E3 2010: Additional Game Impressions

Here's My quick thoughts on some additional games that were on display at E3 but not shown off during the conferences.

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (3DS): The N64 classic and self proclaimed best game in the universe will be released on Nintendo's new handheld system. I never played the original game as I didn't get into the Zelda series until Wind Waker. All I've heard about this game is that its really good and the water temple is bitch, which apparently is going to be made a tad easier in this version.

Kingdom Hearts 3D: Really..another Kingdom Hearts game? I love the series but they're really just stalling with the third game. We've already got a prequel coming on the PSP and two handheld titles that take place between the first and second games. Its unknown where in the timeline the game will take place in, but I'll probably play and at least the 3DS's analog nub will make the game more playable than the DS iteration of the series that came out last year.

Sonic Colors (Wii and DS): This looks like it takes what worked about the sonic levels in the Wii version of Sonic Unleashed and made them into their own game. Sonic has some power-ups to use that don't seem to impede the gameplay so is shaping up to be a pretty good title...lets just hope that Sega doesn't predictably mess this up...

Marvel vs Capcom 3 (PS3, Xbox 360): I guess this is the Vs. Capcom's series answer to Street Fighter IV. I don't play Marvel vs Capcom 2 that much but I might give this a shot when my fighting game friends get a hold of this.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 (Multiple Platforms): This is just further devaluing of the Star Wars series. The purpose of the first game's plot was to bridge the gap from the prequel series to the original movies so making a sequel to that seems kinda pointless...I did kinda like that game, so I'll check this one out in spite of my bitching...

Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 (Multiple Platforms): seems to play more like the DS games than an actual continuation of the original series, but I'm intrigued by the episodic content and my fondness for the series pretty much forces me to want to download this. If I had a choice between Sonic Colors or this, I'd guess I'd go with this one.

Okamiden (DS): I still need to finish the Wii version of Okami before I can even try this, but I like what played in that game and I hope this handheld version doesn't disappoint.

Mario Vs Donkey Kong: Miniland Mayhem (DS): Sadly, this game continues the Mini Mario gameplay that second game used...I want them to go back to the Donkey Kong Arcade style gameplay from the first game.

Star Fox 64 3D (3DS): WooHoo! I love Star Fox 64 and having a portable version of it is a dream come true. I don't know what will be added to the game other than 3d effects but I hope it doesn't mess up with what made the original game.

And so E3 2010 comes to a close...

E3 2010: Nintendo Impressions

Wow...that's all I really can say about Nintendo's press conference. It truly feels like this year was an apology for the last two years of so-so and just terrible E3 showings. Nintendo rocketed back into what they do best, showing off great games. The best thing about the conference was that long dormant home console franchises are getting Wii games this year and almost every game they presented seemed worth checking out.

Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: So the first official Zelda game made specifically for the Wii was finally unveiled and it looked great. The graphical style seemed to combine the cel shading of Wind Waker and the more detailed Twilight Princess. The Wii Motion Plus is required to play the game and apart from a new beetle item, what they showed here was just generic Zelda gameplay, though there is a twist to typical story that has yet to revealed. The game is slated for release sometime next year.

Mario Sports Mix: Mario's sole game for the time being. After going on two proper adventures, the plumber finally takes a break and goes back to all the sports plaaying we usually have to put up with inbetween those big adventures. The difference this time is that instead of the whole game focusing on one sport, there are at least 3 sports on display: hockey, volleyball, and a second go round with basketball. The game will also release sometime next year.

Wii Party and Just Dance 2: Nintendo showed how fair they've moved from casual gamers as these were the only two games aimed directly at them during the show. From what was shown, Wii Party is just Mario Party with the Miis and Just Dance 2 is...well Just Dance 2. Neither of them were interesting but neither of them looked horrible either.

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn: The Golden Sun DS title that they showed off last year and haven't given any info on since has finally gotten a trailer, the subtitle of "Dark Dawn" and vague release date of this holiday season. If there's one thing that really bugged me about Nintendo's conference its was their failure to set a concrete release date for anything. Anyway, the trailer looks cool and I can't wait to try it.

Goldeneye 007: A semi remake of that popular N64 game. The only thing I know has been changed for sure is that James Bond's Pierce Brosnan appearance had been updated to that of the current James Bond: Daniel Craig. Never played the original game so this should be a treat.

Epic Mickey: This one kinda disappointed me, mainly because the pre-release screen shots and character models looked really dark and steampunk like, while the material shown to us here didn't reflect any of this. I guess that just wasn't in this portion of the game. What was shown was very straight forward platforming material and that is enough to get me a little interested in it.

Kirby's Epic Yarn: I was so happy for this game's announcement. Kirby hasn't stared in a home console platformer for over a decade (Kirby 64 was the last one). The game's art style is incredibly unique what with everything looking like strands of yarn. It also looks like Kirby's traditional vacuum ability has been altered in some fashion. I can wait to get my hands on this one this holiday.

Metroid: Other M: Some actually gameplay footage was shown in the new trailer and it still looks cool, but they didn't say anything new about the game Nintendo had had already been releasing info about the game throughout the past year. In one of the few release dates given, the game will launch August 31st.

Donkey Kong Country Returns: Retro Studios, the people behind the excellent Metroid Prime series are working a revival of the original Donkey Kong Country series. The classic team-up of Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong returns and lots of elements of the previous country titles as will as Donkey Kong 64 show here. I'm looking forward to its release this holiday (so tired of that vague release date)

Nintendo 3DS: So, this is it. Nintendo's successor to the DS. its capable of 3d images without the need of those dumbass glasses. I can't really say anything about this because the problem of the showing of a device like this is I can't talk about it without playing it myself. It looks cool and the analog stick is an interesting addition (maybe Super Mario 64 DS will actually play well now) and the graphics shown off were amazing for a handheld. I want to try it out.

Kid Icarus: Uprising: Everyone's really excited for this 3DS launch title as the first title in the franchise since some game boy game released in like 1991 or something. I'm not terribly excited in it since I never played either Kid Icarus game and what I saw of the original wasn't that great. I did notice a lot of voice acting (for a handheld Nintendo game) and It the games premise seems interesting enough to give the game a shot.

So yeah, Nintendo really stepped up their game this year.

Super Mario Galaxy 2

For the first time, Nintendo has released two 3D Mario platformers on the same console and like most people I couldn't be happier. I really could just repost my blog about the first Mario Galaxy, as for all intents and purposes, this is the same game with a few additions. This is largely way I wasn't too thrilled about the prospects of a Galaxy sequel when it was announced at E3 last year. But the fact that my only really complaint is that its more of the same is really a petty gripe when that "more of the same" is some of the best gameplay of this console generation.

Much like the first game, the level design in Super Mario Galaxy 2 is unparalleled and, ultimately, the real heart of the whole experience. From the familiarity of spontaneously shifting gravity and bounding across miniature planets to newer takes on the classic haunted mansion and drills that allows Mario to go through planets, Super Mario Galaxy 2 keeps the most memorable level varieties from the first title and combines them with some fresh ideas. Despite sometimes having to combine patience with split second timing, the level design remains extremely intuitive, rarely leaving you guessing where to go next. One of my only complaints with the first Super Mario Galaxy was the lack of difficulty. The whole experience was rich and rewarding, but it was hardly a challenge. While doing the bare minimum to save Peach and finish the game in Galaxy 2 is only a tad more difficult, going for full 100% completion of 242 stars can actually put you to the test from time to time. The final star in particular may be the hardest thing the franchise has presented in years.

The biggest (and my favorite) addition to the game is that of Yoshi. My favorite game character shows up immediately on the first level is loads of fun as you get to devour enemies and use power-ups such as speed-inducing peppers and blueberries that turn him into a blimp. I have to give the developers credit as they give Yoshi far more to do, and by that logic, far more respect than they did in New Super Mario Bros Wii. While Mario’s bee and spring power-ups return, There's some new tricks in the form of Cloud and Rock Mario and succeed in their role to aid in the solutions to platforming puzzles that are fun, challenging, but never hinder the momentum of the game.

Something I really adored about this game was all shout outs and references to previous Mario games. Some familiar foes return from the first game, along with some older baddies from the rogue’s gallery and treat to see a lot of them make the transition to 3D for the first time (like the Hammer Bros.). There were plenty of nerd-out moments for me as noticed things like the laser statues from Mario 3, or the fact that first the Yoshi level looks like something straight out of Mario World (the game in which he made his debut). While New Super Mario Bros Wii used nostalgia as a shield and was basically the whole experience, Galaxy 2 uses it to enhance the game and present those old memories in new fashion. The only thing that keeps this game from being better than first for me is simply the fact that as a sequel, it doesn't wow and impress as much the original did. So yeah, I like the first game a little better, but its follow is pretty close. Its still easily one of the best games of the year.

Super Mario Galaxy

Mario Galaxy is the Wii's primary proper Mario Game...and it is glorious. This was especially a relief after the somewhat lackluster Mario Sunshine. No much has changed in Galaxy compared to the previous Mario 3D Platformers. Bowser has captured the princess (I know...big shocker)and you explore levels to find power stars, which unlock more levels with yet more stars. Find enough to defeat Bowser and finish the game. Of course the big difference this time around is that all of this occurs in the vastness of deep space. Contrary to what a lot of pre-release coverage of the game showed, you spend only a small part of the game in full blown space areas. More in line with prior Mario games, you'll explore tropical paradises, the arctic, dangerous lava worlds, and ghost houses...that just happen to be in space. Just flying through space from one location to another, or speeding through the air across the surface of a full size level never fails to impress.

I think what really makes the gameplay work is the fact that they decided to work in a lot more linearity within each level. While Mario 64 and Sunshine's levels gave you a clue and left you to explore a large 3D area to find the star, the levels in galaxy have more of a point A to point B progression. In a sense, it makes the stages almost as action and platforming oriented as the sidescrollers were. You may be able to wander off slightly to get extra coins or power ups, but the level designs won't let you stray too far from where the designers want you to go. That's not to say you won't ever have situations where you can freely explore a level, but that's no longer the primary gameplay style.

While space serves as the primary setting differation from previous games, gravity fulfills the gameplay hook, and it works surprisingly well. I don't think it was completely necessary to be included, but it does at least set the game apart. While the camera does an excellent job in general, some small sections can be a bit disorienting, like exploring tiny planetoids while held by their weak gravity, but it's something you quickly adjust to and some levels open up into larger areas where gravity rules don't tend to matter as much. And in stages where you might be disoriented by something, the game tends to be pretty forgiving about not letting you fall to your death just because of disorientation. Fortunately, occasional disorientation doesn't effect the controls, which are excellent and for the most part, feel like playing any other Mario game. You've got the usual jumping, ground pounding, long jumps, triple jumps, wall jumps, and there's now a spin attack you use by flicking your wrist a little bit.

The only slight negatives I can think of is the game isn't that difficult. The game is extremely forgiving in most cases and even the most challenging stars can be obtained after three or four tries. The bosses, while fun, don't put up much of a fight, almost all of them going down after 3 hits (and the final Bowser fight - 6 hits). They've also lowered the minimum amount of stars required to finish the game, lowering it down to a mere 60 stars. Another negative is that they didn't really do much with star bits. Star bits are basically jewels that are scattered all over each level and can be obtained by beating enemies with a spin attack. Collecting enough lets you unlock some special stages. All you have to do is wave your remote so that the cursor passes over them to collect. It feels like it was only there to slow stage progression a bit and to give the possible second player something to do while watching and it adds nothing to the game.

I guess I can't talk about this game without also mentioning its technical achievements. Mario Galaxy is just straight up the Wii's best-looking game and it's just so visually accomplished that it looks almost as good as many 360/PS3 games. The simple art style certainly helps, but Nintendo pushes the technical boundaries of its console here, as well. Specular maps, real-time reflections and a ton of other technical feats are executed deftly here and it all rounds out at a smooth 60 frames, and I've never encountered any slowdown. It also helps that practically all the galaxies have a totally different look from another, making it fresh throughout the entire adventure. As if that wasn't enough, Super Mario Galaxy's soundtrack is an impressive assortment of orchestrated themes. All the pieces are epic, sweeping and have a distinct Mario tone to it all. It's also quite dynamic in some places as well. And of course there are a few remixes of classic themes that older fans like myself will definitely appreciate. If you can't tell by now, I adore this game. It's beautiful, it's fun, it combines the best of old and new, and it's one of the best entries in the Mario series.

Best Games of 2009

2009 was a relatively decent year in games or at least it was in terms of what I played. My lack of job meant I couldn't try out many new titles and my lack of a PS3 until just last week ensured I was unable to play the system that seemed to have the best year as far as exclusives were concerned. The Wii and 360 had almost nothing to offer in terms of big titles...well the 360 actually had two Halo games, but I have no interest in that series. There was a pretty strong showing for multi-platform releases and I guess any year that gives me a proper Mario game and a Ratchet and Clank title couldn't be all bad. Now that I've got a job and PS3 maybe I can go back and play some of the year's big releases.

Best Games of 2009

5. [Prototype] (Multi-Platform)

Though the missions get repetitive and the difficulty somewhat spirals out of control in the last few missions, this is a pretty fun open world game. The sheer variety of moves that you can unlock and preform is staggering and something as simple as traversing the city is a blast. This game is often compared to PS3 game Infamous, but since I haven't played that yet I can't really say which is the better anti-hero game, but Prototype is a solid action game.

4. Metroid Prime Trilogy (Nintendo Wii)

I wasn't sure at first whether to count this, as it sort of seems like cheating. I haven't reviewed it yet, and I'm not going to cover it as a single package. After all, it's not one game, it's three, All of which I've already played before. But even with the old content, I still got more fun out of it than most of what I played this year. Metroid Prime is still one of my favorite games of all time,. A fun shooter with a wonderful atmosphere. Metroid Prime 2 is still kind of a letdown with it overuse of backtracking, and Metroid Prime 3 makes up for the second game and is fun closure to great trilogy. Sure I'm kind of cheating, but The Metroid Prime Trilogy is the best gaming value you can get for your money this year.

3. New Super Mario Bros Wii (Nintendo Wii)

This is a pretty personal choice, as New Super Mario Bros Wii didn't do anything to push the franchise forward, it's just another solid entry in one of my favorite series. The game is kind of lazy in the sense that it doesn't have any new ideas of own, it just reuses old standbys from the series's past. The new items are fun and the co-op mode, while annoying at times is fun in a screw around with your friends way. It's not the best Mario game, but its certainly a fun one.

2. Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (PS3)

Ratchet & Clank is right up there with Mario as one of my favorite franchises, so luckily I had a friend with a PS3 who bought the game and though I didn't complete it, I was still able to play enough of it to gather my opinion of it. A Crack in Time doesn't alter the gameplay formula of the series, it just continues the run of gaming goodness that the series excels at. It had been some time since I played a new Ratchet game (2005's Deadlocked was the last for me), but I settled right into the groove as soon as the game started, blowing up everything in sight, collecting experience, and just having a fun time. I've got a PS3 now and I'm working through the earlier PS3 Ratchet entries and I must say this series is still a treat.

1. Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (Nintendo DS)

And the best game of year is actually a handheld title. The Mario & Luigi series has always been a strong series and this third outing may easily be the best. The Mario RPGs have always allowed the writers to throw the Mario cast into bizarre scenarios and Bowser's Inside Story may be the most bizarre. The narrative goes in so many strange and wonderful directions and its all surprisingly funny. The combat is more involved than most RPGs on the market and getting to actually fight as King Bowser is more fun than it has any right to be. It's a very enjoyable experience I think that there should more games as unique as this.

New Super Mario Bros Wii (Review)

In a lot of ways, I'm really confused about how I feel about this game. At the very least, it's a huge improvement over the somewhat ho-hum Ds predecessor and is more suited as the proper follow-up to the classic Mario side-scrollers. The game delivers the quality I've come to expect from the main series of Mario titles. But this game also managed to reveal to me why it's took so long to have more 2-d Mario outings...they simply don't have new material anymore. This is somewhat understandable, Mario 3 and Mario World are considered to be the high point of the platforming genre (and gaming in general to some people) so it would be very hard to follow up on such nearly flawless outings as those. New Super Mario Bros Wii is basically a retread of those two games and that's not really a bad thing. Nintendo could very well keep releasing something like this every three to five years and I'd probably be satisfied, but I just wouldn't be as impressed anymore...as was the case here.

Apart from the co-op mulitplayer and the incredible final boss battle, the game doesn't do enough to stand out on it's own. Most of the game is simply filled with shout-outs to the earlier games. The Koopalings, the airships, the final battle from Mario World, the enemies roaming about on the map screen, and the criminally brief reappearance of Yoshi, these are all from earlier titles and with the exception of the Koopalings who are at least a bit harder here than in Mario World, these elements were much better when they were used nearly 20 years ago. That said, it's still nice to see some of these elements return and the new items are ten times better than ones from the Ds outing. There's a propeller suit that makes you fly, an ice flower that's the same as the fire flower...only with ice, and a penguin suit that also allows you to shoot ice and slide around. The items are still more or less tools to get the optional star coins, but they're able to function in traversing stages and attacking adversaries.

The big addition to this game is the co-op mode where two to four people work together or against each other to finish the stage. Having played through the game by myself and with two other friends, I have to say that it's much easier to play alone, but a hell of a lot more fun to play with friends. Most of the difficulty of the co-op mode comes from the other players getting in the way and otherwise disturbing the flow of the game, but it's just so damn funny to watch your friends miss a jump that you passed or toss them into a pit. My friends and I nearly died laughing and while it got a little annoying at times, we all agreed that co-op mode was amusing.
Overall, despite all my complaints, New Super Mario Bros Wii is still a solid outing for the plumber and one of the better games released this year. Apart for Mario Galaxy 2 (which appears to be nothing more than an expansion pack), I'm not sure what's next for the Mario franchise, but I'll eagerly look forward to it.

Mario Party 3 (Review)

Yeah...I never owned Mario Party 2, just rented it multiple times. Funny since from what I recall, MP 2 was the best in the series. I did manage to nab the third game upon it's release. Mario Party 3 was the final game in the series to be released on the N64 and with it the series ends it initial run with a pathetic whimper. I just have to wonder exactly what went wrong with this game. I enjoyed MP1 and (recall enjoying) MP2 quite a bit, but there’s just a lot of minor flaws that simply add up to a mess of a game. The gameplay is basically the same as the all the other entries as you pick a Mario character and move around a board trying to gain more stars than your competition and at the end of every turn, you play a mini-game.

There's a couple new additions this go round. Waluigi and Dasiy and make their debut as playable characters, there's a new two player duel board feature that's interesting but not worth playing in the long run, and most importantly (and most unfortunately) this game starts the trend of having a god awful single player story mode to plod through. The story has to do with the Millenium Star falling down by the castle, and Mario and friends argue over who gets to keep it which leads to playing the board games to determine who gets it. You get a card with seven attributes on it and after every board you win, you get a stamp corresponding to each attribute. Before you’re officially awarded that star, you’re forced to face a character claiming to be better than you in a Duel Map to earn the star. The story is terrible and the gameplay gets excruciatingly monotonous, I found myself getting bored of it after finishing only a couple of stages.

As for the mini-games themselves, their mostly a mixed bag. Most of the mini-games lack innovation or simply fail to be interesting. Worst of all is in increase in games of luck, which have no place in a board game where simply getting around the board is a matter of luck already. The single worst thing about this game is the Game Guy space. Once you land on one of these spaces, all of your coins are taken from you and you have play a mini-game which, naturally, relies entirely on luck. If you somehow manage to win, you’ll get at least twice your coins back. But if you lose, and there's a really good chance you will, all of your coins are gone. These events really makes no sense and ruin the game entirely since you have no choice but to endure them. Hell, when I was playing this with my friends, even they agreed that it was unfair bullshit, even though they were they were given an advantage from someone's failure of it! Even though I haven't played all the Mario Parties yet, I have no doubt in claiming the Game Guy spaces as the single worst idea in the entire franchise. Upon recollection, I actually didn't like Mario Party 3 when I was younger and time has certainly not sweeten the deal. I would only recommend this game to the die-hard fans, otherwise this is without question among the worst of series.

Mario Party (Review)

The Mario Party series is often referred to as the most hated of the Mario spin-offs and with some good reason. In the ten years since it's debut, the franchise has released 10 games (8 console titles and 2 handheld spin-offs) with little innovation between them. Thinks to eBay, I've been able to acquire most of them for my Mario collection fairly cheap. While I'm probably not going to spent much time playing through all of them right now(if at all), For the time being, I'm going to try and take a quick refresher course on the 3 games I already owned.

I played the original game when it was first released, and 10 years later it's still fairly enjoyable. Mario Party is pretty much a board game with some mini-games to break up the monotony. You and 3 other players move around the board collecting coins and buying stars. The one who has the most stars at the end of the game is declared the winner. You get coins through certain spaces on the board, and by winning the various mini-games that you come across. At the end of every turn everyone will compete in a mini game for coins.

The boards all have various features and traps to take advantage of like planting seeds in a giant birthday cake, or getting shot out of multiple cannons in a battlefield and all the stages feature Bowser who'll always show up to screw up someone's progress by taking their coins or stars. Most of the boards here managed to keep me and my friends entertained as opposed to most of the latter games. Sure, the game can be frustrating as hell, but naturally that's only when you're losing. There are some things featured in this game that were thankfully dropped for the sequels. There's an annoying space that will either give you an extra turn or take one away, a solo mini game space that a little too time consuming, and the way that you are rewarded for team based mini games can be a little infuriating (one mini-game allows a solo player to steal upwards to 60 coins).

The main draw of the Mario Party games are the mini games. Depending on the spaces everyone lands on in the board it'll actually become one of 4 different types of games (4 Player, a 1 vs. 3, or 2 vs. 2). Most of these are incredibly unique like the one where you play jump rope with a line of fire enemies as the rope, bobsledding down an icy cave or racing miniature cars. For the most part they're all fun and the actions used to preform the games are more diverse than the sequels. Sure, some of the games pop up way more often than they should and couple of the games are out right unfair to some of the players, but I'd say that over 90% of the mini games are enjoyable. I've really talked about this game a lot longed than I intended to, but I guess I had a lot of ground to cover. I say the game is pretty fun to play solo but I give the game a higher recommendation if you have a couple of other people to play against. So, whether you're planning on a single player experience or multiplayer, the game is still recommended either way.

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (Review)

From the very start, the newest game in the Mario & Luigi series is leaps and bounds better than the previous Partners in Time entry. The story this time around sees a mysterious virus causing the Toads in Mushroom Kingdom to become extremely fat. During a meeting to find a cure for the outbreak, Bowser storms the kingdom's castle only to be defeated by Mario. He stumbles off to a forest where a merchant sells him a strange mushroom that it gives Bowser an ability to suck up things. It also puts him temporarily under the merchant's control, which turns out to be Fawful from Superstar Saga, making a welcome reappearance. Bowser again storms the castle and swallows the brothers and everybody else up, while Fawful plots to take over the kingdom. It's a crazy story and one that is actually engaging to go through, showing us aspects of the Mario universe that have never been seen before (Bowser‘s Insides notwithstanding). The game also features some of the best humor I've ever experienced in a Mario game. Like in Superstar Saga, Fawful’s lines are pure gold and Bowser is just hilarious.

Mario & Luigi don’t really do anything new in terms of gameplay, so Bowser joins the fray as a fully playable character. This adds a completely new take on a franchise that was starting to get a little stale. A good portion of the game is spent playing as Bowser and it feels more like Mario and Luigi are supporting characters with Bowser as the star of the show. In combat, Mario and Luigi still focus on jumping and hammering, Bowser mainly attacks by punching and fire-breathing. In addition, Bowser can use his newly-acquired vacuum ability to inhale some enemies and let the Bros. deal with things. Outside of battle, the Marios have to help Bowser out in a variety of ways since they are stuck inside him. At certain points, Bowser tries pull off extraordinary feats that he would not normally be able to do. When this happens, Mario and Luigi power him up by playing a variety of mini-games and unlike the past games these are actually pretty enjoyable. One of my favorites is a recurring mini game where Bowser needs his arm muscles powered up and you have to play a rhythm-based game as Mario and Luigi where you hit balls of electricity with into the muscle tissue with your hammers.

It seems that the developers have learned from their previous mistakes, and have improved this game based on that. Partners in Time suffered from featuring enemies that simply had too much HP. Well, this time around, all the enemies' HP got toned down a bit and have their attacks boosted instead. Some of the enemies hang around a bit longer than they have any business to and a lot of enemies have attacks that are just flat out cheap and over-powered, but it’s a hell of a lot better than Partners in Time’s time wasting showdowns. It'll take around 10-15 hours to complete the game, and beyond that there's still rare items, beans, and fun side-quests to invest more time in. Overall I’d say that Bowser’s Inside Story is actually better than the original Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga in terms of quality. It’s full of laughs, entertaining gameplay and takes the best qualities of the past games, and adds new twists to them to create a very enjoyable experience that belongs in any Mario fan’s library.

My Weekend at AWA 2009

This past weekend I unexpectedly went off with a large group of friends to Amine Weekend Atlanta (AWA) in... well Atlanta. AWA is some kind of 3 day anime, video game, pop culture convention that one of my friends go to every year and this year I was invited to go with him and his friends at the cost of 70 bucks. So I figured "what the hell", I've never been to anything like this before and it's been years since I've been on anything even remotely resembling a vacation. What followed may as well have been the most fun I've have all year.

("Part of my motley crew")

There were 12 of us on this trip, a few I've met before (most of them only a week ago) and we plowed into 2 vans and spent about 5 hours on the road heading to Atlanta. The hotel we spent our weekend at was ritzy, but cheap, charging five dollars for some stupid bottle of water and fifteen bucks a night for an internet connection. While in our conjoining rooms, I slowly but surely started bonding with these people. We all had similar interest and attitudes and just had a blast screwing around with each other. The day before leaving I bought the new Mario & Luigi game with intention of playing it when there was dull down-time between events, but I barely touched the thing as I was spending all my time laughing and messing around with my new friends in the room and during the convention itself. ("Various Kingdom Hearts Characters" )
("Angry Video Game Nerd Vs. Nostalgia Critic" )

The main attraction to this convention is seeing a bunch of people cos-play as bunch of different characters. Over the course of the weekend I saw a lot people dressed as my favorite characters: Mario Bros, Zelda, Pokemon, The Joker, and even The Angry Video Game Nerd and The Nostalgia Critic. The thing I learned from all of this is that cos-play is less about people actually wanting to be these characters and more about people just wanting to show off some cool stuff that they made. One of the only things my friends complained about that I noticed more towards the end of the convention is that the cos-players showed an over reliance on certain franchises. Well over 80% of the people dressed up as characters from Bleach, Naurto, or Kingdom Hearts. It would have been nice if there had been more variety of franchise representation.

(It's Over 9000!!!!)

(The Comedian(Justin) and Rorschach)
(The Mario Sisters)

There was quite a full list of events planned at this convention from watching various anime to pokemon trivia contest to cos-play 101, but I didn't attend most of them. Usually the lines to these things were too long for me to tolerate, so I usually spent most of time with one of my friends in the dealer's room where you can buy rare Japanese merchandise. There were action figures, DVDs, video games, dolls, and swords. I managed to walk out there with a Dragonball Z and Sonic the Hedgehog figure, a Kirby doll, and a couple of Mario Galaxy cards. The downside was that everything was overpriced, a side effect of most of the items being imported I suppose.

(Rikki Simons: the voice of GIR)

(Set phasers to stunning)

The place I spent a huge chunk of time at towards the end of the convention was the artist room where people can go and view and buy fan art. Nathan and I spent too much time and money here, but all of the drawings were just too good to pass up. The coolest thing we managed to do in this room was meet Rosearik Rikki Simons who did the voice of GIR from Invader Zim. We got pictures with him and he autographed some pictures and it was just too cool for words. I really wished I had job so I could buy some more stuff. (I think I just rediscovered my love of Pokemon)
(A yeti eating chris's head, a flamer, and Nathan)

Come Sunday afternoon it was time for us to depart this wonderful locale and head back to our dull reality. Overall I had a blast and have come to find the friends I roomed with as people I can't wait to see again. Nathan and I made plans to go another convention in November, but I seriously doubt that would actually come to be. I'll definitely go back to AWA next year if these people go as well.

Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time (Review)

The sequel to Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga didn’t endear itself to me as well as its predecessor. In fact, I’d say it’s a noticeable step backwards. This time around Professor E. Gadd has made a time machine and Princess Peach decides to test it out. While in the past she gets attacked by Princess Shroob. Mario & Luigi then proceed to go back in time to save her and they see an alien race called the Shroobs attacking the Mushroom Kingdom of the past. Later, they meet their past selves (i.e. Baby Mario and Baby Luigi), and the four team up to save their past and present from the alien race. The story is just annoying, nothing that happens in the past directly affects the present. The baby Mario bros don’t get their minds erased or anything at the end of the game so why are the present versions unable to remember any of this? Even worse are the antagonists, the Shroob army, led by the intolerable Princess Shroob. They’re smug, annoying, cliché, and speak an unintelligible language which renders any chance for proper characterization impossible. From what I can gather, they’re just evil and want to take over the world because it’s there. The game tries to throw a plot twist at us late in the game, with a couple of hints along the way, but everything I hoped for was more interesting than the actual twist.

The gameplay is pretty much the same as the last game, only this time there are four characters to work with. The Mario team still have humorous abilities used to gain access to new areas. When traveling together, the baby bros ride piggyback on Mario & Luigi. The team is required to activate 4-person panels, throw the babies onto trampolines to discover areas above-ground, and split up to simultaneously hit switches to open up further parts of the levels. There are a few more moves, but I found myself doing these same actions over and over, and unlike Superstar Saga, the situations in which these abilities are used don’t become more challenging as the game progresses, so it gets fairly repetitive.

Despite the addition of the babies, the battle system is the same as before. The bros attack is replace with bros items. There’s a large selection of items that, like regular attacks, depend on timed button presses. These are kinda cool but tiring to pull off because of how confusing the button combinations are. Most of the items have the characters launching themselves at enemies and you have to press the right button for the right character when they appear. The timing can be too rapid and random at times, but the amount of damage these moves do is worth it. The thing that’s really bad about the battling in this game is that there are a tons of enemy encounters, and most (if not all) of the battles are very lengthy, so a ludicrous amount of time is spent in mostly simple combat. The bosses are even worse, they’re easy to conquer, but have way to much health and take an insane amount of time to defeat. I found myself completely bored in the most of the fights and practically took a nap during the final boss. Even if you're using lots of powerful items it just takes forever to deplete their large amounts of HP. Ultimately, the game feels like it was either rushed badly or the developers didn't put much effort into it. There are some moments where the humor and the gameplay manage to be on par with the original, but they’re not enough to save this mediocre RPG. There’s a new game in this series coming out this week and it looks like it could be an improvement. Here’s to wishful thinking.

Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga (Review)

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars gave birth to further adventures for Mario in the RPG genre. While Legend of the Seven Stars essentially evolved into the Paper Mario series on later home consoles, it also gave way for a rather interesting and enjoyable handheld outing in 2003. Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga is the first Mario game to legitimately feature Luigi as an important character and equal contributor to an adventure as it seems fair to state that he only really existed in the classic games if there were two players. The game sees Princess Peach visited by an ambassador from the Beanbean Kingdom, but instead it turns out to be a witch named Cackletta. She steals Peach's voice, which she needs for some nefarious purpose and heads back to Beanbean Kingdom. Mario and Bowser (and Luigi, who accidentally gets dragged along) decide to temporarily team up and head off to figure out what Cackletta's up to. The story may not be that in depth, but the way it plays out is fantastic. The cast of characters are highly amusing (especially Cackletta's underling Fawful, whose every line is pure gold) and there are even a few appearances from characters who have missing for a while.

What sets Superstar Saga apart from the other Mario RPGs or games in general is that Mario & Luigi work in tandem both in and out of battle like they were joined at the hip. Oftentimes you will need to utilize the two in synchrony to solve puzzles and unlock new areas. Even as they walk around the screen normally, if Mario or Luigi jumps up a step and the other brother is still on the lower level, the two won't advance any farther. I found that this does tend to get rather annoying at some points when one of the brothers refuse to jump properly forcing them to repeat a long jumping sequence. There are a lot of mini-games and obstacles that require extensive use of all Mario & Luigi's somewhat amusing abilities. For instance, Mario can drink a bunch of water and have Luigi hit him with a hammer to squirt it out on a fire or Mario can set Luigi on fire and send him running through an obstacle course. While these inclusions are refreshing to see and break up the "battle after battle" formula, some bits start to feel a tad overdone and a couple "mini-games" that occur in the final location really grate on the nerves

Fights are done in a hybrid of real-time and turn-based. In battle the brothers attack separately, apart from special moves that use both of them. Like Legend of the Seven Stars, you have to time button presses just right to increase attack damage, perform special moves and avoid attacks, but Superstar Saga adds the ability to counterattack. When enemies attack, depending on how they move or what their facial expression is, they'll attack either Mario or Luigi and you have to react accordingly with either a hammer strike or jump attack. Learning their patterns to dodge or counter them adds an extra bit of interaction to battle that most RPGs lack. The battles really aren't that hard. A few bosses will have you struggle, but I found that the special attacks (which don't cost much energy to use) takes them down in no time at all. Overall the game is generally pretty easy, but a lot of fun. It's unique and it's one of the most original RPG games out there. I'd say give it a try if you can find it.

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (Review)

Super Mario RPG was the last Mario game produced for the Super Nintendo. It was a joint project between Nintendo and Square-Enix and was the first RPG for the Mario franchise. This game was not very well known because it was released only months before the N64, so nobody gave it any attention. Luckily, I got the game for a birthday present and though it took me a while to figure out how to play it (I was 8 and it was the first RPG I ever played), it became one of my favorite games. Those that played it considered it to be one of the best games of all time and really wanted Nintendo to put it on the Wii's Virtual Console. The game was finally released on the Virtual Console last September and everyone who missed out on it got to see what all the fuss was about. Meanwhile, I played through it and found the game to be just as amazing as it was way back then.

The game's RPG roots allowed for the Mario storyline to be properly expanded for the first time. The story starts like a typical Mario game with Mario going to save Princess Peach from Bowser. Once Mario is about to rescue her, a giant sword falls from the sky crashing into Bowser's castle. The crash sends Mario, Bowser, and Peach flying in all different directions and Mario ventures off to find Peach. Eventually, Mario meets a spirit in the form of a doll named Geno who explains that when the sword fell from the sky, it fell through The Star Road spreading the pieces of it everywhere. The Star Road is what grants everyone's wishes and the sword is a henchmen for a alien named Smithy, who plans to get rid of all wishes and replace them with weapons. In 1996, it was definitely refreshing to see a major Mario game that didn't center on saving Peach. The story is well written with plenty of humor, though I don't think the writting is as good as the later RPGs in the series. The game's full of interesting and unique new characters and the classic cast of Mario characters have their personalities defined and expanded. Bowser in particular, steals the show with some truly hilarious dialogue.

The game is pretty much the same as any other RPG. The big difference is that in battle you can use actions called Timed Hits. For example, if you have Mario punch and you press A at the right time while attacking, he will punch twice instead and do extra damage. This also works defensively and with special magic attacks. It's intuitive and it has been implemented in every Mario RPG game since this game. Like other RPGs, you can use magic in battle which take up FP(Flower Points) and when FP is gone, then you'll have to use an item to replenish it. You also can buy or find new Weapons and Armor to equip on your characters. The weapons that you can equip are fun and fit the Mario universe well, like a giant koopa shell, hammers, a star gun (for Geno), and razor claws (for Bowser). The only problem comes with the item storage, you can only carry 30 items and duplicate items don't stack. You'll receive items from battle constantly so it won't be long before you have to start selling/trashing items to make room for better ones.

The overall game is not that difficult, although most of the latter bosses can cause a decent bit of trouble due to some really cheap overpowered special attacks. The game is a fairly decent length running about 7-8 hours, which becomes longer when you explore the game's big overworld to find all the hidden secrets. The game has really great replay value as I've already played through the game several times over since its re-release last year. I've talked about this game a lot longer than I meant to, but that's only because I love this game so much. I say anyone who loves fun games should do themselves a favor and check this one out. It's easily one of the best games in the Mario franchise.

Diddy Kong Racing DS (Review)

Back when it was released on the N64, Diddy Kong Racing was one of only two games that came close to reaching the addictive high quality of the Mario Kart series (the other was Crash Team Racing). The game was unique due to it's mixture of Mario 64-ish adventuring and kart racing. The game was updated for the DS in 2007 in an attempt to make a great game even better....and they failed miserably.

The basics of the game are still in place, you go around and race in cars, planes and hovercrafts to win balloons that allow you to access other races and locations, and you still have to race the boss of each world twice to get your reward. Even though you're given three different modes of transportation, none of these vehicles are particularly fun to use. The original game made excellent use of the N64's analog stick to make the controls seem more fluid and responsive. For the DS, the controls have been transferred to the D-Pad with shoulder buttons used for drifting and weapons. These controls are slightly unresponsive and sluggish at best which make racing far more of a chore than it should be. The hovercraft in particular is terrible in the controls department and makes me wonder how something like this made it through testing. This problem is slightly balanced out by the truly pathetic A.I. Most of my races were blowouts as my opponents seemed to be even worse at navigating the game's cramp and poorly designed racktracks than I was. True to any kart racer you're able to blast your foes with weapons and unlike in the recent Mario Kart games, everybody has access to all the weapons and there is no cheap over-powered weapon for the A.I to spam. This is the only thing this game has over Mario Kart, although the choice of weapons aren't as inventive.

Even worse is the needless and poor implementation of the DS's abilities. To do a boost start in a race, you have to use the stylus to rotate wheels or propeller. When driving the hovercraft, you'll be forced to blow onto the screen. It's unbelievably awkward to use the stylus to rev up the vehicle, and try to get your hands back to the regular controls when the race abruptly starts. After defeating a boss for the first time, they'll tell you to complete another set of objectives to complete an area. This challenege is a horribly designed rail shooter mini-game. With the stylus, you'll float along a race track and pop all the balloons drifting in your way. Both the popping and the aiming are done with the stylus and with many of the balloons off in all directions, you'll have to first drag the stylus to get a good viewing angle, then tap it again to bust your target. I found that one misplaced touch can foil screw you over. After that's done and the area boss is beaten again and you complete the area's trophy race challenge (racing through the same tracks...again), there is an optional third boss race. In this third encounter, any semblance of quality racing gameplay is thrown out the window. The screen switches to an overhead perspective and The D-Pad and buttons are replaced with the stylus. In order to get your vehicle to move, you'll have to use the stylus to spin a wheel in the touch screen, and then draw a path for the vehicle to follow. This fails like everything else as your kart doesn't follow the stylus path accurately and when your kart slows down, you'll have to spin the wheel again.

This game could have been good, even great. All of the element were present: a variety of playable characters and vehicles, a lot of tracks to go through, and an online multiplayer mode that's actually better than Mario Kart DS. Unfortunately, this game is marred by far too many problems to save it from its mediocrity. The controls, A.I, touch screen, and nearly everything else are poorly implemented. Instead of allowing the new features to be "enjoyed" at leisure, you're forced to endure all of them before finishing the adventure in its entirety, making the game's replayability aggravating. I highly recommend that those looking for a racer on the DS get Mario Kart instead, or if you have an N64, stick with the original Diddy Kong Racing.

Mario Kart Wii (Review)

Mario Kart made it's obligatory appearance on the Wii last year, changing up the formula by adding motorcycles to the mix and what could possibly be the best online mode that Nintendo has to offer. The motorcycles are well balanced in the context of the game, though in my opinion their much better to race with than the titular karts. The new tracks as a whole are pretty good, with most of them showing off something intriguing or different (Coconut Mall, Koopa Cape, and Bowser's Castle are the highlights). The retro tracks are a mixed bag. The stages coming from the N64 game are some of the best from that entry, while the DS game is represented with some dull choices from a game that was full of unique stages.

Sadly the game has an extreme problem with continual item abuse. The dreaded blue shell returns along with more overpowered weapons like the POW block, mega mushroom, and a stupid cloud that makes you speed up but shrinks you if you can't pass it off to another player. These items appear way too often and even strip the unlucky victims of their own items. This causes any form of strategy to be thrown out the window in favor of pure luck, especially in the single player grand prix where the A.I basically cheats by using any of the overpowered items every 3 seconds. As a result, I ended most of my play sessions due to sheer frustration and a desire to break things. This item abuse had been a severe problem in the Mario Kart series for 3 games now and while everyone has been constantly complaining about it, it completely baffles me that Nintendo has not only ignored the problem, they've made it worse than ever.

The game still has that excellent gameplay the series is known for and it's a blast to play with friends, but Nintendo really screwed up with the items. I understand that Nintendo is trying to give casual gamers a chance against seasoned players, but giving them super weapons isn't the right way. If this is the direction Nintendo wants to take the series, I seriously doubt I'll want any to do with it anymore.

New Super Mario Bros (Review)

New Super Mario Bros isn't as good as any of the older Mario games that this game acts as an homage to. As a matter of fact, I'd say that it's almost the weakest entry in the main series (Super Mario Sunshine gets the honor of weakest game). However it is a solid and pretty fun revival of the classic era of a stellar franchise. Considering that Mario's ultimate rise to fame was through 2d platforming, it's unbelievable that it took 12 years for Nintendo to revisit the concept. The basic core of the Mario games is still intact here: the running, the jumping, and the classic items are all here on display and feels like old times again. This game did well of reminding me why the series has lasted so long. Of course there are the new things that have been added to spice things up and for the most part, the results are a tad mixed. The triple jump, wall jump, and ground pound from the 3d entries have been included and are implemented extremely well. It's very fun to bounce of walls and hop like a manic through some of the stages.

The new items are the big addition and while the new powers do seem interesting, in reality... they're not. The mega mushroom is my favorite and the most fun to use even though it's really just a starman that makes you giant and grants you the ability to knock over stuff. The tiny mushroom makes Mario really small (and weak) so he can enter hidden areas or reach star coins with his heightened ability to jump...somehow. The worse item is the blue koopa shell which gives you protection when you crouch but when you run you'll start spinning out of control and most likely fall of the stage. The main problem with these items is that only exist so you can collect the optional star coins, unlike the older games where new items gave you a new way to attack and traverse the levels (well the blue shell does that...in the most ass way possible).

Something that really bugged me was how you can only save the game after beating a boss. Granted it shouldn't take more than 10 minutes to reach a boss, but still...I shouldn't have to. You can use the star coins you collect in stages to open up new levels and upon doing that you can save...but it's still not the best way to go with save feature. And then for whatever reason, you unlock the ability to save anywhere after you complete the game. Haven't handheld games evolved enough to allow auto-saving after every level? Hell Super Mario Land 2 auto-saved and that was game was released 12 years prior to this. Oh...something else that annoyed me..fighting Bowser Jr twenty-something times before the end wasn't very engaging either.

New Super Mario Brothers is a decent addition to the old school Mario games of the NES and SNES era, it's definitely one of the better DS games. It retains the classic feel and gameplay that those games had, though at times it feels more like it piggybacks off of their success. If the game had been longer and more difficult and had the new items been developed better, the game would live up to the high standards of the franchise. There's gonna be a sort-of sequel on the Wii this year and it looks to be an improvement...it has Yoshi so it has to be much better than this.

Super Princess Peach (Review)

Released back in 2006, Super Princess Peach was the first 2d side-scroller that Nintendo had released in quite sometime and the game launched about 3 months before New Super Mario Bros. Despite the game's non manly appearance, Super Princess Peach is actually one of the better direct spin-offs of the Mario series. As the video game world has evolved to feature females in more active roles, it was only a matter before the Mushroom Kingdom's damsel in distress got a moment in the sun.

It is however a shame that Peach's big chance to kick some ass is spoiled by the game's weird sexist undertone. The thing that makes Peach so super is her ability to get super emotional. Through-out the game, Peach can take on four emotion-based powers: joy, rage, gloom, and calm. Joy will cause Peach to float through the air in a cyclone. Rage causes her to burst into flames and somehow makes her really heavy. Gloom causes huge tears to pour from Peach's eyes and gives her the ability to run really fast. Finally, calm restores lost health. Those abilities are the only thing that really set this game apart from a standard Mario platformer and they are very fun to use to traverse the moderately long stages. The emotion powers' applications in boss fights is pretty interesting, and it's pretty shocking to me that some of the bosses actually put up a fight....not by much, but at least they tried.

There's only 2 major gripes I have with the game. The first problem is the fact that the game is too easy. In most platforming games when you fall off the stage it results in instant death, in this game fall off the stage only cost you one health point and you have to restart that section of the level. Even when you're low on health you can use the calm ability to regain all of your health, which basically negates any real threats. The only time in the game I felt any real danger was during the final battle against Bowser, who is actually harder here than he has been in most of the recent games. The second problem I had (which is really more of an annoyance) is saving the Toads. In every level there are 3 Toads to find and rescue. Their not needed to finished the level, but it is required to save them all to fight Bowser at the end....something the game doesn't tell you until actually get there. Luckily for me, I was only missing about 5 of them, so it didn't take long to get access to the final battle.

Super Princess Peach is a very fun game even though the low difficulty keeps it from being truly engaging. The game is currently out of print making it really hard to find in stores, but if you can find it I suggest picking it up.

E3 09: Best Games

Okay, this is my last E3 09 post. I decided to end this by listing my ten favorite games that appeared at E3 this year. This includes any game announced or mentioned during the press conferences or games that were said to be on display on the show floor.

These are the 10 games I'm most excited for and the list is in no real order.

1. Super Mario Galaxy 2
2. New Super Mario Bros Wii
3. Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story
4. No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle
5. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
6. Metroid: Other M
7. Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time
8. God of War III
9. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
10. Crackdown 2

And that's most of what I want that I found out at E3 this year.

E3 09: Overall Impressions

Well, E3 ended yesterday although I didn't really pay too much attention to it after the major press conferences ended on Tuesday. After thinking about it for a while I decided that E3 2009 was decent, but nothing mind blowing. Each of the 3 companies had their own strengths and weaknesses which I guess I should elaborate on.

Out of the big 3, I felt that Microsoft was the weakest of the bunch. They didn't have have much to present that wasn't already known or guessed at in some shape or form. More so than any company, Microsoft had the least amount of games to show that were ready for launch during 2008. About 90% of what they had were slated for a 2010 release or later. The games that are coming this year were multi-platform games...so yeah. The thing that pretty much everyone remembers from the conference was Project Natal and to me it doesn't look like it's worth getting extremely excited about. The voice interaction is pure awesome sauce, but the full body motion control aspect only seems to be a little better than the Playstation Eyetoy that was released several years ago and given that what the eyetoy brought to the gaming table wasn't much, I doubt that Natal's implementation in games will be too much to gush over.

Where Microsoft really shined was in the enhancements it was making to the 360's role as an entertainment center. The improvements it's making to the Netflix application is long overdue and should have been there from the start. The facebook addition is pretty cool even though i don't have a facebook (been thinking about it though). And what project natal is going to do the interface of the system is pretty sweet as well.

Nintendo had a lot to make up for after last year's embarrassing showing and they did step it up a little by showing that they had actual games coming out this year (although even if they had only one real game to show, it would be an improvement). The problem is, even more than Microsoft, Nintendo didn't have much to show that we didn't already know about in some way. We already knew that a 2nd New Super Mario Bros was coming, we just didn't know it was going to be mulitplayer and for the Wii. We already knew about another major 3d Mario game coming as well. Only Golden Sun Ds and Metorid: Other M were genuine unknown surprise announcements. Nintendo also spent too much time on junk they've shown before like The Wii Motion Plus and Wii Sports Resort.

Also since they've started the whole casual game trend, Nintendo doesn't really know how to do an interesting conference. Seriously, Nintendo's conference felt like a PTA meeting. Nintendo still needs to understand that the casual market their shooting for doesn't watch or care about E3. Nintendo's showings were better than Microsoft's largely because they had decent mix of games that are actually coming this year and games to look forward to in the future. The fact that there are 3 Mario games of actual substance on display (2 platformers and an RPG) is pretty damn impressive and the fact that 2 of them make heavy use of my favorite game character Yoshi is just amazing. Mario may be my favorite game franchise, but I really wish they would have focused a little more on some of their other franchises (The long-awaited Wii Zelda title was revealed to be in development during a roundtable and will released next year at the earliest). Overall Nintendo did pretty well, even though they clearly did the bare minimum to make up for their past failings....just don't get me started on that completely retarded Wii Vitality Sensor...

Sony has never really impressed me with their press conferences. Their E3 presentations aren't bad, their just not that memorable. As such I don't really have too much to comment on with Sony as I did with the other 2. This year was a tad better than their usual showings but not by much so it kinda sad that I feel that Sony had the best presence at E3 this year. Sony had a better balance of stats and games and they revealed the most new games coming out with many interesting features. I felt that Sony's conference had the best structure as well: focusing on the one console at a time as opposed to Nintendo who jumped back and forth between their 2 systems. Although Sony failed to convince me to buy a Psp, I was gald to see them make an admirable attempt to make it appear like a worthwhile handheld (I'm sure it is) and I'm sure that those who own one are thrilled to see some actual games released for the system. If I did get a Psp, I would definitely buy MGS: Peace Walker (In related news since the press conferences, it was announced that the 360 game MGS: Rising is indeed coming to the PS3)

After a few years, the PS3 has finally got a decent number of games and this year's showings have finally convinced me to pick up the system when I have the cash, although Sony's really gonna need to do a price drop first. God of War 3 may not be very different from it predecessors, but at least it's clear that the game is gonna be just as good as what's come before. Like I said in my Sony impressions posts, there was a distinct lack of Ratchet & Clank that really bugged me but I think in the end Sony may have made the right choice focusing on GOW instead since it is higher profile and R&C (much like GOW) hasn't really changed much over the years to really talk about. As for Sony's motion control, if Sony can release some decent software for it, I'm sure it could possibly outdue the Wii Remote...and as I said before at least this thing's implementation in games is more realistic than Project Natal.

So in summation, E3 2009 was okay. Microsoft was the worst to me as they only had about a handful interesting things and most of it won't be out for quite a while, but I won't deny that some of those games mentioned should be pretty good. Nintendo gave their their fans much more interesting stuff unlike last year and Sony just did their thing and came out one top.

Score below is as follows.
CONFERENCE PLACING:
1st: Sony
2nd: Nintendo
3rd: Microsoft

E3 09: Nintendo Impressions

Well...This was a pretty good improvement over last year. Sure Nintendo still had those dull, annoying as hell bragging speeches to bore us with. But Nintendo was a bit more on point to the business of telling us about the games they had coming. Nintendo had a tad more games than Microsoft that I was interested in, but I really wish they would have said a little more about some these games.

New Super Mario Bros Wii: This appears to the major triple A title for the holidays that was long rumored for past couple of months. Co-op Super Mario Bros is something that I feel was long overdue. I'm not super excited for it since this appears to be mostly the same as the Ds game and we've already seen that (plus New Super Mario Bros wasn't my favorite iteration of the series). Also why are the 3rd and 4th players both Toads? Why not Wario or Waluigi? Oh well, its Mario...I'm gonna buy it...and the co-op better be online.

Wii Sports Resorts: Really...they showed us all this game really had to offer last year, but at least it looks a bit more like full game now....Still not gonna buy it though.

Kingdom Hearts Ds: We've known about this game for a while and the press conference didn't tell us anything more than a release date (Sept. 29). I love the Kingdom Hearts series but Chain of Memories for the GBA kinda tainted my feelings for Handheld iterations of the series. But at this one isn't card based so I'll probably buy this when it releases in Sept.

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story: Another Ds game that we've known about for quite some time as the game has been out in Japan since February. I love the Mario & Luigi rpg games but I don't really have anything to say about this game other than it's release date which was an unannounced date in the fall...why? All they really had to do with the game was localization and Nintendo doesn't really have anything for the summer...so why wait til the fall?

Golden Sun Ds: A nice surprise announcement. The Golden Sun games on the GBA were wonderful and it was a little confusing as to why the series was absent from the DS. Well it's here now and although we were not given a date, it looks nice.

Mario Vs Donkey Kong: Minis March Again: Wow more Mario stuff...I didn't care for Mario vs Donkey Kong 2. It's lemmings-like gameplay was too much of a departure for me. The one thing was cool about that game was the custom level builder which Minis March Again basically is. It's a downloadable game for the DSI which I don't have and even if I did I probably wouldn't buy it.

The Legend Of Zelda: Spirit Tracks: They didn't say anything about this game other than "it's good" which wasn't enough for me. I didn't care too much for Phantom Hourglass, the last DS Zelda game, and this looks pretty similar, just with trains instead of a boat. I'm sure it will be good and it will sell well. I'll check it out...but most likely not at launch.

Super Mario Galaxy 2: Wow..just wow. It was pretty much confirmed beforehand that would be a new 3d Mario title on the Wii and here it is. I was hoping that it wouldn't be another Galaxy...but who cares, the first Mario Galaxy is in my opinion one of the best games of this console generation and this seems to just be an extension of that which is fine by me. It also appears to harder than the first one which would address my only real complain against the original. Oh...and Yoshi is the game...which makes things 10 times better. The game will release in 2010...hopefully in the summer.

Metroid Other M: A new Metroid game developed by Team Ninja of all people. It's a nice change of pace from the Prime series and it'll be nice to see this as a sort of what could have been if Metroid Prime had been taken in another direction. It won't come out till next year along with Galaxy 2 so at least there are 2 big games to look forward to next year..finally.

So all in all, Nintendo did pretty well. At least they have actual games coming out this year.