8/15/2013

Dream a little Dream...

The latest in the long-running and excellent Mario & Luigi series arrives on 3DS, and while it's getting mostly good reviews, the critics seem to be complaining for really weird reasons. One being length, with the game reportedly clocking in at the 40+ mark. Given that it's got the same wonderful awesome gameplay of the previous ones I don't see how that's possibly a bad thing. The other being that it's loaded with tutorials. They do realize, that especially since this is the series' first appearance on a new system there's probably a load of people who are playing this for the first time right? I'm fairly sure there are people who will look at the box and pick it up just based on it being a Mario game, or maybe have heard about this series and want to give it a try. Those people will probably have little to no clue how to play as these mechanics are fairly unique to this series. Finally, they've been saying the writing isn't as sharp. I guess that's debatable, but at only 3 hours in I've found plenty of lines making me smile and chuckle. Granted, it doesn't seem on the level of pure insanity and hilariousness of Partners in Time or Bowser's Inside Story, but it's still pretty damn good. Granted, you might still be playing Project X-Zone or Animal Crossing or Shin Megami Tensai IV but this is quite a good rpg (at least so far) to kill time until the next big 3DS title arrives (Pokemon I think? Pretty sure that's in October).

I finally got some good time in with the Wonderful 101 demo and I'm pretty satisfied. I was starting to get worried with the designer talking about the game not necessarily being that long and the fact that it got delayed s long when it was supposed to be one of several launch window titles. If the demo is really indicative of the final product, it should be a blast. It's very easy and fun to control your massive group of heroes and it's really fun to use all the weapon forms. My only complaint would be when you go inside buildings it goes to the gamepad and it's very awkward. But other than that it seems incredibly insane and weird and fun so I'll be very excited to pick it up in about a month.


Ducktales remastered is finally out! And the critics don't seem horribly fond of it overall. Because it's short? It's $15! Because it's hard? The original was controller-shattering hard, this is the same game. Just lower the difficulty, I'm playing it on easy and having a blast. Some don't seem to like the added cut-scenes and dialogue. I guess that's really a matter of opinion, but as someone who loved the show I find it charming and full of fun nostalgia. And then some complained that it should've been changed up for modern times. ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS?!? Nobody wanted that. We wanted our goddamn cane-hopping original Ducktales. Don't get me wrong, I can see doing that in a follow-up, but for this we just wanted our old original classic game on current platforms. This does that and wonderfully. The only minor complaint is that the backgrounds don't mesh that well with the extremely good-looking sprites, but it's hardly a big detractor. Anyways, if you fondly remember this game, pick it up you won't be disappointed. Hopefully if they follow up with a Rescue Rangers update they will do the same amount of minimal meddling-basically a fresh change of paint, some added dialogue scenes and some sweet remixed tunes.

So just how many things will Microsoft cave in on? Because I'm thinking at this point if we complain enough they will just give us the console for free. In case you haven't heard, in their latest-We had no idea how awful our system was, will you please buy it now move they have removed the requirement for the much feared and reviled Kinect. But guess what? They still expect you to buy it because it still comes with every system and they haven't lowered the price. My guess is if they really stick with it there will be a ton of Kinect units just sitting in a basment or a closet. Or possibly just as likely, in the trash. I know some think the Xbox One was this forward-thinking console and everything, but there was a lot they could've done to make it attractive and have people deal with the perceived headaches and they didn't do anything really. Maybe this will delay the inevitable all digital future and I'm sure some are blaming an over-reactive public but Microsoft pretty much brought this on themselves by either only talking about the negatives or not talking at all, which means there probably wasn't much in the way of positives to begin with.

That's all for today, I should have a Gamer Cinema post up tomorrow or Saturday.

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