There are some DS games out there that are obviously made for a very young age group; the ‘Imagine’ series comes instantly to mind. From a marketing point of view, they’re safe games aimed at parents to buy for their impressionable ickle ones. These are the types of games that the more ‘mature’ players wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot cattle prod due to their simplicity (and in some cases, the downright scary 3D babies).
However, there are some that’ll fool ya, some games you’d instantly ignore that aren’t actually that bad. Upon passing a particularly girly looking game, I suddenly recognised a certain art style and brand name and got curious…

After a bit of a demo play, I ended up buying ‘Kira Kira Pop Princess’ despite its rather off-putting title. The original Japanese title of ‘Pinky Street: Kira Kira Music Hour’ sounds so much better, and if they had kept it as such, it would have at least made my purchase of the game a tad less embarrassing. Various character and location names have also been changed, but that’s standard I guess.

Kira Kira (roughly translated as ‘sparkling’) features characters based on the popular ‘Pinky Street’ plastic figures designed by BabySue and manufactured by the Japanese company Vance Project. Yeah, I had bought a couple based on ‘Haruhi Suzumiya’ and ‘Street Fighter II’ during an anime convention. Their distinguishing feature is the interchangeable parts that can easily be switched between figures according to taste. In the DS game, players can do the same and completely customise their character with a huge range of heads, hairstyles, clothing, and accessories, all of which can be unlocked throughout the game by winning dance competitions across the city.

It’s a fun rhythm action game that actually has a fair amount of hidden depth. Dressing in clothes that are popular in a particular district is just as important as your timing with the stylus on the touch screen and can also affect what rewards you gain from a win or a loss. There are also hidden dance moves you can pull off in most songs to gain that extra edge towards a higher score (and better prizes).

Two of our female friends also have the game and they keep kicking my ass on the multiplayer mode (although after comparing stats after each competition I’m not that far behind). The nice touch is that even if you lose, you will still gain in-game currency for the shops, tokens for the capsule machines, and other items. Hitting near-to-perfect scores and impressing your audience can sometimes unlock some of the most sought-after items in the game.
On the less competitive side, you can also trade photos you took of your character, profile/stats sheets, and whatever items you’ve collected so far.

So anyway, since this game seems to be going for less than a tenner in some places, I really think it’s worth a bash. Rather surprising how addictive the game is for some people (and those with OCD tendencies to ‘collect everything’). The tunes are very catchy too.

Pinky Street: Kira Kira Music Night – the Japanese sequel, has been out for a while and has supposedly been released in Europe under the title ‘Pop Town’, just no one can find it and online shops are currently clueless.
You play the rival character with a whole new set of music and clothing, plus a daft spin on the plot and dialogue from the previous game. There were limited edition versions of both games in Japan packaged with Pinky:St figures…
Why do I have this sudden urge to go to jlist and ebay? *searches* What the?! Is that a Pinky in a chibi version of a Tiger I tank? Brilliant! XD

Here, have some hyperlinks;

*Vance Project – Manufacturer of Pinky:St (Japanese)
*BabySue – Designer of Pinky:St (Japanese)
*Pinky-Street.com – English Pinky Street reference and fan site

Some, spurious discriminatory, people have pinned gamers as the lazy types – the sit on their arse and work their thumbs into mince on control pads (yes yes or keyboards or flailing hysterically with motion controllers). The Metro in the UK for one has highlighted this claim just this week. FOR SHAME.

I digress.

So, being a lazy bunch, the stroll to the shop to pick up the latest greatest game or that re-mastered gem or that retro classic you’re sure you saw in the pre-owned bin just the other day, is some much needed exercise. To your stout belly I cry FEAR NOT! For this, my friends, is the age of….

DOWNLOADBLE CONTENT

I’ll wait a moment while and shock and awe pass. Done? No? Well wait a little longer if you like – this is text, it’s not like I actually have to wait for you.

Anywho. In this glorious age the Wii, PS3, Xbox360 and DSi alike (and, of course, soon PSP Go) have all embraced your ability to eagerly stab payment card details into their integrated online stores and spend spend spend! This has lead to some simply awesome developments in games. No longer does a marketing and distribution team the size of, well, a very large marketing and distribution team seem to be required to punch out a hit. Look at World of Goo, that’s brilliant and pretty much done by something like 3 people. THREE! Impressive times. Of course this has also lead to some fun smaller games that simply don’t warrant the expense of disc-based release, like the Art Style games on Wii / DSi, Braid and Geometry Wars on Xbox360 and such like, and some great gaming ideas that have seeped out simply because there’s very little financial risk in online distribution.

Great! So a herd of inexpensive, innovative, games appear. So the popularity grows even faster than the download catalogue. But my concern grows.

The Boss Men have been watching this new distribution model with envious eyes and they have seen the light. With a distinct “Oh, cool” I updated my Xbox360 last night to find I could now purchase online, and download directly to my shiny 120GB hard drive, full Xbox360 games like Mass Effect and Burnout Paradise. Great idea – the belly flab will be pleased. They’re not the only ones at it!

OnLive – a service that turns a PC into a gaming rig, control pad and all with the buttons labled L, I, V and E… stoopid, that doesn’t require download, just streams the game you want to play to you. Great days for instant-fix and shiny new content yeeeees… but there’s a catch to ALL of this.

A very big one.

Picture this… the industry continues down this path (despite Miymato San’s penny saying download content isn’t the be all and end all) there’s a very worrying precedent along the lines the music industry is heading. Increase in popularity of download purchases means decline of physical media. Shops close / stop selling games on disc. Where do you buy your games from now? Direct from Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo (and Steam etc but for the sake of argument and good ranting let’s put PC download content aside for this one). What happens when they no longer fancy selling a particular title, or there’s a petty legal dispute? Your chance to own it has gone. Want to borrow a game from a friend to see if it’s a worthy purchase? Think again. What if your console bricks? It’s pretty much up to the discretion of the console manufacturers to return your games on a new console or not.

For me the most worrying thing is the bargains will go – The price will forever be controlled by one body, the gaming company. The pre-owned will go (possibly a good thing for the industry, but then surely trading in games then buying other games with that trade in helps in some way with the bonus of allowing those less financially fortunate to not be left in the cold?), that moment of “YES! I’ve been looking for this game for YEARS!” will never again happen.

Granted that’s a worse case scenario but I worry about these things (in the same way that I often worry ‘what if wasting little bits of tin-foil will one day lead to us have just not enough metal left to build that star cruiser to take humanity to another world’). I don’t really think things will come to that but it’s a concerning drift. While hard drives are relatively limited and games weigh in at a few gigabytes the physical media will still kick around but I’d be sad to see it’s death. Physical media seems more time-proof (well, until the plastic of the DVD degrades, heh), like it’ll last and still be there in 30 years for me to dust off and enjoy all over again.

Yes, I’m a nostalgic fool. Now leave me to my dreams of my Sega Master System and running lap after lap on Hang On ^_^

Announced at Nintendo’s press conference at Electronic Entertainment Expo 2009 and still in development with a possible release during the winter of 2009: New Super Mario Bros Wii!

Sweet, classic, side-scrolling platform awesomeness on the Nintendo Wii. It’s kinda like a sequel to the DS game New Super Mario Bros and will feature 4-player co-op. That’s right, for the first time in a Mario Bros series game, there’s simultaneous multiplayer capability of up to four players. The only solid proof that I’ve wanted a game like this for years now, is date-stamped the 26th March 2009 on the Automatic Freestyle forum. Can I believe that Nintendo heard my cry and finally made it? 

 

It’ll play very much like the DS game in classic style, with the Wii Remote held horizontally. Some movements such as jumping and attacks are performed with the buttons, whereas others like spinning in midair and picking up other players are performed by shaking the Wii Remote.

According to the E3 2009 demo, players can play as four characters from the Mario series: Mario (player one), Luigi (player two), and two Toad characters: one blue (player three) and one yellow (player four). We’re hoping there will be other playable characters like Princess Peach and some of the villains. 

Players will also be able to ride on different coloured Yoshis, who display characteristics similar to the Yoshis found in Super Mario World and Yoshi’s Island. He probably won’t ever be a playable stand-alone character due to this though.

Some new items seem to have been added, there’s a Penguin Suit which allows players to freeze enemies (and use them as platforms), plus a Propeller Suit which allows players to fly. I miss the Tanooki and Hammer Suits. They should bring back the Frog Suit too for the funnies.

There’s a decent amount of fair play here. If a player dies, they appear in a bubble a few moments later and can resume play if one of the other players hits it. Items from item blocks come in multiple quantities so that each player has a chance of powering up too.

You could be greedy and try and deny your friends such goodies though (or leave them floating in that bubble for a while). There are obviously a lot of competitive elements, such as trying to get the most points or coins. Rankings for each player are given at the end of each level, including stats such as enemies defeated, coins collected, and total points. Race to that end of level flag!

 

The major villains of this game will be the Koopalings (who originally appeared as Bowser’s children in Mario Bros 3 and Mario World). I massively approve of this because they were a right bunch of characters and easily beat that Bowser Jr brat that seemed to replace the seven of them.

I’m so getting this game O_O

The only major drawback I’m seeing to this game is the lack of any online multiplayer play. The game maybe a tad too easy as well, unless the amount of enemies is increased to handle up to four players thrashing through the Mushroom Kingdom or something.

While we’re on the topic of world-saving plumbers; Super Mario Galaxy 2 is also in development for the Wii. It will have new features, including new items and power-ups and the ability to ride Yoshi (who will also have some new moves and skills).

While wandering the streets the other day, something caught my eye, Continue Reading

Friday saw the DSi make a break for the UK shops, good times!  So what did  Twitter think? Continue Reading

A wonderful thing has happened to the Wii lately. Continue Reading

Between 4th – 18th April participating Game stores across the country will have events where you will be able to acquire Shaymin. Continue Reading

Makes sense that the DSi gets a Virtual Console, but I’d still rather have the GBA slot… Continue Reading

All hail! The long desired solution to the limited nature of the Wii’s internal 512MB storage is with us! But then you all know by now, of course, that the latest Wii system update now allows for Wii Ware / Virtual Console games to be downloaded directly to and loaded from SD cards. I also need not repeat to you that the Wii now also supports SDHC cards which means up to 32GB of storage compared to the 2GB limit of standard SD.

Right.. that aside.. how well does this actually work? Llylat Wars was already on my SD card so load away I did! Well… attempted to at least but alas not enough space on the internal memory to load it. So the game / channel is loaded from the SD to the internal memory for running. Clunky yes but still beats a proprietary Wii USB hard drive cost-wise. So now I’m loading all my downloaded content to the SD Card.

This may take a few moments… bear with me… Continue Reading

No not the epic, not to mention educational, adventure that found Luigi touring the world in search of his brother but rather a rant about Mario games, or lack thereof. Continue Reading

UBISOFT SIGNS DEAL TO PUBLISH THE DIRECTOR’S CUT VERSION OF BROKEN SWORD – SHADOW OF THE TEMPLARS.

Genre-defining adventure game that introduced gamers to the mysteries of the Knights Templars makes its debut on Wii and Nintendo DS systems with a special edition!

“London, UK – DECEMBER 19, 2008 – Ubisoft, one of the world’s largest video game publishers, announced a publishing agreement to release the special edition of Broken Sword – Shadow of the Templars on Wii and Nintendo DS systems. Continue Reading

Once again despite there being plenty of new games that I could be getting on with (Metroid Prime 3 at this very moment is looking at me with sad puppy-dog eyes), Continue Reading

Nintendo’s nemisis, The Homebrew Channel, has overcome the latest firmware updates to be able to work on even the shiniest and nost up to date Wii. Good times if you’re into dabblimg in Wii development or enjoying the fruits of said dabbling. What caught my attention was the SDHC card reading compatibility the latest version on The Homebrew Channel adds, meaning that the card reader in the Wii is not, as some suspected, technically limited to old style 2GB limited cards.

With luck Nintendo may, in the end, give up the ability to add up to 32GB of storage. Best be getting stocked up on Wii points