The 3DS, The Vita, and the Ports

Let me say this up front, I have nothing against either consoles or ports, I'm all for anything gaming, this is just an observation I have seen through Twitter and other sites.

OK, now to business.

When the 3DS first launched, some people were complaining at the amount of ports the system was getting. I can see wanting original games for a system at launch, bit at least games are there for it I say. If the ports are of good games, what is there to complain about? You are getting the same great game, just with a few slight modifications.

Now, look at the Vita, you seeing what I'm seeing? Ports, a good bit of ports as well. Like I said earlier, I don't mind that, but what has got me a bit irritated is that nobody was complaining about the Vita getting all those ports like they did with the 3DS.

Now, does this seem fair at all? Excusing one system over another for doing the same thing seems unfair. Either complain about both or be fine with both. I say it's all good. What are systems meant for? To play games. Games are there, so play them.

YouTube Series Preview: The DK Bongos Challenge and Dance Pad Challenge

I am starting two new series of YouTube videos, The DK Bongos Challenge and The Dance Pad Challenge. In these two series, I will attempt to play games these devices weren't meant to be played on, which will be a difficult task. I will be attempting to be getting a High Score, Fast Time, Completion Percentage, or some other goal I set.

Let me break both devices down.

DK Bongos: These were meant for use with Donkey Konga, Donkey Konga 2, and Donkey Kong Jungle Beat. There are 2 Bongos, a Start button, and a microphone (which is useless for all other games). For the games not mentioned, the Bongos function as the A, B, Y, X, and Start buttons. You can see, no way of movement, so this may be harder since most games require movement.

Dance Pad: This was meant for Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix. It has a 4 way Directional Pad, and the A, B, Z, and Start buttons. You can only move in games that let you use the Directional Pad, and you don't have all the face buttons, which makes games which use all the face buttons more of a challenge.

So, suggest some games you want me to try with either or both devices, and it has to be a game where I can do something with it to.

Here is the Intro video on my YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0hlXrZmszM&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Game Rant: Mario Kart 7

Release Date: December 4th, 2011
Platform: 3DS
Genre: Racing

Nintendo's flagship racing series comes to the 3DS with the same enjoyable gameplay as before with some new additions to the formula.

It's Mario Kart, it's the same entertaining and satisfying racing craziness you come to expect from the series. The racing action is as solid as it's ever been. You drive around a track and be the 1st to get to the finish line using items to aid you in your struggle. The controls handle well and the graphics are good. The 3D effect is also pleasurable to look at, and the 1st person view and Gyro Controls are functional enough to not be a hassle. For the game modes, you got your Grand Prix, your Time Trial, and the two battle modes, Balloon Battle and Coin Runners, in Single Player. There is no separate Vs mode like the two previous entries, which is a small snag, but isn't crucial. The new tracks are well designed and the selection of retro tracks are awesome as well, it really brings a nostalgic feeling when you play the re-designed retro tracks. The characters in the game are mostly the ones you expect, but you can unlock a few surprise characters as well along with your Mii. There are a few new items as well, the Super Leaf gives you a tanooki tail to seat away opponents and items, the fire flower allows you to shoot fireballs forward or backward to burn everything in your path, and the Lucky 7 item, which gives you 7 items in one, a star, Blooper, green shell, red shell, mushroom, banana, and a Bomb-omb. They also took out the Fake Item Box, which has been in all the other games. Everybody's bane, the blue spiny shell, has lost its wings and travels along the ground so it smash the others along with 1st place. To mix the formula a bit you can customize your kart, you unlock parts as you earn coins while you race, you can unlock bodies, wheels, and gliders and each part will affect the overall stats of your Kart. I said gliders in the last sentence, and yes, this installment allows you to glide through the air for short bursts or time. You find a blue glider panel and you take to the sky, you can find alternate routes that allows you to overtake your competition. In addition to air, you can also travel by sea as well. If it's one thing we learned in the other games, it's "don't drive into the water", but this time you can race underwater as well. Your Kart sprouts a small propeller in the back and off you go. Lastly, the online features. Online you can play against the world in either Vs races or Battle games. The online handles great with little to no lag. When a room is full, you are put in spectator mode, which is nice, but sometimes nobody wants to leave and you are stuck in spectator mode for a long time, and the only way to back out is to reset the software. Also, you can see which friends are online and join their game right away, which is nice. The community feature is a new addition to the series. It allows people to play only with friends in a private room. The communities are customizable to allow different types of play. One example is a Battle community with only Bomb-ombs as items. Also, you get Street Pass and Spot Pass with other 3DS systems. Spotpass downloads Ghost data to race against and community updates, and Streetpass exchanges data and ghost times with the other system. You can choose to race Spotpass or Streetpass ghost data don't away to see if you can beat the time.

Bottom line: Mario Kart 7 is an enjoyable addition the the series with satisfying gameplay and is highly recommended.

YouTube Series: Let's Play Mario Party Mini-Game Island

I dig up Mario Party for the N64 and play the Mini-Game Island mode, a mode where you go around an island completing all 50 Mini-Games without losing all your lives.

I do fairly good for the most part, but there are moments when I fail hard.

Highlights:

Part 1: Paddle Battle, you can hear me spin the stick furiously on the 1st attempt and I fail, but on the 2nd attempt I take a softer approach and clear the game...

Part 2: I want to kill Mario so much on Handcar Havoc, and Peach cheats a little on Skateboard Scamper.

Part 3: Yoshi's Stupid big butt on Mushroom Mix-Up, too many balls flying at me.

Part 4: I prove that Peach cheats at Mario Party on Crane Game, and I get a Perfect on Whack-a-Plant.

Part 5: Perfect on Fact Lift, only 1 attempt at the final Mini-Game.

So yeah, give my series a watch and be hopefully entertained by it.

Here are the links:

Part 1 ( Intro, World 1, World 2)
Part 2 (World 3, World 4)
Part 3 (World 5)
Part 4 (World 6, World 7)
Part 5 (World 8, World 9, Ending)

Midnight Launches

First off, before I get into it, a Midnight Launch is when a game (usually a bigger game) launches at midnight on the day of its release.

I personally don't think Midnight Launches aren't too practical really.

Here's how I look at it:

Let's say a person gets on average of 8 hours of sleep. They wake up at a normal time (probably 7:00 A.M. ) and go to sleep at a normal time (about 11:00 P.M.).

The person that goes to the Midnight Launch goes in and gets the game at midnight, cool, have it, but I figure that the person will probably be too tired to play any of the game at all, so the person drives home (let's say the store is 1 hour away) and gets home at 1:00 A.M., the person is probably really tired, takes 30 minutes to get read for bed, so the person goes to bed at 1:30 A.M., the person will then wake up at 9:30 A.M. then the person is ready to play the game.

Now let's look at the other person that doesn't go to the Midnight Launch. Let's say the store stays open all through the night or has early and late hours anyway. This person goes to bed at 11:00 P.M. like the person always does, then gets up at 7:00 A.M. like normal. The person takes 30 minutes to get ready, so now it is 7:30 A.M. when the person drives to the store. Arrives at 8:30 A.M., takes about 10 Minutes to pick up the game, the drives back to arrive back home at 9:40 A.M. The person can then get right into the game.

With this situation, both people pretty much start the game at the same time, so there really isn't an advantage to going to a Midnight Launch, other than the satisfaction of being one of the 1st people to own the game.

I'm fine if they offer some sort of Special Gift or something to the attendees of the Midnight Launch, that is an incentive to go, but otherwise, I'd rather just go to bed early and pick up the game first thing in the morning.

Crazy Game Ideas #1: Drunk Driving Simulator2011 Nintendo Edition

I was playing Mario Kart Wii online one night with a friend on Twitter, I started out doing my usually 1st place finishes, but after a while I just started doing bad and hitting everything I possibly could. That gave me an idea for a game...

Drunk Driving Simulator 2011 Nintendo Edition.

The idea is to not win the race, but to just hit as much crap as you possibly can, with the goal being to get as much points as. you can.

The point Breakdown:

Hit an item thrown by you or another racer: 10 points
Hit a course hazard: 20 points
Hit another racer: 50 points
Hit anything under the influence of Star Power, Bullet Bill Power: The value of the thing hit is Doubled.

There is also a combo system as well, you start with a multiplyer of x1.0, but every object you hit adds another .1 to the multiplyer with no maximum ceiling. You have to hit the next object within 5-10 seconds to continue the combo, you get a special bonus for holding a combo from the start to the finish. The combo resets if you don't hit an object in time.

It would be the standard 3 laps, or whatever regular laps the voided has. The courses and the characters would be the usual familiar cast as well, so you know all the tracks before hand and the racers that you can bring your wrath upon. You know that one character that's always a pain in your side? Now you can just rain down havoc on him/her!

There are also achievements to get as well that will help your score:

"Shutout": Hit every racer at least once for a 200 point bonus.
"You Hate Yourself": Hit your own items 10 times for a 100 point bonus.
"Bob-ombs Away": Hit at least 2 racers with 1 Bob-Omb for a 150 point bonus.
"Super Star": Hit at least 3 racers under Star Power for a 200 point bonus.
"Owned" Hit the same racer with 3 items within 15 seconds for a 150 point bonus.

And many more others.

I would like to play this game, I think it would be a way to just smash everything and not worry about trying to come in 1st place. Let me know what you think, anything you would add, remove, fix.

Hey, I Made a Blog!

Well, hey, I actually did it! After talking about it for a while, I finally made this bad boy! I will probably just talk about game related crap mostly, but hey, it's what I do best!

As an introduction:

I am ThatZooooooooo, I am a big fan of videogames as a whole and enjoy playing them a lot, I like all games, but I tend to gravitate towards Older games and the Platform, Racing, and Puzzle genre. I also like cartoons as well, the old stuff like Inspector Gadget though, the new stuff is pretty lame. I just some crazy guy that just likes to talk about random crap and talk and game with other people.

Follow my Twitter for my random thoughts: @ThatZooooooooo

Also check out my YouTube videos, I do Let's Plays (LPs) and other random junk: ThatZooooooooo

OK, so I start my fantastic blog adventure, let's see how it goes!