Review: Dead or Alive Dimensions

It’s hard to imagine that Team Ninja’s Dead or Alive series turned fifteen this year since there are only four true installments of the series, with the last one releasing over six years ago during the Xbox 360 launch window. Now Team Ninja is celebrating the milestone with the fighter’s debut on both handhelds and Nintendo hardware with Dead or Alive Dimensions; an installment not destined to push the franchise further, but to reflect on what the series is about while showing off the capabilities of Nintendo’s new handheld.

New System, New Audience, Same Old Dead or Alive

DOA Dimensions is not a new installment, but more of a director’s cut since most of the content are ripped from older games. For the first time, all the fightable characters from the series are playable in one game with the exception of Nicole, a guest character from Halo. In addition to having the largest roster in DOA history, all the stages and music are also from older DOA’s along with one new stage inspired from Team Ninja’s last game, Metroid: Other M.

For ones who never played a Dead or Alive, it is a 3D fighter that uses a rock-paper-scissors style gameplay with strikes (punches/kicks), counter holds and grapple throws. These unique counter holds distance DOA from other fighters by fluidly stopping a strike while swapping control of the match. One of the intimidations that the series never overcame was that those that put forth immense practice only mastered countering. DOA Dimensions makes this hardship easier with three simple moves performing all the counters: high, medium and low. But do not fret DOA vets, while the game may have easier countering, DOA Dimensions contains the same complexity in every other aspect with the same movesets taken from DOA4.

Usually when a console series gets a portable installment, it feels watered down to accommodate the handheld, but Dead or Alive achieves the opposite. Not only does DOA Dimensions control better than any DOA before it, but it has also become the most accessible installment for newcomers. Like with Blazblue Continuum Shift 2 and Super Street Fighter 4, the touch screen is used to auto-perform a combo, but unlike Street Fighter’s four button macros, the character’s entire movelist is listed. Because of that, it is incredibly tricky to accurately scroll, find and choose a move during a fight.

Team Ninja delivers the same shock with the 3DS like with what they did with the Xbox and Xbox 360: they released a Dead or Alive around a system’s launch window and shows off the graphical capabilities of the system. All of the characters and stages are very detailed with some crisp texturing and it all runs with a silky sixty frames per second. Put the 3D on and the game looks even better with a realistic feel of depth but with a lower framerate, an element fighting fans cannot afford to lose. It is surprising that in only two months after the system’s launch, Team Ninja have already set a new graphical standard for the 3DS that even Nintendo has yet to achieve.

Culminating 15 Years of Story in One Cartridge

DOA Dimensions has many modes that deliver a nice variety for a fighting game, though these modes end pretty quickly with little reason to come back, including its new Chronicle mode. Dead or Alive has never accumulated a great story and it is only harder to keep up with it when the games launch so few and far between. Chronicle mode solves that by telling the entire story of DOA 1-4 through the point of view of the four ninjas Kasumi, Hayate, Ayane, and Ryu Hayabusa and their involvement with a corporation named DOATEC (apparently pronounced doh-uh-tek). Aside from Helena later on, the ninjas take up most of the entire story with the other characters are simply there as fighting fodder.

Chronicle mode is meant to be the first thing you play in the game since it is practically a long tutorial, holding your hand with mid-fight pausing to teach countering, grappling or other techniques. Because you are never given true freedom in a match, the Chronicle only serves the beginner and is not meant to play again once beaten.

One unforgettable part of the Chronicle that needs mentioning is that the story is delivered via multiple types of cutscenes. Some cutscenes are highly detailed, pre-rendered scenes from DOA4 while some are rendered in-game. However there is a third type of cutscene, one that is so odd that the only way to describe it is to call them mannequin scenes. Like an Old Navy commercial, the characters stand frozen in unfrozen environments. So while a character’s body stands still, you can see water flowing, electricity pulsing and even their hair blowing from the wind. It is hard to think why they chose to do such an odd design choice since it breaks immersion and is very disturbing (or funny) to watch, especially if you hate mannequins.

Game Design 101: Fighters Need Replayability

Returning to DOA is the Arcade mode – a staple in fighters. In normal Arcade modes, you select a character and then fight a few different CPU opponents until you face a boss in the end. While Dead or Alive usually designs their arcade like most fighters, Dimensions decides to do things differently, where every character fights the same exact opponents on a fixed difficulty, mostly easy. The exclusion of customizing the difficulty is a horrible design choice because anyone with a bit of practice can slaughter it in no time and never look back.

Finally, a new and interesting mode that has been introduced in Dimensions is the Tag Challenge mode, where you and a partner, either a friend or CPU, go after twenty different challenges. Some missions require going against one or two supped up challengers with a select amount of extra lives just in case. While the earlier missions are a cakewalk, the later missions become a fun challenge to beat with a friend. I say friend because playing with the idiotic CPU gives you as much of a headache as it does a handicap. Like the Arcade before it, the lack of customizing challengers diminishes its replay value.

On the multiplayer front, DOA Dimensions supports both local and online options, and both perform very well for one-on-one fights. While I never experienced any lag or other network issues from most of these matches, it can get tough starting a match since players are given the option to opt out of the match before it starts. Sadly, with the exception of playing the Tag Challenges locally, there are no other multiplayer option, so replayability is only determined by how much you like to fight your friends (and vice-versa). In addition, DOA fans might be happy or extremely upset knowing that the auto-perform option with the touchscreen cannot be turned off, so it’s less of a game of who did the most practice and more of a who can outperform the other.

One part of Dimensions that Team Ninja hasn’t skimped out on was utilizing some of the 3DS’s unique features, such as StreetPass, SpotPass and Play Coins. If you are in the vicinity of another Dimensions owner, your profiles carry over via StreetPass with the ability to fight a CPU version of your favorite character. The SpotPass feature automatically downloads a new costume each day for your characters, though it is only planned for thirty days after the game’s release. Lastly, you can spend ten Play Coins to either unlock costumes that you haven’t unlocked yet in Arcade mode, or unlock some of the roughly 1000 figurines that you can collect throughout the game.

Reflecting on the Reflection

It is heartbreaking that know there is a magnificent fighter in this cartridge, but some odd design choices hinder its potential. However, even with the lack of its traditional options, it is definitely a worthy purchase if you enjoy the one-on-one play of Dead or Alive or are curious to see what the series is all about. It still plays better than any DOA or handheld fighter before it, and is fun to pop in for a few rounds of Free Play. Just don’t expect any other form of long-term use out of it. 

Never Unplaying: Game of the Year 2010

Finally back after a large hiatus, I am back to give credit where credit is due and announce Never Unplaying’s Game of the Year for 2010. This was a spectacular year in gaming with hits launching year round, but what stood out was that no matter what platform it was, they saw their fair share of quality releases. Though with everything I played, there were a few games that stood out in my eyes and it was not until the end of the year where I realized where I wanted this honor to go to. Like any year, there are always games that I expected more from and like last year’s GOTY post, I’ll start off sharing two of my disappointments.

Final Fantasy XIII



Square-Enix is hitting two years in the row with this award, and it is only that much more hair pulling when it is the bigger, more anticipated release. Announced back in 2006, the first grand entry of the Final Fantasy series on the HD systems stumbled on its face. Though I was not a fan of Final Fantasy XII, I was damn proud of the fact that Square-Enix slapped the mindset of JRPG’s in the face and said that change can exist when it comes to the genre they helped forge. So why did they retreat to many of the stereotypes we got sick of? Linearity, a lousy story, a good but very flawed battle system and the annoying characters Snow and Hope held back a giant that could have expanded its audience like how Final Fantasy VI and VII did before it.

BUT! I do have to admit that one aspect I loved in the game was Lightning, the very strong willed heroine of the game. From beginning to end, she truly stood out as a terrific lead character that shared her strength with her comrades. Great leads are an element that many Final Fantasies lack, with Vaan, Tidus, Squall, and yes, Cloud as great examples. Ironically, Lightning's the strongest lead I've seen from a Final Fantasy since the last female lead, which is Terra from Final Fantasy VI.

Donkey Kong Country Returns



When I think of the 16-bit days, Rare’s Donkey Kong Country 1 & 2 where absolute masterpieces in my eyes. The first one caught me off guard with some amazing pre-rendered visuals and slower, yet steadier platforming, and the second installment outdid the first in every way. Longer, brutal and containing my favorite game soundtrack ever, DKC2 was 16-bit platforming at its finest and it holds up today. So when Nintendo announced that Retro Studios, the guys behind resurrecting the Metroid series with the superb Prime trilogy, took the reigns of DKC, I was thrilled to say the least. Sadly all Retro did was take the idea of Rare’s design of the first DKC and watered it down. No Kremlings, no underwater stages, no significant focus of barrel throwing, boring mine cart stages and a continuing reminder of its overall inferiority of what made DKC great (a similar feeling of what I felt with DKC3), Donkey Kong Country did not return, it rusted.



With the bad behind us like 2010, we’ll continue by starting the honors as always with the runner-up:

GotY Runner Up: Super Mario Galaxy 2



When Mario Galaxy 2 was announced, I was quite shocked and for good reason. It’s a very un-Nintendo move with having such a relatable sequel to a Mario game and having it on the same console, to the point that I had to wonder why it exists. Then I played it. While I liked Mario Galaxy a lot, the sequel blows it out of the water in every way, shape and form. I hear of sequels that goes leaps and bounds over its predecessor like with this year’s Red Dead Redemption, but Galaxy 2 takes what is known as the best game on its console and iron out any faults to create a wonderful and near-flawless game. This is one of those rare games that are so well crafted that when something wrong happens, you know (whether you admit it or not) it was your fault. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is placed as one of my favorite games of all time and a testament of how pixel-perfect the gameplay of 3D Mario games are since my favorite game of all time: Super Mario 64.



Game of the Year - Halo: Reach



I wouldn’t have guessed this when I saw its announcement. Or when I played the beta. Or when I bought it. Or when I beat the campaign. I knew when the year ended and I was still playing all fronts of the game: campaign, firefight and matchmaking consistently.

This is Goodbye…

Halo Reach is the swan song of Bungie’s involvement of one of the most influential gaming franchises of all time. Reach takes the decade of experience that Bungie has learned since the original Halo and masters the pick up and play formula the series is known for. Leading the way after 2009’s awesome Halo 3: ODST, Reach again does not star Master Chief, but as another Spartan, Noble 6, right before the events of Halo 1. He or she (since they are customizable) joined the NOBLE Team to investigate an incident that first thought to be an anti-military action by civilians, but then realized it’s the dreaded Covenant invaded the planet Reach. The planet was always mentioned in previous Halo games, but it was always about how mutilated it became after the Covenant invaded it. Because we play these events, we see how the planet falls against impossible odds against an enemy that was too swift with their strike. Reach is as sad as ODST was lonely with the story containing unexpected twists, desperation and concluded by a very depressing finale. Reach and ODST really show the maturity the franchise developed since abandoning the superhero Master Chief story arc, and it’s better because of it.

…A Long Lasting Goodbye

Halo has always been famous for its multiplayer with its superb splitscreen/LAN matches from Halo 1, rewriting the rules for online multiplayer with Halo 2 and the introduction to Firefight in ODST, but Reach fine tunes all of those fronts. This is one of the biggest reasons that I have such a high regard for this game because it brought me back to something I thought was lost to me forever: online multiplayer. Since the somewhat-disappointing Halo 3 and the rise of popularity of Call of Duty, I have completely lost interest in playing against strangers on Xbox Live. Perhaps it’s because the gameplay in Reach performs so well, because that the community is much more grown up than it was before or perhaps it’s because the loud kids play Call of Duty now.

Reach’s multiplayer beta back in the spring really hooked me, which was unexpected, but the final product has me truly addicted. The thanks goes to daily and weekly challenges for matchmaking, campaign or firefight that score you bonus experience points (XP) for completing them. You always have to come back to those challenges because once you gain a lot of XP and earn a high enough rank, regular matches doesn’t net you enough XP to level up in a fast enough rate.

Matchmaking hasn’t changed much in Halo, but that’s a good thing. The series has a special flavor that really makes you feel at home from the same consistent text that tells you to “Hold X to pick up weapon” to the omnipotent voice that declares the start of a multiplayer round. The game has an easy menu system to show all the playlists to choose from: Team Slayer, Team Objective, Rumble Pit, Multi-team, etc. Thanks to user input, Reach added more playlists to divide people’s tastes to a dedicated direction like Community Slayer, DLC-only matchmaking, Campaign co-op matchmaking, Infection (formally Zombies) and my all-time favorite, SWAT.

Though I faded from matchmaking fights online in the last few years, my return was like riding a bike all over again. Thanks to the perfect balance that Reach’s weapons have like with the new Needle Rifle, a fixed Needler, the upgraded DMR Battle Rifle, ODST’s Magnum and good old Assault Rifle and Sniper (plus more) as well as grenades and melee damage. What’s better is what’s not in the game anymore, mainly Halo 2/3’s SMG and dual wielding because they seemed to be the reason why Halo felt so unbalanced. For once in a Halo game, you can have the ability, talent withstanding, to perform a strategic kill with any weapon.

Multiplayer for Everyone

One of the best things to happen in multiplayer was adding a mode that instead of fighting one another, players need to work together to tackle waves of enemies. Halo’s introduction to such a mode with Halo 3: ODST’s Firefight, and it rose to a new level with a wide level of customization with make-your-own skulls, stipulations, custom enemy waves and more. Elites make their debut in this mode too, so all available Covenant troops (besides Prophets) are now available to kill. In addition, Bungie added Firefight for matchmaking too, so you’re not stuck with only those that are on your friends list. The mode is a blast to play, especially if you choose the Rocketfight and Sniperfight matches since they have unlimited ammo and the latter is pretty good sniper practice. Not as popular in Firefight however is the poorly implemented versus mode. Similar to Left 4 Dead’s, players can be Elites in Firefight as long as there are human-controlled Spartans, but with the lack of matchmaking and no option for CPU Spartans, it’s a wasted mode with a lot of unused potential.



Reflection of a Legend

Seeing Bungie step away from Halo is upsetting because I’m afraid that we won’t see the series in this high of regard for some time. These guys built a community that they love with toys, books, graphic novels, collectors/legendary editions and even an online sitcom, and took the industry by storm. In the end though, it’s the games that make those other experiences worthwhile and Reach is the best Halo game yet. Bungie shows us with the development, final product, and post-launch updating that Reach is a true example of lessons taught, listening to their fanbase and never thinking that anything is good enough in an industry full of Ubisoft/Activation-like franchise milking, Nintendo/Sony-ish bullheadedness and Midway/Eidos-style wrong turns (time and time again). Reach has an effect on me that I haven’t felt since 2001’s Super Smash Bros. Melee where I am so determined to practice it while constantly having so much fun with it every day. It brought back the meaning of online multiplayer to not only me, but also friends who thought to never renew for Xbox Live again. Finally, it also has the power to keep drawing me in even though I have a pile of games that are still unopened and craving to be played, not to mention ending a Pokémon HeartGold/Picross 3D/Dragon Quest IX streak that glued me to my Nintendo DS for months.

It’s cute that at the end of most of Bungie’s announcements and events such as the Reach beta, they end it off with “Love Bungie,” well it’s time for me to tell those guys that I love them right back. And thanks.


Quick Honorable Mentions:

No More Heroes 2- A well done sequel to a game that had one too many flaws.

Mass Effect 2- Winner of the most GotY awards that I’ve seen, Shepard’s sequel smoothed out all the edges of the first to make one heck of a third person shooter/RPG. Its steady flow of DLC had me coming back to it a few times throughout the year.

Sonic & Sega All-Star Racing- An excellent kart racer that I must say beats the tar out of Mario Kart Wii.

Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver- Remakes to the best Pokemon games ever with the updated gameplay of Pokemon Platinum. Not only are they just as addicting as the games before it, HeartGold and SoulSilver contains the longest campaign of all four Pokemon generations. I was exclusively playing this all spring. The Pokewalker was a neat little device that saw it’s milage with conventions like PAX East.

Picross 3D- They took my personal GotY of 2007 and transformed it to cubic sculptures instead of 2D pictures. Still proving itself as the best puzzle series ever in my eyes.

Red Dead Redemption- Westerns were something I always wanted a good game out of and Rockstar finally did it. To me, the sandbox genre for a western feels more complete than the urban setting of GTA, though it was Rockstar’s top tier amount of depth is why I can say that.

Dragon Quest IX- A really good evolution to the long running Dragon Quest franchise adding a Borderlands-style co-op to a turn based RPG. Me and my girlfriend played this all summer while friends of mine easily when into triple digits worth of playtime hours.

Professor Layton and the Unwound Future- I still say this series is a must play for everyone. The gameplay hasn’t changed one bit, but the story is as cunning as ever.

Goldeneye 007- A classy, modern retelling of the Goldeneye movie. Eurocom really gave Wii owners one heck of a FPS.

Sonic Colors- Hell must have frozen over with two Sonic games here. Colors is absolutely worth playing since they finally made a good Sonic game. Here’s the catcher: it’s not just good, it’s a surprisingly superb platformer.

Review: 3D Dot Game Heroes

I have been in love with the recent renaissance of classic style gaming. Seeing old ideas come to life with new technology with titles like New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Mega Man 10 and Castlevania Rebirth gives me with warmth I haven’t felt since the days of blowing dust out of cartridges and simple, yet rewarding game design. Well, From Software and Atlus decided to roll out their own retro style game with 3D Dot Game Heroes for the PS3, a game all too similar to a game about green elf boy from Hyrule.

They aren’t denying that they’re ripping off The Legend of Zelda: from a Wind Waker style intro to quotes purposely stolen from the original NES classic. At first glance it would seem to believe that Nintendo has lost their minds and incorrectly released a game on a competitor’s console. The game plays nearly the same as Zelda, a grand kingdom to walk around, a quest involving items like the boomerang and bow to accompany your sword and shield and dungeon design exactly like the old days. From Software has done a bit to make this adventure more next-gen however with advance character creation equipped with sharing capabilities and visuals though blocky, are hardware demanding due to gorgeous water effects, crisp colors and good use of physics.

The story takes place at a kingdom called Dotnia, a once flourished 2D kingdom that was once troubled by a dark lord. This lord was banished into an orb by a young hero until one of his minions stole the orb, and you, the hero’s descendant, must stop the lord once more. During this, the king saw his kingdom lose popularity and decreed that the kingdom turn 3D, pixilated look and all. While the story isn’t Oscar winning material, retro games are mainly known for solid gameplay.

What’s cool though is that you are not a fixed character. There are dozens of premade models to choose from: warriors, ninjas, dragons, monsters and even a tank! If you don’t like that, you can edit the premade ones or create your character from scratch, building the hero from Dotnia block by block. If you put the time into it, you’ll be rewarded with the character of your dreams (or nightmares).

The controls are mainly NES Zelda fare, with two item slots for the X and O buttons for the sword and the other equipable items. Those items are found in dungeons and after gaining them, you gain access to new areas and dungeons via those items. Remember those cracks in the wall? Bomb them. Is there a big gap in the way? Use the Wire Rod (Hookshot) to grab a pole and fly across. The dungeons become much more complex in later scenarios and sometimes might take hours to figure it out. One thing that may take players longer to finish them is the difficulty. Thankfully, unlike more recent Zeldas like Twilight Princess, the game is pretty hard, with enemies and especially bosses, taking several hearts from you from a single hit. Fans of Atlus and From Software’s difficult and delicious hit Demon’s Souls take note. When time goes by and your wallet fills, you can obtain proper equipment, like rings, to protect you. Beating bosses gains you an additional heart and you can find scattered heart pieces along Dotnia, collect four and gain a new heart.


When your health is full, the sword is gigantic.

However, it seems like the gameplay for Dot Heroes fell flat, and only creates needless frustration. One thing that Zelda is known for is pixel perfect gameplay. When the player inputs a command, the game responds without a hiccup, and that everything in the game’s world exists for a reason. This leaves the player’s skill alone as the only catalyst between their success and defeat. Dot Heroes tends to forget this part because players can go to their deaths from things out from their control. The sword would sometimes not work correctly, whether the blade would cut half its size, or in some cases, not show up at all, leaving your hero looking dumb with an empty hilt and sometimes a lost life.

Dot Heroes also suffers from random drops, meaning that the items that drop from enemy deaths and breakable environment elements, like vases and grass, can be anything like money, arrows, health, magic restoration or possibly nothing. Zelda always had this rule where money would never drop unless the player had full health, otherwise, it would drop hearts. This nonrandom drop method encourages keeping health up for money and keeping players alive and not scrambling for health. Dot Heroes doesn’t go by such a rule, so players can be at full health and see nothing but hearts or be half dead and never see a single heart. For a game that focuses of saving and spending money for upgrades on the character and the sword, using that Zelda rule would be a fantastic way of subconsciously invoking the player to do better without leaving the worthless sense of worry and frustration. Hey, if they’re going to rip Zelda off, they might as well not cut corners while they’re at it.

3D Dot Game Heroes is a bittersweet retro serenade for Zelda fans and no one else. The reason the review is focused on comparing it with Zelda is frankly because From Software asked for it. They knew what they made when they finished this project and unfortunately didn’t do anything to expand the genre, add some sort of cool twist in gameplay or make it unique outside the cool visuals. The game is fun but stale, and has that constant nagging that it’s a totally inferior throwback to Zelda. If you like Zelda, it’s cheap and worth a spin, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. If you don’t like Zelda, stay far away from it. If you don’t know Zelda, then play Zelda: it’s a much more user friendly, rewarding and inviting experience.

3D Dot Game Heroes for PlayStation 3: 6.5/10

E3 Press Conference Impressions

It’s E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo - the biggest gaming event of the year. One week of pure announcements, interviews and on-hand demos where publishers, developers, press and retailer representatives show and cover everything there is to know for their next year and beyond. While there is a main show floor showing off what all the corresponding companies show off, it all begins with big press conferences. Many companies like Activision, EA and Ubisoft perform their own, but most people focus on three: Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony, the three console manufacturers. These companies hold the future of console gaming, the future of their third parties’ continuing commitment on the console and the forward of content to the millions of gamers and their hard earned investment. This was a defining year: Sony and Microsoft are relaunching their consoles with new ways of delivering various forms of entertainment while the market leader, Nintendo, had to impress gamers with the successor to the Nintendo DS, the best selling system of all time.


I’ve become a huge Xbox fan throughout this generation, and any Microsoft fan can always look forward to a wealth of fantastic information of their investment every year at E3. Until 2010. Let’s be blunt: Microsoft’s Monday night press conference was not what fans wanted. While it started in its normal forte with Call of Duty and the premier showing of Metal Gear Solid Rising, everything went downhill when Microsoft started their “only for 360” line. They decided to throw out the idea of showing other great third party support with titles like Dead Rising 2 and Rock Band 3, and went short and straight for Halo: Reach, Gears of War 3 and Fable 3. With the exception of the tease of space fights in Halo, what was shown was what we expected from these titles. Anyone thinking about seeing new content only got the lousy tease for Crytek’s Codename: Kingdoms, something I would have been excited to see real information for. Core gamers - you’re done. Microsoft surely didn’t have much else to show, and this was blatant with 2011’s Gears 3 and its VERY early showing. This worries me that Microsoft admitted that isn’t anything else for 2010 for the core audience (AKA mostly everyone). They went straight to Kinect with a desperately cling because we all know the expansion of their current audience is done and they cannot expand unless a new hook hooks. Kinect is cool and I like the idea they’re bringing to the table, but they’ve announced that this isn’t for the core gamer and the core gamer was the only ones watching this. This was a continuous problem with Nintendo conferences, no core content for the core audience watching, and Microsoft took the torch for this. Microsoft’s ESPN announcement started cool, though went too long (and no NFL?), Kinect’s voice recognition was awesome to say the least and Kinectimals seems like it’ll be a guilty pleasure. However, their rampant Wii ripoff started with Kinect Sports, Your Shape Fitness and Kinect Adventures and then I realized that this is a gamble that Microsoft might lose. They want the Wii pie (Sony too, but they’re aiming core gamers in their route also), but the Wii’s out and has been out for four years and if they expect that audience to trade their system in and spend more money on a similar experience, they’ll be extremely disappointed (and the casual audience doesn’t even know GameStop exists). Their ending “surprise” was their redesigned console. The conference ended with the crowd cheering wildly, not because they were happy with the conference per se, but that Microsoft gave everyone in the audience the new Xbox 360 for free. I understand you want this new casual audience with Kinect, but don’t bite the hand that currently feeds you Microsoft. This showing made me lose my overall interest in Kinect.


The next morning, Nintendo was up to bat and boy did they swing hard. This was the best Nintendo presser since their Wii unveiling in 2006. Wii-wise, Nintendo was only concerned that you had Wii content this year, so they did something about it. Donkey Kong Country Returns, Disney Epic Mickey, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, Goldeneye 007, and Metroid: Other M; all big, solid, and exclusive titles. Also, millions of casual gamers got two games that they’ll most likely pick up: Wii Party and Just Dance 2. This wealth of 2010 content softened the blow that was The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and Mario Sports Mix’s 2011 launch. Zelda was a complete mess on the stage, but seeing players play it after showed that the game works and that there is tremendous depth to the control scheme. However, did anyone realize that the controls are ripped from Wii Sports Resort? The sword and bow are obvious, but did you see that they “bowled” bombs and chucked them like “basketballs”, or that the beetle was like an “air sport”? After an impressive Wii showing, Nintendo continued with the unveiling of the star of the show, and probably all of E3: the Nintendo 3DS. A much more powerful handheld, the 3DS sports a 3D screen, a new sliding analog stick and a 3D camera for taking 3D pictures. For the first time that I can remember, they teamed up with movie studios to support multimedia content, in 3D as well. Nintendo started showing off the software side of things, starting with the first Kid Icarus in twenty years. Kid Icarus: Uprising looked amazing, showing that the 3DS was powerful – like GameCube or even Wii powerful. After saying Pit’s new adventure lead the 3DS launch, they showed nintendogs + cats(lower caps intended) as their blue ocean system seller. This continued with big announcements of third party support. Resident Evil, Street Fighter, The Sims, Ninja Gaiden, Kingdom Hearts, Metal Gear Solid, Professor Layton (Nintendo isn’t localizing them anymore), Dead or Alive, Assassin’s Creed, Saint’s Row (though everyone laughed)and three Shin Megami Tensei games. The system already looks to outnumber the DS’s complete M-rated library. This was the press conference to watch, and it really felt that Nintendo and Microsoft swapped positions this year. Nintendo’s conferences post-Wii launch has been really poor, but it really did feel this year that Nintendo showed off a Microsoft-style E3 event full of world exclusive announcements - and nothing could have been better. It wasn’t done once the conference itself ended either, Nintendo did not kick anyone out until 11 that night (the press conference started at 9 AM). That meant more info after the conference itself, from Mario Kart 3DS, Animal Crossing, Pilotwings, Starfox 64 3D, Paper Mario, and teased remake of The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time in 3D. Surprisingly missing: the Wii Vitality Sensor that was announced at last year’s E3, but no one cared.


Sony had the pleasure of being last so that their updates would bury Microsoft and Nintendo’s news into further and forgotten pages of game websites. “Exclusive” was their favorite word at E3 2010, showing their own games while trying to score content from other publishers. They started with the audience with 3D glasses watching Killzone 3 gameplay with Sony stating that 3D is a particular focal point for them like Move, another gameplay element that Killzone supports. First party is very strong and full of sequels: Infamous 2, LittleBigPlanet 2, Motorstorm 3, Gran Turismo 5, and two newly announced games: Heroes on the Move – a Jak/Ratchet/Sly Cooper collaboration and a new Twisted Metal. They dated Move for September with the audience flipping out seeing a $50 price tag, but that stopped quickly when they realized that the navigation attachment is sold separately for $30. Plus the camera’s separate, although the controllers will have various bundles with games and consoles as well. Sony announced new marketing, with a Coke agreement with Move and a new way to humiliate the PSP with a lame kid to ripoff their own Kevin Butler. With the 3DS unveiling mere minutes ago, seeing the PSP continuing its rocky history with a slim lineup, it isn’t looking good for the Sony handheld. Going back to Kevin Butler, Butler stole the show with one of the most entertaining things in E3 history: his total mouthing off. It’s something you need to watch because words only dilute the effect. Sony surprised everyone when they brought up their exclusive campaign: Third party agreements. They did this with a celebration of EA, one company that most gamers probably wouldn’t like a celebration with their horrible PS2/GCN/Xbox/GBA lineup. However, their recent increase of quality and their road of redemption really started with Dead Space, an excellent survival sci-fi horror. The EA segment had the sequel, along with a PS3 exclusive Limited Edition including the Wii’s Dead Space Extraction for Move. Medal of Honor’s reboot also has a PS3 exclusive LE which has Medal of Honor Frontline remastered for HD on the same disk. Arguably the biggest bombshell was that Valve is supporting the PS3, starting with what’s supposed to be the best console version of Portal 2 with Steamworks support. They also announced PS3 only content for Mafia, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and very quickly reminded everyone that Final Fantasy XIV still exists. Finally, the other big announcement was that some free stuff PSN users got as well as newer content will now have to be paid with their new subscription service. Losing stuff like the Qore magazine is a bummer. All in all, Sony was solid, but most of the games we all knew about, some facts were hard to swallow and the exclusive content rush seems like they’re bringing back the smugness that made them collapse their market share and made them play catch up the last four years. They did beat Microsoft by a long run though, and all Sony probably cares about anyway.

Never Unplaying's Game of the Year 2009

First of all, I am sorry that I haven’t updated Never Unplaying during the last few months. I’ve been half dead with school and a hectic holiday (and post holiday) season. However, I must continue and I will with the Game of the Year of 2009.

Like every year, I spend a lot of time on what I’ve played throughout the 365 days and declare what I believe deserve the award. 2009 was a tough year because even though a game will have the award, I didn’t have an awe inspiring experience this year. Yes Uncharted 2 was action packed. Yes Scribblenauts was very inventive with a chock full of content. Yes New Super Mario Bros. Wii was nice and traditional. Call me greedy, but there wasn’t much that hooked me.

One of the biggest issues this year were games that didn’t get it all right. Before I start praising, I’d like to focus on a few games I liked this year but contained one too many issues for me to love them.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers


This was my most anticipated game for some time. Crystal Bearers was one of the first Wii games ever announced - four or so years in the making. A single player Final Fantasy experience with a cocky main character and built for the Nintendo audience. So why was this ten hours long and has the most broken final boss out there?


Halo 3: ODST


Halo 3: ODST is not a bad game whatsoever. I love the campaign and Halo needed a sweet co-op mode ala Gears of War's Horde Mode, which Firefight fit the bill nicely. On top of that, they added all the Halo 3 multiplayer content, DLC maps and all. I’m impressed with the overall package and while it is still a ton of fun, Bungie’s commitment to totally ignore the game post-launch is unforgivable. No Firefight additions such as new maps and enemies (Elites added for fun?) make this sweet package a little sour.


The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks


Even though Nintendo has a tendency to make innovative hardware, they tend to keep their big games pretty traditional. Zelda: Twilight Princess: Same as Ocarina of Time. Super Mario Galaxy: Same as Mario 64 control-wise. New Mario Bros. Wii/DS: Same as the old Mario Bros. Why then, does Nintendo have to totally mess around with the Nintendo DS Zeldas, like Spirit Tracks? If it was controlled normally with some neat little touch moments, fine, but the touch-exclusive controls can get really frustrating. I’ve never died in a Zelda game as much as this one and it was all control related deaths. The concept of a train is cool and blowing the whistle nonstop was fun, but it’s too much sometimes and it’s a sad replacement to a real Hyrule Field. Makes you wonder why Nintendo doesn’t leave it to Capcom for handheld Zeldas again since they have had a beautiful track record on them with the Oracles and Minish Cap.



Now it’s all award time with the Games of the Year, starting with the runner up:

Batman: Arkham Asylum


You know I almost didn’t play this game. I thought it was one of those “only good if you’re a fan” type of game, and I haven’t been in the Batman loop since my mini fandom of Adam West when I was very young. In the end however, Arkham is really a fantastic experience. The presentation is second to none paired with some awesome (and fan familiar) voice acting with some with mind blowing visuals, cutscenes, and animation thrown in for fun. Mix that with a Metroid Prime-style exploration and gadget based gameplay, we get the best licensed game since Goldeneye. The game does have a few flaws with a few dud boss fights and very simple fighting mechanic, but those issues are so few and far between hardly becomes a deal breaker.


And now....


Game of the Year - Rune Factory Frontier


Yeah, surprising as it is, there was not a game that I put so much time into this year as Rune Factory Frontier, and I’m still not even close of finishing it. There are just so much to you can do in this game because it stays constantly busy with multitasking projects, so it not hard to blow over a hundred hours into it. That’s why whenever you see Nintendo’s report of the Wii’s top ten games with the most gameplay hours, you see Rune Factory still on it. Rune Factory is the best role playing game on the Wii hands down and it is the recommendation for any fan of the genre.

A New Town

Rune Factory Frontier is the sequel of Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon on the Nintendo DS. The main character Raguna (which you can rename if you want) is searching for one of the main characters from the first game, a girl named Mist. You end up finding her in the small town of Trampoli, and with an abandoned house and field, you start off a new life without thinking of the old one from the first game thanks to that wonderful Japanese cliché of amnesia, a cliché that should die in a fire miserably.

Trampoli has a nice little cast of characters when you move in, but this cast expands with new residents, including more characters from the first Rune Factory. Thirteen characters of Trampoli’s populace are young girls and those little ladies in town can potentially want your heart. Whether it’s that thickheaded sweetheart Mist, the perky bathhouse owner Melody, the big-boned Eunice (who you can have lose weight with the right encouragement), or the mysterious Iris who lives on the floating Whale Island above town, each girl has her own likes and dislikes and it’s up to you to uncover them and exploit them to make the girls warm and fuzzy inside. Eventually, you can woo her to the point when you can propose to her, marry her and have a kid. None of this is quick however and if you mess up, it can take another in-game month in order for you to get another chance.

One half farming

You Still Farm…

The farming hasn’t changed much from the Harvest Moons, but balancing what to do with your limited energy is crucial for having a successful farm in addition to exploring in dungeons. This energy, called Rune Points (RP), are spent every time you use a tool or weapon, and once it’s depleted, further use of those items will drain health until you pass out. A defeat will send you to the nurse’s office with a cold, ½ your daily RP and half your day wasted, so think wisely before pushing your character to the edge. This is one of the more frustrating elements because it doesn’t take much to deplete RP so you’re stuck retreating the dungeon or interrupting your farming for the day. Players who hate slow beginnings will have their patience tested, but will be rewarded when you’re stronger and able to do much more in a single day.

One half dungeon crawler

…But With a Twist

The role playing fantasy portion is what separates Rune Factory from the farming-exclusive Harvest Moons. The RPG portion is mainly a dungeon crawler, a simple action element that revolves fighting in a simple dungeon with a boss on the bottom floor. On its own, it is no innovative RPG, but knowing you can only go so far before you need to rest in bed to restore RP makes these simple dungeons time consuming. In addition to tending the farm and getting a life, beating all the dungeons can take about a year, which is four month-long seasons. Like in real life, days tend to come and go, but the year seems to take a long time and once you realize how many hours you invested, you feel rewarded with a powerful character, a potential wife and a happy town.
What’s a farm without livestock, but Rune Factory isn’t just chickens and sheep. Everything is given a fantastical makeover with funky looking cows, unicorn ing horses that jingle when you ride them and little two-legged sheep. They are actually not only the livestock; they are the monsters you fight in the dungeons. To get these critters in your barn, you do not attack them, but instead pet them enough before they kill you. Captured livestock can either harvestable qualities such as a Wooly’s wool and Buffamoo’s milk, or you can use them for chores like cleaning the field, watering crops and harvesting. Sadly, only one monster can do each different chore, but with some feeding and petting, they will try harder and will perform a better job for you while you save needless energy from doing the chores.

The Ultimate Chore

Rune Factory’s farming element also contains a fantasy element. Throughout Trampoli are little floating sprites called Runeys. Runeys are useful for things like unlocking treasure-filled doors and changing weather or fish production, but they also hold the potential of your crops. These little guys can spell doom or bloom because if they die out, your farm can take forever to raise simple crops. On the other hand, if you take the time (like you had a lot of it anyway), you can balance the number of Runeys and have them flourish so that your crops will sprout in very little time. This is the easily the worst part of the game because while it has an incredible benefit if you do it, Runeys continuously eat each other which skews the balance of the Runeys each day. This takes a lot of care to maintain and forgetting this chore will have you spending weeks only focusing on rebalancing them again.

Looking as Good as it Plays

Rune Factory’s production values were given some care by their developers. The game look great with detailed characters and a glorious looking town that sports a completely new look each season. However, it doesn’t hide its bland looking dungeons without any imagination to it whatsoever. The same can be said with its audio with voice acting that really deepens the character’s likeliness and music that may be good on the ears but delivers nothing memorable. Luckily, the town’s theme song changes with each season, so when you think the spring theme is starting to get stale, summer arrives with a fresh new sound.

If you have played any previous Harvest Moons, Rune Factory will feel very familiar in your hands. Like most long lasting Wii games, the motion control is very subtle, so subtle that it can be shut off. It’s not recommended to keep the motion controls on since it doesn’t perform anything that the big old A button cannot do. The game also supports the Classic Controller method, but since the Wii Remote and Nunchuk method doesn’t do much in motion, the difference is primarily user preference.

And one half girls. It's a three half kind of game

In Conclusion to An Endless Game

Rune Factory is all about performing multiple tasks all at the same time and watching the satisfying benefits bloom. Aside for the Runey breeding, all these tasks are rewarding while maintaining enjoyment. It may feel time consuming, but its investment only drives you further to complete a certain task such as beating a dungeon or getting that girl’s heart. With Frontier, I believe making a Wii version was what this series needed. Simulation games such as Harvest Moon, the Sims and Animal Crossing are addicting and are a great change of pace from the shooting, strong language and blood that usually tops the sales charts today. The trick to Rune Factory is that it is a change in pace from that change in pace. It was great to play when nothing else was worthy of coming out and that’s why it is my Game of the Year of 2009.


Honorable Mentions of 2009. These games are 2009’s other great recommendations (By release):

Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection (360/PS3)
Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon (DS)
Halo Wars (360)
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (DS)
Pokemon Platinum (DS)
Marvel Vs Capcom 2 (PSN/XBLA)
Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box (DS)
Metroid Prime Trilogy (Wii)
Katamari Forever (PS3)
Muramasa: The Demon Blade (Wii)
Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story (DS)
Scribblenauts (DS)
Dead Space Extraction (Wii)
Magnacarta 2 (360)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3)
Borderlands (360/PS3/PC)
Dragon Age: Origins (PC/360/PS3)
New Super Mario Bros Wii (Wii)
Left 4 Dead 2 (360/PC)

2009 Predictions revisited

This was a weird year, that's for sure. On the gaming side of things, I was not impressed and I'm actually upset on the trends that's happening lately. Can't be undone too easily though. 2009 was basically the prequel of 2010 where everything that was coming out in 2009 got delayed and everything that was announced was announced for 2010. Here's to a better year and here's the predictions I made last year with my comments on how they came out.

1) Top selling game of 2009? Wii Play. Expect Wii Sports Resort up there too. Highest rated game of 2009? Killzone 2? Resident Evil 5? The Conduit? Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2? Probably not, it’ll be something smaller. That goes double to my personal Game of the Year 2009.

Top selling was Modern Warfare 2. Top rated was Uncharted 2. Personal GOTY was something smaller however.

2) I keep thinking the PS3 will do better and the Wii to do worse, and time after time I’m wrong. So I’ll predict it again. The Wii will still sell the most but not as much as the stellar 2008 sales (Two million in one month?! Really?). The PS3 didn’t fare so well this year but I predict it’ll sell better than it did in 2008. The 360 will remain in the middle and keep a similar trend like it has before. 2008 it went Wii, DS, 360, PSP, PS3. However in 2009, it’ll go Wii, DS, 360, PS3, PSP.

Wii slowed down midway through the year, but picked up during the holidays. PS3 did much better the last half of the year with a price drop and a total rebranding (though if I hate the new logo). 360 is starting to slow down thanks to the PS3 pickup. DS did better than all of them though.

3) I put PSP in last for a reason. Expect that downward trend continuing.

Definitely a bad downward trend has been hitting this system and it’s getting worse fast.

4) Sony will probably discontinue the 80GB and 160 GB models for some other models again. But expect a decent price drop too.

The slim PS3 showed that.

5) In America, DSi won’t be as popular as it is in Japan. If Nintendo continues the Lite model, expect that to sell more. It’s not as casual friendly and hardcore gamers either a) Already has a Lite or b) hate the fact it has no GBA slot or c) hate it because it does not enough DSi content to factor a purchase.

DSi is actually a very popular system, but the Lite isn’t giving up quickly. These two models are showing their might very well and can cater to a varied audience. I do have to say that the DSi’s exclusive features have not been shown off well yet, but that’s normal with Nintendo handhelds. One dead year followed by a massive software blowout.

6) Lots of popular studios have gone down lately. Factor-5 (Star Wars GCN games, Lair), Black Box (Need for Speed) and Free Radical (Ex-Rare employees, Timesplitters, Haze) have all closed doors. Expect more studios to shut down in this fashion.

Pandemic and Ensemble Studios kept that trend going. Midway’s gone also, but that’s more of a good riddance.

7) The PSP is selling decently, but not much is coming out for the platform. Other than the bigger games like Dissidia: Final Fantasy and Madden 2010, don’t expect much from it.

They got GTA Chinatown Wars, but it failed compared to the DS version. Assassin’s Creed was kinda popular, but wasn’t high in review marks.

8) I just read the latest Nintendo Power and saw Ubisoft’s new TMNT article and got a little excited, but I predict the game will not be the best it could have been. Regardless that it’s developed by Game Arts (Grandia, Super Smash Bros Brawl) and former members of Team Ninja (Dead or Alive, Ninja Gaiden).

TMNT Smash Up was subpar, but young fans will like it. TMNT was such an ambitious project for fans, and it’s sad to see it become that.

9) Microsoft is pretty mysterious for 2009, not much was announced for them outside Halo 3: ODST and Halo Wars. Expect the poorest first party lineup from Microsoft since the 360’s launch. Like Nintendo was in 2008. Makes you wonder if Alan Wake will be focused on and actually released.

Add Forza 3 and yea, that was it. Microsoft’s been very hush hush lately. Alan Wake’s coming out soon, which is a nice change of pace. They focused on Modern Warfare’s success on that platform for the holidays instead of actually doing something.

10) Nintendo needs to prove themselves this year. Their top selling games are older games like Wii Play, New Super Mario Bros and Nintendogs. New stuff needs to come out to refresh gamers, both casual and hardcore. A new Zelda will finally be announced (not released) this year and will probably be the sole hardcore game while a sole casual hit (Wii Sports Resort most likely) will sell like crazy. Sin and Punishment 2 will probably do decent but will only sell to fans on the first. Casual-wise, expect more DS “Tools” like Personal Trainer: Cooking mixed with a new Brain game. Even with a Zelda announcement, don’t expect much from them once more.

They didn’t do much this year, but has planned themselves to a full Q4 2010 with Galaxy 2, Metroid Other M and Zelda (if that releases like they said). Fans are getting irritated, but they aren’t spending their money on great games like Muramasa, Dead Space and Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles, so it’s their loss really. New Mario Bros. Wii was fun, popular and led Nintendo's slim lineup for the season.

11) Let’s focus on Square-Enix. Final Fantasy XIII won’t come out in 2009 in America but will in Japan at the end of the year. Dragon Quest IX will be released in both territories in 2009 and Dragon Quest X won’t touch 2009 in either territory. Outside Star Ocean 4, don’t expect a ton this year from Square-Enix.

Final Fantasy XIII was predicted perfectly, DQ9 was half right and DQ10 was right. Star Ocean 4, Dissidia and buying Eidos up was their big things this year.

12) EA has redeemed themselves to core gamers. Before, EA were nothing but sports and licensed games and their quality has been degrading year after year. However in 2008, we’ve seen hit after hit from them. Great new IP’s like Dead Space and Mirror’s Edge launched. Their established franchises like Burnout Paradise and Battlefield: Bad Company were impressive. EA Sports has done wonders with Madden NFL 2009, FIFA Soccer 2009, Tiger Woods 2009 All-Play and NHL 2009. EA has even been pushing Wii efforts like Boom Blox and Facebreaker KO Party. You would think they could do no wrong, but they have been tanking thanks to lack of earnings versus the spending to make these awesome games. They had to cut 10% of their workforce and close studios like Black Box. So what’s their 2009 lineup? A lot less. EA Sports will be the same as always, but not much in games like Dead Space will come out. Heck, other than Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings Conquest, Skate 2 and the 2010 Sports lineup, EA doesn’t have much of a lineup.

They did have a lot less for releases, but Dragon Age Origins, Dead Space Extraction and Left 4 Dead 2 were fun new titles. 2010 will be better though with Mass Effect 2, Dead Space 2 and more.

13) …Which sounds like it’ll happen to Sega and its Wii projects. Sega has scored publishing rights to the Conduit and Mad World while publishing The House of the Dead Overkill. These three Wii games are some of the most hardcore efforts to the Wii’s lineup. Sadly without a killer marketing strategy set up, these three games will not do well on shelves. Best case scenario would be 300,000 copies sold each. Though Sega’s fourth Wii game, Sonic and the Black Knight, will probably sell more then those three. On Sega’s 360/PS3 front: Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection will do great while Alien: Colonial Marines will do mediocre, and not much else. No other Sonic game will be released on any platform this year.

Conduit did 300,000 and the other two Wii games did less. And I was right that their marketing sucked so Sega got what they deserved. Sonic was absent this year after Black Knight, which isn’t a bad thing.

14) Now my E3 prediction. It’s back to normal and I expect Nintendo will win it this year. In 2006, Nintendo adapted to the killer show and made an excellent showing for the Wii’s debut. The next two years were the reformatted E3, and Nintendo reformatted as well. Frankly, both sucked. Now with E3 back to normal, Nintendo should too. Though I doubt most they announce won’t hit this year. Sony has done pretty well with E3 but I see the least amount of content from them. Microsoft has dominated the last E3 but expect a lamer show from them this year.

Nintendo did better than the failure that was E3 2008, but it wasn’t as good as Sony’s or Microsoft’s. I can’t be impressed because everything that was announced isn’t here. Sony and Microsoft’s new “controllers” were the big announcements on the hardware side of things, yet they’ve been ignored since, like everything that was announced there.

15) Lastly, my bold prediction. If Microsoft wants to continue their positive trend for their scarce 2009, they need something big. It’s a big third party exclusive. Or one that Microsoft will take over as publisher.

Natal was that big thing, but that was it. Even a lack of a hype train for it afterwards. They didn’t do a damn thing after E3. Halo ODST and Forza are great and all, but the spotlight was on Sony this year.

Review: Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games

Two years after fans of the first combination of the mustachioed Mario and the speedy Sonic, Sega has decided to work on the next of the Olympic Games, the Winter Olympics. Sega has sold millions upon millions of copies of the previous Beijing-Flavored Summer Olympic games, but Sega has upset the real fans of the two headliners of the 16-bit wars with some poorly used motion controls, lack of online gameplay and shallow options. The Winter Games seems that it can be a great conversion to a video game with some extreme sports like snowboarding and alpine skiing, but did Sega achieve this killer conversion?

After watching an intense CG cutscene that shows what the game should deliver, we are thrown into a menu that has all the Olympic events laid out with no unlocking. The Dream events, altered sport events that take place in Mario and Sonic’s own levels, mostly need unlocking with the exception of two. To play these events, you are given twenty Mario & Sonic characters with the addition to Miis to complete with. This roster is still pretty shallow given the series they’re working with and some staple characters, like Cream the Rabbit and Diddy Kong, are completely omitted from the roster while morons like Waluigi and Silver are playable.

The events themselves are not realistic as if you’re playing like the athletes that have yet to pound the powder in Vancouver. Instead, it has that carton flavor fans of these series are expected to see, like performing multiple tricks twenty feet in the air off a halfpipe. The Dream events will literally give the Mario Kart treatment with Mario Kart’s own question blocks and Mario Kart’s own weapons to attack or defend with. Sadly not all of these are given such treatment and while some events perform well, but some events are total duds.

The controls are sadly what you expect from a mini-game fest and that is a lot of motion that isn’t implemented in the correct ways. My personal biggest disappointment is hockey because this had so much potential; this should have been the main event in the game with some very in-depth controls. What we got was something extremely shallow with four-on-four teams on a small rink. On top of that, all the controls are either simple flicks for shooting and checking and passing with A and shooting with B. What I would have loved was if Next Level Games stepped in and reskinned Super Mario Strikers from the GameCube with hockey in mind. Mario hockey (as well as football) is something I would have loved to see when Nintendo was running amuck with sports games and it was something that could have suited the red plumber well. When I saw that hockey was in Mario & Sonic, I was cautiously excited. Luckily I did not give my hopes up since Sega sort of blew it with this bare bones version.

All the skiing and snowboarding events are easy to grasp for kids and are fully functional, but it’s not enough. It just feels too simple and the events could have been more fleshed out without making it too complex for more casual players. Parts such as tricks could have been intuitive rather than the “waggle in the air until you hit the ground (and hope you don’t crash)” that the game has given us. The uses of the balance board are pretty forgettable in this too and I rather recommend the plain ol’ Wii remote/nunchuk combo. This should have been easy for Sega since there were great winter sport games on Wii like Shaun White, SSX Blur or even use Nintendo’s own Wii Fit for ski/snowboard ideas and balance board controls.

Mario & Sonic takes skating and divides them into two events, figure skating and speed skating. The latter is a complete waggle mess where the game simply wants the player to wave the Wii remote back and forth in a rhythm and the game can’t even receive well. This is hands down the worst event in the game. Figure skating fairs better than its speedy cousin, but it isn’t as much of an achievement since the event is very simple. It has you flicking for flips, performing some balance tilting during long straight steps and spinning the controller in a lasso type fashion to do a finishing spin. While it can be fun to redo a few times for a better rank, it loses replay value more and more unless you’re watching characters like Eggman, Wario or the emo Shadow become the Swan Prince on the ice.

Curling is to Winter Olympics as bowling is to Wii Sports as it is the most well made game in the bunch. It does everything from adjusting the spin, the power and the distance via sweeping. The great part is that it’s all done fairly well with easy motions and accurate results. Sure, curling isn’t complicated as a sport, but if Sega took the time to fully develop the events in this game step-by-step like they did with curling, this game would have been an excellent package.

Finally, the bobsledding events are done well while you’re sledding. If you follow the instructions and place the Wii remote against your chest, it can feel very responsive and fun. My issues are with the beginning when you have to waggle as fast as you can for ten seconds in order to build up speed. It is tiring for gamers as much as it’s lazy for developers and should have totally been avoided.

In addition to performing at Vancouver, you can play in Mario and Sonic’s unique worlds as well. As a long time Mario and Sonic fan, I wish Nintendo and Sega would decide to ditch making official Olympic games and go all out on a (well developed) sports game in these worlds. These dream stages, like Seaside Hill from Sonic Heroes and Good Egg Galaxy from Mario Galaxy, have a lot more flavor, character and an overall fun factor since it adds purpose to Mario and Sonic’s collaboration versus being in Beijing and Vancouver for the Olympics that have no representatives from the countries whose flags are draped from the ceiling.

Outside the slopes and rinks, players can shop for various artwork for their sporting gear, listen to the in-game music, unlock new outfits for your Mii (who can be used in these events as well) and unlock useless info in the library. These items can be bought with coins that you gain from competing and winning events. Of course all of this is optional, but it’s always nice to play for something here and there. The biggest bust is the library where players unlock some info on the history of the sports that are in the game. Pretty boring in comparison to using such a resource for some real extensive Olympic, Mario and Sonic trivia those fans would love to have. On another note, instead of another menu to navigate from, Sega decided to allow the player to point to the building they want to go in. The pointing was so clumsy that I actually thought something was wrong with the remote itself. How Sega messed up something as simple as the Wii remote’s own IR pointer is beyond me, but it complements the half-assed theme that Sega was so talented to put throughout the entire game.

Online multiplayer must have been easy for Sega since they decided not to implement into the game. I still can’t believe after two years that we haven’t made this as standard on all multiplayer Wii games. Instead Sega decided to opt out and rehash the leaderboard ideas from the first Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. They did decide to recycle the Forecast Channel sync from NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams so whatever the weather it is in Vancouver will be the weather in-game. This was something I thoroughly enjoyed to see and hoped more games such as EA’s sports games used this nifty utility.

On top of this, Mario & Sonic is not a pretty game either. The character models are good, but are a far cry from the Mario and Sonic we’ve all seen in Smash Bros. Brawl. The Vancouver event stages are passable while the dream events are pretty good and capture the original stages they were meant to imitate. Some dream stages are imitated too much, and by that I mean parts of Radical Highway still look like a Dreamcast game from 2001. The most pitiful thing has to be the crowds of Toads, Chao, Shy Guys, Koopas and small animals all in their 2D, circa 1995 glory.

The audio is passable for the most part. During the Olympic events, the music is ignorable when you’re shaking your butt off during events with the exception of figure skating’s dependency to the free-to-use music like Chopin’s Fantasie Impromptu (a personal favorite). The main menu is very familiar to some tracks from Sega’s own Phantasy Star Universe and the Dream events use the music from the levels they were inspired from. Listening to songs from older games had me interrupt my play session of this game to pop in Sonic Adventure 2 for some killer nostalgia.

Nintendo should have been more cautious with allowing Sega to screw around with their main man because we’ve all seen what Sega has done to their’s. On the other hand, Sega should have dumped more money into this project since the original sold millions of copies and a more developed sequel could have been more successful. Shame on both of them for not allowing this killer collaboration to be one of the coolest winter sports games. Instead, we got another lackluster mini-game fest. While kids won’t know much of a difference (and that’s what Sega’s banking on), the real fans of seeing such an epic mashup of two gaming idols face-to-face will be left in the cold again.

Mario & Sonic @ the Olympic Winter Games for Wii: 5.9/10

Review: Flipnote Studio

Now that millions have gotten their mitts on the Nintendo DSi, Nintendo needed to deliver something that made this upgrade an actual upgrade. This promise of DSiWare being relevant has been for the most part unsuccessful with needless two dollar clock and calendar apps followed by incomplete portions of retail games like Brain Age. Now Nintendo has released a completely new app called Flipnote Studio: one of the coolest and feature-rich software that the Big N ever released. Plus it’s free, two dollars less than what Nintendo charges for clocks that the DSi already has.

Flipnote Studio (dubbed Moving Memo in Japan) is an animation app that uses most, if not all the DSi’s features. Drawing each frame is easy with the stylus, and adding a new frame is as simple as pressing right on the D-pad. Animators are blessed with options like copying frames for fluid animations, seeing the last frame with the lightbox, speed control of the animation and creating a negative of the frame. Pressing up brings up a menu for copy/pasting, changing colors/brush/eraser, general options and other little knickknacks.Sadly, these artists are limited in one big way and that is the four-color pallet: White (canvas), black, red and blue. Worst than that, users can only choose between two of the non-canvas colors to use, although the few brushes that are available can help users make an illusion of pink, light blue and gray.

In addition to scribbles, animations can be enriched with saved pictures made with the DSi’s camera as well as sounds using the built-in microphone. The DSi never had a great camera, but Flipnote Studio further deteriorates the quality of the photos by robbing them of their color but two. After the user thinks they finished their “Flipnote”, they use the microphone to add background music and up to three sound effects. It’s a great feature to have indeed, but the imported audio isn’t the greatest quality and can leave a bit of feedback. Even with the limitations, these features will further user individuality to a great degree.

After completing the animated masterpiece, one can save them and upload them online. The best part is that when the piece is uploaded, it is not limited to just fellow DSi owners. Nintendo teamed up with a Japanese blog site named Hatena to allow every Flipnote to be uploaded as a flash animation onto their website. The best part is that these Flipnotes can be embedded like other flash videos, so users can show off their work on social networking sites like Facebook or to show off on a personal blog like Never Unplaying.

Everyone can search videos on Hatena’s site and the Nintendo DSi itself. This could have been so much more user friendly, but without the ability to name or describe a Flipnote disallows the ability to manually search. Instead, you can just look at all the Flipnotes ever uploaded and view them based on what the middle frame looks like. In a Google and YouTube infested society, this is far below a mediocre attempt. However, DSi owners can comment these videos in the most unique of ways by using the touch screen to write or draw out an opinion.

Flipnote Studio is proof that the Nintendo DSi is a true upgrade from its Lite predecessors. Its free price tag hooked people to try it and its ease of use with the addition to embed will keep them entertained for months on end. Nintendo once again shows how software should be done on their platforms. Hopefully this could be a stepping stone for a whole new retail franchise or a way for Nintendo to start experiencing download content or software upgrades. If they can upgrade Flipnote Studio or create a sequel that takes out all their limits by adding like a color-rich pallet and newer options like free-form select, this can be a new phenomenon worthy of a DSi purchase alone. For now, what we have is a great first step in a whole new way of experiencing a video game platform.

Never Unplaying's score of Flipnote Studio: 8.8/10.0

Retail Unplaying- What Third-Parties Did Right On Wii & What They Need To Do In The Future

Nintendo’s little white box hit fifty million units fast and it is becoming the fastest selling console in history, so what games do we see on it? Answer’s not as simple because it’s completely different than the other systems in nearly every way. The Wii is not as built like the Xbox 360 and PS3: The system’s not nearly as powerful, there’s no high definition and uses a completely different controller. Obviously because of this, game developers use a completely different method to make games for it. Developers either port PS2 and GameCube games to it while some make simple mini-games, and some actually put some decent, original content on it.

Even though there are a ton of games on Wii, the real question is how they do sales-wise. The answer is so complicated that some publishers can not grasp the concept on how to make a game sell well on Wii. What’s funny is that is always something simple. Either it is a misstep in marketing the game, introducing a new franchise that hasn’t truly sold a lot of people or deciding on an art style that was not accepted by the public. A great example of all these points is Sega’s MadWorld with its black and white motif mixed with a questionable marketing campaign that doesn’t show its true, bloody self. Sega’s failure to introduce this new property correctly with some fun commercials and other intensive advertising doomed MadWorld to obscurity.

What can these third-party publishers do to guarantee success on this platform? The answer seems dumb, but it’s simple: Take advantage of the moment with something great. It sounds hard to grasp, but there’s meaning here. Believe it or not, games have sold well on Wii that was not made by Nintendo. These games either took advantage of the Wii’s control scheme or took advantage of the ideology of the platform and created some unforgettable moments on the system.



One great example of making success of Wii is the Guitar Hero franchise. Guitar Hero III and Guitar Hero World Tour are the best selling on Wii because it caters to the demographic for the platform. It is multiplayer-friendly, it is enjoyable to everyone at every age, and it is bundled with stuff. Games like Guitar Hero and Wii Fit are popular on that platform because the basis of the Wii is expansion: The idea of people playing games in a different light. Playing with not only the Wii Remote, but with many different inputs like a guitar or board or even a GameCube controller.

The Wii is probably the biggest console with bringing older games and restyling them with a new control scheme. Many publishers, including Nintendo, have done it and done it with mixed results. One game however took this idea and made a fantastic game even better with a control setup unrivaled by traditional controllers and that was Capcom’s Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition. In 2005, Resident Evil 4 was either Game of the Year material or the Game of the Year to most people and Capcom took what worked and redid it with the Wii’s controller in mind. What came out was a version that made the older versions obsolete with a brand new control setup. The Wii’s pointer function made the game faster and less frustrating and went on to be the most popular version, even two years after the original won awards. The success of Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition was so great that Capcom’s next Resident Evil game on Wii, dubbed The Umbrella Chronicles, went on to be another game to ship over a million copies. Due to the popularity of these games, Capcom is far from done and are releasing three more Resident Evil games to Wii.

When Nintendo lit a fire under the video game industry’s posteriors in 2006, publishers were too late to take advantage of the moment. They doubted and insulted the Wii and thus prevented their own gravy train from departing when Nintendo’s did. One publisher was the exception and took direct focus on the Wii’s launch and that was Ubisoft. Though they dumped about seven games on the Wii’s launch window, two are the most memorable: Rayman Raving Rabbids and Red Steel. Rayman was a platformer star that started on the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation, but failed to keep up a successful ongoing series soon after the GameCube launch. He was revived on Wii in a hilarious mini-game compilation that showed what the Wii can do. Rayman Raving Rabbids went on to sell over a million copies and spawned a franchise of its own with the little demented Rabbids. Red Steel was known as the first Wii game shown in action when it was revealed in a spring issue of Game Informer. This showed the hardcore gaming audience the Wii’s possibility with first-person shooters and excited them. The game launched when the Wii did and although it was not the best game out there, Ubisoft struck gold twice with a second launch game to sell over a million copies. This could have only happened during the Wii’s launch and most failed to take advantage of it.

Hopefully publishers will start to see what really works on Wii. Future games like Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, Dead Space: Extraction and Red Steel 2 seem extremely promising and deserve all the hype and marketing that their respective publishers can dish out. Hardcore gamers are sick of seeing awesome games like Okami, Zack & Wiki and House of the Dead Overkill suffer from crummy sales due to publisher and developer ignorance. The Wii has been out for nearly three years and gamers are getting restless, it’s really time for publishers and developers to open their eyes and step it up a notch.

Retail Unplaying: How Games Sell and Trade at Game Stores- PlayStation 3

The gaming industry is like the car industry, some people buy games with older gamers in conjunction with money. Whether or not the game companies like it, this is something that cannot be stopped. There is however, a guide of how successful a game can be and how often your game could get traded in. Obviously the retailers profit off the eventual used games that come in, so this complicates long term success of most games. Our next stop is Sony’s PlayStation 3.

The PlayStation 3 has what might be, the hardest library to discuss about. With a smaller install base and library, getting an accurate analysis on their customers was difficult. Secondly, the customers’ purchasing patterns are extremely hard to pinpoint as it was with the PlayStation 2. Obviously because of the factors, the PS3 article was the longest to analyze and compile.

Like the Xbox 360, Sony adapted the next generation standard price point: $59.99 with prices dropping after a few months after launch depending on the game. The PlayStation 3 library consists of games similar to the Xbox 360, mostly the sports and action types. Mostly the PS3 versions of games don’t sell as well as their Xbox 360 counterparts and the system has fewer exclusives, but PS3 customers rely on those games along with the great first party games like Resistance, Killzone 2 and LittleBig Planet.

PS3 customers aren’t revolved around game stores like GameCrazy or GameStop, they’re fans of Best Buy thanks to a non-stop marketing campaign for the system due to increase Blu-Ray movie sales. That’s common to see stores rally marketing towards their personal or potential money maker. GameStop always point to the 360 while it’s hard to even see into a Toys R Us gaming section without the blinding white from Wii product placement. Therefore, you don’t see gamers trading in games at the gaming retailers. Of course it’s not a stereotype, because few PS3 gamers do go to gaming retailers like 360 gamers go to Best Buy.

The busier GameStops have a lot of used product that doesn’t sell, so naturally that means PS3 games trade in for less, right? Not really because there’s another fact that keeps it equal to other versions: the lack of banged up defective disks. Blu-ray disks are lined with an anti-scratch coating on the bottom of the disk, making them scratch resistant. Because of it, customers and retailers won’t need to worry about a used PS3 game being defective. Oddly enough those PS3 gamers don’t buy used even though the games are rarely beat up, but that can be a lack of knowledge on the subject.

So after literally months of getting data on PS3 customers, the best conclusion is that PS3 games get bought and traded in as fast as any 360 gamer as long as the game sells. So when you walk into a game store, don’t be shocked if you see three copies of Killzone 2 used after two weeks next to new copies of Eternal Sonata and its six months of junk sales. However, laugh when you look down to see a new copy of Genji rotting away since its release on the PS3’s launch. When PS3 games don’t sell: they DON’T sell and that becomes a game you don’t find used often either. While you see dozens of copies of Resistance and Uncharted, don’t be shocked to not find Folklore or Valkyria Chronicles.


Now do PS3 games get traded in fast like 360 games? Yes they do surprisingly. In the PS2 era, it wasn’t common to see this buying habit due to people not knowing much of the concept of trading games or that they didn’t need to. With the rise of popularity of games and a worsening economy in this newer generation, people feel less enthusiastic about owning a library of games and feel more to just play then sell. For those with that habit, a recommendation to services like Gamefly is in order. A monthly fee costs less then what you lose on one game, so gamers should really stop doing this wasteful purchasing habit because these games are not cheap!