Watcha’ Playing: Marble Saga Kororinpa (Wii)
I have finally shelved Rune Factory Frontier and moved on. After spending so long on that game I decided I needed a total change of pace so I popped in Marble Saga, the second game in the Kororinpa series of tilt maze games. I loved the first and was looking forward to this one. Thankfully, it hasn’t let me down.
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Tags: amber ahlborn, kororinpa, marble mania, marble saga, wii
Summer Backlog Gaming
If you’re a college boy like me–though I hope to God you haven’t been a college boy as long as I have–then you know summer is the time when you go out and get a dehumanizing job and forget all of the information you paid thousands of dollars to learn during the previous months. Since the world has made it clear by this point that it doesn’t want me to have a job (mostly through silence), I’ve decided to spend the entirety of the next three months inside my apartment with the money and games I’ve been hoarding throughout the year, only emerging at night to feed on the living. That last thing is mainly for when I get bored.
So allow me to give you a tour of what’s on my agenda for the Summer of 2009. Be aware that you will be asked to share your own backlogs, and that there will also be a brief intermission with free orange drink, time permitting.
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Tags: backlog, bob mackey, ds, pc, ps2, retro, summer
Watcha’ Playing: Klonoa Remake (Wii)
Back during the 32/64 bit era I picked up a Playstation 1 game from Namco titled Klonoa: Door To Phantomile and became a fan for life. This beautifully made 2.5-D platformer, using sprites for the characters and 3-D models for the environment, was a joy to play. It was a gorgeous looking game for the Playstation, sported a wonderful sound track, and showcased some of the best, most creative run and jump platforming this side of Mario. What’s more, the jumping mechanics required not only precision skill, but puzzle solving intelligence as well. Klonoa didn’t simply pounce on enemies, he inflated them with a short range wind attack that turned them into harmless balloons that he could toss at other enemies and objects or use to execute a double jump. The environments were cleverly built around this enemy-as-tool mechanic and become wonderfully challenging towards the end of the game. Toss in a ferociously difficult bonus level to complete the package and Klonoa was one of the best games to be found on the original Playstation.
Since that time Klonoa has seen a sequel on the Playstation 2 and a cache of games on various handhelds signifying at least some moderate success for this series. Now, over ten years later, the original has been visually updated and released for the Nintendo Wii, and what an eye-popping homage it is.
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Tags: amber ahlborn, klonoa, platformers, Playstation, remakes, wii
Whatcha Playing: Persona 4 and Slow Burn Gaming
I have been playing Persona 4 for five months. Five. Months. Last night, in my drive to finally put the godforsaken thing to bed, I hit sixty clocked hours on my save file, a time stamp that doesn’t reflect the fifteen hours lost to hubris-related deaths (I just had to keep climbing that dungeon) and restarts (I shouldn’t have fused those personas! I shouldn’t have cheated on my girlfriend! I should have fed that cat!) I have to finish this game and soon lest I lose my mind. Plus, May is bringing untold riches in the form of Klonoa, Bionic Commando, and Boom Blox: Bash Party. Gotta clear out that backlog.
Honestly, though, it shouldn’t be troubling that, after five months, I’m still playing a game that takes four full days of your life (or more) to finish in its entirety. One of the videogame aficionado’s worst habits is their voracious hunger for the new, the need to play it all, to consume and not digest.
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Tags: elder scrolls, john constantine, oblivion, persona, Persona 4, resident evil 4, whatcha playing
Whatcha Playing: Earth Day Edition
April 22nd, the day we all take off from work and gather at our local mosques and synagogues to solemnly pay respects to our mother Earth on the anniversary of her creation… or something. So do your part and take your game time today away from blasting zombies and chainsawing aliens in half, instead playing games all about helping mother Earth. Here are the four games that I’m playing for Earth Day:
Chibi-Robo: Park Patrol for Nintendo DS
Rather than cleaning up a house and helping with domestic troubles, this Chibi-Robo has been tasked with turning a barren field of sand into a lush flourishing public park. Like SimCity, you get to design your own world, laying paths and streams, rocks and hills, even benches, fountains, clock towers, statues, and mini-games to your liking. The nicer your park, the more visitors it gets each day. You also have to befriend local toys (including Molly Mapletree, seen above) to help you build up your park and battle smoglings who aim to pollute all the beautiful nature you’ve brought to the park, but the majority of gameplay is planting flowers. It’s actually a lot more fun than it sounds, thanks to the charm and playfulness found in all Skip-developed Nintendo games. Continue reading »
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Tags: bonsai barber, chibi-robo, derrick sanskrit, earth, eden, flower, nintendo ds, pixeljunk, pixeljunk eden, playstation 3, psn, skip, whatcha playing, wii, wiiware
John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself. 
Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.
Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.
Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines.
Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.
Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.
Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.
