SEGA Genesis Collection -- The Place to Be for 16-Bit Ninja.

Two of the three 16-Bit Shinobi titles are present on SEGA Genesis Collection. Revenge of Shinobi is missing, but Shadow Dancer and Shinobi III are here. In 1990 SEGA released Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi on the SEGA Genesis. This is the second Shinobi released on the Genesis. Revenge of Shinobi was first in 1989. Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi isn't a sequel to Revenge of Shinobi. Nor is it a direct port of the arcade game Shadow Dancer. The arcade Shadow Dancer is considered a sequel the original arcade Shinobi from 1987 and it features Joe Musashi's son. The Genesis Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi stars the one and only Joe Musashi himself. The arcade Shadow Dancer introduced a new wrinkle to the Shinobi arcade formula by adding a dog character that follows the player along that can be commanded to attack enemies. The dog can be sent out to disable an enemy. The dog will latch on to them and they'll struggle. While they're struggling they can't attack which allows the player to move in for the kill. The Genesis Shadow Dancer brings this aspect home. The dog is added to the mix. The arcade game Shadow Dancer and the Genesis Shadow Dancer are otherwise entirely different games. Shadow Dancer on the Genesis plays very much like the original 1987 arcade game Shinobi.  You have three minutes to make it through each level. Each stage has three levels. Two standard levels and the boss level. Musashi has unlimited shurikens to throw. He has a standard jump. No spinning jump here. You can jump up and down to higher and lower platforms within the levels. You get one use of ninja magic per stage. Musashi has automated defensive attacks. Pressing attack while an enemy is within range and depending on your position will cause various kicks and sword swipes, just as in the original arcade Shinobi. It's all just like Shinobi. Of course the dog makes a major difference in the gameplay. You can charge up the dog's meter by holding down the attack button. You know that you're within range on a potential enemy to lock on to if the dog is barking. Letting the attack button go while the dog is barking will cause him to rush out and latch on to the enemy. You will need to do this often. It adds a bit of strategy to how you'll make it through the levels. There are some situations you won't be able to get through without proper use of the dog. Just like in the original Shinobi arcade game, onehit kills. You have to get it right. Shadow Dancer has a cool twist on the original Shinobi's bonus rounds. You jump off a building and free-fall throwing shurikens before you killing enemy ninja rushing up at you. There are fifty enemies each bonus round. Killing forty-eight will net you a 1-up. Forty-nine earns you a 2-up, and fifty earns you a 3-up. There is another thing that shows up from the original arcade Shinobi, and that's the dreaded colored ninja. They're fast, agile, they can block, and they take more than one hit to kill. They have the same colors as in the original arcade Shinobi and get tougher in the order of blue, red, gold, and black. The game has good music and decent graphics with perfect control. It has fun boss battles. It's a tough game that always presents a fair challenge. It's a throwback and a nod to the original game that every Shinobi fan will appreciate.

The other game in the collection is Shinobi III: The Return of the Ninja Master and it was originally released on the SEGA Genesis in 1993. Shinobi III is the direct sequel to Revenge of Shinobi and returns that style of play. You have the life bar, the same four selectable ninja magic types, the spinning jump and eight shuriken throw. The less rigid stage numbering. All the time in the world as the there is no timer. Everything is as in Revenge of Shinobi. As this is a sequel, they've added a couple of new moves. Musashi now has a running slash. You can run by double tapping the direction. While running hitting the attack button causes Musashi to do a charging slash with his sword. Musashi also has a homing attack. Jump into the air and hold down and press the attack button and Musashi homes in on an enemy in range with a kick attack. He's a lot more agile this time around as well. They've given him the ability to wall jump and hang from the ceiling and move hand over hand style. All of these new moves come into play in how to deal with enemies and especially in navigating the stages. Revenge of Shinobi on the Genesis also continued off the original Shinobi arcade game like the arcade Shadow Dancer does. The Ninja Master was the boss of the Shinobi arcade game and the boss of Revenge of Shinobi. It's easy to see how they're connected to each other. The graphics of Shinobi III are very impressive and rank among the best of the 16-bit era. The music is very high quality and the composition is great, it's just that it has to follow up Yuzo Koshiro's brilliant Revenge of Shinobi score. The game features a wealth of bosses. The game also adds midbosses to the mix, something new to the series. The game is arguably the toughest game in the 2D series of Shinobi games. It doesn't mess around, especially in the end. The last level is one hell of a challenge. One of the toughest stages in the whole era. Shinobi III is a fitting end to the 16-bit era of Shinobi. It's a great game. You can't do better than the three Genesis Shinobi games. Shinobi is the pinnacle of ninja games for me. No other series even comes close. SEGA Genesis Collection is worth the cost for these two titles alone...

Viva Pinata -- Final Opinion.

Viva Pinãta starts off going a mile a minute throwing a whole lot of information at you. It makes you feel a little overwhelmed. But after a few hours the game settles down, and the addiction settles in. Once you get comfortable with how the game works you find a wonderfully executed god sim with swift pacing. It's the pacing that really helps put this game ahead of similar titles like Animal Crossing. The game keeps you constantly busy. And it keeps you busy doing things as you want it. And even though you're comfortable with how the game plays you still never lose that sense of wanting to fiddle around with everything to discover what you can discover. The more you discover, the more open the game becomes. The further you go the deeper it seems to go. Animal Crossing seems to have no consequence. No true objectives or incentive. Viva Pinãta never seems to run out of objectives and you always seem to have incentive to keep going and see what else you can discover. And everything you do in the game has a potential consequence. Animal Crossing has always felt like a non-game to me. It's a distraction at best. Viva Pinãta is a true game, and it's a great one. It's a game filled with great graphics and art design. The game just looks beautiful. The music in the game is all over the place in terms of genre and style. There are some menu themes and a few tracks used for the main game itself but most of the music is for the romance cutscenes. Each pinãta type has its own romance dance with its own music. They range from techno to rock and everything in between from a waltz to a march and even some polka and square-dancing. There are some sixty pinãta types with a romance dance and music track for each of them. The music is good in both composition and sound quality. The voices in the game are all top notch. They're very well done and fit the characters perfectly. As this is a game made by Rare, it's filled with their typical humor. The game is smart and funny. It's their typically British take on everything. You'll find it working for little kids and you'll also find a lot of more subtle humor for the adults playing the game that will just fly right over the heads of the kids. The controls are simple and intuitive. They're all context sensitive and onscreen. The menus are also clean and simple. Viva Pinãta is a game you're just going to want to fiddle with. Fiddle with in the best possible way. It's smart, fun, and addicting. It has great depth. I really liked it. It appeared to have bombed initially. It seems people stayed away from it because of its apparent kiddy nature. Word of mouth on the game has been great. Almost everyone seems to really enjoy it. Sales seem to have picked up. Hopefully they'll keep going as I want a sequel. The game deserves to sell. I'm giving Viva Pinãta a 9.

SEGA Genesis Collection -- Sword of Vermilion.

After RPG fans had the chance to play through Phantasy Star II in the spring of 1990 they left were wanting another RPG title to play. SEGA's answer came in the fall of 1990 in the form of Sword of Vermilion. It's easy to say that Sword of Vermilion is a true oddity. It's a traditional Western fantasy RPG created by the Japanese. It takes place in a pure fantasy world of dragons, kings, magic, treasure chests, and dungeons. That's not so odd you say, every other Japanese RPG has all of those elements. The odd part is that there isn't any interjection of anything Japanese at all. The story, creature design, character design, town and area designs are all decidedly Western. The story is of the era. The evil Tsarkon kills your father, the rightful King of Excalabria, and usurps his throne. Your father had his trusted servant whisk you as an infant away where you were raised unaware. Upon the death of your believed father you're told the truth and thus begin a quest to defeat Tsarkon. The game is further odd in its combination of action RPG and dungeon crawler. In towns you'll have the standard RPG view. When you step out of town into the overworld or a dungeon the screen will be split into five windows. The windows show your hit and magic points, the magic you have equipped, your money and experience, your view, and the area map. Most of those are self explanatory, but your view is a first person view. The map will just show your character and everything else will remain covered until you've found the in-game map for that area. After you've found the map the map screen shows your character's position within the overworld or dungeon. The interface system for the towns is entirely menu driven. You have to select talk to talk to an NPC. There are commands for talk, item, strength, open, magic, look, and take. The battles are entirely action based. From the overworld or dungeon view screen you'll see the creature type materialize and then you're whisked off to the battle screen. The battle screen is made up of the correctly matching background for the location, your character, and a random number of the enemy creature. You can move in eight directions and you have one button to swing your sword, and another to use your currently equipped magic type. You either hack all the creatures to death or they kill you. You can run from the battle by exiting the battle screen from either the left of right side of the screen. You'll always start out placed in the center of the screen and often times you'll be entirely surrounded by creatures. The battles are fast and furious. Sword of Vermilion is big on having you be in an area you're supposed to be in, and punishing you for getting ahead of yourself. It takes the latest weapons and magic as well as armor to be able to stand a chance against the current creatures. The boss battles remain action but switch to a single plain where you can only move left and right against a single large enemy creature. Sword of Vermilion's graphics were good in the day and come off somehow charming in a very antiquated way today. The music was very impressive and will even impress today. The story is admiralty straightforward and traditional. Sword of Vermilion was good fun then and it remains so in my opinion. It still remains an oddity. A Japanese game where they set out to make a Western style RPG and threw in three distinct play styles and somehow made it all work. There will be more SEGA Genesis Collection entries, slowly but surely...

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess -- Final Opinion.

I have completed The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess with a time of roughly sixty-three hours. I managed to collect all twenty hearts and all of the bugs. I only managed fifty-two of sixty Poe souls though. I completed the optional Cave of Ordeals. The art style is slightly more grown up and dark but how is the story? It's the same Zelda story retold. The same one they're always retelling again and again. I'm now convinced we're never going to get anything but this same Zelda story. Of course it's the same story retold with some new players and some new locations and some changes here and there. And to be honest, while I'm not happy that is the same old story, I have to say that it is the best version and the most well told of them all. They went to A Link to the Past for most of the inspiration this time around, and as it's the best Zelda game of them all, they couldn't have made a better choice. All the Zelda standards are here, Zelda in trouble, the three goddesses, the great fairies, light and dark worlds, the chosen hero, the Gorons, Zora, and Gerudo, Epona, and the Triforce. Thrown in to the mix is a new wrinkle in the form of the character of Midna who really helps give the game its charm and heart. It's Link that you follow from a lowly goat-herder who is tasked with delivering a sword to Castle Hyrule only to find himself on a quest to find missing Ordon Village children that eventually leads him to becoming the savior of all Hyrule. And along the way you're introduced to Midna who eventually becomes your partner through the whole tale. It's from her that you get most of the story. Link remains the stoically courageous and willing hero, but Midna is the heart and soul of the story. She has a great character arc to travel. Her character has real growth. It's because of her the story has its real emotional impact at the end. She's one of the rare characters capable of bringing about a bittersweet reaction. She's one of the best characters I've seen in a long time. Twilight Princess has great control and gameplay. The graphics are exceptionally pretty for a Gamecube title and good looking for a Wii first effort. The music is a bit tougher to nail down. It works very well in game, but I don't think it plays all that well outside of it. The classic themes are all here and well represented. There are a couple of standout arrangements. The arrangements of the Lost Woods theme from Ocarina of Time and the Hyrule Castle from A Link to the Past being chief among them. The sound effects are the same classic ones we all know and love. There is an interesting aspect to the Wii Remote having a speaker. Hearing the sword swipes and clangs as well as the item get fanfare and other sounds coming from the Wii Remote working in conjunction with those from the television provide a sense of the tangible. It's a very cool and unexpected aspect of the Wii. This aspect can truly be called revolutionary in my opinion. The quest is sizable and is filled with great puzzles, side-quests, minigames, humor, and fun and epic boss battles. A very impressive start to the Wii. I'm not going to call the game the best launch title ever because I feel it's really the swan song of the Gamecube with Wii aspects tacked on. It's a must play title for all Zelda fans. It's a return to the roots, so to speak. Which leads me back to the only real flaw I have with the game. It's been there done that before, no matter how well it's done. But it's a tiny little flaw in an otherwise perfect game. I'm giving The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess a 9.5.

It Seems Nintendo Almost Reluctantly Creeps Further Online.

Nintendo is actually going online this generation, unlike their Gamecube years. The Wii Shop Channel and the Mii Channel as well as basic email have been live since the launch of the Wii. Nintendo has taken the next couple steps recently. On December 19 they rolled out the Forecast Channel. A service that allows you to check the weather of anywhere in the world. The Forecast Channel required a full system update. When you select the channel for the first time it will ask you for your location so that it can provide your local information. You start with your country and start to narrow it down from there and you hopefully live close to a location they list. Once the channel is set up, you can select it and it'll bring up your local information and provide you with the current data for the last hour, the five day forecast, and the UV index. There is also an option for a globe where you can check the current, five day, and UV index for most locations around the world. It's actually fun to fiddle with. There are some little Nintendo touches like sound effects. You'll hear the wind, rain, or thunder. There is one major flaw with the channel as far as I'm concerned. It involves the channel's need for WiiConnect 24 standby settings to be turned on. I have my WiiConnect 24 settings to on when the console is on, and off when I turn the console off. In other words, it's okay for the system to connect to the Internet when I turn it on, and only when it's on. There isn't any logical need to have the system having to be set so that it can connect to the Internet while off in order for the Forecast Channel to work. What's the big deal about it signing in to get the data when I power the system on? It might not seem such a big deal to some people, but I want control over my network. The WiiConnect 24 service is technically a lie anyway. It's not a persistent connection as sold. It logs in and out constantly. It's not live as, well Xbox Live. I don't need the Wii signing in just to see if someone might have sent me a Mii, or to download some email that Nintendo sent me advertising something while I'm actually playing a real online game over Xbox Live or slowing some download. Today Nintendo rolled out the Internet Channel Trial Version. It's their Opera based web browser. You get the 230 block download from the Wii Shop Channel. They say some of the functionality isn't there in the trial version and that the final version will be available at the end of March 2007. It'll also be free to download until June 2007, after that it's 500 Wii Points to purchase. It's worth the 500 points, I guess. It's functional. It's a browser, for surfing the Net with a television. The control interface is obviously the Wii Remote. Upon loading the channel you get the start page that offers some tips on the control. You can scroll through pages by holding down the B button and moving the remote. The A button selects hyperlinks and the like. The - and + buttons zoom in and out. Button 1 brings up your favorites and button 2 alters how the page is displayed. The bottom of the actual page screen has pointer-friendly large icons for advancing the page back, forward, reloading, and returning to the start page. Surfing the Net in a resolution of 480p is just plain ugly. And having to zoom in and out and scroll around the pages will simply be annoying to anyone who actually uses a computer for surfing. They do try to help things along in a couple ways. Hitting button 2 breaks the page down into a list of the images and hyperlinks making it easier to navigate but it sucks the life out of the presentation to pure function. They also offer a word fill system when having to enter text via the Wii Remote. The favorites list isn't functional in the beta. The browser supports Flash and various movie formats so essentially YouTube will be supported. The browser however does not support Java. Which means you won't be playing any Java based games. They can't have you playing Java based Super Mario Bros. for free when they want you to buy the game in the Wii Shop Channel can they? All in all though, it's a functioning browser for your television. Those who can't afford a computer or can't figure one out will probably be impressed and fully satisfied with the Internet Channel. Everyone else, not so much. There seems to be word out of Japan that the upcoming Pokemon game on the Wii uses game specific friend codes just like all the Nintendo DS games. This is rather disappointing news if true. It means that Nintendo is continuing the decidedly crappy online structure of the NDS with the Wii. Nobody I know likes it. Everyone finds it cumbersome and annoying. I'm wondering just how the actual online gaming is going to pan out for the Wii. The Pokemon game is turn based battling. You could play that over 56k and never notice lag. Is there going to be a first person shooter on the Wii offering deathmatch online or are we going to see a generation of very low end online usage as far as online gaming is concerned? Or maybe I'm just spoiled by Xbox Live? I don't think I am. No, I'm sure I'm not. Come on Nintendo, get it together. Please.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess -- The Art Design of Twilight.

When Nintendo unveiled the Gamecube at Spaceworld in 2000, it teased the world with footage of what was presumed to be the next installment in the long-running Legend of Zelda series. That footage was of a realistic looking approach to the game's art design. Fans of the series the world over were in great anticipation of the title. Cut to a year later at the next Spaceworld when the world got its next look at what now was Wind Waker. As everyone should know by now, Wind Waker used a cel-shaded look that Nintendo called Toon Shading. A bullshit term for cel-shading because Nintendo can't admit to copying anything being the innovators they believe themselves to be. The new graphic style for Wind Waker split the fans squarely into two camps. One group that absolutely loved it, and another group that absolutely despised the look. Apparently because Wind Waker didn't set the world on fire with its sales and the hate it camp was so very vocal about the graphics Nintendo caved in to the pressure and created a somewhat more realistic style with Twilight Princess. I say somewhat more realistic art style because it really just appears so on the surface. Link looks more adult. He's more of a young man instead of a child or teenager. Link may be, but the rest of the world is inhabited with more of the fantastical in both enemies and the non-player characters. They haven't attempted to make the Tektite the most realistic spider they possibly could. They've kept the fantasy. They've mixed in some real world with the straight out of Lord of the Rings aspects. Kakariko Village for example comes off as an old west mining town. One of the dungeons has a strong Egyptian vibe. Overall it results in the most bizarre Hyrule yet. It has a mixed and matched feeling that somehow works. The slightly realistic Link and the bizarre world he finds himself in this time around certainly give the story more weight than that of Wind Waker. But the fantasy and whimsy of other Zelda titles are still present in Twilight Princess. There are other aspects that help make Twilight Princess seem a bit more adult than previous titles. There are some surprisingly vicious actions in the game. Especially as Link in wolf form. Link more than bites the enemy, he latches on and shakes them violently,  ripping into them as a wolf really would. There isn't any blood of course, but the action itself is violent. Link has special finishing moves available to him should he find them. A couple them are also rather violent. There also seems to be touches of sexuality. In the way the barkeeper insinuates certain things and in how Midna is drawn and reacts to her riding of Link in wolf form. Midna has a rather womanly form and she grunts and has some slightly suggestive sounds going on. I know Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask had some sexuality, but it somehow seems more out in front in Twilight Princess. The game definitely manages a more adult feel to it than Wind Waker. It's quite welcome by me. Next time should cover the story of Twilight Princess.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess -- Crawling Around the Dungeons.

The Zelda series has always had great dungeon designs and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is no exception. As of this entry I'm over forty hours into the game and through six of the game's rumored nine proper dungeons. That's enough for me to easily say that Twilight Princess has the best dungeon designs out of any of the 3D Zelda titles. I'm not sure if they're better than the 2D A Link to the Past just yet. A dungeon in Zelda is defined as a location that has three essential elements. Those are its own map, compass, and boss key. Twilight Princess doesn't deviate from that basic formula. There is another key element that is present in the Twilight Princess dungeons, and that is a midboss battle that results in an item that grants you some new ability allowing you to make further progress through said dungeon and the rest of the game. Twilight Princess is like the twelfth title released in the series and as such it's safe to say we've covered most of the possible themes for dungeons already. Twilight Princess doesn't try to reinvent the wheel or anything on that level but instead stays true to what's come before with new takes on the classic themes. We get dungeons based on wind, fire, water, and ice mixed in with some new concepts like grinding and minion control. The dungeons are all large and sprawling in design. The puzzle design ranges from purely intuitive brilliance to head-scratching spatial relationship puzzles. You will be stopped for a while from time to time in Twilight Princess' dungeons but for me they've never approached being frustrating. In fact I would say the puzzles walk the perfect line between intuitive and challenging. I have been impressed with each dungeon in the game and I've thoroughly enjoyed them all thus far. Next time on Zelda should cover art design, or maybe boss battles. With entries on story and the final opinion still to come.

Phantasy Star Universe -- Still Expanding.

The third content update has hit Phantasy Star Universe. It brings with it five new S rank missions. They've added S rank missions for Mad Creatures, Mizuraki Defense, Demons Above, Valley of Carnage, and Mine Defense. The new S ranks are sort of all over the place, both within the world of the game and what they have to offer. Mizuraki Defense and Valley of Carnage are both in areas that are generally harder than the Unsafe Passage and Fight for Food missions. The later two are the first missions of the game, but on S rank are quite difficult due to the enemies use of the Megid technique. Megid, as any Phantasy Star player knows is an attack that has a high chance of instantly killing the target. The creatures themselves aren't physically that tough in comparison to the Mizuraki Defense and Valley of Carnage creatures, so what should be harder actually comes off as easier. The most important aspect to S rank missions are the rewards. Not in the potential weapons and items you might find in the mission, but in the actual set rewards for earning an S rank score on an S rank mission. You're given a relatively large amount of Meseta. And at this point with A rank weapons and armor costing what they do, Meseta is still very sought after. You're also given a relatively large amount of type points to go towards leveling the advanced types. It takes an awful lot of type points to level the advanced types. In fact, none of us have reached level two in our advanced types. You're also rewarded with what's called a Photon Shard. Photon Shards can be used in the game as a means of distracting enemies so you're not attacked for a while. But that's not the real value of the Photon Shard. They can be traded in to purchase the best Photon Arts and Skills and Bullets. It takes large amounts of Photon Shards to purchase one of these advanced arts, skills, or bullets. We're talking between seventy-five and ninety-nine for each one. That's a lot of work. Work we're welcoming at this point. Next week will see an update further adding content. Reportedly a new online mission in the story, and some more S rank missions.

Viva Pinãta -- Sparrowmints Like Whirlms.

Fiddling around with Viva Pinãta is indeed the best way to come to terms with how the game plays. The controls are big on the context sensitive style. You'll have an onscreen representation of the controls in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. You don't have a character onscreen in the game, instead you're just moving a cursor around from sort of a god's eye view of the garden. You're not looking at the garden from above, you're down in the garden looking about. The controls will change when you move the cursor over something within the game. Depending on what you've got the cursor over and what tool you're currently using you'll get a different possible action. The action is always on the A button. The B button is always to cancel out of a menu or to discard something The Y button is always for information on whatever you have the cursor currently covering. The X button allows you to bring up the main menu where you'll access a multitude of items and options. You'll be able to select which tool to equip. You'll be able to access your journal and the encyclopedia. You'll be able to head into the game's village to visit the store, or the doctor, or the builder, or the post office, or to hire helpers. You start the game by getting a garden on Pinãta Island. It's a run down and unkempt space all your own. You're tasked with cleaning it up. You're given your first tool, a shovel. You can use the shovel to smash the junk sitting in your garden so you can remove it. You can also pound the ground to break up the hard soil to turn it into usable fertile soil. In doing those tasks you'll more than likely level up which rewards you with another tool, a never-ending packet of grass seed. In getting enough fertile soil in the garden you'll also attract your first pinãta which will be a Whirlm, an earthworm. The pinãta who are attracted to your garden will be introduced by a cutscene and they'll show up around the edge of your garden. They'll be colored in black and white. Each pinãta type will have four requirement types. They are requirements for appearance, visit, resident, and romance. The Whirlm requirements are set extremely low as to insure that you'll get one without fail. The appearance requirement covers what it takes for the pinãta to make its first appearance on the outside edge of your garden. The visit requirement covers what it takes for the pinãta to enter your garden proper. The resident requirements cover what it will take for the pinãta to decide to take residency in your garden and make it their home. The romance requirement is what it will take for the pinãta to breed and produce more of their kind in your garden. For example, having a Whirlm in your garden will attract a Sparrowmint. If you get two Whirlm in your garden, you'll get the Sparrowmint to visit. If you get the two Whirlm to mate you'll get the Sparrowmint to move in and stay. When a pinãta moves in to your garden and becomes a resident it changes from black and white into full color and you're able to name it. In order to mate the Sparrowmint you will have to build it a Sparrowmint house in your garden and you'll have to feed each one a Whirlm. What you do to your garden will affect which pinãta types are attracted to your garden. Some will be attracted by the types of pinãta already in your garden and others will be attracted by what's in your garden. For example, they'll be attracted to how much water is in your garden, or what types of fruit trees, or what types of flowers, or they'll come because they're interested in your other pinãta as food. Everyone starts out with a Whirlm, but where the game goes from there is entirely up to you. You build your garden how you see fit. You start with a dirt field. You build it from the ground up from scratch. No two gardens will ever be the same. There are numerous items and thousands of possibilities and more than sixty types of pinãta. It's all up to you. Next time should cover more on mating, and more of the possibilities.

Viva Pinãta -- Initial Impression.

It's not like I don't have enough to play but next up for me is Viva Pinãta for the Xbox 360. Viva Pinãta is initially a hard game to wrap your head around. It comes off as part God sim and part puzzle game. You're tasked with managing a garden on an island where pinãtas live. Initially the graphics come off as lush. They're full of vibrant colors and great detail. The voice work comes off as immediately charming. Rare's typical sense of humor is also immediately front and center. The controls seem initially complex as does the initial learning curve. The game throws you right into the mix and starts peppering you with new information. You have a lot to learn in a very short time. It's the kind of game you're just going to have to mess around with. Learn as you go by fiddling with everything. The initial pacing just seems a tad hectic which gives the game a daunting vibe. We'll have to see how it all plays out, as always.

Phantasy Star Universe: The New Content Arrives.

Last night's much awaited update has finally arrived, and boy is it expensive. The update brings with it a wealth of new content. Most importantly are the new advanced types. You can update to one of the new advanced types for a small amount of Meseta. The new types are either combinations of a couple of the core types or a further extension of a single core type. In other words, if you've leveled your Hunter and Force type levels high enough you could qualify for the advanced type of Wartecher which combines the aspects of the two core types. I've leveled my Ranger to type level ten which qualifies me for the advanced type of Fortegunner which furthers the pure gunner path begun with the Ranger. The update brings with it seven new weapon types and grants access to A rank weapons and armor. The new weapon types are grenade launchers, claws, axes, cards, double sabers, laser cannons, and crossbows. The A rank weapons cost about 90,000 Meseta and that's a rather large amount. I'll have to update six or seven types of weapons up to A rank. I'll have the Meseta to be able to update one weapon and that will break the bank for me. Good thing I'll be able to fight my way through two new S rank missions to earn more Meseta for the daunting task before me. I don't even want to think about replacing the armor for well over 100,000 Meseta. I'll also be gaining type levels and rasing my Partner Machinery's combat level. As of this entry Siren's combat level is thirty-four. There is also the first story mission which is broken into two parts. Phantasy Star Universe Episode 2: Chapter 1 - The Mask part 1 & 2 continue the story of the offline game a few months later. You'll definitely want to have completed all of the offline game's story before playing these missions online. The story takes a dramatic and interesting turn right off the bat and it would be a rather large spoiler for the offline game. Christmas has also come to Phantasy Star Universe. There are decorations and new music up around the cities. There is suddenly a lot to do in Phantasy Star Universe again. There will supposedly be weekly new content updates for a while. We'll have to see how the game continues to expand...

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess -- Monkeying Around with the Controls.

While I've only managed to progress through two proper dungeons in Twilight Princess I feel confident in my assessment of the control. Most importantly is that they definitely work. I've had no problems adjusting to the control scheme beyond the initial learning of the button layout of a new controller I've never used before. There haven't been any negative control issues. No glitches. I haven't seen any non-responsiveness. The controls actually become very intuitive rather fast in playing the game. I have no issues controlling Link's movement. No issues in looking around. No issues in combat with the camera that wouldn't be there on the Gamecube controller. Defending myself and attacking are as easy as they've ever been. I've had no issues in aiming the boomerang, arrows, or slingshot. No issues in the combat while riding Epona. Everything works perfectly. Twilight Princess is a complex game and the performance of the controls eases any fears I might of had for real games on the system. Of course it will depend on the genre and the developer's skill, but Twilight Princess at least shows it will not be the Wii's fault for bad controls. Twilight Princess controls pretty much just like all of the 3D Zelda before it. If you've played Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, or Wind Waker then you have the basic idea. The player controls Link with the nunchuck controller's analog stick. Link's sword is controlled by the Wii Remote's motion sensing. You wiggle the Wii Remote to pull out your sword and for each sword motion. It only takes a little wiggle so you're not flailing around like an idiot. The controller isn't tied to Link's sword in a one-to-one ratio. So you don't have any sort of exacting control over the sword. In fact it's just as if it were being controlled by a single button push. One wiggle movement is as one button push. The nunchuck attachment has a Z button and it works just as it did in previous versions. The Z button accesses the Z targeting system which allows you to lock on to specific enemies. Being locked on to a target with sword drawn allows for Link's leaping sword strike when you press the A button on the Wii Remote. The Z targeting system also allows for defensive maneuvers in combat. Just holding Z uses Link's shield. Holding Z and pushing left, right, or back in combination with the A button allows for Link to sidestep to either side or to back flip away from enemies. Link's spin attack has been placed on the nunchuck attachment. While the sword is out you wiggle the Nunchuck attachment to cause Link to perform the spin attack. Link is as capable as he ever was. In fact, everything is pretty much the same. He still auto jumps as he did in previous versions. Just get near an edge and run off and Link jumps for you. To look around the world in Link's perspective you just hit the C button on the nunchuck attachment. You can then use the analog stick to look around or just use the pointer on the Wii Remote. They both are equally functional and easy to use. As always you'll find new items and weapons like a slingshot, bombs, a lantern, potions, a bow and arrows, and more which need to be assigned to buttons for use. Pressing the 1 button brings up the menu that allows you to assign the items to three of the Wii Remote's D-pad directions and the B button. All of these items are used with the Wii Remote's B button. Using the D-pad to switch between items is very easy and responsive. The 2 Button brings up the game's map system. The Wii's controls don't hinder anything about Zelda. The most complex actions like moving Link while aiming the bow independently are simple and intuitive for me. Looking at the trees so to speak, everything is great as far as Nintendo's Wii and current style gaming is concerned. But if you take a step back and take a look at the forest so to speak, did Zelda on the Wii need this? It's Zelda on the Wii. There isn't anything technically new. All that changes is in how you're doing the same things. The basic functionality of the game remains unchanged. It could be debated that there isn't really any change here. Nintendo hasn't reinvented the wheel.  So far they've proven they can do the same thing without any control issues. For some people that's sort of a great thing. But if Nintendo is going to be praised for innovation, shouldn't there sort of be some? As of right now I'm not sure there is any. But also as of right now, I'm just glad Zelda works perfectly, even if it is technically more of the same functionality...

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess -- Initial Impression.

We're on to one of the biggest releases of the season for the next game with The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for the Wii. Nintendo has a lot to prove with the Wii version of Twilight Princess. They're out to legitimize their Wii Remote in the eyes of the core gamer who may be thinking that Nintendo is abandoning them in their pursuit of new and casual gamers who are outside of the core demographic. My initial impression of the game is that it looks really pretty for a Gamecube game. Nothing about my three hours spent messing around with the game makes me feel that this is visually a next generation game. Of course I've been around long enough to know that graphics really mean next to nothing and that gameplay is king. The time I've spent with the game has all really been going through the standard tutorial based gameplay Nintendo employs for most of their larger games. My largest concern with the game is going to be the controls. So far I'm pleasantly surprised. It initially comes off as entirely playable. Things seem to actually work. That's not to say that there haven't been moments of confusion because there has been. But it seems it's more of just learning the controller than the control itself failing. Another aspect I'm going to be concerned about is the story itself and the storytelling. I've pretty much believed that the story has always been the series' weak link. They've just retold the same thing over and over and the story has always been relatively hollow. Hopefully that will change this time. I'm not far enough to get any idea of what they've done with the story. I can tell you that I've seen little bits of that old Nintendo charm. Just a character reaction here and an unexpected thing there but it's a good sign. I can say that I'm truly interested in further playing the game at this point. It's giving me a good vibe. We'll see how it all pans out of course...