Read-a-long with Nintendo Power (#229, June 2008)

By Joe Fourhman | May 5, 2008

That’s not Aerosmith: The Animated Series, that’s the latest Nintendo Power. Join Aeropause for this regular dissection of a twenty-year-old gaming staple… and read-a-long!

Issue #229, June 2008
featured games: Final Fantasy Tactics A2, Etrian Odyssey II, Wii Fit, Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2, FaceBreaker, Guitar Hero: On Tour, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, Rock Band, Samba de Amigo

Take a look at that cover. Wow. Did anybody else think that the hypnotically awful Revolution X would get a sequel? What a surprise! Talk about mining the archives; Revolution X came out fourteen years ago! That’s longer than the wait between Super Metroid and Metroid Prime, and Nintendo is still trying to convince gamers that Metroid is worth buying. I’m a little rusty on my Revolution X plot, but apparently it involved you rescuing members of some hair band called Aerosmith. Since so much time has passed, I’m guessing this Guitar Hero Aerosmith band is comprised of the sons and daughters of the original Revolution X Aerosmith. Nintendo Power’s cover feature is unclear on this point.

What the article does cover is four upcoming Wii/DS music games, all without ever mentioning the complete lack of DLC songs. Hilariously, the Rock Band article says “some compromises had to be made to bring Rock Band to Wii. For instance, there’s no create-a-character mode.” WTF? First of all, the Wii already has a create-a-character mode that third party games are stupid to ignore: the Mii system. But more importantly, who cares about the gimpy create-a-character mode in Rock Band? You have, like, a million shirts and only four faces. Whoop-ti-doo.

No no, the compromise that Rock Band Wii makes is penetrating and obvious: no downloadable songs.

It gets worse. After Harmonix producer Matt Kelly sort of glosses over the lack of create-a-character, Nintendo Power says “being able to create a character would hurt the overall quality of the game.” Oh really? I don’t recall seeing that in the specs.

Kelly does perform a lively dance wherein he promises “so many cool things” designed specifically for the Wii’s feature set (come on: Mii band members!), but nothing is mentioned and it is assumed that will have to come in a sequel.

The Guitar Hero DS coverage is poised to sway you that the DS peripheral will not be awful. There’s a lot of it’s-challenging-but-not-too-challenging doublespeak. You really have to feel for Nintendo. If everything sounds Wii Sports-grade casual, they get flamed by enthusiasts. If everything comes off super-hardcore and difficult, they risk alienating all their new non-gaming neo-non-gamer newbies.

Great copy line accompanying a pic of the Guitar Hero Wii guitar controller: “You’d better get familiar with the fret buttons – you’ll need them all if you want to challenge the best players online.” That’s a Pro Tip!

And yeah, they mention Samba de Amigo, which will be this year’s Sega Fanboy Wii Iteration That No One Will Buy. Last year, you got NiGHTS. Maybe next year we can expect Shenmue Wii?

Is anybody else impressed by the number of third party WiiWare projects out there? Every time I turn around, somebody mentions another game. We’ve known about LostWinds and Eternity’s Child for quite some time now, but this issue name-drops Star Soldier R, Pop, Gravitronix, Potpourrii and the Strong Bad game. I hope Nintendo treats WiiWare with a slightly less-closed fist than they usually operate (see: Virtual Console), or we might expect the release of these first 50 known WiiWare games to take upwards of two years.

I can’t let NP get away with bringing up Drawn to Life without stressing how terrible the game is. There’s a SpongeBob version coming, which will probably address the generic RPG plot/character issues that brought the original Drawn to Life to a boring halt. But will it touch upon the game’s signature – and critically overlooked – flaw: that you end up coloring in pre-determined shapes much more often than you actually draw your own designs? Drawn to Life is one of those games (like Beyond Good and Evil, actually… FIGHT!) that has attracted waaaaay too much credit from our insular little communities. At least the SpongeBob influence seems well-researched; his edition includes the evil clone DoodleBob, a hand-drawn ‘Bob brought to life with a magic pencil.

The Wii Fit article is one of those I Played Wii Fit And Lost Five Pounds deals that have already been all over the place and seem unlikely to subside anytime soon. Watch for your local news to do one this summer. It will begin with the reporter saying something like “While video games are most famous for shooting people and sleeping with hookers, a Japanese toy company is trying to change that image by turning your TV into an exercise machine! Coming up, I put Wii Fit to the test… but will I lose any weight, or just want to go back to Pac-Man?”

In two weeks, NP editor Steve Thomason dropped a mere three pounds. But among all the sad, pandering references to Mr. T and Stephen Colbert’s Americone Dream, his diary reveals the Brain Age-esque pace in which Wii Fit unlocks its secrets. Maybe this game truly will be the magic bullet for home exercise software. I’ve often thought that a really well done home trainer-type game would be great, since it would be able to vary up the routines to avoid boredom (which is what kills all those home DVD exercise videos.) I seem to recall an exercise “game” for Xbox/PS2 that purported to do that, but that one did not have the Blue Sky leverage of Nintendo’s Wii.

Trauma Center has become the Legacy of Kane of the medical sim genre. Confusing subtitles, unclear numbering, and a bunch of games that probably aren’t that different anyway. Under the Knife 2 (DS) is the direct sequel to the early DS title Trauma Center: Under the Knife. Which makes sense, until you remember Trauma Center: Second Opinion – which was mostly a port of Under the Knife arranged for Wii launch – and Trauma Center: New Blood, another Wii iteration.

I never finished the first Under the Knife (too hard!) nor Second Opinion (mid-air Remote controls < stylus controls), so I doubt I'll venture out into Under the Knife 2. Although I still like the concept of a doctor game, I want the screens to look like actual body parts. I'm not saying I want the game to go completely gory, just that I'm no longer buying into this weird art direction where organs float over images from early Mac OSX desktop backgrounds.

EA’s FaceBreaker proves great strides have been made in stereotypical character design by having a Russian tough guy named Molotov, a Hawaiian surfer, Voodoo the witch doctor, and a Latin Lover named – wait for it – Romeo. Come on. So the only amount of progress we’ve made in the 20 years since Punch-Out!! is that the caricatures fight each other rather than a white guy.

That reminds me, when am I getting my code to legitimately unlock Punch-Out!! in Animal Crossing?!? Still waiting, Nintendo…

But the best news of the ENTIRE ISSUE is that Darkrai is coming to Toys R Us. For the last few years, Toys R Us has held special Pokemon events where you can download some “secret” pokemon for your game. Over the years, I’ve gotten Mew, Manaphy and an Eon Ticket (to unlock Latios) at such TRU events, covering several generations of Pokemon games. This time, the prize Pocket Monster is Darkrai, a legendary dark-type featured in the newest animated Poke-movie. Stop by your local Toys R Us on Saturday, May 31 or Sunday, June (noon to 4pm) with your DS and copy of Pearl and/or Diamond. I presume this promotion is limited to the United States. I suggest calling ahead, in case your Toys R Us is sort of low-rent or prone to screw stuff up.

Darkrai was uncovered by hackers almost immediately upon the Diamond & Pearl release, but this will likely be your only “official” way to get one. Forever. Nintendo Power also mentions that all DS games will be discounted $5 during this event, and that several GBA Pokemon titles will be 40% off.

And to wrap things up, here’s a sweet picture of Darkrai fighting Mewtwo:

Lightning Round
Virtual Console Staff Picks: Super R-Type (SNES)

Top scoring Wii review: Blast Works, 8.5… outranked Boom Blox by half a point! (all scores out of 10)
Top scoring DS review: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Time/Space, 7.5; Summon Night: Twin Age, 7.5
Lowest rated Wii review: Iron Man, 5.5
Lowest rated DS review: Iron Man, 5.0; Jake Hunter: Detective Chronicles, 5.0

Worst News: NP admits that Boom Blox will not include the head-tracking Easter Egg that they mentioned last issue. I don’t even know how that would work.

Worst Advertising Slogan: “Girls Want Farming Fun Too!” from Harvest Moon DS Cute.

Next month in Nintendo Power… it’s a big unexplained picture of a moon, which I guess is a tease for the VC release of EarthBound? Join Aeropause next month for issue #230, where we find out.