...play with me!
This week, on a very special Nerds Without Pants: JD joins the crew and puts Julian on the therapist’s couch to try to get to the bottom of his deep-rooted issues with multiplayer. Spoiler alert: there’s more going on here than not wanting to be called names by a 14 year old.
A nostalgic memory lost in translation.
The only reality worse than the inflated asking pricing for an old video game is the one where said game is digitally available for a fraction of the price, but devoid of the context that made it fun to play. Such is the peculiar situation I found myself in upon downloading Tomba 2: The Evil Swine Return (The Wild Adventures in Japan) from the PlayStation Store. Originally released in 1999 by the now-defunct Whoopee Camp, it was re-released earlier this year by Monkey Paw Games. Once the game booted up, it was both recognizable and unfamiliar at the same time. The game looks and plays the same as I remembered, but there was just one problem--it’s all in Japanese.
Crazy Nintendo.
Right now in Japan, monsters are battling robots. Medieval dudes with long hair are fighting fitness trainers; people are running, panicked. Super Smash Bros. 3DS has made landfall.
What the cancellation of Project Titan means to Blizzard and us.
After seven years of development, Blizzard decided to officially pull the plug on their mysterious Project Titan; what many assumed was to be the successor to the king of all MMORPGs, World of Warcraft. Since Titan was never officially announced, it’s doubtful that the game ever made it past the conceptual state, though we will likely never know how many resources had been dedicated to the project, or if it was ever even close to becoming anything more than vaporware.
Let me axe you a question.
Wooden Sen’Sey is one of those unfortunate games that has charm and style and comes so close to greatness, but sadly falls short. The abundance of quality platforming games on the Wii U makes it hard to turn a blind eye to the faults of Wooden Sen’Sey. Simple shortcomings like awkward controls (particularly for grappling), levels that overstay their welcome, and a lack of new abilities really drag down an otherwise great experience.
Upgraded to death.
Not two weeks ago, Nintendo announced a new 3DS cleverly called the New 3DS. It has several extra features, including Micro SD card support and a faster CPU, which means its games won't be compatible with previous 3DS versions. Here's what we think of it:
Our community chest is firm, yet supple.
I'm up against a deadline folks, so I will have to keep this description of Nerds Without Pants brief. See what I did there? Ahem.
A considerable improvement from the first.
After NES Remix, I badly wanted a sequel. My main concerns with the first Remix were that developers EAD Tokyo and indieszero focused on Nintendo’s 1983-1986 Famicom line-up, which has not aged well. This second Remix, like all good sequels, takes what made the first game so great and improves upon the flaws. They also threw in backwards Super Mario Bros. with Luigi physics and a Nintendo World Championship mini-game if you own the first NES Remix -- how can you say no to that?
Color me neutral
Once upon a time, your average big budget game was expected to be bright and colorful with more realistic looking games being the exception. Today, however, a realistic look is more prominent and colorful games stand out more than ever. The Last Tinker: City of Colors feels like an attack against the loss of color - personified into a game - where the objective is to literally stop an evil force from removing all of the color in the world using the power of the red, green, and blue gods.
I think I now hate Ice Climber even more.
Fans of the Wario Ware series tend to like 9-Volt’s mini-games the most. Honestly, I can’t really blame them. Unlike Wario Ware, however, NES Remix and its follow-up on the WiiU eShop doesn’t come from the crazy mind of Yoshio Sakamoto; instead, it’s a tribute/mashup of Nintendo’s ‘classic’ NES titles from 1983 to 1986. I put classic in quotes because, let’s be perfectly honest here, a majority of Nintendo’s early Famicom titles have not aged well.
