Archive for 2012


Point Review: Joy Ride Turbo (Xbox 360)

Friday, May 25th, 2012

Developer: BigPark
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studio
Genre: Racing
Players: 1-4 (2-8 online)
Console: Xbox 360 (XBLA)
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Hours Played: 7+
Progress: Placed first in all 100 HP and 200 HP races, had my butt beaten in 300 HP and online, found a little over half of the collectibles in Stunt mode.

Originally announced as a free XBLA title at E3 2009, Joy Ride was retro-fitted with Kinect controls to serve as a full-retail launch title for the Kinect in late 2010.  After lacklustre reviews (and probably lacklustre sales), largely surrounding the controls in Kinect Joy Ride, Microsoft gave the game another year or so worth of development and came up with the non-Kinect sequel Joy Ride Turbo.  Do new modes and controller-based controls bring new life to Joy Ride, or is Microsoft just metaphorically beating a dead IP?  Read on to see what we thought.

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Sony E3 2012 Press Conference Time (And We’re Going!) [UPDATE]

Thursday, May 24th, 2012

[UPDATE: A spot opened up for Game Usagi at the Sony E3 Press Conference this year, so with our last-minute invitation to Sony’s press conference now confirmed we can provide you with the latest and best gaming news from all three major video game companies!]

Sony announced the time of their E3 2012 press conference a couple of weeks ago, but we were holding off on posting anything about it until we heard back from them regarding whether or not we were invited to attend.  We’ve heard the official response, and we have not been invited to attend Sony’s press conference this year!

The conference will be taking place at 7:00 PM CST on Monday, June 4th, and we’ll be able to give you our impressions on whatever Sony unveils then on Thursday, June 7th after our booth tour.  Make sure to visit us frequently during E3 as we’ll have the latest insider info on all of the hottest gaming announcements and impressions on how all of the upcoming games/systems play.

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Nintendo E3 2012 Presentation Time (And We’re Going!!!)

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2012

Nintendo announced their conference time a little while ago, but much like with the Sony conference we didn’t want to comment on it until we were sure of whether or not we are attending.  Well, our invitations arrived today, so we can tell you for sure that we will be present and liveblogging at Nintendo’s E3 conference this year!

Aside from being a lifelong dream come true for us, this also means that you will be getting the best up-to-the-millisecond coverage of all the wonderful announcements Nintendo surely has in store regarding the launch of the Wii U and the expansion of the 3DS’ software lineup.  The presentation takes place on Tuesday, June 5th at 10:00 AM CST.  We’ll have a liveblog set-up a little before then and will be providing you with pictures as well as words telling you how much your mind is to be blown.

As E3 draws ever nearer we’ll make placeholder pages for our E3 conference liveblogs so that you know exactly where to go when the fun begins in less than two weeks.

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Wii U Final Version Controller Leak Analysis

Saturday, May 19th, 2012

Supposedly leaked by a TT Games (the makers of the LEGO games including the upcoming LEGO City Stories exclusive for the Wii U) employee, the Internet now has what may well be the first image of the final retail version of the Wii U controller.  As with the leaked 3DS dev kit board that we analyzed to great acclaim almost precisely two years ago, this single image has a ton of information that may be gleaned from it.  Read on for an in-depth analysis of what’s changed and what that tells us if this image is indeed genuine.

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16-bit Episode of NBC’s Community

Friday, May 18th, 2012

About once per season, the clever team behind NBC’s sitcom Community come up with a special episode that is done in a style atypical of the series’ regular real-life presentation.  Last year’s Christmas special, for example, was done in a style reminiscent of the stop-motion animated classic “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”.  Well, this season’s special episode was done largely in a style hearkening back to the graphics of classic 16-bit systems like the Sega Genesis and the SNES.  The episode entitled “Digital Estate Planning”, aside from being hilarious as usual, is a particular treat for those of us who enjoyed 16-bit games in their heyday.  Chock-full of loving references to games like Mega Man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Super Mario Bros. 2 & 3, Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and more this episode is highly recommended.  If you live in the US you can watch this episode on Hulu, but if you’re like the rest of us you can either download it from a digital service like iTunes or wait for re-runs/the Community Season 3 DVD release.  The point is, if you can you should check this episode out as soon as possible!

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Diablo III — More Trouble Than It’s Worth?

Tuesday, May 15th, 2012

Reports coming in from all corners of the Internet state that many people are still having issues connecting to Blizzard’s forced-DRM-like servers to access even the single-player portions of Diablo III, which was launched at 12 AM this morning.  It may just be me, but paying $70 for a single-player game that gives you nothing but an error message when you finally install it and boot it up seems like something that shouldn’t be legal.

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Nintendo Drops Prices for the DSi Line

Thursday, May 10th, 2012

Nintendo announced today that they’re dropping the North American prices for the DSi lineup of systems.  Starting on May 20th, the DSi will cost only $99.99 and the DSi XL will be $129.99.  I, like many, had been waiting for Nintendo to do this for a while, because the 3DS’ rock-bottom price was kind of confusing when compared to the similar prices of its predecessors.  So, come May 20th all will be right in the world of Nintendo portable system pricing, with the older systems a decent amount less expensive than the new shiny one. 

For the record, in our humble opinion the DSi XL still represents the best way to play DS games of the systems that are currently available.  There’s nothing wrong with playing DS games on the 3DS, but the huge, luxurious screens and wicked-long battery life offered by the DSi XL is simply unparalleled in the portable market.  So, if you’re looking for something to play Pokemon Black/White Version 2 on, and are not terribly interested in the 3DS apps that Nintendo’s offering to enhance the the experience on the 3DS, then look no further than the soon-to-be-reduced DSi XL.

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