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Review: Ninjatown (DS)
By Joe Fourhman | January 4, 2009
When you sift a real time strategy game down to the husked grain, you find a tower defense game. Enemies storm in of their own accord; your planning and money management determines what automated forces will repel them. Ninjatown (DS, SouthPeak Games) wisely works within the DS’s abilities by focusing on this core, rather than trying to graduate all the way to a fullblown RTS game. Ninjatown is a simple, accessible tower defender that adds variety and charm by leveraging basic Year One DS showpieces like yelling into the microphone.
One thing I’ve been wondering. Does Ninjatown’s relentless cute factor help or hinder the game? As in: I’m about to describe how great a game this is, but will you ignore it anyway because the imagery resembles a seven-year-old internet meme? You could easily pitch the graphics under a Domo-Kun Kitten Eater license. Or worse, some half-buried branch of the Sanrio family.
That distinctive look comes from designer Shawn Smith, known to the gaming universe from several years in editorial at Electronic Gaming Monthly. He left the games journalist scene for a go at making boutique plushies. Being able to turn his appealing sewn doodles into an actual video game - and a good one at that - sounds like the harried promise of a gaming dev Babe Ruth at Smith’s sickly bedside. “Sure, kid, we’ll make ya a DS game. You just get better soon, ok?”
I guess I just want to show up Stephen
By Joe Fourhman | January 3, 2009
Stephen covered the weirdness of Club Nintendo’s coins program last week, but my coda to his story is quite different. As you can see, my years of buying and registering Nintendo games has turned into over 1000 coins. About twice what Stephen tallied! Suck it!
As Stephen discovered, the new system really only cares about first party Wii and DS games. In my to-do list of 27 surveys, I had only one WiiWare/VC appearance… a 10-coin post-play survey on Tetris Party. While I do not have as many VC games as Stephen, it is indeed odd that Nintendo doesn’t want to reward those who have spent good money on first party WW/VC purchases.
Out of my collection, I received survey points for every first party Wii game and most DS games. My guess on the missing older DS games is that Nintendo is only awarding coins for games that still have a chance of selling. Animal Crossing: Wild World, Mario Kart DS, even Super Mario 64 still have legs at retail… while early DS also-rans like Warioware: Touched and Yoshi Touch-n-Go do not. That doesn’t explain Elite Beat Agents getting me coins, however, unless they’re polling for a long deserved EBA sequel.
Whether Nintendo will retroactively add in credit for various VC games remains to be seen (safe bet? they won’t), but right now it’s new-at-retail or nothing.
Read-a-long with Nintendo Power #237 (January 2009)
By Joe Fourhman | December 22, 2008
As widely reported, there’s a new Ninja Turtles game coming next year, with the [frankly unbelievable] buzz that it could be the Smash Brawl killer. Nice cover though. The Turtles front a here’s-what’s-coming-in-2009 preview issue, which is something Nintendo fans have been waiting for since about August.
This January issue continues the NP tradition of a holiday gift. Although again, for what seems like the fifteenth time in six years, it’s stickers. Pokemon Ranger stickers. The mag’s new owners appear to have no plans to best the free Smash Melee orchestral soundtrack CD from a few years back. So sticker up your Trapper Keeper and read-a-long!
Issue #237, January 2008
featuring 2009 mega-preview, 2008 Nintendo Power awards (vote early and vote often!)
Part of what’s adding to the anticipation for this new as-yet-untitled Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fighting game is that it’s being developed by various members from Game Arts (who worked on Brawl) and Team Ninja (Dead or Alive, Ninja Gaiden). That’s a lot of talent for a licensed game based on a property that really isn’t the hype machine it once was.
TMNT wants to top Brawl in key areas like stage design and online play, and with a release date somewhere around September 2009, you’d hope it to have some kind of improvement over Smash Bros. The look comes straight from last year’s CG film. The turtles themselves will carry a colored glow to help tell them apart while fighting. And so far, the team is concentrating on a Remote+Nunchuk control scheme, rather than supporting GameCube or Classic controllers.
Sort-of new Kingdom Hearts on PS2 this week
By Joe Fourhman | December 2, 2008
What’s this? Am I to pick up a brand new PSTWO game so soon after publicly deriding Haygood over his pining for a backwards-compatible PS3? Oh, I am indeed shamefaced.
Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories is shipping this week… and it’s totally a PS2 game. or rather, a semi-old 3D adaptation of a definitely-old Game Boy Advance game. The GBA version came out in 2004, continuing Sora’s story from the first PS2 Kingdom Hearts game. If you’ll recall, KH1 (2002) ended with Sora, Goofy and MY MAN Donald Duck walking off into the sunset. And then Kingdom Hearts II (also on PS2) came out in 2006 with a strange change in cast… and those of us who made the trip to the GBA [kinda] knew why. However, knowing that not everybody tried out GBA Chains of Memories, Square Enix went to the trouble of turning it into a full-fledged 3D PS2 game for the Japanese market… released as part of Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix in 2007.
Now, still smelling blood in the PS2 waters, Square Enix is finally giving the North American market the PS2 version of Chains of Memories. And at a budget price of $30!
The press release (included after the jump) doesn’t say if PS2 Chains continues the intriguing card battling mechanic found in the GBA version. I initially did not like the card battle concept, but after a few hours of building my deck, as the card-floppers say, I really enjoyed it.
Square Enix also took the opportunity to remind everyone about Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, coming soon to DS (again, after the jump). 358/2 Days follows Roxas during his days with Organization XIII, which, quite frankly, is the least interesting part of the entire Kingdom Hearts mythos for me. I’m a Disney guy. A Disney guy with a back-compat PS3.
First Thirty: Ninjatown (DS)
By Joe Fourhman | November 29, 2008
Yes, that’s a happy ninja dropping… part of the charm of Ninjatown, an unexpected third-party ray of sunshine on your DS. And here’s my First Thirty.
Ninjatown is a tower defense game, so the first level is the necessary tutorial. As such, it’s a bit more talky than I anticipate for the rest of the game. It seems that a tribe of little red devil characters is storming into the ninja village on a mad bender for the ninjas’ secret cookie recipe. The ineffectual mayor of the town looks to you, playing the role of the Master Ninja, to set up the best defense and repel the hellishly cute invaders.
It’s all stylus control. In a clever meta twist, your stylus represents the staff of the elderly Master Ninja. The game even animates Ol’ Master Ninja floating high above the town in a hot-air balloon, representing your top-down view of the DS screen. You click on empty zones of land and choose a particular breed of Ninja Hut to build. Regular ninjas are well-rounded fighters, but specialized types focus on various combos of strengths and weaknesses. Some are stronger but slower. Some are weaker but have a ranged attack. Etc. You get it.
There’s also plenty of funny-silly dialogue, which shows some solid attention was paid to the writing.
The early levels only take five to ten minutes to complete, but the game (at least for me) is to make sure that I finish with a perfect clear. That means absolutely no devils make it through my defenses.
So far, it’s really good. I’m looking forward to seeing what other crazy chibi ninja characters show up.
Read-a-long with Nintendo Power #236 (Holiday 2008)
By Joe Fourhman | November 23, 2008
Jeez, what an ugly cover. A lousy boxed artwork montage over an eye-searing orange. Looks like somebody was on a tight deadline. I also question the text block that says “Reviews Blowout!” and then lists a pile of games that appear in preview only (or in paragraph only, like the tease for Mario & Luigi RPG 3).
We should also point out that this is the thirteenth issue of the year, as the mag now does twelve monthlies plus a special holiday issue. So read-a-long!
Issue #236, Holiday 2008
featuring Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64 retrospective), Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure (DS)
First of all, as if you needed any written proof that Nintendo is readying another Legend of Zelda game, NP slips in that producer Eiji Aonuma is in fact working on the next one.
The five page Ocarina of Time interview with Aonuma contains few surprises, but it does remind readers of all the innovations found in the 1998 N64 classic. The lock-on Z-targeting is brought up multiple times, but the article also mentions the horseback riding, playing the ocarina instead of simply using it, the mostly-human form of Ganondorf, and the general 3D improvements that the Ocarina team worked on in the wake of Mario 64.
Start planning your Ninjatown sticker collecting now
By Joe Fourhman | November 10, 2008
The unbearably cute DS RTS game Ninjatown showed up last week to critical acclaim (Metacritic shows nothing lower than 80). Since each copy of the game comes with one of twelve randomly-inserted cling decals, the Ninja PR Agents wanted to let everybody know just how rare your sticker may be. But, being Ninjas, they refused to reduce their fractions.
Wee Ninja : 4/20
White Ninja: 3/20
Anti Ninja: 2/20
Business Ninja: 1/20
Ninja Consultant: 1/40
Baby Ninja: 2/20
Ninja Dropping: 2/20
Feroshi the Dino Slug: 1/40
Wee Devil: 1/20
Zombie Ninja: 3/20
Ol’ Master Ninja ??/??
Mr. Demon ??/??
So if you snagged one of the last two, consider yourself the recipient of the rarest rare that was ever rared. Good luck trading up for that one, losers.
Me, I’m just dead curious about the “Ninja Dropping” decal. Is that a verb or a noun?
Boring and somewhat obvious info on how Ninjatown grades your level performance after the jump.
Here is how Nintendo is marketing their holiday releases
By Joe Fourhman | November 7, 2008
If you’re already on Nintendo’s advertising e-mail distribution list, these will all be old news to you. But if you’re not, maybe you’ll find them interesting. They’re all colorful, graphical email blasts… encompassing an odd mix of marketing to the hardcore and the newcore.
The ad for Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia (DS) is heavy on details, appealing to the notoriously OCD pokefanbase. It even discusses a pair of exclusive downloadable Wi-Fi levels for the game that interact with Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. This ad arrived November 6. [You can browse all the ads in the gallery below.]
Mystery Case Files: MillionHeir (DS) came out in early September, but is receiving some holiday push. (You’ve seen the MillionHeir TV ad with Liv Tyler and her sister, right? I’ll put it after the jump.) This email showed up on November 4.
The Wii Music (Wii) ad lives up to the minimalist Wii design aesthetic. Note the “NES Horn” mentioned in the text and held by the balding Mii. It also plugs the optional Balance Board Drum Kit mode, which is a nice detail. This showed up in my inbox on November 5 with the bizarre subject “Let Your Music Out With Wii Music.”
Wario Land: Shake It (Wii) was emailed out on October 22. This one is all hardcore with phrases like “Turn the Wii Remote sideways and play this game like it’s 1986,” “platforming goodness,” and “Finally, a new chapter in the classic Wario Land series!”
The email for Animal Crossing: City Folk (Wii) arrived on November 3 with the worrying subject line “What happened to Animal Crossing?” For a minute I thought I was getting some kind of Sad Chao-style editorial. The answer to that question is the non-judgmental “We’re moving to Wii.” No word on the Wii Speak mic or Wii Speak bundle, and nothing about the gameplay. Just a pretty AC picture.
Microsoft (still) not making portable
By Jeremy Yerby | November 3, 2008
So we (the gaming community collective) keep asking Microsoft over and over again if they are making a handheld to compete with Sony’s PSP and Nintendo’s DS. It seemed quite likely at one point: the 360 is on fire in most markets and has been much more successful than their first console. Additionally, the Xbox division itself is an attempt on Microsoft’s part to expand its horizons, so why stop with the home box?
Stephen McGill, head of the UK branch of the Xbox branch of Microsoft (say that three times fast), has once again conclusively denied this relentless rumor with this short but sweet statement: “No thank you, we’ve got plenty going on with the 360. We don’t want to get distracted by going into the handheld market.”
Honestly, given the rocky nature of the Zune competing with the iPod and their relentless attempts to get people to like Windows Mobile, who can blame Microsoft for not wanting to get into portables? Microsoft’s strengths do not suit a portable well, nor do the type of games that tend to appear on Xbox consoles.
Can we give up on this already? Do we need another handheld to crowd up GameStop even further?
The Gadget Show via Kotaku
Doki Doki 2 arrives with bonus saucy trading card
By Joe Fourhman | October 19, 2008
You might recall I ordered famed witch-touching sequel Doki Doki Majo Shinpan 2 Duo last month, back when Play-Asia.com had the thing on sale for $20. It arrived this week and I got to touchin’.
Play-Asia.com was nice enough to include a pleasant giveaway with my order: a heat-sensitive trading card of Kureha, the first witch you encounter in the game. Read on for a slightly alluring photo of what happens when you heat up her suspiciously opaque black pullover, as well as my first impressions of this oddball import DS title.
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