The Ink-Covered Awesomeness of the Splatoon Global Testfire

Were you lucky enough to get into the ink soaked action this weekend and play the Splatoon Global Testfire demo? It wouldn’t surprise me if you weren’t, because Nintendo didn’t give a huge warning on when it would be available, and for that matter depending on your current living situation you’re timeframe to play was only an hour long at at specific intervals. Assuming you did get to play, then hopefully you had a wonderful time like I did! Admittedly, I’ve been pumped for Splatoon since it was announced at last year’s E3, so the game had a lot to live up to in the short hour I had with it. Thankfully, Nintendo delivered.

 

Sunday Roundup: 5/3/15

Somehow I forgot to use up a Buy 2 Get 1 Free coupon at GameStop I was given way back in January for renewing my subscription to their Power Up Rewards program. Coincidentally that was free thanks to a multitude of “Points” I’ve earned at the retailers from years of wasting money there. I get told all the time when I’m there that I have a lot of points and I should spend them, but honestly there isn’t anything I’d want to spend them on in their catalog. Anyway, that’s a separate story. So I went to three separate GameStop’s to try and find a deal worth my coupon, but sadly I only scrounged up three random games to use it on (I was hoping to pick up Mortal Kombat X and Kirby’s Rainbow Curse, but no such luck). All was not lost, however, as the chain was having a 4 for $10 sale on a lot of great-but-old last generation titles! I picked up four at each location, haha. Lastly, this weeks Roundup brings me very close to getting the elusive 2,000th game (about 100 away). I wonder what it’ll be…

 

Worth Playing vol. 9: The Wii One

The Wii is officially a generation past and with the bizarre exception of Rodea: They Sky Soldier releasing as a Wii title paced in with the Wii U version, there aren’t going to be anymore games created for Nintendo’s money-making, motion controlled system. The system has sold over 100 MILLION units worldwide, making it one of the best selling video game consoles of all time (and Nintendo’s best selling non-handheld console to date). With that many units on the market it can be easy to skip over a few gems while playing arguably some of the best games out there like Super Mario Galaxy and Resident Evil 4. I’ve compiled a list of ten awesome Wii games that are worth tracking down, even as we’re approaching the little-console-that-could’s 9th birthday! And while the Wii U is chugging along strongly, these games can also be played on that console as well, giving even more incentive to find and play them!

 

Pokemon Rumble World Could (and Should) Have Been So Much More

The latest game in the renowned Pokemon franchise, a free-to-play action game called Pokemon Rumble World, has been out for around two weeks now and I’ve spent a good deal of time finding, battling, and collecting Pokemon toys. At its best the game offers up fun, addictive gameplay not unlike a child’s version of Diablo: at its worst the game feels boring and limited. But I have hope the game can be better, the game can be what Pokemon Conquest was to strategy RPGs: an introduction title for a new generation of fans to the awesome world of action RPGs. There’s hope for this series Nintendo. Hope and an aspiration to make it something special, something truly worthy of the Pokemon moniker.

 

Sunday Roundup: 4/12/15

A bit late on getting this one out, but a great week nonetheless for games. After passing on a select few games during the tail end of GameStop’s Buy 2 Get 1 Free deal, I decided to drag myself back to the store to purchase what I honestly should have bought the first time. Sadly, and let this be a lesson, only one of the games from the trio I originally intended on picking up were still available. *sigh*

A preordered game arrived from Amazon this past week, as well as a random sealed PS2 game. Oh, and a very interesting find at Goodwill capped off the week.

 

The Inescapable Allure of Etrian Mystery Dungeon

Dungeon crawlers have been one of the biggest surprises for me in all my years of gaming. The idea of rigorously treading through a seemingly endless dungeon full of ridiculously challenging enemies and assured failure around nay every corner just didn’t seem all that fun. When I had the opportunity to play Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan on Nintendo 3DS, all my perceptions shifted. Suddenly the idea of immense challenge and discovery was fun, fresh, and exciting. Exploring a dungeon for the first time was unlike any other RPG before, and I found myself bleeding countless hours into the game only to progress forward a small bit. Being able to map out the dungeon floor, marking the location of items and major enemies gave myself a grand sense of security, like I had an advantage over the once threatening world which spelled my doom numerous times before.

So then why is Etrian Mystery Dungeon, a game which strips away that safety blanket of knowing the coordinates of each dungeon and replaces it with randomly generated floors while still maintaining the degree of difficulty of past Etrian games, still incredibly fun, fresh, and exciting?

It comes down to Etrian Mystery Dungeon doing two things right: exploration and development.

 

Sunday Roundup: 4/5/15

Happy Easter everyone!

This week saw a collection of games from Goodwill, eBay, and GameStop. A few of those GameStop games were great finds: games I have wanted to play for a long time and games that were simply a steal for the price. Anytime I can find something at Goodwill is always a treat as well, and this there was even a surprise (literally!) in one of the games I bought. Lastly the games from eBay were part of a lot of loose DS games, but still included some swell finds for a sweet price.

 

Now Playing: A Bunch of Games on Twitch!

I have been admittedly stagnant on the updates here on SlickGaming, but that doesn’t mean I’m not playing, creating, or, furthermore, abandoning the ol’ blog. In fact, far from it! I’ve had my hands full with a lot of games as of late, and there are no signs of slowing down with tons of great new stuff coming in the future! Just to give a quick update (and personally allow myself to play catch up with… myself?), here’s what I’ve been spending my time on as of late.

 

Sunday Roundup: 3/29/15

Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party 3 Wii Release Date: October 27th, 2009 Purchased at: GameStop (Campbell, CA – $5) I wasn’t expecting much from this trip to GameStop, because the last few times Laura and I made our way out here it wasn’t very fruitful. But this time there was a trio of games I happily waited behind a super slow family trading in an Xbox 360 and a dozen games to buy! After finding Dance Dance Revolution II last week, I kind of thought my next DDR would be Dance Dance Revolution and I’d be looking for Hottest Party 3 for a much longer time. It’s not an expensive game (obviously), but it’s been hard for me to track a copy down in my area. I’m happy I’ve almost completed the Wii DDR library!

Lost in Blue: Shipwrecked Wii Release Date: September 23rd, 2008 Purchased at: GameStop (Campbell, CA – $5) While I was happy to have found Hottest Party 3 at this store, I was even more surprised to also find Lost in Blue on Wii! The GameStop employee said he didn’t even know there was a Lost in Blue on the system, to which I wasn’t surprised or upset: rather, I was kind of impressed he even knew what the Lost In Blue series was, let alone recognized it when I brought up the game. This was a really great find, because it’s not only complete and a great price, but it completes my series collection!

Fossil League: Dino Tournament Championship DS Release Date: January 16th, 2007 Purchased at: GameStop (Campbell, CA – $3) Though I would prefer it to be complete, I couldn’t pass up this one for so cheap! Fossil League is kind of like a dinosaur themed Pokemon game: you collect and train your massive reptiles to do battle, leveling them up along the way, and eventually tracking down every last one. Most reviews draw this comparison to Pokemon, which honestly isn’t bad: the Pokemon series is a wonderful franchise to model your game on, and one that features dinosaurs at its core seems like a winner to me. I also like how this game also has incredibly similar ties to another franchise: Fossil Fighters.

Gears of War: Judgment Xbox 360 Release Date: March 19th, 2013 Purchased at: Target (Sunnyvale, CA – $5) Why yes, I will buy you for just $5, Gears of War: Judgment. I still haven’t gotten through all of Gears of War 2 (let alone GoW3), although Laura and I will occasionally talk about how we still haven’t finished the game. From what I remember during the time of this game’s release, the story and gameplay was average, but was kind of a letdown from the past trilogy. I’ll likely keep this one sealed, since I don’t really have much interest in the game, but couldn’t pass on that deal.

Fighters Megamix Saturn Release Date: December 21st, 1996 Purchased at: eBay (Online – $6) My very first import game! I was really happy when this one arrived: it was well packaged and in perfect condition! Two years ago Laura bought me an Action Replay for my Saturn, which allows the console to play games from any region, including Japan, which has some exclusive games worth playing. Also, some games for the US Saturn are incredibly expensive, while their Japanese counterpart are incredibly cheap (like this game!). I’ll try to stream some of the game later this week if I’m lucky. And to end of a funny note, this was my favorite game on the ill-fated Game.Com system. Yes… I have a Game.Com.

Laters,
Jsick

 

Sunday Roundup: 3/15/15

I was aching to go to a GameStop we don’t usually get to that often, and after a triplet of failed attempts to make it, we finally got there late in the week. And man, it did NOT disappoint! Lately I’ve been all about checking out the loose DS games, because sometimes there are great deals hidden away in there. Sure, I wish I could get them complete, but if I can still find them cheap enough, it’ll still be worth it. Anyway, this week I found a trio of excellent DS games, all for stupid fantastic prices! Not only that, but there were some great Wii games at this store as well. And a great week wouldn’t be complete without a few eBay lots as well!