Nintendo: How low is their self-esteem?

I feel like Nintendo has really lowered their standards to an almost disappointing level. Last year, Nintendo claimed that they didn’t wanted any indie games in their e-shop, and that they only wanted titles released by their company in the store. Well, when they realized the WiiU was making as much money as the Gamecube when it was released (which is not much), they panicked. Now, it seems that Nintendo is letting almost anyone sell their games in the WiiU e-shop.

Usually, I’d have no problem with this. It’s awesome for indie gamers to get their titles out on a system created by the greatest gaming company known to man, more power to them! The issue I have is that some of these games just aren’t worthy. For example, there’s a title called BLOK DROP U, which is a puzzle game where you have to remove grey blocks in order to get a red block to a platform. It’s a simpel concept for a simple game, and it’s an alright time waster.

I’ve seen tons of these games before on flash game sites and in app stores, and they’re usually a decent way to spend time if you’re bored, but here’s the thing. They’re usually free to play. These type of games don’t have enough depth or content to be able to put a price tag on them. For a game like BLOK DROP U, if I HAD to pay, I’d pay a quarter, if at all. If it actually had color and nice, smooth transitions, I’d pay a buck. The Nintendo e-shop is selling this game for $1.99. 2 bucks for a game that looks and feels like it was made by a couple of kids who got their hands on an app program.

BLOK DROP U isn’t the only game that’s over priced, there are other games that are a pretty penny for a not so pretty game. There are tons of games you’ll find in their indie section that look like you could play them on your iphone or ipad for free or a buck, and some of these games are going for $4,$5, even $10-$15 bucks.

So before you buy a game on the e-shop, read reviews. Watch the demo videos they put up (if they have any), and most of all, check to see if you can get a free version of a similar game on your phone or tablet first before you spend $15 bucks on the game just to play it on your WiiU.

 

Giveaway time!

Do you want to win a free Gameboy Color, Gameboy/Gameboy Color game, and a Pikachu figure form the 1990’s?
OF COURSE YOU FLIPPIN’ DO.
We did it! We finally hit 1,000 views on systemshuffle.com! As a thank you to everyone for the constant support, I’m doing a giveaway!

On October 19th, 2013, I’ll be randomly drawing a winner who will receive these prizes: A turquoise Gameboy Color, A Pikachu figure from the 1990’s, and a mystery Gameboy/Gameboy Color game! 
Click here to learn how to enter!

 

Game Guides

I personally try and collect all the game guides that match the games I own, but I know that there are 3 types of people when it comes to game guides; people who collect them, people who can’t stand them, and people who can’t live without them.

I’ve noticed a little trend with these three sorts of people too. For example, the collectors tend to be the people who keep the guides around as a collectable or even as an art book. The ones who can’t live without them tend to completely rely on the guides themselves, not really wanting any difficulty throughout the game and just want to beat it for the sake of the story line. The people who avoid guides like the plague are the hardcore gamers, the ones that sometimes see using a guide as cheating, or want to say “Yeah I beat Final Fantasy without looking anything up and I had no problem” (even though you know they probably raged once or twice).

Now I know this isn’t always true! Some guide lovers go for 100% completion, and want that backup to make sure they’ve done everything right. Some guide avoiders just want to figure things out for themselves, not for bragging rights, but just to learn from their mistakes and figure things out on their own as the game wants them to.

Using a game guide isn’t bad, and not using one isn’t a bad thing to do either! A game guide is a optional resource for those to use with their own good reason, and as long as the game you’re playing through is being played, it shouldn’t matter how you beat it. Just enjoy the game, and play on.

Change of schedule!

So I ran across a dilemma this week. I start my reviews usually middle of the week, but when I was going through my collection I was coming across a lot of game titles that I’d love to review but that I can’t possible give a good review about in less than a week. This is only going to get harder because I go on frequent summer trips BUT I still want to play my games and tell you guys about them! So here’s the deal: There’s no review this week. Starting next week, I’ll be releasing reviews every other Monday for you guys. Thank you so much to everyone who’s still going to check in with me and the site. ALSO, just because reviews will be every other week, it doesn’t mean the site won’t be touched or that my facebook page will be inactive. I’ll post articles that pop to mind, you can always get a hold of me through my facebook and I’ll always be sharing my cool gaming finds with you guys!

Thanks again you guys!

Don’t let the nerds put you down.

So this morning, I was checking facebook, where I saw my father make this status:
“On nerdiness: Recently I was told by someone who is in his 30’s, still playing in his weekly D&D game with his friends, that I am not a nerd. Not sure why he said that, I guess I’m cool compared to his friends because I have a wife, kids, dog, job, and can be social. However, nerdiness is also measured by those things which you find entertaining and how you choose to spend your time.”

I was extremely annoyed when I saw what my fathers co-worker had said. I’m happy to know that my Dad thinks the same way as I do, where being a nerd isn’t a contest. It’s a way of how you live your own life. There’s a vast variety of nerds/geeks/dorks/whatever. Saying “I’m a nerd” may mean I’m an anime nerd for example. Do I know about D&D? Probably not, because that’s not where my nerdy passion lies or even came from. BUT I could tell you every japanese voice actor, every animator, show off my crazy cosplays that I’ve put my heart into and sing so many anime theme songs you wouldn’t believe it.

Another example, I’m a retro gamer. I collect games and systems from the late 80’s/early 90’s to the early 2000’s. Do I know much about D&D? Uh, no, because I rather play Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda, Quest 64 (AHAHA not really), and a large amount of other RPGs and MMOs while dusting off my Game Gear and listening to a podcast about recent mods I could install in my Nintendo to make it play Japanese games. I could walk into a D&D convention (do they even have those?) and know nothing about what’s going on, but the moment you put me at Midwest Gaming Classic or any other classic games setup, I can not only recognize nearly all the old systems that may be there, but I could also recommend at least 5 games from said systems for you to try.

Point is, his D&D friend is a nerd. That’s cool! My fathers nerdiness lays in pinball, battlestar galactica and comics. Mine lies in Mega Man and learning more about how the video game world has expanded since games were first released. Also cool. Science nerds can blow my knowledge of how the world works out of the water. English nerds could write a book about a bunch of nerds kicking the crap out of each other to figure out who’s the nerdiest of them all.

It’s not a competition to show off how nerdy you are. What all nerds have in common is that we’re passionate about things people usually have no interest in, and we should use that as a way to get closer to each other and teach each other about our own ways of being a nerd. Expand the community a bit, not say “I’m better than you because I roll a dice on Sundays.”

Got something to ask me? Wanna show me something?
Shoot me an email at systemshuffle@hotmail.com
or check out our facebook page!

What’s my favorite kind of game?

I was sitting at breakfast thinking about what people may guess what my favorite type of game is. I wondered “Would they guess party games, or maybe shooters? RPGs or MMOs?” The funny thing is, none of those are right, even though I do love a few of those types of games. No, my favorite type of games are 2D Platformers. 

For those of you that don’t know, a platformer is a game where your characters goal is to jumps from to and from platforms and over obstacles until you reach the end of the level. Simple, right? The only camera direction is horizontal, making the game play different for those who are used to seeing through the eyes or directly in front of their avatar. Some platformers are simple in design, while others can be a bit more challenging with more gaps to fall in or more enemies around to kill you. Others get even more complex, making you back track or defeat bosses on the way. The reason I love platformers so much is because of their flow. If you time your jumps right throughout the levels, you don’t really ever have to stop moving. This makes you feel better about landing your jumps, jumping on enemies and killing them while still moving along the path. It keeps the level going smoothly and and makes you feel good about keeping “in beat” with the level.

Some 2D platformers I’d recommend:
The Castlevania Series
Kid Icarus
Klonoa
Cave Story
Metroid
The Kirby Series
The Mega Man Series
Sonic the Hedgehog
Yoshi’s Story
Rayman

Here’s a list of other platformer titles you may wanna check out as well!

MGC was a BLAST!

I had such a great time at Midwest Gaming Classic! I got a lot of great games for my collection, a t-shirt, and great pictures too! I save all of my money from the holidays just for this convention since you can get the greatest deals here, and they have SO MUCH variety! I didn’t think to wait to organize all of my new games so I could tell you what I got, but let’s just saying I came home with a sack of games and it felt oh so nice. I got a lot of NES games, which is funny since I didn’t plan on buying any at all. I got a Galaga poster as well, since it’s my favorite arcade game of all time.

This is why you clean games though! Yuck!

Mark and I went room to room exploring the museums , and stopped to play Quake on PC with people who would hop on the other Macs around us! Mark was a semi-pro at Quake online back in the day, so he took first place of coarse. I haven’t really played Quake before, but I still got 3rd and I was proud of myself! Let’s see, Oh! I played DDR and totally bombed at it which was embarrassing since the 2 people in front of me were so pro they were using their hands and their feet. I quit (not really). I gave Mark a pop quiz, asking him who my favorite Pac-Man ghost was. The answer is Clyde, so when I found a crafting station where you could make gaming magnets, I made a Clyde one for the memory of the pop quiz.

This is maybe 1/5 of the whole vendor hall!

I think my favorite place to look around was the vendor hall, even after I went broke. It felt really nice being able to go table to table and just run into people you could talk to. For example, I was searching through some GBA games and a guy who was also looking asked what I was looking for. We ended up recommending games to each other, and going on our way! There were also a few very awesome cosplayers, and they tempt me to cosplay myself next year! There was a character I didn’t recognize  but there was a female Bowser and female Luigi who did really well! Not to mention a very adorable little boy dressed as Ash. The environment is very family friendly  and the greatest thing is that we’re all nerds, we all know it, and this is just the place to show it off!

The men of D.K Pinball working hard at set-up!

I came home tired and happy, sat down with Mark while he played one of his game finds (Kingdom Hearts), and I started to clean my games, cords and controllers I bought. My Dad came home and told me to look in the garage, where I found a large box filled with games I didn’t own, A SNES and Genesis gun and game to match, an Atari 2600, PS, 2 Game Gears, and JUST SO MANY GAMES. I want to thank my Dad’s friend Mr.Mike for donating all of his awesome doubles to my collection, he didn’t have to do that, but I swear it felt like Christmas going through that box so thank you, thank you, THANK YOU SO MUCH!!

I’ll be posting more pictures on our Facebook page, so please go take a look!
Also! Even if you don’t end up reading the article, it’s really help me out if you voted here!

Midwest Gaming Classic!

This weekend presents an event I’ve personally been waiting for since March of last year; Midwest Gaming Classic! I’m going to be going with Mark (my partner in crime) and my Dad (the founder of DK Pinball)! It’s an expo of classic games and family fun galore, and I’ll be there taking photos and documenting our trip! This is actually the only location I really look for new games for my collection at because of the vendors fair pricing, but of coarse I’ll be browsing the comic books, museum rooms and game tourneys while I’m there! I’ll be helping Mike (thine father) out setting up his pinball machines and socializing, so I’ll be sure to get some good ideas for reviews and articles while I’m up there! I’m hoping to have a little video up after my trip saying how it went, giving clips of the expo itself, and show off a big of what I grab from the market!

See you guys after the weekend!

EDIT: ALSO! I forgot to say that there will NOT be a review up this Monday because of the MGC taking up my whole weekend. I will be posting about my time at MGC, but there won’t be a gaming review! I’m sorry you guys, and thanks for sticking with me!!

Sonic Adventure 3 Rumors: How & With Who?

So I was reading on IGN, GoNintendo and other forums when I stumbled across a recent rumor. Apparently, people are predicting a new Sonic Adventure game for the Wii, Wii U and/or 3DS by the end of the year. The first two Sonic Adventure games were successful but I just don’t see how they can come up with a new story line continuing off of Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, since they already kinda did so by making Shadow the Hedgehog and we all know how that went. Terribly. Then comes the question on what on earth they’re going to do with the Chao Garden since both Sonic Adventure games had them. What more could they add? I’d love to see new gardens, animals, evolution’s and such for the Chaos, but I hope they don’t go too  outside of how the Chaos already are I also read that they want to go back to what the first Sonic Adventure game did, by giving you different Sonic characters to play with their own story lines  I would adore this, but it seems like all the newer Sonic characters don’t have nearly enough depth to have their own stories, since they barley have stories in games they star in. It’d be nice for Sega to bring back older characters like Bean & Mighty since those characters have been so packed up and hidden away for so long most of you may have no idea who I’m talking about. Then it makes me wonder how they’d fit all of this on a 3DS without ruining the game itself. I mean, the first Sonic Adventure games were large with variety that they set a pretty high bar for the 3rd game. How could it compete on a smaller device when it should be a huge release? 

Then again, every site I’ve gone to about the rumors just leads me onto another site that heard of the rumors, and links me to where they found out about it. It’s just a giant circle of rumors that I can’t seem to find a stable answer to. I’d be so happy to see a a great new Sonic Adventure game out, but what do you guys think? What would you guys want in the new Sonic Adventure 3 if it’s released?

Sega vs Nintendo: Fair Fight?

I was an oddball in high school. I went to a very prep infested school filled with spirit wear colors and football jerseys every where I looked. So when I transferred in with my blue hair, cartoon style head phones and Nintendo back pack, I was one of the very few that admittedly played video games. I did eventually find my kind of people in a small group at a lunch table in the corner of the cafe. and one of the most asked questions I’d receive in high school  was “Do you prefer Sega or Nintendo?”.

At the time, I’d say Sega hands down. I’m a huge fan of Sonic the Hedgehog, and I never really realize how much I actually played Nintendo games. Years later, I now own a large amount of Nintendo games, and I adore nearly every game I own made by the company. There’s something I realize now though that I didn’t in high school, and it’s that it’s unfair to compare Nintendo to Sega now.

Keyword ‘now’. I realize the race and company competitiveness that Nintendo and Sega have had in the past with the SNES, Dreamcast, Genesis and NES.  The reason I say it’s unfair to pick one of the two now is because Sega doesn’t work with home systems any more. Anything Sega related that is now released are created by third-party manufacturers, while Sega itself works more on arcade games. Next time you go to your local arcade, Dave & Busters, Gameworks, what have you, look around and try and find as many Sega logos as you can on the games you pass. I promise you, they won’t be very hard to find.

I love Nintendo and how far it’s come with its home systems and ways of gaming, but I also love Sega for the brilliant and extremely fun arcade games they release, and I think because of the two growing so far apart and becoming two totally different ways of gaming, I feel that there’s nothing wrong with loving both.