So have some fresh game reviews right here, then stick around for a bit on the Monsters vs. Aliens movie at the end.
REVIEWS
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After debuting with a WiiWare download back in the summer of 2010, Gamelion's Furry Legends series has returned with a revised and retooled second installment. Furry Legends on DSiWare fixes most of the odd control troubles that plagued its Wii predecessor, adopts a new and nice-looking sprite-based art style and cuts the asking price for the whole thing in half. The result is a good and recommendable platformer for your portable.Furry Legends casts you as a round, fur-covered hero named, of course, Furball. It's up to you to roll him through a variety of vibrant levels built to take advantage of his spherical shape – there are hills to spin down and loops to dash through alongside the platformer staples of pitfalls to jump, switches to trigger and floating jewels to collect. The physics handling all of your rolling and bouncing feel a bit floaty (as they did back on the Wii) but the standard buttons of the DSi/3DS compensate for that issue and make moving Furball around easier to accomplish than before – the Wii Remote motions used in the original weren't great.
Gamelion also wisely dropped the subtitle this time around, as another key complaint I had against the Wii game was that it was sold as "Furry Legends" but then called itself "Furry Legends: Chapter One" on its title screen – like you'd been duped into investing in an episodic series when you expected a full standalone game. This DSiWare edition was set to follow suit and be called "Furry Legends: Beginnings," but that would have introduced the same issue again – feeling like you're only getting the first piece of a larger adventure.
Anyway, it's just Furry Legends now. And it's a pretty good option for anyone looking for new platforming action on DSiWare.
DSi Shop: 500 Points | 3DS eShop: $4.99
1001+BlockBusters
We've seen several different versions of this classic block-breaking design on Nintendo systems over the years, under the names Alleyway, Arkanoid, Breakout and more. There have even been a few bolder takes on the concept, like AlphaBounce, which tossed an RPG in together with the ball-bouncing action. 1001 BlockBusters isn't quite as adventurous an idea as that, but it does at least do something different – it presents its playing field in polygonal 3D.It's weird that we haven't seen this happen before (to my knowledge), but I think this is the first non-flat Breakout clone to hit Nintendo's handheld. It's nothing revolutionary, but it does make the experience feel fresher to see your ball breaking down structures with actual height. And there are loads of power-ups to play around with too, with several varieties of guns, paddle size modifiers and ball upgrades to keep you busy.
The soundtrack is nothing sensational and the visuals are a little rough around the edges, but 1001 BlockBusters ends up feeling like a fun little DSi diversion even so. And you can't beat the value, either – it's only two bucks to buy, and the title's claim of 1001 different levels is legit. That's like five stages for every penny you spend. Not bad.
DSi Shop: 200 Points | 3DS eShop: $1.99
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On the other side of the value equation is 101-in-1 Explosive Megamix, a WiiWare compilation package that tosses you a new video game to play for every seven pennies you turn over. A good deal, right? Not at all, sadly, since this design is all quantity and absolutely no quality.This same game first released as a Nintendo DS retail cartridge a couple of years ago, and even in that form it was woeful – each game was clearly lazily developed, incompletely tested and just not any fun to play. Now, here on WiiWare, it's had an extra level of additional laziness layered on top of it since nearly no compensation has been made to adjust for the Wii's lack of direct touch screen control.
You'll be pointing the Remote at the screen, tapping the A Button and making wild motion swipes to try to approximate the mechanics that once worked relatively well with a stylus in hand. And it doesn't work here, at all. Several other WiiWare titles have tried this same cursor/pointer functionality to sub in for touch control when porting over DS and iPhone games, and I've not seen it done well even once yet. 101-in-1 is especially egregious, though, since it has such a wide variety of different included game designs to display how horrible its control scheme is.
So keep your cash held back from this "value" option. It's a waste of money no matter how the math works out.
Wii Shop Channel: 700 Points
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It'd be a pretty sad week if we had to end on the down note of 101-in-1 on the Wii, but luckily the 3DS Virtual Console has shown up to save the Update with this last new release of the week. Catrap is an absolute hidden gem. An obscure puzzle design that quietly launched for the original Game Boy over 20 years ago and then was mostly forgotten for the next two decades, it's been enjoying a resurgence in notoriety and popularity across the Internet in recent years thanks to someone remembering one unique detail about it – it includes the gaming industry's very first time-rewinding gameplay mechanic.More modern titles like Blinx: The Time Sweeper, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Braid have popularized the idea of erasing your mistakes instantaneously – you miss a jump, you screw up a task and you just press a button and watch all your movements rewind themselves until you get back to a point before your error and can try again. Catrap is the game that first did it, though, and going back in time to experience the birth of "going back in time" is one heck of a fantastic retro trip.
The core of Catrap is that two young kids, Catboy and Catgirl, are trapped in an underground labyrinth and must clear the monsters out of 100 puzzle rooms to escape and be restored to human form. Beating the monsters is a simple as touching them – but to get to them you'll have to climb ladders, break through walls, move rocks out of the way and more. It's an easy task through the first handful of chambers, but quickly becomes brain-boggling partway into the quest. A good late '80s/early '90s era puzzler.
But that time-rewinding mechanic is what pushes it to the next level. Most other puzzlers of this type force you to lose a life and restart a room from scratch if you get stuck or make a wrong move. Catrap just lets you hold down the A Button and watch your little Catkid magically reverse everything they've done wrong. It's wonderfully convenient, and makes the whole game feel much more winnable – puzzles like this could be frustrating with forced restarts, but being able to try something, see that it didn't work, reverse time a bit and then try something else is refreshing.
It's just a shame that more games haven't tried to recapture this magic through the past 20 years. But with the excellence of Catrap now restored to the spotlight and available more prominently for modern audiences, maybe we'll see this unique style of puzzler catch on and inspire some new imitators. (Or even a direct sequel!)
3DS eShop: $2.99
That's all for new game releases this week, but as I said above the biggest headline for the October 13 eShop Update is probably going to be the new Nintendo Video content that's now available. Nintendo's free 3DS video app has been serving up a fine smattering of Internet clips and music videos over the past couple of months, but today feels like the beginning of the service really tapping into its potential – with exclusive, brand-new 3D film content from a major animation studio.
DreamWork's Monsters vs. Aliens movie already spawned one Halloween special a couple of years ago on TV, but Night of the Living Carrots is all-new. It's worth firing up Nintendo Video to check out, too, since it's definitely good for some laughs – we'll have to wait at least another week for the story to continue, though, since it's just "Part 1" that's available right now.
I'm excited for what this project could mean for Nintendo Video's future. Monsters vs. Aliens isn't my super favorite personally, but DreamWorks is a huge name – and they're in command of Kung Fu Panda. I'd love to see Po flipping out and showcasing his awesomeness on the 3DS screen. Wouldn't you?
And that's a wrap for this week, folks. Come on back next Thursday when we'll be doing it all over again.
The Last Three eShop Updates
Last Week's Update: Horizon Riders | eShop Update: TwinBee in 3D | eShop Update: Mario and Zelda! |