Getting Hyped for New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Part 3 or ???)

My hype for New Super Mario Bros. Wii is continuing to rise as this quick look that Giant Bomb put up pretty much is an example of how amazing and fun playing the game with four players will be. You can work as a team to get through the game in true cooperative fashion or you can be a complete jerk killing your teammates in the worst ways possible, stealing their powerups. and more mean ways. Now I want to host a night session full of multiplayer shenanigans with friends sometime in the coming week. We shall see how much of the game I will go through on Sunday (I'm hoping at least halfway through, but you know this game is loaded with secret exits, star coins, and possibly even more that I won't spoil even though I know what it is.

Getting Hyped for New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Part 2 or ???)

While everyone is still talking about how amazing Modern Warfare 2 is, which I admit that it is, my hype is still at a fever pitch for New Super Mario Bros. Wii when it officially comes out this Sunday, unless you have it early as always. Here's some Super Skills videos to enjoy demonstrating the full potential of craziness this new and awesome 2D Mario game will provide for both single and multiplayer. Especially check out the video of 1-3 below, where it takes full precision to pull something off like that, which is truly amazing. Also, this game comes in a special red case, which I think it is the first Wii game with a non-white case, but Nintendo usually does things like that for their big games (remember the gold cartridges for the N64 Zelda games and the yellow one for Donkey Kong 64). Can Sunday come already?? I hope I can review this before Thanksgiving, but we'll see how busy I'll get in the coming days, but I do need some multiplayer buddies one day to mess around with it, so yeah.

The Music Roundup for 11/10/09

Oh the music roundup is back... yay??? New releases for the holiday season are starting to ramp up again, so why not talk about them as well as what in the world is up with westernized rhythm gaming lately.



I just want to put this up as soon as I saw it because once again, Lady Gaga (love or hate her...) brings the crazy yet again with her new video for "Bad Romance". Only certain music artists can pull off crazy music videos these days as Gaga is like the only one doing them now, which it seems so refreshing to see craziness with mainstream pop music videos as compared to your generic video because it is a party/club jam you would dance to. Yes. I'm willing to put this up, so if haters are gonna hate, go ahead.



I'm also listening to 50 Cent's new album, Before I Self Destruct, today and after three full listens, its safe to say that this album is a solid one if u like 50's stuff. Its mostly the gangsta rap you expect out of him for the duration of the album until he goes soft and poppy at the end with such songs as "Baby by Me" with Ne-Yo, which is a dope song. Good thing 50 started up with that song as the first single because I can't really tell which other songs are single worthy and considering this album took a while to come out after long delays. Some songs were probably left out for his Blood on the Sand game. Of course, 50 is not afraid to take jabs at his competition, which is again the case in this new one.



Also music related but also related to games, No Doubt is suing Activision for how their digital likeness was used in Band Hero since you can play as Gwen Stefani in non No-Doubt songs as an example. This video exploits it like crazy seeing Gwen sing other songs in the game that seems very random (Hillary Duff, Janet, Taylor Swift, and Spice Girls as examples) as well as Adam Levine too. As I mentioned earlier, I would totally buy Band Hero for the lulz it will provide for myself and parties with family/friends.



On the Rock Band front, there's the Lego Rock Band export, in which I must say that Band Hero is better than that in terms of the soundtrack because there are more songs I would play in that game than Lego RB even though it seems like I'm supporting the Activision evil empire rather than the awesomeness Harmonix always brings (They are indeed taking their sweet time with Rock Band 3 as if they are rebooting the genre setting the standard again). My pick for this week's song is "Icky Thump" by The White Stripes because that song is just crazy with the weird solo sounds. Sgt. Pepper is out on The Beatles: Rock Band next week and who knows what else RB2 has next week.

That's it for the music roundup this week. Expect more music-related business on this blog of mine in the coming weeks with thoughts on more of the season's big releases with new albums from Rihanna, Jay Sean, Alicia Keys, Snoop Dogg, Lady Gaga, and more. In addition, there will be more about the DLC releases for the Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and DJ Hero franchises (David Guetta pack with that "Sexy Chick" song is out on Thanksgiving week). Lips is getting a Lady Gaga pack for Thanksgiving weekend as well (Yes!!!) with "Poker Face," "Lovegame," and another song I forgot. Next month, there might be a megapost to end the year with my top 100 songs for 2009 as it will depend whether I feel like doing it.

Getting Hyped for New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Part 1 or ???)

Even though the biggest game of the year is less than three hours from official release here at the West Coast, I already blabbed about not joining the party right away and possibly getting it at a later time like maybe next month. In the meantime, I will blab about my most wanted game of the moment, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, which is out on Sunday, or unless you're playing luckily early. While I'm not really into the first person shooter that will ruin my life (I already experienced that with Halo 2 and 3), I'm preferring a true hardcore game that feels old-school, but new again for everyone else. The hype for New Super Mario Bros. Wii has been there since it was announced at this year's E3 as if this one will be as good as the best 2D Mario games, which is a tossup between Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World, but that can be debated in a later time or somewhere else. Maybe its my little Nintendo fanboyism that is left in me that still loves their games to no end (Super Mario Galaxy being my favorite Nintendo game out this decade). I still love the Mario games for what they are and been in the past and NSMB Wii will be another love letter to the old-school bringing in lots of fan service if you have been following the game for yourself. In the meantime as my hype continues to rise, enjoy some videos of the first three levels from the game. Gosh I can't wait for Sunday, as I don't plan on doing anything else besides getting through as much of this game as I can.

The latest on my YouTube channel for 11/7/09

First off is the debut trailer of actual footage for the EA Sports MMA game featuring Strikeforce. That means, no UFC peeps in this one, but at least there's Fedor. Who knows if this game will provide UFC 2009 Undisputed competition whether or not its better than that, but we'll see. EA Sports MMA is out sometime next year. Maybe THQ and Yuke's should start telling us about their next UFC game already since Undisputed was a great success bringing MMA right to video games.

Super Street Fighter IV is still coming out in March (the arcade release seems 50/50 to me, some say yes while some say no), but here's a new video showing off the new modes from Team Battle, Endless Battle, Replays, and the return of the old-school bonus stages. These bonus stages from the Street Fighter II days are back meaning you're smashing cars and barrels like its 1991 all over again. I'm not sure about the new announcer change for this one since the original SF4 announcer was tolerable for me, so they made him worse? Who cares, I'm playing this game like crazy as my return to serious Street Fighter IV play (well, I play here and there despite Tekken 6 being my main fighting game for the moment). I'm just wandering when Capcom will reveal more characters...

I'm been going crazy lately with Band Hero watching YouTube FC runs even though I don't have the game yet. I don't know why it fascinates me to no other end... maybe its the mainstream focused soundtrack that caught my eye in which it is a pretty good one to a point I would buy it. Maybe its the random songs that are in it like "YMCA," "Kung Fu Fighting," "Happy Together," etc.? Or maybe its the magic of Taylor Swift and me finally breaking down listening to her songs that play too much on mainstream radio? I don't know, but let's just say Band Hero is surprisingly pretty dope doing what it is intended for being a Guitar Hero game for the mainstream audience with pop-friendly songs that everyone will recognize. And yes, I'm not afraid to put up "You Belong to Me" in this blog post, but it is true that she wears high heels and I wear sneakers.

Last, but not least, is one of the best game trailers I have seen this year, which is the launch trailer for my pick for first-person shooter of the year, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. It is pretty much self-explanatory how big this game will be for the holiday season with midnight sales going through the roof and kids wasting their money on those night vision goggles that came with the pricey Prestige Edition (then again, maybe they're good after all). Anyway, this trailer got me pretty hyped even though I'm not getting it right away, but its near the top of holiday list of games to play during my Winter Break. Eminem and Nate Dogg's "Till I Collapse" song was used very well in this trailer building up the hype to max levels. Then again as expected, this game is leaked already meaning people got it hella early before its actual release on Tuesday, but hey it is still going be insane.

My Rage is Tingling... The Tekken 6 (PS3) Review

Please note: This is the review for the console version of Tekken 6 as it is a slightly altered review from Tekken 6.0 and Bloodline Rebellion. Keep in mind also that videos here may not be from the console versions for the sake of high-level play in the arcade versions.



Namco Bandai brought back the Tekken games to their glory with Tekken 5 and its upgrade, Dark Resurrection. It focused on what made them great and also delivered on the storyline, which I think does the best job at it in the fighting game genre. Tekken 6 is the latest entry in Namco's famed fighting series combining what was there in the original game and its arcade expansion, Bloodline Rebellion, It also continues the story of the Mishima bloodline with Jin Kazama now heading the Mishima Zaibatsu, which was once owned by Heihachi in Tekken 5, and currently taking over the world being independent from the rest of them. The only other entity that can oppose Jin's company is the G Corporation, now headed up by Kazuya, and they offered up a huge price for anyone to capture Jin alive. All of this war and chaos starts the sixth King of the Iron Fist tournament for those fighters who want vengeance, the fame, and the power. While some may call Tekken 6 simply Tekken in high definition, its new gameplay changes make it enough of a different game for new players to learn new moves, combos, and strategies with their favorite characters, and that to me what makes the game fun. While the fighting is still as good as ever, I feell that Namco Bandai made some weird decisions with this console port that ended up as an unfortunate disappointment in the end.

The character lineup for Tekken 6 is a staggering amount, which is over 40. Other than the new characters that debuted in 6.0, which are Leo, Zafina, Miguel, and Bob, two more new characters make their debut in Bloodline Rebellion. There's Lars, who is supposedly a long lost son of Heihachi as Kazuya and Jin don't know about him. The other new character is Alisa, a female robot related to Doctor Boskonovitch, that crazy doctor in Tekken 3, having flying abilities along with chainsaws on both her hands. The returning characters are all back with favorites like Marshall Law, Paul Phoenix, Bryan Fury, the Williams sisters, Eddy Gordo, Steve Fox, King, and more. For veterans of the series, the old characters are still play the same way with the same moves, but some of them have different animations, which gives Tekken 6 some sense of freshness. Of course, there are also new moves for every character as well along with certain moves getting changed in terms of properties and priorities. Then you have your boss characters, which is a totally different story I will mention later.



The console version of Tekken 6's main mode is surprisingly not the traditional arcade mode you expect to see in fighting games. Instead, it is Scenario Campaign mode, which is pretty much a HD version of the Tekken Force mode from past games. This being the main mode bothers me because Namco could of spent more time on other things besides this, but I guess they wanted to make it more than just another off-shoot for the console version. In this Scenario Campaign, you play as one of the new characters, Lars, as he sets off on a journey along with another new character Alisa, to figure out the mess that Jin's Mishima Zaibatsu and Kazuya's G Corporation started hopefully preventing from causing further damage to the world. The good thing about this mode is you're not to forced to play as Lars as you unlock more of the huge roster to be playable by defeating them in the various stages. Despite having that feature, you get a feeling of disconnect as you play the stages as the character of your choice, but the cutscenes, which can be pretty lengthy at times, have Lars in them. Another weird decision Namco made with this story mode is the Arena, which is the only way to get character prologues and endings for every character rather than randomly unlocking them as you keep playing the game. Now back in the day, you would just play arcade mode with the characters to unlock these endings and even though the Arena itself is a mini-arcade mode, this is something that Scenario mode does not need as an extra and should of stayed in arcade mode. The gameplay in Scenario Campaign is pretty much Tekken Force, which is sloppy and bad as it is Tekken trying to be an old-school beat-em-up. Most of the stages do not last long, but is very repetitive facing the same enemies over and over again until a boss appears to fight. Other than fighting of your fists and feet, there are weapons such as a machine gun, flamethrower, and a leadpipe available to lay waste on random robots and suits. It is also one of the most frustrating things I ever played this year to the point I would throw a controller because the enemies can be pretty cheap against you as well as gaining up with you by numbers blocking the camera from seeing what is going on. Scenario Campaign as a whole is very sluggish and pointless as it should of remained an off-shoot rather than Namco actually taking more time trying to get better.

Other than the Scenario Campaign, the console version has the standard modes you expect to see in the genre. There is the traditional arcade mode of fighting a set of characters till the last boss. Along the way, a bonus fight occurs with a huge robot named Nancy, which is an example of the wackiness the Tekken series had provided over the years. The last bosses were kind of cheap most of the time and Tekken 6 is no different with Azazel, a huge dragon that fills up nearly half the screen that can use rock-like projectiles, lasers, and its size to its advantage. Other than that, the difficulty for the single player game not that hard, but the computer A.I. can give a fight most of the time. Along with the arcade mode is ghost battle mode, which is the arcade mode with Tekken 5 facing as many opponents as you can until you lose or stop. Then there are the time attack, team battle, and survival modes which are self-explanatory. The practice mode is also another disappointment in which Namco made another weird decision leaving out some sort of record functionality that tournament-level players use. For local versus play, the game plays great against buddies on the same screen, but the online play, on the other hand, is a different story, which I'll mention later.

The overall gameplay mechanics for Tekken 6 is still the same Tekken you know and love with some new additions. One of them is the bound system which refers to the juggle combos. This usually happens when you use a slam-type move like Paul's Hammer of the Gods or Law's Dragon Hammer to the ground during a juggle which gives you another chance to continue the combo with a low or mid attack. Sometimes, using these bound-type moves will cause the ground to break in certain stages that are multi-leveled to a lower level. The other major addition in Tekken 6 is the rage system. Your character will be in rage when he or she is less than ten percent in health and some signs of red glow will show up. Once in rage, you can inflict more damage to your opponent than normal and vice versa if your opponent is in rage. This usually can lead to comebacks in certain situations which makes the last seconds of a match more intense kicking in the nerves of not making a mistake. Despite those new additions, Tekken 6 is still a juggle festival for high-level players and fun for casual players because of its flashiness compared to other 3D fighters.

The character customization is still the same from Tekken 5 of various color changes and additional clothing that is full of insanity. More customizations and item moves are in the console version ranging from Miguel's guitar, Bryan's machine gun, Xiaoyu's magic wand where you can make your opponent wear a Panda head for the rest of the match, and more. The console version also has exclusive costumes for certain characters like Lars, Yoshimtsu, Asuka, Jin, and Kazuya as some cyborg robot. Other characters like Bryan, King, and Marduk are wearing Tapout t-shirts as their third costume since Tapout is one of the sponsors for the game advertising their name out there to more people. The in-game currency to unlock and buy all the customizations can be gained by mainly playing Scenario Campaign mode, but the random roulette opportunities come in when playing the game normally in hopes of getting more rage colors and rare items.

The online play in Tekken 6 ends up being the most disappointing feature for those that are looking forward to fighting other players worldwide. The lag can be at times tolerable to very unplayable not doing anything at all. With a fighting game like Tekken as frames and timing do matter when doing juggle combos, you are likely going to drop a combo here and there with the horrible lag. There is the standard ranked and player matches for online play as the Tekken ranking system (kyus, dans, Mentor, etc.) are still in tact along with an online ranking. In addition, a separate win/loss record will be placed for online matches rather than local matches for all the characters too. With the lag in Tekken 6 being pretty bad, it is the best to play local matches against friends, but at least Namco Bandai have listened to fans' complaints in which they release a patch in the future to fix its latency issues.

Graphically, Tekken 6 looks sharp enough as a fighting game. For those who think it is Tekken 5 HD, think again because it improves despite motion blur preferences. At times, Tekken 6 looks pretty good, but it can look pretty ugly especially in Scenario Campaign mode. Most of the cutscenes in that mode are in-game, but the CG scenes and endings look better. The characters look great with more details added to them than previous games. The environments also look beautiful and diverse with details, which is a staple of the franchise. These stages range from a forest filled with sheep, a Spanish-like arena filled with tomatoes, a skyscraper stage called Lightning Storm, and the Electric Fountain, an urban-like arena filled with multi-colored fountains. The ground does receive damage and will break as mentioned earlier in a handful of stages meaning there are destructible elements in some stages and look great as well. The water effects also improved from previous games with splashes acting somewhat like splashes. There is also motion blur effects with certain moves, which is a nice touch as well. In addition, certain hit effects like rage don't felt distracting. All in all, Tekken 6 is one of the better looking 3D fighting games around.



The sound for the console version is the usual expectations of the franchise. Blocking sounds different now which seems harder than previous games and the hits still sound the same. There is little character voice acting when they are introduced before fights, but they seem accurate to their personalities which is good enough. Scenario Campaign mode has more voices during the cutscenes, but sometimes it is just weird seeing Lars speaking Japanese and Raven speaking in English in a conversation as if they totally understand each other without no explanation at all. Musically, Tekken games deliver great soundtracks and this one is no different with lots of diversity. That diversity consists of various rock, techno (favorite being the Electric Fountain background music), orchestra, and even yodeling in the new forest with sheep stage.

Overall, Tekken 6 is another great entry to Namco's Bandai successful franchise with the core fighting mechanics. The new gameplay additions make the fights more entertaining and intense giving players to new ways to mess with your favorite characters. It looks sharp enough in high definition and sounds great as expected. The wackiness that the series has maintained since its inception is still here in various places with a cheap boss and playing as a bear. Even with the fighting still as great as ever, the console part is a slight disappointment with the sluggish and pointless Scenario mode, missing features in other modes, and the tolerable, but unplayable at times, online play. Luckily, there will be updates in the future in hopes of fixing the online, and co-op scenario campaign. Tekken 6 is still great as a fighting game, but as a complete package, the execution is just not there to be the premier fighting game to get this year.

Score = 8.5 / 10

Pros:

• The core fighting mechanics are still fun even in this sixth entry of the franchise.
• The new gameplay mechanics like rage and bound do spice up the fighting a bit making them more entertaining and intense.
• Still has the best and wackiest character customization in a fighting game.
• Great graphics and music (Perhaps the best right now in a 3D fighter).

Cons:

• Scenario Campaign mode is sluggish and arguably pointless (should of stayed as a side mode)
• Weird disconnects in that same mode with character interaction
• Missing features in practice mode
• Online play is the most disappointing feature with latency issues that makes fights unplayable at times.

By the Gods... My Eyes Are Bleeding from the Amazing!! - Hands-On with the God of War III Demo

I was able to pre-order the Ultimate Edition for God of War III yesterday and also got a code to play the infamous E3 2009 Demo as many times as I want to now. If you have seen the whole demo back at E3, there's nothing new to see other than playing it, but after unleashing hell as Kratos once again in this demo, it is pretty safe say that God of War III will be indeed epic and amazing just as the first two games were. The controls and combat are basically the same as before, but the scale of epic setpieces and quicktime events have turned up to 11 as if they were crazy enough. In this demo, Kratos has his signature blades of chaos, the gauntlets from Chains of Olympus (I think?), a bow that does not require magic, and Helios's head, in which he gains later on in the demo to illuminate dark areas. If you thought the first two games were bloody, think again as God of War III turns up the gore once again and it is truly badass seeing Kratos ripping body parts again like no one's business. Some of the new things Kratos can do are playable in this demo from Harpy riding, the battering ram move, escaping from hordes of enemies surrounding you, and more. The graphics and sound are once again top notch being another showcase of what the Playstation 3 can do (as if Uncharted 2 is already the defining showcase for the system too). A God of War game in true HD looks and feels amazing in every way possible. Sure, this demo may be some framerate issues since it is an early build of the game, but I'm guessing that the whole game will run at 60 frames per second the whole time with no slowdown at all. This brief demo is indeed a taste of what's to come in the conclusion of this awesome trilogy, and from what I played so far, Kratos's story will indeed end with a bang being something that all gamers should not miss when it comes out in March 2010.