WarioWare D.I.Y.

WarioWare D.I.Y.

Reviewer: Louis Bedigian

Game development is sort of like filmmaking with a much harsher learning curve. While anyone can grab a cheap camera and attempt to bring a story to life, it takes so much more effort to design a game. That’s not to say that filmmaking is easy, but it is definitely more user-friendly.

Occasionally, professional game developers try to remove the barriers to game design by developing a game with homemade creations in mind. This could be something as simple as a level editor, or something as complex as the RPG Maker series, which allows consumers to design their own role-playing games.
If those concepts sound intriguing, then Nintendo might have developed the perfect game for you: WarioWare: D.I.Y. This do-it-yourself adventure is packed with pre-made mini-games to play through, but players will quickly discover that those games are merely icing on the cake. The cake, as it turns out, is something you have to mix, bake, and frost yourself. And when you do, the results are quite amazing.

No Programming Required
During the training stages in WarioWare: D.I.Y., players will frequently encounter a common term used by game developers: AI (artificial intelligence). Unlike the AI they work with, which must be written from scratch using A+ mathematical skills, this game doesn’t require you to know much about the details of real-world programming.
Instead, WarioWare: D.I.Y. uses a deep (but easy to comprehend) system that involves a series of pre-programmed selections. With those selections, players can develop a five-second mini-game that features their own personal drawings, a few frames of animation, sound effects assigned to specific elements, an original score (which can be pieced together using instruments, quirky audio effects, or sounds from classic NES games), and basic touch screen interactivity.
If the five-second timeframe sounds crazy, then look no further than WarioWare’s other offerings: this is not a series that’s built on length. It’s a short-and-sweet, ultra-quirky franchise with challenges that will earn smiles from series veterans and baffle the minds of newcomers.
“Wait, so you’re telling me I have to tap the hand on screen to make it pick this guy’s giant nose?”
Yes, that’s exactly what WarioWare is telling you. But in WarioWare: D.I.Y., you don’t have to settle for silly and potentially snotty mini-games because you can make your own.

The Creation Process
After running through the first batch of pre-made mini-games offered in WarioWare: D.I.Y., I was a bit concerned about the process of making my own mini-games. It’s not that I didn’t want to, but having played with other creation tools, I was afraid it’d be an arduous process that was only fun when the game was complete.
That’s what makes WarioWare: D.I.Y. so different from the rest. The game provides a simplified Photoshop-style tool that lets you draw whatever you want. There are dozens of colors and background tiles (including one that paints a flame and another that paints Mario-inspired bricks). Three pen sizes are available, allowing players to draw (almost) as precisely as possible. To add even more detail, the image that you’re working on can be enlarged up to 16 times.
In addition to having a very well designed paint and drawing tool, the game contains a music creator that is really fun to use. Five audio tracks (four standard tracks plus one set aside for rhythm) are available. The drum set alone is pretty extensive: you can choose to use a standard percussion set, or use electric drums, toy drums (which is essentially an amusing set of sound effects), beat-box drums, Asian drums that provide an exotic jingle, or choose from 14 sounds made from pots and pans. My favorite is the 8-bit drums, which includes the fireball and death sound effects from the old Mario games.
The other instrument types are just as varied: piano, organ, harpsichord, melodica, flute, wood flute, trumpet, saxophone, acoustic and electric guitar, bass, banjo, violin, marimba, vibraphone, timpani, and more sound effects-based instruments than could ever be listed here.

Not For Every Wario Fan
The only downside to WarioWare: D.I.Y. is that it’s not technically a true WarioWare sequel. Since players are expected to have fun creating their own games, the pre-made content amounts to half (or less) of what it should be. WarioWare games are never long, and they rarely have the kind of replay value of, say, a Mario game. But if you were hoping this would be a true successor to WarioWare: Smooth Moves for Wii, you might be disappointed.
If, however, you’ve always wanted to make your own WarioWare mini-games – or have had the desire to create any game at all – WarioWare: D.I.Y. is an impressive package that won’t let you down.

By gamezone

Monkey Island 2 Special Edition:LeChuck's Revenge

Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: LeChuck's Revenge

Reviewer: Steven Hopper

Back in the bygone era of PC gaming, the adventure genre was at once a unique and flourishing one, allowing for experiences that you simply couldn’t find on consoles at the time. Publishers like Sierra and LucasArts were releasing classic games left and right, many of which would be considered the best titles the genre has to offer even today. Certainly at the top of the heap was LucasArts’ Monkey Island franchise. Combining classic point-and-click mechanics, great puzzles, and extremely funny dialogue, the Monkey Island series was a hit with gamers and definitely fantastic for adventure fans at the time.

Last year marked a great moment for fans of the Monkey Island franchise and its swashbuckling hero, Guybrush Threepwood, as LucasArts released an updated HD version of the classic first entry to the series. Now, LucasArts has revisited the original franchise yet again with the release of Monkey Island 2: Special Edition. Monkey Island 2: Special Edition applies the same model to the original game’s sequel, updating it for modern consoles and PCs with streamlined controls and high-def visuals while still keeping the original foundation of the game in place, including great puzzles and snappy humor. If you loved last year’s trip back to Monkey Island, then you should definitely check this follow-up remake out.
Monkey Island 2 finds our hero in a precarious position, dangling from a rope with one hand while holding onto a full treasure chest with the other. Your potential love interest Elaine Marley seems to drop down on a rope to assist Guybrush, demanding an explanation. It seems that following LeChuck’s defeat at the end of the first game, Guybrush has become somewhat of a blowhard, regaling his exploits and courageous journey to anyone within earshot. Sporting a sprouty pubescent beard and wearing fancy pirate regalia, Guybrush is searching for a mythical treasure, known as Big Whoop, when it appears that the once ghost pirate (now zombie pirate) LeChuck is back and champing at the bit for revenge against his one-time dispatcher.

The original game’s sharp wit and sense of humor return in fine form in this updated sequel. The characters are rife with snappy one-liners, and the game’s puzzles are pretty funny, often requiring you to think a bit unconventionally in order to complete them. This can mean enticing a rat into a trap with the clever use of cheese doodles, or positioning a practical joke above a bully’s door in order to proceed.
Instead of simply updating the game exactly the way last year’s The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition did, the crew at LucasArts did one further and updated the interface. The game is even more polished to work on the Xbox 360 controller, moving the control of the cursor to the right thumbstick, while controlling Guybrush’s walking with the left thumbstick. By pressing on the right trigger when highlighting an object of interest in the environment, you’re able to open up a menu of contextual actions, while the left trigger will open your inventory. The new control scheme is comfortable, and does a great job of modernizing the overall experience.
The new controls are definitely an improvement over the first Monkey Island remake, but they’re still not perfect. While it’s generally agreeable, using the analog stick to walk can cause you to get stuck on objects in the environment, can feel a little cumbersome at times. For some reason, Guybrush gets slow and twitchy when moving at an angle as well.

Graphically, Monkey Island 2: Special Edition has received a comparable update to last year’s Monkey Island: Special Edition, and looks even better. The hand-drawn environments and character models fit well with the overall humorous tone of the game, sporting a clean, cartoonish look. The music and sound have also gotten a once-over, with the soundtrack being updated very nicely and great voice work throughout. Additionally, Monkey Island 2 allows you to listen to the developer’s commentary, listening to the creators’ for a inside look at the game’s creation. Of course, if you’re an old-school purist, the game is playable in with classic graphics, MIDI-based music, and the original SCUMM interface, just like last year’s iteration.
Aside from some finicky movements, Monkey Island 2: Special Edition is another outstanding remake of a true adventure game classic. Whether you’re a gamer that missed out on this game the first time around (shame on you), or someone who simply wants to experience this hilarious adventure in a new light, this is your chance.

By gamezone

Spotlight On: Cities XL

If you haven't played a good city-building game in a while, you may want to keep an eye out for Cities XL, which will try to combine the peaceful pursuit of building up a tiny virtual city with cooperative (and competitive) online elements and Web-based social networking. We've previously taken an in-depth look at the game and its unusual premise and have new details to report today.

To catch you up, here's a quick recap: Cities XL will basically offer an offline experience right out of the box and a continuing online experience should you want to pursue the dream of being the world's most successful architect. Like in many other city-building games, such as the SimCity series, the out-of-box, offline game in Cities XL will let you use editing tools to build up the virtual city of your dreams, using powerful tools that will include some 500 different buildings, so you can click, drag, copy-paste, and brush-paint tiny individual houses or sprawling roadway networks, then maintain your population's happiness and income while using your funds to build a bigger, better, happier city.
The online portion of the game will let you go beyond just puttering around in your own city; you'll actually be able to, for instance, putter around other players' cities on foot, as well as monitor the progress of your city online through the game's Web site, which will act as both an online scoreboard (which ranks all players' cities by their relative wealth, popular happiness, and other statistics) and a social hub. The Web site will let you create your own profile, write your own blog, post images, and maintain a friends list. You'll also be able to use the online interface to trade any excess resources that your city, or other players' cities, may have produced. All cities produce and consume resources (such as energy, power, and cash), and depending on how you've built yours, you may end up with a town that creates a daily surplus of this or that resource. This daily surplus will disappear from your city's coffers at the end of the day, each day, to avoid the dreaded practice of "farming"--in this case, repeatedly hoarding resources each day until you have an unreasonably huge stockpile. Resources will be traded in the form of "tokens"--one token will represent one unit of resources, and developer Monte Cristo currently intends to let the resource market regulate itself, rather then get too involved in the player economy. However, since you will have access to resource trading online, you won't necessarily need to create a well-rounded, self-sustaining commune. For instance, if you want, you can build an industrial wasteland that's nothing but factories and smokestacks--and just trade for whichever resources you don't generate.

Resource trading will be important not only for generally keeping your town running, but also for creating "megastructures"--famous wonders of the world that will grant powerful bonuses to whoever builds them. (Cities XL will ship with about 20 of these right out of the box, and more will be added at a rate of about five or so per month). In order to build one of these impressive monuments, you'll need the blueprints, which will randomly appear in the accounts of a handful of users every so often (and can be used to start construction immediately, or traded for resources, or given away for free...otherwise the blueprints will expire in about a week after use to prevent players from accumulating them in their accounts). Megastructures will be fantastically expensive projects that go through three different phases of construction (and each phase will require a different mix of resources). Successfully building one will grant serious bonuses for your city; for instance, plopping the Arc de Triomphe in the middle of your metropolis will grant your city powerful economic bonuses as tourists from your principality and from neighboring towns take a holiday to come see your wondrous new masterpiece. And the tourists will build up the local economy, presumably by purchasing cheap T-shirts and souvenir coffee mugs.
However, megastructures won't offer clear-cut, no-strings-attached advantages; they'll actually have their own set of realistic concerns that you as the city's mayor and chief architect must address. For starters, an attractive monument will bring in many guests and their big, bulky tour buses--and the buses may congest traffic and lead to noise pollution that creates unhappiness for any of the locals who live or work nearby. More importantly, if your city becomes too wondrous and begins drawing in too many of your neighbors' citizens, your neighbors (other players who are in control of their own cities) may become jealous that you're getting all this great tourist revenue and they aren't. In fact, this will be a real concern for all online land barons when they go looking to trade resources. Yes, you need four tokens of oil for your own town and you'd be willing to trade four tokens of water...but do you really want to give that water to someone who will just end up spending it on building an Eiffel Tower that will draw in your citizens and line your neighbor's pockets?

Cities XL is still in development and will likely go to a beta-testing phase in the coming months. The game is scheduled to launch later this year.