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Handhelds: What Nintendo Did Right that Sony Didn’t

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 04/11/2020

Posted in: Blogs. Tagged: handhelds, Nintendo, Sony. Leave a comment

Everyone knows what the GameBoy is. I had one as a kid, while late in its life cycle, I received one for my 7th birthday in 1996. I was introduced to Tetris and Galaga and was hooked. I sadly couldn’t play it much because my parents couldn’t afford the batteries for it often and rechargeable AA batteries were very expensive back then. It was one of the first generations of handhelds along with the Atari Lynx and Sega Game Gear. I never owned those two systems, but it was the start of something I will always love and cherish: Handhelds.

In 2003 I remember Sony announcing the PSP at a press event and went insane for it. I actually pre-ordered the system and put all of my allowance down on it for 6 months, I even did some extra stuff for my parents for more cash so I could pick up Ridge Racer with it. I owned a DS at the time, but I wasn’t too impressed with it. The PSP looked futuristic and there is still yet to be a handheld that looks as sleek as it. It had powerful hardware, a sleek screen, and multimedia features that no other handheld had at the time. This was also the pre-smartphone era so it was out of this world at the time. I loved my PSP and still play it to this day. I owned nearly every model available and modded the crap out of it. When the Vita was announced in 2011 I nearly lost it then too, but that’s when Sony started to lose me and I still feel disappointed with the Vita to this day.

They got the hardware down pat outside of the useless touch features, dual analog sticks, more power, I couldn’t be happier, but something else happened. The marketing was poorly done and the Vita only saw a great run for maybe three years. Around 2015 the system started dying and lost all first party support. The system turned into an “indie machine” and outside of larger Japanese releases and ports the system stopped seeing most regular releases in 2017. What happened? The first two years were strong and steady and it just died. Was it the ever growing market of smartphones? I personally don’t think that is what caused the demise of the Vita. The 3DS was still running strong at the time with huge blockbuster releases and strong sales. What I think happened was the loss of first party support.

We saw a couple of first party titles on the system like Uncharted, Killzone, and LittleBigPlanet, and Tearaway, but where was the rest? Where were the unique IPs that kept Sony systems rolling? I feel if they had kept going the Vita would still be strong to this day. While the slow death of the 3DS is clearly obvious and has anything but an official discontinuation announcement from Nintendo, the Switch is our last bastion of handheld greatness. The Switch Lite is exactly what this world needed. Sure, the regular Switch is portable, but it’s heavy, sometimes too big, and just doesn’t feel like the best portable system.

Now hear me out, let’s think about what a handheld system consisted of. A small unit packed with the best features of consoles. Great controls, some multimedia features, internet access, and best of all, fantastic games that made that system unique and stand out. The Switch has all of this. The Switch has some of the best video games ever created both first party and third. Think about that. The Switch could literally be the best handheld system ever created and it’s because Nintendo wasn’t afraid to do what Sony kept boasting about.

Sony touted the PSP and Vita as portable consoles, but never actually treated them as such. Constantly pushing and implying that portable games should be in bite sized chunks, much shorter simpler games when most gamers would spend hours on their systems. Not everyone only has 30 minutes on a bus or short car ride, some of us just like sitting on the couch or laying in our bed comfortable, away from the TV and family, playing our handhelds for hours. I did this with my GameBoy Advance SP, PSP, Vita, and so on. Some of my fondest gaming memories are on handhelds. So why was Sony so afraid to commit outside of paper?

Nintendo went all out and gave us both. A console and a handheld, and at the time of release it seemed like a silly concept. If I wanted a console I’d buy one and If I wanted a handheld I’d buy that, but why not have a choice? More people who own Switch’s now play more in handheld format than TV mode. It’s simple, convenient, and you can pull the system out whenever you have some spare time. Nintendo also treats all games like console games, we have a sleep mode on these systems for a reason. Even the PSP 15 years ago had a sleep mode so the bite sized gaming never made sense to me. I feel this was Sony’s biggest mistake going in. If you have this powerful new hardware with features no other handheld had at the time, like a sleep mode, insist that games are made like consoles. We got some games that seemed similar to a console version, but that didn’t exactly exist on PSP. Most of those games were all bite sized smaller versions of their console counterparts. It changed a little on the Vita thanks to indie developers, but it never fully took off. I feel Sony focused too much on hardware (did we really need a 3G Vita?) and not enough on the longevity of the system.

The Switch Lite feels like a true handheld system that isn’t ashamed of being a console. It’s truly the next generation of handheld gaming, and it hasn’t been crushed by the smartphone industry. So that theory is clearly not the reason the 3DS and Vita are dead. We can get handheld experiences on our cell phones in bite sized chunks, we now truly want our home consoles on the go more than ever. The Switch Lite isn’t as clunky as the original model, but feels bigger than a handheld and isn’t ashamed of it. The system feels light, sleek, has fantastic buttons, and feels like a true next generation handheld. We get full blown console experiences on this thing. While it’s taken a step back on online features such as no media streaming or internet browsing, we get a total focus on games. Another thing Nintendo did right was not using proprietary expansion cards like Sony did. This was a huge blow to Sony especially on the Vita. Many people refused to buy their systems because of this reason and it didn’t stave off pirating at all.

To conclude, the Switch is the true next generation of portable gaming, not the Vita. Sony bragged about having a portable console but never once treated it as such. Nintendo took a huge risk and received an insane amount of criticism when they announced the Switch like they do with every system they put out. In the end, it’s paid off and has proven that handheld systems are not dead and the smartphone industry hasn’t killed it. It’s the strongest it’s been since the heydays of the original DS selling out everywhere and nearly every gamer these days owning one. It’s surpassed the lifetime sales of the Xbox One even showing this is clearly what people want. So, if Sony does decide to jump back in the market they need to make a console hybrid and I feel they could knock it out of the park and even do a better job than Nintendo. Their systems are insanely unique and feature rich, but they need to back the system like a console and go all in.

Nintendo Switch Lite

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 04/10/2020

Posted in: Editor's Choice, Hardware, Nintendo Consoles, Switch. Tagged: console, lite, Nintendo, Switch. Leave a comment

Release Date: 09/20/2019

MSRP: $199.99

Colors: Gray/Yellow/Turquoise

A Switch console that can’t be switched. Preposterous right? Well, not exactly. When the controversy stirred up about the Lite not being able to be docked came about I wasn’t on board with that. The Switch is a portable system as well and that’s its main appeal. Nintendo’s data also shows that a good majority of Switch owners use it exclusively in handheld mode. The Switch itself isn’t the best handheld device. It’s very large, a little heavier than a large iPad and the Joy-Cons aren’t that great (sorry they aren’t). When I can I always use the Switch in tabletop mode with a Pro Controller, or I just keep it docked. When I saw that there was a slightly more powerful smaller version I was excited actually.

When holding the Switch you notice everything right away. The console is about a third of the weight of the original console thanks to the attached Joy-Cons. Yes, people complained about the Joy-Cons not being detachable, but at that point just buy the regular Switch, yeah? The buttons actually feel better than the Joy-Cons themselves. We get an actual D-pad and not chiclet buttons, tighter joysticks, and better feeling shoulder buttons. The screen is slightly smaller, but in the format, you won’t notice. It just looks slick and likes it was always meant to be played this way.

Outside of the slick form factor (it’s just a joy to hold and use), the system boasts better battery life than the original Switch, but an hour or two less than the revised model. The original Switch’s battery life was pretty bad with most games only lasting 3-4 hours. The system still has 5Ghz internet speed, an SD card slot, and a game card slot. This isn’t a digital-only Switch which they could have easily done and didn’t. Outside of all of this, physically the system is rock solid and is only missing the ability to dock. If you can only afford, or only wish to have one Switch, think about how much you will use the system in handheld mode. If the answer is most of the time I would pick this guy up instead honestly. The system isn’t more powerful than the original model but has a more efficient processor allowing for better battery life. My only main complaint is the system doesn’t have HD rumble, so you would need to connect Joy-Cons or a Pro Controller to have that feature. It really sucks, and I miss it, but with all the other pros it outweighs this major con.

I do have to mention that the system only comes with 32GB of onboard memory which is a shame, but large micro SD cards are under $30 these days so it’s not an issue. The $100 price tag difference is great, so with a 128GB SD card, the system still costs less than the original model. I don’t have much else to say about the system except that the new colors and overall sleekness of the system just look better than the original. That flat black tablet against brighter colors didn’t look too hot, but this new portable system with a universal color scheme just looks sharp. I haven’t seen a better-looking handheld since the PSP was released 14 years ago. While the 2DS XL looks super sharp as well, this is clearly Nintendo’s replacement for the 3DS, they just haven’t officially announced it yet.

If you do own two Switch systems I highly recommend having a Nintendo Online account as cloud saves can be transferred between the two systems easily so you don’t have to manually transfer the saves every time. As far as I know, the only game as of this writing that can’t do that is Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Sadly, the game data can’t be transferred so you’re stuck downloading all the software again. Overall, the system has a slightly smaller screen, but it doesn’t feel smaller due to the overall lighter form factor, and the speakers are surprisingly really good as well.

Bayonetta 2

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 04/06/2020

Posted in: Nintendo Consoles, Switch, Wii U. Tagged: action, bayonetta 2, exclusive, Nintendo, platinum games, Switch. Leave a comment

Publisher: Nintendo

Developer: Platinum Games, Inc.

Release Date: 02/16/2018

Also Available On

It was strange that Nintendo would pick up an M-rated property, especially one that is as sexualized and gory as Bayonetta. The original game put Platinum Games on the map as a great hack and slash developer. The game was bombastic, fun, hard, fast-paced, and very memorable. The flashy combat and memorable personality and style of Bayonetta herself made her one of the most popular and well-known characters of the last generation.

Bayonetta 2 tries to capitalize on that, but on Nintendo’s home consoles. Thankfully, none of the sex appeal or gore has been toned down which is a huge shock and was what most people were expecting — more of a teen-rated experience or heavily censored. What we get is the same sexiness, blood, and guts from the original. Now, I was never a huge fan of Bayonetta’s story is a bit convoluted. I didn’t quite understand the story until towards the end, but Bayonetta is an Umbran Witch who is the Left Eye of God and the Right Eyes (Lunar Witches) are part of some sort of prophecy. The Aesir God is trying to destroy humans (it’s heavily Norse-based) and Bayonetta is trying to stop said God from doing so. There are a couple of new characters thrown in, but I didn’t care much for the story. It’s a confusing mess honestly.

What is great though is the combat and there’s plenty of it. Light and heavy attacks combined together with a ranged attack make for some of the best combat this side of Devil May Cry. Bayonetta is so agile and looks so good bouncing around on the screen and the controls are incredibly responsive. The key to the battles is the Witch Time dodge mechanic that’s used right before enemies strike. It’s so satisfying to get into a rhythm of slowing downtime for a couple of seconds and attacking. Each enemy has its own attack pattern and you quickly learn when to dodge and slow downtime to build up your Witch Time which is then triggered to unleash heavy attacks. This tight combat system isn’t very deep, but hard to master especially with new moves to purchase. I found myself noticing that you must master this dodge technique or you won’t get very far. It’s the only way to really dodge attacks., but because you have to heavily rely on it that forces you to master it which can make it a core part of the combat system.

The combat goes a little further with Torture Attacks that are optional instead of unleashing your Umbran Attack. These are small quick-time events and awesomely brutal death scenes for the demons and angels. Bosses have their own unique Torture Attack that triggers at the end of battles. Speaking of bosses, I have to say I think there are too many here. Almost every level is either a boss only or consists of multiple bosses from main to mini-bosses. I also think for the short length of the game there are too many enemies here. A new enemy is introduced at nearly every level and they don’t really mix them up much. With so many new enemies you just start to learn their attack patterns and you may never see them again outside of the mini-bosses.

Outside of combat, Bayonetta doesn’t do much. The levels are highly linear with only one way to really go. You can explore a couple of side paths for hidden items that unlock costumes, weapons, and more. There are Muspelheim missions which are challenges spread throughout the game that grant Moon Pearls (Witch Time upgrades) and hearts (life upgrades). There are Remembrance challenges that require you to gather pieces of a chest before time runs out, and these are nice little distractions. There are a couple of levels that have you power a mech and fly a plane, but they are short and not sprinkled in enough. The game doesn’t feel as varied as the first one and I quickly found myself just mowing down boss after boss waiting for something new to happen.

I loved unlocking Nintendo-themed costumes, mixing up my weapons to create a unique playstyle, and watching Bayonetta never gets dull, but it just didn’t feel as memorable as the first game, something felt off. It somehow felt too repetitive towards the end and I became exhausted with the onslaught of bosses, with some repeating multiple times throughout the game. There are co-op Witch Trials which are nice and all, but the core game just doesn’t feel as memorable despite how great it is.

The game looks amazing though and is still one of the best-looking Switch games to date. The framerate is up there at 60 or close to it with no slowdowns. Textures and models look fantastic and the art style is just beautiful and really makes Bayonetta stand out on its own artistically. I did feel some environments kind of blurred together, but overall it’s a treat to look at. Bayonetta 2 remains one of the best games on Switch, and hack and slash games of this caliber are far and few between.

Pokemon Sword/Shield

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 03/31/2020

Posted in: Nintendo Consoles, Switch. Tagged: exclusive, game freak, jrpg, Nintendo, pokemon, shield, Switch, sword. Leave a comment

Publisher: Nintendo

Developer: Game Freak

Release Date: 11/15/2019

Available Exclusively On

I just want to start with a simple fact, I’m not the biggest Pokemon fan. I grew up with Pokemon in the late 90’s-early 2000s and stopped caring around Gen 3 when I was about 12-13 years old. I followed Pokemon afterward, but the card collecting and anime watching had pretty much stopped. My wife, on the other hand, continues to be a huge Pokemon fan to this day. This is actually the first Pokemon game I have ever finished including getting the legendary Pokemon. It was a chore I will admit. It was enjoyable sometimes and other times I put the game away for a couple of months. It was kind of exciting, then sometimes just plain boring. So, this review isn’t coming from a raging fanboy or a complete hater, so hopefully, this review will help people on the fence.

I’ve played nearly every other game in the series, but not for long. I love the idea of running around a world catching monsters, the problem is the series falls under 30-year-old JRPG tropes that still haven’t really gone away. My biggest hate with JRPGs, in general, is random battles. I feel they are time fillers, something to pad an extra 50 hours onto a 30-hour adventure. I want to explore more and these random battles prevent that when they’re happening every 5-10 seconds. It makes me want to give up, and I usually won’t play JRPGs with random battles. Sword/Shield has gotten rid of that with Pokemon that can be seen in the grass and random encounters that show up like exclamation marks and something following you in the grass. Yes, Pokemon is still confined to water and grass. That solves that major issue which made exploring more enjoyable.

When you explore the Routes, Wild Areas, and Towns, there are random items scattered throughout such as berries, candies, DMs (moves), and various items. You can ride a bike to get around faster and you can also fast travel to discovered areas which is a Godsend. This makes trying to go to certain regions that much faster and simpler to get. Wild Areas consist of level ranges and now that a weather system is in place you get certain Pokemon in certain weather systems for each area. Now, I had to run the system clock around to get to the month when I started wanting specific Pokemon. It’s actually quite fun to go around widdling down health and catching these guys and building up your Pokedex, that’s the entire point of the game.

Now the game had a lot of controversy by not having the full Pokedex of every game prior plus the new ones. It just has a grab bag of some from each generation. For someone like me, it doesn’t matter outside of the first three generations of Pokemon. I also found that older Pokemon were messed with and their looks and types were changed like Rapidash, Mr. Mime, and Ponyta. I’m not really a fan of all this switching around, but it’s not hard to get used to.

Battles are one of the main components of the game and they look nice. I’ll give the game that, seeing these guys in crisp 3D models is great, but the Pokemon battle system is something I’ve grown tired of. I’m sick of all the long animations to get into the battle and all the dialogue boxes that pop up. I know most JRPGs are like this but this is a 30-year-old trope that needs to change already. Some battles feel like they take longer only because of how little input I’m actually giving. When you introduce something like Dyna and Gigamax Pokemon that can grow to the size of buildings and do massive damage, I start to feel this is just filler and nothing that adds anything. These are literally just giant Pokemon that have powerful moves. It never turned the tide of a battle because either I knocked a Dyna-mon out in one hit or I could change too.

The strategy behind Pokemon battling is weaknesses. It’s grown more complicated over the years with additions like fighting, fairy, ghost, steel, etc. I had to sometimes look up weaknesses online to make sure I didn’t waste a move on some boss battles. These were the most challenging in the game but I never died once in my entire playthrough. Sure there were some cheap shots, but I always managed to pull through with most of my Pokemon knocking out opponents in one hit. I could chew through an entire gym leader’s stack with just one Pokemon. The balancing is really off compared to other JRPGs with it being overly easy or unfair. I wound up sometimes with Pokemon that my enemy was not weak against. You always want super-effective moves, and thankfully once you’ve battled that Pokemon once you can see which moves will work against it and which won’t which is super handy.

The visuals are another disappointing feature. They don’t really wow me in any way. They look like HD 3DS graphics and have the same bland anime RPG style that most other games have. It looks decent enough, but I just wanted this game to be the big game-changer that it wasn’t. The Dynamaxing, Wild Areas, and overall small additions didn’t add anything new but gave us the same experience in a slightly tweaked way. At least the menus are more simplified, but things like a cooking mini-game and being able to play with the Pokemon by petting them just doesn’t add to the experience. I felt bored most of the time because of how little player input there is, and I haven’t even gotten to the story.

Pokemon has never had an interesting story, Sword and Shield are no exception. It’s just something to make an excuse for dialog, which by the way, is another 30-year-old JRPG trope, you can’t skip the cut scenes. The first 2 hours of the game drag because it treats you like you’re stupid. With so many tutorials and drawn-out animations, cut-scenes, and dialogue, each Pokemon game is a chore just to start. It should ask you if you have played a Pokemon game before and just want to learn the new features, but they always have to integrate it into a story with dialogue and cut scenes. I honestly can’t really explain the story that much because I didn’t care. You’re trying to become the Pokemon Champion and some bad people get in the way to steal the legendaries away like every other game. Characters have no substance or appeal and there’s no reason to care for them.

Overall, Pokemon is a game that you either love or hate, and somehow I got lucky enough to be stuck in the middle. It suffers from issues in the series that have never been addressed such as the lack of player input, boring battles, story, and characters. I want to care about the world I’m in not just my favorite Pokemon, it has to be more than that for the investment. I want to see a visual change, stop making battles more complicated and make them more interesting, can we go after something besides badges? It’s a fine game and is done very well, but from a jaded Pokemon veteran, the series has just stretched itself too thin.

Astral Chain

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/16/2019

Posted in: Nintendo Consoles, Switch. Tagged: action, astral chain, exclusive, Nintendo, platinum games, Switch. Leave a comment

Publisher: Nintendo

Developer: Platinum Games

Release Date: 08/30/2019

Available Exclusively On

Platinum Games makes phenomenal action games with a nearly perfect track record. From Bayonetta to Vanquish and beyond, they have proven that 2D action games can be translated to 3D and done well. With bombastic flashy, yet deep combat, gorgeous visuals, and crazy character designs, Platinum Games are at the top of the action game developers’ hall of fame.

Astral Chain, being their latest opus, puts you in the shoes of anime cop twins who have the ability to control Chimeras which are astral beings. You are on a quest to stop a mad scientist from unleashing all of these creatures from the astral world onto Earth after a science experience, in which the head scientist, is trying to perfect the capturing. Well, at least that’s what I think is going on. Platinum games are masters of combat, not storytelling or character development. The game goes on for so long with such little information in between that you sometimes forget what’s going on or what the end goal is.

The characters fall victim to this as well. Your character plus your twin are supposed to be front and center here, but the entire game falls under stereotypical anime tropes and is just downright boring and uninteresting. Each character gets little screen time or even time to grow as the writing and dialog are drab and snooze-worthy. At least the voice acting is halfway decent for a localized Japanese video game, but it’s nothing that you will remember. I just wish the story and characters were as good as the combat as this is Platinum’s deepest combat system yet.

You control yourself plus your Chimera at the same time. Holding down ZL allows you to move the Chimera around and holding down L allows you to take control of your Chimera. You can use it to solve puzzles in the astral planes, but it is vital to use in combat. The system seems a bit complicated at first, but you will slowly get a hold of it. When you flash white you can press ZL to do a combo move with your Chimera and these are key to mastering to win. You have a light and heavy baton plus a gun, which I found completely useless, as well as healing items and buffing items. You can switch between five different Chimera that you acquire throughout the game and these cover all bases of combat. Sword is a fast-paced light damage Chimera, Arrow is the only long-ranged one, Beast is a fast-paced zippy dog, Arm is a slow trodding heavy hitter, and Axe is the heaviest and slowest but provides a shield.

It’s important to use each Chimera based on your enemies, and you also have to level them up and assign bonuses and abilities. You can level up your weapon at the PD headquarters after every chapter, but you can’t buy new weapons and there is no armor in this game. Any clothing is cosmetic only sadly. There is one feature that allows you to “maintain” your Chimera but rub crystals off their body, but I saw no benefit to this, or I completely missed the point of it. Fighting through the main campaign isn’t the only thing you can do. There are side quests and missions in the large hub areas such as solving quizzes to various arena challenges and even some light investigative work. This requires you to talk to people and gather keywords to advance the quest. It’s fun and interesting at first, but these same half-dozen quests repeat through the whole game and grow tiring after a while. The only reward is XP or items really, nothing too special.

Then we come across the other issues with Astral Chain. The game bounces between fighting on Earth and the astral world which is nice, but they both get tedious after a while. The astral plains are just fighting challenges and puzzles that require shooting down things with arrows, slicing doors, pushing blocks around, etc. They break up the monotony but later become part of it. The most interesting parts of the game are so far and few between such as the high-speed bike ride through the tunnel, the scripted events, and the massive boss fights. Most chapters are just investing and then an astral plain area to acquire the next Chimera.

My next complaint isn’t just the drab story and characters, but the visuals are very bland and anime-inspired to a fault. There’s no unique look or visual style like Bayonetta, there’s nothing memorable here. All the astral levels look identical, and the same few hubs repeat in every chapter. Everything looks either too realistic for this type of game or just looks too much like a cookie-cutter anime. Even the enemy designs are boring outside of some of the bosses, everything in Astral Chain just kind of blurs together after a while.

With that said, the combat is fantastic, and it’s enough to play through the 20-hour campaign. Ignore the boring and unfocused plot and characters, and the generic visuals, and just concentrate on some good ‘ol bombastic combat that we really don’t get anymore. The game looks good technically for the Switch with nice lighting effects and good-looking models and textures, but I wanted more scripted events and cutting down on the fat with bloated side quests.

2019 Game of the Year Awards — Console Awards — Switch

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/16/2019

Posted in: 2019, Game of the Year Awards. Tagged: 2019, astral chain, awards, fire emblem, game of the year, goty, link's awakening, luigi's mansion 3, Nintendo, pokemon, shield, Switch, sword, the legend of zelda, three houses. Leave a comment

The Switch had a rocky first couple of years, but 2019 has seen the Switch coming out swinging as Nintendo’s best console since the Wii. The first party games trickle in nicely, but we are getting many ports and some great exclusives from third-party developers that most Nintendo fans would only dream of having. There were actually a couple of games that didn’t make the list as there were just that many awesome games on the system this year.

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

Link’s Awakening isn’t just a remake, but a re-imagining of the soul of one of the most beloved games of all time. That’s a lot of pressure and not easy to do, but Nintendo just seems to have a magic wand they can wave and can do no evil. The game is beautiful, the puzzles are engaging, and the magic is still there even after all these years.

Runner-Ups

Pokemon Sword/Shield

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Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Luigi’s Mansion 3

Astral Chain

Punch-Out!! – 10 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 08/16/2019

Posted in: Nintendo Consoles, Wii. Tagged: boxing, exclusive, fighter, fighting, mike tyson, next level games, Nintendo, punch-out!!, wii. Leave a comment

Publisher: Nintendo

Developer: Next Level Games

Release Date: 05/18/2009

Available Exclusively On

Punch-Out!! is a Nintendo staple as it was one of the first established exclusives of the NES. Playing as Little Mac, you run through a gauntlet of characatures with varying difficulty to put your reflexes to the test. Punch-Out!! is a remake of that game and utilizes the Wii motion controls.

Let’s get down to the dirty business of this game. In essence, this is an arcade game you must perfect to the T without missing a beat. Your reflexes are required to be lightning-fast to get very far in this game. Each character has a unique set of 5 moves that require memorization and pattern recognition or you will simply never get past the Title Bout of the Minor Circuit which is when the game gets really hard. The first three characters aren’t very difficult and are just warm-ups for what’s to come. You can duck, dodge left or right, and block, but blocking is rarely used as most attacks can’t be blocked. You can then jab and hook left or right. The controls are the same as the NES version, and this makes the game overly simple for some or just enough for others. Newcomers may find this game too shallow while veterans will feel right at home.

That’s where the motion controls come in. For a game that requires response time in the milliseconds’ motion controls just don’t cut it. I got through the first two circuits with them, but after so long I had to switch to the buttons on the Wii remote as I need to be that much quicker. Using the nunchuck and remote you can jab left or right and then dodge with the C-stick. I found this to be more complicated than it needed to me and punching with the motion controls just doesn’t feel like punching but more mindless shaking. The Wii remote on its side is the best way to go here or even the classic controller.

That’s the essence of Punch-Out!!. Soda Popinski took me 90 minutes to beat and maybe two dozen restarts as you have to learn his patterns and when to dodge his moves. He also drinks soda to refill his health and you only get a split second to knock it out of his hand. There are also taunts that some characters do that can earn you stars for Star punches that do extra damage, but these are rare and hard to get. Outside of the main career mode, there is Exhibition and a two-player mode so it’s definitely light on modes and things to do. This game is not for casual players despite seeming like it is. This is for hardcore arcade goers or veterans of the original. I thought I was going to blow through this game in a couple of hours, but I spent that one a few characters alone.

It does get incredibly frustrating needing to have such perfect timing and reflexes and almost seems unnecessary. Sadly, there are no difficult changes, but there are a few hidden secrets that can give you an edge. When the ref is counting down you can rapidly tap 1 and 2 to regain health. At the end of each round, you can press – and hear a chime and you will refill your health. This only works twice though. This leads to my biggest complaint of the game: You never do more than a smidge of damage to each character and there’s no way to level up and get more powerful. I had to widdle away at the health when a character could knock me out in two hits. I found this heavily unbalanced and unfair. Shouldn’t Little Mac get stronger as he fights and shouldn’t there be a training mode with mini-games to level up? It just makes sense. This game is too similar to the NES version and carries over all of its flaws.

As it stands, Punch-Out!! is a really fun game of reflexes and timing with interesting and funny characters, but it lacks modes, a way to get stronger, and restarting matches two to three dozen times just isn’t fun after a while. The motion controls also just don’t work for this kind of game that requires precise movements and response times. I also wish there were some original characters and maybe not rely on this being a remake of a 25-year-old game. At the end of the day, this would have been a good rental, but for $50 there’s just not enough meat here to justify that cost.

Excite Truck – 13 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 08/15/2019

Posted in: Nintendo Consoles, Wii. Tagged: excite truck, exclusive, monster games, Nintendo, racer, racing, wii. Leave a comment

Publisher: Nintendo

Developer: Monster Games, Inc.

Release Date: 11/19/2006

Available Exclusively On

Most people think of Excite Bike on the NES when they were the word Excite with Nintendo, but a truck series? It intrigued people and had the potential to be as addictive as Excite Bike all those years ago. Being a launch title on the Wii, just like Excite Bike was for NES, it had a lot of hardcore Nintendo fans excited. Insane speeds, jumps, stunts, smashing? Was this Excite Bike evolved for the next generation?

The short answer is no, and the long answer is God, no, but it does have some good merits. While not really resembling anything Excite Bike-related, not even a track editor, it has its name and name only. Excite Truck pits generic monster trucks against each other and equally generic tracks turboing and drifting around corners to rack up as many stars as you can. This includes jumping through rings, morphing terrain, and getting invincibility power-ups. Sounds exciting, and it is quite thrilling, but it’s all flash and no substance.

The entire game is controlled with just the Wii remote on its side and you steer by turning the remote. The controls right off the bat are way too sensitive and this is especially noticeable once you are going at mach speeds and on cars that don’t have a high grip rating. I crashed into trees and went off course numerous times, but thankfully if you mash the 2 buttons fast enough you can hop back on track with a boost. Another underlying issue is the track design isn’t built for these insane speeds. It’s like they finished building the tracks and then decided to make the cars faster. A lot of times I would be a top speed-boosting through jumps only to jump farther than the turn or overshoot things. When you’re going this fast you shouldn’t have to hold back on the boost, it defeats the purpose. I’m not going to strategically manage my boost as most arcade games don’t do this. It feels like they were trying to make the player compensate for their mistake by letting you go too fast.

The speed and squirreling of the cars lead to missed pick-up items such as the terrain morphs (they add a jump in front of your or lower you down to the water to cool your boost meter) or the invincibility pick up are too small to hit when going at insane speeds. It just feels so unbalanced and not playtested enough. I constantly missed these things unless I slowed down to a crawl, and thankfully the AI is brain dead and incredibly easy as even in my worst races I still made first. There’s just too much to do in this game on the track at these speeds. I don’t want to do 360s in the air, I don’t want to morph the terrain. I want well-built, memorable tracks with insane jumps and better physics.

This leads me to more problems. The lack of content and just the overall meh feeling of everything. The tracks are some of the most generic I have ever seen. Just random turns and jumps with dirt and trees splattered around. I can’t tell one track from the next, and the visuals are so bad (even for Wii standards) that you won’t care. Awful aliasing and flat textures are just everywhere. Outside of the 25 races in the main event, there are challenges that have you racing through gates or flying through rings. Not very exciting honestly. After the first cup was finished I saw all there was that this game offered and it wasn’t much. This is one of the most generic and plain racers on the Wii and it shouldn’t carry the Excite name at all.

Overall, Excite Truck is a game with an awesome sense of speed, and after about 10 races it all wears off. Horrible track design, generic presentation, lack of content, and just too much speed for tracks not designed for it. I never felt completely in control of a race or my car no matter how good I was at it. A track editor would have been nice to make better ones than the developers provided, and there’s no online play. At best, it’s a filler launch title that I would have been mad to pay $50 for. It’s just like eating a small bag of potato chips. It’s fun during the 10 minutes it takes to eat them then you toss the bag and forget all about it.

Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles – 12 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 08/15/2019

Posted in: Nintendo Consoles, PlayStation 3, Sony Consoles, Wii. Tagged: capcom, cavia, exclusive, first person shooter, fps, light gun, Nintendo, rail shooter, resident evil, shooter, the umbrella chronicles, wii. Leave a comment

Publisher: Capcom

Developer: Cavia, Inc.

Release Date: 11/13/2007

Also Available On

Resident Evil is less known for its light-gun arcade games as these are held in public places that are niche hang-out spots. The Wii with its remote and Zapper attachment is just begging to be used as a light-gun and many of these games followed and Capcom jumped on the bandwagon. Umbrella Chronicles is one of the more solid light-gun games on Wii, but it must be played co-op or you’re not going to have a good time.

The game has four chapters with each one following bits and pieces from Resident Evil 0, 1, and 3: Nemesis respectively with the final chapter being an exclusively unique section just for this game. Each chapter has three or four sub-chapters and a few side chapters that are shorter and feature an alternate perspective featuring Ada Wong, Albert Wesker, and one Umbrella operative Hunk. Story-wise, don’t expect to get a comprehensive telling of the Resident Evil series as pre-rendered cut-scenes are chopped up and it’s not very cohesive or easy to understand. This is more for people who played the older games before.

Outside of that the shooting itself is rather solid. There are over a dozen weapons in the game with your side pistol having unlimited ammo and various other guns like sub-machine, shotgun, rocket launchers, and hand-cannons making up the majority of the arsenal, but the ammo for these guns is extremely limited, and that’s the first downfall of this game. Why make an action game from survival horror and keep the ammo count low? The pistol does very little damage and just forget about beating a boss with it. Ammo is incredibly scarce and requires you to have a partner as some scenarios and waves just can’t be defeated with only the pistol. Hordes of enemies sometimes over a dozen will spawn in front of you and popping them with 8-10 shots each with a pistol is just not feasible. With a second player, it’s possible, but solo is not. After chapter 3 I had to resort to a partner because it just gets too hard and too demanding for one player.

There are a good variety of enemies in the game with some not appearing until the final chapter, and the bosses are all unique and incredibly challenging and require great reflexes and aim, and actual skill. Bosses are recycled from previous games, but fighting them in a 3D environment is pretty awesome. Some bosses have multiple stages, but these repeat in a cycle and can even include quick time events that require button presses or a quick waggle. Quick-time events are peppered throughout the game, and thankfully not abused, but they don’t appear on-screen long enough and the waggle ones won’t trigger unless you start waggling the second it appears on the screen. This can lead to frustrating deaths.

Speaking of deaths, if you find a health spray this acts as an extra life and can resurrect you on the spot, but without one, you start at the last checkpoint. There are herbs lying around for health, ammo, grenades, and barrels just begging to be blown up to take out large groups. This is one of the most difficult light-gun games I have ever played, and sadly it’s impossible to finish solo without having unlocked the infinite ammo. The first two chapters have a nice difficulty scale and it just ramps up way too hard on chapters 3 and 4. There’s also an issue with the game feeling too repetitive and not having enough variety like vehicle scenes similar to other light-gun games. It relies too much on just shooting the same enemies ad nauseum.

Let’s talk about production values. Capcom is never one to skimp on a Resident Evil game, usually, and while Umbrella Chronicles looks fine it shows it doesn’t push the Wii in the right direction. It looks like a GameCube game at best with muddy low-resolution textures, but somehow there’s still a slowdown when too much is going on. It really could have looked better, even on the Wii as there are better-looking games on the system, but what’s here is fine. The menus are pretty ugly with not much going on and everything looks so blurry and low-res. I need to redact my GameCube comparison from earlier, it’s more like a Dreamcast port, to be honest.

Overall, Umbrella Chronicles is a decent light-gun game that requires a second player or you won’t get very far. The boss fights are bombastic and fun and each is unique, but the same enemies repeat over and over and the scenarios don’t change. You’re just running down hallways or open areas blasting enemies. The game goes on way longer than it needs to with each chapter taking about 30-45 minutes to complete if you include the bonus missions. There is a lack of variety when it comes to other stuff to do to make this game just more exciting to play. The extras aren’t worth unlocking as they require S ranks in each chapter, most of the time, and after finishing this game once there’s no real reason to go back.

Super Mario Odyssey

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 07/16/2019

Posted in: Editor's Choice, Nintendo Consoles, Switch. Tagged: Nintendo, odyssey, platformer, super mario, Switch. Leave a comment

Publisher: Nintendo

Developer: Nintendo

Release Date: 10/27/2017

Available Exclusively On

Nintendo always has a knack for making one huge innovation to their franchises per console cycle and the Switch is no exception. Odyssey is a well-crafted game taking many years of experience and gameplay honing and creating one of the best video game experiences in the last decade. Odyssey is massive with dozens of hours of content and a variety of things to do.

Like all Mario games, there’s not much of a story, just your typical Bowser kidnapping Princess Peach story again with no cut scenes or anything else, but that’s fine as Mario is all about the gameplay. The main gameplay hook in this Mario game is his hat. He can throw it to take control of enemies, for combat, and to get out-of-reach items. The hat works so naturally and feels great to use that I never had any issues. Once you arrive in the Cap Kingdom you will be leaping and bounding similarly to Super Mario Galaxy in the way Mario moves and jumps. Taking control of certain enemies gives you special combat abilities or allows you to access certain areas Mario can’t. It’s so much fun and I always looked forward to the next thing I could control.

Another element is the new 2D levels. These are hidden throughout the game and give you moons that are needed to power up your Odyssey ship to get to Bowser. There are 880 moons in the world. I know it’s a monster of a task, but it’s so much fun. Your first playthrough allows you to get the first batch, then after you beat the game, there are meteor rocks that you can smash in each world and they send the rest of the moons flying. Anyways, these 2D levels are just like the 8-bit games with Mario wrapped around the 3D world jumping and hopping along.

Mario can also swim, fly (with controller enemies), and pretty much do anything you can imagine as the game is so varied and there’s so much to see and do. Not one world is alike and each one has new things to do and discover. Mario can also change his hats and outfits this time around by buying them with coins or using special world-specific coins. Some outfits are needed to access bonus areas. These bonus areas are actually the most fun and challenging, but well worth it for the moons.

Super-Mario-Odyssey-Fireball-Screen-SOURCE-Nintendo

There are boss fights with Bowsers minions the Boonals which are evil bunnies. The boss fights are really easy and so is Bowser at the end of the game. It’s clear that the game doesn’t rely on bosses for challenges as some bonus areas had me stuck for over an hour restarting until I got all the jumps right. Thankfully most of the game is a perfect challenge and some of the challenges are just figuring out how to get to the next moon or bonus area. Some are in plain sight while others require you to think a little bit and do certain things. There are music note challenges as well as scarecrow timer challenges. All of these things combined make for an exciting game that is incredibly hard to put down.

I really can’t find anything negative to say except that all you do is collect moons and there’s no other end goal. There are at least fast travel points in each world so even that isn’t a problem. The visuals are fantastic and the entire games just feel alive with character and personality. It’s hard to hate a game made this well, 30 years of perfection really shows with zero control issues, framerate problems, or anything else. No matter how you slice it this is essentially a perfect game. The amount of variety just boggles my mind and I don’t know how the developers managed to make every bonus area, challenge, and world completely unique, especially to house 880 moons.

Overall, Super Mario Odyssey is a must-own for Switch fans and a good reason to buy one. There is no other platform that offers this kind of gaming perfection other than Nintendo. They are masters of video games and it shows in every one of their unique main title games.