Wii Review: Namco Museum Remix

First impressions:
Well my first impression was that it looked pretty cool and I thought I should go out and buy it. So I did. It says on the box… 14 Games in All! It looked like something I would want to play. I got it home and put it in and started it up to find myself selecting which game I wanted to play by rolling Pacman around with the analogue stick. I was pleased to see Pacman though this selecting is not good. It’s just wasting time trying to roll Pacman close enough to the different game ‘areas’ just so you can see what the games are. The music is annoying and repetitive.
Gameplay:
14 classic Namco games with some that have been ‘remix’ed. Sounds pretty cool. After rolling around the menu for a while, I realised there were only 7 different areas to go to. It turns out there is a ‘carnival arcade’ which houses 8 of the games in retro styled arcade machines. Still sounding cool? Well don’t let it fool you, this isn’t a very fun game. The retro games are awful… and to my knowledge you can’t actually play the original Pacman. I find this stupid. The retro games you can find include:
Cutie Q, Dig Dug, Galaxian, Gaplus, Mappy, Pac & Pal, Pac-Mania, Super Pac-Man and Xevious.
Admittedly I didn’t waste my time playing all of these, but from what I saw… they didn’t look good.
But I guess that’s fair enough with the 6 new remixes they’re giving us… 6 remixes that aren’t at all good. I’d like to say that they were amazing and a nice new spin on Namco’s retro games. They felt pretty much the same to me but with some Wii controls (which I’ll talk about next). Sure they might look a little bit better than the originals but even the graphics aren’t that smooth.
Controls:
Wow… these controls are superb… is what I should be saying after complete disappointment with this game so far, however I won’t be saying this because it would be a lie. I’m going to give one example of TERRIBLE controls and that is Rally-X. I used to love this game, I can’t stand this version. The controls are perhaps the worst I’ve experienced on the Wii. There are two methods of control. The default is nunchuks analogue stick. The controls DON’T WORK using either method! You try to turn left and it either goes straight on or you turn 180 degrees.
This game is messy and broken. Don’t buy it unless you are a huge Namco fan. Even then, be a little cautious and really think about whether you want to waste £40 (However much it is in US).

This review may be used on GBAtemp.net also.

Gameplay: 62%

Graphics: 70%

Controls: 35%

Overall: 52%

Jackreyes

Guitar Hero III for Wii quick review

I tried out Guitar Hero III at my cousin’s house, and it was great!  I am not posting up a GH III review, but as an existing player, I’ll give you what I compare from my PS2 experience, and my Wii experience.

Compared between these 2, GH3 Wii plays VERY WELL!  It doesn’t have any delay from wireless that’s noticeable, and everything is fine.  Only problem is that when you strum when there’s no reason to, the “mess up” noise plays on the Wii remote speaker.  It’s distracting, but can be easily solved by turning off the volume on Wii remote.  If battery level on Wii remote is low, there is significant delay (based on what my friend said).

The game plays well, and I don’t think the mono sound problem on the old copies are too noticeable unless you listen too hard.

Wii Friends

Comment here with your consoles friends code and add mine which is: 7635-6597-1287-5282

and I will send you mii’s and give you site updates. I might even send some snapshots from Brawl when I start playing.

Wii Game: Batallion Wars 2

This game, cleverly aka BWii is a sequel to the original Batallion Wars released on Gamecube. Having never played the first game, I didn’t know what to expect. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised, it seems to have a nice campaign along with Wi-Fi play.

I have to say, even though the graphics aren’t revolutionary in comparison to the PS3 or 360… I think they are very impressive for the Wii and I love them. The vehicles and grunts may not look realistic, but I think that is whats so great about Nintendo and the Wii, they can pull off unrealistic and replace it with fun. Because that is what this game is… good fun.

The gameplay is great. The campaigns are well thought out and work really well. The first ones do a good job of teaching you how to play. However after only playing 4 of the campaigns and them still sort of teaching me, I’m a little worried about the length of the game because my save file says 25% completed already.

The controls seem to be pretty good using the wii remote, you press Z to lock on then wii remote to aim and press B to shoot. If instead of B you press A it’ll send the troops you currently have selected attack. The control stick on nunchuk is used for moving player around and C changes the camera view. Moving the nunchuk in a to the side (shaking sort of) will make you perform a combat roll to get out of the line of fire. If you use the D-Pad to select different troops and then hold down A you can become a different soldier type, or even a vehicle.

The WiFi I only tried once and the other guy disconnected. There are 3 different WiFi modes; Co-Op, Skirmish and Assault. I only tried Co-Op but then the other guy basically lost all his troops then disconnected. It seems to be lag-free and work well though. Still uses Friend Codes. You can find mine here. Just comment to tell me you have added me and put your friend code here too.

Ratings:

Graphics: 9/10

Gameplay: 9/10

Control: 8/10

WiFi: 9/10

Overall: 8.5/10

83%

The Brawl is on in North America!!! (A bit late)

I never got to writing this article until now >.<

I had a date on March 9. It was so dang beautiful. It was the best night of my life! What? You think I had a girlfriend? Noooo!! I bought Super Smash Brothers Brawl and played it for quite a while. The story is well set up, and even if there is absolutely no dialogue, it works amazingly!

The story mode is called the SubSpace Emissary. The story is basically that there’s the SubSpace Emissary, who are destroying parts of the Smash World with special bombs that turn the area into SubSpace. We also have the 2 greedy kings (Bowser and Dedede) beating the crud out of our heroes and turning them into trophies. The story is actually full length this time, and lasts probably 10 hours.

Brawl includes a new an improved group mode, which includes rotation (automatically swaps out players if you’re playing with more than 3 buddies), improved special brawl (bunny ears + large sized character + high gravity + metal), and the removal of the cruddy game variants we didn’t like (coin and bonus).

The game includes a lot more items and characters, such as the long awaited Sonic The Hedgehog, and the unexpected Solid Snake . There are about 34characters total, and will keep you playing for a while until you finally get them all. Some items from melee reappear, as you battle with an improved beam sword, super scope, and fan (it’s only better because you can trap people in your fan’s fury for a while LOL). The bumper (remember from the original SSB?) made a reappearance too. The nice new toys you get to play with are the cracker launcher (sounds a little weird), which shoot fire crackers at an angle that you choose, the smash ball, which summons your character’s special attack, and the Smart Bomb (Star Fox), which makes that huge explosion you see in Star Fox 64.

The vault mode (has collectibles) has a lot of nice features, such as the returning trophy feature, sticker feature (another nice collectible), stage builder (have not tested it yet), and screenshots + replays. I have not really tested much on Vault.

I have a few complaints about Brawl (it doesn’t matter how good a game is. There is always going to be something wrong with it).

1. Final Smashes are cheap and unbalanced. Kirby’s is almost impossible to avoid, and knocks you off the map easily, but Peach’s only makes you fall asleep and doesn’t make you fly off the map.

2. The game doesn’t have a dedicated camera mode. You can only angle the camera when you have paused the game. A lot of videos I see on SSB use the dedicated camera on Melee and angle their shots while the game is not paused. The zoom is not as good anymore (doesn’t zoom in as much as it used to).

3. No language changing

Gameplay: 9/10

Graphics (based on my taste, not compared to those fancy 360 and PS3 games): 10/10

Concept (same as always): 8/10

Controls: 10/10 for 4 different methods

Music: 9.5/10 because it is like a compilation of all the Nintendo stuff

Replay Value: As high as the moon gets.

Overall: 9.5

-sakuramaxx

More Linerider Details Surface

Sure this news is a week old now but I’d abandoned all hope of a Linerider game coming to DS, Wii and PC.

Turns out that 1UP.com got the exclusive story.

The important details to you guys are probably prices and dates… so to cut down the reading load for you…

1UP say this: The game’s price will be different for each platform, with the Wii version at $39.99, the DS game at $29.99, and the PC one at $19.99. All three versions are scheduled to ship in the second quarter of 2008, so roughly a couple months from now.

I still really wanna play each version of this game. And I don’t doubt that I will… but haven’t most of you lost interest now?

The original Flash game came out over a year ago, the fad died a few months ago…

I doubt this game will get amazing sales.

But lets just hope its a good game. Expect a review a few days after release…

-Jackreyes

EA: If you can’t beat them, Buy them!

EA have launched a $2 billion takeover bid for TakeTwo the publishers of GTA IV.

This offer is said to expire on the 12th of April. Just before the release date of GTA IV.

Will be interesting to see what happens here. In a way I hope EA don’t get it, they already have too many bad games on the Games market. Instead of buying more, they should either start producing a decent one themselves or work on games they already own.

-Jackreyes

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

As you may have noticed Super Smash Bros. Brawl got released in US on the Wii.

Pretty sad for PAL owners at the minute. Although Datel have given us the option of playing the import with their new freeloader which ONLY lets you play imported games, it does NOT let you play backups. So if you order the freeloader and US import then you can still play. As far as I know the Wi-Fi is flawless in UK and Europe too.

For those with the game, here are a few extras (as if you need any):

Bin2Jpg: This piece of software converts your SSBB .bin screenshots into .jpg’s assuming you have an SD card. Link.

SmashLevels.com: This site allows users to upload and download custom stages again using the SD card. The site only has 41 stages up at the time of writing this post, however this site should only grow.

Soon I will hopefully have created a guide to unlocking characters.

Also expect other SSBB threads to turn up around here.

Stay Tuned.

-Jackreyes

PS3: Headlines

It’s been a while since I posted. Don’t blame me, it’s my teachers fault, piles of homework to do. Furthermore I’ve been ill for a week. But now I’m back with some news.

The gameworld is only saying one thing: DELAYS.

-EA’s Rock band is coming to europe in april, may or june. The fans have to wait a litlle longer, meanwhile you can keep you busy with guitar hero 2. MGS4 is postponed to the second quarter of 2008 and Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is delayed to the third quarter

-Report your school or work that you’re gonna be sick on April 29. Hurry to your local gamestore and buy the most discussed game of the year: GTA IV.

- Mad Catz releases a new Ps3-toy. The wireless thumbpad will be principally used for Home. The price is €29,99 Btw: The designers ‘redrawed’ Home. The big changes are the lobby’s, it are big places outside.

-THQ has some moneyproblems and they decided to cancel Frontlines fuel of war for Ps3. They’ve also decided to quit making Stuntman games.

These were the most important things I found over the internet.

-Svenn

DS Game: Professor Layton and the Curious Village

Hmmm… this sounds curiously awful.

Well in actual fact its not. Its a puzzle game for the DS that came out a couple of days ago in the US. So for the people in the UK its more of a preview.

What is it?

So I’m guessing you may not have heard of this game, neither had I until I discovered it had quite  a big fanbase so I decided to give it a try. You are playing the game as Professor Layton and his young sidekick Luke, it becomes apparent that Layton is quite the puzzle solver and he is Luke’s mentor. They are called to the Reinhold Manor as the Lord Reinhold has passed away and his will simply said, “To whomever finds the golden apple, I leave my entire estate.” Dahlia Reinhold has hired you to solve this ‘puzzle’ for her, but before you know it you have been dragged into solving a multitude of other puzzles before even starting this one.

Gameplay:

This game is mostly touchscreen if not entirely touchscreen orientated which usually signifies a gimmicky DS game, however that is certainly not a word you can use to describe this game. It plays beautifully. The puzzles are great and this is most definitely NOT just for kids. I’ve seen all sorts of posts on forums asking for hints or solutions to some of the puzzles or problems in this game. There are over 118 puzzles in this game so it should keep you going for a while.

Controls:

Like I said, completely touchscreen. This works well. Point and Click typed game.

Online:

There is downloadable content. Apparently there will be a new downloadable puzzle every week. There is already one for download.

Overall:

Get your hands on this game. It will keep you addicted for hours and you will want to solve every puzzle.

 

Ratings:

Graphics: 8/10

Gameplay: 10/10

Controls: 10/10

Online: 9/10

Overall: 10/10

96%

 

-Jack