Week: End Game: On 01.21.12

Swapnote, Swapnote, everywhere a Swapnote…

By Katharine Byrne. Posted 01/21/2012 12:00 1 Comment     ShareThis

Welcome to the first Week: End Game: On of 2012! We’re back with some jam-packed round table chat about what everyone at Nintendojo is playing this weekend. With staff picks ranging from light-hearted puzzle platformers to burning fresh bullet holes in raw, zombie flesh and everything in between, we’ve got all bases well and truly covered. Enjoy!


Kevin Knezevic

I’ve been slowly working my way through Pushmo these past couple of weeks, so I hope to finally clear the remaining few puzzles I have over the weekend. I’ve never been particularly fond of puzzle games before, but like so many others I’ve been taken in by Pushmo’s quirky charm and clever premise. I’m also quite impressed by how long-lived the title is– I’ve clocked roughly ten hours into the game already, and I still have one more batch of puzzles to go! Couple that with all of the great Pushmo floating around the Internet thanks to Daily Pushmo (and even Nintendo’s very own Facebook page), and I can see myself playing the title long after I clear its last puzzle. Maybe I’ll even create my own Pushmo, too! (If I can tap into my inner game designer, that is.)

I’m also hoping I’ll be able to set aside some time to try the Resident Evil: Revelations demo. I must admit I’ve never played a Resident Evil title before (though I do own an untouched copy of Resident Evil 4 for Wii), so this will be my first real experience with the franchise. I’m a bit anxious considering my general distaste for horror games, but my curiosity far outweighs my trepidation, especially in light of all the positive impressions it has garnered.


Nicolas Vestre

I’m well into my marathon of Mario games (or Mariothon, if you wish) that I started a couple of months ago. So far, I’ve played through Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros. 3, and Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels/2 Japan twice– once in their original 8-bit forms, then again in their 16-bit incarnations via Super Mario All-Stars. For The Lost Levels/2 Japan, I played once (8-bit) as Mario and then the second time (16-bit) as Luigi. This game in particular was a lot more fun than I thought it would be, and I ended up liking it a lot more after I beat it twice.

Then I pressed forward to complete Super Mario World, which is always a delight. I sure wish the SNES version kept track of when you get every dragon coin in a level, like the Game Boy Advance version does. As soon as I beat Super Mario World, I started with my second playthrough of Paper Mario. Actually, this was my third time through the game, but the first time doesn’t really count because I didn’t defeat the final boss. That was way back in 2001, when I was borrowing a Nintendo 64 from a friend (I never owned one until quite recently!) and renting Paper Mario, so I was going through it very fast. It’s no wonder I was so unprepared at the end. But yesterday I finished the game, clocking in at about 44 hours (my previous playthrough was about 49).


Getting all 120 stars is a rite of passage for anyone who owns a Nintendo 64…

Now, Super Mario 64 is next. I’ve only ever gotten the minimal amount of Stars to finish the game, so this time I’m going for all 120. Actually, though, I’ve acquired every Power Star in Super Mario 64 DS, but I really want to complete the original.

Last Friday, I found Giana Sisters DS for $15 on Newegg, and jumped at the opportunity to order it. Apparently it’ll arrive this Monday, so I’m really looking forward to that.

Other than all that Nintendo stuff, I recently beat Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus via The Sly Collection for PlayStation 3; now I’m on Sly 2. So far I’m liking it more than the first, primarily because of the linearity of the missions, which makes the story a lot more involved than having to collect a bunch of keys from random locations that didn’t add up to anything for the main story.


Joshua Johnston

I got a PlayStation 3 back in November and I have been steadily putting it through the paces while I bide my time for The Last Story. In particular, I’ve been playing two games that have their own unique sentimental appeal: DC Universe Online and Eternal Sonata. DC Universe Online is a free-to-play action-MMORPG that throws together all of the lore of the DC comics universe and lets the player interact in that world as a made-from-scratch hero. The game is a real treat for a guy like me who grew up on two of the greatest animated series of all time, Batman: The Animated Series and Justice League. Also cool is how many of the actors those and other DC cartoons, including Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark Hamill as the Joker, reprise their roles in the game.

Eternal Sonata is a JRPG by Tri-Crescendo, a company who helped develop the likes of Baten Kaitos, Baten Kaitos Origins, and the underappreciated Wii adventure Fragile Dreams. Set in Chopin’s mind in the last minutes of his life, it carries all of the grace and style of the aforementioned games. In fact, some would say it is almost too much like them, as Motoi Sakuraba’s Eternal Sonata soundtrack at times sounds almost too much like Baten Kaitos. I suppose that’s not all bad, though, and it makes playing through this game more than a little sentimental in its own right.


M. Noah Ward

Oh! All this Resident Evil! This week has been an overload of one of my favorite franchises, between the new movie trailer, the new Resident Evil 6 trailer and of course the Revelations demo. I might check out the demo, though I’m guessing it’s the same one I played at PAX Prime last August (and completely loved). That said, I’m more excited to know that not only Evan, but maybe even zombie-averse Kevin (hey that rhymes) may get it! I preordered it months ago since this was the title I was going to get a 3DS for, though you may know I totally dropped that vow when I was able to get the system for so cheap during Black Friday.

Resident Evil Revelations Screenshot
Even Jill can’t make us stop spamming each other with Swapnotes…

Since then, I still have to finish up my Super Mario Deathmarch (world four of special levels), which was waylaid by getting Professor Layton and the Last Specter (adoration), which was subsequently waylaid by Pushmo (pretty good), then Skyward Sword (meh) and then Swapnote (zomg!). I believe I’ve put more time into Swapnote than anything else on my 3DS this last week, but I’m wondering if that’s just a phase since I downloaded it weeks after my Nintendojo friends, and they had already sent out dozens of notes by then and the amount since has trickled. Either way, I’m clearly a victim of distraction and need to pick something and just stick to it. And yet I just acquired Mario Kart 7— and of course my very first race in the game saw me in first place, twenty feet from the finish line, and then simultaneously bombarded with a blue shell, thundercloud and squid, dropping me to fifth. Why do I play?

Back to drawing more notes…


Katharine Byrne

I’m going to be taking a slight break from Nintendo this weekend. Having played Pushmo (or Pullblox as we unfortunately have to call it in the UK) and my ambassador copy of Metroid all week (darn those floating discs of doom just before Mother Brain!), it’s probably about time that some of my other platforms got a little love. That, and I went on a bit of a Steam binge over Christmas and made a New Year’s resolution to get my backlog down to ten games before I bought another one… So when said backlog was standing somewhere just under thirty games, it certainly helps that Bastion, Limbo, VVVVVV, The Binding of Issac and Braid are all relatively short!

Yeah, I know I’m rather late to the indie game party, but my woefully underpowered laptop finally decided that it pull its metaphorical socks up and get serious about playing some games that weren’t more than ten years old. To my great surprise, every Steam demo worked like a charm and given their more than tempting price of entry, I couldn’t help myself. Out of all of them, Bastion is by far my favourite. The narration is just fantastic and everything from the music to art direction makes a refreshing change from some of the other games I’ve played recently. I’ve already completed it once, but I’m itching it get back to Kid and the Calamity for a second playthrough despite everything else I have to play. I’m also really enjoying Braid, though some of those puzzles are proving quite tough nuts to crack! Even though I’ve tempered the puzzle-solving part of my brain with every single Pushmo puzzle in recent weeks, it still seems as though I’ve some way to go before I become a true Pokémon puzzle master…


Pierre Bienaimé

This weekend will hopefully see me putting the nail in the proverbial coffins that are Catherine and Portal 2. I’m only two puzzles away from completion in the former (unless any nasty end-game tricks are in order), and how I wish to see Vincent’s tale come to a close. He’s been dropping heavy hints of having internally resolved his dilemma; all that remains is to wake alive from this final nightmare and put those intentions to action. I’m predicting that the two C/Katherines come together in a volatile decision-making moment, but will the developers let me choose, or make assumptions based on my past words? Two things are certain: If you’ve beaten the game, don’t spoil it for me! If you haven’t even played it – and can steel yourself in the face of brutal real-time puzzles – do give it a chance. Atlus have created a game that stands in a genre of one.

I feel as if the end is also close in Portal 2, though not for the similarly concrete reasons above. I’ll keep it spoiler-free, but let’s just say I’m confronted with putting two trait-infused liquids to good use. It’s going to be a puzzling weekend.


Now it’s your turn! What are you playing this weekend? Let us know in the comments!

One Response to “Week: End Game: On 01.21.12”

  • 201 points
    NintendoDad says...

    Lots of gaming this weekend for me. First up is Professor Layton and the Last Specter, which I bought back in Oct and played around 10 hours before all the new 3DS stuff hit. I got back into it last weekend and this weekend finished up the main quest at approximately 22 hours. I’ve since began with some of the bonus content and am getting my feet wet with London Life. I hope I like it as much as Animal Crossing.

    On the Wii, which I still play 5-6 days a week, I’m still burning through Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny. I’ve beat the game, but like Layton, I’m now into the post game content. The last time I checked I was at 130 hours. I’m working on getting married.

    I’ll also play a little more Zelda: Skyward Sword. I’m probably only a fourth of the way through it. Throw in a little Mario Kart 7 online, a few Pushmo puzzles, and my daily Swap Note and I’m set. (With 100 3DS friends I’ve put 27 hrs into Swap Note, although the number of notes being received as really started to shrink recently.

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