4/27/2013

And Injustice for All...






Is it wrong to say that the storyline in Injustice is almost too good for a damn fighting game? I mean, it's not one of the greatest stories ever, and is in fact downright goofy at certain points. But it is really entertaining, has a couple a truly shocking moments and is bursting with fan service. A fighting game really doesn't need this, but it certainly enhances a surprisingly awesome package. And this coming from someone who is admittedly not a huge fan of fighting games. I'm pretty sure the last one I seriously got into was Smash Bros. Melee. I just don't have the aptitude (or dedication) to seriously learn fighters, so once I get through the Story mode, there isn't a whole lot of meat for me personally. I do wish the story mode was longer, as it clocks in at under 4 hours, but that's not the focus here. It's an easy recommendation for anyone looking for a fighting game, especially on the Wii U which is gasping for games a the moment unless you a whiling away the days in Monster Hunter.






Star Trek The Video Game on the other hand is an unmitigated disappointing mess. Granted, we shouldn't expect much from a direct movie tie-in at this point, but this is a game that's been in development for quite awhile (like Aliens), looked good at previews (like Aliens) and was given extra time for polish even after it was supposedly pretty much ready (like Aliens). We should've gotten a decent Mass Effect clone or even Uncharted in space because they were clearly aiming for that, instead we get an ugly boring buggy piece of dreck that not even most dastardly Ferengi (can't wait to see JJ Abrams interpretation of them BTW) would try to sell. You are much better off going to back to any of the Mass Effect games for a Star Trek-esque experience.

Wii Music U will save Nintendo!!!

Barely a day after posting my thoughts on what Nintendo needs to do at their big E3 press conference, Nintendo says screw that, and they are just hosting a series of Nintendo directs leading up to E3 and then 2 small closed presentations at the event when they would normally have a big flashy press conference. I'm really of two minds about this.

One one hand, it makes a lot of business sense. Unless both Sony & Microsoft just have absolute disasters at their pressers, all eyes will be on on those two and their new hardware. No matter what cool games Nintendo has, it can't compare to the new shiny the other 2 have. So it really might be better to save money and just show the press what you have to play. The directs have been a fantastic way to reach Nintendo fans and get them excited and admittedly the last really great Nintendo presser was when the Wii was unveiled, with the last several ranging from mediocre to downright strange.

On the other hand, The Wii U is nothing short of a disaster at this point, not even meeting lowered sales expectations this past fiscal year and still facing the huge image problem of the larger casual audience not even understanding it's a new system and while the Gamepad is a great piece of tech it's not as easy a sell as the Wii remote. It needs a goddamn life injection and a big flashy press conference with Reggie getting back to the days of Reggie saying he's here to kick some ass is sorely needed for the exact reason of drawing people away from Sony & Microsoft and having say yeah that new hardware is nice, but have you fucking seen what Nintendo is doing? There is something to be said for pomp and circumstance.

I really think Nintendo will have the better game line-up because their system has been out for awhile and we know they will have big games like Mario, Smash Bros, Zelda the follow-up to Xenoblade and quite a few others while the others will have well launch games which historically only a handful are even worth talking about. Whether that would be enough to overshadow brand new hardware is a tough question though. Maybe we'll see Nintendo return to a big grand press conference next year when everyone is on more even footing.

That's really all I have for today, expect another post up Monday or Tuesday, until then I have a new feature of the week: Your weekly game music-this will be a mix of stuff-original songs about video games, 8-bit covers and tracks from music so it should be a lot of fun to listen to. To start here's an 8-bit mix of Hey Soul Sister by Train:


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