Weekly Gaming: Pullblox World (Wii U)
Given how much I loved the original Pullblox (it was called Pushmo in america, and is different in different territories) I couldn’t wait to get my hands on a Pushmo for the Wii U. What I’d lose in portability I’d certainly make up for in visuals and the sheer quantity of puzzles to solve. Suffice to say, Pullblox World met me expectations, and even advanced on them. First up, the game is no different than the 3DS version that I reviewed many years ago. You play as Mallo, a little red sumo wrestler character that must save children that have managed to get themselves trapped on top of elaborate structures. These structures can only be pulled out a maximum of 3 spaces, meaning it’s up to your own ingenuity to discover the best method (and sometimes only method) of getting to the top of the puzzle and rescuing the children.…
Weekly Gaming: Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival (Wii U)
I’m a massive fan of Mario Party. That is no surprise to those of you who know me, what is a surprise is how much so. It’s strange I know, especially for a series that evokes such hatred and love from it’s simplistic mechanics. In fact, there’s something about video board games that truly hits the spot for me. Maybe it’s the fact that no matter how much bad luck you have in rolling virtual dice you still have a chance to get points back with your skill, or even the randomness of it all, there’s something enthralling about playing a good video board game with friends or family. So, with that in mind, let me tell you about a little game that was on sale (for £15!!!!) for the Wii U called Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival. Amiibo Festival, as the name implies, revolves entirely on Amiibo’s being placed on the…
Weekly Gaming: Splatoon (Wii U)
Having seen the amount of commotion traditional games media was lavishing upon Splatoon, I decided to finally jump in head first and see what the fuss was about first hand. Finding the game for sale at £18 (which is rare! Splatoon hasn’t really had any price drops since it’s release), I brought it straight away without hesitation. Here’s my impressions. Splatoon, Nintendos first ever foray into the Third Person Shooter Multiplayer genre, see’s you play as a squid-kid, a hybrid kind of creature that looks like a kid majority of the time, but can also turn into a squid at will. Being a Squid-kid comes with it’s benefits: you’re able to spray your own ink all over the stage, and use it to traverse to places you wouldn’t normally be able venture to. This mechanic is very reminiscent of Super Mario Sunshine for the Gamecube, where Mario had to spray…
Weekly Gaming: Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
I say games are charming quite often on this blog, and with most of these games I usually see them in a positive light. A lot of indie games come under this category, mainly because their aesthetic is so fantastic and cute that it leaves an impression that bypasses the actual gameplay. In these instances, the gameplay could be horrendous, but with the aesthetics looking so damn gorgeous I proceed to overlook a few grievances that would otherwise degrade the experience as a whole (I still write about the gameplay problems, but my overall score may be slightly higher due to the aesthetics alone). Captain Toad manages to be both a charming game in the aesthetic department, as well as in the gameplay one. It’s combination of simple mechanics with oh-so troubling puzzles makes for one of the best experiences I’ve had playing with another person in a long time.…
Weekly Gaming: Super Mario 3D World (Wii U)
It’s genuinely insane how much adoration and annoyance I have for Nintendo games. On the one hand, they make absolutely charming games that are addictive for days, weeks, years even until you’ve collected everything a game has to offer. I remember doing just that with Super Mario 3D Land, collecting everything (yep, every single stage twice as Mario and Luigi + secret stages) the game had to offer. But my annoyance comes from the fact that they make the same games every generation of consoles, with the aesthetics being one of the only things they mix up with recent iterations (Yoshi’s Woolly World & Paper Mario come to mind). Thankfully, Super Mario 3D World is not one of those games, and as a consequence, is some of the most fun I’ve had on a Nintendo game since 3D land all those years ago. You see, whilst most other nintendo IP’s have…
Weekly Review: Bayonetta 2 (Wii U)
It’s weird to think that Bayonetta 2 may have never happened. Given the amount of praise the original got from almost every publication, you’d have expected the game to have sold well, but at ~2 million units sold, it didn’t make as much money as Sega would have hoped. Going from publisher to publisher trying to sell the premise of Bayonetta 2 was unsuccessful for the most part, until Nintendo stepped in at the last minute to fund the making of a second Bayonetta. It was a move that fans appreciated the world over, and I for one thank them after playing the masterpiece that is Bayonetta 2. The game starts out with Bayonetta Christmas shopping with her partner in crime following her every step. It’s here that something’s amiss, with angels coming down and attacking jets going through the city, prompting Bayonetta to jump into action to put a…