Finally got around to finishing my two WiiWare launch games this week, My Life as a King and LostWinds. I really enjoyed them both and had (almost) no regrets in the end. Here’s some quick impressions of both games.

LostWinds is a puzzle platformer that has you in control of a young boy named Toku while you guide him with the wind spirit Enril. There’s a bit more behind the story and all that other stuff but I really have no intention of going into it all right now. Look it up yourself if you’re really interested. The game isn’t one of the longest you’ll ever play but I did still manage to squeeze almost three and a half hours out of it. So some of you might already be sizing up the game’s price against its length. Let me save you the trouble. At $10 and we’ll say three hours, you’re paying $3.33 per hour. Think of this compared to a few full priced games put there which may be longer but will obviously cost you more money. So at an average of say 8 hours per game (ignoring those kinds of huge multiplayer games which can get played for months on end) you’re paying $6.25 for each hour of gameplay, and that’s based on Wii pricing ($50). So looking at it that way, you’re definitely getting your money’s worth.

The gameplay itself was fantastic and the pointer based 2-D platforming could open up possibilities to a wide range of new Wii games to come. The puzzles are right at that point where they’re fun and challenging while never becoming almost impossible. The art, environments, and characters look great and this game as a whole looks better than many of the lazy retail Wii efforts. While I did wish the game was a little bit longer the only other issue I had was the complete lack of closure at the end. While there is a boss fight and the evil is chased away etc., the developers don’t attempt to close off the story even the slightest bit as they leave themselves open for a sequel. At least a little something to close things off would have been nice before opening things up but in the end it’s not all that important.

Final Fantasy Chrystal Chronicles: My Life as a King goes in the complete opposite direction in terms of length. Essentially the game can be as long as you want to make it and the downloadable content that’s actually worth getting only adds to it. Depending on how well you want to complete the game and just how strong you want to make your kingdom you could possibly see yourself putting at least 10 hours in the game. I found myself hooked as My Life as a King is one of those games that is a virtual form of crack. The short in-game days will have you constantly muttering “just one more day” to yourself until you look at the clock and realize that an entire day has actually gone by. While again people may be put off by it’s hefty price (1500 pts) when compared to other WiiWare and VC offerings it is certainly worth it.

Visually the game looks good but it could have used some polish as characters never show any kind of emotion aside from a tiny smile which is constantly plastered onto their face. Sure it’s a nice kingdom but you can’t all constantly be happy. That’s just a bit… creepy. You’ll also run into some frame rate issues later on the game as your kingdom starts to grow. The effects generated when constructing new buildings look really nice when they haven’t been chopped up because the game is trying to do too much. There is never any sort of pop-in effect on buildings and residents as the game is constantly displaying and moving them about the castle grounds. So the larger your kingdom the more there is for the game to keep track of which leads to unavoidable slight frame rate issues later on.

The music while nice becomes despairingly repetitive but if you’re going to be constantly listening to the same thing it may as well sound good. The game is more complex then I’d expected and after doing a quick look on the web there’s quite a lot of micromanagement to be done here if you’re truly a hardcore strategy buff but I just went with my gut on placing buildings, homes, and shops and things seemed to work out. While I still enjoyed the game I would have preferred if Square had spent a little more time on a few things which in the end all come down to polish. They’ve certainly laid out the foundation for what could become an interesting spin-off series and I could see a My Life as a King style game as full retail release.

So in the end I enjoyed both games and if you were to ask me to pick one over another I’d have a hard time choosing and really can’t pick just one. They both have their good and their bad points but in the end it all depends on the kind of game you’re looking for.

The future for WiiWare is also looking pretty bright with Gyrostarr, a game I plan to get soon, releasing yesterday and others like Animales de la Muerte, World of Goo, Eternity’s Child, and LostWinds 2 all coming some time soon. And with the announcement of Guitar Hero World Tour using the SD slot for downloadable content let’s just hope Nintendo works something out with the SD slot and WiiWare.

Speaking of Guitar Hero, World Tour is looking like it’s going to be the definite choice for Wii owners in the Rock Band vs. Guitar Hero battle. Kudos to Activision for not making the Wii version an afterthought and actually working hard to bring to the Wii version all the features that we’re going to see on the 360 and PS3. For shame Harmonix, Rock Band on Wii isn’t even worth mentioning. Just save your money for Guitar Hero or maybe even Rock Band 2, assuming that Harmonix puts a little effort into the Wii version the next time around.

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I’ll let you recover from the shock of reading that title. Ready? Here we go.

I popped Brawl in for a bit last night and with no friends being online I went to a worldwide match just for kicks. To my surprise after a fairly laggy first 20 seconds things straightened out and I was actually able to play a full worldwide match for the first time since first getting the game. Thinking it was just a fluke I tried it out again and it kept on working each time. THIS is why I was so excited for Brawl months ago, its online multiplayer and now I can say that it works. An asterisk needs to be placed next to it though considering I could only play a match with two other players. If a third showed up I wouldn’t even bother and this is more due to my crappy internet connection than anything else. If this keeps up I’ll certainly be putting much more time into Smash Bros.

As a side note I’m now finished with buying consoles this gen. I’m content with my Wii so far and have decided that from this point on I’ll be saving up for the next generation of consoles so that I can hopefully have the consoles from all three companies. I’m expecting that I’ll be needing ~$1000 by 2010. That shouldn’t be too hard provided I start managing my cash very soon. I’m also saving ~$200 for late October for Guitar Hero: World Tour so there goes a lot of my money.

And the last thing is this month is crammed full of work, exams, and building then moving into a new house so expect no blog updates or anything at all until mid-July. See you then.

Ugh. Here’s a day I’ve been dreading. The day I’d be forced to clean out my virtual mini-fridge (as Nintendo seems to like to put it) which I like to call my Wii. I knew I’d fill up my internal flash storage eventually and was pretty sure it would come at around WiiWare time, but it was still really hard to come to terms with the fact that if I wanted one of my two anticipated WiiWare titles I would need to do a little reorganizing.

Read the rest.

First off I guess a quick mention that my Wii is now back with its rightful owner and my Wavebird has come in from eBay so now I can really get down to playing some Brawl. More impressions on my time with the 360 in another post which I get the feeling will come right after this one.

So the Wii is back, but I haven’t gone right to playing anything on it really. I may have played 30 minutes of Brawl in the last week simply because something else has been holding my attention. It’s a gaming gem from Square and Jupiter entitled The World Ends With You. It is by far the greatest and deepest action RPG I’ve ever played and it has an engaging story to boot. Since I don’t want this post to drag on and on because it would literally take me at least 10,000 words to fully describe WEWY considering all the different mechanics and battle styles within the game and I’d be here writing until tomorrow afternoon.

Fortunately for you there’s an easy way for you to absorb the game’s combat system at the official website by just clicking on “Gameplay”. That’s about as much time as I want to spend trying to explain the game and simply want to say that it’s a must have for any DS owner and it would be incredible if The World Ends With You were to become the next big franchise from Square Enix.

I had originally planned to go with a WEWY banner and color scheme but due to my lack of knowledge of using Gimp among other things such as editing themes in WordPress I decided to go with a built in theme that I found. I would’ve really preferred to have done my own things but this will do for now.

And just one last thing; Okami or Mario Kart? I’m only going to get one for the time being with the other coming later but I’m having a hard time choosing which one I should get. Help me out a little.

And so begins one of the traditions held between a neighbor and I. For what usually winds up being a week we’ve exchanged consoles. Meaning that he now has my Wii, and I have his Xbox 360. Fortunately I was able to get the 1 month free trial of Xbox Live with my own new account so for the short period of time that I have the Xbox I’ll be able to enjoy the best online console experience around.

I played through a lot of Portal previously but never got a chance to finish it so I’m starting a new game in that and then maybe later I’ll take a look at the rest of The Orange Box. There’s also Call of Duty 4 and Mass Effect which I can’t wait to get into, and unlike every other 360 owner and their dad I’m not all that excited about Halo 3. That one will probably get played near the end of the week after a lot of time with CoD 4 and Mass Effect.

So for now my XBL Gamertag is Kindrik1042. I honestly can’t believe that there is actually someone else out there that uses Kindrik. I think that now I’ve seen everything.

A tiny change to the site with the RSS subscription link now over to your right.
Real post later, too busy with Brawl, PES, and sobbing over the fact that Windows got corrupted and I lost everything I had on my laptop.

A glitch, an oversight, or maybe just a great new technique for Link and Toon Link.

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I almost forgot that I’d reviews No More Heroes last month over at WiiLoaded. Since you’ve been listening (or reading, really) to me go on and on about this game for a while now, I suppose you may want the review just to wrap things up in a nice little package.

In No More Heroes you take control of Travis Touchdown, your everyday average otaku gamer, and simply put geek. What sets Travis apart from the rest of the world however is his complete and utter insanity as he aims to become the #1 ranked assassin in the United States, killing anyone who stands in his way simply for bragging rights and cash. However throughout the game it can still become easy for the player to identify with Travis as we are doing the exact same thing he is. Gamers attempt to escape the monotony (I’ll try not to overuse that word) of everyday life by playing a game where the normal rules we play by do not apply anymore and we’re free to do as we please without worrying about any consequences. This is what Travis is doing, albeit it at a much more extreme level.

After meeting with Sylvia Crystel, an agent with United Assassin’s Association Travis takes on a job as a hitman and soon strives to become the top killer in the country. To get to these fights Travis must provide the UAA with entry fee which he can pay for by doing odd part time jobs around the city of Santa Destroy, and by taking on assassination missions.

As mentally unstable as Travis may seem to be, he is the sanest man on Earth when compared to most if not all of the 10 ranked assassins above him, each and everyone with their own distinct and developed personalities. It is because of this that the boss battles and the scenes which take place before and after the fight are the best and always the most anticipated parts of the game. The opening and closing cinematic for each of the bosses is a treat to behold and it lets you know that besides Travis’ simple ambition of becoming #1, there is a story to be told and very complex characters each with their own story to tell.

Read the rest here.

I honestly haven’t been able to come up with much to blog about… until recently. Brawl released as you may have heard and of course I bought it. A few things I want to say but since I don’t think I’ll exactly get around to posting anything any time soon this is just so that everybody’s aware that I’m still alive and well. Yay?

Remind me to get a real post up later.

Also, it’s about time for a new look. With No More Heroes now completed 1.5 times I’ve moved onto Brawl. Hopefully it won’t be too hard to just find some kind of banner online that won’t require too much editing. Laziness and procrastination will always win out… tomorrow.