Cybergoth

I never played any other "Tower Defense" game before, so maybe that's why I loved this one so much. It has a lot of levels, I'd guess around 60 and no two of them play the same. It requires changing strategies a lot, and gets pretty hard towards the end. Unlike some overhyped stuff like World of Goo, this was finally a Wiiware I didn't regret buying

Hi there! This is a small list and description of the 10 internet pages I frequented the most in 2009: 1. http://www.atariage.com/ Quite obvious. I'm mostly hanging out in the Wii and the Blog sections, but also reading elsewhere when I'm bored. My main focus here are the "Playing..." and "Interplaying" articles I'm writing, I love doing those 2. http://www.officialdamned.com/ I'm checking the frontpage daily, but I'm not participating on the message board. I have an account, but I'm only ocassionally lurking. I'm Online since 1995 and there's only so and so much you can talk about a single band, so it just got too boring for me to participate. 3. http://www.capcom-unity.com This year I switched over from the European boards to Unity, never looking back. The #1 meeting point for Capcomaniacs like me. I like the new video game club feature, it's cool to play Resident Evil and Mega Man together with other fans 4. http://nintendowiix.net A German Wii news page in blog style. It has very fast and complete news and you can post comments without registering an account. Much fun hanging around there, mostly very friendly folks. 5. http://www.mobygames.com The best games database on this planet. I actually think it perfectly compliments Wikipedia for games. While wikipedia may have better detailed info on some games and companies, you can much better research/browse mobygames. You want to know all C64 games that Electronic Arts released in 1988? That's just three mouseclicks on moby! 6. http://www.gamefaqs.com I like the reviews and the FAQs. Also a good database. 7. http://www.interplay.com A new entry in my list. It's a very slow forum, with ~ 1 post per day, but that may change soon, when they rise from the ashes again. It's also been a good source for info regarding my Interplaying articles. 8. http://www.metacritic.com/ It's been a black day for the internet when the original gamerankings got destroyed in 2009. The remaining ruins left me in the cold, so I switched to metacritic. It's still probably not even better than gamerankings, but at least going there don't makes me angry. 9. http://www.kotaku.com One of the best sources for gaming related porn, just ignore all other info there (They're just as clueless about Wii games as any other "professional" gaming outlet...) 10. http://www.amazon.com Strange enough, this year I bought much more from Amazon than eBay. This wasn't intentional or anything, it just seems they're serving my needs better these days. Greetings, Manuel

I dunno - I think, ever more so than pro reviewers, Real People scores tend to cluster in the 7-9 range. Hm... they usually seem to be a lot more reliable though. Just for comparison I looked up the same sources for Alone in the Dark: 2.5/5 by 10 amazon users. 5.4 by 37 gamefaqs users. 4.0 by 24 metacritic users. 3.8 by 94 ign users.

I've been having a blast, beating this game today in two 3+ hour sessions and I had zero problems with motion sickness or the camcorder style camera. It doesn't require "stomachs of iron" or anything to play this game, the reviewer from ign is just an idiot. The camera is actually making this a very intense "you're there" experience. And while it may ruin some shots every once in a while, you're usually not required to shoot right then anyway. The often critisized boss battles are just fine as well. Bosses sometimes are not taking hits while transmogrifying or while being busy with certain animations, but you're always seeing wether its taking damage on their energy bar. If they're not, don't waste your ammo on them, simple as that... "Professional" reviewers, eh? Anyway, fun popcorn stuff. If you haven't already played Umbrella Chronicles to death, give it a try. It's even better than that, with significantly improved production values. A fine 8/10 in my book

Critics are often idiots, especially for Wii games. Real people seem to like the game: 4/5 by 32 Amazon users. 7.8 by 59 gamefaqs users. 83 by 16 metacritic users. 7.8 by 104 ign users.

In a move that dramatically improves the overall quality of my collection, I traded in a couple of suckers (see above) at gamestop, replacing them with Dead Space and Muramasa. I still had to pay 26€ but it didn't feel like a rip off, considering all the trash I got rid off

And the other Wiiware I got for my 2000 christmas points is also beaten, Arkanoid Plus. Nothing special though, with unlimited continues it took only 70 minutes. Surprisingly unspectacular game, I cannot recommend it at all

Hm... I should be having a great time with this, but instead I'm rather disappointed. I guess my it's my fault and that I'm spoilt by playing MP3 first. The thing is, I just sunk 8 hours into Metoid Prime and it's basically the same game as MP3, minus the great story and cinematics of MP3. You're starting with nothing, collect the very same equipment once again, you do the fire level and the ice level, similar enemies and similar riddles. The backtracking is bad as always and instead of being thrilled, it felt rather borderline to being bored. Making things worse is the total lack of save spots. After losing over half an hour going back and forth through an ice level, I just couldn't do it again. Meh... At this point I'm really wondering if it is even worth having a look at Echoes? Is it also just the same game again? (and unfair like that? )

I just beat FFCC: My Life as a Darklord. Unbeatable Value for Money here. It took more than 20 hours getting to the end of this 1000 points Wiiware

I had the same problem and found an easy solution. I just copied the Windows folder from C:\ to D:\ plus all system files from C:\ root to D:\ root. Then I made the second drive bootable (with fdisk IIRC) and now I can just swap them in the BIOS and it's booting fine from either drive. Since then I'm just installing games on C:\ and hold all important data on D:\ - that way, should C:\ finally die, I can just throw it away (I tried & tested this with Windows 98 only, I'm not sure wether you can just copy any newer Windows from one drive to another )

Checking the master thread, these were the Wii games I finished in the 2nd half of 2009: Wario Land Umbrella Chronicles Another Code R Cursed Mountain Of your list I also beat SMG once, albeit just *normal*, not doing the collect 100 stars in every level stuff. Same with No More Heroes, I finished the main story, but could never beat the guy waiting in front of your house then...

Good woman!

Oh, what an excellent Christmas it was for my Wii! I already got the Metroid Prime Trilogy and just ordered Darkside Chronicles, Mini Ninjas and Firefighter from Amazon Edit: And I just won a copy of NPC Mario Power Tennis: http://nintendowiix.net/news_details.php?id=9516

Yup it's not just the stellar music, you gotta love their humor as well! @JacobZu7zu7: Thanks for broadening my horizon, I never heard about the Gleaming Spires! I've been just listening to some of their songs on Youtube ( ) and it seems to be a pretty cool band as well

What is the Wii actually doing on standby? It seems to go online every 2 seconds?!?

Hi there! Merry Christmas every one! Here's two versions of the #1 song in heaven for you to enjoy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc_x2-rCFWI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hSldOricDE Greetings, Manuel

It'll be released in March here

Fixed another detail in the poll choices, as the Noobs movie is apparently called "Aliens in the Attic" outside Germany

Hi there! Not a movie license, this game is actually based on the book from Jules Verne: While borrowing the basic formula of a Cinemaware title, the execution quality witnessed in this Chip Software production is on the very opposite end of the spectrum as you can see above. (Bonus points if you find the player sprite or some of the rocks and boulders raining down on him ) I still managed to have a fun time with it, getting some enjoyment out of the enormous trash factor of this game I don't even know where to start. The graphics were obviously made with automatic conversion tools, run over the already badly digitized Amiga pictures. The game has zero music and 3 sound effects. It's bogged down by horrible loading times. Every. Single. Message. it displays on the screen, does it load extra from disk. Disaster strikes in every detail, e.g. it says "Please insert the other disk" - when it was actually shipped on 3(!) disks Most of the game plays on a map screen. The game doesn't tell you where you are on this map though. Instead you can move in 4 directions and the game then describes what happened (Worst case you just fall off a cliff - instant Game Over!). According to these descriptions you can then guess where you actually might be on the map Occasionally your try and errorized path through the game is interrupted by one out of half a dozen mini games, with gameplay hovering slightly above the complexity of pong. Well, if you read the book (I actually did once! ) or saw one of the movies, you know that it ends with a bang. Prepare yourself for the best picture found in the entire game: Some future day the "Playing..." series may see another game from Chip Software in the form of Jeanne d'Arc, but first it'll continue with something else. Greetings, Manuel

I'd consider buying a compilation disc

I just saw on Amazon that there's two compilation discs available now, one containing both Agatha Christie games and the other bundles Sam & Max with Safecracker. I adusted the poll accordingly

Gabriel the First He was a natural teleporter. The day after the disasterous Copenhagen Climate Conference something inside him exploded. He decided to singlehandedly fix what's wrong on this planet, once and for all! Never before had he realized that he was in fact able to change the world. Probably because no media dared to ever fully explore the true potential of a teleporter. It took him about 5 minutes to plan. He just printed out a list of state leaders from the internet, like someone else would print out a shopping list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_state_leaders_in_2009 Within 24 hours he killed every person on the list. At first he visited the ones he thought to be the more difficult or dangerous ones to do, like the President of the United States or Kim Jong-il, but he quickly realized that nothing on this planet could stop him anyway. After the first 2 dozen kills he even stopped worrying about the place the target was located or the time it was in a particular country. Some died at home, some in public places, some in bed, some in their cars or even in their planes. His last action was teleporting straight into a CNN studio. "I am Gabriel the First", he declared into the cameras. "I grant this world another year to set up a new Climate Conference in order to do it right this time." Then he just disappeared. The world held its breath. © 2009 Manuel Rotschkar

Last night I beat Castles II - on the easy level

Hi there! Since Another Code R and Cursed Mountain are my favorite games of 2009, I've become an Adventure fan apparently Above I listed every adventure game released in Europe the past year, please check on all the games you can recommend! Greetings, Manuel

Am I right to assume that Judgement Rites is even better than Anniversary? Since they were reusing the same engine, I think they could totally focus on creating even better episodes, no? Or is it more like a quick buck data disk? They're still pretty big in Germany/Europe. In recent years I see a Point & Click adventure in the league of DotT released every two months here I think. Mostly on PC, but the Wii is also getting a lot of ports. There's great stuff like the Ankh series, the Runaway Trilogy (1 on Wii), the Secret Files series (2 on Wii), the Undercover series, the Black Mirror series, Agatha Christie (2 on Wii) and Sherlock Holmes (soon on Wii) games and some one offs like So Blonde (soon on Wii), Edna Breaking Out, The Westerner, Jack Keane, Ceville, Book of unwritten Tales, ... I'm probably forgetting half of them - There's really many I agree, that's a very tough mission! But since you're allowed to save whenever you want, I just did that every 30 seconds, until I won the battle The ending was more or less just the usual end-of-episode with the debriefing and a Spock/Bones dialog, nothing worth taking a screenshot of. Well, let's end this issue of Interplaying with three more or less related random bits of information: Interplay is currently hiring: http://www.interplay.com/about/careers.php http://www.gog.com are not only selling a lot of Interplay games, they're currently giving Tex Murphy 1&2 away for free, just create an acount there! Never Trust a Klingon! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtetrjjFBNE Watch this space for "Warcraft - Orcs & Humans", the next game I'll be Interplaying!