June 01, 2004

Bowman - Shoot like a ninja

Now that you’ve learned how to fold your clothes like a ninja, you can start practicing your ninja shooting skills!!

Bowman is yet another fun little Flash game that pits you against an archer in a battle to the death. You control the angle and speed of your arrows, trying to hit the archer on the other side of the screen. It’s a blind shot, so you’ll have to remember the numbers that show what speed and angle your last show was, so you can hit him again the next time. Of course when you add the wind, that isn’t as easy to do so it makes the game much more challenging. You can also choose to place a wall between you and your enemy, so that you have to volley arrows over the wall to hit each other. This in combination with the wind makes the game especially difficult.

Then if you really want a challenge, turn off the index (the numbers that show your angle and speed). Those three things together make the game nearly impossible because you can’t gauge the success of your last shot in order to plan the next one.

Another trick is to block your enemies arrows by firing one while his is still in the air. Of course you still have to aim it to intercept the enemies arrow, plus you lose a turn so your enemy immediately gets to shoot again. But if you know you are about to be hit, it can be a good way to protect yourself.

May 11, 2004

Nintendo DS

Nintendo announced their latest handheld system today at the E3 entertainment expo, it’s called the Nintendo DS (for now), and it is looking mighty cool if I do say so myself.

The system has two screens, one of which is touch-sensitive and can be used to interact with your games via a stylus or your finger. An app called Pictochat will allow you to draw on the screen, and type messages to people around you with an on-screen keyboard, and the built-in Wi-Fi networking.

Because of the Wi-Fi, you will be able to play multiplayer games with others around you with no wires, and even over the internet if you are near an access point. If the developer chooses, you can even stream the game to other devices, so you could play multiplayer games with only a single game cartridge.

The system also has a built-in microphone that will allow games to take advantage of voice recognition of some kind.

The DS is fully compatible with all GBA games, GBC games, and original black-and-white gameboy games, giving it a library of thousands of games as soon as it launches.

A few of the games that are already in development for the system however are:

• a New Super Mario Bros. game
• WarioWare DS
• Mario Kart DS
• a new Metroid game
• Super Mario 64 remake
• Animal Crossing DS

And others. Those are just the Nintendo developed games.

All of the games make some sort of unique use of the two screens (and touch-sensitive screen). For instance in Mario Kart, one screen shows the race, and the other shows a map of the track, and a realtime ranking of who is in the lead.

Even with all the power and screens of this system, Nintendo says the battery will last 10 hours, just like the GBA. Which would be really nice. Both screens are backlit and the battery is rechargeable, so at least they have learned from their mistakes with the original GBA.

I’m very much looking forward to seeing what Nintendo can do with this system… Hopefully it won’t be too big to really be portable, and the battery life will be good. Both very important features of a handheld system.

Gamespot has a good write-up of some hands on experiences with the system while at E3.

May 04, 2004

GameSpot.com Video Reviews

Though they’ve had them years, I just have to give an enthusiastic two thumbs up to GameSpot’s video reviews of games. If you are a subscriber to their “complete” service as I am, then you have full access to a ton of video previews, gameplay footage, trailers, promos, etc. The ones I find the most useful though are the video reviews. As my previous post said, I’ve been pretty busy lately, and haven’t played a game for months. I’m still interested in the industry, but don’t have time to scour the gaming sites for the latest news and reviews. So instead of reading a 2 or 3 page article on a game, I can simply download a 200mb quicktime video and watch a 5 - 10 minute video review instead. The added bonus of this is not only do I not have to read anything, I can also watch actual gameplay footage and get a feel for the graphics and sound in the game while also having it described to me.

My interest in the reviews sometimes depends on the editor reviewing the game however. For instance, I find that Greg Kasavin, the executive editor, does the best video reviews. He sounds like he’s speaking freely and not reading from a script like some of the other editors. It makes it a lot easier to listen to than someone simply reading the printed review to you while they splice in some game footage.

Anyway, just thought I’d point out the feature, and if you are interested in the game industry at all, the $20 a year for GameSpot Complete is most likely worth it.

March 04, 2004

The Mystery of Time and Space

This is another flash-based adventure/puzzle game that I played a few months ago. It’s much more puzzle-based than The Crimson Room. There’s a lot more thinking involved and the puzzles are much more fun and rewarding.

I finished this one in about an hour, if I recall correctly.

Play The Mystery of Time and Space

The Crimson Room

Can you escape the crimson room?

I can. Took me around 10 minutes. It’s a good little time waster if you’re bored. Not that much mental challenge to it though, just a lot of clicking until you find the right hot spot, which is unfortunate. But like I said, it’s worth it for 10 minutes of fun or so.

The server is pretty slow, ‘cause you know, the information is coming all the way from Japan and everything.

November 25, 2003

Super Mario Bros. 3

The only thing cooler than beating Super Mario Bros. 3 (WMV File) in 11 minutes, is how perfectly the levels are designed, allowing you to pass most of them just by bouncing off the enemies heads, which are all perfectly spaced to allow you to do so. I’ve always loved the levels in Mario games and some other 2D platformers. The attention to detail is amazing as far as that kind of thing goes, they take every little speed and placement into consideration and it all works perfectly. Some of the 3D platformers are also pretty clever, but a lot of them have so many controls and different maneuvers these days that you can’t even pay attention to the level, because you’re so worried about having the right gun selected or pressing the right combo. Not that that is all bad… I’m not just pining for the old days or anything. I just think most of the Mario games were absolutely perfect, given the technology they had available at the time.

A more recent platformer that has captured that spirit I think is Ratchet and Clank, which was one of my favorite recent games. I haven’t played the second one yet but the first one was very creative, with a great story, clever level design, a couple of fun mini games, and some very creative uses for the various weapons you have available. But most importantly the puzzles were fun and made sense, rather than a lot of games where a puzzle consists of “here is a red door, you can’t get passed it until you find a red key hidden in another part of the level!”. Plus Ratchet and Clank has really funny commercials. :)

November 05, 2003

New (real) Sony PSP Pictures

Update: Here’s a good link to the some hi-res photos of the official Sony PSP. (updated on 5/11/04)

Sony has posted some real concept pictures of the Sony PSP online. I had earlier posted some pictures of the PSP which turned out to be fakes, but these are real concept renderings of the new PSP. Granted they are concept renderings, so it may look totally different by the time it is actually done, but it’s looking pretty cool so far! However it mentioned analog sticks in the original specs, which I still don’t see here, unless they just don’t look like normal analog sticks. As long as they keep it small and relatively cheap, this could really be quite cool!

October 02, 2003

Babble

Babble is a fun little word hunt game that I saw linked from Signals vs Noise. Each day it displays a new puzzle, and you can play it throughout the day, adding words to your list as you find them. The one with the highest amount of points at the end of the day is the winner.

I didn’t understand how to play at first, but once you get the hang of it, it is fun and easy.

Basically you just look at the letters to try to find a word. As long as the letters are touching, they are valid choices.

Here is a diagram showing how I found the word “EASTER”.

You can only use the same letter once per word, but you can use the letters over again with another word. For instance in my example, your next word could be “EAST” using the same letters as before, without the “ER” on the end.

As you find words, enter them into the text box at the bottom, and they will be added to your score, on the right. You can also see each word you have already found, the number of letters in that word, and the amount of points you scored. Plus click on the question mark to look up that word on dictionary.com to see the definition of it.

The design of the site is really nice too. Very minimal and simple, no big flashing banners anywhere, just a couple of well placed ads for Boggle games on the right. It actually looks like something that 37Signals themselves could have designed.

My nickname on the game is “Deker”, so you can compare your score with mine. :)

September 26, 2003

GameBoy Advance Wireless Adapter

Wired reports that Motorola is making a wireless adapter for the GameBoy Advance that will allow people to play multiplayer games wirelessly, within a 30 foot range of each other. Basically it’ll be like using one of the GameBoy Advance link cables, but without the cable I imagine. The upcoming Nokia N-Gage and Sony PSP will also have wireless multiplayer capabilities, so it’s cool to see Nintendo isn’t going to be falling behind. Now I just have to find some friends that actually have a GameBoy Advance, so I’ll have someone to play with! :)

September 24, 2003

Nintendo Gamecube now $99.00

Nintendo has lowered the price of the Gamecube to $99.00 today. This is almost half the price of the PS2 or the Xbox, and the same price as the GameBoy Advance. In other words, it’s damn cheap. You can get a ‘Cube and a couple of games for the same price as one of the other systems.

If you don’t already have one, I highly recommend picking one up. It’s by far my favorite console, and has a ton of awesome games.

Some of my favorites:

Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem
One of the first “Adult oriented” games on a Nintendo system in quite a while, this is one of my favorite games ever. The gameplay is great, with an interesting “sanity meter” to gauge your character’s sanity in the game. When your sanity meter is empty, you experience a number of different hallucinations that can affect the game. Sometimes you’ll hear voices whispering in the background, or everything will be upside down, etc. Some of them are very subtle, and you don’t even notice them for a while. But I remember getting freaked out a couple of times from the effects, because it makes you think things are happening in the game that aren’t really happening. It’s quite interesting. The story is also quite good. Good enough that my wife, who has absolutely no interest in video games, sat beside me through the entire game, just watching me play. That’s a pretty good indication of a good game. The only bad thing about the game is that it is kind of short. I played through it in a weekend, probably 12 - 14 hours. If you think you can put that much time into it, it may be a better idea to rent it.

Pikmin
Yeah, so this one isn’t as adult oriented as Eternal Darkness, but contrary to popular belief, playing fun cartoonish games made by Nintendo will not make your penis smaller! I promise. Anyway, this game was spawned by the gaming genius Shigeru Miyamato, who also created Mario, Zelda, and basically every great Nintendo game ever.

The game starts out with a little alien spaceship man crashing onto a planet. He recovers from his crash landing, and begins exploring his surroudings, only to find these little creatures called Pikmin. He uses his whistle to control the Pikmin, and have them do things for him like collect resources, tear down walls, and most importantly, find and recover all of the pieces to his spaceship. That’s the basics to the game, gathering Pikmin, and having the Pikmin gather parts to your ship so you can return home. There are of course quite a lot of other things involved in the game, like fighting various enemies around the levels, and some interesting boss battles. You can tell the Pikmin to attack by using your whistle, or by picking them up and throwing them onto your enemies. Many of the boss battles involve throwing as many Pikmin onto the boss as possible, until he dies. Boss battles are always sad however, because inevitably some of your little Pikmin will die, and that is a sad, sad, day indeed. They are so cute and helpful you really do feel like you need to protect them.

There is even a real flower that was created for (or maybe named after) the Pikmin. It’s called the Pikmin flower, and it is actually the real name of a certain kind of flower.

This game is definitely worth buying, as it is pretty long and a ton of fun to play. Plus it is a Gamecube classic title now, which means it only costs $19.99.

Super Monkey Ball
This is probably one of my favorite multi-player games ever. I bought it a week or so after the Gamecube launched, not really knowing what it was. But I was definitely not disappointed. The game is basically a puzzle/maze type game. You pick one of four monkeys to play, and they are then put inside of a bit plastic ball, like one of those balls that hamsters roll around in. You are then dropped onto a level, and by using analog stick, you tilt the level, which causes the monkeyball to roll. The object of the game is to get your monkey through a goal at the other end of the level in the fastest time possible. It starts off pretty easy, but after a while it can get very nerveracking, trying to get through the levels before the time runs out.

The single player game is great, but the real multi-player fun comes with the Mini-games, which you unlock by completing levels in the main game. There are six mini-games:

Monkey bowling is a bowling game, where you set the aim, placement, and rotation of the monkeyball, and try to knock down bowling pins at the end of the lane.

Monkey golf is a putt-putt style game where you putt your monkey ball into a hole at the end of a course, while trying to negotiate hazards, barriers, etc.

Monkey race is a relatively straightforward racing game, where you race through several tracks to try and finish first. There are powerups and weapons along the way, ala Mario Kart, which allow you to slow down your opponents by knocking them off the track or slipping a banana peel in front of them.

Monkey billiards is a billiards game that uses the monkeyballs as the cue balls. There isn’t much more to say than that, except that the physics are pretty good, and it’s actually a pretty good little pool game.

Monkey fight is a boxing on wheels type game, where you roll around an arena with a huge boxing glove attached to your monkeyball. The object is to punch your opponents out of the ring, which scores you points. The one with the highest points wins. This one can get pretty frantic, and is a blast to play with four people.

Monkey target is by far my favorite mini-game. Basically it involves launching your monkeyball off of a huge ramp, then opening your ball so that it functions like a hang-glider. Then you fly out over the ocean, and try to land on targets that are floating on the water. Different zones are worth different amounts of points, and there are 3 different levels that the game cycles through. My friend Kevin and I have spent dozens of hours playing this one mini-game, not to mention the rest of the games. It would have been worth $50 for monkey target alone.

This is the perfect game to have if you have more than one controller and friends that like to play. Even if they don’t normally like video games, the controls are extremely easy to learn, usually involving only the analog stick and the A button, allowing anyone to jump in and play. This is one of the only games my wife will play, aside from the SNES Super Mario Brothers. :)

Super Monkey Ball 2
Obviously this is the sequel to SMB, and is basically the same as far as gameplay goes. It adds another 150 levels to the main game, as well as remakes of the original six mini-games, plus 6 more.

The new games are:

Monkey boat where you paddle your monkeyball down a river by alternately mashing the two top shoulder buttons on the Gamecube controller. This game is a lof fun, but has to be played in short bursts because it is absolutely murder on your hands. We’re talking instant carpal tunnel, here. Pain aside, it’s still a pretty fun game until your hands fall off.

Monkey target is a game where you shoot various objects, kind of like Virtua Cop. I haven’t unlocked this one, so I don’t exactly know how it plays.

Monkey baseball is a very simple baseball game, maybe a little too simple. I haven’t played this one very much.

Monkey tennis is a simple tennis game, which can be fun, but is a little too simple as well.

There is also Monkey soccer, which I haven’t played yet either. But as you can guess, it’s a simple soccer game.

If you liked the first Super Monkey Ball, you can’t go wrong with the sequel.

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
Say what you will about this games silly title, this is an absolute gaming masterpiece. I can easily recommend buying a Gamecube just to play this game, it is so good.

It’s hard to describe why this game is so good. But basically it’s just perfect. The graphics are vibrant, bright, and extremely well animated. The sound is perfect, from the music to the sound effects and the little musical fanfare that is played every time you hit an enemy with your sword. The story is involved and interesting, making you want to keep playing just to see what happens next. The control setup is flawless, allowing you to perform normally complex maneuvers with ease. The puzzles in the game are challenging, but are always common sense. If you can’t figure something out, you will always receive a subtle hint to point you in the right direction, without being overly obvious and spoiling the challenge.

Whenever I finish this game I will write up a good long review about it. But suffice it to say for now that if you are at all interested in games, you have to have this game. Trust me.

Other games that I hear are good, but haven’t had a chance to play yet:

Animal Crossing
Soul Calibur II
Simpsons: Hit & Run
Mario Golf
Ikaruga
F-Zero

Not to mention all the great new games coming out soon like Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, 1080 Avalanche Snowboarding, several more Zelda games, Mario Kart, Mario Tennis, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snake, Metroid Prime 2, Pikmin 2, a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game, more Mario games, and much more!

This is a great console overall and I highly recommend you pick one up.

August 10, 2003

Defend your Castle!

This is a very addictive Flash game…

Basically you have a castle that is being attacked by a bunch of stickmen. You pick them up with the mouse, and throw them into the air, so that they splat down and die. You can also convert your enemies to your own side, then train them to be archers or wizards. However, I didn’t realize this until level 14, and I was already being mobbed by hundreds of the little stickmen. If I had realized that you could convert people, I probably would have been doing a lot better. So I guess I will have to try again.

After a short break anyway… This game is soooo tiring. You can’t blink, or you’ll lose. And your wrist gets extremely tired from flicking the guys into the air. I feel like I’ve been typing straight for 10 hours or something, my wrist is so tired. I killed about 1300 of the little guys, so I probably made at least 1800 flicks of my wrist in about 30 minutes.

Interestingly, there is an ad embedded in the game for gel wrist rest mouse pads, to ease your aching wrist. Pretty clever!

Anyway… You’ll be addicted to this game, so probably don’t start playing it at work.

Play Defend Your Castle!

August 07, 2003

New Nintendo product, Zelda, Donkey Kong

Anarticle at Gamespot.com says that Nintendo will be announcing a new product next spring. That’s a new product not a new game.

So… I wonder what it could be?

“All these complex, large-capacity games of today require enormous amounts of energy and time of users,” said Iwata. “I want to release a very different product, and by next spring we’ll be ready to announce the details.”

It sounds like it will be a simple, easy to pick up and play type of thing. Perhaps a new GameBoy system? I can see the headlines now…

The GameBoy 2Advanced!
2Simple, 2Fun

It will definitely be interesting to see what they come up with though.

Also confirmed was a new Donkey Kong game for the Gamecube, and a new Zelda game to come out in 2004. Hooray! Maybe I will have actually beaten The Wind Waker by the time the next one comes out.

July 30, 2003

Sony PSP Pictures

Update: Here’s a good link to the some hi-res photos of the official Sony PSP. (updated on 5/11/04)

Gizmodo has posted pictures of the new Sony PSP. I haven’t seen them posted on any of the major sites like Gamespot.com or anything, so I don’t know if they might be fakes or not. Looks a lot like the GBA SP though. I wish they had dimensions on there. I’m feeling pretty good about this little thing as long as it isn’t too big…

Update…

Sony has released real pictures of the PSP which you can see here.

July 29, 2003

Iridion 3D Review

I got Iridion 3D from amazon.com the other day for $5.29, and thought I’d post a little review of it.

In short for the skimmers, I’m having more fun writing this review than I did playing the game.

The story of the game goes something like this:

• Show picture of city
• Show picture of battleship
• Show 1, no… 2, no…. 3!! blips on a radar screen
• Show distressed guy in control room
• Show city again
• Show UFO over city!
• Show 3 evil space ships shooting city!
• Show two buildings of the city on fire!!

Yes, that is literally how the introduction cinematic plays out, scene by scene. But before you see that, you watch 20 seconds of logos by the companies that made the game (they are non-skippable of course).

After that you are given a menu with a couple of options:

• Start
• Options
• Password

Yes, that’s right, the game has no memory at all. It doesn’t save your options settings, and it doesn’t save your progress in the levels. When you complete a level you are given a 9 digit code to write down in order to start the game from that level in the future. Amazingly, when you turn the game off and on again, that code still works, so it is obviously hard-coded into the game. But who is going to carry around a pad of paper with them so they can “save” and “load” their game? This may have been acceptable back in the days of the NES when you sat at home and could actually write down numbers, but the GBA is a portable game machine.

So after you press start or enter your password to start where you left off, you enter a level. The level names are quite creative… here are a few of them:

• Dogfight above the Ocean
• Air Combat above the Clouds
• Escape through the Disposal tunnel

Yes, those are the real names of the levels. I think they fit in nicely with the storyline, don’t you?

Upon entering a level, you begin moving forwards through the tunnel or over the ocean or above the clouds. You hold down the A button to start shooting, then you move up, down, left and right randomly. Repeat until you finish the game.

By holding the A button down, you reach the maximum firing rate of your ship. You don’t even have to tap the shoot button really fast to shoot faster. Just holding down the A button is as fast as you can get. Then you move around, trying not to get shot by the other ships. The only problem with this is, your ship is so big and the angle so wrong, you can’t even see the bullets that are coming at you half the time. In order to shoot an enemy ship, you have to position your own ship directly in front of them because of the perspective of the game, but in doing this, you completely block the enemy ship out of view and can’t tell if you are hitting him or not, or if he is shooting at you. After 30 seconds of this, you quickly realize that it isn’t worth it to try and shoot the other ships, so you just start hiding in a corner of the screen so you can actually see the bullets before they hit you.

However, this raises another problem. The field of depth in the game is completely wrong, and it is quite nearly impossible to tell when a bullet is about to hit you. When a bullet looks it is 300 “game feet” away from you, it is actually about 2 feet in front of your ship, and is about to hit you. Plus because your ship is so big, you don’t even see half the bullets before they hit you.

Needless to say, this all makes the game terribly unfun to play, because you really have no way of avoiding a bullet that you can’t see, or that looks like it should not hit you for another 2 seconds.

The boss battles are a little more varied, but still revolve around you trying to dodge their bullets while strafing back and forth enough to hit them until they die. But at least they are different, and allow you to see a few more visual tricks and treats.

The game is actually pretty easy once you realize that you should just focus on dodging bullets rather than trying to shoot at anything. I got to the 4th level out of 7 in less than 10 minutes. Sadly I don’t think I will beat the game, because it is simply too boring to waste time on.

The one good thing I can comment on about the game is the graphics. They really are quite amazing for a GBA game, especially considering it was a launch title. The framerates are extremely smooth, and the graphics, though they are all 2D bitmaps, really give an excellent illusion of being 3D. Each level is unique, and matches the level description perfectly (Air combat above the clouds, for example).

Overall this is easily the worst GBA game I have played, and I would not recommend it to anyone. If I had payed any more than the $5 I paid for it, I would consider suing the company that designed it to get my 10 minutes back.

Sony PSP

Earlier this morning Sony released more details on its upcoming handheld game unit, the PSP. It will feature:

• 7.1 Digital Surround Sound
• MP3/AAC support
• A 4.5” 16:9 Widescreen LCD screen
• Embedded 802.11 wireless networking
• A rechargeable Li-Ion battery
• USB 2.0
• An infrared data port
• A memory stick port
• A bunch of crazy graphics specs that I don’t understand

While all of that sounds pretty damn impressive, considering my computer doesn’t support half of that stuff, I hope they don’t forget the most important aspect of a portable gaming system, the size. Fitting all of that into a small enough package to still remain “portable” sounds like quite a challenge to me. I was never interested in the GameBoys until the SP came out, because it was finally small enough to really be mobile. I even had an original GameBoy Advance but never took it with me anywhere because it was just too big, plus you had to take an entourage of accessories with you just to make it playable.

If this PSP ends up being as big as a laptop or something, I can safely say I won’t be very interested. And some of the specs just don’t make sense… Like 7.1 surround sound… Do they expect people to carry around 8 speakers with them everywhere?

Maybe I’m missing the point here and this is supposed to be something more like a semi-portable PS2 that could fit in a brief case or something. If they can put all of those features into a machine small enough to fit in my pocket however, that will be interesting indeed. Especially the built-in Wi-Fi.

But hey, if I get one of these, it won’t really matter how big that thing is!

July 23, 2003

Iridion for GBA: $5.29

Amazon.com is having a clearance sale on the game Iridion right now, for $5.29! I’ve never played the game, and it was a launch title so may not be that great, but hey, it’s cheaper than a happy meal and has free shipping! I will probably buy a copy to see if it’s any good, then just sell it at McKay’s for probably more than I bought it for. The game is rated a 6.8 by the readers of gamespot.com, so I guess that makes it pretty “average”.

(Update)I bought two copies, because I realized I had $3.50 saved up from clicking on the amazon.com trivia nickel questions, so I ended up getting two copies of the game for $8. Which isn’t too bad. I also went to the video game store and saw that same game in cartridge only, used form for $15. I’m going to be rich!

July 13, 2003

Yoshi’s Island for GBA for sale

I’m selling SOLD my copy of Yoshi’s Island for the Game Boy Advance through Amazon.com. It’s a really fun game and it’s in mint condition. I just took it out of the box to play it, beat it, and now I’m selling it. If you liked any of the other Mario games, you will enjoy this one, even though it is slightly different.

The story starts with Mario and Luigi being carried by a stork to their parents, until they are attacked by a bunch of Bowser’s men. Luigi is kidnapped, but Mario falls into, you guessed it, Yoshi’s Island. The Yoshi’s decide to help keep Mario safe and take him to rescue his brother Luigi.

In the game you control Yoshi instead of Mario directly. Mario rides on Yoshi’s back, and when you are hit by an enemy, Mario is knocked off of Yoshi’s back and starts floating around the screen in a bubble. A timer then starts counting down, and if you don’t get Mario back before the timer runs down, you lose a life. This makes the game a little easy, because you never really die unless you fall down a pit, or you aren’t able to reach Mario in time before the timer runs out. Normally the counter lasts for 10 seconds, but if you collect stars throughout the level, you can have up to 30 seconds to reclaim Mario.

Not only do you have the normal jump-on-enemie’s-heads move of most Mario games, Yoshi can also swallow enemies and turn them into eggs, which trail behind Yoshi as he moves throughout the levels. By pressing the R button on the GBA, a crosshair appears onscreen to help you guide the egg. When you release the button, Yoshi fires the egg like a gun towards the crosshair. You can kill most enemies this way, as well as getting coins and keys that would otherwise be inaccessible by banking the egg off of walls.

Boss battles are quite fun, and each one is unique with a different way to beat it. Most bosses are simply extra-large versions of the normal level enemies, as they have been enlarged by a flying magician Koopa.

As is always the case in Mario games, the levels are very inventive and there are many clever ways to use your abilities to progress in the levels. Most levels have at least one unique obstacle or puzzle to solve, plus a ton of hidden areas and entrances to secret levels.

The graphics are very good, with bright crisp colors and never any slow down or choppy frame rates. The bitmaps almost look like they were drawn with chalk or charcoal, and most objects have a thick black outline to give the game the feel of an animated coloring book. There are a lot of tile sets for the different levels, insuring that you will never get tired of seeing the same level graphics over and over again.

The sound is great, with the typical catchy Nintendo theme songs. The music changes to a more dramatic up-tempo track during boss battles, to heighten the excitement. The sound effects are varied, and you will never really get tired of hearing the same “jump sound” over and over again.

In addition to the normal gameplay in the levels, there are plenty of mini-games to mixup the game a little and give you a break from the traditional run and jump levels. There are memory games, match games, a game where you throw a water balloon back and forth and try to keep it from popping on you, etc. The reward for these games is usually an extra life or a power-up of some kind. The power-ups can be used in the normal game levels and usually give you extra stars (which also increases your timer when you lose Mario) or a variety of other power-ups. You will have no problem completing the game without ever even knowing about the power-ups however.

There are a variety of items to collect during each level, including 5 flowers, 20 red coins, and 30 stars. You are then given a score at the end of each level, depending on how many items you have collected. After you have beaten Bowser at the end of the game, you can go back and try to get a score of 100 for every level in the game. I didn’t take the time to do this myself, so I’m not sure what the reward for doing this is, if there is any at all.

One excellent feature Yoshi’s Island has that many GBA games do not, is the ability to press Start, and the L and R buttons at the same time to put the game to sleep. It pauses you in the level, and turns the screen off on the GBA, so you can resume gameplay later without leaving the game on and wasting batteries. To resume gamplay you just press those three buttons again to wake it up.

Overall this is a great game, and would be perfect for anyone who likes Mario games or is just looking for a good addition to their GBA collection.

July 10, 2003

Blizzard’s GBA Game Demos

Why is Blizzard the only company making demos of their Game Boy Advance games available online? It seems like it would really help the sales of some GBA games to be able to play a sample of them online before you buy it. Especially since a lot of video stores don’t rent out GBA games. Perhaps the publishers think that the $30 for most GBA games is cheap enough that you can take the risk of buying a bad game?

Blizzard currently has demos of Rock ‘N Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings playable online in your browser via the Shockwave plug-in. The games run quickly and seem to be exact ports of the actual GBA game, though controlling them with the keyboard can be a little difficult depending on the game. Of course, Blizzard’s GBA games are ports of their very old PC games, and may be more simplistic than some of the games made specifically for the GBA like say Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. But still, it doesn’t seem like it should be that hard to port one level of a game over to shockwave to give people a taste of what your game is like.

July 07, 2003

No online gaming from Nintendo

An article at The Register says that Nintendo has no plans to support online gaming with the Gamecube, though they are looking into it for their upcoming “N5” gaming system.

I think it’s probably a good idea for them to avoid online gaming at this point as well. It isn’t really catching on for Sony or Microsoft right now, and Nintendo’s research and development dollars can probably be better spent elsewhere. There seem to be many more casual gamers on the consoles than the PC, and I just don’t see that many people paying $15 a month to subscribe to a game they may only play a couple of times a month. Most people just aren’t willing to commit that kind of time and dedication to a video game. Even though I love games, I wouldn’t pay to play a console game online either. I just don’t have enough free time to play any single game enough to make the $15 subscription fee worth it.

I think Nintendo is being pretty smart by letting Sony and Microsoft put millions into marketing and development for their own services, then Nintendo can offer online services after the public is already aware of online console gaming.