TMNT Smash Up (Wii, PS2) - Online Trailer

Speak of the devil, I mentioned TMNT Smash Up as one of my most anticipated games for the rest of 2009. Here's a developer video regarding the game's online play, exclusive to the Wii version. There's tournaments, trophies to be earned, and hectic fighting with up to four friends/strangers.

Direct Link Here

SuperPhillip's Most Anticipated Games of 2009

It seems a lot of the more anticipated games are being released in 2010. Alan Wake, Super Mario Galaxy 2, God of War III, etc. Let's not forget that there's still a lot of good games coming down the pipeline for 2009. Let's take a look at such titles in this special feature.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii)

Nintendo seems to always change things up. I'm talking about their release schedule. They used to cram a lot of games into the holiday season, but there's already a whole bunch of games during the period fighting for the same consumer dollar. New Super Mario Bros. Wii appears to be the sole traditional title for North America this holiday season. With co-op up to four players or by yourself, you can never get enough 2D Mario, and it's a miracle we're seeing one on a console.


Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3)

Go on a second adventure with wise-cracking acrobatic Nathan Drake as he goes on a new journey for what else but treasure. The first game featured three types of gameplay: third-person shooting a la Gears of War, climbing across chasms via Prince of Persia, and vehicle segments, some on-rail, some not. Co-op and multiplayer gameplay are added, and we'll see if they're as up to snuff as the single-player story. Look for this treasure sometime this fall.


Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (PS3)

This is a series that I fell in love with when I rented Going Commando, the second in the series, so long ago. I immediate purchased the game and have been a fan since. I was afraid that Insomniac would rest on their laurels with a game that featured minimal new additions, but it appears there's nothing to fear here. Play as Ratchet as he goes off to find Clank and stave off Dr. Nefarious (Up Your Arsenal) once again.


Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (DS)

The original Mario & Luigi was a terrific game, and Partners in Time while also excellent was more linear. Bowser's Inside Story, the third game in the trilogy is set to be the best one yet. Comic relief Fawful has returned, but this time he's the one in charge. Travel inside and out Bowser's body in a role-playing adventure unlike any other. Mid-September is when Mario & Luigi return to the RPG realm.

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (DS)

Link is a flexible character for sure. Sailing ships, bashing baddies and bosses, utilizing an arsenal of weapons and gadgets, and now taking the role of engineer in the latest Zelda game, Spirit Tracks. If you didn't care for the controls of Phantom Hourglass, you won't be interested in this adventure. The rest of us will have another fun adventure only this time without the Temple of the Ocean King.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash Up (Wii, PS2)

Ubisoft seems to be making no attempt to hide that Smash Up is wholly inspired from Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Face off with the turtles and a number of characters in multi-tiered stages full of danger and havoc. The Wii version features online play while the PS2 version does not. Whatever system you go with, Smash Up seems to be a smashing good time. It comes out late next month.


Scribblenauts (DS)

This game holds huge promise. It's from the developers behind Drawn to Life. Scribblenauts has you doodling down words and watching your words turn into a creation. Writing "tree" will make a tree pop up. "Sword" will make a sword materialize, and so forth. Countless hours will be wasted seeing what words will work and won't work. Catch Scribblenauts halfway into September.

Perfect Dark (XBLA)

My personal favorite shooter of all time gets the polished treatment with online co-op, counter-op, and combat simulator gameplay. The visuals have been upgraded and the framerate is said to be stable. This might just be my most anticipated game of the year.


Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PS3, 360, PC)

War is hell unless you have unlimited respawning troops. The hugely popular Call of Duty returns with its yearly tour of consoles. I'm not too into the Call of Duty series, but this one very much interests me. It helps that Modern Warfare is being ported to the Wii so I can try it out with the controls I prefer. Regardless, Modern Warfare 2 is poised to be a mega-hit come November.


Halo 3 ODST (360)

Face off and let the best spartan win in Halo 3 ODST. The campaign mode no longer features Master Chief this time around but a cadet simply called "the rookie". Multiplayer is what people play Halo for, and it aims to please with 24 maps right from the box, the original eleven Halo 3 maps, and several maps from various map packs that were released. Ready, aim, and fire this fall.


Honorable Mentions:

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (Wii, PSP, PS2)
Motorstorm: Arctic Edge (PSP, PS2)
Spyborgs (Wii)

Madden NFL 10 (Wii) Review

If you recall last year, I wrote my Madden NFL 09 All-Play review in letter form. I'm not doing that this year since things have gotten better on the Wii front for Madden. Here's my assessment of Madden NFL 10 for Wii.

Pass or Play?

The Madden NFL franchise is one of the largest mainstream video game series in history. Every year without fail it lights up the sales chart. That is, except on Wii. The folks at EA continue to try to figure out the Wii audience, and even they admitted that the repackaged All-Play for the Madden crowd was not the way of doing it. This year, however, they have opted to give the Wii version of Madden a stylized approach to cater to the lower horsepower of the Wii compared to the HD versions. Is this year's Madden for Wii one that scores big yardage, or is this a game that's been sacked for a safety?

Besides the Play Now function that puts you immediately into a game against your opponent, Madden 10 for Wii features many modes for play, but already you'll notice that Season and Playoffs are nowhere to be found. In their stead, a Road to the Super Bowl mode has been replaced with them. However, this mode is purely for multiplayer as trying to play on your own can actually have you benched if you're not doing up to snuff. This means you automatically forfeit the game, so if you don't have nearby friends, you're not going to have much fun here.

They're lining up in a Chorus Line formation.

Instead, you can try out the classic Franchise mode which is what Road to the Super Bowl tries to imitate but fails. In Franchise you have your pick from any of the countless NFL teams, take them through training camp, pre-season, season, and hopefully play-offs as you trade players, manage your team, and try to make your way to the Super Bowl. Bizarrely enough, this as well as the Superstar mode are locked away and must be unlocked in order to play them. If you didn't have access to the codes, you'd be out of luck.

There's your traditional Madden modes, and then there's several play modes encouraging multiplayer play. 5-on-5 returns this year featuring a quarterback, running back, and two receivers where the goal is to get to the end zone before your four downs run out as there are no first downs. This mode is perfect for pick-up-and-play since games usually last five minutes as opposed to the more time-consuming standard football matches. New to Madden Wii this year is the Madden Showdown where players can play normal ball or football with a twist. There's a tug-of-war inspired game where every down is that side's fourth down as each side inches its way toward their opponent's end zone, a game where fumbles are very common, and many more.

The quarterback's wide open for assault.

Mini-games return, and these are not only open to training camp modes but also multiplayer competitions. There's a game where you have to pass the ball to the correct quarterback while dodging balls that are shot at you attempting to "sack" you, there's a field goal kicking competition, a rushing to the end-zone game, and many more that, with 5-on-5, are a blast to play with friends. As for playing with friends or even strangers for that matter from across the globe, online play is present and accounted for. If you already have an EA online account, you're good to go. If not, you need to sign up or you're unable to hop online and play. Regardless, no friend codes will be a sigh of relief to a lot of players. Online play runs smoothly, and the only real problem is a lack of adequate player matching. Many times you'll face someone way better or way worse than you, and the game does a poor job of matching players up with opponents of something resembling their skill.

Who are you lookin' at?

This year Madden features two types of controls for passing. One assigns each of your receivers to a direction on the Wii remote's d-pad. Just hold the direction for the desired receiver and make a throwing motion. The other is brand-new and no doubt inspired by Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer games, utilizing the Wii remote's near-saving grace, the pointer. You simply move the cursor and point to where you want to chuck the ball, hoping a receiver is open and not tied up in traffic. This mode requires more skill to pull off, and it can be difficult discerning your players from your opponents with the camera zoomed out as required. Additionally, for both offense and defense, flicking the Wii remote up when at a ball will catch it almost every time making interceptions easy pickings more often than not.

Defense is easier, too, and not dumbed down easier either. I never did like playing sports games and having to cycle through a large number of players just to get the one I wanted. With the pointer, this is no longer a problem. You just point and click at the player you want to control, and bam! There it is. Punting and field goal kicking is simple as well. It's more grueling than picking a direction and pressing a button for sure, but it's still simple. You hold a button down and flick the Wii remote up to kick the ball. The stronger the flick, the harder the ball is kicked.

Them cheatin' Patriots are at it again!

As for play-calling, it's much better this time around. You don't have to point at the play you want, giving away your strategy to the other team in local play. Instead you can press a direction on the d-pad. Why this was overlooked last year is amazing. If you aren't familiar with play-calling or are just indifferent or lazy like I am, you can ask Madden to give you a play to run. Thankfully, he never requested to run a Tough-Actin' Tinactin QB Sneak at any time. Guy is still sane.

This year's Wii version of Madden features a unique graphical style to it with exaggerated definitions. They aren't overly cartoony and they look quite nice with a decent amount of fluid animations. Stadiums are filled with your traditional 2-D cardboard spectators and the sidelines are filled with three-dimensional players, coaches, and technical staff. The interface of the game is sleek and smooth and boasts a great presentation. Even the menu has been beefed up, though it's a bit cumbersome to navigate with just the Wii remote. Since John Madden retired, the commentating team is brand-new, and they both do a decent job of calling the plays, sharing insight, and giving rare comedic moments. The soundtrack is full of rock, hip-hop, and rap, perfect for smashing one's head in on the gridiron.

Players this year got a stylistic overhaul.

This year's version of Madden for Wii is a definite improvement over last year's misstep. There still needs to be a balance between single-player and multi-player content this time around, and there a few modes missing that are present from the HD versions. Regardless, Madden NFL 10 for Wii gets a solid recommendation for those wanting a unique football experience and may be burnt out on the traditional console versions. Even as someone who isn't that interested in all the intricacies of football, Madden NFL 10 scores a touchdown but not quite the extra point.

[SuperPhillip Says: 8.0/10]

SuperPhillip's Wipeout Pulse (PSP) Pics

Yesterday I posted a brand-new review for the PSP sleeper, Wipeout Pulse. Today I'd like to share some shots I made via the game's photo tool. Some of which were featured in the review itself.

For all of my shots with some F-Zero X music, check out the following video!

Direct Link Here

Wipeout Pulse (PSP) Review

I'm slowly but surely taking down my backlog. This time around we're checking out a recent PSP game in the form of Wipeout Pulse.

A Healthy Pulse Indeed
All screenshots by SuperPhillip

The F-Zero series is Nintendo's answer to futuristic racing, and to many it's hailed as the king. However, Sony Liverpool's Wipeout franchise is poised to take that crown with its multiple installments over the past decade each of varying degrees of success. PSP owners got a taste of Wipeout with the launch release Wipeout Pure. Years later, Liverpool is at it again with a brand-new entry into the long-running franchise with Wipeout Pulse, a game that's bigger and better than their PSP original racer. Is Wipeout Pulse racing at its finest, or is this title doomed to crash and burn?

Leader of the pack.

The single-player mode in Wipeout Pulse has been completely revamped since Pure. Instead of just doing grand prix, time trials, and single race events for medals, you now choose missions from a grid select screen. There's a vast assortment of missions on a grid-like board-- most of which are locked up. Completing one of the available missions will unlock all missions adjacent to it. There's sixteen different grid boards in all in the single-player mode, and each grid features more difficult challenges to attempt and hopefully complete. Each mission has one of three medals that can be earned-- gold, silver, or bronze. Each medal gives you points. Earn enough points to unlock the next grid of challenges.

It's all about finding that perfect racing line.

The problem with this formula isn't that there isn't a variety of missions. There certainly are. There's traditional tournaments where you race 3 or more tracks in a row with the highest scorer winning the gold, time trials of varying laps, speed laps where the goal is to drive as fast of a lap as possible, endurance races where the object is to survive on a track as long as you can while you perpetually speed up, head-to-head races against one other opponent, and finally eliminator death-match races where it's every man for himself. So no, the problem is not the variety of missions. The problem is the variety of tracks initially available. There's sixteen tracks in all, and each one has two versions, one normal and one where you drive around it the opposite way. With each new grid you unlock, you only open up one new course. This means you're constantly racing 10-15 times on the same courses only with different challenge types. The tracks themselves are very well-designed and have their own personal history highlighted at the start of each race via a voiced introduction cut-scene.

Sixteen tracks with reverse versions
make for a huge amount of locales.

Wipeout Pulse is a lot like F-Zero only with weapons. There's a huge arsenal of offensive and defensive items to use, and they're all balanced. No one item will change the entire scope of a race say with something like Mario Kart Wii. There's shields to ward off attacks, boosts to speed past opponents, missiles, rockets, mines, cluster bombs, auto-pilot, wall-bouncing shurikens, and other colossal weapons. Weapons are picked up by running over a special pad of sorts. Usually these are to the left or right of boost pads which gives the player a choice between weaponry or a boost of speed. That level of strategy makes Pulse a winning racer on that side of the track.

Highway to the danger zone!

Wipeout Pulse plays exactly like the earlier PSP installment of the series, so fans of Wipeout Pure will be able to race right into the action with no problem. The game is your typical futuristic racer will tracks twisting and turning in three dimensions on all axes. You can use items with the square button or use them to heal your ship with circle. Computer opponents use items as well, and your ship will let you know if dangers are ahead or behind you with a verbal warning. It's all about tight cornering, precision, and finding a good line over the vast amount of boost pads littered on tracks to get the gold. The left and right shoulder buttons perform a quick air slide that are great for making sharp turns without losing speed. There's three different camera angles that can be utilized for whatever vantage point you're comfortable with in order to deal with the seven other racers.

Head-to-head races are but one of the many modes in Pulse.

Compared to Pure, Wipeout Pulse has been beefed up with options. You can put up to thirty songs onto your SD card and hear them while racing via the custom playlist option. Anything's better than the bland techno soundtrack permeating as the standard music for Pulse. You can also take photos at anytime during a race, upload them to your computer, or share them with friends. Online is still here with up to eight racers duking it out across the globe. There's also a custom skin editor that you can create your art for your ship online and put it on your racing ship for all to see. The amount of new and old options available is staggering for a portable racing title.

Boost pads are placed at strategically located parts of track.

Presentation has been accelerated, too. Everything is much, much sleeker and feels "higher budget". At the beginning of each race, a narrator explains a bit about the course you're about to race on giving details about its history, length, and more. It's a very cool addition indeed. There's little in the way of slowdown even with all of the carnage that can happen on the track. Lighting is impressive with cool transitions between inside and outside pieces of track. Vehicles and tracks are gorgeous to look at, and it's really amazing how Sony Liverpool packed all of this visual beauty into a PSP game.

Getting vertical in Metropia.

Wipeout Pulse is a fantastic racer with hours upon hours of replay value. The single-player alone will take upwards of countless days just to achieve a gold rank in every challenge (even if playing through it can be monotonous), and the online gameplay adds even more into the mix. Those looking for a fast-paced racer with tons of content need not look any further than Wipeout Pulse for the PSP. The pulse is beating strong with this one.

[SuperPhillip Says: 8.75/10]