Wednesday, September 21, 2011

What the expansion slider?!

slidepad front view So, you may or may not have seen the recent news that Nintendo is releasing an expansion slide pad for the 3DS. This has led to a lot of speculation that Nintendo mishandled the 3DS launch and failed to add two slide pads.

To all those people who think Nintendo forgot to add a second analog and/or that Nintendo is now desperately trying to fix the 3DS with an add-on: you’re idiots.

Do you honestly believe that Nintendo, after years of developing a new system, suddenly think that they messed up, and are desperately trying to fix their “mistake” after only a few months after launch? If you do: you’re an idiot.

The 3DS is a perfectly capable and well-designed machine. The 3D effect is fantastic. After playing games like Pilotwings in 3D, you start to ‘crave’ the effect in other games. It makes it much easier to tell where you are in 3D worlds. The slide pad is the prefect way to add an analog stick to a portable system. It’s flat, effective, and comfortable.

Why then, is Nintendo releasing this add-on? Two words: Monster Hunter. This is what probably happened: Nintendo and Capcom were in talks to make a Monster Hunter game for the 3DS (in case you didn’t know, the Monster Hunter series is extremely popular in Japan). This alone would guarantee 3DS sales. Capcom probably said, ‘We’ll do it, but we need a second slide pad for optimum controls.’ Nintendo probably decided an add-on slide pad would be better than to screw over all the people who already owned a 3DS. And I absolutely agree.

Here’s the poop on the slide pad: It has its own battery, so it won’t reduce the 3DS’s battery life. It adds the slide pad, plus a couple of shoulder buttons. And of course, the best part: it’s completely optional. Several games have already been announced that use the new expansion slide pad, such as Kingdom Hearts, Metal Gear Solid, and Resident Evil. It’s entirely likely that the expansion slide pad will be available in a bundle with some or all of these games.

slidepad side view And the best part? It looks way better than people thought. It appears to make holding the system much more like holding a controller, as you can see here. So why the turdstorm over this new thing? Because people are idiots.

Case in point: many gaming bloggers are trolling idiots who stir up controversy to gets more hits on their sites (I’m lookin’ at you, Kotaku). Nintendo still know what they’re doing, and the 3DS will be just fine. In fact, at stores like Toys ‘R’ Us, the 3DS has been in the top 10 best selling items since the price drop. So suck on that, idiots!

As for us gamers, we can relax knowing that Nintendo is going to bring us some of the best gaming experiences available. By the end of this year, we’ll have two Mario games, a new Sonic, Cave Story, and more. By the end of next year, we’ll have a new Professor Layton, Mario Tennis, Paper Mario, Animal Crossing, and many others. So rejoice, Nintendo fans! All is well with the 3DS!

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

The Book of Threedius, Chapter 5

1. And it came to pass in fifth month of the reign of Threedius, a joyous decree was read: “Behold! The loyal followers of King Threedius shall be given a most precious gift! On the morn of the first day of the ninth month, my ambassadors shall receive a bounty of joy! Yea, even a most bountiful joyousness!”

2. “For behold, ten of the most beloved of the records of my ancestors shall be given unto ye on this day to ensure your faith! And behold, ye shall receive ten more in a short time.”

3. And it came to pass that King Threedius, wanting to further strengthen the faith of his followers, gave the records unto his ambassadors one day before the original prophecy.

4. And the people rejoiced. The faithful among them celebrated with sweet drink and salted foodstuffs. But behold, those who trusted not in King Threedius were not given records, and were sorrowful. Yea, sorrowful even until they desired death rather than see the records of their brethren and know they could not obtain.

5. But behold, King Threedius was a generous king. And it came to pass that he promised the unfaithful that they, too, would be offered the chance to obtain these precious records. Behold, the time would come when all would be permitted to partake in the joy of these records. However, the unclean among them would be required to pay with gold and with silver and with all manner of precious things.

6. And it came to pass that the ambassadors of King Threedius were joyful in their gifts, and they celebrated in both day and in night. Yea, their joy was exceedingly full.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Mondownload… wait, what?

3DSHello again, faithful readers (both of you)! Today,we need to make some changes. You see, Nintendo recently changed the day of the week on which they release downloadable games from Monday to the closer-to-the-weekend Thursday. This means that Mondownloaday is no more. So, without further adieu, I present to you: Thursdownloaday! Ok, no it’s not a radical change. But who cares?! New games!

WiiWare logo
  • The Ignition Factor (SNES, 800 pts) – If you dig fighting fires and you don’t might tedius challenges, this game is for you. If you like letting people burn to death, then this game is also for you. You’ll just have to play it a little counter-intuitively. (If you’re looking for a fun firemen game, try to get your hands on The Firemen [also for the SNES]. It’s much better.)

DSiWare logo
  • Let’s Create! Pottery (500 pts) – Who doesn’t love making digital pots? Especially when you don’t actually get to keep or use the end result? I guess if you really like pretending to potterize, then give it a try. Also, you know… if you’re gay.
  • Magical Whip: Wizards of the Phantasmal Forest (200 pts) – In this game whose name resembles my favorite sandwich spread, you run around and beat up monsters with your magical whip. While it may sound as gay as the previous game I mentioned, it looks pretty fun. It’s almost Bubble-Bobble-esque in a way, so I might actually spend the miniscule 200 pts to check it out. Speaking of… I hope Squeenix makes a 3DS Bubble Bobble for download. That’d be schweet!
  • Calculator (200 pts) – For those of us who don’t already have 50 calculators and/or people who think they have 200 pts that simply can’t be spent anywhere else. Also nerds.

eShop logo
  • Gargoyle’s Quest (Game Boy, $3.99) – In this spin-off of the Ghosts n’ Goblins universe, play as a Gargoyle and run around beating the crap out of things. I hear it’s good. I guess you better download it and find out for sure!
Well, there’s your Thursdownloaday! Another week, another crop of games. Go buy some of them! Or buy me some of them! I won’t mind! Bye now!

-benjamines

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Nintendo E3 Press Conference Liveblog!

Greetings, Nintendorks! If your stupid school or work internet filter will not let you see gaming websites, have no fear! I have placed a liveblog here to let you see the conference in its entirety starting at 10am MDT. Keep in mind that I am not the one making comments on the conference as it happens. I may or may not have linked to someone else's liveblog. It's a free country, dagnabbit! Enjoy! Don't forget your bingo card!




-benjamines

E3 Bingo 2011!!

Ok, so maybe this should have been done a little sooner, but no matter. It is here! Nintendo's press conference starts Tuesday morning at 10:00am MDT! Check it out at Nintendo's website here, or see it at the best website ever right here! While you're watching, have a nice little bingo card to see how many games you will owe me by the time the press conference is over (click on it to see it full size). Be prepared to be blown away! It's gonna be another great year to be a Nintendo fan!

-benjamines

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Game Developer’s Conference News!

Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata gave the keynote speech today at the Game Developer’s Conference. While much of what he talked about was aimed at developers (duh), there were some nice new nuggets of information. Check it out!super mario 3ds 2

  • A new Mario game is in the works! Yes, this is obvious, because there is always some kind of Mario game in the works, but this is a brand-new 3-D adventure built from the ground up for the 3DS.  Also, it’s being made by the team that made the Mario Galaxy games, so we should be in for a real treat! (Notice the interesting logo below! A similar tail was on the ‘3’ on the Mario 3 title screen. Tanooki, anyone?)
  • In addition to offering Game Boy (including Color and Advance) games for download, the 3DS will have Game Gear and Turbo-Grafx games.  Plus, some of the classic games will be updated to run in 3-D! PLEASE NINTENDO, MAKE LINK’S AWAKENING ONE OF THESE!!!
  • Netflix will be available for the 3DS! You can start watching a movie on the 3DS and then finish it later on the Wii (or vice versa). Now we just need Netflix to get more good stuff worth watching!*
  • At the moment, the 3DS allows users to take 3D photos, but later on, it will also allow people to shoot 3D movies! Fun times!New Mario Logo

As you can tell, there is much to be excited about when the 3DS launches this month. Only 35,000 minutes before it’s released!** Hooray!

-benjamines

* I’m half kidding
** March 27th, in case you were wondering

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Happy New March!

For those of interested in seeing the answers to the Happy New Year logo compilation riddle that I may or may not have but definitely did forget about, go here.

The rest of you... get back to gaming!

-benjamines

Review: Six for the price of… some.

One thing I love about thrift stores is when you find a sparkling gem of video game history, just waiting to be discovered. Sometimes, the store does not know that the game is valuable, or they have no way of testing it, so they sell it for cheap. Either way, I managed to get a copy of the Genesis 6-Pak for $2.  Not bad, eh?

Genesis 6-pak For those unaware (probably most of you), the Genesis 6-Pak is a collection of 6 Genesis games on a single cartridge. Those games are as follows:

  • Streets of Rage
  • Golden Axe
  • Revenge of Shinobi
  • Columns
  • Super Hang-On
  • Sonic the Hedgehog

To properly rate the entire 6-Pak, I played each game to (or near) completion. Here we go!

Streets of Rage is a ‘hip cops kicking bad guy butt’ brawler a la Double Dragon.  You run around the city beating up baddies, using a variety of weapons that can be found on the street, such as knives, glass bottles, and pipes.  This is probably the only K-A rated game (equivalent to today’s E) you’ll ever play that lets you hit hookers with baseball bats. Not even joking.  Plus, you have a special move where you call in a police car and they launch a bazooka and kill everyone in screen. Why can’t I just be the guy in the car the whole time? Anyways, at the end of most stages you fight a boss, which can be a pair of gymnastics ninjas, a really angry luchador, or a fat guy with heartburn so bad he can breathe fire. Again, I’m being totally serious. My favorite part was the end, where you fight the end boss, who, ironically, looks like a boss, like at work. And you fight him in his office. And he sits in his chair and calls his minions forth. Then he pulls out a gun and kills you. Awesome.

Golden Axe is like Streets of Rage, only set several hundred years in the past. Instead of being an 80s rebel cop, you’re a shirtless swordsman (or woman, or dwarf). And instead of thugs and hookers, you fight skeletons and trollops. The game does change it up a little by letting you ride dragons to burn the crap out of people. Oh, and you can beat up elves to get magic potion, which more or less produces the police bazooka mentioned previously.  It’s actually kind of surprising how much Golden Axe and Streets of Rage have in common. In fact, both games feature the same energy-replenishing meat roast so prominently displayed in video games. The biggest difference is that Golden Axe is slightly shorter, but slightly more difficult.

Yes, this is Batman. Yes, it is copyright infringement. Revenge of Shinobi is a pretty big let-down. It’s a side-scrolling ninja adventure game where you beat up other ninjas (of course, we all know that none of these are true ninjas, since we can see them). It appears to use photographed images for the characters, so they look real-ish, but the game is so hard, that none of the semi-nifty graphics can make up for it. Think Ninja Gaiden, with the same difficulty, better graphics, and way less fun. Also, Spider-Man makes a cameo. (In versions before the 6-Pak compilation, Batman and Godzilla were there, too). What the crap?

Columns is another one of those ‘line-up-three-gems-to-make-them-disappear’ type of game. Sets of three gems fall from the top of the screen, and you can change the order they fall in to try and remove as many gems as possible. The game does count diagonal lines, which is somewhat uncommon in games like this, so that’s nice. Plus, there’s a beginner mode that lets you get used to the game by showing you where all your potential scoring opportunities are for the the first few minutes. Not a bad game, really. It’s pretty outdated now, but in its day it was pretty popular.

Super Hang-On is a pseudo-3D racing game on motorcycles. Like many racing games of the time, the object was to get to the checkpoint to add to your timer. If your timer ran out, you lost. To be honest, the game is basically Rad Racer, only surprisingly, with worse graphics (considering the NES was 8-bit and the Genesis was 16-bit). The most intriguing part was the difficulties. The easiest one has 6 stages (which really just means checkpoints), so the harder the difficulty, the longer the race. The Genesis version is a port of the arcade version, which may explain its semi-suckitude.

Thankfully, I played Sonic the Hedgehog last, which helped wash the stink out of my thumbs from some of the other games.  It’s still impressive to see how fast and how good Sonic games are, especially when compared to other games of the era.  It’s no wonder the blue blur is as popular as he is. It’s no doubt that Sega owes much of its success in the 80s and 90s to Sonic.  Clearly the highlight of the 6-Pak (even though it’s been played a million times), Sonic the Hedgehog gives you a taste of the exciting rivalry that was Mario vs. Sonic.

For those if you with short attention spans, let me summarize what these games are:

  • Double Dragon
  • Double Dragon (medieval edition)
  • Ninja Gay-den
  • Tetri-jeweled
  • Rad Racer (suck edition)
  • Fast, awesome, cool game

All in all, it’s a good collection. As noted, not all of the games are superb, but the fact that you can get 6 good games for the price of… whatever it cost new, helps make up for some of the games’ shortcomings.

Pros:

  • Six games on a single Genesis cart!
  • A piece of history!
  • Sonic!

Cons:

  • Some of the games are kinda lame
  • Sonic makes the other games look bad
  • Only one Sonic game…

This game has earned a Blatantly Biased: 8p5

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Happy New Year!

Can you name all of the games/franchises from which these poorly-cut-out letters originated?  The winner gets a “““““prize”””””!
happy new year logo comp copy



Answers to be revealed… someday!
-benjamines

EDIT: The correct answers are as follows:

Guitar Hero
Animal Crossing
Professor Layton
Perfect Dark
Yoshi
Nintendo
Excitebots
Wario Land
Kirby
Donkey Kong
Castlevania
Paper Mario