Monthly Archives: January 2012

Jan 20 2012
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What's New

Resident Evil Revelations Demo Scares its Way Onto the 3DS eStore

It’s been a good, long while since a videogame utterly scared the crap out of me. In fact, the last time that happened was probably somewhere in the late 1990s, playing Resident Evil 2 in a friend’s basement shortly after imbibing a reasonable amount of cut-rate vodka.

Anyhoo. . .

To me survival horror is the videogame equivalent of Sour Patch Kids. You know what to expect. And even though just the thought of the sour sweetness makes you cringe, you eat it anyway. Lots of it. With survival horror, you know what to expect, too. Dim, atmospheric lighting. Claustrophobic level design. Relentless zombies or what have you. And even though you sort of dread those brief experiences where a good survival horror game makes you jump from your seat, you keep coming back. For lots of it.

Enter Resident Evil Revelations, the latest — and 3d-est — entry into Capcom’s grandaddy-of-them-all-survival-horror-saga. With a street date set for early February, Revelations promises to be the first must-have 3DS release of the new year. And from what I’ve seen, it’s a doozy.

Let’s put it this way: It took me all of five minutes to kick and scream in the real life, while my character was kicking and screaming and fighting off a zombie in the game.

Try it for yourself. A demo version is available on the 3DS eShop right this second.

Here’s what stood out to me in my initial play-through of the demo:

  • Revelations is the most visually stunning game on the 3DS so far.
  • For better or worse, it’s a return to the gameplay that made the first Resident Evil titles great.
  • It’s not without a stiff challenge: scarcity of resources and tough to beat zombies mean it’s not a game for wimps.
  • Couldn’t figure out if it’s just the demo or the game, but the old ‘limited save point’ issue is back. For mobile gamers, this could take away from the game’s pick-up-and-play factor.

That’s about it for now. But as for a verdict, I can say this much – Resident Evil Revelations is the first must-have 3DS title since Super Mario Kart 7. If you’re counting the time between release dates, that makes it more than two months. The drought of great 3DS games, my friends, is coming to an end.

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Jan 11 2012
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First Impressions

5-Minute First Impression: Super Crate Box

It doesn’t take much time to determine whether a game is good or garbage. Especially on touchscreen mobile smartphone platforms. If a game doesn’t hook me within the first five minutes of play, odds are it’s not going to last very long on my device. That’s the idea behind “Five-Minute First Impressions,” a new segment dedicated to the analysis of those crucial early moments that come after launching a gaming app for the first time.

This brings us to to Super Crate Box. Released Jan. 5 on the iTunes App Store, Super Crate Box is an arcade platform shooter revival game that pays tribute to the era in gaming where the only thing that mattered was the high score at the end of the game. Five minutes in and I have the feeling this might be my new Angry Birds.

Super Crate Box is a dead simple game Your goal? To collect as many wooden crates as possible without dying. It’s a simple premise with a steep challenge.

The first thing I did upon starting a new game was die.

Super Crate Box is simple enough in premise. And its tight control scheme — featuring a button to move left, a button to move right, a fire button and a jump button — is refreshingly not the problem. The challenge lies in the constant barrage of enemies dropping from the sky and running down the various levels of platforms with the single goal of ruining your crate collector’s day. One touch from a baddie equals game over. But that doesn’t mean the player is jumping around helplessly.

To assist the main character on his mission is an ever-growing arsenal of firearms. Collect a crate, get a new gun. Starting off with simply a pistol (and an ineffective one at that), the main character progresses to use things like landmines, a rocket launcher, machine gun or a revolver. And the more crates you collect, the more weapons that become unlocked for future play. Every weapon has its own strengths and weaknesses, and the player does not choose which weapon he receives upon collecting a new crate. This adds a dimension to the game, wherein you can choose to build your score through collecting crates or through shooting bad guys. It leads to a good balance and keeps you guessing through the first few minutes of play as to what exactly is going to happen next.

I have to confess: I played Super Crate Box for exactly five minutes after downloading it from the iTunes store. Then, later, I came back to it. After that session I returned again. Each time I discovered a new nuance to the game or got a little bit higher a score. Simply, Super Crate Box is addictive. And, like my current handheld gaming obsession, Cave Story 3D, the game is proof in action that simple, classic gaming still has a place among the more sophisticated style of gaming experiences out there today.

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Jan 10 2012
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What We're Playing

Current obsession: Cave Story 3D

Apparently, I’ve been living under a rock.

That is to say, until I saw Cave Story 3D on the shelves, I essentially knew nothing about the beloved throwback to 80s action platform goodness. I didn’t know what it was about. I didn’t know its Genesis story as a one-man labor of love programmed independently over the span of five years in the early 2000s. I didn’t know it is considered one of the greatest indie games of all time.

I’ve spent the better part of a week paying for that lack of knowledge. My thumbs and attention span are paying penance as a result.

Less about spelunking than it is about old-school action, Cave Story 3DS is, you guessed it, a 3D update exclusively rebooted for Nintendo’s little handheld that could. And it’s done in the classic spirit of, um, Metroidvania-ing, a term I recently learned that encapsulates a genre in which, like Metroid and Castlevania, includes elements of action platforming, role-playing and non-linear exploration. It’s executed perfectly.

To give it a new layer for the Nintendo handheld crowd, its creator, Daisuke “Pixel” Amaya worked alongside publisher Nicalis to completely rebuild the game with modern graphics and the added depth of 3D. Does it work? For me, the uninitiated, yes. For a Cave Story purist, who played the game for its story, its tight, simple control scheme and the original 1980s-inspired graphics, the new look might be cause for alarm. For those types, Nintendo is selling a closer-to-the-original version called Cave Story+ as a downloadable eShop game.

But at $40, is Cave Story 3D worth the price of admission? The value of a 3D update on a five-year-old game depends entirely on the gamer’s preferences. Personally, I might not have ever played the game if not for the new edition’s release. There was nothing wrong with the original. But a young gamer, or one who seeks games that look and feel as if they were made for the system they are using that Nicalis was trying to attract. That, and the super fans whose love for the original Cave Story knows no price.

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Jan 05 2012
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General

By way of introduction.

Saying hello is easy.

Welcome to the Itsy Bitsy Gamer. This is a blog about mobile gaming.

And here’s a little bit more about me: I’m a professional journalist. Based in New York, I pay my bills writing about finance and the world of institutional asset managers. On my way to this point, I’ve covered sports, music, movies, parks & rec, medicine and technology. But none of that really matters within the context of this blog.

The thing is, I’ve got a gaming habit. And not just any gaming, but mobile gaming. I’ve enjoyed the various consoles through the years, and will always have a place in my heart for gaming at home. My problem, however, is and always has been that I’m not really home very much. And that in no doubt contributes to my proclivity toward mobile games.

With this site, my goal is to stick to the basics in mobile gaming. I’ll share my thoughts on what I’m playing and what I’m interested in. I’ll cover the dedicated handheld platforms (i.e. Nintendo and Sony), as well as downloadable games on smartphones and tablets. And I’ll keep it simple.

That’s the idea, anyway.

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