For all you Aussie Kirby fan’s out there, the unfortunate news is that our pink little puff won’t be having an “Epic yarn” in PAL Territories until 2011. The game is set to hit shelves on October the 17th in North America and has been receiving rave reviews across the board.
Nintendo Australia has confirmed the delay with a statement saying that:-
“Australia generally follows the European release schedule, as both Europe and Australia use the PAL system. As Kirby’s Epic Yarn is launching in Europe in 2011, it will also launch in Australia in 2011. Having experienced the game at E3 this year, we are really excited about its release in Australia.”
In addition to this disappoint, Aussie Wii fans are still waiting on games like Cave Story on WiiWare and Sin and Punishment: Star Successor. So what are Wii fans going to play while they wait for another good release?
There is no confirmed release date for 2011; however sources are predicting the start of the year. Perhaps the anticipated Goldeneye due out early November will make the wait that much easier.
Overview:
First we cooked our butts off with Cooking Mama, and now Mama has stepped outside into the garden and invited us to join her in Gardening Mama. Cooking Mama established a strong front into solid mini-game gameplay that gave players an enjoyable time waster involving cooking food. But does gardening truly hold the same appeal?
Graphics:
Gardening Mama retains its cartoonish and easily recognizable graphics that we have seen before. The various plants that you take care of each look as if they would in real life, only with bright colors and a cartoonish overlay that keeps gameplay interesting. The plants roughly start out the same looking, but quickly start to be distinguishable even as small sprouts or saplings.
In this version Mama is slightly customizable in appearance thanks to the bonus system. I will get into more detail in the gameplay segment, but the various pieces of clothing you unlock don’t change her appearance well enough that they are truly rewarding. Rather unlocking a piece of clothing seems to simply be a reward to place on Mama once, and then not bother with again.
Gamplay:
Gardening Mama places players outside of Mama’s house inside of her garden which features a different orchard or planting area for each type of plant you will be growing. There is a fruit garden, vegetable garden, flower patch, and even more. Most areas will have a handful of different plants in each area that show their growth as you advance them along. Though plants are only unlocked as you grow the starting plants but that is the standard.
Players are given very little instruction as to what they are supposed to be doing. Sure there is a practice mode for each plant which gives them the option to practice any set task involved in that stage of growing the plant but it wouldn’t hurt to have some sort of introductory tutorial for new players just in case they don’t have prior knowledge of Mama’s ways.
The minigames themselves are enjoyable but not extremely varied. There are a handful which are repeated for practically every single plant you will be able to plant and some of them are just ridiculous. Watering fully grown plants requires the player to trace their finger across the screen in specific patterns to create a rainbow. This is a nice addition, but seems out of place for what would be normal watering of plants.
On the flip side of that coin however there are plenty of minigames that are very enjoyable and true to life. Watering seeds or sprouts saturates the soil only so much before water starts to accumulate above ground and take a short time to seep into the ground, making it so players have to be careful that they don’t over water the plant by the above ground water reaching the roots.
The minigames themselves are rated through either a bronze medal for failure, a silver medal for achieving the task with a small amount of mistakes, or gold for a perfect. Then the finality of the process is given a rating out of a 100, which is the standard for any Mama game. Though there is a new change to this one, as each plant requires time to grow between games, meaning that you perform a small amount of tasks, before having to go to the next plant and then back and forth.
This creates an issue however as plants that, though they are already established, start to wither if they are not attended too. This means that as you unlock different plants throughout the game and want to turn your attention to your new seeds, you may have to constantly keep going back to water or trim dead leaves off of plants you finished near the start of your game.
Tasks that are performed perfectly can sometimes reward the player with a clothing item that they can accessorize Mama with. These clothes are purely cosmetic but are somewhat varied enough that the player can change her look, but are simple in design. There could have been better rewards provided for incentive, such as new unlockable modes or the ability to unlock special plants.
As this is an iPhone/iTouch game one may expect lots of shaking or moving around the iPhone/iTouch but this is not the case. Instead it is controlled via screen tapping or sliding of the finger to perform the tasks set before you. Though it may take away from the interactivity, it does allow Gardening Mama to be more accessible and easier to play on the go; rather than trying to tilt your phone to pour water out of a watering can.
The game itself though can turn out to be quite short, because despite having to go back to take care of certain plants that start to wither the player can fully grow their entire garden and be left with fully grown gardens, and no other modes of play beyond harvesting their plants. Or purposely letting them wither away to be planted anew.
Overall:
Gardening Mama smoothly makes the transition outside of the kitchen to the gardening. It incorporates plenty of earthy minigames that will keep players interested in it up until they grow everything possible. There are rewards for certain actions but unfortunately the rewards are clothing which some may find interesting, others may be disappointed. Gardening Mama is quite enjoyable while it lasts but could leave players with the feel that there could have been much more to the experience.
The weapons that will be helping you exterminate all those pesky Zombies are both simple and… well, in a sense they are just really simple (one is just water, albeit holy water, but still water).
The torch allows you to burn zombies. The Zombie Bait lures zombies in and then gives them a giant explosive hug. Holy Water lets give the zombies a bath and undead destroying holiness. Finally there is the Blunderbuss, which can be be stuffed with bits and pieces of zombies and shot right back at your zombie foes.
Undead Nightmare is due out on October 26th for 800 Microsoft Points.
They said that since the dawn of time, no one could find the online coop patch for Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. And free DLC? Yea, you could basically sign your own death warrant for that. But the timeless Tomb Raider has prevailed once again. The free patch for online coop and the free DLC as a “thank you” are awaiting release on October 27, 2010. This is the release date for Xbox 360 only, but you can expect the PS3 and PC patch soon.
With the 3DS coming out early next year, with the PS3 giving firmware updates and developing games to support 3D gaming, and with televisions already being made today that can show 3D programming; 3D is invading nearly every aspect of our lives, literally, if you have the cash to spend on the newly developed technology.
Though one thing that comes with 3D, is that you have to wear those special glasses to experience it. The 3DS has been reported to not require any glasses to give players this experience which will obviously make it more popular, because wearing 3D glasses in public went out with the 50’s.
But according to a survey by the U-Decide Initiative that won’t even be much of a deciding factor. In a survey directed at gamers only, both PC and console, 80% of us would be more than willing enough to wear 3D glasses to experience the 3D, while a whopping 92% would be ready to see it without the glasses. The figures are nearly the same when compared to the Blu-Ray result, though as the media falls away from gaming into normal TV the willingness to wear the glasses drops sharply compared to no glasses 3D.
A number of different polls also explain whether or not gamers would be willing to purchase a new HDTV over the one they already have, or if they would be willing to shell out the cash needed for a 3D HDTV. Also included are figures of how the 3D branding will push game sales, which show that gamers are more or less split between purchasing 3D over 2D. Though this survey takes into account that you already own a 3D capable TV. Which if I had a 3D TV, I would be more than willing to take advantage over it’s 3D ability.
Also it appears that as long as 3D is an added feature that costs no additional fee, players will jump all over it. Even if it was only a small nominal fee added on, then it won’t hurt sales too much. But when the fee reaches over $10 sales drop dramatically.
Costume Quest is full of candy, costumes, enemies, and RPG elements. What more could you ask for?! A big Rainbow Colored Unicorn that you can turn into, that’s what you could ask for!
Check out the launch trailer below for a Halloween Treat. Costume Quest Released today for 1200MSP.
What would a James Bond game be without driving? Just another shooter. That’s why James Bond: Blood Stone has a whole trailer dedicated to the fine art of driving a bunch of vehicles while a whole bunch of other stuff blows up around you.
Check out the trailer below to get your adrenaline pumping for the release of the game in the beginning of November.
What happens when small companies start to make it big and tap into a market that large companies have yet to design for? They get bought up by those larger companies. The LA times has reported that EA has purchased Chillingo for $20 million. This fact has been confirmed by EA so we are now seeing the new era of iPhone games, or at least give them the publishing ability of Chillingo.
EA’s statement on the acquisition:
“By acquiring Chillingo, EA Mobile is increasing its market leadership on the Apple Platform as well as reaffirming its position as the world’s leading wireless entertainment publisher. This acquisition will combine Chillingo’s expertise in cultivating the ideas of independent developers with EA’s global mobile publishing reach.”
What this means ironically is that though Chillingo has published these games, it does not hold the rights to any games that are made as sequels. So though the top selling APP on the marketplace Angry Birds is under Chillingo’s name, it does not mean that Angry Birds 2, shall there ever be a sequel, will belong to EA as well.
Though this also means that a large company has taken hold of an already wildly popular publisher, and will therefore be able to use their resources for the benefit of both the games released, and the players. So it is good news all around that this has happened. Unless of course developers start to abandon Chillingo due to their EA ownership, though I doubt that be the case. Though what is the case is that Chillingo is now $20 million richer.
Have you been locked away for the last 10 years? Finally getting out of jail from that fight that you caused because you couldn’t wait to get the PS2? Well you are in luck because the system that is still kicking around even now, is going to be getting itself a bundle release on Halloween, October 31st. (Possibly US release only)
The bundle will run $100 and come with the PS2 slim and Toy Story 3: The Video Game. It seems that since it is the 10th anniversary of it’s creation, Sony thought that it would be best to celebrate with this new bundle. Sure the price is quite cheap and with the Toy Story 3 game put together with it, then it would be a nice deal if you happened to have broken your PS2, or are looking to give a friend’s child a fancy birthday present and look like the big man in the party.
In all seriousness though it is a bit odd that, although Sony has continued to support the PS2 over the past 10 years, that they would release a new bundle now. The package itself will only be able to be purchased from participating retailers, which were not listed, but if these bundles don’t end up selling, what then? 10 year old systems collecting dust on store shelves? Or will these sell extremely fast? What do you think? I think if the Ps2 itself was themed with some sort of Toy Story design, it would be worth a purchase.
If you play NBA 2K11 online on November 5th, 2010- January 15, 2010 you could be entered to win some great prizes. Get into the top 256 of the leader board,s and then be entered into the tournament to win prizes and cash. 2K did a similar prize package last year for MLB 2K10, (albeit that was 1,000,000) but this looks like it will be swell as well (see what I did there.) Go here for more info.
