wii u — Page 9

Mega Man X3 (Wii U): COMPLETED!

Posted on 17/10/2015 Written by deKay

I’ve been playing this off and on since completing Mega Man X2 way back when. Not because I don’t like it, just because I kept forgetting it was there to play. Over the last week I’ve made a more concerted effort to finish it off (much like with Wario Land, actually) as I’m trying to complete a load of games I’ve not reached the end of yet in preparation for when Fallout 4 arrives. Clear my plate, if you will.

So Mega Man X3 is just like Mega Man X2. Which, in turn, was pretty much the same as all the other Mega Man games before it. Like previous games, you start off mostly powerless and beat boss after boss obtaining new weapons and then finding upgrades around the levels to turn X into a walking tank. So I did that. Once I’d picked the the Gold Armour (which required picking up all the health upgrades and sub tanks too) only the final few bosses even worried me.

But yes, they did worry me. I’m glad I spent the time getting X as powered up as possible (although I seem to have missed out on getting Zero’s sabre? Not sure how to get that) because Sigma at the end was damn hard. I suppose, looking back of the series, there have been a lot of damn hard bosses, but how you’d beat Sigma (in his second form especially) with only half the energy and only a quarter of the armour, not to mention a weaker X-Buster, I’ve no idea. I went through three sub tanks as it is!

And now, the all important Mega Man Game Which Is Best List:
X>X3>X2>6>4>7>5>3>2>1.

But now what? I’ve no more Mega Man X games. I know there ARE more Mega Man X games, but they’re all for the Playstation, aren’t they? Boo! And I don’t have any of them. But what I do have, however, is Mega Man Zero! Woo!

Click to view slideshow.

The post Mega Man X3 (Wii U): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Lego Marvel Super Heroes (Wii U): COMPLETED!

Posted on 23/08/2015 Written by deKay

I think this may actually be the first Lego game I’ve completed entirely in co-op. Lego Batman 2 and 3 were both mostly co-op, but Lego Marvel Super Heroes I’ve played only in co-op with my daughter. Which is nice.

There’s a lot of mopping up bricks to do, as usual. We’ve done some, after finishing the story, but we’re still only at around 52/250. Finding the rest is going to be a pain, as although most of them are on the New York City map, it’s often not clear what you need to do when you get to them. Of course, a fair few are going to come from redoing the levels again in Free Play. Having said that, in recent games I’ve not bothered going for 100%. I think Lego Harry Potter 2 was the first where I didn’t, and although I had a pretty good stab at it for Lego Batman 2, I haven’t tried at all for Lego Batman 3. I really should. It’s a lot of fun.

Anyway! This is telling you nothing about this game. Which there isn’t a great deal to talk about, actually. It’s more Lego super heroing, only with Marvel characters instead of DC ones like Batman 2 and 3. Like Batman 2 there’s a massive open hub world (New York City), which seems more dense and full of life than Gotham. The split up mini-hubs of Batman 3 were a step back, I thought. There’s also a handful of things to do on the SHIELD helicarrier, up int he sky above the city.

The story revolves around Galactus heading for Earth, and Doctor Doom, Loki and Magneto (as well as a few other less important baddies) seem to be taking advantage of this for a project of their own. As, variously, several Avengers, the Fantastic 4, Spider-Man and a few X-Men, you progress through the levels trying to beat these baddies and take back the Cosmic Bricks they’re stealing. The levels are all pretty standard Lego fare – different characters can activate different things, access different areas, or destroy or build certain types of blocks. They’re pretty varied, with settings underwater, in the Statue of Liberty and on a space station, and the characters you use are swapped frequently so you don’t get bored with the same ones.

The star of the show is Deadpool. He shows up for some of the bonus levels, and has his own room on the helicarrier where you buy found red bricks and watch the in-game movies and so on. In one of of the main levels, Doctor Octopus smashes through the Daily Bugle offices, and then in a bonus level later Deadpool narrates (with silly voices) as you, as Agent Coulson and Doc Ock, have to tidy up the mess. It’s very funny, and a memorable moment.

There aren’t any real surprises in the gameplay, and it’s a shame that two player “screen each” play sometimes makes the framerate nosedive (more so than in Batman 3, in fact, and that was bad at times), but it’s a solid Lego title and probably one of the best too. Although they’re all pretty great, truth be told.

Now I just need to find copies of Lego Lord of the Rings, Lego the Hobbit, and Lego Jurassic World and I’ll be up to date. Apart from Lego Dimensions (so called because your wallet needs a 4th dimension to hold all the money needed for it) which is out soon. Sigh.

Child of Light (Wii U): COMPLETED!

Posted on 06/07/2015 Written by deKay

If there’s one negative thing to say about Child of Light, it’s the diabolical dialogue. All of the conversations and narration take the form of terrible rhyming couplets. Rhyming couplets that are forced, contrived, often don’t rhyme, and very rarely even scan. At first it feels clever and cute, but after a few minutes you’d rather everyone just spoke properly and it grates for the next twelve or so hours until it’s complete.

Which, yes, it is complete.

Thankfully, there’s only really the one negative thing to say about Child of Light. The rest is all good. I could say it’s a bit easy (none of my characters ever died and I used just three health potions – and no other potions at all – in the entire game), I could mention most of the characters in your party are superfluous (I rarely used more than Finn and the mouse), and I could say that for an RPG it was a bit short, but it doesn’t really matter. What is important is how much fun it was, how there was never any need to grind, how much I enjoyed the story (despite the “poetry”), and how unusual it was to play.

As well as using the same game engine as Rayman Legends, some of the Murfy sections have sort of translated to a mechanic here, too, where you move your little firefly chum around the screen with either the touchscreen or (more usually) the right stick, using him to activate and collect things. During time-turn based battles he can heal you and your allies or slow down enemies, which adds more than you’d expect.

The battles themselves, which make up the majority of the gameplay, appear like standard JRPG turn based fights. However, there’s a timeline on the bottom of the screen which all the characters (on both sides) move across. When your characters get to the final 1/5th of the bar, you can choose their action – such as attack or defend – and when they reach the end of the bar that action is carried out. If you’re attacked in that final section, your action is interrupted and you’re chucked back down the timeline again. Similarly, your foes do the same. This adds a lot of strategy to the fights, since different actions activate at different speeds you have to decide if your chosen one is fast enough to get in before it’s interrupted or countered. I’m pretty sure I’ve played a game with a similar system before, Eternal Sonata maybe? Whatever it was, it works great here.

Child of Light is definitely worth playing, and even better if you manage to pick it up in a sale (like I did!).

Things I’ve been playing recently (Part 1 – Wii U demos)

Posted on 23/06/2015 Written by deKay

Time for a roundup. Seeing as I’ve played a lot but not posted about anything. In several parts too, as there’s so much. Firstly, some demos:

Over E3, Nintendo put nine new Wii U game demos on the eShop under the horrifically named “Nindies@Home” banner. So I played them.

Runbow

Not as good as I was hoping for. It plays a bit like Guacamelee only rubbish. Sort of. Platformer with an annoying colour changing mechanic where platforms disappear when the colour changes to match. Didn’t play it multiplayer, which is the main draw, so it’s probably better there.

Mutant Mudds Super Challenge

More Mutant Mudds. Which is great, as the original was great, but on the Wii U you lose the 3D and it makes the jumping in and out of the screen seem pointless, somehow. And it’s hard. And I never finished the original 100% so not sure how I feel about more hardness.

Forma.8

Pleasant floating around game. It’s a bit like Knytt Underground and Abyss in style, has a fun drop a bomb and “kick” it attack, and some simple puzzles. Seems OK, might be interested in the full game.

Extreme Exorcism

Platformer where you kill ghosts. It’s a bit like Super Crate Box, only when you kill the ghost, the next level has a new ghost who duplicates all your moves from the previous level. And then the next level has all the previous yous and ghosts. Or that’s what it seemed. Fun, if a bit confusing.

Rive

Lovely twin stick shooter with really, really meaty bangs and explosions. Sections split between gravityless side scrolling and gravity based platforming, with the odd swimming section (where you can’t shoot). Very nice.

Soul Axiom

It’s Not Portal(TM). It’s also really shonky, with stuttering and framerate issues all over the place. It also looks a bit like it’s been made with some Unity level designer or something. And terrible, terrible voice acting. Oh god.

Freedom Planet

What looks like Sonic and sounds like Sonic but is terrible (like Sonic is now, I suppose)? Freedom Planet! Awful animation, screen juddering everywhere and all hopes and dreams of a possibly good Sonic game (even though it isn’t Sonic) up in smoke. Boo.

Lovely Planet

If Noby Noby Boy was a first person shooter, it would look like this. Is the style intentional, or the result of not being able to draw? Who knows. Hiding behind the cute sparseness, is a brutal one-hit-death FPS, which is sort of OK, but I’m not sure I like it enough to play it again.

Typoman

The best of the bunch. Limbo-esque platforming with puzzles solved by creating words with letters that litter the area. So RAIN is a rain cloud filling a pit, but add a D and it DRAINs out. Clever, lovely, and definitely on my want list.