The 3DS is down to $170 as of today, and that Ambassador program entry window has closed as well. You will hear me on podcast 192 waffling about whether or not I want to get a 3DS. I point out that the new price point is interesting, but that there isn’t really anything out yet that I want to play. Long story short, I bought one yesterday at a small used game shop that had a used one for $160, including Pilotwings Resort, a case for the system, all the original packaging and literature, and a $10 credit for another game (which I took as a gift certificate). I got the system home in time to wipe the internal memory, run a firmware update, and link up to the eShop to nab Ambassador status. Not a bad deal.

I really enjoyed the wireless DSi to 3DS transfer process, which involved groups of Pikmin tromping around in 3D carrying images representing the software and data from a region with a DSi silhouette on it to a region with a 3DS silhouette.

I’ve mailed off Pilotwings already for some Goozex points, and I’m still not sold on Zelda, so I’ve been spending some time playing Dead or Alive: Dimensions, which it turns out is a surprisingly fun fighting game. The 3D function has me a little mixed up, unfortunately. Playing last night, while tired, I felt queasy, but today it’s been ok, though sometimes I have trouble finding that “sweet spot” where the 3D looks good and the images are in focus. Most impressive to me is the system itself, as it seems to have taken the best design decisions of the DSi and the PSP to heart in its physical construction and in the interface. All of this is news to me, because until now the device was largely under my radar.

I’ll have more impressions as I start getting some games to review from publishers. Until then, I’ll be enjoying DOA Dimensions, and I may rewatch the neat 3D trailer for that Glee 3D movie that’s in the Nintendo Video channel.

When it was still working right, things were good.

My launch Wii is on the verge of exploding or something, so I decided to go buy a new one. Toys R Us had a promotion yesterday, online only, where if you spent $125 or more on a MasterCard, they gave you a $25 discount at checkout. With Wii bundles rolling out the door at $150 with Mario Kart Wii and one of those fancy new Wii Remotes with the Remote Plus built into it, I figured I could use the $25 and whatever pittance I get for that shit-on-plastic Mario Kart episode on eBay to make this cheaper than a repair. How could I lose?

Here’s how I lost.

I couldn’t get my $25 off on the website, no matter how I did it. I made an order to have it shipped, I made an order to pick it up at the store, I paid with a MasterCard, and no matter what it wouldn’t work. The deal was yesterday only though, so I submitted the order and hoped for the best, and when the full amount went through I emailed support and waited for a response.

Earlier today I went to pick up the Wii from Toys R Us, hoping they’d be able to credit me the difference, but no. I had to call support and tell them what happened, then wait on hold for a while for them to decide that yeah, I did everything right but it still didn’t work, and issue me a credit. They were nice about it though.

I got home with the oddly massive box and set up the new system, deleted all the crap channels they leave on there and then realized I had to copy all my saves over from my old console. That would be fine, but some of the biggest games on the console have their saves locked to the console to “prevent cheating.” This includes Animal Crossing, Smash Brothers, and any other online enabled game. On top of this, the menus for copying things to and from the SD Card are astonishingly slow and clumsy. Here’s the process for copying one game save from one Wii to another.

1. boot the old Wii
2. open the menu for game saves and select Wii
3. locate the game save by looking for its low resolution icon that has something to do with the game (like on a PS1) and point at it to see a tooltip
4. select it, click copy, say yes
5. wait about 5-10 seconds for the one save to copy
6. select ok
7. back out of the menus and off the SD Card
8. eject the SD Card
9. put the SD Card in the new Wii
10. boot the game disc for the save you want to copy
11. once the game’s booted, hit menu and exit
12. open the menu for game saves and select SD Card
13. locate the game save by looking for its low resolution icon that has something to do with the game (like on a PS1) and point at it to see a tooltip
14. select it, click copy, say yes
15. wait about 5-10 seconds for the one save to copy
16. select ok
17. back out of the menus and off the SD Card

You see, Nintendo has gone to great lengths to prevent piracy on their console, and they’ve failed miserably, if all the hacked Wiis with external hard drives full of Wii games on eBay and Craig’s List are any indication. What they have succeeded in doing though is making it very hard for regular users to do reasonable things on the system. Like file management.

Fortunately for me my old Wii isn’t completely dead yet, so I can spend a little more time playing those games on the old system as long as I don’t try to play in progressive scan, because the system overheats if I do. I considered doing homebrew on the old one to see if I might be able to get my locked saves off (someone has to have figured out how to do that) but I guess that doesn’t work with the newest versions of the firmware.

Oh by the way, hi everyone. Been a while.

Contra is one of those classics from the NES era that just about everyone remembers. It was a side-scrolling run-and-gun game with high jumps and lots of weapon upgrade options, and lots of explosions. Contra games have been coming out almost constantly through the years, on many platforms, but when I think of the great Contra games, I think of the first two on NES and the one on SNES. Add one more to that short list. Hard Corps: Uprising is a kind of reboot of the Contra franchise on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network. It’s unbelievable, but I think this may be the best in the series.

And this is Contra, despite the fact that there’s no mention of it in the game. When the game starts up, it plays the Contra fanfare tune that’s been there from the beginning of the brand. The game is tough as nails, the weapons upgrades are the same, the gameplay is, at is core, identical, and of course the publisher is the same. But what makes Hard Corps great is not just the things it shares with Contra, it’s the things it discards.

The real draw in this game is the new Rising Mode, which effectively turns Uprising into an RPG. Playing through the game in this mode lets you accumulate Corps Points, which can then be used to purchase upgrades for each of the two playable characters, Bahamut and Crystal. Weapons now stack, and buying upgrades for these weapons in the Store (which can be done between stages or even before using a continue) makes them start at higher levels as soon as you pick them up. The glory of grabbing a Level 3 Spread Shot in the thick of a tough battle is something I won’t soon forget. While you will lose all weapon upgrades with a single hit (excluding hits from things like poison clouds), you’ll still be standing afterward if you have enough energy in your meter, and health items are pretty plentiful, though often hidden in crates or foliage.

My earliest memories of Contra involve using the “Konami code” to earn 30 lives in the game, something that was, at least at first, an absolute necessity if you ever wanted to make it to the end. Single-hit kills have been a staple of the franchise from the beginning, but I’m not a traditionalist here. I wasn’t sad to see this go with Uprising. You’re given a life meter, which can also be improved with Corps Points. The game doesn’t feel quite so cheap, but it’s still really challenging. Later on, when you’ve pumped yourself way up, you’ll be able to force your way through some of the tougher battles without getting a game over, though you may use up a lot of lives in the process.

The levels in this game are really varied, and some even seem to take inspiration from other Konami properties. One underground stage has bats flying around that immediately made me think of Castlevania, and one surprising stealth-based stage is very obviously modeled on Metal Gear, complete with special cardboard boxes you can hide inside of.

The game itself was developed by Arc Systemworks, who you may know from other games like BlazBlue and Guilty Gear. Imagine if the art in a great Contra game were done by those developers, and you have a good sense of what’s happened here. The visuals are stylish and flashy, and the animation is very clean as well.

In fact, there’s only one thing wrong with this game, and that’s the load times. I complained a lot about load times in Mass Effect 2, because every time you died you had to wait through a thirty second load screen to get back to the action. Loading a single stage in Uprising takes significantly longer than that. I don’t know if it’s all the high resolution hand-drawn art or the huge, twisting and complex levels, but for whatever reason, it takes forever to get the game going, and I found it infuriating to wait.

Additional features include co-op multiplayer over Xbox Live or PSN and some additional characters are available for download for about $2.50 each. In fact, this isn’t going to be a popular statement, but I think the $15 price tag for this game is fair. It’s one of the more expensive games for either PSN or XBLA, but if you’re a Contra fan at all, buy it. It’s phenomenal.

Four and a half out of five.

To start out, without seeming verbose or overly extolling my credentials, I just want to put out there that I have been a regulation paper-cards Magic the Gathering player since mid-1995 and have been playing their PC Online version for precisely 2 years. I have been a console, table-top, CCG and PC gamer all my life, and actively spend my money collecting tangible Magic the Gathering paper-cards while simultaneously buying intangible virtual cards for the online client; I also have an active recurring-monthly World of Warcraft subscription, and a bevy of console games I’m trying to play through, and like most of you, I’m a working man, and this spreads my frivolous-funtime-game budget very thin.

Having said all that, you can imagine my surprise when I found out exactly how MTG Tactics was going to be sold to the gaming community. I was a ‘fan’ of the game on facebook for a long time before its game release date, and I did my best to read up on the game before it was released. Never did it mention that it was going to work on a collectible system akin to the card-game’s online version. I researched the official Tactics site, and saw a “Free to Play” button, with links all over the site to download the game free. I began downloading the game, and the plot thickened when I continued reading the Tactics site, which now explained how the game exactly works.

Tactics is a 3D graphics rendered game that’s an amalgam of Magic the Gathering: Battlegrounds, Final Fantasy Tactics (or Shining Force II, or Advance Wars – whatever reference works for you), and World of Warcraft. It’s not the collectible card game you know of, but it retains the money-making collectability factor that has kept Wizards of the Coast in business all the years. Instead of just paying $50.00 bucks and getting a stand-alone game, like the aforementioned Battlegrounds of old, you download a free game and then:

1. Spend your real money in the in-game, in-client store for Sony currency. Since Sony is involved in its production, everything goes through station.com

2. Use that Sony currency to buy “booster” packs of spells and creatures (the Tactics site calls them units) for your in-game character’s Spellbook. Trust me, using the stuff they give you to start by signing up and completing the one campaign they’ve included is not going to do it for you.

3. Use that Sony currency to purchase solo campaigns two through five. The free game download only comes with tutorials, campaign one, and the ability to duel another player online.

4. Use that Sony currency to purchase in-game Tactics gold, which you need (along with boosters) to enter draft tournaments, enter regular tournaments, or post to and buy from the 
in-game auction house, where players sell their spells/creatures/units.

In Magic Online (not tactics), not only do you buy booster packs of virtual cards with your real money, you also buy in-game currency, called tickets (or tix for short) so that you can enter tournaments through the game client, and buy, trade, and sell the various virtual cards through classifieds and so forth. That seems like a lot to go through, and deal with, to play a game online. If you’ve ever know a true magic fan/fiend you know they have a thousand reasons justifying this system, and true mtgo players are so used to it, that its normalcy and not some strange foreign concept.

Wizards of the Coast turned their Capitalism switch to maximum with this game. Whether or not involving Sony in its production is the cause is uncertain.

“NOT TO FIFTY!!!!!!!!”

I’m not sure who Wizards thinks they are marketing this game to. If you are a new player, looking for a new game, then you are probably going to be scared away after figuring out all that’s necessary to first purchase, and then do, to actually play this game and have fun. I was so daunted, even as a seasoned mtgo player, by the sheer amount involved in maintaining and playing this game that I almost didn’t want to play it myself, and I hadn’t even delved into gameplay. The fact is, if you have heard of Magic the Gathering but don’t play it because of the cost, collecting and/or upkeep of the game, then this game is too reminiscent of that to pull in new gamers who aren’t already giving Wizards of the Coast money. There’s also potential that you tried regular Magic, or one of the other random Magic 3d graphics-infused games like Magic Battlemage and disliked it and thus associate everything Magic related as disinteresting, once again precluding you from trying this game. My point is that I can’t see more than a handful of people who don’t already enjoy some form of Magic the Gathering signing up for this game.

That means, whether intentionally or unintentionally, Wizards is marketing this game to people who already have or have had affection for the Magic the Gathering name and brand. Most of us actively play magic in either its paper or online form, which can be an expensive hobby to be involved in. A lot of us play with both real cards and online. We’re already buying two kinds of booster packs, and so on. Adding this game into the mix is a third collectible way to sell us Magic and Magic’s universe. How many of us can really afford booster packs and tournament fees and virtual packs and virtual tickets and hope to throw another game into the mix? Since I’ve started playing the game has been more ghost town than world of warcraft. To fully grind my gears—and I know Sony’s involved in this game and not with magic online, but WoTC does outright own their mtgo software so something could have been arranged—The tix in the MTGO client aren’t interchangeable or worth jack in Magic Tactics. There was no way that Wizards could have found a way to link the two in game currencies? If you could make it slightly compatible with each other, it would draw customers to both, and keep current Wizards fans appropriately incentivized.

Graphically, this game looks like a hybrid of World of Warcraft and Diablo II graphics. If you look at screenshots of the PC version, no doubt taken from a very high end computer running it, and a screen shot of the PC version of Magic the Gathering Battlegrounds, released in November of 2003, over seven years ago, you notice the graphics are not far apart, and if you knew nothing of either game, could easily convince someone they were screenshots from the same game. What’s worse is that installed on my PC, a laptop that meets the minimum requirements and a fair-to-middling videocard (that runs Warcraft, MTGO and a slew of other games in Vista, no less) the game looks, graphically, like a game released in 1998.

I started playing this game with no in-game Sony currency, or boosters, or gold. I just signed up and went through the tutorials. When you start the game, you chose a display name, and an avatar-representation of yourself (planeswalker), and your primary color choice (blue, black, red, green, white… I chose green—mostly because of the promo Mossbridge Troll, which is green, you get by signing in before February 28th). After the tutorials, you make a Spellbook of 40 spells/creatures and can play campaign one, the only solo campaign included with the free download, or play a pick-up game with a random online opponent, or join a tournament (which costs in-game gold, so not an option for me at this point). I played through about 4 missions on campaign one with the stuff the game gave me before it started getting really hard to win. I tried playing a random opponent with the in-game beginner stuff and had my bottom rightly handed to me in a matter of minutes. Clearly, to enjoy this game and continue playing, I’d have to invest some money.

Using $50.00 worth of sony money (station cash) (station cash was provided by SOE -Ed.) I purchased 10 boosters, and campaign two. This left me 500 station cash, which is five bucks. I wanted to use that five bucks to buy 50 gold, in order to try drafting and access and post to the auction house. I tried several times over several days to buy the gold, but I always got an error and my game would crash. Eventually, I bought $5.00 more of station cash, to buy 100 gold just to continue reviewing the game. I opened seven boosters, and started cobbling together a spellbook that was better than the starting stuff. I made a blue and green and white deck. I played through campaign one and started campaign two. With a spellbook of my own devising, the game played through a lot quicker. Playing pickup games were less one-sided, but still took forever to complete.

Next I worked in the auction house. It works just like the auction house in world of warcraft, almost to a fault. You have to have gold to post auctions. You put a deposit down, and you lose out of part of the gold from a sale to auction house fees. So to recap, I have to spend real money for fake money, to trade cards and get cards in the auction house; if I purchase boosters and get a black rare when I am only playing blue and white, in order to post it, I need fake money I bought with real money, and I lose some of that fake money which means I lose some of that real money. It’s like the guys from Office Space (with their crazy algorithm that rounds up the cents on company transactions to give them the excess) were hired by Sony and they helped code the tactics store. There is real potential to watch bits of your real money escape into the æthers. However, if you are pragmatic, there is definite potential to turn a handful of boosters’ worth of cards/units into enough gold to purchase all the cards/units/spells for a particular color you are interested in. I recommend settling on two or three colors to collect around, unless you really want to start spending some money. I settled on collecting solely white, blue, and green units in order to make a few different spellbooks to try.

I played a pickup game with a random opponent, who was using a spellbook that consisted of all colors, which was nice, because I got to see a sampling of spells/units from all the colors. I wanted to play a few of these but this one took so long that I wound up not having any fun, and honestly and literally falling asleep during it. I tried my hand at a draft, but after each match of both drafts I tried, my game crashed and it dropped me from the draft tournament, costing me the potential to win boosters. This happened whether I won or lost.

The crashing carried over to solo mode, which I was able to play through easier with my newly powerful spellbook thanks to the money I invested in the game. Whenever I completed a solo mission, my game would crash. Reopening it was easy enough, but it got annoying quickly. I found solo mode to be the most fun aspect of the game, but was disheartened by having to purchase the solo campaigns along with the units. I made it through halfway of campaign two, before trying my second draft dropped me, and began losing interest in the game. The solo mode is somewhat challenging, but not too challenging—provided you have an adequate spellbook to spar with.

Everything can be accomplished by just using the mouse button, which is something I enjoy. Sometimes, you don’t want an overly complicated controls system when you want to play a game. The lack of graphical prowess and the constant errors, crashing, and overarching capitalism combine to form a game that, had I not been reviewing it, I probably would have never tried. I can’t see myself recommending it to anyone, because I don’t want to the burden of collecting something. I would rather recommend an awesome wii or xbox or ps3 game that solely cost $50 or an mmorpg where you pay monthly, than a game this convoluted with in-game currencies and the potential to cost a lot. While drafting I had the chance to chat with the other players online playing tactics. Apparently if you invest enough, and get 4 of one particular black creature and 4 of one particular blue spell and build around them, you can make a nigh impossible spellbook to beat. That translates to: some folks have already broken the game, and investing a lot in units is the only way to even the field. Ever since that second crash during a costly draft, when I point my mouse and am poised to doubleclick on Magic Tactics, I just open up Magic Online instead. Save your money, time, and bandwidth, and grab yourself pretty much any other game for the PC, except Riven.

Two out of five.

The press release, which you’ll find below, describes a game that sounds pretty similar to what Level-5′s been doing with the Professor Layton games. That’s been a winning formula for Nintendo and Level-5, so it will be interesting to see if Lautrec is dismissed as a clone of Layton or if it brings enough new to the design to stand out on its own.

Source: Konami

KONAMI DIGITAL ENTERTAINMENT, INC. ANNOUNCES

DOCTOR LAUTREC AND THE FORGOTTEN KNIGHTS

FOR NINTENDO 3DS™

All New Puzzle Adventure Game Ushers in a New Wave of Gameplay on the Revolutionary Nintendo 3DS

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. – Feb. 16, 2011 – Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. today announced Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights, a new puzzle-based adventure game set for the new Nintendo 3DS™ handheld system.

Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights takes place in 19th century Paris and revolves around a wily and aloof archaeologist named Jean-Pierre Lautrec. His love of history and unorthodox attitude keep him busy as a spelunker, searching for “living treasures” throughout Paris’ underground. Upon stumbling on an old and mysterious map, Dr. Lautrec and his assistant, Sophie, traverse the peaks and valleys of old world Paris in search of hidden treasures and jewels that are believed to be those of Louis XIV, one of the most storied dynasties ever to rule.

Players steer Lautrec through the game using reasoning, logic and a keen eye to decipher riddles, solve object-related puzzles and work out the puzzle at the very heart of the map. Thanks to the power of the Nintendo 3DS, the game makes full use of the system’s added dimension to add 3D solutions to key puzzles, including the ability to scrutinize located objects from all directions, or zoom in to highlight a piece of scenery that matches something on the map. Similarly, the linking scenes are also viewed in stunning 3D, with the cartoon links brought to vivid life.

Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights offers hours of puzzles and exploration with a rich cast of supporting characters on hand to both assist and hinder Lautrec’s quest. As the Doctor and Sophie search for clues, rival Professors will attempt to sabotage his mission, while an elegant scholar is revealed to be a member of a notorious crime gang. And, even then, that’s just the start of the many perils that Lautrec and Sophie find themselves facing…

Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights is scheduled to be released for Nintendo 3DS in Summer 2011. Look for more information soon at www.konami.com/doctorlautrec

About Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc.

Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. is a leading developer, publisher and manufacturer of electronic entertainment properties. Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc.’s titles include the popular franchises Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill, DanceDanceRevolution and Castlevania, among other top sellers. The latest information about Konami can be found on the Web at www.konami.com. KONAMI CORPORATION is a publicly traded company based in Tokyo, Japan with subsidiary offices, Konami Digital Entertainment Co., Ltd. in Tokyo, Japan, Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. in the United States and Konami Digital Entertainment GmbH in Frankfurt, Germany. KONAMI CORPORATION is traded in the United States on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol KNM. Details of the products published by Konami can be found at http://www.konami.com.

Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. is a registered trademark of KONAMI CORPORATION.

Nintendo 3DS™ is a trademark of Nintendo. © 2011 Nintendo.

Oscar Araujo’s soundtrack to Castlevania: Lords of Shadow has earned two nominations for The International Film Music Critics Association awards. While the awards are obviously generally intended for film, it turns out that video game soundtracks are also allowed, and this isn’t even the only video game soundtrack in the running. Araujo is, excitingly, nominated for “Breakout Composer of the Year,” and Lords of Shadow’s nominated under the awfully conditional “Best Original Score for a Video Game or Interactive Media” category.

While the score to Lords of Shadow was impressive, and definitely evoked Lord of the Rings very strongly, I’m still surprised to learn that any organization like this will give this kind of recognition to video games. Because after all, those are for children and murderers.

Look for the results on February 25th.

Source: IFMCA via Joystiq.

While I contemplated the challenges of queue jumping at the game trading post Goozex.com not long ago, I did some amount of research on the site’s forums. One thing suggested by one of the users in another thread was a sanctioned queue jumping system, where people who met some kind of requirement could be given an early slot in the queue of some high-demand game. Because hey, who wants to wait in line if you’re better than that? People took the guy who suggested this to task. How dare he ask for Goozex to sanction queue jumping! Cutting in line isn’t fair!

Goozex doesn’t seem to see it that way though. Games on Goozex can’t be added to your requests queue until their street date. Today, they announced that those who trade specific new high-demand titles away in the first thirty days will receive an “early access” pass that lets them get in line for games before they’re released. They’re quick to point out in the announcement that this is not queue jumping, but then what is it? Wasn’t the 200-point bonus for trading games like this enough to encourage movement of high-demand titles? That, at least, lifts the user up without placing them on top of others. Abe Lincoln in the house, you all. That was him, right?

I expect this to be a controversial program, but in all honesty, I’m one of those who stands to benefit most from it. In a year’s time, I’ve probably traded four or five of these high demand titles away, and that’s probably about as many brand new releases I request. I’ve been in line for Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, Kirby’s Epic Yarn and Donkey Kong Country Returns since they were released.

See the announcement below.

Image credit: Burn Pit

Announcing the Early Access: get new items faster on Goozex!

It’s time to trade more on Goozex! You earn an Early Access privilege when you trade a hot title within the first 30 days from release date. Use the Early Access to get in line for a pre-release item and be among the first to get the new title!

What is an Early Access privilege?

An Early AccessTM is a one-time privilege that allows you to enter in line for a pre-release item before publication date. You can get an early spot in line for that item, and be among the first to receive the title from other members as soon as it’s published!

It works like this:

1. Trade an eligible new video game or movie and get positive feedback.
2. Receive an Early Access.
3. You are now eligible to add any pre-release item to your requests queue. On release date you will have an early spot in the queue to receive the new item!

Note that members will not be able to skip or jump any active requests queue with Early Access. Instead, it allows members to start queues before items are made active for trading on Goozex.

How can I earn an Early Access?

The Early Access privilege is granted to sellers who trade Bonus Items during the first 30 days after publication date. This means that if you trade any of the items listed in the Bonus Items list (video games | movies), and receive positive feedback for the trade, you receive one Early Access. The trade must start within the first 30 days from publication date to be eligible.

What items qualify for an Early Access privilege?

All Bonus Items (video games | movies) qualify for Early Access when traded within the first 30 days from release date. These include hot titles for both games and movies, including titles with expected high demand upon publication date.

How can I use my Early Access?

You can spend your Early Access on any item that is a future release (pre-release items) of your choice. Just visit that item’s page, and select the Request button. It will open a special Early Access request page. Your request will be added to the request line in a pre-release state, and it will be automatically activated upon release date. You can spend an Early Access on a same category item for which you earned it, that is if you earn an Early Access for trading a video game, you can spend that Early Access only to request a video game pre-release. An Early Access is valid for a single use only.

Want to learn more?

http://www.goozex.com/trading/asp/about_earlyaccess.asp

We invite you to comment on the Early Access on our forums

http://www.goozex.com/community/forums/t/65940.aspx

X-Men was a coin-op brawler in the 1990s that many of us aging gamers were raised on. Along with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Simpsons, it completed a trilogy of excellent entries in this genre that were never quite represented properly, if at all, on the home consoles of the day. Now, our consoles are mighty, and the time has come for X-Men to appear again.

This is a side-scrolling beat-em-up where you choose from six different characters in the Marvel universe: Cyclops, Storm, Dazzler, Wolverine, Colossus, and Nightcrawler. Then you fight your way through a short campaign using a combination of melee and special attacks, beating up faceless but familiar crowds and then taking down a small assortment of famous bosses and finally Magneto.

How does it play?

What impressed me about Backbone’s port is how much content they included, and how many options there are here. You can choose from the North American or Japanese ROM of the game to play, and the two have some significant differences, all of which are detailed in clever comic book-style instructions within the game. For example, in the Japanese version, there are item drops from defeated enemies. You can also choose which of the cabinet configurations you want to play.

The controls are pretty simple by modern standards, of course. You can move around using the left stick or directionals, there are two face buttons for the melee attack, a jump button, and a special attack button. Special attacks are limited. Depending on what ROM you’re using, they might consume your life energy, or orbs that can be collected from defeated enemies. You can hit start at any time to open a menu which, among other things, lets you swap characters, assuming the other characters aren’t already in use. Duplicate characters aren’t allowed.

Mutliplayer is great. The PSN version supports up to six players simultaneously. I played through three player local and had a lot of fun doing it. There is online multiplayer as well, which is ideal considering the potential for six players marching their way through this adventure. Playing online, the most players who showed up at once was three, but your mileage may vary. Online play is drop in drop out, which works very well for this type of game.

How does it look and sound?

The graphics are old, there’s no getting around that. However, they hold up surprisingly well. This was great art for its time, and it still looks just fine today, even on our huge modern televisions.

The voice acting is horrendous (Welcome to die!), just as it is in Captain America and the Avengers (You will be the one escaping!), but it would be a crime to edit such classic pieces of accidental comedy out of this game. In fact, there is a trophy called “Welcome to die” in this game, which I enjoyed.

The music is generic and forgettable, but you’re unlikely to even notice it while playing over the sound effects.

How’s the replay value?

There is a great deal of fun to be had in this game. Without the pressure of having to dump tons of quarters into your local arcade (remember when you had one of those?) you can work your way casually through what remains a challenging game without feeling like you’ll never make it through. It won’t take you long to make it through the game, but I played through several times with friends, playing the North American and Japanese ROMs with different numbers of players, and am looking forward to doing it again.

Is it worth it?

X-Men is every bit as fun and exciting as I remember it. If you don’t remember it because you’re too young, it’s possible you won’t enjoy the game as much as I did. If not, that’s your loss. Buy it anyway, and maybe we’ll get The Simpsons on PSN someday.

Four out of five.

Marvel vs Capcom 3 is almost here, so it’s about time Capcom dropped the information on who the final boss in the game will be. It’s Galactus. Wait, is Silver Surfer in this game? That would be epic.

Enjoy these screens while you’re waiting for MvC3‘s February 15th release date.

Source: Capcom

Okamiden‘s coming to Nintendo DS on March 15th, and to promote the release, Capcom’s going to be giving us more to look at every week leading up to it. The first batch of stuff here is about some of the new characters the game will introduce. You can watch a Ryo gameplay video on Facebook here, and Capcom describes the characters as follows:

Ryo
This demon is the sum of all those who lusted after worldly pelf. At some point this demon traded the pursuit of riches for human souls. He is always calculating the best ways of luring new souls to his clutches, and will use any means he can to obtain them including lending out souls in order to collect a fatally high interest.

Shiranui
The grandfather of Chibiterasu, an incarnation of Amaterasu, the sun-god-turned-wolf in Ōkami.

Isshaku
The grandfather of Issun, he played a big role in expelling Orochi over 100 years ago.  Once the companion of Shiranui (the incarnation of Amaterasu at that time), he watched helplessly as Shiranui sacrificed himself for the sake of Nippon.

Shakuya
The spirit of the sacred tree, Konohana, and watches over Kamiki Village.  She gives advice to Chibiterasu in an effort to save Nippon from the evil that has attacked the land once more.

Source: Capcom