Virtual Console Update: May 21, 2007
Monday, May 21, 2007

Donkey Kong Country 2™: Diddy's Kong Quest™ (SNES®, 1-2 players, 800 Wii Points): In the sequel to the immensely popular Donkey Kong Country™, Diddy Kong® gets the spotlight, along with his girlfriend, Dixie Kong™ - a great little monkey with a dangerous ponytail. The action starts on the wreck of King K. Rool's Gangplank Galleon that has apparently broken up on a reef offshore from the Kremlings' Island. Diddy and his friends will have to work together to rescue Donkey Kong®, exploring all the hidden areas of the Kremlings' island: a spooky haunted forest, treacherous swamps, a giant beehive oozing with sticky honey and lava-filled caves, just to name a few.

Streets of Rage™ 2 (Sega Genesis, 1-2 players, 800 Wii Points): To celebrate their defeat of the Syndicate exactly one year before, Blaze, Adam and Axel met for drinks. The next morning, Axel received a frantic phone call from Eddie "Skate" Hunter, Adam's younger brother, whom he was living with on the edge of the city. Blaze and Axel found Adam and Skate's house wrecked, and a picture showing Adam chained up at the feet of Mr. X. The city then once again returned to its nightmarish state as criminals ran rampant. Unable to contact their old friend in artillery, Axel and Blaze team up with Skate and Max Thunder to free the city and rescue Adam from the Syndicate. It is up to you to take down Mr. X once and for all.

Blazing Lazers (TurboGrafx16, 1 player, 600 Wii Points): Blazing Lazers is a vertical-scrolling shooter that was praised for surpassing the limitations of the hardware of its time. Players control the extraordinary firepower of their Gunhed Star Fighter to take on the Dark Squadron that has begun its invasion of Earth. Collect power-ups to increase your ship's battle strength so it can cut through enemies and defeat the bosses in all nine areas. Of course, as part of the "Soldier" series, the game contains a good combination of fast-paced speed with catchy, drum-propelled background music, coupled with the Field Thunder that can be used to destroy enemies in one fell swoop for the ultimate sense of satisfaction. With its fine-tuned difficulty levels, Blazing Lazers is a shooting game that anyone can enjoy.

Labels: Game Boy Advance, May, News by Sorixas, Virtual Console, Wii

posted by Sorixas @ 4:03 p.m. , ,

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Time and Darkness Expedition site
Tuesday, May 15, 2007

By the way, the title is speculation. The new version of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon is coming out in the fall, and Chunsoft released a website for it. Take a look:



Chack out the website here

Labels: Game Boy Advance, May, News by Sorixas, Nintendo DS

posted by Sorixas @ 9:23 p.m. , ,

Review: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon
Tuesday, March 27, 2007

REVIEW
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red and Blue
Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance
Nintendo

Pokemon is one of the most popular and well-known series in the world. As you know, the object is to beat all of the Gym trainers by leveling up your Pokemon and gaining new ones. The latest Pokemon game, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red and Blue, Red for Game Boy Advance and Blue for the Nintendo DS, strays a little bit from the Pokemon franchise.

The story starts out with a kid who is somehow turned into a Pokemon and is thrust into a new world only inhabited by Pokemon. Another Pokemon comes up to you and helps you out by becoming your friend. Then you hear of some disturbances from a mother Butterfree saying that her child fell down a hole. You and your friend go to save the child. You find out that ever since you have been here, there have been some reports of Pokemon getting trapped in caves. You and your partner decide to become a Rescue Team, to help other Pokemon in need.

The game play is much different than the real Pokemon games. At the beginning of the game, the game asks you questions that will lead to a Pokemon. If you don’t like it, then you can go back to see if you can get the Pokemon that you want. You can choose from Bulbasaur, Charmander, Chikorita, Cubone, Cyndaquil, Eevee, Machop, Meowth, Mudkip, Pikachu, Psyduck, Skitty, Squirtle, Torchic, Totodile and Treecko. For your partner, the list differs, but the characters are still well-rounded. If you work hard, you can get all of the Pokemon in the world, all 386 of them.

Of course, by the side of story Rescues, there are also Jobs. Jobs are rescue missions that will give you stuff like gummies and Poke Dollars and other prizes. The places where the Pokemon that have joined your Rescue Team, either from winning a boss battle, or defeating them in a dungeon, reside in areas called Friend Areas. Depending on where the Pokemon is from, they will go to their own Friend Area, with other Pokemon from that area. The dungeon are also scattered in the Pokemon world, each different from another and each time you go into one. Only rarely does the same dungeon repeat itself. There is also a place called Pokemon Square, where you can buy or deposit items, store items, buy Friend Areas, re-learn moves and deposit and retrieve money. Also there is a place for evolution, but you have to beat the main game for that to happen.

In dungeons, there are basically tunnels that lead to stairs that either get you to the top or bottom of the dungeon, it depends on which dungeon it is. Lots of Pokemon reside in these catacombs. The battling mechanism is very different from other Pokemon games, because you can battle in real time. The main attack is basically a Tackle move. In addition, you have Moves and PP, and also items. In most dungeons there are boss battle, which are mostly Major Pokemon, like Rayquaza and Groudon and Kyogre.

Of course, you can also faint in a dungeon. Well, what do you do? Whenever you faint, you lose most of the items that you have collected! And what if you are at a high level of the dungeon that can go up to 99 floors? Well, since you can link up the GBA and the DS, or GBA to GBA and so forth, you can rescue someone from the dungeon! For the GBA, you have to use passwords, but with GBA to DS, you just load the GBA into the 2nd slot on the DS, and you can go save them. This is very cool and easy to use, although typing in passwords can be a lengthy process, especially if you mess up, and have to re-type it all over again.

The replay value is not very good, especially when you have beaten the game. Once you get all the Pokemon, all you can do is run around the dungeons and battle enemies and get stronger. It is pretty cool playing as one of the Legendaries, but that effect wears off pretty fast.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon is a good game, with some room for improvement. It can provide hours of fun, and is very colourful and lengthy.


Gameplay: 8.5
Story: 7
Graphics: 7
Controls: 6
Re-playability: 8
Tilt: 7

Spikes17's Score: 7.5/10

Labels: Game Boy Advance, March, News by Sorixas, Nintendo DS, review

posted by Sorixas @ 9:31 p.m. , ,

Review: WarioWare: Twisted
Saturday, March 24, 2007

REVIEW
WarioWare: Twisted
Game Boy Advance
Nintendo


Wario is back, in a new micro minigame frenzy, this time using amazing new Gyro technology is his new game, WarioWare Twisted! Hang on tight, this will be a rollercoaster of fun!

The storyline is that Wario wakes up from a good night’s sleep. He has his trusty Game Boy Advance at his side, and starts to play it. He loses at the game, gets angry and chucks it at the wall, which clocks him in the head. He sees that his Game Boy is all broken, and goes to see Dr. Crygor to see if he can fix it. Crygor throws it in this washing machine type thing called the “Gravitator”. In a second, some white-oval type things with a single screen start to pop out of the machine. Wario looks at it. He tries to play it, but he can’t. Crygor says to spin the game to play it. Wario tries it again, and he likes it. Mona and 9-Volt suddenly pop in, and discover the game. They start playing the game, and love it. Wario, once again, has a sneaky idea to sell this new inventions and, once again, get big bucks.

The main menu has 4 places to go: Spindex, Story, Souvenirs and Options. The Spindex is where all the games go. The story, souvenirs and the options are self-explanatory. The storylines are still random: Wario has a mouse problem, Mona has a Pizza Dinosaur problem, Jimmy T. has a cell phone problem, and so forth. Everyone from the past games has a stage, with the addition of the Wario clock, which is basically all of Wario’s games with a time limit. The Elevator this time is a monkey. There is Surprise Tower, Twitchy Tower (the games start out fast) and Survival Tower (with one life).

The games are always super-fast, with the exception of Orbulon, whose games are double the speed of the other games. Wario Clock’s games go on as long as you have time still on the clock. This game does not make use of the control pad, but it makes use of the new Gyro sensor. This Gyro sensor can pick up movement, so if you twist the Game Boy, the game will react to it. It also has rumble that you can turn on and off from the Options. The game is very fun just because of the tilt sensor, but like all WarioWare games, it does get a little boring. Though this game is a bit of an exception. I find myself going back to it even after I’ve beaten the whole game. It takes a little bit to get all the games, and you have to beat all the games in the Spindex to get a special prize, but its still fun.

The souvenirs are plentiful. There are over 50 souvenirs to collect. The categories are Records, Instruments, Figurines, Games, Doodads, Toys and Other. You can collect souvenirs after you beat the bosses or get to a certain point in Monkey stages. Some are there for music, other are there for entertainment, and others are there just randomly. I occasionally go back to these souvenirs just for the music. The other souvenirs are kind of fun, but some are just pointless.

Overall, I think that WarioWare: Twisted is a really good game. It makes great use of the Gyro sensor, and is among the best in the WarioWare series.

Gameplay: 9.5
Story: 7
Graphics: 6
Controls: 9
Re-playability: 8
Tilt: Yes/ 10

Spikes17’s Score: 9/10

Labels: Game Boy Advance, March, News by Sorixas, review, Spikes17

posted by Sorixas @ 9:01 p.m. , ,