Sunday, 17 January 2010

• January: The Month of Gaming You Haven't Heard About

  So, as you may have been very well aware, I have not written anything of something resembling quality in about a month. I've been trying to write something; I'm in the process of writing about my recent Rock Band endeavors [dating January 13th] and a bit about the DSi [dating December 30th. Yeah, it's been in internet limbo for awhile]. So I've been looking forward to Heart Gold/Soul Silver coming out in less than 2 months, which is super exciting of course, but what is there to look forward to until then? Surprisingly, a lot. Here are some things that may have slipped under your radar [or maybe I'm just unobservant and not paying attention to release dates].

  Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All Stars AKA Marvel vs. Capcom, except you don't recognize half of the characters.
  
  So it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone at this point that I am a huge fan of Capcoms Street Fighter-style 2D Fighting games [I have to be specific with the 2D portion. I was not the biggest fan of Power Stone's undecided placement between fighting and party game, which is kinda hypocritical of me to say considering I, like the rest of the world, love Super Smash Bros. Brawl], like the Marvel vs Capcom series and X-Men vs Street Fighter. But I have that fix available to me on the 360, either with Marvel vs Capcom 2, or, if I so chose to purchase, [Super] Street Fighter 4. The Wii has been shafted in this department [well, in general, but that's an unfortunate Wii rant for another time], so it's nice for it to recieve a proper entry in the fighting game genre.

  Not only an entry, but a really good looking one in general, and with some... interesting choice of characters. My planned team of choice? Frank West [Dead Rising] and Zero [Megaman X, unfortunately NOT the Megaman Zero Zero, but he's still pretty cool]. If I only look at the Capcom side of the roster, there are some very unusual choices for characters in the game, including Viewtiful Joe and some characters I haven't even heard of. Only thing being weirder would be if they had Phoenix Wright in the mix. Then you have a second group of characters [Tatsunoko] that are, as far as I am aware, completely unknown to this side of the planet. I imagine a lot of time being spent on this game, assuming someone in my house has the money for it [I wouldn't have the money for it myself even if I wasn't robbed this week, and that's a tale for a not video game related blog]. It comes out on the 26th.

  No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle AKA remember that Wii you have collecting dust in the corner? Me neither.
  
  The Wii seems to be getting a lot of much needed attention this month [or I guess specifically, on the 26th, as this comes out the exact same day] and I couldn't be more excited. The Wii just needs more awesome things.

  Admittedly, I didn't play the first No More Heroes. Admittedly, this makes me a liar. I cannot attest to the quality or my personal ideas on the title, but going by general opinion, atleast by Wii standards, this is something that I should look forward to.

  Bayonetta AKA... Bayonetta.
  
  I've already very briefly written a blog kinda about Bayonetta. More so the fact that it exists, and not really anything about it. So what can I say about it, with what limited amount I've played through the demo?

  Combat is fast, and feels powerful. You can mix up combos between punches and kicks, your katana sword and various enemy-dropped weapons. Gameplay is fast and flows smoothly. It's hard to get a feel for the difficulty within a demo that lasts maybe 15 minutes, but beyond that, I figure I got the most important aspects of the game down. It's, most importantly, simple fun. I'm not sure there's been a solid platformer/beat-em-up game I've been looking forward to so much [since playing the demo], with the exception of Metroid Prime 2 [which isn't so much beat-em-up but whatever] back in 2004.

  Other games coming out this month? Something I could afford to miss since I've played it already, but it just seems really cool to me is Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney available on the Wiiware. Not only would it just be cool to have available to play, it's also the only title in the series I haven't had a chance to play through a second time. I actually have no idea if it even has updated sounds or graphics, and I'm not sure I'd be particularily bothered if I were to find out it didn't. 2 other, "Big," games coming out that don't particularily interest me on a personal level are Army of Two: The 40th Day and Mass Effect 2. Neither of them are quite in my fanbase zone, but I'm aware that others are really looking forward to these games. As for me, until I get a chance to be able to afford any of these titles I'll be back to... Tales of Vesperia. Again.

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