No More Heroes Review

It goes without saying that Goichi Suda – or SUDA51, as he is more well known – has one of the most unique minds in the gaming industry. You all probably know him as the man behind the Gamecube and PlayStation 2 title killer7. It is by far SUDA51’s most famous creation to date, but also one of the most bizzare video games of all time. This is by no means a bad thing, but it was the cause of some mixed reactions towards the game. Some praised it’s wackiness, others despised it. killer7 is a great example to show that SUDA51’s games require an aqquired taste in order to get the full enjoyment out of them. So, I’ll just give you a little warning, before I go into more depth on No More Heroes. If you didn’t like any of SUDA51’s previous creations, chances are you won’t like No More Heroes.

You play as a sterotypical Okatu, Travis Touchdown. On one of his normal days, spent half-naked sitting at a computer surfing the web, he came accross an internet auction. The item for sale? A friggin’ lightsaber! Or Beam Katana, if you want to go by its correct name. After buying the Beam Katana, Travis becomes an assassin. He came across Sylvia Krystel, who asked him to kill someone. No sweat for Travis. Just an everyday job for him, right? Wrong. Travis soon finds out that killing him made Travis the 11th ranked in Santa Destroy. Now, Travis must make his way up and become the Number 1 assassin.

No More Heroes (NMH) tries to juggle a lot of different gameplay elements, which I’ll cover in greater detail in a moment. NMH provides you with a lot to do outside of the main missions, the most notable of these being free-roaming.

But enough of that for now, let’s talk about the main battle system in NMH. The battle system requires you to mash the A-button to attack an enemy with your Beam Katana, and mash it in rapid succession to perform combo moves. When you’ve finished your combo, there will be an arrow appearing, after which, you just swing the Wiimote in that direction to do a huge slash on the enemie. This will kill standard enemies, easily. Considering the lack of motion controls involved with the Beam Katana, I still like the battles. You can also press the B trigger to do a kick, which will stun most enemies. When they’re stunned, you can press B again to perform a wrestling move. To pull this off, you move your Wiimote and nunchuck in the direction the arrow is pointing. This will take up far more damage than your average attack, and is very useful in ranked matches. However, the Wii sometimes has trouble detecting the arm movements, which leaves you hopelessly flailing your arms around like a fool.

The free roaming isn’t as great as you’d like. That being said, there are some hidden side-quests to do. You can learn new wrestling moves, find new T-Shirts, which you put on in Travis’ motel room and some other things, which I’ll let you find for yourself. However, the free roaming feels very tacked on. The only good thing about it is that you have a bike. Why is this good? You don’t have to spend as much time free-roaming, and it’s much faster than walking. The city of Santa Destroy has only the occasional person in it, however, there are a lot of cars. This is really annoying, because if you get within feet of the car, the game thinks you actually hit the car! Just navigating around Santa Destroy is really clunky, and it was by far the lowest point of the game.

The assassin fights require you to pay an entry fee. Travis will have to get money by doing quirky and unusual jobs, which includes filling someones car with gas, litter-picking, and – everyone’s favourite past time – bringing coconuts from trees to the local coconut seller. These missions can only be described as average. They’re fun at first, but doing too much of them will bore you.

Getting to the assassin isn’t too hard. First you’ll have to drive to the location marked on the GTA style map, and then have to go through a horde of easy enemies to get to the assassin. The matches against the assassin are never too hard, but they do require you to learn the attack pattern in order to defeat it. While a bit easy, the bosses are still very fun.

Overall, NMH is a great game! It’s one of the most unique games you’re ever going to play, but it’s free roaming is a little rough around the edges. The games graphics are very stylized, like killer7’s, and the script is hilarious. Get the game, and get hyped for Desperate Struggle!

Overall: 9.0

Lostwinds Review

Does the length of a game make a big difference? Some games are praised for how long you can spend playing the game, while others are frowned upon for it. Lostwinds is a short title, and is frowned upon for that reason. That’s right. Lostwinds – a game provided in a download service for small games which aren’t big enough for release on a disc – is being frowned upon for being short. Funny, isn’t it?

The story is that a young boy named Toku is harmlessly walking around, when the fall below him crumbles, and he is trapped in a cave. He moves to look for a way out of the cave, when he notices a stone just laying around. When he approaches it, he finds out that it is the lost wind spirit, Enril. Enril sacraficed itself to save Mistralis from the evil spirit, Balasar. He trapped Balasar in the stone with him, but Balasar escaped from the stone!

Enril offers Toku the power of the Gust, in order to help him save Mistralis! This is where the game’s wind mechanic comes in to play! Like many great Wii games, Lostwinds uses the Wii’s motion controller in a very subtle way, but it’s simple approach works, fantastically! You press A on Toku and make a slash movement, and Toku will move in the direction of the slash. This will help Toku get up to high places, which is essential. Alone, Toku is pathetic, but with Enril, he can reach great heights! You can also use Enril to manipulate enemies and nearby objects, which is how you solve the games puzzles. The most used puzzle is the classic “this switch needs to stay in place” puzzle. The wind controls feel very satisfying , but the wind’s sensetivity is a problem that can’t remain without a mention. Sure, it isn’t possible to get to some places without it, but it makes some of the puzzles a major pain!

Like gameplay, Lostwinds is not a slacker in the graphics department, either. The enviroments are bright and coulorful, there’s some great character design, and the style adds to the games charm. It is better looking than a lot of “real” Wii games! Another thing that adds to the charm is the music. It doesn’t use a full orchestra, but it doesn’t need to. The music fits the enviroments PERFECTLY. My only complaint is that there’s not a lot of it. Each cave features the same song and the final boss has the same battle music as the average, wimpy enemies.

Overall, Lostwinds’ length does not effect the overall enjoyment of the game. It features great graphics, music and level design, and the game feels fresh! This is the best WiiWare launch title, and has yet to be topped as my best overall WiiWare game.

Overall: 8.8

Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost & the Damned

Rockstar Games is proud to announce that the eagerly anticipated first episode of downloadable content, Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned, will be coming to the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system via Xbox LIVE® online entertainment network. Available exclusively on Xbox LIVE worldwide on February 17th 2009, The Lost and Damned will feature all new content and is the first of two episodes announced for Grand Theft Auto IV on Xbox 360.

Developed by Rockstar North and set in Liberty City, The Lost and Damned features a new main character and plot that intersects with the storyline of Grand Theft Auto IV; new missions that offer an entirely fresh way to explore Liberty City with new multiplayer modes, weapons and vehicles; and a diverse soundtrack with additional music – all with the incredible production values that are the trademarks of Grand Theft Auto.

Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned requires players to have the full version of Grand Theft Auto IV for Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE membership to download. Further details will be announced soon.

I got an e-mail from Rockstar Propoganda about this

Looking forward to this!

Games I plan on getting

Here’s an Updated list.

• Animal Crossing Wii + Wii Speak
• Halo 3 (in bundle for Xbox)
• Lost Odessy (in bundle for Xbox)
• Far Cry 2 (in bundle for Xbox)
• PES 2009 (in bundle for Xbox)
• Gears of War
• Gears of War 2
• Banjo Kazooie (XBLA, free because I pre-ordered Banjo Kazooie 3)
• Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts

The 360 bundle is being shared with my brother.

Yes this is all for Christmas.

Yes, I’ll record a lot of Animal Crossing Wii footage. Whether or not it’s on Christmas depends on if my Dazzle decides to be delivered by Christmas. (I’m getting it at around Christmas)

Wii Music Review

Wii Music was first shown way back at E3 2006, when Shigeru Miyamoto conducted the Zelda theme to an on-screen orchestra with the Wii remote. This was one of the many demonstrations of the motion sensing technology in the Wii, but few people thought it would be released as a full game, and thought the game was merely for demo purposes. But at late 2007, Wii Music made a re-appearance. Nintendo released screens of Mii’s playing to music, and revealed that the game was not just about orchestrating popular pieces of Nintendo music. E3 2008 gave us huge amounts of information on Wii Music, and, as a result, a lot of hatred was shown towards this game and Nintendo. As I’ve already had a mini-rant about this, let’s get on to the review.

As I said earlier, Wii Music is not just about conducting popular Nintendo music. In fact, the only song avaliable to be orchestrated by Nintendo is the Zelda theme. The game is about getting together with friends and jamming to popular pieces of music. And you’re not left short of combinations to play the music. There are over 60 different instruments in the game, leaving thousands of possible combinations for a song!

Wii Music has a lot of stuff crammed into it. Not as much as Super Smash Bros Brawl, but there’s still a hell-uva-lotta stoff to do.

Jam mode is the main feature and allows you to play any unlocked song. You can control every instrument, or control one and have Tutes – computer controlled musicians – play the other instruments.

The question “how are you supposed to play notes with just motion control?” may spring to your mind. Well, you don’t actually play the notes. You must play your instruments in time with how the song is meant to be played. The Wii remote speakers will play a standard beat which is in time with the music when you perform and will help you to do this. It’s a bit too simple for it’s own good to be honest. Then again, it’s simplicity is the main hook for the game, so it could be excused by some.

Another great feature is the ability to save music videos and send them to your friends. If only my friends had similar gaming tastes. *sighs*

I do like this game, but I have some big problems with it, other than the one already mentioned.

Over 80% of the songs are NOT made by Nintendo. They have missed out MANY great Nintendo fans. With more Nintendo music, it could have improved the score. Playing the Metroid theme, or the Mabe Village theme would have been brilliant to play with some of the combinations.

My other problem is with the Handbell Harmony mini-game. It failed to keep me amused for more than 3 minutes. Not that it effects the score, I was just knit-picking.

Score: 8.2

The game is good. In fact, it’s one of the storngest titles in the Wii Series. But I wouldn’t reccomend it for the full RRP.

SIDENOTE: I managed to get the game for £15 (RRP: £39.99). The reason being I traded in Mario & Sonic, and had a £5 on my GAME card.

My first impressions on Wii Music

One of Nintendo’s 2 big games for the holiday season was released today in Europe, and I’ve been playing it very much. I could be in a decent position to write a review (yes, I played it that much), but I’ll leave that until I’ve unlocked everything.

Wii Music is the title which was hated with a passion by most Nintendo fans at E3 2008. But, I fail to see, and have always failed to see why everyone hates it so much. Wii Music is a game that simplifies the process of playing music. While the fact that it’s so simple brings appeal to the casual gamers, but perhaps may put off the hardcore gamers. But the fans that are complaining really need to step back and look at the games they’ve got, and are constantly getting for the Wii. Twilight Princess, Galaxy, Smash Bros Brawl, Mario Kart, a new Zelda and Mario are being made right now, the Prime trilogy (including GC ports), the list goes on. Stop whining!

Having said that, the simplicity doesn’t get in the way of the fun of Wii Music. Wii Music doesn’t require you to hit the exact notes, it’s all about timing. You can fiddle around with the notes all you like, and can develop your own unique style.

From what I’ve played, Wii Music is a very fun and enjoyable experience! I definitely reccomend a purchase!

NOTICE

DON’T TIME TRAVEL IN ANIMAL CROSSING: LET’S GO TO THE CITY! IT WILL RUIN IT FOR YOU!