Today has been all about one certain game, that I'm surprised no-one has dubbed the day Splatterday. The Splatoon Global Testfire announced in Thursday's Direct has finally come to an end. And it has greatly made me look forward to the game even more. In fact, I was so interested in the game, I set a little something up. With no capture card available, I had to pull out my camera and get it on the tripod, but I recorded footage of five matches. Part One and Part Two of the Splatoon demo show off the four primary weapon types, as well as a look at the sub and special weapons, two of the maps available to play on, as well as gameplay in general.
0 Comments
This game is looking great, and most of the Nintendo world are looking forward to it. I am too, as it was one of the games I featured in the latest What I'm Waiting For posts. The Nintendo Direct today was focused solely on the game. It was mostly a recap of what has already been shown off. New things were within the Direct, most of which were at the end. Let's get into it.
Star Wars Battlefront is some months from release now. After two teasers at E3 events [2013 and 2014], it was about time we had some information for the game. At Star Wars Celebration Anaheim, we had that information. DICE are playing the information game very slyly. We have some info, but not enough to accurately say how this game will play or feel.
Take the main piece of information - that there will only be four planets in the game - and think about that. The developers say multiple maps, varying in size depending on the mode. And each planet will have more than two maps at launch. However, we still have very little information on the different modes to take a guess at how those maps might be set out. Like I've been saying, it's been near enough two years since I covered any gaming event of any type. So to warm up for E3 this year, I decided to cover one Nintendo Direct. And this Nintendo Direct covered pretty much what I expected, along with some I didn't see coming.
Before the introduction from Iwata, a Super Smash Bros. 4 trailer played showcasing Mewtwo. Once the trailer ended, Iwata then introduced us to the Direct as a whole, and gave a few words about Mewtwo before giving his release. To those who registered both Super Smash Bros. 4 games on Club Nintendo, you'll be getting him free on the 15th of this month. The rest will have to wait until the 28th, and will need to pay up for him. A small update will also be released on the 15th, allowing for more Mii Fighter costumes in the form of download content. These will be crossover costumes, like the Mario Kart Racing Suits. The pricing, while not confirmed for Europe, will be $0.75 per pack on one console or both for just $1.15 in America. The last one of these did a recap before getting to the main subject. However, the first one only covered vague notions, it needed a recap to say what had and hadn't been confirmed. This time, the games from Volume 2 were those already announced, but since I gave my notions on them, I can still recap them in some way.
Since Nintendo first gave us the Mii's and Wii Sports, many ideas have circulated about expanding them. Then came Wii Sports Resort, which expanded the sports on offer and introduced us to Wuhu Island. The ideas since then imploded. Whether focused on one part of the island or the whole of it, there has always been an idea. Then we had Pilotwings Resort on the 3DS, which used Wuhu Island as its setting. The Wii Fit games use Wuhu as a basis for the jogging stages. Other games have kept the island alive, with two tracks in Mario Kart 7 and two stages in Super Smash Bros 4 WiiU. Of course, no full game set on the island has been announced yet, but maybe there's a reason for that.
Wii Sports came out in 2006. Nintendo recently released a reversion of it for WiiU in 2013. Wii Sports Club is different from its predecessor though, in the fact it has online multiplayer - though it hardly appears to get any use. And it is also different in the way the sports are delivered. Either a 24 hour pass for all the sports or buy them individually for quite a sum. Now Wii Sports Resort released in 2009, and while I'm not suggesting a date pattern, in a way, I also am. See, there is a massive list of games coming this year for WiiU. Splatoon, Mario Party 10, and Star Fox are just three games coming this year, and at E3 a game featuring Wuhu Island could be announced. It won't be released until 2016, roughly two and a half years after Wii Sports Club started rolling out [unless they are particularly generous], but it has to take Wii Sports Resort and do more than reversionise it. This one is going to be short and to the point. Simply, the game is only worth your time if you like exploration games with speedy elements. Said it would be short, didn't I?
All joking aside, Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal is good, but still won't be winning any awards. First we have the story, which - just like its WiiU counterpart - is barebones. Amy is fighting Lyric, then when he's knocked down, calls for 'help' on the communicator. Lyric then knocks Amy out. Sonic decides to gather his friends and go rescue Amy - and that's it. The cutscenes in the middle don't even matter. They don't even impact the story whatsoever, apart from saying where you are and how you got there. Now, I'm fairly new to the Battlefield series, but I can certainly see the differences between the main series and Hardline - a cops and robbers spin-off. We have the way you earn equipment, the equipment itself, the vehicles, and even the opposing factions. Now, since this game is in beta form, I won't be doing a full review. But this post is to give an insight into just what the beta holds, and how that reflects the final game.
Smash Bros. on a console. Where most would agree it works the best. But after the 3DS version serving as a big slice of this generation's Smash Bros. pie, would the WiiU version be able to fight its way out of the shadow of its handheld sibling?
Pokémon might look the same to outsiders, but there are numerous changes, whether big or small, that affect the gameplay in some way. Generation 6 of the Pokémon games made one of the biggest changes to the series - with the transition to actual 3D models instead of sprites, as well as introducing the fairy type - and Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire, the next set of games in Generation 6, offer even more to change up the game.
The game that looked like a reinvention, but failed on all accounts. If you look up a list of all what was promised, you could probably count what was achieved on one hand. Though maybe that's an exaggeration. It certainly doesn't play like a Sonic game, doesn't have many of the elements you'd expect from a Sonic game, thus a reinvention. But in a worse state than better.
What can I say about this series? It comes once a generation, and each one improves the formula in some way, though can oftentimes sacrifice other parts of said formula. This generation though, we have two Smash games - and for the first time on a handheld. The 3DS version handles the basics, but does it really have the power to handle the grunt?
Due to the transition from Weebly to here, and the fact that it has been over a year since I last did one of these, I thought I'd do a recap of what I'd said in my last one, as well as what's transpired since then.
The first game I mentioned I'm waiting for was a new instalment of Sonic the Hedgehog. I mentioned the Adventure games, and where 06 and Unleashed fit into them [06 only part Adventure and Unleashed only in name] before giving a bit of an opinion of Colours and Generations. Key quote from the next part was "Through all of that though, the handheld games never faltered". "If they were to add the Clone Wars, it would almost double the work they would have to do and it would have a negative effect on the game."
Regarding this business that DICE are concentrating only on the Galactic Civil War for the new Star Wars Battlefront, this is one of the most commented quotes I have seen. And I cannot possibly imagine why anyone would even say that. With just under two months to go until Mario Kart 8, I thought I'd revisit a little something I did two years ago with Mario Kart 7.
In that first challenge, starting 5th of July at 14,205 coins, I had until the end of the month to reach 20,000 coins - the last unlock milestone on the game. I had to race properly though. That was what I'd said to myself. Race properly or the challenge is void. After all, a challenge is no fun if your just staying in last and quickly collecting the coins half a lap behind everyone else. And so I raced through many GPs, earning podiums almost every time, getting over 30 coins almost every time. And so, since that time I had played the game less. In fact, for the whole of 2013, I hadn't even reached 25,000. At the beginning of March though, I did. With Mario Kart 8's release coming up within two months, I started playing MK7 more throughout that month. That's when - beginning of April - I reached the point where I thought to myself "Why not make another coin challenge out of this?" There is one major difference though. At that point in 2012, I had just finished my first year of college. This year, I'm on my first year of university, and with an end of year show coming up, I've got work to be doing. So I've got less time for gaming. Hence the two months instead of one. Anyway, this challenge. Starting today, with a coin total of 26,433, I have to reach 30,000 coins by the release date of Mario Kart 8. If that gets reached easily though, an extension to 32,000 should make things harder. And so, here I go. [New Edition Note: While I didn't cover it on the blog, I had actually passed the challenge. The Excel document I still have saved reveals that I completed the challenge a week before MK8's release with 30,028 coins to my profile. I had gone beyond the set 12 GP's per week for the last two to bring in almost 2000 in just those two weeks. I suspect uni must have finished for the year for that to have happened.] So, after the Nintendo Direct of Wednesday, more footage of Mario Kart 8 was shown. As well as numerous new courses, more returning characters were shown. No new characters or Retro courses were shown, but this does make one think. With nine new courses already shown off in the two trailers, as well as two returning 3DS courses, the tracks in this game are looking great. We know of the anti-grav feature - allowing traversal on walls and ceilings - as well as the return of gliders, underwater driving and bikes. Customisation will return with more options. Coins do return, but their purpose hasn't been clarified.
Some things still remain a mystery, and I'm going to have a crack at giving my predictions and why I think they will happen. Lost in the World.
Don't get me wrong. This game is good. But something is lacking within. It's a typical Sonic affair. Eggman's up to no good, and Sonic and Tails set out to stop him. Amy and Knuckles are in the game too, but Knuckles hardly does anything, and Amy is just for contact with the Earth below, and due to a very specific plot point, I can't say more than that. The Lost Hex, where the action takes place, is home of the Zeti, who are under Eggman's control. The story has some interesting twists in it, but the end result can be predicted. Spoilers. Spoilers. Oh so great.
Spanish or not, it's too late. Videos pasted. Game surprises wasted. Avoid Youtube at all cost, Otherwise the wait is lost. Just a little poem there, to show how displeased I am at this news. You heard me. Sonic Lost World has had its street date broken. Spanish retailers [or at least one] have broken the official release date for Sonic Lost World, and spoilers have already been posted onto YouTube. And so I said I would. My idea of Sonic Adventure 3. Why am I uploading this so early after the previous blog post then?
Well, a recent bout of the rumour mill has been going, and basically the game 'Sonic Excursion' seems to have been taken as fact by almost everywhere. I won't bother going into it, as I'm sure that many of you will have seen it somewhere. But onto my idea, which is more fleshed out than that rumour. I had planned this to feature Chao Gardens more in the story rather than how the other Adventure games dealt with them, which I described as "Oh look! A Chao Garden. Let's visit". This way, they can still remain optional, but it doesn't look as though they've been added in for the sake of it. Chao have been part of the story in two Sonic games - Adventure 1 and Rivals 2. This then would be the third, and as you read on, you'll see why. Admit it. Playing Sonic the Hedgehog games competitively against others is fun. Both Adventure games, Heroes, and the 3DS version of Generations all feature local multiplayer, and in the case of the 3DS, online play.
I have been avid to booting up Adventure 2 and Heroes when mates are round, and all enjoy it. But modern Sonic games seem to have just become single player affairs. |