Late to the party is my new video series in which I review popular games a while after they’ve been released, mainly because I’ve only just gotten round to playing them.
The video can be found under this paragraph, but if you’re more of a reader I’ve provided a modified version of the script after the jump so you can enjoy my thoughts in the written word instead. I’m nice like that.
Continue reading “Late to the party – Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag”
As I write this it’s after 1am and news has just broken that Satoru Iwata has passed away, so please forgive me if this isn’t articulate or is a little more rambling than usual.
Satoru Iwata was a man who embodied everything Nintendo stood for. He was a man who put fun before finances, entertainment before enterprise, smiles before sales.
Before he became the first President of Nintendo who wasn’t part of the Yamauchi family, Iwata was a programmer. He was a developer first and a businessman second.
It was this inherent love for gaming, this passion that he took with him right to the tragically early end of his life, that made Iwata the perfect man to lead Nintendo.
It’s no secret that Nintendo’s finances haven’t been great of late. But it’s a testament to Iwata that despite this he continued to receive sterling approval ratings from the company’s many shareholders. Continue reading “Satoru Iwata (1959-2015)”
It’s fair to say that Nintendo’s offering this E3 didn’t exactly blow the world away.
Sony cleverly stole the show with three “ah but” games – Shenmue III (“ah but it’s crowd-funded”), the Final Fantasy VII remake (“ah but it isn’t exclusive”) and The Last Guardian (“ah but we’ve known about this for years”) – while Microsoft went down the “well, we’ve got loads of stuff actually coming out this year” route.
Nintendo, however, had what felt like one of its trademark ‘stop-gap E3s’, where it presented a bunch of seemingly less impressive games to tide fans over until next year’s big reveals of Zelda Wii U and the new NX console.
That said, some ‘gamers’ went a little overboard in terms of criticising Nintendo’s E3 wares. From some saying it was a disgrace to others outright petitioning to cancel the development of one announced game, I’m struggling to think of a time I’ve felt so ashamed to be associated with other so-called gamers.
I’ve been gaming long enough to remember when people were up in arms about Nintendo turning Metroid into a first-person shooter, or turning Zelda cel-shaded. Fast forward more than a decade and, surprise surprise, Metroid Prime and Zelda: The Wind Waker are heralded by Nintendo fans – many of whom whined at the time – as classics.
To be clear, my point is not that Metroid Prime Federation Force will be considered a classic a decade from now. All I’m saying is you should never judge a game until you actually get the chance to play it. Which is why I headed over to Nintendo’s top-secret post-E3 event in London yesterday to go hands-on with ten of the Wii U and 3DS games shown off in LA a couple of weeks ago.
Here are my full, honest impressions of everything I played, in the order I played them. Continue reading “Hands-on with Nintendo’s E3 2015 games”
Yoshi’s Woolly World is out in Europe on Friday (Americans will have to wait until October for it). Now the review embargo‘s passed I can tell you it’s one of the most beautiful, charming games you’ll play this generation.
One of my favourite features in in the game is the ability to unlock unique costumes (well, wool patterns) for Yoshi by scanning amiibo figures on the Wii U GamePad at any time.
When you scan one, Yoshi’s wool colour changes so he looks like the character you scanned. This costume is then unlocked for good and selectable at any point (meaning you can scan a friend’s amiibo, as with the Mario Kart 8 costumes).
As someone who’s a bit of an amiibo addict, I’ve scanned every single one released in Europe to date, except for the Inkling Boy and Inkling Girl from Splatoon. Turns out they all work, except for the Pokemon ones (which I’d imagine is down to The Pokemon Company not wanting its characters involved in that way). Continue reading “Yoshi’s Woolly World amiibo costume gallery”
Tired Old Hack 