Yoshi's Full Name Revealed!

The gaming world is chock full of myths, legends, and rumors. As such, it sends a tingle up any gamer’s spine when one of these is definitively confirmed or debunked.

3DS Game Sale: Buy One, Get One Free at Best Buy

Best Buy is known for one thing and one thing only: overpriced merchandise. So it's refreshing to see the big box retailer offer up a sale! And a good one, at that!

E3 Bingo 2014: Day 2 Wrap-up

Day 2 of E3 has concluded. So where does that leave us on the bingo card?

E3 Bingo 2014

This week is E3, the biggest week in gaming! As is tradition, I have created a Bingo card to use during the various presentations. So what's on the board this year?

Awesome Video Games A-Z, pt. 5

Holy crap! I totally forgot that I never published this last post! I’m sure you’ve all been on the edges of your respective seats, waiting for the madness to end! Well, truth be told, school has been insane lately, so yeah. But there’s still hope! Only a couple more weeks until the semester is over, and then I’ll have to think of some other excuse not to write.

In any case, here we are at the last part of the A-Z game list thingy. Should be easy to decide since these last letters don’t have many games to choose from. So, here we go!

V! This one is an interesting one. I don’t many V games, but the few I do have are pretty good. And after a short deliberation, I’ve decided that the winner is Volleyball (NES). Just volleyball. Yup. It’s a game I got at KMart a long time when they used to sell repackaged used games. It doesn’t work very well, so you have to blow on the cartridge to be able to play. But it’s a pretty fun game. Kinda hard. But fun. You can be USA. Or Japan. Or BRA(zil). You can spike the ball. Just like real volleyball. And you can set it. Bump it. Whatever you want. It’s your game. Just make sure to win. Also, you can play 2-player, which is awesome. Oh, and it’s available on Virtual Console. So yeah. Um… go play it? Now?

Runner-Up: Viewtiful Joe (GCN)

W! Ok, this one was hard. Mostly because there are a bunch of Wario and Wii labeled games. But I have a winner. It starts with W. Its name is Worms 2 (PC). The worms games are very fun. It’s a turn-based artillery-style game. You take turns firing rockets, grenades, or exploding sheep at each other. You have to judge the trajectory and power of the weapon to be able to do well. But, there are plenty of weapons that don’t need a lot of skill. Like the Super Sheep, easily one of the best weapons of the video game world. It’s a flying sheep that you can control. So make it fly to your opponent and make them explode. Awesome. The game is exceptional is every way and is certainly worthy of this honor. It was my favorite game of all time before Kirby 64 came around. So it’s super-awesome. This one may be hard to come by nowadays, but if you can find Worms World Party, that can be a reasonable substitute. Either way, it’s totally worth it. Play it! Now!

Runner-Up: Worms World Party (PC)

X! This is a funny letter. It’s always used for extreme things. And exceptional things. And xylophones. But on this blog, it almost always means X-Men. Now, I’m no comic nerd, so I don’t have much X-Men stuff. But X-Men Mutant Apocalypse (SNES) is a great game. You play as Wolverine, Cyclops, Beast, Gambit, and the slutty Psylocke. Each character has some levels that only they can complete, and there are levels where you can choose any of the characters to complete it. It’s a cool concept, but it’s also a great game. The controls are great, the powers are fun, and of course, it’s just plain cool to see Beast and Wolverine beat the crap out of people. I mean, it’s not a perfect game (it’s insanely hard at times), but it’s a fun diversion. It’s not available on Virtual Console, but it’s probably not too hard to find in used game stores. So, if you’re an X-Men fan, you need this game. If you’re not, then… I don’t care. Whatever.

Runner-Up: XIII (GCN)

Y! All four of my Y games have to do with Yoshi, but Yoshi’s Island isn’t one of them, since its official title is Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island. So I’ll go with the next best thing: Yoshi’s Island DS. It’s a direct sequel to the first Yoshi’s Island, only this time, you have two screens to work with. Plus, there are more babies than just Mario & Luigi. That’s right, baby Peach and baby DK join in the fun this time. For those who don’t know, Yoshi’s Island games are fun! You play as Yoshi, and the objective is to get the babies to the end without letting them get captured. If Yoshi gets hit, the baby he’s carrying floats around in a bubble for a short time and if you don’t pop that bubble and get him back, the evil Toadies come and steal him away. Then they eat him. Just kidding! They don’t eat baby. That’d be gross. Anyways, the game is really cool. If you liked the first Yoshi’s Island and you have a DS (which by now, should be about 97% of the world), you need to play this game. Play! Now! Go!

Runner-Up: Yoshi’s Story (N64)

Z! So, after four previous posts and some insanely long gaps, the end is finally here. That’s right, we’ve reached the end of the alphabet! So without further ado, the best Z game: Zack & Wiki: The Quest for Barbaro’s Treasure. This is an adventure/puzzle game sort of like Zelda but not really. The game is very puzzle intensive, so I guess you could call it some kind of a Zelda/Professor Layton halfsy. But these aren’t just simple push-blocks-over-a-switch puzzles. These are insanely inventive and fairly difficult ones. In fact, if you go here, you can play a flash demo of the first level of the game! This will let you see how cool it is. This game may be difficult to find, but I would recommend it to everyone. It didn’t sell well, either, so I wouldn’t expect a sequel, so I would double recommend it. Plus, I think it’s awesome, which should be a recommendation in and of itself. So there you go. Three reasons to pick it up. I don’t need to tell you what to do next.

But I will. Go buy it now!

Runner-Up: Zoo Keeper (NDS)

So there you go. All done now. Now, you just need to wait another 300 years for a new post! How awesome is that?!

-benjamines

Currently Playing: Boom Blox Bash Party, Excitebots Trick Racing, Guitar Hero World Tour (Wii)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

In honor of the holiday where people dress up like grass and limes, naturally the logical thing to do would be talk about games that have a prominently green cover.

The first one that comes to mind is Chibi-Robo Park Patrol for the DS. In fact, the whole game revolves around making a park greener and greener. As the tiny robot hero, you run around and pick up garbage, plant flowers, and make friends in the surrounding city. Sounds strange, but just like Animal Crossing and other life-sim games, it becomes incredibly engaging in a video game. I will admit, there are a few environmentalist flavored pieces of dialogue, but it is one of my favorite DS games. If you don't own it, you're doing yourself a serious disservice.

Speaking of life sims, of course we have to mention Animal Crossing. The greenest cover is for the Wii version, but all the games revolve around moving to a small town, making friends, catching fish, buying furniture, etc, etc. And since you're in a country town, there's grass all over the place. You can't see it in the winter, but there are cedar trees that are evergreen, so yeah. Green. Oh, and you can create your own clothes, so plenty of green there. Speaking of which, perhaps I'll go create a nice shamrock t-shirt for my character...

Ok, I'm back. Next up, we have Mario Super Sluggers. Baseball fields are green. And so is the cover of this baseball game. For those who haven't played it, I would recommend it. It's loads of fun and easy to play with anyone. Also, you can play as Toad. In fact, you can play as 5 toads. 6 if you count Toadette. My team usually consists of Mario, DK, Bowser, and a bunch of toads. Best. Team. Ever. Anways, the fields are green. At least some of them. There is an ice field. That one's not so green. And some of the others are different colors, too. Ok then.

Probably the greenest sport there is is golf. You go hit tiny orbs with sticks on a giant lawn. Fun times. Also, many golf games have green covers. Take True Swing Golf for example. It's very green. Just a logo and loads and loads of green. I try not to get too caught up in golf games in the winter because it makes me want to drive to somewhere warm and golf for real. But I know my car sucks, so I would get halfway there and break down. And then I'd be missing the cold weather while I fry in the extreme desert heat... What's that? Me, sidetracked? Never!

Next up we have a box from one of many games starring Mario's popular prehistorical mascot. Of course I mean Yoshi, the rainbow-spawning dinosaur. There are some games where Yoshi drives me crazy. But in his own games, he's pretty alright. Take this one, for example. Yoshi Touch n' Go is a DS game where you guide Yoshi and Baby Mario through various levels by drawing lines and creating paths. Not the longest game ever, but a fun one. Those who love Yoshi should get it. It's probably pretty cheap if you can find it. Not that anyone who reads this blog likes Yoshi. Especially not anyone related to me... Not you, ya dork!!!

Alright, so moving on, we have a green game that doesn't involve grass or idiotic global warming. Of course I mean Midway Arcade Treasures 2 for Gamecube. It's a compilation of a bunch of older arcade games. Some of the highlights include the excellent Mortal Kombat II and 3. Plus, there's Guantlet II, NARC, Primal Rage, and Rampage. Considering it was only $20 when it came out, it's a heck of a deal. You can probably find it on the cheap nowadays, too. I mostly bought it for MK II and 3, but I like Rampage and some of the others, too. Plus, you can get to know a few older games that you may have never played before. What a deal!

Finally, we have Pikmin, the odd yet popular Gamecube/Wii game. The Wii version just came out and it's a remake of the Gamecube one, just with Wii controls. If you don't have either, go grab the Wii one. It's only $30 and you don't have to fight for it on eBay. Anyways, the game involves Captain Olimar (who you may recognize from Smash Bros. Brawl) and the tiny Pikmin. Basically, the Pikmin are plant/human creatures that sprout from the ground. Olimar uses them to make bridges, defeat predators, and collect parts of his spaceship that fell of when he crash-landed. It's a little challenging, I will admit, but it's worth your time. A very cool game from the same guy who created a couple of other games you may have heard of (Mario or Zelda ring a bell?)

Well there you have it. Games you can play on St. Patty's Day to avoid being pinched by Mario. Take it from me. That plumber will give you such a pinch.

Honorable Mentions:

TMNT: Pretty much all TMNT games have a green logo. And four green turtles. Yeah. That's pretty green.

Luigi's Mansion (GCN): Mario's lil' green brother also has his own game. It's not totally green though, considering the brackground is an old run-down mansion and lightning.

Clubhouse Games (NDS): Another very green cover. Also, playing cards.

-benjamines

Currently Playing: Animal Crossing: City Folk, Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Super Monkey Ball Adventure