PixlBit

I feel as if a huge opportunity has been missed.

I’m aware that this is going to sound insane, but I was actually excited to give Wipeout 3 a whirl, despite being a licensed game for one of the more ridiculous shows on television. Inherently the show’s content lends itself to interesting 3D obstacle-based platforming, but more importantly, developer Behavior Interactive is responsible for Doritos Crash Course, which on the surface bears many similarities. Though free and sponsored by Doritos, the game took some serious cues from Donkey Kong Country and made for one of the more interesting platforming experiences to be released in a long while. Unfortunately, Wipeout 3 doesn’t channel that energy and instead provides an occasionally sloppy, mostly boring, licensed game.

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The brightest stars burn out first.

Roughly one year ago, German developer Shin’en released the latest entry in the “Nano” series and what turned out to be the first in the Nano Assault series. Nano Assault Neo recycles some of the content from that release, but removes the Star Fox-like levels and shifts all of the focus to the pure twin-stick shooting levels. This new focus proves to be a big success, but the shortened selection of levels (16, down from 32) leaves something to be desired.

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If an Animus ever comes to exist, I feel bad for the poor guy who has to retread my footsteps through this game.

A full-scale handheld Assassin’s Creed game has been a long time coming. However, the hardware and storage space issues have always been a limitation for Ubisoft to bring such an ambitious game to the space. Thanks to the PlayStation Vita, Ubisoft Sofia was given the green light to move forward, netting Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation. Unfortunately, despite the hardware’s capability, it’s clear this adventure is scaled back in every way imaginable and rife with many of the bugs found in its mainline console brethren.

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The Wii U embodies the impressive culmination of Nintendo’s work/experiments over the past decade.

In many ways the Wii U represents the culmination of Nintendo’s work across the past few generations of handheld and home consoles. The concept of asymmetric gameplay was born on the GameCube with its Gameboy Advance connectivity; a multitude of control options, including motion controls and pointing was birthed with the Wii; touch-enabled, dual screen gameplay hit critical mass with the introduction of the DS; and even the system’s menu draws influence from the recently released 3DS. What’s most impressive about the Wii U is the manner in which it manages to blend all of these concepts into a functional and cohesive experience that gives players an unbelievable degree of control within their gaming environment.

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A unique concept that fails in execution.

Aside from ambitious, the only other word that can be used to describe Orgarhythm is disappointing. Given that Tak Hirai of Space Channel 5, Shenmue, and Meteos fame was behind the unique blend of action, strategy, and rhythm gameplay, I couldn’t help but be excited. However, the execution of these concepts simply doesn’t match up to the ambition of the idea.

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