I'd Like to Thank My Mother... My Father... My Agents.......

Way back in the depths of August I stumbled upon a new icon in my 3DS eShop screen. Unbeknownst to me this was not a new icon but in fact a remastering of an old favorite - Nintendo Unleashed had hit our 3D screens, and what better way to celebrate this but with a competition. The Animal Crossing Unleashed competition caught my attention immediately, throw together a funny, quirky little piece of clothing in the game and send them a photo to be in with the chance of winning a neat little Animal Crossing 3DS XL. Why not?

Skip ahead now to a lonely September afternoon when my 3DS was lifted from its charging dock and eShop was opened - 'just out of curiosity' I told myself. The tension was building as the same bright, happy young voice erupted from my system telling me of all these fabulous games that I had very little time to think about. Then came the competition section. An introduction to the competition itself. A word about a retro Mario shirt. A word about an eShop shirt. Then. Finally. I saw it. My little picture was being displayed before me, my little 'Drop Apples Not Bombs' green dress was up on the big screen (well it's bigger than a DS lite screen?) for all to see and with it was my brand new Animal Crossing 3DS XL.

So obviously this post is a big thank you to Official Nintendo Magazine who sent the prize quickly and even put up with my constant hounding when I first realised i'd won.

Follow me on Twitter: @MusingsTwit

Plants Vs. Zombies 2 - I have never spent so much time gardening

After I completed Plants Vs Zombies on ios all those months ago I felt the same deflated feeling that one would imagine pre-warns death. Like you've done everything you can and you just have to let go. But then my soul was resurrected when I heard news of Plants Vs Zombies 2 finally hitting the app store. It was a glorious day when I could hit that 'install' button on my iPod and hold in my hands a new lease of life for free. I was not disappointed. The game begins with a few instructions and tips concerning the new content - the power ups for example and the new plants that take seconds to master, before taking you on a whirlwind journey with Crazy Pete through Ancient Egypt and Pirate lands all in clear, bright graphics with colours and visuals that supersede the previous.



So, what's new?
- There are loads of new plants to play around with and choose from as well as the old favourites that just get the job done.

By far my favourite - I think he's
just misunderstood 

- A more challenging interface forces you to return to previous levels and complete individual missions to gain stars in order to continue the game. I argue that this feature is possibly one of the best of the game - giving you hours of interesting, unique gameplay which is often unheard of in a free download.
- Crazy Pete isn't exactly new but he's crazier in my opinion - and we all know the crazier Pete is the better the experience
- New zombies which you will learn to fear and counteract with only specific plants making gameplay a lot more versatile
- Plant food is now available to boost up your plants for a short amount of time. This has proved to be very handy in situations where there seem to be no way out until you notice, out of the corner of your panicked eye, a green glowing zombie's head roll across the board. You dive for the plant food that's now bouncing around the screen, taking a few jabs to actually catch the bugger until you have it in your arsenal and you can turn what was once a lowly little plant into a zombie thrashing machine and save the day. Needless to say, it has saved my lawnmowers many a game.
- Power ups have been introduced and are used when even the plant food can't save you. There's a bucket head zombie attacking your last sunflower on the left hand side and you can't lose any lawnmowers to get the star you've been working for hours for. What do you do? Obviously you just pick him up and flick him away. Simples. Why were you even panicking? Unless you have no coins. Then you're f**ked.

What's everyone else saying? 

Reactions are pretty similar to mine. We all love the new game and have probably lost days worth of work productivity to its addictive tower defense system. Some are arguing that the in-game costs have put them off a bit but as far as my knowledge goes the only costs you encounter are to purchase more coins or plant food and that's not necessary to the game, in fact it kind of ruins it a bit - like cheating. To be honest, they could have easily brought this game out at a £2.99 charge and still incur in-game costs so to download it free and receive hours of gameplay for nothing sounds pretty legit to me.

Overall, I love the game. It's new interface allows for more player control in terms of which levels you complete when and the star / key incentive to go back and repeat levels with unique goals each time will be bringing me back to the game for months, i can already tell. If your ios is up to it, it's a definite must-have.

Follow me on Twitter: @MusingsTwit

Desperate Times for Wii U as Sales Plummet

For me, the Wii U is a strange being. I neither really desperately need it in my life nor can i firmly decide that i shouldn't buy one. The reviews aren't great. The entire Wii brand in general hasn't received much critical success, being overshadowed by its younger and flashier predecessors, the Wii is like the chubby kid in the playground with his finger stuck up his nose - cute for all of 5 minutes but then boring and kind of sticky. I have always been a heavily, slightly creepily, loyal fan of Nintendo but there comes a point in every fandom when you realise that your long esteemed heroes are, in fact, not super-human. They have weaknesses and they make mistakes. Bringing the Wii U out as a separate console was a mistake.

So, as Wii U prices plummet and Asda gives up trying to stock it all let's take a look at why the most recent offspring of the Nintendo world perhaps isn't living up to its parents' expectations. The Wii U has failed because of the 3 areas it would have to succeed in to be any kind of contender in today's rapidly evolving technology market.

Console 
The console hardware itself is not up to scratch. The single touch controls are practically prehistoric when compared with Apple's daily dual touch releases and this gives the whole gaming experience a fairly heavy, clunky feeling which is reflected in the actual feel of the console and its slow, small internal hardrive. There's a camera on the front of the handheld though... great. We can take a low quality photo of ourselves using this instead of the HD high resolution camera that all devices come loaded with now, double chins an' all.

Marketing 
The Wii U was a marketing flop. Strangely constructed adverts and a bizarrely quiet run up to its release left consumers baffled over what the actual piece of plastic was. It took real research to find out about this console before its release, research which casual gamers wouldn't have bothered to complete and more importantly shouldn't have bothered to complete in this day and age when information is at its most available. Many consumers ended up believing that the handheld was just an add-on for the existing Wii that every family had in their home. It's no surprise then, that its sales have been abysmally low, superseded by the PS Vita within months.

3rd Party Support
No-one can do it on their own, which is why Nintendo's lack of 3rd party support is the final nail in the heavy coffin of the Wii U. It began with the ludicrous lack of new content available, Nintendo re-released ports from PS3 and X-box during the Wii U's release. Sales suffer from Nintendo's inability to attract and maintain 3rd party content and both developer and consumer are stuck in a spiral of publishers and sales figures. The Wii U isn't selling because there isn't enough 3rd party content, yet in a Catch 22 situation, 3rd party publishers are worried about these sales figures and therefore not bothering to develop for the dying console. You would think then, that Nintendo would happily accept the faith of a developer however small in bringing the Wii U back from the dead but no, they turned their backs on Japanese indie developers... interesting move Nintendo... interesting move...

It's sorely disappointing that Nintendo couldn't pull it out the bag for the Wii U. Miyamoto complains that there wasn't enough hardware development time which hindered the development of content as well which would suggest reason behind the Wii U's continuing failure. Whatever the cause, the console just isn't flashy enough to survive in the evolving digital technology market and will always be the little chubby kid in the playground. Hopefully that chubby kid will grow up to be respected for his chubbiness, in the same way the Wii U may just be valued for its simplicity and virtual console capabilities but who knows.

I'VE GOT ANIMAL CROSSING

I was verrry happy to pick up my copy of Animal Crossing recently and even happier to finally start controlling a whole town, full of fuzzy little creatures. Now, forgive me, but i was a total Animal Crossing virgin before I picked up a copy of the game in HMV last weekend and had to wait a whoooole day to play it because apparently it wasn't socially appropriate at a sleepover... dafuuuuuuqqqq?? ;) Anyway, my night owl town 'Oblivion' is underway, with developments coming from everywhaar. My favourite hobby is probably catching bugs, it's the satisfying feeling of hitting your net against that tree trunk and trapping a poor little Brown Cicada in a wiry dome of fate <--- bit weird there. Fishing is perhaps a second favourite, though the anger at reeling in too quickly and scaring the fish away has literally almost caused my 3DS console to be snapped in half on a number of occasions.

:')

I was always a bit wary of the Animal Crossing series because on paper it seems slightly boring. It's just a little mundane life, but who knew mundane life could be so interesting when it's shared with fuzzy animals and museums and gardening shops. I can see the potential now for a deceivingly large game, as everyone has already pointed out. It feels like it can give so much more, and the brilliant thing is it also feels like it WILL give so much more, you just have to be patient.

So basically, i've retired from zombie hunting and racing chubby italian plumbers round a track and have sought solitude in the grandly tiny world of Animal Crossing.

The Retro Revolution - How the Clock's Turning Back for Gaming

So, Russia have returned to the old faithful typewriter for their official documents, a strange decision that was supposedly spawned out of the increasing complexities of computer systems making valuable information vulnerable. But this blog doesn't document the life and times of the Russians, this is a video games blog so why is this useless piece of information here? Well dear cynical reader, it is because this event could act as a weirdly global metaphor for the return to retro that we can see happening in the gaming world.

While we all love our systems from the 90's, we all also love the crisply vibrant artwork that accompanies modern gaming. So what happens when these two ideals slowly merge into one another, we might just find out in the future of gaming.

New indie game releases are all highly reminiscent of early Nintendo - games like Fez use simplistic ideas and nostalgic controls in a modernised development suggesting that these game designers who are free to develop as they please look to using more simplistic visuals which in turn relate to these older games. These visual similarities between games created decades ago and newer releases are becoming more and more noticeable. Games like Hotline Miami are returning to simplistic visuals perhaps to recreate the importance of player imagination in gameplay. Finally, Wii virtual console sales are still higher than its Wii Ware sales and recently the Wii U virtual console has seen a large increase in sales. These methods of bringing retro gaming into the living rooms of millions of gamers across the world have obviously made Nintendo very happy bunnies, but the importance of the virtual console is much more than that. It has paved the way for this 'Retro Revolution' by making older games more accessible and more importantly, more recognisable. It's developed consumers' tastes and paved the way for preferences to games that reflect these older titles.

Is this return to retro gaming a positive step for the gaming industry though? Newcomers have the opportunity to enjoy where it all came from and in the same instant appreciate the development of modern gaming. This return to simplicity means that consumers will no longer take the high quality of gaming we have readily available for granted. Other industries hide their outdated models, whereas the gaming industry celebrates its evolution from slow, blocky button punching to linear, jaw dropping entertainment. There are also more controversial pros of the retro revolution - the idea that these older games were just plain better. I don't necessarily agree with this though - 'better' is not the same as 'different'. However, the gaming industry at the moment would do well to incorporate the high level of uniqueness displayed in these retro video games in their modern developments which are beginning to become fairly samey and bleh. However, while all this is good and well, does doing something first necessarily make it better? Just because the beginnings of Nintendo are displayed through this catalogue of titles doesn't mean that they are necessarily better than modern titles and this evolution back to retro may ultimately lead to a dead-end in the future of gaming.

So it's all very fun considering what may happen or yaying about what may happen but who's to say this will happen, and how could it happen? A major factor in the development of the retro revolution is the people who turn to these games. Returning fans seeking the nostaligia of their childhood, newcomers curious to experience the early franchises and the sudden requirements of fans seeking something different all vote retro. In terms of business, retro is the way to go to cover costs - old style graphics are considerably cheaper to produce, not only leaving room for greater development of storyline or controls but also making the end result cheaper and therefore more accessible to the common user - a move that would greatly benefit the consumers who are having to face prices slowly reaching the £50 mark.

The way i see it, there are 2 possible outcomes for this revolution. A yoyo effect - retro until consumers become bored and inevitably want more and so return to modern gaming, the age of games fluctuating through the decades from one end of the scale to the other. The other outcome being absolutely nothing new. BOOM. Nothing. This momentary return to retro is just the knee-jerk reaction to the importation of retro through the virtual console in every home and just a fad that will fade until the games we are buying brand new now are the classics of the future.

So the question now lies with the future. How far will games replicate those of today or of yesterday? Will they be top of the range graphics with brand new features we haven't even considered yet or nostalgic Super Mario Bros. spinoffs?

Follow Me on Twitter: @MusingsTwit

6 Literary Titles as Video Games - Because Why Not?

On The Road - Jack Kerouac
- I'm thinking some kind of Mario Kart, F-Zero hybrid where the game is actually attempting to get into the vehicle to begin with to finish the course and powerups consist of money being wired over.

The Catcher in the Rye - J D Salinger
- An RPG, open world game where you play as Holden Caulfield achieving goals and completing missions. Health bars are increased by alcohol and cigarettes while the all new "safety and protection" bar is increased by collecting several red hunting caps
- Mini-games: Search for the ducks on the pond once the winter has caused it to freeze over and help Holden get over his fear of what will happen to him when he grows up.

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
- Simply catch wealthy males in a giant butterfly net playing as each of the Bennett sisters, each with different skills and attributes. Build on these characters' attributes to be able to catch higher quality men.

Tess of the d'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
- GTA for the 1700s, play as Tess, give birth to children out of wedlock and pay the price in your later marriage
- Mini-games: Dodge religious symbols as you attempt to decide the difference between society and its religion

Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
- A Space Invaders tribute, shoot down the army of creations that Victor has bought to life and carelessly abandoned before they get too close to your family at the bottom of the screen. Avoid traps such as the legal system, religion and sexual encounters to protect the population of Geneva.

Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe
- Guide Crusoe through the his ordeal on the island, explore and survive through minigames such as 'Spot the Savage' and 'Canoe Creation'. Design your cave and personalise your improvised fashion while harvesting crops and breeding animals.
- Other mini games: Guide Crusoe's ship through the ocean, avoiding storms on the way
- Free demo of 'Lord of the Flies, The Video Game' included

A Letter To 6 Year Old Me

Hi Tabs,
First of all, I know you just got your silver Gameboy Advance with a "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" game. You need to understand that you need to stick with that game - i know it won't always be easy, you can't save it whenever you want and your attention span doesn't really cover the length of gameplay between save points. It's a game that you will be constantly searching for during your teenage years when you get back into Harry Potter for a bit - and the search will bring you much sadness. Also quickly while we're on the topic of the Gameboy Advance - just stop trying to keep it pristine, you will go on a camping holiday with it and it will get scratched and it will seem like the end of your life. It. Is. Not. It's just very annoying and it ends up pretty badly scratched up (but still playable as of July 2013). Also, you will get a handheld with a backlight pretty soon so you're attempts at playing it in bed will not all be futile. You're reading this on a "blog" and i am writing it on a "netbook" (basically you know that wierd little game you used to play with your lunchbox where you pretended it was a portable, flip open computer like the one Dad has under the stairs? THAT HAPPENS).
Onto more pressing matters, later on you will probably play "Golden Eye" with Dad. This is NOT being played on the playstation but in fact on the N64. Yes, you have an N64 in your possession ad you will not realise it until you're nearly 18. Keep this N64. Nurture it. Buy cheap games from CEX in 2013 and enjoy the summer locked in your room with the TV on like every self-respecting Nintendo fan.
There's quite a lot i could say here, keep "Crash Bash" safe so you can play it when you're 17, don't give up your job at the pub when it changes hands - you'll be skint for years, wait until buying the iPod touch in year 10 - a new generation will be out literally the next day with much better ios, Dad will win a giant Crash Bandicoot soft toy at Thorpe Park soon which will revolutionise your Crash Bandicoot gameplay, don't lose Dragon Quest 9 on DS and cuddle "Tug" the cat because he might not be around much after September 2012.

From Tabs

p.s. you're going to go to an end of GCSE exams party when you're 15 and you're going to play a game called "beer pong" with pints of Strongbow. Do. Not. Ever. Drink. Strongbow.

Follow me on Twitter: @MusingsTwit