wii u — Page 31

Things I’ve been playing recently

Posted on 21/11/2013 Written by deKay

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies (3DS)

I completed it, sure. But then Capcom went and released a DLC case for it this week. So I had no choice but to buy it and play it. I’m not far in yet, as I’m still on the first day of investigation, but it’s awesome. And it has my new favourite character – Marlon Rimes. Who is a sort of pirate marine zookeeper rapper. Oh yes.

Animal Crossing: New Leaf (3DS)

I have to stop playing this soon. I don’t want to, but there are too many games. I’m mainly just chatting to animals and buying all the things in the shop each day now. Thing is, it’s Christmas in Animal Crossingland soon, and that’s going to be special, right?

Wii Sports Club (Wii U)

I managed a high score of 201, but I got much higher than that the other week and it isn’t listed any more for some reason. Rubbish!

Luigi’s Mansion 2 (3DS)

I’m finally past the Clock Factory Mansion levels, and even past the snowy mine levels after that (which for some reason was two missions shorter). I’m now onto what I suspect, according to the map and the fact I’ve only one piece of Dark Moon left, is the final mansion. Wooo!

Wii Sports Club: 2006 as it should have been

Posted on 12/11/2013 Written by Xexyz

Wii Sports was a fantastic game - back at the launch of the Wii, we played it more than anything else, and it continued to occupy me for some time afterwards. Its inclusive nature means that it still gets brought out very often for social occasions (but less often since Nintendo Land came onto the scene), the most memorable time being when I beat Ken.

It's now been updated - or at least part of it has - with better visuals, online modes, and an extortionate price tag. Luckily, of the five games included in the original Wii Sports, the two best are out already and there's no need to buy the other three.

I've spent a bit of time on both Tennis and Bowling - to the extent that my shoulders are aching. Tennis sees the most obvious improvements, with motionplus giving much better control over the player, and online meaning that you can find a decent set of opponents to play against.

I've been starting with the offline mode to get into the swing of things, and amusingly the third game had me paired up against a couple of OAPs. I beat them, just.

I've spent more time bowling, where the online leaderboards add a lot to the game. Oddly, deKay posted a score of 214 to Miiverse, but the leaderboard showed him with a lower score. I was incredibly annoyed when I scored three points less than his claimed score.

A couple of games later, though, I got the hang of the controls, and managed to get five strikes in a row, at the end of the game.

This meant that I ended up with a pretty good score.

The online modes for bowling are a little odd; you watch everyone else taking their turn and can send pre-programmed phrases offering encouragement, congratulations or commiserations. As with tennis, any games you play are racked up in your 'club' score, and you define which club you wish to be a member of, theoretically by stating where you live.

I'm helping England South East here.

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate

Posted on 07/11/2013 Written by choobs

And so it continues. I’m about 140 hours in now and ploughing through the 7 and 8 star quests, and I’ve ever started doing a bit of the online stuff. I finally got a nice checkmark on the 6 start quest section today by getting around to doing the annoying egg-fetchy-quest. It turns out it wasn’t nearly as annoying as it could have been (i.e. no rampaging Deviljho to avoid) and was done in under 5 minutes.

I’m now kitted out with a rather fetching set of S rank Diablos armour and have switched my primary from Dual Swords to Long Swords (due to everything getting a bit too tall for my little swords to reach) and I’m really enjoying the mechanic. Things are starting to get difficult though – many of the high rank quests involve ganking more than one beastie at a time, and given some of them take a good 50 minutes to take down alone, the search for better gear is pretty much constant. Not even vaguely close to finishing this one yet

The Wonderful 101 (Wii U)

Posted on 23/10/2013 Written by deKay

So I fixed it. Deleting the game from the hard drive and redownloading it, somehow, fixed all the control issues. No, I don’t know how.

Now, I can draw whatever Unite form I want and it works every time. And it’s a good job too, because it turns out when it works properly, the game is awesome.

I’m able to dodge or block attacks now. I don’t have to spend half my play time fighting the controls. I’m really enjoying it. Phew, eh?

It does make me wonder, though – did the reviewers get the same broken version I did?

Anyway. Progress: I have defeated the giant that tries to smash you on the top of a tower, then you go inside him and smash his… Brain? Dunno. Awesome.

Game memories: F

Posted on 22/10/2013 Written by Xexyz

Feel the Magic XX-XY (DS)

Project Rub in the UK, but I got this with my imported US DS ahead of the European launch. In many ways it was an ideal game to launch the DS with, showing many varied ideas on how the touchscreen could be used. It didn't hang together that well, but I remember the black, white and orange colour scheme vividly.

F1 '97 (PS)

Murray Walker shouting "He's on the green stuff" over and over again; tracks being messes of pixels a little way down the road. A great game.

F1 2010 (Xbox 360)

Far too many options and menus to wade through. Completing a single race in the career mode took ages, since you had to go through practice sessions, qualifying and the race itself. Ideal for people who love F1, but for me it was just a bit painful.

F1 2011 (3DS)

As with F1 2010 above, but with a third of the framerate.

F355 Challenge Passione Rossa (Dreamcast)

At the time this felt like a massive technical achievement and tales of the arcade machine using three monitors underlined the game's credentials. I played it for about fifteen minutes before being totally overwhelmed by the options and realistic gameplay - in other words, I kept spinning off the track, couldn't work out how to switch to a behind-car view, and had better things to play instead.

Field Commander (PSP)
Like Advance Wars but with little charm, little challenge, and a rubbish online mode.

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles (Gamecube)
I've never completed a proper Final Fantasy game; I've never even passed the first hour of one. This, however, was played loads at virtually every games night we held. Kieron had a bucket on his head, I was a Selkie. John was accomplished at ranged combat, we all could heal each other but often didn't.

Fire Emblem (GBA)
I never completed this. I remember it getting very stressful due to the fact that if a character died in a mission, they remained dead. I restarted missions again and again to protect my favourite characters, and as a result it grew stale and too difficult.

Floigan Brothers: Episode One (Dreamcast)
It's a shame there was no episode two - this was an amusing game which was unlike anything else, as with a lot of Sega's Dreamcast output. It was far too short and there was a bit too much collection required as far as I recall. I got this in Singapore and worked out pretty quickly that it was a pirate version, but bought the proper version on my return from HMV for a fiver.

Ford Racing 3 (Xbox)

I was convinced to buy this by people on RLLMUK praising the second game, the fact it was online (when there were few other online games around, and it was £10 brand new. I think I played it online three times and offline twice, before being tempted away by other games that were just more fun to play.

F-Zero (SNES, Wii, Wii U)

F-Zero GX (Gamecube)

F-Zero X (N64)

F-Zero: Maximum Velocity (GBA, 3DS)
GX is the best. The Mode 7 games are a bit pants now, but at the time they seemed great, particularly on the GBA where the handling was much more refined. Replaying them now, they are just too floaty and the career mode is a bit lightweight with daft difficulty spikes.

Future Tactics: the Uprising (Gamecube)

I bought this in the US and as a result, the hassle needed to load the game meant that I played it little. A shame, as when I did I remember it being a clever game melding a strategy turn-based game with something that felt more action-based. I'm now able to play US games on my modded Wii; I may try this again when I find it.

Fighting Vipers (Saturn, Xbox 360)

I continue to be hopeless at fighting games that are more complicated that Street Fighter II, but Fighting Vipers has a pleasing lack of combo, super and extra EX WTF meters. The fighting feels solid and the idea of being able to knock off armour works well. I get the feeling that if I played this a bit more I could get quite good at it. That's unlikely to happen.