Punch-Out!! (Wii, Pub: Nintendo, Dev: Next Level Games, Rated E10+)

Lowdown:

+++ Can’t Knock the Design (Heh Heh WHAT A PUN RIGHT!)

If I’m the first source to tell you, Punch-Out!! is not really a fighting game, straight up. It’s a pattern recognition and reflex game. You go head to head with another ethnicity, memorize their tells until it is god DAMN chiselled into the ripples of your membrane and fight and fight until you win. It isn’t much, but for what it is Next Level have perfected it. The game never fights against you, it’s the classic struggle challenge, slanted not stacked, if you keep at it you will eventually come out on top. And it will feel great. So if it sticks so close to its dukes...

+/- Is It Really a Remake?

Which if that is the question, the answer is neither yes or no. It isn’t exactly a mirror image of either the NES or SNES gems, but at the same time there isn’t much material that isn’t lifted directly. Every returning fighter has all their old moves, but they’ve been tweaked enough for a much more bravado presentation, far more interesting and deep moments to exploit weaknesses. Depth has been added, yet everything is still exactly the same. Even as far as the fighter roster goes, there’s only one new fighter (two if you count “the secret”) who becomes the least memorable of the bunch. I guess I could whine about the roster being lacking, but sans Dragon Chan there aren’t any missing memorable fighters. Soda, Hippo, Glass, Bull, Macho Man, Flamenco, they’re all here in glorious looking new form. If only you could play as them...

+/- Multiplayer Sure is... There

Funny, I always had my fingers crossed that the new Punch-Out!! would have multiplayer, but it never really struck me how awkward the game would translate into a non-mono experience. It’s balanced, yes, and a creative translation of the gameplay to fit a multiplayer form. It’s just not very fun, and while whaling on your bud as the “Giga Mac” can be charming, it sure would have been swell to be able to play as, I don’t know, not Little Mac for once. Aw well, c’est la vie.

++++ Alarm Heat

Punch-Out!! is a triumph, and the sort of off the beaten path experience the Wii could use. It’s simple enough for anyone to pick up and play, but brutally difficult later on for only the dedicated to rise above. This is the part of the review where I would sneak in another boxing pun.

inFamous (PS3, Pub: SCE, Dev: Sucker Punch, Rated T)

Lowdown: Starting to understand why inner city thugs don’t receive better education. If they started learning super science and gave themselves a bunch of super mega powers we’d all be fuuuucked.

+++ Go Fast, My Cole, Go Fast

Sucker Punch had priorities with this one. There is the usual parkour with every action game these days, but it’s not something that’ll occupy you. There is a sandbox world, but you won’t find yourself digging in every little dark corner as the game does a pretty good job of having you traverse over just about every street and alley for missions. Sucker Punch wanted to focus on action, and action they did. The controls are easy, and while some snobs may scoff at how magnetically Cole snaps onto ledges and surfaces, it makes for a much smoother ride than constantly tripping over your own virtual shoelaces. This is the kind of game where...

++ You Can Do The Sort of Wicked Kool Action Shit You Never Knew You Always Wanted to Do

Able to control which specific hand I use to zap little thugs with? Sure it sounds a little semantic on paper, but when you are hanging of a ledge while shooting at foes below one sneaks past your flank it suddenly becomes so obvious you wonder why it isn’t more popular. You can zap people mid air. You zap people while you skate along zip cords and subway rails. You can float around easy peasy. Killing is easy...

- Living is Tough

There are like a dozen god damn bars and meters on the screen right now and you are telling me none of them are my health? It’s just the old Call of Duty “you die when it all turns moody” thing? Great, but despite that you don’t have the same auto-healing system you’d find in every other game that chooses to swing that way. You will heal, eventually, but it takes its sweet time. You can get an easy booster by draining electricity from any source, much like you do to refill your energy/ability bar/thing which oddly has nothing else to do with your health level. Wacky huh? On top of which, much like Crackdown, enemies have this wicked habit of waiting and ambushing almost automatically, and the enemies can fit in so easily with their surroundings you’ll start panicking trying to figure out where the hell the bullets are coming from.

+/- Morality Sure is... There

Yeah, another game with a morality system. And like in every other game it’s saving orphans or removing their legs. It is nice that they do in fact have a direct relation with the gameplay and not just another alternative ending. The powers you unlock directly coincide with how down you are with your good or bad self, and it’s also the difference between civilians cheering for you or throwing rocks when you pass.

+/- And as For the Plot

Nothing sparkling here, though the writing is fine, the pacing is great and characters are charming, it doesn’t have anything to make it become more outstanding (a big problem with Prototype being released on its tail.) The biggest problem with the story, as with any conspiracy based drama, as that it’s all about the twists, which seem to act far more sneaky than they actually are despite pretty much throwing you every bone in the skeleton. Mostly spoilers come through the “dead drop” audio recordings you pick up, which on occasion will flat out tell you what’s about to happen. Also why it seems everyone who’s heard of you managed to learn your phone number somehow as well? Okay I’m done.

++++/ Alarm Heat

It’s not the perfect action game, but inFamous takes so many steps in the right direction that it’s a must play for anyone who’s been antsing for a serious action fix. Or for the person who dresses up like Electro at comicons.

The Legendary Starfy (DS, Pub: Nintendo, Dev: TOSE, Rated E)

Lowdown: By “Legendary” they mean “was an assist trophy in Smash Bros.”

+/- How Cute?

If you are a ten year old girl this game is beckoning you. You play as a cute widdle star fish from cute widdle star fish land and explore a magical ocean filled with fun bubbles and sparkle rainbows. Actually you know what, listing it all down like that sort of peaks it. So on second thought...

- So... Cute

It gets a little obscene. Everything that moves makes a cutsey noise. Starfy particularly has this pressing whine it does every time, I don’t know, something happens. They also look like those bulk puppets when they talk, you know, those people puppets they sell at craft fairs with the beady eyes and mouth creases. They also do this really... weird thing whenever they speak to each other where their illustration will bob up n’ down, open and close their mouths and turn side to side rabidly, and it just looks a little too... Excited. Okay yeah, it’s an iddy biddy kiddy game, is it a good iddy biddy kiddy game?

- I Guess It’s... Alright

There’s nothing wrong with the lil’ whatsit, but there’s nothing at all interesting with it either. As a platformer, it’s flat and adequate. As a Nintendo effort, it’s disappointing. As a Nintendo effort stateside gamers have been requesting to get an import treatment, it’s puzzling. The graphics get the job done. There are collectibles, outfits mostly to make Starfy even more adowable. It strays far past the easy line, even for kids. There are puzzles but they’re as straight forward and vanilla as they come. You just breeze through this.

++ Alarm Heat

I’d say the game was aiming for kids, but come one, kids know better and are knee deep in Gears of War right now. If you’re a twelve year old at heart, have seen Finding Nemo more times than your brain can process and games that fight back scare you this will probably become your favourite thing. To all the other gamers that couldn’t accept that Nintendo had a franchise they were withholding from us, all I have to say is what was ever wrong with Kirby?

NiGHTS: Journey into Dreams (Wii, Pub/Dev: Sega, Rated E)

Lowdown: Listen I’m not moneybags, so let’s just pretend the following two games came out this year...

+/- The Gameplay is Fine... Mostly

For fans of the original NiGHTS, don’t fret. They have in fact dragged up the ol’ twirlin’ bird for the new generation. The missions based around the old style of gameplay work the best, interesting uses of the system for boss battles in a close second. Zooming around in circles is as sensitive as it used to be, and I’m torn to say if the new motion controls work because at times it felt perfect while others grew a mind of its own. Then again I was too lazy to sit up from the couch to look the screen head on, which may have played its own part. Levels that aren’t based on the old system however, cannot be so easily complimented. There are levels that then take a foreword on approach, placing the camera square behind NiGHTS as you fly into things and fly not into things. Unfortunately the trail which NiGHTS travels along is a schizophrenic one, and being able to control based upon where you expect the camera to lean next is a chore, even after the second, third time, suffice to say...

-- The Camera Sucks... Entirely

There is no fluid camera system fixated on this one. From walking around as your whiny kid avatar to it taking a sharp turn in mid-flight, it’s stubbornness and unpredictability make it hard to see what you need to be looking at. The things you look at on the screen, by the way...

-- The Graphics Suck... Practically

It feels as if there were several different teams tackling the game. Some character models look slick, smooth and imaginative with fluid animation. By which I mean NiGHTS and the bosses. Everything else is a wreck. Your human avatar look like the kind you see in browser side pop-ups, they’re even bigger eye-sores in 3D. Landscapes are practically a single texture draped down on the entire thing like sheets, and for a world in dreams there’s nothing anymore inspired that what you’d see in every other Team Sonic game ever made. So the vision of dreams is not aesthetically pleasing, though...

+ The Music is Good... For the Most Part

What, I’m not heartless. The music is pretty swell.

++/ Alarm Heat

I would say they should have not tried to revolutionize the wheel on this one, but that would insinuate the new material shoved into the NiGHTS world is revolutionary. NiGHTS is a mixed blessing, you get more of the classic gameplay that Miyamoto himself had been quoted for wishing he created, with a whole lot of garbage you really just want to skip to get to the next fun part. Plus loading times. It’s tough, but if you’re reading this still thinking “but man I still really want to play that” then don’t let me stop you. Wait what am I saying, at this point you probably already have.