Hardcore gamage.

A little while ago, I ran into my friend who I will simply refer to as "the winery" We chatted together for a while and eventually, he said something which I found a little peculiar. 
Quote: Winery: I mean, Nintendo's games aren't exactly hardcore"
            4Ever: What do mean? 
            Winery: Well, they mostly market to a younger audience.

After sealing him away in a realm using the power of the seven sages, I started to think. Yes, I eventually concluded, Nintendo does market to a younger audience, look at Mario, there's no blood or guns or stabbing, just mushrooms, turtles and jumping. But who can actually deny that older gamers can't have fun with Mario (prime example speaking here) as well as the young. New Super Mario Bros Wii has sold 21.94 million copies worldwide and is the 6th best selling Wii game, so it is undeniable that at least some older gamers play it. And then I thought again, what exactly do we perceive as hardcore? Are hardcore games that which involve carving up people with knives and guns? Or are they games where you take ages to finish? Personally, I don't care weather a games is perceived as hardcore or not as long as I am having fun. But what do you think? Nominate Hardcore Nintendo games and see who will win, the prized Hardcore Championship Belt: 

Layton vs. Wright...

I just found out about a game that sounds to me quite strange. It appears to be a crossover between ace atterney and professor layton. This strikes me as strange because level 5 announced that there would only be 5 Layton games, but if this means that there will be more layton then i am all for it. I haven't played any of the ace attorney games so i dont really know what to expect.

Terfle

Terfle's Thoughts: the 3DS

I have just acquired a 3ds a few days ago. It is not what i expected it to be. Firstly there is the stuff that comes with it, with your 3ds you also get an adjustable stylus (only one though), a charger (good news for those with a dsi, it uses the same charger), a 2Gb sd card (for photos and songs), and something that I thought was a little unusual, a charging 'cradle' as they called it. To use the cradle you plug the charger into the back of it and then just put your 3ds in it. I do like the way that you don't have to stop and put down all the stuff you might be holding so that you can plug you ds in, you just put it down an d its charging. The size of the 3ds is almost the same as the dsi, but it is slightly less wide and more breadth. The best way of describing the 3d effect is trippy. It really is down right trippy. The switch to turn on and off the 3d doesn't make a great deal of difference, you can have it on or off, there is a very slight difference between fully on 3d and barely on 3d, but it is difficult to notice. Only the top screen is 3d, and it is also wider than the usual ds screens, but the bottom screen is the same size as the normal ones. While the resolution is better, it is still no where near iphone 4 retina display sadly. The place where you put your stylus has changed and is now behind the top screen right next to where you put the game cards in. They have kept the dsi's popping out l and r buttons, which i kind of liked. The lights have moved completely. There is one on the top right of the 3ds which does the same thing as the dsi's left button. The other two have migrated to the bottom of the 3ds where the earphone port was on the ds. They have put in a... sort of joy stick thing above the d pad, which is like the ones psps have. The power button has moved to the right of the screen, and the start and select buttons have moved below the bottom screen. There is now a 'home' button that takes you to a menu a lot like a dsi's one, but it still keeps whatever you were doing before running, so there are options like notes that you can take, and stuff like that. One of the features that will be really useful, will be the recording app, it is a lot like the dsi's one except that instead of 18 different slots, you now get 180 slots. Wow that was a long post, it will probs make no sense at all, and will just be me rambling, but anyway.

Terfle

GoldenEye stuff

I've finished GoldenEye on operative. And do you know what I did immediately afterwards? I started again on agent. Yeah, it was that compelling. Course, this was a while ago, but I havn't had a huge amount of time to game recently, but that's cool, that's cool. Anyhoo, let's get moving.

GoldenEye 007 Wii is a remake of the original GoldenEye 007 on the N64,  a game which many people say was the best FPS of all time. But if you've come into GoldenEye Wii expecting the game to be just as you remember it, you may find your self interested. The game for Wii is very different to the N64 version, but that's not a bad thing. I can hear people right now going: What? Not the same game? What's the point of buying it? But if you wanted the old version of GoldenEye, then you've had 16 years to play it on the Nintendo 64. The gameplay and script are quite different from that of both the movie's and the original game's, but that's a good thing.

As far as how GoldenEye looks, it's impressive. The graphics are far from Metroid: Other M, but they are still cool. Daniel Craig looks like Daniel Craig and all the characters look like they should as well (except that Natalya has black hair) The story, while maintaining the general plot, is different to the movie's. Do you remember that meeting with Valentine in the movie at the nightclub? But did you remember it turning into a vicious gunfight for your life? Did you remember getting shot at by an RPG as you were driving along the road with 006? You shouldn't, and do you remember the bungie jump at the start of the movie? Ah...yeah, there's no more bungie chord. All the acting (except for Sky Briggs') is very good, especially from Daniel Craig and Judy Diench (am I spelling her last name right?) as Bond and M respectively. 

The gameplay is great. It's a mix of sneaking about and all out firefights. Most of the time, you are able to sneak around and take out guards silently while creeping towards your objective. If you get seen, then you will heat a rift, followed by James' heartbeat. Take out the people who saw you without making more attention and the heartbeat stops. They start firing, and more enemies will rush to your location to blow you to bits. But it's not game over. You can leg it to the next checkpoint (but that's not likely seeing as every one's shooting you) or fight it out. You have a ton of guns to play with: AK-47, Sigmus-9, standard issue P99 and my favourite gun of all time: The Masterton! But don't go and blow your cover all wily-nily (did I really just say that?) because it can be really hard, even on operative, to beat them. Of course, there are also lots of time where your only option is to fight it out. You can utilise cover, but stay in a place to long and it will break away and leave you exposed. If you find a place that has cover that doesn't deteriorate, then enemies can and probably will chuck a grenade, forcing you to move. The A.I. are really smart and fun to engage, except for the odd time where they think that hiding behind explosive barrels is a good idea. There are also some interactive cutscenes as well. I'm not going to call them quick time events. because they've been intentionally made really easy, so that you can enjoy the moment and feel like Bond. It is possible to fail them, but only if you screw up really badly. They make you feel like you're that secret agent 007 out there on the field. The only part of the campaign I didn't like was the boss fight. Keep FPS boss fight to Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime only...and I havn't even begun to talk about the awesomness of multiplayer...



There are some really cool things about the multiplayer modes in GoldenEye. In split screen, you can play as classic villains like Jaws, Oddjob, Scaramanga, Dr. No, Blofeld, Redd Grant and Rosa Klebb to name a few. For Split screen, there are a bunch of modifiers. Paintball mode (guns fire paintballs) Nick-Nack mode (all players are small) Melee only (you guessed it) bouncy grenades, sticky grenades, move your feet (where if you aren't moving for more than 3 seconds, you die) 
In online mode, you lose these modifiers, but have the ability to play with up to 8 people in a number of modes. Conflict and Team Conflict are pretty standard, but there are some really cool ones like Golden Gun. Somewhere in the map, there is a Golden Gun lying about, but it is marked on your map so you can find it. However picks it up can use it. It's cool, one shot one kill at any range. There are only two catches. The first being that once you fire it, you have to reload it and it only gives you one shot. That's okay though, because you reload it fast and it has infinite ammo. The other catch is a lot harsher. If you have the gun, everyone on the map can see you. That's why I've only ever gotten 3 kills with it, because everyone sneaks up behind me and shoots my brains out. There are others like Black Box (capture the flag with a small twist) and GoldenEye (base capture) and some more. 
The gameplay for MP is a lot like COD Blops (I can talk about it here because it was released for wii) which is a good thing because MP is fun in that game. That being said, it doesn't take much skill to play. In some thing like SSBB you are constantly in combat, battling your opponent fiercely to defeat them, sometime engaging them in battles that last for up to 10 minutes. But in GoldenEye it's a matter of: 
I has better unlocks than you, bang, dead.
I saw you first, bang, dead. 
I came up behind you, bang, dead. 
Something like this would normally turn me off a game because the question I found myself asking the most was: who killed me. But the reason I keep doing it is because it's so much FUN! And addictive...
Controlwise, you have a lot of options. Eurocom was very keen on giving the players the ability to use the classic controller as their control scheme, because it will let players get a bit closer to the good old days where you'd call your friends and ask them if they wanted to swing over to your house and play GoldneEye. But of course, only if they could be Oddjob. But I tried using the gamecube controller for a while. It works really well, but the annoying thing is that you have to press Z and B at the same time to melee and that feels a bit clunky and slow. After that, I stuck with the Wii-Mote and Nunchuck and am still using it. It's so much easier to make micro adjustments to aiming than with an analog stick. 


So there you have it, GoldenEye 007 Wii. A truly fantastic game

HG/SS winners of the golden joystick for best portable game of 2010

Yes, you read correctly. The johto region game remakes won the golden joystick for the best handheld game of 2010!!

This may seem surprising, but you will be pleased to know that these games deserved to win that award. With overhauled sprites for johto region pokemon, heartgold and soulsilver wrapped up the 4th gen pokemon games nicely. As well as selling over 8.4 million copies, which has put them among the best-selling handheld games ever.

However, I'm putting a challenge forward. Not a simple 2 week challenge. but a challenge that may take almost a year.

Terfle, 4ever, The challenge is this. whoever can complete the 4th gen national pokedex first will be regarded as the greatest pokemon trainer that we know.

thanks to the guiness book of world records 2011 gamers edition.

super mario bros. orchestra!!!!

do you play a musical instrument and have wanted to lean what the super mario bros theme would sound like if played by a big orchestra??
well here it is!!

Finally!

Looking back over nintedo's impressive history i seemed to notice something, this is probably something only for the newer consoles as i didn't actually look back or anything (that would take far too much effort) is that there seems to be a flaw. As far as flaws go this is pretty minor, it wont make an aeroplane decompress at 6000 feet or anything but it does annoy me none the less. That flaw is resolution. The ds, while a very good hand held, to be blunt has below standard resolution, the screen does not fit as many pixels as it should. The psp for example has far superior resolution, but it does not have a touch screen so in my opinion the ds is better. Compared tot he other 7th gen consoles the Wii doesn't have the best graphic's, the wii has great games that have impressive graphocs like crystal bearers and other m, but i cant help but wonder how much better they would be if the wii was better. Finally Nintendo has fixed this with the 3ds! it has far better resolution than the ds, which was sort of necessary for the 3d, but still they fixed it! yaaaaaaay. This will make the 3ds without a doubt the best handheld console. You can still play regular ds games but they will look a bit blurry, or you can change it so that it plays in proper resolution but it will not take up the whole screen.

Terfle

guiness world records 2011 gamers edition: top 10 game characters

Actually, in the book, it shows you the top 50 game characters, but i'm only going to name the top 10, plus a few nintendo characters that didn't make it.

number 10: Sonic the hedgehog (sonic the hedgehog)

number 9: Kratos (god of war)

number 8: Gordon (Half-life)

number 7: lara croft (tomb raider)

number 6: Pac-man (pac-man)

number 5: cloud Strife (FFVII)

number 4: solid snake (metal gear solid)

number 3 :master cheif (halo)

number 2 Link (the legend of zelda)

before I reveal who number one is, allow me to reveal other top 50 characters that came from the powers that be nintendo:

Bowser at number 47

peach at number 44

donkey kong at number 33

zelda at number 31

Yoshi at number 21

pikachu at number 20

kirby at number 18

samus aran at number 14

and now the moment you've all been waiting for. the number one character in the guiness book of world records 2011 gamer's edition.

number 1: MARIO(super mario)the plumber in the red hat is the number 1 game character for 2011!!! congratulations on the victory!

super smash bros. character dissection: the Pink Marshmallow of death, KIRBY

Ah yes, the mighty kirby. The cannibal marshmallow vaccum cleaner that won the hearts of nintendians around the world. As Kirby fetured in the original SSbros. game, it is only natural that he/she/it should feature in SSBB.

Unless you have been in a cave since you were born, then you would know that kirby can fly by sucking in air and holding his breath. In ssbb, this ability returns to kirby making his jump distance massive. It also eliminates a recovery move as kirby needs one not. Kirby's attacks mainly revolve around his abilities taken from previous kirby games. first of all, the vaccum attack. to a hapless enemy who comes to close to kirby as he generates a suction force by inhaleing, all they can see is darkness. then you can do one of three things. No.1: you can absorb their power by pressing "b" wihich allows kirby to copy the normal smash of the character they just absorbed. e.g: if kirby absorbs samus, it can use her power beam. No.2: by pressing the "a" button, kirby can fire his victim at another enemy, however, the attack is short ranged. No.3: the opponent can break out of kirby's mouth. if this happens, I reccomend you unleash a flurry of kirby punches, then eat them again to show them who's boss. kirby's side smash attack involves him picking up a hammer that suspiciously looks like king dedede's and smashing whoever is in range. kirby's up smash allows him to leap up into the air with a cutlass sword and then bring it down again, which generates a forcce that flies out in front of kirby (NOTE: kirby's up smash is not a recovery move. if you use it as a recovery move, you will most likely fall to your death). Kirby's down smash sees him transforming into a rock with happy eyes, an angry rock, a kirby coloured brick, and a spike ball. I reccomend asking terfle or 4ever about the other forms that kirby can take with rock powers in the games that it stars in.

Kirby's final smash is unnavoidable if you are witin its range. if you are, then start praying because there is a very good chance that you're going to be knocked off the stage by a marshmallow in a chef's hat. The attack is named cook kirby, which is why food items spawn on the stage when kirby uses this attack.

as mentioned before by 4ever, kirby possesses a secret weapon. this is the "hiii" taunt. as it takes a short amount of time and is annoying, it is the perfect taunt and thus, makes kirby the ultimate enemy to fight as your not only fighting a cannibal who can fly and steal your powers from you, you're fighting a cannibal who can fly, steal your powers and drive you insane. All in a days work for the hero of dream land.