I managed to fully complete 16 games this year (same as last year) plus a lot of games I didn't get to finish. I was very surprised to see that I spent more time playing a downloadable DSi game more than any other game this year. And even though I didn't "complete" it, I definitely played it more than Super Mario Galaxy 2. Odd. Completed Game Played Most: Super Mario Galaxy 2 Not Completed Game Played Most: AlphaBounce Games Completed: Games Played (Not Completed): Games Played at E3:
1/22/11
2010 Games Played
1/28/10
Conduit 2: Things to Change
After playing through The Conduit extensively I have come to the realization that this game’s sequel needs a few things to change for the game to be “truly awesome” instead of just “very good.” Below are the features The Conduit 2 needs to have: Single Player Multiplayer
1/20/10
Luigi's Mansion Trademark Renewed (Vitality Sensor Related)
AND
It appears one of my predictions, the most far-fetched in fact, has already got some potential weight behind it. If you'll recall I predicted this year the Wii Vitality Sensor would be used in a new Luigi's Mansion game on the Wii. Well look who just renewed their trademark for Luigi's Mansion... Nintendo.
That's right, let the Vitality Sensor mansion hunting commence.
1/9/10
2010 Gaming Predictions
I did it for 2008 and 2009 and figured I had to do it for 2010 as well. Below you will see five predictions I have made for the gaming world in 2010.
The fourth year of each generation is usually when you start hearing about the "next gen." This year, with the boom of motion controls, you will see more of a re-branding than any truly new systems. Either way, it should be a pretty good year for gaming, assuming you don't mind a little movement in your games.
1) Gears of War 3 will release in Holiday 2010 but as a prequel to explain Marcus' history
From the first fifteen minutes of the first Gears of War I have thought this to be true. There would be two Gears games in the typical fashion with the third being a prequel to explain what Marcus has done in his past battles.
2) A new Pilot Wings will be released by the end of 2010
Boy oh boy I hope this prediction is right. Ever since playing the airplane demo on the Wii at E3 2006 I have been reminded of this sweet series. My only real hope is that the game has some form of online leaderboards with friends. I think that would really add to this game.
3) Nintendo will release a Virtual Console for the DSi with Gameboy-type games
This is an idea that really should have been acted on at the launch of the DSi but, again, Nintendo is a weird bunch. They innovate in so many ways and are so stubborn in others. I fear this feature is being held for the true successor for the DS but I hope I'm wrong there. This feature needs to be released now, or at least by the end of 2010.
4) This will be the last year for the PS2, ie major retailers will stop supporting it by the end
This little beast has been selling like mad for years but I am thinking that the PS3's success in 2010 will push Sony, and mostly retailers like Best Buy, Walmart, etc., to move away from the PS2 system. This is mainly because customer's will finally start seeing the PS3 as the obvious choice for their gaming buck over the 9-10 year old console.
5) Wii Vitality Sensor will be used in a new Luigi's Mansion Wii game
My fifth prediction is always the most outlandish, it doesn't help my prediction score that's for sure, and this one is no exception. Hate all you want about Luigi's Mansion (or don't if you actually enjoyed it) but someone at Nintendo loved the first game and is currently making the sequel for the Wii. It will use the Wii Vitality Sensor, announced at E3 2009, in some pretty cool ways to alter the environments that Luigi explores. If you like the Vitality Sensor I hope you like Luigi's Mansion because I don't foresee too many "core" games using it this year.
Now let's see if I can do a little better than 2009's predictions. It shouldn't be hard considering I only got one right.
1/7/10
2009 Games Completed
I managed to fully complete 16 games this year with a lot of games I didn't get to finish. Some of them were because they were far too difficult (Henry Hatsworth), I just wanted to try it with no real intention of beating it (Devilish, Incredible Hulk, or any iPhone game), or the game doesn't ever seem to end (Okami, Boom Blox: BP, Scribblenauts). Completed Game Played Most: Peggle: Dual Shot Not Completed Game Played Most: GTA: Chinatown Wars Complete Game Most Enjoyed: New Super Mario Bros Wii Not Completed Game Most Enjoyed: Wii Sports Resort Completed: Partially Completed: Played at E3
12/30/09
2009 Predictions: Right or Wrong
Seeing as how 2009 is nearing it's end I thought I would check back on some of my gaming predictions. See the actual predictions plus descriptions right here. Below you will see 5 things that I thought were likely to happen in 2009. In the end I shot a 1/5. Compared to my 3.5/5 last year I pretty much sucked it up this year. That'll teach me to try and predict Nintendo's choices. They make so many decisions out of left field it's near impossible to tell what they're going to do. 1) PSP2 will be released this Holiday and will not have a UMD drive Right! For the most part I nailed this one on the head. The system is not officially the PSP2, it's called the PSPGo, but it is certainly the next version of the PSP system. The system was also released a little bit before the "Holiday" window but October 1 (in America and Europe) is close enough to "Holiday" for me to count it. 2) A new Zelda for Wii will release in the holiday of 2008 Wrong! Boy was I wrong on this one. Had I not specified Wii I would have gotten it right, but alas, I didn't. As it turns out there was a new DS Zelda game released and we now know the new Zelda might be shown at E3 in 2010. So the chances of it actually releasing in 2010 aren't necessarily too great. 3) Voice chat will be standard on all online-enabled Wii games released in November and December Wrong! I specified that all Nintendo-released games with online would have voice chat but there weren't any games at all released by Nintendo on the Wii with online modes at all. So in that way I was right. But I think we can all agree that this would never have been true even if they did release any online games. I hate to say it but this is the biggest reason I now own an Xbox 360 now. 4) Again we will see a price drop for PS3 and Xbox 360 but not for Wii Wrong! Nintendo was the last one of the three to drop the price but in the end, I was wrong. I also said there would be new Wii colors and bundles and there weren't (at least not in America). 5) A new Resident Evil and GTA will be released for the Wii in 2009 Wrong! I said this was my least likely to actually happen and sure enough, I was right about that. There was not a traditional Resident Evil title or GTA games released for the Wii in 2009. And after the sales of GTA: Chinatown Wars on the DS I seriously doubt we'll see one ever on another Nintendo system.
7/12/09
Zelda Wii on Wuhu Island?
Not sure if I'm the only one who caught this or if I just missed all the news and prediction threads about it but I found this very interesting. In the newest Iwata Aks interview Miyamoto has some very interesting things to say about the island in which Wii Sports Resort (and Wii Fit for that matter) takes place on.
Miyamoto:
It’s called Wuhu Island, but the concept is more or less the same. We really polished up the island, turned it into a resort and actually made the location into a kind of character. This will then lead to a range of island series…
Iwata:
So you’ll be releasing a range of series?
Miyamoto:
You could have adventure games, role-playing games, city-building simulation games... It will be fun to see all the ideas that we can come up with, won’t it?
Iwata:
So the idea is basically to use the same island as the location and then afterwards develop games covering all sorts of genres. Shimamura-san, how did you react when you first heard about the “Island Concept"? Did you have any reservations about it?
Shimamura:
Well, I was really taken aback. In fact, I was at a loss for words! (laughs)
Iwata:
Well, that's not surprising considering you’d just heard someone suggest turning an island into a character and then licensing it out! (laughs) Having just heard the explanation, I understand the concept but under normal circumstances, I think anyone would find themselves thinking: ”What on earth is this person talking about?”
Shimamura:
Absolutely! (laughs) Using an island as the setting for a game is very common, but the idea of turning it into a franchise...
Iwata:
So how did you end up coming round to the idea?
Shimamura:
Well, I heard an explanation that really made everything fall into place. If you see a street on TV that you’ve been to before, even if it was just the once, you’ll always say: “Hey! I know that place!”
Miyamoto:
We thought it would be a fun idea to have a location that everyone knows and then have all sorts of stuff going on there. It would mean that players would already know the town like the back of their hands by the time they came to buy the next adventure game.
5/18/09
Boom Blox Braveheart
In honor of the new Boom Blox game coming out this week (Boom Blox Bash Party) I thought I would make one last creation to get myself excited for the game. You may remember another great Boom Blox piece of mine posted over at VGPC.com a few months ago making 8-Bit Games in Boom Blox. Well this one is recreating a movie instead.
Below you will see my recreation of the Battle of Stirling from the movie Braveheart.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it.
1/7/09
2009 Gaming Predictions
Seeing as how it's 2009 now and I did this last year I thought I would make some gaming predictions. Below you will see 5 things that are likely to happen this year. Please feel free to argue with me on any of these predictions. Think I'm wrong? Well we'll just have to wait and see.
1) PSP2 will be released this Holiday and will not have a UMD drive
This one is a little bit out there but I think Sony will announce their next handheld device at either this year's E3 event or some event soon after. The system will have the ability, much like the DSi or the iPhone, to download games directly to them using a wireless signal. Also, the UMD drive will be gone since it drains batteries like a mother.
2) A new Zelda for Wii will release in the holiday of 2008
With Nintendo's new concept of holding onto game information much longer than in the past there is a good chance this prediction will not be proven true until after E3. And I don't mean we will hear about it at E3, I mean we will seriously not hear anything about it until maybe August for a November or December release.
3) Voice chat will be standard on all online-enabled Wii games released in November and December
As a new owner of the Wii Speak peripheral this could be more of a hope than a prediction. Sometimes it's hard to determine if my predictions aren't being driven by lust and the desire that they may become true. The only real way for this to be determined "Right" or "Wrong" later is if I give more details. For this prediction I mean that every Wii game released in the November and December months that has an online mode (simultaneous play with or against other humans over a network) will have voice chat available using either Wii Speak or a third party peripheral.
4) Again we will see a price drop for PS3 and Xbox 360 but not for Wii
We will, sometime before the end of 2009, see new Wii SKUs but not in the sense that you may think. The system will continue to sell well but a slight drop in sales during the summer will lead to a few different color options for the Wii. One will most certainly be black and I will be extremely tempted to buy one. I hate you Nintendo.5) A new Resident Evil and GTA will be released for the Wii in 2009
This is my grand prediction that has the highest percentage of being wrong. Like last year's stupid prediction of Saints Row getting higher reviews on average than GTA IV this is my "out on a limb" prediction. I personally think 2009 will be the year that will start seeing some serious "hardcore" games released on the system. Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition sold over a million copies so it's obvious there's a market for it on Wii. As for a GTA game being made, I see it being made by the same team at Rockstar that made the PSP Grand Theft Auto games. Let's see how close I am on that one.
Let the games of 2009 begin.
Games Played/Beaten in 2008
I did this last year and it seemed to work out pretty well. I simply keep a tab on every game I played throughout the year so I can look back on it later and see what all I enjoyed. I successfully completed 14 games this year (compared to 20 last year) and played a total of 45 this year (compared to 43 last year).
All in all it seems like I managed to beat fewer games this year but played more. I think the fact that I got married in the middle of the year may have put a small hindrance on my ability to beat more games. I think you all know why.
So without further ado, here is the list of games I played throughout the entirety of 2008. And later I will post my predictions for 2009 as well as my prediction score for 2008.
Completed (No Order):
1) Halo 3 (Xbox 360)
2) Super Mario Galaxy – Luigi and all 242 Stars (Wii)
3) Contra 4 (DS)
4) Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles (Wii)
5) Super Smash Bros. Melee (Gamecube)
6) Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii)
7) Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii)
8) Lost Winds (WiiWare)
9) Mario Kart Wii (Wii)
10) No More Heroes (Wii)
11) LOL – Completed by having an awesome time (DS)
12) Picross (DS)
13) Boom Blox (Wii)
14) Lost Winds (Wii)
Partially Completed:
15) Bomberman Wii (Wii)
16) Tetris DS (DS)
17) Tetris Party (WiiWare)
18) Star Wars: Force Unleashed (Wii)
19) We Ski (Wii)
20) Gears of War 2 (Xbox360)
21) Rock Band (Wii)
22) Zack and Wiki (Wii)
23) Rock Band (Xbox 360)
24) Carnival Games (Wii)
25) Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)
26) Art Style: Orbient (WiiWare)
27) Locks’ Quest (DS)
28) Dancing with the Stars (Wii)
29) Call of Duty 4 (DS)
30) Spore Creatures (DS)
31) Endless Ocean (Wii)
32) Personal Trainer: Cooking (DS)
33) NHL ’08 (Xbox 360)
34) WiiFit (Wii)
35) Resident Evil 4: No Kills Run (Wii)
36) Star Wars: Rogue Leader 3 (Gamecube)
37) Super Mario Strikers: Charged (Wii)
38) Geist (Gamecube)
39) Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Wii)
40) Super Metroid (SNES)
41) Super Mario Bros: Lost Levels (NES)
42) Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS)
43) Guitar Hero III (Wii)
44) Medal of Honor Heroes 2 (Wii)
45) Wii Sports (Wii)