5 posts tagged “nintendo”

I've spent a few hours with Nintendo's new Mario Hoops 3 on 3 for the DS over the weekend and overall I've come away quite impressed.
Initially I didn't expect much from a Basketball game, I mean I love the sport but its never really enthralled me in a video game before.

What got me excited about Mario Hoops though was the news that the control would be via the stylus. Think bouncing the ball by tapping on the screen, performing cross over dribbles by cross tapping etc.. The good news is that it works, and it works very well indeed. The stylus control in this game is what will keep me going back hour after hour trying to master all of the on-court moves.

Now with the amount of pre-triggered stylus maneuvers I was a little worried that the learning curve would be too high for a portable game. Luckily the first menu option is a series of training sessions to get your stylus skills up to speed. After 10 minutes of tutorials I was ready for action!

Movement of your character is controlled by the d-pad with all other control purely on the touch screen. You increase the speed of your dribble by the rate you tap the touch screen and can control the ball by the location you tap on the touch screen. For example by tapping at the bottom of the screen your character will dribble the ball behind them to stop pesky defenders from performing steals.

Passing is performed by a quick diagonal stroke and likewise shooting and dunking is performed with an swipe from top to bottom with many variations depending on the defender and the type of move you want to perform.

Special moves can be triggered by tapping combos on the touch screen. These are time consuming and difficult to perform as it leaves you open to defenders. The results however are very rewarding! There's nothing quite like Mario throwing a flaming "Ali-oop" to his brother who finishes with a badass dunk!

The competition is organized Mario Kart style with 3 Cups which when finished un-lock a Rainbow Cup. I need to give this game more time (I've only put in 3 hours or so) but my main complaint so far is the balancing of the difficulty. Up until the Rainbow cup I had absolutely trounced the competition in every half played, and when I say trounced I mean leaving the other team scoreless! Most games ended with me around 20 or so baskets ahead.... I was starting to get a little bored with the easy difficulty level and then BAM! Rainbow cup is now extremely hard! Now its me on the receiving end of a 20 basket thrashing.

Again I need to put in more hours. I'm hoping to unlock another set of Cups after this otherwise the single player may be somewhat short lived.

Multiplayer on the other hand is an absolute riot! As far as I can tell from the Japanese menus there is no Wifi. Single cart and Multi cart play are supported and this is where the game shines. Dunking on my brother in law has never felt so good ;)

Graphically the game is gorgeous. The 3D graphics have that beautiful depth of colour that made New SMB so pretty.

Sound is nice. It did the job. There were no over the top character sounds that has plagued other Nintendo first party titles. Nothing entirely memorable to speak of in terms of music though.

All in all I'm impressed so far. The fantastic stylus control gives the game play a depth that will take a while to master and yet was easy enough for a beginner to pick up and play immediately. Certainly more than I expected from a Basktball game and another fine example of Nintendo making excellent use of the DS' touch screen.

As a massive fan of Osu Tatake Ouendan for the DS how can I resist another offering of rhythm goodness for the good ol' GBA.

Rythm Tengoku is due out next month and I for one can't wait.

All the commercials can be found on Go Nintendo.

I saw this on Digg today and thought "Great! A new Wii FPS!". To my dismay I was forced to shove mashed potatoe into my ears to stop the blood curdling Horror that is this game's voice acting.

Somebody please tell them! The day I meet the person responsible for talent casting in this game will be their last...

The first 3 games of Nintendo's highly anticipated "nu-retro" series for the GBA has been released in Japan. I was lucky enough to get my hands on dotstream and DialHex for quick review and to be quite honest I came away with that elusive feeling that I had just experienced something "special" in the realm of gaming.The first thing that struck me about both these games was the clean, simple design. Its essentially effective and yet deceptively beautiful. Combine this with quite possibly the most perfectly matching soundtrack ever created and you have a retro gaming experience that leaves you feeling like you've just discovered something on the cutting edge.

Dotstream is a simple racing type game similar to a Tron style bike race. Each dot is trailed by an endless coloured line which can both impeed and improve your progress depending on how you "ride it". You can use boosts to get ahead of the other racers yet these boosts also count as "lives", so if you get hit by an obstacle and you have zero boosts left then its instant retirement from the race.

The gameplay is addictive and especially challenging. You un-lock new courses by getting a typical gold medal in each category. Bottom line is its simple, fun and addictive..... and then there's that music!

I can't stress enough how awesome the music is in all three games. Being a fan of electronic music for years I can especially appreciate the awesome programming and production on these tracks. Warping FM synth lines interlock with retro stabs and 8-bit break beats... it becomes such an integral part of the experience. I can honestly say that I would buy these games for the music alone!

DialHex is no exception either. This puzzle title is soothed by laid back break beats and 8-bit swirling pads which fit perfectly with the mood of the game.

You are presented with a large empty hexagon which starts to quickly fill with different coloured triangles one after the other. The object of the game is to use your hexagonal icon to rotate and join similar coloured triangles until they match and dissapear Tetris style.

The gameplay takes a little getting used to. After hours of Tetris o the DS I had to shift my brain a little to get the hang of the hexagonal blocks, but once it clicked it was like video game crack... I was hooked, I know I'll be back to this for many a late night hour. The pace is actually quite frantic as the triangles start to drop extremely fast and before you know it you're quickly trying to match up colours before your hexagon screen fills up.

Some may be put off by the simple appearance of the bit-generations series and some may even dismiss it due to it being such a late GBA cycle release. However those gamers who appreciate pure gameplay and an overall themed experience of style will simply fall in love with these addictive little gems.

Each title is currently only available in Japan for a nice price tag of 2,000 yen. Import here.

Its finally here! Rockman ZX (a.k.a Megaman) has a new joint out for the NDS.

I've only spent 30 minutes or so with this fine piece of software but I can already see the tell tale signs of a Megaman installment, namely:

1. Its not easy
2. Its a little challenging, and finally;

3. ITS BLOODY HARD!

hmm well I have only given it 30 minutes and it is 1am so maybe I'll follow  up after a few hours in. Japanese menus are starting to bug me though...