An excellent new video of Minitroid has been uploaded to YouTube. After giving it a view, I think it’s time for a proper entry into the Metroid series to return to a planet and dig deep below its surface.

We’ve done enough surface dwelling in the Prime trilogy and ship exploring in Fusion and Other M. It’s time to see what lies beneath. Also, bring back Chozo statues damnit.

Uh, back to Minitroid.

The game looks great and is sporting enhanced visuals. The Morph Ball is noticeably absent (as noted by Tiny Cartridge), but given the scope of the project and Samus’ tiny size, I’m not sure we should expect to see it.

Let’s hope this actually gets released.

Like most human beings in the world, I’m not a fan of bumper stickers. Even more annoying are the parents that rock the ones letting everyone know their kids are honor students.

But who knows, recently becoming a dad and all, maybe I’ll resort to boasting about my kid in bumper sticker form.

If I ever do, I have to imagine it’ll have less to do with grades, and more to do with videogame achievements. Check out these awesome accolades.

Other M is the result of a rather large collaboration between Nintendo SPD Production Group 1, Team Ninja and D-Rockets dubbed Project M.

So while Team Ninja is often credited with development, key figures in Metroid history are on hand to represent the Nintendo side of the operation, most notable Yoshio Sakamoto. This gave classic Metroid fans much to look forward to.

Even with Sakamoto on board, a man credited with co-creating Metroid, questions began to arise as Other M took a decidedly deeper take on the narrative side of Metroid – narrative being damn near nonexistent in the series save Metroid Fusion.

With Other M now launched, it’s time to go … uh, I mean, it’s time to see if Sakamoto’s vision turned into a game worthy of the legendary series.

The game starts out with the most narrative intense portion of the game. Spanning the first hour or so after, you’ll be seeing extensive cutscenes, complete with awkward writing and mediocre delivery.

You’ll quickly discover Other M’s greatest detractor: Samus’ inner monologues.

In trying to make Samus a more human character – something some argue is unnecessary – Sakamoto has created a far weaker and more fragile Samus. This depiction stands opposed to the portrayal of Samus in the past; the no-nonsense, alien destroying bounty hunter.

Be it poorly written dialogue or poor delivery (or often a combination of both), it just doesn’t work. It’s not that I expect Samus to be an unemotional cyborg, but if you’re going to go down that path, you better have the writing and actress to back that up – Other M doesn’t.

The secondary story involving the crazy things happening at the Bottle Ship is actually intriguing, and Other M would’ve been better off had they simply cut the inner monologues.

The good news is, the actual gameplay is quite good and it only gets better the deeper you delve into the Bottle Ship.

Other M is a very fast moving game that essentially equates to something like holding down dash throughout the entirety of Super Metroid. And, while the idea of controlling Samus in a game with any amount of 3D depth exclusively with the d-pad sounds clumsy, controls are tight thanks to some clever camera and pathing tricks.

Pointing the controller at the screen quickly flips the view into first person, allowing Samus to scan the environment and blast missiles. It sounds a bit intimidating, but in practice I found it to be quite efficient. I’ll throw this out as a warning: I do think this comes down to how familiar you are with the Wii’s controller interface. Call it a hunch, but I’d guess those less familiar with IR aiming on Wii will struggle a bit before getting it down.

Initially I feared that Team Ninja added in a little too much of their flavor into the game. There were one too many “eliminate the bad dudes to unlock the door scenario” but as Samus becomes stronger, even the baddest aliens become fodder with a charge blast and a missile or two. This leads to an increased focus on traversing the environment, be it via platforming, grapple beaming, or other tricks of the trade.

Speaking of the aliens, there are tons of classic enemies that make long-awaited returns – from basic corridor dwellers to nasty bosses. I won’t ramble into spoiler territory with the bosses, but the return of Sidehoppers and Wavers put a smile on my face.

Most of Samus’ arsenal is back and by the final hours of the game you feel a sense of power that the Prime trilogy was never able to properly convey. Screw Attack is in full force and a proper Space Jump (save for vertical hops) let’s you jump infinitely in the air. In the end, it’s a blast just rampaging through the corridors of the Bottle Ship.

As far as aesthetics go, the game is comparable to Metroid Fusion.

It mixes the metal interior of a ship with wild alien overgrowth. Some of it treads in familiar themes of ice and fire, but there are sections of alien overgrowth expected of Metroidian environments. Zebes has yet to be surpassed, and I’d still rather be raiding on actual planet, but the selection is varied enough to please and never becomes boring.

Even if it’s not what we’ve come to expect of a Metroid, I like the Other M soundtrack. I’ve come to have a soft spot for the piano theme we’ve been hearing for a while (hear it here) and there are a few quality remixes, too. I’ll still argue for the return of a more identifiable set of tracks, but Other M’s OST serves it well.

Other M ends the way all games should: on the highest note possible. It’s epic. The story actually builds into something you’ll care about and you’re tasked with taking on some of the more memorable boss fights I can recall in the past few years.

Unlike Super Metroid, however, a few stumbles ultimately knock Other M down a peg. Small first-person detective portions have you haplessly scanning the environments for often hidden clues and you simply aren’t going to get that sense of being lost in an alien labyrinth the series made its name for – not with someone constantly pointing out where to go.

Other M has been likened to Metroid Fusion, and rightfully so. It shares many of the same highs and lows as its portable brother.

The game never truly opens up into a full free-roaming map until after you’ve beat the game, and the narrative that seeks to expand Samus as a character mostly works against her.

But when Other M is good, it’s really damn good and there are enough Metroid throwbacks to make any old school wax nostalgic.

Samus is back to feeling as agile as ever, and the return to third person needs to be a permanent one. Other M has much of what makes up a quality Metroid experience, so let’s hope next time around Sakamoto cuts the fat that keeps Other M from being a five-star game.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Review based on retail copy sent by Nintendo.

Review updated 9-8-10. Nothing was deleted and the score wasn’t changed, but controls, the world, and the soundtrack were expanded upon.

I’m not particularly interested in Hothead’s upcoming “sequel” to DeathSpank, but the developer showed off an upcoming downloadable game called Swarm that looks really cool.

It has been described as a Pikmin-Lemmings mash-up which isn’t terribly off the mark. Unlike Lemmings, you don’t control the environment, you control the Swarmites. And unlike Pikmin, you have direct control over the Swarmites, so there is no leader (Olimar) guiding the swarm’s path.

The video up top is about six minutes worth of demo footage that gives an early look at what the game is about. Swarm puts you in charge of guiding 50 Swarmites across death-filled terrain and the goal is to stay alive.

But, you won’t – at least not all 50.

There’s plenty of death that will come to your rowdy bunch of travelers, but thankfully there are items in the world that spawn more of the little blue dudes upping your count right back to 50.

The game is played in side-scrolling fashion though there is depth to the playing field.

As far as I know, platforms haven’t been announced but based on the in-game buttons, it looks like the demo version is running on a PS3.

Source

Here’s some more Kirby’s Epic Yarn because the trailer is funny and the game looks rad.

I feel like I should add more to this post because I typically like to give an opinion but … ah, whatever, here it goes.

My love for videogames is pretty strong. I love ‘em in all varieties, be it some epic adventure, a shmup, a sports games, even dark and grizzly shooters (even if there are too many).

However, I have a huge soft spot for games that remind me of why I got into gaming in the first place. When a title really brings the charm and light-heartedness of some of the NES games I grew up loving, something just clicks with me.

Kirby’s Epic Yarn brings that authentic, true-to-its-roots videogame feel that I remember so fondly, and it does so with a completely innovative new look.

I swear there seems to be an infinite number of studios who were formerly of Blizzard Entertainment. I guess when a developer gets so huge within a particular industry, this is bound to happen.

Red 5 Studios brings those credentials, touting names like Mark Kern who’s credited with being team lead on World of Warcraft. It’s not just Blizzard folks though, Red 5 also pulled in lead designer of Starsiege: Tribes Scott Youngblood.

For anyone who doesn’t know, I adore Tribes. The jetpack mechanic is still unmatched to this day. With any luck, he can bring some of that magic to FireFall, the upcoming game from Red 5.

FireFall is being described as a team-based action shooter and it certainly looks the part. Naturally I got all giddy when the gameplay footage showed a little jetpack action that does look quite similar to Tribes.

Joystiq says the game will go free-to-play, but naturally it’ll incorporate a market system where players can spend a little money to support the game and presumably get some gear.

It looks really slick and there’s an impressive CG trailer you can find here. Oh, and tell me FireFall’s site doesn’t look damn near identical to a Blizzard site (and how about that logo) – I dare you.

There are many rules in life we as a people try to follow, but there’s only one we must follow: Always bet on Duke.

All the rumblings were true, Gearbox has officially taken over Duke Nukem Forever.

Duke Nukem Forever has been a long running joke within the industry for what feels like, yes, forever. This truly marks the first time in years I’ve ever said with any real confidence that the game will absolutely come out.

During a 2K live stream, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford guaranteed a 2011 release date. To go along with his guarantee was a playable demo for PAX attendees, which the live stream filmed a bit of (albeit with terrible sound and shaky footage).

Given that Borderlands was one of my top games of 2009, I have confidence that Gearbox can do the Duke right, or that at the very least, they can release a damn game.

Game’s coming to PS3, 360 and PC. The demo was running on a PC with a 360 controller.

[insert your awesome Duke quote here]

Source

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.

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.

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.