Archive for February, 2009:
Why you won’t be seeing an Elite Beat Agents sequel any time soon
Gamasutra has an interesting article about the disappointing sales for two portable rhythm-action games - the PSP’s Patapon and terrific touchscreen tapper Elite Beat Agents on the DS.
While the former was a niche title which arguably overperformed - partly thanks to a low price point - EBA (based on the Japanese game Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan) was always expected to do better, with Reggie Fils-Aime having confessed that he’d hoped for roughly 300,000 sales - the game limped out of the charts with a comparatively paltry 179,000.
Red Steel 2/Dead Space info coming soon - NGamer
The latest issue of unofficial UK Nintendo publication NGamer can be found in stores from today, though it’s next month’s edition which looks more interesting.
At the back of the mag, the next month page advertises an ‘Easter reviews special’, covering the likes of GTA: Chinatown Wars, Broken Sword and Little King’s Story.
But more excitingly, the mag also promises the first look at Red Steel 2, sequel to Ubisoft’s FPS/sword-fighter which was something of a commercial success during the Wii’s launch window. Better still is the news that the game will feature “Motion Plus swordsmanship” says the mag.
Japan - Nintendo releases three new DSi colours
As if to make up for the fact that the Japanese don’t have a new handheld launch to look forward to, Nintendo has announced the launch of three new DSi colours, which will join the white and black flavours on store shelves in Japan on March 20th.
There’s a lurid pink model, which I think is the least attractive of the three, while the lime green is suitably bright, but still not to my tastes. Much more pleasant is the metallic blue number - very reminiscent of the Enamel Navy DS Lite.
Chop Till You Flop - Is Dead Rising Wii a duffer?
Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop, the Wii-make of the critically-lauded 360 zombie actioner is released today in the US, yet bizarrely - at the time of writing, anyway - there’s not a single review up on aggregator site Metacritic. That’s never a good sign, and indeed, the suggestion that it might not be the world’s greatest port is borne out by the two magazine reviews which currently exist, but haven’t been added to Metacritic just yet.
UK magazines Official Nintendo Magazine and NGamer both carry reviews of Chop Till You Drop, the former awarding it a fairly average 68%, with the latter plumping for a measly 55%. Both suggest it’s an infuriating experience thanks to the addition of zombie parrots and poodles, but that the lack of enemies also disappoints - neither were problems in the 360 game whose mall was absolutely full of the undead. But as NGamer summarises, “a zombie-infested mall doesn’t make much sense without zombies to infest it. Poodles and parrots are among the most irritating substitutes imaginable.” Ouch.
Katamari DSiWare - first shots and game details revealed
Famitsu has new shots and information about the forthcoming DSiWare title based on Keita Takahashi’s brilliant roll-em-up, Katamari Damacy.
Named Katamari Damacy: Korogashi Puzzle, it’s released on the handheld’s download service, and will cost just 500 points. The DS is held in the book style, with the left screen showing the King of All Cosmos, while the touchscreen has a vertical puzzle display. It’s similar to Meteos in that you need to match tiles to blast items off the screen - in this case, combining specific items to make stars in the night sky, a concept familiar to fans of the series.
There are two main game modes - a self-explanatory Endless Mode, and the Challenge Mode which has differently-themed stages. It seems that the King will have specific requests for the types of items to be included in the stars - again, this mechanic is well-known to Katamari fans.
When Good Games Go Bad: Animal Crossing edition
I’m still playing Animal Crossing: City Folk (or Let’s Go To The City, if you prefer) but boy is it testing my patience. Admittedly, my enthusiasm for the game waned some time ago, but my three-year-old son loves it, and so I keep visiting my village more out of duty to entertain him than because I really want to. Yesterday, something happened which nearly made me snap the disc in half.
As those of you who play the game regularly will know, yesterday an event took place named Festivale. This new event brought with it a brand new visitor to my village - Pavé the peacock. Speaking in broken English, he was a feisty little chap, singing and dancing away to a samba-style beat and requesting candy of various different flavours. I’d read in my father-in-law’s strategy guide that it might have been wise to stockpile some from Hallowe’en, but seeing as the game wasn’t released until November and I’ve not been cheating by messing around with the dates, that was impossible. I was therefore heartened to find, when speaking to one of my animal neighbours, that I could win candy from them by playing a game, but that if I lost, I’d have to give them 500 Bells. Thus began a long, expensive and arduous few hours which I will never, ever get back.
Nintendo goes indie
Wired.com’s Game|Life has an interesting report from DICE about Nintendo’s intentions to support independent gaming on both Wii and DSi.
Nintendo’s director of project development, Tom Prata, accepted that Nintendo could potentially have issues in that department - particularly on Wii given its lack of storage space - but it’s evident that the big N is seeing how well games like Flower and Noby Noby Boy are working on rival hardware and wants a piece of that critically-acclaimed pie.
Nintendo, of course, has its own figurehead for indie gaming on Wii, and 2D Boy’s Kyle Gabler was introduced to talk about World of Goo. Nintendo would be wise to throw a bit of money to keep the two-man devteam working on titles for its consoles, though it’s heartening to see it taking steps in this direction - especially as it recently seems to have focused on commercial success over genuine gaming innovation. Though that would be to ignore some of the smaller-scale, more experimental titles like Skip’s Art Style series, which runs across both Nintendo’s download services - for my money one of the most exciting developments in Nintendo gaming since the Wii’s launch.
This week’s UK charts - Fit off the top, Overkill holds firm
No surprise that the return of one of gaming’s best-known franchises toppled Wii Fit from the all-formats chart, with the magisterial Street Fighter IV dragon-punching its way to the summit. Nintendo’s phenomenally successful non-game only dropped to second spot, despite fierce competition from the nerd-tastic Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II on PC. Mario Kart, Wii Play and Layton all suffered small drops, while Mystery Case Files: Millionheir plummeted from third spot to number 26 - presumably stock shortages costing it dear.
There was better news for House of the Dead: Overkill, which hung onto the number 15 position in the all-formats chart, rising one place to ninth in the single-format rundown - presumably strong word of mouth helped its second week sales - let’s hope it hangs in there for a while longer to prove that hardcore content can sell on Wii.
Handheld addiction has a new name: Rittai Picross site opens
Shortly after March 12th this year, my entire world will grind to a complete halt. That date marks the release of Rittai Picross, Nintendo’s 3D take on the life-eatingly compulsive puzzler which enslaved my DS (and me) for several months in 2007.
It’s pretty much exactly the game you’d expect it to be - Picross but in 3D. You’re given a number of cubes with numbers on to chisel away at until you’re left with a vaguely recognisable (if blocky) rendition of a dog or a plane or a baseball player. It appears to be completely stylus controlled - using swipes to rotate the view and stabs to tap away any unwanted cubes, with an icon swapping between a hammer and a paintbrush, the latter to colour in areas which are part of the finished shape. Eventually you’re left with the solution, which then animates in a rudimentary but entirely charming way. And that’s about it, really.
Presentationally, it’s giant strides ahead of Picross DS and its peers (Hudson’s Illust Logic and Colorful Logic remains the best take, for my money) and it’s the logical next step for the game. One concern remains over how exactly the more complex puzzles will be presented - the official site merely offering a few examples of early brainteasers - but this is Nintendo, and I’m sure there’ll be an elegant solution to that particular problem.
Japanese DSiWare update next week - Mr. Driller & two more Art Style titles
Nintendo’s Japanese site has details of the new DSi software which will be available to download next Wednesday, February 25th.
For 200 points you can get a Nintendo-themed calculator, with Super Mario Bros. and Animal Crossing skins among others, while there’s also a slightly unfathomable app which Google Translate suggests is a ‘clock software dictionary’. Erm.
Thankfully, the remainder of the games are a little more understandable. For 500 points you can get one of two new Art Style games - Nalaku is a faintly nightmarish isometric puzzler which sees your stickman avatar climbing and pushing to reach the top of a cube while trying to avoid being crushed by falling blocks. Hacolife seems a little more relaxing, requiring you to cut out and fold together cubes from flat grids of squares - sometimes needing to ensure you’ve packed away an item within your created box before it’s lifted away by some omnipotent crane thing. Also for 500 points is a collection of table games (chess, reversi, connect five and two more) and a stripped down version of that 100 Classic Book Collection, offering twenty titles to read on the move.