Of course, MM10 has the unfortunate distinction of following 2008’s Mega Man 9, one of the best games in the series and a wonderful digital throwback. MM9 was just the back-to-basics shot in the arm that the Blue Bomber needed. Almost all of the bloat was cut out, leaving gamers with a lean action-platformer that was actually fun to play, even when it was kicking their behinds. MM10 also leaves out the superfluous stuff - don’t bother trying to charge your Mega Buster here - but it doesn’t add much either. (more…)

Editor’s Note: Late in the interview, some of the sound was distorted as we brought Skype to its knees with far more conference call participants than recommended.

Relevant Links:

Neil LaBute’s Heavy Rain promotional video (courtesy of /Film)

Special thanks to Nick for the Fatal Fury Special assessment.

Mega Man 10
WiiWare/Capcom
1,000 Points

Mega Man 10 doesn’t need a cheerleader, but I’ll still give it the full Justin endorsement. Whether it’s a worthy successor to the ninth installment remains to be seen, but it’s definitely fun…if your idea of fun is falling into bottomless pits and spike traps, that is. You can expect a full review in the next week or two once I’ve bested the game’s robot masters - which are not as goofy as they could have been - but this is a pretty safe investment. I also don’t think it’s quite as slapdash as the 1up review would lead you to believe. (more…)

For the past 10+ years, the 1up editor and his cohorts have been writing thoughtful essays on games new and old. While some may visit for his musings on Mega Man 10’s Sheep Man and those brutal roguelikes that Tony enjoys so much, we’ve always been more impressed by his retro analyses; it takes real insight to find something new to say about a game that came out more than a decade ago. We’re not necessarily asking you to go purchase all four issues, but we do urge you to browse the site and express your appreciation. The books fill a niche that even venerable publications like EGM and Edge never could.

Winterbottom has been a long time in the making,
But this indie adventure is surely worth taking.

As the titular thief, delicious pies are the treasure,
And traversing his world is always a pleasure. (more…)

To cut to the chase, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Metroid: Other M and Sin and Punishment: Star Successor will all debut this summer, long before the fall blockbuster season. The latter two franchises have very rarely been launched outside the winter months, so this seems almost unprecedented by Nintendo. Maybe this means that it has even bigger November guns in store for us, the most obvious of which would be Zelda. But even if Nintendo has inexplicably decided to forgo the November gold rush completely, we’ve still got a lot of great games that all of us here at The Rumble Pack are dying to play.

Here’s my take on everything that’s going to keep my Wii (and DSi) from getting dusty throughout the first half of the year… (more…)

What content, you ask? According to a Sega representative (talking to IGN.com): “…parts that we felt wouldn’t make sense (like a Japanese history quiz game) or wouldn’t resonate as much (such as the concept of a hostess club).” Given how much underground buzz and cult popularity this Shenmue successor has received, how vocal fans have been in requesting a localization and how apt Sega has been to make very crucial mistakes over the past few years, I think I speak for the majority of gamers out there when I give an emphatic “sigh” to this situation. What a mess.

Don’t even try to apologize.

(more…)

Relevant Links:

“Is Your Life Just One Big RPG?” DICE 2010 Speech

**Correction** Kaz mentioned on the show that Shattered Horizon was normally $40, but it was marked down to $30 over that weekend. The correct prices would be $20 and $10, respectively. Thanks to “Sworen” for the catch!

I won’t be able to try out any of the WiiWare releases until later in the week. THis means that I can’t vouch for Ghost Slayer, with MotionPlus support, or Mouse House, a rodent-infested puzzler. Download at your own risk now, or wait until next week’s podcast to see if they turn out to be sleepers. Oh, and nothing for the Virtual Console this week. Maybe Nintendo’s saving up its best and brightest to compete against Microsoft’s Game Room next month. Or not.

Flipper
DSiWare/XForm
500 Points

Games like Flipper are why I started this column in the first place, even if this particular effort has some problems. Hugo Smits, founder of indie studio Goodbye Galaxy Games, dropped out of school and gave up steady paychecks to realize his dream of creating a video game. Then, the publisher went bankrupt, and he moved the entire project to the DSi instead.

Flipper is a puzzle game in which you have to rescue a pet goldfish by traversing increasingly hilly arenas. This requires the use of terrain-altering coins that can add steps, fix bridges and blow up walls with pinpoint accuracy (like a baby Red Faction Guerrilla). While the touch screen movement’s a little too sensitive and camera control can be a little sluggish, his 3D Voxel engine mostly works. 500 points seems a little steep, but don’t lump this in with the service’s lazier cash-grabs and cell phone ports. (more…)

It’s kind of weird to consider this beta as anything more than a glorified demo. I’m sure the DICE team is hard at work using this as a stress tester for online play and using the large pool of players to verify stability on a variety of setups. I have a hard time imagining that any significant tweaks will be made two weeks prior to release. (Is a last minute change like that even possible?)

The big question: will this be worth your money?

(more…)

First and foremost, congratulations on the fabulous critical reception for Mass Effect 2. The praise is well-deserved; some of us here at The Rumble Pack have even been tossing around best-of-2010 talk. You took what was already a solid sci-fi foundation and polished it into “instant classic” territory. No more clunky inventory system, better overall combat and the best walking-and-talking RPGs have to offer. I guess listening to the fans paid off, right?

Seeing as you went ahead and fixed nearly everything that anyone could ever gripe about from the first game, you’d think I’d be hard-pressed to find faults in the second. Unfortunately, not true, but that’s only because I pick at nits more furiously than anyone probably should. It’s an obnoxious habit, I know. You guys may be racking up the perfect scores and big sales, but I’d argue that if you implement some of my suggested tweaks, you’ll have your next masterpiece.

You may hear that my fellow podcast-mates and I never reached a consensus on these issues, but trust me, they’ll see the light when your trilogy concludes.

(Plenty of spoilers after the jump) (more…)

Once again, not enough hours in the week and bucks in the wallet to play everything, but Scrabble on the DSi sounds potentially awesome, depending on the multiplayer options. Let us know in the comments if you decide to pick this one up. Ditto for the DSi’s Spaceball, the Wii’s Art of Balance and whatever the hell this is supposed to be. While I’m willing to take the brunt of the damage, I think this column might work well as a collaboration.

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All
WiiWare/Capcom
1,000 Points

This is the height of laziness, but I bought it anyway. Clearly, Capcom’s timing these to raise interest in Edgeworth’s spin-off, but I’m not sure that a DS port with the barest of bones is the way to do that. The game doesn’t look so hot when you blow it up onto an HDTV, and the lack of motion support is embarrassing at this point. That said, I originally lost track of the series after the first game, so it’s nice to play catch-up. Given that DS game’s price tag is obscene pretty, this is the most accessible version to newcomers. The script is still funny and the dreaded psyche-locks haven’t annoyed me yet - only a case-and-a-half in, admittedly - so I’m pretty pleased with this purchase, regardless of the circumstances. Oh, and Nick really loved it, too. (more…)