Video Game Review: Yoshi's New Island 3DS

I loved the original Yoshi's Island. It was just so fun! Of course, by the original game I mean the remake of Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island that was ported to the Gameboy Advance in 2002 and named Super Mario Advance 3 because the Japanese can't name things. For examples of this, look no further than the Wii U or the New 3DS XL.

But yeah:

This. This game was amazing. 

You play as the Yoshi's, a group of multicoloured Yoshi who safeguard Mario against the evil Kamek and his minions who are attempting to steal him. I guess the art department got bored, made nine different colour palettes for Yoshi and just ran with all of them.

Anyway, the Yoshi find Mario after he drops from the sky in a blanket. A stork carrying Baby Mario and Baby Luigi to his parents was ambushed by Kamek and Baby Mario gets dropped and Kamek makes off with Baby Luigi and somehow the stork.

Anyway, you fight tonnes of bosses embedded with powers given by Kamek including slime, a crab, a piranha, a raven.

The fights were unpredictable and hilarious. Since you'd fight a bigger version of the smaller enemies you were jumping on and squashing, you'd think you'd get a sense of "Oh, just use the same tactics, right?"

WRONG.

Raphael the Raven was a brilliantly thought out fight. It started out with you scaling a tower to fight the raven. You've got to keep going up whilst a large pit of lava suddenly rises. If you fall down you die. 

So you get to the top, see the tiny enemy, Kamek rolls up and sprays magic multicoloured shit on it and you think "Ok, the room looks fairly empty. Not sure how this fight is going to play out. He's a raven, seen these before. Not dangerous. Slightly bouncy."

That's when the raven rams you, you bounce off the walls, into the sky and the Raven follows you.

SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKER, YOU'RE ON THE MOON. Look at that tower you came from! Forget that, you're on the moon now! The rules are different here!

I was so addled by this weirdness, it took me a while to figure out how to beat the boss despite the solution being pretty simple. (Groundpound on the pegs when Raphael walks over them.)

Another memorable fight was Prince Froggy. He gets made big...

Then he just eats you. Before you have a chance to move.

WELCOME TO FROGBELLY. HOPE YOU SURVIVE.

So Shy Guys, the hooded little enemy people, leak through his abdomen, you eat them, make eggs and fire them at his lungs until he dies of heart failure.

I was nine years old and I'd never seen a game so fun. It had everything. Collectables like red coins, flowers and stars which increased your counter in the top right hand corner. Extra levels you unlock once you've got all the unlockables

I'm 21 now and this has been released.

I wouldn't recommend this to my worst enemy. The art is awful, the enemies are either the same or worse, the bosses (SIX unoriginal and awful bosses down from FOURTEEN because the rest are just Kamek fights that make no sense.) are uninspired. The control scheme is wank, the responsiveness is piss-poor and it's just awful.

Nintendo have just lost the handle repeatedly on making a unique and compelling game. It's as interesting as pocket lint, as refreshing as drinking hot tar and as funny as someone with thalidomide poisoning. 

Potentially the developers at Nintendo all have thalidomide poisoning. That would explain why they keep losing the handle of things.

And this:

MR PIPE. WHO AT NINTENDO DEVELOPED MR PIPE?

This awful bastard gives you power ups if you die too much in a level. So if you're repeating a level trying to collect shit and having a grand old time dying because you need to get all the red coins and sunflower, then he's here to urinate on your cornflakes by puffing out Flutterwings that give you infinite hover so you can fly through the entire level or Golden Flutterwings which stop you from dying.

Well fuck you, Nintendo. Are nine year olds these days too bowl headed to play an actual game and instead need to just ride this game like a bloody roller coaster at an amusement park? I'm sorry, I thought having a challenge was fun?

And then the final boss battle was just a rehashed fight of the GBA version that was watered down to the extreme with all the excitement drained out of it.

And then the ending happens and it's exactly the same as the last version.

And then Bowser pops out of nowhere "from time and space" and you fight him in a stage which is just like the one in Super Marios Bros with the shitty switch and everything.

And then Kamek uses magic powder and you fight him again, in an exact copy of the first fight.

Then the credits roll and you find out that Mr Pipe is actually Mario who has gone back in time to give out power ups and be a shithead who's ruining national IQ's, stopping kids from thinking for themselves or learning independence and generally being a dickhole.

As for the extra levels that used to be in the original? Forget them being unlocked after you've got collectibles, you just open them when you've repeated enough levels.

BECAUSE EVERYONE IS A WINNER AND YOU SHOULDN'T FEEL AS IF YOU HAVE TO WORK TO ACHIEVE SOMETHING.

MODERN VIDEO GAMES.

So in conclusion, shit game.

But it's not really for me, is it? I'm not the target demographic.

Still,  I strongly feel that kids deserve a better Yoshi's Island than this one.

Video Game Review: Destiny.

I can't do a proper review. I mean, I'd love to but I just can't judge this game at how it currently stands with the promise of multiple free extra packs and two expansions.

So I write this to generally give you an idea about the game and just give you an equal measure of its pros and cons.

So, Destiny is a game set on Earth in the future 28th century in a post-apocalypse world. After a big ol' white sphere called "The Traveller" has arrived and increased human knowledge tenfold by introducing them to better technology, the humans have conquered the farthest reaches of the galaxy and have prospered in a new "Golden Age."

Unfortunately, The Traveller brought about an event called "The Collapse" which was brought about by either an evil entity called The Darkness that can still be stopped/that can't be stopped/ the traveller trying to get rid of the Darkness.

So shit went down for three reasons that differ depending on various accounts, all of them vague, none of them described fully in-game.

Why can't we go fly to The Traveller? I don't know. What is The Traveller? I don't know. Why is this games story so incredibly straight-faced? I don't know at all.

In fact, story is fairly minimal in Destiny. There's just not a massive focus. Ask any Destiny player who they're fighting and why and you'll get an answer such as

- Aliens, because they're bad.
- Those dudes with robes and lots of arms.
- Killing things because I can progress through the game.

In Bungie's defence, you pick up Grimoire cards throughout the game which give you bits of lore on Bungie.net.
That's great and all, but for a game with a $500 million dollar budget, I'd like the option to read them in-game, between matchmaking on the multiplayer mode or just during downtime bits.

In any case, I made a Warlock class and started playing on my PS3 console. I had to do a bit of fiddling with my controller because whenever I melee attacked, the controller would disconnect from the charger, but that's hardly the games fault.

The first tutorial bits are very straightforward and it wasn't long until I'd got to the main hub of The Tower.

It feels very Warcraft meets Borderlands, without the humour of either. Harsh, but true. The writing is a bit strange, because this is an MMORPGFPS (Massive multiplayer online role playing game first person shooter.)

A Memorpegerfpeeyes, for the uninitiated amongst you.



So the game requires you to go back to previous planets and do things, so it can't have any sort of ultimatum on any of the planets. A big boss fight, yes. But nothing stupidly major.

You may have seen other reviews of Destiny online and seen that it's received very mediocre scores. And there's a reason for that.

The people who bought Destiny as an FPS are used to fast paced action sequences, cutscenes, a driving narrative and lots of Michael Bayish explosions.
The game can't do that, because it's an RPG.

The people who bought Destiny as an RPG, unless they've played Borderlands, are used to class-building, rich environments and a deep story.
The game can't do that, because it's an MMO.

People didn't particularly recognise the best of both worlds, but saw the worst of every single planet in the solar system.

At current, Destiny is a bit like Disneyworld. You go in, see the attractions, go on a little train to see all the different things the game has and then the ride is over. Don't forget to have your picture taken with Goofy.

Now if Destiny had procedurally generated, properly terraformed planets, with one big bad wolf in the centre attached somehow to the planetary core that would cause the planet to collapse if killed, NOW we'd be talking.
Players would literally have to run as the whole place collapsed or face falling into the void of space and not being able to log in for six hours or something funny.

If they had unique player upgrades that players received for doing quests instead of a constant gear overhaul, THEN we'd be talking.

If the game didn't act shitty and stop me from soloing bosses meant for three like I did in Borderlands 2 or pull shit like making Level 26 elites spawn in a place full of Level 12 goons and stop me from completing objectives whilst resisting all damage, THEN we'd be talking.

But we're not really talking, Destiny. We're muttering to each other and it all feels a bit of a formality.

As a final note, the graphics are lovely. However, the draw distance was disappointing and everything melds into clay to the point that I can't tell whether I'm looking at distant trees, distant rocks, distant spires or distant hot dog stands. If you spent $500 million, Bungie, I'm sorry to say that I didn't notice.

The combat is fun, especially smashing enemies to bits mid-jump or jumping over a building to nova blast a massive enemy into bits. (The five minute recharge makes it even more satisfying when it hits.)

I'll be updating as more stuff becomes available, I do a few more online bits, a few more raid bits and more is added to the game.
At the moment, only write home about it if you've got pretty stationary that you'd really like to use.

Video Game News Update: Good One Microsoft.

http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2014/08/gamescom_2014_microsoft_all_but_confirms_that_rise_of_the_tomb_raider_will_release_on_ps4

In a statement that was made just after the previous blog went online, Microsoft have retracted their statement at Gamescom.

Classic.

Video Game News: Multiplats.

Multiplatform titles are necessary. They are needed and wanted and give the consumer fairness and piece of mind.

That's why I was pretty annoyed about Microsoft's reveal at Gamescom. Have a look.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwibbsZZF-k

Rise of the Tomb Raider is an Xbox One exclusive. Applause.

So let's take a step back. Tomb Raider was rebooted for the second (Well, third, kind of.) time last year and the game was released for PS3, 360, and later released on Xbox One and PS4 in the definitive edition.

So they release a sequel on one specific console.

You wanted to follow the story further? Fuck you, you got the wrong console.
That's the message we're being told by Darrell Gallagher.

And it just makes me wonder why these decisions are made. If this is a timed exclusive, as I can almost say without a shadow of a doubt, then it's quite amusing that Microsoft are spending money on stopping you from getting content on your choice of machine instead of investing it in new IP or other franchises.

It's not a case of "Hurr, victory for the Xbox One." because nobody wins. Nobody wins if you can only sell your console by taking away from everyone instead of offering up incentives to buy. Which is, you know, what companies used to do before they became so sickeningly hungry for a quick buck.

It didn't get better.

Sony announced that Shadows of Mordor will have PS4 exclusive content. That's not content that's been tacked on generously given and graciously made, that's been content that's been carved off the game and taken away from you, pushed tantalisingly in your face until you buy into the console.

The time has been taken to remove content from the game that you no doubt would have had anyway.

And people defend this. It creates a new level of fanboy who defends these greedy corporate tactics.

Anyone with half an ounce of sense will simply take the time to realise that there is no reason to try and gain sole control of IP unless you're insecure about your system. Sony did it with DLC and Microsoft bought out an entire game. It just picked up its football and went home all stroppy because nobody was buying Xbones.

It defies belief.

It defies sense.

 You do not sell more copies of something by pissing on it.

Video Game Review: Canis Canem Edit.

Canis Canem Edit is a game by Rockstar that is colloquially known as "Bully" and universally known because Pewdiepie played it. Which, in turn, is because enforced sterilisation is long since overdue in most Western countries.

But I'm not here to preach the word of genocide. I shouldn't have to. After preaching about this game and extolling its many virtues, you should be ready to cause genocide in at least twelve countries because modern game development will never allow a game of this calibre to be created again.

But what it is Bully?

In short, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas/ Vice City in an incredibly condensed and fun package, set through the eyes of a kid instead of an adult.

You play as James "Jimmy" Hopkins, a teenager who is sent to a mandatory private school called Bullworth Academy. As he settles in, he befriends Gary, a megalomaniac teen with severe ADHD and numerous other problems, obsessed with taking over the school.

I still remember my first initial thoughts when I first got this game.
"I don't want to play as a ginger delinquent."

But the thing is, you're not.
Jimmy is actually kind of affable in a strange way, as he goes around uniting the different school factions of Nerds, Jocks, Preppies, Greasers, Townies and Bullies. Each faction represents a different chapter of the story and all have different strengths and weaknesses. Nerds are weak but have weapons such as bottle rocket launchers that will happily take away three-quarters of your health. Preppies are champion boxers and cannot be knocked down. Jocks are almost impossible to take on in hand-to-hand combat. Greasers have a habit of chasing you on bikes, Bullies have much more aggressive and therefore easy to knock down and Townies are a bit of a mixed bag.
You also have to attend classes to unlock various things.
Well, you don't have to. But if you get caught by a prefect whilst Truanting, he'll ship you straight off to lessons. If you're on a mission, the mission is auto-failed, so it's wise to complete your classes so that you have more time to explore Bullworth, Bullworth Vale, New Coventry and the many other in-game locations that open up as you progress through chapters.

Eat your veggies before you have your dessert, but do tell us how many veggies you usually like first so this feels like a challenge but doesn't feel like a chore.

Good. Game. Design.

After you complete side missions to help a clique and increase/decrease various reputations, the main missions will open up which usually end in a boss fight with the head of the clique, who was usually lied or misled by Gary into thinking you've been plotting against them.

Of course, Jimmy is just trying to get by. He doesn't have the mental capacity to plot, but is smart enough to know all the right ways to defend himself.

I think this really appealed to me in someway. In Bully, I wanted to hate Gary, but he was just so thoroughly conniving that I couldn't help but chuckle after he turned up at the rich head preppies house and told him how Jimmy had said that "he had six toes because of all the incest in his family and that he has twelve hermaphrodite sisters."

Meanwhile, poor James has no clue what hermaphrodite even means but knows he's in severe trouble as the gates lock behind him.

The missions are varied, and offer up some great challenges from mini-games to cycling races, to delivery quests to tactical fighting and often leave you to determine the best way to solve them.

For example, in the boxing mission, with Thad hiding behind a bar and summoning goons every two minutes, I realised that it was nigh-impossible/incredibly difficult to knock him down until I knocked two wooden bars over the door, stopping him from summoning henchmen
Another mission only ended once you'd "lost the pursuers." but had the option to stay and beat them all into the concrete instead.
That, is good level design in my books.

Right at the end, in the final mission, there is a boss rush of every clique leader which you, along with the clique leader for the bullies, fight and beat up. Then you go after Gary.

After you complete the game, there are still collectibles to be found and classes to attend for hours and hours and hours. These unlock even more stuff to use.

There are also hidden items, bonuses, secrets and many more little tidbits of the bygone PS2 era. (Nine years ago.) You can even customise Jimmy with clothes, haircuts, masks and tattoos that you either unlock or buy with cash you get from running the hundreds of errands that pedestrians will often ask you to do.

It's lively, it's great, it's £3.99 on PSN.

Video Game News: EA Still Being Jerks. I'm Kidding. That's News To Nobody.

The game industry, at large, are full of liars.
Blizzard only pulled the auction house, not after player complaints, but after they'd made an arbitrary amount of money from it.
Ubisoft insist that uPlay is stopping piracy whilst other reports suggest that it causes an increase in pirating because gamers flat out hate uPlay due to the service requiring you to log in every session. The entire team at Microsoft made a console that didn't run on discs that they suddenly got rid of and redesigned multiple times in the biggest PR meltdown/save in the history of video games and pretended that every member talking on behalf of the company took to the E3 2013 stage on hallucinogenic mushrooms.
This was after they saw that the silence in the packed stadium wasn't because of the audience's shock and awe. They literally couldn't find anything to applaud about the Xbox One when it was unveiled.


But nobody. Nobody. Are as bad as EA.
I saw this article on The Escapist yesterday.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/136011-EA-Dungeon-Keeper-Failed-by-Innovating-Too-Much

Now Dungeon Keeper Mobile was not a good game by any stretch of the mind or imagination. You had to pay to do literally anything. If you wanted to amass an army of minions and start making a dungeon, you had to wait two hours to clear two blocks unless you paid real-life money.

It flat-out killed Mythic, a vet studio and has forever shamed Bullfrog. Peter Molyneux, the creator of the original Dungeon Keeper, a PC classic staple, had a go and utterly despised it. The UK advertising agency had to ban an ad describing the game as free because it was so grossly misleading and unplayable without zipping open your wallet. Jim Sterling, a man I've crossed swords with before on this blog, called the game "a cynical skeleton of a non-game." and "a scam." I'm inclined to agree.

Last week, Andrew Wilson, CEO of EA described Dungeon Keeper as "a shame." and "admitted that it missed the idea of value."

In the article yesterday, he claims that people simply weren't ready for Dungeon Keeper and the innovation it brought.

Ok, give me a second here.

SIX DAYS AND YOU'RE INSISTING THAT EVERYONE'S WRONG AND THAT YOUR SHITTY IDEA WAS BRINGING ITS A-GAME. THE ONLY EXPLICABLE REASON FOR YOU TO BE THIS MUCH OF A DICK-COSY IS IF YOU CAME FROM AN INSURMOUNTABLE RICH BACKGROUND, WENT TO A ROUGH PUBLIC SCHOOL AND HAD TO BRIBE OTHER CHILDREN TO NOT SHANK YOU EVERYDAY WHO ENDED UP SHANKING YOU ANYWAY EVEN IF YOU PAID THEM. YOU TURNED THIS INTERNAL PAIN INTO A FREEMIUM GAME WHERE YOU PAY TO NOT HAVE FUN. I UNDERSTAND YOUR PAIN ANDREW BUT:

There. The biggest insult to anyone American. Save it to your hard-drive. You won't regret it.

We've seen EA's behaviour in the past in SimCity being always online. The execs scoffed and said that it HAD to be online and that it wouldn't work ANY OTHER WAY.

Then when gamers didn't quiet down like good little blind consumers they MADE AN OFFLINE MODE THAT WAS THEY COULD HAVE MADE AVAILABLE AT ANY POINT. But that's all in the past, right? They've learned their lessons, right?


Moving on from this, towards the future, EA floored Battlefield 4's release, making it glitchy and struggling to cope. Theme Park Mobile was just released under the exact same principals as Dungeon Keeper, missed just in time by the UK's advertising board.

 Finally,  here is a list, courtesy of 4chan's /v/ board, dictating the things left out of The Sims 4 that were available in previous games, most of them for free.

Confirmed as cut
=============
-No Create-A-Style [Confirmed cannot be added back later]
-No Colour Wheel [Confirmed cannot be added back later]
-No Swimming Pools
-No swimming in the sea/rivers, etc.
-No swimwear
-No Toddlers age stage
-No skin tone slider
-No opacity slider for makeup
-No shopping (Clothes, groceries, etc.)
-No Favourites (food, music, and color)
-No Left handed or right handed sims
-No Dinner proposals
-No Hireable gardeners
-No WooHoo Skill
-No Tragic clown
-No Hot tubs
-No Social bunny
-No Private schools
-No Adoption though townies and NPCs
-No Random deaths
-No Basements
-No Sitting on the arms of chairs, couches etc.
-No 64bit version of the game
-No Storey Progression other than aging, dying and move in/out
-No Rabbit-holes [No Work, Schools, Shops - Sims just vanish from Lot]
-No Trams (They are decor only)
-No Steamboats (They are decor only)
-No Garages
-No Bicycles
-Maximum Lot size now limited to just 50x50
-Loading Screens for Worlds
-Loading Screens Hoods
-Loading Screens for individual Lots/Families
-Only 5 Hoods per World
-Only 1 to 5 lots per Hoods
-So only 9 to 21 lots per World (Most likely 14)
-Only 1 World supplied in Base Game
-All buildings on a Lot get the same foundation (no choice)
-Buildings can only have 3 floors (plus a foundation and a roof)
-Teens, Young Adults, Adults and Elders are all the same height.
-Hair isn't as realistic as TS3
-Textures are blurry and lack bump mapping
-Lots of so called new features are already in The Sims 3
Multi-tasking Sims (The Sims 3 can read and relax in bed, watch TV while chatting, chat in groups, etc)
Emotional moods (currently in the form of Moodlets in The Sims 3)
Unconfirmed but believed to be true
===================================
-No terrain sculpting
-No user creatable ponds
-No split-level homes
-No Cars (They are decor only)
-No Ghosts or any other Supernatural creatures


The Sims 4 also explained that an entire life stage (Toddlers) and Pools, one of the main features of The Sims, cannot be supported by the game at this point.

This list is here for a reason. I bet you all my earthly possessions that EA will put in at least 75% of this stuff as downloadable content that you have to pay for, totalling anywhere from 200/500 quid by my rough estimations with the Sims 3 and a calculator as a reference point.

I will be checking this list two months after the release of The Sims 4 and will do a special episode calling out EA on their bullshit before the mainstream gaming press if they've implemented anything on the list.

Finally,

Do not buy EA games. Do not support EA games.

You've all been warned.

Video Game Review: Dead Rising 2.

That's a rather Dr Seussian title. I like it.

So anyway, Dead Rising 2 is a survival horror video game set in an open world environment published in September 2010.

You play as Chuck Greene, a blond haired motorcyclist trying to get his hands on Zombrex for his young daughter Katie which must be replenished at a specific time every day otherwise she turns into a zombie. He tries to do this through a reality game show involving zombies. You also somehow get embroiled in a massive plot development five minutes in in which you are framed for the zombies that the reality show uses getting lose and trying to eat everyone and have to clear your name in three in-game days before the military shows up.

As you can see, the story is complete bananas.

Let me explain briefly.


Capcom.

I am not a huge fan of this game. For a start, I was playing through a good hour of gameplay and about fifteen loading screens before I got to hit a zombie. There are loading screens for cutscenes and then loading screens after. At one point I went through a vent. A cutscene started of him entering the vent, followed by a loading screen, followed by a cutscene of him getting out of the vent at the other side and smiling like a shithead. Followed by a loading screen.

I only needed one loading screen and no cutscenes, Konami. If you can't hide loading screens BEHIND cutscenes, you're developing a game wrong. Games involving the undead need pacing, and this game kills it dead.

There is a 24 clock reminder to get Katie her meds. Every mission is linked to a planner. All hostages that can be saved are only around for a finite time and often don't want to be saved until you've found their friend or rubbed their back or bought them a bag of crisps. There is a constant countdown until the military arrives which pops up on screen every time you enter a new area, which is frequently because you spend more time watching loading screens than playing the actual game.

Once you're in the game, a lot of the action is centred around making weapons, which is incredibly fun. At one point I made a fire extinguisher nail bomb thing which froze enemies solid and covered them in nails, causing their health to tick down.

But all the fun you can have is marred by that constant timer. It doesn't make the game suspenseful, it just ups the tedium. Like you're on a roller coaster but have to step off halfway through to do some washing or you're on a bouncy castle/trampoline and you have to get off to walk someone's dog after ten minutes.

Who do these clothes belong to? Who's dog is this? I wanted a game without stress, where I can find the best ways to murder the undead without having to check a darn timer.

But of course, it's arcade-y and I just don't get it.

NO.

Left 4 Dead & Left 4 Dead 2 were arcade-y but didn't make me feel as if the controller was snatched away from me every mission by someone with severe autism who insisted I do missions in order, helped civilians in order and did a bunch of dull chores because he said so.

I bought this game (Well ok, I didn't. I just happened to get it from someone else) so don't tell me how I'm going to distribute my fun.

Timers suck and ruin games. Dead Rising 2 is so much wasted potential.