Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move Review (3DS)
Initially, I didn’t want to enjoy Minis on the Move. I mean, I did in that I was paying for it, but at it’s heart it seemed evidence of every crime Nintendo commit. Relatively simple game concept, expanded on to two screens, wrapped up in a Mario shirt and released into the wild, I was a wee bit apprehensive about this game. In fact, I couldn’t have been more wrong. The concept, though simple, is incredibly well done and paced. The game has a perfect home in the 3DS, and the Mario polish gives it that wonderful Nintendo charm.
The core gameplay is based around arranging blocks to create a path, allowing your mini to safely make it’s way to the end whilst navigating through various obstacles and dead ends. The touch screen lets you pull tiles out of the slide and put them in to the main arena, whilst the top screen shows a nicely detailed display of the ongoing action. In truth, you barely look at the top screen as you are mainly focus on the bottom, however when you do get the chance to look up it’s very pretty. Game play starts off simple, however as you progress the game introduces various challenges and elements: in fact my biggest criticism of this game is that it does get quite hard quite quickly, and coping with all the different obstacles and challenges gets incredibly tough. There’s lots of little touches that allow for strategic play: you can create loops for the mini to go around which buys you time, or use bombs to destroy parts of the path. Overall it’s quite mentally challenging, and a welcome change of pace to other puzzle games.
The game sits perfectly on the 3ds. It’s a download exclusive title (£8.99 from the eshop), and is a perfect pick up and play style game. I recently had a long commute to make, and I found it brilliant for pulling out of my bag whenever I was on a bus or sat waiting for a train. Having it download on to the DS means that you won’t need to mess about with changing carts over etc, which makes it perfect for quick sessions.
The best thing about Minis on the Move however is that, in it’s concept, it’s a decent Nintendo puzzle title for less than a tenner, direct to your DS. This really is a step in the right direction for Nintendo, and I will happily pay £9 a time for more quality games with the Nintendo polish. There’s so much to the game: as well as a ton of standard levels, there’s puzzle levels, mini games, and even a level creator / downloader for near-unlimited puzzling. This is such a step forward for Nintendo, and I hope the game gets a good enough reception to justify more titles released in this style.
Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move is a brilliant game, and is well worth the £8.99. Throw your inhibitions in the bin and pick up a great Nintendo puzzle title, and you won’t regret it. Just don’t expect it to be easy all the way through.
Christopher Pearson
Life of Pi
Yann Martel’s critically acclaimed fantasy-adventure novel Life of Pi, the supposedly ‘unfilmable book’ hit UK stockists’ shelves, and virtual shopping baskets, at the start of the month… in its film form. Ang Lee’s visually stunning adaptation received 11 nominations at the Oscars, netting 4 gongs including Best Director and Best Visual Effects and, has been received with generally very positive responses at the box office.
The film follows the general story of the novel; the tribulations of young Piscine Molitor ‘Pi’ Patel. Pi’s family is forced to leave India due to monetary worries and during one stormy night the boat carrying Pi’s family and their zoo animals goes down. Pi spends the next 227 days at sea, accompanied with Richard Parker to keep him company. Richard Parker: The Bengal tiger. The story itself is a moving tale of loss and yet still manages to be a totally heart-warming tale of coming of age and self-discovery.
Visually, well, I absolutely cannot fault the work done by Rhythm and Hues. With every digitally animated release now being screened, pardon the pun, for realism against the highest of standards; the real thing, the visual effects teams were tasked with exceptionally high targets. When half of the movie is based on a Bengal tiger, the audience is going to be lost if it looks anything less than the real thing. Whilst the work done by these visual effects companies almost always goes understated, the portrayal of Richard Parker in this film draws your attention to just how advanced digital animation has become. This work combined with Ang Lee’s cinematographical direction makes for some stunning stills and very vivid scenes, with each pixel subtly oozing emotion.
The elephant in the room when it comes to new release films is ‘how does the 3D come off?’ Again, as with digital animation, the 3D techniques used with this film are noticeably advanced. Whilst the 3D is not over-used, it makes sense when it is and only adds to the experience. Viewers watching the film in 2D are likely to only notice one or two moments which betray the scene’s 3D side, but this doesn’t detract from the viewing experience. Overall, this film takes the biggest step forward since Avatar in terms of 3D and digital animation.
In sum, Yann Martel’s novel is lavishly adapted by Ang Lee into a stunning visual experience that will leave you praising it as a visual effects accomplishment a close second to its heart warming story.
Trailer :
– Glen
Follow me on twitter for some occasional ramblings[https://twitter.com/glendighton]
Life of Pi is available to buy now at (UK links):
Iron Man 3: Official Game Review (Android)
I downloaded this free to play android game as soon as I could, as I love Iron Man, and hadn’t heard of any plans for there to be an official android/ios version of it, so hadn’t heard anything about it at all.
I was pleasantly surprised at how fun I have found it to be. To compare the theme of the game to something else, its very Temple Run-esque. You fly around as Tony Stark, in whichever Iron Man suit you have unlocked, and he flies forward as you guide him left and right to avoid obstacles and shoot bad guys out of the sky. You can progress further in the level as you get better at the game and unlock better suits, and overall I have spent a fair amount of my recent time playing the game on my Nexus.
The problem I have with it however, is the focus on paying to have more fun in the game. You have to spend iso-8 to unlock new suits, or use the exp you get after each level, but using your exp would take you many hours of play to get even the basic suits you have available to you. There is an ever present option when looking at your suit collection (of which I so far have unlocked 4 out of about 15) to spend 150,000 iso-8 to unlock every armour straight away. On looking at how much it would cost to buy that much, I found out it was priced at £79.99. And thats not to even help you in the game, thats merely to change what suit you wear, which granted it does increase your stats depending on what suit you’re wearing, doesn’t actually change that much of the game for almost £80.And thats not all iso-8 can be used for. It can revive you when you are downed so that you can continue from where you left off, it can cut the waiting times for when you build a new suit, and it can buy you Stark Tokens, which are necessary for building the suit once you’ve unlocked it. So once you’ve spent that £79.99, you then have the suits available, but nothing more unless you pay for some more. I understand that they have to make money somewhere for this free to play game, but I think the prices are a bit too steep for something which is almost solely cosmetic.
Overall, I think the game is well made, and because there are daily missions available to progress the story, it is a game which makes you go back everyday to try out your suits and see more of the basic-but-interesting storyline. The emphasis on paying to get better in the game isn’t a positive part of the game, but I so far have enjoyed the game alot and not put a penny into it. As long as you’re prepared to have to work to get the cool new things, then this game is a very enjoyable one.
If you agree or disagree with anything in this review, feel free to spill your thoughts into the comments box
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Zx5Us2-u_A
Lee Newton
Lord of The Rings: War in the North review (PS3)
War in the North (which will, for the sake of my fingers be now abbreviated to WitN) is an odd game.
You travel through out Middle-Earth, following a story sort of related to the Lord of the Rings (now referred to as LotR to save my poor hand stubs), collecting new equipment and items whilst levelling up your character. There’s all sorts of sets of items to get that all have certain bonuses and powers, and in that regard it’s quite RPG like. There’s also a very heavy combat element to it, with the various levels being essentially made up of gated combat zones, where the player has to defeat a certain amount of enemies to get to the new section. Overall it’s quite simple but also relatively satisfying, and as a mechanic it works pretty well. The style is nothing really new, but it’s satisfying enough that you can switch off and play without having to think too hard.
Whilst the gameplay is fairly solid, the characters and story are a bit…off. You see, you play as one of three characters: a dwarf (who is definitely not Gimili) a ranger (who is definitely not Legolas crossed with Aragorn) and a wizard ( who is definitely not a character purely made up to allow for a female AND a mage). Whilst they all feel different to play as ( I have spent most of my time as the ranger), and all offer different unique skills etc, it feels a bit pointless as it all eventually comes down to mashing the combat buttons until the goblins/orcs/trolls (delete as appropriate) die. You get the feeling that the game wanted to recreate the fantastic parts in the movies and books with Legolas, Aragorn and Gimili performing various acts of badassery, but unfortunately the characters aren’t quite on the same level.
To be fair, it must be hard to make a Lord of the Rings game. The characters and stories are so well known by so many people, that any change to the known plot will make fans angry, whilst the developers must still want an opportunity to do something different and innovative. As a fan of the stories however, it gets a bit dissapointing when a Lord of the Rings game comes out, only to find that it is something very simple or predictable, masked by a LotR skin ( lookin’ at you Guardians of Middle-Earth). I just wish that War in the North was it’s own separate, non LotR, game. It tries a bit too hard to force itself into the Lord of the Rings story, and is kinda disappointing as a result. Sure, the story that has been especially made does fit in the grand scheme of things, but it seems afraid to try interacting with the main plot that we all know and love, instead having your characters skirt around the main LotR events. WitN could have had a really awesome story, if the developers had perhaps created a new world, with interesting innovative characters, instead of playing around in the shell of the LotR universe.
There are great LotR games (Lego Lord of the Rings), crappy LotR games (anyone remember the Fellowship of the Ring game on the PS2?) and not-bad, not -great LotR games. WitN definitely fits in the latter category. With a little more innovation, this game could have been great. It’s still good: it’s pretty, it’s smooth, and the gameplay is fun, but the more passionate LotR fans will just be a bit disappointed.
Christopher Pearson
Review of Catherine (PS3)
For all EU users, Catherine is coming to PS Plus! As such, now seems the perfect time to explain what Catherine is all about, as well as giving some impressions.
Catherine is a heavily stylised puzzle / social sim, which centres around the story of Vincent’s love life being torn in two.
Vincent starts off dating Katherine (with a K), a vanilla-eqsue character who is the staple love of Vincent’s life. She’s eager to start their life together, but Vincent is a bit of a slacker. He then meets the lovely Catherine (with a C, clever) who is a sort of fun-loving, sickly character who comes off as very bubbley and definitely not evil at all. The game revolves around Vincent choosing between these two C/Katherine’s in his life, having to choose between the long term, commital relationship, or the exciting but most likely evil series of one night stands.
Gameplay is split into two different sections, an isometric puzzle climber being one, and a social bar sim being the other. The game tells Vincent’s story using these two environments, and though it’s a nice idea, I wish that there was a bit more time spent in the bar and a little less time spent doing the puzzling, though this is purely preference on my behalf. The bar does act to break up the long spells of puzzling though, and it’s a great way to immerse yourself in the game’s world.
The puzzle element is a bit tricky at first to get a hold of. You start at the bottom of a pile of blocks, and have to climb up, all whilst something is chasing you. The difficulty comes with the different types of block, as well as the various dangers which can be approaching you from below. There are loads of techniques the player can employ – different strategies to deal with different blocks – but the game encourages the user to think of their own inventive ways to climb.
My biggest gripe with this game is the difficulty: the climbing sections really are merciless, and sometimes you will climb up for several layers, only to find that that path is useless. Despite the game teaching you different techniques and tricks, once the adrenaline kicks in you mostly end up ignoring them in favour of getting as high as possible as quickly as possible, which can be your downfall. Indeed, the climbing can get really quite frustrating, and it’s recommended to not be afraid to turn the difficulty down. There’s a video below which shows off some of the puzzling if you’re curious, words can’t really do it justice.
The story is really interesting, and it’s good to see a game that tries something completely innovative and new. The puzzles, whilst challenging, are good fun once you are used to the mechanics. Sometimes the story is a bit predictable, especially once you start to work out the similiarties between the puzzle sections and the bar where you spend most of your time, but it’s worth playing just to see the final resolution. This is a great game for fans of hardcore puzzling, and even if you’re not a big fan of puzzling the game is free on PS Plus, so worth a download to see what the fuss is all about.
Christopher Pearson
Final Fantasy XIII-2 Review (PS3)
Although this game came out a while ago, I have only just got round to completing it, and so have only just got round to reviewing it.
I came into this game a little under-prepared because although I played the first game, I never actually finished the game, as I got bored a little way into the story. So upon starting this game I was a little in the dark about what had happened beforehand, but the game had prepared for this, and there is a little video available to watch if you want to catch up with the previous games story.
In the first game I found I got bored because of the fact that the story seemed to be too stretched out, something I didn’t have a problem with in this game. I think the story was short enough to remain interesting throughout, but long enough that it still felt like a final fantasy game. You are thrown into the story very quickly, and have to quickly adapted to what’s going on, but in a way this helps because you are then feeling as the characters do.
I thought the difficulty in the game was fairly average throughout, getting harder as the game progressed, but then at the very end the difficulty suddenly ramped up which suddenly meant I had to go back a stage and grind through some levels to make sure I was strong enough to get past the end boss. However, this being a final fantasy game, I really should have expected that.
Even though I went into the game not knowing whether I would like it or not, having not enjoyed the first game, I came out of it rather pleased. For anyone who played the first one and found that it was rather boring but still enjoyed the universe it was set in, I would thoroughly suggest giving this game a go.
Feel free to follow me on twitter: Lee__N
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate (3DS)
There’s a reason that the Monster Hunter series are so popular (over 22 Million sales according to Capcom) : Monster Hunter is incredibly simple. The games have possibly the simplest player journey known to gaming. Kill monsters. Carve them for upgrades. Gain new armour and weapons. Kill bigger monsters. Though this may look boring, it really isn’t. There’s such a huge feeling of achievement when you finally kill your first Lagiacrus, such a great rush when you get a badass looking hammer, and it’s these achievements and objectives that keep the player going. Obviously there’s loads of advanced stuff hidden beneath the surface, such as combos and charm tables and all that fluffy stuff, but the main core is incredibly simple.
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate takes the known MH formula and makes it just as addictive as all the other titles. The game has been out for just over a week in Europe and the USA, and already hunters all around the globe will have been hard at work, making the best armour sets and weapons will taking down increasingly fearsome beasties. The gameplay, simply, works. There’s a well paced skill ladder, and the game introduces new elements infrequently enough for them to be fresh, but not so frequently that you are overwhelmed if new to the series. You are gradually introduced to the different types of quests and environments that the game has to offer, as well as the variety of monsters which pop up. Hunter life is incredibly simple, and by keeping everything at an even, smooth pace, the game does it’s best to welcome new players.
Aside from playing single player missions on your own, 3 Ultimate also has a fantastic multiplayer component. Whilst 3DS owners are limited to playing just in a local environment, WiiU players can take the fight online. I haven’t had a chance to take the WiiU online just yet and thus it would be unjust to comment on that, however the 3DS multiplayer is brilliant. It is seemless to connect to other hunters, and unlike earlier titles, you don’t suffer from being in a multiplayer hub. In previous MH games, once connected to other players the game blocked access to some of the single player features (resource management esque projects to keep an eye on). Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate allows the player access to all of these whilst connected to other players: meaning that you don’t need to disconnect each time you want to check how many herbs you have. It’s little tweaks like this that show how committed Capcom were to making a seamless, flowing multiplayer experience, and in a time where many games are tacking on multiplayer modes, it’s refreshing to not feel punished for playing with your friends: instead it’s the core of the game.
Multiplayer is really where the game shows it’s strengths. Monster Hunter is the kind of game that will take over your conversations when not playing it. It creates many epic, huge moments that you will remember for months to come. There is nothing more fun than getting a group of friends together and going off to kill some huge dragon, and the sense of achievement which the game so brilliantly gives you is even better when shared with friends.
The 3DS makes a brilliant home for Monster Hunter. This is the kind of game which will not only eat up any spare gaps of time you have, but the variety of quests means it is perfect for just whipping out on the tube for twenty minutes, as you can pick quests which you know will take less time. The touch screen works well as a customisable second screen, meaning that certain panels, shortcuts and information can be displayed there, leaving the top screen for displaying the fights.
The game isn’t all a hundred percent fantastic however. There are certain problems which emerge when one remembers that it is an evolution of a Wii title. For one thing, the camera controls can get very frustrating, especially when swimming underwater (which, so far, have made up around 25% of the quests). Obviously on the Wii, when there were multiple joysticks and buttons available to the player, underwater was fine, but on the 3DS it can be quite tricky. There are also certain graphics issues: despite 3D mode looking very cool, the text becomes all sort of blocky and thick, presumably where the images haven’t been overlayed properly (or something like that, I’m not really an expert). This is easily fixed by turning 3D off in the main menu, but this means disabling 3D all together which is a bit of a shame.
Overall, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate is a brilliantly addictive title to add to the 3DS’ roster. It features all the strengths of previous games in the series, whilst adding some much needed 3DS portability. The game knows just how to make players feel like they have accomplished something, and a simple routine allows for an overly fantastic experience. I’d definitely recommend getting this title with a group of friends, and looking forward to many epic journeys together.
Here’s a trailer if you would like to be pushed one way or the other:
Thanks for reading!
Chris
If you’re interested in Chris’ ramblings, you can follow him on twitter here.
God of War: Ascension Review
So I’ve finally finished Ascension, and decided to write a review for it as soon as I could so that I would remember as much of my raw thoughts and feelings as possible.
I’ve seen other reviews for it, and I will sadly agree that this is the weakest of the series. That doesn’t mean at all that I think this game is bad, far from it, but I don’t feel that this game is quite as strong an entry as the other games in the franchise. There were the usual parts of a god of war game, such as an exploration into the character of Kratos, a variety of enemies to disembowel, and amazing looking setpieces, but storywise, it wasn’t as strong as I had come to expect. An interesting new addition is the use of flashbacks, as you start the game about 3/4 of the way through the story, then continue to look at how Kratos got to that point in the storyline.
Something that is also different in this game is that Kratos doesn’t get new weapons throughout the story, but rather new powers to use on his blades of chaos. While this could seem like a step back for the series, I actually thought it was a good step, because I tend to mainly use the blades anyway, so this change didn’t affect me as much as it may do others.
While this game was supposed to show us more of how Kratos came to become the Ghost of Sparta, I found that in this game I almost felt less feelings towards Kratos. I found that I couldnt feel as Kratos was feeling, and this meant that I couldn’t connect with him as well as I did in the other games. I also thought while the choice of main enemies was a good choice for powerful enemies for Kratos to go against, I also thought it was a strange choice because of the fact that the furies have never been mentioned before in God of War, so having them as the big bad enemies seems like a weird choice. Also because of the time line skipping around, it was hard to remember what had happened between the characters at the time that you are playing.
Overall I believe that while this game was a good game, and a fitting example of a God of War game, I also think that it is the weakest of the series, however this could be because of how much I enjoyed the other god of war games, and my expectations of it were too high. If you have enjoyed any of the other of Kratos’s games, then I recommend that you purchase this game.
Lee
Follow me on Twitter: Lee__N
