I’m a big fan of brutal die-athon style platformers like Celeste, Super Meat Boy, N++, Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze, the Ori games, Bit.Trip Runner, Super Ghouls and Ghosts, you name it…but Super Mario Wonder is so imaginative and bursting with joy that I genuinely feel sad for anyone passing on it because it lacks the challenge of those titles. Pretty sure this is as close as you’re ever gonna get to being a kid again and playing Super Mario World for the first time and I think you gotta be half crazy to deny yourself that 😛
6/10? You’re outta your godforsaken mind 😛 This game is freaking amazing! It just might do Contra better than Contra. Whatever the case, it’s a top-tier run n’ gun action game that shouldn’t be missed by anyone who’s a fan of old school 2D gameplay. 2-player co-op would’ve been nice though.
@RubyCarbuncle From what I recall, IGN was one of the better gaming sites back when I started going there…in the N64 days…in 1998 😛 I don’t read it anymore, but I did drop in on it a long while back looking for some Wii coverage and I didn’t find it much to my liking then. I spent a lot of time in the forums there for a few years from 2001-2005ish, but I can’t speak to what’s it’s like these days. That said, what I’m seeing here in this comments section doesn’t seem at all different from the kinds of posts I recall seeing there (and posting myself occasionally if I’m being honest 😂) 15-20 years ago 😛
😂 I’m happy to see that online video game discussions haven’t gotten any less ridiculous since my days of staying up all hours of the night arguing with other nerds on the IGN forums in the early aughts! The sheer number of opinions about what this game is or isn’t coming from people who haven’t played a single second of it is really something to behold! Not sure where this idea that the game needs to be revolutionary to justify its existence comes from, but holy hell is there a lot of people around here who subscribe to it 😂 Seems beyond absurd to me, but maybe I’m just getting old 🤷🏼♂️
This is one of my favorite games ever, but it’s hard to justify paying $30 for a game I’ve already played to death...especially when you consider that it has no new content and only cost $20 14 years ago 😕
This game is charming as hell and surprisingly fun considering how simple the gameplay is but...
I can’t believe how many hours the developers expect you to play in order to unlock all the levels. The bulk of the levels (24 to be exact) are unlocked fairly easily after completing the entirely too short story mode, but the remaining 10 levels...be ready to play the same levels over and over and over again (we’re talking 30-40 hours at the rate I’ve been earning “beat points”) in order to unlock every last one.
And since I’m pissing and moaning about a game I actually like and have enjoyed anyway, let me also add that the online play has a number of issues that need ironing out...like levels that seem to end before they’re actually over or somehow ending up with an S Rank (which you get for passing a level without getting hit) even though I got hit at least half a dozen times.
Ha! That figures. Kinda pissed about this considering it should've been released ages ago. What a joke. Am I really supposed to believe Retro City Rampage is actually still coming? Might as well throw that on the "canceled" pile too.
"But no matter what, La-Mulana will be released on WiiWare," a blog entry said at the time. "We don't want any speculation suggesting otherwise." Just found this on another site. Makes the cancellation even more irritating.
I've been waiting for La Mulana and Retro City Rampage for ages...what the hell happened to these games? Are they still slated for release or did they get canceled and I just failed to notice?
I want Adventure Island II for the NES badly as well. I've been enjoying Super Adventure Island and New Adventure Island a lot lately, but Adventure Island II is the only one I really played as kid.
I should've gotten this before New Adventure Island. Compared to that game this ond is a bit of a let down. Master Higgins is too damn slow and there's no run button. In New Adventure Island, Master Higgins is quick and agile. Here he's a sluggish buffoon.
NAI almost plays like Bit.Trip Runner where you blaze through the levels full spead ahead. Sometimes you have to stop, but much of the game can be played by sprinting straight ahead and following the fruit as it pops up in front of you. That whole concept is lost here because the fruit is ever-present on the screen. It doesn't appear and then disappear like in NAI. It still provides with you a cue as to where to jump etc., but there's no kind of quick thinking or reacting involved, and something is lost because of that, I think.
Moreover, you can't even play it in the same manner because you only get nine lives to beat the game. Bah! It's still fun, but New Adventure Island it ain't.
I should've gotten this before New Adventure Island. Compared to that game this ond is a bit of a let down. Master Higgins is too damn slow and there's no run button. In New Adventure Island, Master Higgins is quick and agile. Here he's a sluggish buffoon.
NAI almost plays like Bit.Trip Runner where you blaze through the levels full spead ahead. Sometimes you have to stop, but much of the game can be played by sprinting straight ahead and following the fruit as it pops up in front of you. That whole concept is lost here because the fruit is ever-present on the screen. It doesn't appear and then disappear like in NAI. It still provides with you a cue as to where to jump etc., but there's no kind of quick thinking or reacting involved, and something is lost because of that, I think.
Moreover, you can't even play it in the same manner because you only get nine lives to beat the game. Bah! It's still fun, but New Adventure Island it ain't.
I downloaded both Super Turrican and Mega Turrican quite some time ago and I would say I prefer the Genesis iteration...but they're both really fun. Finally downloading this one. I don't expect to be disappointed.
I agree with ChristinaAguilera. I'm loving the demo. I'm really surprised by the how much charm and style it has. I'm not too wild about the fact that there's no map, but I still think I'm going to buy it.
I think it's bogus to say the game doesn't control well. It's just a slower paced platforming game as far as I can tell. It's like Super Ghouls and Ghosts style platforming, minus the double jump (at least at this point). Even the difficult seems similar to SG&G.
And comparing the game to Paris Hilton because it's all looks and no substance seems way off-base to me at this early stage of the demo too.
Finished the demo. Bought it. Good thing they put out a demo. I'm pretty sure I had put off getting the game after reading this review and then never got around to reading any other reviews.
****! I'm so irate! ****! Guess I won't be playing this then. They couldn't have released it in some form or another on WiiWare? After all that time they just throw it in the trash and give us nothing? What a bunch of heads.
I gotta admit, I've never been that big a fan of Donkey Kong Country games, I enjoyed the first one back in the day, but when I revisited it many years later it had lost most of its luster. But I've really be thirstening for a challenging 2D platformer since both La Mulana and Super Meat Boy got delayed, so I decided to give this game a try. And holy hell if it's awesome! Best Donkey Kong Country game by far, I think.
Son of a...this stings even more given the recent developments with Super Meat Boy. The number of WiiWare games I was looking forward to quickly went from two to zero. Oh well.
Well, that blows. Hard. I couldn't be anymore amped up for this game and now it turns out it's coming later than expected and likely watered down at that. What a kick in the nuts!
This has the potential to be my favorite game of all time, I kid you not. The amount of classic gaming nostalgia that seems to be available here has me smiling for ear to ear. I'm a sucker for most classic, 2D gameplay but tough-as-nails platformers are far and away my favorite games to play. This **** is gonna be awesome!
And Nintendo's propensity for cashing in on lazy rehashes of classic titles hits a new low, which is really saying something considering their history for such crap. I guess one could argue that charging $20 for a GBA version of just one of these games was a bigger travesty but I think the fact that they selling us the same old games yet again makes this new collection the bigger kick below the belt.
I'm as big a fan of 2D Mario platformers as the next guy, but in my book, anyone that buys this is a consumption-addicted chump. Aside from the soundtrack and the art book there's nothing here that 99% of Nintendo fans haven't already paid for at least once. And how many of us have paid for these games multiple times? The number of people who are drooling over this thing are evidence of the fact that Nintendo continues to excel at getting people to pay for the same content again and again. Oh but hey, this time it comes with an art book and soundtrack!
Seriously people, they've taken what should be an $8 VC release, thrown in an art book and soundtrack that probably cost 4 cents per disc to produce, put a special wrapper on it and are charging $30 a pop for it. It's insulting, really.
Didn't Billy beat the record awhile ago and then quit even though he still had a couple guys left and a number of levels to go before the game crashes?
I wonder if Steve Wiebe is divorced yet. In the movie, his wife didn't really seem all that thrilled with his constant chasing of the record and he's still at it a few years later. She can't be happy.
I agree about the online leaderboard comments from an earlier post. It really oughta be there. But I feel bad complaining about a $6 Art Style game. They're the best damn bargain on WiiWare and the game's are good at worst and brilliant at best. I'm glad a number of these bit Generation games have reached a new audience via WiiWare. They're phenomenal and deserve to be played by a wider audience. I need to download this one soon as I'm sure I'll love it. Gotta finish .BitTrip Runner first.
Dotstream had a different mechanic where you began each race with a certain number of boosts(three I believe) which you could use after the first lap was complete...I think. The boosts doubled as your lives (i.e. the number of times you could hit an obstacle) and you could gain more by directing your light beam into a pit stop area at the very end of each lap. Each second in the pit stop area gave you an additional boost/life. I almost always skipped it.
And like someone else said, you gained speed by positioning your line next to a another line.
I imported Dotstream some time back and absolutely loved it, so it doesn't surprise me that this has scored well. With it's minimalist style, it always felt like a kind of F-Zero for the Atari 2600 to me. Sure, multiplayer would've been nice, but just like F-Zero, the main attraction is the brutally challenging, twitch-racing of the Grand Prix mode. If light trax is anything like dotstream, the harder tours require near memorization of the tracks if you want to make it to the end, again...just like F-Zero.
I'm not sure I would call dotstream "just as much a puzzle game as a racing game" so it'll be interesting to see if I come away from light trax with that impression. I'm doubting it.
This game is amazingly fun but it's certainly not perfect. The game's design is tailor made for online leaderboard competition and yet...nothing. 9/10? Sure. 10/10? Absolutely not.
Also, what's with British people and the word "whilst?" It sounds so damn ridiculous and stitled.
I"m a sucker for anything 2D so the initial preview of this piqued my curiousity some...but I wasn't sure it was something I would be downloading. I'm completely sold now. This looks really good. And pretty unique at that. Definitely buying it. The original is 15-20 hours long?!? Nice.
"Hopefully they heard all that negative feedback from Cave Story's release. I mean, paying 20 bucks to buy it when it was 12 was lame,"
Okay, I'll admit it's lame that you can't buy the exact the amount of points you need to buy something but to say you're paying $20 to buy a game that cost $12 is a little disingenuous. After you buy Cave Story you still have 800 points left with which to buy another game. Basically you're being forced to buy two games when all you really wanted was...which still sucks.
Sadly, there's no debug mode in the US version of Contra Rebirth and I doubt it's there for Castlevania either. Why the hell is not included in the US version...or do I have to access it some other way?
No save or password feature is just lame. I still downloaded it, and I like it quite a bit, but it pisses me off that I have to leave my Wii on and I can't play anything else unless I want to start the game over. Getting to Stage 5 on Normal with 3 lives is no walk in the park. Starting over would require hours of replay just to get back to where I am. Seriously, I enjoy old school gaming as much as the next guy but not including a save or password features is inexcusable in 2010.
What I want to know is how hard this game is compared to Super Castlevania IV? I ask because I downloaded SCIV some time ago and I still haven't beaten it and almost certainly never would if not for the suspend feature of the VC titles. I've spent probably 7-8 hours to get as far as I have and there's no way I'd ever have reached this far if I wasn't able to stop playing and rejoin my game in progress at a later date.
I just played Eduardo for a couple hours with a friend and we finished half the game. I was a little underwhelmed by the videos I'd seen so I cranked it up to Crazy-hard right out of the gate. Pretty lame that on the easier difficulties you don't die from a single hit. Anyway, we both thought it was pretty fun. The difficulty is kinda sketchy though. We spent a good hour trying to beat the fourth level, only to blow through the 5th and 6th level on our first try. What the?
If you're into run and gun games, stuff like Contra and the like, and have a friend to play with, definitely pick it up. Just make sure you crank the difficulty up to hard at the very least. I like that you can grab any enemy and any projectile and use it as a weapon. And the spear-chucking carrots are just hilarious. The lack of proper boss battles is kind of disappointing but what are you gonna do? The art style is definitely cool and I thought the music was quite rocking.
Umm, guys...this is a run n' gun shooter. Local co-op does not mean split screen, it just means you've got to play on the same system. This game will definitely not feature split screen gameplay. All players will share the same screen.
What this game needs is something akin to the practice mode in Gradius V in which each stage is broken up into a smaller number of sections for practicing purposes. Once you reach the beginning of a particular section in the standard mode, that section is unlocked in practice mode. That way you can practice something that's at the end of a stage without playing through the entire stage in order to reach it.
As it stands I find myself making very slow progress with the end of Descent and it's annoying that I have to play through a majority of the song over and over again in order to practice the part I'm having trouble with.
Other than that, and the occasional blending of the orange paddle with the orange blackground, this game is fantastic. I didn't expect to like it at all, but I'll be damned if it isn't exceptional.
[i]fixjuxa seems to have quited while he was ahead. Glad everyone's enjoying this. General opinion seems to be 6-8/10 making it a good buy for 1,000 Points.[/i]
Well, I hadn't planned to comment further but since I've been called out for "quitting" I guess I will.
Sure it's possible that, as Corbie said, a fan might overrate the game, but I still think it's better to error on the side of a game being overrated by a fan of the series than being underrated by somebody who never really cared for the series in the first place. Plus I think that often times fans of a particular series are the hardest to please because they have a certain expectation of quality given that they enjoyed the previous games. In the end I still think it would be better if WiiWare World didn't let a person review a game when they already have a negative predisposition towards it. At least give the game to someone who expects to like it for what is, or at least what it's expected to be, which in this case is another 2D Gradius shooter.
We can't always pick and choose that carefully, not to mention that we have no way of knowing every reviewer's exact likes and dislikes when it comes to video games.
There's no way to know? How about asking "Hey, what are your thoughts on Gradius games? Oh, you never really liked them much? Okay, we'll get somebody else to do the review then." Seems easy enough to me.
And I'll state again, I really have no problem with the score or what the reviewer said in the review. I only have a problem with the idea that people that don't like a particular franchise are being assigned to review games from that franchise. The whole idea just seems backwards to me.
I don't care about the score it received. I'm just making the argument that it's a bad idea to assign somebody to review a game from a series they don't care for because the only people this caters to is people that probably won't like the game anyway. That's it. Can anybody explain to me why it would be preferrable(or at the very least tell me the upside)to have a person who isn't a fan of a series reviewing a game from that series? It just seems illogical to me.
This is why you dont give a game hype because it will end up crapy
Yeah, but the guy who wrote the review doesn't even like Gradius. Have you played Gradius? If you have, and you enjoyed it, you'll like this because it's more of the same with some new stuff sprinkled in here and there.
I simply don't understand the logic behind assigning the review to someone who's predisposed to not liking the game . Why would you not cater to the people who are actually interested in buying the game(i.e. fans of the series) and get someone who likes the series to review it?
The reviewer has admitted that his favorite game in the series is the one that strays farthest from the classic games that hooked most fans. Why in the world would you assign this person to review a game that's basically an homage to the earlier 8/16 bit classics? It just doesn't make any sense. Of course, I understand that people are going to review games they'd rather not play, like all the shovelware that's constantly popping up. But don't ask a guy to review a game from a series he doesn't like because it's just dumb and serves the interest of no one, because what's the point in saying "I've never really like this series so this game doesn't really do much for me. 6/10". What would be better would be a review that says "I've always like the Gradius series and this is a good/bad Gradius game".
I reviewed it because it was my turn to review and this was the game that was released.
It was originally supposed to be Bit.Trip.Beat but it was pushed back so I didn't get to do it. It had been awhile since I reviewed a game as we were trying to let the new reviewers get their feet wet. Whatever they assign me, I review.
Is this really how you guy's operate at WiiWare World? I gotta say, that's a bit disconcerting. Games should be assigned based on preference and taste, not on some schedule. It really doesn't make any sense to have someone that doesn't like Gradius reviewing a new Gradius game. A review done by a fan of the previous games would have been much more helpful, don't you think?
If I were reviewing this game I'd give it a 9/10. 2D games that used the IR pointer in unique ways is the first thing I started thinking about when WiiWare was announced. There's so many possibilities I find it mind-boggling we haven't seen more quality games that use the IR pointer to great effect. Lost Winds is the only other game that comes to mind.
Anyway, I love this game. It doesn't play like anything else out there and I think the reason for that is the controls. This game would be no fun on an XBox 360. Controlling your 2D ship with an IR pointer is a distinctly different experience(and in the case of Evasive Space, more fun) than playing it with a d-pad or analog stick. Instead of holding a controller in both hands and twiddling an analog stick under your left thumb, you're more likely to sit in a chair with your elbows tucked to your side, or braced on your lap, while you grip the wii remote with two hands so you can aim more steady and make faster, more crisp movements with your wrist. This is all the difference in the world. It's make the game feel different than most other games and because it works it makes the game more enjoyable.
So there it is, my review. 9/10. And to the folks at High Voltage:
More please.
Also, just in case somebody from High Voltage IS reading this: Was this game at all inspired by the minigame on Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz where you race the monkeys through 2D, top-down mazes? Because that minigame controls just like Evasive Space's maze levels.
I love all the people coming down on this game because it's not some other release they were waiting for. Had you actually taken the time to download it you would likely find that it's a pretty fun and unique little title.
It certainly doesn't play like anything I've played before and the controls, while they take a little getting used to, work perfectly and really give the game a unique feel. It wouldn't be nearly as fun if you played it with a d-pad or analog stick. It's really quite surprisingly how proficient you get with the seemingly hard to handle controls. With a little bit of practice you'll be zigging and zagging through mazes, and dodging asteroids like a champ.
I like that there's different levels with different physics as well. The open arena style levels have physics that remind me of those moon lander games because you keep a lot of your momentum after you let off the accelerator.
Like most WiiWare games though the game makes me think "Geez, there's so much more they could do with this concept". But what do you expect when you're only paying $10? For my money the game is easily worth that. If you're into classic 2D gaming you should pick this up. There's a good chance you'll like it.
Comments 51
Re: Review: Super Mario Bros. Wonder - The Best 2D Mario Since The Super NES
I’m a big fan of brutal die-athon style platformers like Celeste, Super Meat Boy, N++, Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze, the Ori games, Bit.Trip Runner, Super Ghouls and Ghosts, you name it…but Super Mario Wonder is so imaginative and bursting with joy that I genuinely feel sad for anyone passing on it because it lacks the challenge of those titles. Pretty sure this is as close as you’re ever gonna get to being a kid again and playing Super Mario World for the first time and I think you gotta be half crazy to deny yourself that 😛
Re: Review: Valfaris - Heavy Metal Mayhem That's Rough Around The Edges
6/10? You’re outta your godforsaken mind 😛 This game is freaking amazing! It just might do Contra better than Contra. Whatever the case, it’s a top-tier run n’ gun action game that shouldn’t be missed by anyone who’s a fan of old school 2D gameplay. 2-player co-op would’ve been nice though.
Re: Hands On: Splatoon 3 Brings New Ideas, But Nothing Revolutionary
@RubyCarbuncle Sorry to hear that😕 And it certainly doesn’t surprise me. People are a-holes on the Internet.
Re: Hands On: Splatoon 3 Brings New Ideas, But Nothing Revolutionary
@RubyCarbuncle From what I recall, IGN was one of the better gaming sites back when I started going there…in the N64 days…in 1998 😛 I don’t read it anymore, but I did drop in on it a long while back looking for some Wii coverage and I didn’t find it much to my liking then. I spent a lot of time in the forums there for a few years from 2001-2005ish, but I can’t speak to what’s it’s like these days. That said, what I’m seeing here in this comments section doesn’t seem at all different from the kinds of posts I recall seeing there (and posting myself occasionally if I’m being honest 😂) 15-20 years ago 😛
Re: Hands On: Splatoon 3 Brings New Ideas, But Nothing Revolutionary
😂 I’m happy to see that online video game discussions haven’t gotten any less ridiculous since my days of staying up all hours of the night arguing with other nerds on the IGN forums in the early aughts! The sheer number of opinions about what this game is or isn’t coming from people who haven’t played a single second of it is really something to behold! Not sure where this idea that the game needs to be revolutionary to justify its existence comes from, but holy hell is there a lot of people around here who subscribe to it 😂 Seems beyond absurd to me, but maybe I’m just getting old 🤷🏼♂️
Re: Review: Katamari Damacy REROLL - A Timely Remaster Of A True Modern Classic
This is one of my favorite games ever, but it’s hard to justify paying $30 for a game I’ve already played to death...especially when you consider that it has no new content and only cost $20 14 years ago 😕
Re: Motion Twin's "Band-Aid" Patch For Dead Cells On Switch Adds 30fps Option
@rushiosan
The issue with daily challenges has been fixed with this most recent “band aid” patch.
Re: Motion Twin's "Band-Aid" Patch For Dead Cells On Switch Adds 30fps Option
@DoomTurtle
Dead Cells was playable (and excellent) from the very first day it was released on the eShop.
Re: Katamari Damacy Is Rolling Onto The Nintendo Switch This Winter
Back in the day I bought a PS2 just so I could play this 😀 Game’s classic!
Re: Review: Just Shapes & Beats (Switch eShop)
This game is charming as hell and surprisingly fun considering how simple the gameplay is but...
I can’t believe how many hours the developers expect you to play in order to unlock all the levels. The bulk of the levels (24 to be exact) are unlocked fairly easily after completing the entirely too short story mode, but the remaining 10 levels...be ready to play the same levels over and over and over again (we’re talking 30-40 hours at the rate I’ve been earning “beat points”) in order to unlock every last one.
And since I’m pissing and moaning about a game I actually like and have enjoyed anyway, let me also add that the online play has a number of issues that need ironing out...like levels that seem to end before they’re actually over or somehow ending up with an S Rank (which you get for passing a level without getting hit) even though I got hit at least half a dozen times.
Re: La-Mulana Canned for North America, Europe
Ha! That figures. Kinda pissed about this considering it should've been released ages ago. What a joke. Am I really supposed to believe Retro City Rampage is actually still coming? Might as well throw that on the "canceled" pile too.
"But no matter what, La-Mulana will be released on WiiWare," a blog entry said at the time. "We don't want any speculation suggesting otherwise." Just found this on another site. Makes the cancellation even more irritating.
Re: Nintendo Download: 5th April 2012 (North America)
I've been waiting for La Mulana and Retro City Rampage for ages...what the hell happened to these games? Are they still slated for release or did they get canceled and I just failed to notice?
Re: Review: MotoHeroz (WiiWare)
Yeah, I think you gotta be crazy to thnk BIT.TRIP RUNNER isn't a ten.
Re: Nigoro Wants Your Input on a La-Mulana Soundtrack Release
Yes. I care not for videogame soundtracks. The only time I want to hear them is when I'm playing the damn game. So cough it up already.
Re: Japanese Virtual Console List - August 2011
I want Adventure Island II for the NES badly as well. I've been enjoying Super Adventure Island and New Adventure Island a lot lately, but Adventure Island II is the only one I really played as kid.
Re: Review: Adventure Island II (Virtual Console / NES)
When is this coming to North America? I needs it!
Re: Super Adventure Island
I should've gotten this before New Adventure Island. Compared to that game this ond is a bit of a let down. Master Higgins is too damn slow and there's no run button. In New Adventure Island, Master Higgins is quick and agile. Here he's a sluggish buffoon.
NAI almost plays like Bit.Trip Runner where you blaze through the levels full spead ahead. Sometimes you have to stop, but much of the game can be played by sprinting straight ahead and following the fruit as it pops up in front of you. That whole concept is lost here because the fruit is ever-present on the screen. It doesn't appear and then disappear like in NAI. It still provides with you a cue as to where to jump etc., but there's no kind of quick thinking or reacting involved, and something is lost because of that, I think.
Moreover, you can't even play it in the same manner because you only get nine lives to beat the game. Bah! It's still fun, but New Adventure Island it ain't.
Re: Super Adventure Island
I should've gotten this before New Adventure Island. Compared to that game this ond is a bit of a let down. Master Higgins is too damn slow and there's no run button. In New Adventure Island, Master Higgins is quick and agile. Here he's a sluggish buffoon.
NAI almost plays like Bit.Trip Runner where you blaze through the levels full spead ahead. Sometimes you have to stop, but much of the game can be played by sprinting straight ahead and following the fruit as it pops up in front of you. That whole concept is lost here because the fruit is ever-present on the screen. It doesn't appear and then disappear like in NAI. It still provides with you a cue as to where to jump etc., but there's no kind of quick thinking or reacting involved, and something is lost because of that, I think.
Moreover, you can't even play it in the same manner because you only get nine lives to beat the game. Bah! It's still fun, but New Adventure Island it ain't.
Re: Review: Super Turrican 2 (Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)
I downloaded both Super Turrican and Mega Turrican quite some time ago and I would say I prefer the Genesis iteration...but they're both really fun. Finally downloading this one. I don't expect to be disappointed.
Re: Review: Robox (WiiWare)
I agree with ChristinaAguilera. I'm loving the demo. I'm really surprised by the how much charm and style it has. I'm not too wild about the fact that there's no map, but I still think I'm going to buy it.
I think it's bogus to say the game doesn't control well. It's just a slower paced platforming game as far as I can tell. It's like Super Ghouls and Ghosts style platforming, minus the double jump (at least at this point). Even the difficult seems similar to SG&G.
And comparing the game to Paris Hilton because it's all looks and no substance seems way off-base to me at this early stage of the demo too.
Finished the demo. Bought it. Good thing they put out a demo. I'm pretty sure I had put off getting the game after reading this review and then never got around to reading any other reviews.
Re: Brian Provinciano Addresses Retro City Rampage WiiWare Delay
After what happened to Super Meat Boy, I just hope this comes out for WiiWare.
Re: WiiWare Super Meat Boy Gets Canned
****! I'm so irate! ****! Guess I won't be playing this then. They couldn't have released it in some form or another on WiiWare? After all that time they just throw it in the trash and give us nothing? What a bunch of heads.
Re: Help WiiWare Demos Get a Time Extension and Win BIT.TRIP FATE
I tried to help out, but for the life of me I couldn't find the section of the shop where you can recommend titles...help?
Re: Frobot Funks Up WiiWare on December 20th
I'm surprised to see Corbie say this is insanely fun because the gameplay footage looks terribly boring. I guess I'll have to try the demo.
Re: Review: Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii)
I gotta admit, I've never been that big a fan of Donkey Kong Country games, I enjoyed the first one back in the day, but when I revisited it many years later it had lost most of its luster. But I've really be thirstening for a challenging 2D platformer since both La Mulana and Super Meat Boy got delayed, so I decided to give this game a try. And holy hell if it's awesome! Best Donkey Kong Country game by far, I think.
Re: La-Mulana Fails Nintendo Approval Process
Son of a...this stings even more given the recent developments with Super Meat Boy. The number of WiiWare games I was looking forward to quickly went from two to zero. Oh well.
Re: Super Meat Boy May Skip WiiWare and Head to Retail
I'd prefer to pay $20 for a retail game than less for a watered down downloadable version. Bring on the retail game, I say!
Re: Super Meat Boy Will Miss November Launch Window
Well, that blows. Hard. I couldn't be anymore amped up for this game and now it turns out it's coming later than expected and likely watered down at that. What a kick in the nuts!
Re: First Impressions: Super Meat Boy
This has the potential to be my favorite game of all time, I kid you not. The amount of classic gaming nostalgia that seems to be available here has me smiling for ear to ear. I'm a sucker for most classic, 2D gameplay but tough-as-nails platformers are far and away my favorite games to play. This **** is gonna be awesome!
Re: Super Mario Collection Special Pack Revealed
And Nintendo's propensity for cashing in on lazy rehashes of classic titles hits a new low, which is really saying something considering their history for such crap. I guess one could argue that charging $20 for a GBA version of just one of these games was a bigger travesty but I think the fact that they selling us the same old games yet again makes this new collection the bigger kick below the belt.
I'm as big a fan of 2D Mario platformers as the next guy, but in my book, anyone that buys this is a consumption-addicted chump. Aside from the soundtrack and the art book there's nothing here that 99% of Nintendo fans haven't already paid for at least once. And how many of us have paid for these games multiple times? The number of people who are drooling over this thing are evidence of the fact that Nintendo continues to excel at getting people to pay for the same content again and again. Oh but hey, this time it comes with an art book and soundtrack!
Seriously people, they've taken what should be an $8 VC release, thrown in an art book and soundtrack that probably cost 4 cents per disc to produce, put a special wrapper on it and are charging $30 a pop for it. It's insulting, really.
Re: Steve Wiebe Reclaims Donkey Kong World Record
Didn't Billy beat the record awhile ago and then quit even though he still had a couple guys left and a number of levels to go before the game crashes?
I wonder if Steve Wiebe is divorced yet. In the movie, his wife didn't really seem all that thrilled with his constant chasing of the record and he's still at it a few years later. She can't be happy.
Re: Review: Art Style: Penta Tentacles (WiiWare)
Sold! This looks awesome. Hopefully it comes out here soon.
Re: Review: Art Style: light trax (WiiWare)
I agree about the online leaderboard comments from an earlier post. It really oughta be there. But I feel bad complaining about a $6 Art Style game. They're the best damn bargain on WiiWare and the game's are good at worst and brilliant at best. I'm glad a number of these bit Generation games have reached a new audience via WiiWare. They're phenomenal and deserve to be played by a wider audience. I need to download this one soon as I'm sure I'll love it. Gotta finish .BitTrip Runner first.
Re: Review: Art Style: light trax (WiiWare)
Dotstream had a different mechanic where you began each race with a certain number of boosts(three I believe) which you could use after the first lap was complete...I think. The boosts doubled as your lives (i.e. the number of times you could hit an obstacle) and you could gain more by directing your light beam into a pit stop area at the very end of each lap. Each second in the pit stop area gave you an additional boost/life. I almost always skipped it.
And like someone else said, you gained speed by positioning your line next to a another line.
Re: Review: Art Style: light trax (WiiWare)
I imported Dotstream some time back and absolutely loved it, so it doesn't surprise me that this has scored well. With it's minimalist style, it always felt like a kind of F-Zero for the Atari 2600 to me. Sure, multiplayer would've been nice, but just like F-Zero, the main attraction is the brutally challenging, twitch-racing of the Grand Prix mode. If light trax is anything like dotstream, the harder tours require near memorization of the tracks if you want to make it to the end, again...just like F-Zero.
I'm not sure I would call dotstream "just as much a puzzle game as a racing game" so it'll be interesting to see if I come away from light trax with that impression. I'm doubting it.
Re: Review: BIT.TRIP RUNNER (WiiWare)
This game is amazingly fun but it's certainly not perfect. The game's design is tailor made for online leaderboard competition and yet...nothing. 9/10? Sure. 10/10? Absolutely not.
Also, what's with British people and the word "whilst?" It sounds so damn ridiculous and stitled.
Re: La-Mulana Test Play 4 Video
I"m a sucker for anything 2D so the initial preview of this piqued my curiousity some...but I wasn't sure it was something I would be downloading. I'm completely sold now. This looks really good. And pretty unique at that. Definitely buying it. The original is 15-20 hours long?!? Nice.
Re: Select Downloadable Games Available for Purchase on Nintendo's Web Site
"Hopefully they heard all that negative feedback from Cave Story's release. I mean, paying 20 bucks to buy it when it was 12 was lame,"
Okay, I'll admit it's lame that you can't buy the exact the amount of points you need to buy something but to say you're paying $20 to buy a game that cost $12 is a little disingenuous. After you buy Cave Story you still have 800 points left with which to buy another game. Basically you're being forced to buy two games when all you really wanted was...which still sucks.
Re: Review: Castlevania The Adventure ReBirth (WiiWare)
Sadly, there's no debug mode in the US version of Contra Rebirth and I doubt it's there for Castlevania either. Why the hell is not included in the US version...or do I have to access it some other way?
No save or password feature is just lame. I still downloaded it, and I like it quite a bit, but it pisses me off that I have to leave my Wii on and I can't play anything else unless I want to start the game over. Getting to Stage 5 on Normal with 3 lives is no walk in the park. Starting over would require hours of replay just to get back to where I am. Seriously, I enjoy old school gaming as much as the next guy but not including a save or password features is inexcusable in 2010.
Re: Review: Castlevania The Adventure ReBirth (WiiWare)
What I want to know is how hard this game is compared to Super Castlevania IV? I ask because I downloaded SCIV some time ago and I still haven't beaten it and almost certainly never would if not for the suspend feature of the VC titles. I've spent probably 7-8 hours to get as far as I have and there's no way I'd ever have reached this far if I wasn't able to stop playing and rejoin my game in progress at a later date.
Re: Nintendo Download: Toasters, Rainbows, Catching, Calculators, Clocks and Harriers (US)
I just played Eduardo for a couple hours with a friend and we finished half the game. I was a little underwhelmed by the videos I'd seen so I cranked it up to Crazy-hard right out of the gate. Pretty lame that on the easier difficulties you don't die from a single hit. Anyway, we both thought it was pretty fun. The difficulty is kinda sketchy though. We spent a good hour trying to beat the fourth level, only to blow through the 5th and 6th level on our first try. What the?
If you're into run and gun games, stuff like Contra and the like, and have a friend to play with, definitely pick it up. Just make sure you crank the difficulty up to hard at the very least. I like that you can grab any enemy and any projectile and use it as a weapon. And the spear-chucking carrots are just hilarious. The lack of proper boss battles is kind of disappointing but what are you gonna do? The art style is definitely cool and I thought the music was quite rocking.
Re: Eduardo the Samurai Toaster Release Date Trailer
Umm, guys...this is a run n' gun shooter. Local co-op does not mean split screen, it just means you've got to play on the same system. This game will definitely not feature split screen gameplay. All players will share the same screen.
Re: Review: Bit.Trip: Beat (WiiWare)
A suggestion for a future sequel:
What this game needs is something akin to the practice mode in Gradius V in which each stage is broken up into a smaller number of sections for practicing purposes. Once you reach the beginning of a particular section in the standard mode, that section is unlocked in practice mode. That way you can practice something that's at the end of a stage without playing through the entire stage in order to reach it.
As it stands I find myself making very slow progress with the end of Descent and it's annoying that I have to play through a majority of the song over and over again in order to practice the part I'm having trouble with.
Other than that, and the occasional blending of the orange paddle with the orange blackground, this game is fantastic. I didn't expect to like it at all, but I'll be damned if it isn't exceptional.
Re: ColorZ - New WiiWare Puzzler
Good luck playing this one by yourself. Anybody ever try controlling two characters at once while playing a shmup? It's damn near impossible.
Re: Review: Gradius ReBirth (WiiWare)
[i]fixjuxa seems to have quited while he was ahead.
Glad everyone's enjoying this. General opinion seems to be 6-8/10 making it a good buy for 1,000 Points.[/i]
Well, I hadn't planned to comment further but since I've been called out for "quitting" I guess I will.
Sure it's possible that, as Corbie said, a fan might overrate the game, but I still think it's better to error on the side of a game being overrated by a fan of the series than being underrated by somebody who never really cared for the series in the first place. Plus I think that often times fans of a particular series are the hardest to please because they have a certain expectation of quality given that they enjoyed the previous games. In the end I still think it would be better if WiiWare World didn't let a person review a game when they already have a negative predisposition towards it. At least give the game to someone who expects to like it for what is, or at least what it's expected to be, which in this case is another 2D Gradius shooter.
We can't always pick and choose that carefully, not to mention that we have no way of knowing every reviewer's exact likes and dislikes when it comes to video games.
There's no way to know? How about asking "Hey, what are your thoughts on Gradius games? Oh, you never really liked them much? Okay, we'll get somebody else to do the review then." Seems easy enough to me.
And I'll state again, I really have no problem with the score or what the reviewer said in the review. I only have a problem with the idea that people that don't like a particular franchise are being assigned to review games from that franchise. The whole idea just seems backwards to me.
Re: Review: Gradius ReBirth (WiiWare)
I don't care about the score it received. I'm just making the argument that it's a bad idea to assign somebody to review a game from a series they don't care for because the only people this caters to is people that probably won't like the game anyway. That's it. Can anybody explain to me why it would be preferrable(or at the very least tell me the upside)to have a person who isn't a fan of a series reviewing a game from that series? It just seems illogical to me.
Re: Review: Gradius ReBirth (WiiWare)
This is why you dont give a game hype because it will end up crapy
Yeah, but the guy who wrote the review doesn't even like Gradius. Have you played Gradius? If you have, and you enjoyed it, you'll like this because it's more of the same with some new stuff sprinkled in here and there.
I simply don't understand the logic behind assigning the review to someone who's predisposed to not liking the game . Why would you not cater to the people who are actually interested in buying the game(i.e. fans of the series) and get someone who likes the series to review it?
The reviewer has admitted that his favorite game in the series is the one that strays farthest from the classic games that hooked most fans. Why in the world would you assign this person to review a game that's basically an homage to the earlier 8/16 bit classics? It just doesn't make any sense. Of course, I understand that people are going to review games they'd rather not play, like all the shovelware that's constantly popping up. But don't ask a guy to review a game from a series he doesn't like because it's just dumb and serves the interest of no one, because what's the point in saying "I've never really like this series so this game doesn't really do much for me. 6/10". What would be better would be a review that says "I've always like the Gradius series and this is a good/bad Gradius game".
Re: Review: Gradius ReBirth (WiiWare)
I reviewed it because it was my turn to review and this was the game that was released.
It was originally supposed to be Bit.Trip.Beat but it was pushed back so I didn't get to do it. It had been awhile since I reviewed a game as we were trying to let the new reviewers get their feet wet. Whatever they assign me, I review.
Is this really how you guy's operate at WiiWare World? I gotta say, that's a bit disconcerting. Games should be assigned based on preference and taste, not on some schedule. It really doesn't make any sense to have someone that doesn't like Gradius reviewing a new Gradius game. A review done by a fan of the previous games would have been much more helpful, don't you think?
Re: USA WiiWare Update: Evasive Space
If I were reviewing this game I'd give it a 9/10. 2D games that used the IR pointer in unique ways is the first thing I started thinking about when WiiWare was announced. There's so many possibilities I find it mind-boggling we haven't seen more quality games that use the IR pointer to great effect. Lost Winds is the only other game that comes to mind.
Anyway, I love this game. It doesn't play like anything else out there and I think the reason for that is the controls. This game would be no fun on an XBox 360. Controlling your 2D ship with an IR pointer is a distinctly different experience(and in the case of Evasive Space, more fun) than playing it with a d-pad or analog stick. Instead of holding a controller in both hands and twiddling an analog stick under your left thumb, you're more likely to sit in a chair with your elbows tucked to your side, or braced on your lap, while you grip the wii remote with two hands so you can aim more steady and make faster, more crisp movements with your wrist. This is all the difference in the world. It's make the game feel different than most other games and because it works it makes the game more enjoyable.
So there it is, my review. 9/10. And to the folks at High Voltage:
More please.
Also, just in case somebody from High Voltage IS reading this: Was this game at all inspired by the minigame on Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz where you race the monkeys through 2D, top-down mazes? Because that minigame controls just like Evasive Space's maze levels.
Re: USA WiiWare Update: Evasive Space
I love all the people coming down on this game because it's not some other release they were waiting for. Had you actually taken the time to download it you would likely find that it's a pretty fun and unique little title.
It certainly doesn't play like anything I've played before and the controls, while they take a little getting used to, work perfectly and really give the game a unique feel. It wouldn't be nearly as fun if you played it with a d-pad or analog stick. It's really quite surprisingly how proficient you get with the seemingly hard to handle controls. With a little bit of practice you'll be zigging and zagging through mazes, and dodging asteroids like a champ.
I like that there's different levels with different physics as well. The open arena style levels have physics that remind me of those moon lander games because you keep a lot of your momentum after you let off the accelerator.
Like most WiiWare games though the game makes me think "Geez, there's so much more they could do with this concept". But what do you expect when you're only paying $10? For my money the game is easily worth that. If you're into classic 2D gaming you should pick this up. There's a good chance you'll like it.