2012-12-25-07.35.56

Nintendo + Christmas = Joy

The Nintendo Entertainment System I received for Christmas in 1985 is, to this day, the single greatest Christmas gift I have ever gotten. I have fond memories of taking the NES to my grandparents’ house that same Christmas day, hooking the console up to the 13-inch color TV in their bedroom, and spending the day playing Super Mario Bros. while the adults engaged in their merriment downstairs.

Mind you, I was already a full-fledged gamer by that time, having spent plenty of time in arcades, as well as having poured hundreds of hours into my Atari 2600. But the NES was different. Maybe it was the fact that it came with Super Mario Bros., arguably the greatest game of all time. Maybe it was that perfect rectangular controller, whose design has never been improved upon. whatever it was, the NES cemented my budding love affair with gaming, and I’ve never looked back.

So it was with absolute joy that I watched my son enjoy his new Nintendo 3DS on Christmas day yesterday. What was even cooler was that unlike me, he did not hide himself away for the day, but rather took every opportunity to show all of his relatives the funny video he recorded of himself, the pictures he took and the music you can listen to on the 3DS. All of the things that I never bothered with on my 3DS are the things he loves most about his. We downloaded and played Photo Dojo, where we took pictures and made him a character in the game. We played Face Raiders, which also uses pics of family and friends to populate the game. We also used StreetPass to share Miis, which he thought was awesome.

Watching my son explore the 3DS gave me a new appreciation for mine, and I loved it already. He borrowed my copy of New Super Mario Bros. 2 this morning, or as he called it “the one with all the coins all over the place.” I wonder if that game will be for him was the original Super Mario Bros. was for me. Maybe not, but I now have a new Nintendo memory to add to my personal collection, and he has a lot of great gaming ahead of him.

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Finally! A New Co-Op Critics Podcast!

After much too long of an absence, Co-Op Critics has returned!

In this episode, our good friend Max Saltonstall stopped by to talk AnonyCon and a bunch of games both he and I have been playing. We also have two interviews–the first with Fernando Bustamante of D3 about the new Adventure Time game, and the second with our good friend Antony Johnston, writer of the upcoming WiiU launch title ZombiU. Here’s the show notes for the episode:

Games Rundown with Brian and Max

AnonyCon (www.anonycon.com)
Niantic Project (www.nianticproject.com)
Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn
Silent Hill: Book of Memories
Knights of Pen & Paper
Team Fortress 2 / Left 4 Dead 2
Angry Birds Star Wars

Interview: Fernando Bustamante–D3 Publisher
Brian spoke with the Senior Marketing Manager of D3 about the upcoming 3DS game Adventure Time: Hey Ice King, Why’d You Steal Our Garbage? The game arrives on November 20, 2012, and you can find out more about it at www.d3p.us.

Interview: Antony Johnston (www.antonyjohnston.com)
Brian spoke with the writer of ZombiU at NYCC 2012. ZombiU will launch alongside the new WiiU on November 18, 2012. You can find out more about the game at zombiu.ubi.com.

You can find the episode here, or just click on the player for the episode on the right sidebar of the page.

Enjoy!

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StreetPass Has Made Me Fall in Love With My 3DS All Over Again

As much as I love my 3DS, I had rarely used one of its major features since I purchased the handheld at launch. After taking my 3DS to New York Comic Con this past weekend however, I am now completely addicted to StreetPass.

For those unfamiliar, StreetPass is a passive wifi feature that communicates with other 3DS consoles when you are in range of them. As long as your 3DS is on (even in sleep mode), whenever you pass another 3DS, that person’s Mii will show up in your Mii Plaza. You get a greeting from the Mii, and you also can see what the most recent game a person played was. More importantly though, you can play mini games with the other Miis, as well as collect gifts and unlock content in 3DS games like Resident Evil: Revelations and Super Mario 3D Land. For example, in Super Mario 3D Land, other players leave gifts for you in the form of power-ups and Star Coins, which you need to unlock later levels in the game.

Built into Mii Plaza software itself is a game called Find Mii. It’s an rpg-like game where your Mii is being held captive in a tower, and the Miis you meet act as hired heroes that must battle their way through the tower to save you. They face off against ghosts and demons in turn-based combat, and can use spells and weapons to attack their enemies. After clearing certain areas, you unlock treasure chests which contain new hats for your Mii to wear.

Also in Mii Plaza is Puzzle Swap, sort of a jigsaw puzzle game where you try to assemble pictures of 3DS games and characters by trading pieces with other Miis. When you complete a picture, you’re able to view a live version of it in 3D. It’s not really a game, but it is fun getting new pieces and unlocking new screens from different Nintendo franchises.

Both of these games require meeting a lot of new Miis, and that’s why I hadn’t really gotten into them before. I had about 5 StreetPass connections on my 3DS before bringing it to New York Comic Con. Over the course of the weekend though, I met over 170 new players! Not only did I make it all the way through the Find Mii game (it took 166 characters to fight all the way through), but I completed several screens in Puzzle Swap as well.

Now, I’m taking the 3DS everywhere I go. You can play through Find Mii several times to unlock new hats from various Nintendo franchises, and I still have plenty of screens to unlock, in Puzzle Swap. What’s even cooler though, is that my Mii Plaza is filled with almost 200 people I’ve StreetPassed with during my time in NY. There’s almost a Pokemon-esque quality to the StreetPass feature, as I find myself wanting to collect as many Miis as I can.

StreetPass is a great feature that just adds to overall great experience of the 3DS. With all the games coming out over the next few months, as well as the recent release of the 3DS XL (which I have), there’s never been a better time to own a 3DS.

Here’s me in the food court of the Javits StreetPassing the living daylights out of people:

2012-10-13-11.33.47

NYCC 2012–Quick Impressions From the Nintendo Booth

There was a significant gaming presence at this year’s New York Comic Con, and no booth was as packed as the Nintendo booth during all four days of the show. Even with a press pass, I was only able to get hands on with two games, but both were great. Here’s a quick rundown:

WiiU–Nintendoland (Luigi’s Ghost Mansion)
In the Luigi’s Ghost Mansion game, there were five of us playing together. Four were using Wii controllers, turned sideways like the old NES controllers. The fifth person was using the WiiU GamePad. The four of us on Wii controllers were Miis dressed as characters from the Mario universe (Mario, Luigi, Wario and Waluigi). The person on the GamePad was a ghost, whose objective was to incapacitate the four of us. The ghost can see the entire level and all the other characters on the GamePad’s touch screen, while the other four players can’t see the ghost on the main screen. Players are armed with a flashlight that has a limited battery, and they can only see the ghost when they catch it in the flashlight’s beam. Catching the ghost in your beam for a certain period will destroy it, until it respawns. If a player is incapacitated, they can be revived by another player. The goal is to outlast the ghost for five minutes.

I had a blast with this game, and so did the rest of the people playing–it was couch co-op at its best. The mechanics are very simple, but the tension of not being able to see the ghost makes for a panic-filled moment to moment experience. This is a fun one for kids and adults alike.

3DS–Epic Mickey 2: Power of Illusion
If you have fond memories of the Sega Genesis-era Illusion games, be prepared to love this game. A side-scrolling platformer, Power of Illusion also uses the touch screen to affect environments by tracing, painting and erasing objects that Mickey runs into. I played this one for a solid twenty minutes, and loved everything about it. The mechanics are great, and the use of the touch screen fits perfectly into the flow of the game. In addition to the standard jump and shoot mechanics (mickey use the paintbrush like a gun, shooting blotches at enemies), there is another level of depth to the mechanics, ranging from spin attacks to bounce attacks and more. All of the mechanics are introduced and explained well, and the game is just a joy to play overall.

It seems like the WiiU version of Epic Mickey 2 will be more co-op based, so if you’re looking for a pure platformer that captures the feel of the old Disney games, the 3DS version is the one to go with. It’s a definite buy for me.

Sadly, I did not get to play ZombiU, and it wasn’t for lack of trying. Despite there being more than one kiosk set up for the game, there was a sea of people packed around each one all weekend. In a surreal moment, I was interviewing the game’s writer Antony Johnston, while right over his shoulder there were scores of people clamoring for a chance to play the game. From everything I saw and spoke with Antony about, this game is the real deal–survival horror that does not cater to the casual game or the faint of heart. ZombiU is shaping up to be the killer app for the WiiU launch.

Don’t sleep on Nintendoland, though. That game looks much deeper than people are giving it credit for, and I think that old school Nintendo fans will be surprised how much love and detail went into bringing beloved franchises together into one big package. Nintendoland is no mere tech demo, and it’s much bigger than Wii Sports.

Stay tuned to Secret Identity in the coming weeks for my interview with Antony Johnston about ZombiU. For 3DS fans, I will also have an interview with D3 about the Adventure Time game coming soon as well.

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ZombiU Might Make Me Buy a WiiU

If there is one game that has me contemplating an investment in Nintendo’s new console, it’s ZombiU. From the setting, to the plot, to the story, to some of the promising gameplay features, I think this game could prove to be the launch title everyone will be talking about.

The game takes place in London, and the idea of battling zombies throughout Buckingham Palace and along the banks of the River Thames already makes it more exciting than most run of the mill zombie games. London is a character in and of itself, and the story of ZombiU involves one of the more colorful characters in British history, John Dee. Dee was an advisor to Queen Elizabeth I, an astrologer, and a spy who is one of the main inspirations for James Bond, as he used to sign his letters to the Queen with the numbers “007.”

In ZombiU, John Dee is associated with two apocalyptic predictions, the Great Plague of 1665, and a second plague that is supposed to hit London in 2012. Hence the zombie outbreak. Here’s a great dev diary about the game’s story, featuring our buddy Antony Johnston, who is the co-writer on the game:

As far as the gameplay, I like what I’ve seen so far in terms of the GamePad implementation. Using the GamePad as a scanner, sniper scope and inventory management tool all seem logical to me, and seem to compliment the core gameplay rather than get in the way of it. The thing I’m most excited about however, is the note system, which feels very much like the system in Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls. You can leave messages in the world for other players to find when they scan areas with the GamePad. It may not sound like much, but if you’ve played any of the Souls games, you know how much atmosphere that adds to the experience.

The more I hear and see about ZombiU, the more I’m considering picking up a WiiU. Stay tuned in the coming weeks, as I’ll be speaking with Antony Johnston at New York Comic Con about the game, in an interview that will air on Secret Identity.

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Wii U: The Only Thing That Matters Is the Price

The short version: Nintendo overpriced the Wii U by $100.

The longer version:

As much as gamers say they’re perfectly content with the consoles that are currently on the marker, the fact is we all get excited for new hardware. Nintendo had a real shot at building a sizable install base of Wii U owners before the next Xbox or PlayStation even hits the shelves, but they are about to blow it.

And the simple reason is price.

Not the launch lineup, not the specs of the hardware, not the crazy control scheme. Price. Because the simple fact is, if the Wii U was launching at $199 and $249 for the basic and deluxe versions, all of us would be getting one. But that’s not going to happen, because $100 is the difference between “I need to have that” and “I can hold out for a price drop.” It’s also a price point that will keep a lot of the causal gamers that bought the Wii (i.e parents and grandparents) from ponying up for the new console.

I have no doubt that the Wii U will come out strong in the first couple of months, but it won’t have anywhere near the success of its predecessor.

The lesson Nintendo is ignoring is the same one that Android (and soon Windows) tablet makers learn every time they launch a product at a price point similar to the iPad–unless you are the industry leader, you’d better have a price point that draws people away from the competition. While Nintendo lead in sales with the Wii, they have lost the goodwill of core gamers and are certainly not looked at as the industry leader right now. Amazon and Google have both had success with their 7” tablets at a very reasonable $199 price point, because even though they are smaller than an iPad, the $200+ difference in price more than makes up for it. Amazon and Google take a loss on the hardware in order to get people in the front door.

The Wii U has yet to prove it’s a substantial improvement over the current XBox 360 and PS3. Both Microsoft and Sony’s upcoming consoles will no doubt be more powerful than the Wii U when they do arrive. All the more reason Nintendo should be trying to build that user base up as quickly as possible. But a $349 price point isn’t going to do that.

I’m a fan of Nintendo, and I know I’ll eventually get a Wii U. But I just don’t see this strategy paying off, and I think a price drop could come as soon as the holiday season is over.

2012-08-19-12.37.45

3DS XL First Impressions: It’s Awesome

Even though I hadn’t really planned on it, I ended up grabbing a Nintendo 3DS XL when they went on sale yesterday. GameStop was offering $100 toward the XL if you traded in your old 3DS, and combined with some other games I traded in, I got the new XL for a mere $11. Turns out it was worth $11 and then some.

I bought an original 3DS on launch day, and I haven’t played nearly enough to justify my $250 investment. My biggest complaint wasn’t the lack of games after launch, but rather the form factor of the device itself. The 3DS was just too darn small, and playing it for any length of time actually made my hands hurt. Over the past several months, there’s been some great games for the 3DS that I haven’t even bothered to pick up. I have a ton of old NES and GameBoy games on the device from the Ambassador Program and my eShop purchases, but I rarely fired up the handheld to play them. Ironically, the game I spent the most time with was Resident Evil Revelations (an awesome game), partly because the added bulk of the Circle Pad Pro made the device more comfortable to hold.

My first thought in taking my new 3DS XL out of the box was that it was exactly what the original design for the device should have been. Not only is the display substantially larger than the original, but the device feels a lot more comfortable to hold and play. I fired up Super Mario 3D Land and was really impressed with how much better of an experience it was playing on the XL versus the original 3DS. Even the 3D comes across better. Reading web pages on the built in browser (not that you’d actually spend much time doing it) is actually reasonable now. I could actually see myself using Netflix on the device now, something I did one time on the old model.

So, while I haven’t spent too much time with it yet, I am really liking the 3DS XL so far. I don’t know if the GameStop deal was a one-day thing, but if it’s still going on, I think it’s worth trading in your old model for this one. I know I’ll get a lot more playing time out of the 3DS moving forward.