First Impressions All Around!!
I had a real hard time writing this article. It’s April 30th and GTA VI just came yesterday. It’s difficult to find time to play the newest and greatest big hitters from this spring season. Mario Kart Wii, GTA VI, Okami (which I still have yet to get my hands on a copy), and The World Ends With You. I shouldn’t even have to mention the Metal Gear Solid Online beta and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue that the Sony fanboys are playing right now. I even have to balance my time between practicing my drum and guitar skills in Rock Band, my Brawling skills and leveling my character in the semi-retro RPG, Phantasy Star Online.
I don’t want to settle with just writing about all the stuff that everyone else is writing about. The truth is school is winding down to an end and finals are creeping closer and closer every day. The time I have to waste on my favorite hobby is diminishing constantly. Regardless, the real juice of this article is what I think about all these new games. The following are at best only first impressions, because I don’t own any of the games mentioned, but have spent a valid amount of time (1 hr +) with both of them. Expect full-blown reviews in the future. ; )
Mario Kart Wii
This is pretty much the flavor of the month for Nintendo fans. Nintendo really tried to fit a lot of content into this game, which is great! It makes for more replay value and a valid excuse to chug through the single-player grand prix, which brings me to my next point. The single-player is tolerable at best. The unlockable content is the only excuse you’ll find to play single-player. The computer AI is extremely frustrating. They are so ruthlessly efficient that even the most stalwart player will throw his controller at the screen in defeat. The multiplayer, especially the online mode is where this game really shines. Local split-screen with friends and family are heated races and battles that are almost always incredible fun. Most items are recognizable by kart veterans, with a few exceptions (the thunder cloud is the most stupid item ever). Online multi-player shows that Nintendo is slowly learning the way online play works. Lag-less play with anonymous people from around the country. A welcome change from the un-playable Brawl experience. All in all, it’s a buy for most hardcore Wii owners. The online play and split-screen is one of the most addictive experiences i’ve had with a Nintendo franchise.
GTA VI
This game just came out yesterday and because I only live right next to a friend that owns, I can only write a few impressions I had when I watched the first hour of gameplay. Dom (my former roommate) brought the game to his room and inserted it in his PS3. The install took about 5 to 10 minutes and was slightly annoying to me. I’m too used to putting in a new game and instantly playing. I heard rumors that some people had problems with the installation files being corrupted as well. We didn’t have any problems installing and played immediately after it had finished. The beginning sequence was a very movie-like introduction, with credits inserted in logical places of the scenery. Unfortunately, Dom pressed start and skipped the into, much to my dismay. I like to appreciate all the little nuances and creative effort developers put into a game. Oh well. The game started up with little missions that taught the player how to do the basics like driving, using a cell phone, setting GPS on the mini-map, etc. The visuals are really impressive. Rockstar paid attention to every detail this time around. Motion blur while driving fast, rag doll physics applied to every in-game model, accurate bloodstains on cars, buildings, etc, and great voice acting culminate into a more than adequate squeal to the revolutionary GTA III. It’s a worthwhile buy for anyone owning a Xbox 360 or PS3.
Hello Again Cyber World!!!
Its Jay Torres again. Yesterday I went to gamestop with fellow bloggers Andrew Romen and Jeff Rojas. We purchased lots of games for our club Game Day Live (Shameless plug) Let me divulge for a second. I created this group last semester and it is indeed hot fire. I highly recommend that everyone and their mom come play with us every Friday in beautiful Rutgers Camden. Now that I am done with that random tangent when we went to gamestop I purchased Mario Kart Wii and GTA IV. WARNING!!! I do not recommend buying Mario Kart Wii unless you have friends to play with or internet access because the multi-player is where its at. I highly recommend GTA IV unless you don’t like excessive nudity and violence, but lets be honest here…Who doesn’t? I will be posting a more detailed review soon as I only have about an hour of game time on each of the two games. Keep reading and I hope that you will hear from me soon.
Your Game Informer,
Jay Torres
First Impressions of Mario Kart Wii
Hey HEY all! So today I picked up my copy of Mario Kart Wii (complete with Wii Wheel!) along with fellow blogger Justin Torres, and I was itching to get it running.
As Jeff and I loaded up the Wii, we wrapped our hands around the Wii Wheel for the first time and it’s exactly as everyone says: it’s lightweight, very comfortable for the hands, and most of all, very fun! I’d say the only drawback about the wheel is that even though it has a little hole for the wiimote to point, it’s a little difficult to point and click with the wheel on. Sure you can just pop the controller out, but we’re lazy about these kinds of things, haha. Jeff found that the best way for him to point to stuff on the Wii menu was to put the wheel on his head and point (I will DEFINATELY get a picture of this happening, haha). Now, on to the gameplay!
So when you first start the game you begin with 4 different Grand Prixs, each with 4 tracks to play, which gives us a total of 16 total tracks to start out with. Along with those tracks, there are about 12 characters to choose from, from your classic Mario, to baby Peach! Each character has their own weight class (as usual), so heavies like Bowser and Donkey Kong gain top speeds, but low acceleration, middle classes like Mario get a balance of both, and lights like Toad and Baby Mario have high acceleration, but low top speeds. Not only that, there are 6 starting vehicles to choose from! 3 of them are Karts, and 3 of them are the newly included bikes. There are standard, high speed, and high handling versions for each vehicle. Whew, with all that out of the way, let’s get to how it plays!
So when we began we chose 3 different kinds of controls (…2 if you don’t think the wiimote without the wheel is a different kind of control). We used the Wiimote with the wheel, the Wiimote WITHOUT the wheel, and a classic Gamecube controller. I wanted to try the wheel so I snatched it as quick as I could. As we started our first race, I was taken aback by how little movement it takes to make your kart or bike turn. Popping wheelies and doing tricks off ramps took a little getting used to, but eventually it felt right. Playing the game without the wheel and just the lone Wiimote made driving a little more difficult since it doesn’t feel like the wheel, and thus it feels less intuitive. Of course the Gamecube control offers more precision than the Wiimote, and won the first few races but hey, we’re just getting started! Pretty soon all of us were heated in each race no matter what control we took in our hands! I would say that there is a bit of a learning curve when it comes to cornering and drifting, but with a couple races, it’s easy to get the hang of it. What I already love about this game is that even though we are Mario Kart Veterans, people can pick up this game and within a few races can put up a good challenge, and I have to attune myself to the new style of play!
Later on I tried the online play, and it’s fantastic! I experienced pretty much no lag at all, except when I got disconnected from one of my races (grrr… it’s a combination of a finicky router and the internet provided by Rutgers…). There is a ranking system so you aren’t paired up against people who are already super duper I’m totally gonna OWN you level. With this system you play with races who are relatively close to your driving level, and you gain (or lose) points to your level depends on how well you do in a race. I was afraid to play online for fear of getting destroyed, but this system reassured that wouldn’t get my butt handed to me (well, at least not really really hard hahha). Everything plays well as it should, and the competition is fierce, but not unbearably so.
This game is downright Mario Kart fun. Don’t expect to find anything revolutionary about this, since I feel that this is as good as it can get so far, and Mario Kart is all about you playing with your friends and family a billion times over and still loving each race. If you’ve been following the franchise since it’s birth, you’ll know what i mean. I don’t have much to complain about yet, but when I’ve play this game enough, I’ll make a more detailed review (with pictures and perhaps scoring?).
I can’t wait to play this game more!
-Ndroo
Hello Cyber World!!!
I am currently playing GTA IV and Mario Kart Wii and will be writing a review on them shortly. Be on the look out for my famous rumor reports as they will divulge some interesting news about upcoming games. I’ll keep this first post short and sweet, but be sure to look for new posts soon. Thats all for now.Your Game Informer,Jay Torres
Andrew’s first post!
Hey hey all, this is Andrew Romen here, and this is my first post! I’m one of the writers lined up for Modern Gaming Hobbyist, and I like anything Nintendo! It’s not that I don’t like Xbox or Playstation or anything, I just play more Nintendo stuff than the others. I usually like to find funny things about Nintendo stuff like system mods and stuff like that. I also plan to write reviews for the games that I play, and reviews for games that I’ve already played. Just for the record, I’m currently playing “The World Ends With You” (or as the Japanese call it, “It’s a Wonderful World”) on the DS and I’m planning to pick up Mario Kart Wii in the VERY near future.
Hmm. I’ll keep this first post short, but I’ll definitely post relatively frequently! Hopefully we’ll get Bio pages going and everyone can know all about me!
-Ndroo
First Post!
Jeff here. I’m the Editor and Admin of MGH and this is the first post of this interesting blog about just anything relating to video games. I’m still in the process of setting up the site so everything can work smoothly once I get our writers writing articles. We are still looking for one or two more writers. We have some pretty awesome people lined up to write about gaming. Hopefully we’ll be up and running in a few days. Ill have some simple graphics to make the site pretty. If any readers are interested in making a logo, feel free to email me at lpemcee21atGmaildotcom
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