Nintendo has taken going green to new heights. No, I don’t mean Luigi is now the company spokesperson, they’re now recycling games! They’ve taken the old GameCube game, Mario Power Tennis, and reprogrammed it to work with the Wii controllers. How well does it work? Pretty darn well. Read on for more details.
In a week or two, Atlus will be coming out with the US release of TrackMania DS. I got a chance to play with the game and found a somewhat simple racing game that was greatly improved through the judicious use of several genre-bending features. In addition to standard racing, there are platforming, puzzle, and even freeform track design modes.
My favorite gaming experiences are almost exclusively multiplayer games. Multiplayer boardgames have an advantage over their electronic cousins as players can face one another as they gather around the game board. In addition to increasing social interaction, boardgames have the advantage of far better longevity. A $50 video game may be in the $10 bargain bin in a few years while a boardgame will retain its value for years to come. Here are some of my favorites I’ve come across in the past year.
Standard golf can only be jazzed up so far, but by its very nature, miniature golf is just crying out for enhancement and improvement. In King of Clubs, gamers play on over a dozen different mini golf courses based around six different themes such as prehistoric, medieval, or Egyptian. In addition to standard miniature golf obstacles and hazards, players can use clubs and golf balls with special abilities to make their way around the course. With tournament, career, fast play, and even a speed version of the game, King of Clubs provides a decent option for some fun golf-related Wii entertainment.
After a release on the Nintendo DS, the Purr Pals kitten simulator is now available for the Wii system. Like the DS version, players adopt a kitten and then must take care of it by feeding, grooming, and playing with it. Money awarded for proper kitten care and several minigames (a round of Cat Hero, anyone?) is used to buy food, kitty litter, toys, and a wide selection of kitty toys. The game is all the fun one would expect of a virtual kitten simulator. more…
For me, the raison d’être of GenCon is boardgames. Sure, there are role playing games and video games around, but I look forward to several days of gaming at the convention followed by still more days after the convention while I work my way through all the games I picked up during my visit.
With the “death” of E3, GenCon vowed to pick up some of the slack by courting video game publishers. While the video game contingent at GenCon hasn’t grown by leaps and bounds, there was still a strong showing of publishers, particularly of computer RPGs and online games.
As GamerDad and a good portion of the Gaming With Children crew head off to PAX this weekend, I am sitting at home finally recovered from the GenCon gaming convention earlier this month. Of the several different game related gatherings in the US, GenCon is the Mecca of gaming for fans of role playing games.
Almost exactly one year ago, Wizards of the Coast took the GenCon game convention by storm by announcing a new overhaul of the most popular role playing game on the planet Dungeons and Dragons was being revised to a fourth edition. The core rulebooks were released to the public in June and after several months of play, the consensus among fans seems to indicate that change is a good thing.
When Caltech student Walter Bright used a stack of punchcards and a mainframe computer to program one of the first turn-based strategy games, little did he know the long legacy of the genre that followed from that initial game of Empire. Over a decade later, Sid Meier created the crowning jewel of the genre, Civilization – chosen by Computer Gaming World in as the best computer game of all time. Fast forward to 2008, and you can now play Civilization in a portable format via your Nintendo DS!
