First Impressions: Wario Land – The Shake Dimension

The Wario Land games started off on the gameboy. Being too young to have played the game (sad face) I only played Wario World, a mediocre attempt at a 3D Wario game. When I heard about there being a new 2D Wario Land game on the Wii, which is a console often criticised by Xbox and PS3 fans for not having HD graphics, I was a bit skeptical. But when I saw the screenshots, I was happy with how it turned out.

The game was released in Europe yesterday. Wario’s got to go into the Shake Dimension in order to defeat the evil Shake King. By doing this, he will get a great reward of treasure. The gameplay is similar to old 2D platformers, but with a twist. The Wii remote. You hold the Wii-mote sideways, and shake it to do a few things, like shaking items out of enemies.

The music in the game is quite good. And while, at least from what I’ve heard so far, it’s not orchestrated like Super Mario Galaxy’s soundtrack is, it’s still a great soundtrack from Nintendo. The cutscenes are completely hand-drawn, which (obviously) makes it look like a cartoon.

I’d reccomend buying this game if you haven’t bought at least 2 of the “bigger” games on the system (Zelda, Galaxy, Brawl, etc).

I may do a review of this soon, depending on whether or not I get the time.

First Impressions: Mega Man 9 (Wii)

Instead of getting SBCG4AP Ep 2, I downloaded Mega Man 9 this morning. I’ve only beat one boss, so this won’t be that great of a First Impressions post. Oh well.

Mega Man 9 is an 8-bit game, for the few of you that don’t know. So if you’re a graphics whore, you should probably you should probably not buy this. The story is that many robots have started reaking havoc on wherever it is Mega Man lives (I’m a Mega Man noob) and has framed Dr Light. It’s you’re job to clear his name, and defeat all the evil robots.

The music in the game is really good, even though it’s 8-bit. If you really like the music, you should probably buy the arranged album on Play-asia.com, like myself.

I’d reccomend the game to hardcore gamers, but casual may want to do a bit more looking into the game to see if they’ll enjoy it. Unfortunately, Xbox 360 owners will have to wait for a few days to play this.

First Impressions: Super Mario RPG – Legend of the Seven Stars + Why I haven’t got a few things done

WARNING: Before getting this game, make sure your TV can play in 60 Hz, or 480p. You will not be able to play the game if it doesn’t.

I decided to miss out on buying SBCG4AP Episode 2 on European launch date and instead buy Super Mario RPG, a game that Europe missed out on when it was released in Japan and the Americas on the Super Nintendo. The game was made by Square, now known as Square Enix, who are well known for there involvement in the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest games.

It plays out like a traditional RPG, as you’d expect. It features an overhead view of Mario and his surroundings. It’s not fully 3D, but the character models are 3D. As you’d expect from a Mario game, there are some attacks that are obligitary for any Mario games, like the jump, but it also has the fireball. I’m currently up to a dragon boss, which is hard, in a word. It’s a recommended download from the Virtual Console. I may review it soon.

Also, the reason why I haven’t done my Mega Man review is because (you guessed it) it’s so damn hard to complete. (Sidenote: I HATE Iceman’s stage) And the reason why I don’t have my Dazzle yet is a longer story.

You may not know this, but I’m a teenager and live with my parents. My house is having an extension at the moment, and I thought it would be done by now, because I was told that many MANY months ago. Now, it’s due to be finished by about christmas. This is a problem because the TV I have at the moment doesn’t have any Composite outputs, and I won’t be getting a new TV until the extension is done. I could use another method, but it would take a hell of a lot of moving around. However, I could ask my unkle if he could give me some SCART things. Rather then explain what they are, which would take forever, I’ll just say that they have Composite outputs.

First Impressions: Kirby’s Adventure

I downloaded Kirby’s Adventure today because I had 500 Points. I have no interesting introduction, that’s the only reason I got the game. And because of THIS GUY’S playthrough.

Kirby’s Adventure is the second game of the Kirby series, and, I have to admit, I’ve never played the first one, so I can’t tell you what was new in this version of the game. This games graphics are very colourful for an NES game. The gameplay is very good, as you would expect from HAL Laboratory. You can suck people in to your mouth and take their special abilities, which is a really unique and very cool feature of the Kirby series. The boss battles in this game are pretty easy. The stratergy is normally the same. They attack, you dodge, they stupidly exploit their weaknesses and give you something to hit them with. Rinse and Repeat. I have gotten up to Butter Building. The game has really awesome music, and some of the music is remixed in other games, such as Super Smash Bros Brawl for the Wii. I would definitely reccomend downloading this, but because there is a demo in Super Smash Bros Brawl, I’d say you should try that out first, just incase you’re not into this kind of thing.

That’s it for this First Impressions. Reviews of this, Mega Man and Wii Fit will be coming shortly, and a First Impressions of Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People should be coming tommorow, as that’s when trusty Wikipedia says it will be released on the European WiiWare.

First Impressions: Mega Man

In anticipation for the upcoming WiiWare, PSN and XBLA title, Mega Man 9, I’ve downloadd the first Mega Man on the Wii Virtual Console in an attempt to familiarize myself a bit with the franchise before buying Mega Man 9.

The first thing I noticed after the title screen was that people who reviewed this game were right. This game is pretty difficult. You can beat the bosses in any order, but I’m going clockwise starting with Cutman. The Cutman fight wasn’t hard when you’d figured out the stratergy.  The stages are crammed full of characters while you’re making your way to the boss, they all are determined to make your path to the bos as hell-ish as possible. Rather than talking about the difficulty, I’ll talk about the gameplay. The gameplay is pretty fun, and addicting. The stages are short, and there aren’t that many bosses on the menu screen, so I would gather that it’s a short game.  I’d definitely reccomend dusting off your NES or downloading this off the Wii Vrtual Console before buying Mega Man 9, because if Mega Man 9 is as difficult as it looks, you’re in for one heck of a challenge.

PS: I’ve also downloaded Kirby’s Adventure (I got a Points Card today), so look out for a First Impressions of that in a few minutes.

First Impressions: Defend Your Castle

Defend Your Castle is a Wiiware game based on the popular flash game of the same name. It’s developed by XGen Studios and was a WiiWare launch title in the NA, but out didn’t come out in Europe until recently. I downloaded it today and here are my thoughts on it.

Defend Your Castle is a game where many enemies try to destroy your castle. You are a giant, invisible hand, displayed as a cursor. Your job is to destroy these enemies before they weaken the castle. You are also in charge of what happens around the castle. For example, you can make the castle stronger and add many upgrades to the castle. It’s a pretty addictive game, even though the concept is simple. The graphics look like they were made out of paper, and the word health was deliberatly mis-spelled as “helth”. This is what makes the graphical style unique.

So far, I’m really pleased with the game and, for 500 Wii Points, I’d say it’s definitely worth the purchase. I’ll probably edit this post with a score for the game out of 10 at some point, but I wouldn’t post a review for the game because I’d just be repeating myself.

PS: I may be getting SBCG4AP soon, as it’s not out in Europe yet, so look out for a first impressions of that game.

PS: I’m too lazy too add tags at the moment. XD

Super Smash Bros Brawl: First Impressions

Sorry about the delay. I should’ve had this up yesterday but I was playing Brawl obssessively.

Anyway, the first thing that one would do when starting up Brawl is seeing how the controls work in a Group Battle or Training mode. I use the GC controller and the controls work very well. There are 4 ways to play the game, as you’ve probably heard: Wiimote on its side, Wiimote and nunchuck, Classic Controller and (my personal favourite) the Gamecube Controller. The battles remain untouched except for a few things. There is a new Smash Ball that I’m sure many of you have heard of. The character who manages to break it open will get a very powerful special move.

You will spend quite a lot of time in Solo mode as well. Classic mode, Events mode and more await you in this menu. But for this first impressions, let me talk about the Subspace Emmisary. The Subspace Emmisary is where you’ll want to unlock new characters. Every character that isn’t playable at the start of the game can be unlocked here including characters that contributed a lot to the hype (for me anyway), Snake and Sonic the Hedgehog. SSE sees you clearing enemies of an area and then proceeding to another level. But the levels are not always like this. Near the start of the game, there is a level where you have to run away from a live statue, whilst fighting some enemies. The story of SSE is that the Ancient Minister wants to take over an un-named land, by planting bombs with a time limit in many different locations. He has many monsters at his disposal to try and slow you down, so the characters of Brawl will have to save the land by stopping the Ancient Ministers plots. Along the way, more characters will come to help you.

I think the game is very good at the moment. Good story mode, amazing group brawl, and online. What’s not to like. Look out for my review soon.

First Impressions: Sonic The Hedgehog

I know, I’m about 17 years late to do a First Impressions of a game. But, better late than never, right? Sonic the Hedgehog may not be appreciated by people introduced in to gaming in the past 5-10 years, as most of the 3D Sonic games suck. People in the Genesis and Super Nintendo generation will aprecciate the game a lot more, some considering the original Sonic the Hedgehog as one of the greatest video games ever created. It’s for this reason that I downloaded it on the Virtual Console today.

When you first start the game, you will be greeted with the classic Green Hill Zone, and while the first level is easy, it isn’t meant for challenge. It’s merely meant to introduce those people back in the Genesis era to the overall concept of the game, and it does that very well. After getting used to the controls, running around and collecting gold coins almost feels like second nature whilst playing the game. I found the collecting coins part of the game to be a good feature, but there’s one thing that annoys me about this. If you get by an enemy, ALL of your coins will drop. And if you get hit when you have 0 coins, you will die! This is hilighted in the Eggman battle on Green Hill Zone Act 3. Whilst the battle isn’t really that hard, it is when you’re low on coins. But the fact that this is a tricky game isn’t a reason to shun the game.

So, there’s no question whether you should buy the game or not, you definitely should. But if you want to find out how great the game is and whether or not I think it’s among the very best video games ever, you’ll have to look out for my review. I hope to get my review out before Super Smash Bros. Brawl’s European release date.

On an off topic note, I’ve decided that my next purchase after Super Smash Bros Brawl will be Sonic & The Secret Rings, as I’ve heard that the game is a return to what Sonic is all about: pure SPEED!

First Impressions: Block Breaker Deluxe

Just to get this out of the way, I actually downloaded this game by accident. I went to see how much memory the game took up, and it took up nearly 300 blocks, so as I went to download Donkey Kong Country instead, I accidentally clicked the Yes button, and downloaded it.

Anyway, on to the actual game play. You may have played the game, like me, but don’t recognize the actual name “Block Breaker”. Block Breaker is a game which can be played for free on the internet, and requires you to hit a ball in to some blocks in order to break them. You deflect the ball off of a shield, and certain blocks can give away power ups, more balls to hit and stuff like that. You control the shield by pointing at the shield. I have a feeling that Gameloft didn’t have too much trouble converting the mouse controls to the Wiimote.

One thing I don’t like about this game is the lack of any more control scheme options. Wiimote on its side seems much more suited to this game, though a power up would have to be sacrificed to make this work. Another thing that I don’t like is the menu. It’s something only an 8 year old could appreciate, it’s really trashy and cheesy. You get some item for clearing a level, presumably to help you progress through any type of story the developers could possibly come up with. That being said, it doesn’t really affect the overall gaming experience, it’s just something I thought was pretty wierd.

Keep an eye out for my full review soon.