It’s from just over a week ago, but this article about the unending music game phenomenon is still worth a look.
I played Lego Rock Band last week. It was fun (I even sang, which was fun for me but more than likely unpleasant for all others involved), and the Lego Queen figures were awesome (Lego Brian May! Lego Brian May hair!) but I didn’t know half the songs. Perhaps I’m just unhip.
I have to admit that I got aboard the Rock Band-wagon later than most people (however I did kind of get my mother hooked on Beatles Rock Band, so there), and maybe that’s why I’m feeling a little lost trying to figure out the differences between the established Rock Band series and the newly released Rock Hero. Near as I can figure, the biggest difference is that the Rock Band games are more, uh, rock-based while Band Hero features the musical stylings of Taylor Swift, the Spice Girls and (God help us all) the Village People.
Advantage: Rock Band. There, I’ve said it. Not that I’d shun Band Hero if handed drumsticks or a plastic bass at a party (nope, won’t sing — it’s for your own protection, you’ll thank me later), and hey, Lego Rock Band apparently includes the freaking theme from Ghostbusters. But I probably wouldn’t invest in something that leans heavily on a musical library so radically different from my own. (And yes, I actually own Wii Music, but what gives Wii Music its value is its ability to create a hilarious music video featuring cartoon-like characters based on you and your family members playing Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go on the shamisen. That, and AIR CONDUCTING THE ZELDA THEME. /nerd)
It’s not that it couldn’t be fun (in moderation); I just probably wouldn’t buy it.
First, I apologize for the lack of posts lately.
Secondly, TETRIS DRESS! I wish I could be that awesome.
(h/t @johnbowman)
… with the sound of gossip about an HD Wii in 2011.
Interesting.
Should it even prove to be true, it would probably cater more to non-owners. I’m not sure I’d shell out more money for a second Wii, even one with HD capabilities, since I have a smaller TV. It’d have to be a full-out reinvention to get me to shell out the money.
Nintendo Life has a wrap-up of the week’s top 20 Wiiware sales (in the U.S.). I agree that it’s not surprising to see Tetris Party make it back into the top five. Similarly, I’m not surprised to see Dr. Mario Online Rx in the top 20. I bought it a few months ago and it’s quickly become the Wii game I play most (it’s just so addictive).
My sister has Tetris Party and while I like it, I wish the developers had been able to channel a bit more nostalgia. While Dr. Mario Online Rx deliciously features all the original music (including that of the menu screens!), Tetris Party includes unfamiliar music that’s obviously intended to have some kind of Russian bent to it but just isn’t the same. I do like the new mini-game in which players have to use the traditional Tetris blocks to recreate an image while losing points for getting squares outside the outline, but it feels a bit too much like a deviation from the classic to me.
Yeah, yeah, I’m a purist.
I’m a bit late to the game on this one, but Game|Life’s Chris Kohler’s account of his brave tango with the NES Gilligan’s Island game brought back a flood of nightmarish 8-bit memories. I never owned the game, commonly thought of as one of the worst ever, but I rented it once. (I hope it was just the once.)
Back in the day, if you’d written to Nintendo Power and they didn’t run your letter (and maybe if they did — none of mine went to press), you usually got a response including cut-and-pasted references to the games you’d mentioned in said letter.
I don’t know why I mentioned the Gilligan’s Island game but I do remember the response including the phrase “although Ginger isn’t included,” and then something resembling an attempt reason why the game was awesome.
It was sad.
Nintendo Power, for its part, has historically always listed Bebe’s Kids for the Super NES as the worst game (for a Nintendo console) of all time. Wikipedia has a fairly comprehensive list of games notable for their negative receptions. One notable inclusion is Deal or No Deal for the Nintendo DS. I mean, seriously. Why bother? At least the crappy TV show gives people a shot at winning actual money.
On the bright side, we were spared this. Small mercies.
I’d had my eye on the Wii version of Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga for a while before I bought it using a gift certificate I got for my birthday last week. I finally tried it out tonight and found it whimsical and fun. The controls took a few minutes to get used to but after briefly consulting a walkthrough, I was well into the Star Wars: Episode I adventure, guiding Lego versions of Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi around.
Then I had to turn the game off because it was — wait for it — starting to make me dizzy.
Yes, you read that right. I, a gamer since the age of five, had to stop playing Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga because it was making me dizzy.
To be fair, I get motion sick with relative ease. Roller coasters are generally a no-go. I even had to get off the subway early once (but in my defence, we’d slowed down to an illness-inducing crawl). But no video game, even one with constantly changing camera angles, has ever made me nauseous before. This only furthers my theory that I probably couldn’t handle the new breed of Final Fantasy games, which are visually stunning but not the games I grew up on. Make me feel like I’m controlling a movie, and the room starts spinning.
I grew up on side-scrolling adventures, old-school RPGs and puzzle games. I’m a giant sucker for 8- and 16-bit nostalgia. But it appears that I may have to force myself to adjust anything with a Nintendo64-type approach to camera angles, since I’ve been immersing myself in the classics (and, admittedly, neglecting the current video game scene) for so long. In other words, I guess it’s my own fault.
I’ll master the “new” thing eventually. As for now, I think I’m going to lie down…
I haven’t been paying too much attention to sports this summer but I’m going to assume this is in reference to Dany Heatley.
Zing!
(H/T @chrisboutet)
I got home from work today to find the front of my Wii glowing blue. I took this to mean that there was either an upgrade waiting for me, or that Orcs were in the vicinity. It turned out to be the former, of course, and I was very interested to see that Nintendo now offers the Wii Internet Channel for free. (Gamers who had previously shelled out the 500 Wii Points for access to the channel will receive a free NES download). I couldn’t argue with the price, so I downloaded it and am currently watching surprisingly good quality YouTube videos on my TV.
This just cut out a good chunk of my interest in the infinitely more expensive AppleTV. Sure, I can’t rent or buy movies on it, but it’s still pretty neat. It must be impressive on a larger screen.
I have a problem. Much like I do with books, I tend to buy video games that I see and like even though my to-play list is fairly gargantuan. I have yet to finish Final Fantasy IV DS (mostly because I want to level up as much as possible, as doing so apparently has benefits in the second play-through). I’ve barely started Twilight Princess (yes, I am that far behind!). And did I mention that I’m only just seriously getting back into the gaming thing after years of — wait for it — studying?
That said, I can’t really begin to describe how much I’m looking forward to New Super Mario Bros. Wii. I’ve always been a nostalgic kind of gamer, and titles that harken back to my early gaming days seem to appeal to me just a little more than the newfangled stuff (all still good, of course).
I’ve mentioned elsewhere that I was considering purchasing the unbearably sleek Playstation3 Slim but ultimately decided against it because most of the games I was interested in are available for either Wii (which I already have) or Xbox360 (which my fiancé) has. We’ll be sharing the Xbox in just over a year, meaning I could just play Final Fantasy XIII without having to shell out for a new system.
If it turns out that I actually want to. Continue reading »
