Gamer Grow

Mega Man 9 is my favorite Mega Man game along with Mega Man X. This is probably due to the fact that I've recently beat these two Mega Man games since developing my critical-eye. Regardless, there's a lot to be said for Mega Man 9, a game which just barely qualifies for the retro-evolved genre. The game looks old school and plays just like Mega Man did when I was a kid gathered around TV with all the neighborhood kids trying to come up with a strategy to defeat Gemini Man. Because MM9 is practically an NES, so much of the experience should already be quite familiar to us. For this reason, I only want to touch on a few points in bullet point essay style. ADJUSTABLE DIFFICULTY Many claim that Mega Man 9 is a very difficult game. I do not think it is for many reasons. Starting with a base made up of the default weapon, the M Buster, and a few lives, the difficulty in beating the game can be adjusted to a very fine degree. Players always have the option of... collecting lives befor...

When the DS first launched, Nintendo decided to port Super Mario 64 over to the handheld. This game is mostly the same except for a few mini games, a multiplayer mode, and some new playable characters. Over all, the port was a good one with the biggest downside being the adapted controls. It's difficult to configure analog controls with digital buttons. In the next few years Nintendo released 3 "doubleganger siblings" or 3 platformers that have strong roots in the design of previous Nintendo Masterpieces. For these games the DS touch screen is mostly used for navigating menus and displaying large buttons. New Super Mario Brothers, Yoshi's Island DS, and Super Princess Peach are the doubleganger siblings that all fall short of their predecessor. New Super Mario Brothers (NSMB) takes after Super Mario Brothers for the NES. Yoshi's Island DS (YIDS) is analogous to Super Mario World: Yoshi's Island for the SNES. And Super Princess Peach (SPP) is modeled after bot...

I've been following Everyday Shooter (ES) by Jonathan Mak since I first saw it when the 1up show stumbled across the pair at GDC. Jonathan Mak is a success story . He followed his dreams , made a game by himself, and his efforts landed his game into, potentially, millions of living rooms around the world. Everyday Shooter is a project that's very individual and personal to its creator. This connection instantly becomes clear after playing the game and reading/listening to the way Mak communicates: "Everyday Shooter is an album of games exploring the expressive power of abstract shooters. Dissolute sounds of destruction are replaced with guitar riffs harmonizing over an all-guitar soundtrack, while modulating shapes celebrate the flowing beauty of geometry. " ~ Mak So I downloaded the game, died a few times, yelled some, and eventually beat it. Once you have the skills, the game is a short experience akin to sight seeing through the back alleys of a somewhat unknown ...

Just a few points to wrap things up. Simultaneous multiplayer. The core Smash design has the flexibility to support up to four players simultaneously. All of the mechanics, dynamics, and interplay possibilities are increased with each additional player. Some of the possible combinations for matches are team play (2v2), 3 for all (1v1v1), 4 for all (1v1v1v1), and even lopsided combinations like (2v1v1) and (3v1). By turning on team attack (friendly fire) in a 2v2 teams match, teammates must carefully coordinate their attacks as to avoid hitting each other. Because teammates can hit each other, players can also save each other from situations with attacks. If a Jigglypuff teammate is sleeping after using a rest attack, a teammate can step in and wake her with with a light, nonlethal "love tap." The highest levels of team play in Smash are the best the core design has to offer. I had to 2v1 pretty hard at the end. Stock. Another feature that is fairly unique to Smash is stoc...

Flywrench is a distilled platformer that provides a rush of mechanically precise gaming from beginning to end. The music matches the minimalistic graphical style which in turn fits perfectly with the vague yet whimsically amusing story, if you can call it that. From the little information the text provided as it zipped along the screen and past my attention, I understand that something has gone terribly wrong with my computer system and now I have to take the helm and manually guide things back on track. You play as that little white line. The Missing Parts and Shortcomings Trust me, I thoroughly enjoyed Flywrench both times I beat it. The experience as a whole reminds me of Portal for a number of reasons, but more on that later. So far, I've given you my positive opinion of Flywrench. But, to understand exactly what this game is, I have to explain Flywrench's limitations first. To do so, I'll juxtapose Flywrench to Super Mario Brothers. While this may seem utterly unfair t...

Eden. The unknown garden where players can guide their Grimp through space and along what can only be describe as some kind of plant like structure. Monocot, dicot, or any other known classification is completely lost to the plant like elements of this world. And yet, as I swing from stem to stem, suspended by my own silken string and dream like sense of momentum and gravity, I make my way to the glowing goal. The Spectra. I'll excuse the Pollen Prowlers I destroyed along the way some other time. I think I'm drawn like the pollen to a destination out of view. Like an innocent child's eye I follow. For in this world, sometimes plants grow down and away from the sun. PixelJunk Eden (PJE) has the kind of look that instantly attracts my attention. Everything is composed of flat colors and simple shapes that layer together nicely to sit somewhere between LocoRoco, Victorian patterns, and the tail ends of a couple of illegible signatures. It's quite apparent that this game ha...