CHANGE.
Sin & Punishment: Star Successor is REALLY HARD
(I originally posted this article on Bits ‘n’ Bytes Gaming on February 1, 2011)
You can tell a game is going to kick your ass when the MAIN MENU MUSIC is more intense than the final boss music in most other games.
I, being a longtime Treasure fan (having spent a large portion of my youth playing Gunstar Heroes and Dynamite Headdy on my Sega Genesis, which to this day are two of my favorite games) was overjoyed when the Japan-only Nintendo 64 game Sin & Punishment was finally made available to a North American audience via the Wii’s Virtual Console. It was really campy (naturally) and amazingly hard, but I loved it all the same.
Then Nintendo released Sin & Punishment: Star Successor for the Wii, which I consider one of the most dangerous games ever released. This game not only throws an incredible difficulty level at you, but it’s also designed in such a way as to make you feel worse about yourself every time you screw up.
KINECTaku Review – Yoostar on MTV
Warning: this game contains Jersey Shore
Yoostar on MTV isn’t a video game so much as it’s a toy that relies on the Kinect technology. Sure, there’s a score element, but that will never be the reason you play. The very definition of a party game, Yoostar on MTV will be a game that you bring out when you have lots of people over and the alcohol flows like Snoop Dogg’s paying the bill.
The appeal of Yoostar on MTV is to film yourself acting out roles in music videos or some of MTV’s iconic television shows like Viva La Bam and Real World/Road Rules Challenge (oh yeah, Jersey Shore is in there too). You watch a short clip, select which role you’d like to play, then Kinect splices you into the footage as you perform. Afterwards you can watch the finished product and, if desired, upload the video to Yoostar’s database or share via Facebook or Twitter.
KINECTaku Review – Kung-Fu High Impact
The fight of your life
Okay everyone, you can stop saying that there are no hardcore games for Kinect, because Kung-Fu High Impact is as hardcore as they come.
Kung-Fu High Impact, the awesomely-named video game from the equally awesomely-named developer Virtual Air Guitar Company, casts you as the hero of a comic book, pitting you against hordes of dastardly henchmen and otherworldly monsters. Oh yeah, also ninjas.
KINECTaku Review – Victorious: Time to Shine
No boys allowed
Licensed games always tend to be less accessible than those based on original intellectual property. The barrier to entry is even higher when, as grown men, we must tackle games that are based on television shows designed for young girls. Still, we soldier on in the name of our craft.
Victorious: Time to Shine is based on the Nickelodeon sitcom Victorious which follows high schooler Tori Vega, who attends a performing arts high school. She is surrounded by a colourful cast of wacky characters, all of which are brought to life in the game with surprisingly accurate character models. The show’s cast have lent their voices to the game as well, lending a welcome dose of authenticity.
KINECTaku Review – Motion Explosion
More of a “pop” than an explosion
Motion Explosion is a tough nut to crack. At first glance it seems like nothing more than another simple minigame compilation, and a sloppy one at that. It’s only after really looking at how the game presents itself and what it asks of you that you truly realise what game Majesco actually made.
Motion Explosion features 12 minigames that have you doing things like dodging moving walls, grabbing stars, playing hacky sack and controlling a robot using various arm and leg movements. None of them are particularly inventive and several seem lifted directly from Kinect Adventures. Each game has 10 levels of quickly escalating difficulty. Your performance in each game is rated from zero to three stars, depending on your score.
KINECTaku Review – Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked
We got the ‘munk
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Harmonix’s ego has to be gargantuan at this point. With Kinect recently celebrating its first year in retail, best-selling smash hit Dance Central has seen more than its fair share of imitators in a relatively short time span. Luckily, Majesco and Behavior Studios’ Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked has enough personality to make it worth considering.
Based on the upcoming film that has the Chipmunks and Chipettes stranded on an island, Chipwrecked has you dancing along to a large variety of songs with tropical backgrounds inspired by the exotic locales of the movie. The game starts you off with a personality test to determine with character you are, but the questions and answers aren’t much deeper than something you’d see on a Facebook personality test; you know exactly which character each answer is describing. Still, it’s a fun way to get involved with the game right from the get-go.
KINECTaku Review – Cabela’s Big Game Hunter: Hunting Party
Aim for something else
The appeal with Kinect was always supposed to be that you didn’t need a controller to play. With the “You Are the Controller” mantra so engrained in Kinect’s marketing, it’s a bit of a surprise to see a Kinect game ship in a large box with a hefty peripheral. Cabela’s Big Game Hunter: Hunting Party certainly does something different to set it apart, but ultimately falls short.
It’s rare that a game’s execution is hampered by its concept because so often we see it happen the other way around, but here the goal of making a family hunting game betrayed the team’s ability to make a game that’s actually fun for the whole family.
KINECTaku Review – Grease Dance
It’s got groove, it’s got meaning
If you’re a die-hard Grease fan who’s daydreamed about roaming the halls of Rydell high with the T-Birds and the Pink Ladies, then Grease Dance is an absolute must-purchase for you. For everyone else it’s not as sure a bet as Greased Lightning, but there’s still plenty of fun to be had.
At first glance, Grease Dance appears to be little more than a Dance Central homage featuring music from the film and starring cartoon caricatures of the cast. This is only partially accurate; the game does feature a dance mode that is, for all intents and purposes, lifted directly from Harmonix’s smash hit. However, Grease Dance adds in a few things to make the game unique.
KINECTaku Review – Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster
“C” is for “charming”
It’s every child’s dream to be able to play with their favourite TV characters. To them, they’re not pretend; they’re just as much a part of their reality as anything else. The talented folks at Double Fine have teamed up with Sesame Workshop to give kids the chance to play with their favourite Sesame Street monsters in a way that is not only nothing short of magic to them, but is also a lot of fun for adults as well.
Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster starts with a live action skit of Elmo and Cookie Monster discussing Cookie’s favourite storybook, Once Upon a Monster. They wind up entering the book, and must help the monsters in the story solve their problems. Each chapter of the book focuses on helping a specific monster with a problem, with each “page” of the chapter representing a minigame that helps Elmo, Cookie and friends on their way.