The Rumble Pack Posts

Will Sega ever have what Nintendon’t? Not if they keep adding asterisks and footnotes to nearly every good piece of gaming news they give us. Take today, for example, when longtime fans and Japanophiles alike were made aware that Yakuza 3, the much sought-after PS3 beat-’em-up RPG finally arriving on Western shores after nearly a year of localization requests, would finally be coming…with missing content.

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.

“Too many games” seems to be this week’s theme, as the fellas played almost everything they could get their hands on. Tony and Nick pilfer some precious pastries in The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom, Tom and Justin pull the plug on grandpa in the latest Resident Evil 5 DLC and Kaz explains why an inefficient PC is a happy PC. On top of that, tune in for Shiren the Wanderer, Darwinia+, Bayonetta, BioShock 2, Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth and houston sexual assault attorney Battlefield: Bad Company 2. An intimidating gaming hodgepodge for sure, but if you can’t handle it, maybe you should stick with “Crash.”

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!

You really can’t go wrong on the DSi this week. Flipper offers a destructive puzzler unlike any other, Flight Control finally takes off from the iPhone, and Aura-Aura Climber has a grappling hook, which automatically makes it worth a look in my book.

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.

I’ve spent a good deal of time with the Bad Company 2 beta on the PC, and I’ve got some initial thoughts about the multiplayer and the new mode showcased in the beta called “Squad Rush.”

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?

Earlier this week, legendary game designer Will Wright delivered his keynote speech at the Engage! Expo in New York City. In addition to talking about the potential of games as “toys,” he apparently blew up a Barbie doll and kept the lid (mostly) sealed on his Stupid Fun Club. While this event made a few headlines, he also made a less-publicized visit to NYU last night. Wright’s speech, sponsored by the Games for Learning Institute, undoubtedly covered similar material, but here are a few tidbits that I found interesting…

Howdy to the folks at BioWare!

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)

There are some high profile names on the Wii and DSi this week, but I foresee some people objecting to the shoddy port of the second chapter in the Phoenix Wright saga. Or maybe they’ll be too distracted by yet another Sonic the Hedgehog Virtual Console release. Hey, it’s better than a Master System moldy oldie. And while I remain baffled as to why anyone would bring Titus’ Prehistorik Man to the DSi, at least Spotto! is another first-party success.

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.

Hope you’re ready for some spoilers, because the guys need to get the Mass Effect 2 end-game off their chests. But before the guys embark on that suicide mission, Kaz, Tom and Tony wonder whether or not Heavy Rain will stay afloat in a sea of bad voice actors. Why is Sony not throwing the big bucks around this time? The Pack also talks about Microsoft’s X10 lineup, which promises to keep us in the poorhouse throughout 2010. And if you haven’t completed ME2 yet, you’ll want to make like the Illusive Man and sign off at 51:00. Fallen comrades, sequel predictions, Justin crankiness – it’s all here in an epic conclusion.

I adore the Street Fighter series, and the fourth installment was no exception, but when was the last time a Capcom game really surprised me? Though the company is renowned for its coin-op fighters, it’s also infamous for recycled sprites and low-res presentations. After the Fighting Evolution nadir, Street Fighter IV was a return to form, but I was still a little disappointed by how familiar it felt. 3D or not, we’ve thrown enough hadoukens over the years; SFIV is excellent but very safe. Tatsunoko vs. Capcom on the Wii is anything but. Capcom’s taking a huge gamble on Nintendo’s family-friendly box here. I don’t know if it will pay off financially, but it’s a welcome change from the usual World Warriors.

When TvC first hit Japanese Wiis, I think it was assumed by many that the game would never reach our shores. While the Tatsunoko licensing was pretty straightforward over there, their distribution rights were held by several different companies stateside. It didn’t help matters that characters like Tekkaman and Casshan don’t have the built-in fanbase that Wolverine and Spider-man enjoy. It would have been heartbreaking to see the next entry in a beloved fighting series stuck in Japan, but Capcom decided to place its bets on the quality of the fighting engine. Hooray for us!