Bit by Bit: May 2014

May has been one interesting month.  As we inch ever so closer to the biggest video game trade show of the year, the focus of game developers, publishers and journalists has slowly shifted to E3 2014.  Every piece of information released or news story ran relates back to E3.  Considering all the questions leading into the event, E3 2014 should be either an exciting onslaught of brand new games or a disappointing slog of new information for already announced games.  Personally, I am hoping for the former because I want to see the games that will truly get people excited about spending over 500 dollars on the current generation of gaming.  As of right now, all this generation has given us is shinier graphics and a massive drought of games.  We will see what the future of gaming is next month, but before that let us take a look at the month that was May 2014.

Game of the Month
Kirby: Triple Deluxe and Mario Golf: World Tour both came out on the same Friday at the very beginning of May and these are the two games that captured most of my time this past month.  Out of these two game, there can only be one Game of the Month.  The game that earns that title is Mario Golf: World Tour.  It has been a long time since Mario Golf graced a Nintendo system and World Tour is a return to what gamers loved about Camelot's golf game now turned up to eleven.  Early on your time will be mostly dedicated to the single-player Castle Club as you play in tournaments to improve your Mii's handicap, earn new attire and equipment and prepare yourself for online.  After some time in Castle Club, you will be ready to hit the online links where the meat and potatoes of World Tour is.  The online in World Tour is great as you play rounds against players around the world or in your region at your own pace.  Once you complete a round, you can post your score to the tournament or play again and see if you can do better.  The online is incredibly smooth and hardly caused a problem for yours truly.  Scouring new tournaments each and every week easily will become routine for Mario Golf enthusiasts.  Mario Golf: World Tour would not be some fun to play if the core mechanics of golf were not so well made and finely tuned.  If there is one game to pick up this month, it is Mario Golf: World Tour.  It has given me hours of enjoyment and will give plenty more thanks to online.  Guess I will be seeing you on the golf course.

TV Show of the Month
I wanted to change some things up this month.  Considering my most anticipated game of the month comes out at the very end of May and I have a whole article already drafted up and ready to be published this coming Friday, there really is no need to regurgitate what I will wrote here in Bit by Bit.  So the TV Show of the Month is back for another go especially since May marks the month when most TV shows air their season finales.  It seems like every week this past month there has been a major finale of some sort be it Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. or Survivor.  Each person has their show they watch every week.  As of late, that show has been Person of Interest for yours truly.

I knew of the show, but never watched it until I caught my dad watching the show this past Fall.  Person of Interest has gripped me in a way that I have not experienced since Lost came to an end four years ago.  Currently, I have watched all of seasons one and two and a part of season three and can say the show has gotten better with every season.  Person of Interest is a show about the vigilante partnership between a computer genius Harold Finch and a burned CIA agent John Reese.  Finch and Reese receive numbers from an America-wide security system simply known as The Machine.  The number they receive indicates either a perpetrator or victim for a possible crime.  During the course of the episode, Finch and Reese have to determine whether their person of interest needs to be saved or stopped.  Interesting concept for a show that was initially a procedural.  Over these three seasons, Person of Interest has become much more serialized with overarching stories and reoccurring threats such as the corrupt police association HR and the rogue security corporation Decima.  In particular, Person of Interest perfectly walks the fine line between procedural and serial that makes it like nothing else on television today.  The season three finale happened just about two weeks ago now and I cannot get over how amazing it was.  The finale completely changed the course of the entire series going forward that I will not do a disservice in spoiling it here.  The finale has to be seen to be believed, it is that good.  With this finale, Person of Interest has sealed its place as must-watch television.  I highly recommend checking Person of Interest out as it is the best show I have seen since Chuck ended in 2012.

Video of the Month
What do you get when you mix the superb music from the Ace Attorney series with popular musician Brentalfloss?  Well, you get the newest "With Lyrics" video-- Phoenix Wright with Lyrics.  Taking the song Cornered from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and adding lyrics that parody the tropes of this series such as the well-endowed women characters and extreme juxtaposition between charming wackiness and brutal violence.  It is a fun song that fans of the series will thoroughly enjoy.

Year in Review 2013: Games I Missed

Hundreds of games release in a year both physically and digitally.  It is impossible for one person to play every game that releases in a year.  You have to pick and choose which games to spend your valuable free time playing.  With this mindset, you will miss experiencing some great games.  As game releases slow after Christmas, it is an opportune time to pick and play those missed games.  While I did not get much or any time with the games on this list back in 2013, I hope get plenty of time with them in 2014.

Guacamelee!
Luchadors, wrestling moves and Metroidvania-style platforming.  Guacamelee is made for me.  Sadly, its early Sony exclusivity kept this writer from picking Guacamelee up until its eventual release on Steam.  Playing as an average Mexican farmer turned super powered luchador, the player is tasked with saving El Presidente's daughter from an evil skeleton.  Crazy story aside, Gucamelee looks to be a great extension of the classic Metroidvania formula.  Switching the classic weapon upgrades out for wrestling moves, adding a dimension-changing mechanic and focusing on melee combat are the ways that Guacamelee differentiates itself from other action-platformers in the Metroidvania vein.  I love this style of platformers and have put countless hours into many games in this sub-genre from Super Metroid to Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow.  Once I get the chance to install Gucamelee on my computer, I predict much of the same with this game.

Ni No Kuni:  Wrath of the White Witch
This joint venture from the minds of legendary animation house Studio Ghibli and esteemed video game developer Level-5 originally released for the Nintendo DS in Japan.  A decent number of gamers heard about this unique collaboration through the media, but nobody thought Ni No Kuni would make it to our shores.  Thanks to Namco Bandai, the PS3 remake, Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, came to North America last January.  Just as unique as the collaboration between Studio Ghibli and Level-5 is Ni No Kuni's gameplay.  A mix between the combat of Namco's Tales series and the monster collection of Nintendo's Pokemon franchise, Ni No Kuni has the player switching between human characters such as Oliver and his party members and monster-like creatures known as Familiars during enemy encounters.  This unique battle system along with the excellent 2D and 3D animation and art provided by Studio Ghibli make Ni No Kuni stand out as a quality JRPG in a generation that has seen more lackluster entries in this genre than standouts.

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney:  Dual Destinies
My love for the Ace Attorney series has been well documented in the annals of Silver Bit.  Apart from Capcom's controversial decision to keep Dual Destinies as a digital-only release, the latest entry in the Ace Attorney series was easily among my most anticipated games of 2013.  Following the events of Apollo Justice, Phoenix Wright has returned to the courtroom to help the wrongly accused from awkward teenagers to killer whales from facing prosecution.  Even though Dual Destinies Mature rating, the game still looks to have all the comedic hijinks that fans have come to know and love.  Dual Destinies adds the Mood Matrix to Phoenix's arsenal, which replaces the psych locks and perceive system from previous installments.  The Mood Matrix allows Phoenix to gauge the emotions of a witness during cross-examinations in order to pick out contradictions.  While this writer is still holding out for a physical release of Dual Destinies, I will definitely pick up the newest Ace Attorney within the next year.

Puppeteer
Sony may have been hitting it out of the park on the hardware side of things in 2013, but their software has not gotten this writer as excited.  Sony's major releases consisted of unnecessary sequels such as God of War: Ascension and Gran Turismo 6 and over hyped new IPs such as The Last of Us.  The one game from Sony that got this writer excited was the one that got the least hype from the electronics giant--Puppeteer.  Puppeteer is an interesting platformer from Sony's Japan studio with a striking presentation as the entire game plays out as an actual puppet show.  Apart from the unique aesthetic, Puppeteer features a couple cool mechanics such as the ability for Kutaro, the player character, to switch heads for different abilities and Kutaro's pair of magical scissors which can be used to interact with the environment, fight enemies and traverse trails of string and paper.  From what I have seen and read about Puppeteer, I am excited to eventually spend some time with the PS3's most interesting exclusive of 2013.

The Dual Destinies Debate

Monday saw Capcom confirm the newest entry in the Ace Attorney series, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney- Dual Destinies for a North American and European release this coming Fall on the 3DS.  An announcement that would be the cause of celebration for any handheld gaming aficionado like yours truly has just as easily angered fans.  How has Capcom managed to anger their fans this time?  Well by announcing that Dual Destinies will only be available on the Nintendo eShop as a digital download.  Considering that media in general is turning to purely digital forms of distribution, the up rage over Dual Destinies being digital only might seem like a non-issue for some gamers.  For gamers that prefer hard copies of their games over buying games digitally not having a hard copy of Dual Destinies is upsetting especially considering that Capcom will be releasing Dual Destinies for both retail and digital in Japan.  It is understandable to see that Capcom is trying to cover their loses as the Ace Attorney series has not been a commercial success outside of Japan, but it would be nice for Capcom to give 3DS owners a bone after all the ill will with the cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3.  Do a limited release for the hard copy of Dual Destinies in North America and Europe to appease the gamers that prefer physical copies of the game and possibly test the waters for future Ace Attorney releases.  There are other ways of limiting the costs than just going with a digital only release.

Personally, I have been a fan of the Ace Attorney series ever since it debuted in North America back in 2005.  I was never into the courtroom dramas that the game seemed to be influenced by such as Law & Order, but there was something about Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney that made me gravitate toward the virtual courtroom.  The fantastic humour, solid adventure game mechanics and beautiful music are the reasons I own every entry of this series to reach our shores.  When I saw the announcement that Duel Destinies was releasing this Fall in North America, I was ecstatic.  While I do prefer to have a hard copy of Dual Destinies, I am not upset with Capcom's decision.  I believe there are better ways of dealing with potential losses on a physical copies of the game rather than alienating a good portion of Capcom's audience.  Also I am concerned about how Capcom will price the digital version of tDual Destinies and how much memory will the game take up.  Since Dual Destinies will be digital download, I do not want to see this game priced like a retail 3DS game.  In my opinion, twenty five to thirty dollars will be justifiable for this eShop only release. Another thing, I do not want Dual Destinies to take up an entire SD card due to how big the game turns out to be.  Capcom needs to understand that some gamers just cannot afford to buy the biggest SD card out on the market and should accommodate for these gamers by making the storage manageable or provide a physical copy of the game.  

While I do have some concerns over the next entry in the Ace Attorney series, I am a fan of this series no matter what.  I am very excited to see Dual Destinies come to this side of the Pacific in some capacity later this year.  Hopefully the release of Dual Destinies will inspire Capcom and Level 5 to bring over Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney to our shores as well.  Now before we end things, check out the first trailer for Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney- Dual Destinies.

Bit by Bit: April 28 - May 4

It has been a busy last couple weeks with things picking up on the job front that I have not got around to writing as much.  With completing Darksiders II last week and Luigi’s Mansion:  Dark Moon this past week, I am hoping to get a few more reviews up in the coming weeks.  I also have a review of BioShock Infinite that I am still working on to put up.  It should be a busy couple of weeks of working at my jobs, writing reviews and playing a bunch of games.  Before we get onto the meat and potatoes of this week’s Bit by Bit, let we wish everybody a May the 4^th be with you.  Now let us get on with the show.

Game of the Week

Even though I played enough of Luigi’s Mansion:  Dark Moon this past week to beat the game, my Game of the Week goes to Ace Attorney Investigations:  Miles Edgeworth for the Nintendo DS.  I have been looking for Ace Attorney Investigations for a long time now.  I did not get the chance to pick this game up when it first released back in 2010 and it has been next to impossible to find used.  So when I came across a new copy of Ace Attorney Investigations for 30 dollars at my local Microplay, I could not pass it up.  It was a 30 dollars well spent as I have finally completed my Ace Attorney collection for DS (aside from the currently Japanese only Investigations 2) and Ace Attorney Investigations may be the most unique entry in the series.  Currently, I have spent close to three hours with the game.  From my time with Investigations, I can say it is a very good and also different entry in the Ace Attorney series.  Aside from playing as Phoenix Wright’s rival Miles Edgeworth, the game uses a much different perspective than your normal adventure game.  You actually control Miles Edgeworth as you investigate crime scenes, collect evidence and piece together more evidence using the Logic system.  Not everything you can interact with yields evidence, some things yield little logic notes that Miles must connect using the Logic system in order to progress.  In Investigations, you never step foot in a courtroom.  All the gameplay takes place at the crime scene as you piece together the crime through interacting with the environment and talking to suspects in a similar cross-examination system to the other Ace Attorney games.  These observations come from playing through the very first case in the game.  There is still much more to experience and I look forward to playing more Ace Attorney Investigations:  Miles Edgeworth in the near future.

Most Anticipated Game of the Week

Apart from the slew of information Nintendo has been providing gamers on upcoming releases for Wii U and 3DS, there is one game Nintendo has said little to nothing aout these last few months.  That game is The Wonderful 101, the first game developed through Nintendo’s new partnership with the incredible Platinum Games.  Everything shown so far looks amazing.  I am just itching for Nintendo to give us an actual release date because I am planning on asking my family to get it along with Pikmin 3 for my birthday.  So hopefully we get some sort of confirmation soon because it is suppose to be out sometime this Summer.

Video of the Week

While I am loving my time with the Rayman Legends Challenge App, it still hurts that I along with many other Wii U owners could have had this game two months ago if it was not for Ubisoft.  Earlier this week, Ubisoft released a new trailer for Rayman Legends to help make the suffering more manageable or aggravate fans by putting salt in the wound (you be the judge).  Nevertheless, this trailer is pretty awesome as it showcases another one of the excellent music stages that will be included in Legends.  Most people will notice the tune found in this level even with it being performed by a mariachi band.

Hump Day Music: Cornered 2001

OBJECTION!  TAKE THAT!  Words that any seasoned Ace Attorney knows like the back of their hand. Japanese gamers had these glorious courtroom adventure games for a long time before it landed here in North America on the Nintendo DS.  Since then the Ace Attorney games have become cult classics with the star of these games, Phoenix Wright becoming gaming icon.  Phoenix Wright is so popular that Capcom added the defense attorney as a new fighter in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.  Speaking of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, for the past few days I have been listening to Phoenix Wright's theme from the game so I decided to bump Hump Day Music up a day.  Also I wanted to talk about the new Club Nintendo games that were supposed to be announced today, but considering that at this very moment they are not I decided to move it to tomorrow.

Like last week with the Castlevania series, there are plenty of tracks for the Ace Attorney series that I will definitely highlight in future editions of Hump Day Music.  Today, I would like to present you one of my favourite tracks from the series.  It is from the original Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney for the Nintendo DS  and plays right when you have suspect on cross examination on the ropes so to speak.  It gets your blood pumping as you continue your courtroom battle to prove your client is not guilty.  It is Cornered 2001.