Nintendo Direct 3DS Summary

Iwata dons a Luigi hat.

Nintendo Direct ended a few minutes ago. Here's what you missed.

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata declared 2013 the "year of Luigi." Several games featuring Luigi were on display, including Luigi's Mansion, a new Mario Golf game, and a new game from the RPG series Mario & Luigi. The latter game is Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, in which Mario enters the world of Luigi's dreams.

Nintendo also teased some gameplay footage of Wii U and 3DS games, and set some release dates.

Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon -- March 24
Animal Crossing: New Leaf -- June 9
Lego City Undercover (Wii U) -- March 18
Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins -- April 21
HarmoKnight -- March 28

Nintendo also introduced new downloadable content for New Super Mario Bros. U -- where players control Luigi in new adventures -- and a 3DS port of the critically-acclaimed Wii platformer Donkey Kong Country Returns.

Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon

Animal Crossing: New Leaf

Mario Golf 3DS

HarmoKnight by Game Freak

Mario & Luigi: Dream Team

Nintendo Direct 3DS Tomorrow

Nintendo announced it will broadcast a Nintendo Direct for 3DS tomorrow at 9AM EST.

Nintendo previously broadcast a Nintendo Direct on January 23rd specifically for Wii U games. During that presentation, several games were announced, including a new 3D Mario, a new Mario Kart, a new Yoshi platform game, and a new RPG from Monolith Soft.

Games that might be mentioned tomorrow:

Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon
Animal Crossing: New Leaf
Pokemon X & Y
Project X Zone
Super Smash Bros.
Monster Hunter 4
Bravely Default
Fantasy Life

Watch here.

God of War: Chains of Olympus Review

Game: God of War: Chains of Olympus
System: PSP
Genre: Action-adventure
Developer: SCE Santa Monica, Ready at Dawn
Release date: March 4, 2008


Pros: Great production values, excellent control scheme
Cons: Screen tearing, simple puzzles


Smaller disc, smaller screen, same great experience. God of War may have been shrunken down for Sony's portable system, but very little of the series' greatness was lost in translation. Ready at Dawn did an excellent job recreating the console God of War experience on PSP, even improving the formula in some areas, most notably play control. The game looks great, it sounds great, and it performs well despite a few technical hiccups. All in all, it's a worthy addition to the God of War franchise and one of the best titles on PSP.

Chains of Olympus is a prequel to the original God of War. It tells the story of Kratos' servitude to the gods of Olympus and his mission to rescue the sun god Helios. Although the larger plot of Chains of Olympus is tangential, rarely intersecting with the main God of War mythology, there are several moments and scenes that fill in the gaps left over from God of War and God of War II. The writers at Ready at Dawn did a good job of making their game fit neatly (and naturally) into the main storyline.

Kratos explores a temple.

Speaking of Ready at Dawn: they did an excellent job bringing the world of ancient Greece alive on the PSP. Using an expanded version of its Daxter engine, Ready at Dawn made Chains of Olympus shine with outstanding graphics, water effects, light and shadow effects, and enemy artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, the game suffers occasionally from frame-rate drops and screen-tearing.

Ready at Dawn's greatest achievement, however, is its control scheme for Chains of Olympus. Moving from a control scheme using two analog sticks to a scheme with only one stick could have been a disaster for Chains of Olympus. But it's not. On the contrary, the PSP control scheme is arguably superior to its console counterpart.

Weapon and magic attacks are mapped out well around the PSP control setup.

One area where Chains of Olympus falters is puzzle-solving. Puzzles appear infrequently in the game. When they do appear, they are far too easy to conquer. Apparently several puzzles, along with characters and multiplayer options, were cut from the final game due to time restraints. Had they been added, Chains of Olympus might have been a fuller, more complete game. Even without, however, the game is excellent and easy to recommend.

Top 10 Video Game Franchises

As much as fans clamor for new IPs and fewer sequels, there's no doubt that long-standing franchises form the foundation of the video game industry. Mario, Grand Theft Auto, Gran Turismo, Call of Duty -- these are the game that are most coveted, these are the games that sell tens of millions of copies.

The purpose of this blog post is to rank the very best of these franchises. There is no precise formula to the ranking of the following list. Credit was given for total number of "recommended" games in a given franchise, the number of four-star games, and the number of games in the top three percent. I promise to revisit this list a year from now to see how things have changed.

But for now, these are the ten franchises most worthy of inclusion on such a prestigious list. All ten have provided consistence excellence for several years. Six of the ten series have at least one game in my all-time top ten games list; one series has two games.

Let's begin with a hugely popular, but also hugely criticized series: Call of Duty. It's become fashionable to dump on Call of Duty, even as its sales reach never-before-seen levels. Some self-described "hardcore" gamers dislike its "casual" appeal, but part of what makes Call of Duty so great is its accessibility. Almost anyone can learn the rules of Call of Duty, a military first-person shooter. Call of Duty owes a lot to Medal of Honor, which shares many of the same themes, mechanics, and mission structures. But Call of Duty made itself unique by telling war stories from several different vantage points. For example, in the first Call of Duty game, players control soldiers from the American, British, and Russian armies during World War II. This same format has been used in the Modern Warfare sub-series of Call of Duty, which took the franchise out of World War II and into the present.

Developers: Infinity Ward, Treyarch
Best game: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

All modern stealth action games owe something to Metal Gear, which popularized the sub-genre. Yet none of the games that followed -- Splinter Cell, Hitman -- have ever surpassed Metal Gear in quality. And the reason is simple: Hideo Kojima, who designed the very first game in the series and directed the big hits that succeeded it. Kojima is a genius, second only to Miyamoto in game design, and his signature series is Metal Gear. The game which defines the series is Metal Gear Solid, which debuted in 1998 on Playstation. In MGS, Kojima brought cinematic storytelling in video games to new heights -- the game unfolds like a Hollywood blockbuster. Kojima refined this formula in several sequels, always ensuring that cinematics, however prevalent in his games, never overshadowed gameplay.

Developers: Konami, Kojima Productions
Best game: Metal Gear Solid

What would first-person shooters be like without Halo? They wouldn't be as good, and they wouldn't be so popular on consoles. The first Halo game was a revolution: it helped Microsoft gain a foothold in the console market; it moved first-person shooters away from computers and onto consoles; and it introduced into the genre new mechanics that have been copied again and again. It's the best first-person shooter ever made. All the Halo sequels are excellent too, stacked with stellar production values, engaging single-player campaigns, and addictive multiplayer options. All in all, Halo is the best shooting series of all time.

Developers: Bungie, 343 Industries
Best game: Halo: Combat Evolved

Known as Biohazard in Japan, Resident Evil is the survival-horror franchise par excellence. It more or less invented the sub-genre in 1996. Resident Evil games can be neatly divided into two categories: the survival-horror games before 2005 in which players were underpowered and under-equipped; and the action-horror games after 2005. In the middle is Resident Evil 4, the best of the series and the game that reinvented the Resident Evil formula. It's a transcendent, brilliant action-adventure game that stands among the best games produced, but it's legacy is somewhat controversial. Resident Evil games became much more action-oriented after Resident Evil 4; it was only in 2012 with Resident Evil: Revelations that Capcom recaptured the sense of isolation and dread that defined the series in its early years.

Developer: Capcom
Best game: Resident Evil 4

So Capcom owns the best survival-horror franchise. But it also owns the best fighting franchise: Street Fighter. Apart from the premiere game, which is a total dud, the series has provided several great and near-great titles. The most important game in the series is Street Fighter II, which incidentally is one of the most important games ever made. It revivified the arcade industry, influenced a generation of fighting games, and paved the way for competitive multiplayer in video games. It was succeeded by Super Street Fighter II, the best of the series, and Super Street Fighter II Turbo, which is still played in competitive tournaments twenty years later.

Developer: Capcom
Best game: Super Street Fighter II

Created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, Final Fantasy is an evergreen role-playing game franchise beloved by many. Unlike some popular RPG franchises, games in the Final Fantasy series rarely follow the same characters or storyline. Typically each game introduces new worlds, new heroes, and new storylines, but retains the same overall structure that makes the series so enduring. Although the games after it improved upon the Final Fantasy formula, Final Fantasy II for the SNES went a long way toward introducing dramatic storytelling into role-playing games. Its successors -- notably Final Fantasy III and Final Fantasy VII -- built upon that foundation in order to weave moving, powerful stories into the series' addictive, challenging gameplay.

Developer: Square Enix
Best game: Final Fantasy III (SNES)

Like Resident Evil, Castlevania can be broken up into two phases: the period between 1986 and 1995, and the years after 1997. Whereas the first generation of Castlevania titles had been action platform games -- and good ones at that -- the generation that began after 1997 became something else entirely: a cross between action-adventure and role-playing game. The seminal game was Symphony of the Night, a Playstation game that changed forever the Castlevania formula. Instead of straightforward levels that focused on action and platforming, the series moved close to the Metroid formula: exploration, weapon upgrades, inventory management. The series also adopted role-playing elements. Heroes now had hit points and attributes like strength and defense, and could increase them by defeating enemies. This influenced an entire generation of Castlevania games, deemed "Metroidvania" because of the similarities to Nintendo's action-adventure franchise.

Developer: Konami, MercurySteam, Kojima Productions
Best game: Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow

Speaking of Metroid...here it is at number three. Be warned: if you're not a fan of Nintendo IPs, you're not going to like the rest of this list. Metroid might not be as popular or famous as Super Mario, Pokemon, and The Legend of Zelda, but it's a terrific franchise nonetheless. It's also an influential franchise. The first Metroid game was one of the first video games to employ a password system that allowed players to retrieve their progress. It also introduced a new level of exploration and backtracking to action platform games. Lastly -- spoiler alert! -- it revolved around a female protagonist. Since that premiere game, the series has evolved to become a top-tier franchise, with two games worthy of mention among the greatest of all time: Super Metroid (1994) and Metroid Prime (2002). What makes the series so special is its atmosphere and mood -- empty, claustrophobic, alien -- its rich mythology, and its heroine -- a strong, independent, honorable woman, fighting alone in the darkness of space.

Developer: Nintendo R&D1, Retro Studios, Team Ninja
Best game: Super Metroid.

What can be said about Super Mario? The first game in the series is probably the most important piece of video game software ever made, a title that resurrected an industry on the brink of collapse and made Japan the epicenter of the video game world. Almost thirty years later, the series is still the best platform franchise around. What's most remarkable about Super Mario is that it dominates both 2D and 3D platform games: Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Galaxy are two of the best and most groundbreaking 3D platform games; Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, and, more recently, New Super Mario Bros., are some of the very best 2D platform games. Even when the series strays from the formula -- e.g., Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Land -- the results are outstanding.

Developer: Nintendo EAD
Best game: Super Mario 64

Of all the many video game franchises in the world, The Legend of Zelda is the greatest. It's been the standard-bearer for non-linear action-adventure since 1986. The first game, The Legend of Zelda, changed video games forever by including a battery inside the cartridge that allowed players to save gave files. This opened up new possibilities for game designers; games could be bigger and longer, and didn't need to be completed in a single sitting. The series moved from 2D to 3D in 1998 with Ocarina of Time, generally considered the best video game ever made. It's successors -- Majora's Mask, The Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword -- are critically acclaimed. The series is constantly retooling and reinventing itself, introducing new mechanics and gameplay features that keep The Legend of Zelda fresh after 25 years.

Developers: Nintendo EAD, Capcom
Best game: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

ZombiU Bundle for Wii U

Nintendo confirmed today that it will release a third Wii U bundle this month.

Starting February 17, Nintendo will offer a Wii U ZombiU Deluxe set for $389.99. The bundle includes a black Wii U system, ZombiU, and a Pro Controller, and everything that's normally included in the Deluxe bundle: 32GB internal memory, charging stand, and membership in Nintendo's "deluxe digital promotion." This new bundle also includes a digital version of Nintendo Land and a ZombiU art book with developer commentary. It will be available in the United States and Canada.

Loom Review

Game: Loom
System: PC
Genre: Adventure
Developer: Lucasfilm Games (LucasArts)
Release date: January, 1990


Pros: Involving fantasy story, bewitching music
Cons: Short duration, cliffhanger ending

Evan

Set in a fantasy world with a substantial mythology, Loom is something of an aberration for LucasArts games. Most of its point-and-click adventure games were short on story but heavy on puzzle-solving. Loom could be described as the complete opposite. In Loom, the storytellers at LucasArts (then Lucasfilm Games) weave an elaborate tale of fantasy, swords, and sorcery and plug in some puzzles along the way. It's not nearly as challenging as The Secret of Monkey Island or Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Neither is it as long. Loom could easily be finished in a single sitting; it lasts somewhere between two and three hours. Yet, despite its brevity and its straightforwardness, Loom is an enjoyable adventure game with some bold and interesting ideas about the interaction between game and player.

Loom is the story of Bobbin Threadbare, a magic adept who lives apart from the community of "weavers," masters of spell-casting. The game begins on Bobbin's birthday, when things on Loom Island go horribly wrong. All of a sudden, Bobbin, who has lived under a dark cloud of prophecy his entire life, is thrust into a cataclysmic battle between the forces of order and chaos.

The beginning of a deep, fantastical story of revenge, death, redemption, and sacrifice.

The dark, sinister, and fantastical story of Loom is only one element of the game's strangeness. The mechanics of Loom are quite unlike other adventure games of the period. Instead of a typical interface, in which players solve puzzles by manipulating the game environment with a variety of tools, weapons, and items, Loom opts for an interface where all puzzles are solved with a single, magical item: a distaff. Bobbin's distaff is capable of playing "drafts," which are four-note spells. If Bobbin plays ECED, for example, he will "open" whichever item he is facing. It's an unorthodox system, but it works nicely in Loom. Players learn spells by "finding" them in the game world, and then use them to move forward in the game. The challenge is knowing which spell to use, in which order, and at what time.

As Bobbin learns new notes, he can weave more "drafts."

As in most LucasArts games, sound in Loom is an important element. Music is used sparingly, but effectively, and sound effects create a believable atmosphere. A sequence inside a giant forge is especially impressive. But the best auditory part of Loom is the voice acting. The actors who lent their voices to the game's characters obviously put great energy and conviction into their performances. Sure, it has a weird hodgepodge of stereotypical fantasy voices -- why are all the shepherds Scottish? -- but there is realness to the production.

So there's a lot to like in Loom. Is it too short? Definitely. Are its puzzles easy to conquer? Again, yes. But there is something very ambitious, very satisfying about Loom. One wonders how far it could have pushed the genre forward had it been allowed to evolve. Meanwhile, its players are left to wonder.

Loom Review -- Second Opinion

Beth

As many of you know, I had very little exposure to video games as a child. What I did play a lot of though, were Lucasarts adventure games. The first was The Secret of Monkey Island, and if any of you have played it you'll know that there's a little plug for "Loom" in it. Starved for more Monkey Island games in the early nineties, my parents bought Loom for me. To be honest, I don't remember much about it, except that we got frustrated (I played it with my mom) and gave up.

LucasArts teases Loom in The Secret of Monkey Island.

Recently I thought I'd give it another try, and was pleasantly surprised! In Loom, players step into the world of the Great Guilds and follow the story of Bobbin Threadbare, a weaver who is coming of age at a time of uncertainty. Loom is a standard Lucasarts point-and-click adventure, but instead of revolving around puzzles that require certain items, Loom is based on learning and using spells called "drafts" on your distaff. Bobbin makes his way through his world on a quest to follow the elders who have left Loom Island, and along the way learns new drafts and gains the ability to play higher notes, to help him on his journey.

Loom has a few stand-out features including music, which is a hallmark of The Secret of Monkey Island as well. Most interesting though, is Loom's story, which has an almost Tolkienesque depth to it. Apparently original copies of the game came with a 30 minute audio tape story that gave the history of the world of Loom and the formation of the Great Guilds.

Bobbin stands before the Great Loom.

Unfortunately I long ago lost my original game copy, but I would be curious to find a version of it online.Regrettably, Loom is a bit on the short side, and has a cliffhanger ending. There are conflicting reports, but the consensus seems to be that Loom was meant to be part of a trilogy which never came to fruition. Perhaps, now that Disney owns the rights to Lucasarts games, we might see a sequel... Doubtful however, so in the meantime the ending of Loom remains a bit frustrating.

Overall, Loom is a fun way to spend an afternoon and a worthy title in the Lucasarts catalogue of adventure games.

Resident Evil: Revelations Review

Game: Resident Evil: Revelations
System: 3DS
Genre: Action-adventure, survival-horror
Developer: Capcom
Release date: February 7, 2012


Pros: Best graphics on 3DS, return to classic RE gameplay, several engaging storylines
Cons: Frame rate drops


It's been tough times for the Resident Evil franchise for the past few years. The last two console games, Resident Evil 6 and Operation Raccoon City, received less than stellar reviews. And many fans are turned off because the most recent installments play more like high-octane action games than horror games. That's the bad news. The good news is that last year Capcom released a RE game for 3DS that breathes new life into the series. It carefully merges the action elements that define this new generation of RE games with the series' roots -- survival-horror. It's called Resident Evil: Revelations, and it's the second-best RE game ever made.

Revelations takes place between Resident Evil 4 and 5. It revolves around the adventures of Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, the heroes of the first Resident Evil game. Jill acts as the main protagonist, but players will be able to control Chris and several other characters throughout the game. The development team at Capcom decided that Revelations would not be narrated chronologically, but rather told through flashbacks and parallel storylines. As a result, players jump all around the world and backwards and forwards through time as the story progresses. Luckily, it's never confusing and the story keeps just enough information secret so that the player stays mentally invested.

Revelations is truly a return to the roots of Resident Evil, but it's not a complete return. The game belongs as much to the new generation as the old. Sure, there is less ammo and supplies and the scares come early and often. But there is a lot of shooting to be done in Revelations. Yet it works. Capcom seemed to borrow a line of philosophy from Epic Games' Gears of War: players alternate between feeling helpless, alone, and overwhelmed and feeling like a "bad-ass." This is certainly the case with Revelations. Episodes on a derelict cruise ship are creepy and claustrophobic, but episodes in other parts of the world are more thrilling than terrifying. So it's a healthy balance of action and horror. And Revelations is all the better because of it.

One of the most alluring features of Revelations is its MT framework graphics engine, which was designed specifically for 3DS. The graphics in the game look as good or better than any eighth generation portable software. Lighting effects, water effects, textures, and character models are all excellent. However, sometimes the high-powered graphics come at a cost: frame rate slowdown. It happens rarely, usually during transitions from one large area to another, but it's still an annoyance.

Jill Valentine fires at a monster.

So if the graphics are so good, they must look even better in 3D, right? Not exactly. When the 3D slider is turned to high, the 3D effect is maximized but the graphics engine actually shuts down some features, most notably anti-aliasing, which smooths rough edges. It points to something about Resident Evil Revelations that's worth nothing: it doesn't tap the full potential of the 3DS hardware. Now, this is not a negative per se, only an observation. The 3D effect is nice but inessential, and the touchscreen is used conservatively. Perhaps this is what will allow Capcom to port the game to consoles in May, as was announced last week.

In the end, it doesn't matter that Revelations doesn't unlock the potential of the 3DS -- perhaps if it had, it wouldn't achieve this level of greatness. Fans of the old Resident Evil will appreciate Revelations' commitment to horror, and fans of the new Resident Evil will be pleasantly surprised by the game's shooting mechanics. It features something for everyone, so everyone should try it, either on 3DS or on Wii U, PS3, Xbox, and PC in May.