Well, apparently Kirby has been attacked by an evil something-or-other and blasted into ten mini-sized Kirby bits. The demo I played had all the text and instructions in Japanese making it a little tricky to work out the narrative. The Kirby games are renowned for having wild and wonderful story lines but even so this game had its moments where I just stared at the screen wondering what the heck was going on, it was that weird.

Stylus, ready!

Controlled exclusively with the stylus, I started off with one teeny tiny Kirby making his way all alone in the world. The whole of the top screen of my DS was occupied by a huge Kirby face and a empty percentage bar with the text “1/10″ at one end. As my lonesome Kirby began scoffing fruit and other tasty items the percentage bar gradually filled up until out popped a brand new Kirby when the bar was completely full. Yay, new play friend for Kirby :-) I was able to refill the percentage bar a further 8 times until I had a mesmerising 10 Kirbys to control!

Woooaaahhhh!

Kill the bunnies

As the progressed through the levels I began to send my Kirbys into battle against giant flowers and bunnies. My killer Kirbys gave them all a good beating before gobbling up the fruits that would appear in place of their cold, dead, lifeless bodies. I never knew Kirby could be such a ruthless badass.

Keep rollin' rollin' rollin' rollin'

There were some puzzles to solve along the way too. The majority of which require you to have a certain number of Kirbys available. For example, I needed over 6 Kirbys to grab onto the roots of a giant turnip stuck in the ceiling and yank it free. Once the turnip had been freed, it hit the ground it burst into a load of fruit which unlocked another bit of Kirby once everything had been eaten up.

You do have to be careful with your Kirbys as they are vulnerable, especially when separated from the main pack. When one of them gets hit, it turns into a ghostly form of Kirby and turns white. When this ghost Kirby gets hit again in this state, it dies :-( However, you can restore a ghostly Kirby to its solid pink form using one of the glowing floating hoops that can be found near the end of levels. For the first few levels I couldn’t work out what these floating hoops were for but as the levels got harder and I started to lose Kirbys in battle, I began to make use of these life-giving hoops.

This game trailer does a great job of showing the Kirby chaos I’ve been describing in all its glory….

Summary

This is a crazy, crazy game. Keeping all your Kirbys together and attacking as an organised unit is a lot of fun and keeps you pretty busy. I had a smile permanently planted across my face the whole time I was playing the demo. Just like Kirby’s Epic Yarn, Kirby Mass Attack is a must buy game. Now where did my marauding pack of Kirbys get to?

Kirby Mass Attack is due for release on the 19th Sep 20111 for Nintendo DS.

There’s also a video of the game in action. Obviously you don’t get the 3D effect from the video, so it would be worth getting some hands-on time with the game on a 3DS console. Personally, I like the giant snowman in the video that makes an appearance at 1:23 and then again at 1:41. Happy snowman is happy!

So that’s the game in action. Now time for some screenshots.

Screenshots:

Ridge Racer 3D is out on the 25th March 2011 on Nintendo 3DS.

Does it work?

Debbie: So, that 3DS, eh? 3D effects without wearing silly glasses? Yup, we can confirm that it does indeed work… provided you don’t move the thing more than an inch in any direction or tilt the screen at all. Now I don’t know about you but when I use a handheld console, I’m usually on the train. At the very least, I’m slouched on a sofa reaching out for a drink or munching on some biltong. Quite apart from the fact that I can physically feel the eye strain from the second I switch the thing on, the glasses-free feature just isn’t as flexible as it needs to be. Offering the analogue slider to adjust for different focal lengths is a very nice touch but in practice, it just meant I was twiddling with it every few minutes as I shifted position.

No, I don’t like the 3DS experience at all.

Nick saves his friends from invisible flying helmet heads

Nick: I was quite excited to be finally getting my hands on a Nintendo 3DS, having heard so many good things about it. After being distracted by the Street Fighter and Resident Evil cosplayers (I totally got grabbed by a zombie!) I finally got hold of a 3DS. It felt a lot sturdier than I expected with a much better build quality than my DS. The 3D to 2D slider is very clever, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I probably spent more time playing with the slider than I did playing the actual games themselves.

I was surprised how well the 3D effect works. You pick up the 3DS, look into the top screen and it’s all in beautiful 3D. However, if you move your head out line with the 3DS, or tilt the 3DS itself then you immediately lose the 3D effect and it goes all blurry. On this evidence, I have reservations over how well the 3D effect is going to work whilst you’re travelling.

For another viewpoint, check out Simon Barker’s experience at the Manchester Nintendo 3DS preview.

After a bit of a talk about Spot Pass and Street Pass and whatnot (I wasn’t really paying attention), we fiiiiiinally got to spend a few (i.e. 5-ish) minutes on each of these game demos:

Lego Star Wars 3D

Debbie: It’s Lego Star Wars, yo. ‘Nuff said.

Oh, okay. It’s Lego Star Wars on a smaller screen with a bit of 3D effect thrown in for good measure. It’s still basically a side-scroller. Just as fun as the home console versions with the same gameplay and controls.

Kid Icarus

Debbie: This game was designed for 3-armed mutants. You’re expected to fly using the analogue nub, aim using the stylus and touch-screen and shoot using the X button all at the same time. Ridiculous. You can sort of get away with plopping the aiming reticle in a strategic place on the screen and running around to aim but since I was on easy mode it was probably very forgiving. Seemed all right as far as third-person kill-everything-that-moves games go. Nice landscapes.

Nick: After the initial “oooh, isn’t it pretty” thoughts have worn off, you realise that you don’t have enough arms to play the game. I ended up alternating between moving and aiming using my left hand plus stylus and my right hand hovering over the buttons. It was a case of vaguely aiming in the right direction with the stylus and then moving to hit the enemies using the analogue nub. It felt very awkward.

Resident Evil: Mercenaries

Chris isn't looking so good. I think the zombies won this round

Face Raiders

Nick: I really liked playing Face Raiders once I’d got over the shock of seeing my face shooting back at me. It was quite fun blasting lots of my hovering faces into pieces. You also got to shoot other peoples faces who had previously been photographed by my 3DS. The “real-life” destructible background to the game was a clever feature and meant that you had to be careful where you were shooting. However, I can’t see myself playing this game on more than one or two occasions. There is no real depth to the gameplay. Fun, but without more variation to the gameplay, it will be short-lived enjoyment.

Debbie: This game is stupid. Or maybe I’m stupid and couldn’t figure out what to do with the level 3 face-rotating boss and its stupid face-spinning cronies.

The game is touted as an augmented reality shooter. Take a photo of a friend’s face (or your own) and it gets transformed into flying enemy heads. The 3DS uses the console’s camera to treat your actual surrounding as the game’s background. You have to turn around to follow the flying heads and physically tilt the machine up and down to aim and shoot. There’s a bit of gimmicky scenery destruction which is nice in the technical sense and gets old quickly when it comes to entertainment value. Kids will probably love the game.

Ryu. His punches have the strength of kicks.

Street Fighter IV 3D Edition

Nick: This was perhaps the most impressive of all the games on show. Street Fighter IV looks absolutely gorgeous in 3D. Ok, I picked Cammy as my character, so I got some very impressive 3D buttocks ;-) They have made the game more accessible too, as you can now execute special moves simply by tipping the bottom screen. I did have a slight Kid Icarus control problem at one point. I was trying to move my charter using the analogue nub, activate a special move on the bottom of the screen and then try to kick the opponent using the X button. It meant that my hands were moving all over the 3DS. I’d be really concerned that I’d drop the damn thing if I was playing standing up on any form of moving vehicle!

Legend Of Zelda – Ocarina of Time

Nick: Unfortunately, I only got to play Zelda for about 3 minutes before we were ushered off into another room at the event. But, I can say that Zelda on the 3DS looks fantastic and is really easy to control, unlike Kid Icarus. However, I really didn’t like the “move the 3DS console to aim” feature which you can use to aim the catapult. I just kept losing the 3D effect as I moved the console around in the air, making it even harder to aim. A silly and unnecessary feature.

Overall I was really impressed with the 3D technology and with Street Fighter IV and Zelda. Old games with new, fancy visuals!

Want to try the 3DS for yourself? Nintendo will be holding preview events in Bristol and Glasgow on the 12th and 13th Februrary 2011.

They will also have 20 3DS machines available to try at the Midlands MCM Expo in Telford, 19th February 2011 with Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, Super Street Fighter IV 3D and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D as well as other unconfirmed titles. Best get your tickets quickly.

Are you doing the Zombie dance yet? It’s ok, nobody’s watching. Apart from your cat, and maybe your Kinect camera ;-)

I love Zombie is different to other Zombie games as it’s all about helping and nurturing Zombies rather than killing them. You need to herd the horde to overrun cites and towns to get back the “precious thing” that was stolen from their farms. Yeah, the Zombies used to be farmers before they were screwed over by horrible, evil, nasty humans who deserve to die by cold dead, Zombie hands.

See, now you want to help the Zombies, don’t you? Apparently Zombies like bunnies too, as shown in the video below. However the sheep prove to be a bit more of a handful for the poor Zombies. Baa!

No word yet if I Love Zombie is going to be released outside Japan. I really hope it does, as I really want to care for my own Zombie hoard! Braaaaainnnnssssssss.

I Love Zombie is out now for the Nintendo DS in Japan.

Blasting its way onto the DS right now is Freddie Flintoff’s powerplay cricket. This is the first cricket game on the DS, and I’m pretty sure its the first cricket game to feature animals on the pitch. I mean check out the screenshots. What is that cow doing there and the flying koala? Madness.

Anyway, the game looks pretty good. So whilst Freddie is sorting out his knee problems in Dubai, you can be beating the Aussie’s at cricket on your DS. Hehe

Screenshots:

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.

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!)

You can still find the bundles in GAME stores as long as you don’t mind buying them with other games bundled in there. Today the bundles by themselves are going for around £150 on eBay, so if you see them in your local store there could be a nice little money-spinner there…

I got mine for my birthday over the weekend, thanks to a lovely and determined puppy-hunting boyfriend :) Review of Bobo the cute brown toy poodle coming tomorrow!

Update 8:40pm: Stuck my head in a few GAME stores on the way home and all the ones that were there last week are gone! They’re disappearing fast! Will keep my eyes open and let you know if I find any.

Update 16/12/05: Pink bundles spotted in stock! Keep an eye on this post for more store and contact details as we find them.