Game Review: Super Monkey Ball 3D (3DS)
Game Review: Zumba Fitness: Join the Party (Wii)
Spring is here, and it’s a great time to get in shape for summer. Now you can dance your way to great shape with Zumba® Fitness: Join the Party for Nintendo Wii, PlayStation Move, and Xbox 360 Kinect (Wii version reviewed here). The Zumba® Fitness Program is a popular workout regime that features vigorous dancing to Calypso, Salsa, Samba, and other Latin music and beats. Zumba encompasses DVD workouts, gym lessons, and now a video game!
Game Review: Zhu Zhu Princess (DS)
Game Review: Vertigo (PSP)
Nintendo 3DS
Game Review: Jikandia: The Timeless Land (PSP)
Game Review: Okamiden (DS)
Okami was my Best Game of the Year for 2006. It was originally on the PS2 and later ported to the Wii. In the Zelda-style game, you played as a white wolf deity and had to save ancient Japan from evil. It featured beautiful unique graphics that looked like a Japanese painting and clever gameplay gimmicks like the Celestial Brush, which allowed you to draw on the screen to solve puzzles and defeat enemies. Now, finally, the sequel is here on the Nintendo DS. And it’s good. VERY GOOD.
Kinect 1st Impressions
I think the Kinect is a terrific technology, but that shouldn’t surprise anyone, I was a huge Eye Toy for PS2 advocate and motion gaming has always loomed large in my career. Back then I called the Eye Toy “the Nintendo product Nintendo didn’t make.” The Wii proved Nintendo had ideas like this but now, I think, their thunder is stolen. Microsoft owns the “movement” genre and that might be bad news for Sony and Nintendo. I haven’t tried the PlayStation Move, so I might be off base, but what I see in Move is Wii 2. Wii 1 was great, but the motion controls never really felt vital outside of the major showcases like Wii Sports. Kinect, requiring no controller, isn’t limited to doing things the Wii way. That could be crucial moving forward.
Dance Central
I can’t dance. Oh, I can keep a beat and I can move well. If choreographed, I can pull off everything but the athletic stuff. My problem is a lack of confidence coupled with an inability to remember current dance moves. If I’m at a wedding (or presumably, a club) I cannot do anything but flail around biting my upper lip. Since I’ve learned so much from gaming, I wondered if there could be a game solution. There was Dance Dance Revolution, and it was great, but it’s footwork and has nothing to do with arms, so it’s not actually dancing. The Wii maybe? Better, but still limited. The Kinect and Dance Central changes everything.