As a person who cut their rhythm gaming teeth on titles from the Dance Dance Revolution series, when I first heard about Ubisoft’s dancing game Just Dance, I scoffed. “A dancing game where you don’t have to jump around on a dance mat?” I thought, with my nose upturned and with a very, very fake British accent. What made me scoff even more was the glaring omission of J-Pop jams and the inclusion of mainstream, Western pop music. Little did I know that the older, wiser me who is less prone to think to himself in accents would fire up Just Dance 2 and be completely in love. After playing through just about every included song, and most of the downloadable content, the announcement of Just Dance 3 was exciting to me. Now that I’ve spent some time with it, you get to read about what’s new, what’s to love, and what’s not to love.
Aron
TEN-HUT! Tell me what’s pink, squishy, often makes squeaky sounds, and is bound to make you smile? No…we’re not talking about THAT. Now drop and give me 50 and stop being a pervert. What we’re talking about is one of Nintendo’s most understated franchises — KIRBY! Kirby has experienced a lot of adversity in his days; he’s been forced to shift the world around him for mobility, turned into a ball that can only roll on rainbow lines, and even been morphed into a circle of yarn and transported to a world made entirely of fabric. Now in Kirby Mass Attack, Nintendo and HAL Laboratories have fit Kirby into yet another whole new and unexpected type of game.
These days, the phrase “tower defense” doesn’t necessarily mean the game involves even a single tower. This is a fact that the Robot Entertainment’s recent release, Orcs Must Die!, drives home with great ease. This unique game puts you in the strappy gladiator sandals of a cocky War Mage who has more cheesy one-liners than Joan Rivers has had nose jobs. War Mages are powerful guardians who use tons of supernatural goodies (and togas) to keep orcs and their slimy allies from entering rifts, which are portals that bridge the human and orc world. If that sounds intense, let me tell you: you don’t even know what intense means yet! Read on to see if this Xbox Live Arcade title is worth your precious Microsoft Points, or more importantly, your precious time.
Dear Billy Jo, I’m writin’ this real slow cause I know you can’t read very fast.
We don’t live where we did when you left.
We read in the paper that most accidents happen within ten miles of home, so we moved.
I won’t be able to send you our new address cause the last family that lived here took the house numbers with them so they wouldn’t have to change their address.
This place has a washing machine. The first day mama put four shirts in, pulled the chain and we ain’t seen them since. … It only rained here twice this week. Three days the first time and five days the second time. I know it is cold where you are so we’re sending you a coat. Mama said it would be
too heavy to send in the mail with them buttons on it, so we cut’em off and put’em in the pockets. We got a letter from the funeral home. They said if we don’t make the last payment on grandma’s funeral bill, up she comes!! My sister had a baby this morning. I ain’t heard whether if’s a boy or a girl so I don’t know if I’m an uncle or an aunt. Uncle John fell in the big whiskey vat. When they tried to pull him out, he fought them off, so he drowned. We creamated him and he burned for three days. Three of my friends went off the bridge in a pick-up truck. One was driving, the other two was in the back. The driver got out cause he rolled down the window and swam to safety. The other two drowned, they couldn’t get the tailgate down. Well, I hope this catches you up on things that’s going on around here!! Your cuz, Bubba…
When one thinks about anthropomorphic foxes, wolves, and bears, Star Fox 64 3D is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. Rather, if you’re anything like me, what you think of is a dimly lit convention center with lots of creepy people walking around in furry animal suits that have mysterious crusty spots on them. Time to get your mind out of the gutter, and into outer space because we’re not talking about yiffing or a furry convention; we’re actually going to talk about the aforementioned game, which came out a couple weeks ago for the Nintendo 3DS. In it, players will guide protagonist Fox McCloud and his team of critters take flight in ships called Arwings, and try to save his solar system from the dastardly plots of an evil scientist known as Andros. Read on to find out how the game handles on the 3DS, and if it’s worth 40 of your hard-earned dollars to play a game you probably already played when it originally released 14 years ago.
If you automatically hear the word “Bloodrayne” and tune out whatever it is you’re listening to, don’t worry — you’re not alone. The Bloodrayne series, starring Rayne the human/vampire hybrid, has thus far produced two games that were received as mediocre at best, and some of the worst game-to-film adaptations ever seen. However, with a great developer like WayForward behind this game, it is worth giving a second look. A completely overhauled aesthetic and new gameplay that will speak directly to the hearts of both lovers of old school games and vampire fanatics looking to sling a little blood and gore.
2D platformer fans looking for an indie developer’s take on this tried and true genre need look no further — BGG Games has just released Chesterfor Xbox Live Indie Games. This game, which is a little bit like Mario with a twist of Alien Hominid and Invader Zim, would be the perfect thing to satiate your ravenous stamp collecting appetite while you’re waiting for your latest eBay order of vintage postage to arrive.
Just when gamers start crying that the JRPG genre is dead, Nintendo pulls a doozie like Xenoblade Chronicles out of their bag of many tricks. This game promised to be the complex, sprawling RPG that Wii owners had been begging for. Unfortunately, everyone got it except North Americans, much to the chagrin of those behind “Operation Rainfall“. It’s very unfortunate that Nintendo made this decision, because my experience with this game so far has lead me to believe it is not only the best RPG for the Wii, but maybe one of the best JRPGs of this console generation.
For a few months, rabid Nintendo owners across the globe were petitioning the publisher to release a series of “hardcore” RPGs in the United States. Xenoblade Chronicles was one of the central titles in this effort known as “Operation Rainfall”, but it failed to influence Nintendo’s decision to exclude North America from this game’s release. This behemoth of a game did not make it Stateside, but thanks to being translated into English for the European Union release and the ingenuity of internet hackers, I have had the pleasure of playing this game.
I’ll be totally honest with you, dear reader, if Mystery Case Files: The Malgrave Incident hadn’t been published by Nintendo I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. Collecting magic sparkly dust by digging through random piles of junk in order to save a rich scientist’s dying wife is an awfully silly idea for a game, and with a title like this it would easy to assume this game is yet another crappy port of a budget PC title. However, nothing could be further from the truth. What is wrapped up inside this game’s generic box art is an original point-and-click adventure for the Wii that is intriguing, challenging, and proves that just because a game is “casual” doesn’t mean it’s bad.
