Guess what? It’s another episode! This week I’m joined once again by my lovely wife to discuss video games. And, as usual, it turns out we barely touch on the subject, choosing instead to venture down lonely, broken paths of serious and soap-boxy issues. Yet, we manage to insult almost everyone in the process. Please listen, won’t you?

P.S. The closest thing I could find to “You Game It” on google was the website yougame.it. I think we’re in the clear!

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If you were a little robot with blue armor, wouldn’t you want to be considered a genre? Today, the Kelly brothers dissect the vast offerings of the Mega Man franchise, while you wait! Hope you enjoy!

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The story picks up with Kirby hanging out with his friends, when a spaceship crashes near them. From there Kirby decides he is going to help this stranger repair their ship and live happily ever after. Not a super deep storyline. In fact, compared to last year’s Epic Yarn, this story is weak. The good news is that with the excellent gameplay the story is completely unnecessary.

Kirby’s Return to Dream Land is a perfect 2D platformer. Kirby utilizes his copy abilities to defeat bad guys as he traverses through seven worlds. The copy abilities seem to have new layers as all of them have secondary abilities based on direction buttons and some even require fighter style combos.  None of these are overly complex and even if you can’t remember them all, the basic move for each power is perfectly usable. Seasoned gamers might be a little turned off by how easy the initial play through is, though some of the energy spheres can be hard to find. The energy spheres are hidden extras that can unlock bonuses. Collecting all the energy spheres also allows you to battle the final boss.

On top of a few new copy abilities Return to Dream Land introduces super abilities. These five abilities have a set time limited use and for the most part attack a large portion of the screen.  They are also usually used in levels to destroy parts of the level that unlock secret areas. I really wish there were more chances to use these abilities but you would be basically unstoppable and the game would be done in about 10 minutes.

Multiplayer options are available in this game similar to Epic Yarn, however this time around you can have a full four players. Player one must play as Kirby. However, each additional player can play as a different coloured Kirby or one of three other characters.  The other characters are Meta Knight, Waddle Dee, and King Dedede. Each has their own attack: King Dedede swings his trademark hammer, Meta Knight wields a sword, and Waddle Dee totes spear. The multiplayer mode is actually a lot of fun and can be started at anytime. All an additional player needs to do is push a button on their controller. The drawbacks to this are that only one player can have a super ability at a time. So even if you have four Kirbys only one of them can have a super ability. The next issue is that player one acts as an anchor on the screen, where if the other players fall to far behind they get dragged to player ones position without taking any damage. This can be beneficial at times but at other times such as bosses this can be deadly. The final problem is how lives are handled. Lives are shared so the additional players could use all of them quickly, since even their initial opting in takes a life.  The other life issue is that only if player one dies does the level end. This is why the other players could accidentally run through the lives without realising it. This is somewhat balanced out by health items being something you can share. This is done by running into another character face-to-face, at which point it looks like the two are making out. This keeps the players on more friendly terms since you don’t need to compete for health.

Graphics are simple and beautiful. The updated style is exactly how I would envision the original Kirby games being updated for the Wii. The system isn’t being pushed by this game and yet the game is stunning and reminds me why I love traditional platform games. There are too many games to mention that are supposedly graphic masterpieces that I would trade for more games like this one.

The game is a wonderful call back to what games use to be. The co-op is one of the friendliest I’ve seen for this style of game, though getting everyone to have their preferred power can be hard at times. Yes, the game will visually appeal to younger gamers but if you judge this game on that, you are missing out. If you don’t own a Wii, I can’t in good conscience say this is the game to buy a Wii for even with how delightful it is; but if you own a Wii, make sure to add this to your Christmas list or go buy it now. Seriously. Go. Buy. Now.

As a rail shooter, the game simply requires you to aim at the screen and shoot anything and everything that moves. The controls are relatively intuitive during the shooting, however using stuff like the knife and grenades can be clunky with the Wii’s simplistic control scheme. This is avoided to an extent with three different control schemes, two of which are for the Wii Remote alone and the other for use with a gun peripheral and nunchuk. The gun style is nice but at times it is easy to forget all your additional controls on the nunchuk. This was one of the games that came out to exploit the Wii Zapper but really the Nyko Perfect Shot is much better for this and really any shooter game on the Wii.

The graphics aren’t bad during gameplay. There are some resolution issues but with the enemies being zombies it isn’t too bad and might even add to some of the creepiness. The backgrounds are varied but very flat. The saving grace is that the backgrounds are very interactive allowing for lights and windows to be shot, as well as later levels allowing for chandeliers to be shot down onto hordes of zombies. The real graphics that stand out as pure horrible is cut scenes involving the playable characters. The players look oddly waxen and have really dead and soulless eyes. This harsh contrast actually makes them more terrifying than the zombies attacking you.

The rail system is nice since you don’t need to know where you are going yourself but it also has its own problems. The main problem is there are times when the camera just wildly darts around. Yes, you can shoot the enemies but it is unlikely you have time to kill an enemy unless you can always get a critical hit. The critical hits in this game can potentially take the enemies down in one blow, such as the zombies’ heads being a good starting point. During certain parts you have plenty of time to gun down the enemies but other times that is not possible.

Multiplayer mode can definitely make the game easier since you can focus on different enemies upping your chances of survival considerably.  So to balance the power of numbers Capcom decided the players should share certain things that make it harder and not share things that would make it convenient. The most important thing you share is health. This is actually pretty reasonable since it would be hard to differentiate who got hit when the enemies are just swinging at the screen. However, ammo pickups scattered through the level are kept by the character who grabs it first and not distributed. In a regular game, this is standard but in a game that depends on both players staying alive a little sharing by default would be nice. Instead by the end of a level either one person is equipped like a one man army, while your partner is struggling with a pop gun or you are having to take turns and risk missing a weapon because the player whose ‘turn’ it is to grab the weapon can’t get to it fast enough.

The story is very much a streamlined version of the three mentioned games as well as adding background information that wasn’t in the originals.  This is done either with documents you can pick up in each level, but also with an additional story where you can play as some of the antagonists to learn their stories. The documents really shed light on how terrible the always looming Umbrella Corporation really is.

Normally, I am not a fan of the Resident Evil series due to the core mechanics. However, the streamlined non-thinking rail shooter style I do enjoy.  There are still plenty of issues that make the game hard to sit and play for any long amount of time but it is a good game if you just want to play a level on random occasions.

Nintendo does seem to be giving the DS a pretty good send off.  Two of the final games for the system are Professor Layton and a new Kirby. Professor Layton and the Last Specter is as fantastic as all the other installments but not much is actually new to the gameplay.  Although, really, I can’t begin to imagine how they could change it without ruining the game. Kirby on the other hand seems to be a new take on the series.  This installment takes the platform to a new level by mixing in what they have deemed realtime strategy.  What it looks like to me is more using the new powers at the right time. The new power is the ability for Kirby to split into multiple Kirbys.  Basically the idea is very similar to The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventure but on a larger level.

The Wii titles this year were also pretty scarce.  I don’t think this is a sign of the Wii coming to an early end but it does make me think the transition is going to be very abrupt when the time comes. The big game was still The new Legend of Zelda title, but three other games caught my eye just as much. The first is Kirby and maybe it isn’t well known but Kirby is a powerhouse in my book.  This installment seems to revert back to the older style of inhaling enemies and stealing their powers. The addition of extra powers is also very exciting. The more exciting news is the multiplayer to the extent of having four players at once.  The only thing is the non-Kirby players most likely function in a different way. I wish that there had been more shown in this regard. The other two exciting games are Mario Party 9 and Fortune Street. Both games are board game style games. The announcement of Mario Party 9  surprised me as Wii Party seemed to be the new direction.  I’m actually happy this isn’t the case.  The other game Fortune Street is Square Enix’s take on the board game using Dragon Quest and Mario characters. This one has potential for the Monopoly fan and plenty of opportunities to annoy others.  The game seems to focus on real-estate and stock style strategy.

Overall, the main game news seems to have been saved for the 3DS.  At the same time the news on the DS and Wii are nothing to laugh at or ignore. Though at the same time it is probably safe to assume that next year’s E3 will have few, if any games for the Wii and almost no chance for DS games.

Well this couldn’t be further from the truth.  The game removes the college as the hub for everything; instead you have boxes that hold the movies.  Within each movie, there is a giant hub where things are gradually unlocked and this is definitely where the problems begin.

The hubs also have minigames and hidden areas, which is the only way to unlock everything.  Most of these are so obscure that unless you use a walkthrough you will be searching for hours on end.  Now some are fun and simplistic, like the ones where you grab a specific vehicle and race around.  Although, these aren’t even perfect as the vehicles are difficult to control and the view does not zoom out enough to see where the next marker is, those problems aside I still like running things down in a vehicle.  Other areas that need to be unlocked are only accessible by using the flying vehicles to parachute into, which I guess seems intuitive, unless you don’t realize there are flying vehicles.

Other minigames needed to achieve 100% require you to go back into the main levels. Since this is the first LEGO game to have a different level inside a level you already played, it is initially very confusing.  On top of this, the levels are darkened the second time through making it difficult to discern parts of the level at times.  Some levels call for this change based on what happens in the main story missions but other times it is unnecessary and annoying.  The good thing about these levels is that it lets you know the types of characters you need, rather than just making you go in and out till you figure out exactly what you need.

The good news is that, other than the vehicles, the controls carry over well from the previous game.  The characters that are in the game for the most part make sense to have, while others such as zombie mannequins don’t make much sense.  The vehicles, since most function similarly, can be a lot of fun.  I mean really who doesn’t want to drive a refrigerator around in the desert.  The flying vehicles are also a convenience if you need to get around the hubs faster.

The stories are what confuse me the most.  I understand that for younger audiences Crystal Skull is the freshest in their minds, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be divided into three parts while the other movies are boiled down to one abridged segment.  For how much people bad mouth Crystal Skull, it surprises me that it is given so much importance.

Overall, the game is good.  It would have been better if this was the first one and the other was the second so you would see an improvement.  That seems mean but I do love the original trilogy and this one just seems over the top and being presented as LEGO doesn’t help its case.

Story wise, there is one but it’s weak and really just superfluous.  This game is clearly all about playing with some friends at a party.  The games are easy to pick up for this reason and somewhat addictive. Now on the flip side, the one player game is just as easy to pick up but super repetitive.  You just play through the same tournament, same games, over-and-over with minimal difficulty increase.  The only reward to doing this is unlocking additional characters.  The most of these characters are colour variations of Toad or Yoshi.  However, the gems among these unlocks are characters from Square Enix games including the ninja, white mage, black mage, and moogle from the Final Fantasy series.

The levels are probably what add the most to the game.  Each level has its quirks and fun but once you get use to them they only add so much.  The areas are rather compact so there is only so much to add in this way.  Like the characters, more of these locales are added as you play through the one player game.

Unfortunately, these unlockable characters are barely enough to hold out for.  Once you’ve played the games once, there really isn’t a huge reason to go back.  Now to avoid this lack of change there is an online mode, for those lacking local friends. The good news is that simply by playing enough games you can also unlock the extra characters.  So really just let the good times roll and just play with friends.

Now the controls are incredibly simple.  For the most part you could play the entire game just flicking your wrist.  Now there are two options, which is to either hold the remote like a classic controller or use the nunchuk.  I suggest the nunchuk as at this point it seems more natural but that’s up to the player.  The nunchuk style lends itself to a lot more variety but the weird thing is there isn’t much.  In fact, once you learn to play one you pretty much know how to play them all.  In fact this really only adds to the redundancy that is already there.

In the end, this is a really weak Mario offshoot. I guess till one of the classic sports games comes out then we’re stuck with this one, but it is probably better to skip this one.

Mama says, “Remember, never shake the baby.”

A lot of people point out the Cooking Mama games as reinforcing gender roles. This is probably true but the games are never the less ridiculously addictive. Babysitting Mama, the first non-cooking centric game of the series on the Wii, continues the awesome addiction of the previous games. This one is simply mini games revolving around taking care of babies.

Now if you’ve played one of the other games they make sense to use a remote or stylus as a knife or grating cheese, but this one doesn’t make sense at first. Well in this case the game comes with a new peripheral in the guise of a stuffed doll. The doll has a pocket in its back that the Wii remote goes into as a baby sensor basically. The game is the price of a regular game so it is nice that the baby doesn’t make the game significantly expensive like some peripheral dependent games.

Now not every level requires the baby so it isn’t just rocking or holding the baby. Some utilize a connect nunchuk to perform tasks such as changing the baby, feeding the baby, or doing other aiming based games. The nunchuk levels tend to be the easier. This is mainly because the remote in the doll is either not sensitive enough or too sensitive. The over sensitivity is because this game super emphasizes not to shake babies. This is to the extent that every loading page says not to do that. Then if you try to over compensate to avoid the shaking menu then you don’t even register movement. This problem is maybe fixable with the motion plus. Though I guess we won’t know because it is not compatible with the game.

No, no, no! Please don't shake the baby!

Each game judges your completion or how well you did by awarding a bronze, silver, or gold. This is done till the level is over and then you get one based on your average. Well not really based on your average because anything that isn’t perfect isn’t a gold. This can get annoying if you want gold because you have to play through all the mini games in a level to fix just one bad one. As a completionist this can get tedious as the games can get a bit repetitive. Completion wise, you’re mainly unlocking more mini games and new babies to play with. Other then that you also unlock cute pics of the babies to look at later but this isn’t super important. In fact, all of these things can be unlocked earning bronze so no real challenge in that aspect. If you finish playing with each baby there is a babysitter training mode where you can replay the mini games in a much harder mode. This you can also earn medals on though at times they seem nearly impossible.

Graphically the game carries on the series style of chibi style characters. This actually really sells this game’s cuteness and even the doll is made to this style. The sound also has a very cheery feel to it. Well except the Wii remote which is constantly making baby noises. This isn’t the most pleasant thing when the baby is crying and not really even when it is laughing.

Good babysitters never shake the baby.

Other than the control issues the game is a lot of fun. If only girls play this game, a lot of guys are missing out on a fun game.