Some Games I'm Looking Forward To In 2014

I was just watching the release trailer for Shovel Knight, which was officially released today by Yacht Club Games on the Wii U and 3DS eShops, as well as Windows, Linux and OSX, and I was thinking about how I had no interest in this game for quite some time, but as I saw more and more on the project, mostly via Nintendo Force, I grew very excited for it and it has become one of my most anticipated titles for the year.

That got me thinking, "What else am I looking forward to this year?" So, I decided to compile a short list of titles that I'm anticipating and are scheduled for release in 2014.

Mildly disturbing.

The Evil Within was a title that I was very surprised to hear was in development, but I'm so happy that it's actually happening. It is from acclaimed director Shinji Mikami, world-renowned for creating the Resident Evil series for Capcom. Since leaving Capcom and the RE series behind, Mikami has gone on to work on some great software, but ever since he began the trend of Resident Evil games going into shooter territory with Resident Evil 4, I've really wished he'd return to the Survival Horror genre where he belongs. The Evil Within is that wish made into fruition! I purposefully know very little about the game, except that it exists, but from the few videos and screenshots I have seen it looks like a very scary return-to-form horror title from the video game Master of Horror, and I'm anxiously awaiting it's release on October 21st of this year!

Some Destiny character classes.

I always consider myself a newcomer to the Halo franchise, but when I think back to it my friends got me hooked on the series way back with Halo 2 on the Xbox and I've been a fan ever since. When Bungie announced they would be stepping away from the series a few years back to work on an ambitious new dream title my interest was instantly piqued. This new game is entitled Destiny, and after several years of development, it is now passing Alpha testing, going into Beta, and should be officially released on September 9th. I've dipped my toes into the water that is MMOs in the past with World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XI, but in honesty I'm not nuts about them. That said, the idea of an MMOFPS with the pedigree of Bungie behind it has me very excited and I look so forward to this game finally being released!

Ripley's daughter looks like a bad ass, too!

In the first year of owning my Wii U I had a shortlist of games for it that I was most hyped about, and on that list was the infamously horrid Alien: Colonial Marines. It has since been released on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3, has subsequently been ruled a failure, and the Wii U version ultimately was canceled. I'm a massive fan/nerd for the Alien film franchise and was crushed to hear it was so poorly made (although if I see it for cheap enough, I can't say I might not still try it), but not long after it's release I heard news of Alien: Isolation being developed by British company Creative Assembly. It is described as a Survival Horror/Stealth title, in which you play as Ripley's daughter Amanda, who is having her own close encounter with a Xenomorph. What's weird is that I should have been skeptical of the title after A:CM, but from the get-go I knew the game sounded like my kind of Alien video game. After following the development team on Twitter and seeing their enthusiasm for this game, and their respect for the property of Alien itself, I just know this game is going to knock my socks off. Also it garnered 40 different award nods at E3 this year, which is a great sign. October 7th can't come soon enough!

Well that's my little list of titles I'm really looking forward to this year. I'm sure there will be some Christmas titles announced in the not-so-distant future that will get tagged onto here in the coming months. Some honourable mentions would be Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U. I didn't mention them in the list, however, because the Halo collection is exclusive to Xbox One, which I don't see myself purchasing any time soon - although getting to play Halo 2 online again is very enticing - and I have never owned nor played a Super Smash Bros. title, but the inclusion of Mega Man in this newest iteration has me considering picking it up this holiday season.

Hope you enjoyed,
R

Too Much Nostalgia

I was perusing Nintendo's E3 Miiverse Community today and taking in all of the rumours and speculation regarding what Nintendo is going to show this year at the annual video game expo. Amidst the calls for a new F-Zero, Star Fox or Metroid - which we get to enjoy listening to every year - I saw an interesting comment that caught my eye: "Why are so many asking for remakes? I want new experiences."

I clicked on the post to check out any comments from other users and I saw one individual make the case - and I'm paraphrasing - that "nostalgia is plaguing the industry".

The truth is that I did notice a lot of community members clamouring for more remakes of old games; gamers demanding Metroid Prime collections, or a remake of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask - which has been a hot topic item since the 2011 release of Ocarina of Time 3D on the 3DS - and even off-the-wall requests for remakes of old Smash Bros. games.

If I didn't see posts for games like those above, it was port-begging for English translations of the Japan-only Earthbound titles, or outcries for a "brand new" Legend of Zelda game. We just had a new LoZ title released last year in A Link Between Worlds, which was itself a graphical throwback/semi-sequel to 1991's Super NES hit A Link to the Past!

The point I'm trying to get at is that these individuals seem to be right. No one is asking for a new game in this entire community. It's post after post for old games, sequels, rehashes, or ports.

What happened to just being excited to hear about new games? And when did we, as gamers, get so demanding about what we want to see year after year?

I - and I think of lot of people reading this - are definitely complicit in this kind of hype. I'll be the first to admit it. I mean, I want to see a new Star Fox or F-Zero game as much as the next guy. I can, however, see where we're kind of drowning in our own nostalgia. Do we really need a new Mario or Zelda game right now? I definitely don't think so, but the rumours are already swirling that we'll see Mario Maker and Aonuma's next LoZ title during this year's E3.

Let's hope for something different! I'd love more news on Monolith Soft's "X" or maybe something on this S.T.E.A.M. title that Nintendo's been cooking up.

Many of us get over-hyped for E3 as it is, but maybe hoping for more of the same isn't the right idea here. The industry could grow stagnant and what good is that to anyone? New experiences should be the order of the day, and this year I'm just going to try and sit back and enjoy the Electronics Entertainment Expo for what it is and hope that Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo bring us something new and fresh to play in the coming years.

Thanks for reading,
R

The New Final Fantasy

I haven't had much time to game lately. I got a little time in on Mega Man Xtreme a few days ago, but I won't post about that again until I've finished the game. I decided last night I was going to dedicate my evening to playing some more Bravely Default, so I thought I'd write a little post about it today!

I picked up Bravely Default right around launch and put in 30 hours pretty quickly. I couldn't put the game down. I even took a trip for a friend's wedding to Jamaica and spent a few hours playing it on the beach, while everyone else was taking in the rays and reading books.

I've played the same jobs up to reaching Eisenberg, when I finally decided to switch them up. My team consisted of Tiz (Monk), Agnés (White Mage), Ringabel (Black Mage), and Edea (Knight). I've heard there isn't much point in trying to master jobs until at least after Chapter 3, which I'm currently on, but I just wanted to switch it up for a bit, so I made Tiz a Ranger, Agnés a Red Mage, Ringabel a Time Mage, and Edea a Valkyrie. They're definitely a weaker group. It's take quite a bit getting used to Ringabel not being able to dish out as much damage as I'm used to, but Tiz is definitely more powerful and Angés is working out pretty well as a Red Mage. The jury's still out on Edea as a Valkyrie. It's weird, when I played the Bravely Default demo a few months back I had Edea as a Valkyrie and she was a powerhouse. I feel like they've been powered down in the final version, but I dunno.

These guys cackle like Skeletor before the fight starts. It's hilarious.

As I mentioned before, I picked Bravely Default back up last night and warmed up taking on a couple of level 20~ bosses in Norende before venturing back out on my quest, and it was just like I never left!

I adore this game. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I feel like it's the Final Fantasy game I've been waiting for since FFIX. I've played lots of FF titles since then that I liked - even the spiritual successor to this game, Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light - but none of them have had me this excited.

(I know it's technically not an FF game, but it's like a gaiden title, so it counts!)

I polished off another quick dungeon, which was pretty easy, but fun. Although I'm finally starting to get used to these new jobs, I think I'll only level them up once more (I think to Level 5?) and then switch some of them back to their old jobs. I just feel like some of the fights I have coming up will take a lot more damage-dealing than I'm capable of right now (I'm looking at you Ringabel and Edea), but I might keep Tiz and Agnés the same for now.

Anyway, that was a short Bravely Default update. I might keep these up after every couple of sit-downs I have with the game, because it's fun for me and it's my blog!

Hope you enjoyed,
R

p.s. I just found out about this Bravely Default: Praying Brage web game. I wonder if it's any good, or if there's an English version...

Mega Man Xtreme: All of the Storyline

Hi everybody,

So late last night after the hockey game (Go Bruins!) I decided I finally wanted to get off the pot and download Mega Man Xtreme. It was recently released to the Nintendo eShop for the 3DS Virtual Console as part of Mega May, a promotion by Capcom to release all of the remaining Mega Man Gameboy games to the eShop this month.

I am a huge Mega Man X fan. If I'm being honest with myself it's probably my favourite Mega Man game, although Mega Man 3 is right up there. I didn't have a Gameboy growing up, let alone a Gameboy Color, so when Mega Man Xtreme was released in 2000 I really had no chance of playing it. I would see it in gaming magazines, like Nintendo Power or EGM, and my interest was definitely piqued, but I never did get to see the game in action.

So last night I thought, "What the heck, it's $4.99. Give it a shot!" And so I did.

I was immediately surprised by how smooth the game played. I'd seen screenshots of the title before, and although they were in glorious 8-bit colour I never expected the framerate to be so tight. I played on as a confused X dashed his way through CD Streets from the original Mega Man X title. That's right! Much like the subsequent X-titles you begin this game with the dash.

I eventually reached Vile... or, I mean, Vava? I was so confused when I saw Vile's name written out as Vava that I had to post it to Miiverse. Thankfully a guy named Randy set me straight. Apparently Vava is Vile's Japanese name and it was left that way in this title. "Vile" is way cooler than "Vava" for a name.

Da-da!

After this I was met with a metric ton of cutscenes and dialogue. With the limitations of the original hardware the programmers could only get so much text on the screen at at time. Although the images that accompanied the text looked pretty good, I was getting pretty tired of sitting through it.

That said, the storyline for the game is pretty cool. Much like the Mega Man Gameboy titles before this, this game plays like a mash-up port of it's console counterparts, so you'll see Mavericks in here from Mega Man X, such as Storm Eagle, but also Mega Man X2 baddies, like Flame Stag.

Middy tellin' me the reasons

After everything was finally revealed to me and I could continue on in my quest, I was greeted with the option to take on four Mavericks. As soon as I saw Chill Penguin on there, I knew who I'd be facing first. I don't think I've ever played Mega Man X on the Super Nintendo and didn't take on my ol' pal Chilly first.

The path to Chill Penguin's lair was short, but pretty satisfying. It played very much like the console version, but a fair amount was taken out. Not the Mech suit, though! I was pretty happy to see that part was kept. I wondered as I started the stage what armour upgrade I'd come across, as this was the stage you'd get the dash in the SNES version. What you do get is actually pretty ingenious! You get a leg part, just like in this game's big brother, however it grants you better mobility when you're sliding on the walls. With limited buttons available on the Gameboy the dash is relegated to tapping forward-forward on the d-pad, or you can map it to the Start button in the options. As a result, it makes it kind of difficult to dash-jump when you're sliding on walls. The clever programmers of this game, therefore, gave you this leg upgrade so that you basically dash jump off the walls every time! It took a little getting used to, but I think in the long run it was a really nice touch.

Bring it on, Chilly!

I eventually reached my quarry, expecting the fight to be the cake-walk I'm used to in the SNES version. Turns out I was wrong! For the most part Chill Penguin fights the same way he does in the original title, but facing him in such small quarters definitely shook things up a bit. It took a few lives, but in the end I was victorious!

That's all I played for my first foray into Mega Man Xtreme, but I have to say that, so far, I'm pleased. My only complaint is that the story cutscenes in the game seemed to go on a little long, but at the same time I appreciated the lengths the developers went to to make this a canon title in the Mega Man X series.

Anyway, that's it for today folks. If you have any mothers in your life, make sure to pay appropriate homage to them today. In my experience breakfast in bed and flowers work out pretty well.

Take care,

R