Yep. Mega Man 10's on its way to Wiiware, PSN, and XBLA in March joining an already jam-packed 2010 lineup.
So far, Sheep and Commando Man are the only two robot masters we know of, although this video shows off the silhouettes of all eight as well as a glimpse of the levels we'll be trying to get Mega or Proto Man through.
On a side note, when asked about Mega Man Powered Up 2, Keiji Infaune stated that there was a very high probability that we'll be seeing that one in the future. Works for me!
- Bean1227
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Friday, December 18, 2009
SPC Showdown - 12/18/2009
SPC Showdown is a new segment here at where else but SuperPhillip Central. This is where I pit two video game-related characters, games, or series, compare and contrast the two, and make a judgment on which I prefer better. It's a simple concept not really needing much of an explanation. Well, I needed an explanation, so get off my back! In all seriousness, let's get down to our first five showdowns!
Mario vs. Sonic
Let's be fair and just talk the glory days of both mascot characters. It'd be too easy to count Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) and Black Knight (the game, not the Martin Lawrence movie). Anyway, one was a portly plumber while other was super fast with the meaningless term "blast processing" thrown in for good measure (and marketing). Both games featured the characters leaping on the heads of characters to destroy them, and both had their own fair share of secrets-- warp pipes with Mario, chaos emeralds for Sonic. Both 2-D titles that are most popular are the third and fourth, so between the two series of four games apiece, which do I prefer. I'll always have a soft spot for taking out Goombas, finding secret exits, and trying on new suits Mario. Mario wins. Sorry, Sonic.
Winner: Mario
Mega Man vs. Mega Man X
One is pretty much bare bones compared to the other. That's not a bad thing, mind you. Later installments brought cool things like Rush upgrades, the charge shot, and the dash. Mega Man was the series that brought a rock, paper, scissors approach to bosses where a fire weapon usually would work on an ice boss and an electric weapon would work on a water boss. Mega Man X, meanwhile, simply has more to do and more to collect, going back to previously cleared levels to access new heart tanks, sub-tanks, and capsules. None of this was padding to the game either. In fact, if you wanted a real challenge you wouldn't collect any of these at all! Between the two, I prefer the game with the awesome wall-dash, mid-air dash, and the ability to power up Mega Man with new body modifications.
Winner: Mega Man X
Mario Kart 64 vs Diddy Kong Racing
The two titans of the Nintendo 64's multi-player racing scene, Mario Kart 64 versus Diddy Kong Racing. Mario Kart 64 featured sixteen themed tracks while Diddy Kong Racing had twenty each with four themed worlds. MK64 had eight characters to race as like Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad, Yoshi, Bowser, and more while DKR has ten (two secret) including Diddy Kong, Timber, Tiptup, TT., Banjo, Conker, and four others. While Mario Kart just had a grand prix, time trial, and battle modes, DKR had grand prix, time trial, battle mode, mini-games, and a complete story mode. The choice seems obvious, and it pretty much is. DKR just has so much more for it from vehicle types to variety. Point goes to Diddy Kong Racing.
Winner: Diddy Kong Racing
Goldeneye 007 vs Perfect Dark
Winner: Perfect Dark
Ratchet & Clank vs Jak & Daxter
Two platforming titans on the Playstation 2, each with four games each to choose from, spin-offs included. One inexplicably turned grittier and darker in hopes of generating more interest while the other stayed true to its roots perhaps too much so. Both feature lovable smart aleck sidekicks and numerous platforming worlds to traverse. While Jak 2 and 3 focused more on a GTA style of level progression which is fine, I prefer the level after level with no filler in-between action of the Ratchet & Clank series. The upgradable weaponry is a smart touch, and the storylines don't take themselves overly seriously like Jak games. If we were just comparing the original games, then Jak & Daxter would win, but as a whole, the winner is Ratchet & Clank.
Winner: Ratchet & Clank
That completes our first array of SPC Showdowns. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for a second installment!
Mario vs. Sonic
Let's be fair and just talk the glory days of both mascot characters. It'd be too easy to count Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) and Black Knight (the game, not the Martin Lawrence movie). Anyway, one was a portly plumber while other was super fast with the meaningless term "blast processing" thrown in for good measure (and marketing). Both games featured the characters leaping on the heads of characters to destroy them, and both had their own fair share of secrets-- warp pipes with Mario, chaos emeralds for Sonic. Both 2-D titles that are most popular are the third and fourth, so between the two series of four games apiece, which do I prefer. I'll always have a soft spot for taking out Goombas, finding secret exits, and trying on new suits Mario. Mario wins. Sorry, Sonic.
Winner: Mario
Mega Man vs. Mega Man X
One is pretty much bare bones compared to the other. That's not a bad thing, mind you. Later installments brought cool things like Rush upgrades, the charge shot, and the dash. Mega Man was the series that brought a rock, paper, scissors approach to bosses where a fire weapon usually would work on an ice boss and an electric weapon would work on a water boss. Mega Man X, meanwhile, simply has more to do and more to collect, going back to previously cleared levels to access new heart tanks, sub-tanks, and capsules. None of this was padding to the game either. In fact, if you wanted a real challenge you wouldn't collect any of these at all! Between the two, I prefer the game with the awesome wall-dash, mid-air dash, and the ability to power up Mega Man with new body modifications.
Winner: Mega Man X
Mario Kart 64 vs Diddy Kong Racing
Winner: Diddy Kong Racing
Goldeneye 007 vs Perfect Dark
The battle of the Bond-likes. One revolutionized the genre with its dual input controls, one analog was the stick while the other was the C-buttons. It had objective-based missions, something I've grown to prefer to the fight to fight gameplay of current FPS games. It brought it with a revolutionary four-player splitscreen multi-player deathmatch mode. Meanwhile, Perfect Dark simply did everything bigger and better. There were more missions in its story mode, more arenas including three from 007's collection, more hi-tech weaponry with secondary functions included this time around, bots in multi-player, stat-tracking, and so much more. There's no contest. Goldeneye 007 is fantastic all on its own with a better story and more interesting single-player levels, but in multi-player, Perfect Dark blows it away.
Winner: Perfect Dark
Ratchet & Clank vs Jak & Daxter
Two platforming titans on the Playstation 2, each with four games each to choose from, spin-offs included. One inexplicably turned grittier and darker in hopes of generating more interest while the other stayed true to its roots perhaps too much so. Both feature lovable smart aleck sidekicks and numerous platforming worlds to traverse. While Jak 2 and 3 focused more on a GTA style of level progression which is fine, I prefer the level after level with no filler in-between action of the Ratchet & Clank series. The upgradable weaponry is a smart touch, and the storylines don't take themselves overly seriously like Jak games. If we were just comparing the original games, then Jak & Daxter would win, but as a whole, the winner is Ratchet & Clank.
Winner: Ratchet & Clank
That completes our first array of SPC Showdowns. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for a second installment!
Thursday, December 17, 2009
SuperPhillip: The Game: 2-3 The Temple Screens
VS
SuperPhillip versus Rosebud, one of the Fearsome Five. This level is 2-3, The Temple, where Rosebud calls his temporary home. It's temporary because SuperPhillip is about to kick his flowery butt out! Watch out for dangerous tricks and traps that litter the temple grounds including giant skulls, fiery wheels, and much more. Expect a video some time in the next week or so.
SuperPhillip: The Game - 2-2 The Treetops Video
We're already up to 2-2! It's been finished for awhile, but now you can see it in all of its lush splendor. Dan's intel suggests that going through the treetops is a wiser idea than on land. Seeing what's a top the trees, I'd hate to see what the ground looks like! SuperPhillip continues his chase after each member of the Fearsome Five. This time around, SuperPhillip is meeting up with the floral fighter, Rosebud. But first he'll have to deal with fiery ash, tumultuous tarantulas, and rotating platforms!
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Goldeneye 007 (N64) Retro Review
My favorite Bond movie of all time is Goldeneye. I had never played the video game until now, so I thought I would share my experiences with everyone in the form of this retro review. Pierce Brosnan, Bond or not, is still the man in my eyes though Daniel Craig is quite good, too, as a different kind of Bond. Here's a review of Goldeneye 007 for the Nintendo 64.
After License to Kill, the James Bond franchise would have six years without another film. Much like the internal troubling between the films, there was also development issues with the Goldeneye 007 video game. The game wouldn't come out until a year later in 1996, but what it would give is one of the best FPS experiences the world has ever known. It revolutionized the genre on game consoles and offered four-player splitscreen console action. It's nothing to scoff at, mind you. Now, more than a decade later, is it still true that nobody does it better?
Goldeneye 007 follows the plot of the movie quite closely, but of course, it takes some liberties to make a game out of it. The story stars off with James Bond 007 and Alec Trevalyn 006 on a mission to infiltrate and destroy a base situated near a dam. Alec gets captured and shot dead presumably while Bond sets the timer to detonate the whole facility as he makes his escape. Two years later, it appears Alec isn't dead after all. He's been in charge of the Janus, a two-faced God of lore, crime syndicate, and is leading a plot to destroy England's cash system with the Goldeneye satellite. It's up to James Bond to stop him, take out the bad guys, and save the world. All in a day's work, right? The game does not have spoken dialogue like the spiritual successor Perfect Dark does. The story is told mostly through written dossier reports with small cut-scenes and dialogue exchanges happening in each mission.
Familiar locations abound in Goldeneye 007.
Speaking of missions, there's twenty of them in all-- two of which are special scenarios featuring villains of Bond film past. These two must be unlocked by completing the previous eighteen missions with a special agent rank or better. There's three difficulties in all: agent, special agent, and 007 agent. Not only do enemies take and dish out more damage in the later modes, but there's also more objectives to complete each mission. Goldeneye 007 follows an objective-based formula which I prefer to something like Halo or Call of Duty where it's running from firefight to firefight or set piece to set piece. The way it works is that each mission has a series of objectives that must be completed such as locating a key card, destroying security cameras throughout a level, or saving hostages. If an objective is missed or failed, the entire mission must be aborted. That's the life of a double-o after all. There's also various stealth missions where a silenced weapon must be used, or else Bond will signal a bunch of guards onto his position. These missions can be a tad frustrating, but with a little patience they're not too much of a burden.
The scene where Bond and Natalya are captured.
Goldeneye 007 takes you through a wide series of locales both in and not in the original movie. These range from a frigate where a series of hostages must be rescued to the Severnaya facility where a copy of the Goldeneye key is made to meeting up with the man behind Janus, 006 himself, inside a statue park. Many locations from the movie show up, too, such as the streets of St. Petersburg, the train where Natalya, the bond girl of the movie is held by the villain, the archives, the Goldeneye bunker, the dam from the beginning of the movie, and the final showdown area, deep in the jungle at the outpost.
I'm looking at it, and I still can't spell it.
Bond loves his gadgets and weaponry, and this time around he's fully equipped thanks to Q. From remote mines to that fancy watch of his, Bond is covered. One mission has you locked up in a cell with your only hope of escape is to use the high-powered magnet of your watch to grab a cell key that rests out of arm's reach. An arsenal of weaponry is also available to Bond including machine guns, silenced pistols, magnums, mines, throwing knives, shotguns, rocket and grenade launchers, and much more. There's no weapon wheel this time around, so if Bond wants to quickly select a weapon he'll have to do it the old-fashioned way by cycling through it. Gadgets can't even be selected this way. They must be chosen in the pause menu which slows the action down to a crawl-- especially when the gadget is used multiple times in a level.
Another problem with Goldeneye 007 is a doozy. It's a problem that games still have to this day-- infinite respawning enemies. This only happens when you're caught or you give away Bond's location, but it's quite annoying shooting down wave after wave of enemies-- making little to no progress while fighting a losing battle. It makes otherwise manageable missions infuriatingly challenging. Thankfully, Perfect Dark didn't have this issue on the scale that Goldeneye 007 does. Regardless, this does not make the game broken or impossible at all.
How's that for a pain reliever?
The other half to Goldeneye 007 is the multi-player which kept younger versions of gamers up all night fragging one another till the sun came up. There's around ten arenas to duke it out in and many of these are taken directly from the single-player mode. Some of which are better than others such as the bunker, facility, temple, and complex while others are not very good at all such as playing three versions of the same level in the library. Each level has an adequate number of ambush spots and nooks and crannies to explore and hide.
In multi-player, there's no bots, so it's up to players to find their own opponents. Up to four friends or enemies can take each other out in this mode. There's various different scenarios. Live and Let Die are words to live by here. In the standard mode, the goal is to get the most points within a set time limit while in You Only Live Twice, each players gets only two lives to work with before their goose is cooked. In The Living Daylights, the idea is to grab a flag and hold onto it for as long as possible while earning points for doing so. There's also modes where players grab a golden gun, killing any player they shoot with one bullet, plus a team mode and one shot-one kill rules. There's plenty of options and weaponry to choose from in Goldeneye's engagement mode.
On the control side of things, Bond plays nicely with the other boys. The C-buttons are used to look around and side-step enemies. Think of it as the second analog on a dual-analog controller. Meanwhile, aiming is assisted with auto-aim, making it easier to shoot enemies down. One of the problems here is that you can't shoot through enemies to kill them, but they can shoot through their fallen comrades to damage you. Nonetheless, you can also crouch with the C-down button, hold R and select a C-direction to look around corners to know what's coming. You reload with B and exchange guns or gadgets with the A button. Truth be told, this set-up feels like second nature and it controls remarkably well.
I'd personally look at the explosion
because it'd be awesome.
Presentation-wise, Goldeneye 007 isn't much to look at now. There's a lot of muddy textures, the characters don't have individual fingers, and the draw distance is pretty poor-- kept up by lots of fog. Regardless, there's not too much in the way of slowdown which I wasn't expecting seeing how Perfect Dark performed graphically. The music by Robin Beanland and Grant Kirkhope is absolutely wonderful with plenty of cues from past Bond films, and it sounds very close to something out of the movie with the factory-sounding noises used.
All-in-all, Goldeneye 007 gets high marks. It's a blast to play solo or with friends, and the mission structure is open enough to keep the game from feeling linear. While not as good as Perfect Dark, Goldeneye 007 has enough weaponry, gadgets, levels, and objectives to shake things up and not stir them. Overall, the team at Rare have done a fantastic job of bringing 007 to consoles with awesome gameplay that holds up to this day. The name's Bond. James Bond.
[SuperPhillip Says: 9.25/10]
For England, James?
After License to Kill, the James Bond franchise would have six years without another film. Much like the internal troubling between the films, there was also development issues with the Goldeneye 007 video game. The game wouldn't come out until a year later in 1996, but what it would give is one of the best FPS experiences the world has ever known. It revolutionized the genre on game consoles and offered four-player splitscreen console action. It's nothing to scoff at, mind you. Now, more than a decade later, is it still true that nobody does it better?
Goldeneye 007 follows the plot of the movie quite closely, but of course, it takes some liberties to make a game out of it. The story stars off with James Bond 007 and Alec Trevalyn 006 on a mission to infiltrate and destroy a base situated near a dam. Alec gets captured and shot dead presumably while Bond sets the timer to detonate the whole facility as he makes his escape. Two years later, it appears Alec isn't dead after all. He's been in charge of the Janus, a two-faced God of lore, crime syndicate, and is leading a plot to destroy England's cash system with the Goldeneye satellite. It's up to James Bond to stop him, take out the bad guys, and save the world. All in a day's work, right? The game does not have spoken dialogue like the spiritual successor Perfect Dark does. The story is told mostly through written dossier reports with small cut-scenes and dialogue exchanges happening in each mission.
Familiar locations abound in Goldeneye 007.Speaking of missions, there's twenty of them in all-- two of which are special scenarios featuring villains of Bond film past. These two must be unlocked by completing the previous eighteen missions with a special agent rank or better. There's three difficulties in all: agent, special agent, and 007 agent. Not only do enemies take and dish out more damage in the later modes, but there's also more objectives to complete each mission. Goldeneye 007 follows an objective-based formula which I prefer to something like Halo or Call of Duty where it's running from firefight to firefight or set piece to set piece. The way it works is that each mission has a series of objectives that must be completed such as locating a key card, destroying security cameras throughout a level, or saving hostages. If an objective is missed or failed, the entire mission must be aborted. That's the life of a double-o after all. There's also various stealth missions where a silenced weapon must be used, or else Bond will signal a bunch of guards onto his position. These missions can be a tad frustrating, but with a little patience they're not too much of a burden.
The scene where Bond and Natalya are captured.Goldeneye 007 takes you through a wide series of locales both in and not in the original movie. These range from a frigate where a series of hostages must be rescued to the Severnaya facility where a copy of the Goldeneye key is made to meeting up with the man behind Janus, 006 himself, inside a statue park. Many locations from the movie show up, too, such as the streets of St. Petersburg, the train where Natalya, the bond girl of the movie is held by the villain, the archives, the Goldeneye bunker, the dam from the beginning of the movie, and the final showdown area, deep in the jungle at the outpost.
I'm looking at it, and I still can't spell it.Bond loves his gadgets and weaponry, and this time around he's fully equipped thanks to Q. From remote mines to that fancy watch of his, Bond is covered. One mission has you locked up in a cell with your only hope of escape is to use the high-powered magnet of your watch to grab a cell key that rests out of arm's reach. An arsenal of weaponry is also available to Bond including machine guns, silenced pistols, magnums, mines, throwing knives, shotguns, rocket and grenade launchers, and much more. There's no weapon wheel this time around, so if Bond wants to quickly select a weapon he'll have to do it the old-fashioned way by cycling through it. Gadgets can't even be selected this way. They must be chosen in the pause menu which slows the action down to a crawl-- especially when the gadget is used multiple times in a level.
Another problem with Goldeneye 007 is a doozy. It's a problem that games still have to this day-- infinite respawning enemies. This only happens when you're caught or you give away Bond's location, but it's quite annoying shooting down wave after wave of enemies-- making little to no progress while fighting a losing battle. It makes otherwise manageable missions infuriatingly challenging. Thankfully, Perfect Dark didn't have this issue on the scale that Goldeneye 007 does. Regardless, this does not make the game broken or impossible at all.
How's that for a pain reliever?The other half to Goldeneye 007 is the multi-player which kept younger versions of gamers up all night fragging one another till the sun came up. There's around ten arenas to duke it out in and many of these are taken directly from the single-player mode. Some of which are better than others such as the bunker, facility, temple, and complex while others are not very good at all such as playing three versions of the same level in the library. Each level has an adequate number of ambush spots and nooks and crannies to explore and hide.
In multi-player, there's no bots, so it's up to players to find their own opponents. Up to four friends or enemies can take each other out in this mode. There's various different scenarios. Live and Let Die are words to live by here. In the standard mode, the goal is to get the most points within a set time limit while in You Only Live Twice, each players gets only two lives to work with before their goose is cooked. In The Living Daylights, the idea is to grab a flag and hold onto it for as long as possible while earning points for doing so. There's also modes where players grab a golden gun, killing any player they shoot with one bullet, plus a team mode and one shot-one kill rules. There's plenty of options and weaponry to choose from in Goldeneye's engagement mode.
On the control side of things, Bond plays nicely with the other boys. The C-buttons are used to look around and side-step enemies. Think of it as the second analog on a dual-analog controller. Meanwhile, aiming is assisted with auto-aim, making it easier to shoot enemies down. One of the problems here is that you can't shoot through enemies to kill them, but they can shoot through their fallen comrades to damage you. Nonetheless, you can also crouch with the C-down button, hold R and select a C-direction to look around corners to know what's coming. You reload with B and exchange guns or gadgets with the A button. Truth be told, this set-up feels like second nature and it controls remarkably well.
I'd personally look at the explosionbecause it'd be awesome.
Presentation-wise, Goldeneye 007 isn't much to look at now. There's a lot of muddy textures, the characters don't have individual fingers, and the draw distance is pretty poor-- kept up by lots of fog. Regardless, there's not too much in the way of slowdown which I wasn't expecting seeing how Perfect Dark performed graphically. The music by Robin Beanland and Grant Kirkhope is absolutely wonderful with plenty of cues from past Bond films, and it sounds very close to something out of the movie with the factory-sounding noises used.
All-in-all, Goldeneye 007 gets high marks. It's a blast to play solo or with friends, and the mission structure is open enough to keep the game from feeling linear. While not as good as Perfect Dark, Goldeneye 007 has enough weaponry, gadgets, levels, and objectives to shake things up and not stir them. Overall, the team at Rare have done a fantastic job of bringing 007 to consoles with awesome gameplay that holds up to this day. The name's Bond. James Bond.
[SuperPhillip Says: 9.25/10]
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg (GCN) Retro Review
I've been playing a lot of past generation games lately. I really don't know why. I might as well review one of them though, so I don't appear to be slacking off. Here's Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg for the Nintendo Gamecube.
Yuji Naka, the creator of Sonic the Hedgehog, made his first mascot hero in over a decade. Mett Billy Hatcher, an egg-rolling boy ready to lay some mothers down with his hard-boiled weaponry in Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg for the Nintendo Gamecube. Does this game mean fun? Does it mean a superb adventure? All I know is that it does mean a whole heckuva lot of egg puns!
Our cartoony tale takes us to Morning Island where every 100 years the dark crows invade the island in attempts to bring night to the breakfast paradise for eternity. When all hope seems lost, a precocious young boy gets called to Morning Island, stumbles on a chicken costume (don't ask), and turns into the heroic and eggscellent superhero, Billy Hatcher! By obtaining sun emblems, the power stars of the game, Billy can drive back the darkness of the crows and take down the villainous Boss Crow for good!
Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg follows a familiar formula to anyone who has played Super Mario Galaxy. There's six worlds in all, each with up to eight missions. Three missions are unlocked as you rescue Billy's friends from the clutches of the dark crows. Each mission has you playing through a somewhat linear level, taking down baddies, solving puzzles, and sometimes taking down a big boss to collect that mission's sun emblem. Every second mission of the eight concludes with a boss battle. These follow simple attack patterns and parts of the fight where the boss or bosses are vulnerable to Billy's attacks. After the boss has been bruised enough, they'll be defeated, and Billy will earn an emblem. Billy can then choose to go to a new world to follow the process again of two missions and then a boss, or then Billy can stay in the same world and play through the newly unlocked missions. The missions range from get to the emblem to collecting blue coins to taking down 100 enemies throughout a world.
The worlds are bright, cheerful, and varied.
There's plenty to do and collect in each world. Many missions you'll simply be revisiting locations and locales within the current world you're in. The only differences are altered enemies, eggs, and coin locations. Golden coins are hidden in each mission with five apiece placed. By collecting coins, you can unlock brand new Sonic Team creatures and characters to pop out of specially marked eggs including Sonic the Hedgehog and Rappy from Phantasy Star. There's over eighty different types of eggs to hatch, each with different possessions tucked away inside the egg. These range from power-ups, extra lives, to elemental creatures that can blow away enemies with one shot.
While the bosses are large, goofy, and easy.
At the end of each mission, you're awarded points based on your performance. These range from time it took to complete the level, enemies defeated, combos obtained, and eggs hatched. Unfortunately, the game or manual does not explain how each of these categories are scored or what some of them (like combos) even are. You'll constantly be getting Cs and Ds because you won't know how to get a high score in levels. That isn't the big problem of Billy Hatcher though.
The big problem comes from a combination of things such as a twitchy camera that seldom stays where you want it to and the actual controls of the game. While neither are broken, both of which add up to one frustrating eggsperience. Billy Hatcher oftentimes needs to have an egg with him. Otherwise, he's pretty much powerless. The more food his egg rolls over, the larger it eggspands. The larger it gets, the more damage it can dish out on enemies. Then there's the platforming with the egg. It's annoying at the very worst and fun at best. Rolling through blue rings will cause Billy and his egg to shoot through them. Green rings bounce Billy up to astronomical heights while yellow rings serve as cannons. Trying to do intricate platforming, however, is a near joke. The camera fouls up, the egg rolls in a direction you don't want it to, and you fall into oblivion. Not to mention that dying ruins any chance of you getting an eggscellent score.
Nothing like an egg piledriver to shake things up!
Visually, Billy Hatcher has a cute, colorful, cartoony eggsthetic to it. Environments are varied, characters animate smoothly, and the game runs well on the Gamecube hardware. The game runs at a steady clip and there's little in the way of pop-up. The soundtrack is absolutely infectious with charming songs, "can't get it out of my head" tracks, and bouncy music all around.
Is Billy Hatcher eggscellent? No. Is it eggsquisite? Not even close. However, even with all of its problems, Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg is an entertaining romp and one of the more overlooked platformers on Nintendo's Gamecube. What it has in frustration, it will make up for in pure, unadulterated charm. If you don't mind eggstreme irritation covered in a cute blanket, Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg might be right for you. For everyone else, it may only be worth a rental or a bargain bin price.
[SuperPhillip Says: 5.75/10]
Which came first: the mediocrity or the egg?
Yuji Naka, the creator of Sonic the Hedgehog, made his first mascot hero in over a decade. Mett Billy Hatcher, an egg-rolling boy ready to lay some mothers down with his hard-boiled weaponry in Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg for the Nintendo Gamecube. Does this game mean fun? Does it mean a superb adventure? All I know is that it does mean a whole heckuva lot of egg puns!
Our cartoony tale takes us to Morning Island where every 100 years the dark crows invade the island in attempts to bring night to the breakfast paradise for eternity. When all hope seems lost, a precocious young boy gets called to Morning Island, stumbles on a chicken costume (don't ask), and turns into the heroic and eggscellent superhero, Billy Hatcher! By obtaining sun emblems, the power stars of the game, Billy can drive back the darkness of the crows and take down the villainous Boss Crow for good!
Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg follows a familiar formula to anyone who has played Super Mario Galaxy. There's six worlds in all, each with up to eight missions. Three missions are unlocked as you rescue Billy's friends from the clutches of the dark crows. Each mission has you playing through a somewhat linear level, taking down baddies, solving puzzles, and sometimes taking down a big boss to collect that mission's sun emblem. Every second mission of the eight concludes with a boss battle. These follow simple attack patterns and parts of the fight where the boss or bosses are vulnerable to Billy's attacks. After the boss has been bruised enough, they'll be defeated, and Billy will earn an emblem. Billy can then choose to go to a new world to follow the process again of two missions and then a boss, or then Billy can stay in the same world and play through the newly unlocked missions. The missions range from get to the emblem to collecting blue coins to taking down 100 enemies throughout a world.
The worlds are bright, cheerful, and varied.There's plenty to do and collect in each world. Many missions you'll simply be revisiting locations and locales within the current world you're in. The only differences are altered enemies, eggs, and coin locations. Golden coins are hidden in each mission with five apiece placed. By collecting coins, you can unlock brand new Sonic Team creatures and characters to pop out of specially marked eggs including Sonic the Hedgehog and Rappy from Phantasy Star. There's over eighty different types of eggs to hatch, each with different possessions tucked away inside the egg. These range from power-ups, extra lives, to elemental creatures that can blow away enemies with one shot.
While the bosses are large, goofy, and easy.At the end of each mission, you're awarded points based on your performance. These range from time it took to complete the level, enemies defeated, combos obtained, and eggs hatched. Unfortunately, the game or manual does not explain how each of these categories are scored or what some of them (like combos) even are. You'll constantly be getting Cs and Ds because you won't know how to get a high score in levels. That isn't the big problem of Billy Hatcher though.
The big problem comes from a combination of things such as a twitchy camera that seldom stays where you want it to and the actual controls of the game. While neither are broken, both of which add up to one frustrating eggsperience. Billy Hatcher oftentimes needs to have an egg with him. Otherwise, he's pretty much powerless. The more food his egg rolls over, the larger it eggspands. The larger it gets, the more damage it can dish out on enemies. Then there's the platforming with the egg. It's annoying at the very worst and fun at best. Rolling through blue rings will cause Billy and his egg to shoot through them. Green rings bounce Billy up to astronomical heights while yellow rings serve as cannons. Trying to do intricate platforming, however, is a near joke. The camera fouls up, the egg rolls in a direction you don't want it to, and you fall into oblivion. Not to mention that dying ruins any chance of you getting an eggscellent score.
Nothing like an egg piledriver to shake things up!Visually, Billy Hatcher has a cute, colorful, cartoony eggsthetic to it. Environments are varied, characters animate smoothly, and the game runs well on the Gamecube hardware. The game runs at a steady clip and there's little in the way of pop-up. The soundtrack is absolutely infectious with charming songs, "can't get it out of my head" tracks, and bouncy music all around.
Is Billy Hatcher eggscellent? No. Is it eggsquisite? Not even close. However, even with all of its problems, Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg is an entertaining romp and one of the more overlooked platformers on Nintendo's Gamecube. What it has in frustration, it will make up for in pure, unadulterated charm. If you don't mind eggstreme irritation covered in a cute blanket, Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg might be right for you. For everyone else, it may only be worth a rental or a bargain bin price.
[SuperPhillip Says: 5.75/10]
Monday, December 14, 2009
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PS3, 360, PC) Guest Review
Late last week, I reviewed Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Reflex Edition for Wii. Now we're moving onto a much more polished game (and a big-selling blockbuster, too) in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. What a way to start off the week with MW2 and a guest review for it!
This Call of Duty kick isn’t over yet. While Wii owners were recently treated to a decent port of Call of Duty 4, PS3 and 360 gamers were finally getting their hands on the long-awaited sequel. As my bro already said in his review, the first Modern Warfare was a huge hit. The game constantly kept its foot down on the gas as you were thrown into a variety of memorable and fun situations. Two years have passed, and here we are again. Infinity Ward has recently released Modern Warfare 2 to the HD consoles. Does it go above and beyond the ca... No. Let's skip the bad puns and get straight into the review. You've waited long enough.
Modern Warfare 2 is set five years after the events of Call of Duty 4. In that time, the Ultranationalist party has managed to win the Civil War in Russia and take control of the country, returning the nation back to a Cold War-esque attitude. It just so happens that one member of said party had been ousted by his own group and begins to plot a form of revenge that will pit Russia and the United States against each other, reigniting the flames of war. Why? Uh... I guess the dude just wants to be a stereotypical psychopath. Yeah, sure. Why not? Okay, so the plot isn’t anything to write home about, but I’m pretty sure that’s not why most people go to see an action movie or play a shooter in this case anyway.
Once again, you’ll be switching off between multiple characters in this game as it takes you through the game’s eighteen chapters. One mission will have you fighting as an Army Ranger, and the next, you’ll be a member of a multinational secret society task force. ...I’m not joking. The game tends to switch off between these two stories to keep things fresh. As a result, you’ll be seeing a variety of locales and be placed into many different situations throughout the game.
For instance, one mission will have you assaulting a Middle Eastern town that has been overrun by terrorists. You’ll fight them on foot out in the open, hop into a tank within some of the closed streets, then take the fight to them throughout a series of buildings when everything goes to you-know-what. Right after that, the game sends you into a mountain base in Russia where you’re asked to perform a hit-and-run stealth mission. Towards the end of it, you’ll hop onto a bike which surprisingly controls well as you try to flee from the forces that want to see you dead. That’s the variety that has made this series popular, and you can tell that Infinity Ward really tried to keep things from getting too stale, and they succeed in that regard.
You’re not alone save for a few rare instances in these missions, either. Thankfully, the AI continues to actually have that “intelligence” part to it as they’ll manage to take down a few enemies that you can’t be bothered with. On harder difficulties, this is a blessing as you’ll be too busy trying to take out that one enemy that has his sights set on you to realize that there’s another couple waiting right around him. Granted, you’ll still be doing most of the grunt work, but any help in a genre where you’re usually stuck with braindead buffoons (Hi, Gears. How you doing? I still have that restraining order, by the way.) is all right by me.
To make things easier, Infinity Ward has also put a finite number of enemies into particular situations. No longer must you keep advancing to prevent a new wave of nameless enemies from taking the places of the ones you just took out. Nope. Now you can just sit back and clear out your foes before moving on. While I do consider this a positive, it also presents an interesting note about the game’s difficulty. I found Veteran mode in this game to be ridiculously easier than either of the two Call of Duty games I’ve played prior to this. Literally, the game only took around ten hours to get through on its hardest setting. I had multiple missions in Call of Duty 2 and 4 that took two hours apiece to clear. There wasn’t any of that here. In fact, I can only recall three scenarios that gave me any sort of trouble in this game, all of which I’d put well below the difficulty of the aforementioned games.
This also creates the issue of the game not having as many memorable gameplay sequences to go through. The game’s insistence of relying on shock twists like the infamous airport scene or self-imposed “epic” moments that it tries to create get old by the time you’re around the halfway point. I get it. You want to be a blockbuster movie-game. Just remember that you’re still a game. I want to play more of these kinds of “epic” moments and not watch them. The game gives you a few to work with, but I can’t say that any of these are on the level as Charlie Don’t Surf (the tv station shootout), One Shot, One Kill, No Fighting in the War Room, or Mile High Club. That comes off as a bit of a letdown if you ask me.
It’s not like that’s the only mode this game has to offer, though. Let’s hit up the new addition of Spec Ops first. In this mode, you can go it alone offline or bring a friend with you either via splitscreen or online through an assortment of 23 missions. Some of these scenarios have been directly lifted from the campaign, others have you fending off a number of enemy waves, and a few will have you emptying clip after clip as you desperately try to take down some unrelenting foes. Most missions will have a set of weapons for you to choose from in the beginning, and then you can go through and pick up whatever weapons you can find on the ground, from your fallen enemies, or just lying around as you progress. It’s definitely fun, and it was my favorite part of the game. I actually wound up spending twice as much time on this than I did the campaign... mainly because it provides that challenge that I was looking for.
Multiplayer’s the third and final mode that this game brings, and it’s going to be the one that people probably put the most time into. There are tons of options, both in gameplay and your own arsenal. First, the weapons. The game has over 40 different guns going from it ranging from assault rifles, light machine guns, sniper rifles, shotguns, and rocket launchers. All of these can and will be used to put the hurt on your opponents. Those aren’t the only weapons. You also have access to a Riot Shield that you can use to fend off enemy bullets and grenades, a throwing knife, claymore mines, grenades... Yeah, there’s a lot here. If you keep sticking with a particular type of weapon and earning kills, you’ll gain access to certain attachments. Silencers, scopes, but there are also a few new features. You can use a heartbeat sensor to have a mini-HUD that can tell you when an enemy’s closing in on you, or you could go thermal and find the enemies on the maps yourself. There’s also the option of dual-wielding, and I guarantee you that there will be tons of complaints when it comes to the ridiculous range that the 1887 shotguns have with this feature.
You also have the choice of equipping a selection of three perks of which there are sixteen to choose from, and each can be leveled up once. Want to have unlimited sprint, be invisible to all sensors, and be able to have increased melee range? You can. You also get the choice of having three Killstreaks to attach to your character. As you level up, you’ll be able to unlock more (although you’ll still only be able to equip three at a time). You have the choice of being a team player and dropping in Care and Killstreak packages via air support or you could just use the Killstreaks to continue the devastation on your opponents. Some will let you take control of the weapons in question like the AC-130 Gunship or a Predator Homing Missile. You have to be careful as to where you use these as you will be a sitting duck if the enemy spots you. The biggest Killstreak reward is an instant game ending Nuclear missile. ...Wow, that’s a bit over the top, isn’t it? The thing is you have to get 25 kills in a row to have access to it, and if you can’t reach that mark, then that would be a waste of a Killstreak slot. Oh well.
As for the modes, there’s 17 to choose from across the game’s 16 maps. Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, and Domination to name a few are available for you to compete in online, although most will be locked until you level up a bit. Thankfully, it doesn’t take long to level up as the game has so many different ways of gaining experience. Killing enemies, going for the objectives, heck there are even some just for running around a certain distance. You will find yourself leveling up quite easily even if you’re not the best at the game thanks to Deathstreaks. If you keep finding yourself on the wrong end of a duel, you’ll be able to earn timed bonuses such as increased health or being able to steal your opponent’s weapon set. Moreover, if you can get a kill on an enemy while you’re in this rut, you’ll gain some extra experience. It literally feels like Infinity Ward is giving points away in multiplayer like they’re candy. I’m sure this will tick off some players, but you’re still going to be rewarded more for performing well than you would otherwise, so calm down, guys.
At first, I didn’t know how I was going to score this. The game still feels more or less like it did two years ago which is both good and bad at the same time. The campaign focuses more on crazy shock moments than it does memorable missions or level design, but Spec Ops is there to try and fill that void. Multiplayer’s fun for the most part, even if it’s a little unbalanced at times. Still, Modern Warfare 2 is a solid sequel and one that I had a lot of fun with even in a market that’s oversaturated with shooters as it is. The thing is that it’s not at the same level that Call of Duty 2 and 4 were when they released back in the day. If you can get past this and realize that not every title has to move the genre forward and be a Game of the Year candidate, then you’re probably going to enjoy this game as much as I did.
[Overall: 8.5/10]
Answer the Call
This Call of Duty kick isn’t over yet. While Wii owners were recently treated to a decent port of Call of Duty 4, PS3 and 360 gamers were finally getting their hands on the long-awaited sequel. As my bro already said in his review, the first Modern Warfare was a huge hit. The game constantly kept its foot down on the gas as you were thrown into a variety of memorable and fun situations. Two years have passed, and here we are again. Infinity Ward has recently released Modern Warfare 2 to the HD consoles. Does it go above and beyond the ca... No. Let's skip the bad puns and get straight into the review. You've waited long enough.
Modern Warfare 2 is set five years after the events of Call of Duty 4. In that time, the Ultranationalist party has managed to win the Civil War in Russia and take control of the country, returning the nation back to a Cold War-esque attitude. It just so happens that one member of said party had been ousted by his own group and begins to plot a form of revenge that will pit Russia and the United States against each other, reigniting the flames of war. Why? Uh... I guess the dude just wants to be a stereotypical psychopath. Yeah, sure. Why not? Okay, so the plot isn’t anything to write home about, but I’m pretty sure that’s not why most people go to see an action movie or play a shooter in this case anyway.
Once again, you’ll be switching off between multiple characters in this game as it takes you through the game’s eighteen chapters. One mission will have you fighting as an Army Ranger, and the next, you’ll be a member of a multinational secret society task force. ...I’m not joking. The game tends to switch off between these two stories to keep things fresh. As a result, you’ll be seeing a variety of locales and be placed into many different situations throughout the game.
For instance, one mission will have you assaulting a Middle Eastern town that has been overrun by terrorists. You’ll fight them on foot out in the open, hop into a tank within some of the closed streets, then take the fight to them throughout a series of buildings when everything goes to you-know-what. Right after that, the game sends you into a mountain base in Russia where you’re asked to perform a hit-and-run stealth mission. Towards the end of it, you’ll hop onto a bike which surprisingly controls well as you try to flee from the forces that want to see you dead. That’s the variety that has made this series popular, and you can tell that Infinity Ward really tried to keep things from getting too stale, and they succeed in that regard.
You’re not alone save for a few rare instances in these missions, either. Thankfully, the AI continues to actually have that “intelligence” part to it as they’ll manage to take down a few enemies that you can’t be bothered with. On harder difficulties, this is a blessing as you’ll be too busy trying to take out that one enemy that has his sights set on you to realize that there’s another couple waiting right around him. Granted, you’ll still be doing most of the grunt work, but any help in a genre where you’re usually stuck with braindead buffoons (Hi, Gears. How you doing? I still have that restraining order, by the way.) is all right by me.
To make things easier, Infinity Ward has also put a finite number of enemies into particular situations. No longer must you keep advancing to prevent a new wave of nameless enemies from taking the places of the ones you just took out. Nope. Now you can just sit back and clear out your foes before moving on. While I do consider this a positive, it also presents an interesting note about the game’s difficulty. I found Veteran mode in this game to be ridiculously easier than either of the two Call of Duty games I’ve played prior to this. Literally, the game only took around ten hours to get through on its hardest setting. I had multiple missions in Call of Duty 2 and 4 that took two hours apiece to clear. There wasn’t any of that here. In fact, I can only recall three scenarios that gave me any sort of trouble in this game, all of which I’d put well below the difficulty of the aforementioned games.
This also creates the issue of the game not having as many memorable gameplay sequences to go through. The game’s insistence of relying on shock twists like the infamous airport scene or self-imposed “epic” moments that it tries to create get old by the time you’re around the halfway point. I get it. You want to be a blockbuster movie-game. Just remember that you’re still a game. I want to play more of these kinds of “epic” moments and not watch them. The game gives you a few to work with, but I can’t say that any of these are on the level as Charlie Don’t Surf (the tv station shootout), One Shot, One Kill, No Fighting in the War Room, or Mile High Club. That comes off as a bit of a letdown if you ask me.
It’s not like that’s the only mode this game has to offer, though. Let’s hit up the new addition of Spec Ops first. In this mode, you can go it alone offline or bring a friend with you either via splitscreen or online through an assortment of 23 missions. Some of these scenarios have been directly lifted from the campaign, others have you fending off a number of enemy waves, and a few will have you emptying clip after clip as you desperately try to take down some unrelenting foes. Most missions will have a set of weapons for you to choose from in the beginning, and then you can go through and pick up whatever weapons you can find on the ground, from your fallen enemies, or just lying around as you progress. It’s definitely fun, and it was my favorite part of the game. I actually wound up spending twice as much time on this than I did the campaign... mainly because it provides that challenge that I was looking for.
Multiplayer’s the third and final mode that this game brings, and it’s going to be the one that people probably put the most time into. There are tons of options, both in gameplay and your own arsenal. First, the weapons. The game has over 40 different guns going from it ranging from assault rifles, light machine guns, sniper rifles, shotguns, and rocket launchers. All of these can and will be used to put the hurt on your opponents. Those aren’t the only weapons. You also have access to a Riot Shield that you can use to fend off enemy bullets and grenades, a throwing knife, claymore mines, grenades... Yeah, there’s a lot here. If you keep sticking with a particular type of weapon and earning kills, you’ll gain access to certain attachments. Silencers, scopes, but there are also a few new features. You can use a heartbeat sensor to have a mini-HUD that can tell you when an enemy’s closing in on you, or you could go thermal and find the enemies on the maps yourself. There’s also the option of dual-wielding, and I guarantee you that there will be tons of complaints when it comes to the ridiculous range that the 1887 shotguns have with this feature.
You also have the choice of equipping a selection of three perks of which there are sixteen to choose from, and each can be leveled up once. Want to have unlimited sprint, be invisible to all sensors, and be able to have increased melee range? You can. You also get the choice of having three Killstreaks to attach to your character. As you level up, you’ll be able to unlock more (although you’ll still only be able to equip three at a time). You have the choice of being a team player and dropping in Care and Killstreak packages via air support or you could just use the Killstreaks to continue the devastation on your opponents. Some will let you take control of the weapons in question like the AC-130 Gunship or a Predator Homing Missile. You have to be careful as to where you use these as you will be a sitting duck if the enemy spots you. The biggest Killstreak reward is an instant game ending Nuclear missile. ...Wow, that’s a bit over the top, isn’t it? The thing is you have to get 25 kills in a row to have access to it, and if you can’t reach that mark, then that would be a waste of a Killstreak slot. Oh well.
As for the modes, there’s 17 to choose from across the game’s 16 maps. Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, and Domination to name a few are available for you to compete in online, although most will be locked until you level up a bit. Thankfully, it doesn’t take long to level up as the game has so many different ways of gaining experience. Killing enemies, going for the objectives, heck there are even some just for running around a certain distance. You will find yourself leveling up quite easily even if you’re not the best at the game thanks to Deathstreaks. If you keep finding yourself on the wrong end of a duel, you’ll be able to earn timed bonuses such as increased health or being able to steal your opponent’s weapon set. Moreover, if you can get a kill on an enemy while you’re in this rut, you’ll gain some extra experience. It literally feels like Infinity Ward is giving points away in multiplayer like they’re candy. I’m sure this will tick off some players, but you’re still going to be rewarded more for performing well than you would otherwise, so calm down, guys.
At first, I didn’t know how I was going to score this. The game still feels more or less like it did two years ago which is both good and bad at the same time. The campaign focuses more on crazy shock moments than it does memorable missions or level design, but Spec Ops is there to try and fill that void. Multiplayer’s fun for the most part, even if it’s a little unbalanced at times. Still, Modern Warfare 2 is a solid sequel and one that I had a lot of fun with even in a market that’s oversaturated with shooters as it is. The thing is that it’s not at the same level that Call of Duty 2 and 4 were when they released back in the day. If you can get past this and realize that not every title has to move the genre forward and be a Game of the Year candidate, then you’re probably going to enjoy this game as much as I did.
[Overall: 8.5/10]
SuperPhillip's Favorite VGMs - Deck the Halls With VGMs Edition
Here we are at the start of an all-new work week. Let's kick it off in style with some VGMs. This week we start our countdown to Christmas and 500 VGM vids! This week we have LittleBigPlanet, Professor Layton, Pikmin, Pokemon, and Animal Crossing.
v451. LittleBigPlanet - Dancing Drums
Let's countdown to 500 videos in style! It's a psychedelic Arabian song from LittleBigPlanet. The PSP version, a completely new game with the same name, has recently been released, so I felt it was a perfect time to bring out another LBP track. Are you thinking about picking the PSP game up?
v452. Animal Crossing: City Folk - 3 PM
City Folk may not have set the world on fire with change, but it did offer some new concepts to the franchise: a brand new city, online play with voice chat, and a host of new, free DLC. The photos taken here are from my town, Central. The road system had just been established at the time. I dread returning to the town to see all those weeds!
v453. Pokemon Rumble - Fiery Furnace Battle
Pokemon Rumble is an action-RPG dungeon crawler where you command one Pokemon through dungeons infested with other Pokemon. There's only six levels, but the Pokemon available in each dungeon change as you progress through the ranks. This is the battle theme of the Fiery Furnace level. It's without a doubt my favorite theme of this game.
v454. Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box - The History of the Village
Whether you know it as Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box or Professor Layton and Pandora's Box, the Professor Layton series is known for its devilish brain busters and charming set of characters. This game is no exception. The following song is a favorite of mine from the series. I love the imitation of the two notes near the middle of the first and second playthroughs.
v455. Pikmin - The Forest of Hope
Pikmin was a near-launch title for the Gamecube and later became one of the premier launch titles for the New Play Control! Wii line of remade Gamecube games with Wii controls. The song I've selected for this series comes from the eponymous Forest of Hope. It's a very quiet, serene piece of music with twinkles here and there. It's a perfect tune to relax to.
Stay tuned for next week as I have a flurry of Christmas-sounding songs to share... and Kuja's Theme. Go figure.
v451. LittleBigPlanet - Dancing Drums
Let's countdown to 500 videos in style! It's a psychedelic Arabian song from LittleBigPlanet. The PSP version, a completely new game with the same name, has recently been released, so I felt it was a perfect time to bring out another LBP track. Are you thinking about picking the PSP game up?
v452. Animal Crossing: City Folk - 3 PM
City Folk may not have set the world on fire with change, but it did offer some new concepts to the franchise: a brand new city, online play with voice chat, and a host of new, free DLC. The photos taken here are from my town, Central. The road system had just been established at the time. I dread returning to the town to see all those weeds!
v453. Pokemon Rumble - Fiery Furnace Battle
Pokemon Rumble is an action-RPG dungeon crawler where you command one Pokemon through dungeons infested with other Pokemon. There's only six levels, but the Pokemon available in each dungeon change as you progress through the ranks. This is the battle theme of the Fiery Furnace level. It's without a doubt my favorite theme of this game.
v454. Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box - The History of the Village
Whether you know it as Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box or Professor Layton and Pandora's Box, the Professor Layton series is known for its devilish brain busters and charming set of characters. This game is no exception. The following song is a favorite of mine from the series. I love the imitation of the two notes near the middle of the first and second playthroughs.
v455. Pikmin - The Forest of Hope
Pikmin was a near-launch title for the Gamecube and later became one of the premier launch titles for the New Play Control! Wii line of remade Gamecube games with Wii controls. The song I've selected for this series comes from the eponymous Forest of Hope. It's a very quiet, serene piece of music with twinkles here and there. It's a perfect tune to relax to.
Stay tuned for next week as I have a flurry of Christmas-sounding songs to share... and Kuja's Theme. Go figure.