Here's what happening in our Wii world...
I'm pretty sour on the new Boy and His Blob. It's far more low-impact than I was expecting. All the talk about it being BEAUTIFUL 2D doesn't wash. And the menu controls are ill-thought out. I'm glad it sells a little cheaper than your regular Wii game (at $40), but it comes off like it could have been a WiiWare release.
And I am really, substantially, disappointed over how the levels are structured. First of all, it's kind of a cheap-out to build the game with dozens of tiny levels selectable via various hub worlds. I know plenty of games still do this, but we can all do better. Rescue of Princess Blobette on Game Boy was a big cohesive world where you had to use your beans to get through a moderately epic adventure. (I still have my hand-drawn maps for that game!) This new Wii version feels choppy and small.
But the main problem is that each level forces you into a different set of jellybeans. This level lets you have a ladder, this one doesn't. Boy, is that irritating.
Have not picked up Little King's Story or Klonoa since we returned. I'm unfortunately on the outs with Little King's at the moment. I intensely dislike the lack of in-game assistance, which makes it difficult to remember what you wanted to do and how to do it. For example, if you take the wrong types of people into a dangerous zone, they all die. Probably followed by your death. Which means you have lost an entire day to the screwup and maybe another day as you rebuild.
Klonoa, however, is a joy. I know I sound like an ass for lauding Klonoa - a linear platformer - after months of berating Mario Galaxy for being a linear platformer. I think the difference is that Galaxy was such a step away from the path traversed by Mario 64 and Mario Sunshine... while Klonoa has, across two console releases, never aspired to anything more than a linear platformer. Galaxy disappointed me where I expected better. The new Klonoa delivers solid returns on an unassuming history. And at $30, anybody who enjoys linear platformers ought to be chomping it down.
Blissfully, Klonoa supports normal controllers. It feels so good to use that Wavebird again.
The free download of Doc Louis's Punch-Out arrived while we were on vacation. I damn near missed the email. As expected, it's essentially a demo for regular Punch-Out. But it does seem to be self-aware that it is a Club Nintendo reward:
Although I doubt I'll ever see Punch-Out cheap enough for me to consider picking it up, I am impressed by the character animations of Doc Louis. There are some subtle head turns and body poses that seem effortlessly natural. I imagine the entire full game is like that.
That won't change the fact that it's yet another game that will kill your arms in half an hour. I'm not sure if Doc Louis supports the NES-style controls, as I had the Nunchuk plugged in every time I played it.
Have not sauntered around to investigating much of Wii Fit Plus. I like that it unlocks all the stuff that I never bothered to unlock in the first Wii Fit. And I like having Miis of the cats. (I wish these 2.0 Miis would be integrated into the actual Mii Channel!) We did a couple of the minigames, and here I am a few days later and I can't even recall which ones. I haven't tried the custom workouts mode, which will be the big decider.
The surprise this week was that we fired up Mario Party 6. Like, a GameCube game. According to my save file, the last time we played MP6 was late 2005. We skipped 7 and 8, so 6 is our newest Mario Party... and I thought Clark was ready for it. He really enjoyed it, and thankfully Mario Party 6 does a good job of keeping things straight forward. There's no way Clark would fully understand the mini-mega system of Mario Party 4, or the clunky item dispersal of Mario Party 5. 6 stands as a fine effort in cleaning things up.
I remain hopeful for a Mario Party 9 with online play, assuming it supports voice chat and I can get other people I know to buy it. How about a WiiWare version? Most of the Mario Parties came with bizarro bonus modes that could be easily forgotten to strip down an edition for a downloadable release. And no, I don't want the N64 originals on the VC. I want a new edition. Preferably one that allows for simultaneous moves from all online players.
Kind of still planning on finding Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. Which is slated to arrive just in time for Hall%D%D%D%D Christmas.
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