Get excited for a free Excitebike on the 3DS

Here’s something cool: when the Nintendo 3DS eShop finally does reveal itself, us 3DS owners will be treated to a free, downloadable copy of Excitebike. And not just that ol’ Excitebike from eons past, no. This is a new version, specially tailored to show off some of the 3D effects this 3DS is somewhat known for. Since it’s free, that’s a-okay. I mean, they could cover the sweet rides in glitter and periwinkle streamers and throw some training wheels on every bike so long as it was free; us diligent supporters of Nintendo’s handheld consoles deserve something for buying early and waiting awhile, right? Right-o.

This isn’t just a shot in the dark either. Basically, for 3DS owners, it’s our first experience with the “3D Classics” line, wherein classic games are updated with new, 3D effects. Let’s hope they do Tennis or Marble Madness next. Some websites are saying this deal might be in Japan only; I sure hope not.

My wife recently bought Excitebike from the Wii’s virtual console, and she had a blast tumbling and turning over as she miscalculated jumps and landings. Now I gotta go home and play a little just to refresh my horrible motorbike skills. At least there’s now two reasons to look forward to this eShop launching: this and Mega Man Legends 3: Prototype Version. I think I already said this, but hurry up, late May!

Setting the new consoles loose

Looks like its Spring cleaning time for the videogames industry. Bizheads all over are tossing aside their aging children to make room for newer, shinier ones. Let’s take a look at what’s happened over just the past few days.

Nintendo announced their plans to release a brand new console in late 2012. The device will make its first public appearance at E3 2011, as well as be playable, which starts on June 7 in Los Angeles. Goodbye, Wii, and hello, Wii Wii (or Wii 2 or Wii Are Trying Again or Wii Do HD or whatever they end up calling this mysterious Project Cafe). Not that the company seemed to really care about the Wii for some time, and it looks like The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword will be the last hyped game for the system before its dumped into those bargain bins at Best Buy for kids many years late to the party to pick up for super cheap.

Nintendo seems to also be phasing out DS Lites, stating that once a retail store sells through its current stock…that’s it. No more after that. I guess this is to make more room for the 3DS and the–to some people–stronger upgrade of the DSi. That’s a shame, especially since I consider it my gaming system of choice; many stores and websites seem to still have plenty in stock though, and they are the most affordable version. If you’ve been waiting to pick up a DS, you might want to stop waiting sooner than later.

Sony is also stopping the production of their PSP models. I don’t know enough–or care enough–about that handheld to give you any kind of insight on the matter, but basically, another one bites the dust. More interestingly, Sony is releasing two tablets capable of playing original PlayStation games with updated touch controls. Um…what? Why would anyone want that? I mean, I guess they do more than that, but for some reason, somebody at Sony thought this was an excellent talking point. However, it is not. I barely want to play a lot of original PlayStation games now let alone have to repurchase them and learn new funky control schemes. The only genre I see faring well with this are RPGs because a lot of button-pressing isn’t based on timing or quick reflexes, especially turn-based combat.

I’m kind of glad that Microsoft hasn’t announced a new successor to the Xbox 360 just yet, but I’m sure it’s on its way. Personally, I don’t believe we need any kind of console upgrades just yet, and it’ll be either a hit or flop for this new Nintendo system, which looks like to be launching with zero to little competition. Unfortunately, Nintendo’s systems seem to place gimmicks above hardware, something many gamers are getting tired of, and there’s a lot of rumors circulating that it could have a touchscreen on its controller, but we’ll just have to wait until E3 to really take it all in.

I hope that, at some point, all the companies, developers, and publishers get together and create the Nintendo PlayBox 9000 and put down their weaponry to live, create, and game in utopian bliss.

P.S. All links go to GiantBomb because I’m too lazy to look around for multiple articles. Deal with it.

With the 3DS eShop, comes great Mega Man Legends 3: Prototype Version

I have a soft spot for Mega Man Legends, a PlayStation title that plays nothing like previous Mega Man games. Instead, it focused on open-world gameplay and character interaction, starring a teenage incarnation of Mega Man named Volnutt. It was also the very first wall-jump into 3D polygons for the franchise, making it a sharp slap in the face of any Mega Man fan ever. Thankfully, I was never diehard obsessed with the blue-armored boy’s adventures, and so when this released it just looked like a fun, light-hearted romp, something like Brave Fencer Musashi, with its bright colors and exuberant character personalities. The plot involved hidden treasure, pirates, and a lot of archeology. Very different from your standard travel left to right to end of level and beat boss, acquire its power, and find the next boss weak to it.

I never purchased Mega Man Legends, but somehow it ended up in my collection. If I close my eyes and think hard enough, I believe I borrowed the game from a friend–just the CD though, no jewel case or instruction booklet–and then never gave it back. Or maybe I did. I have these flashes of seeing the game recently amongst all my shtuff. Not sure if I could find it right now in my boxes and boxes of junk seeing as it’s just a little CD by itself, but I might still have it. Who knows. Either way, I played it, I liked it, and I’m pretty sure I never completed it.

All of this is just to say that Mega Man Legends 3–long desired, long hoped for by many–is in the works for the Nintendo 3DS, and with the launch of the system’s eShop in late May, Capcom is releasing something called Mega Man Legends 3: Prototype Version. It’s more than a demo, but less than a completed game. Once you finish the core missions, you’ll receive access to areas of the game not yet finished and be able to play with a debug menu that gives you special moves and abilities. Capcom is hoping for a lot of feedback from gamers about it because without any interest, the title itself might just get chucked into the trashbin. Eep! Be a good Servbot and provide feedback here: http://www.capcom-unity.com/devroom.

Oh, and here’s a little looksie at what’s to come:

Still not sure if this is a free eShop download or a paid demo, but so long as it isn’t too pricey, I’ll be getting it. Five dollars sounds right, but I’m sure Nintendo is going to screw us all and use some wonky points system so it’ll be more like 500 3D Space Bucks. It’ll be nice to have some games to play on my 3DS that don’t require me to move around a room like a goofball (Face Raiders) or have an extra item available at all times to play ’em (AR cards). I can only make so many different Miis before I get bored. Come on, late May…hurry up and get here ASAP.

Games Completed in 2011, #12 – Pilotwings Resort

So, I recently beat Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge, and it’s a game I definitely will have fun reviewing, seeing as it was so much fun to play. However, I did end up finishing Pilotwings Resort long before it–and finishing is a loose term, but we’ll get to that in a moment–meaning I should do these things in order and talk about flying around an island for a bit before we get to sailing from island back to island back to another island.

When I bought my Nintendo 3DS, I felt a great impulse to at least get a game with it. Games and systems, y’know. They kind of go together like…games and systems. Now, fighting games are okay in my book, but I already played a bunch of Street Fighter IV on my Xbox 360, and so the next game that jumped out to me as somewhat decent was Combat of Giant Dinosaur 3D. Nah, just kidding. That title is gonna be extinct faster that those reptilian beasts it represents. My pick was Pilotwings Resort, and I was even alerted by a friendly GameStop employee that I bought the last copy available then for the public lepers. Cool.

I’ve played a small amount of Wii Sports Resorts over the past few years. Or, I’ve at least watched Tara go for a jog around Wuhu Island plenty of times to get a feel for the place. It’s cartoony and safe and colorful and filled with all the staples of a luxury getaway resort, and Nintendo decided to revisit it with the Pilotwings Resort launch title, a game all about flying above, below, and all around. The game is basically a collection of flying challenges, with three standard vehicles to pilot: a biplane, rocket belt, and hang glider. Earning points and doing well in these events will net you stars, and once a certain amount of stars have been reached you can move on to the next group of challenges. These go from bronze difficulty to platinum. The challenges range from flying through hoops and shooting colored balloons to rescuing baby UFOs for the mothership and free-fallin’ in a squirrel suit. They last about a few minutes long each, and you can always replay them to better your score; unfortunately, that only matters for advancing forward as there’s no sort of online scoreboards in place. And don’t bother trying to get better at controlling the rocket belt; it’s brutal and cruel and powered by the blood of some great demon living deep beneath the island’s volcano.

After that, you’ll be able to enjoy some free flying around Wuhu Island. With some limitations, of course. You’re given a strict time limit and a goal of collecting a slew of items: rings, Mii trophies, balloons, so on. It always feels like once you get into the groove of flying around and collecting things, the time limit has just run out. So the time limit is just a way to force replayability into a game already lacking things to do. Plus, different items show up on the island depending on the vehicle you pilot and the time of day. It’s a little ridiculous.

Unfortunately, that’s it for the game in terms of things to do. The graphics are on par with its Wii first cousin, and the 3D works perfectly for me when just up a teeny tiny bit. I tried turning it all the way up, but quickly found myself disoriented, especially since I had to constantly look away from the top screen to the bottom screen for its handy map. The music’s fun and chirpy, especially when you make a great landing, but otherwise doesn’t stand out as anything perfect.

If Pilotwings Resort had been included free with the Nintendo 3DS–like Wii Sports was for the Nintendo Wii–it’d be a much better game. At $40.00, it’s not long enough to be enjoyable, and this plastic flight lands before you know it, right back in its case, right back in your box of games you’ve played and will probably never play again.

A weekend full of StreetPass tags

Over the weekend, I attended and exhibited at MoCCA in New York City, a fun comics convention that is brimming with indie art titles and nice people. Also, tons of 3DS owners. How do I know this? Well, for two days, I kept my 3DS on Sleep Mode in my front pocket, ready to tag other traveling systems, and when it was all said and done, after giving in to pure obsession and checking again and again, I went from having one dude in my Mii Plaza to having 51 Mii peeps. Let me embiggen that number for you:

51

That’s a lot of tags. I even got lucky and ended up tagging several Miis multiple times, increasing their level each time. Sometimes, as I was checking who I had tagged, I’d tag two to three more people walking by. It was amazing and overwhelming and a little bit like drug use in that seeing that green light at the top corner of my 3DS sent a rush of tingles through my body each and every time.

With all these tags, I was able to get much farther in Find Mii, the built-in RPG for the 3DS, unlocking several more hats like Link’s Hat, the Kirby Hat, and Dog Ears. Still haven’t rescued my own Mii, but we’re creeping closer; got hung up on a shielded ghost, and nobody I tagged seemed to like the color light blue. There was also some puzzle piece swapping, but that function is ultimately uninteresting. You collect puzzle pieces, and your reward for finding them all is…you get to look at a picture! Oh joy. I completed an image of Link and a bunch of Pikmin if you were curious.

Here’s a tidbit to chew on: roughly 90% of all tags over the weekend were from male 3DS owners, and it seemed like the title of choice was Super Street Fighter IV 3D. I disappointed another exhibitor when I told him I had bought Pilotwings Resort instead.

But now with all this tagging done and an army of Miis at my control, I have to wonder what’s next. I mean, they just kind of stand around. Are they going to be added to any future 3DS games I play that use Miis? I wish there was more to do with them, with tagging, with communicating. Why can’t I simply add some of these people to my friends list since we’ve tagged each other? StreetPass is all about the short-term satisfaction, and it’s great at it, but there’s not much meat to it in the end.

The only bummer to all this crazy excitement is that I sort of burned myself out on the 3DS and have not carried it with me now for the past two days. I’ll get back to it though as I’m looking to increase the amount of walking I do now that the weather is turning, but there’s no longer any real incentive now that I’ve seen what a good amount of tags amount to: some quick entertainment, nothing more.

My first StreetPass tag notification in all its glory

I got my first StreetPass tag almost a week exactly after I purchased my Nintendo 3DS. Like, I bought my system two Sundays ago around 5:00 P.M., and this last Sunday I passed someone else with their system on around 4:00 P.M.-ish. How freaking weird is that? I had almost given up hope of ever tagging anybody, too.

Anyways, his name is Dominic, and he was definitely at the Rockaway Mall on April 3, 2011, doing some spring shopping. His birthday was pretty recent on March 2, and his dream is “…to master an art!” Sadly, his favorite game title is, um, activity log. I immediately used him to spice up the two minigames within the Mii Plaza: Puzzle Swap and Find Mii. Sadly, he didn’t have a puzzle piece to share, but I did have him take some sword swings at ghosts. He’s now hanging out in my Mii Plaza, looking lonely, looking bored. I guess that’s all these Mii tags are good for–a one-time use.

I’m very curious to see if my system gets any more love while I’m in New York City over the weekend. I’ll be selling Supertown comics at MoCCA 2011, as well as walking around the city a wee bit. If I really come back completely StreetPass-empty, I’m gonna give up on the function entirely. I can earn my 10 Play Coins easily enough by the lunch hour, and after that then there’s no reason to be constantly carrying it with me.

Have you gotten your first StreetPass tag yet?

Zero StreetPass tags for me, and zero StreetPass tags for you

Like many others, I bought my Nintendo 3DS the day it launched. In hindsight, we all should have done something else that day–stayed inside the store to set up our systems and StreetPass one another. Because, alas, it’s most likely not going to happen on its own, unless we’re at PAX or plan meet-ups like a bunch of overaged weirdos.

You can read about my first day of walking around with my 3DS by clicking this very sentence. The next three days are very similar to it. A lot of checking, a lot of nothing to check. I’m trying to make a point of keeping my 3DS on in Sleep Mode at every instance because one never knows when I might tag another 3DS owner. In Quick Chek? Maybe. The gas station? Could be. In my bathroom? Time will certainly tell.

I’ve yet to get my first StreetPass tag notification. Stephen Totilo from Kotaku, who lives–mind you–in New York City, only just got his first recently, and from the most unlikeliest of places. It’s definitely something worth celebrating because they’re going to be few and far between as the days go on. I assumed that since stock in my small hometown sold out on Day One that I’d be in reach of someone else that had a 3DS, but it seems that I’ve been deceived.

If you own a 3DS, it is now your duty to carry it around in Sleep Mode, ready for tagging. Your duty as a gamer. And also because I’m sick of hiring cats with swords to try and save my kidnapped Mii and want your help.

I’ll be in NYC myself pretty soon, and if I come back with a completely empty Mii plaza, I’m going to give up on the function entirely. It sounds promising, but it still lacks integration and a wider net.

30 Days of Gaming, #6 – Most annoying character

Hmm…something about this feels familiar. Oh, right. That’s because last November, I wrote up a little post about my top five most annoying videogame sidekicks, focusing in on the sidekicky aspect of the business. I mean, adventuring into the unknown is one thing, but doing it with a chatty brat is another. Sure, any of those could easily get smashed into bits by today’s 30 Days of Gaming topic train, but I decided to think some more and found a few other contenders. And we’re going with Tom Nook, simply for his sheer audacity to never, ever change.

Tom Nook is a raccoon tanuki that runs a shop called Nook’s Cranny in your town in all versions of Animal Crossing. He starts out as a nice fella, giving you a home to live in. One small caveat though: you’ll have to pay him for it, and he’s okay with payments over time, so long as you eventually pay it off. Once you do, he’ll expand your house, opening up more rooms to decorate…so long as you keep paying him, too. That’s fine. That’s kind of how it works in real life, minus the talking raccoon, I think.

Where he gets truly annoying is in his shop. You enter Nook’s Cranny (clean thoughts, dear readers!), and he welcomes you, and gives you a list of options. You do your things, peruse his wares, and leave, but not before he can get the last word in: “Thank you! Do come again! I look forward to seeing you!” You can never just enter and leave uninhibited, like countless RPGs that let you waltz into that potions shop, knock over some bottles, and leave before anyone notices. No, not at Nook’s Cranny. Not in Nook’s book. He will greet you, he will part with you. He never breaks form. He’s like that Obama smile video. He’s like braindead. He’s like…overtly annoying.

And then he follows you around the store, like a used cars salesman, like a true furniture pusher, like an ex-lover with a vengeance. You can run rings around his desk of player tools, but he’ll catch up to you eventually. Unfortunately, the only way to determine what some of the wallpapers/carpets are is to ask him, and you have to then mash the buttons until you can get him to stop.

You want more? Evidently, after you’ve fully upgraded his shop to Nookington’s, Tom will randomly ask you some questions, and the wrong answers will result in him downgrading the store back to its original format. All that shopping…for nothing.

I’m pretty excited about all the possibilities that Animal Crossing 3DS could hit on the head, but if Tom Nook is around, well, I’m gonna be several hundred thousand bells short of excitement.

A Day in the Life of my Nintendo 3DS

I was fairly late in getting my Nintendo 3DS on its launch day. In fact, I took so long going out to get it that my local Target sold out of its entire stock a few hours before I arrived. Alas, I had to then try out GameStop, where I knew they’d piss and moan about me not pre-ordering the system, something I was uninterested in listening to. Another reason I wanted to pick up the system in a non-GameStop store was that I have these American Express gift cheques–they work like cash, but for some reason a lot of places give me grief for them, and recently, GameStop alerted me to the fact that they no longer accept them as a mean of payment. Boo to that.

But I lucked out at GameStop, and when I say lucked out, I mean I truly got lucky. According to generic teenage employee #3, I bought the last Nintendo 3DS available to non-pre-order folk, as well as the last copy they had of Pilotwings Resort in stock. This was around 4:30 in the afternoon, too. Amazing, right? Glad I didn’t wait any longer in the end. Otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this.

Before we start, here’s a pic of the wife and I moments before unboxing my new darling:

Yup, we’re so excited that beams of light are coming out of our joined heads. The power that is Nintendo?

Okay, let’s do this.

7:00 AM: After spending the remainder of the night charging in its adorable little plastic cradle, my Nintendo 3DS is ready for the day. I flip it on, switch the system to Sleep Mode, close the lid, and pocket the beast. Now to start walking. Alas, my apartment is tiny, and I only had to go to the closet and bathroom before heading down to my car. Maybe I’ll StreetPass someone while driving to work? Maaaaaaybe.

8:15 AM: I have arrived at work. Before heading into the office, I check out my stats. Looks like I’ve got some notifications. Oh…no. It’s just Nintendo telling me how the pedometer and Play Coins work. And amazingly, I now have three Play Coins in my bank. I’m told I can only earn a total of 10 a day, with the bank cap set at 300. Ten a day feels a little stingy, especially since I was able to earn three in such a small amount of time. Looks like 100 steps equals a Play Coin. Gonna flip the 3DS off again, and will mostly see how things are going on my lunch hour.

9:45 AM: There’s a dark compulsion building in me to check to see if I’ve gotten any new notifications. This is indicated by a blinking orange light when the 3DS is closed shut. But I will be strong and just wait a few more hours…

12:05 PM: Left the office as fast as a hobbit with a bad back can, hopped into my car, and quickly pulled out my 3DS. Flipped the lid to discover…no StreetPass tags. That’s okay. Not a surprise. Figured no one in my office building other than me probably had a system activated. However, surprisingly, it said I had walked a total of 1,100+ steps so far. Meaning, I had earned my quota of Play Coins for the day.

12:35 PM: Purposely ate near the GameStop in Parsippany so that, afterwards, I could walk around and maybe StreetPass some Miis. Maybe some store employees had theirs on in their pockets? According to my research, um….no. However, a young fella was purchasing a 3DS and Super Street Fighter IV 3D when I was in there. Was kind of tempted to be like, “Dude! Open it up now! Let’s StreetPass!”

Anyways, defeated, I went back to my car to spend some of these Play Coins. First, I purchased two heroes for the Find Mii minigame, which is just a simple, dungeon-crawling RPG where your Mii has been captured and other Miis must fight monsters to advance. You also unlock special hats to wear. And the hired help? Yeah, they’re cats with swords. Pretty adorable. I then spent another two Play Coins to get a puzzle piece, which looks like will eventually reveal a large Legend of Zelda image. Neat-o.

I dig these Play Coins, and really hope many forthcoming games take advantage of ‘em. Despite having hit my Play Coins cap for the day, I’m curious to see how many more steps I’ll get in the office, so the 3DS goes back to sleep in my pocket.

2:55 PM: Quick bathroom back. The 3DS is still in my pocket, and I did not drop it into the 3DS toilet. Praise the Maker.

4:00 PM: Tried to add a Twitter friend as a 3DS friend, but since I did not set up Internet access on the system for my work area, I’ll have to wait until home at the Leaky Cauldron.

6:05 PM: No StreetPass tags while driving home. C’mon, people. Turn your 3DS on when driving!

6:30 PM: Used my last four Play Coins to buy some more heroes for Find Mii, which got me to the next level, as well as unlocked a new hat (cat ears, meooow). Added a Twitter friend to my list and discovered he was currently online, playing some AR Games. Nintendo supports stalking! Anyways, got some other stuff to do tonight so the 3DS goes into its cradle to charge, despite using up very little battery life today.

11:00 PM: Played some more Pilotwings Resorts, earning enough medals to move on to the Silver challenges. One of them has my Mii falling from the sky in a flying squirrel suit! It’s pretty awesome, especially with a tiny bit of 3D enabled. I also tried out my copy of Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies, and was sad to truly discover that, yes, there’s a significant drop in quality for DS games on the 3DS. Text was blurry, and the graphics were muddled. A dang shame, but that’s also why I didn’t trade in my DS Lite, as I plan to get a lot out of it for many more years.

—

And so this concludes my Nintendo 3DS’ first full day of action. It went okay. Hackettstown, NJ, is certainly no Akihabara Electric Town, but I am going to New York City in two weeks and am hopeful that many other 3DS users will be out and about, ready to StreetPass. If not, I doubt I’ll ever get much use out of the system’s connectivity functions.

No 3D for my Nintendo 3DS

Come March 27, 2011, I’m getting a Nintendo 3DS. Probably that turquoise blue one. And I think it’s safe to say that I’m going to be turning off the 3D on every game I play. For me, it’s not about the 3D-ness of the new console; instead, what I’m more concerned with is seeing stronger tech beneath the hood, a focus on socializing and walking, and a console that is more than just that. Yet strangely this also equals a weaker battery life, which is not terrible news to me as I constantly charge my portable devices out of habit.

A lot of early online previews of the system mention that the 3D is often tricky to get right, and that some games, some games specifically created to be played on the Nintendo 3DS, are better suited with the novelty turned off. Yowza. For example, Super Monkey Ball 3D, a game that allows you to tilt the DS to move the ball around; that’s cool and all, but if you’re playing in 3D, this tilting basically throws off your perspective every time, tossing the 3D to the left, to the right, to the off switch. That’s just…mind-boggling.

Like I said, I’m more interested in the Mii Plaza stuff, the music editor, the notepad, the Street Pass functions. Everything but the kitchen sink. Rarely will a game be played in full on 3D. Sure, sure, I’m gonna flick it on to try out the packed-in AR games, as well as when I wanna show off the system to friends, but other than that…it’s 2D for me. Unless, of course, Animal Crossing 3DS does something amazing with it, but I have my doubts.

What about you?