My Mother Bought a 3DS - Welcome to the Game System Revolution

A tinier me on the 3DS

My mother bought a 3DS this past weekend. She headed down to Shoppers Drug Mart handed over her chalked filled points card and got a virtually free gaming system. Yes, my fifty year old mother owns a 3DS before her technological and game system savvy twenty-three year old daughter.

Luckily for me, I have a kind mother who has let me fool around with her shiny aqua 3DS. (Okay, I ran away with it and she is at the moment hunting me down. So if I don't return any calls or if you don't see me in the next week -- I'm six feet under.)

Old vs New

The 3DS is approximately the same size of a DS Lite, but it weights a bit more than its game device ancestor. When I first opened the 3DS, I was surprised at how capable the 3D graphics were. It is like having a small 3D movie theater in the palm of your hand. I like not having to wear the horrible 3D glasses over my own prescription pair (which has to be one of the most uncomfortable things ever). The downside is that you really have to stare straight-on to get the full 3D effect (or it looks all awkward with lines all funny and shapes blurred).

The system comes with some AR Cards that let you play a few simple 3D games like fishing and archery. They're not much, but they do show off the power of the game system. But after a few playthroughs, they become monotonous and don't add much to the gaming repertoire.

These are the cards that hold a window into your 3DS' soul

Unfortunately, I don't own any 3DS games yet. Yeah, so not much is going on in that department. I did try a few DS games on the handheld however, and they play fine. I really like being able to use the slide pad as it makes playing games feel more natural after playing on the bigger consoles (I played Okamiden and it felt right at home having played its bigger mama game before). The downside to playing DS games on the 3DS is that games are stretched and get a washed-out effect, colours muted and drab looking. There is a cheat to get a better resolution if you hold down the Select and Start button when you press the game icon however. It makes the game screen really tiny though, four big black bars surrounding game image on the top and bottom screen.

Another downside is that the Nintendo eStore will not be available until May. That means no downloads (DS or 3DS wise). No internet connection as it is either. For a $250 machine, you think they would at least have the internet working for their launch. And let 3DS users access the DSiWare shop.

Me and my mother's 3DS

As of now, the 3DS is only a beautiful piece of equipment that sits in its personal cradle imploring me to buy a game that will show off its full potential. I stand my my previous post that Nintendo hasn't released any game that I need to play right now (I have a real cat and Super Street Fighting IV is on every system). I'll be waiting not so patiently for the summer and fall releases instead. Bur for now I'll stick to playing PC games like Wandering Willows and Gemini Rue (a Pokemon/Animal Crossing/FarmVille/Rune Factory hybrid strategy game and a noir-thriller adventure game), until Nintendo really wants to wow me.

Dragon Age 2 Demo - First Impressions

You know you're a true badass when you're flanked by a dragon

My blog is full of BioWare love. I can't deny it. I love Dragon Age: Origins and the Mass Effect series. But what happens when two beloved series combine into a mesh called Dragon Effect? Well, there are good and bad aspects.

Let's start with good and work our way down.

Good:

• Aveline looks incredibly kick ass.
• The rogue and mage abilities seem refined; spells seem more robust and rogue abilities feel more, well, roguish. Not just a hack off the swordsman's abilities.
• For the most part, I like the voice actors picked. I like the choice for male Hawke, but female Hawke's voice is a little soft for me and sounds familiar to Bethany's VO. However I love the picks for Fenris and Sebastian (sure they weren't in the demo, but hot damn. Sebastian's VO alone made me glad I pre-ordered.) Isabella's voice actor is still strong and I like Aveline's VO as well (I kinda wish it had been Hawke's...)

Limbo:

• The new Final Fantasy looking experience/attributes/skills system. I realize that the old system didn't give much room to pick different abilities and traits, but I feel like I'm playing FFXII every time I look at it.
• Female Hawke's swaying ass when she runs as a mage. It was... distracting.
• Varric narrating the story. I like Varric as a character, but it's off putting to be pulled out of the storyline at a moments whim. I can only hope it's in better integrated into the actual game. And what's up with Varric having the ability to lie about events? Am I playing the real story of Hawke, or am I just being fed shit?

Bad:

• The font. It looks like ants have creeped onto my television set. I have to be in make-out position before the text is readable. There was a similar problem for people in ME2 that consumers complained about, which BioWare said they'd fix in ME3. And yet we get even smaller print in DA2. Fix it.
• Funny graphic rate. I'll say that it's the demo's fault for now, but on my Xbox, the frame rate seemed sluggish at times and white lines kept appearing out of knowhere. It even froze once while I was playing mage Hawke and kicked me out.

The rest of bad is under cut for SPOILERS.

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective - First Impressions

Image taken from GameSpot

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective arrived faithfully at my door a day ago, and since then my fingers have been feeling rather wane and cramped, from the hurt of extended button poking and stylus holding. Or maybe it’s ‘cause outside it’s -30°C and I need to wear a parka in my house to stay warm.

I have to say right off the bat, that there may be a bit of bias in my love of Ghost Trick, as the Ace Attorney series is one of my favourites (both games created by Shu Takumi). But having gone through preliminaries, I can see how someone can like Ace Attorney and not Ghost Trick or vice versa. Game play is very different between the two games, Ghost Trick relying on physics, object manipulation, and mapping out a series of events in a short amount of time – while Ace Attorney is all about detective work, interrogations, and courtroom drama. But the fundamentals that made Ace Attorney so well liked such as hilarious dialogue, off-beat characters, and winding plot twists, haven’t missed a mark in Ghost Trick.

Suit-dude, Lynne, Sissel, and Kamila. You wish you had their hair.

Ghost Trick follows a man named Sissel, who recently died, and his journey to unravel the mystery behind his death. On his quest for truth, Sissel learns that he can interact with the dead and go back four minutes in time to try and stop their usually humorous and tragic deaths. He does this by going between the Land of the Living and the Ghost World, where time stands still and he can manipulate inanimate objects, and prevent unfortunate demises.

I haven’t finished the game yet, but from what I’ve played, the game has been excellent. The puzzles that you have to solve go from easy hard, but never brain-exploding hard. There is also a wonderful rewind feature in the game that lets Sissel replay a puzzle as many times as he has to until he solves the puzzle – with no penalties (that I know of so far).

As of right now, I’d totally recommend people checking this game out, especially adventure and puzzle game fans. So go forth and buy people! And while you’re at it, can you buy me a heater?

Harvest Moon Grand Bazaar - First Impressions

Finally, I received my copy of Harvest Moon Grand Bazaar after waiting for months, Natsume pushing back its release date more than once. After ripping off the plastic covering and sitting down for a few hours with the game, I thought I’d give my first impressions.
The Good:

• Grand Bazaar deviates from the characters in Sunshine Islands and Island of Happiness
• Crops easier to grow
• You own a bazaar
• Nice farm and town layout
• You can use the one tap L button to run
• The newly introduced jump button (A), you can even get two jumps in by pressing A twice
• The control pad and buttons are used for all actions
• Washroom and sauna in own house
• Cat and Dog choices
• Cute love interests and towns people
• The town mayor Felix has a picture of himself in his own house (he looks rather handsome with his mountain backdrop. Very Ricola.)

The Bad:

• Time only stops when you speak to towns people (there is no pause button)
• On the map screen, you are the only disembodied head (unlike in SI/IH)
• The main girl sprite looks like the boy sprite but with blonde hair
• The B button is used to talk and use your tools (fortunately you can remove your tool with a press of the Y button)
• Colour palate and textures are rather dull looking

Harvest Moon Grand Bazaar might not be a perfect game, but so far, the improved HM formula is keeping me entertained and (after this post) coming back for more.