The charts are in for last week - GTA IV sold a crazy 926,000 copies in five days, with an estimated 609,000 of those being sold on launch day. Wii Fit has dropped down to #2, followed by Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, Wii Play (yes, it’s still selling) and Mario Kart Wii. Sega Superstars Tennis has fallen all the way from #7 to #21.
The only proper new entry is Sega’s rubbish Iron Man at #11. Forza 2 and Viva Pinata are both back in the chart though, presumably as they’re bundled with the Xbox 360s people have been buying to play GTA IV on.
Wii Fit is making the press again, but this time in a bad light. It’s all to do with a 10 year old girl who was apparently traumatised after the game told her that she’s overweight.
“She was devastated to be called fat,” a family member said over at DISBoards. “We had to work hard to convince her that she isn’t. I know it is just a game but seriously we already have to worry about young girls starving themselves to look like the magazine models and now we have a game that tells them they’re fat.”
Surely though that would just compel them to play Wii Fit a bit more? And did anybody feel insulted when Brain Training told them they had the mind of an 80 year old?
Whereas Nintendo have let their sprightly mascots settle their differences with a spot of fisticuffs in the Super Smash Bros series, Sega have instead opted for a friendly game of tennis. The term ‘superstars’ is pushing it a bit though. Sure, everybody knows who Sonic and Tails are but Gum from Jet Set Radio? Ulala from the super-obscure Space Channel 5? Heck, Alex Kidd hasn’t been seen since 1990! Then again, Sega couldn’t really have included a thug from Condemned 2, a chap from Viking: Battle of Asgard and a car from Sega Rally Revo as playable characters.
Like most Wii games developers Sumo have thought to include a number of different control systems. That number is three. You can play it the lazy way like Wii Sports Tennis with the characters automatically running around, leaving you to merely swipe the Wii remote when the ball comes in your direction. Or you can control the characters yourself with the nunchuk, or do away with the nunchuk altogether and hold the Wii remote on its side like an NES pad. Which of course means backwards digital control. The problem is that all three are sluggish - you never feel completely in control as you did in the Virtua Tennis series. You do have plenty of influence over the ball’s direction though, not just when serving but in mid-air too.
Various tournaments are available from the off, but the Planet Superstars mode takes up the bulk of it. Here you’ll find dozens of mini-games each themed around various Sega titles of yore (Chu Chu Rocket! Space Harrier! Golden Axe!) complete with soundtracks ripped from their subject matter and a range of unlockable goodies. Don’t get too excited - they’re mostly additional soundtracks. No playable retro games or such sadly.
The Super Monkey Ball section includes knocking giant spheres into holes with some well-aimed shots, while the Jet Set Radio mini-games involve collecting the different coloured spray cans to fill in tags on the other side of the court. Then there’s the jolly fun House of the Dead mode where hoards of zombies have to be knocked over within tight time limits. Thankfully there are a few power-ups on hand including rapid shots, giant balls and triple balls. Sometimes it’s worth thinking about who to pick before tackling said mini-games.
Predictably each character has their own skills - Sonic is the speedy one, NiGHTS the all-rounder while Eggman can pull off powerful shots and so fourth. Also, after a decent rally a special move can be pulled off like Monkey Ball’s AiAi lobbing some banana skins on to your turf. It certainly looks better than most multi-format Wii efforts - the NiGHTS court with its lovely water effects is particularly alluring. It’s just a shame that some of the mini-games require more luck than skill, and with iffy controls it might be an idea to go for the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 versions instead.
Press releases can be a great source of both amusement and depression. This month, vaguely game related FpsBrain takes the cake and rams it up the anal cavity of our soul. Why exactly? Because FpsBrain - the drink that claims to increase your mental powers for gaming performance (kind of like Red Bull, but made for German FPS gamers) - now claims to be supporting Tibet by not being produced in China.
Righto. I recognise that most things in the world are manufactured in China nowadays, however this doesn’t apply to food and drinks. Said products tend to be produced near the market they’re sold in, for a variety of sensible reasons, and China doesn’t have a sparkly clean reputation in regards to food production - indeed, here in Hong Kong, ‘Mainland Chinese Food Danger!’ is pretty much a weekly headline, as we’re informed of yet another suspicious artificial food substance to avoid due to high levels of MSG or lead paint.
So the point is, FpsBrain would never have been produced in China in the first place, unless its producers stupidly thought shipping cans of sugar water halfway around the world made sense. Their press release claiming to “boycott China” as an act of support for Tibet, is essentially self publicising bullshit, because it’s not a boycott at all.
On the positive side, FpsBrain will be donating €1 from every order to the Tibet Initiative Deutschland. It’s not really like Tibet’s got a lack of high profile backing though.
In other news, Games Asylum has revealed to cheering onlookers that we’re boycotting fascist regimes and using only, erm, ourselves, to write these words. Indeed. Ni hao. Ni baba, mama shenti hao ma?
Patapon is like Space Channel 5 all over again. It looks pretty groovy, and yeah, it’s rhythm action, but it’ll be fine. Then I play it. And I remember how shit I am at rhythm action games.
Actually, it’s worse than that: it’s also like Advance Wars all over again. I have absolutely no patience for strategy games. I like to have feedback on my decisions nice and quickly, and I don’t like having too many variables; I hate it when I lose because of a decision I made before the level even started. I just don’t get on with strategy games. It’s not them, it’s me. I know that.
I’ll keep playing Patapon, because it does look lovely, and it is a quality product. But I genuinely can’t play more than one level at a time.
I have been playing Big Brain Academy again though. I gave up on it quite quickly originally, because some of the games within each category are so much easier than others. But someone was talking about how much they like the Wii version, so I dug it out. And I’m in some sort of routine of playing it regularly now, which is jolly good.
But for Patapon and Big Brain Academy, I had to turn on my PSP and Nintendo DS respectively for the first time in a long while. Does anyone know why the PSP loses its charge so badly? They’re both pretty much first generation versions, but my DS keeps its charge over long periods of inactivity, whereas my PSP always has to be recharged. Which is even more annoying when the firmware usually needs updating, and that can’t be done when the battery is low, even if it’s plugged in. Rubbish!
Why not spend this bank holiday Monday going on an adventure? An adventure with a chap from Games Radar, as he attempts to untangle fifteen years of tangled up controllers and various other videogame cables. It’s one of the more original features to pop up on the internet recently. Or maybe the most pointless. You decide.
Did you know that if you untangled all of your veins from inside your body and straightened them out, you’d be dead?
Everybody is playing GTA IV, so just two games are making their appearance this week. Even Microsoft felt it was pointless releasing a new Xbox Live Arcade game with people busy stabbing tramps and shooting pigeons. There are though a couple of cheat save disks for GTA IV out if you’re into that type of thing.
The two in question are Sega’s rubbish looking Iron Man for all formats and the Game-exclusive Ultimate Board Games on PlayStation 2, Wii and PSP. The latter features chess, dominoes, battleships, sudoku and twenty others. But no Mouse Trap? For shame.
Next week: Boom Blox, Apollo Justice and Speed Racer.
As expected, Grand Theft Auto IV is breaking records and making headlines on its launch.
In the UK alone, it sold 609,000 copies on launch day, making it the fastest selling game in the UK (a 20% sales increase over GTA: San Andreas). It’s expected to sell around 6 million copies worldwide in the first week, which makes for some insanely high profits.
There’s the usual controversy too of course. In Croydon, a man queueing at the midnight launch for GTA IV stabbed a man in the neck. Right…
At the same time, idiots like Jack Thompson are already proclaiming GTA IV evil, something which must be banned, before they had even played it. To quote the man himself;
“Grand Theft Auto IV is the gravest assault upon children in this country since polio.”
Rockstar must be pissing themselves whilst rolling in their piles of cash.
Wii Fit has proven to be a bit of a success story - it has gone straight to the top of the chart, and by doing so has become the 6th fastest selling UK release. Chart Track reports that already 1 in 10 Wii owners have splashed out £69.99 for the device and game, while 79% of all Wii releases sold last week were either published by Nintendo or Sega. That’s worryingly high, isn’t it? At least if you’re a publisher that isn’t called Nintendo or Sega.
Mario Kart Wii now drops to #2, with Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games is at #3. In fact, by our reckoning 17 of the games in the top 40 are Nintendo exclusives.
Non-Nintendo stuff? Singstar Summer Party on PlayStation 2 has entered at #30. Time Crisis 4 has dropped from #24 to #34 and Condemned 2 has also fallen a lot from #13 to #25. Army of Two clings on for dear life at #40. Out of the chart so soon? That’s unusual for an EA game. Even The Simpsons Game is still hanging around at #33.
If you can’t guess what’s going to be #1 next week then you’re obviously a massive idiot.
So, Grand Theft Auto IV is just a day away (unless you managed to get a copy early). Suddenly I’m starting to feel a little bit excited - the big games sites have published their reviews (10/10s all round), and some juicy gameplay videos have started appearing online. Here is one such video;
Imagine Babies. The name alone prompted sniggers from juvenile internet types, but when the full game arrived in stores Ubisoft found it getting a lot of press coverage and all for the wrong reasons - the boxart featured a watermark from the photo site iStockPhoto. Apparently it would have only cost a mere $12 to purchase the photos sans watermark. You can probably put that down to laziness rather than a lack of funds on Ubisoft’s end.
Vaguely amused by the above? Then you’ll like this - the US boxart for Okami on Wii includes an IGN watermark in the background. That’s quite embarrassing for a game that’s known for its artistic flare. Capcom have made an apology already and are offering a free replacement cover. If you’ve got a ‘defective’ cover then my advice would be to keep hold of it - it may be worth something on eBay one day.
Wii Fit is tipped to be the fastest selling Wii game in the UK so far. £69.99 does seem very steep but when it comes to losing weight people are always prepared to pay. Game are also cashing in with an anti-slip cover, at an absurd £14.99.
No PlayStation 3 or PSP games this week, and only one for Xbox 360 - NBA Ballers. On PlayStation 2 there’s Singstar Summer Party while the only thing of note on DS is the intriguing Undercover: Dual Motives.
If you’ve forgotten or have been living under a dead whale for the past few months, GTA IV is out on Tuesday. A few online retailers have started dispatching copies already, meaning that some lucky folks may potentially have their copies as early as Saturday.