General Games Discussion

Hmm will buy it in the next sale. Should be around 20ish then

The music is amazing as well, very ME-like themes

@Mole,

I managed to get a platinum in both Bioshock games.

Getting a platinum in the second game is what ultimately made me SEVERELY DISLIKE trophies. Wasting 50+ hours to get online trophies in a nearly dead multiplayer component of a single player game was the WORST thing I ever done.

The Wrench was stupidly broken in Bioshock 1. Once it was upgraded it did more damage than any gun in the game, meaning that you could just use it to easily get through the fodder enemies whilst saving up all your gun ammo to rain down hell upon the Big Daddies.

CBarca wrote:Jonathan

Sims is an amazing series. So much damn fun

It really is man, I never realised just how much has been added to the series over the years, it's so deep.

RealGunner wrote:That sims playthrough sounds rough AF

Didn't know it goes into that much detail

Yeah, most of us only played the first Sims which, whilst fun, was honestly quite barebones as a life simulator. People didn't really take it seriously, they spent more time locking up their sims in a doorless room until they starved or putting them in a swimming pool until they drowned then playing the game, that isn't the case anymore, it's a fully fledged and detailed life simulator now.

Phritz wrote:Been wanting to install it since I got EA access

Do it. I've spent over 100 hours on it now haha, and I've installed so many mods which have made the game even better.

#32

Game: Wario Land: Shake It!.
Year: 2008.
Genre: Platforming.
Publisher: Nintendo.
Developer: Good-Feel.



First things first, I am changing my rating system to better rate different genres according to their own rules. It will still be from 50 quality points, but every title will start from 25 and earn/lose points according to criteria important to the titles and genres themselves.

The Wario Land platforming series is in a weird place among its other Nintendo platforming brethren. While Mario, Donkey Kong, Yoshi, and Kirby all have their distinctive style with limited changes, Wario's games seem to be all over the place.

Case in point Shake It!, which takes some cues from past Wario Land games but plays very different to them.

Maybe its that lack of distinct style that turned me off on the game initially, but I didn't enjoy the game at first, and thought completing it would end up just being out of duty to this review.

Curiously, this is a game that I give a begrudging acknowledgment to by the end, because through a lot of competence, it pulls through its initial boring early going.

"With every shake, a fortune of coins burst from its limitless depth"

Shake It! starts with a cool cartoon opening that could be the opening some really competent Saturday Night cartoon. It showcases the Shake King's abduction of some cute looking race, as well as their treasure; a bottomless treasure bag.

From that opening scene, we go into Wario's she or something, were someone suddenly delivers a rather large globe. In an elaborate cartoon scene, Wario is transferred inside that globe, where he is asked to save the princess of the Merfles (the cute looking race).

Being an unrepentant greedy bastard, Wario is more interested in getting back the treasure, and collecting a ton of treasure in the way.

Outside of that elaborate setting, the game's greatest weakness is apparent, its lack of personality.

Despite Wario's world actually being quite realized, with its weirdness accentuated in the Wario Ware series, here it is boring and quite pedestrian. Other than the focus on getting treasure, which all showcases the wonderful weirdness of the Wario-verse, everything else in the game could change without much of an effect.

Both stages, and everything occupying those stages from backgrounds to characters look great, but is sterile and devoid of any personality whatsoever. This result in a clean-looking game, with assets that nearly look like placeholders for something that should have been more interesting.

Very Good Intro: +2
Devoid of Personality: -5

"Shake Dimension, tremble before your new King!"

Now that he needs to go into these stages and save the Merfles, Wario is in no way willing to spare things that stand in his way. Especially as it regards potential treasure.

Wario has a surprisingly numerous moves in his repertoire. He can jump over enemies, pound them with his weight, shoulder bash them to oblivion, and of course shake them for health and throw them as projectiles. That's all before using the various in-stage tools that could help him get more leverages.

Clearly, Wario is threatened by whatever is in his path, especially since he can take even more punishment that he gives.

As such, the game is more like an exploration platformer, where you need to explore the level for more gold and three treasures a stage. Otherwise, going from one end to the other poses little challenge.

Once you finish a stage, the one of the game's twists come into place. You have to race back to the beginning of the stage. While this can prove boring in paper, its actually a decent thrill in an otherwise slow-paced game.

Other than the traditional platforming stages, there is the annoying submarine stages where are okay since there aren't many of them. Then there are the bosses of the game, which are absolutely challenging and fun, as well as varied to a great degree. I hope the Mario games take note of that someday.

Lack of Challenge: -3
Fun to Walk Around: +2
End of level Races: +2
Great Boss Battles: +3

"Thanks for getting the treasure for me Wario, now consider it a consultation fee"

Like the game's lack of personality in style, I was initially very disappointment with the what it had to offer in terms of stages. First, I thought that the low number of stages (24 regular stages and 12 secret stages) would be a disadvantage.

After completing the first two worlds, I though the low number of stage would end up being an advantage, such was my disappointment in the game. Simply, with slow-paced exploration, the stages must be interesting. In both style and substance, the first two world were too boring.

Just when I was about to give up on the game, the third world started with an excellent level set in a moving train. I am always a sucker for train levels, and this one was especially good.

From that stage on, the game didn't drastically improved, but it did noticeably get better and more interesting. Stages started getting more varied, and the idea of replaying them to complete challenges wasn't as terrible as it was at first.

To complete the game's challenges, you would need to replay most stages at least twice. Because of how they are constructed, one challenge making the other more difficult to get, playing the stage twice is the only way to get all challenges.

Otherwise, these challenges are really just there for people who really enjoyed the game. For me, while the game in the end managed to satisfy me, it wasn't to the level that I wanted to complete everything it had to offer.

Bad First Impression: -3
Pretty Good Later Stages: +4

"Ordinary goggles only protect the eyes. Ordinary goggles are for chumps--description of Full-Body Goggles"

Right from the start, its obvious that this latest Wario Land's graphics and animation is gorgeous. Nearly all sprites and background objects has this 2D hand drawn look that is both detailed and incredibly smooth. As a plus, it looks even better when it moves.

Wario's movement, still animation, shaking motion, and all of his other visual effects convey a deep sense of character to him.

The excellent graphics and animation, as perfectly evidenced by Wario, is the reason we notice the game's lack of personality. While everything is very competent, the graphics are nearly wasted on placeholder items with little to no inspiration.

I say nearly wasted, because the game manages to squeeze some personality purely through its art direction at times, even if the assets it has to work with are not exactly special.

One weird thing though is the constrained view of the game. The main action takes place in a 4:3 square in the middle of the screen when playing in a 16:9 TV, with the two sides occupied by information regarding the level's challenges and treasure. Its probably due to the game being developed with SD TVs in mind and the art style making it undesirable to stretch for HD TVs.

Musically, the game has a lot of personality. I cannot say that the soundtrack is excellent, even saying its Very Good might be a stretch. However, it has variety and constant quality. Better yet, the music manages to install some personality to these stages that it otherwise lacks.

Good Feel must have had a lot of faith on the soundtrack though, as unlocking them is the reward for finishing the challenges of each stage. And yes, each stage does have its own nearly unique song.

Excellent Graphics and Animation: +5
Constrained View: -2
Very Good Music: +4

In Conclusion:

I started Wario Land: Shake It! with little experience with the Wario Land games, and I expected a competent platformer from Nintendo. It started as an obviously good game, but its lack of personality and the pedestrian stages turned me off.

Perhaps its a testament to its innate quality that the game managed to change a strongly negative first impression into a positive final view of the game.

While it never managed to pull me to fully complete and explore everything it had to offer, I enjoyed my time with Shake It! despite the initial turn-off, and despite the cramps from all that shaking.

Final: 35/50

"Tips"
1- I suggest you look online to see how to unlock the secret stages.
2- The fastest way to complete all challenges is to focus on getting the X amount of gold challenges first.
3- Usually, the kill no enemies challenge cannot be completed with the speed challenge.
4- To get the best out of the game's bosses, do not buy any heart upgrades until the last boss, where you will need them.
5- If you are low on health, shake enemies to get a health pick up.
6- Sometime, using enemies in a clever ways is the only way to get to tough to reach treasure and gold.
7- Nearly always, you will need to get the all the big diamonds in a stage if you want to finish its Gold challenge.

"Next Game"

Wario Land: Shake It! is proof that first impressions can change. Its also proof that Nintendo are simply THE experts in the platforming genre, and that they can craft games of many molds into it.

Next game for me to review is another one focusing on treasure. Sitting at #28, Zack and Wiki: Quest For Barbaros's Treasure is almost a treasure in of itself. While not especially rare, it was one of the celebrated 3rd party games that apparently did not get the attention they deserve.

Stay Tuned

Rockstar Games announces Red Dead Redemption Backwards Compatibility on Xbox One


smh

You realise it's not getting remastered right and every game on Xbox One is backwards compatible with 360 games.

It's the equivalent of playing a PS2 game on the OG PS3.

There are growing reports that the NX will be using cartridges (ala N64)

You can't make this up @RealGunner @LeVersacci

There are advantages to cartridges though

ES wrote:There are growing reports that the NX will be using cartridges (ala N64)

You can't make this up @RealGunner @LeVersacci

lmaoooo

It will also support 480p. Moving from 240p on WiiU

Anyone getting Pokemon Go?

No man's sky confirmed for 10 August release.No delay

Considering the read speeds of our optical storage devices and the price of flash memory Nintendo switching back to flash memory makes more sense than using slow-ass bluray. How slow is Bluray?

My modded Skyrim (which wouldn't even fit on a BR @58gigs) loads in 3-6 seconds. It would take well over 5 minutes on Bluray.

RealGunner wrote:No man's sky confirmed for 10 August release.No delay

It's cause it's finished lol

Yeah that's the biggest advantage, I remember the n64 days when the load times on the games were non existent.

Main reason everyone went away from it was because of how expensive it was.

For perspective on how outdated optical media are in any other use than video playback (and even then a 1X Bluray is not  fast enough for HD movies )

Type	Read Speed
RAM Drive	7000 MB/s
PCI-E SSD	2500 MB/s
SATA SSD RAID 0	1100 MB/s
SATA SSD	550 MB/s
High Performance USB 3.0 Flash Drive	310 MB/s
High Performance HDD	216 MB/s
Tape Drive	140 MB/s
Average HDD	120 MB/s
SD Card	95 MB/s
Laptop HDD	80 MB/s
USB 2.0 Drive	35 MB/s
6X Bluray (PS4/XBone)	27 MB/s
16x DVD	21 MB/s
8x DVD (X360)	10 MB/s
2X Bluray (PS3)	9 MB/s

And I mathed wrong; it would take over 10 minutes for me to load Skyrim The Journey on BLuray

What the hell happened



That's a bigger playerbase drop-off than Battlefront

lmaoooooooooooo

@thimmy

As if I care about Steam stats Didn't SW: Battlefront have a similarly low rating on Steam, shortly after it's release even? That game is still popular, as far as I know. I think Battleborn is a very solid game, but I can't be arsed to play it's competitive mode with randoms. Actually, I might consider it now since OW's competitive mode is utter shit in comparison, and the fact that Battleborn isn't as tactics based makes playing with randoms a lot more bearable

If you've played Limbo and liked it, get Inside, same thing but still great

Thimmy wrote:Battlefront have a similarly low rating on Steam,

Battlefront is on Origin and its numbers dropped after everyone got bored of the game.

For a game EA claimed to have sold over 13 million copies having 45k players across all platforms half a year post-release is embarrassing. But then again EA has no shame.

Get Inside, its an amazing game, Journey-esque experience

I know all Legendary owners are getting the skyrim remaster free but I'll take Skyrim The Journey over Skyrim Remastered any day.

I miss playing a proper Call of Duty game ffs. Fooling around in pub matches with randoms

BATMAN – The Telltale Series will be making its worldwide debut as a digital download with its first episode in August on consoles, PC/Mac, and iOS or Android based devices. The series will be available to purchase at retailers starting September 13th in North America as a special Season Pass Disc, which will include the first of five episodes in the season, and will grant access to the subsequent four episodes as they become available for download via online updates. The series will then be available to purchase at retailers across Europe on September 16th.

Not usually interested in Telltale stuff but it's Batman so i'll probably get it