PixlBit

Hey folks, I’ve got a bunch of game review links again here in this blog that I’ve written lately.  Please click on as many as you can and maybe even post a comment or two.  I’d appreciate it.  But first, in honor of the upcoming release of Tomodachi Life for 3DS, I thought I’d give you a preview glimpse of the game and what Mii Cary’s Tomodachi Life is like so far!

Yeah I’d like to think I was special for getting an early preview demo of Tomodachi Life, but it’s really not that big of a deal.  Only reason why I got it is because I registered Animal Crossing at Club Nintendo, and I’m a Platinum member so I got the demo.  But it’s not hard to get to Platinum status since I buy nearly every Nintendo game anyway.  So basically, Tomodachi Life is The Sims with Mii characters you make.  As much as I like games like Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon, I never really got into The Sims.  I don’t know if I’ll like Tomodachi Life as much as Animal Crossing, but I’m certainly going to give it a try.  So here’s a preview of Mii Cary’s new adventures in the game.

In the demo, you can only have three Miis in your apartment building, and you can only solve five of your Miis problems.  First I moved Mii Cary in the apartment on Pac Island (that’s what I named it).  Mii Cary was hungry so I bought some steak at the restaurant and fed it to him.  He liked it!  Hooray!  Then I moved a Mii of my brother Jeff into the apartment and Mii Cary and Mii Jeff became fast friends.  That made me happy because in real life, not only is Jeff a brother of mine, but I also consider him one of my best friends, too.  I even gave Mii Jeff a flannel shirt to wear, because real life Jeff has been into wearing those recently for some reason.  Mii Jeff liked the shirt, but he didn’t like it when I fed him pancakes.  Which doesn’t make sense because real life Jeff loves pancakes (or just about any food, really, Kirby is his role model).  You can edit each Mii’s personality and voice (yes they do talk), but I guess you can’t reproduce EVERYTHING about a person in the game!

So who did I pick to be the third Mii in the apartment?  Well, I thought it would be fun to have a fictional character move in with us, like a video game hero or something.  Unfortunately, most of my favorite video game characters aren’t human.  Sure you could make Miis of Kirby or Pac-Man, but they would look really freakish.  So on a random whim, I made a Mii of Reiko Nagase, the race queen from most of the Ridge Racer games, and moved her in with us in the apartment building.  I fed her a salad, which she didn’t like (sorry Reiko).  And then she wanted to take a bath.  Luckily I had a bath set (Miis sometimes give you gifts), but then I had to watch her take a bath and walk around her room with just a towel on. That didn’t seem like a nice thing for me to do, and kind of disturbing really.  But it’s just a game so oh well.

So after that the demo was pretty much over.  They gave me some panda suits as a free gift (big whoop), and said I could carry my three Mii characters over to the full game when it comes out.  So that’s good.  As a finale, me, Jeff, and Reiko put on a rock concert.  I wore a pink wig.  Playing the Tomodachi Life demo made me think of other Mii specific games like Wii Sports, Wii Party, Pilotwings Resort, etc., and I may write a blog about all of them later.  When I do, I’ll probably fill you in on the continuing adventures of my Tomodachi Life Miis in that blog as well, if you’re all interested in that anyway.  In the comments section, let me know what other Mii characters you’d like to see in my Tomodachi Life game.  If I like your ideas, maybe I’ll make a Mii of them (or find a QR code to scan).  It’ll be fun!  OK, on to the reviews!

Gardening Mama 2: Forest Friends (3DS)

Hey, don’t laugh.  I like these kinds of games and they’re great for kids.  I’m proud to review these kinds of games because most of the big game reviewing sites won’t even touch stuff like this.  But games for kids are important, too!  So please read this review if you’re interested.

Hyper Crazy Climber (PS3)

I actually put a little more effort into this review, so I hope you all can try to read it, too.  When I was a kid in the early 80’s, I would see the arcade machine Crazy Climber in nearly every arcade I went to.  But you don’t hear so much about it nowadays.  But in Japan, they’ve made a few sequels and updates and remakes to Crazy Climber, and this one was on the PSOne in Japan.  MonkeyPaw Games has made it available to download on PSN.  Back when I was a kid, I didn’t play Crazy Climber much because of the difficult controls.  So I was glad to review this one to see if 30 years of gaming experience would help me out.  How did it go?  You’ll just have to read my review to find out!

Bust-A-Move 4 (PS3)

The Bust-A-Move games are one of my top three puzzle game series, alongside Tetris and Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo.  I hate the name Bust-A-Move, though, because everywhere else it is called Puzzle Bobble because it features characters from the classic Bubble Bobble arcade game.  So that makes more sense.  At any rate, Natsume has made available one of the PSOne Bust-A-Move games on PSN, and it’s a pretty good download to have if you like these kinds of games.

Reader Review: Half Minute Hero: The Second Coming (PC)

I loved the original Half-Minute Hero on PSP.  It’s a unique action game cleverly disguised as a classic RPG.  You have to complete quests in 30 seconds!  How does that work?  You’ll just have to read the review.  Unfortunately, I don’t have a Steam account, nor do I have time for one, so I couldn’t play the sequel.  So I had my friend review this one.

Reader Review: Demon Gaze (Vita)

My same friend also reviewed this one as well, since I don’t have a Vita.  It’s an anime styled dungeon crawler.

Star Wars Pinball: Heroes Within (360)

Pinball FX2 and Zen Pinball 2 has a new set of Star Wars themed pinball tables for you to download.  There’s one featuring Han Solo (my favorite table), the Droids R2-D2 and C-3PO, Episode IV, and a table that is half Dark Side, and half Light Side of the Force.  Pretty cool if you like Star Wars and pinball.

Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return (3DS)

Believe it or not, this game based on the recent computer animated movie is a match-three puzzle game (like Bejeweled or Candy Crush).  As a game itself, it’s really not that bad.  But then, it’s hard to mess up a match-three puzzle game.  It’s just unfortunately based on a crappy movie license.

Blowfish Meets Meteor (iPad)

And finally, this is a ball and paddle block breaking game like Arkanoid or BreakOut.  But it does have a unique premise.  Under the sea, mermaids and deep sea diver guys live happily together.  Until one day a meteor falls and somehow traps all the mermaid girls inside blocks.  So as one of the diver guys, you have to bounce a tiny meteor with a shell to break blocks and free your mermaid daughters.  Best part of the game is that it has no in-game purchases.  Everything you buy is in the game already.  And that’s how it should be, really.

Conclusions

And that’s all for now!  Thanks for reading my reviews and posting comments.  I do appreciate it.  Later!  --Cary