Bob Mackey
Articles by Bob Mackey
Game & Wario review: Weary-o ware
Wario's been with us for two whole decades, and in that time, Nintendo has used Mario's Garbage Pail Kids variant to disrupt some pretty fundamental gameplay ideas – especially in endlessly inventive portable series like Wario Land and WarioWare. As made evident by its E3 2013 lineup, though, Nintendo has placed less of a priority on tinkering during the Wii U generation, instead focusing on producing sequels to established series. So, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Game & Wario is essentially a reworked Nintendo Land. Like Nintendo Land, Game & Wario features an assortment of GamePad-friendly mini-games, each one offering a novel way to use the console's controller. If you've played Nintendo Land, however, some of Game & Wario's games may strike you as a little too familiar. "Ski," for instance, plays a hell of a lot like Nintendo Land's miniaturized version of F-Zero. Some of the games call to mind Nintendo's legacy as an outstanding arcade developer, though the majority don't dare progress beyond the baby steps established by Game & Wario's tech demo predecessor.%Gallery-191112%
Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millenium Girl is a friendlier remake
After a rocky and disappointing first year, the 3DS has transformed into a juggernaut of Japanese RPGs, with developer Atlus leading the charge. This year alone, the company will have four first-person RPGs to its name: Etrian Odyssey IV, Soul Hackers, Shin Megami Tensei IV, and the upcoming Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millenium Girl – not bad for such a relatively niche product. The only issue comes from the fact that this particular subgenre rarely offers the accessibility of your typical Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, though Atlus hopes to remedy this issue when The Millenium Girl launches this fall.%Gallery-191075%
Earth Defense Force 2025 adds another cheesy chapter to D3's bug book
With all of the hubbub about next-gen at this year's E3, Earth Defense Force 2025 stood out as the product of an entirely different generation, one where wildly idiosyncratic Japanese-developed games both delighted and confused gamers willing to take a risk on untested and out-there concepts. Technically, it's a complete mess, though I'm sure any fan of Earth Defense Force can tell you the series has never been known for its impeccable graphics or silky smooth action. Despite its rough edges in comparison to the polished Xbox One and PS4 games on display in the very same convention center, EDF 2025 still carries a unique charm.
Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy 13 hosts a party of one
No development process has been as interesting to watch than the multi-game pile-up known as Final Fantasy 13. It's not that these RPGs have been of poor quality, per se; they just represent the totality of Square Enix's resource mismanagement during the first HD generation of consoles. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that Lightning Returns wasn't the only Final Fantasy 13-related product on the show floor during E3 2013, as Square unveiled the long-awaited Versus 13 under an entirely new (though slightly predictable) name: Final Fantasy 15. This rebranding – combined with the Final Fantasy 13 name getting second billing to its lead character – provides some compelling evidence that the developer might be a little ashamed of that "lucky" number these days.%Gallery-190529%
Hometown Story hopes to recapture that Harvest Moon magic
The Natsume booth feels more than a little out of place amid the murder and mayhem that defines the E3 show floor experience. For those weary of the pulsing music, constant explosions and gruff voice-overs blasting from every ear-level speaker in sight, Natsume's display of gentle, colorful games about farming and fishing can feel like an oasis from sensory overload. While they've dabbled in just abut every genre known to man, an unexpected game called Harvest Moon – which hit the SNES long after it withered on the vine – has since become Natsume's strongest brand, with 19 prime series games to date. There's no end in sight for this strangely compelling series, though its creator Yasuhiro Wada has moved on to a new IP called Hometown Story, which he hopes will have the same longevity as the series that introduced the curious addictiveness of simulating mundane tasks years before The Sims.%Gallery-191606%
Returning to simpler days with Disgaea D2
Nearly ten years ago, a quirky little game called Disgaea: Hour of Darkness put developer Nippon Ichi on the map for lovers of Japanese RPGs – the ones from America, anyway. This quirky strategy RPG combined Final Fantasy Tactics with a Tim Burton-inspired aesthetic, and just as the genre seemed to be fading from relevance. Nippon Ichi capitalized on the success of Disgaea by opening up an American branch months later, and continued to iterate on their particular brand of complex and bizarre mechanics. For some (like myself), Nippon Ichi's prolific nature soon became a case of diminishing returns, and their audience gradually checked out from the company's regular forays into strategy RPG territory. Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness for PlayStation 3 stands as the developers' attempt to recapture that magic of 2003 with a spirtual remake of the game that made them, and by all accounts looks to be treading some very safe waters. This might not be a bad thing, though; just as the New Super Mario Bros. series added a fresh coat of paint to old-school action, Disgaea D2 has the same intent. The latest installment to the series acts as a direct sequel to the first game, complete with the same mechanics and characters, but with an entirely new story. %Gallery-179545%
New hybrid figures jump into the Skylanders: Swap Force toybox
When you're tasked with previewing the latest and greatest in kid stuff, it's hard to not feel at least the slightest bit jealous. In my day, our molded lumps of China-manufactured plastics rarely interacted with technology in any meaningful way, and we liked it just fine. Even so, if you lopped a good 20 years off my current age, it would be impossible to avoid the charms of Skylanders, a series that's successfully merged the worlds of physical and digital play – all with a booster pack-style setup that's only mildly predatory on parents' wallets. As backwards compatibility quickly becomes a thing of the past, Skylanders: Swap Force offers compatibility with every figure Activision has sold since 2011, along with a slew of new features that promise to make this installment the biggest and best its pint-sized audience has seen yet.%Gallery-191171%
Diablo 3 for consoles may be different, but it's still Diablo
Utter the phrase "Diablo for consoles" to anyone that has some familiarity with gaming history and you're bound to hear some Sideshow Bob-style shudders in response. Blizzard's skeleton-clicking series didn't have the most graceful entry into the world of console gaming, and after a disastrous 1998 PlayStation port Diablo hasn't dared to leave its PC home. This year, however, Blizzard revealed Diablo 3 would make the transition with versions coming to Xbox 360, PS3, Xbox One and PS4, finally giving console players a taste of the magic they've been missing out on for well over a decade. Thankfully, Blizzard has been much more thoughtful this time about transitioning a mouse-and-keyboard-driven experience to console controls.%Gallery-191164%
Pokemon X and Y's online features feel like a true evolution
Presiding over an audience of devoted Pokemon fans during an E3 2013 roundtable session, Tsunekazu Ishihara and Junichi Masuda of The Pokemon Company dropped some interesting new facts about the upcoming Pokemon X and Y, releasing October 12 for the 3DS. The games' new online functionality, known as the Player Search System (or P.S.S.), taps into the power of the 3DS by allowing players to switch between local wireless communication and full-fledged Internet connectivity with the push of a button. During play, the bottom screen of the 3DS will display confirmed friends – fully integrated with the 3DS' Friend List (meaning friends you add before the game's release will appear there) – as well as people in the area who happen to be playing. Battling someone from the latter group will add them to an acquaintances list, and after a few battles, X and Y will establish a friendship between the two players. True to the series' focus on multiplayer from its very first generation, X and Y has made it easier than ever to smash your pocket monsters into friends' far and wide. One important question, though, left some lingering disappointment in the room: when asked if previous generations' Pokemon can be imported into X and Y, Masuda could only offer "we're working on it," citing the problems in communicating data between the DS and 3DS. Hopefully, you won't have to take your current stable of Pokemon out behind the woodshed come October.
Skylanders: Swap Force to hit PS4 and Xbox One at launch
During an E3 demo today, Skylanders executive producer Scott Krager announced that the newest entry in the series, Swap Force, will launch "day and date" for both the XBox One and PlayStation 4 -- though the specific release date (or dates) for these consoles is still unknown. In the meantime, some good news: in keeping with the series' tradition of cross-platform compatibility, the next-gen versions of Skylanders: Swap Force will use the same figurines as the current-gen titles, due to release for 3DS, Wii, PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii U October 13 in the United States.
Super Mario 3D World pounces on Wii U Dec. 2013 [Update: Trailer added]
After years of seeing the New Super Mario Bros. series taking over consoles, Nintendo gamers are in for a treat this December: today's Nintendo Direct included the announcement of Super Mario 3D World for the Wii U, which includes a roster identical to the line-up of the 1988 NES classic Super Mario Bros. 2. As indicated by its name, 3D World contains the same type of game play as its 3DS predecessor, but with an added cat-themed power-up for added cuteness, and the same multiplayer madness as the New Super Mario Bros. series. R.I.P. Blue Toad: we knew thee well.%Gallery-191101%
Xbox One now available for pre-order at several retailers
If an MSRP of $499.99 isn't too rich for your blood, good news: several online retailers are now offering pre-orders on Microsoft's Xbox One console. Amazon, GameStop, Best Buy, ShopTo, and GAME have started taking orders on Microsoft's new console, which will ship at a to-be-announced date this November. Curiously, as of this writing, Target and Walmart are only offering pre-orders on Xbox One games and accessories, but expect that to change when these retailers remember how much they like money.
Halo coming to the Xbox One in 2014 [Update: trailer!]
Master Chief will make the transition to the next generation with a new game in the series for the Xbox One slated to arrive in 2014. Bonnie Ross at 343 Industries referred to the title simply as a "Halo FPS," noting the game would run on dedicated servers, use Microsoft's cloud computing infrastructure and run at 60 frames per second.%Gallery-191153%
Deadly Premonition director's D4 scheduled for Xbox One [Update: Trailer!]
Get ready for SWERY's (Access Games' Hidetaka Suehiro) patented brand of weirdness; his new project, simply titled D4, made it into Microsoft's showing of their upcoming Xbox One games at E3 2013. Not much information about it exists at the moment, outside of its status as an episodic murder mystery -- much like the director's cult hit from 2010.%Gallery-191152%
The spoils of Atlus RPGs
In his weekly column, writer Bob Mackey will alternate between two of his passions: the Japanese RPG genre and classic games. In recent years, Atlus' string of portable-bound RPG remakes has done an excellent job of showing off the developer's history with video games before the breakout success of Persona. Yes, if you're the type of person inclined to read a column dedicated to Japanese RPGs, you might be thinking, "Breakout success? But I've loved Atlus for years!" If that's true, then you probably remember an ugly past, making mandatory reservations thanks to the tiny quantities of Atlus games that once trickled into your local Gamestop – if they did at all – and the wallet-destroying eBay markups greeting those who didn't go to Herculean lengths just to buy a retail product. As a result of the developer's growing fame, we're now seeing the release of games we only dreamed about playing in the 90s, and Atlus has tried their best to replicate the experiences we would have had back then – for better or worse.%Gallery-185385%
Rebuilding Scrooge's money bin: WayForward dives into DuckTales Remastered
Fans of classic gaming tend to be a little overprotective of their favorites, so you can bet all of us obsessive weirdos breathed a sigh of relief when DuckTales Remastered landed in the best possible hands. And while I can't comment on the final product – or even a portion of it – there's no denying that the devs at WayForward know how to put together a solid platformer, with the same expressive, 2D graphics that drew so many of us to the medium back in the 8-bit days.Barring the impossible scenario of reuniting the original game's tiny team (none of whom still work at Capcom some 24 years later), it's hard to think of a more appropriate match than WayForward meets DuckTales.Still, when dealing with such a compact and complete package like Capcom's unassuming 1989 classic, the smallest tweak or change could result in a total upheaval of the experience that renewed hurtful Scottish stereotypes for a generation of Nintendo-addicted children. To assuage my fears, I recently spoke with three key members of the DuckTales Remastered team about reviving that special brand of Capcom/Disney magic for our modern world.