a.k.a. Catching up on video games! Wheeee! I'm gonna do a link dump, sorry, it's been so long and I've been bookmarking so many things.

Dino Run - Escape the pyroclastic wall of doom and find your dino sanctuary! (Their words, not mine.)

Typeracer - Race other players by typing super fast! My average is like 120wpm, think you can beat that? Mueheheh.

Penny Arcade: Life Strategies - Exactly the reason why I have such a hard time with the Grand Theft Auto games - TOO MANY OPTIONS!

MGS4 PS3 Bundle - Add this to my list of things that I want to spend my government check on. A copy of MGS4 and a matching gunmetal-gray PS3 to boot. Sweet!

Halotography - I may not be the biggest Halo fan, but I find that Halo-inspired art is pretty amazing.

Custom Cooking Mama Apron Trumps Official Swag - The apron is awesome, but I am kind of happy with my all-yellow apron with matching pink checkered bandana that I searched high and low for in Taiwan. And I plan on bringing back the Cooking Mama Challenge, so look for exciting recipes soon!

More bunny fun here.

And lastly, my favorite bit of news, did you hear the rumor that Earthbound might be released for the Virtual Console? I mean, sure you can play it on your emulator already, but to play it on the big screen! (Okay I guess you could hook up the computer to a big monitor, and use a USB controller, whatever). Either way, I am excited, because that means Nintendo is giving Earthbound attention, and maybe they'll bring Mother 3 over! Pretty please?

Posted on May 15, 2008 9:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's the final stretch of the semester, aaand that means I'm whipping out the video games! So I went to my local Family Video and rented some Wii games ^_^ Here are my thoughts:

Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree - I absolutely loved Big Brain for the DS, so I had high expectations for the Wii version. You have to solve puzzles as accurately and quickly as possible to get a better score, and ultimately get a bigger brain. And it was a lot of fun, but I think the fact that you had to point the Wiimote at the screen kind of threw things off... It was tiring to keep holding it up. But other than that, I thought the puzzles were a lot of fun, and they worked really well on a TV screen. And the best part was that my friend who isn't very video game inclined played the solo games for a few hours straight while I took a nap!

Rating: 8 out of 10

Kororinpa: Marble Mania - In this game, you treat the Wiimote like a balance board, and you turn it this way and that to navigate a ball throughout a maze. There was just something about this game that kind of... made me not want to keep playing. It was frustrating, but maybe it's because with the Wiimote, you have a TON of control, and I just don't have that steady of a hand ^_^ I didn't get too far into the game, so I didn't get to any of the crazy stages that I've read about in reviews. Maybe I'll give it another try in the future, but for now, I'll stick with the Super Monkey Ball series ^_^

Rating: 5 out of 10

Posted on April 24, 2008 6:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Miraculously, I haven't touched video games in almost a month! Sure I've played the occasional Guitar Hero at the bar on Monday nights, but actually sitting down to play a game... well I don't even know what that's like anymore. And I should be thinking - I've kicked my video game addiction! I am stronger than most! But actually I'm kind of depressed. I need some kind of heavy RPG to get me back in the swing of things.

I have a few games that I've never touched - Super Paper Mario, Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, MGS3 that someone is letting me borrow, Chrono Cross, which one should I start with? Hm... Either way, hopefully playing some games will make me interested in video game news, because I'm kind of bored with all the news that's been floating around lately. Or maybe I'm just not interested in the games that are coming out. Sigh, apathy...

The only interesting news I've heard of lately is this: the launch of Greenhouse, which is the combined forces of the guys at Penny Arcade and Hothead Games. Greenhouse is an online hub for digital games created by independent developers, and the first game for sale will be (what else?) Penny Arcade's Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness (currently with no release date). I'm all for indie games! Hopefully they will all come at a pretty cheap price.

Also, the best Mario Bros. rendition to hit the nets yet:

Posted on April 24, 2008 6:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sorry for the hiatus on Kawaii Gamer, I've spent the past three weeks or so polishing up my portfolio, a.k.a. my soul for the past two years, for our graphic design review. It's due Tuesday, and then I can fiiiiiiinally get back to my regularly scheduled programming. Just so I don't leave you all empty-handed, here are some excellent procrastination tools. Enjoy!

Pattrns: A matching game that is a lot harder than you think. I'm pretty sure that after playing this game, I'm at least a hundred times smarter by how much my brain hurts.

Free Rice: Learn new vocabulary, put off all your work, AND save the world! Define words correctly to donate rice through the UN World Food Program to help end hunger.

Ego Orb In Space: Since we're never going to get Mother 3, you can instead play this game that those guys over at Starmen.net have made. Still in beta though.

Posted on April 11, 2008 4:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Is it possible for someone to play a game for so long that they start getting flashbacks of areas in the game like they actually visited the places? Or that a game is animated so well that it feels like real life? Is it strange to say that I've been getting flashbacks of Rabanastre? I like... miss the place.

Posted on April 2, 2008 6:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Castle Crashers and all 22 of its adorable unlockable characters (via Destructoid)

Summon Night: Twin Age and the cute chibi-characters (ignore the ridiculous midi music) (via 4 color rebellion)

Red Alert 3 and the gorgeous machine renderings (wow, I missed Red Alert 2...) (via Game | Life)

Patapon, the cute rhythm-slash-battle game for the PSP (via Game | Life)

And last, but very far from being the least, Machinarium, the latest offering from the people who brought us the enchanting Samorost series. (via Wonderland)

Posted on March 19, 2008 3:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's funny - gas prices are skyrocketing, consumer goods are getting more expensive, I'm still getting paid close to minimum wage, and yet I find that I am spending more liberally with my money. Why is that? Am I delusional, and have convinced myself that I am a rich socialite? Or do I want to have a lot of toys to play with once we're in a second Depression? Either way, I randomly purchased Advance Wars: Days of Ruin yesterday, even though the $35 could have gone to my empty gas tank. Sigh...

Here are other things that I shouldn't purchase anytime soon:

A custom paint job for my DS Lite from Colorware (and matching iPod and MacBook Pro)

This blingtastic Wii covered with Swarovski crystals

A stay at Hotel Sax in Chicago to play in their XBox 360 gaming lounge

A copy of the awesome Sam and Max graphic novel

I'm so poor.

Posted on March 19, 2008 2:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So I reserved my copy of Brawl this Friday (I'm surprised I found a copy!), and it's 4 minutes to midnight. I have spent half an hour deciding whether it's worth the effort of digging my car out of 15 inches of snow and driving down possibly unplowed roads to get this game. I... don't know. I want this game, but I also want to live...

edit: Well I fought off the angel on my shoulder and made the trek to GameStop. Needless to say, they were closed. Too bad, I wanted to kick some high school butt with my tried-and-true Yoshi Roll, haha. (No idea if that move is still in the game...) Well I picked it up this morning, and I'm off! I will finally get good at Smash, just you wait!

Posted on March 8, 2008 11:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I... can't stop... playing Professor Layton...

I've always loved brain teasers, and I would describe this game as a collection of puzzles with some kind of murder plot mixed in. The music and animation style is gorgeous - think a mix of Miyazaki and Triplets of Belleville. There's even a character who looks exactly like the old club-footed woman! Ahh, I have really enjoyed playing this game. I even like the sound effects! The save jingle, the selection chimes, even the text scroll sound is soothing. I really hope video games eventually get rid of the annoying gibberish text scroll noise like in Animal Crossing. It was endearing when old RPG text scroll used to sound like squeaks and computer input noises, but I think we've evolved past that.

Speaking of games with great animation, American McGee, the person who made the awesome computer game Alice back in the day, is back with more demented children's stories! I've been following the Flickr album for American McGee's Grimm for a while now, and it'll be exciting to see it all come together. Here's a commercial for the upcoming game, which will be released on GameTap.

So the Game Developer's Conference just ended, and a fresh batch of games were debuted at the Independent Games Festival. Destructoid mentions an indie game called P.B. Winterbottom that is incredibly unique: "the player is simultaneously hero, villain, platform, and tool."

I think I kind of grasp the concept. There are obstacles in the game that are impossible to accomplish without the help of others, but seeing as you're the only character, you can record previous attempts and layer it with your new attempt, and thus creating a time paradox - it's craaaaazy! I'm excited for this game, but I have no idea if, when, or how it's going to be released.

So the 2D-3D game tactic is all the rage now. First there was Crush, then Super Paper Mario, and now there's Fez:

I'm thinking that they pretty much nailed it with switching dimensions. This was also debuted at the IGF, and I think it won the award for Excellence in Visual Art. And rightly so. Man, I am really loving where video games are headed. Forget all the realism crap; illustration FTW! Also, I am really digging the music in that trailer! I hope it's in the game ^_^

Posted on February 23, 2008 10:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

For your viewing pleasure...

Okay, I'm done with my lazy posts for this week! ^_^

Posted on February 16, 2008 11:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)