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DS Daily: Revisiting old friends
When was the last time you returned to a DS game that long sat neglected in your collection? (Okay, so the answer to this probably isn't Ping Pals; and if it is, consider yourself a buffoon.)Had you already completed the game in question, or did you purchase it and get immediately sidetracked by something else? Are there any older games you plan to return to in the near future? This blogger is currently on his third trip through the Yggdrasil Labyrinth in Etrian Odyssey (hence this topic) -- I never completed the title in two previous attempts, but I'm determined to not get distracted this time!%Gallery-29310%
Bury the Shovelware: Ping Pals
While the response to last week's inaugural column was universally appreciated, the very first comment was particularly intriguing. The reader brought up an excellent point: definitively labeling a developer as poor because of one bad game is very narrow-minded. After all, good developers and bad games are not always mutually exclusive. In order to prove this idea, one should start with an incredible game. Fortunately, the DS has plenty of those. Then, the developer's catalog should be searched for any traces of shovelware. And when talking about good games on the DS, one need not look further than the only title to receive a perfect 10 from DS Fanboy: Contra 4. It is awesome. For any other game, that wouldn't be enough for a "review," but with Contra 4, nothing else is necessary. WayForward Technologies' 2007 masterpiece was about as close to perfect as a game can be. Thus, the California-based developer was a perfect candidate for closet searching. And was there ever a skeleton to be found inside! Ping Pals, which is well known as being one of the DS's earliest atrocities, was the first game WayForward developed for the DS. At face value, the tween-focused chat utility appears to be nothing more than a glitter-coated PictoChat used to discuss iCarly and Webkinz. Released mere weeks after the launch of the DS, it was universally censured by both critics and love-to-hate gamers. Electronic Gaming Monthly called it "An abysmal failure," and IGN -- who employs Mark Bozon, brother of WayForward's creative director Matt Bozon -- pulled no punches when stating that "Ping Pals is easily the most unnecessary product for the system." Ouch. Clearly, somewhere between Ping Pals and Contra 4 lies the purest definition of shovelware.
Atlus lovers, head to Amazon
We've already established that having the Atlus name on the front of a box is usually A Very Good Thing, and look! Somebody at Amazon must clearly have been listening to us, as the uber-retailer has the following Atlus-published titles up for sale: Rondo of Swords -- $19.99 Draglade -- $13.39 Ontamarama -- $10.04 Contact -- $23.44 Touch Detective 2 1/2 -- $9.99 That's not all -- while we were scrounging though Amazon's bargain basement section, we found a couple of other potentially worthy additions to your DS library: Children of Mana -- $20.09 Viewtiful Joe: Double Trouble -- $10.04 You can also get Ping Pals for $4.29. But like that deserves a functioning link. %Gallery-14108%
Ping Pals as springboard to Contra 4
How do you make us suddenly love WayForward's maligned Ping Pals? By portraying it as leading directly to our probable Game of the Year 2007, Contra 4, and the surprisingly interesting Duck Amuck, that's how. MTV's Stephen Totilo interviewed Matt Bozon of WayForward about the doomed project (which turned out not to be so doomed-- it went on to sell over 90,000 copies despite being totally redundant), discovering that what seemed like an inconsequential chat client was an extremely intensive undertaking. ""We had to prototype the game in the first 24 hours, having never seen the hardware, which is a huge testament to our programmers," Bozon said about the period immediately following their discussions with THQ. Bozon had to abandon his original concept of a DS game-- two gameplay tasks in two screens-- in order to fast-track Ping Pals. "The design doc for that thing was actually a bunch of sticky notes on a dry board, and about every four hours we would redesign the entire game for that entire five-week span because the technology kept shifting. We were working 24 hours a day. There was no point locking the door because there was always somebody in there." Hearing about the hardships involved with the development of that game, we actually feel pretty bad about making fun of Ping Pals all the time. They didn't want to spend so much time making Ping Pals. Nobody wants to make Ping Pals. The good news, of course, is that WayForward got DS development tools and official DS developer status out of the deal. And, with the experience of Ping Pals and a number of no-doubt lucrative licensed games behind them, they've achieved a level of success that allowed Bozon to successfully pitch a minigame collection based on the "Duck Amuck" cartoon to Warner Bros. And their abilities got the notice of Konami, who handed over a very important franchise to the Shantae creators.
DS Daily: Ping Pals pals
So, anybody out there still playing Ping Pals? You must be really good at it by now. You'd totally beat us.
WayForward licensed to develop for Wii
Another Western developer has signed on to make Wii games-- hopefully they can get the funding to make some original ones. WayForward mostly makes licensed stuff these days, of undetermined quality (we haven't had a chance to test GBA Unfabulous), but they are also responsible for the excellent Game Boy Color platformer Shantae and the clever GBA shooter Sigma Star Saga. Also Ping Pals, but let's not talk about that. WayForward has actually had a Wii development kit since last year (they got access to some early pre-release duct tape) and they've been doing research and development since then. We know the licenses are coming, but we're really hoping that WayForward will have the time and resources to do some original stuff too.[Via DCEmu]
