I hope role playing game developers are getting their hands on a copy of the Nintendo DS game Scribblenauts. Although Scribblenauts is a puzzle game, role-playing games could probably learn a thing or two from this quirky ingenious little game. You are faced with many different levels that contain very simple tasks you must satisfy in any way you can think of. That’s an understatement!

The gist of the game is basically whatever you item wish for you get. Say your playing a level where you had to get a cat out of the tree. What will you wish for, a ladder?… a rope?… a water gun? That’s one the wonderful thing about Scribblenauts, you can solve puzzles thousands of ways. The items that appear are functional as well. So if you did wish for a water gun you can equip it and squirt water. Once you succeeded in the task at hand you complete the level. A very nice feature in the game is if you complete a level 3 times in a row, without wishing for the same item you twice you get a gold star. This is by far the most addictive part of the game if you ask me. It’s hard not to play the game and not stir up some laughs.

I tried luring the cat with a humuhumunukunukuapua a, and what do you know, one appeared and it worked! Yes the game seems to recognize the most bazaar words you can think of. On one level I wished for a stealth bomber so I could fly up and pick a flower on a ledge. Being a database person myself, I imagine they had developers take a dictionary and create every single noun in the book. However, you are restricted from entering pronouns, suggestive or vulgar words, alcoholic related words, and copywritten or trademark words. Other than that the fun in the game is up to your creative thinking.

For those that don’t know, the upcoming Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers is getting a major makeover. The look and feel is more what we’ve seen in Final Fantasy 7, 8, and 10. Really beautiful!

Below is a really nice trip-hoppy/electronica track from the game.

The success of the Wii may have been a big shocker to the gaming industry, but the success of Nintendo as a whole company shocks even me. Kudos to Nintendo for making such a nice rebound from the N64 sorrows.

Click here to view the rankings

For those that don’t know already, Wii MotionPlus will allow the Wii to have true 1:1 motion. The hardware attachement will be shipped with the sequal to Wii Sports. However, the hardware will also ship with various EA games.

An additional surprise to me is that Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 will include disc golf. Please view the video below to get a quick look at how Wii MotionPlus is used in disc golf.

 
Tiger Woods TGA 10 Disc Golf Video from Revogamersnet on Vimeo.

I’ve been playing de Blob for the Wii. There is an interesting addiction about the game. Playing the game has the same temptation you get when looking out to winter’s first snow in the morning and seeing pure white snow untouched by anything. It’s that drive to run out and mess it all up. It’s has the same drive you get when getting a package in the mail and pulling out the large bubble wrap. After popping one, you just must pop another. Or maybe I’m just crazy.

In de Blob you must color a black and white world with bright paint. It’s a similar genre to the Katamari series I guess. I find myself unable to leave a spot uncolored. I find myself at the end of a level and noticing a white spot. I’ll go out of my way to go all the way back to the beginning to get that missed spot. If you are obsessive like me when it comes to these things, de Blob is the perfect treatment game for you. It’s also soo gratifying to roll paint all over the place making an absolute mess. I felt the same way when I played Elebits for the first time. I could care less about actually playing for score in Elebits. I just loved going into a perfectly clean and organized room and tossing, lifting, tilting slamming everything all over the place making an absolute mess! Knocking over a shelf of china and watching it smash to the ground is sooo refreshing after a hard day of work. The sound of glass smashing. Games like this really cater to my issues gaming needs.

I guess most gamers enjoy destruction by explosion. Destruction doesn’t always have to be explosions. Don’t get me wrong I love them but they are kind of overdone at this point. I mean come on, we are at a point where we are creating superheros, who’s are to explode.  However, Blast Corp was a very nice game that embraced this same idea with explosions.

Good news I liked from e3 2008:

• Wii Motion Plus
• Netflix on Xbox Live
• Final Fantasy XIII on the Xbox 360
• Wii Speak
• PS3 Greatest hits line of $30

The not so good news from e3 2008:

• Microsoft’s Mii’s (I just feel they could have come up with something else, instead of a copy of Mii’s)
• No solution for the Nintendo Wii’s “Out of Space” issue
• No major innovations this year

Nintendo has announced in it’s press release a Wii MotionPlus accessory. As explained in the article this will provide true 1:1 motion control. I find this very exciting. Yes, this means you can have a Star Wars Light saber game where the movement of wiimote matches exactly on the screen. This is of course, if it is in fact true 1:1. This also means a new Legend of Zelda game could have 1:1 sword controls. In other words if you lean the wiimote to the left, the sword in Link’s will lean to the left, If you lean the wiimote to the right, up, or down the sword  in Link’s hand will match those movements. A well crafted game could take traditional fighting games to another level. Instead of simply pushing up, up, down, down, you could just act out the sword motions for each combo. This would also allow room for a more personalized experience with combos. It will be all about how well you’d be able to wield the wiimote.

In the absence of Wrath of the Lich King, I decided to reactivate my Phantasy Star Universe (PSU) account. I stopped playing initially because it wasnt PSO (Phantasy Star Online). PSO and PSU are an alternative to the average online game. It’s kind of surprising that they are not more popular. I think many people fail to realize PSU has absolutely nothing to do with traditional Mass Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG). It’s not a true MMORPG and it should never be compared to World of Warcraft. I always called PSO an online hack and slash game.

The Phantasy Star Online games are for those who want to play an online game with others but do not want to get involved with the current structure. These things include the issues of playing solo, customize your character’s stats a particular way in order to be accepted by others, making sure your party always has the Tank/Healer/Nuker’ mold (oh please go away already! I have nightmares about people shouting “We need a ‘Tank for Heroic WTF!”). Don’t get me wrong, I love MMORPGs and definitely love World of Warcraft, but after playing a thousand games that follow the same structure, I tend to long for something that doesn’t exist; which is an MMORPG that doesn’t follow any of the current MMORPG rules. (more…)

If you visit the Japanese site for Square-Enix, there is a countdown timer for a remarkably familiar game to the RPG community. Given the URL, I’m certain it’s what we all think it is. If your computer has sound you can hear the familiar clock ticking. It’s for the DS. I can only hope it’s a sequel. However if it’s a 3D remake, I’m in.

I was shocked when I first read the Wii would have built in 512 MB of hard drive space. Compared to the Xbox 360’s 20 gigabyte drive, this is hardly anything at all. However, I gave them the benefit of the doubt when I also read the Wii would support SD cards and include two usb ports. However, to my horror, I found that you can not use the SD cards as an active hard drive. Meaning, you can’t run any games or saved games directly off the card, nor can you use any usb hard drive for that purpose.

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