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Games of a Lifetime: Sinan's picks
After more than ten years devoted to video games and the people who make them, Joystiq is closing its doors. We won't be reporting on the best games of 2015, so join us for one last hurrah as the Joystiq family reveals their Games of a Lifetime. Repton Can you imagine the "Teens React to BBC Micro" video? With its properly floppy disks and its DOS-like start screen, that big beige box of the '80s was how my gaming life began. I could pick so many games I played on that machine, most of which no-one's heard of, but they'd all be inferior to Repton. The pseudo top-down, pseudo side-scrolling puzzler had its own space-time rules, According to Repton, a reptile in a yellow t-shirt can walk through the same square of dust that can support a whopping great boulder, or dozens of whopping great boulders at that. It didn't really make sense, but the cleverness of its puzzling design was undoubted. The very best levels required a chess-like effort of planning ahead, shifting specific boulders, clearing dust and freeing spirit sprites in the right order so you could grab every last one of the golden diamond jewels. I absolutely loved Repton and its inventive sequels; Repton 2 was an interconnected world of sub-levels, while other games even explored the future and Wild West. Without the BBC Micro and Repton in particular, I just wouldn't be where I am today.
So, what's left to remaster?
Has there ever been a time when the word "remastered" was so prolific in the conversation, outside of the George Lucas household? Gaming was so incessantly nostalgic in 2014, you'd think it was closing after ten years. In just the last year we've seen polished-up re-releases for Saints Row 4, Resident Evil, The Last of Us, Grand Theft Auto 5, Halo 1-4, Fable, Diablo 3, Kingdom Hearts 2, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, Metro 2033, Metro: Last Light, Indigo Prophecy, Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy X-2, and many, many more. And don't forget, glossy PS4 and Xbox One encores for Dark Souls 2, Borderlands 2 and The Pre-Sequel are on their way in the next few months. Whether you like it or not - and I'm aware plenty do and plenty don't - gaming is still knee-deep in Remaster country. With the saying "When in Rome HD" in mind, I asked some of the Joystiq staff to tell me what games they'd most like to see remastered, however unlikely those remasters may be. Sure enough, most of them delved into the realm of pure fantasy.
X3F TV -- XBLA in Brief: Inferno Pool, Rainbow Islands
Once again, a new week has brought two drastically different titles to Xbox Live Arcade. Inferno Pool allows gamers to play a fast, frenetic round of multiplayer pool (all in what appears to be a bar in Silent Hill). On the other side of the coin, we have Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure, which has players killing adorable enemies with rainbows. Both are available for 800 ($10) and you can see what they're all about in this week's XBLA in Brief. Enjoy. Download the trial version of Inferno Pool Download the trial version of Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure [iTunes] Subscribe to X3F TV directly in iTunes. [Zune] Subscribe to the X3F TV directly. [RSS] Add the X3F TV feed to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically. [M4V] Download the M4V directly.
Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure ascends to XBLA next week
Taito has revealed that not only is the Xbox Live Arcade version of WiiWare's Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure! real, but it's coming out in Japan on October 28, which means it could be out worldwide at the same time. A Japanese press release contained a single screen (pictured above), confirming that the game looks pretty much just like the WiiWare version with bigger UI elements -- it's still kind of a mess, visually, and it still features those weirdly human-sized characters; instead of the adorably round Bub and Bob we grew up with. Towering Adventure also differs from the arcade classic by making the ascent up the game's tower a continuous pursuit, even during boss battles.[Thanks, sacra] Source (PDF link)
NintendoWare Weekly: Let's Catch some Towering Toast
It's an uncharacteristically packed week for WiiWare. Three games are out at once, and we've actually heard of all three. We feel like we're living in Japan! Nintendo didn't skimp on the Virtual Console either, with a new, exciting Virtual Console Arcade title -- well, new in the Virtual Console sense. It's still old. DSiWare also gets ... well, it's another set of clock and calculator apps. But they're exceptionally cute apps with Mario in them! That's still kind of worthwhile in our opinion. Maybe we just like making Mario coin sounds a little too much. Check after the break for the list of new downloads!%Gallery-40617%
Taitoverload: Space Invaders Extreme 2, four more announced for North American DS and WiiWare
Square Enix just sent out what may be the biggest news of the year for Taito lovers, confirming North American releases for two anticipated DS games and three more WiiWare games (in addition to Bubble Bobble Plus!, which launched this week).Most exciting of all: Space Invaders Extreme 2 is on the way to the DS this fall. We aren't all going to have to import European copies! Space Bust-a-Move will precede it in stores, releasing on July 28.In WiiWare, we can look forward to all the Taito games we've seen in Japan so far. Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure! will be available for download on June 15. Bust-a-Move Plus!, which features 135 new levels and 270 levels from previous Bust-a-Moves as DLC, is expected later this summer, as is Arkanoid Plus!We're looking forward to an all-Taito summer as we await the release of Space Invaders Extreme 2!%Gallery-63069%%Gallery-63070%
VC Friday: Travel from Rainbow Islands to Fantasy Zone
If we really stretch, we can see a bit of a theme in this week's PAL downloadable releases. Both Fantasy Zone II and Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure are classic franchises known for being super-cute and brightly colored, and both titles feature locations (Islands, Zone) described by very cheery, but intangible, visions (rainbows, fantasies). We said it was a stretch. Okay, here's another, less tenuous connection: both series are totally great.There's also one of those Master of Illusion/Magic Made Fun tricks this week. Fantasy Zone II (Sega Master System, 1player, 500 Wii Points) Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure! (WiiWare, 1-2 players, 800 Wii Points) A Little Bit of ... Magic Made Fun: Deep Psyche (DSiWare, 1 player, 200 DSi Points) %Gallery-46292%
VC/WiiWare Tuesday: Rainbow Islands!
Wow! Just a few weeks after the release of Bubble Bobble Wii, Taito just sneaked out a WiiWare version of its sequel, Rainbow Islands! As with Bubble Bobble, we knew that it was coming at some point, but we had yet to see any screens or gameplay information. Now it's out, and it appears to feature timed ascents up huge, vertical stages. Also out this week: a WiiWare version of The Game of Life. Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure (1-2 players, 800 Wii Points) Madsecta (Onslaught) (1-4 players, 1,000 Wii Points) Jinsei Game (1-4 players, 1,000 Wii Points) In other Taito news, today marks the release of the second version of Space Invaders: The Original Game on the Japanese Virtual Console. This time, the PC Engine version of the ancient shooter is being released -- at exactly the same cost as the Super Famicom/SNES version, making the decision between the two basically a matter of platform preference. Unless silly anime-girl backgrounds make a big difference, in which case it's PC Engine all the way. Dragon Slayer: Legend of Heroes II (Mega Drive, 1 player, 700 Wii Points) Space Invaders: The Original Game (PC Engine, 1-2 players, 800 Wii Points) %Gallery-46292%[Screens via Inside-Games]
Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, and tons more Japanese WiiWare announced
We're still finding new information to come out of Nintendo's fall conferences, both in the US and Japan. Those things were rich with info. We basically completely missed the WiiWare announcements, which are every bit as epic and exciting -- and numerous -- as the retail games.At the top of the list (actually the middle of the list in terms of organization but right up at the top in terms of interest): Bubble Bobble Wii and Rainbow Island Tower! If these are actually developed by Taito instead of the third parties responsible for the DS games, it is time for celebration! Other interesting games on the list include: a revival of Tecmo's Tsuppari Oozumo sumo series! A game from NIS called Let's Hitchhike, which ... couldn't possibly be a strategy RPG. Right? Three new Okiraku games, following the great Okiraku Ping-Pong A drum-based followup to Aero Guitar The rest, we either don't know anything about, or don't know enough to talk about in detail. Or, is Major League Eating. We'll look into it all as information becomes available. There's ... kind of a long list of games after the break.
Worldwide PSP releases for the week of Jan. 20
After a few weeks without nary a release in any region, we're back to seeing the normal flow of games. While Rainbow Islands Evolution may not be the big-name release that some of you have hoped for, we're sure a few people out there have been anticipating its release.North America Games Rainbow Islands Evolution Europe Games No new releases Asia Games Lumines II (The Best Collection) Winning Eleven Ubiquitous Evolution 2008 Yggdra Union: We'll Never Fight Alone If importing is in your nature, you might want to check out Yggdra Union, which is a remake of the GBA version released in 2006. It's a tactical RPG, so if you've already beaten Jeanne d'Arc and Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness, this could be right up your alley.
New Bubble Bobble sequel coming to PSP
The title doesn't really flaunt its Bubble Bobble heritage, but Rainbow Islands Evolution is yet another addition to the Bubble Bobble franchise. Taito is working on a PSP revival of the long-forgotten Rainbow Islands, which originally released in the arcades in 1987. The new puzzler feature Bub and Bob "under the shadow of an evil record company who is polluting the ecosystem with a constant, mass-produced musical dirge." Does that sound like a political statement to you? According to the press release, "the strict vertical ascents of the original have been expanded and extrapolated into three dimensions, with each level's building-block platforms now following perspective and disappearing into the distance." Once we get video and screenshots of the game, we're sure that'll make a lot more sense.
Rainbow Islands Revolution for $10
If you weren't "lucky" enough to have a glitched copy of Bubble Bobble Revolution and the free Rainbow Islands that came with the replacement, you can get Rainbow Islands now for a very reasonable price. Gamestop is offering Codemasters' sequel for $9.99 new, no broken Bobbles included. It's backordered on the website (which has happened since we started writing the story) but it may be available in a local store or following a restock online.$10 is just about the right price for a game with a Metascore of 54. The original Rainbow Islands is worth like 500 million imaginary Metascore points, and if playing this one even evokes the arcade game a little, it's worth it. Also, $10 is like 1/6 of a copy of Gundam: Crossfire. When you think of it that way, it's quite the bargain![Via CAG]
