Can't Link Your 3DS To Your Club Nintendo Account? Here's How...

You're in the 3DS eShop for the first time, and it offers to link your Club Nintendo account to your 3DS, presumably to help you rack up stars and benefits. You judiciously input your email address and password, only to have an error message appear, telling you that your email address and/or password is incorrect. So you hop on your computer and login to the Club Nintendo website without issue...

???!

According to the Troubleshooting section of Nintendo's website, this error can be caused by two things, neither of which are mentioned in the original error message, and neither of which has anything to do with an incorrect email address or password.

Here it is:

1. Login to your Club Nintendo account via the relevant Nintendo website (on your PC, laptop, phone - basically anything other than your 3DS!).
2. Click on the "EDIT MY PERSONAL DATA" button.
3. Under the "User Data" section, click on the little "EDIT >" button.
4. Click into the "Username:" field and remove any "special characters" from your username. This includes underscores ("_"), and I assume other symbols used for swearing like !@#$%^&*()-+=, etc. If you've always hated your username, here's your opportunity to change it.
5. Check the "Date of birth:" to ensure that you are registered as being born more than 13 years ago.

 If you're under 13, or you entered a fake date of birth that's less than 13 years ago, then I'm afraid you're out of luck. Nintendo has pre-emptively "protected" you from the evils of the internet! There appears to be no method of editing the date of birth after an account has been registered.

That being the case, I would recommend trying to contact Nintendo customer service to see if they can change it on their end (which is probably more time consuming than it's worth), or failing that, give up and create a new Club Nintendo account. A date of birth greater than 21 should have you covered, but you might want to make yourself 100 years old just to be on the safe side...

I wrote this because I found Nintendo's troubleshooting instructions to be woefully low on detail and generally unhelpful. I am a trainer by day, so I thought I would try writing some instructions that were quite the opposite!

Beer Pong Too Strong For Wii

By Adam Redsell on July 7, 2008 at 10:41 AM

Beer Pong fans will have to settle for the real thing, thanks to outraged parent and university groups. Beer Pong was to be released on Wii Ware last month as part of JV Games' Frat Party Games line, but those plans came to a grinding halt when the cries of hot mothers and stuffy deans reached the ears of Connecticut attorney-general Richard Blumenthal.

Blumenthal determined that the ESRB had made a grievous error in clearing the game for young teens, expressing concerns that future games in the Frat Party Games series will be approved for that age group. In what appeared to be a panic-propelled backflip, JV Games VP Jag Jaeger [hello, deed poll!] announced that the game will be renamed "Pong Toss" and all references to alcohol removed. Thing is, the game contained no alcoholic references to begin with, according to the ESRB president Patricia Vance:

"Despite being premised on a drinking game, the game's content involves essentially nothing more than tossing pingpong balls into plastic cups. We are thus unsure of the basis for the statement in your letter suggesting that this content 'glorifies alcohol abuse and binge drinking."

Touche. Blumenthal [blue menthol?] responded by pointing out that "beer" was explicitly referred to in the title, accompanied by a depiction of said beverage. He added that kegs and beer mugs were clearly visible at some of the beer pong tables, and that there was even a full bar in the background. Clearly Richard has spent a lot of time with the game.

So "Beer Pong" is now "Pong Toss" and the oldies are satisfied. Where this leaves the follow-up title, "Bong Toss", remains to be seen.

'Beer Pong' Video Game Has Controversy Brewing [Fox News]

My Top 7 Games of the Year 2012

I haven't played every notable video game that released in 2012, but I have played a fair whack of them, and I wanted to highlight them here.

NUMBER SEVEN: Borderlands 2

 

 I tried to get into Borderlands last year, and once again this year, but it just didn't hook me the way the sequel did.  I'm not certain what was so different about Borderlands 2 that made me hunger for loot and level-ups; perhaps the smart writing and humorous dialogue greased the wheels.  All I know is that with Borderlands 2, I now care what guns I'm carrying; I now want to tick off everything on my to-do list; I now want to play a first person shooter for more than 50 hours...

NUMBER SIX: XCOM: Enemy Unknown

 

I don't play many strategy games, but when I do, it's usually a well-crafted one by Firaxis.  XCOM: Enemy Unknown is no exception, and may well be my favourite strategy game this side of Civilisation II.  I was emotionally invested in my squad, and not wanting to see them die horribly was the key motivator to playing the game patiently and properly.

NUMBER FIVE: Mass Effect 3

Sure, Mass Effect 3's ending left a lot to be desired, but every story beat brought a Mass Effect story thread to a satisfying conclusion.  Some of these moments were among the most deeply moving experiences I've ever had playing a video game.  It's not the best Mass Effect game, but it was worth it just to see Garrus, Thane, and Mordin one last time.

NUMBER FOUR: Mark of the Ninja

Mark of the Ninja was the most mechanically satisfying game I played all year.  The controls are tight and super-smooth, the ninja's arsenal is versatile and interesting, and the game deftly transmits feedback to the player.  All of these things are paramount for a stealth game, but what's most remarkable about Mark of the Ninja is that it makes all of these things work in 2D.  2D stealth has never been done before, but this game will make you wonder why nobody tried it sooner.

NUMBER THREE: Journey

Journey is one of the most beautiful games ever created, inside and out.  It is filled with the awe of discovery. Discovering another player for the first time; discovering that close proximity to that player increases your ability to fly, and keeps you warm in a snowstorm.  It's magical.  By limiting player communication to a single sound and a single button press, it manages to forge unspoken bonds between complete strangers.  So much so, my stranger-turned friend and I simply stopped and stood on top of a hill, just to look at the sky.  It was a rare moment of shared beauty.

NUMBER TWO: Hotline Miami

Hotline Miami is a horrible 80s cocaine binge in the best possible way.  Its broken-record soundtrack, hazy filter, and wavering camera put me right in the disturbed headspace of its protagonist.  In a way, the game is a systematic, stealth action game.  But its one-hit-one-kill policy rewards the brazen far more than the methodical.  The game kills you until you are a genuinely better player.  Twitch reflexes develop; muscle memory sets in.  Make no mistake, I died many times during the course of Hotline Miami, but I thought to myself, just one more try, EVERY time.  The game design really serves and encourages this with quick controls and quick restarts.  Clearing a level is satisfying because it can only be done quickly and flawlessly.  It is also harrowing because the music stops and the game forces you to reflect upon your violence as you do the walk of shame back to your car.  Hotline Miami is conceptually brilliant: the most violent statement against violence in video games.

And NUMERO UNO is...

THE WALKING DEAD

The Walking Dead video game is not only superior to the television show; it is better than the comic book series that spawned them both.  The emotional bond with its characters is strengthened by the interactive nature of the medium.  Its high stakes plot is raised by throwing the player into heart-wrenching decision-making.  The Walking Dead treats player choice with the deepest respect, and yet there is a fatalism that propels its story.  Often those choices will be between abandoning or mercy-killing a doomed friend or family member.  At two particular points, the weight of these decisions reduced me to a weeping, sobbing mess.  By the game's conclusion, I felt like an empty shell of a man - a zombie, if you will - and it took me a long time to recover.  It's not often I can say that about a video game, let alone any form of entertainment.  Congratulations Walking Dead, you are my Game of the Year for 2012.

Rage Against the Machine: Wii U and Bayonetta 2

Platinum Games have copped a lot of hate - and even death threats - following the announcement of Bayonetta 2 as a Wii U exclusive.  Nintendo named itself as the game's publisher, practically assuring its exclusivity, and no doubt adding fuel to the fire.

The people who are angry about all this are people who considered a multiplatform Bayonetta 2 to be a real possibility.  To the those people, I would say this: you should be thanking Nintendo, because I assure you, Bayonetta 2 would not exist on any platform without them:

"That being said, the console games market is in a state of upheaval, so establishing a new game franchise requires a considerable amount of will, determination, and love. Bayonetta is a brand that we want to see become stronger, reaching the hands of more and more gamers, so we have continued to consult with SEGA, the previous game’s publisher, on how we can make sure this takes place. Our answer was a new partnership with Nintendo."

It's not all roses for Bayonetta 2.

Consider this: Platinum Games have not had a hit since the original Bayonetta, which only sold 1.35 million units worldwide.  Now, if I sold 1.35 million of anything, I would regard that as a success, but for SEGA as a publisher, I would imagine that the game sold well below expectations given the marketing push it had.  Now consider the fact that SEGA has financially hit a tight spot, and have had to drastically scale back their publishing operations in order to guarantee future profits.  That means sticking to your Sonics, your Yakuzas, your Monkey Balls, and your Total Wars - not your Bayonettas.  I would add that it is highly likely that Bayonetta 2 was part-way through development before SEGA's scale-back as well.

So you're Platinum Games, and you're faced with a decision: either throw Bayonetta 2 in the bin and it will never get made, or shop it around to another publisher, one that will not only need to fund its remaining development, but will also want it bad enough to buy it back from SEGA.

The only publisher who fits that bill is Nintendo.  Nintendo needs a strong launch lineup for the Wii U, and it needs to prove to 'core' gamers that it is serious about securing exclusive AAA third party content going forward.  In a huge show of faith, Nintendo is also putting its name to Platinum's new IP, publishing Wonderful 101 at launch.

It's clear that Nintendo is supporting Platinum in a big way, and Platinum is returning the favour.  Platinum was clearly looking for a way that Bayonetta 2 could exist, and Nintendo has provided them with that way.

Fighting Vapors

This is all that exists of Tekken X Street Fighter.  (And all that will ever exist of it.)

With regards to Tekken X Street Fighter, the Tekken team and Harada-san over there haven’t even put together one page of design documents regarding their game yet! They’re so slow… I want to put in all sorts of whatever nods or easter eggs that I can, but just two weeks ago Harada-san called me and said, “Hey… can I have a list of the Street Fighter characters?” And I was like, “What? You’re so slow!” It’ll probably take them six years to come out with their game!

~Yoshinori Ono, producer of Street Fighter X Tekken

To summarise, Tekken X Street Fighter has not been in development during the past 2+ years since its announcement, is not in development currently, and - mark my words - will not see the light of day, ever.  Given the PR nightmare engulfing Street Fighter X Tekken, this result grows ever more likely.

Power to the People

The nickel and dime operation known as VIDEOGAMES got just a tad more ridiculous when Nintendo revealed that the 3DS LL (aka XL) would not release with an AC adapter in Japan.  They then went on to announce that the price of the 3DS plug would be reduced from 1,500 yen to 1,000 yen, presumably in response to the web-wide backlash.  This is good news for serial lead-losers and cord collectors alike, but I'm not certain Nintendo grasps the full stupidity of their decision.

When the DSi LL (XL) saw release, it was squarely pitched towards the elderly, in the hopes that they would take to the device's bigger screen, bigger grip, bigger stylus, and bigger...well, everything.  It's not much of a stretch to assume that the 3DS LL is aimed toward that same demographic.  Will Japanese seniors be tech-savvy enough to know that this thing needs to be charged?  Or will they return to stores in droves three hours later to refund a doohickey that just stopped working?

Skyrim is the New "Dog Ate My Homework"

 That's my excuse for the lack of updates, anyway...

I keep telling myself (and my wife) that it'll all be over soon.

It'll all be over soon...

Touch My Katamari

Keita Takahashi's videogames:

The goal of Katamari Damacy is to roll balls around until they become gigantic.

The goal of Noby Noby Boy is to stretch a snake longer and longer.

You and Freud can do the rest.

Born to be Wild

Get back to where you once belonged.

When I heard that the next Call of Juarez would likely return to the wild, wild west, I was not surprised.  In fact, I was more surprised that the latest entry, The Cartel, was set in modern day LA.  In retrospect, this deviation from the series (along with a few others) was actually quite disastrous.  It wasn't long ago that Red Dead Redemption brought Westerns to the forefront of videogames.  A year later and another Western could have recaptured an audience itching to get back in the saddle again.  Instead, Ubisoft released another modern-day shooter into a world already weary of modern-day shooters.

The frustrating thing is that it really wouldn't have taken much to change Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood from a faint curiosity to a must-play title.  The critical consensus was that Call of Juarez seemed like it was designed to be a co-operative shooter, only to have that feature cruelly stripped away from it (presumably due to time constraints).  Now, I don't know how true or practical that even is, but the fact that they jumped from no co-op at all to three-player co-op in its sequel seems rather ludicrous.  The series has traditionally revolved around three characters, but prior to this has only ever featured two during gameplay (which I think makes perfect sense).

The other consensus view was that the game's authentic western feel was its greatest asset.

I suppose what I'm getting at is that Call of Juarez: The Cartel seems to have overcomplicated a rather simple equation for improving upon its predecessor:

Western + Shooter + Co-op = WINNER!

Will someone just come out and tell me

which version of Skyrim to buy?!

It's doing my head in.

The consensus view is that the PC version's better looking, while the console version has a smoother interface.

But which is more important?!

The Toejam and Earl Gallery

Anyone who knows me knows that I love Toejam and Earl, mostly because I never shut up about it. It just frustrates me that there's a game so eminently replayable; a game that still stands tall 20 years on from its release, and yet nobody's even heard of it. In many ways I feel as though I'm loving it enough (and playing it enough) for the rest of the world. And so it came as no surprise to my friends and family that my next article on IGN would address the game and its longevity for its 20th birthday (in 3,000 words no less).

What also frustrated me was the absolute dearth of material on the internet concerning this fantastic game, and so I wanted to write something comprehensive that did the game justice; an 'evergreen' article that people could continue to refer to in the future. The only Toejam and Earl images on the internet were lazily screencapped within the first 5 levels with only one player present on the screen.  For a game known for its cooperative two-player, this would not do. So I called my sister in for a playthrough and we tried to capture the essence of Toejam and Earl's trademark madness and humour in pictures. These are those pictures:

Arkham: An Open and Shut Case

"None of you understand. I'm not locked up in here with you. You're locked up in here with me."

~Rorschach, Watchmen

Batman: Arkham Asylum is a lot of fun to play, mostly because it empowers the player to turn the whole predator/prey relationship on its head with a simple touch of a button.  The player - as Batman - haunts the halls of Arkham Asylum, putting the fear of God into the souls of Gotham's worst.

Having now played Arkham City, I think a great deal of that feeling came from its tight spaces and dark corners.  I say this because the sequel is very much the opposite of that: a sprawling metropolis with wide, open spaces, and very few places to hide.  One thing I do enjoy about the open world setting is the ability to grapple and glide across the city a la Spiderman 2. It is very true to the comics' depiction of Batman on patrol, stopping trouble wherever it lurks.  Granted, Arkham City itself serves more as an overworld linking those tight, dark spaces together, but it comes as no surprise to me that Arkham Asylum's stealthy brand of gameplay really shines through indoors.

The inverted takedown: Arkham's bread and butter

I'm sure I would have complained about the ridiculous number of gargoyles placed throughout Arkham Asylum's levels at some stage, but one thing that is glaringly absent from Arkham City's overworld play is the inverted takedown.  This is the one move that makes me feel like Batman, picking off thugs one by one, striking fear into the hearts of those remaining.

See, my Batman power fantasy is seriously disrupted by the fact that I am getting my ass kicked on a regular basis.  I chose the 'hard' difficulty because it came up by default, and I'm too stubborn to restart the game on a lower difficulty (because you can't change it mid-game).  I think probably the main difference between 'hard' and 'medium' is the sheer amount of punching and kicking that it takes to subdue an Arkham inmate.  Add to that the fact that I've not yet stumbled upon a method of whittling down large groups out in the open, and I'm left with a major fistfight on my hands at every turn.  These goons are nigh-on invincible, and it's near impossible to perform a takedown of any kind with at least three of them at your back at any time.

The Arkham Chopper: Gotham's Greatest Murderer

Once it took me so long to dismantle the horde that I was gattled to death by a helicopter at the fight's conclusion - very discouraging - I'm fairly certain it had travelled miles to reach me!  But who knows?  Maybe I'll be refined in the fire, as I was in Ninja Gaiden or Spartan: Total Warrior, and it will all become second nature.  In the meantime, though, the flow and pace of Arkham City is being severely hampered by its excruciating combat conditions.

Going Batty

A funny thing happened to me at the EB Expo this year.  A Warner Bros. rep asked me if I was a Batman fan.  I was a bit coy with him - I told him I had two bookshelves full of comics and that Batman took up two of those shelves - but I was reticent to admit that he was my favourite comic book character.  I just said that he must be a great character, because nearly every great comic book writer has had a Batman story in them.

When I got home, my wife asked me if I was going to get the new Batman game (word travels fast).  I was coy with her too; I just told her that I don't usually buy new release videogames because they're too expensive.

Flash forward to yesterday.  I have a shower, eat breakfast, wash my hands with my Batman handwash, pack my Batman backpack studded with Batman badges and go to work.  On my lunch break, I look up Arkham City on Ecogamer *just to check* what price it's going for.  The price is right.  I order lunch and read a Batman comic while I eat.  I walk into the store and I purchase Arkham City.  I take it back to work and put it in my Batman bag.  At 5 o'clock I race home, pull the game out of my Bat-pack and start playing.

Yeah, I might be a Batman fan.


[This post was written while wearing a Superman shirt.]

The Vita Will Tank at Australian Retail

Sony Computer Entertainment Australia has just announced the launch date and retail price of the Playstation Vita in Australia, and people are spitting chips over it.  We are looking at a launch price of $349.99 AUD for the Wi-Fi model and $449.99 AUD for the 3G model.

[This is the part where I talk to Sony as if Sony are actually reading this blog.]

Sony, this kind of crap used to float 6 years ago, but not anymore.  The world has grown smaller, not larger, and Aussie gamers are savvy to what the rest of the world is paying.  Australian retailers are no longer competing against each other; they're competing against the world, and they're competing against the online space in particular.  And that is why I believe the PS Vita will tank at Australian retail.  With the Aussie dollar riding high, expect Australian gamers to import in droves while the price is this unreasonable.

To put this in context, I paid $400 AUD for a Nintendo Wii at launch in 2006.  US gamers were paying $250.  The Australian dollar was sitting around the 79 cent mark at that point in time.  As I write, $250 US is currently worth $244.46 AUD; which happens to be the price of the Wi-Fi PS Vita at launch in America.

Australian consumers aren't unreasonable; they understand there are shipping costs associated with getting these products to our remote shores (although, truth be told, it all has to be shipped from China anyway).  But someone's hand is in the cookie jar here.  Whoever that is will be responsible for driving gamers into the arms of importers and online retail.

Such is life.

Top 10 Snarky Impressions of EB Expo 2011

Here are my top ten, half-cocked impressions of the EB Games Expo 2011:

1. The queuing system really sucked.  Big time.  It was not at all clear where members of the media were supposed to register. After a lot of wandering around aimlessly, reading the signs, and even following [conflicting] directions from EB staff, it became clear that the punters' queue was blocking the media registration spot.  Having not yet been registered as a member of the press, it looked like I was simply pushing in. 
2. The press were not welcome.  Even then, I did not receive the press kit that I was originally supposed to receive in the mail, so I basically received less information than the punters.  I probably missed several press conferences and I didn't find the write-up room until I was ready to leave.  I could count the members of the press in attendance on both hands - most of them were either photographers or fansite bloggers - so you can imagine how empty those press conferences probably were.  In retrospect, I find it incredibly hard to believe that Peter Moore did not have time for an interview.  Aside from all that, I had to line up with the "VIPs" who actually paid extra for their status, just to get my hands on the latest games.  I don't know, maybe I was being too nice and I could have pushed in, but I shouldn't have had to.
3. Videogames are dead.  This is a gaming expo and yet I spent the first hour or so watching videogames on a giant screen.  Oh, and motorbikes.  About half an hour of motorbikes.  Don't get me wrong, their stunts were impressive to say the least, but last time I checked, this thing was about videogames.  At this point they were beginning to look like an afterthought.
4. The lost art of carefully crafted demos.  And when I finally got my hands on the games, I had to sit through five minutes worth of cutscenes just to get to the actual game part!  Main offenders: Uncharted 3, The Darkness II, Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Mass Effect 3.  Even then, these demos were old - in fact, they were the same ones shown at E3 in May.  So while people are playing three hours of Skyrim over at a comic convention in New York, we're watching a 25-minute video at a gaming expo.  Go figure.
5. Sega still has no idea what they're doing with Sonic the Hedgehog.  Sure, half the levels were 2D, and Sonic nearly felt like Sonic control-wise, but the level design is simply not there.  It's as though the multi-tiered City Escape level was randomly cobbled together.
6. Player agency is king.  My games of show: Saints Row: The Third and Mario Kart 7.  Why?  They were the only two that let me just play the friggin' game!
7. Skyrim is great and all, but it ain't no Fallout.  Elder Scrolls V looked very pretty, and there's certainly no shortage of things to do in it, but a post-nuclear Washington DC still trumps a Tolkien fantasy land any day.  The Dungeons and Dragons card was played out long ago.
8. Gamers love Battlefiend, but they hate Origin.  I have to confess, even I was impressed with Battlefield 3 and its Frostbite 2 engine.  I was even more impressed with Peter Moore's ability to take the anti-Origin heckling in his stride.  Despite all the negative press they've been getting, I think EA is one of the few publishers with a clear vision of where gaming is headed over the next few years.
9. Small things amuse...The most impressive feature of Halo Anniversary is the ability to switch between old Halo 1 and new Halo 1 at the press of a button.  I just couldn't stop doing it!
10. The venue was great.  Really great.  Sure, the Gold Coast is a bit of a drive, but parking at the Exhibition Centre was plentiful, and only ten bucks.  That's unheard of in Brisbane, which would have been brought to its knees by an event like this.  Apparently there was a hail storm in the Gold Coast during the afternoon - I did not find this out until two days later!

Indignance in the face of Intelligent AI

Monkeys.  I hate them.

I don't like monkeys.  I don't like dolphins either.  Why?  Because I think they think they're smarter than us, and they're not.  When I see a monkey doing anything vaguely human-like, I feel threatened.

So you can imagine how I felt when I heard the news that IBM had finally developed AI that could beat human players at Pong.  They are being referred to as "cognitive computer chips", and one of these cognitive computers actually learned to play (and beat humans at) Pong.

I was even more alarmed at the suggestion that a freeware Pong clone IBM developed back in 2006 may have made us unwitting beta-testers for this technology over the past five years.  Indignant, I immediately booted up the game, determined to assert my gaming supremacy over this so-called "intelligence".  The first time around, the AI beat me 15-12.  I was furious and tried again.  This time:

Take that, you little mongrel!

I was overjoyed at having beaten the little blighter, but still, the fear that there's another, more powerful Pong rival out there still lingers.

Perhaps we're not so bright after all.  If it's one thing I've learned from Terminator, we're the only ones dumb enough to build something better than us in every conceivable way.


You can play IBM Tennis here.  If you dare.

On Strike

Jungle Strike

Does anyone else find it amusing that Jungle Strike starts in a city and Urban Strike starts in a jungle?

Urban Strike

Just sayin'.

Knytt Stories: Dream Weaver

Knytt Stories is perhaps the most beautiful game I've ever played.  There's nothing flashy about it, but its beauty, both in atmosphere and gameplay, lies in its simplicity.

Its command of form and colour is second to none, evoking curiosity and wonder at every turn.  Every screen is earmarked by little intricacies - birds, insects, snowfall, and glistening crystals - forming the impression of a living, breathing world that exists even when the player isn't there.

By its creator's own admission, there's nothing particularly original about Knytt Stories - it's essentially a Metroid clone in design - but it distills each element into its purest form.  Like Metroid, the game is set in a foreign land and fosters that sense of isolation and "other-ness".

Again like Metroid, the entire game is one large "circuit breaker" puzzle.  The game world consists of a single sprawling level, which opens up as the player gains new skills.  Most platformers use items as breadcrumbs to encourage player exploration.  The only items in Knytt Stories are significant and skill-expanding - the floating jump, the double-jump, the hologram - and yet they are merely tools for further exploration.  Beauty is the sole motivator for progression and the reward is getting to see more of that beauty.

Knytt Stories is so confident in this design that it refuses to fall back on combat; not as a motivator, not as a solution to problems.  This is in-keeping with the game's story: the game world is corrupted by a strange machine, so if a creature attacks you, it's only because its nature has been corrupted by the machine.  Violence clearly doesn't solve anything in this scenario, and so evasion becomes a key maneuver in the game, aided by clever item use.  The umbrella, for instance, can be used to glide across ravines, but it can also be used to shelter the player from falling projectiles.  This keeps the focus firmly on pure platforming.

There's no separation between areas of the game, no loading times, nothing to disturb the flow of play.  Save portals are inconspicuously built into the floor (preventing distraction), and littered conveniently throughout the environment (preventing frustration).  The player need only tap the 'down' button while running past and the game is saved without so much as a menu or pop-up.  Knytt Stories is a one hit, one kill affair, which goes hand in hand with its efficient design.  If you don't have combat, you don't need to stand around getting killed, you don't need a health gauge, and you don't need to kleptomaniacally collect doodads to refill health or ammunition.  First person games have been moving towards this efficiency for years now - regenerative health takes at least one element of item collection out of the equation - but few if any have been brave enough to go the whole hog (even Mirror's Edge chickened out to its own detriment).  If you do die in Knytt Stories (and you will, often), the player immediately respawns at their last save portal, which is never far away.  In this way, the flow of the game is never placed in jeopardy.

The sound design of Knytt Stories stays true to its mantra of beauty in simplicity.  The ambient noises of waterfalls and singing birds punctuates the constant rhythm laid down by the protagonist's footsteps.  The sparseness of these sounds creates a nice envelope for the music when it bubbles to the surface.  The soundtrack runs the gamut of Eno-like ambiance during to apocalyptic techno, emerging only to mark set-pieces of awe and dread.

Knytt Stories is a breath-taking game that filled me with awe.  What I found amazing was the efficiency and restraint it took to produce this effect.  By trimming the fat, Nifflas cut straight to the heart of what made Metroid so great in the first place.  The result is a game dripping with atmosphere that plays as smooth as silk.


Knytt Stories is a freeware game for the PC, developed and designed by Nifflas.  Nifflas' games are available for download and for purchase on his website.

What's Stuck in Jack's Craw?

Jack Claw is a top-down action scroller built around an interesting mechanic: Jack's Claw.  The Claw is a Doc Ock-like tentacle protruding from the protagonist's right arm that can be used to grip, lift, smash, crush, and throw just about anything.  Unfortunately, the core mechanic falls down in execution.  The mouse controls for The Claw simply aren't sensitive enough to forcefully smash or throw anything.  The result is a very calm and considered Claw, too slow to have any fun with: the fun of wrecking things, slamming cars from wall to wall, throwing guys at high velocity into faraway dumpsters.  With all the physics and destructable environments firmly in place, it really is a missed opportunity.  Frozenbyte can attest to this, as they were forced to abandon the project to save the company's future.

Presentationally, the game is quite strong, if not a little cliché.  Jack has broken out of jail, on the run from the authorities in a rundown town.  The setup draws heavily on the comic book stylings of Sin City, from the [captioned] opening monologues to the 40s-era décor.  There's a hint of Tarantino in there as well, with Bombora-esque surf rock undercutting it.

At this point Jack Claw consists of only one level, and can be finished in under five minutes, so it's better that you go in thinking of it more as a prototype than a full game.  Having said that, the game does come with a level editor, so perhaps the story doesn't end here.


Jack Claw is a computer game developed by Frozenbyte.  You can download it as part of the Humble Frozenbyte Bundle.   You can also take part in the game's future on the Frozenbyte forums.

Capcommunity

I haven't felt this daft in a long time.  I've been gorging myself on press releases from Capcom for more than a decade and only now has it dawned on me: 'Capcom Unity' is short for 'Capcom Community'.  I only realised this as I was listening to Destructoid's Podtoid and they were discussing how community managers copped a lot of flak for corporate decisions that even they are bummed about.  When the discussion moved onto Seth Killian, Community Manager at Capcom, and the healthy relationship the company has fostered with its fans, I finally saw the title of their fan site the way I was always meant to: Capcommunity.

Of course, once I realised why it never dawned on me, that cloud of daftness lifted immediately: it's not my fault I didn't get it, it's Capcom's!

See, it all comes back to the basic rules of grammar.  If you want the end of the first word to form the beginning of the next word, they need to flow together.  Putting spaces or hyphens in between two words breaks that all-important flow.  In poetry, a hyphen indicates a four-second pause - that's the longest pause in poetry.  Officially, Capcom-Unity is hyphenated, however, many gaming news articles have named 'Capcom Unity' as the source over the years.  And that's why I've never read the word the way Capcom intended all this time.  So there.

And so it comes to pass that my humiliation has been replaced with indignation. 

Dear Capcom,

If you want people to understand your clever pun, you're going to have to put those words together.  And you're going to need another 'm'.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you:

Capcommunity.