April 2012 Archives

We had another retail success story yesterday. It always feels good to just stumble into a deal, or run across a rare toy by happenstance, rather than endure the wilds of eBay and online price gouging.

Skylanders. At a GameStop, we found Lightning Rod, one of the newer figures to be released. And at Target, wonder of wonders, they had two Dragon's Peak adventure packs. So now we have all four adventure packs (which means we have all the power-up items)... and we're only four away from a complete set of all 32 base Skylander toys. I adamantly refuse to do the math on what this all costs. And by "base," that means I'm not counting the Legendary figures, which are just repaints. But we have four of those too.

We need Dino-rang, Camo, Warnado and Wham Shell.

Incidentally, this was our first drop-in at this particular GameStop, and it has to be the best GameStop this side of the Susquehanna. For one thing, it's huge. For whatever reason, GameStops around here tend to be around the size of a Christopher & Banks dressing room, and when 80% of that tiny-space stock is used games, I don't often spend a lot of time in them. This GameStop is actually the size of a real store. Must be expensive rent.

Plus, I asked about Kid Icarus cards, and they gave us two free packs. A couple weeks ago, Nintendo and GameStop held a Kid Icarus: Uprising demo day, but none of my immediately local GameStops were among the "select stores" that were running the demo and handing out free cards. At this GameStop, I delicately asked "Do you have Kid Icarus cards?" - which, you have to admit, is a genius way to tackle it, because the phrasing makes me look like an idiot father who thinks he can buy his son Kid Icarus cards. So if they don't have any of the free cards, the staff can assume I thought you could buy them... but if they do have the free cards, they look like heroes for handing them out to us.

So now we have just about all of the Kid Icarus cards as yet released. We don't have whatever they handed out at the Nintendo Store in New York, and we don't have whatever Game Informer subscribers received with the magazine. We have the cards that came with the game, the Club Nintendo cards, the Nintendo Power cards, the @Gamer Best Buy cards and now the GameStop cards. Plus the one booster pack that Nintendo sent me (which I'm guessing is the same random packs they handed out at PAX). I remain astonished that Nintendo is not selling these cards at retail. Maybe they're waiting for enough copies of the game to get into players' hands so it makes financial sense to print and distribute packs of Kid Icarus cards.

Next: two PlayStation Move games on the discount end cap at Target. Medieval Moves: Deadmund's Quest and Puss in Boots. Both marked down to $12. We tried the demo for Deadmund some time ago, and Clark really liked it, but I doubted it would stand up to a $40 price point. I was actually monitoring the price of the Deadmund/Sports Champions/Move controller bundle pack (which seems to float between $75-$99) since then we would get two games and an extra Move controller, but $12 for Deadmund pretty much negates the value of a second controller and another dopey archery mini game set.

Deadmund is decent. It overdoes the motion controls to the extent that it feels like a second-year Wii game. Like, why should the same button be used to trigger four separate actions depending on the position of the Move controller? Dumb. But it looks good (except for the amateur-level pencil art showcased during cutscenes) and the on-rails movement makes Clark feel like he's accomplishing some serious stuff.

Puss in Boots uses the same on-rails trick, which is really smart for motion control games aimed at kids. Clark is KILLING IT as Puss, and it is pretty good for a movie tie-in title. It shifts from sword fighting to balancing to steering vehicles to posing, all with Move motion controls and all while following the movie's plot.

Finally, Toys R Us had a video game accessory clearance sale, so I picked up Sony's stupid PlayStation Eye TV bracket for the attractive sum of $1.26. Original MSRP for this goony piece of plastic was $15. Which is nuts, it's just a two inch support that nicely positions your Eye camera on the top of your flatscreen. $1.26 might even be slightly more than it's worth, but it does what it says on the tin so I won't complain further.

Look, we all know this is just Smash Bros, but that doesn't make me any less excited for it. PaRappa! Fat Princess! Buzz! Twisted Metal! Patapon! God of War! LittleBigPlanet! I've been saying for years that Sony has become increasingly desperate to duplicate Nintendo's success in leveraging character fan service, and today's reveal of PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale is solid 100% proof.

Although, it would be nice if looked just a little less like Smash Bros.

Bought one of the new iPads last weekend. Even opted for the WiFi+4G model, because I want to experiment with the month-to-month data plan. See if that can be useful on a trip or when the poor thing is outside of a WiFi blanket. I'm sure I don't need to point out how sucky it is that the +4G edition costs more... in a perfect world we'd have the +4G option on every iPad without having to fret about buying a model specific to a carrier. I blame the carriers.

Anyway. The screen is amazing. It's so good that you don't realize how good it is, unless you're comparing iPad models side-by-side. We had the original iPad, so not only are we getting an awesome screen upgrade, but also a substantial speed/processor boost.

Comics look great, as long as you don't zoom in too far. The newer games/apps that have already issued Retina screen updates look sharp as hell. I love this new post-pixel world!

I'm not sold on the Smart Cover. Okay, it's clever; the iPad knows to turn itself off and on as you open and close the cover. But it seems weird and flimsy to me. I don't quite know what to do with it when it is flipped all the way around (fully open position) and I feel like the magnetic clasp is easy to knock free. The Smart Cover is just a lid for the thing, whereas before we had a full body encasement. Our new iPad seems exposed. So, not sure about the Smart Cover.

Related: do you guys have a thing about turning stuff off and on? Clark will sit there and absent-mindedly flip the segmented Cover panel open and closed, making the iPad screen repeatedly click between sleep and awake. I have this urge that this is bad for it, but I don't think there's any rational proof for that. Is it because we were raised by people who were raised by people who lived during the Depression, so we're still anxious about abusing light switches and stuff?

The way the iPad makes Clark's world so different from mine at age 7 is suitably astonishing. I love it. The closest technological comparison I can think of is being the first generation to grow up with television in the home (which I wasn't, incidentally). It changes everything. And since THIS is Clark's world, it's not even surprising or anything to him. It's just normal.

My plan is to use the new iPad as my Official Journalist Notebook at this year's E3. I have a very nice Bamboo stylus (which was mainly for SUPER SKILL DrawSomething bouts), and I bought the accompanying Bamboo paper app which makes for a very convincing pen-on-paper experience. Plus you can snap photos to embed into your notes. Seems pretty perfect. Last year, the convention center WiFi was dodgy, so maybe 4G on the iPad will be an improvement. Although when you have that many goofs in one place all clawing for internet access, maybe no service in the world could keep up.

Not like I needed any additional reasons to avoid a motion-controlled casual game fest themed to the Cabela's franchise, but check out this blurb on the cover...

Seriously? "Grief your friends!" as a front-of-the-box bullet point? On a family-friendly mini-game collection? "Be a dick! Make them pay! No one but you will enjoy this experience!"

Also, we're turning "griefing" into a buzzword that the general public knows about?

Ugh.

I know a lot of you guys say "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" is a funny show. Caricature bobbleheads that say things like "What's up bitches" are not selling me on it.

I made a Pottermore account. My intensely hilarious, randomly assigned Wizard login name is MidnightSparks379.

Pottermore is... odd. Still in beta, the site allows you to sleepwalk through the first Harry Potter book, on a Greatest Hits tour of the chapters and events of the story. It's sort of a game? Mostly you just click through Flash screens of paintings where everyone is either in shadow or has their backs to you.

When the account-creation process began, I was excited to learn that I am magical.

I had always suspected that.

Riding sidecar to Pottermore's on-rails novel summary is the notion that you're a Hogwarts student as well... so you have to collect items, buy supplies, play potion/dueling mini games, and be Sorted into a House.

I did not game the system; I got Slytherin.

Which is totally the House I wanted, so bully (literally) for me.

The "Welcome to Slytherin!" speech from your unseen Head Prefect is HILARIOUS. I am suitably amped to be in Slytherin House. We're currently ahead in House Points, naturally.

The real reason I wanted to check out Pottermore was to read the snippets of behind-the-scenes material from J.K. Rowling that has been worked into the site. I hope she finishes that encyclopedia she's been working on, because I could kill a lot of hours poring over the unrevealed history of McGonagall's tortured love life.

Sorry about the awful reflection here. Also sorry for the slight spoiler here, if you haven't completed at least one pass through Spirit Camera.

But that's Maya in her alternate duds. Normally, she looks like she's wearing a wedding dress, but this outfit seems to be skintight pants and some kind of lingerie top.

Anyway, there she is in my kitchen.

Somewhere deep within the marketing war rooms of every video game console manufacturer, they each have a list a bullet points that describe the strengths of their competitors. Most of the PR team's time is devoted to dreaming up ways they can steal/share those bullet points. "See, now WE have motion controls too!" "See, now WE have cutesy customizable avatars too!" "See, now we have an online storefront too!" And so the console wars churn on.

With this product, Sony was able to tick "candy dispenser shaped like our phallic controller" off of the list.

A lot of my Hero Academy games go this way: I take a lot of early hits on my crystal and then spend the rest of the game scrambling to protect my last little sliver. Then I try to pick off the enemies and outlast my opponent. In this game, I ended up with a handsome assortment of phantoms.

Wait, what?

THIS is what you do for a Hunger Games board game? You make players compete to survive in District 12, hunting and gathering to keep imaginary families alive while making sure you ARE NOT selected as a tribute?

What in the hell is that about? Where's the board game where you compete against other players to win the damn thing?

This might be a really cool strategy game (I have my doubts, after glancing at the strange board layout), but is that really what you want to play in the Hunger Gamesniverse? Katniss' day-to-day of shooting rabbits and selling them at the Hob. Boo yah.

There must be some kind of merchandising restriction that bans release of games based on the Game itself. I have the Jabberjay card game - which has no reason to be named Jabberjay - and it seems like it's a take on "Are You a Werewolf." Which means it's one of those games where people have to close their eyes in unison at some point. It's not about fighting for your life in the wilderness, it's about deducing who is secretly a District citizen and who is secretly a Capitol citizen.

Like, I want to be running around the damn woods, receiving cool sponsor gifts, finding weapons, setting traps, forging temporary alliances with other players while secretly planning to kill them all and win the Game for my home District. I mean, geez.

Spirit Camera has a light storyline mode, so it makes up for that with a bunch of gimmicky side games...

...like the ability to take pictures and have the game superimpose random ghost effects over the shot.

Like these spirit orbs hassling my cat.

We've shot dozens of photos so far and have yet to see repeat ghosts, so this cart must be packed with silly spirit images.

Although it's killing me that you can't save shots of in-game battles (WTF?!?), you can stage boss ghosts coming out of the AR book and take pictures of various poses.

You trigger the ghost either by the AR book or the 3DS' AR ? card. Usual stuff.

You can choose between pre-ghost and ghost versions of the spirits.

I especially like this cheery "fighting!" pose.

There is a decent amount of this fun sidebar junk, but the Fatal Frame series has always relied so heavily on deep, torturous story lines that Spirit Camera's short shrift in that regard can't help but be disappointing. I'm about to start the second play through (stronger ghosts?) so maybe I'll see some improvement, but I kind of doubt it.

Five letter word. The given letters are A D D E E E F I L M P Z.

After this, I decided that EVERY word I played with Chris would be turned into some kind of awful Star Wars drawing. My next turn for him was C-3PO wearing a crown, for "crown."

They added a Lumpy Space Princess to the line of Adventure Time plushies. I would like to request Peppermint Butler.

Clark and Rhonda had off today (some kind of holiday?...) and they came home with Cynder, one of the newerish Skylander figures we had yet to locate. We still have not seen either of the two new adventure sets, boo.

Last Saturday morning, we picked up a Legendary Trigger Happy at Toys R Us, which involved us being at the store before it opened. And yes, there were other people there also waiting. Unbelievable. The sales flyer for this week says TRU has ANOTHER exclusive variant, a clear blue Bash, but we did not rush out Sunday morning for that one. We like Trigger Happy. Bash is a yutz.

For $1, we grabbed the new Skylanders: Cloud Patrol app for iOS. It features Trigger Happy, a dude we prefer, but it is odd to see this franchise tiptoe away from Spyro. I guess. I mean, he still has three variants when most toys only have one, but when you add it all up, this is still a game where Spyro is inconsequential.

The app lets you unlock new characters by entering in the codes you get when you buy the toys, so that is aces. We put in all our codes and now Clark has a ton of choices for Cloud Patrolling. The game itself is similar to the excellent Jetpack Joyride in structure, if not in gameplay. It goes on forever, until you take one hit and die, and you are given randomized challenges to meet while playing.

The announcement of Rock Band Blitz is a complete turnaround from the hopeless "it will TEACH you to play guitar/drums/keyboard" angle of Rock Band 3. Blitz does not require instruments, it looks casual and fun. It looks like Amplitude/Frequency/Unplugged, one of those I played in the PS2 days and very much liked.

Harmonix continues their fan-friendly reputation by A) allowing Blitz to use your existing Rock Band library, B) noting that all DLC song releases are compatible, existing and future, and C) including 25 new tracks with Blitz that can be shunted right over to Rock Band 3 as well.

Have these guys ever screwed anything up, from a fan perspective? I guess the locked-up Beatles songs are still a sore spot. Oh, and the weird not-centrally-stored player/score data from Rock Bands 1 and 2 (but I bet that will no longer be an issue; seems clear to me that any future "core" Rock Band release will drag in your bands/names/scores from RB3.)

Overall, Harmonix is one of the best devs around, in terms of product dedication and fan support. Four years of continuous DLC releases? These guys deserve every ounce of our support... and not in a "hey, they made something cool before so we're rallying around them 'cause they'll probably make something else cool some day" like we do with Sega. No, they deserve our support in a THEY CONTINUE TO FUCKING EARN IT kind of way.

The only way they could screw this up would be to price Blitz at $29.99 or something dumb like that.

When I synced up those Kid Icarus 3DS photos last week, I realized I completely forgot about some FreakyForms pictures Clark and I took last December.

FreakyForms is still a go-to game for Clark. It's easy and fun to make new characters, and we're still unlocking stuff... months later.

I wonder the next step will be for this AR stuff. Like, how do we get past the two ways it works today? Either the game simply superimposes crap over the camera viewpoint (like The Hidden and Face Raiders on 3DS, or most iPhone games I've seen). Or the card-trigger version like what's going on here or in Kid Icarus.

As neat as it is, it does get frustratingly flaky. You need decent light for the 3DS to see the cards. You spend a lot of time positioning and repositioning the 3DS lid to get the view right, plus even more time getting the card at the right angle. And then the 3DS lid snaps back to it's hardware-default position and you have to start over.

I know I've seen this before, but are we inching closer to another valiant stab at a Pokemon TCG AR game? Those eReader Pokemon cards were actually designed to work with the card game. Not just 3D models, not just unlocking stuff in Animal Crossing. Certain cards had "secret" attacks on them that could be used if you did an eReader scan to reveal the attack.

Not to mention that COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN 8-bit Pokemon side-scrolling game that you built yourself by scanning cards. Somebody needs to do a re-examination of that on one of those there gaming weblogs (should it be me?)

I think the 3DS needs a bigger screen and better cameras, but that would be fantastic to have it on hand to enhance and participate in TCG matches.

Go get FreakyForms.