Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem!

My review of Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem! is up now at Joystiq.

This game was a nice surprise. I had no expectations for it. In fact, I hadn't even heard of it until the review was offered to me, and I got the sense that they were foisting it off on the new guy. Which was fine with me -- I was happy enough to be contributing to Joystiq. That Mario vs DK turned out to be pretty darn good was a bonus.

In this case I don't have much to add to what's in the review. This isn't the flashiest game coming out this fall -- not even the flashiest one starring Donkey Kong -- and it's not required playing, but it certainly is a hidden gem. If you're at all inclined toward games like this, check it out.

Games of the decade: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

Part of a series of subjective looks at my favorite games of the decade.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
(2005, Nintendo DS)

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - And Justice for All
(2007, Nintendo DS)

In my original review of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, I convicted the game of being awesome, which is an absolutely silly way to start a review but still accurately reflects my feelings. When I look at the list of my favorite games of the past decade, a part of me wishes it were less predictable. I wish there were more niche genres on there. I wish there were more commercial flops. In short, I wish there were something on there that I could champion. I think Phoenix Wright might be as close as it gets.

And why not? With its sharp writing, hilarious dialogue, and challenging but logical puzzles, the Phoenix Wright series is the true heir to the LucasArts throne. The discovery phase of gameplay, in which you walk around the crime scene looking for clues and talking to detectives, is just like something out of Monkey Island. And the trial scenes are thrilling, which I never would have expected when I first heard about the game. The driving music and anime-inspired backgrounds when the testimony gets heated makes these sequences as exciting as any shooter I've played.

In the end, what really sets Phoenix Wright apart is the strength of its protagonist. We've gotten used to playing games as macho superman whose only flaws are that they just care too much, damn it, and while Phoenix does value truth above all else, he's also a self-doubting wimp. He openly sweats during cross-examination, usually appearing more nervous than the witness he is trying to break down. He frequently requires pep talks from his assistants. In the end, though, his faith in justice helps him to prevail. I love that message.

After all the time I spent jabbering excitedly about Phoenix Wright when it came out in the fall of 2005, my editor asked if he could borrow it. I reluctantly agreed, and then he moved out of the state shortly thereafter. Damn him.

More on Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney:

• Request hour: Dinner for four
• 25 years of Capcom

Scribblenauts? More like scribble not.

Above: Exploring scribbles.

I have a review of Scribblenauts up at thephoenix.com. Innovative or not, it is not a very good game. It's fun to mess around with, and my wife wants me to tell everyone that she really liked it. (That's not as minor a footnote as it may sound -- this may be the first time that's ever happened. You wouldn't believe the number of supposedly casual-friendly Wii games she hasn't liked. The list of games she likes now stands at two: this, and Rock Band.) But there's little more here than promise that a later game might be better.

I find I'm losing patience with games that don't work well to begin with. Everybody made so much out of how everything you summon in Scribblenauts acts correctly -- bears are hungry, helicopters fly, and so on -- but I found that not to be the case. Things rarely did what I expected them to. Maxwell hardly ever went where I wanted him to. And perfectly logical solutions didn't pan out, because the governing logic naturally can't be all that different from one type of thing to another.

There was a time when I'd put up with a game's foibles, because it was the only one I had on hand, and what the hell else was I supposed to do? These days I feel more like I can't be bothered with a game that hasn't put in the effort to smooth out the edges. I love the idea of Scribblenauts. I really do. I also love the idea of world peace. Sometimes you bump up against reality.

Puzzling indeed

Above: The DS version does not look like this.

My review of Puzzle Quest: Galactrix is online now at thephoenix.com. There is a lot I don't understand about this game -- that much, at least, comes through in the article -- but with some distance I now think the bigger problem might be the shoddy execution of the Nintendo DS version. I think so partly because of Bill Harris's lauding of the PC version (see here and here), and also because I've played the downloadable PC demo and the web demo, which are both miles beyond the handheld version in presentation, smoothness, and playability. Should be said, too, that I played Challenge of the Warlords on PSP, which was executed well on a technical level, but had other issues.

The DS version, though, is ugly. It's hard to look at. The colors are washed out and the overall look is grainy. New gems don't slide smoothly onto the screen -- they pop into view. The touchscreen detection, as I mention in the review, is iffy. The audio is scratchy. It's just not a pleasant game to interact with. While I failed to engage the finer points of the RPG mechanics, that's only partly due to my well-documented idiocy in these matters. It's also because it's hard to get past such an off-putting surface.

Did I expect a graphical powerhouse from a Nintendo DS game? No. But I was taken aback when I first booted up Galactrix, and that feeling never went away.

Space is the place

Count me among those pleasantly surprised by Space Invaders Extreme. Still, there's not all that much I can think to say about it. This was a tough review to write, but an easy game to recommend.

I'm suffering from E3 overload right now, fending off dueling live-Twitters and redundant news posts in Google Reader. Even the interesting stuff from this show still isn't that interesting. It's a little surprising that Final Fantasy XIII is no longer PS3-exclusive, but what does that really mean for anybody? Exclusives are much more newsworthy than non-exclusives.

Anyway, I've railed against the culture of hype before, and I don't really have the energy to do it again. Suffice it to say that much of what comes out of E3 -- even in its newer, sleeker iteration -- is not news. It is publicity. The message is controlled fully by the marketers. By now, you'd think people would know better.

In a perfect world, maybe the only way we'd find out about any games would be by taking them off the shelves at random and discovering what awaited within. Probably not worth the effort pining for that world.

Speaking of Guitar Hero

Yesterday, I mentioned that I had played Guitar Hero: On Tour. The full review is up now at thephoenix.com.

In short: The game is disqualified because the peripheral is so uncomfortable. QED.

Guitar Hero: On Tour is sort of impressive to behold on a philosophical level, but in practice it just plain sucks. I could not recommend playing this to anyone. But there are a couple things I didn't get to in the review that are worthy of discussion.

For one thing, the battle mode that was introduced with such a splat in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock actually fits better on this Nintendo DS version. Since the whole user experience feels less like you're playing a guitar, these sort of extracurricular gameplay features don't feel as grafted on. Plus, you can actually store up attacks, up to three in all, after you've earned them. There's a bit more strategy as a result (though still not much).

Because this is a DS game, of course, you must blow into the microphone. During battle mode, your opponent may set your guitar on fire, and you have to blow it out. Okay. And to activate star power, your options are to shout "Rock out!" (yeah, right), or blow into the microphone.

This... this was a lot harder than I would have thought. It's easy to miss the tiny mic slot when you've got your eyes on the note charts. As a result, as with the console versions of Guitar Hero, I still cannot activate star power without bungling my note streak at least half the time.

(You can also activate star power by hitting the D-pad or the A, B, X, or Y buttons, but this turns out to be nearly impossible. Might have worked if you could hit the shoulder button, but alas, that's the one button you can't use to activate star power.)

I gave it a 4.0, so I was a bit surprised to see that Guitar Hero: On Tour's Metacritic score is a 74. But in video game terms, that's actually not great. By Guitar Hero standards, it's a disaster.

I played The World Ends with You

I didn't really like it.

I know a lot of other people are loving this game. I'm not trying to talk you out of it. It just seemed like way too much for me, and I did not get the hang of the touchscreen controls at all. Maybe with some more time to play it, I might have been able to break through whatever wall I was hitting, but now that the review's over I can predict with confidence that I will never play it again. I think I will survive, somehow.

As always, feel free to berate me in comments.

Gotta catch 'em all?

No. No, you do not.

Puzzle Quest

Puzzle Quest is puzzling indeed.

It's probably a lot more fun two-player.

Objection!

In my review of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, I convicted the game of being awesome. Now Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney -- Justice for All is out, and it brings to mind the legal concept of double jeopardy -- that you can't try someone twice for the same crime. Too bad. How many times can we let this pointy-haired lawyer rob us of our valuable time and assault our funny bones?

Castlevania

Here's a review of Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin. While I was writing this review, I looked at the Wikipedia entry for the series and discovered that there has been approximately one new game released every year since 1986. What's astonishing is the consistent quality. Super Castlevania IV and Symphony of the Night are bona fide classics, both among the best games of all time. Below that are the excellent original game, Castlevania III, Bloodlines, and the recent GBA and DS titles. The 3D games have been lacking, but really, what other series have been so good for so long? Every notable franchise I can think of has either had more failures than successes (Mega Man) or simply not had enough sequels to compare (Resident Evil). Maybe Mario or Zelda would count, but they've each had multi-year stretches without a good game (and in the case of Zelda, as you know, I'm not even a fan). Maybe Final Fantasy is the only good comparison -- fairly regular release schedule, consistently high quality. More to the point, when you think of the greatest franchises of all time, does Castlevania even enter your mind? It never occurred to me until now.

It's review time

This week: Star Fox Command.

Pink DS Lite

I find it hard to believe that the secret to cracking the elusive "girl gamer" market is something as simple as releasing your system in colors like pink and teal, but here we are.

Magnetica

My take here.

DS Lite

My good friend and roommate Ryan just came home with his brand new DS Lite. I've wanted one since I heard they existed -- being the good Nintendo fanboy that I am -- but I did not realize how much I wanted one until I saw it myself. Sure, it's smaller. Sure, the stylus is bigger. You don't need to see the thing to understand why these are improvements. It is, however, impossible to internalize the difference in picture quality until you see it with your own two eyes. We placed them side-by-side. It's not even close. It's as though the original DS displays only in black and white.

Must... acquire... DS Lite...

New Super Mario Bros.

You must play this game.