it's done in this game though.

Point 9 kind of goes over my head except for the part about the bird. I think the bird is stupid also.

 Point 10 goes over my head too... unless it's just something I've come to accept due to diminished expectations or something.

Lovely fanart of Skyward Sword using Link's Awakening's graphics

http://www.sansemploi.com/bonus/the-legend-of-zelda-skyward-sword-sur-gameboy
Incroyable!

I mean wow this really is just lovely. The standout one is the Kikwi Elder going "Kyu Kyu..." and the idea of talking to him with the fast scrolling of Link's Awakening's text boxes rather than Skyward Sword's slow and difficult to read ones makes me feel excited!

Super Mario 3D Land is an amazing game!

So I finally tried out this game after buying it on release day a few weeks ago and I fell in love with it straight away. It's a good bit like the Galaxy games alright but there are numerious subtle and not so subtle differences that make it much tighter and fun to play. This actually really brings out the things in Mario Galaxy that really inconvenience you as a player such as being knocked on your back or flat on your face. This hasn't happened yet in Mario 3D Land... but for some reason I keep expecting it to! I also keep having the urge to shake the 3DS because I've been doing that so much in the Galaxy and Bros Wii games.

I'm still kind of shrugging at 3D effects but this is the best example yet.

I think this just may be the game you buy a 3DS for. (is it any surprise? ;P)

Normal service resumes! More Rocket Slime speedy stuff

Apologies for the downtime! ^^;

In proper news I've completed Rocket Slime on my speedy not too labourious playthrough and I have to say it's great that I can play the game this way. It increases the replay value a good bit for me!

To date It's my fourth time playing the game completely from start to finish, more than nearly any other game released in the past 10 years or so. I regard that as something special.

For my fifth playthrough (or at least one subsequent playthrough) I'm going to play with cheat codes and see how fun it'll be. For the record my current completed playtime record is about 6 hours. The longest I've ever done it was for 20+ hours.

Playing Rocket Slime quickly

I've been playing Rocket Slime again! I love it and all the other times I've played it through from start to finish I've been like some crazy hoarder grabbing everything I could see and loading them onto the carts.

For this playthrough however I've been trying to play swiftly without going too much out of my way to collect everything. The game is manageable like this and is still very enjoyable. Some things like battles can be a close call at times but that makes them more exciting!

I'm glad the game doesn't make you have to collect every little thing in order to be successful in the tank battles. That is to say, the game is a bit like work but it doesn't have to be a boring slog.

Still no internet. Have a google for the gba ambassador titles though

Posting from mobile, no other internet. Sorry! ^^;

An extra bit of that Miyamoto/Horii 1989 discussion from the other day

http://www.siliconera.com/2011/12/11/miyamoto-asks-horii-do-you-think-rpgs-will-become-a-substitute-for-novels/

I haven't read this yet but the first part I talked about the other day was so interesting that I'd say this will be interesting too. Give it a look if you liked the last part.

NGamer Magazine changing their name to Nintendo Gamer

I just flicked through the latest issue of the magazine and saw this so just thought I'd mention it. By the way I have a little backlog of issues I have to blog about! Will do soon!

I have heard that sales numbers for the magazine are low so this name change is probably a reaction to it.

Amazing and intensely interesting 1989 discussion between Shigeru Miyamoto and Yuji Horii

http://www.siliconera.com/2011/12/10/origins-of-the-legend-of-zelda-a-link-to-the-past-and-dragon-quest-iv/

Wow the stuff that's talked about here! Games I love like Dragon Quest IV(one of my favourites of the series) and earlier, Zelda 3(obviously brilliant) and earlier and even brief mentions of the amazing adventure game Portopia and the first game in a series I'm taking an interest in, Itadaki Street. (our first release being Boom Street when it comes out in Ireland here at the start of the new year)

Another couple of very interesting things are talked about like the RPG elements that were intended for Zelda 3, memory limitations, save features, game cartridge shortages, Famicom disks and in general a snapshot of what 1989 was like and where some truly classic games came from.

I consider it essential reading! :)

I beat Skyward Sword!

Horray! I just beat this game not too long ago now and I must say there was a lot of nice surprises in it. I have to say now that this was a great Zelda and I hope the next one will be even better and does its own thing.

The Last Story on Wii gets release date for Ireland!

http://www.nintendo.co.uk/NOE/en_GB/news/2011/can_you_become_a_true_knight_in_the_last_story_47034.html

The second game in the Operation Rainfall trilogy we always knew was coming to Europe but now we have a definite release date: 24th of February 2012.

I know next to nothing about the game. I'm going to hazard a guess and say it won't be as good as Skyward Sword so I don't want to bother with Xenoblade comparisons just yet.

When it comes to me you'll be reading about comparisons with Opoona!

Rocket Slime with the circle pad feels mmmm!

Actually I don't feel much but that's exactly it! The d pad isn't the best for that game because you have to move long distances in one direction and since Rocket moves fairly slow you feel you want to press the button harder in that direction. This is the kind of thing the circle pad remedies.

It's only now that I try it but I've been wanting to since I heard about the circle pad.

This also makes me want Rocket Slime 3D even more! Bring it over here please!

Thinking about Pullblox

Well actually I haven't thought much about it but it gets mentioned in blogs and magazines I frequent. Of course it's because it's made by Intelligent Systems and that it's coming out tomorrow on the 3DS eShop in Ireland and the rest of Europe. NGamer really likes the game anyway.

Should I get it? Hmm... well I do like the odd puzzle game so let's have a look at the trailer first and we'll see how it goes.

Thinking About Rayman Origins

Hmm... I've never played a 2D Rayman game before but this one seems interesting. The thing is it's released across many formats. Does this mean there are exclusive features?

Back in the Gamecube days, having that version of a game could mean better loading times for example.

I'm not sure. This could be something worth researching.

Some awesome person has uploaded Fortune Street's soundtrack to YouTube!

They've spent the last few hours doing it so let's all help promote this game!

http://www.youtube.com/user/Musicaperson#grid/user/E030A3D24F98BDB6

It has some lovely music from the Mario and Dragon Quest series. Follow the link here and have a listen to them all!

I'm impressed that overworld music from Rocket Slime appears in the game! (Slabacca map) Maybe buying this'll help in the localisation of Rocket Slime 3D for Europe? We live in hope!

Kirby's Adventure Wii is pretty darn good

This feels like a nice tribute to Kirby's Fun Pak and it loads so so quickly. Nothing delays you, not going to a different area, pausing, nothing.

You should see the instruction manual. It's literally an incredibly short 16 pages long, including covers! I love this! That in itself is like another tribute to games of yesteryear!

Monopoly Collection is abominable, bring on Fortune/Boom Street

I just thought I'd try out the Monopoly Collection since I just learned how to play it lately. I should've known something awful was going to happen when I saw that it was published by EA, who of course have dumped this rubbish across loads of different formats.

There are several unskippable animated logos that you have to sit through when you boot up the game. I absolutely hate that. Then when you're finally able to get to choose between the games on the collection you pick one and you have to sit through the exact same unskippable animated logos again. That is just inhumane.

There are loading times and cgi cutscenes that stutter and choke like as if they're from the PS1 era. Why the fuck would you have something like this on a board game? Who cares about them? Not the player I can tell you that much.

On top of that the menu text is next to unreadably small and there are animations during gameplay that would make the game drag on for hours more than it should and there's no way to turn them off.

Bring on Fortune/Boom Street!

Late Late Toy Show 2011

Big improvement from last year! A Mario Kart themed K'nex was shown. On top of that, the Wii was also shown! It wasn't shown at all last year so it's nice to see it again! Ryan Tubridy was pretending to play the Just Dance game. The 3DS was there as well but it was demonstrated very briefly.

Kirby Right Back At Ya! — Episode 51 and service ending announcement

On going into the Kirby TV channel today I got a message saying that the service will be stopping in 14 days. Then Kirby came along and gobbled it up. Maybe they'll bring it back soon? Because I know there are more episodes. The series is also beginning to be made available for the 3DS recently.

In this episode the town is planning a surprise party for Kirby to celebrate one year since he arrived in Dream Land. Everyone brushes him off when he shows up to play and, as these misunderstandings that all too often appear in these cartoon shows go, he packs up and runs away from home.

King Dedede mistakes the party preparations for a revolution at some point so the misunderstandings don't stop with Kirby.

The NME monster this time is a bomb throwing baddie and Kirby gets his bomb ability from it.