despite my continued attempts to explore the world of massively popular casual games (such as the infamous angry birds), they really just seem to serve as reminders to me that they’re meant for an entirely distinct audience. it’s a world that i can observe but never really quite comprehend. the latest case in point was plants vs. zombies, by popcap. i played the DSiware version, although it’s been ported to just about every current-gen system, including the DS, ipad/iphone, and PC/mac.

the game’s premise is simple: place plants in your backyard to fight an army of invading zombies. despite receiving rave reviews there are several obvious reasons why the game was so tedious for me. one is that it’s mind-numbingly easy, so much so that i had to struggle to muster up the motivation to play through even the first world (which come in sets of 10 levels). by the time i’d done so, however, i’d gotten to enjoy the game design more, and with new weapons and enemies becoming available after almost every level the game grew more interesting. sadly, this was not to last, however, and by the time i got to the fourth world (of 5, for a total of 50 levels) the game had more than worn out its welcome and even the deluge of new weapons and enemies wasn’t enough to keep me playing. the game adds even more distractions in the form of humorous plant and zombie descriptions in the extras and unlockable mini-games that are variations on the main game (some of which are quite clever, such as one in which the zombies have the same abilities as the plants that you’re using). but all this variety is just at attempt to cover up the fact that the core concept is incredibly weak: the “strategy” required is absolutely minimal (hence its popular appeal), and thus beating levels provides no sense of accomplishment or satisfaction. the game’s presentation is entertaining although not spectacular (it still feels like a flash game), and certainly not enough to keep me engaged. all in all, this game left me feeling like a zombie and loathe to play another tower defense game, with only the prospect of moving on to new and better games offering any glimmer of sunshine.

up root some plants vs. zombies links:
- walkthrough at gamefaqs
- guide to all plants, zombies, and modes at IGN
- apparently there’s a plants vs. zombies wiki and a youtube channel (?!)
- entry at wikipedia
- this article at edge-online.com has some mildly interesting comments on how popcap creates motivation to keep playing the game, and says that according to popcap their sales of the game “are an equal 50/50 split between core gamers and broader audiences”. hmm.

for my first game of 2012 i finished up my time with the sega saturn classic virtua fighter remix (although i did check out the original virtua fighter as well). i had gotten a sega saturn specifically to play historic games like this one, and i’ve also been trying to work my way through some of the major fighting franchises that i’ve ignored thus far. for a run-down of the gameplay and a comparison of the arcade and sega saturn releases, check out this article.

as most people know, virtua fighter is notable for being the first 3-d fighter. although it gets lauded for being “revolutionary”, as with the atari 2600′s adventure it feels like people are confusing “revolutionary” for “first of its kind”, although maybe it’s just the power of hindsight that makes the progression seem so inevitable. anyway, there’s clearly a lot of nostalgic love floating around for the game. this revisit at thunderboltgames.com seems fairly typical, and in 2006 EGM voted it as #20 in their list of “the greatest games for their time”. the entry at 1up’s similar 2004 list goes into greater detail about what was noteworthy about the game, namely the focus on realism.

with all the historical context out of the way, i have to say that i found that by modern standards the game feels incredibly dull. i don’t mind the large command lists of games such as soulcalibur too much in general, but the “difficulty” level of virtua fighter just wasn’t enjoyable. i’m not completely sure why that was; maybe it’s the overall slowness of the game. according to 1up the game relies “more on strategy and technique than memorization”, but even after playing through the arcade mode several times i still didn’t find much to interest me. for one thing, as with my experience with soul blade, i find the emphasis on following every attack that leaves your opponent on the ground with a follow-up attack (the latter of which does a disproportionate amount of damage compared to other attacks) to be a completely pointless combo. the ease with which you knock opponents out of the ring also doesn’t feel as fair as in the soulcalibur series. the focus on “realism” makes the game less flashy and eye-catching, but i think that was only a mild deterrent to me. i can’t help feeling that there’s something i’m missing in terms of enjoying the game, but i just couldn’t bring myself to suffer through the clunky gameplay any more even for the sake of video game history appreciation, and so i’ve set it aside for now and probably won’t be dipping into the rest of the series anytime soon. not the greatest start to 2012, but glad to be able to cross this one off the list.

some virtual virtua fighter links:
- entry at wikipedia
- thorough moves list at virtuafighter.com
- : fairly barebones entry at virtuafighter.wikia.com; if anyone’s interested i spent most of my time playing as jacky. (yeah!)

another year and another pile of games played, and it’s time for the annual year in review. last year i played slightly more games overall than the previous year, but only because some of the games i played were very short. this is probably correlated with the fact that this was the first year that i spent somewhat significant amounts of time dabbling in the world of digital downloads, with games played on DSiware, wiiware, 3DSware, and iOS (specifically the iphone). i played slightly less sequels this past year, and due to some revisits of classic grade-A games i had more on my “greatest games of all time” list than last year.

here’s what my year looked like (games listed in approximate descending order) with links to each game’s corresponding blog review:

HIGHEST
- super mario bros. 3 (NES)
- contra (NES)
- the legend of zelda (NES)
- wario land 3 (GBC)
- excitebike: world rally (WW)
- the legend of zelda: spirit tracks (DS)

MIDDLE
- game & watch gallery (GB)
- animal crossing: city folk (wii)
- kirby: canvas curse (DS)
- excitebike (NES)
- contra III: the alien wars (SNES)
- mario and luigi: superstar saga (GBA)
- super mario 3D land (3DS)
- the legend of zelda: phantom hourglass (DS)
- pokemon puzzle league (N64)
- soul calibur (DC)
- pac-attack (GBA)
- mario kart DS (DS)
- mario kart: super circuit (GBA)
- wii play (wii)
- big brain academy (DS)
- chrono trigger (SNES)
- f-zero (SNES)
- face raiders (3DSware)
- yoshi’s story (N64)
- etrian odyssey (DS)
- polarium (DS)
- wario land 4 (GBA)
- warioware, inc.: mega party game$ (GCN)
- yoshi (NES)
- adventure (atari 2600)
- mario vs. donkey kong 2 (DS)
- grill-off with ultra hand! (WW)
- warioware: snapped! (DSiW)
- angry birds free (iOS)
- revenge of the ‘gator (GB)

LOWEST
- tennis (NES)
- pokemon pearl (DS) (1 | 2)
- rampage (arcade)
- pokemon trozei (DS)
- donkey kong jungle beat (GCN)
- metroid: other M (wii)
- mr. ninja (iOS)
- line runner (iOS)
- rampage: total destruction (wii)
- cranium kabookii (wii)

REPLAYS
- advance wars (GBA)

some solid releases mixed in there, but the only real surprises were how much fun the “primitive” game & watch turned out to be (as played in game & watch gallery for the original game boy) and how much fun the controls in kirby: canvas curse for DS were. the 3DS turned out to be a solid new addition to my collection: despite only finishing one actual 3DS game (the fairly safe super mario 3D land), i was more than happy with my purchase (esp. with the ambassador games), distracting myself with the platform’s myriad other features, including the addictive streetpass mii plaza, nintendo video, and face raiders.

the biggest disappointment of the year was certainly metroid: other M, although i appreciated that they were trying to do something different, unlike pokemon pearl which, despite all the hours i spent on it, really didn’t feel like it added anything substantially new to the series.

this year also saw some time spent appreciating wii’s everybody votes channel, and reviewing the top 10 DS games … so far, as well as my completion of the main super mario bros. series, commemorated by my ranking of all (at the time) 13 games.

last year i had decried the “large number of sequels that i enjoyed but felt way too similar to their predecessors” and said that “although my love for video games in general continues and my desire to work my way through the rest of the games in favorite franchises is still fairly strong, my attempts to cut down on time spent gaming overall and to curb my mountain of backlogged games may actually succeed, now that i’ve played through a fair number of the all-time nintendo greats and gotten fairly well into some of their most notable franchises.” i didn’t end up cutting back that much, but a lot of that was because i spent a fair amount of time progressing through the aforementioned nintendo franchises. despite my continued deep love for nintendo, playing so many first-party games actually got a bit wearisome, and one of my “resolutions” this year is to spend more time balancing first-party vs third-party games which no doubt will make me appreciate the first-party games all the more. with only a few exceptions (such as chrono trigger, the original f-zero for SNES, and adventure for atari 2600) i didn’t force myself to focus much on the backlog of greats i should be playing, so that’s another area i should work on more this year. will this be the year that i actually break free of the addiction and decrease my backlog instead of just adding to it? you’ll have to stay tuned, gentle reader.

thanks as always to anyone who’s stumbled across my little patch of cyberspace and found it even mildly diverting, and welcome to another full year of rockin’ video games at video games rock!

although yoshi debuted on the SNES in super mario world in 1990 in japan, he/it actually appeared in two games for the original NES. both are puzzle games, the first being the eponymous yoshi, and the second called yoshi’s cookie. yoshi, the game, has gotten renewed attention recently since it was one of the 10 NES “ambassador” games for 3DS. puzzle fiend that i am, the game had been on my radar long before then, but i sat down recently to give it a closer look and to close out the old year.

yoshi is highly reminescent of hatris, one of the original tetris creator’s less-inspired spin-offs. the focus of that game was to position hats onto heads, whereas in this game the focus is on swapping the stacks (i.e. heads) themselves (although hatris included that ability as a “super” move). yoshi is a less restrictive and thus more entertaining game, although i’m sure many players will brush it off as being overly simplistic since you’re only required to make pairs of matches to clear pieces.

it’s true that the game is very straightforward and that it’s not hard to progress, but as with many puzzle games it becomes much more interesting if you focus on getting the highest possible score. in the original tetris, getting only 4-line “tetrises” definitely increases the game’s challenge, and similarly in this game clearing enemies by only matching bottom egg pieces to top egg pieces at the bottom- and topmost parts of the stage (and thus earning the maximum number of points) is hardly trivial. this isn’t wholly satisfying since you end up having to fill much of the board before you can clear it all, and although that sort of gameplay is akin to many other games such as panel de pon aka tetris attack, and puyo puyo, aka kirby’s avalanche in this game it’s not as easy to “give up the gamble” and recover from the corner that you’ve backed yourself into. the game exacerbates this by dropping top (and bottom) egg pieces in groups instead of completely randomly. also, having to spend much of your time up at the topmost part of the board where one small mistake will end your game and having to mentally switch back and forth between regarding the pieces as “garbage” that will go in between an egg and as pieces you’re trying to clear make the game feel just a bit too fussy to be much fun.

all in all this is a more decent title than most will give credit for, and although i’d rank it above the mostly mindless dr. mario (which i’ve never really enjoyed) it’s not one for the ages.

well, that about wraps up 2011. stay tuned for the annual recap!

yoshi’s hungry for some yoshi links!
- PDF of manual at replacementdocs.com; there seems to be a lot of misinformation floating around about the scoring, so here’s the info straight from the source
- good FAQ at gamefaqs
- entry at wikipedia

gave the club nintendo exclusive grill-off with ultra hand! for wiiware a spin this past week. grill-off is a simple arcade-style game which, despite its meat-centric focus (not a veggie burger in sight, sadly), is not without its charms. see the review at nintendolife.com for a typical response. as for my take, the motion controls get a little wearisome, but not prohibitively so, although i’m not sure why the designers chose to force you to hold the controllers up instead of horizontally as would be more natural for mimicking the actual ultra hand (speaking of which, it’s great to see this spotlight on a piece of nintendo history; gotta love the big N for continuing to give retro love to even their pre-video game products). the 1-hit-and-you’re-out mechanic is somewhat trying, but it’s appropriate for this type of game. the presentation is colorful without being grating and works well, and the gameplay is solid enough and involves just enough mental power (plus plenty of twitch action) to keep you engaged past the initial playthrough. the focus in the later levels (i got to level 5 by the way) is on predicting which piece of meat is going to be ready next; there are three sizes: shish kabobs, steaks, and whole chickens. although it’s easy to pick between the shish kebobs and steaks and i imagine that if you invested the time you could more easily pick among all three types which to target next, my interest waned before i got to that level of mastery. if it had included medals the game would not have felt out of place on a compilation like wii play, although as it is all in all i estimate that the average person can expect to spend about half an hour with this, and with a worthy opponent maybe another half hour or so on the multiplayer mode. not sure if that’s worth 80 club nintendo coins for most people, though.

some handy grill-off with ultra hand! links:
- official site which features an awesome video
- review at gonintendo: this guy has a high score that one can only dream of
- entries at wikipedia and nintendo.wikia.com

i squeezed in a few quick games to round out the year. i’m a pretty big fan of the warioware series, and next up for me was warioware: snapped! for DSiware. i’d read a fair amount about the game before i bought it and knew that it was going to have limited appeal; the reviews at nintendolife and gamespot.com are pretty typical.

as an entry in the warioware series the game would be fairly disappointing due to its limitations, chief of which is its short length (about 20 micro-games, 5 of which require coordination with a second person) and the lack of any extras: you can easily breeze through the game in less than half an hour. i didn’t have too much trouble getting the camera to recognize me, but my nephew and i weren’t able to get through all of the 2-player set even after several attempts.

the game’s camera-based controls are enjoyable and novel, although the playstation’s eyetoy that preceded it by more than 5 years and microsoft’s kinect released a year and a half later no doubt has featured similar games. and despite the always enjoyable wacky warioware exterior, the game as a whole does have a tech demo feel, as many critics have noted. but a large part of the real enjoyment of the game is showing it off to other people, not just for the trademark warioware goofiness, but for the recap at the end of each stage that replays recorded footage of the player. it’s a pity that you don’t have any option to save these silly antics, but the iwata asks article about the game sheds some light on both the practical and emotional motivations for this seemingly odd design choice, motivations that are probably much more relevant to japanese societal norms than those of the US.

in terms of a recommendation, though, for people other than completists and hard-core fans of the series, making the decision to shell out $5 for this game really comes down to how much you’re willing to pay for a mechanism to entertain your friends and watch them being entertained. (in that sense the game is much like the somewhat infamous muscle march for wiiware.) in my case the combination of that enjoyment along with the appeal of warioware makes this an unregretted purchase, despite its limited gameplay and use, but for an introduction to the warioware series in general there are clearly better choices.

snap up these warioware: snapped! links:
- thorough FAQ at gamefaqs
- entry at wikipedia
- and recommended viewing only if you’ve already played the game: highly entertaining footage of nintendo CEO satoru iwata and nintendo translator bill trinen playing the game

although mario kart 7 was released only a few months ago, i’m still catching up on the last few entries in the series. the next one up for me was mario kart DS. the game got rave reviews upon its release six years ago, and it does offer some new features. first off, the game introduces wi-fi races and battles, neither of which particularly interest me, although the emphasis on snaking in this game apparently makes that experience very uneven. missions were a mild diversion, although they got rather repetitive, and it annoys me that full mastery of snaking, which i consider to be an optional technique since it’s never mentioned anywhere in the game or its manual, is required to 3-star rank some of them. the retro cups, which include reprises of tracks from the four previous games in the series, were a great addition and have since become a series staple, although only having 3 laps for the SNES tracks often made them feel more frustrating than they could’ve been since the idiosyncratic brevity of those races gives you little room for error. the game also introduces a new roster of karts to choose from with three new stats — handling, drift, and items — which adds some variety.

in terms of the “difficulty”, by now the frustration of last-second blue shells is par for the course. the inclusion of ranks, introduced in super circuit, definitely adds to the replayability, but i’m not into racers enough to have much interest in chasing the highest ranks. the game features the kart debut of a pair of characters, one of whom was a complete surprise, as well as a couple of new items.

despite all these additions, the game feels strongly tied to mario kart 64 since it ignores the gameplay introduced in the gamecube iteration. the new locales are enjoyable, but too many of the new tracks feel like retreads to me. it’s certainly impressive to see gamecube tracks reworked for the more-limited DS, but in terms of the core racing experience there wasn’t much that really grabbed me. on the up-side, the game did make me appreciate the new ideas introduced in the gamecube game. this one ends up ranking in the middle of my list of favorites in the series so far, and i’m hoping the wii (and 3DS) iterations provide more of a progression for the series as a whole.

zoom past these mario kart DS links:
- entry at mariowiki.com
- list of unlockables at strategywiki.org
- thorough FAQ at gamefaqs
- nice chart comparing the appearance of items throughout the series

as promised last post, here’s the recap of rampage: total destruction for wii. it always interests me to see remakes of classic games, but this is a dud in almost every way. every review i’ve read is in pretty much complete agreement, and this review at gamezone.com is typical.

where to start? the game is basically a lazy port of a sloppy remake that first appeared on the PS2 and gamecube (although somewhat astoundingly according to the entry on wikipedia: “Despite the less than positive reaction, the game has sold over one million units according to Midway and the GameCube version has earned Player’s Choice status”). the core game tries to update the classic gameplay but just slaps on modern graphics that were passable on the gamecube and PS2 but just look mediocre on wii. more disappointing is that the game does nothing to improve the monotony of the original’s gameplay, aside from making it less intuitive and easy to control and adding completely pointless goals (such as, eat 10 bicyclists, or find the items hidden in the various buildings) and dull “boss” battles. the addition of special moves may have spiced things up a bit, but every monster has the exact same set of three, which makes the monsters themselves feel like little more than palette swaps. added to that are the completely obscure ways the developers have set up the unlockables: for example, every monster has a special move that can only be earned on one stage, meaning that the chances of you finding it without plowing through the entire campaign mode with every monster or using a FAQ is next to nil. the cityscape graphics are the best part of the game and have a good amount of detail and variety, and the sound effects are decent, although the voice clips quickly wear out their welcome and the lack of music is a big drawback. the wii version suffers from shoehorned-in motion controls, and as everyone has noted, although the nunchuk + wiimote mode is barely tolerable (swinging the remote to do special attacks gets old fast), the solo wiimote mode is completely broken. i tried that mode several times, with zero success; it’s impossible for me to imagine that anyone at midway could have actually mastered that control scheme, unless they happen to be employing virtuoso theremin players.

all in all this was just another failed attempt at remaking a classic. the only plus to the game is that it includes the original arcade version and its N64/playstation-era sequel, rampage: world tour. that game seems like it would be more worthwhile than either of the other two games, although that’s not saying much, although by the time i got to it i was all rampaged out and have left it for another day (definitely not in the near future).

rampage through these rampage: total destruction links!
- i’m completely astounded that anyone would have played through all of this game, let alone written a comprehensive FAQ on it, but here’s a sickeningly thorough FAQ of the gamecube version, on gamefaqs
- apparently there was a rampage-themed puzzle game for GBA. whaaa–??

i’ve randomly had a copy of rampage: total destruction for wii for ages, and i finally sat down to give it some quality time. i’ll get back to that game in my next post, because i focused first on the original arcade version that’s included as an extra and incidentally is also available on other collections such as midway arcade treasures.

for anyone who doesn’t already know, rampage casts you as one of three monsters (basically king kong, godzilla, and a huge werewolf), and your only goal is to “rampage” from single-screen city to single-screen city, punching all the buildings enough so that they crumble to the ground. i have vague memories of seeing rampage in arcades when i was a kid (i think partly because it was memorable that when you’re defeated your naked untransformed human self slinks off screen) and a big draw was that you could play with not just one other person, but two. the game has the same mindless co-op appeal typical of beat-’em-ups, but the premise gives the setting and gameplay (or “theme and fun” as nintendo power would call it) a unique feel. for 1986 the game is quite well presented, and the hulking monsters strike a pretty good balance of being slow-moving but still easy to control.

the game is definitely designed to be a quarter muncher, though, as it becomes immediately clear that the humans have the advantage and are going to win out in the end, especially considering that the game loops after day 128. after playing through more than 30 levels i had had enough, even though the ability to eat humans somehow never seems to get old. the three characters seem to be interchangeable (although it’s nice to see they made one of them be a female), and the different cities you visit are completely indistinguishable: the gameplay is pretty much exactly the same from level to level. if i’d actually had to pump in real quarters to a machine i would’ve strategized a bit more, but it’s hard to imagine progressing very far on one quarter even with the optimum strategy in place (chasing a high score isn’t emphasized much here since there are unlimited continues). the human sprites, bullets, and items are all a bit too small, so much so that i don’t even recall seeing many of the items that are apparently in the game.

despite these complaints, the game is mindless fun and good for a half hour of co-op gaming. it’s fairly easy to accidentally punch or jump on your buddy, but that just adds to the co-op entertainment factor. on the boyfriend-o-meter this one scored surprisingly high, and i suspect that it’ll also be enjoyed by similarly casual gamers.

rampage through these rampage links!
- good overview of the game at arcade-history.com
- thorough FAQ at gamefaqs
- entry on the game and the series at wikipedia
- apparently a movie is in the works??

it’s only been a few months since i’d put aside pokemon pearl in disgust even though i was only at the halfway point, but i ended up getting sucked back into it and spending way too much time finishing the game recently instead of progressing through pokemon black which i’d also started. the main reason was because my nephew, who has soulsilver, really wanted to trade and battle, and i didn’t have any new critters to trade with him. so being the nice uncle i am i spent a lot more time with the game and wound up exploring features of the series that i usually don’t pay much attention to, including breeding, the safari zone, and online trades. i spent way too much time tending to my honey trees (but after days and days of regular checking twice a day with still no munchlax in sight i gave up on trying to catch one), and i actually saw all 150 of the pokemon in the regional pokedex, a first for me for the series but no doubt made easier by the game itself which requires that achievement before you can import pokemon from the GBA games. completing the regional pokedex became a mini-obsession and i definitely made good progress, although i got to a point where i had to level up too many pokemon that you can’t catch in the wild and my interest waned.

as for the other features i hadn’t previously explored in this game, i checked out the underground in order to find fossils, but as i suspected it seems otherwise completely pointless unless you’re really into building up your secret base (although the multiplayer might be worth trying). i caught all three of the legendary pokemon trio in this game, including the roaming one (also a first for me for the series). in a wi-fi trade i encountered pokerus, the pokemon virus, for the first time, although i still have yet to see my first shiny pokemon (although i saw one listed in a trade). i checked out the battle zone, the post-game pokemon stadium/colosseum-esque area, but didn’t find it too be too interesting, and although i enjoyed playing around with swarms, the poke radar, and the dual-slot mode, trying to complete the national pokedex just seems like an endeavor way beyond my level of interest.

although i came to appreciate pokemon pearl for all that it packs into one tiny cartridge, overall i still felt the same way as i had previously, which is that it, particularly the platinum version, feels like the summation of the series begun with the original pokemon red/blue but that it doesn’t add much that really feels fresh and new. pokemon black/white seems like an attempt to revitalize the series and actually strips away some features instead of adding them. my verdict is still out on that game, but so far i’ve definitely been enjoying it.

to end, as is my custom i’ll give a shout-out to my final crew. yet again it seems that steel pokemon can do no wrong, and bronzong was completely solid, even more so than the starter empoleon. roserade was pretty decent, although rapidash wasn’t a star player. even levelled up, blissey was fairly weak and useless, and it’s going to be a while before i feel motivated to use a normal-type pokemon again.

for links, check out my original post on pokemon diamond/pearl, but really all you need is the great bulbapedia.