To look at this game one way, it’s just the NES game “Kirby’s Adventure” on the 3DS.
To look at this another way, it’s OH YES! “KIRBY’S ADVENTURE”! NEEEED!
Yes, I have played it many times. And yes, I have completed it almost as many times. And yes, this is just that game again. But! It’s in 3D!
Of course, it’s not in proper 3D. It’s just the fore- and background layers have been peeled in and out, so the levels have depth. And that’s it – it’s just the same otherwise. Only somehow, it feels better. Maybe it’s the super-sharp graphics, which now appear like those fancy HD remakes with redrawn hi-res graphics you get on the Xbox 360. Or maybe it’s the smoothness, with no janky NES-o-vision scrolling and busy-screen slowdown. Maybe. Whatever it is, it looks and plays fantastically, and I loved it from start to two-and-a-half-hours-later finished. Every bit of it. As always.
I still maintain Kirby’s Adventure is one of the best platformers ever made. FACT.
By far the best of the series. Unless Episode 5 beats it, of course. Loved Superball again, mainly because he’s so deadpan. The mariachis were all sorts of amaze, and the Max/Ms Bosco “relationship” was fantastic. The baby making machine, and the various possible Bosco outcomes awesome too.
And, best of all, it relied upon proper, logical puzzles instead of try everything on everything puzzles. Yay!
Thankfully, this was much better than the previous episode. By several orders of magnitude. The puzzles were far better this time around, and Jurgen is amazing. He was just like you’d expect a gay emo Euro-vampire to be.
I’m starting to notice, however, that every task in every game seems to be made up of three mini-tasks. I’m not the only one to notice, either – even Max makes a comment about it!
Nice to see Superball back too. He was one of my favourite characters from the first “series”. Way better than the irritating Soda Poppers, who – thankfully – haven’t been spotted since Episode 1 of this series. Phew!
Made a start on Episode 4 after 3 too, and it’s been even better so far!
Unfortunately, I found it a bit of a slog. I know the puzzles on previous Sam & Max games have been more than a little, uh, obtuse, but I was finding this one even more illogical than before and it took ages to get through. It also wasn’t as funny as other episodes, and although I spent longer on it due to not knowing what to do, it was actually a lot shorter in terms of number of things that needed doing. If that makes sense.
I don’t buy many XBLIGs (that’s Xbox Live Indie Games, in case you didnae know). However, this one called out to me. The main selling point? A review that stated that the entire game was DLC. “You can’t even move left, or jump, or have sound effects, until you’ve bought the DLC”.
Of course, the DLC is bought using in-game money, which you collect – platform game style – to progress. There’s some swording and (with the right DLC) some shooting, but the aim is basically to collect coins, buy expansion packs to let you progress to other areas of the map in a Metroid type way, in order to collect more coins. And so on.
It’s short, it’s easy (I don’t think you can die), and it’s very funny. The DLC in-jokes (it has horse armour) and general gaming trope mickey-taking (“Awardments”! Zombies!) are great.
That’s probably the best game I’ve played in quite a long time. So good, in fact, I’m a bit disappointed it’s all over. Well, it isn’t quite, as I immediately went back in a mopped up some achievements, bagged the last few glyphs, and started the trawl for feathers.
Luckily, being behind the times with the series, I can now pick up the follow-up, Brotherhood, for peanuts as the game after that, Revelations, is out very soon. Excellent! Sometimes living a little in the past is good
The end of the game was brilliant, but the final boss fight was unexpectedly short and easy. Very, very easy, in fact. The guy at the end of the first game was really difficult, but this guy? If you hold block you can’t get hit. At all. Oh well. At least it wasn’t frustrating.
This was up on the 3DS VC this week. I wasn’t going to get it, as I had other things to be playing, but when I hopped on to the eShop to see what else was newly available, I suddenly got the urge to play it.
An hour and a half later, I’d finished it.
I actually really enjoyed it. Sure, it’s a bit simple. Yes, it’s pretty easy (especially the bosses – if you’ve got a dinosaur to ride when you get there, they’re defeated in seconds). Indeed, it is quite repetitive with each island having a similar looking set of levels to each previous one. But I liked it.
One of the major differences between the Adventure Island games and other platformers is that you have a very strict time limit, which you can delay by collecting fruit. You can’t explore much or you’ll run out of time, so I didn’t. However, I wish I had done some more exploring, as I found a secret warp on World 6 (of 8 ) and realised I’d probably missed loads of secrets. Tch.
I’ve been playing this here and there since it came out. It’s OK, but not really a Zelda game. I mean, it has Link in it, and it has some Zelda-y puzzles, but it isn’t really Zelda. That said, I enjoyed it. Even more so once I realised I wasn’t stuck on a level because you can actually throw the other Link over the lava. Tch.
Anyway. Killed the end boss, got the credits and the minigame to collect many rupees, aaand done!
That’s right – to celebrate having completed the wonderful Catrap, I’ve visually tinkered with a shot of some of the game ending sequence. An exciting bit, I’ll sure you’ll agree. Yes.
Some of the final levels, especially the “??” level unlocked once the previous 99 were complete, were a right pain. Many were of the form of huge swathes of blocks and baddies, where removing them in the right order so others drop down in certain ways, which I find difficult as it’s hard to visualise how the level will look three, four, or 27 moves in the future. Levels where you generally just have to find a way of reaching a couple of baddies, or getting a block from A to B are far easier to plan.
But I managed it eventually, and verily, the game was won. My reward? I got to play the new Sonic Generations demo on the 360. And that is a story for another post.
Now, explain to me why Nnooo hasn’t sold eleventybrazillian copies. Why? Because nobody knows how to access WiiWare stuff on the Wii. Or even that WiiWare stuff exists. Or that their Wii can even connect to the internet. Or even that their Wii can play games that are not Wii Sports and Mario Kart.
Which is a huge shame, because games like escapeVektor exist and are AWESOME, yet only seven people know about them. Of this I tell you: Go and connect your Wii up to the internet, open up the Wii Shop, and buy escapeVektor with just 500 Wii points. JUST 500. That’s what, £3.60 or something. You’ve probably lost more than that down the back of the sofa or swallowed it as a child.
And why should you do this thing? I already told you – because it is AWESOME.
I got it. And completed it. And it was (I think I may have mentioned) AWESOME. It plays a bit like Painter, only with switches and different sorts of baddies (ones that follow a set path, others that hunt you down). Filling in “cells” (rectangles where you’ve covered all the lines that make it up) gives you bombs that can wipe out baddies that comes close to you, and filling in lines gives you a speed boost. Simple controls, simple concept, excellently designed levels, and really, really good.
I’ve still a few levels left (there’s a set of bonus levels you can unlock for owning other Nnooo titles – I’ve got Pop), some of which were skipped as I found alternative routes through the “map”, so there’s a bit more for me to do yet.
Well yeah y’see I actually completed this a while ago, and not today. Because today I played it to complete what I thought was the final game mode I’d unlocked, only to find that I’d not just played that mode already, but completed it as well.
So it was a somewhat short play session consisting of a quick load of each mode just to make sure I’d done them all, and I had. So, er, hurrah!
Then I played Kirby 64 for a bit instead. It’s not that good.
It took me a while to actually find the final remaining zone (Space Zone) as it was somewhat hidden via an exit from another level, but it was soon completed and Wario’s Castle infiltrated.
And Wario was defeated with ease. All the bosses were pretty easy, actually, and very few of the levels gave much of a challenge. Quite different to Super Mario Bros 3 or Super Mario World, which this is a sort of portable analogue of.
It was great though, despite the easiness and slowdown. Quite impressive for a Game Boy title.
That’s it! That’s the entire set of New Vegas stories completed. Sure, there are still some sidequests, and yeah, I have a few unvisited markers on my Mojave map, but that’s pretty much the game sewn up. Aces.
I was really close to the end of Lonesome Road, needing only to work through a few rooms and then meet up with the other courier. I think perhaps fighting him was on the cards, but I talked him round and now we’re friends. Or something. There was a big fight with a load of Marked Men instead, though, and then it was over.
Of course, I still have a few warheads to find and explode, but not as many as I was expecting to have left due to the huge number just lying around the “temple” at the end. And I’ve all the Gun Runners achievements (bar one) to mop up as well, so it’s not like I’m “done” yet.
It’s not a great game. And it’s certainly not as good (or as colourful) as my playfully fiddled with end sequence screenshot suggests. But somehow, I enjoyed it.
It’s like a cut-down version of the old MSX Metal Gear, only with no sneaking. Each level is a sort of maze with slight puzzle elements, different enemy types (with different movement and shooting patterns), the occasional miniboss, and finishes up with a larger (usually artillery) level boss.
You can also swap your character for a female character at will, and she offers you the “bonuses” of shooting slower and being unable to use any secondary weapons (grenades, rockets, flamethrower) at all. It seems. If your man dies, she takes over. Hmm.
I can’t really recommend it highly, but it entertained me enough to complete it, so I suppose it was doing something right.
Although this is, in theory, supposed to be played before Old World Blues, I played it afterwards. The main reason being, lots of people have been saying it’s terrible, and the worst of all the New Vegas DLC. I wasn’t really looking forwards to it as a result.
But guess what? Everyone is wrong except me. It was excellent. Sure, it’s shorter than some other DLC (about 6 hours or so), but I can’t really fault it. The story was good, the return of some enemies I’d not seen for aaaages in the game (Yao Guai, giant mantises, giant venus flytraps), and there was a link to the fate of the inhabitants of Vault 22 which was nice.
If I had to find fault, it would be only that navigating the map, with the big canyons and hard to reach high places was a bit of a pain, and The Burned Man wasn’t really the psycho I was expecting him to be, but really – nothing important.
What a fantastic return to the bombed out future of America this was!
I had a hankering for some more Fallout, perhaps spurred by news about the next DLC which is out soon, combined with the hype of the impending Skyrim release. I decided on this add-on rather than Honest Hearts as reviews have been more favourable for Old World Blues, and it also seemed less dreary and downbeat.
And it was AWESOME.
It’s hilarious, for a start. Dr Klein commenting on your anatomy. Other “scientists” with bizarre fetishes and neuroses. The silly feud between the two “factions”. The psychopathic toaster, jealous light switches, and other incredible inanimate objects. The dog-gun that barks. Everything is silly, humourous, and excellent. Loved it!
With just over 30 hours on the clock, and still lots of side missions, exploring, and so on to do, I completed Yakuza 3. It was really quite easy, but most excellent.
I seem to have accumulated a massive pile of, well, stuff. Comfy soles. Platinum Nails. Assorted drinks, tools, bits of junk, and cuddly toys. Also some rare gems and what could be bits of weapons. Have I used any of them? No.
In fact, apart from mission-based items and worms for fishing with, I’ve used just three of the million pieces of tat I’ve scooped up in the time I was playing, and they were all healing drinks. Two of them were used on the end boss. Exactly why do I need all these things? And why did I collect them all so voraciously? Stupid game.
But not stupid really. It was very, very good. It made me want a Shenmue 3 all the more as well, as this is blatantly an evolution of the gameplay found there. Will I go back to it and play more though? I’d like to think so, but with a billion other games needing urgent attention, I suspect I won’t. I will certainly be getting hold of Yakuza 4, however.
Bought this a few weeks ago, even though I’d never heard of it. It got a couple of reasonable reviews, and I liked the premise (you’re a ghost who can possess enemies, using them and their powers to progress). I suppose it’s like a cross between Kirby and Messiah or something. On the Game Boy.
It was pretty short (as many GB hames seem to be), and pretty difficult too, but I really quite enjoyed it.
It looks like I got the “bad” ending, where I didn’t explicitly save “the girl” (which is all she’s known as), but anyway. Will I play it again? Probably not. It was a struggle to finish as it was, without hunting down the three hidden keys in the game. I did get one, but the others? No idea where they are. There’s know way of even telling which level they’re on!
I haven’t actually added up all the puzzles that there are, but it’s over 150. Probably 200-ish. But now, they’re all done!
I was expecting another set of puzzles after completing the Star ones, since there’s a gap on the screen where I thought another option would appear. One did, but it was just a time trial option and used the same puzzles as I’d already done.
So, completed then! And it’s also logged as my 3rd most played 3DS game, just behind Ghost Recon and Street Fighter IV.
This was pretty much forced upon me. I mean, I like Kirby. Especially Kirby’s Adventure for the NES. But playing it wasn’t really my choice. I was made to by my two year old daughter. “Daddy, play Kirby” she said. She likes it when I play Kirby because she likes to point out all the doors you have to go through, and find the ‘martoes for me.
I played some last weekend, and the rest this weekend, completing it today. Again.
I then had to buy more Kirby games from the Wii shop (I got Kirby 64 and Kirby’s Fun Pak, of which I’ve played the latter a bit already) to play next time she asks.
Yes, it’s a game. You have to play it, it can be completed, therefore – it’s a game. FACT.
So you “play” it by walking around with your 3DS hoping to bump into other people who have puzzle pieces you don’t have, or use the “coins” accumulated from walking to buy random pieces. Eventually, with luck and sore feet, you get all the pieces for all the puzzles. Like I did today! Yay!
With Back to the Future out of the way, I really needed to do more Telltale point-and-clicky stuff. I’ve been after Season 2 of Sam & Max for the Wii for ages, but it was delayed and delayed, and then when it finally did come out, immediately went out of stock everywhere never to return. So I sucked it up and got it on XBLA instead.
It follows on pretty much from the end of the last episode of the first season, with Sam’s office in much the same, perhaps worse, state. Unlike Back to the Future, it’s a proper point and click, so the controls actually work here. Unlike Back to the Future, and just like the first season of Sam & Max, the puzzles are bizarre and the solutions obscure, so although it wasn’t exactly a long game, saving Christmas from a possessed Santa (yeah, that’s the plot) did take a fair while due to getting stuck a few times.
Thought I’d have a quick go on this, and actually ended up finding all of the remaining keys and “beat” the boss. If it wasn’t that the game seemed so empty, and the stupid trivia questions exist, this would be a fantastic little platformer rather than just a very good one.
Still, for what – 60p? – it was well worth the play.
Completed as in, level 99 beaten. After which it just returns to level 1 again, and doesn’t get any harder.
Actually, after about level 20 or so I didn’t notice it getting any harder anyway, but for some reason levels 97, 98 and 99 were incredibly easy with a slow moving Qix and plenty of time before the sparks came after me. I wonder why?
It’s not a great game. And it’s certainly not as good (or as colourful) as my playfully fiddled with end sequence screenshot suggests. But somehow, I enjoyed it.