Transform

Take another plunge into the signature weird and wonderful world of an Eyemaze creation, as you point and click to help a... thing... turn into... uh... another thing. Look, don't ask questions! You're on the clock, and if you don't act fast, that lion will do... something! Maybe!

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Fist of the North Star Musou trailer is freakin'
awesome

As 2010 fast approaches, Koei Tecmo is rolling out the promotion for what could be its biggest game of the upcoming year. Fist of the North Star Musou blends Dynasty Warriors beat-em-all gameplay with the classic Manga and it has potential to be a huge earner. 

This new trailer is little more than one minute of hype and bluster, but it's still pretty bloody amazing. I'm really looking forward to this game and can't wait to get my hands on it. Maybe Koei will be nice enough to give us a preview if we're really, really, really good little boys and girls. 

Also, ATATATATATATATATATATATATATATA!

[Thanks, Andreas!]

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Games of the week for 27/20/09: How it reams
edition

video details and more

Yes, it's more Tonetta this week and you're going to enjoy it even if it kills me. This is very much one of the beloved singer/songwriter's power ballads. It's a stirring and evocative portrayal of a man's sense of power and a warning about the arrogance that can arise from ambition. Round and round, tickles and cleans. 

Speaking of tickling and cleaning, games were played this week. Hit the jump to find out which ones, you arseholes.

Ross: Since I've been home for most of the week, it's just been stuff that I'd already installed on my dad's computer back during Thanksgiving: Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, and Torchlight.

DMV: Been playing BlazBlue, inFamous (almost done with it) and Sky Crawlers for the Wii. All have been supremely enjoyable, and because of Sky Crawlers, I think I'm going to check out the Ace Combat series. The Wii controls on Sky Crawlers take quite a bit of getting used to, but it's been a blast playing it thus far.

Tolentino: After being unable to partake in ANY of the super-duper Steam sales due to credit card region restrictions and lacking for a home console, my gaming time was taken up by the DS and Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor. It's one of the best RPGs I've played in a long time, and by "long time," I mean "I played Persona 4 in January."

That declaration may yet be challenged, however, as I begin playing Persona PSP.

Cantler: Still chugging through Nostalgia for my untimely review, and spending lots of time with the ModNation Racers beta. It's certainly not without its hiccups and problems, but if they can iron some of that out, this game is going to be immensely fun. I already love it. Also played the new Gran Turismo 5 demo, which had the opposite effect on me. Polyphony should be ashamed of themeselves.

Sarkar: Aw, come on, Topher -- the smooth jazz isn't that bad, is it?

Cantler: The smooth jazz might be one of its only redeeming qualities. That, and gorgeous car models. But good sesame seeds and fresh lettuce does not a tasty burger make. The meat is rotten.

Chester: Couldn't pass up with the $10 Torchlight deal, so I was thrilled to find that the $10 deal had turned into a $5 deal when I signed into Steam to purchase it. Needless to say, I have been sinking my soul into that game. As I suspected, it's whole lot of "click click click," but it sure is fun.

Also started playing the Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom for preview (which you can expect mid-January), and should be picking up a competent gaming PC today. I will use it to play... Torchlight?

Sterling: Mostly Left 4 Dead 2, which I play at any opportunity. I'm slowly getting used to nailing those Charger attacks, even if he's still totally fucking hard to line up properly. I also got separated from my team during a Versus round the other night and was forced to fight and kill a Tank single-handedly. We circled each other for about five minutes. It was utterly terrifying, but also the most triumphant moment I've ever had with the game when I finally dropped the fucker. When I'm not fighting Tanks, I'm replaying Indigo Prophecy, which is a lot cheesier and more pretentious than I originally remembered it. The dialog is pretty terrible and corny as well. Still really like it though. Oh, and I've been dipping in and out of the brilliantly fun Torchlight, as well as trying out THQ's own loot-laden RPG Titan Quest, which is surprisingly not terrible. 

I've been meaning to download Final Fantasy VIII all weekend too, but so far haven't gotten round to it. Maybe I'll do that today.Chester: Replace "Indigo Prophecy" with "Heavy Rain" and you've already saved yourself the trouble of writing one of your 2010 reviews, Jim.Holmes: Played Animal Crossing: City Folk for the holiday cheer. Also played some Half-minute Hero, LoZ: The Spirit Tracks, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, Mario and Luigi: Inside Story, Scribblenauts, and New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

I also picked up a random WiiWare game for review called Palluriko. It's not as good as Blaster Master on the Virtual Console, which for the record, does have infinite continues.Niero: I've been playing real-world tetris where you take apart ikea furniture then try to shove the Dtoid office and Rey's house into a 17x10 truck. Bicep and backpain achievements unlocked!Sterling: Funnily enough, Nick, I was playing Indigo Prophecy and making the character drink milk and take a shower and I thought ... "Wait, this is Heavy Rain, isn't it?"Holmes: Indigo Prophecy is everything I don't want in a videogame. Except for the giant see-through bugs.

Those I like.Zimmerman: Overlord II took up  bit of my time this week. I loved the first game but the camera is a real pain to use in the sequel and it's making me more than a little dizzy and confused at points. It's a shame because I wanted to just dedicate a day to it and play all the way through, but I can't go more than half an hour before I have to put it down for a bit.

I also took advantage of the Steam sale to get Torchlight. Only a little ways in but have determined that this is not a game to be played on a 42" TV because the cursor is so friggin' tiny and hard to see from my couch. And I picked up The Saboteur which is interesting but I'm not sure how much I like it yet.PerLee: I'm just about to finish [/i]Assassin's Creed 2[ii]. It's near the end, and I think this might be the first game I ever get 1000 achievements on. Pretty easy to do, and once I get that, I think I might play it with a different language track.

Btw, am I the only person out there who appreciates different language tracks on games? I tend to find it a decent exercise in learning, especially if the game is fun.

Also, got the [/i]Torchlight[i] because it was so cheap. Haven't started it, so it will probably go in that Steam folder of [/i]Fate of Atlantis[i], [/i]Plants vs Zombies[i] and [/i]Machinarium[i] as PC games that are fantastic, but I'll never get around to playing or beating. Same with my DS. [/i]Chrono Trigger[i] has been begging to be beaten, but might have to wait for a flight I'm taking this week for New Years...that is if the new flight rules don't kill me.

Also, how do you like them italics, Jim? ;D Wots of wuve! And happy new year!Ross: Every single one of those italics tags is incorrect.PerLee: Meh. FINE JONATHAN ROSS. I HATE YOU.Grim: In a single week, I played three weeks worth of The Beatles: Rock Band, Left 4 Dead 2, Far Cry 2, and 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand since I now have a functional Xbox 360. All of those games, with the exception of 50 Cent -- it's literally the exact game I thought it would be -- have exceeded my expectations in some way.Sterling: Finally downloaded FF VIII. Now you can all sod off so I can play it.

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Before the Wii Balance Board...

Before they unleashed their amazing 16-bit computer on the world in the late 1980's, the Amiga engineering team cut its teeth developing peripherals and games for consoles. Their most memorable contribution to the gaming scene of the early 1980's was the Joyboard Power Body Control:



Despite the hyperbolic ad imagery and bizarre name, the Joyboard Power Body Control wasn't really capable of sending kids into space or shaping and slimming busts and thighs.  Similar in concept to the Wii Balance Board, but not nearly as sensitive, the Joyboard connected to the standard Atari joystick port and allowed a player to execute the cardinal joystick movements by standing on the board and leaning forward, back, left and right.

There was, however, no fire button support, which meant that only a few games could really be played this way -- Atari's Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man, perhaps, and the Mogul Maniac skiing game included with the Joyboard.  I don't think Q*Bert would have worked very well this way, and I can't think of many other Atari 2600 games that completely ignored the single available button.  I suspect Tigervision's Jawbreaker could be played sans button, as the ad specifically mentions enemy pickles.

The pack-in Mogul Maniac game is quite rare now, so the Joyboard was apparently a non-starter at retail.  The ad copy urges kids to beg, borrow or save up for it, and warns potential fence-sitters:

DON'T WAIT.  IT WON'T.

Which doesn't really mean anything I can think of, other than "we have a warehouse full of these furshlugginer Joyboards, and if they don't go out the door this Christmas, they're still gonna be sittin' here in February."  Which, one gathers, they were.


Fortunately, the Amiga team survived this interesting misstep and went on to bigger things.  Great minds learn from every opportunity, failure included.

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Review: Pallurikio

"Everyone would love to stay with Pallurikio all day long."

That's one of the opening lines from the tutorial of Pallurikio, a new puzzle/platforming game on WiiWare. It's also a lie. Everyone would not love to stay with Pallurikio all day long. Upon first glance, I didn't want to spend any time with Pallurikio at all. In screenshots, it looks like a free Flash game, made to mildly entertain as many people as possible, while truly satisfying no one.

Still, this is WiiWare we're talking about, where games that look like they should be a lot of fun (like Diatomic and Gyrostarr) often offer nothing in the way of good times, and titles that look like they're going to suck (like Bonsai Barber and Pokemon Rumble) are actually pretty good. You never know what to expect from WiiWare. It was with this perspective that I fired up Pallurikio for the first time.

Hit the jump for what happened next.

Palluriko (PC, WiiWare [reviewed])
Developer: Playstos
Publisher: Nintendo
Released: December 21, 2009
MSRP: 1,000 Wii Points

Okay, so I work for a gaming blog. Do you know what that means? That means that I have an insatiable need to talk about about videogames. There are hundreds of thousands of more potentially profitable, fame- and fortune-finding pursuits I could involve myself with. I could write about celebrity gossip, or play the stock market, or Hell, I could even try to make it big on a reality show or something. All of those things are awesome, but I just don't have time for any of them. When I'm not trapped doing something else, my mind immediately turns to the subject of videogames. I can't help it. It's like a sickness.

That's what makes Pallurikio such an anomaly in my life. It's a cure for my sickness. I actually don't want to talk about it. Actually, I do want to talk about it, but for better or worse, there is absolutely nothing interesting to say about the game. It does not inspire like, dislike, hate, love, boredom, or excitement in me in any way. It truly inspires nothing. Playing the game is neither fun, nor not fun. Try describing the taste in your mouth an hour after drinking a tall glass of water and a plate of rice cakes, or how it feels to be touched by nothing. You can't, can you?

That's what I'm struggling with here in trying to review Pallurikio, the most mildly enjoyable, wholly forgettable game I've played in many years.

In lieu of an actual opinion about the game, I'll describe it to you. Pallurikio is the story of some kids and a dog who get sucked into a Jumanji-type board game. To get out of the game, you (the player) have to guide a little ball named Pallurikio through some 2D platforming levels. Taking a cue from LocoRoco, the game doesn't let you directly control Pallurikio. Instead, you tell it where to move with the Wii Remote's pointer controls. Point at Pallurikio, hit A, then point away from it. An arrow will appear. The farther you point from Pallurikio, the longer the arrow; the longer the arrow, the farther he'll go in that direction when you let go of A.

Oh, and you can do this while he's in mid-air too, for a "double jump"-style effect. You can only do this once before Pallurikio touches the ground or a wall. Getting around the game's 50 or so levels under these conditions before you run out of time is what you are tasked with in Pallurikio. The usual 2D platformer environmental hazards (spikes, collapsible walls, moving floors, etc.) all make their expected appearances. So do the the expected "ice," "fire," and "tropical" levels.

Crap... and with that, I've already run out of things to say about Pallurikio.

Don't worry (and trust me, I know how worried you are right now); I can force some stuff out, and who knows, maybe some of it will surprise you. For instance, the graphics are actually pretty good. The art direction is clean and easy to look at without appearing cheap or phoned in. There are some nice visual flourishes in each level, like the clothes you can knock off the clothesline in the city level and the snow plows in the ice level, to name a few.

On the other end, Pallurikio's music is painfully, painfully uninspired. When people who don't like videogames make fun of videogame music, this is the stuff they're talking about. I don't doubt that the composer for this game can write good stuff, but the tracks here scream "I wrote this to pay the bills while I was working on my symphony." I'd be shocked to find that the writer of Pallurikio's soundtrack really loved listening to his own work. Come to think of it, the music in the ice level was actually sort of catchy. The rest of it either demands to be ignored or is actively annoying.

The game's level design is generally competent, and has a few moments of greatness, but for the most part, it matches the quality of the game's soundtrack. It's hard to imagine that even the people who made Pallurikio really love playing Pallurikio. I mean, if you have to choose between playing Pallurikio and doing something you don't like, such as office work or writing a term paper, then yeah, the game's a fine alternative. However, if you're playing the game on the Wii, a console with hundreds of endlessly replayable classic games, it's hard to see why one would choose Pallurikio over something else.

Pallurikio would have done a lot better as a free PC game. Mouse controls would work great for the game, and I could see Facebook users spending hours wasting time with it while waiting for new notes on their wall or messages to pop up in their inbox. As a home console game, though, it has a lot of trouble justifying its own existence. An old friend of mine had a way of describing games like this. She'd say (with a really entertaining British accent), "It's sort of like the later work of Phil Collins. It just sort of washes over you, occupying your attention, but eventually leaves you completely unaffected either way."

That's my definition of a...

Score: 5 -- Mediocre (5s are an exercise in apathy, neither Solid nor Liquid. Not exactly bad, but not very good either. Just a bit "meh," really.)

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