January 09, 2012 by Nate
In 2010, I played 73 games. That's a lot of games. Probably too many games. I was pretty sure I would never play that many games ever again.
In 2011, I played 84 games. That's more games that I played in 2010, the year in which I played too many games, probably.
In this edition of my annual gaming inventory, I'll note how many hours I spent with each game, what progress I made, and whether or not I'll come back to the game in the future. I post this knowing that someday, years from now, it will be used in an intervention regarding my time management skills and/or life priorities. I'll be too busy playing Ultimate Angry Birds vs. Capcom to listen to my concerned friends and loved ones, though.
Read moreJanuary 05, 2012 by Paul Abbamondi
After languishing in a void of lackluster retail releases, lame battery issues, and an eShop brimming with nothing original to play, the Nintendo 3DS is starting to come around as a solid system to have and to hold. Okay, well, the battery issues still remain a problem, but whatever, at least there's befitting videogames to finally play on the dang thing. Since launching in June 2011, the system's eShop has featured 3DS Classics, such as Excitebike and TwinBee, Virtual Console re-releases, such as Kirby's Dream Land and Mario Picross, and then original 3DSWare games, such as...well, not much really. A handful of titles, but nothing too memorable.
However, word around the Interwebz is that Pushmo (called Pullbox in Europe), the newest release for 3DSWare, is pretty stellar, akin to Picross 3D in terms of its puzzles and addictive nature. Seeing as I ate up over 350 puzzles in Picross 3D, more puzzles for on the go is something I need and quickly handed over my ecash to Nintendo.
So, let's push and pull some blocks for thirty minutes and hopefully have a fantastic time.
Read moreJanuary 03, 2012 by Nate
Upon starting Super Mario 3D Land, I was placing internal bets on whether the game would be filed with the 2D or the 3D Mario experiences. Miyamoto and the team say they combined the approachability of 2D Mario with the freedom of the third dimension, but one of the two styles must win out, right?
Exactly fourteen hours of playtime later, the answer still eludes me. There's bits of Super Mario Galaxy and pieces of New Super Mario Bros in the game, and it leans heavily towards the former. What's keeping me from committing 3D Land to the 2D Mario pile is all the Sonic Adventure mucking things up.
Despite the disappointment, elation, and outright disdain that those three names likely bring up, they ultimately mean little for the actual quality of the game. It would be difficult to argue that Super Mario 3D Land is anything other than the Nintendo 3DS' most compelling purchase to date. But it's also the first Mario title in several years that I can't just rave about.
Read moreDecember 31, 2011 by Greg Noe, Ian M. Bagley, Mike in Omaha, Nate, Paul Abbamondi, Steve
Announcing the 2011 Game of the Year Awards from First Hour!
These aren't your normal awards, we cover everything from older game of the year to worst first hour. We also don't sum up votes on categories or anything either, we simply present each writer's thoughts on their pick, so if you don't like something, you know exactly who to blame! Of course, we do all this just for fun (spare time!) and buy all of our own games (real money!), so most of us don't even touch some of the big releases of the year. Woe to the unpaid game critic!
Read moreDecember 30, 2011 by Greg Noe
We have time to slip one more review into 2011, right? Let's talk about Recettear: An Item's Shop Tale, a quirky Japanese RPG released last year. Blending traditional dungeon crawling with running an RPG item shop, Recettear is unlike any game I have ever played, and probably ever play again.
I played the first hour of Recettear in October, determining that the opening was interesting enough to go on. This was probably a fair decision, as it is a rich game full of dungeons, companions, and items, but it is not without issues. If the review intrigues you, look for it on Steam sale in the next day or so, it was about $5 a few days back and may be available again.
Recettear is made up of two distinct game types: the classic dungeon crawler with randomized floor layouts, spawning bad guys, and big bosses; and an item shop where you lay out equipment, haggle with customers, and even buy items from them. Let's talk about what each type did right and wrong.
Read moreDecember 29, 2011 by Greg Noe
Busy day at work here, but I took the time this morning to leave GoDaddy as my domain registrar due to their support of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and corresponding Senate bill, PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). These pieces of legislature would be incredibly harmful to the state of the internet if they were passed, and would make me concerned about even leaving First Hour up and running. Many other sites can do a lot better job explaining how disastrous this would be to the internet, so I'll let them do the talking.
What I can do is move where my money goes. A non-insignificant portion of First Hour's "revenue" (which is not much, since I don't even run Google Ads anymore) goes towards buying and renewing the domain names involved with running the site. If I'm able to take my dollars elsewhere in protest of GoDaddy's support for terrible legislation, I will do it. Transferring domain registrars was surprisingly easy and I only had to pay for a one year extension on my domains. I'm thankfully not hosted by GoDaddy, otherwise this would be a much larger and more difficult change.
GoDaddy has said they do not support SOPA anymore, but they have not said they are against SOPA, which would have been an important step in not only keeping customers, but retaining trust with savvy internet users. They also have not said anything about the PROTECT IP Act, which is almost as insane as SOPA.
Nothing will change from a reader's perspective, so enjoy your new year, and check out our Game of the Year Awards on Friday.
Read moreDecember 28, 2011 by Greg Noe
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was my primary reason for buying a Wii at launch. It left me feeling disappointed and greatly annoyed. Five years later, beating The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword on my second Wii (after selling my first just days after beating Twilight Princess) leaves me with nearly the opposite effect: I loved it and am slightly giddy to write a review about it before the end of the year.
I was definitely not feeling the game a few hours in. Twilight Princess’ first hour is awful and Skyward Sword’s is arguably worse, and the ramp up feels tedious. My list of annoyances was longer than any kind of enjoyment I was getting out of the game, but once the game does ramp up, it does it incredibly successfully.
So as the Wii’s last hurrah, Skyward Sword leaves a great impression, here’s my review of the latest Legend of Zelda game, released in November. This is our second full review of the game, following Nate’s from last week. I re-read his review in preparation for my own, and have to say I agree on basically every point. So hopefully this review won’t be longer than it needs to be, but if you have some time, do read his write-up.
Read moreDecember 26, 2011 by Greg Noe
Five years after its release, I finally own a PlayStation 3. This feels like a significant length of time, especially as the only console I purchased after a comparable amount of time was the Dreamcast, which had already been "dead" for years at that point. But the PlayStation 3 is far from dead, and through a combination of a down economy and systems that are still "good enough", neither Microsoft or Sony seem to be in any kind of rush to release their next console iteration. This is beneficial to consumers like me, who are greatly rewarded for waiting with lots of great, exclusive games at cheap prices.
There is definitely an embarassment of riches to be had jumping into a five year old, successful console like the PlayStation 3, emphasized by my recent Christmas extravaganza. My wife ordered me the system over Black Friday, triggering a chain reaction of purchases from siblings and in-laws, hey, I can't complain. Here's my haul:
Read moreDecember 23, 2011 by Nate
The lasting impression from my recent introduction to the original Legend of Zelda was its unstructured progression. With only a ghost of a narrative driving the action and few barriers to limit wanderlust, the course of my trip through Hyrule was almost entirely up to me. Having played Ocarina of Time before any other Zelda game, I was surprised to see just how hands-off the original was.
In contrast, last month's Skyward Sword may be the most linear Zelda experience yet. The newest quest sees Link flying from one compact landmass to the next with hardly any room for side trips. The vast sky of islands is sparser than Wind Waker's nearly endless ocean, and even the surface world below is but three masses of land separated by impenetrable mountain ranges and deserts and forests. This is a Zelda where the path to the next waypoint is often the only path.
Every game in the series since the eighties original has trended towards structure and direction as story progression and ability acquisition gained a greater share of the Zelda spirit. Aesthetic similarities and recurring tropes aside, The Legend of Zelda and Skyward Sword could be mistaken for two wholly separate franchises. For better or worse, Skyward Sword feels like the end state of a slow evolution that Nintendo has been cooking for twenty-five years.
Read moreDecember 16, 2011 by Nate
I considered trading down my DS Lite for a DS Phat because I preferred the clicky buttons of the latter. I refuse to play fighting games with a 360 pad (and only tolerate doing so with a PlayStation controller). I spent hours fiddling with bluetooth options and buggy amateur programs just so I could play Super Meat Boy on my MacBook with a Wii remote.
Controllers matter to me. A lot.
Though some are preferable to others, no controller is quite perfect. But that's only because nobody asked ME how to design the perfect controller! Instead of waiting around to be contacted by some very smart hardware developer, I figured I might as well lay out a near-perfect pad by stealing the best bits and buttons from controllers past.
I give you: The Frankencontroller.
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