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Welcome back to another edition of Week: End Game: On! What games are the Dojo staffers playing this weekend? Read on to find out!
Anthony Vigna
Being that I am still limited in my options without my 3DS, I started to play Banjo-Tooie again with a friend of mine at college! Instead of playing it on N64, we’re experimenting with the updated Stop ‘N’ Swop mechanics on Xbox 360. For those that are unfamiliar with this fabled feature, I suggest you read this fantastic editorial written by our very own Robert Marrujo. He did a great job of explaining how this unused feature was supposed to provide bonuses to those who played Banjo-Kazooie on N64. When Rare put both Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie on Xbox Live Arcade, it decided to finally implement this feature after all these years! Granted, this incarnation of Stop ‘N’ Swop probably doesn’t function in accordance to the development team’s original vision, but it’s a fantastic inclusion nonetheless.
Playing Banjo-Tooie made me realize how much I miss collect-a-thon adventure games. They used to dominate the gaming library on N64, and now they’re virtually extinct! It’s funny, because I normally hate collecting miscellaneous things as objectives, but games based entirely on collecting items within an open world still intrigue me to this day. So, it’s personally disheartening to see a lack of this style of gameplay in the modern era. There are a few projects on Kickstarter that are attempting to revive this genre, such as The Legend of Lobodestroyo, so hopefully at least one of them turns out to be a stellar game!
Sam Stewart
With the release of Dark Souls 2 only a few months away, I decided to boot up Dark Souls and try to finally beat my New Game+7 file. I was finally able to do it, thus completing my goal to beat the game on its hardest difficulty, so what better way to celebrate than to start a new character? I plan on trying to beat the game again this weekend just for fun, but I also just got Dr. Luigi, so I’ll be playing a little bit of that as well.
Otherwise there’s always a chance that I’ll play one of the many Steam games sitting in my backlog (La Mulana, Nidhogg, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, etc…).
Andrew Hsieh
The noble Joshua Johnston has spoken a few times about the addictive quality of Monster Hunter Tri, and I’m afraid that years after the Wii original, the 3DS and Wii U versions of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate have snared me once again in their ecstasy of punishment. It’s a fruitless pursuit of glory, a masochistic chorus of blood, sweat, and tears that constantly pulses against your temple those chilling words: “You are not satisfied.”
And it’s true. I’m not satisfied. I’m never satisfied. Once, I was happy just to have felled the mighty Rathian, and carve up its plates and scales. But not an hour ago, I downed what must have been my thirteenth Brachydios, and mused on how utterly droll it was. I was listening to a Wise Man the other day (a real Wise Man, not a Wise Man from Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate— there are no Wise Men in that game, only pretenders), and he was talking about how no matter how much wealth we accumulate, we’re never satisfied. I thought, of course, that he was just spouting philosophical Super-Sized Dung— that if I suddenly found myself making six figures, I could pay off everything I ever wanted and then some. But looking at my Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate avatar, a veritable Armageddon with her armor of giant salamander and her bowgun that literally shoots fire, lightning, and cluster bombs, and looking at how progressively pointless each kill becomes, I suddenly realize that some men do not simply pretend to be wise.
This all, of course, makes it sound like I’m disgusted by Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate. And in a way, I am. But I’m never going to roll around in ennui the way my avatar does. And if a virtual extension of myself can be so successful that he’s disgusted with his own abilities, it may as well be the one that routinely pretends he’s Saint George.
Robert Marrujo
So, I just started working again (like, real work, sigh), so my gaming time got a kick to the shins. Of course, that’s what I was expecting to say… but I have a commute and an hour’s worth of breaks and lunch, so there will be portable gaming, at least! I’m working my way through Mario & Luigi: Dream Team again. I got to a certain point, fell off, and decided I’m just going to start over. It looks so dang good on the 3DS!
Beyond that, I’ve also dusted off my DSi and have been playing Kirby’s Mass Attack. That game is so freaking adorable! Multiple Kirby’s equals multiple awesome. I’m not going to sleep tonight until I spend a bit of time with either Dream Team or Attack; what a wonderful dilemma to have!
Jason Strong
After nearly two years of waiting I finally received the first installment of Double Fine’s Broken Age last week. For the uninitiated, Broken Age is a point-and-click adventure game in the vein of classics like The Secret of Monkey Island or the Kyrandia trilogy. Some of my fondest memories as a kid involved huddling around the family computer with my older brother and dad and playing these hilarious and challenging games together. The puzzles, the jokes, and the atmosphere of those old titles are all captured perfectly by Tim Schafer in this latest genre entry. Whether you’re a fan of old school adventure games, or of more recent releases such as Telltale’s The Walking Dead, the game comes highly recommended.
For a change of pace I’ll likely continue to chip away slowly at Super Mario 3D World, which I’m happy to say has finally begun to suck me in. I was put off a bit initially by the rigid way the game controlled, only allowing you to move in eight directions rather than giving you full analog control of your character, but as I’ve sunk more time into the title my frustration with this has lessened and I’ve actually found that it helps a bit when attempting to land precision jumps. I look forward to a Saturday and Sunday filled with hopping and bopping my way through the mushroom kingdom and wish all of Nintendojo’s readers success in whatever endeavors this weekend finds them engaged in!
What games do you plan on playing this weekend? Let us know in the comments!
I’ve been playing through Earthbound for the first time on the Wii U (probably the 10th time overall) over the past couple of weekends, enjoying both the analog stick control (so much nicer for SNES RPGs than a D pad), and the MiiU community (always fun answering questions, and sharing photos).
Well, the weekend is over, but fortunately I was able to spend time playing Wii U and finally finished The Wonderful 101 on Normal! Fantastic game from start to finish, and quite challenging. Some of the boss battles can go on for far too long, though, until you figure out what you’re really supposed to be doing.
Anyway, I would love to spend more time with the game, like trying to get better medals and maybe giving Hard mode a try. But I’ve got so many other games I want to start playing too.