Saturday Morning RPG, Episode 1, Dream of Destiny[iOS, coming soon to Android]

Saturday Morning RPG is an episodic RPG that tries to bring the 80's back to the future. There are tonnes of 80's pop culture references featured throughout, from CD's to Transformers and it all adds to the charm.

You play as Marty whose girlfriend has been kidnapped by Commander Hood and you must rescue her before she is forced into wedlock. The story is quite silly and the game relies much more on it's 80's nostalgia to suck you in. It features a 3D world with 2D pixels and it makes for quite a nice effect. It may not be the prettiest game out there but it's art style is quite endearing especially for those who grew up with mainly pixel based games.

The gameplay mechanics are quite varied, for example, before each battle you scratch a sticker on your notebook to unlock bonuses for the fight. The fighting system is turn based and includes attacks where you play a little minigame and some attacks where you don't need to do anything extra. I found the system fun yet very repetitive. You generally power up, then do the same attacks over and over again, maybe eat a cookie to heal. There are cool little touches like defence being a timing based tap on the screen and you will find new skills to learn but in general the battles seem to drag a bit.

The game definitely has an aspect of silly fun and the first episode is given for free ($1.99 an episode or $5.49 for the lot) but it is just so short. In fact all of the episodes are really short. The gameplay is well suited to the phone platform and it is worth checking out it just lacks that something extra 7.5/10.

Short Reviews

Lost Cubes [iOS] Connect the cubes, finish the level, there is nothing wrong with this game, it's fine, it's just that there is nothing more to it 6/10.

 

Psychoban [iOS] An interesting puzzler with a terrible sense of humour and finicky controls. It's now available for free and if you are a fan of pushing boxes around you better get it 6.7/10.

Undead Soccer [iOS] It makes no sense, the undead come at you, you kick soccer balls at them, power-ups are involved, tilt controls also feature, as does a store and the usual freemium trimmings. It has an interesting art style, I'll give it that much but honestly, why? 4/10.

Stick Cricket [Android, iOS, Flash]

Stick Cricket exists in many incarnations on the phone and as a browser based flash game. It has been around for sometime but has recently been updated to fit the iPhone 5 screen. A relatively simple game, you just bat and that is all but it's simplicity is part of the fun.

On the phone, the free game gets you the Academy to practice, All Star Slog limited to 5 overs, some but not all of the World Domination matches and two player mode (but only if it is hosted by a Pro Pack owner). Pretty decent for free, though it does come with the added "cost" of ads. The Premier League pack will get you an extra tournament for AU $0.99 and the Pro Pack will unlock all of World Domination games, extra All Star Slog games, the ability to host your own two player games and remove ads. for AU $2.99. I think it's a bit tight that the dollar doesn't get rid of the ads., though having said that, three dollars isn't exactly a lot of money.

If you play it in your browser however, you get all kinds of games for free, obviously with ads. and you also get 3 button controls. Whereas the phones only have a simple two button interface, the browser version adds block/drive, which mixes it up a little. The browser version is very slow to load and at least for me, mostly played blank ads. which was a little boring.

So what are you doing in this game? Basically trying to crack as many sixes as you can. It boils down to a very simple timing game, yet somehow it comes across as being a bit of a simulation of cricket. It lacks a lot of the complexity of other cricket games, with no bowling or fielding but who cares? This is just about quickly blasting runs. There isn't a huge amount of depth to this game, there are about 6 different bowlers that you will face and they follow patterns due to their style, however I find it a great way to spend the time whilst you are waiting for a rained out match to come back on and subsequently be cancelled.

Stick Cricket has some problems, such as a bug that won't let you access the menu, though this is intermittent and hardly game breaking and it's general lack of depth but it makes up for it with it's greatest strength which is that it is quite challenging in an addictive way. If you don't like cricket you won't love this, oh no, but for those who do it's worth a bash 7.7/10.

Wii U Reviews and Experience Part 2

Nintendo Land: Whilst it makes a great test bed for Nintendo's ideas, Nintendo Land isn't quite the offering I had hoped it would be. There are some stand-out multiplayer moments in it but it is not as easy to convince people to play them as it was with Wii Sports. There isn't a whole lot to the single player experience as the game is more of an instructional tool. Although each of the games makes a good diversion, if you have any other launch title you have probably got something better to play. All of the games are just a bit too limited in scope and it just makes me dream of what could be if they made a full title out of these great franchises. I still think the premium pack is the way to go but just not because of Nintendo Land 6.5/10.

Scribblenauts Unlimited: Scribblenauts is somewhat of a misnomer as you aren't scribbling but touch typing your way through the world. The game is primarily aimed at kids and doesn't allow you to write in some of the naughtier things you might like but with a bit of imagination even adults can have an obscene amount of fun with this game.

Scribblenauts is perfectly suited to the Wii U controller, you type away on the touch screen and you can move about the world using the touch screen or analogue sticks, it all flows pretty easily. The first thing you will probably do is just be silly and create a lot of nonsense and that is what's great about this game. Solving puzzles in silly ways is a lot of fun. Just dreaming up new things and ways to solve a puzzle is a great challenge.

It's not all perfect though. It can be a bit stale at times and it doesn't always understand your logic, seemingly craving the same objects you've been giving it over and over. Some of this can be put down to to the player's imagination or lack thereof but some of it is just bad gameplay. The story component is a little short but there are plenty of things to find and unlock once you have finished that. I also encountered a few bugs, with quests failing for no reason and objects not interacting with each other. Over all these are pretty mild things and a quick reset of the quest usually fixes it.

Scribblenauts Unlimited is definitely worth a play and whilst it does suffer from some minor setbacks it is well worth it's admission price 8/10.

Wii U Experience: Again one of the things I'm loving about the Wii U is that the controller gives you lots of options and Scribblenauts was another example of this. You could use the touch screen to walk or the stylus; walk over stars to collect them, or click on them with the stylus and select pick up. It's especially great if you are trying to eat, let's say chips, with one hand whilst playing with the other.

Online functionality does add some interesting twists to your games. Seeing what people have drawn is my favourite, or even reading their complete nonsense. Nintendo do have a way to go to catch up with their competitors in this regard but I don't think they are as far behind as some pundits claim. The online store is easy to use and offers a lot of free demo content, plus it has become one of the easiest places for indie developers to launch their games, so we may see some killer titles coming through due to that.

Finally, the worldwide sales figures. Whilst I can't get an exact number IGN estimate the worldwide sales figures at about 2.5 million, perhaps pushing a little closer to 3 million. Overall not a bad start but not a huge launch. However given the lull in the global economy at the moment these figures are probably quite good and certainly something Nintendo can build off.

One Sentence Reviews

Kumo Lumo [iOS] I've got a great idea for a game, you play as a cloud and you go about wizzing on stuff, I can't see how that can go wrong 2/10.

Noble Nutlings [iOS] From the people who brought you a rip-off of a flash game, here is a rip off of a flash game!!! 4/10.

Far Cry 3 [PC, PS3 Xbox 360] Some cool ideas mingle with immensely trite ones, welcome to the world of FPS 7.8/10.

Wii U Reviews and Experience Part 1

So I got my first real hands on with the Wii U since having a quick bash at a store. Here are my impressions of the games I played and the experience in general.

ZombiU: I really wanted to play this game as the reviews have been so mixed. Safe to say I can understand why. The game is a mixture of play-styles and ideas, it has shining moments and ugly bugs.

The control scheme itself feels clunky. You move and strike with your cricket bat at a relatively low speed, which is meant to give the game it's scary feel but comes across as tedious at times. You just can't see enough of the world around you, meaning if you try and run you will get stuck on objects, some objects are jump-able but others, though at the right height, are inexplicably impassable. It can also be frustratingly hard at times, with zombies able to kill you in one hit if they get close enough. Load times appeared to be the longest out of any of the games I played on the Wii U and it had some bugs like, characters speaking too softly whilst others spoke loudly and framerates dropping too low at times.

However, there are redeeming moments, sneakily placed zombies will grab you and scare the crap out of you. You get to use some cool weapons and if you survive long enough you level up your skill with them. Sometimes everything goes right and those moments are quite satisfying. It's a real survival horror type game with the emphasis on survival. There are some more modern FPS like moments where you are given a mounted heavy machine gun and you mow down zombies but in general it is about slow and careful planning. If it sounds appealing to you it is well worth getting but it is not the kind of title that breaks it's genre's boundaries and it won't please everyone 7/10.

New Super Mario Bros. U: Surprisingly I had a lot of fun with this game. I was immensely disappointed with the first one on the Wii but somehow this version captures the entire essence of all the Mario games and wraps it all into one neat package. It's just about the little things. I love the return of the baby yoshis, each with unique powers. The game looks incredible in high definition, especially the lighting. The difficulty level is quite rewarding and there are so many extras with the likes of Challenges to play through. Admittedly I didn't once touch multiplayer and perhaps that is the key but Mario was never about simultaneous multiplayer it is about the life-by-life, level-by-level kind. This is one of the few games in which shake controls actually work, all it does is give you a little extra length in your jump but it is so intuitive when you are in a panic. Well worth it for those new to Mario and Mario fans alike 8/10.

Wii U Experience: I really liked the controller, it was comfortable to hold and it had a good weight about it. Not too heavy that it would be taxing over a long time yet weighty enough that it felt solid, like it would last a long time. The screen really requires a screen protector though as the stylus had left a lot of scratch marks on it. I also really liked that games allowed you to use either tilt controls or the analog sticks for some things. The scanner in ZombiU is a good example of this. The game showed me how to scan things using tilt but then I realised the right analog achieved the same results. This is great for people like me who hate inaccurate tilt controls and I think this was done as a result of Nintendo's design. It is a sort of everything in one controller.

The load times were mixed, when playing a game like Mario it wasn't really noticeable once you had started the game up for the first time. ZombiU on the other hand had plenty of annoying loading. Starting up games was about the equivalent of what most people are used to for loading up a PC release. Obviously Nintendo have it down pat but it will take awhile for those 3rd party developers to really get the hang of it.

There has yet to be any official world wide sales figures for the Wii U but from what I have gathered so far they have sold 765,000 units in Japan, the U.K. and the U.S.A., total. One can't help but think Nintendo would be a little disappointed with these results given that their target is 5.5 million units by the end of March. However finalised Christmas figures aren't out yet and neither is an accurate world wide result. Personally I enjoyed my experience with it overall and I think it is well worth getting, I am just waiting for that killer title that will really make me want it.