Tag: Nintendo
365 Adventures in 2011: Day 204 – Costume at Comic-Con
I can now say I have worn a costume to the San Diego Comic-Con. I was Mario as a Ghostbuster, fighting a Boo. I already owned a Ghostbusters “costume” T-shirt so I wore that along with tan pants, a Mario hat and mustache I picked up at Party City recently, and a Ghostbusters proton pack backpack with detachable proton gun pouch. To finish it off, I used an old green light saber as the proton stream and stuck the cardboard Boo I made earlier this week onto the end. I think it turned out pretty well, considering the time and money I spent on it.
But I do have more respect for convention goers who wear elaborate costumes all day. The mustache and hat were annoying me after only a few minutes of wearing them and I got sick of carrying around the proton gun setup very quickly. Though I only walked around the convention hall for maybe 15-20 minutes wearing the costume, I’m still happy that I did it. It’s one of those things that I can check off my life “to do” list. And a couple people laughed at the costume idea as well, which was great.
365 Adventures in 2011: Day 84 – Nintendo 3DS preview
I thought I wouldn’t get a chance to try a new Nintendo 3DS until I picked mine up tomorrow night at midnight, but Best Buy has a demo already set up – and it’s great! I wasn’t going to buy any launch games for it, but playing Pilotwings Resort made me want it. Sure it’s a rather gimmicky game that I’ll probably get tired of eventually, but it may be the only launch title that I actually want. Street Fighter IV is tempting, but I already have it for XBox 360 (and love it). But I am looking forward to playing around with the 3D camera and built-in functions until a better set of games comes along.
365 Adventures in 2011: Day 51 – Retro gaming
After finishing reorganizing/redecorating our bonus room, I realized that while there is plenty to look at in there, the only two things to do in there were building LEGOs and playing board games. Both of those are fun, but the room needed a little more fun added. So I moved an original XBox that was sitting relatively unused in the home theater, hooked it up to the old tube TV in the bonus room, and can now enjoy plenty of retro gaming – but not of XBox games. If I’m going to go retro, I’m going to go way back to the best games.
With XBMC running on the system, I have also installed emulators for Nintendo, Genesis, Super Nintendo, and arcade machines. That means I can now head up to the bonus room and slip away into the 80s, playing Contra, Super Mario Brothers, Sonic the Hedgehog, and even the amazing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game, which is pictured below.
Since I also have the XBox hooked up to a wireless network adapter and a pair of speakers with subwoofer (both were also lying around the house), I can enjoy videos and music off of my network-attached storage. And now the bonus room is more than just a fun place to look at stuff… it’s a fun place to look at stuff while playing video games, listening to music, and watching old cartoons!
TweetReturn of the point-and-click adventure game – Indiana Jones
In the last two days, I’ve written about the return of the Sam & Max and Monkey Island™ series as part of a revitalization of the point-and-click adventure genre of video games. Now we turn our attention to…
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
One often overlooked entry in the world of LucasArts point-and-click adventures is Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. It is one of the few Indiana Jones games that has actually been good. On top of that, it’s a great point-and-click adventure. Screenshots:
Unlike the Sam & Max and Monkey Island™ series, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis has not been remade in HD, 3-D, or any other D. However, you can still enjoy this incredibly fun game on your Nintendo Wii by way of the new Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings game.
While Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings is a clumsy game crippled by unnecessary Wii motion controls (too much waggling and flailing for my tastes), it comes with the bonus feature of the entire Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.
When you first launch Staff of Kings, you’ll see the option to play Fate of Atlantis tucked away in its menus. Unfortunately, you’re required to unlock it by playing Staff of Kings. I tried and became too frustrated with the controls to even get past the first 15 minutes of the game. Fortunately, the generous programmers at LucasArts included a code you can enter to unlock Fate of Atlantis without ever playing Staff of Kings. Here’s the code:
While holding down Z on the Staff of Kings Main Menu, press A, UP, UP, B, DOWN, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, B
That will instantly make available for playing the full game of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis where you can help guide Indy through a fun adventure filled with artifacts, Nazis, and a few snakes. Unfortunately, you’ll need to enter the code every time you start up the game. Fortunately, it’s easy to memorize.
Playing Fate of Atlantis with the Wiimote is a natural fit and a ton of fun. Staff of Kings is available for purchase for just $37 and, in my opinion, Fate of Atlantis is worth that price alone. You can simply consider getting Staff of Kings as a bonus feature.
What are your thoughts on Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (and all of the other terrible Indiana Jones games ever made)? Comments!
Next up in tomorrow’s post… My wish-list for the future!
TweetReturn of the point-and-click adventure game – Monkey Island™
Yesterday, I began a series of posts about the return of my favorite genre of video games, the point-and-click adventure, with some thoughts on the newest games featuring Sam & Max.
Now get your breath mints ready as we head for Melee Island™ and…
The Secret of Monkey Island™: Special Edition
No fan of point-and-click adventures can resist any game with Monkey Island™ in the title. Much to the surprise of such fans, two new games are now available for consumption following the adventures of Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Pirate™ in his quest to defeat the Ghost Pirate LeChuck.
First up: The Secret of Monkey Island™: Special Edition has hit XBox 360 via XBox Live Arcade. It’s a remake of the original with redrawn HD graphics, a new musical score, and plenty of fantastic voice acting.
The gameplay of the Special Edition is fantastic. It feels just like the original, even with having to drag a pointer around the screen using the XBox analog joystick. The selection of commands (“Look at”, “Talk to”, etc) is a little bit clunky, requiring the use either a drop down menu or the directional pad. But other than that, the new version performs well.
Unfortunately, the new graphics leave something to be desired. Here is a comparison image between the original and the Special Edition (click the bottom one to enlarge it in a new window):
The graphics have been (more or less) faithfully recreated, replacing pixelated graphics with sharp, crisp HD images. However, in many cases, some visual comedy elements have been replaced with uninspired artwork lacking the same style and flair of the original. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It seems like the artists in the new version took some artistic liberties in places where it wasn’t necessary.
But all of the most important elements remain accurate, or improved upon, so I can’t complain too much about the artistic style of the Special Edition. In fact, one artistic decision that did work for me was to replace the old semi-realistic close-ups of people with new animated ones. Here’s an example:
The coolest feature of the Special Edition is the ability to seamlessly switch back and forth between the classic and new versions of the game. By hitting the Back button on the XBox 360 controller, the screen shifts and zooms, allowing you to get the original pixelated experience and the HD graphics all at once. Groovy.
There are also a number of visual references to other LucasArts point-and-click adventure games scattered throughout the Special Edition. I won’t spoil them for you here, but it was nice to see a few familiar characters hidden amongst the scenery.
If you’re not familiar with the original game’s puzzles, you’ll likely beat it in around 6-7 hours. If you’re one to get stuck a lot in this type of game, the Special Edition will guide you along with its built-in hint system. No need to head to GameFAQs every few minutes. Of course, if you already know how to navigate you’re way through the game, you’ll likely conquer it in a couple of hours or less.
And if you don’t have an XBox 360 or would like to take Guybrush and the gang with you on the go, you can also play The Secret of Monkey Island™: Special Edition on your iPhone or iPod Touch.
But this isn’t the only new entry into the Monkey Island™ saga…
Tales of Monkey Island™
Like with the new Sam and Max series, Telltale Games is bringing the whole Monkey Island™ world back to life, but this time with 3-D graphics. The first episode in the new Tales of Monkey Island™ series is available for download now exclusively on the Nintendo Wii via WiiWare. Screenshots:
I’ve only played the first 15 minutes of this game so far, but it seems like a decent variation on the Monkey Island™ series. The voice acting is good, though the audio quality is a bit rough. Likewise, the game’s frame rate seems to be low, causing the game to be quite choppy at times. I’m not sure if Telltale Games pushed the Wii’s processing power limits (judging from the seemingly low polygon count of objects, I doubt it) or if there’s just some other problem with the game.
Like Telltale’s Sam & Max series, the dialogue trees in this game appear to have issues. You pick one phrase and Guybrush says something similar, but not quite as funny. It’s kind of baffling.
At $10 per episode, the price is steep. If this game is anything like the Sam and Max series from Telltale Games, I imagine I’ll get around 2 hours of gameplay out of each episode. Comparing that to the $10 I paid for 6-7 hours of playing The Secret of Monkey Island™: Special Edition and it doesn’t quite seem worth it. Even worse is that you can purchase all five episodes on PC for around $35. Why do Wii players pay a premium?
Even with the high cost, I simply couldn’t resist this purchase and will likely continue to buy the episodes as they’re released. But if you’re not a huge fan of Monkey Island™ or point-and-click adventures, I’d advise that you steer clear of this one for now, at least until the price drops.
Monkey Island™ 2 Special-Uber Edition
Some Germans have created a fantastic concept of what they’d like to see out of a Special Edition-style remake of Monkey Island™ 2. While this is essentially a fan’s hopes and wishes, it is extraordinarily well made:
We can only hope that LucasArts sees this (I’m sure they will) and decides to go down this path (not likely) in creating the next Monkey Island™ game.
Have you played any of the Monkey Island games, new or old? Comment!
