Completed Games June 2012

The Conduit - Wii
Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 - 360
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock - Wii
Super Mario Galaxy 2 - Wii

Another four games 'completed'* this month.

I picked up The Conduit on a whim as I'm not really a fan of FPS games but overall I did really enjoy it. The Wii remote gives it a different feel to using a pad and it's got some interesting weapons. It has it's flaws, a couple of levels for example just have a huge difficulty spike, but overall it's worth giving it a play through.

Whilst UMVC3 is just not as good as MVC2 it is still a really enjoyable game. As per usual the game play is manic, includes mega hit combos and has an interesting character list that includes the like of Nova, Deadpool, Ghost Rider and Rocket Raccoon from the Marvel side and Phoenix Wright, Mike Haggar, Viewtiful Joe and Frank West from the Capcom side.

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock was the last core title released in the GH series before it's rest and a huge improvement it was over the previous couple of games. For me personally the setlist is far superior to the World Tour and Five and with a quest mode featuring the voice of Gene Simmons and a battle with a giant robot it's a shame that the series died as it came good again.

The last game of the month was Super Mario Galaxy 2 which like it's predecessor is an amazing game. I personally don't feel that it has the same impact of the first game but with the inclusion of Yoshi, levels being played with Luigi and a host of new galaxies (including one called Throwback Galaxy which is a level from Super Mario 64) SMG2 is definitely a game that you should play.

After nineteen years...

It's mine, all mine the precious.

... I finally own Super Play Gold.

For those in the know regarding Super Play you'll know that this particular issue doesn't come up for sale all that often. For those not in the know, Super Play is/was a magazine that launched in 1992 to cover the Super Nintendo. Not only did it cover the UK scene it also covered imports from the US and Japan alongside covering Manga/Anime, which at the time was a big deal as it didn't tend to get much coverage in the UK.

There were 47 issues released (48 including the Gold issue) over a four year period but with the decline of the SNES and the imminent release of the N64 Super Play closed it doors. I still own all 47 issues and I'm really pleased to finally own the 48th issue and am happy to add it to the collection.

Marvel Vs. Capcom official artbook

Announced just over a week ago, UDON Entertainment are releasing the official Marvel Vs. Capcom artbook.

Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 is an absolutely brilliant game, one of my favourites, and the first and third games are great to play as well so it's cool to see that they are releasing an artbook for the trilogy. What's even better is the fact that the book isn't just for the MVC games but also every game that Marvel and Capcom have collaborated on which is The Punisher, X-Men: Children of the Atom, Marvel Super Heroes, X-Men VS Street Fighter™, Marvel Super Heroes VS Street Fighter™, Marvel VS Capcom, Marvel VS Capcom 2, Marvel VS Capcom 3, and Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3!

Pretty cool right!

Coming in at 192 pages the book has unfortunately only been confirmed for the US so far at $100 (hardcover) and $44.99 (softcover). Hopefully, and I would be surprised if it didn't, it should be confirmed for a European release sooner rather than later.

If it does get a European release then it will definitely be on my list of things that I would like to pick up as this should be an absolutely brilliant book.

Key Features:
- This is an original art book compiled by UDON, with no Japanese counterpart!
- Includes all of the promotional artwork, a complete art archive of all Marvel vs. Capcom character drawings, and rare, never-before-seen artwork, sketches, and bonus material!
- Contains artwork from the Capcom games The Punisher, X-Men: Children of the Atom, Marvel Super Heroes, X-Men VS Street Fighter™, Marvel Super Heroes VS Street Fighter™, Marvel VS Capcom, Marvel VS Capcom 2, Marvel VS Capcom 3, and Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3!
- Includes 17 new illustrations exclusive to this book!

For more information and to view more pages please visit http://www.udoncomics.com/blog/

Completed Games May 2012

Gears of War 2 - 360
The Last Story - Wii
Super Princess Peach - DS

Three games completed on three different systems.

Finally finished off GOW2 which took a while as I only play the games with a mate so can only play when we can get together. It's good fun playing in co-op, especially with some of the levels in this game. Now just need to pick up the third game in the series.

The Last Story was an absolutely brilliant game which I was a little saddened to complete. It started off slowly and has it's flaws but overall it was a very absorbing game with great characters. I managed to pick up Super Princess Peach  for a lot less than it normally sells for and found it to be a very enjoyable game. It's a little on the easy side but there is lots to do and a lot of stuff to collect which extends the game play and makes it a worthwhile purchase.

Recent purchases pt 3

Finally, the last part of the recent pick-ups and this time some retro stuff.

Mr Nutz was a freebie and a game that I'm looking forward to playing whilst Rocky Horror was also a freebie for when I finally find my Spectrum. Striker was a replacement for the copy that I've somehow managed to lose and NBA Jam is a game that I've finally managed to get after playing and enjoying many years ago.

Recent purchases pt 2

I will say straight off that I was extremely pleased to have picked up most of these games. Pandora's Tower is the gorgeous limited edition (seen here) while Red Steel 2 is the Motion+ limited edition, which was still sealed when I received it.

I've been after Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 for a while now and had never seen it in a shop round here until about five minutes after coming out of the Cinema from watching Avengers Assemble (which was great). The Kirby game was the same, never saw it in any shops so picked it up as soon as I did see it. The two Ace Attorney games means that I've now completed the set so I will have to start playing through them sooner rather than later and I'm pleased to have finally picked up Another Code.

I was happy to have picked up DoDonpachi Resurrection as I missed out on it in the Game sale and it's a game I fancy playing after previously playing DeathSmiles and the three 360 games next to that were all freebies which was really nice.

So like the yesterday a very pleasing set of pick-ups.

Recent purchases pt 1

Over the past couple of months I've picked up quite a few games (excluding the Game sale) through buying, trading and freebies. Instead of writing a post everytime something dropped through the letterbox I thought that I would just lump them all together and post every now and then. Saying that though, I've picked up that much that I've decided to split it over three posts over the next couple of days to show off everything.

So for today's post I've put together the oldest stuff, some of which I've since completed, of some Wii, DS, Cube and GB stuff.

Although I was pleased to have picked up all of the games the only real difficult one that I picked up was XGRA which I was relieved to have finally bought, especially as I picked it up for a lot cheaper than then ridiculous BIN's on Ebay. Mortal Kombat Deception was another that I was finally pleased to have picked up as it's an NTSC copy due to the game not being released for the Cube in Europe for some reason.

As for the rest, The Last Story is a gorgeous boxset (seen here), it was about time that I picked up Mario Galaxy and Hotel Dusk I had been after for a while.

Overall a very pleasing set of pick-ups.

Wii time - one year later

A year ago I posted a thread titled Wii Time where I listed the games that I had played on the Wii and for how long I had played them. Well, one year later I decided to take another look to see how things had changed with the list and this is what it now looks like (correct on 11/05/2012)

Guitar Hero III - 90 hours 15 minutes
Twilight Princess - 56 hours 59 minutes
Guitar Hero World Tour: 39 hours 45 minutes
Metroid Prime 3 36 hours 0 minutes
Super Mario Galaxy - 32 hours 34 minutes
Kirby's Epic Yarn - 32 hours 32 minutes
The Last Story - 30 hours 45 minutes
Metroid: Other M - 30 hours 37 minutes
Mario Kart Wii - 29 hours 38 minutes
Guitar Hero: Metallica - 27 hours 48 minutes
Super Smash Bros. Brawl - 26 hours 6 minutes
Red Steel - 22 hours 54 minutes
de Blob - 20 hours 5 minutes
Tatsunoko Vs Capcom - 19 hours 34 minutes
No More Heroes - 19 hours 11 minutes
Disaster: Day of Crisis - 17 hours 32 minutes
Goldeneye 007 - 16 hours 39 minutes
Super Paper Mario - 16 hours 5 minutes
Fragile Dreams Farewell Ruins of the Moon - 13 hours 36 minutes
New Super Mario Bros. - 11 hours 34 minutes
Wii Play - 10 hours 25 minutes
House of the Dead: Overkill - 8 hours 29 minutes
Zack and Wiki - 7 hours 21 minutes
Klonoa - 6 hours 19 minutes
Raving Rabbids TV Party - 6 hours 15 minutes
Wii Sports - 4 hours 56 minutes
Boom Blox: Bash Party - 4 hours 25 minutes
Just Dance - 4 hours 14 minutes
Wii Fit - 2 hours 31 minutes
Madworld - 2 hours 29 minutes
Sega Superstars Tennis - 2 hours 24 minutes
Super Mario All Stars - 2 hours 16 minutes
Pandora's Tower - 2 hours 4 minutes
Okami - 1 hour 54 minutes
Punch-Out - 46 minutes
Gunblade NY & LA Machineguns Arcade Hits Pack - 45 minutes
Just Dance 2 - 41 minutes
Wario Land: The Shake Dimension - 39 minutes
Disney Epic Mickey - 38 minutes
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games - 36 minutes
Sonic and the Secret Rings - 34 minutes
Mercury Meltdown Revolution - 26 minutes
Wii Play Motion - 25 minutes
Resident Evil 4 - 24 minutes
Mario Party 8 - 18 minutes
Wii Sports Resort - 6 minutes
Trauma Center: Second Opinion - 4 minutes
Little King's Story - 3 minutes
Link's Crossbow Training - 3 minutes
Kororinpa - 2 minutes
Trauma Center: New Blood - 2 minutes
Cursed Mountain - 1 minute

The top game is still Guitar Hero III but only two hours play has been added to it where as six hours has been added to Guitar Hero: World Tour. Super Mario Galaxy, Kirby's Epic Yarn and The Last Story all appear in the list this time round with some serious hours between them.

There are a couple of more completed games in the list after that but what's interesting are the games that haven't changed like Zack and Wiki. I cannot belive that I haven't played that within in the last year, especially as I still haven't completed it and was enjoying playing it.

The bottom end of the list is games that I've just tested after buying them but I expect at least a couple of them to have moved up the list this time next year.

10th Anniversary of the GameCube

Happy 10th Anniversary to the little box hitting Europe.

Completed Games April 2012

Disaster: Day of Crisis - Wii
Astro Boy: Omega Factor - GBA
Last Window: The Secret of Cape West - DS
WarioWare, Inc: Mega Microgames!

Four games completed in April, four that I would recommend for different reasons.

Day of Crisis was an interesting game, both brilliant and terrible at the same time. Play it and you will know exactly what I mean. I only know of the character of Astro Boy but I have to say that Omega Factor is an absolutely brilliant game, simple game play but an absorbing story and it's great trying to figure out the clues for the level orders.

Last Window is the sequel to Hotel Dusk (a game that I completed in March) and it's a worthy sequel. I would even go as far as saying that I thought that it was an improvement on the first game as it was faster paced and never let-up, also great for following up on plot threads from the first game.

Finally, I fancied something quick and easy after Last Window so I decided to plump for WarioWare on the GBA. First WarioWare game that I've properly played and good fun it was. Definitely recommend it for a good laugh.

All in all, four completely different games and four that are worth playing.