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Post by Ex on Feb 23, 2021 1:18:55 GMT -5
Speaking of pinball games, I just spent some time with this: Metroid Prime Pinball is exactly what it sounds like, a Metroid Prime-themed pinball game. It was developed by Fuse Games Limited and published by Nintendo in 2005. (Fuse had previously developed Mario Pinball Land for GBC.) A notable feature of this title, is it was the first DS game to include the DS Rumble Pak. Metroid Prime Pinball was sold with the Rumble Pak accessory (itself plugged into the Game Boy Advance slot of the Nintendo DS). When the Rumble Pak is installed, the Nintendo DS vibrates whenever the pinball in the game hits an object (sounds annoying to me). The Rumble Pak was initially sold exclusively with Metroid Prime Pinball before becoming available as a standalone product.
Presented as a traditional pinball game, Metroid Prime Pinball retains aspects of a normal cabinet, including bumpers, flippers, ramps, spinners, optional rails, drop triggers, etc. Additionally, Metroid Prime Pinball adds elements taken from Metroid Prime, including enemies, Samus' abilities (in a pinball format) and weaponry, environment aesthetics, and bosses. There are many different tables (stages) for single player, and a special stage for multiplayer, all based on areas in Metroid Prime. The overall objective in single player is to collect twelve Artifacts. Artifacts are collected by completing table generated goals (mini-games such as shooting waves of enemies) and defeating bosses (by bouncing into things). After collecting all twelve Artifacts, the special table "Artifact Temple" unlocks, where the player fights Meta Ridley, by smashing twelve targets. After finishing Artifact Temple, the final table is unlocked; Impact Crater. Impact Crater is where Metroid Prime lives. The player must defeat this boss to complete the game. Completion unlocks a harder difficulty, titled Expert Mode. The player can also continue to replay tables to increase their high score. In multiplayer, players compete using single cartridge play or multi-cartridge play (up to eight players). The goal of multiplayer is to beat a preset score before the other player(s). Multiplayer mode has a unique table, Magmoor Caverns.
+Well, it's pinball alright.
+Strong 2D graphics and great animation.
+The OST and sound effects are authentic.
+Beating bosses in a pinball game is interesting.
+For a launch title designed to sell an accessory, it could be worse.
-You have to rub the DS touchscreen to "tilt" the table.
-The player doesn't have enough fine control over where the Samus ball goes.
-The premise of beating the game resides strongly upon replay after replay (after replay).
-Highly repetitive game design, with tables feeling very similar.
-You should be able to remap the controls, really. I've never been a big fan of pinball. I've played real pinball games in arcades (years ago). And I've played various digital representations as well. I feel the same way about each format; nonplussed. My issue with pinball is the player doesn't have enough control granularity over their destiny. There's some skill to playing pinball well, but there's still far too much whimsy and luck for my taste. Factor that random aspect into Metroid Prime Pinball's fairly involved single player mode, and you've got a recipe for monotonous repetition, without enough player agency. Meaning if you lose, it's not necessarily your fault, actually. That said, clearly many people enjoy pinball more than I. There's a fair amount of pinball video games, many of them spinoffs (the most famous probably being Sonic Spinball). The best pinball game I've played was Odama, but I digress. If by some chance you are both a Metroid Prime fan and a pinball fan, you will probably love Metroid Prime Pinball. For anyone else, this game was a mild curiosity that came with the Rumble Pak they actually wanted. Ex's time invested: 30 minutes Ex's rating: 5/10 Although I didn't bother to finish this game, I did bother to get the high score on one table:
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Post by Sarge on Feb 23, 2021 1:27:21 GMT -5
I don't actively seek out pinball games, but I often find myself enjoying them when I do play. I got to play a Star Wars pinball machine not terribly long ago, and really got into a groove after my first terrible game. There's definitely a skill involved, and the onlookers (a few coworkers) were pretty surprised how well I was keeping up with the flipper action. Video games definitely help the reaction time and learning to anticipate as well as react.
That reminds me, there's a Pokemon Pinball game that's supposed to be very good. Might need to bust that out, too.
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Post by Ex on Feb 23, 2021 11:24:36 GMT -5
There's definitely a skill involved, and the onlookers (a few coworkers) were pretty surprised how well I was keeping up with the flipper action. In my experience it's not all that hard to just keep the ball bouncing back up the table. However, there's still those random variances when the ball hits the edge of a table obstruction, and arbitrarily deflects 30 degrees as opposed to 33 degrees (which is what you wanted). Just those 3 degrees of random deflection can ruin your aim. I mean when you're trying to get the ball to hit one particular small target high up on the table, those arbitrary deflections start to add up to considerable frustration. Or at least in a game like Metroid Prime Pinball it does, because so much of the game's advancement focuses on hitting small (often moving) targets. Kirby's Pinball Land and Pokémon Pinball may be better designed video games, though. I've never played them to memory. I remember thinking Revenge of the Gator on Game Boy was good.
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Post by Xeogred on Feb 23, 2021 14:32:41 GMT -5
It's funny how this topic made me think of Sonic Spinball off and on. I kind of hate that game honestly, especially the headache inducing music which is so different from the beautiful mainline game OST's. I kind of want to play and try to beat it out of spite, but I think I did once back in the day...
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Post by Sarge on Feb 23, 2021 14:57:27 GMT -5
I feel you on the angles, but that's also likely part of the appeal for pinball enthusiasts. There's an element of seeming randomness that always keeps you on your toes.
I did play Kirby's Pinball Land last night, and... gee wilikers, it's tougher than you'd imagine! And apparently, while you can save your progress at any time, you have to make it all in one run through the three boards. Ouch.
I also booted up Kirby Block Ball and had an easier time with it. But then, Breakout clones are a bit more accessible in some ways, although they bring some of the same unpredictability to the proceedings.
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Post by Ex on Feb 24, 2021 0:49:28 GMT -5
Alright let's do this Dead or Alive Paradise is a voyeurism vacation simulator for PSP, developed by Project Venus, and published by Tecmo Koei in 2010. Paradise is a port and remake of 2006's Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 for the Xbox 360. This was the first dedicated handheld game in the series, as well as the first released after the departure of series' creator Tomonobu Itagaki. (Not the first portable variant though, that was the iOS release Girls of DOA BlackJack: ~Kasumi-Version~). And yeah if you didn't already know, the Dead or Alive Xtreme series is a spinoff from the Dead or Alive fighting game series. There are currently five games in this gaiden series, Paradise being the third released. A special "Secret Edition" of this game included such things as a figurine. Aren't you glad you know all that now? Players choose one of many DoA girls to start the game as. Then they travel to the New Zack Island resort for a two-week vacation. After two weeks, the game ends. Each singular day (and night) the player chooses activities to pursue. These include mini-games like beach volleyball, pool float hopping, butt-sumo battles, foot races, and various casino games like poker, blackjack and slots. A large aspect of the gameplay consists of giving girls gifts (like jewelry or new swim suits). These gifts are bought from resort stores with money the player wins at the casino. A large part of the game design focuses on taking photos of the girls with a camera. Literally the player watches the girls squirm around on the beach, or walk through a jungle, while changing their view angle/zoom and snapping photos. The photos can be saved to a personal album for later viewing. Once a relationship with a girl (via spending time with them and gift giving) is on an intimate level, the girl(s) presents the player with "venus clips". These are lewd-ish vids which can be viewed and edited by the player. To top it all off, there's a code in the game that enables "Emperor's New Clothes" mode, which makes the girls nude (minus genitalia). +I mean yeah, this would be paradise. +Lots of girls to court and ogle.
+Graphics are impressive for the platform. +The serene relaxing island atmosphere comes through.
+If you like to shop for bikinis here's your game.
-Makes ya feel like a lech.
-The actual gameplay on offer is paltry (to put it mildly).
-You'd have to put up with a LOT of trite repetition to unlock everything.
-This being the third entry shows a lack of any evolution in this series.
-These girls suck at playing cards! If I had been a 15 year old boy in 2010, and had this game on my PSP, I'd have been in horndog heaven. I believe that was the target demographic for this "game". For anyone else, Dead or Alive Paradise will range from tepid curiosity to horrifically offensive, depending one's personal ethical standards. Indeed, the original ESRB classification described this game as filled with "creepy voyeurism" and "bizarre, misguided notions of what women really want." (That text was later rewritten and ESRB apologized for "subjective language".) As for me, this was the third entry in this series that I've played. And... it's just the same thing over and over again. Yawn. Yes, I appreciate the tropical environs, and the scantily clad ladies, but without any real gameplay... I just get bored. After my two week vacation on Zack Island, I had a few pleasant memories, a mild sunburn, and serious thong chafe. What I didn't have, was any desire to return.
PS This game's NSFW intro is uh, something else :
Ex's time invested: 1 hour Ex's rating: 5/10 - Well gents, that's going to wrap it up for me for this CR. Here's what I played: Dead or Alive Paradise (PSP) 5/10 Link's Crossbow Training (Wii) 4/10 Mega Man Battle & Chase (PS1) 6/10 Metroid Prime Pinball (DS) 5/10 Wily and Light no Rock Board: That's Paradise (NES) 4/10 Yoshi's Safari (SNES) 7/10 See you all next month in a theme that I get to decide. Muahahahhhahahhaaha
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Post by Chema on Feb 24, 2021 6:23:05 GMT -5
I was 15-16 years old when that game came out and I was totally creeped out by the DoA girls. Uncanny valley at its finest.
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Post by Ex on Feb 24, 2021 10:56:15 GMT -5
I was 15-16 years old when that game came out and I was totally creeped out by the DoA girls. Uncanny valley at its finest. Surely you had more scruples than I at that age. I'll admit though, the girls' thousand-yard-stare is unsettling sometimes: "Why... why am I lounging around half-naked on this island? I just want to wear clothes and beat people up."
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Post by Xeogred on Feb 24, 2021 13:49:10 GMT -5
I forget if she was in Sigma 2 and or Razor's Edge, but playing as Ayane in one of those was GOD TIER. She was so badass. I sampled the first two DOAXB games. Funny stuff. Back in high school I had a big birthday slumber party in my grandparents house since they had a lot of space, the big 4:3 TV's back then, etc. One of my friends brought the first DOAXB. I remember them playing it on another smaller TV someone brought and they had to frantically turn it off when my grandparents came downstairs. They were extremely religious so yeah...
That and those friends always joke about some story in a store once about one of them talking about "individual boobie physics" that one of the games hyped up or something.
Those are my fun DOAXB memories.
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Post by Sarge on Feb 27, 2021 14:40:37 GMT -5
One more that I'm going to call beaten: Kirby's Block Ball. Turns out, though, that to get the "real" ending, you have to beat the target "Border Line" score for all ten stages. That takes quite a bit of luck to do (or I'm just not skilled enough), so I'm leaving it at the "The End?" ending. Probably took me around two hours to get there. It's good for what it is (a Breakout clone), and a few stages get pretty diabolical, but... it's also a Breakout clone, so there are limits to how much can be done here. I think it's best played a world or two at a time, and come back again later. It really is excellent, though, for what it is. I'll give it a 7/10.
EDIT: Addin' another to the pile. This time it's a completely non-legit run of Kirby's Pinball Land. It's pinball. It's Kirby. It's good, as are most of Hal's games. Still, much like the above, there's only so much you can do with pinball, and there's a surprising lack of the usual stuff you see, like loops and whatnot, and you don't get any powers as Kirby, either. Seems like a missed opportunity. Still, what's here is good, so it also gets a 7/10, with the caveat that, again, it's pinball. I've scored games lower that I'd probably still revisit before this - I'm more just acknowledging the quality here than anything.
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