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Tuesday, June 25, 2013

3DS Outpost: Niche game alert

Has anyone heard of this new game? It's called "Crossing Mammals" or something like that. "Animals Walking."

Danimals Talking or something like that

I don't really know. I guess it's about some guy talking with some little creatures who can talk. You gotta take this guy (or girl) and dig holes and catch fish so you can make some raccoon guy happy (with your money) (named after a musical instrument). Except this new one on the 3DS also has some girl sheep that you gotta make happy. While still paying the raccoon guy.

Of course this new sheep girl doesn't want your money. She wants you to be nice and plant trees or something until everybody thinks you're nice and they like you. Also you're the chieftan or something. That probably could have been said earlier. Governor. Mayor. One of those. I wouldn't have voted for me. 

So you act as a diplomat and you cross animals for like six hours per day and you don't do anything else with your actual life. You now live with small animal people and you owe your soul and your finances to a fucking raccoon in an apron. Really fun. I recommend this to anyone and everyone who can find a copy. You'll spend days planting trees and hanging up fish and sympathizing with clothes porcupines, just so you can become the best mayor ever. Then population grows. It's a wild world. 
With these city folks.

new
leaf

Saturday, June 1, 2013

3DS Outpost: Desperate Times Call for Ice Climber Multi-player

Background: I work at a summer camp. Sometimes it rains at a summer camp. One of those instances, and a particularly dangerous one, happened at 4:30 AM on Friday, May 30th, 2013.

And so, when you and a fellow staffer (doba) are sitting in the dining hall for like 2 hours in the early morning, having already beaten WarioWare and being just kind of tired of everything, you take a desperate route:
Ice Climber download multi-player mode.

Ice Climber became available to 3DS owners in 2011 with the 3DS Ambassador program. Of these twenty titles, Ice Climberstands out as one of the most questionable releases. While many players, mainly those from the 1980s but not limited to them, remember Ice Climber fairly well, many current players stay away from it due to the slippery controls and narrow jump arc. I fall in the latter category.

Single player in Ice Climber works like this: Run left and right, then jump to clear a hole in the icy ceiling above, then jump again to go through said hole. If any animals come, show no mercy and hit them in the head with a hammer. If you fall through your own hole, then you're dead. Do that three times and Game Over. Though I never played Ice Climber while growing up, all of my experiences with it could have been worse.

Multi-player in Ice Climber works... exactly the same way. There's another one, though. It's sorta like a race between the blue one (Popo) and the pink one (Nana). Though vertical scrolling typically kills the player in single player, one player's speedy ascent cannot lead to another's lost life as long as the player on the bottom doesn't fall into a hole. That's nice, as it keeps the competition going between both players, as well as doing a part not to make the multi-player unplayably hard. 

Via the 3DS' download play, Ice Climber's multi-player works fairly well. Not bad, not great, but certainly lasting.