The Rumble Pack Posts

Wahoo! This week, the Pack hangs out in the Mushroom Kingdom with Brian Brinegar and John Groth, two of the folks behind the third annual Super Marion Marathon. Brian, John and company are playing through nearly every major Super Mario game for Child’s Play, so be sure to donate a few coins. After the interview, Justin dons his Fanboy Suit for Super Mario Galaxy 2, Nick laments God of War III‘s Greek tragedy, Tony scores high in Tilt to Live and Kaz crosses the Red Dead Redemption border. The guys also get their Rifiki on, closing out the show with their hopes and fears for next week’s E3.

Relevant Links:

Super Mario Marathon 3

Wired’s Howard Stringer profile

Say what you will about the wasted potential of the Nintendo DSi platform and spotty third party releases, but May was pretty kind to DSi owners. While not all of Nintendo’s downloadable experiments were entirely successful – see Looksley’s Line Up, for instance – the uniform high quality was enough to make me forget the Game & Watch massive dump from April. However, I’m now left to wonder what exactly comes next. All of the DSiWare games announced at the 2010 Nintendo Summit are available, leaving us in the dark once again. It was nice of Nintendo to drum up a little excitement for once – at least for weirdos like you and I who pay attention to this stuff – but I guess we’ll have to see if E3 brings more goodies in a few weeks.

Anyway, on to my favorites from the past two weeks. Yeah, they’re mostly Nintendo games, but it’s often hard to avoid that. If you’re curious about a game or just want to raise awareness of a hidden gem, please leave a note in the comments.

Metal Torrent
DSiWare/Nintendo
500 Points

While I typically associate developer Arika with the Street Fighter EX and Endless Ocean series, the folks there apparently know how to craft a fun (but brief) shooter, too. Metal Torrent might be one of the most accessible bullet-hells ever; on the easy path, the ship can take several hits before breaking down, and even the harder path offers powerful weaponry and a forgiving hit box. However, even with the reasonable difficulty working in its favor, many will see Metal Torrent as light on content. Instead of stage variety and screen-filling bosses, Arika placed the emphasis entirely on maximizing chains and high scoring. Only pick it up if you live for online leaderboards. (If it were only 200 Points, it’d be a no-brainer for everyone else.)

This week, Kaz and Tom talk Puzzle Quest 2 with series creator Steve Fawkner. The guys chat about sating the ESRB, differences between platforms, the new Xbox Live tournament mode, sweet loot drops and of course – no-good, yella-bellied cheatin’ A.I. Meanwhile, Tony wanders back to the Nintendo fold and finds a lot to love in Super Mario Galaxy 2, bustin’ through the rest of Alan Wake makes Kaz feel good, Tom feels the rage of Sparta at the ending of God of War III and hilarious glitches abound as the Rumble posse continues to roll, stroll and bounce into Red Dead Redemption.

Who: Everyone

When: 9 p.m. EST, June 2nd

What: Red Dead Redemption

Where: Xbox Live

Why: Because this town actually is big enough for all of us.

RSVP here

In an industry that often demands too much from its creators, we may need more than sheriff to keep everyone in line. As Justin and Nick explore the wilderness of Red Dead Redemption, an essay from above the 49th Parallel forces them to think about fair trade and that particular game’s stressful development. However, the crunch-time blues can work both ways, as they see in a blog entry from Raven’s Manveer Heir. In the second half of the show, Justin and Nick explore a 1up feature that asks why there aren’t more interactive Westerns. Should we heed the author’s Mad Dog decree?

Relevant Links:

Nels Anderson’s “Do We Need Fair Trade Games?”

Manveer Heir’s “Reflections of a Five Year Vet”

John Constantine’s “Manifest Destiny”

Your Next Reading Assignment: Nintendo Magic

Mario’s been chomping mushrooms and picking fire flowers for more the 20 years now, but after his third Super outing, his wardrobe became a little dull. Sure, the cape and winged cap were neat, but neither had the allure of the Tanooki Suit or the Frog Suit. However, both New Super Mario Bros. Wii and the Super Mario Galaxy games gave our favorite plumber a long-desired makeover. Keeping in that spirit, we present our dream designs for his next interstellar (or terrestrial) adventure. Saving the princess is hard work, but there’s no reason why you can’t look good in the process.

Kappa Suit
(Tailor: Nicolo)

Mario once again takes inspiration from a Japanese folklore creature with the Kappa Suit! Unlike the Tanooki Suit, this water-sprite-inspired garb grants our hero water-based powers to help him excel in those pesky swimming stages. In addition to granting Mario 360 degree turning abilities while storming through the soup, the lily-pad-like bowl that sits atop the suit is capable of shooting streams of water at enemies and is particularly effective at putting out charging bob-ombs. As the Kappa is an extremely polite creature, to access the Kappa suit, Mario must bow (duck) in front of kappa statues, which will release the power-up to Mario to aid him on his quest. Failing to do so, however, might result in kappa-enemies attacking Mario from the depths (they love to feed on children), so mind your manners!

Hold onto your butts! These Mayed men are buried in a pile of games, with little hope of escape. They toss around a bloody controller in BIT.TRIP RUNNER, root and toot in Red Dead Redemption and confront the darkness in Alan Wake. Kaz also uses his godly powers to move dumpsters in Skate 3, resident “Fun Hater” Justin goes on a big game hunt in Gran Pulse and Nick wonders why Vaseline sponsored Metal Slug XX.

Relevant links:

The Magic Word

My “Nintendon’t” column is back and here to stay. While I haven’t decided if it’s going to be weekly or biweekly at this point, you can at least expect it towards the end of the week so that I can get enough time to really delve into each game. Also, as before, I won’t have the cash to buy everything, but I will playtest anything that interests our readers. In this installment, I look at a potentially nifty 3D tech demo, the long awaited fourth BIT.TRIP from Gaijin Games, the indisputable king of Kirby games and a throwaway Tetris clone from a developer that should know better. Other releases include a new Frogger, a Flips book and Blood Beach, a WiiWare turret shooter.

Looksley’s Line Up
DSiWare/Nintendo
500 Points

When this game was first announced in Japan, I recall a lot of my friends erroneously assuming that this was early software for the 3DS. Thank goodness that this ended up being DSiWare instead. Looksley’s Line Up is a fun little download, but the head-tracking technology is in no way ready from prime time.

The time has finally come. Only two and a half more hours of Lost footage remain to be aired before a wild six-season ride comes to a definitive close. As someone who has followed the show religiously since the first season, there are a lot of hopes for closure resting on this last episode. When it somehow turns out to be a “Kate’s Greatest Hits” retrospective, please refrain from leaving nasty comments – I’ll be too dead inside to read them. In the time it has been on the air, Lost has generated the kind of pop-culture merchandising potential that most creators and producers can only dream about. In addition to the officially licensed ABC merchandise that keeps J.J. Abrams’ bedsheets permanently lined with million dollar bills, a plethora of fan created content exists, much of it solely in celebration of the show and the fan community built around it. After the curtain has fallen on our remaining castaways, what remains for the unsated? When making your own knock-off Dharma Oreos and fish biscuits won’t cut it, there’s always Lost: Via Domus, right?