Wiimemories

Metroid Prime Trilogy

2011-08-17T14:33:00.000-07:00

In mountain climbing, ascents are categorized technically by the most difficult part, which is called the crux. The idea is that climbers skilled enough to take on the hardest move sequence in climb will be able to complete the rest of the climb as well. It helps preparations to know what the most difficult challenge will be. Inexperienced climbers can learn to cut their teeth on easy ascents and experts can judge how much of a challenge a particular mountain will provide.

I think games ought to be rated in a similar way: Plants vs. Zombies would be graded as Easy and VVVVVV would be Hard Very Severe. These aren't knocks on the games anymore than calling a walk in the park easier than a walk in the Himalayas: it's the truth converted into a subjective ranking system. If Sonic is just the drive-in place where servers wear roller skates when they serve awesome drinks, you are going to get stuck trying more difficult games. If you want want to hone your competitive Starcraft skills, the lower end of the spectrum won't help.

Obviously there need to be other axes with which to evaluate games such as Entertainment Value, Innovation, Addictiveness, Story, and um, Graphics. (I like good-looking games as much as the next guy, but it seems like there's often an inverse relationship between entertainment value and graphics.) But difficulty is often the primary limiting factor in whether a player will enjoy a particular game or not. Publishing accurate (if not precise) ratings would solve a lot of problems with people being exasperated by surprisingly difficult games. Like, for instance, John Walker's experience with Metroid Prime.

I should be quick to point out that even though I've completed the first two Primes and am on the cusp of the final assault of Corruption, I'm not saying that Mr. Walker is bad at video games. In fact, it's quite likely that he's better at games than I am, but like Edmond Hillary, who had learned the lessons from numerous other explorers, I have many little advantages that are worth more than the sum of their parts. (More on this anon.) Rather the game failed him by not letting him know that it has Hard Very Difficult boss fights.

After the various story-laden introductions, the games settle into an easy-going exploration mode. Sure there are signs everywhere that something has gone wrong: poisonous pools, a dark, life-stealing mirror world, and a creepy, disease-like corruption. But these are offset by a series of organic, lived-in environments. It's telling that I continued to avoid harming the more peaceful creatures even after I found out that they continually respawn in the same locations. For the most part, you have limited ability to alter your surroundings and that makes them seem more real somehow. (And when you do make a permanent change to the world, it seems so much more monumental.) You can blatantly slaughter a whole herd of peaceful Zoomers, they will return to their proscribed paths the next time you travel through the area.

For the vast majority of the game you explore until you find your way blocked by some obstacle, search for the suit, weapon, morph ball or visor upgrade that overcomes the obstacle, defeat the boss that guards the upgrade, and go back to the areas that are now open to you. It sounds artificial and it is. Almost every location is a room with at most three doors or a hallway. On the other hand, you generally don't notice the linear space because Retro Studios crafted the illusion of space "out-there". Exploration is the core of the game and for the most part, the boss battles are more like puzzles (that need to be explored) than grueling, multi-part slug-fests. Those usually come near the end of the game, but some of the hardest fights for me are the very early bosses that you have to face before you've gathered enough upgrades.

It turns out that three classes of upgrades are not required explicitly to make progress: energy tanks, power bombs, and missile capacity. These tend to be better hidden and/or more challenging to reach than other upgrades so there's a sense in which they are bonus rewards for those who enjoy getting 100% completion in games. You'll still run across enough of each upgrade to avoid getting killed by many of the mid-game boss fights, so a lot of players will just be inclined to skip the harder to find or reach ones. But this is a mistake because you'll want everything you can lay hands on to take on the final few bosses. To go back to the mountaineering metaphor, it's like starting an assault on a peak without enough rope, pitons and carabiners.

I mentioned before how I had some advantages over players of the GameCube version of the first two games and one of them is the wealth of tips and strategies for finishing the games which are now freely available on the internet. Little things like knowing which beam or missile causes the most damage to a particular enemy or knowing where an elusive upgrade can be found make huge differences in the end. There's no shame in looking for tips when you get stuck, in my opinion.

The other set of advantages comes from changes to the games in the Trilogy edition. Aiming with the Wiimote is probably the most intuitive input possible for shooting games, if not quite as accurate as mouse and keyboard. I gather all the games on Normal difficulty are easier than they used to be. Once you get morph ball bombs in the first two games, you also get the spring ball ability that makes little hops much easier than always doing bomb jumps. Oddly enough, having all three games available in one place helps since if you get stuck on one boss, it's easy enough to switch to another game. At one point I was stuck on all three games (on Meta Ridley, Bomb Guardian/Alpha Sandigger, and Mogenar for those who care) and simply by switching from one to another I got past them. It helps to clear the palate and avoid banging your head against a hard surface to see a different difficult part of some other game.

It's a bit unusual from me to feel compelled to finish a game, but I am compelled to finish each of the Metroid Prime games. Unlike Super Mario Galaxy, which is structured as a series of increasingly difficult challenges, the Prime games are structured as preparation for a final challenge. The onscreen result of beating the final boss turns out to be a not-very-interesting¹ cutscene and roll the credits. But the offscreen result was more satisfying. Completing a difficult challenge after spending so many hours working toward it provides the same sort of intense satisfaction you might get from hiking to a great view or, well, sex. I know that sounds like I'm overselling it, but it's true. (It's also true that as a married man, I can say that finishing a game is like really shallow, let's-get-this-over-with sex.) Skipping straight to the cutscene just can't have that effect any more than driving to the top of a mountain can match walking there.

Retro Studios built up an amazing reputation on the backs of these games and for good reason: they are finely crafted masterpieces. Everything about them is just so well done from the the controls to the music to the menus to the item descriptions to the color scheme. And given the chance to improve things in the Trilogy version, they did from what I've read. The star of the show has to be the environment you get to explore, which is universally and rightly praised. Trying to explain it is sort of like trying to tell someone why the Grand Canyon isn't just a big hole in the ground. You just have to see it for yourself.

Footnote:

1. I've seen the various endings on YouTube and none of them are especially amazing. Ok, so you can see more of Samus' character model and hints of future episodes if you gather 100% of collectibles and scans, but who cares?

Zombie Panic in Wonderland (demo)

2011-02-14T11:12:00.000-08:00

So a Spanish developer decided to make a zombie light gun shooter based on an imagined sequel to a Japanese legend, The Wizard of Oz and several Disney princesses in very revealing outfits and put the game on WiiWare. Here's the official description:

A wave of zombies is attacking Wonderland. To save his friends from the spell of the "amorous zombies," the player will have to solve the mystery of the "scented dwarves" - with machine gun in-hand - and put an end to the evil power hidden in the castle in the northern city. Game features include cut scenes, music with lyrics, seven playable characters, hidden levels, final bosses, different weapons, fire, demolitions, explosions and lots of zombies attacking you at all times.

Prior interest: none

With pointer controls, the Wii is an ideal platform for light gun games and by now many of them are rattling around in bargain bins for about the same price as this WiiWare game. I don't particularly need or want a game that seems to trade heavily on sexy anime characters.

Odds of purchase: none

Nothing in the demo really changed my mind about purchasing this game, but I was surprised by a few things. First, the production values are much higher than I'd anticipated. Music, sound, visuals (including completely destructible environments), controls, and even the cut scene to start the level are of the highest quality. Second, the game turns out to be very easy even on the hard difficulty if the demo level is to be trusted. With unlimited ammo, a few very high-powered support weapons, and environment hazards to fend off zombie sumo wrestlers and ninjas, there's no particular feeling of panic. Perhaps the balance shifts in later rounds.

In sum: a quality game that I have no interest in.

Racers' Islands: Crazy Racers (demo)

2011-02-07T11:18:00.000-08:00

Racers' Islands: Crazy Racers looks for all the world like a Mario Kart clone. "Crazy" cast of characters? Check. Bright, colorful visuals? Check. Nonsensical power-ups? Check. Slit-screen, four-player mode? Check. Wild, over-the-top tracks? Check. If you are going to steal, steal from the best. Plus this attempt includes some light-gun shooter elements, which seems like a great addition.

Prior interest: slight

As a Mario Kart fan, my heart started to race for a moment when I saw a cartoon racer on the demo list.

Odds of purchase: none

Mario Kart sets the standard for kart racers. (It even supplies the genre name.) On the opposite end of the spectrum sit barely-playable cash-ins like M&M's Kart Racing. Mario Kart sells year in and year out because everyone who plays the game loves it and wants a copy. Shovelware succeeds because by the time anyone plays the game, it's too late. Releasing a demo sends the signal that Racers' Islands sits closer to Mario Kart than to the M&M game, but playing the demo reveals the opposite. Unlike retail shovelware, which can rely on box art, junky WiiWare titles need decent-looking screenshots and trailers to attract sales. It's a wonder that Racers' Islands: Crazy Racers bothered to release a free version that demonstrates how poorly the game controls. It honestly felt like I was driving not a race car, but a unicycle.

This seems to me the worst case scenario for the game's publisher. (But I'm glad they let us feel how poor the game plays without spending the cash.)

Furry Legends (demo)

2011-01-27T16:53:00.000-08:00

Furry Legends isn't likely to be what you think it is unless you think it's a puzzle-platformer featuring a creepy-looking, green fuzz ball. Besides its terrible name, the demo also has the misfortune of being released the same day as Fish'em All! It's hard not to draw the conclusion that Nintendo took this week as an opportunity to dump its clunkers at once.

Prior interest: none

This game's marketing failure begins with the lousy name. I think the intent of the word "Furry" was humor and I imagine that "Legends" is supposed to excite interest in the story. But together, the words of the title are just bland. It would have been better to go all humorous ("Wholly Rollers" perhaps?) or all epic ("Saga of Furland"). To try and split the difference just leaves the consumer confused.

Odds of purchase: low

Playing the demo makes clear the developers were going for a wacky story, which seems entirely needless. Gameplay, at least for the first level, tends to be relaxed even when the enemy shows up. You basically roll around and jump with the occasional attack which is triggered by holding "Z", aiming with the analog stick and shaking the WiiMote. Later you get a boost power-up that acts something like the boost ball in Metroid Prime. In fact, the game feels like an extended riff on Samus' morph ball with significantly less weight. I don't know how well a full game of rolling platforming would stand up as the sections in Metroid games charm by offering a change of pace.

I should mention that there seems to be one oversight in part of the demo's level. There's a puzzle that needs to be solved by rolling a stone onto a pressure trigger. But I managed to block the stone from settling on the trigger and it rolled to a part of the level I couldn't seem to retrieve it from. My solution was to restart the level, which probably wasn't what the designers intended.

Fish'em All! (demo)

2011-01-27T14:08:00.000-08:00

There's no way around it: Fish'em All! is a blight on the WiiWare service and among the many reasons the Wii has a reputation for shovelware. The gameplay consists entirely in waving the Wiimote from side to side in order to catch jumping fish with a net. Sure there are three game modes (including "Fishtris", which is really a match-three game), some unique adversaries (including the shark from Jaws), and some other controls to move and jump. But there's no other game mechanic besides catching jumping fish with a net.

Prior interest: none

Nothing about the game appeals.

Odds of purchase: none

It's a bad sign when you get sick of a game before you've even finished the demo. Now I didn't try with a second player, which often helps this sort of game much the same way a few friends make a B-movie better. Not that I can imagine feeling the need to buy the game after experiencing the demo, which leaves little to the imagination.

As an aside, the player characters are named Jack and Walter. Hmmmmm:

Finally, you can't help but admire this woman's enthusiasm:

Art of Balance (demo)

2011-01-26T11:45:00.000-08:00

Family lore has it that my mother's heirloom, crystal pepper shaker was broken when her father-in-law and some of my uncles were stacking whatever happened to be on the table the first time they visited my parents. Art of Balance, if it had existed then, might have saved the day. It's a simple game of stacking one geometric object (no breakable table settings here) on another and seeing if the whole thing stays up.

Prior interest: none

I thought Art of Balance looked like a newly released game from the makers of Jett Rocket reusing the same engine for water and lighting effects. But it turns out the game was released on WiiWare almost a year ago and several months before Jett Rocket. Clearly, it's a low profile game that could use a little publicity.

Odds of purchase: low

As a cash-strapped consumer, a game like Art of Balance which delivers tons of gameplay for a low pricetag, ought to represent a real temptation. Sadly, its niche has already been filled by Boom Blox Bash Party in my library. (Which, come to think of it, is the biggest problem I have with Jett Rocket: it's too similar to another retail game that I already own.) What it comes down to is when I want to play a physics-based puzzle game I can't imagine picking up Art of Balance because Boom Blox just offers me so much more.

Let's Code: Pong (part 1)

2011-01-25T11:50:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been playing around with writing games including two simple puzzle games based on ideas suggested by my son. Today, I wanted to present my code for a Pong clone. It's not the most exciting game in the world, but it's dead simple to code and a good "Hello World"-style program for starting to write action games.

The first decision that must be made when starting a new coding project is which framework to use. Since my justification for writing games is to help me keep my programming skills active and to continue learning, I wanted to write in an interesting language that I don't know well: Lua. A quick Google search discovered LÖVE, which is an open-source 2D game engine in active development. Since Pong is a 2D game it's not a big deal that our framework isn't 3D. My other little projects simulate a 3D environment with an isometric viewpoint. In the future, if I do a first-person game or something, I'd want to switch frameworks.

I've also decided to use the love.physics module, which is certainly overkill for Pong but will be necessary for physics-based puzzles I'm working toward. It really isn't as hard to use as the LÖVE manual suggests. The module is based on the Box2D library, which has pretty good documentation. Once the simulated world is set up, the physics library can deal with a bunch of details like ball movement, bouncing off walls and paddles, and so on.

love.physics has a fairly basic tutorial that simulates a ball falling to the ground and being rolled around. If you want to follow along, go ahead and grab a copy of LÖVE and try out the tutorial. Below, I'll cover some of the same territory if you'd prefer just to read. Playing around with the tutorial, I noticed that the ball will eventually roll off the edge of the world and disappear. To solve that, I added a two walls and a ceiling to keep physics objects from getting lost. My philosophy is that if you do something twice, you should think about writing a function instead. If you do something more than twice, then you certainly should write a function. Since I needed four walls rather than just the ground, I wrote a make_wall function:


function make_wall(world, x, y, w, h)
  local wall = {}
  wall.body = love.physics.newBody(world, x, y, 0, 0)
  wall.shape = love.physics.newRectangleShape(wall.body, 0, 0, w, h, 0)
  wall.shape:setRestitution(1)
  return wall
end

Even if you are new to Lua, this code should be fairly easy to read. make_wall needs 5 inputs: world (the physics world), x, y (the coordinates of the center of the wall), and w, h (the width and height of the wall). Lua has a very lightweight object system and this function could be seen as a constructor for a wall object, which is the return value. As PIL points out, "Tables in Lua are not a data structure; they are the data structure." So wall is initialized as an empty table. Objects in the physics module require a body, which represents the object's center of mass, position, attitude, and velocity, and a shape, which defines the space an object occupies and how it interacts with other objects. When we assign values to wall.body and wall.shape, Lua automatically creates variables (members in OOP terms). Walls should be static, so the mass is set to 0, which is the way Box2D represents infinite mass. The shape of the wall is simply a rectangle centered on the center of mass. In order to make balls bounce off the walls, restitution (essentially bounciness) is set to 1.

In love.load(), I'm going to create my walls thusly:


local walls = {}
...
 -- Floor
  table.insert(walls, make_wall(world,
                      love.graphics.getWidth()/2,
                      love.graphics.getHeight()+1,
                      love.graphics.getWidth(),
                      2))

  -- Ceiling
  table.insert(walls, make_wall(world,
                      love.graphics.getWidth()/2,
                      -1,
                      love.graphics.getWidth(),
                      2))

This inserts a floor two pixels high¹ just below the graphics frame and a ceiling just above it. If we weren't using a physics engine, we could just code the ball to reverse vertical motion when it hits the side of the screen. Standard Pong only needs these two walls, so make_wall didn't save us many lines of code. However, it's easy to imagine variations with different wall configurations.

We only need one ball for our basic game, but it's simple and clean to write a make_wall function. And who knows? We might want to add more balls to the game at some point. Initially, I'd set the mass of the ball based on it's size (using Body:setMassFromShapes) but that causes the physics of the game to change when the size of the ball is changed. It seemed easier to just fix the mass to something (somewhat) sensible like the mass of a tennis ball and adjust the force applied until it felt right. It turns out one Newton works pretty well. The radius of the ball is measured in pixels and it can be adjusted without impacting the physics of the game. Some people would probably want these variables to be made constants, but a) there's not much of a performance gain and b) Lua doesn't support making variables constant. Besides, the simplest way to have a variable remain constant is to not alter it's value. The ball shouldn't have any linear damping (more or less the same as drag or fluid resistance) or friction to slow it down. The way Box2D simulates collisions, I don't need to make both the walls and the ball bouncy, but it doesn't hurt to specify the restitution here as well.


local ball
-- Mass of a tennis ball http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/ShefiuAzeez.shtml
local ball_mass = 0.057
local ball_force = 1
local ball_radius = 3

function make_ball(world, x, y, r)
  local ball = {}
  ball.body = love.physics.newBody(world, x, y, ball_mass, 0)
  ball.shape = love.physics.newCircleShape(ball.body, 0, 0, r)

  ball.body:setLinearDamping(0)
  ball.shape:setFriction(0)
  ball.shape:setRestitution(1)

  return ball
end

The final type of object we need to make for our Pong game is the players' paddles. Classic Pong doesn't really simulate the ball bouncing off a flat paddle, but has the ball bounce off at an angle determined by the location the ball hits the paddle. In other words, the closer to the edge of the paddle, the steeper the angle the ball with come off the paddle (and the more likely your opponent will miss). This makes the game much more interesting since it matters not just whether a player intercepts the ball, but where on the paddle they do so. At some point experimenting with the number of facets would be interesting.


function make_paddle(world, x, y, w, h)
  local paddle = {}
  paddle.body = love.physics.newBody(world, x, y, 0, 0)

  -- Don't use a rectangle for the paddle since the bounces 
  -- off a flat surface are boring.  In stead, we use a flattened wedge:
  --   /|
  --  | |
  --   \|
  paddle.shape = love.physics.newPolygonShape(paddle.body,    0, -h/2,
                                                           -w/2, -h/6,
                                                           -w/2,  h/6,
                                                              0,  h/2,
                                                            w/2,  h/2,
                                                            w/2, -h/2)
  paddle.shape:setRestitution(1)
  return paddle
end

Now that we can make a paddle, let's build a player object, which has a paddle and a score. The cpu variable will describe the behavior of the player if it is computer controlled. More on that momentarily.


local players = {}

function make_player(world, x, y, l, cpu)
  local player = {}

  player.score = 0

  player.paddle = make_paddle(world, x, y, 2*ball_radius, l)

  player.cpu = cpu

  return player
end

It's easy to imagine all sorts of AIs for Pong from carefully calculating the intercept location of the ball to moving more or less at random. Most Pong implementations use some variation of what I call the chase AI in which the computer tries to match the location of the ball on the y-axis with some sort of lag. My approach follows Zeno's Paradox of Achilles and the tortoise. In this case, Achilles (the paddle) does occasionally catch the tortoise (the ball) if the delay is set low enough, the paddle is long enough and the ball is moving slow enough along the y-axis. Set delay to 2 for the classic paradox.


-- Basic Pong AI is to have the paddle chase the ball.  Use the delay parameter
-- to create an AI that responds more slowly to vertical movement.
function make_chase_ai (delay)
  return function (paddle, ball)
           local delta_y = ball.body:getY() - paddle.body:getY()
           paddle.body:setY(paddle.body:getY() + delta_y/delay)
         end
end

If you're familiar with mostly conventional languages (such as BASIC, Java or C++), you might find it odd that make_chase_ai returns a function. In Lua, functions are first-class values which means the can be assigned to variables, passed to other functions and, as seen here, be return values. What I'm doing here is creating a closure over the delay free variable. It's probably easiest to explain by showing how it's used. Here's how I initialize a computer player in love.load():


  players[1] = make_player(world,
                           10,
                           love.graphics.getHeight()/2,
                           12*ball_radius,
                           make_chase_ai(50))

  players[1].paddle.body:setAngle(math.pi)

So I pass the physics world to the make_player function, put the paddle 10 pixels in from the left of the screen and centered vertically, set the length of the paddle to 12 ball radii, and provide an AI that chases the ball with a delay of 50². This isn't the best player in the world, but it's surprising how often he catches the ball at the last moment, which makes for some interesting play. Once the function is created, delay is fixed to 50 and it is assigned to the player's cpu variable. In OOP terms, cpu is a virtual method for the player object.

In passing, notice that I rotated the paddle body 180° since make_paddle creates a wedge facing to the left. I could have created the paddle to have facets on both sides or written a mirror_shape function³ to flip the paddle on its vertical axis. But applying the principle of parsimony it seemed simplest to rotate the paddle and be done with it.

Here's how the other player might be initialized if you want to pit an Achilles AI against the more pedestrian AI above:


  players[2] = make_player(world,
                           love.graphics.getWidth()-10,
                           love.graphics.getHeight()/2,
                           12*ball_radius,
                           make_chase_ai(2))

So this player is positioned on the right side of the screen and has a lower delay, but is otherwise the same as player 1. So what benefit is using a closure instead of just making delay a player attribute like paddle length and position? It might help to see how the AI is executed in love.update:


  for _, player in ipairs(players) do
    if player.cpu then
      player.cpu(player.paddle, ball)
    end
  end

Let's review what happened:

We called make_chase_ai with parameters of 50 and 2 respectively.
We assigned the output, which is a function, to each player's cpu variable.
We checked to see if a player had a true value in cpu.
And if it did, we executed the AI in each time step.

Each step creates one more layer of abstraction, which means we could easily plug a totally different type of AI or no AI at all into a player. For instance, here's an AI that jumps at the last minute:


function make_jump_ai (min, max)
  return function (paddle, ball)
           local delta_x = math.abs(ball.body:getX() - paddle.body:getX())
           if (delta_x < max and delta_x > min ) then
             paddle.body:setY(ball.body:getY())
           end
         end
end

...

  players[2] = make_player(world,
                           love.graphics.getWidth()-10,
                           love.graphics.getHeight()/2,
                           12*ball_radius,
                           make_jump_ai(15, 20))

When the function is called, it takes just the paddle and ball objects and uses a completely different algorithm to move the paddle around. This allows polymorphism, which in turns allows much simpler code in higher level functions such as love.load and love.update.

This has gone on long enough and I've only covered the setup portion of the game. Next time, we'll set the world in motion and interact with it.

1 - I picked 2 pixels because creating a one pixel tall rectangle causes LÖVE (or more accurately Box2D) to crash.

2 - 50 isn't a magic number. It's just what seemed most interesting given a particular configuration of ball size, screen size, ball speed, and paddle length. For a while I was using 100.

3 - I cannot tell a lie. I wrote a mirror_shape function, but decided not to use it since it was more cumbersome than I imagined when I started writing it.

Robox (demo)

2011-01-04T10:56:00.000-08:00

Robox might be what would happen if Terry Gilliam (from Monty Python and director of Time Bandits) set out to make a Metroid-type game. If you remember from the Flying Circus show there were occasional animated transitions that start with a live-action scene, end with a live-action scene, and show some seemingly random action using photo-collage and crude, rounded off drawings, you'll have a pretty good mental image of Robox. You play a probe, dropped off on an unknown planet, which loses all of it's natural abilities and must hunt for them via exploration, platforming and solving puzzles. It's a promising start.

Prior interest: none/low

Either I hadn't heard of Robox before now or I'd confused it with Frobot. If I had heard of the game, it's likely I'd have been slightly interested in the unique graphical style of the title. Theses days, WiiWare (and the Wii itself) has a full stock of arty 2D platformers, so if you want to sell another, you need to make the gameplay stand out. In turn, the best way to show off unique gameplay is with a good demo, so it's a good thing we have them now.

Odds of purchase: none

Like a Terry Gilliam cartoon, the game shifts from one action to the next unpredictably, but charmingly. The demo begins with a rack of squared-off robots (Roboxen?) lined up for deployment. Starting the game drops one of them into the atmosphere below where you need¹ to tilt the Wiimote to avoid cliffs. Upon landing, you have no choice² but to hold the Wiimote sideways and walk to the right. After a bit, the scene shifts³ to the inside of Robox where you use the pointer control and D-pad to solve an insultingly easy puzzle with a parasite or biological component or whatever. That allows Robox to jump, which is convenient since there is a small mesa just to the right. To the right of the mesa there's a slope⁴ down which a suddenly spawned boulder rolls and crushes a third of the robot's battery power followed shortly by a second boulder which takes another third. Understand that you move very slowly, jump only so high as to clear the boulder for a fraction of a second, and the boulder falls much faster than you can move. And going uphill is even slower. And there is a new boulder being spawned constantly at that same location over and over again.

Thankfully, your little robot will respawn to the point where he gained the jump ability after every death. Hatefully, however, checkpoints are few and far between and the obstacles ramp up the difficulty exceedingly quickly. There's one bit where a swinging, killer vine lives directly over spike-lined pit. If you mistime your jump and hit the vine, all forward momentum is lost and you will fall into the pit, which is far too deep to escape and so you will die. Which means slowly ambling past increasingly difficult traps once again to try one more time to slip past the vine/pit/spike vortex once again. There's no rhyme or reason to the pacing which goes from pedestrian to punishing in the space of a moment.

Hard games can be fun. Robox might very well be have a good balance between challenge and accomplishment once you've found better upgrades and mastered the system. Even games that work on repetition and memory can be fun if action/consequence loop is tight. But the Robox demo fails to show anything but brutal difficulty. The good news, I suppose, is that having a demo will weed out the uninterested/weak.

1 - To be honest, I don't think you actually need to do anything in this segment. There seem to be no consequences for hitting rocks. Would the sequence continue forever if you put the controller down and walked away? I might try it sometime.

2 - Sure you could go left, but only a few steps before you run into an insurmountable wall.

3 - Sadly, there is no actual animation—just a quite cut to a vaguely circui-board-looking screen and a few pages of expositionary text.

4 - I call it the learning curve.

Max and the Magic Marker (demo)

2010-12-28T15:27:00.000-08:00

Max and the Magic Marker is a puzzle platformer that allows items to be drawn into the scene to solve puzzles much like in Drawn to Life or Crayola: Colorful Journey. As you might imagine, the art-style and music tend toward the lighthearted and storybook feel. Puzzles usually require a line or two from Max's giant magic marker, manipulated via the WiiMote pointer control, to overcome. Max may accomplish light platforming tasks when controlled by the Nunchuk analog stick.

Prior interest: medium

Recently there have been a stream of games that come out on PC and Mac in addition to WiiWare. Partially the trend reflects the natural affinity between the Wii's pointer control and a computer's mouse interface. But another reason is the introduction of game engines, notably Unity, which target multiple platforms, are low cost, and easy to use. As a result, it isn't uncommon these days to find a PC demo for a WiiWare game. Such is the case for Max and the Magic Marker, which I tried out several months ago. The game impressed me with it's music ("balkan hiphop" performed by a Danish band named Analogik), colorful art style and imaginative puzzles. It was a good experience and left me wanting more.

Odds of purchase: low

Somewhere along the way, the demo code was altered to remove the most interesting puzzle types and what remains is a sort of tutorial level that retains the game's style. Sadly, the PC demo was also changed though it does seem to have a few more levels. In any case, the demo no longer stimulates interest in the full game for me. Trailers and screenshots still appeal to me, but the demo adds very little since the good bits of the game play have been taken away. It's frustrating that adding a demo for the Wii actually took a step backward and reduced my interest in the game. This is not the way to do it.

Frobot (demo)

2010-12-28T12:31:00.000-08:00

Frobot is essentially an update of the Wii Play Tanks! game with puzzles and a funky fresh vibe. It involves a story centered around the afro-wearing, disco-dancing, ladies' ... robot attempting to rescue his 5 girlfriends who are hidden behind a variety of traps and robotic guards. The game plays up its '70s art and music style crossed with futuristic death robots to maximum effect. Whatever it is the developer was trying to do, they went all out to do it.

Prior interest: none

I really hate the style of Frobot, so assuming I'd heard of it before the demo announcement, I'd probably not have investigated far enough to discover that it's gameplay style is based on Tanks!, which I really enjoy. I get that it's supposed to be funny and there's nothing wrong with making humorous games, but I really don't like disco. Some people might and they might be attracted to the game, but I'm not.

Odds of purchase: none

For me the demo was sort of a mess. I couldn't follow the story that was exposed via off-putting, slangy dialog between Frobot and his girlfriends. The tutorial introduced a variety of weapons in a competent manner, but immediately they are removed (with more awful dialog) so the rest of the demo is played with just the main gun and mines. Sure it was cool to play with the advanced toys, but it felt like a waste to learn how to use an item that I'd never get to try again. When playing the first level, I did enjoy the puzzles but (probably because I started ignoring dialog) I didn't really know what the goal was. By the second level, I did grasp the goal, but I got stuck on a puzzle and after wandering all over and trying everything I knew how to do (several times), I gave up. When I tried to quit, the Wii locked up and I had to pull the power plug. Not a good impression.

I did find a demo for PC (and Mac), which were somewhat different than the WiiWare version. They retained some of the problems, such as the pointless weapons tutorial, but included more intuitive, yet still clever, puzzles. I wish the developer had just streamlined that version rather than doing something new for the Wii demo.

lilt line (demo)

2010-12-22T13:34:00.000-08:00

The "lilt" in lilt line refers to music—specifically dubstep, a genre with which I was not previously familiar. The "line" refers to the geometric figure you guide through a narrowing and widening path using the Wiimote tilt control. Occasionally, there is a fence (played in this game by a vertical swath of mismatched color) corresponding to a musical beat which must be cleared by a button press or you will lose points. Running into the side of the path or pressing a button outside of a fence region will also cost points and when you lose all your points the game ends. That's pretty much the entire specification document for the game.

Prior interest: none

The WiiWare demo program has reached the point where new games are released simultaneously with demos, which allows games to be tried out at the same moment they are being promoted. Clearly, Nintendo and WiiWare publishers have found the demo program to be a success. Gaijin games, the creator of the Bit.Trip series and publisher of lilt line, certainly have. Considering the type of game and the publisher, I probably would have looked twice at this particular game, but it sure helps to have the demo to try out since as with Bit.Trip: Beat, "a screenshot just doesn't do it justice."

Odds of purchase: low

Lilt line hits its notes just right: minimalistic graphics match the minimalistic gameplay which is offset by a rich soundtrack. The controls work well as long as you are able to find a button on the Wiimote that you can press without altering its orientation. Hitting a sidewall produces a jarring sound and causes the line to bounce back into the path in a similarly jarring manner. Missing a button press or adding an extra one causes the music to die down as if it were on the radio and you've just driven through a tunnel. Alternatively, hitting the beat causes a sudden flash of color in the background like the visual representation of a hi-hat hit as imagined by Walt Disney¹. Scoring amounts to nothing more than losing points for each mistake and ending the game when you run out of the alloted points for a stage. Passing a stage sets the high score, which may be bested later, and opens up the next stage.

However, the minimalism extends a bit far to overcome the barrier of breaking out a credit card and buying the game. Compared to the Bit.Trip series or even ThruSpace, there just does not seem to be enough content to justify the full purchase price. Worse, this seems to be title for which a good demo will also be enough of a taste for many consumers as was the Bit.Trip: Beat demo. While the demo does end in the beginning of a stage, it didn't leave me wanting more². It's also hard to shake the feeling that while the music was given plenty of love, the graphics and gameplay are minimal not for artistic reasons, but because they weren't seen as a particular priority. As an example, when the music shifts to a more expansive easy-going mode, the path ought to open up and become more forgiving and when the music becomes tighter and more aggressive, the path ought to get narrow and twisty. But the path never seems locked to the music and contains long stretches where nothing much happens. Not that lilt line doesn't show potential. Rather it fails to fulfill it's promise.

1 - See Fantasia.

2 - Except to replay the Bit.Trip: Beat demo.

Fluidity (demo)

2010-12-21T10:40:00.000-08:00

Nintendo's demo program has finally matured. Now that we have a flood of demos with a seemingly steady flow of demos for a few weeks, I think it's safe to say that on average demos result in better sales. Certainly, I've found that demos have gotten me interested in games that either I'd never heard of or never considered buying. Another factor, which I hope Nintendo considers, is the disappointment problem. In essence, a demo can eliminate the problem of buying a game sight unseen and discovering that, however good the game might be, it's not interesting to you.

Prior interest: high

Fluidity does interest me. It's a physics-based puzzle game (score: +1) that uses the Wiimote tilt sensor (+2) and features a crisp, storybook-style presentation (+3). You tilt the world (represented as a "magical illustrated encyclopedia, Aquaticus") to direct water through a maze of pipes, aquifers, caverns, ditches, ramps, etc. to find hidden Rainbow Drops. Each level has multiple paths, including some that require specific powers that are revealed throughout the game. (The demo opens a power that gathers your water drops together for a short time and then explodes them across the screen after a few seconds. Not really accurate physics, but fun.) I'm very nearly sold based on the description and screenshots alone.

Odds of purchase: high

To be honest, this demo didn't actually have much of an impact on me. I'm glad to have played it, but I was pretty much sold on Fluidity beforehand. Knowing for sure that the game is exactly the sort of game I love and that it'll be worth the money spent helps, I suppose. But the power of demos comes from introducing a game to someone who has never considered it for some reason. For me, Monster Hunter Tri was an ideal introduction to a genre that I would have avoided without the demo. I'd guess the Fluidity demo will sell a number of copies of the full game, but it will really make a difference to those people who have ignored physics puzzlers in the past. It seems to me that the "Lite" version of Angry Birds on the iPhone got people to try it out and essentially created a market for the game. It's good that Nintendo finally seems to be catching on.

Last edition of Kotaku's most-loved Wii games list

2010-12-15T17:06:00.000-08:00

Well it had to happen. Stephen Totilo, who has collected the Nintendo Channel play data for every Wii game listed, has decided to stop after more than a year and a half. It's an impossibly labor-intensive task, but I for one am grateful to him for collecting it (and to Nintendo for making it public). It makes clear the case for the rich library of Wii games that are played and played (and played). Of the top 20 by cumulative time played per player, I have just 5 including new-on-the-list New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

But I am doubly grateful for bits of data Mr. Totilo tossed into the post such as the total playing time for Metroid Prime Trilogy as of December 12—31:30. Since Metroid Prime 3: Corruption alone is worth at least 20 hours you would expect the Trilogy to show more like 60 hours by this point. Since the game has been discontinued, no flood of new players are watering down the playing time. I submit the problem is that many of the copies that were sold are in the hands of collectors who have already finished the series and only have limited playtime with the Trilogy disk.

Cave Story (demo)

2010-12-13T12:33:00.000-08:00

Cave Story has itself an incredible story: it started as a side project by a single Japanese developer who calls himself Pixel and released it as freeware. Then a two man team working under the moniker Aeon Genesis translated the game into English. Finally, a small developer/publisher, Nicalis picked up the game, updated the graphics and music, and released it on WiiWare.

But the game has essentially remained the same underneath each new coat of paint. Loosely speaking, it is a platform adventure with some of the trappings of a shmup. As you kill enemies, they drop power-ups that can be collected to boost health, upgrade the current weapon and later obtain missiles. Different weapons are better able to take out specific enemies and solve different platforming puzzles. Cave Story tells a simple, touching tale about a village of rabbit-like creatures called Mimigas who are being targeted by an evil "Doctor" for some terrible purpose. It's also a stiff challenge—especially the boss fights.

Prior interest: high

Cave Story's original graphics, sound, story, and gameplay are topnotch for a commercial product much less a free, hobby release. And it isn't like a lot of really good "indy" games that take some sort of unusual element and riff on it until it no longer seems unique or even interesting. Rather it grabs a bunch of established elements and mixes them in unique and interesting ways that would be impossible with a large team. Finally, Pixel seems to have gone over his work hundreds of times until each bit is perfectly placed. I'm excited that all that work will finally pay off.

Odds of purchase: high

Cave Story's demo covers all the bases. The updated assets look and sound great on a big screen with a decent stereo. You can also try the original sound, graphics or both which are not so much a step down as different. It's easy to see how Pixel used technology limitations to his advantage much as a good artist can create something special with crayons in the place of a full paint set. What can't be seen trailers is the port's wonderful control schemes. Cave Story can be overwhelming using the keyboard. On my PC I'm stuck on Monster X in part because I can't seem to control my jumps and fire my weapon at the same time without getting confused. In the demo, you can test out using the NES-style Wiimote, Classic Controller, and, delightfully, the GameCube controller. If you're like me, you will find the experience improved in all aspects and well worth the added costs.

Anatomy of a system seller

2010-12-13T10:27:00.000-08:00

It's a truism in the technology world that software sells hardware. Besides Apple, the exception that proves the rule, I don't know of any counter examples. Now not all software sells hardware on it's own and those that do are called killer apps or system sellers. Recently Monster Hunter Freedom 3 became a system seller for the PSP in Japan. Here are the top five games by unit sales:


Media Create Sales: November 29, 2010 - December 5, 2010 

01. / 00. [PSP] Monster Hunter Freedom 3 (Capcom) {01/12/10} - 1.950.717 / NEW 
02. / 00. [PS3] Tales of Graces F (Bandai Namco) {02/12/10} - 215.187 / NEW 
03. / 03. [WII] Mario Sports Mix (Nintendo) {25/11/10} - 59.007 / 143.991 (-31%) 
04. / 00. [NDS] Mario Vs. Donkey Kong: Miniland Mayhem (Nintendo) {02/12/10} - 57.474 / NEW 
05. / 01. [PS3] Gran Turismo 5 (SCE) {25/11/10} - 55.682 / 486.389 (-87%)

Getting to a million units sold is pretty much the definition of a blockbuster in Japan. The latest Tales of Graces game might make the cut sometime in the next few months, but Monster Hunter Freedom 3 has very nearly doubled the number in less than a week. Even for a hit series like Monster Hunter (in Japan) it's an impressive start. What's more impressive is the hardware sales chart:


|System | This Week | Last Week | Last Year |       YTD |  Last YTD |        LTD |      
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------      
|  PSP  |   325.528 |    77.364 |    42.648 | 2.291.127 | 1.909.470 | 16.034.215 |
|  NDS  |    78.526 |    56.457 |   111.532 | 2.313.272 | 3.331.138 | 31.592.352 |
|  WII  |    56.095 |    41.267 |    46.673 | 1.286.265 | 1.312.870 | 10.891.464 |
|  PS3  |    41.760 |    68.840 |    46.558 | 1.354.075 | 1.284.059 |  5.855.442 |
|  360  |     3.497 |     4.329 |     3.685 |   194.399 |   341.943 |  1.404.071 |
|  PS2  |     1.440 |     1.332 |     2.057 |    76.593 |   195.156 | 21.686.770 |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Unlike the rest of the world, Japan has bought a fair number of PSPs in part because of exclusive series such as Monster Hunter. Nintendo's DS handheld still has outsold the Sony handheld by nearly 2 to 1, but it would be fair to say the PSP is a success in Japan. It's also interesting that DS sales are starting to fade, in part because of the imminent release of the 3DS. But the story for this particular week is the huge sales of the PSP. There can be no other explanation for selling 248,164 more systems this week compared to last except that roughly 12% of the people buying Monster Hunter Freedom 3 bought a PSP at the same time.

Since this is the third Monster Hunter title on the PSP and that a special version of the hardware was released in concert with the game, the audience for PSP titles probably hasn't expanded much, but there is no denying that Monster Hunter sells systems (in Japan).

Metroid Prime Trilogy: Introductions

2010-12-10T15:47:00.000-08:00

Recently I picked up a used copy of the Metroid Prime Trilogy. Not having played any of the titles, I was excited to try them out. In fact, I played through the introductory (tutorial) sequences of each game one after another. Here's what I thought.

MP1

At the time of release, Metroid Prime was considered a bit of a risk as it wasn't clear how the traditional 2D platforming adventure would translate to a first-person perspective. Clearly, Retro Studios and Nintendo decided to script the first sequence in a way that would gently introduce the game to Metroid veterans. For one thing, it introduces controls and game mechanics in a straightforward (but also exciting) way. So you start by shooting locks, scanning things, transforming into a morph ball, shooting injured Space Pirates navigating mostly linear maps, and so on. In typical Metroid fashion, the introduction feels lonely: a sensation that will intensify as the game progresses.

It also borrowed almost directly the opening scenario from Super Metroid. Samus Aran walks though a research vessel slowly uncovering a mysterious plot to exploit Metroids once again. Upon reaching the center of the ship, you are confronted with a boss battle that triggers the ship's self destruct mechanism. Then you have a few minutes to fight your way back to your own ship and escape. Perhaps it's because I'm playing the Trilogy version—this game looks and controls exceptionally well. From the first screen to the chaos of the escape, everything pulls you into the action. By the time you land on Tallon IV the urge to get out there and explore turns out to be overwhelming. In terms of creating and controlling the mood, Metroid Prime exceeds the efforts of any game I've ever played and all but the best movies I've seen.

MP2

Echoes does not worry too much about getting the player up to speed on the controls. After the first Prime, players should have a pretty good feel for what they need to do. Instead, players are thrust into the action right from the start. Unlike the first title, which begins with a fairly relaxed atmosphere and gradually adds a sense of danger, the second game begins with an ominous feeling and becomes more menacing from there. For one thing, Samus' ship has crashed so there's no leaving Aether until it's fixed. A bit later your path is blocked by a shear cliff that prevents your return to the relative safety of the ship for some time. Then in place of dead and dying Space Pirates, who are somewhat comic figures in the series, you find Galactic Federation troopers: first lifeless bodies and then reanimated walking dead. Finally, just before the usual lose-all-abilities-to-gain-them-back-later sequence, Samus must enter another one-way gate to the major theme/game mechanic of Echoes: Dark Aether.

Later the atmosphere becomes a bit lighter with the introduction of a new ally: the Luminoth. Even so, the overall feel is far more of a horror game than other Metroid games. (Though through the right lens all of the games seem to have some element of horror embedded in them.) It's not just the more psychologically impactful enemies, such as possessed human corpses or a "Dark" version of Samus herself—it's also the constant need to enter the nightmare dimension of Dark Aether which wears away health and is home to the most dangerous and terrifying enemies. Even the Space Pirates, who have been possessed by the demonic Ing, are more threatening in this mode.

MP3

After the much darker tone of Echoes, it's a bit refreshing to start Corruption (after a short dream sequence) in the comfort of Samus' ship. Once again the introduction doubles as tutorial for the controls because the game makes use of a number of Wiimote gestures to perform tasks such as pulling levers, pushing buttons and twisting knobs. Having landed on Galactic Federation Ship Olympus, the tutorial continues with instructions on aiming, movement and so on. There's no hurry to get where you're going so you can chat with military personal, scan random objects, and do a little target practice to take in the thoroughly modern voice acting, sound effects and graphics. Upon reaching your destination, the story is told through a series of non-interactive cut scenes complete with techno-babel and a surprise plot twist, which turns out to be Space Pirates boarding the Olympus. At that point, the pace of the game jumps into high speed as once again Samus must make an escape to her ship. Note that it is a cut scene that precipitates the change in tempo.

Coincidently, I played the first level of the original Halo on a friend's Xbox a while ago and while playing the start of Corruption, I couldn't help but be reminded of that game. The parts I've played after the introduction seem more like Metroid and less like Halo, but there's an undoubted commonality between the two. It's as if Retro Studios decided that Metroid on the Wii needed to be the console's Halo franchise. Only, for some reason, it removed the one thing the Metoid Prime series had previously shared with the Halo series: multiplayer.

I'll be back in a while with fuller looks at these three classic titles.

ThruSpace (demo)

2010-12-08T12:57:00.000-08:00

ThruSpace is an action-puzzle game in the vein of Tetris, or rather it's often overlooked successor, Welltris. The object is to guide 3D polyominoes (called keydrons by the game) through gaps in walls that block the hallway the pieces are being propelled through. Keydrons may be flipped, twisted, turned and shifted in all directions and the gaps are designed to require all of these manipulations to pass the walls. According to the promotional information, the game features three different modes of play and you can earn higher scores by collecting crystals within gaps, performing tricks (covering all squares of a gap with the keydron's shadow) and accelerating toward the corridor more quickly. These scores are tallied on a global leaderboard.

Prior interest: low

That screenshot pretty much tells the story. WiiWare has a surplus of interesting and stylish puzzlers including, of course, Tetris, Dr. Mario and the Art Style series. Because of it's size limitation, the service has plenty of graphically simple puzzle games. It's just a lot easier to squeeze this sort of game into a handful of blocks¹ than, say, an RPG. In order to stand out from the crowd, a game needs to do something unique. Groovin' Blocks incorporates music into the structure of gameplay, for instance. ThruSpace has... well it has a demo now. Honestly, I wouldn't have taken a second look at it otherwise.

Odds of purchase: low

So the demo turns out to be a tutorial followed by a small taste of the timed mode with two keydrons. In my first run-through I used the NES-style Wiimote controls, which don't fit into the brain very well. With any 3D world, it's hard to map the freedom of movement to any human understandable control scheme. Generally controls (both in real life applications and games) reduce the freedom of movement to some manageable amount. You don't, for instance, directly control every twist and turn of a 3D platforming character. Rather you control movement direction on a horizontal surface and have a jump (or similar) button to give your character a short vertical acceleration. It turns out controlling all possible movements (pitch, yaw, roll, and translations along the three axes) requires 12 distinct inputs. ThruSpace only allows acceleration in the direction of travel and not decceleration, so it requires just 11 inputs. But the Wiimote only has 10 inputs (including + and -, but not the power or Wii Menu buttons). So the control scheme simplifies the rotational movements to one direction, which means if you over-rotate you need to cycle through the other attitudes.

With the Nunchuk (and Classic Controller), all six rotations are possible and the buttons are mapped slightly better than with the Wiimote alone. Even so, as I explained when discussing And Yet It Moves, some of the rotation buttons are mapped the wrong way around from how I'm most comfortable. Unfortunately, the game does not allow rearranging the controls so I'm stuck doing a lot of trial and error to get the keydron lined up just so.

There are things to commend the game for: catchy music, appropriate sound, functional visuals, responsive controls (modulus rotational confusion), plenty of modes (apparently), interesting choices (to go for tricks, crystals or time, etc.), arcade-style accessibility and challenge, and all around high production values. But I feel the game falls short of its potential in many ways. More interesting visuals and better control configuration would have been welcome as I've already alluded. It seems like the tilt controls and/or pointer would have been useful and intuitive (see And Yet It Moves). But the game as presented by the demo lacks inspiration. Maybe the full game has it, but if so the demo fails to show us through a tedious tutorial and truncated timed mode.

Doing some research on this style of puzzle, I discovered Blockout, which was released in 1989. It's also very similar to ThruSpace in that the focus is on manipulating polyominoes in a 3D space. Unlike ThruSpace's racecourse analogy, Blockout works like a box filling exercise. Even so, I felt a sense of urgency in the earlier game. Perhaps the difference comes from the relative lack of consequences for sub-optimal play in ThruSpace—if you can make it through a gap, there's usually enough of time to play the next gap perfectly no matter how poorly you set yourself up. It makes me wonder how the demo would have come off if the game had a multiplayer race mode.

1 - ThruSpace almost seems like a metaphor for the WiiWare service itself. Apply clever transformations to get an object through a confined location.

Jett Rocket (demo)

2010-12-08T08:21:00.000-08:00

Jett Rocket is a 3D platformer that seems inspired by Super Mario Galaxy. The hero, imaginatively named Jett Rocket, must protect the planet (Yoroppa) from an environmental terrorist organization (the Power Plant Posse) or something. He's equipped with a jet pack and rides jet skis, parachutes, and snow boards. But let's be honest, the real hook is that Shin’en has managed to cram what looks like a full retail game into a mere 40Mb, a fraction of a DVD's capacity. That and the low WiiWare price pulled the title from certain obscurity of discount bins in terms of publicity.

Prior interest: low

Everything I saw about the game before I tried the demo was taken from the first world which is a tropical atoll that looks very much like the Beach Bowl Planet from Super Mario Galaxy. It's hard to shake the idea that Jett Rocket is a poor-man's Mario and the game was designed to fit into the space between major releases from Nintendo. If so, the release schedule coming a month after Super Mario Galaxy 2 could hardly have been worse. Every time I saw a trailer or screen shot of the game, I could not help but think it was an attempt to ride the coattails of Mario.

Odds of purchase: low

On the surface, this demo seems like a great idea: a hidden gem given a chance to shine even in the shadow of a massively well-reviewed series. But I feel like the demo fails along the same lines as the publicity campaign—it does nothing to distinguish itself from Mario. Only one level from World 1 is playable in the demo and it's a very basic climb-to-the-top-of-a-mountain style level. While there are objects (solar cells) to collect and achievements to pursue, it's not a very challenging experience.

It's a shame too since the developers clearly put a lot of work into making the game look, sound and play just right. Flying with a jet pack feels intuitive and satisfying as does the motion-controlled attacks. Technically, the game literally gleams with a vast array of graphic effects: heat shimmer off the jet pack, highly reflective metal surfaces, leaves softly blowing in the sea breeze, water spray, and so on. Music and sound add to the bouncy and lighthearted mood of the game. All in all, there's no reason this shouldn't be high on my wish list. If only another level or two had been added to show off varied locations and gameplay, maybe the demo would have sold me.

BIT.TRIP FATE (demo)

2010-12-03T15:45:00.000-08:00

BIT.TRIP FATE, like BIT.TRIP BEAT last year, really needs to be played in order to be appreciated. In fact, the entire BIT.TRIP series bends the conventions of gameplay too often to be fully grasped with a trailer or screenshots. For this iteration, the base concept arises from shmups with an on-rails twist¹. Commander Video may move back and forth along a single path with the analog stick and shoot in all directions with the Wiimote pointer. It's an inversion of the standard side-scrolling shooter forward firing/free-ranging movement. It also shares a very similar art and music style with the rest of the series.

Prior interest: high

The BIT.TRIP represents everything right about WiiWare. Limitations in download size actually push developers to think about how to make a great game that doesn't lean on cut scenes to keep players engaged. Reaching back to classic arcade genres, sprucing them up with stylish music and graphics, and throwing in a curve ball has been the not-so-secret formula to Gaijin Game's success. And since shmups are under-represented in my library, I was really looking forward to this installment.

Odds of purchase: medium

Unlike the BEAT demo, after finishing FATE I wasn't satisfied with the slice of gameplay. I enjoyed myself, wanted to play more (the demo ends just before the second boss), but my interest level still dropped. Part of the reason, I suppose, is that the first few minutes of FATE are much easier than BEAT. To compensate for the limited range of movement, enemies don't fill the screen with bullets (at least in the demo). It's a bit of a challenge to find the part of the path that will be safe in the next fraction of a second, but I rarely had an issue with planning. More commonly I found my thumb trying to push up or down rather than left or right when the path became more vertical. Eventually, I compensated, but it seems needlessly restrictive to railroad the player.

A deeper problem springs from the integration of the music and gameplay. Given the masterfully dovetailed sound and movement of BEAT, I'd hoped that the music would enhance the feel of playing the game. But even with the path restriction, there's no way to predict when the player will take down an enemy or pickup a power-up, so the rhythm of the music doesn't link up with the rhythm of the game in quite the same way. Not that I have any idea how such a thing could be done.

Still, this is a game that will reap the benefits of having a demo like few others. It's right at the top of my wishlist and I look forward seeing more of the series showcased in demo form.

1 - It's an bullet-hell, on-rails shooter so to speak.

And Yet It Moves (demo)

2010-12-03T12:15:00.000-08:00

As they did last year, Nintendo has authorized the release of demos for new Wiiware games. Like last year, I'm looking at these demos as marketing tools not strictly as games. After all, it wouldn't be fair to rate full games on 20 or so minutes of play and they aren't being released for our amusement, but to sell us on the full product. Unlike last year, the demos don't automatically end with a trip to the Wii Shop Channel. Instead, you get to choose to replay the demo, go back to the Wii Menu or go buy the full game. It's a nice customer-friendly change that will not likely alter the sales totals.

And Yet It Moves takes the atmospheric, puzzle-platformer slot that was occupied by NyxQuest last year. The twist¹ this time is that the entire world can be spun 360° around the hero. Other than rotating left and right (and possibly upside down), the game restricts the plater to moving left, right and jumping. In the first level an impassible tunnel becomes a deep well to fall into with a 90° rotation. It's a limited verb set that brings the platform genre to the absolute essentials much like Terry Cavanagh's VVVVVV. In fact, entire levels can be completed with the world rotation mechanic alone if you don't let the little man touch anything before reaching the exit point.

And Yet It Moves showcases a simple art style inspired by paper collage. The main character appears a crudely drawn paper puppet, though he is in fact expertly animated. Background, foreground and platform scenery has been clipped from much larger images of rocks, logs, flowers and so on. To match the minimal art, only occasional ambient sounds and light sound effects are played: there's essentially no music. In contrast to the simple presentation, the gameplay exhibits an intuitive and sophisticated physics system. You can feel the puppet's mass, velocity and acceleration as you fall to limb-shattering doom.

Prior interest: low

It turns out I'd already played the PC demo of this game and while I did enjoy the premise, it didn't work for me. For some reason, my brain wants to press exactly the opposite buttons than the game requires of me to rotate the world. It's a problem that I run into a lot—my Y-axis always needs inverting. I was ok in the first level, which could be managed mostly on foot, but the second level demanded almost constant acrobatic world rotation that my Pooh brain would not perform. I see now that there is an option to swap the meaning of the left and right arrows, but back then I didn't bother to find it. Needless to say, the game was dismissed long before it came out on the Wii.

Odds of purchase: medium

As with the truly excellent World of Goo demo, the Wii controls implemented for AYIM are a revelation. On the PC, rotation must conform to discrete 90° or 180° turns, but the WiiWare version allows a turn to end at any convenient angle. Facilitating the variable turns are four² accurate analog control schemes: NES-style Wiimote, key-twisting Wiimote and Nunchuk, pointer-dragging Wiimote and Nunchuk, and Classic Controller. My favorite control is turning the Wiimote sideways which maps walking to the D-pad and world rotation to tilt controls. It's automatically more intuitive than any button-pressing scheme and puts the title back on my definitely/maybe list. This game is why demos exist.

1 - See what I did there?

2 - Well at least I assume they are all accurate and analog. I don't have Classic Controller to test.

Looking back at Super Mario Galaxy

2010-11-22T14:47:00.000-08:00

Having found 106 out of 120 stars in Super Mario Galaxy, I've come to the realization I may never finish the game. Of the 14 remaining stars, I have a reasonable shot at maybe 4 of them. Any forced scrolling or timed level will be difficult for me. Maybe someone with faster thumbs will have pity on me so that I can start over with Luigi. Someone like Super Guide.

On the other hand, challenging game play can result in a huge feeling of success when finishing a tricky bit. For me the peak moment of euphoria was after I beat the Bouldergeist, which is commonly understood to be the most challenging boss in the game. Before entering the Bouldergeist arena, players are given their choice of either a 1-Up or Super mushroom. If you take the Super mushroom, you are granted 3 extra hits. Until you learn the boss's patterns and weeknesses you need every last hit and still expect to lose lives. The 1-Up turns out to be a bit more useful, since it you take run after run at the section.

At any rate, I finally beat the boss after trying many many times. Then I noticed a Daredevil comet in orbit around the Ghostly Galaxy, which requires Mario to tackle a portion of one of the normal levels without taking a single hit. Sure enough, the challenge was to take on the Bouldergeist once again. I figured my best shot was to try then and there as I had just conquered the level. To my shock, I bested the Bouldergeist on the first try. It would be impossible to describe my exhilaration. This is why people love hard games.

Galaxy has been criticized for having a story that is both too conventional and too unconventional—sometimes in the same review! The main story, represented by cut scenes and which drives game play is the familiar plot of Mario rescuing Princess Peach from the comically sinister Bowser. But the game also periodically unlocks a storybook that recounts the back story of Rosalinda, a new character in the Mario universe. Douglas Wilson sees book, which is formally separated from the rest of the game, as an example of good storytelling. At any rate, I will praise the inclusion of the storybook since my son spent a few minutes the other day reading through it. Encouraging literacy is always a good thing.

Mario Kart Wii

2010-11-18T12:39:00.000-08:00

A while ago, the question reverberating around the internet was: "Can games be art?" One of the more interesting subquestions was: "What games would be best to show someone who doesn't play games to convince them they can be art?" My top five suggestions are:

Tetris
Civilization
Earthbound
Mario Kart
World of Goo

I'd guess that most gamers could get onboard with this list except for Mario Kart. It just doesn't look like an arty game.

In fact, Mario Kart looks like nothing more than Yogi's Space Race with Nintendo characters. Tetris defines abstract beauty, Civilization celebrates the grandeur of world history, Earthbound tells a story of a boy who is more extraordinary than he appears, World of Goo oozes with atmosphere worthy of a fantastical film, and Mario Kart is the professional wrestling of motor-sports. One of these things is not like the others. It meets the accessible criteria, but is it art? Besides the hurdle of being lowbrow, Mario Kart seems less artistic since it is focused wholly on being an utterly pragmatic game, which is to say: fun.

From the moment you pick up the WiiWheel, which eerily resembles the feel of an actual steering wheel, to the winner's circle ceremony you'll find yourself laughing, groaning, cheering and basically having a good time no matter how poor you are at the game. For each additional player in the room, that fun doubles. And it's all because of the first level of art: craftsmanship. Cave paintings, such as those at Lascaux, are considered art largely because of the painters' skill at representing their world. On a basic level, you know a game is well made when you are having fun playing it. (Occasionally, people suggest unfun games as art, which seems like suggesting Jackson Pollock as an example of skilled painting. Yes, he was skilled, but it's difficult for non-art enthusiasts to see why from his work.)

Mario Kart's goal is simple: get around the track three times faster than everyone else, but this isn't just a racing game. It's a game about making decisions: which character (it makes a difference), which vehicle, which track, when to rev the engine at the start, what line to take, when to use an item, and so on. Some of these decisions are clear (rocket start between 2 and 1), but most are balanced, which is to say reasonable people can disagree about which choice is best. For example, holding items until the perfect moment can be amazingly effective, but the longer an item is held the more likely another racer will force you to drop it. Like bluffing in poker or a sacrifice gambit in chess, the decision forces an estimate of risk versus reward.

Which brings us to the second level of art in games. Chris Farrell writes on board games:

To be grossly general, to the extent that we're willing to call games art, they are the art of decisions. Music generates feelings and emotions through sound. Literature is the art of words. Painting is visual art. Games create their impressions, feelings, and emotions through the decisions they ask you to make. Every complaint people make about games ultimately boils down to a problem with the decision-making (i.e., too much luck = my decisions don't make enough of a difference; too much downtime = I make decisions too infrequently; brain-burner = the decisions are too hard; the theme is a paste-up = the decisions I make don't seem authentic; and so on).

Mario Kart breaks down as overly luck-dependent for most serious players. Not that there isn't skill involved, rather items tend to level the playing field such that no driver can remain far ahead of the pack for long. Most infamously, the Blue Shell seeks out and destroys the current leader, which always seems to happen within sight of the checkered flag. Luck becomes particularly aggravating in the higher levers of the single-player Grand Prix mode where the computer AI can use all the game's speed-boosting abilities to perfection. The Wii edition seems not to feature "rubberbanding AI", but the most useful boosts are unavailable to the lead driver (slipstreaming, mushrooms, stars, thunder clouds, and especially Bullet Bills).

On the flip side, there are a number of modes that remove luck as a factor almost entirely, such as Time Trial (which comes as close to a standard racing game as Mario Kart gets) and VS. Mode (which allows players to turn off item boxes altogether). In fact, the game seems to bend over backwards to provide the player with as many amusements as possible: local multi-player, internet multi-player (world, region and friends variations), two Battle modes, semi-regular tournaments that challenge players to unusual races and battles, online leader boards, and ghost characters to download and race against in simple time trials. Reviewers of the game only lamented the loss of free-for-all battle mode. (Pro tip: the game does tally individual scores and shows them at the end of each battle and series.)

The broad appeal of Mario Kart counts against it's credentials as Art since we are used to art being inaccessible to the masses. Shakespeare, for instance, requires sophistication and a monumental vocabulary to be enjoyed. Only, of course, in his own time when The Globe hosted standing-room-only crowds of people who could only afford a penny for an afternoon's entertainment, Shakespeare was seen as uncouth by the Elizabethan equivalents of Roger Ebert. Now Mario Kart isn't Hamlet, but it might be The Merry Wives of Windsor.

I don't think Nintendo looks at what they do as creating art. Over and over, the Iwata Asks column addresses practical design decisions to the exclusion of aesthetic or artistic concerns. However, like a Leonardo da Vinci sketch, Mario Kart observes the fundamentals of the racing game genre with style and precision. The secret seems to be the collection of tracks which deftly evoke the feeling of Formula One or rally racing or a movie car chase or demolition derby or, of course, kart racing. Add in fantastical space settings and inventive dashes through gigantic trees, and you have a masterpiece of imagination.

In a world that acknowledges Andy Warhol as artist, it seems odd to exclude Shigeru Miyamoto. The difference seems to me that the former's canvas is, well, canvas and the later's is pixels on a TV.

Entertainment value: Collection of arcade racing cabinets set on freeplay.

How game retailing really works.

2010-08-27T11:17:00.000-07:00

In what appears to be a growing trend, Penny Arcade has taken a position on the used game "controversy". As the comic points out, used game customers are customers not of a game publisher, but of the retailer. What it doesn't point out is that new game customers are also customers of the retailer alone. Only if the publisher happens to sell games directly can an end user be a customer of the publisher.

Here's how it works in general terms for the packaged game industry:

A development company creates a new title. Sometimes they are funded by a publisher and other times they build on spec.
A publishing company begins marketing the title. Sometimes a developer will handle their own marketing and distribution, but most developers are divisions of or partners with larger publishing companies.
The publisher works with manufacturing and distribution subcontractors to get copies of the game to retailers.
Publishers and retailers begin negotiations to how they will work together to sell the title. While there has always been some partnership between publishers and retailers in the video game business (going at least as far back as the Sears branded Atari 2600), the relationship has become more elaborate in recent years. Consider the coordination required to develop pre-order bonus DLC for instance.
Retailers purchase copies of the title in order to stock their locations. These purchases are far more complicated than simply filling out an order form, but the purchase transfers risk from the publisher to the retailer in general.
End users purchase the game from the retailer.

Notice that for these sorts of games, the customer sits at one end of the supply chain and the developer sits at the far end. Along the way, each party takes a slice of the profits and a slice of the risks as well. The more risk a company takes on, the more money they stand to make or lose. In particular, a developer who builds a game to spec risks losing everything if they can't sell it to a publisher, but also stand to make more than usual if the game sells well. On the other end of the chain, a retailer may see their profit vanish if they can't move copies of a game they invested heavily in.

Now it isn't talked about much these days, but there is also a risk for the consumer. Once the seal is broken on the game package, no retailer will take it back no matter how garbage the game in question turned out to be. The industry seems to be doing its level best to get consumers to take on more risk through tactics such as pre-orders and DLC. Fortunately, there are remedies a consumer can take in order to reduce risk. Two of the simplest are buying used and selling unwanted games to retailers who sell used games. Used games provide consumers with an outlet to take risks on games that might otherwise have a harder time selling.

Ironically, one category of games that has no true used market is annual sports titles, such as the one that kicked off this round of controversy. Smackdown vs. Raw 2011's shelf-life is about one year, which is not really enough time for a robust used market to develop. Unless the game is total garbage. Since there is always a newer edition right around the corner, used copies of sports games begin gathering dust within weeks of a game's release.

Used games don't cheat publishers

2010-08-23T13:37:00.000-07:00

Some executive for THQ apparently said, "I don't think we really care whether used game buyers are upset because new game buyers get everything. So if used game buyers are upset they don't get the online feature set I don't really have much sympathy for them." The thinking here seems to be that consumers who see a used copy on a retailer's shelf or on eBay will buy it, take it home, discover they only received half a game and conclude they should swear off buying used games. A tiny bit of analysis of human psychology reveals that most consumers will instead blame THQ who is holding the other half ransom. Most people won't feel shamed or chastised, but cheated.

Speaking of which, he also stated, "That's a little blunt but we hope it doesn't disappoint people. We hope people understand that when the game's bought used we get cheated." Now this is a bold claim that can be evaluated on strictly objective standards. I believe the publisher feels cheated because a used sale represents a customer who does not directly provide income to the publisher. The retailer makes 100% of the profit, so the publisher gets nothing from that sale. Seems pretty straightforward.

Unfortunately, the reality is often more complicated. Publishers, especially large publisher who handle their own distribution like THQ, have lots of options when it comes to selling games. There are dozens of huge retail channels that a publisher can choose from including selling from their own online store, as THQ does. Direct online sales allows publishers to pocket the share that retailers normally extract from each sale. That means publishers are in direct competition with the handful of retailers who sell used games. As it turns out, the retailers who offer used games are among the heavyweights of the industry: GameStop, Amazon and now Toys R Us. Other large retailers who have dabbled in the used market are Best Buy and Walmart. Retailers are attracted to the business since they avoid paying publishers their pound of flesh which, despite the added cost of managing inventory, results in good profits.

So this is actually a squabble between publishers and retailers with consumers caught in the middle. If publishers really wanted to end used game sales, they have a number of tools to make it happen including refusing to sell physical copies of games. But most big-name publishers can't afford to give up physical-media sales because they represent too much of their sales and profit. While times are changing, consumers still see disk-based games as a good value in part because they can be resold on the used market. So in a slightly round-about way THQ and other publishers benefit from the used market.

Contrary to intentions, this whole "new game buyers get everything" probably hurts new game buyers as much as it helps. For instance, eventually used game buyers will catch on to the scheme and refuse to pay the usual discount for games which means new games will have a smaller resale value than usual. Also, problems with the one-time-use DLC will hurt new game buyers disproportionally as they will be the prime users. If by chance the online mode fails, tech support will naturally assume the problem is that the game was bought secondhand. If your gaming machine gets stolen, can you be sure that you'll recover your DLC without a hassle? Meanwhile, used game buyers get access to the core game for an even cheaper price than normal.

As usual, I think the best advice from developers who think they are getting cheated is to go out of their way to treat the customer well. Sure it's counterintuitive, but look how the strategy pays off for Nintendo. They have games that remain in the best-seller lists for months because customers feel they are getting exceptional value. There's no need to worry about a few used game sales when new games are selling as fast as you get them to the store.

Groovin' Blocks

2010-07-12T12:37:00.000-07:00

Groovin' Blocks combines a match three game with a rhythm game in a very predictable way. The basic game clones Columns, which was Sega's answer to Tetris. Columns (and in more advanced levels, squares) of individually colored blocks fall into a pit one after another. If you arrange for three or more blocks of the same color to settle orthogonally, the blocks are cleared and potentially start a chain reaction as other blocks match three colors in a row. There's definitely skill involved, especially in pattern matching, but also a fair amount of luck in getting the right combination of colors and finding the biggest chain reactions.

While you can enjoy the basic game on it's own, you'll need to play the rhythm portion as well to rack up high scores earning stars to unlock new song sets and powerups. Dropping blocks on the right beat will start filling up a multiplier meter. Dropping on not on the right beat clears the meter and multiplier, but letting blocks settle on their own preserves any multiplier and progress. Powerups (such as bombs and scoring bonuses) are only primed if dropped on rhythm and later cleared. Finally there are "Super Beats", which temporarily double the multiplier if hit.

On the "Casual" level, I found the gameplay combination relaxing and interesting. Songs last about four minutes and tend to have plenty of beats, which makes for a pretty satisfying way to fill time once in a while. With playtime limited by the length of the song, it's fairly easy to get the satisfaction of beating each stage. The "Experienced" level ramps up the challenge by raising the score to earn stars introducing four-block squares and making the pieces fall faster. What tends to happen for me is either A) I focus on the match-three game and don't score enough points to earn stars or B) fail out of the song by dropping pieces before they are set to make combinations. In other words, when the game falls apart, it splits exactly on genre lines.

I can't help but be reminded of my initial experience with Tetris. On the surface, Tetris rewards neatly packed tetrominos and clearing lines as quickly as possible. But as you clear levels the pieces fall faster and faster until it's literally impossible to move pieces into place before they hit the stack. No matter how good you are, the game cannot be beaten. So you need to adjust to the goal of getting a high score, which rewards actions like hard-dropping pieces and clearing four lines at once (getting a "Tetris"). To me, building in such a way that deep pits form in order to drop an I tetromino appeared the antithesis of packing pieces properly. For years I gave up my Tetris addiction rather than change my play style. Playing the more advanced levels of Groovin' Blocks requires an equivalent paradigm shift. In this case, you must drop blocks more or less randomly on beat to build a multiplier and then capitalize on it by clearing blocks more or less methodically.

If you like 8-bit or electronica music, the set list is solid but short. After beating my head against particular songs, my enjoyment of the music started to drop off. Now that I've breezed through the lowest level, I'm stuck on the first set of songs in the middle level. Unlike most puzzle game that can be muted, in Groovin' Blocks you are competing against the music to pass a particular level. Turning off the sound deprives you of a key clue toward getting a high score. On the other hand, the visuals provide enough cues (rolling beat bar and pieces flash to the rhythm) that playing muted is (barely) possible. Also deserving mention (and commendation) are the calibration and colorblind options, which ought to be standard for rhythm games, but aren't.

I should point out that I was given the game code via the developer, Empty Clip Studios. There's very little chance I'd have bought it with my own money and I don't think I'd recommend anyone else paying for it unless they absolutely love the soundtrack (which can be sampled via Google). If you think you can handle hearing these tracks as many times as it takes to crack the scoring goals needed to move forward, then I'd recommend the game to you. (I should add that I did not try the multiplayer mode, but it seems unlikely to have potential to sway my opinion.)

Entertainment value: a short sudoku book with a chiptune soundtrack.

Least played Wii games

2010-07-07T14:20:00.000-07:00

Kotaku has balanced their most-played list with a least-played list of Wii games. Sadly, I own two of the least-played 25:


13. Samba De Amigo - 4 hours, 16 minutes
 2. M&M's Kart Racing - 2 hours, 5 minutes

Low playtime on Samba de Amigo suggests that few people had the patience to learn the controls or that they just gave up based on (unfair) negative reviews. Oddly, I could not find any screenshots of people failing the game until I searched for the Dreamcast version. Perhaps the game was commonly bought or rented by people nostalgic for the original version who didn't really intend to spend serious time with it. Maybe it was brought out for parties and not touched otherwise. Whatever the case, this entry saddens me.

M&M's Kart Racing truly stinks up the Wii's library. My copy logged about 2 hours just so that I could verify that it was as awful as it seemed. I didn't want to review it unfairly. Unlike the rhythm game, this kart racer looks and sounds terrible. Clearly the bulk of the games development budget was spent on the box art, which seems to have paid off commercially if not critically. It was well-designed to be bought by a loved one as a hated gift.

And for the most part the rest of the list probably could be categorized with one or the other of these game: high presentation games that didn't play well and terrible games with great box art. These are a virtual rogue's gallery of bargain-bin denizens. While there are plenty of terrible games with terrible box art, they just were not successful enough to rack up 50,000 total hours of playtime. Even the worst of the worst that don't quite rate 2 hours per registered user would need to have been put into over 25,000 different Wii systems since their release. That's a pretty impressive number of unit sales.

Given my positive experience with Samba de Amigo, I'd be willing to try out a few of the less-iffy seeming games on this list:


25. Donkey Kong Barrel Blast - 5 hours, 1 minute
22. Cooking Mama World Kitchen - 4 hours, 41 minutes
21. Blast Works: Build Trade Destroy - 4 hours, 40 minutes
20. We Love Golf! - 4 hours, 39 minutes
17. Top Spin 3 - 4 hours, 35 minutes
11. Wild Earth: African Safari - 4 hours, 12 minutes

But only if:


24. The Price is Right - 5 hours

Wii Menu 4.3

2010-06-23T12:27:00.001-07:00

My Wii's blue disk slot lit up the other day to let me know about Wii Menu 4.3. As usual, the update removes "unauthorized modifications to save data or program files". I don't actually use any homebrew software, so it should be fine to update, right?

Actually, no (or at least not yet).

In my day job, I manage a complex computer system that needs to work all the time. We have tons of systems which need to be regularly patched in order to protect against exploits, add features and correct bugs. Every patch must be evaluated by weighing the risks of implementing it against the risks of not implementing. Make no mistake, every patch carries a risk.

So the problem with this patch is that Nintendo didn't tell us what it actually does. The only place to begin to get a clue about what it contains is from Homebrew enthusiasts. Besides removing various bugs and homebrew files, the patch seems to a) enable USB camera code currently used by one game and b) do something with SDHC. So it basically offers me nothing. (And encouraged me to poke around the homebrew community, which I've mostly avoided in the past. Thanks Nintendo!)

How many games do you need?

2010-05-06T14:13:00.000-07:00

Every now and then I read an article that compares the ratings of games on various consoles. Usually, the analysis is something like: "almost one in four Wii games in 2008 were utter, utter crap". Which sounds pretty bad until you remember Sturgeon's Revelation.

But there's a deeper problem with this analysis: most people are at least somewhat picky about the games they buy. For instance, if you look at the best-selling Wii games on Amazon. While there are a few game rated less than 4 stars (Wii Play, Wii Music, Super Paper Mario, etc.), none are rated below 3 stars. Most of the best selling games are also critical successes and loved by customers. The percentage of Wii titles that are shovelware doesn't matter as long as there are enough good games to keep you happy.

Which brings us to the question of how many games does a console need in order to be worth the initial cost of the system? First, let's assume that going to a movie is the standard for measuring the price people are willing to pay for an hour of entertainment. In 2009, the average movie ticket price in the US was $7.50. It's probably $10 or more in Southern California where I live, but let's just go with the national average. By general rule-of-thumb, the average movie length is 120 minutes, so the standard hourly rate for entertainment would be around $3.25 an hour (or $5+ in LA).

Now the Wii currently costs $199 and includes both Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort, which is a pretty amazing deal. Divide the cost by the standard entertainment rate, and it works out to about 61 hours required to break even (or less than 40 where I live). According to the Nintendo Channel, Wii Sports averages just under 38 hours of play per console connected to WiFi. Wii Sports Resort averaged almost 19 hours by December, 2009. That means the current bundle is already likely to be worth the cost without considering any other games.

But let's say you don't think you'll play the Wii Sports games that much. Super Smash Bros. Brawl very nearly makes up the initial cost of the Wii all by itself (75+ hours). Don't forget that each game adds to the total cost of ownership, which means the extra $50 adds another 15 hours or so to the break-even-time. I'd also have to guess that a significant percentage of Smash Bros. game time is in multiplayer, so you need to add in the cost of extra controllers. (This applies to the Wii Sport titles as well, by the way.) On the other hand, each hour spent on a multiplayer game is worth one hour times the number of players. Compare taking a family of four to a movie ($30 or more) to spending an evening playing the Wii. You only need to make that choice half a dozen times to break even.

I can also tell you that between Wii Sports, Super Mario Galaxy and Lego Star Wars, our family has easily recouped the total cost of our Wii setup. So the answer to how many games you need is as few as one, if the game is good enough.

But to go back to the original complaint with the Wii library, one of the reasons's there are so many bad games is because it's relatively cheap to develop and publish a title for the low-powered, widely-owned system. That means publishers are far more willing to take risks and green light more projects. But the flip side is also true: consumers can take a risk and buy unknown or marginal titles since the standard price of Wii games is $10 (or about an entertainment hour) cheaper than PS3 and 360 games. What's more, it takes a lot more to recoup the cost of the more expensive consoles (and potentially more expensive TVs and sound systems to go with them). In fairness, we probably need to shift the baseline from a regular movie ticket to an IMAX ticket ($3-$5 extra).

Monster Hunter Tri (Demo)

2010-04-06T15:57:00.000-07:00

Monster Hunter Tri is the third console iteration of an incredibly popular series from Japan. As far as I know, this is the first Monster Hunter to be actively marketed in the US, so a demo seems like a really good idea. Unfortunately, Capcom chose to distribute the demo disk through GameStop rather than directly or digitally. I walked into a local store a few weeks ago and spotted the display box filled with disks behind the counter. There were a couple of guys with name tags hanging out in the front of the store, but they professed ignorance of the game and demo. So I waited in line while the other two workers were selling the membership program to other customers. When I finally got to the front of the line, the pimply adolescent loudly announced his manager would only let him give out the disk to people who pre-ordered the game. That makes no sense since I wanted to get a demo in order to find out if I'd like to buy the game later. If I was ready to buy the game, why would I care about the demo? Like an idiot, I put down $5 to get the demo and then came back a few days later to cancel the pre-order. The strange thing is both times the clerk asked me to fill out a survey. I think he gets credit whether the feedback is good or bad.

Prior interest: Low

Until recently, I had a very vague idea of what Monster Hunter was all about: big in Japan, characters wield comically large weapons, "monsters" are a cross between dinosaurs and dragons, online is important for some reason and so on. Exactly why the Japanese pay for online services and sink hundreds of hours in the game isn't immediately clear from the description. Screen shots and gameplay videos reveal the graphics are exceptional, but the action seems very deliberate and the spaces somewhat limited. If ever there were a game that could benefit from a demo, this would be the one.

Odds of purchase: Medium

Besides the disk, the demo came with a huge, color instruction sheet for all the different weapon controls. For instance, if you pick the lance, the Z button initiates a charge, but it charges up a whirlwind maneuver if you are using the giant hammer. While you are certainly free to jump right in and learn the controls by trying them out, examining the control sheet is highly recommended. Only the Wiimote and Nunchuck controls are listed, so if you want to play the demo with a Classic Controller you need to look around online or make good guesses.

During the loading screens, Capcom warns that there might be differences between the demo and the final game. Other than slight wording changes, I can't imagine what they would change since the game has been out in Japan for half a year. That means it's hopeless to dream the final version will include GameCube controller support. The demo consists of two quests: the one star Great Jaggi and a three star Qurupeco. Both are limited to 20 minutes, so there's some pressure to get right to work attacking the quest monster. As I'll mention in a minute, it's worth your time to explore the Deserted (or Solitary) Island, where both quests are located.

In contrast to the limited choice of quests, the demo opens up all the weapon types and even offers multiple versions of some. There's also a wide variety of armor choices and both genders. The costumes seem mostly, well, cosmetic, but the different weapon choices force different approaches to battle. Sword and shield allow quicker attacks at the cost of damage per attack. The three classes of bowguns trade slower developing attacks for high potential damage. Trying out all the possibilities turns out to be a major draw of the demo.

After you've made your choices and waited through a stylish loading screen, you are dumped into a hunting camp on the island with no clear clue what's going on. There is an area map with the quest monster clearly marked. So the natural thing to do is to navigate to where it's prowling around. On the way, you'll encounter some more loading screens and a dynamic environment. There are mushrooms, herbs, grazing herbivores, smaller carnivores and odd, tool-using cats. While you can interact with these elements, there's no point to it in the context of the demo as everything goes away after 20 minutes.

When you finally do confront the quest monster, you'll probably find yourself unceremoniously dumped back at camp if you try charging in and hacking away. For one thing, attacks are slow and difficult to aim. For another, monster attacks cause significant damage and are often chained. So if you get knocked down, you'll barely have time to get up before getting assaulted again. You are equipped with plenty of health potions, but you better learn to put away your weapon and use the sprint button to get far away from predators or you'll loose as much health as you gain. Once you learn to read a beasts pattern and develop an appropriate counterattack (involving plenty of evasive maneuver), you'll have an easier time taking them down.

With some luck and practice, you will start dealing out enough damage to see your prey change behavior. There's no status bar, so you just have to observe the monster to know when you are getting close to a kill. The first time I saw the Great Jaggi limp out of the area, I got a sudden adrenaline rush and sprinted after him only to be slaughtered a few minutes later because of over-aggression. It took several more tries to master the patience needed for delivering solid blows without receiving any. When I did complete the first quest (with switch-ax), the exhilaration I felt matched the time I'd spent.

So the demo provides a taste test of the meat of Monster Hunter Tri: hunting monsters. If you look hard enough and ignore the quest, you'll also find a limited sampling of the game's side dishes. For instance, you can kill some cow-like Aptonoth, carve them for their meat, roast it on your BBQ spit, and eat the cooked meat for added stamina. But there isn't much point to doing it since your hunter is already equipped with well-done steaks at the start of the quest. There's a distant sea cave you can swim to that features giant mosquitoes called Bnahabra and a pile of bones to dig through. Clearly the place means something, but with no in-game help, who knows what these things are called or why they exist. Apparently, the full game features a story mode that serves as a sort of tutorial for the game, but the demo dumps you right into the action. And of course, the demo leaves out all online features.

So as a demo, it gets the essentials right: give the prospective customer a taste of the game so they can get excited about it. Unfortunately, the demo focus on a portion of the game that's an acquired taste and leaves out the bits that are likely to be appealing to a broad audience. Fortunately, the rest of Capcom's marketing effort is directed at filling in the gaps. But next time, why not make the demo a free download? Just a thought.

Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga

2010-03-09T11:44:00.000-08:00

Lego Star Wars was the game that prompted me to buy a Wii. I even bought the game before I bought the console.¹

The first video game I played was a home version of Pong. I don't remember much about it, but I do recall waiting for the TV to warm up so we could play a few games of Pong before Dukes of Hazard or some such came on. It's a simple game and after a few plays you are ready for something else. One of my friends had an Atari 2600 that got a lot more play from us since it had Breakout, Combat, Indy 500, and especially Space Invaders. I vividly remember spending entire afternoons trying out the various game modes of Space Invaders—the 2600 version had 112 including invisible enemies and moving shields.

Then a series of events pulled me away from home consoles for many years. We moved away, my parents got rid of our old TV and bought a Tandy 1000 SX home computer. So I missed out on the NES, the 16-bit consoles, the PlayStations, and the various other gaming systems that connect to a TV screen. Instead I played tons of PC games from Sopwith to IL-2 Sturmovik. As you might imagine, I also spent tons of time and money upgrading my computer so that I could play the latest PC games. It was sometime after I got married and before our son was born that I got burnt out and gave up on upgrading my PC. A few years later I picked up a Jakks Atari TV game out of nostalgia, but I figured I'd outgrown video games.

Time for a short history of video games digression. Video games exist in three distinct zones. The first is arcade games which reside in public locations such as bars, pizza parlors, movie theaters and, of course arcades. Second is home consoles, which are attached to family TVs in the living room or den. Lastly are computer games that played in the home office or den. As a result of these zones, each type of game has developed it's own distinct traits. Arcade games are bright, inviting, technically advanced, fast-paced, public, and unforgiving because they are designed to eat quarters. On the other end of the spectrum, computer games tend to be darker, complex, technically limited, contemplative, individual, and deep since they reside on the same machine that is used for word processing and spreadsheets. Home consoles sit between the extremes.

Initially, consoles were just cheaper versions of arcade machines that could be experienced in homes. But somewhere around the end of the Atari era and the beginning of the NES era, consoles began to assert a separate style of gameplay that was a little more relaxed than their arcade cousins. Donkey Kong did its best to kill you off in the first minute or two, but Super Mario Bros. gives you a lot more rope to keep playing. Console games could afford to offer a deeper experience without the pressure to cycle through players as there is at the arcade. On the other hand, they were restrained from becoming as complex as PC games since they relied on a public resource (the living room TV). Over time, console games drifted closer to the PC style as more gaming systems were attached to TVs in bedrooms and game rooms. By the time I started looking into consoles again, they were a far cry from the Atari I grew up with.

A few Christmases ago I visited my brother who has an Xbox 360 and a copy of Lego Star Wars, which he fired up between events. It looked fun so I asked to play and he handed me a second controller and I dropped in. We worked together for a while solving puzzles and beating up battle droids. Then he needed to go do something and dropped out for a while. As we played through the story, other family members (including non-gamers) sat around to watch the goofy cut scenes between levels. Gameplay is so accessible almost anyone can start playing (and make progress) moments after picking up the controller. In essence, the game was a lot like the family, living-room, arcade-style games from the Atari and NES eras.

When I first heard the concept of the game, I couldn't get my head around it. How do you make a game based on both Lego toys and Star Wars? I assumed there would be lots of building with bricks and that didn't seem to fit with the action-oriented movies. And the developers seem to agree since game uses Lego environments mostly for the sake of destruction. Pretty much everything that looks like it's built out of Legos can be destroyed. Besides being fun to smash up the environment, the game scatters studs (Lego currency) everywhere to be collected for buying bonus features and characters later. Building is included for solving puzzles, but it's somewhat abstract as you'll find a pile of bricks, hold a button and your character starts to assemble some useful object. (Often you can turn around and destroy it again, which is therapeutic.)

As for the movies, I've seen the original trilogy dozens of times and, as good as it is, I've gotten a little numb to the story. As for the prequels, they seem to take themselves too seriously and I actually fell asleep during the most recent one. Lego Star Wars manages to fix both issues at the same time. All the dialog-y bits are presented in pantomime cut-scenes that usually feature some sort of twist. For instance, the dramatic credit scene from Empire gets a gag where Luke's robotic hand jumps off his body and wanders around Thing-like. Then you get to play through all the action scenes which are greatly expanded from the movies. The game manages to capture the feel of the movie action sequence such as firing blasters at Stormtroopers while a droid works to open a blast door. Maybe not groundbreaking, but it feels just right.

After you finish a level in Story Mode, you unlock the option to play again in Free Play mode. In addition to using different characters, you can also find all sorts of hidden objects the second time around since different character classes are required to open up certain areas. There's just so much content and attention to detail it's hard to take it all in. Even in the overworld (Mos Eisley Cantina) you can easily amuse yourself getting into brawls, breaking up furniture, solving mini puzzles, and so on. By the way, get the Complete Saga version that includes levels from the first two games plus a few little extras.

By nature these games are cooperative. If you play alone, the computer takes over the other character, but it's not as fun. Either the computer will basically solve puzzles for you or will refuse to do their part causing you to switch from one character to another in a frantic attempt to do everything. After you've seen how to get through a section, it doesn't hurt to replay it on your own, but don't start off that way. Two player mode has it's own problems. Since there's only one camera, players can't wander where they please. It's not uncommon for one person to press ahead while the other wants to hang around and find secrets. Until one or the other caves in, this results in a frustrating fight for control of the camera that leaves both players stuck at the edge of the screen.

The other serious issue comes from the platforming elements. I don't know what it is about 3D platforming, but it's hard to judge jumps and the camera loves to move at the exact moment you need to pick a direction. Lego Star Wars exacerbates the problems by making the edges of the platforms mushy so you tend to slip to your doom when you get too close to a bottomless pit. If that weren't bad enough, you always respawn in the exact same spot and if you don't take action right away you'll fall in again and again. A stupid trick to play with a "friend" is to push them over a cliff and not move so they fall over and over. The computer loves to do that. (For an example of how to do this the right way, look at New Super Mario Bros. Wii.) Thankfully, death doesn't cost anything but studs, but this is a completely avoidable problem.

Another problem, especially for younger/less-experienced gamers, comes from the complex and layered nature of the levels. Often there will be a little hint that something is hidden behind a wall or a puzzle to be solved, but these are sometimes premature in Story Mode—they require characters that are unavailable. Even for me, it was sometimes hard to figure out what needed to be done to get through some levels. Particularly frustrating are the vehicle levels which seem to go on and on without giving any indication of how to proceed. In addition, they are the least cooperative sections of the game and even encourage competition.

And cooperation really makes this game special. It's a game that my son asks to play with me and then I get to be his hero by fighting off the bad guys and he gets to be the hero by finding the key to some puzzle or the direction to take next. And then my wife comes along and we switch to Wii bowling for a while.

Entertainment value: All 6 Star Wars DVDs edited by Steven Spielberg and a pile of Star Wars Lego sets.

1 - The reason I bought it before a Wii was that I wanted to get a copy of "The Complete Saga" for my brother who only had Episodes I-III. Unfortunately, I didn't know that XBox game boxes are green and Wii boxes are white. So I returned the game and bought it again about a year later.

Facts over flash

2010-01-18T11:39:00.000-08:00

So I realize the recent IGN Editorial: Blinded by Mario is designed to get attention. Mission accomplished, I guess. But it's a textbook example of making an argument with flash, calling it opinion, and obscuring the evidence that contradicts an author's conclusion. Let's take a look at the facts.

The subtitle of the article is "'Splosion Man vs. New Super Mario Bros. Wii: which is really the better platformer?" Unfortunately, it isn't practical to evaluate these games firsthand. The first is available only on XBox Live Arcade and the second is only available on the Wii. Since I only own the Wii platformer, I'm somewhat biased toward Mario's game. But there are objective measurements of each game's quality. At this moment, Metacritic lists New Super Mario Bros. Wii at 87 with a User Score of 9.1. Splosion Man boasts the same User Score and has a very good Metascore of 84. Looking at Game Rankings produces similar numbers (88.50% vs. 85.74%). The wisdom of the crowds suggests Mario has a slightly better game.

Other games mentioned in the editorial also earned high Metascores. For the sake of comparison, here are the top platformers released in 2009 according to Metacritic:


Game                                       Metascore
----                                       ---------
Braid (PS3)                                94
Braid (PC)                                 90
Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time  87
New Super Mario Bros. Wii                  87
LittleBigPlanet (PSP)                      87
PixelJunk Eden Encore                      86
LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias          86
Splosion Man                               84
Trine                                      83
NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits                  82
Patapon 2                                  81

Braid was originally released on XBox360 in 2008, so it really should be out of consideration for 2009. Splosion Man does not show up in the Metacritic search as it's listed as "Action, Adventure". In any case, Splosion Man does not stand out in any particular way.

Now there are problems with simple review scores. These are vastly different games. One could argue NSMBW gets an unfair advantage since it's a MARIO game. Actually reading some reviews shows that being a Mario game has hurt it's review scores. It would be interesting to see what would happen if the game could be reskinned as a new set of characters in a new world. (How about Jumpman Rescue Team?) Meanwhile, Splosion Man clearly earns extra credit for it's a) lower price, b) independant developer, c) original character, d) platform (which is fairly light on platformers), and e) edgier content. Of these, price is the only variable a Mario title can really change.

So let's talk price. Like any consumer product, software must follow the laws of supply and demand—higher demand and lower supply result in higher prices. But unlike most goods, software supply is virtually infinite. Therefor software companies, such as Nintendo, artificially control supply by setting prices. All other variable the same, lower priced games sell better than higher priced games. Since the goal of game developers is to maximize profits, games tend to be priced as high as possible without killing demand. When demand starts falling, game prices start falling as well. Since New Super Mario Bros. Wii is the best selling title that doesn't have "Modern Warfare" in it's title, it's fair to say the price is right for consumers. No matter what any particular consumer feels, those are the facts.

While we are at it, comparing the price of a retail game to a downloadable game is staggeringly naïve. For one thing, manufacturing and packaging cost an extra $3 or so. Distribution costs are substantially higher for physical media and may be more than the full price on an online game. From the perspective of consumer value, physical disks add real value that may be transfered either through the used market or simply by being available for loan to friends and family. On Amazon, you can sell your copy of New Super Mario Bros. Wii for about $30. In addition, retail games may be rented for less than the price of an online game. Since downloadable games are priced much lower, they may be a good value if you intend to keep and play the game for the life of your console. Otherwise, you may be better off with the traditional distribution model. In either case, price tags can not be compared directly.

One advantage of disk-based games is they have far more room for graphical and auditory content. From screen shots, Splosion Man seems take place in a single environment:

New Super Mario Bros. Wii does not feature shifting perspective, but does contain many more environments:

Now we can look at the three "Exhibits" the editorial lists:

Exhibit A: 'Splosion Man is more original

Certainly Splosion Man is a new and very original character compared to Mario who has been jumping around for 28 years. However, originality does not equate with quality. If anything, the Mario brand has become a reliable indicator of quality that few other franchises can match. He has certainly not followed the path of Sonic in this game. How many games does Splosion Man have in him before his act gets old? And while we are on the subject, doesn't Splosion Man remind you of someone else:

Exhibit B: 'Splosion Man does four-player online co-op

While this is certainly true and I haven't actually played Splosion Man, multiplayer in New Super Mario Bros. Wii seems a different beast altogether. For one thing, each of the levels may be played solo, cooperatively or competitively using one of two scoring systems. Levels in Splosion Man are divided between solo and co-op levels. From what I've seen and read, all players of the XBox game need to be experienced in order to make it through the co-op levels. Common to many Wii games, unequal players can have fun playing as Mario, Luigi and the Toads. Certainly "Exhibit B" is a point in favor of the newcomer, but only if you care about playing online and don't care to play with non-gamers.

Exhibit C: 'Splosion Man offers more content for a fraction of the price

We've already dealt with the price to an extent, but I find the statistics very misleading. For one thing, all 77 levels in the Mushroom Kingdom are playable by 1 to 4 players. I've played through Level 1-1 dozens of times both alone and with others and I'm only now losing interest in it, even when I'm watching others play. Later levels are even more clever, challenging and entertaining. Only half of the levels in the Big Science Labs are playable single player and the other half are strictly multiplayer. No doubt it's exciting to speed run the levels, but I'm pretty sick of watching Splosion Man wall jump. Honestly, I have a very hard time imagining Splosion Man offering significantly more content than New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Level counts only work if the levels have more or less equal depth.

The dig at the Wii's technical ability is totally gratuitous. Hopefully I don't need to explain why that bit of flambait ought to be ignored.

I can see where journalists come from when they declare Nintendo lazy or cheap. Many of the features nearest and dearest to them have been left out of the most popular Wii titles. Features that mean nothing to them have been substituted. It's a bitter truth, but Nintendo no longer needs to cater to the HARDCORE in order to sell games. For better of worse, these gamers have outgrown Nintendo after all these years. If you are listening: please don't try to rob the joy the rest of us are experiencing from the current lineup of Wii games.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii

2010-01-15T08:54:00.000-08:00

Reviews are the crystallization of an experience the reviewer enjoyed (or endured) and with luck and skill it represents an indication of what consumers of the review can expect from a game if they were to try it themselves. The climactic scene in Ratatouille features an aloof food critic who tastes the titular dish and recalls an incident from childhood when the meal soothed him. It is a touching scene, but the review itself, which is read in a voice over, does not mention the experience or the dish itself, but rather the skill of the chef who produced it. Experience is individual, but skill at producing an experience is universal.

Generally, reviewers are able to easily separate the quality of a game from the circumstances of their experience of playing it. Even if your cat just died or you were recently married, you'll still be able to say that World of Goo is pretty good and M&M's Kart Racing is terrible. But not always.

Any pleasure sensor gets numb if it's been stimulated too much for too long. That's why we love the N64 kid. We no longer get orgasmic unwrapping toys at Christmas so we try to experience the pleasure vicariously. Similarly, game journalists have played games since they were sucking their thumbs and play as many games in a week as most people play in a year. In particular, every one of them obsessed about at least one iteration of Super Mario Bros., if not all of them. No new Super Mario Bros. game can match the high they got playing a Mario 2D platformer for the first time. They are more to be pitied than censured, actually.

I never really played Mario as a youngster (I was a PC gamer until recently), so I went back and played a few levels of some NES, SNES, Game Boy and DS Mario platformmers. These are all great games (even SMB2 in it's own special way). They are challenging, colorful, intriguing, and addicting. But they are also very, very similar to each other (except SMB2). The first "?" block in World 1-1? Hit it and it yields a Super Mushroom. The first enemy is always a stompable Goomba. Try all the pipes until you find the one that takes you to a secret level with lots of coins. There will be underground levels and water levels and air levels. Bowser or one of his minions will be at the end of lava-filled castle levels. If you search hard enough (or get clued in from an outside source), you'll find a way to warp ahead to a distant level. As time goes on, more level themes, enemies, puzzles and power-ups are added to the formula. It's more of an evolutionary process than revolutionary.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii, despite it's convoluted name, turns out to be a brilliant update of the 2D Mario formula. To be sure all the original pieces are still in place and there are plenty of new bits added. If you've never played Mario, you'll find yourself hooked like I am and like game journalists were in their formative years. Gameplay, graphics, music, sound, and levels have been given a 1-Up or two. This version can be seen as the definitive edition for those new to the series.

The world has changed since the last 2D Mario for a home console (Super Mario World for the SNES). Most reviewers would be thinking of HD TVs, the internet and the changing demographics of gamers. So most reviews take this time to lament graphics recycled from the DS, the lack of online anything and no playable female characters. (But wait! Toads can be difficult to sex even for other toads. Mario games may be more gender neutral than we thought.) While these are fair criticisms, this review will instead point out that entertainment options have exploded over the last couple of decades. You don't need to wait for Saturday morning to watch cartoons anymore or listen to whatever the goofy local DJ decides to play on the radio. What that means for game designers is that they have to work a lot harder to suck players into the experience.

So designers might go big by producing huge cut scenes and story inviting players to press forward. Or go small by filling a disk with dozens of bit-sized mini-games. Or lower the difficulty. Or exploit the desire to connect with other by adding multiplayer options. Or feed players at intervals with DLC. Or just use sex, violence and bathroom humor. Most blockbuster games do several of these things. But Nintendo had limited options when it came to console 2D platformers. (Handheld games don't have to worry about the problem since they can rely on a more captive audience who is riding the train to work or waiting for the dentist.)

New Super Mario Bros. Wii solves the problem by serving up bite-sized levels and giving players ways to get past tough sections. None of the levels take more than 5 minutes to finish even if you take it pretty slow. There are checkpoint flags halfway through every level to avoid replaying the early parts of a stage too often. You can "Quick Save" at any time in the overworld or hard save after finishing a tower or castle stage. 1-Ups are fairly easy to obtain and continues are infinite. Mushroom houses and overworld enemies grant powerups that can be applied before beginning a level. Hint movies may be purchased with Star Coins. Being able to advance in multiplayer as well as single player helps quite a bit. (More on this below.) Finally Nintendo added Super Guide, which veteran Mario fans will never see as it only shows up if you die 8 times in a row. (I however saw and heard it tempting me constantly.)

These helps are necessary because the game get difficult quickly. With the helps you can usually make some sort of progress in every play session. For those who afraid they make the game too easy, understand that none of them are required. Even the midlevel flags can be bypassed by jumping over them. Anyone who thinks this Mario outing is too easy can be safely ignored unless their save game slot looks like this:

Needless to say, the levels are brilliantly laid out. When you tackle a level for the first time, enemies and hazards seem to be placed where they can cause the most havoc. But then you "stumble" on ways to get around the level more easily. For instance, there's an early level where you are riding an elevator that picks up hordes of Koopa Troopas. Initially, this spot looks like it will be impossible to beat. But then you "happen" to hit one and kick their shell across the screen which takes the rest of enemies and produces an easy 1-Up. Don't think for a moment that the sequence was accidental. Players are meant to discover and be delighted by this solution. And that isn't even the best way to handle the elevator as revealed by a hint video available in the game.

Once a level is beaten, there are plenty reasons to return including three Star Coins, which serve as optional challenges. Early on, Star Coins appear not far from the beaten path of a level. Then they are placed a bit out of reach until you hit on the method of reaching them. Finally, they are hidden with just the barest hint of where to look. Pretty soon the game has you trained to look for any imperfection or oddity to see if there might be some secret hidden in that part of the level—a habit that will often be rewarded with secret areas.

What makes these levels more amazing is that they work in multiplayer situations as well. Way back in 1983, Shigeru Miyamoto followed up the arcade hit Donkey Kong with
Mario Bros. featuring both Mario and Luigi. Together they earned money by clearing pipes of creatures such as turtles and crabs. It's notable that the game can be played by one or two players with each earning an individual score. But it's best played cooperatively as each enemy requires at least two hits to be defeated. Working together prolongs the game. In the main story of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, multiplayer works the same way. Each player has their own set of lives (which are replenished between levels if needed) yet completing levels requires cooperation and communication.

Multiplayer Mario has been called Divorce Mode, which is a pretty clever phrase that reveals as much about the players as it does about the game. Here's the deal: you have to learn to take turns and talk to each other. It's a team sport. With the extra players there are more ways to die and more ways to survive. On the one hand Mario can slam Luigi into a bottomless pit mid-jump. But he can also bounce Blue Toad up to a difficult-to-reach platform. A level doesn't end until all players fail (or time runs out), which means one person can camp in a safe area while everyone else takes risks and pushes ahead. There's no need for the Super Guide either, since players can save themselves or skip ahead to the lead player by bubbling up. If you press "A" in mulitplayer your character will go into a bubble just as if you'd died but doesn't use a life. Using these strategies, two of my brothers and and my brother-in-law nearly beat the game in an afternoon over the Christmas break.

When I play with my son, who hasn't mastered video games yet, I take care of enemies and carry his character past difficult bits. Our favorite early level features Yoshi, who makes the game much easier. But when you get hit riding Yoshi, he runs back and forth like a decapitated chicken, which totally frustrates my son. Thankfully, my Yoshi can swallow his character and spit him out another Yoshi thus saving the day (or at least the level). For those of you complaining about power-ups going to the wrong player, you need to learn where they are hidden during single player games and tell your partner where to stand to pick them up. You are responsible for your less-skilled friends.

Competitive types will have a chance to show off in Free-for-All and coin battle modes. Nintendo added five extra levels for Coin Battle and also added a ton of coins to the regular levels so that they are filled with coin-collecting opportunities. Some levels are unlocked from the start (so you can ride the terrifying Bonecoasters of level 8-7) and others become available as you beat worlds in story mode. One clever feature of these modes is that the game remembers which levels you play most often and saves them as favorite levels so they can be replayed easily. Neither is (or should be) the goto mode of New Super Mario Bros., but both are fun additions.

Speaking of which, I find it odd that many reviews complain that multiplayer is unfair and that it's not online. Often these complaints are linked in the same paragraph. How does that make sense? The latest Call of Duty game, which has a huge budget, geared toward online multiplayer competition and designed by veterans of the genre. And almost immediately players found and exploited glitches in the game to screw over opponents. Though it would be fun to play against my brother who lives in Texas, there's no reason to not play Mario Kart. At least that game is designed from the ground up to mess with the play of others.

Not adding online anything fits into what Nintendo seemed to have in mind with their latest Mario game: do everything right or not do it at all. It's not a perfect game, but it is nearly flawless. A perfect game would include the features everyone wishes for and do them all well. No game can reach that standard and New Super Mario Bros. Wii doesn't try. Rather, it tries to be a fun challenging game that can be enjoyed years from now as it's being enjoyed today.

Entertainment value: playing the original Super Mario Bros. with your son, wife and grandfather all at the same time.

World of Goo (Demo)

2009-12-04T15:00:00.000-08:00

World of Goo is a physics-based puzzle game using Goo Balls—among the most unusual construction materials ever imagined. The standard black Goo Ball forms a semi-rigid spar when dragged near an existing structure. Other colors have different properties: green may be repositioned after placed, red inflate into buoyant balloons, etc. Each level is built around the idea of helping Goo escape out of a vacuum pipe positioned in some awkward location. Unattached Goo Balls run on the structure you created in order to escape and serve as a scoring mechanism.

Prior interest: high

Of the first round of WiiWare demos, the World of Goo was the only game I'd previously played as it had been released with a demo on PC. Thanks to gushing reviews and a few minutes with the demo, I was already interested in the game. In addition, the publisher (2D Boy) gave away the soundtrack, which I always appreciate. Since then, they posted some thoughts on game design and sold the PC version of the game for, well, whatever you feel like paying. So they have a lot of my goodwill if not my money. The only question I had was if the WiiWare version would be a better choice.

Odds of purchase: high

World of Goo uses pointer control exclusively, which limits the potential platforms for it. On the PC, there is just one pointer: the mouse. The Wii has the ability to display up to 4 pointers using the Wiimote, which ought to be used more often by game designers. Super Mario Galaxy's coop play is a bit silly, but giving the second player an onscreen pointer turns out to be both useful and clever. World of Goo on WiiWare runs with the idea in that 4 players can grab Goo Balls and add to the structure all at once. For some levels, like the giant tumbler level that requires throwing up a tower quickly before the floor moves out from under you, the extra hands are very useful.

Ultimately, the multi-player option is likely to be the reason I'd buy this game. On the PC, it's a fun diversion. The demo shows off some of the game's tricks and certainly leaves me wanting more, but on the PC I'll just move onto one of hundreds of demo or adware puzzle games that proliferate on the internet. But the same game with another pointer or three turns into a community experience. For now, the demo can be pulled out when the family tires of bowling and tennis and eventually, someone will want to do more than just play the first few levels over and over.

NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits (Demo)

2009-12-03T13:57:00.000-08:00

NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits (formerly known as Icarian, a far better name) is a straightforward 2D platformer set in post-apocalyptic mythical Greece. You guide Nyx, an angel-like woman in her quest to find and rescue Icarus: a refreshing change of pace. Speaking of which, the pace of the action is appropriately slow to take in the spectacular backdrops Nyx is wondering through.

Prior interest: medium

NyxQuest represents a type of game I'm interested in: puzzle platforming in an atmospheric, well-realized environment. But this particular game has several issues that have kept it from floating to the top of my list. First is the ridiculous name and confusing name change. Even the official soundtrack uses the old name for the title track. Second is the LostWinds series, which seems similar to NyxQuest, has been well-reviewed, and now has two entries. Third, the game disappeared from my radar almost as suddenly as it showed up there. This has not been a well-marketed game.

Odds of purchase: medium

Playing through the demo level, I started to feel like NyxQuest had borrowed heavily from the 2D areas of Super Mario Galaxy. Both share a similar control scheme, beautiful backgrounds, clever yet not punishing puzzles, orchestrated music and 3D models constrained to a plane. It's hard to think of higher praise for a game, but unfortunately the demo came out a few months too late. I'm already playing New Super Mario Bros. Wii which scratches that particular itch for a while. That said, I'll eventually need something to fill that niche in my gaming and when I do, NyxQuest will be waiting.

In addition to providing a demo, the NyxQuest developers have a pretty good promotional website that includes an Oracle trivia game, which rewards the time needed to guess the answers correctly with a nice little prize.

Note to the LostWinds publisher: this might be a good time to bug Nintendo about getting a demo out for your series too.

Pokémon Rumble (Demo)

2009-11-25T17:20:00.000-08:00

Pokémon Rumble is a basic brawler that draws on the Pokémon licence and sensibility: "Gotta catch 'em all!" Game play consists of fighting through six regions with linear areas full of wild Pokémon. Defeated Pokémon either cough up coins to be used for purchasing or upgrading Pokémon, or occasionally leave a body to be recruited onto your team. New team members may be brought into play at any time in order to replace a damaged fighter. Once you obtain a Pokémon of high enough level, you may enter the Battle Royal, which pits you against a ring full of opponents. The demo ends there, but presumably winning the Battle Royal opens up more advanced regions.

Prior interest: none

I've never played a Pokémon game and I didn't have any particular interest in what looks like a dumbed down entry in the series. Pokémon Ranch, a previous WiiWare game, received miserable reviews as I recall.

Odds of purchase: STOP ME!

I now understand the insidious nature of Pokémon. Even though I knew I hadn't accomplished anything special in the first few regions I played, I found myself reluctant to end the game and give up the cute little fighting creatures I'd collected. And there was something mindlessly addicting to wandering around beating up underpowered opponents. It's got the Animal Crossing je ne sais quoi that makes you want to keep doing the utterly boring things the game asks without questioning. Nintendo has a gift for that sort of design.

Again, this sort of game demos especially well. Screenshots and reviews could never do the experience justice. Unlike the Bit.Trip: Beat demo, Pokémon Rumble does not satisfy the casual player who is interested in the title. Rather than being a relatively self-contained demo which may be abandoned after a few minutes, collection games demand hours of work to be truly satisfying.

Update:

Last night my son and I played a few minutes of Pokémon Rumble together and the multiplayer option works fine. It's always nice to find games that let parents play with their children, but this game is a bit too shallow for my tastes. He had a pretty good time, which might increase the odds I'll break down. I hope not.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Dark Lord (Demo)

2009-11-20T08:41:00.000-08:00

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Dark Lord (what a convoluted name!) takes it's tower defense genre seriously. You play as a Dark Lord building levels of a treacherous tower to be assaulted by wave after wave of heroes. And by "you" I mean a pre-teen girl dressed in fashionable, New Romanticism outfits with cute sock-puppet minions.

Prior interest: none

I've never played a Final Fantasy game, there are piles of free tower defense games on the internet, and the "My Life" meme seems boring and overplayed. Having a demo to try out is the only reason I'd ever consider a game like this.

Odds of purchase: low

It's immediately clear upon starting My Life as a Dark Lord that lots of attention was dedicated to round off any rough edges in the game. Everything seems weirdly pleasing with the possible exception of controlling movement on the large world map. Even the bilaterally-symmetrical maltagonist, Mira, turns out to be interesting. There's plenty to see as the battles play out: heroes rushing into and falling out of the tower, goblins grunting and cheering, sunrise and sunset, and characters offering advice and warnings. Way before I was ready, the demo timed out leaving me wanting more.

On the other hand, it's still a (very well done) tower defense game. So I'm only slightly interested in spending money to continue the game. Further, the demo ends with some teases of the game's story, which seems completely uninteresting. Still, I'd say the demo was a success in terms of getting me interested in a game I wouldn't have even noticed otherwise.

Bit.Trip: Beat (Demo)

2009-11-19T11:13:00.000-08:00

Nintendo recently released the first demos on their WiiWare platform, which gave me several games to try out on my non-existent games budget. All demos take several minutes to download, limit the features of the game, prevent saves and boot you to the Wii Shop Channel on completion. Unlike other reviews, these are from the perspective of how effective the demo is at capturing sales in my opinion.

First up is Bit.Trip: Beat, which is Pong meets side-scrolling shmup meets rhythm game. Tilting the Wiimote positions your paddle/ship/beat-collector in order to catch balls/enemies/beats that approach from the left side of the screen. Successfully bouncing the beats back from whence they came increases your score and failing to do so brings you closer to demise. Doing well is also rewarded with musical beats that add to the background music while misses make a little whiff sound. Stringing together longer sequences opens more complex background images and music while misses cause you to drop into a mode that closely resembles the graphics and sounds of Pong itself. Meanwhile the controller rumble slightly shakes in time to the beat.

Prior interest: high

I've been looking for a simple, old-school, action game to play when I have a few moments to fill at odd times. The Bit.Trip series seems like it fits the bill perfectly. I've seen videos of people playing in the groove that look simply amazing. Tilt control may be my favorite feature of the Wii. I hate having to dig through my collection to find disks to play a quick game. Plus I don't like spending a lot of money.

Odds of purchase: low

Overall, the demo is amazing and generous. Too generous. I died before getting to the end of the first song/level and was going on five minutes. Videos of the entire first level, which I believe is available in it's entirety, last nearly 15 minutes. That's pretty much plenty for me. I don't see myself playing this game often and seriously enough to need to play the other two songs anytime soon and certainly not at the cost of $3 each.

The Bit.Trip games seem ideal for demos since they turn on the quality of the experience. There are bound to be people who balk at spending money on a game that is widely seen as short and quirky, but who might be pushed over the edge by a good, immersive demo such as this one. In fact, despite my initial reluctance to pull the trigger this time around having a significant portion of the game available every time I turn on my system just might make the difference when I finally finish the first level.

Update:

Well I played a few more times, got better and discovered the demo ends after 7 minutes or so. Which slightly increases my odds of buying Bit.Trip: Beat. Slightly.

Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games

2009-08-24T12:34:00.000-07:00

My cousin had a Commodore 64 which was the highlight of visiting his house as a child. While we played a number of great games in those days (Bruce Lee, Spy Hunter, Microsoft Flight Simulator, etc.), I most looked forward to playing Summer Games by Epyx. It (and it's various sequels) had three obvious advantages:

Geared toward multi-player. (Bruce Lee was an awesome game, but it's boring to watch after a while.)
Accessible controls. (Mash buttons or wiggle joystick.)
Considerable layers of what we now call polish. (How cool was it to have opening ceremonies with digital doves flying over the torch?!)

Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games follows the formula of the Epyx classics with three licenses as opposed to zero. Which means instead of stick-figure athletes, players control characters from the Sonic or Mario universes (or a Mii). And instead of a generic Summer Games, the characters compete at actual Beijing Olympics venues. The experience is a surreal, as charming as you might expect, but somehow not very epic. Rather than national (or Epyx) anthems during the medal ceremonies, we get sound bits from the characters exalting or lamenting their own performance. It's repetitive and a bit creepy.

For the most part, the events work the way you would expect using the Wiimote and Nunchuck. Lots of events involve shaking to build and maintain speed including all the track and field and swimming competitions. Despite the fact some events rely on nearly identical mechanics, each feels fairly unique. For instance, the 100m race starts with timing the start followed by shaking to gain speed and the long jump starts with shaking followed by timing the jump. To a bystander, these are virtual mirror image actions, but to the player they feel distinct. High jump, javelin, pole vault, and triple jump play around with the same core mechanic. I can't explain it, but slight variations combined with altered visuals keep these events somewhat fresh.

Other events use fairly unique mechanics. Swimming requires breathing and well-timed turns. Distance races do a pretty good job of simulating pacing and timing the final kick. Relays and hurdles add timed hand-offs and jumps to the formula. Hammer toss requires the Wiimote to be twirled rather than shook to build speed. Skeet and archery add deeper themes to the basic IR shooting mechanic found in Wii Play. Table Tennis borrows heavily from Wii Sports Tennis. Fencing takes advantage of the one-dimensional sport to create a bare-bones fighting game. Gymnastics events and rowing focus on precision button pressing and motions. Then there are Dream Events that add video-game wackiness to standard events.

Each character has unique attributes and are divided into Power, Speed, Skill and All-around categories. Each also uses preferred swimming style from crawl to dog paddle to running underwater requiring different motions to propel them. Apparently the stats for Miis are assigned on the basis of height and weight combinations. For individual events character selection can be a good source of handicap: let a less-skilled player take Sonic in 100m and chose Bowser for instance.

Unfortunately, the designers made a series of missteps that sabotage their own masterly event design. Most of the events are locked from the beginning with no immediate indication of how to unlock them. When you get a bunch of players together, the natural first step is to try out the single event mode to see what might be fun. But the best events are locked from the start and the events that are available tend to be the shaking the Wiimote variety. The only way to unlock new events once your group gets bored or carpal-tunnel is to sit down by yourself and play through all the circuits in Circuit mode.

Mario and Sonic really comes into its own in circuit mode, which should be the default playing option. (Single event appears to be the default, since it's the first option on the main menu.) Circuits work something like decathlons with different mixes of events. Points are awarded in each event according to finish and at the end of the circuit the player with the most points wins. To prevent run-away wins, each player has a bonus coin which can be used to double points for a top-three finish. If you take the option, but don't finish in the top three you get nothing.* Do you take an all-around character to do well in all events or pick a specialized character and go for broke on your best event? Nothing increases the excitement of a contest than taking a big risk to secure a come-from-behind win.

Did I mention unlocking events is painful? Shaking the controllers to beat a couple of friends equals fun. Shaking the controllers to convince the computer to let you play more interesting contests equal pain in the wrists. About half the events involve running, which requires moving the Wiimote as fast as possible. Since the Wii's controllers are accelerometer based, tight drum rolls represent the best chance of winning. And this sort of shaking starts to hurt after a while. The worst events are high jump and pole vault because they repeat over and over until all participants fail three times. It's realistic but until you know how high to set the bar winning involves ratcheting up slowly which means lots of shaking. And all of this is so that I can earn the right to play events that don't cause my arms to fall off.

Once you unlock the events, the experience begins to level out. Initially success seems possible through indiscriminate waggle, but as with Summer Games there are definite skills to learn. A variety of missions provide individual challenges for those who crave it. For multiplayer sessions, circuits can be customized so that you never need to run 100m again. All sorts of actions unlock various trophies and medals. Theoretically the game offers online leader boards, though in practice they have been thoroughly hacked. (A perfect skeet shooting score in less than a second? Yeah, right.) For the younger audience there are a handful of mini-games which are fairly pointless and easy. Finally, all the Dream Events are reasonably entertaining on their own. (So why does Sega force us to unlock them all?)

On the whole, I think the title does a good job serving the fans of the three licenses and has the potential to entertain open-minded gamers. But Sega seems to go out of their way to make the experience frustrating. Why should I have to work so hard to earn the right to play the best events? Games like Samba de Amigo or Super Monkey Ball have history on their side—previous iterations use unlockable content as a carrot. But Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games is a cross between sports and party games. Sega's model ought to have been Wii Sports or Wii Play, which use locking to direct players through modes in a sensible order. Neither requires you to be good at an event before moving on. Mastery of the game tends to be the best carrot for sports games and interactions for party games. Locking, especially requiring players to win playing solo, defeats the purpose entirely.

* The Bonus Coin works something like the doubling cube in Backgammon. For those not familiar with the doubling cube, it doubles the value of a game during match play. The opponent may refuse the cube, which causes them to lose the game at the undoubled value. Or they may accept the cube, which allows the game to continue and gives the accepting player the sole ability to double the game again. In essence, it provides an extra layer of decision in games that otherwise might become boring decisive victories.

Samba de Amigo

2009-07-22T10:22:00.000-07:00

To start with, the controls are great. Early reviewers were either: a) bad at the game, b) confused or c) lazy. Don't worry about the controls. (More on this later.)

Do you remember the final scene in Beetlejuice where Winona Ryder sings Jump in the Line while floating in front of a stairwell? If that seemed at all fun, go out and a get a copy of Samba de Amigo because it is fun. Actually, it's completely addicting.

The Wii version is a remake of the Sega Dreamcast game, which is in turn an adaptation of an arcade game. The basic gameplay remains the same: shake electric maracas in rhythm to the music. Each side of your HUD (for lack of a better term) has three targets: high, medium and low. Timing balls emerge from the center of the HUD and head towards the targets. If you shake your controller, which may or may not resemble a maraca, at the right position and the right time, you earn points. There are a few extra moves: rolls, poses, dance moves, crossover, and wide hits. The more hits you string together and the more accurately timed your hits, the faster your score goes up and the faster an energy bar fills. If you stay in the groove long enough, your energy bar fills all the way and you achieve a higher rank (from a low of E to a high of A). Missing hits reverses the process. You don't really need to understand the scoring to play: just stay in the groove.

Initially, you will probably want to spend some time with Career mode, which starts easy and ramps up fairly smoothly. It also unlocks a few songs, which isn't completely necessary since most of the 44 songs are unlocked from the beginning. But when a friend comes over and wants to play "Mambo Number 5" waiting can be a drag. There are also some maraca and dance sounds to unlock, but they don't add all that much to the game.

When you do have friends over, there are six different modes to try out. Each of the modes also work with one player, but aren't as much fun. Most of your time will probably be in Quick Play, which allows you to play one song after another for as long as you can shake the controller. While waiting for a turn, players can finally look at the crazy dancing stuff you quickly learn to tune out while playing. In addition to the cast of wacky characters (Elvis, calaca guitarists, luchadors, bongo playing teddy bears, and so on), you'll see Mii representations of the players shaking away. And of course the actual players shaking away provide entertainment too.

One especially positive aspect of the game is that unequally skilled players can play head to head. When I play Hard and my six-year-old son plays Easy, we get scores in the same ballpark. The lyrics have been softened where appropriate. So instead of "Tequila!", the lyric is "Amigo!". (I don't want children picking up potentially unwanted vocabulary, but nothing prevents an older group from shouting the original lyric.) My arms can attest to Samba de Amigo's exercise potential and it probably doesn't hurt player's rhythm and dance skills.

At launch the game cost about a dollar a song. Now you will find it for half or a quarter that much. Master tracks featuring the original artist comprise just under half of the songs and the other half are reasonable covers. In addition, there are three downloadable song packs (3 for 500 Wii points). I haven't bought any, but they look to be high quality. Even more value can be squeezed out of the package by browsing the online leaderboards. These have not been completely hacked yet (unlike Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games) so the top scores are probably real. You can also compare to friends if you have their friend code or find your rank on the overall leaderboard. I can't really think of anything that should be added to the package.

Now let's talk controls. I have a theory about what went wrong with so many reviewers, so let's start with some observations:

Most reviewers had played the Dreamcast version and preferred it over the Wii version.
Most had few complaints about the Easy and Normal difficulties, but found they couldn't keep up with Hard and Super Hard.
And most had problems shifting from the high to low positions and vice versa.

Now the Dreamcast version had two different control schemes: hitting buttons on the normal controller and expensive maraca controllers that measured the height above a sensor bar on the floor. There's only one control scheme on Wii: tilt control (with either two Wiimotes or a Wiimote and a Nunchuck). Sega used the Wiimote's tilt control well in Super Monkey Ball and used it again in Samba de Amigo. Tilt the nose of the controller up for high note, down for low notes and level for medium notes.

Having watched videos of people playing the Dreamcast version, reviews of the Wii version and experimenting on my own, I believe most reviewers expected the controls to work identically to the Dreamcast or arcade game. And amazingly for easier difficulty levels, they do. Lifting the controller above your waist naturally tilts its nose up and dropping it below your waist registers a downward tilt. It's a touch unresponsive, but the beats are slow enough so that it's possible to keep up this way. Once you start playing songs on Hard the beats get faster and more complicated. At that point, you need to remove inefficient motions, practice and become more precise.

Understand that I'm not great at rhythms or difficult games. I played tuba in band and I'm stuck half way through Super Monkey Ball and Super Mario Galaxy. So it was with some trepidation that I started up Hard levels in Career Mode. Sure I missed some beats and maybe some of them were not my fault, but I cleared all of the Hard songs in the first or second try with the exception of "Mexican Flyer". And I've passed some of the Super Hard songs too. If you play the right way, the game is not punishingly difficult. It might even be too easy.

If you are having problems, here are a few tips:

Find the "Game" setting on your digital TV. It might not make a difference, but an extra millisecond or two to react to a beat can't hurt.
Use two Wiimotes rather than the Nunchuck setup. The Nunchuck reduces accuracy because of the tether and because it's difficult to find its level position.
Experiment with calibration. I've found that tilting too much in calibration makes hitting high and low beats slow, but tilting too little narrows the range for medium beats so that I don't hit them all the time.
Go back through the Normal levels in career mode trying to use your wrists more than your arms. Imagine playing Super Monkey Ball.
When you miss, don't assume the hardware is to blame. For instance, I notice that when I move too quickly I sometimes over-rotate on high beats so that the controller is starting to be upside down. That's my fault, not the controller's. Relax and try to get back in the groove.
If all else fails, consider using an alternate shaking motion. Instead of shaking vertically, a motion that can be confused with changing locations, shake to the side or make a stabbing motion. It doesn't look as much like a maraca shake, but it works.
A suggestion I can't vouch for is to buy the maraca shaped attachments. Supposedly they help find the high and low positions. Perhaps because they make the angles more obvious.

I've seen videos of people getting perfect scores on Super Hard using the button mashing scheme on the Dreamcast. And I've seen dedicated players struggle through the Easy difficulty with the expensive Dreamcast maracas. And I've seen people breeze through Hard levels with Wiimotes. My best explanation for the harsh reviews of Samba de Amigo for Wii is that reviewers were muddled in their memories of the previous game. If Sega is interested in re-releasing the game with Wiimotion Plus support, it probably won't make a difference. Adding a button pushing option, probably would.

Overall, there's almost nothing to lose by trying the game out. Probably the game is more fun on Easy and Normal and easier on Hard and Super Hard than you imagine. And compared to other games in the genre, Samba de Amigo would be a bargain at twice the price.

M&M's Kart Racing

2009-02-10T16:14:00.000-08:00

My defense: M&M's Kart Racing was a gift. Sometimes games are bad because they just aren't worth the money you pay for them. I would have been a lot harder on Go, Diego, Go! Safari Rescue and Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz if I'd paid full price for them. Other games are bad because they are a waste of time. This poorly implemented racing game falls into the later category.

Looking at the menus, you might think the game offers a lot of play modes and options. "Quick Race" is a single player race. "Training" is the same thing, but with no other karts. "Arcade" is a race for points rather than strictly time. "Tournament" is a single player race just like "Quick Race". "Tournament" is the only mode that makes any sense to play since winning a race opens up new tracks for the other modes. And you'll want to open up more tracks since the three you start off with are boring. Finally there is a "Multiplayer" option, which is just a two-player, split-screen mode. It has two modes: "Quick Race" and "Full Throttle". The difference is that first is one lap with no extra karts and the other is three laps with opponents. "Options" sounds promising, but just allows you to adjust the music and sound effect volumes. (Hint: it doesn't matter since the game should always be played on mute.) "High Score" is pointless since you can't enter your own name.

Lack of modes is forgivable in a racing game, if the tracks are fun. We begin our circuit with the "Chocolate Factory". You might expect bright colors and wide-open spaces. Maybe the track would feature tricky conveyor belt and packing machine obstacles. Sadly, the track is a series of boxy rooms with drab, factory-like decor. Racing consists mostly of getting through the doors between rooms before your opponent and being careful not to run into anything. Turns pop up around each corner, so you have to keep on your toes (or memorize them). There are usually signs pointing the next turn, but they sit on immovable posts that will bring your kart to a dead stop that will force you to reverse away from the post. Annoying.

Next up is "The Streets", which ought to have been called "The Dark Alleys". Most of the course is a series of narrow alleys with protruding door steps designed to slow karts down. Part of the course is a wide boulevard with a giant truck (not moving) and you start to wonder what the game would be like with wide-open courses. Then you take a big left turn into a dead end with a small opening back into the alley. If you can find it. To be successful, you need to memorize the awkward layout of each track, which does nothing to add to interest in the game.

Each course has two types of power-ups that are placed in fixed locations. First are chocolate coins that can be used to purchase new carts. Sadly, the new carts aren't that interesting or beneficial. Once you've bought them all, the coins are best avoided as collecting them blocks your view of the track ahead with an update of the number you have. The other power-up is a cup of coffee that give your kart a speed boost. Invariably, the coffee is at the end of a long straightaway so picking up the coffee will boost your speed into tight, twisty turns. It's the last thing you want.

The House level is more or less the same idea a The Chocolate Factory: boxy rooms with narrow doorways. The Farm actually turns out to be interesting. It's more open than the other courses and it has a difficult hay bail maze section. After running through the course several times, I discovered there is a shortcut through the maze. After three mindless, unrewarding tracks, the first unlockable gave me a glimmer of hope the rest of the game was going to be better. Like, maybe the initial tracks are sort of tutorials.

This tiny nod to rewarding gameplay got me excited to play the next level: The Forest. Here was another chance for a wide-open track with shortcuts and maybe less drab visuals. Sadly the forest the designers seem to have had in mind is Mirkwood. There are no shortcuts, no brightness, no escape. If you stray even for a moment from the path, you are likely to be caught by, well, monstrously large blades of grass or stuck behind huge mushrooms with the M&M logo. In addition, you can't see very far. Or rather, trees pop into existence when you get close enough to them. Initially, I thought this was an issue with objects being loaded into memory when beginning a level. But no, each time around the trees suddenly appear.

I don't have the heart to continue racing in the horrid forest level, so if there are more surprises like the farm, I'll never find them. And to be completely clear, the farm is only a good course relative to the very poor alternatives found in the rest of the game. No matter how cheap the game, it's too expensive. It's just not worth your time.

Why I'm glad I bought a Wii

2008-12-29T16:20:00.000-08:00

Reading about Steve Yegge's problems with Fable II makes me appreciate my Wii just a bit more. To begin with, having to deal with games that need certain hardware to work was one of the reasons I've given up living on the cutting edge of PC gaming. It seems Microsoft can't make a break with its past when it develops the Xbox consoles. Some of my earliest, and not so happy, memories of computer gaming are scanning the small print on the side of a the game I'd really like to buy only to discover my computer doesn't have enough RAM or the right graphics card.

Now with the additions of the balance board, Wii Motion Plus and a storage solution, I'm sure hardware requirements on the Wii will get trickier in the near future. Nintendo seems to be taking it slow for the very purpose of making the additions smooth for game players rather than forcing changes.

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz

2008-12-19T10:05:00.000-08:00

Marble gravity puzzles have a long history both in physical and digital forms. In both cases, whether the maze should be manipulated directly or via mind-bending knobs depends on if the designer intended the puzzle or the control to challenge the player. The grandfather of video game marble puzzles, Marble Madness, began life in arcades with an intuitive trackball setup that highlighted the course itself. Later, it was ported to other platforms which tend to use directional controls making the game an exercise in axis shifting.

Super Monkey Ball on the GameCube represented a sort of middle ground between the extremes. I only played it a few times and using an analog stick to maneuver floating platforms in order to propel monkeys who were inexplicable trapped in transparent spheres took some getting used to. But once oriented, the game felt fairly natural, though the levels themselves are very difficult. However, the Wiimote's tilt control and Super Monkey Ball are an even better fit. Tilting the controller forward tilts the world forward and starts your monkey moving ahead. Tilt in the other direction to slow down and to one side to turn. I'd guess the transition from "What's going on here?" to "This is awesome!" is half as long on the Wii compared to the GameCube.

This time around, Sega added the ability to jump, which adds a platforming element to many levels. Personally, I find jumps enjoyable, but aggravating at times. Part of the aggravation comes from the challenge of getting over obstacles or across gaps, but a bit is related to the controls. Jump is mapped to A, which normally makes sense. However, the A button is toward the front of the Wiimote, so pressing it pushes the controller forward a bit, causing your monkey ball to race forward as soon as you land often sending it crashing into some object in your path or zipping off the end of the platform. Knowing the cause of the problem was all I needed to solve it. Jumps can also be accomplished by holding the B button and flicking the Wiimote up. While it seems gimmicky, this method does allow jumps to flow better at the cost of being slightly less responsive.

I've only finished about half the main game, which tells you A) the course difficulty ramps up pretty quickly and B) I have not played it as much as Super Mario Galaxy. The courses I have beat were fun and challenging. But trying and failing the levels can be a chore because of the way the worlds open up. Initially, you start with an island world (Monkey Island, if you believe it). Each level in that world has the same music and graphics style. If you beat that world (most will have no problem up to the final map before the boss fight), you are allowed to move on to the Jungle world. You can play the levels within a world in any order, but you can't move on to another world until you finish off the previous one. So it's not unusual to get stuck on a map and have nothing to do but try over and over to beat it. In Galaxy, you can never get stuck on a level with nothing else to do because there are always a handful of worlds available at any one time. Opening new worlds in Banana Blitz requires falling off the same level over and over until you get it right.

Thankfully, there are reasons to go back to worlds you've already beaten. In order to unlock the 9^th and 10^th worlds, you'll need to conquer the other 8 worlds without using the continue option. Since only the most obsessive players will make use of the practice option enough to do it the first time through (and they have other problems besides being getting worn out doing something over and over), you'll likely need to retry older worlds in order to get a clean run. In addition, there are high-score, fastest-time, and bananas-collected records that can be pursued. Plus most of the courses are fun to race through and some have crazy shortcuts to attempt. Finally, a look around any cheat site will reveal a hidden goal to pursue. I'd prefer the less-linear Mario-style of progression, however.

Originally, the party games in Super Monkey Ball were a sort of extra that could be unlocked, but in Banana Blitz, they are half of the game's split personality. This time around, there are fifty mini-games and all of them are available from the start. If you've read other reviews, you'll know these are a mixed bag. The most unfortunate are those that match Wii Sports—Monkey Squash, Home Run Derby, Monkey Golf, Monkey Bowling and Monkey Boxing. They are either shells of deeper games or simply don't work (I'm looking at you Monkey Golf!). I feel like these would have been better received if Nintendo hadn't bundled a much better package with the system. Sega could have saved the sports if they had offered traditional controls in addition to motion controls. And since some of these were included in earlier Monkey Ball titles, it should not have been hard to get this right.

Perhaps the biggest complaint about the party games is that the developers seemed to be experimenting with every type of control scheme imaginable and all sorts of crazy game concepts. The result is that each game takes a few plays to understand what's going on, which doesn't work the best in an actual party. The good news is that some of the games do work well and are fun to play. You just have to finish the bad ones quickly and move on.

I am a touch annoyed at the Shepherd game, which is an implementation of an idea I had in the late 80's while playing with my cousin's Arcade Game Construction Kit on the Commodore 64. In fairness, I've had plenty of time to implement my idea and I didn't imagine monkeys playing the role of shepherd!

The games can be divided into tilt-control, IR-pointer, and motion-control listed in order of how well they tend to work. Tilt-control games such as Monkey Snowboard benefit from the developer's experience on the main game and only have issues if theme of the game has issues. Since tilt is even used for navigating the menus, you get the idea that when the developers got down to doing the mini-games, they found tilting the easiest control to work with. All-in-all, I would have thoroughly enjoyed more attention focused on these games and either left the other game out or just directly ported the GameCube versions.

IR suffers throughout. I suspect the Wii's pointer wasn't completely understood at the time. One problem is that the system does not register the motion of pushing the Wiimote toward the screen and Banana Blitz uses this mechanic in many mini-games. Sitting closer to the sensor bar helps as does making more dramatic motions. Another problem stems from a pretty good idea: pointer calibration. Before IR-pointer games the players are asked to land a ladybug on a flower to calibrate their Wiimotes. If you land in the center of the flower, your Wiimote will be directed at the sensor bar, not the TV, so in the game you won't be pointing at the screen. A solution is to aim at the screen and ignore the bug during calibration so it will land at the bottom of the flower if you have your bar mounted above the screen and vice versa. Finally, more rumble feedback would help greatly to know if you are pointing at what you think you are pointing at.

Motion control is temperamental at best in these games. Too often a movement will be ignored only to have the motion of returning the controller to a neutral position be registered. So in Monkey Golf, a back swing won't be detected, but lowering the controller will be detected as a stroke somehow. So your monkey ball will dribble a few feet off the tee rather being hit hard. Putting is even more frustrating since there's no way to gauge how hard the game will interpret your swing. I feel I do the same motion, but one time it barely budges the ball and the next it shoots the ball off the green. Other games are better, but only because constantly shaking the controller is rewarded by lots of action on the screen. The one game that motion control works for is Red Light, Green Light. Shake the Wiimote and Nunchuk like crazy when the light is green and stop all movement when it turns red. Temperamental controls add to rather than subtract from this bazaar activity.

Two factors ought to temper some of my negative comments about Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz. First, it was a launch game and having fun titles to play on a new console, especially a console as revolutionary as the Wii, are critical to the platform's success. Taken on its own, the main game is a worth addition to any Wii library and a showcase of the power of tilt-control. The mini-games should be seen as 50 experiments, many of which succeed. That so many copycats have now tread the same ground on Wii should not be held against this group of party games. The second factor is that nobody will be paying anywhere near full price on this title. In the context of Wiiware, and it can be purchased for Wiiware prices, the main game is a true bargain. The rest of the package can be utterly ignored or counted as the whipped cream and cherry topping.

MLB Power Pros: Extras

2008-12-09T15:11:00.000-08:00

If this were an infomercial, this would be the moment where I'd say "but that's not all!" There is so much content jammed into Power Pros it's not an exaggeration to say there's something for everyone. Take for instance the collector. While you play through full games in Season Mode, finish Success Mode or compete in the Home Run Derby, the game awards you Power Major Points. These can be used to buy a variety of upgrades, stadiums, uniforms, pitching and batting stances, and baseball cards. The cards include basic statistics, pictures and a short description of the player's career as seen from the Japanese perspective. Getting everything is a major challenge and amounts to hundreds of hours of gaming.

While you are playing, the game keeps track of every pitch and the stat fiend can have field day with the various reports. I know I like to pitch a breaking ball down for the first pitch. The Profile section of the game has reports that tell me not only the exact percentage of my first pitches that are breaking balls, but what the batter did with those pitches. Every record, including various achievements, are tracked constantly. At the end of every game, you have the option to review each pitch. Can't remember if your game-winning homerun was off a hanging curve or a meaty fastball? Look it up! During season mode, you can see player statistics updated play by play. My only disappointment is there's no way to calculate advanced statistics like WARP and Runs Created. If only I could save the numbers to my computer...

When you are ready to step up your game (by taking control of fielders for instance) Practice Mode puts you through rigorous training. Every aspect of the game can be drilled until you have down. You can take batting practice against real or generic players pitching one or a variety of pitches. There's a pitching drill where you aim for a specific location. Fielding can be either on randomly hit balls or balls on a manually set trajectory. Base running practice covers the basics of moving from one base to another, but is very thin. Then there are general offense and defense sessions where there are no outs and you try to score or prevent runs. Each practice can be set in specific game conditions and use any control setup. It's an ideal way to improve your abilities.

Somewhere, no doubt, there is a group of friends looking for a round robin competition offered in League Mode. Until the game can be played online, those guys will be the only ones using it. They will also be good candidate for the Arrange Team mode, which give players total control over a team to be customized. Besides the obvious ability to add and remove players, players can change the colors of a team's uniforms, alter name and location, pick a home stadium and so on. Custom teams may then be used in other modes.

Fans of particular players have quite a bit of control over how they look and act on the field. Most characteristics may be edited down to the color of a player's bat, glove, and wristband. (The Japanese seem to have an unhealthy obsession with wristbands.) Abilities may be changed as well at the cost of a unique band on the player's nameplate. If you are willing to enter painfully long passwords, it's possible to exchange players with others. But passwords do not transfer from one version of the game to another. One thing that can't really be changed is the pronunciation of a player's name. Or rather the name can be changed, but only to a name that has already been recorded. So Barry Bonds will always be announced as "Great Gonzales".

The only reservation I really have is that the 2008 version is already out and the 2009 version is coming soon. Both games seem even better than the 2007 version and neither will are be overly expensive. Given that the game has been under development since 1994 in Japan it's already pretty well polished, so if you find a copy in the bargain bin it will be well worth your while.

MLB Power Pros: Season Mode

2008-12-03T11:26:00.000-08:00

Season Mode builds on the core of Exhibition Mode by putting you in the shoes of a big league GM. For veterans of baseball games, this will be familiar territory: you can jump into your local team's front office or draft an expansion team from scratch. Beginning with opening day, you've got 10 seasons to work with in order to build a dynasty, which seems a bit short. (To be fair, I haven't finished a term at GM yet, so I can't really complain.) As with Success Mode, there's distinct Japanese feel with anime-style characters and load screens. You've got an assistant who guides you through the basics of the game (including some extreme basics like the number of teams in Major League Baseball), seems to have a crush on your character and cheers on the team at key moments.

As you might expect by now, there are tons of options, most of which may be safely ignored. For instance, you can initiate a trade with another team in order to improve your talent pool or get rid of expensive players. Before the trade is confirmed, you get feedback about the odds it will be accepted in the form of a zero to five star rating. A few days later, you find out if the other GM accepted or rejected your offer. All of this is totally optional, though you will be offered trades by other teams from time to time.

Games can be played through from start to finish for a fully immersive experience or you can simulate being a manager with Fast Mode or being a GM by simulating weeks, months or entire seasons at a time. Optionally, you may watch specific players or situations so that you can drop into the game when they come up. One especially good use for this option is to watch Success Mode players that you've signed to continue monitoring their progress. MLB Power Pros keeps track of all sorts of achievements from complete game shutouts to getting a certain number of hits to turning double plays, which score your team Owner Points. As the season continues you stock up points that are used to pay player salaries, buy players from other teams or purchase training equipment. Winning individual awards, getting into the post-season and winning playoff series increases your points scored as well. Essentially, the more exciting the team, the more interest the fans have, and the more money the GM has to play with.

Veterans of games like MVP Baseball might miss the depth of Season Mode initially. You don't set hot dog prices, schedule promotions, buy stadium upgrades and so on. The business side of the game is more abstract and the minor league system is just a holding area for upcoming players. Power Pros' training system more than compensates for these short-comings, however. During the season, you can assign players to practice on skills you'd like to have them improve on. Assigning a veteran and a rookie to a practice group will allow the older player to transfer some skills to the greenhorn. Too much practice will wear out a player, so they will need to be rested. To avoid micromanagement problems, players can be assigned to automatic training in which computerized coaches handle assignments.

For the most part, Season Mode lets you play the game the way you want to play it. You can micromanage every moment of you players' professional lives or sit back and let the Wii simulate entire seasons. And there are several viable strategies, such as gambling on free agents to win post-season points or training lesser players to become stars or signing Success Mode players you've created. Unlike Exhibition Mode, the games have meaning as teams find themselves in tight pennant races and players compete for post-season honors. Just as in real life, individual games are fun, but the real pleasure of baseball is the season-long dramas that play out each summer.

Super Mario Galaxy: Controls

2008-11-25T16:28:00.000-08:00

Clearly, the Wii owes a great deal of its success to the Wiimote's innovative control features. And the latest Mario also excels in large part because the controls work so well. So you might expect that Super Mario Galaxy relies on the new controls as well. But you'd (mostly) wrong. In fact, I believe the game would be almost as good with a GameCube controller.

Mario's basic movement is accomplished with the analog stick on the Nunchuk attachment, which is exactly what you want in a 3D platformer. Small movements of the thumb start the little plumber walking and big movements propel him across the world quickly, yet accurately. Like the GameCube analog stick, there are eight notches to push into, which makes running from point A to B easier than if the stick were completely free moving. Mario has a quirk that simultaneously makes him easier and more satisfying to control: he can walk right to the edge of most platforms without falling. If he takes that extra step, he usually can grab the edge before falling thus saving a life for another day. It's rare to walk to your death in this game. (Running and jumping to your death commonly occurs, however.)

The other thing you want Mario to do all the time, of course, is jump and that control is conveniently located under your other thumb—the A button on the Wiimote. Again, this is exactly the way a platformer should be controlled. Pulling off precise jumps is made easier by giving the player the ability to change course midair, which is physically-impossible everywhere but in a video game. Jumping into a wall and jumping again in the opposite direction allows you to get to higher locations than would be ordinarily be possible. Many levels rely on the ability to climb parallel vertical walls and the maneuver is very satisfying to pull off.

A third command, which is commonly needed, duck was mapped to the Z button on the Nunchuk. Again, it would have been easy to put this on a shoulder button of the GameCube controller. Combined with movement, the duck becomes a duck walk and combined with a jump, it becomes an extra high back-flip. Tapping Z and A while running allows for long jumps and tapping Z in the air produces a ground pound needed to stun certain enemies. As you can see, there are a number of combinations that help Mario get from point A to point B. Pretty soon, you'll find yourself back-flipping into a wall jump and finishing off with a ground pound. And none of these controls use features not available on the GameCube.

The main action you need that is mapped to a Wiimote only control is Mario's spin attack. Flicking the Wiimote (or Nunchuk) in a vaguely circular motion causes Mario to violently spin with fists outstretched knocking around enemies. While there's no reason it couldn't be mapped to a button, the physical action of flipping the wrist maps well to the onscreen action of a spin attack. In addition, there's a short recharge period that needs to be observed before using spin attack again, so the relatively slower flick control matches the relatively slow development of the attack. As you might expect, the spin control is pressed into a variety of different uses in different portions of the game. You can get a speed boost underwater, turn giant screws, start skating on ice worlds, gain more jump hang time, spin a Boo out of the way and so on.

Galaxy makes moderate use of the IR controls to collect and fire star bits. Most levels are completely playable without this mechanic, but it does make some of them easier. Firing star bits takes a backseat to collecting them, since it's usually better to save them in order to get a new life. The second player essentially uses the IR controls exclusively. When I've been able to talk my son into playing, it's nice to be able to have one person dedicated to manipulating the star bit inventory. (The second player can also freeze most enemies, which simplifies many puzzles.) Other uses of the pointer include aiming the canon with Mario as ammunition, grabbing pull stars, positioning bubble puffers, etc.

It seems like the development team had some fun with some of the levels. For instance, several levels have stars trapped in transparent balls that Mario jumps on and are controlled by tilting the Wiimote. (Now where have I seen that before?) Another level lets Mario ride a giant swimming manta ray via tilt control. A great many puzzles depend on special costumes that alter the way Mario moves through the world. Fire Mario launches fire balls instead of the spin attack. Bee Mario flies a short distance in lieu of jumping. Boo Mario disappears when you flick the Wiimote. And so on.

MLB Power Pros: Success Mode

2008-11-21T16:12:00.000-08:00

The thing is, MLB Power Pros is a product of Japanese imagination. The best evidence (after the character design) would be Success Mode: an RPG-style player creator. When I first heard about it, I figured it was one of those things I'd never understand about Japan. (No doubt, there are things about American culture that Japanese folks don't get.) It seems unbelievably off-the-wall.

As it turns out, Success Mode works pretty well. To put things in prospective, the first time I played a baseball game with a player editor (Earl Weaver Baseball: a true classic), I boosted the abilities of my favorite players. "Lou Gehrig was much faster than that. Let's give him 10 speed." Next, I created a new player with perfect stats. Then I made up a team with perfect players. While this can be fun for a while, there's no reason to care about a team of identical supermen. After that, I went through the most recent Bill James Baseball Abstract and created as many real players as I could. This was more fun, but tedious.

By setting up player creation as a Role-Playing Game, Success Mode solves both the hyper-powered and who-cares problems in one shot. You follow the same story each time you play as a Powerful University freshman who wants to make it to the big leagues. Each turn, you have to decide what to focus on for the following week: practice (there are numerous sub-choices), hitting the books, working a student job, going on a date, or just resting. Depending on what you chose, you may get experience points of several flavors (Strength, Mentality, Breaking Ball, and so on), which can be used to buy attributes and abilities such as hitting power, pitch types and Aggressive Runner.

For most of the game, you don't play any baseball at all. At the end of the first year, if you've impressed the coach, you will start the final game of the season for the Powerful Tulips. Your results are determined partially by how you control your player and partially by the abilities you've earned so far in the game. In turn, the results give you more experience points to buy abilities that will help you do better next year. Doing well in games is also how you impress the Major League scout that hangs around the university. And impressing the scout is the key to getting a minor league contract. Players that succeed in Success mode will then be playable in other modes of the game, including Season Mode.

Throughout the game, random scripted events occur that alter your character's stats. And you are confronted with a variety of choices that force you into difficult decisions. So it isn't really possible to create a perfect player without resorting to tedious save game exploits and even then you'll need to make some compromises. It's not an exaggeration to say that everything you do in Success Mode translates in to the final product somehow. For instance, if you routinely strike out or get extra-base hits an area of the strike zone, that area will be a cold or hot zone for the created player. After going on a date with a girl, you might end up with the Barehand Catch or Choke Artist ability. With so many unique attributes, it's hard not to become attached to your Success Mode creations.

This is as good a time as any to gripe about one missing feature: roster updates. When I play the Dodgers, Juan Pierre is awesome and Matt Kemp is so so. Of course I can buy the 2008 edition, but that will still be a year out of date by the time opening day rolls around. Andruw Jones will still be an everyday player. Konami could fix this by distributing (even for a small price) the roster updates directly. Even better, however, would be to allow users to make and distribute roster updates online. MVP Baseball hasn't seen an official update since 2005, but there is a thriving community updating the rosters. Not only would that be more cost-effective for Konami, it likely would result in higher quality rosters. The series has sold well enough to make a 2009 update possible, so we will have a solution to the problem soon.

Surprisingly, Success Mode comes very close to being a complete game all by itself. It's perhaps a bit short and could use more in game action, but other than that I'd be happy with the depth of this one mode. The true payoff, however comes from signing your Success Mode players in Season Mode and following the next 10 years of their career.

MLB Power Pros: Exhibition Mode

2008-11-19T14:58:00.000-08:00

The battle between pitcher and batter lies at the heart of any baseball game and at the center of MLB Power Pros. For quick pickup games with a friend, against the computer, or a CPU vs. CPU demo, the place to go is Exhibition Mode. There you will pick two Major League teams (no Miis outside of Wii Remote mode) and play using traditional console controls. Personally, I find the GameCube controller more natural than the Wiimote/Nunchuk setup because all the throwing and running buttons are always under the thumb.

This is a cursor-control game, which means the pitcher picks a location and the batter tries to guess where the ball will cross the plate. If all goes well (for the batter), the sweet-spot of the bat will smack the ball for a hit. Missing the location will result in a variety of sub-optimal outcomes. For a long time, this was the traditional way to design an arcade baseball game and it has been derided for being unrealistic. More recently, games have used a timing based system that works like the traditional golf power slider control.

Some people feel the cursor style puts too much control in the thumbs of the player. No pitcher has the pinpoint control and it's too easy for a player to get a perfect hit every at bat. I have MVP Baseball 2005 on the PC, which used a timing system, and I find MLB Power Pros more realistic. With Expert pitching, you have to time your release correctly in order to hit the catchers glove and turning off automatic lock-on makes batting more difficult. Further, each player has dozens of underlying attributes that alter his ability to respond directly to your controls. So a pitcher that lacks control will miss more often and a batter with poor contact skills will have a smaller sweet-spot.

For example, Johan Santana has a pretty good fastball, so it can be hard to make contact on strike one. If he throws it in the same location on the second pitch, the batter can be dialed in at take a good swing at it. Fortunately, Santana also has an A+ circle change that messes up a batter's timing. More often then not, the batter will have finished swinging before the pitch crosses the plate. A timing-only system would illustrate the value of a changeup too, but Santana also has an excellent slurve. In MLB Power Pros, a hitter who has been setup with a fastball will tend to swing over the top of slurve since the pitch starts off looking a lot like a fastball. A batter with good contact might be able to get enough of the pitch to foul it off, but it won't be automatic. The human player will need to recognize the pitch quickly and drop the bat a bit. There's just a ton of nuance in the cursor system that I never noticed in MVP Baseball.

As a batter, the strategy of "sitting on a fastball" makes sense. With the "Big Swing" option that reduces the sweet spot to circle, you have a good chance to drive a fastball in the strike zone. Once you get to two strikes, you can switch back to contact mode (the sweet spot becomes a teardrop with the point aimed at the handle of the bat) or try to foul off breaking stuff. With a home run hitter like Ryan Howard at the plate, it's easy to see why a hanging curve is such a big mistake—that sucker is gone. The two problems I have with batting are the inability check a swing and the difficulty drawing walks. The first is a minor annoyance, but its not a big deal once you get used to the idea. The second seems to be a function of the level of difficulty. In Normal settings with three balls, the computer pitcher bares down and throws nothing but strikes (which are often homerun balls). The computer gives up more walks with Expert and higher settings since it tends to work off the plate more. I'd welcome an option that makes the umpire's interpretation of the strike zone a little more fuzzy.

Games are played to completion pretty quick. Usually it only takes 20 to 30 minutes depending on how many replays you watch. Pitchers go into the windup almost immediately after the previous pitch is resolved and most of the cut scenes between plays can be skipped. There's no need to warm up relief pitchers, which might be unrealistic, but removes my least favorite aspect of real baseball: in-inning pitching changes. Plays end automatically once all baserunners stop moving and the ball is securely in the defense's grasp. Unlike more graphically intense games, foul balls are not loving tracked into the stands to show off details of the crowd.

Baserunning and fielding can be automatic, manual or semi-automatic. (Semi-automatic means you control lead runners and throwing while the computer manages everything else.) Manual controls are difficult and can be frustrating—nothing is more annoying than getting a made-to-order double-play ball that slips past an infielder and then rolls past an outfielder for a double. I also lose too many baserunners through forgetting they are on base during infield pop-ups. Better players might be able to control those aspects as well as the computer, but I don't think it's possible to do better than the automatic setting. Semi-automatic seems a good compromise.

Speaking of settings, there are far too many to go over in even an extensive review. It can be totally overwhelming, since it's hard to know what one particular tweak might do to the game. On the other hand, there's no real need to adjust the settings unless you want to. When you start up a game, each player can pick from Easy, Normal and Expert. The spread between the settings make games between unequal players (such as my son and I) competitive. Games can be shortened to 1, 3 or 6 innings to save time. Games can be played during the day or at night, fair or rainy weather, in MLB parks or a few imaginary parks, with many or no replays, and so on. Compared to other games, MLB Power Pros features only a limited number of camera angles, but the angles represented are quite pleasant.

Graphically, the game seems simple and cartoony. But there's a lot of attention to detail under the surface. For instance, balls hit out of Wrigley roll onto Waveland Avenue past speeding buses. (I'm pretty sure the street is closed on game days, but I appreciate the hat tip to quirky ballparks.) Afternoon games start out sunny, but the sun sets as the innings go by. First basemen toss underhand to pitchers covering the bag. Many, many players have unique stances and pitching forms. All the strange hairstyles and beards in the Majors are represented. Pitchers take uneasy glances over at runners on first and will pick up the rosin bag to calm themselves down. Balls take realistic trajectories off the bat. Runners from first try to take out the infielder covering second to breakup a double play. Catchers block the plate in a satisfying way. Every animation is smooth as silk. Pretty soon you don't see bobble-heads in the outfield, but baseball players.

I don't think anyone (except Konami) is satisfied with the sound. From the moment you load up the game ("MLB POWER PROS!!!"), you know this game tries to amp up the action with an excited announcer. The effect will be entertaining for a few games, but after a while, it gets old. While the play-by-play commentator (some guy named Jack Merluzzi), has a wide variety of lines, they don't always sync up with the action on the field. It's hard to figure out how these lines could be strung together on a single play: "And he was fooled inside. IT'S A HIT! He pulled it foul." It seems like something was lost in translation. Also both the stadium announcer and Jack screw up the pronunciation of player names, which many people find annoying. Personally, I find these glitches charming, but there's too much repetition in some of the more basic calls. Sports games in general are prone to this issue and it's not an easy problem to solve.

Exhibition Mode lays the foundation for most of the other modes. While it is fun to play a game or two on the side, it's even more fun to play games that matter in Season Mode. The little snippets of college baseball in Success Mode, which use the same basic game play, make for great season finales. When it comes down to the big Eckersley/Gibson situations, you want to know that everything hinges on a 3-2 backdoor slider. All in all, baseball has never felt more enjoyable for me in video game format than MLB Power Pros.

Go, Diego, Go! Safari Rescue

2008-11-18T16:39:00.000-08:00

Go, Diego, Go! Safari Rescue was the "one free" my son picked out in a "buy two, get one free" sale, so I didn't have high expectations. Thankfully, the game cleared the admittedly low bar. If you've seen the show aimed at the pre-school and kindergarten set, you have a pretty good idea of how Safari Rescue plays: Animals are in danger, lots of repetitive running around, occasional multiple-choice logic problems, encouragement to move like an animal and a few factoids about the animals as they are rescued. Fans of the show will be right at home.

The controls are basic, but effective. Tilt the Wiimote to the left and Diego runs to the left. Tilt to the right to run right. Either 1 or 2 will cause Diego to jump or manipulate objects in the environment. Along the way, obstacles arises that requires the player to perform some motion: spray water like an elephant, shake a tree, climb a ladder and so on. From time to time, the player is called on to steer some mode of transportation along a fixed pathway. At no point will the game let a player suffer more than a quick stumble, so young players won't be discouraged.

There is a basic cooperative mode, but it could really be fleshed out. Rather than taking control of Baby Jaguar, which would have been easy to implement, the second player spends most of their time watching the progress of the primary player. During certain Wiimote waggle challenges, the second player can perform the motion to slightly speed up the action. Sadly, this won't be much help since the challenges are so short and easy to begin with. At our house, the second player imitates the actions of the primary player even though they don't have any effect in the game itself. The other multi-player mode occurs outside of the main game where players can race the elephants, Jeeps, hang-gliders and so on. This mode is fairly short and uncomplicated, but does add a bit of spice to the overall package.

Now there really isn't much to the game. Playing through everything, including earning all badges, will only take an hour or two. Young children might take a bit longer to explore things since it's possible to loop back and start parts of levels over. Game play is relaxing rather than challenging after learning the basic control. I found the mud board runs entertaining for a while and jumping from one ledge to another using spring platforms was a small thrill. Other activities became repetitive, but not to an extreme. Older children will get bored fairly soon.

But younger players (no older than kindergarten) who like the show will play it over and over. For them, the experience will be much like watching the show itself. That includes good voice acting and a somewhat flimsy story. As a parent, I enjoyed helping my son and watching him get better at moving Diego around. For the right child, there's nothing wrong with picking up a copy in the bargain bin.

It saddens me to read that the sequel, Go, Diego, Go! Great Dinosaur Rescue, is identical to Safari Rescue, but that's more or less par for the course in preschool games. These games have very short shelf life at full price since consumers have come to expect very little of them. It's too bad. There are plenty of game play elements to build a fun series, but instead the publishers and developers have decided to settle on mediocrity. There is a solution: refuse to pay full price unless game makers put in a full effort. Hit 'em where it hurts.

MLB Power Pros: Wii Remote mode

2008-11-18T00:19:00.000-08:00

Wii Sports baseball left me underwhelmed with it's lack of depth and repetitive play. Smashing home runs in the home run derby mode and taking batting practice can be relaxing, but the game itself gets old fast. Thankfully, there is an option for baseball fans: MLB Power Pros. I own the 2007 version, which was the first of Japan's long running series to be released in the US and the first available on the Wii.

Like the original Wii baseball game, MLB Power Pros puts the power of the Miimote's motion sensing to good use both on the batting side and (with less success) on the pitching side. The only significant feature missing is that players can't waggle the onscreen bat as the pitcher winds up. But that is mostly a cosmetic (though impressive) feature.

On the plus side, players are real Major Leaguers. They are represented by Mii-like dolls that approximate the look and mannerisms of the real-life players. Their actions on the field are influenced by a complex suite of attributes. So you won't find Ichiro hitting many home runs, but he will find a way to beat out more than his share of grounders. The other modes of the game seem to be more heavily influenced by player ability than the arcade-like Wiimote mode, but it's an important touch. When you control a pitcher, you'll have his full repertoire of pitches and have some control on speed and location. As a batter, you can try laying down a bunt with the pitcher or pulling the ball over the Green Monster with Manny Ramirez. Waggling the Wiimote summons more speed from runners and fielders.

There's a full game of baseball available with a huge variety of options. But you can also play home run derby or a quick three-inning affair that matches Wii Sports. Play in real parks with real players or in imaginary parks with teams of your Miis or an variation of the above. If it's been your dream to face Greg Maddox at Wriggly Stadium, this is your chance. And all of this is just one, relatively minor mode in a jam-packed package.

Super Mario Galaxy

2008-11-12T17:54:00.000-08:00

The third game that was bundled with the Wii was Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but I never really had an interest in it. So, I traded it for Super Mario Galaxy at Wal-Mart. It was a great choice.

As always with Mario games, you control the portly, but surprisingly athletic plumber in a quest to save Princess Peach from Bowser. But after a few minutes playing, that no longer matters. What does matter is the joy of exploring galaxies (hence the name) in search of Power Stars. Each galaxy consists of several planetoids that house different obstacles to your goal. As you collect more Power Stars, more galaxies and missions open up to you. It's enjoyable to go back and play levels you've already completed, but opening new levels stands as the main draw to keep playing early in the game. In my opinion, the feeling of wanting to play "just one more time" defines good games.

Technically, the galaxies shine. The crystal/glass effects of the Pill Planet made me gasp the first time I landed on it. A few levels feature a giant ball that Mario rolls around on à la Super Monkey Ball. When the ball moves quickly the background music speeds up and comes to a virtual stand still as the ball does. There are a variety of suits that Mario may grab to completely alter his abilities, including becoming Bee Mario. Transforming from one to another occurs seamlessly even though each alters gameplay dramatically. Once the game is started, there are no perceptible load times and at no point do you feel pulled out of the game by technical glitches or hiccups. (Once in a while, however, the automatic camera gets lost and you see the outline of Mario behind a pillar or wall. Just press C to reorient.)

Galaxy's music deserves special mention. The soundtrack is fully orchestrated and sets an ideal tone for your quest. Each level plays to background music that fits the pace and mode of the location. One of the early galaxies features playful and bouncy music that fits with the way Mario leaps around the planets. The Honeybee Kingdom moves along like a busy honeybee finding new flowers to harvest. Beach galaxies dance with tropical calypso beats. When Bowser shows up, the music becomes operatic and brooding. In every case, the music compliments the situation and the situation gives meaning to the music.

With a world just asking to be explored, it might have been easy to just scatter Power Stars around and call it a day. Instead, each level received careful attention to be both challenging and approachable. Part of the secret is that it's fairly easy to acquire extra lives, yet very easy to lose them. Just three hits from enemies and hazards will kill Mario. Most levels also include instant-death hazards, such as black holes that suck you to doom if you fall off the side of some planets. (My son tells me not to fall into the Milky Way.) So you might start a mission with half a dozen Marios, which gives you confidence, but lose them to missteps and tricky enemy attacks. Along the way, you have chances to pick up more lives (especially if you peak around corners or collect lots of star bits). Each time you die, the tension mounts a bit. At the same time, most mistakes are obvious and avoidable, so beating a level is truly a matter of trial and error in the best sense. Thankfully save points have been spread liberally around most missions, so starting over isn't normally tedious. While the penalty for leaving a galaxy early is small, it exists, so there is a motivation to dive ahead one more time. On the other hand, it's hard to get stuck in the overall game since there are always other levels to try out.

Initially, multiplayer seemed unpromising. The second player merely points at the screen and has a limited range of actions: help Mario jump, collect and shoot star bits, and freeze enemies. But the pointer itself turns out to be the best feature of "Co-star mode". When my son is the primary player, I can point out where to go next and what to avoid, while shooting and freezing enemies. When I take the controls (normally for just long enough to get past a tricky obstacle), my son directs me to coins that I missed and collects star bits. Two proficient players wouldn't likely enjoy this mode, but it works well for unequal or casual players.

The scope of the galaxies is truly amazing. Even after you've unlocked all the galaxies, there are added challenges in the form of special comets that show up periodically. One of the comets challenges Mario to a race with Cosmic Mario and another speeds up enemies. While not every galaxy has enhanced challenges, the ones that do become much harder to beat. It would have been interesting to see all levels subject to these influences, but the level designers clearly valued a game that could be completed by most players given enough persistence.

At the end of the day, it is the level design that truly sets Galaxy apart. Classic 2D platforming levels, where the camera is locked facing the side of a wall, tend to be my favorite levels because they are all about the challenge. Every level seems to be built to maximize fun, whether because they are frustratingly difficult or delightfully relaxed.

This game keeps me up too late trying to get just one more star and prevents me from falling asleep thinking about that one missed jump or that one wasted second or that one unbeaten boss. It's a rare game that consumes the player with the simple pleasure of play.

Wii Play

2008-11-06T09:11:00.000-08:00

In theory, Wii Play has all the elements that makes Wii Sports an enjoyable and engaging casual game. It is a collection of simple multi-player mini-games that demonstrate the controller it is packed with. This time the IR control on the Wiimote is the focus of most of the nine games (compared to five sports). Costco included the mini-bundle with the Wii bundle we bought, so I didn't really chose to buy this game. If bought separately, the cost works out to about $10 when you net out the price of an unbundled controller.

In practice, I imagine few people will play this collection as much as Wii Sports. The problem is that these games are more like very polished demos than true games. Take the shooting range which is an ideal application of the IR pointer. You aim at targets by simple wrist movements. Playing the game a few times through feels pretty good. But then the repetition becomes overwhelmingly obvious. The target sequence is identical each time through. Dedicated players have taken advantage of this to shoot down every item (including ducks that flash across the screen). While this might be a fun challenge for some, I'd prefer a bit more variety. For instance, it would be fun to have a "training mode" focusing on just skeet or ducks or UFOs or cans rather than playing through all the targets each time. Also, random target placing would have been a nice option.

Oddly Find Mii, a simplistic Where's Waldo type puzzle, works for me. A group of Miis walk by and you need to pick our a specific face in the crowd. When you pick the correct Mii, a new level appears with some new location (street, escalators, nighttime, space, underwater, and so on). Somehow the variation is just enough to keep the game interesting time after time. But it can't sustain the entire package by itself. Pose Mii does not appeal despite a similar concept—it just doesn't have enough variety.

It would seem natural for table tennis to play much like Wii Sports tennis, but instead it plays more like Pong. It isn't even a real game since you play until you break the rally. The CPU player never fails to return the ball. Laser Hockey manages to be an actual game, but doesn't have much depth. Classics like Shufflepuck Café offered a variety of computerized opponents to play through, but Wii Play has one CPU setting and it isn't terribly difficult to beat either. Pool steps up the game with a decent simulation of 9-ball. Unfortunately, the controls are a bit wonky as the pushing the cue is not always recognized. When the controls work, the game is fun and engaging, however. (But it would be nice to have the option of playing cutthroat and 8-ball.)

Lack of variety kill the fishing, cow race and tank games as well. They play alright the first few times through, but there's no real reward for repeated play. I really think the crux of my problem with this package is that the games never seem different when you play them a second or third time. My son and I have played through the games and while I find the games fairly shallow, he has trouble controlling the action. Nether of these issue exist for Wii Sports, so something is definitely off here.

Wii Sports

2008-10-28T09:49:00.000-07:00

Since every Wii is packaged with Wii Sports, there isn't a choice—you will get Wii Sports. But will you play it?

For most people, the answer is likely to be "Yes, but only occasionally." All the the sports are extremely simple, but also extremely polished. And they are ideal demonstrations of what the Wiimote accelerometer can do. So I find myself loading the game when I want to spend a few minutes relaxing or to show off the Wii to friends. But none of the games are going to suck you in for hours at a time.

Tennis

In tennis you always play doubles. You can chose to control any number of players including none (for a demo mode game) and all four. Actually, you don't control the player—just their rackets. The onscreen players rush around on their own to get close to the ball and you swing the Wiimote at just the right moment to swing the onscreen rackets. All the players you control swing at the same time, which is odd, but not really an issue once you get used to it. Virtually any motion that is vaguely like swinging will be detected as a swing, so it's possible to play while sitting on the couch. But I recommend always playing standing, since it feels a lot more like tennis and less like a video game that way. This advice holds for all the other sports as well.

If there were nothing more, I'd probably be done playing Wii Sports tennis permanently. But there are little nuances that encourage you to come back once and a while. There's a power serve if you swing fast enough at just the right moment. Good timing on the return can help you place the ball in a location the other team can never touch. Twisting the Wiimote gives the ball spin and altering the angle of swing produces slices and lobs. With practice, you can become a master of this very basic tennis simulation. It's probably the sport I'm most drawn to in the package.

Baseball

Baseball is a perfect illustration of the strengths and weaknesses of Wii Sports. For the casual fan, this will eliminate any need to buy a full-fledged baseball game. The pitcher has four pitches to chose from and can throw harder and softer with faster and slower throwing motions. Batting is mostly a matter of timing and swing speed. Once the ball is hit, the Mii players hop around like Larry the cucumber. There are no throws—balls hit in the infield magically produce outs. Human players have no control over base-running or fielding, so the game is purely based on the pitcher/batter match-up. Fun but not deep.

For more serious fans of the game, the shallowness of the experience gets old quickly. Every pitcher has exactly the same abilities and the number nine hitter is just as likely to go deep as the Mii batting cleanup. While the act of pitching and batting with the Wiimote is visceral and natural, almost all pitches are strikes and can be hit deep with a bit of practice. It's fun and cute to play with your family represented by Miis, but you can't set teams or lineups beyond the lead-off hitter (your Mii) and pitcher (you again). Since there is no baseball strategy, I suppose it doesn't matter. For a fan, Wii Sports baseball is a shadow of the true sport.

Bowling

Clearly the crown jewel of the collection. No doubt there are some affectionados would prefer a simulation that includes differing equipment, PBA tours and championships, sponsors, customizable lanes and oil patterns, online leader boards and so on. But, even true fans would probably want a game built around the simple and effective mechanics of Wii Sports bowling. There's a reason the Wii is sometimes called The Bowling Machine.

It is not possible to play bowling by randomly wiggling the Wiimote, unlike the other games. (This has been scientifically proven by my 5-year-old son shortly before bedtime.) You have to actually press buttons and simulate a bowling motion in order to roll the ball down the lane. Initially, aiming a shot square at the head pin seems the best strategy, but right handers will find the ball naturally curves to the left side of the lane. Lefties will tend to curve to the right. This happens because the motion of bowling usually causes a slight twist of the wrist, which is detected by the Wiimote and translates into ball spin in the game. The problem can be corrected by stepping to one side or by resisting the tendency to induce spin. With practice, it's possible to spin the ball in either direction with varying speed. Release point also matters: release high enough and the spin will not have time to alter the ball's path.

I hate to say it, but Wii Sports bowling has almost all of the good features of a night at the local alley, but none of the bad. For the price of a Wii, you can bowl as many frames from the comfort of your own home as you care to bowl. No smokers, crappy balls, ugly shoes, greasy food, drunks, league nights, pinsetter malfunctions, and so on. My family probably will go out for bowling again at some point, but there's no hurry.

Golf

Again, Wii Sports captured the essence of golf without going into great depth. As a non-golfer, I found the swinging and putting controls a reasonable facsimile of how I'd swing a club (if I did). True golf fans will want to get a more extensive game, however. Unfortunately, the rest of us will get bored with this game as well. The courses are gorgeous (easily the most impressive graphics in the package), but they are static. You can't download or design new holes, so the nine that come with the game will be all you will ever get. Even though I have resisted playing golf more than a few times, I'm a bit tired of the courses.

I do like the way the game plays, but since none of my family is excited about it and the holes remain the same, I don't play it much. My guess is that in the future I'll play it in order to get to "Pro Level" in all 5 sports. Ideally, the nine holes will be like old friends that I'm comfortable with because they are old friends. I'll let you know.

Boxing

The only sport that uses the Nunchuk also is the only sport that isn't completely natural to play. Presumably the idea was to have both controllers behave as if they were fists, but somehow it doesn't always work out. Too often, a punching motion is not recognized by the game and your onscreen fist just floats uselessly. Wild shaking of the controllers seem sufficient against week opponents, but as you climb the skill ladder, you will reach a boxer who will block or avoid your flailing gloves. I'm convinced there is a skill to master, but I don't yet have the knack.

One of the true strengths of the boxing game is that it can be a decent workout if you take it seriously. Unlike real sparing, your partner can't physically damage you. After a few rounds, your arms will be ready for a break. No doubt, this sport was part of the inspiration for the development of Wii Fit (though the later is more comprehensive).

Training and Wii Fitness

Speaking of a workout, each mode has three training mini-games that drill you on various skills needed to be successful in the full games. Also, there is a fitness test that challenges you to three training sessions and rates you. Although the games use the same controls as the full sport, there is something refreshingly different in training. Even golf is more entertaining in this mode. One secret to replay values, as silly as it seems, is the fitness test. Since it only can be done once a day, I find myself tacking it onto the end of a play session, even if I was playing another game. It's surprisingly addictive to see my "Fitness Age" rise and fall as I am challenged with different training modes.

Buying a Wii

2008-10-22T09:07:00.000-07:00

Until last Christmas I was a PC gamer (if I had time for games at all). Originally, I figured a console was too expensive—especially since I already owned a PC. Since PC games are usually a few dollars cheaper and there's no additional hardware to buy, the choice was obvious. But over the years, I played fewer and fewer games. Part of the reason was that I got married and had a son. There just hasn't been as much on-my-own time as there was when I was single. But I also discovered the fatal flaws in my cheaper-is-better world view.

First, PC gamers are constantly upgrading. In the early days it was memory. Then CPUs needed to be upgraded as well. Then video cards. Plus you need joysticks and better mice and keyboards. All these things add up over time to match or exceed a console's startup cost. Then there are the wasted hours getting all the drivers and device settings working together.

Second, most games are awful. Saving a few dollars on a good game is fine, but too often I'd buy a game only to get bored with it a few days later. This is not an issue specific to the PC, obviously. Games are hard to perfect on any platform. But the PC has a unique issue that hasn't hit console games for the most part: patches. Theoretically, a game that isn't quite perfect can be released on the PC and a few weeks later, a patch to fix the small issues can be distributed. A surprising number of times, I'd get a game that included the patch on the disk with the rest of the game! (I have no idea why publisher do that. Just send us the patched game.) The result was a culture that viewed polish as less of a goal than publishing. Technically, there's no longer a reason console games wouldn't be patched. But for some reason they aren't.

Third, PC games are either solitary or remote. Sure, we'd organize LAN parties once in a while. But that carried it's own set of problems and frustrations. The computer is ideal for one person, but a console is geared toward people sitting around the TV playing together. A game that's kinda fun can become boring really quickly if there is no one to share it with. Since I want to maximize the time I have with family, I haven't had as much time for solitary games as I once did.

Now a few years ago, I visited one of my brothers who had a GameCube. We played a bit of Wario Ware Inc. and Super Monkey Ball, which are two of the oddest games I'd ever seen. There seemed to be wires everywhere and we had to sit close to the TV. But we had a pretty good time, so I put the idea of buying a used GameCube console in the back of my mind.

Last Christmas, we visited another brother in Hawaii. He has an Xbox 360 and plays Halo online. My son, who was 4 at the time, was interested in the game, but we didn't really want him watching that sort of thing, so we loaded Lego Star Wars. I don't know what it was about that strange combination, but we had a great time. Even watching other people play was a lot of fun somehow. Being able to grab a new controller and drop in or out at any time in coop mode really increased the fun factor as well. It was a revelation.

The Xbox 360 has wireless controllers, so there is no tangle of wires. The games look great and there isn't a huge install process for starting new games (compared to PC games). When my son went to bed, my brother and I played a few games of capture the flag with strangers online and it just worked. On the downside, more casual and family-oriented games are less common then on Nintendo systems. And the Xbox draws a lot of power, so it has an overheating issue. Further, it's really expensive.

Striking a balance between the GameCube and Xbox consoles (plus adding an innovative controller) is the Nintendo Wii. Sure the graphics fail to live up to an Xbox 360 and the price is higher than a used GameCube, but it had all the features I wanted. I was lucky enough to find a bundle at Costco early this summer. In the future, I plan on writing about the games I play on it.