Packaging Wii Sports along with the Wii was one of the smartest plays that Nintendo could’ve ran. Those of us who were around for the Atari/NES/Genesis days remember pack in games as the norm, but those days are long gone. Plus it put the idea of motion control front and center and was accessible to everyone and their grandparents since we all know the rules of boxing, bowling, baseball, etc.

Deca Sports aims to take that same gameplay philosophy and expand it to cover ten different sports (of varying popularity) to give people who are still playing Wii Sports something fresh to sink their teeth into. Don’t be mistaken, this is a essentially a collection of mini-games which the Wii has MORE than it’s fair share of. But of those that I played this one rises to the top and if you’re looking for a fun easy game to pop in when friends/family come over, it’ll do the job just fine.

Personally Deca Sports hit my radar when I saw it had curling in it, since that’s pretty much a never-seen-in-games sport (unless you count the occasional Olympic tie-in). Well sadly curling wasn’t included in the demo I recently took a look at, but I did get to try out Badminton, Figure Skating, Supercross and Beach Volleyball. Sadly there’s no Mii support, but Hudson did their best to give you characters that are definitely inspired by those little buggers. You can choose to be on different teams that has slightly different stats and then different people on those teams to tweak stats going in a little further. There’s enough here that you’ll find someone that fits you well.

So let’s take a look at the sports included in the demo… shall we? Continue Reading »

I used my randomly-forged Japanese PlayStation store account to download the Echochrome demo today for PS3. I also snagged the PSP demo, but was unable to check it out due to aforementioned forged Japanese account – the software instructed me that installing it under Nerfgun-san rather than Nerfgun would nuke my North American “certificate”, which of course means the PSP would be unable to find employment and die alone and destitute. I can’t have that.

Echochrome plays much as the videos say it does “solving a series of black-and-white Escher-inspired perspective drawings that are technically impossible in Euclidean geometry. The only control you have is over the camera. While quite mind-bending at first, the demo does a great job of walking you through the “five mysteries” of the game at the outset and you quickly acclimatize to the odd 3D/2D translation you must do in your head to make it work. All the while soothing YoYoMa cello music plays in the background, making the entire enterprise feel quite cerebral and scholarly. It’s like the polar opposite of Madden. The kind of game where you don’t blink for an hour.

I did have some trouble with the camera, which does not bode well at all since that is the entire control scheme for the game. At certain points it seemed like it was trying to help a little bit, which had the opposite effect. You must join up the edges fairly precisely, there’s not really any snap to it, so when you line up a nice bit of walkway for your poser-hero and then the camera shifts of its own accord, you rightly want to hurl something sharp. Wasn’t a big deal, it only happened twice but it immediately pissed me off. I hope there’s some setting in Japanese that I can’t read for Camera Assist=NO.

The demo is in Japanese with English voiceovers in the tutorial, so not so hard to figure out. If you have access, I recommend it.

Have to say though, a bit disappointing that the PS3 version doesn’t seem to support Remote Play; and the PSP version has twice as many maps as the PS3 one. The PSP is really where you want a game like this in the end but it just looks so damn sharp in HD.

(UPDATE: PSPFanboy has posted the Echochrome demo for, durr, PSP. Gogetit.)

(Originally posted at citizengame. Come for the impudence, stay for the ennui!)

Bizarre Creations stumbled upon something special when they put a couple of arcade machines in the garage of Project Gotham Racing 2 on the original Xbox. Like I do so many times while playing a game, I wanted to see how far the game would let me go and made my way over to said machines. Imagine my surprise when it prompted me to play the original Geometry Wars. As good as PGR 2 was this little gem made the whole package something extraordinary.

Fast forward to the release of the Xbox 360 with its ramped-up Xbox Live Arcade feature. What became the big, break-out hit? Geometry Wars Retro Evolved. A simple, dual-stick shooter that didn’t do much to show off the power of the 360 but it did solidify Xbox Live Arcade as a new force to be reckoned with.

Luckily, they’ve managed to find a way to keep the franchise alive in Geometry Wars Galaxies on the Wii and DS. Earlier this week I picked up a DS copy and went to town. Does it live up to its predecessors? Hit the jump and read up on my impressions on what it has to offer. Continue Reading »

With 2007 being known as the Year of the Shooter it’s difficult for newer experiences to crack the sales charts.  If it isn’t named Halo, Call of Duty or Half-Life, chances are you might have skipped it.

One of the titles lost in the shuffle this year has been Clive Barker’s Jericho and while the game isn’t a triple-a marketing hype monster like Master Chief’s latest adventure, it has some very interesting story ideas that might deserve your attention. Continue Reading »

Few developers can claim to push the boundaries of every platform they create for time-and-time again– the good people at Team Ninja are one of those rare developers.

In March, Tomonobu Itagaki and his team revealed Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword for the Nintendo DS and promised to push the portable to limits unlike gamers have ever experienced.

We had a chance to play the, unfortunately short, demo of Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword and have a complete breakdown on how it looks, how it plays and if it will affect your holiday wish list for Nintendo’s portable powerhouse. Continue Reading »

Around my house party games are pretty big. We love a good, beer-soaked night of Karaoke Revolution topped off with a few rounds of Catch Phrase or Cranium. When I found out about Buzz! The Mega Quiz for the PS2 I was cautiously optimistic, hoping for another game to add to our rotation. Really, games are never more fun than when you’re playing with a bunch of friends. Concurrently, victory is never more sweet than when you’ve proven how much smarter you are than them also…even if it is with meaningless pop culture bits interspersed with “real” questions.

Over the past few nights I was able to play through (and win!) a couple of rounds so after the jump I’ll give you the lowdown on what I thought. Continue Reading »

I might be putting myself out for a beating on this one, but I’m going to have to go on record and admit that I wasn’t entirely too excited about Super Mario Galaxy. Curious sure, but not excited. Considering the similar amount of hype that surrounded the dismal Mario Sunshine, could Galaxy possibly live up to the build up?

The short answer is yes with a capital YES. Hit the jump if you want the long answer. Continue Reading »