Posts Tagged ‘Wii U’

March 19th, 2015 Featured, PC, Reviews 1 Comment »

Shovel Knight Review

Shovel Knight Boxart

Developer: Yacht Club Games
Publisher: Yacht Club Games
Platform:  3DS, Wii U PC – GOG*, Steam

In one of the cuter moments in Kickstarter gaming history, a goofy 2D pixelated platformer by the name of Shovel Knight saw itself funded to 415% of its $75,000 goal. I’d believed the “retro craze” was all over – but gamers proved me wrong! In 2014 Shovel Knight launched and made its way onto many Game of the Year lists. But really, how good could it really be? On the eve of release onto PlayStation platforms I decided it was finally time to give the game a go.

Now, before we get all into this, I do not feel particularly nostalgic about the NES. Instead, my tastes fall more in line with the Atari 2600 – but few folks are capitalizing on that! In any case, Shovel Knight still looks quite a bit like a NES classic and captures much of that same appeal. The platformer is immediately simple to grasp. You’re a blue knight who jumps and hits things with a shovel.

Of course, the game quickly ramps up the difficulty (and ways to play it). After accumulating enough gold you can buy new items and abilities. Or, you can boost the health and magic meters. Gold itself isn’t a scare commodity but upon each death some scatters off in floating money bags. Even so, be careful about reclaiming them the next run as greed can be deadly. For about the first half of the game I found Shovel Knight ridiculously enjoyable.

Shovel Knight Featured

Once things really started to ramp up in difficulty I noticed some issues (either with the game or myself!). My Xbox 360 controller didn’t seem to register inputs upon every button press. Sometimes skill usage simply wouldn’t fire off when needed, or Shovel Knight wouldn’t stop his shovel jumping despite me trying to get out of the maneuver. Every so often I couldn’t even get out a swing with a shovel despite having a perfect shot at a boss. Whey’re they’re “authentic” or not, precise controls should have been implemented by Yacht Club Games.

I appreciate what Shovel Knight is going for and wholeheartedly believe they achieved it. From the awesome chiptune soundtrack to lovely pixelated graphics this looks just like a retro game. Then there’s that simplicity of play which helps to emphasize its excellent platforming. The biggest issue simply appears to be controls which were acting up for me on PC. Given perfect control I’d still probably be awful, but at least feel that every death was entirely my fault!

Score: 3.5

3 1/2 out of 5 alpacas

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September 2nd, 2013 Editorial 1 Comment »

3DS, Wii U, or Vita: Which System Has the Most Ports?

Handhelds Featured

If you’ve participated in any conversations about the latest consoles and handhelds, then you’ve likely run into people suggesting that one system has “no games”. If nothing else, these systems in question are nothing but bringing out port after port instead of new titles. But all of these assumptions are reliant upon personal observation. If you don’t really care for the Vita, for example, then you’ll only notice things which agree with your previously held ideas.

But what if someone were to actually look at three of the latest systems right now in a means to either validate or invalidate these common complaints? Well, of course, that’s just what I did. Some may not consider the 3DS, Wii U, or Vita as “next gen” devices, but they will likely be classified as part of that generation broadly alongside PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It’s not about power, but the time frame in which they launch.

With that said, my goal was to create lists of all North American retail game releases between the devices. Then, I went through and looked up each title to determine whether or not it was a port or enhanced port or a brand new game developed for that system. The term “port” is not best used for handheld consoles sometimes when a portable version is a completely different game, but we seem to mostly be beyond that point technologically for it not to be a massive consideration. Basically, by “port” I am suggesting that the game in question is available on multiple systems. I was looking to see how many titles are not exclusive to their systems!

Finally, I decided to also check out Metacritic scores (where available) to see if any system is batting out continuous amounts of excellent titles, shovelware, or are basically average. As it turns out, it seems that most consoles probably fall somewhere in the 60s for scores, but we’ll get to that later.

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