Upcoming Release Anticipation Countdown Espectacularrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

LOL, coming (photo)

Jesus, isn't summer supposed to be a dead time for game releases? I can only assume that the uncharacteristic glut of impossibly-appealing games being released this summer can be chalked up to the world economy circling the drain; surely, say, Sucker Punch would have held onto inFamous until the fall if it weren't waiting for this "recession-proof" industry to follow suit. Oh well; their loss is our gain. (all release dates are presumed. HOW DAER YUO CRUSH MY DREAMS.)

5. PixelJunk Monsters PSP (photo)

The prospect of having access to PJM anywhere, at any time - in bed, on the bus, on the terlit, in court, at a funeral, in a black hole, in Kentucky, etc. - is a terrifying one; it was hard enough to dream up excuses to stop playing it when marrying my ass to the couch was a condition for playing it. God help us all if they actually allow folks to play cooperatively over the tubes this time. I mean, in that situation, aren't we faced with a PSP game werth by-ong? Uh, I mean a PSPhuh gum woof baryeng? A fnuhfnuh fnuh fnuhfnuh? Fuck, I can't even type it.

4. Muramasa: The Demon Blade (photo)

I have only actually beaten about 8% of Odin Sphere, but I love it so much in principle that I cannot help but get impossibly excited for this game. Plus, yay, another Wii game to buy! Will we crack five this year? Dare we dream the impossible dream? STAY TUNED~

3. inFamous (photo)

Assassin's Creed was the first game I beat this generation; of course I'm going to get this.

2. Fight Night Round 4 (photo)

Here is how excited I am for this game: I actually preordered it today. Well, technically I paid $41.06 towards preording it today; since there's a GameStop right by my office, I decided to take advantage of their occasional "trade in more shit, get more trade credit" promotion to try and get enough in exchange for Space Invader Exteme (holla at yr boy if you're looking for a paddle, btw) and Super Princess Peach (yes, at one point in my life I actually decided that I needed to own this game) to get Chinatown Wars. Because I scored a 1 on my AP calculus exam, I ended up with an assload more credit than anticipated, which I decided to put towards the surest thing since, well, #1 on this list. (I mean, I've beaten FNR3 three times (twice on PS3 alone), and that was without Trophies; it's just such an adjective-defyingly ecstatic experience to beat the everliving shit out of someone with your right thumb. They could have gotten away with "FNR3 + Trophies + Mike Tyson", but noooooooooo, they had to be awesome and tack on a hundred billion improvements on top of that.) Incidentally, it's striking how GameStop clerks respond when you tell them you want to reserve something today; other sales associates were, like, cheering and shit, like the guy had just won the lottery. I have no idea what GameStop's incentive system for register jockeys who manage to elicit preoders from customers is, but if the store's collective response was any indication I just helped my mans make a down payment on a house. That, or my preorder got him out of getting fired/forced to work weekends/ordered to fight the Kraken this week.

This is getting depressing. Let's talk about the least depressing-sounding game ever:

1. Mario & Luigi 3 (photo)

The short version is that this is basically my favorite series in existence. I love the Mario games and the Paper Mario games and even ("even") Mario RPG as much as any other sentience-possessing organism on this planet, but the Mario & Luigi series of games is in another class of games entirely; from the visible enemy encounters to the not-just-picking-attack-from-a-menu battle system to the legitimately funny script, the M&L series is all about delivering pure gratification within seconds of being booted up (probably a lucky consequence of its handheld heritage). And while M&L3 will lack Partners in Time's inexplicable Rumble Pak support (which effectively turned PiT into a rhythm game [a really really awesome rhythm game]), it's still the next installment in the best series ever, so nyah.

Now let's get into the long version. Yes, the long version. To save you all some time, I'm just going to bold all the parts of this set of revelations which give me a raging, blue-veined, mind-of-its-own vidyagameboner:

"Here is gameplay:

The game switches between three playable characters. Mario & Luigi are found together inside Bowser for the first part of the game, exploring a 2D environment, much like a platformer. Bowser explores the Mushroom Kingdom in a 3/4 overhead view world, much like previous Mario & Luigi games. After a point in the game, Mario & Luigi can go out of Bowser to explore the overworld. They can use a pipe to return inside Bowser.

Mario and Luigi can both jump, spin jump and use hammers in the over world. The bros can also use hammers and jump during a battle. Jumping in battles have been altered so the Bros can now execute a double jump on an enemy. As in the previous games, the “A” button controls Mario while the “B” button controls Luigi.

Bowser uses both the “X” and “Y” buttons. “Y” is used for fire breath and “X” is used for punching. Later in the game, you can get a sliding punch and a ground pound. The battle system has been altered for Bowser. Punching replaces jump and the hammer is replaced with fire breath. There is also the Vacuum system wherein you can make Bowser suck certain things from the enemies or even the enemies themselves. Whenever you suck the enemies though, you then control Mario and Luigi to defeat these enemies.

Bros. Points (BP) have been brought back from the first game in the series, only this time, it is now called Skill Points (SP) because of Bowser’s playability. Items also make a comeback. Items can be acquired by collecting 10 “Attack Parts”. Upon collecting all 10, you can use the item. Using items uses up skill points as opposed to “Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time” wherein items have to be bought. Some examples of Mario and Luigi special attacks are the Green Shell (The shell is repeatedly kicked up to a certain amount), the Sweets Basket(Luigi eats falling sweets, causing him to bloat. Mario in turn will throw him up, causing a massive shock wave), and the Here and There Window (The brothers are hidden in the window. Pressing the corresponding button will help lengthen the attack). Bowser can also get special attacks by freeing his armies, or collecting cat-like blocks. Bowser’s attack uses the touch screen. Example of these attacks is the Goomba army (touching the Goombas send them flying up, causing higher damage than when they hit the enemies), and the Bob-Omb Army (Use the touch screen to place the Bob-Omb to go in front of the enemies, in which they’ll damage the enemies by exploding).

There are also new features in the third game, such as the ranking system, which lets players earn rank as they level up. Earning ranks will allow Mario, Luigi, or Bowser to equip more items, or buy more equipments.

The badge system has also changed. Instead of badges that gives certain skills, badges are now used to get incentives whenever you get a “good”, a “great”, or an “excellent” in your attacks. Such incentives include Health or Skill points recovery, or attack increase.

Minigames have also been used for the main story, unlike in the second game wherein there is only one available minigame. Some minigames include the “arm power-up” (Mario and Luigi hit spark-like things to strengthen Bowsers arms), the “leg power-up” (Mario and Luigi stomp on leg muscle to strengthen Bowser’s legs), and the stomach digestion (Mario and Luigi digest the food that Bowser eats).

A certain minigame let’s you increase Bowser’s size up to a giant. This would let you enter a new battle system wherein the DS is held like a book. You attack using the stylus and the microphone (blowing through the microphone lets you breathe out fire).

Here is the Development info:

Nintendo revealed Mario Luigi RPG 3 at a press conference in Japan ^[6]. Nintendo of Japan revealed details of the game relating to the plot and gameplay, as well as the fact that it would have intensive use of the touch screen . AlphaDream, developers of Superstar Saga andPartners In Time, developed this game, with experienced contibutors to the Mario series such as Yoko Shimomura and Charles Martinet working on music and voice acting, respectively.

Here is the Plot:

A mysterious plague is taking over the Mushroom Kingdom. The only symptom that this disease results in is the inflating of the Toads many times their normal size, causing them to grow big and roll around without any control; the disease is known as the “Metakoro”. A council is called to discuss what might have to be done, and Mario and Luigi are both called to further discuss what could be done with this disease that is spreading. At this time, Bowser enters Peach’s castle and tries to kidnap her by force. Mario then fights Bowser to protect the princess. After his inevitable defeat, Bowser wakes up in a forest and a mysterious figure offers a “lucky mushroom” to Bowser, who eats it. He unknowingly gains the ability to inhale things and becomes brain-washed by Fawful, a villain from the previous installments. Fawful sends Bowser to Peach’s Castle, where he swallows all the Mushroom Kingdom council members. With Peach and Bowser preoccupied, Fawful then takes control over both of their castles. When he awakes, Bowser proceeds to chase Fawful. Meanwhile, Mario & Luigi must attempt to find a way out of Bowser’s stomach."

Any questions?

tl;dr: Basically this blog is going to last until this game comes out.

HONORABLE MENTION

• Uncharted 2 (the original being probably my favorite 3d platformer since SMB64)
  
• Fat Princess (if only I were the type of man to eat cake in the vicinity of cameras)
  
• Prototype (because come on, we all remember how awesome Crackdown was)
  
• Wii Sports Resort (IMO this still belongs more in the Wii Play line than the Wii Sports since it's going to come down to "INSTRUMENTAL CONTROLLER + game", but I do still want it so w/e)
  
• Infinite Space (Platinum, you are my BOY[s])
  
  
  
  

By Way Of Introduction

A blah blah blah lists are the last refuge of the uncreative a blee blee blee haven't even tried to do anything with this damn domain since I bought it a bloo bloo bloo bloo fuck it. Fuckin' lists for you. Raaaah!

GAMES OF THE YEAR 2009: A QUARTERLY REPORT

5. Rhythm Heaven (photo)

Because it takes me forever and ever to beat even the easiest, shortest, for-little-girls-and-grandmas-only-est games, I'm still making my way through Rhythm Heaven - in fact, due to a recent overload of both work and Aeroplane, I haven't even touched it in like a week. In the interest of journalistic integrity, I decided to break out my DS only to discover that it had been even longer since I'd charged it up, necessitating a trip to the wall; not wanting to lose my momentum, I decided to sit my ass down and play as I recharged. It didn't take me long to get stuck trying to get a perfect on Shoot-Em-Up, a minigame where you play as a spaceship blasting the life out of invading aliens by tapping to a beat; no matter how earnestly I whipped my head around like Stevie Wonder in a vain effort to stay the course, I kept getting thrown off by following the visuals rather than the rhythm and expecting the patterns to go for longer than one bar. It got so bad that I eventually had to break out the one trick I'd learned in Rhythm Tengoku, RH's equally-ecstatically-inscrutable GBA predecessor, and close my eyes to shut out all distractions. And yet even going that far wasn't enough; after enough failure I quit out of the game in a huff, dedicating myself to conquering that other game where giant Easter Island heads sing to each other and get pooped on by birds. Unfortunately, I had to open my eyes in order to quit out of Shoot-Em-Up and accidentally caught a reflection of myself in my TV - a twenty-eight year-old Scott Walker-listening math-documentary-watching beardo hipster fuckup sitting Native-American-style on the floor hunched over his (blue!) DS in high dudgeon over his inability to successfully shoot down all of the invading cartoon monsters in time to the rhythm.

My point is that Rhythm Heaven is tremendous.

4. Peggle: Dual Shot (photo)

On the one hand, this is kind of inarguably the Chrono Trigger DS of puzzle game releases - you can't deny the obvious upgrades made, but really you're just voting for the game you fell in love with all those years ago. On the other hand, WOO PEGGLE ON THE BUS WITH A STYLUS AND WITH A SHITTON MORE STAGES WOO.

3. MLB 09: The Show (photo)

Unfortunately everything I have to say about this game has already been said by a great, great man; I have nothing to add except that I am still pants-shittingly awful at this game (although I'm getting okay-ish at fielding) and that my love is in no way diminished by this. Best sports game since NFL2K1.

2. Flower (photo)

Certain. The word is certain. I was dead-set iron-clad certain that this game was going to be a gigantic, fetid Jurassic Park-sized pile of overblown, overrated shit - basically, the PSN's Braid. But no, I was wrong (it happens); Flower turned out to actually be fun. I'm still very much all "Well." at all the Emotive and Intentionally Vague term papers folks were posting around the time of its release, mind you - my point is that it's actually enjoyable to play through Flower, largely thanks to the most successfully-implemented motion controls since Wii Sports. I freely admit to being an inveterate game-blamer with regards to control responsiveness (as my neighbors can attest, I turn into Jon Hamm on 30 Rock when I play SF2HD), and yet I have absolutely no complaints about how Flower plays; it kinda reminds me of Super Mario 64 (or maybe even SMB1 if my, er, unreliable memory can be trusted) in that it took me a while to come to terms with the staggering degree of control suddenly at my fingertips, but by the end I was fly...uh, I was airbo...er...well, shit, it's pretty hard to think of a non-corny metaphor given Flower's central conceit. Just know that the corn is pretty damned justified in this one case.

1. MadWorld (photo)

Because I started playing both this and God Hand within a few months of each other, it's going to be a little difficult for me to avoid sounding like a slavering Clover fanboy here; also, since that renaissance of discovery occurred within the last, like, three months, it's going to be even harder for me to avoid sounding like a massive Johnny-come-lately douchebag. Well, fuck it; MadWorld is a completely gratifying, thoroughly involving video gaming product from ship to stern, the kind of game that makes you want to applaud the medium as a whole. A lot of people have already drawn the Jet Grind Radio comparisons by now, which is infuriating because it's still far and away the most accurate frame of reference; it's just that where JGR overloaded your with hardcore weeaboo signifiers, MadWorld does it with violence. That's not to say that MadWorld's great because it's a violent game - it's great because the violence is integrated so smoothly and intuitively (it won't take you long before you're scanning environments for bonus-multiplying violence-enhancers with the same eye for line-clearing opportunities Tetris taught you) and, above all, stylishly. Like, stylish to the point of being the best-looking game of the year so far, and it's not even close. For reference, Flower is a tooth-rottingly beautiful game, the kind of software that makes you (momentarily) pleased with yourself for having kicked yourself squaw in the credit rating over an absurd 1080p techno-boondoggle. MadWorld, by comparison, doesn't even run in progressive scan. That's not a setup for anything, incidentally; just something to consider when you're taking MadWorld's visuals in and reeling from how much better they look than everything else you've played this year. Also gets bonus points for being legitimately funny. I suppose you are all intimately familiar with legitimate hilarity's polar opposite, "Video Game Funny"; rest assured that you're in the hands of Greg Proops and John "Bender" Di Maggio given the freedom to cuss like sixth graders.