How will you fill your free time this weekend?
Posts with tag arkanoid
WRUP: Cuts like the very first time edition
How will you fill your free time this weekend?
DS Fanswag: Space Invaders Extreme, Arkanoid, and a paddle to play 'em with
What do you need to do to win? Well, since it's almost time for E3, tell us what you hope will be announced at the show! You may enter once per day and the contest will run through Sunday, July 13th; that night, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern, entries will close, and we'll choose one winner in a random drawing. To enter, you must be 18 or older, and a current legal resident of the United States or Canada (excluding Quebec). Have questions? Check the official rules.
DS releases for the week of June 30th
Anyone need a kidney? It's fresh! We need the money so we can keep up with all these vitally important DS games, and after this week, we'll know how to remove it cleanly. Trauma Center is just like real surgery, right? It's important that we learn, so we can get 1 vs. 100 (omg!) the moment it's released.Surgery may not be our thing, but we've got a handle on sarcasm.
- 1 vs. 100
- AMF Bowling Pinbusters!
- Ducati Moto
- Journey to the Center of the Earth
- Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2
The strangest Arkanoid video you'll ever see
One thing we've learned while playing Arkanoid DS -- it's difficult to break blocks and eat at the same time. The man in the video above seems to have it all figured out, though. While this still might not be as fun as playing with the imported paddle, at least you'll have an easier time multitasking.
File this one under "another crazy video from Japan."
[Via GoNintendo]
DS Fanboy Review: Arkanoid DS
It's pretty good. It fails to hold up perfectly to the original, but it's pretty good.
Friday Video: Yes, it has a story
The Arkanoid series appears to be fairly abstract. The paddle and blocks can't be anything other than gameplay elements, right? The Tetris blocks don't represent animals or anything, and Arkanoid is the same kind of non-narrative puzzle-action experience.
Except it isn't. One of the things that elevates Arkanoid beyond other Breakout clones is its ridiculous sci-fi storyline, which pits a cylindrical spaceship called the Vaus against barriers put up by the evil Doh, who is a giant moai. The Vaus's primary weapon is ... a giant ball that the crew bounces off of the ship's own body. The spacefaring backdrop makes the game a lot more enjoyable -- especially once you realize that your every action jostles the crew of a spaceship as if they were in a giant cocktail shaker.
For an example of the kind of epic narrative featured in the series (which, to an extent, is also found in Arkanoid DS), we've chosen to present the ending from the Super NES Arkanoid: Doh it Again.
WRUP: Paddle-tastic edition
This weekend, the DS Fanboy staff will likely be knee-deep in conflict. Whether it's against invaders from space or gigantic blocks, we'll be armed with one weapon that will aid us in defeating these threats: Taito's paddle controller. Seriously, it's all Arkanoid DS and Space Invaders Extreme for us this weekend.What about you all? Going to be playing the same games as us? Playing something else? What will you be playing?
Metareview: Arkanoid DS
We've already seen critics rave over Space Invaders Extreme, but how about Taito's other redone classic, Arkanoid DS? Well, not so much. Reviews on this game range from good, to bad, to mediocre:IGN (45/100) felt that the developers took everything that was great about Arkanoid and flushed it down the toilet: "But once you played the game it's easy to see just how bad of an 'Arkanoid' game it is. The Paddle peripheral is absolutely fantastic: the knob has great weight and interfaces with the system and game extremely well. But the gameplay is so far away from the original Arkanoid. The sound effects and power-ups may have matched the arcade game but the same action is nowhere near the original."
Gamespot (80/100) was on the other side of the spectrum, and thought the game had a lot to offer: "There's more than enough fun to be had with Arkanoid DS to justify its budget price tag, and the multiplayer content and online leaderboards that compare your performances in the single-player Clear mode ensure that there's no shortage of replay value if you're the competitive type. Arkanoid was a great game in 1986 and it's still a great game in 2008. Arkanoid DS is even better."
Nintendo Power (65/100) found the game to be fun, but not on par with Space Invaders Extreme: "Though not as glossy as Space Invaders Extreme (another Taito update from Square Enix), brick-breaker Arkanoid DS takes advantage of the DS hardware more than its classic-reborn cousin by offering a vertical playing field and a touch-control option." [July 2008, p.89]
Searching for more than words in Nintendo's latest demo offerings
Since things always look better in list form, check out the full list of demos available for download after the break.
Continue reading Searching for more than words in Nintendo's latest demo offerings
DS releases for the week of June 16th
- Arkanoid DS
- Code Lyoko: Fall of X.A.N.A.
- Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard
- Imagine Rock Star
- Petz: Dogz Fashion
- Space Invaders Extreme
- Tamagotchi Connection: Corner Shop 3
- Wacky Races: Crash & Dash
Essential Extras: Taito's paddle controller
Let's just get this out of the way first thing: the import paddle controller works on the U.S. versions of Arkanoid and Space Invaders Extreme in both the DS Lite and Phat. But with that answered at last, the question that remains is: should you go to the trouble of importing the Japan-exclusive peripheral? We've been test-driving both titles, with the paddle and without, and it definitely adds to the experience. Arkanoid without the paddle is fun, but not terribly engaging, and seems like the kind of game that would work only as a temporary diversion. For a budget title, that's fine! But with the addition of the paddle -- which turns the purchase into something decidedly not budget -- Arkanoid really comes to life as an exciting way to spend some time with your DS.
Gallery: Taito paddle controller
Continue reading Essential Extras: Taito's paddle controller
Taito game screens invade our weekend
On the subject of the boxart, we just noticed that both games' logos use variations of the same font. The things you learn when you ... hastily composite a box image!
Ponder the paddle as you watch Space Invaders Extreme videos
Space Invaders Extreme is out next week, at which point we'll be able to put paddle speculation to rest. The Arkanoid DS demo found on the Nintendo Channel doesn't support Taito's paddle controller, but, it turns out, neither did the Japanese demo. That means it's still possible for the retail Arkanoid and its contemporary to include paddle support -- don't offload your paddles on eBay just yet. Besides, Square Enix told Game|Life in April that the U.S. games would still support the paddle, though of course that could have changed!
We can confirm that these two Space Invaders Extreme videos are awesome. We have proof: the awesome videos. Two minutes of single-player gameplay are in the video above; a multiplayer video, featuring a different musical track, follows after the post break.
Continue reading Ponder the paddle as you watch Space Invaders Extreme videos
DS Daily: Does the lack of paddle support make you rethink your purchase?
For us, the lack of paddle support in the demo for Arkanoid DS has us rethinking whether or not we're going to pick up the game, as a lot of the appeal for us was being able to play with the awesome paddle. Now, we're kind of forced to wait and see.What about you all? Feel the same way? Are you already settled, either way, on what you're going to do?
This just in: We might have imported a paddle controller for nothing
Upon getting it onto our DS and booting the demo up, we prepared for a wonderful time with our imported paddle controller, as it's been sitting on our work space's desk for a couple weeks now while we anticipated the release of Arkanoid DS and Space Invaders Extreme. But, after booting up the demo, we found the title only supports two control schemes: stylus and d-pad. Talk about d'oh!
What will this mean for the final build of the game? Will it also not include support for the paddle controller? It looks like that will be the case, but what about Space Invaders Extreme? Should we expect the same fate for that title?
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