Everything Old is New (Super Mario Bros Wii) Again

New Super Mario Bros. Wii is such a weird game (not to mention winner of Year’s Worst Title). It’s New Super Mario Bros. DS after it tarted itself up in the desecrated bones of its ancestors. It raided the burial grounds of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World and draped itself in references to those games in order make itself better. Such a crass tactic shouldn’t work. And yet, it does.

Zero’s “Stealthy” Ending

Spoilers here. I know that most everybody knows the big twist to Metroid Zero. But I once blurted it out on a forum a day or so before the game’s release and got penalized. Even though the box ruined the twist I was still considered to have spoiled the game. It remains a sore spot. So here is your warning. If you don’t know about the ending stop reading. You’ve got a game to play.

Metroid Bug Story

I had a long car ride last night (had to go up to Fort Collins to get a quail) and didn’t feel like playing a slow RPG. I was in the mood for something more jumpy-shooty so I grabbed Metroid Zero on a whim. People like to gripe that the Metroid series has lost the natural in-game storytelling that was present in Super Metroid. They complain that the games have gotten too wordy, citing Adam’s chatter in Metroid Fusion and the constant database scanning in the Prime games as examples.

Coming back to Zero Mission I was surprised how much of the game is a reaction to the complaints made about Fusion. Fusion is notorious for its linearity (though it does open up in the second half). Zero Mission, conversely, is open to sequence breaking from the get-go. Not only are there cleverly hidden roundabouts for obvious road blocks but skillful bomb jumping and spark-shining can get you to impossible places. Just like Super Metroid! The other main reaction to Fusion is that Zero Mission is almost completely silent. Except for a couple of sentences at the beginning the game keeps its mouth shut.

And while the plot is simple–Samus goes to Zebes to kill Mother Brain–the game uses pantomime to tell it with sophistication. Just like the way everyone bemoans the loss of! I was particularly struck by this during a neat little sequence in the middle of the game. Spoilers of a five year old game to follow!

A Lofty Goal

I’m back from my week-long vacation of watching two crazy dogs. Two! Whoever heard of such a thing? And man, they were so crazy. They were running around and barking at each other and all sorts of other crazy dog things. I deserve a medal.

However, while I was watching these two crazy dogs I was also near a Gamespot (a thing that I’m not near when I’m not watching two crazy dogs) and so I made good on my promise and nabbed Sonic Chronicles: Dark Brotherhood on the cheap.

IFComp ‘09: Winners!

The winners of the comp were announced today.

1. Rover’s Day Out

2. Broken Legs

3. Snowquest

 

As glad I am to see Rover’s Day Out win I’m also disappointed that Snowquest got third. Sure it was polished but I feel the narrative problems sunk any goodwill the game had earned. I’m glad to see Yon Astounding Castle! took 11. I saw a lot of reviews that wrote off the game because of its style and I was afraid it would have scored much lower. I’m reasonably pleased with the results. Besides Snowquest nothing ended up too far from where I thought it belonged. Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to all the authors. Maybe now I should start working on a game to enter for next year?

IFComp ‘09: Final Scores

Today is the last day of the Interactive Fiction Competition. I wasn’t able to play all the games entered. There’s some I was looking forward to that I regret missing: GATOR-ON, Duel in the Snow, Duel that Spanned the Ages, and Broken Legs particularly. But that’s okay. I feel I played a large range of what the competition offered. There were a few good games, a couple of great ones, and loads that were terrible. I didn’t end up awarding any game a 10. Even the best games I played didn’t have that transcendent quality I associate with 10 games.  I don’t feel the need to award a 10 to a single game like some judges do. If a game deserves a 10 it will get it. This year nothing I played deserved it. Some came close though. I break down all the games and my scores below.

Chrono Medley

Man, I just haven’t had any time to play games recently. I know, boo hoo. But it’s hard to maintain a daily games blog without the games. I did stumble upon this video last night and I felt it was more than worthy to share.

It’s a medley of Chrono Trigger and Cross music from a german Squaresoft tribute concert. The rest of the concert is mighty fine (if a little too focused on Final Fantasy 7 and that most overrated of fanboy favorite, One Winged Angel) but the Chrono Medley is something else. First of all, it’s an original arrangement. When it comes to these video game concerts the arrangements are often the same one again and again… with the Squaresoft ones at least. I’m not super familiar with live video game concerts so I could be wrong. Regardless, the arrangement here is one of the best I’ve heard. It weaves many themes from both Chrono games together to awesome effect. Especially at the end when both game’s main themes are combined. But I’m gushing when I should let the music speak for itself. So go! Listen!

Bio Dreams and Ware Fasinations

I tend to have a short attention span when it comes to game. Just when I’ve started to make progress in one WHOOSH my brain is suddenly obsessed with another. I will not apologize for it! It’s like sampling a little of everything at a buffet rather than eating the whole ham by yourself. And so just as I’m starting to climb the peak in Cursed Mountain I’m suddenly super intrigued with BioWare games. You can thank Retronauts latest episode for this fascination. And so I’ve started a side play through of Mass Effect, which is fantastic to none’s surprise. I’m not going to be writing about it here because, frankly, who hasn’t written about it? Plus, I am committed to getting through Cursed Mountain.

However, I was interested to try the black sheep of BioWare’s catalogue: Sonic Chronicles.

Can anyone recommend it? OctoPrime said not to play it. He was quite insistent on the point. But then again OctoPrime’s game of the year is Borderlands. And TvTropes seems to like the game. But IGN doesn’t. But IGN sucks.

I don’t know. It’s pretty and it’s by BioWare. What to do?

Mystical Waggle: Combat in Cursed Mountain

I’ve climbed out of a sherpa burial ground and fought the first boss of Cursed Mountain. Now is as good a time as any to talk about the combat. Other reviews have described it as repetitive. I guess this is true, but that complaint is due more to not enough verity in the ways the ghost act than any problem with how the combat works. If given only one word to describe the combat I would choose “satisfying.”

First Kora: Circling the Base

Initial impressions of Cursed Mountain are quite favorable. The game isn’t very scary at all thank god but there is a gloomy tension created by the enviroment. So it’s exactly what I was looking for: a game that explores a unique enviroment in terms of both physical and psychological space.