Preview: Resident Evil: Revelations.

3DS continues to stay on the right track by introducing demos for games in their eShop (now if only they would tidy up the format, we'd really be in business). Regardless, the 'Shop in question has introduced a demo of Resident Evil: Revelations.

I gave up playing the demo for RE5. It just felt frustration and too non-Resident Evil for me. And don't even get me started on that stupid knife....

Yet here I am with a new game, and I liked this one.

The first thing I noticed is that the "claustrophobic" feel from the original game is back. Cramped corridors, that sense of dread in opening a new door, random beasts jumping out of you while inside a room. I don't know what to make of the new creatures in this game, but they were far more inspiring, and I uttered an expletive or two as I ran out of ammo and had to run (okay, so I'm a terrible shot).

The "scare" feeling was back. The tension felt higher instead of "Oh geez, another nasty looking thing shambling towards me." My time was hoping that the next door I opened wasn't going to have some awful thing behind it. And I liked it.

The graphics are wonderful, and really show off what a little powerhouse the 3DS is. The 3D also works well. Nothing major is added, but a nice amount of depth and perspective to objects makes things "pop". Subtle and unobtrusive, but effective. Control is decent and not robotic. Of course, I didn't play the game with the extra circle pad, but the default setting is manageable. Even the voices and music are great.

The most striking thing about the game is how much it felt like the very first title. The feeling of isolation and dread, the creeps around every corner, and the horrible feeling associated with getting surrounded or having to resort to just a knife. This is one of those moments of "old is new", and the return to form is welcome.

The demo is short with just a few rooms. Just enough to whet the appetite before showing off a nice cut-scene and fade to black.

Whatever kick started the 3DS into "awesome" territory keeps moving forward with what looks like to be a really good Resident Evil game. I passed on the Mercenaries title, but this one may actually be to good to pass up.

Fight Against SOPA.

I normally don't add much of a non-gaming slant to my blog, but SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) is threatening to take away our freedoms regarding the internet, and entertainment media. And yes, that includes video games.

Essentially, the government can control what we can and can not view. We could be held liable for lawsuits in posting pictures of intellectual properties (simply posting a picture of Zelda on your blog? Nintendo would be able to sue you for it).

The problem is, while putting a stop to piracy is an understandable enough desire for businesses as our world's media becomes more and more digital, it's so broadly, vaguely, and poorly written that freedom of speech would pretty much just dry up and die when it comes to the internet. The government would control the internet, how it's run, and what would be allowed to put online. It's a staggeringly unconstitutional proposal.

A huge amount of sites are opposing it: Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Amazon, AOL, Reddit, Mozilla, LinkedIn, IAC, eBay, PayPal, Wordpress and Wikimedia. Even our President and his administration refuses to support this monstrosity.

If you're interested in the January 18th movement, more information can be found HERE.

I do not want the internet to look like this:

CES 2012.

Honestly, I don't know why all the gaming blogs and websites really talk about CES. To be perfectly candid, it barely has anything to do with video games at all.

Mostly, CES is about HD and 3D TVs, car audio, cases to protect your phones and tablets, and a few other things. It's like a high end flea market, though the feel of going booth to booth and seeing the same thing only slightly repackaged in each one never seems to really escape you.

There was some video game stuff, however. Sony had about 8-12 Playstation 3 games tucked away on a tiny walkway, and Microsoft was promoting Kinect the same as they did last year. If there was anything else, it was impossible to find, and let me tell you: I walked a significant portion of the show floor between the Convention Center and the Venetian, and even went up a few floors. It's not like the Nintendo Powers of old, or the second coming of E3. And I didn't expect it to be. But with gaming consoles becoming more multimedia outlets, is that not the very definition of "consumer electronics"? At an expo, no less.

Strangely, my most exciting experience came on a personal level. It was by mere random chance (and a random Facebook update complaining about the sketchiness of the expo's wi-fi. Seriously? CES is going to have sporadic wi-fi?), that I ran into a cousin of mine that I haven't seen in over 20 years. Seriously, we used to play together as children, and with a well placed tip, I actually recognized the guy, now all grown up (as he's around my age), and of all the places to have an impromptu family reunion with someone not seen in over two decades. Crazy....

And I did get a few StreetPass dings on my 3DS, which wasn't as many as I hoped for. I got about a dozen, which, at CES, I kind of thought I would have found more. Again, CES. People from all over the world, and it was kind of a bust.

Anyway, it was a lot of walking, a lot of repetition of products, and two very sore feet. But hey, now you know what "magic" you missed this past week.

Quick Update.

It has been a super busy week for me with work, but I wanted to check in as I know I have a lot of info. to update, including my week's trip to CES (Don't get too excited. You'll understand why after my report, but there was a personal surprise for me, which I'll detail because it's fun).

I will say that in bringing my 3DS to CES this week, I didn't get quite as many StreetPass tags as I would have hoped over the last three days (about a dozen), or as many regions added to my locations list (2 new states here, and 2 regions of Japan), but at least I can take my 3DS out and finally get signs of life on the thing. I'm sure Christmas helped matters a lot.

Also, Zen Pinball (thanks to SuperPhillip for reminding me that it's NOT Pinball FX as found on the Xbox 360). It's available for download on the 3DS as of today (for us in the States), and finally, Nintendo has allowed for an online system to be properly implemented in a game. If you download it, we can all attempt to crush each other's scores. The 3DS downloadable lineup is still limited, but it's been consistently good lately. And this is another winner.

More this weekend, and "Hello" to my new readers!

Revising A System.

It's amazing how a system update can either make or break a system. For this particular entry, I can actually site an example of both. In this case, I wanted to discuss the differences between the new Xbox dashboard versus the 3DS update.

I've been on the fence about Microsoft's "evolution" with the Xbox. Between the introduction of Kinect, and the attempt to recreate the nuances of the Wii (one system that NEVER updates, and at this point, never will), they've broken down the easy to navigate style, and somewhat utilitarian functionality of the Dashboard. Certainly, it was simple, but it was to the point. Something that I appreciated.

The last updates change introduced a lot of "whooshing" sound effects to every motion you made (which was thankfully able to be disabled), and while different, was manageable enough to compensate for and become familiar with. I wasn't a huge fan of 2010-2011's look in comparison to previous years, but "eh". What can you do?

I do not like the new interface. At all.

At this point, I sound like a broken record. Or perhaps I'm more set in my ways than I care to admit. But ads seem more prominent, menus seem more difficult to navigate (perhaps being designed more a more full Kinect interface), button interfaces have been switched around, and then there's the true bane of my existence. The one app that just kills me.

Netflix.

Full of sound effects, bizarre menus, and the new hair-wrenching instant start that, if there's a way to disable it, please someone message me in comments. I've been trying to finish off the remaining episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation that I've never seen, and trying to cycle through the unpleasantly changed menu, having to stop to pause the force-played episode that I didn't call up, and God forbid that I ever press "B" by accident as that sentences me to restart the whole process again. Netflix created enough problems last year with their bizarre price hike. This isn't helping matters.

Honestly, I dislike the new Dashboard experience so much that I second guess myself at times if I really want to endure all the hassle in powering on my Xbox. Astoundingly complex in attempted simplicity. What were they thinking? Sad part is, I have a lot of games on the system that I need to finish.

By contrast, the 3DS update fixed a HUGE number of issues, and added all new features.

For StreetPass alone, a sequel to Find Mii was added, new puzzles, an achievement and tagged region system was added, as well as a jukebox.

3D video play was also added, in addition to SwapNote, which finally allows Users to communicate with each other over a Nintendo system. Also impressive is the ability to see which friends are playing what. It's nothing new as it's been on other systems for years, but on a Nintendo system? This actually rates as "impressive".

All of this was preceded by the Ambassador Program finally coughing out those 10 Game Boy Advance games. So in terms of an update, this actually moved the system forward, as opposed to bogging it down. Nothing revolutionary, but for Nintendo, this signifies the biggest step they've ever taken in actually treating online as a serious feature.

Nintendo finally gets it, and Microsoft needs to stop pretending to be a system that they are not, and don't need to be. Certainly any system is only worth the games it possesses, and both systems offer strong, enjoyable titles, but how you access them is part of the process that needs to be accessible.

VVVVVV: Post-Script.

While I still have a few "End of Year" games to discuss, after having beaten(!) VVVVVV, I had to talk about it.

The above mentioned title, with its six consonants, is very similar to the other punish-fest Super Meat Boy. Both have simplistic graphics, both have catchy music, and both games have you dying. A lot. A LOT.

Players step into the anti-grav shoes of Captain Viridian as he looks for his lost crew in this dangerous and unstable dimension. The graphics are monochrome and very simplistic, not unlike a Commodore 64 or early computer games. All of this, of course, is just a backdrop for the gameplay, but the characters have a charming appeal to them regardless.

The game itself is there to beat you senseless, however. It's all purely a matter of timing, or figuring out the fiendish trap that the room lays out before you, or just simply being fast enough. And yet, for the number of times that I did in any given room, I never felt cheated, and it never felt unfair. This wasn't BS design. This was challenge, and it puts a platformer enthusiast's skills to the test. The game does not hold you hand. It expects you to learn it. Or better yet, understand it. There were some rooms that the little Captain just could not get through. And yet, in one shining moment of clarity, the room began to make sense, and the escape from it was rewarding. The plentiful checkpoints keep the mental and emotional "Rragggh die" moments to a minimum.

The 3D effect in this game is minimal. Just a tiny bit of depth perception that doesn't drastically change the game's look, but it is noted, and is merely just a pleasant little touch.

As noted, the music is a highpoint of the game, as it's very catchy and pleasant to cruise through the game to. Even when not searching for crew members or trinkets, exploring the game's world was pleasant, and the anti-grav mechanic never got tiresome for me. A little stressful during some of the more tense traps, but manageable due to the clever nature of the design.

For the 3DS eShop taking forever to find its footing, it's been fairly consistent of late in terms of putting out quality, fun titles. I hope this recent distribution is the norm and not the exception, and Nintendo has truly learned from its mistakes regarding digital distribution on the Wii and DSi. VVVVVV is a good old "Nintendo Hard" hop 'n' bop that is probably the most creative and fair-minded "punishment" program I've played in a while. Sure, the game has no problem in killing your diminutive Captain hundreds, if not thousands of times, but hey, at least it's entertaining.

My Console Choice Of 2011.

I won't get into the history of the 3DS' launch, or the painfully dry Summer that followed it. I've covered that time and time again, and really, there's not much to say about it. The console launch was so bad that Nintendo price dropped the system less than six months after launch. And Nintendo never drops the price on anything these days. So for them to do that is a pretty telling sign of how bad things were going.

And yet, it's my favorite gaming gadget of 2011.

For you see, despite all of its missteps this year, once it found its footing, the system positively ran with itself. That's not to say Pilotwings and Nintendogs, Street Fighter IV and Lego Star Wars III were bad games, because they weren't (I took advantage of those Toys R Us launch sales). But they lacked something. Sure they showed off 3D, and it was neat, but there was just something missing. The supposed launch showcase title, Kid Icarus: Uprising, went MIA until next year.

Not to mention that the system itself felt incomplete. The eShop finally took off in late Summer, activating a StreetPass feature was a rarity (though I did hit gold one day during a Disneyland visit), and of course a combination of Nintendo's apocalyptic warnings, and news media exaggeration made the "3D headache" issue seem like the 3DS was going to kill your children Scanners style if they dared to look at the 3D with the slider all the way up.

Finally after E3, the eShop opened up with a free Pokedex and Excitebike, a tiny handful of Virtual Console games (where are the Game Gear and Turbo Duo titles already?). But it remained silent for a long time after that.

And then Ocarina of Time came out. And Starfox 64.

The 3DS was decried as now being a "port" system with no new content, but it was two of the Nintendo 64's best, most beloved games with a beautiful visual overhaul. Was it really that bad?

And then things just got better.

One can't dismiss the potency of Super Mario 3D Land or Mario Kart 7, as both were excellent examples of what the system could do (and Mario is always a crowd pleaser on a Nintendo system). But third parties were actually putting out decent games. None of this sad sack "mini game" and "clone" regurgitation that the Wii suffered under for years. Actual franchise titles and games that don't usually appear that often on a Nintendo system are getting closer to release. Resident Evil? Metal Gear? Even Nintendo has a strong lineup for the beginning of next year, along with a continual line-up of quality games.

And then the eShop flourished. Actual 3D versions of classic NES titles (okay, and Urban Champion as well), but new IPs and characters such as Freakyforms and Pushmo, and other new potential franchise concepts down the line. Nintendo never seemed particularly motivated with WiiWare. They didn't really have character driven games, and not every game has to have Link and Mario in it. New twists on old concepts, and new characters prime for Smash Bros. sequels have genuine appeal.

Not to mention all the free content. It would have been easy to stiff early adopters for eating that initial high price, but they instead chose to give 10 free NES games, and 10 free Game Boy Advance games, not to mention a free Zelda game to celebrate the series 25th anniversary. Nintendo doesn't drop prices, and it definitely doesn't do free, yet here they are, throwing digital games out like candy, and they are generally all classic fan favorites (NES Tournament Golf is nigh unplayable, however).

Other additions added were easier, universal Friend Codes (finally), free channel applications, and two successive system updates that gave users 3D video, a free sequel to the RPG lite Find Mii, a unique chat system(!!) found via SwapNote.... What started as a barren, incomplete system now feels robust and lively.

To be honest, the 3DS represents the Nintendo I love. I struggled to find that feeling on the Wii on a regular basis, and while that system had some truly remarkable titles, the online was awful, Friend Codes were cumbersome, the digital shopping was awkward, then almost non-existant, and the Channel features were by and large useless and forgettable options.

In its first year, the 3DS has flooded me with beloved titles, a better feeling of community previously unheard of on a Nintendo system, the resurrection of classic titles and franchises with a new coat of paint and ideas, and so much to play with that I've had trouble keeping up these days. I can take walks to earn new features and extras to play my games. I can send pictures and drawings to friends. I can watch TV shows and movies on the go, and I can open Nintendo Video for a stream of random, sometimes cool content. I can look forward to new ideas, as developers seem to "get" this system a lot easier that the Wii, and the graphics are well presented and easy on the eyes despite its novel approach.

So that's why I'm choosing the 3DS as my "Console Choice For 2011". The initial failing of the system seems to have benefited the gamers the most, as it seems to have snapped Nintendo out of that lazy reverie they coasted through with the Wii's success, and put them back into focusing on making great gaming experiences for people who love to play video games. All my issues with the Wii have been largely addressed and corrected with the 3DS.

Perhaps a Nintendo not on an unchallenged cruise control winning streak is the best sort of Nintendo to have around.

Mario Kart 7: Post-Script.

There's no gentle way to say it, so I'll just say it.

I absolutely hated Mario Kart Wii.

Sure, it had some interesting tracks, and the Wii Wheel was amusing, as you would want motion control in a game like this, but I couldn't not fathom the dishonest difficulty. There was nothing worse than being in first place, only to be blue-shelled into oblivion into last place, as Toad merrily zipped past you. The "punishment" doled out for skilled players was unbalanced, unreasonable and frustrating, even against the computer, of all things. It was one blue shell too many that made me set down my controller to walk away and never look back.

Sure the blue shells are in the 3DS version, but they don't seem to enrage me as much.

Mario Kart 7, perhaps the least inspired of the named titles in the franchise, is actually good fun, and a throwback to more of the regular DS version (my favorite in the series). There's a little bit of difficulty wonk, but at least I feel like I have a chance to recover, and in some cases, can. That's all I really asked for.

The 3D is a nice effect in the title. Nothing outrageous, but nice enough to add depth, though the new Rainbow Road was a real "Wow" level for me. From magazine/online previews, I wasn't fully impressed with the graphics, but the game looks much better in person and in motion. The music is pleasant and inoffensive. The older fare stuck out to me more, however.

The game itself controls really well. The analog pad works very well for turning, and the whole game feels responsive and fun. When falling off a cliff, it feels more like a bad driving choice, than some questionable control flaw. The real fun comes from the gliding/diving mechanics, which encourages players to explore possible new paths and shortcuts. Kart customization is also an added benefit, as the new upgrades can make the difference in a race.

There are also a good handful of retro themed levels (not the company, though they did work on the game as well) that add this new exploration element, and the levels that they chose were among some of my old favorites, like Luigi's Mansion and Waluigi's Pinball. Amazing, but true, the game also offers a robust online mechanic, from finding other racers to StreetPass.

For a starved system during its first few months, the 3DS is now overflowing with quality titles, and this is one of them. And best of all, the more agreeable difficulty renders my urges to smash my TV, then punch someone in the face from AI cheating into non-existent territory.

I'm glad that Nintendo finally restored the franchise to form. I don't mind losing, but I also don't want to be punished for having a vague idea of how to play the game beforehand.