LEGO Harry Potter looks charming

As you can see from the Achievements Ahoy! sidebar, I love the LEGO videogames. At the moment, they are the only two retail games I’ve played full and fully, unlocking every silly and frustratingly challenging achievement. Truth be told, the games are fun and engaging, easy to pick up, as well as highly addicting. I rank them, currently, in this order of affection: LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Batman, and then LEGO Indiana Jones. I’m fairly sure that list is going to change the day LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 comes out.

Why? Because I’m in Ravenclaw.

The above video offers a first look at the next LEGO game, which covers Harry’s first four years at Hogwarts. It’s the same ol’, same ol’, with the character designs cute and spot-on, and the background details surprisingly vivid. I can only suspect that, after a few tutorial levels, the castle-school itself will act as the hub world for the game, with moving paintings leading to other levels and such. I just hope that each “year” gets a good amount of attention, and that Hagrid’s special attack involves a butt-stomp.

It’s scheduled for release sometime during 2010, and I for one am wishing for a Time-Turner for Christmas so we can speed things up a bit.

There’s fun to be had in Wii Sports Resort

I could never imagine playing Wii Sports Resort (or its early mutation, Wii Sports) by myself. The fun of sharing your greatest triumph, your biggest downfall, your oddest moment…it is moot when the spaces to your left and right are blank.

Over the weekend, the Girlfriend and I visited her brother and his wife and played some Wii into the wee hours of the night/morning. No, I’m not apologizing for that one. Despite having to share a single Wiimote, we all had a blast. Because even though the games within Wii Sports Resort are more or less mini-games, things of very little variety, the people you play them with makes all the difference.

We played some bowling, basketball, archery, and dog frisbee, and the most fun–group-wise–seems to be bowling. In the original Wii Sports, you just bowled. Simple as that. Here, Nintendo has added some extra features to really help enhance the experience. You can bowl regularly, you can bowl against 100 pins (which make a beautifully addicting sound as they all flip-flop away under the weight of a striiiiiiiike), and you can bowl around obstacles, as shown in the picture above.

Alas, I came in last in each category thanks to my constant curving of the ball. Stupid wrists. Yes, I need lots of practice, but that’s okay. Sometimes it’s not so much fun being a pro at a game like Wii Sports Resort, hitting strike after strike after strike. You can’t laugh at those moments.

But taking five minutes to position yourself just right so that you can narrowly miss the moving obstacles ahead only to toss the bowling ball directly into the gutter?

That‘s where it counts.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: Bayonetta demo

Bayonetta, created by Hideki Kamiya, the brains behind Devil May Cry, is a videogame that seems to have folks in Japan going love-crazy. Me? Not so much.

Downloaded the demo last night for the Xbox 360, and without knowing much or anything about the game, dived right into the mix of things. It starts with some random bits of story, which really tell you nothing, and then opens the demo up to three areas: training, the Falling Clock tower level, and the Angel’s Metropolis level. Each section involves a ton of button-mashing and motion sickness.

First, Bayonetta is a weird woman. Her entire outfit is made from her hair, and she has guns on her feet. The amount of combos she can do–at least in the demo–is impressive, but good luck trying to really see each one in action. Your best bet for staying alive is to constantly hit the Y and B buttons while dodging left and right to initiate bullet time witch time. Do a combo just right and you might get to torture your victim, which provides for some fun, original death moves.

Anyways, training is training. Just an empty space where you can learn some moves and a bit of the basics. The Falling Clock tower level is just that, a cinematic piece of jumping from tower-chunk to tower-chunk while taking out bird enemies. I wish there had been time to admire the background details or even Bayonetta herself as she pulled off a bunch of sick moves, but alas, it all goes by in a blur. The game has a frenetic pace, and once your life bar starts to deplete you will just smash ATTACK, ATTACK, ATTACK, and pray you make it out alive.

The best part of the Bayonetta demo, however, is the final section: the Angel’s Metropolis. After falling through the sky and fighting giant bird-freaks, Bayonetta is suddenly on a train. I have no idea how the two scenes connect, if they even do (was it a dream?). We’re then in a hub world, with most of the other worlds block off for now. Head straight down the path, fight some more enemies, earn coins and pick up colored gems (?), and then you’ll get to do two boss battles. These are fun and not completely frantic, which is nice because you can then work on some strategy.

The demo lasted for about 15 minutes and was somewhat fun. However, the button-mashing, one million things on screen happening at once sort of gameplay left me nauseous and unimpressed. Controlling the camera is problematic, too. I did, however, get a Gold trophy for all my butt-kicking. Not sure what that means though.

JUST BEAT: MySims Agents

Developer/Publisher: EA Redwood Shores/Electronic Arts
Platform: Nintendo DS [reviewed], Nintendo Wii
Genre(s): Mystery Adventure Game
Mode(s): Single player
Rating: E
Time clocked: The main storyline took less than 6 hours to complete, but game continues afterwards

Ultimately, this is a shame. Now, that’s not the best way to start a review, but it’s the truth. This game will let you down no matter what your expectations are, and considering I could only find one or two DS-only reviews online…well, I had zero expectations. The only thing I knew going into MySims Agents was that the Wii version was pretty good, that it involved solving mysteries and questioning townspeople and so on, as well as incorporating the standard Sims-like customization gameplay. Sounded like a great mix of things.

That is not the case here. Pun intended.

In MySims Agents, you play an agent visiting a town, there to unravel the mystery of its secret treasure. I named my town Megaton, but alas, the secret treasure was not an A bomb that I got to detonate and rid the world of these gibberish-speaking buffoons. Plot-wise, this is not a direct port of the Wii game. In the Wii version, you must stop Morcubus and his corrupt company MorcuCorp from stealing the Crown of Nightmares. In the DS version, you must stop Thief V from stealing the secret treasure. Seriously, it is written as secret treasure until the very end of the game when you discover what it actually is. SPOILER ALERT: it’s lame and insensible and…a giant bell. I’m not even kidding. Just goes to show the different level of care and love between the two iterations.

Gameplay involves receiving a mission from HQ, talking to townspeople, playing a minigame, waiting, waiting, waiting, solving a riddle, and then doing it all over again. In between all of this is the collecting of house blueprints, essences from in-game items, furniture, and fish, as well as redecorating your room and town. Repetitive, but the fun is left up to you, as I challenged myself to collect all things Japanese, which made it a little more exciting when dealing with the synthesizer and such.

The mini-games…they are uninspired. Granted, I still need to unlock three or four, but the ones I’ve played so far are either frustratingly challenging or just a rip-off of something else (hi, Diner Dash!). Kite surfing is extremely unforgiving (two hits and you basically have to restart), identifying the suspect is pretty fun but grows stale, and the one where you unearth mines in the ground has some wonky control issues. None of them stand out, really, but I am interested in seeing how the gem-themed one featured on the back of the box turns out.

Graphically, MySims Agents is pretty good, full of colors, all of them bright and playful. I particularly liked seeing my town during sunset with a wash of reds and oranges. That said, some of the furniture/clothing is just the same item with a different skin.

The biggest problem MySims Agents has going for it is that it’s a lie. You do no real detective work or anything close to what I imagine a secret agent might do, and truth be told after I changed my character into more casual clothes (instead of a suit) I completely forgot who he was supposed to be all along. It’s the bare bones of a good game, and could have been so much more. I understand that it is targeted at a younger demographic, but when the credits started to roll after 6 hours I thought someone from EA was going to jump out of my closet and yell, “Gotcha!”

The little coverage found for MySims Agents DS should have been my first clue that this game was a bit of a failure. It is tedious through and through, and I only hope this here review will help others steer clear.

4 out of 10