Musically Inclined — Uniracers

At least stick around until the :40 second mark. Brace yourself for a radical guitar experience.

Among the list of great Nintendo games, it isn’t often that Uniracers is brought up. However, if you’re among the cool kids that did actually play it, you probably love it. Consider me part of the cool kids.

Growing up, I pumped a ridiculous amount of hours into Uniracers at a friend’s house – it’s one my favorite SNES racers.

I’ll toss this under the Musically Inclined tag because it’s why I originally came here. Curiosity got the better of my and I wanted to learn about the reception of Uniracers and why we’ve yet to see a Virtual Console port.

My adventure started (and pretty much ended) here.

Oddly enough, the game was a collaborative effort between Nintendo and Rockstar North (DMA Design at the time). Uniracers was highly praised and was apparently expected sale well had Pixar not interfered.

Pixar claimed the game copied the design of its 1987 animation Red’s Dream. They won the lawsuit which forced Nintendo to halt production at 300,000 units giving it no chance at further success.

Having now watched Red’s Dream, it’s a load of shit. Not the actual animation (which is good for its time), but the lawsuit part. Aside from both products being based around unicycles, the two share no similarities. I love Pixar movies, but what a dick move.

Now we’ll never see Uniracers return.

Watch Kirby, get happy

I’m not saying it’s going to be OMG GOTY or anything (but really, who’s to say), but Kirby’s Epic Yarn looks really good. It’s so damn adorable and charming it can make the deepest, darkest goth kid smile rainbows.

Nintendo released a trailer complete with a remix of the classic Kirby song and it’s delightful. It’s in Japanese, but I promise you aren’t missing out on key story elements because it’s goddamn Kirby.

There’s some new gameplay footage in there, too, so give it a watch.

As a side note, I find it a little odd that I’ll be getting two games with the word “epic” in the title, both on the same console and within the span of a few months. That’s really all I have to say on that subject, so yeah.

Kirby’s Epic Yarn comes out October 17, which is sooner than I realized. I guess I better start saving up my pennies.

Other, time to go!

Since I’ve been following it closely, it’s only fitting to remind everyone that Metroid: Other M launches today. Nintendo sent me a surprise yesterday with Other M arriving in my mailbox.

It wasn’t long ago that I reached out to a few publishers in hopes to get review copies for better, earlier coverage. It was mostly a failed attempt and sort of made me realize how miniscule this site is in the grand scheme of things.

Hell, Capcom wanted to know if I get more than 3 million viewers in a month. Bluntly: no.

Whether or not I’ll continue to get early copies, even if only by a day, certainly isn’t up to me. I’ll give Nintendo major props though, and I don’t mean for sending Other M to me. Before ever having a chance to be on a press list, I had to agree to give honest views and opinions, and that receiving a copy of a game wouldn’t sway my integrity.

Naturally it wouldn’t, but it’s refreshing to see a devotion to honesty.

So yeah, much to my delight Other M arrived at my doorstep yesterday. I’ve been anxious to see how it turned out and that day has finally come.

I sank around four hours into it yesterday, and naturally I’ve generated some opinions but I’ll save the final verdict for a review.

As a quick teaser: I’m having a lot of fun, but it’s not topping Super Metroid – not that many people expected it to.

Other M has its fair share of both Metroidy and non-Metroidy moments, but so far it’s been a damn good game regardless.

Super Meat Boy gets firm XBLA release date

It’s nice to have a 360 palate cleanser after the past two stories.

Back when Super Meat Boy was announced for WiiWare, it immediately made it into my coveted most-wanted list of games.

That feels like 10 years ago and it’s since been announced for XBLA with online features, an earlier release date, and, of course, HD graphics. My WiiWare SMB hype was quickly converted to XBLA SMB hype.

But goddamn is it taking forever to come out. Thankfully we’ve finally been given a firm release date of October 20 on XBLA. No word on when it’ll hit WiiWare.

Can’t. Flipping (patty joke). Wait.

Source

New 360 controller comes with better d-pad, higher price

Update: Controller launches November 9. That’s kind of important information.

As quoted from my wise brother, clearly Microsoft “must be hurting for cash.” The sarcasm is obvious, isn’t it?

Live is going up $10 and now Microsoft has this fancy new controller that features a d-pad that is, according to Microsoft, not complete shit.

Controllers are already expensive enough, but this “new” pad comes in at $65.

But wait! It’s packed with a Play & Charge kit so you’ll be rid of those pesky batteries for the two-month lifespan they’ve been known to have. Anecdotal evidence and all that, but those kits are shit in my experience.

Opting for a drab monochromatic color scheme, Microsoft has also sucked the life out of the control. Buttons come in a variety of grey and darker grey. Nelson points out the “cool” new look; I think it’s snooze-worthy.

I’ll give them this: the d-pad is interesting. Basically, it’s a normal 360 d-pad (the nasty disk design) but with a slight twist of the pad, the disk portion stays in place will the directional buttons pop up a bit. It’s hard to explain in words, but Nelson shows it off in the video up top.

If it does work, I’m not sure whether I’ll be happy or mad. Microsoft needs to make this d-pad standard on all controllers, not force its customers into spending extra money on a pricey one.

Seriously Microsoft, quit gouging your customers.

All that being said, this isn’t as bad as the Live ordeal because unless something crazy happens, Microsoft won’t be phasing out current controller models.

Microsoft asking $10 more for Live starting in November

You know what’s awesome about Xbox Live? It’s about to get more expensive!

Wait, that’s not awesome. That sucks.

Recent reports show that Microsoft pulled in absurd amounts of money via Xbox Live and all of its downloadable wonders has raked in, and the bigwigs want to take the profit just a little bit further. Corporate greed is a nasty thing.

Starting November 1 of this year a Gold membership will run you $60, a price hike of $10. But being the nice guys that they are (because they’re clearly looking out for us, right?), Microsoft is giving current subscribers a chance to renew for a full year with a 20 percent discount. It comes out to be $40, which is still $10 more than you’ll pay if you do a little shopping around.

Don’t be so quick to tout all the great upcoming services as if it somehow justifies the price hike, Nelson. We’re already paying for Live to be something beyond stagnant. There are ads, countless amounts of DLC, and the already existing $50 premium. All of this more than covers the costs of operation and the expected new features.

It’s not the end of the world, it just comes off as slimy.

Golden Sun coming to North America this year

Good news folks, Golden Sun: Dark Dawn is coming to North America this year. When it failed to show up on Nintendo’s recent list of 2010 games, I pretty much ruled out any chance of that happening.

I was surprised when Nintendo dropped me the press release confirming a November 29 release date for Dark Dawn.

I never picked up the sequel, but I did play a decent amount of the original before someone decided that it’d be fun to break into my vehicle and steal all my Game Boy Advance gear – I’m still pissed about that.

Bold prediction here: you’ll be just fine in Dark Dawn even if you’ve never played its predecessors, so I’m not too worried about trying to catch up or anything.

Here’s to hoping Camelot delivers on this long-awaited sequel.

The recently released trailer is reposted up top, go visit Siliconera for some new screenshots.

Rift: It’s got potential

With my interest in MMORPGs recently renewed, I’ve been looking hard at upcoming games within the genre. Unfortunately, I’m mostly interested in games incredibly far from release (EverQuest Next, the next Blizzard MMO, Project Copernicus).

Outside of Star Wars: The Old Republic, I haven’t found much else interesting – or rather hadn’t.

I stumbled upon once nice surprise called Rift: Planes of Telara.

I’d heard the name before, but I judged a book by its cover. It sounds like a generic free-to-play MMO so I was quick to write it off. Admittedly, I was wrong.

Rift has an interesting class system that seems a bit too daunting at first, but hearing how it works cleared things up a bit.

You start out with a basic class of Warrior, Cleric, Rogue and Mage and within that structure, you can get ridiculously customizable with the varying advanced class system.

So, a Rogue could spend some points souls into the Blade Dancer class for melee while also allotting points to the Ranger class for ranged attacks. Each basic role (Warrior, Cleric, etc.) has seven different sub-classes to branch out to.

I can’t say I know his full story, but I do know that Scott Hartsman is often associated with EverQuest 2’s evolution into a much better experience. Hartsman is now the COO of Trion Worlds, developer of Rift, lending a little credibility to a solid looking game.

I’ve still got a lot of digging to do on Rift, but don’t be quick to judge. While the name still fails to grab me, the game looks great.

Be sure to check out the video up top for a much better description of how the class system works. It helps that the game is gorgeous, too.

I say all this fully knowing that like so many MMOs before it, Rift could be a total disappointment.

Catherine trailer: Of sheep people and Japanese hip hop

Having heard a little about it and its creepy sheep people, I figured watching the Catherine trailer was a necessity. Now that I’m in the other side of it, I have a few questions I’d like to ask.

First off, what? It’s a weird ass trailer, but Andriasang helps clear it up a bit.

Catherine is a 360 and PS3 title from the Persona team, a first for them I believe. The trailer appears to mix a few different art styles, but based on the one or two clips of gameplay, the in-game assets look a little rough.

Before you go watching this video, I should warn you that while it doesn’t show anything too explicit, there are multiple scenes of sexy time in the trailer. So, you know, you might not want to watch it at work anything.

Catherine has my intrigued, even if I have no damn clue as to what’s going on. It seems interesting, and people seem to love what the Persona guys make so I’m sure this game will turn out alright.

Work on tightening up the graphics on level 3 though, they’re pretty ugly.

Musically Inclined — EverQuest

I’ve been stricken with an odd fever to play an MMO lately. It’s been a bit of a build up thanks to my friend finally convincing me Star Wars: The Old Republic is something I have to play. I was sent into overdrive when SOE announced the temporarily named EverQuest Next.

I started pondering which MMO to start exploring again. In the process, I may have resubscribed to the dinosaur that is EverQuest.

I’m not sure how to describe my relationship with that damn game, but an analogy with substance abuse and an inability to permanently quit would probably be appropriate.

It’s nothing too serious, I’m mostly just exploring the classic zones I love most. There’s still something special about EverQuest — I’m talking old world EQ – that continues to bring me back.

The load screen music that plays while readying you for Norrath gets my nostalgia flowing every time. With time too short for updates today, I figure it would make for a good Musically Inclined.

Enjoy it in all its MIDI glory.