Posted on 14 November 2009 by TheFluffyFist
Gamespot are hosting the playable demo of the first case in Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth.
In the flash based demo (click on the image below) you get to play through the first case in the game. Weefz is a huge fan of the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney games, so look out for the review in the new year.
Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth is due for release on the 19th Feb 2010 on the Nintendo DS.
Posted on 07 June 2009 by TheFluffyFist
Due for release towards the end of this year is the latest DS Zelda. Taking place 100 years after the Phantom Hourglass, Link now gets about using a train, rather than a boat. Other changes include new weapons and the ability to control a phantom (the enemies in the previous game).
I liked Zelda: Phantom Hourglass as a whole, apart from the repetitive nature of one of the dungeons. So no more of that please. Also I really, really, really hope that they fix the crappy save system on Zelda games so you can resume where you left off. No idea if this is the case in Spirit Tracks, but you can but hope.
Posted on 12 January 2009 by TheFluffyFist
Majesco Entertainment released this little gem of a game in the US last year. It allows you to fulfil your dreams/nightmares of being an air traffic controller. You get to control all incoming and outgoing air traffic at 5 different airports. This can all get a little bit hectic when your controlling 4 inbound and 4 outbound aircraft at once!
Currently there is no UK release date, however, you can pick up the US version of about 20 GBP from PlayAsia.com. Here’s some screenshots and gameplay video (including a mid-air collision!)
Posted on 16 December 2008 by Weefz
I play the Ace Attorney games obsessively. I played Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations and Apollo Justice back-to-back over a couple of month during commutes to work.
I do love this series but there are so many things wrong with it that I find it hard to recommend them to people I don’t know well.
The gameplay for Trials and Tribulations is almost exactly the same as Justice For All. This wouldn’t be so bad but for one thing; each chapter has at least one point where there are no hints as to the item you have to present to get the story going. Once you know the story, the item is obvious but that’s the whole problem. You don’t know the story. The only way to figure it out is to present everything at every statement until you finally hit upon the right combo. Sometimes you’ve made the right guess as to the story but picked an item that needs to be shown at a later stage. PENALTY!
Even worse, these two PW games introduced psyche-locks – during the investigation, you have to persuade characters to spill their innermost secrets by presenting them with the right piece of evidence or character profile. I found these incredibly tedious (though I like the animation and sound that went with it). The psyche-lock segments made the investigation chapters feel just like the courtroom with the added bonus of multiplying the number of times you could get stuck. Not a good thing as I enjoyed the change of pace between research and courtroom.
In contrast, Apollo Justice did away with the psyche-locks, if not the actual mystery-inventory-item flaws. Instead, you get to do a bit of forensic investigation in the form of fingerprint analysis and the like. We previously saw this in the final DS-only chapter of the first game and it was bloody good. It’s a pity these moments were underused, and just criminal that the only time you got to try them out was when you knew you were going to find something. Still, it was an enjoyable, if fleeting improvement.
The other big change in Apollo Justice was Perception (for want of a better thing to call it). In Bracelet Perception Mode (don’t ask) you can scrutinise the witness’s body language and looks for a “tell” to indicate that they’re lying. This was almost fun but for the fact that you could only look at a tiny part of the witness at a time. Allowing me to zoom out for less detail would have been less frustrating as each character had roughly five testimony statements, three different “phases” to a statement where they could lie and four different body parts that could have a tell.
(Teeny spoiler here revealing characters that appear in Trials and Tribulations)
The greatest thing about the Phoenix Wright series is the characters that you meet. They’re all quirky and distinctive. So why does Phoenix not grow at all during the first three games? Even by the end of game three, he’s still a self-doubting rookie who needs a sidekick to kick him into action. This was made all the more obvious in the chapter where you get to play Edgeworth, self-confident and in control. Frankly, Edgeworth was just awesome in that chapter and I really hope that Gyakuten Kenji keeps him that way.
(End of spoiler)
I had hoped that new protagonist Apollo Justice would be less timid but noooooooo. Three games of building up Phoenix’s confidence and now you get dropped right back where you started with a rookie attorney who needs to be taught about the Court Record and presenting evidence all over again. Aaaaargh!
Not that different from the original game, really. Great storytelling, crappy gameplay. Not a dealbreaker for me but would be for most people I know.
Posted on 27 October 2008 by TheFluffyFist
Woo hoo, a UK based consumer gamer show! Don’t see them very often, and fortunatly we’ve got the day off work on Wed (29th Oct) to go to the Eurogamer Expo in London. As you can probably tell by the name the show’s organised by Eurogamer which is a good thing as they’ve packed it full of booth babes games. Check out this list of games to play (with):
There are other games to play, so here’s the complete list of games and a floor plan for good measure.
At the moment all the tickets for tomorrow (Tues 29th) have sold out but there are still 240 tickets remaining for Wed which you can buy here. Oh, and the tickets cost £5 (which goes to charity) and you have to be 15 years or over.
Personally, I’m looking forward to playing Left 4 Dead (just pre-ordered this on Steam), Mirror’s Edge, LittleBigPlanet, Killzone 2 and Fallout 3. Looks like it’s going to be a busy autumn playing games :-)
Anyone else going?
Posted on 02 May 2008 by Weefz
Now that I’m all out of Ace Attorney games, I have nothing to do on my commute. It’s about a 25 minute journey so I need to be able to save at short notice without losing much progress.
What game should I buy next?
Posted on 25 January 2008 by TheFluffyFist
7+ (PEGI)
Another Zelda game.
Yes.
Yes.
So the mega franchise that is Zelda finally makes it to the DS. Therefore it must use the stylus, which to be honest, it does very well. Controlling Link is a breeze (after Zelda gets kidnapped, as usual) and so is using all the weapons that he collects along the way. Also the cell shaded graphics look pretty good too, with great use being made of the dual screens (especially during boss battles). But underneath these fine new clothes, beats the heart of every other Zelda game ever. Same moves, same puzzles, same temple based game structure and the same weapons. It’s all the same. Again.
Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed playing (most of) the Phantom Hourglass. It’s a game I’ve been wanting for ages (even bought a DS in preparation of it being released). But, there are some really annoying bits which keep recurring just to annoy you even more. Yes, I’m taking about you Mr Temple of the Ocean King. Whoever in Nintendo thought that making the player go through the same dungeon (temple) multiple times and against the clock, should be be forced to watch every Uwe Boll film. Forever. This single temple almost, and I say almost, ruined the entire game for me.
The are other problems too. The save system still sucks balls. It doesn’t quite save the game state, so you can’t resume part way though a temple. Instead you resume at set points throughout the map, sort of near where you last saved. But, isn’t meant to be a portable game? Play and save anywhere? Except you can’t, and because of this limitation I never once played through a temple whilst travelling. You can quite happily play the rest of the game, just not the temples. Also some of the puzzles (drawing ones mainly) are impossible to do unless you’re perfectly still.
Then you have the great little puzzles to solve and the fantastic boss battles. Drawing on the maps is a lovely addition and really helps the game as a whole, especially during each of the temples. Some of the cut sequences have some great comedy moments hidden inside them that just made me laugh. So there is lots of fun to be had from playing this game.
It has all the good and bad bits of almost every Zelda game before it. If you’ve played one of those you won’t come across too many surprises in this DS version.
The Legend of Zelda – The Phantom Hourglass is out now
Posted on 18 January 2008 by TheFluffyFist
Way, way back in 1989 on a little known system called the PC Engine, Hudson Soft released Dungeon Explorer. It was a brilliant game and one I loved to bits when I played it a year later on my (imported) PC Engine GT. It was a game very much in the Gauntlet mould and was pretty bloody hard, especially when you don’t read Japanese. However, after many, many hours and hacking and slashing I actually finished it. Currently you can play Dungeon Explorer on the Virtual Console, so here’s a video showing you what to expect.
But there is more (and the point of this post!). Next month sees the release of a brand new Dungeon Explorer game. Well 2 new games actually, as it’s coming out on both the PSP and Nintendo DS. Each version takes place at different times in the Dungeon Explorer universe. Actually the DS version is set immediately after the PSP version (wonder if it will contain some plot spoilers?). From the screen shots released so far it looks very much like Untold Legends on the PSP. According to Hudson Soft we can look forward to 3 player on-line co-op hacking, lots of embarking on epic journeys (in a time of heroes, no doubt) and a spot of weapon and equipment upgrading. Excellent.
Dungeon Explorer: Warriors of Ancient Arts is released mid-Feb 2008 on the DS and PSP
Posted on 15 January 2008 by Weefz
3+ (PEGI)
Some sort of hideously complicated farming/village sim.
No!
No!
I’ll freely admit, I Do Not Get Harvest Moon. Even so, in the spirit of representing an Average Gamer, I’m writing this as someone entirely new to the franchise…
What the hell is Harvest Moon DS supposed to be? I’ve played Animal Crossing a lot so I get the concept of a relaxing game where you wander around collecting things. Harvest Moon seems to be like that, only a thousand times more complicated and without the helpful villagers to let you know what the hell is going on.
For starters, I get my new game, wander about and eventually discover that I should be tilling my field. There’s loads of debris in the form of rocks and logs. Not a problem. I soon discover how to pick them up and proceed throw them over the edge where they disappear.
WRONG!
They didn’t disappear at all. I was fly-tipping! The other townsfolk don’t like that at all. Why do I care? Well, I’m not entirely sure even after reading through sites like Fogu. Apparently the witch likes my littering. Do I want her favour? I have no freaking idea.
Another example; you can give random presents to women. Sometimes they’ll love them. Other times they’ll be hurt and offended and make snide remarks. I think affects my prospects of marrying them, which may or may not be a good thing. I hate it because there’s simply no way in-game to tell what they like and dislike. Even worse, I can’t work it out through trial and error. I have immense trouble recalling what I gave to who because everyone just blurs together into a haze of quirky villager. Write it down? Please. I already have a job.
The game is riddled with pitfalls like this. Considering the gameplay is about farming, maintaining your town and getting married, it seems a pretty big liability. Perhaps the best way to illustrate this complexity is with this choice quote from Fogu [via Yahoo! Answers]:
“Before you can get married you must upgrade your house. Your spouse is not going to want to live in the tiny house you start out with! To upgrade you will first need to unlock Channel 2 on the Sprite Station. To open the channel you must buy something from Karen’s telephone store for 10 days.
When you unlock the Tv Shopping Channel 2, watch it every day. Eventually you will see the Table for sale. The little round table will only cost you 500 G. Call the Tv Shopping operators using your telephone and order the Table.
Only after you have received the Table can you then hire Gotz to increase the size of your house for the first time! You must own the Kitchen before he will upgrade your house a second time if you own the Japanese version. The English version does not require the kitchen. “
In other words…
This game is freaking complicated (or in-depth, if you prefer). I hated it. YMMV.
Posted on 15 November 2007 by Weefz
12+ (PEGI)
A detective-cum-lawyer game. Lots of reading required.
Yep.
Yes, if you like reading and don’t mind struggling with syntax problems. Otherwise, no.
The Phoenix Wright games are probably unique for their outlandish characters, odd dialogue and wild settings. You play as the defense lawyer who has to interview the most unexpected mix of characters you will ever find in a game (unless you’ve played Psychonauts). Even though a lot of the character motivations are fairly simple clichés, I love the way everyone has his or her own crazy personality quirks and manners of speaking. Even the really annoying ones have a certain masochistic charm.
Storylines for each chapter follow wildly convoluted paths and are always entertaining. The problem with Phoenix Wright games is that the true story often isn’t that difficult to figure out. It’s the technical execution that is so frustrating. You frequently find yourself sitting there desperately wanting to scream “It was the bloody butler! Look at my video!” but in the courtroom you can only present evidence at set points during the testimony. Several times, the witness has been blatantly contradicting my evidence in an aside comment but I can’t object. It drives me absolutely nuts, but for some reason I still played both Phoenix Wright games obsessively to the end. I find their train-wreck plots incredibly compelling.
IMO, the first English-language game, Ace Attorney, was the better game. The information-gathering segments feel quite different to the trials as you gather clues and piece the story together. In Justice For All you’re given items and then have to struggle with the witnesses, showing the items at crucial points during conversations in order to reveal enough of the story to trigger the trial.
If you like reading quirky stories and with bizarre characterisations, you’ll probably love both Phoenix Wright: Justice For All and Phoenix Wright: Pet Detective Ace Attorney. If you’re not into reading fantasy-fiction stories, give these games a miss.
