Nintendo Radio Podcast

PAX 08 Video Coverage

Ryan Church — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:55:42 GMT

In case you guys havn't seen the videos i posted about PAX, I will post it here. It has 3 parts and I think you will enjoy it.

Deo Gen Z Blog Post #1: Nintendo's Strategy

Ryan Church — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 05:02:39 GMT

Hello Nintendo Radio fans as you heard in Episode 49 I would start blogging, so here is my first. Ok so this is my more optimistic look at what Nintendo is doing as far as games. Obviously I am not happy about casual games, but on the other hand we are starting to see a lot of great 3^rd party games coming to the Wii. So at the beginning of the Wii's launch Nintendo started out strong with all their major first party titles Zelda, Metroid, and Mario. At first we were all pleased and we knew our company well, but at this year's E3 we saw a mega flow of casual apps. Ok now what does it all mean strong first parties, good third parties, and casual games? This is how I see it, Nintendo starts out strong to assure all of their hard core fans that the Wii will not fail them. Then they make a shift for a higher casual game audience this way they can gather more revenue from a new fan base. In the mean time as to not shake off the hard core gamers Nintendo finally starts supporting killer third party titles like Guitar Hero and the Conduit. Look back at Nintendo's past console the Gamecube and you see that their main fault was the sheer lack of third party support. I think if this is their strategy thus far and they will continue the trend I can get behind it. They gain a new crowd to build their earnings making the company stronger, they pull over fans of third parties to Wii, and they continue to hold their loyal first party hardcore fans. Let's now look into this in years. 2007 was the year for hardcore first party gold. 2008 we start seeing the end of the hardcore gold with games like Smash Bros and even Mario Kart Wii which took a more casual approach. So in the transition we acquire spectacular third party titles and casual games. By 2009 I believe we will start seeing Nintendo going back down in the loop of first party hardcore gold, completing their strategy.

Now the big thing about casual games is the fact that they can be copied and mass produced at alarming rates. This causes great discomfort for hardcore gamers to see so much shit running through the market. You must see though that these games are as simplistic as it gets therefore not needing a few years to develop like our precious first party hardcore titles. That is why we see such a high volume of these titles. So if you simply pay no mind to them and trust your entertainment to the third parties you should be able to make it through the cycle back to the first party hardcore gold in no time. Plus you must remember the Ds which has countless titles on it already and continues to grow more and more every year. Proof that Nintendo will be getting back to the hardcore would be the new Zelda game, and the new Kirby game for the Ds. Also many rumors are circulating about a new new Super Mario Bros. As for Metroid, well counting on the fact that Corruption and Hunters sold so well I am betting there will be another, but nothing to speak of at the moment. So there you ha= ve it that is my prophecy for Nintendo's strategy. I plan to do more of these blog postings, so check back with the website regularly to see what I post. And one last thing I would like to remind you of is that if you have a game even an old one that you would like to see reviewed please message me at deogenz@gmail.com and you can use this address to post comments or question about the blog as well.

Episode 49: PAX 2008 BABY!

Ryan Church — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 20:39:56 GMT

Hey guys, it's episode 49! 1 more away from the 50th episode!!! YAY! Anyways, sorry that this episode was late, but I wanted to talk about PAX. I will post a video up soon, or you can check on my youtube account. But I have all the PAX coverage you will need here! So site back and pull up a chair. Nintendo Radio has been initiated!

Episode 49 Delay.

Ryan Church — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 16:01:58 GMT

Hey guys, because of PAX( Penny Arcade Expo), I have been extremely busy with stuff, so I also wanted to talk about PAX on episode 49, I have decided to announce that I am not going to release the episode till Monday morning. Though I do have good news. It's a suprise though. I will reveal it at episode 50. Please email me any questions about PAX. I will have a multi-part video up soon. Thanks for waiting.

Episode 48

Ryan Church — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 18:34:50 GMT

Hey guys it's me Deo Gen Z, today the podcast is up here http://www.whatzinsidemyhead.com/nintendoradio/index.html

Enjoy!!!

2 Great New Updates for Nintendo Radio

Ryan Church — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 08:00:16 GMT

Hey Guys, I just have 2 quick things to say that are very important.

1st is that Nintendo Radio is now downloadable on itunes!! Yay! I will have some album art for it up there soon. Here is the link so everyone can go suscribe:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=287264859

I will put a link to it also in the links section of this site.

The second piece of news is that Nintendo Radio will be going to PAX(Penny Arcade Expo) this year which means that we will be giving you a video with an inside look to games that are still in development like The Conduit and Animal Crossing Wii. If anyone would like to meet me there, email me at questions@nintendoradio.com . Otherwise, I hope that you will enjoy the video when I put it out.

Episode 47: Wii DVD! O.M.G!

Ryan Church — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 21:25:12 GMT

This week we cover a possible Wii DVD capability, Strongbad, and much more. Plus, we have a special guest on today!

Website of the Week:
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxBa5bQfTGc

Guitar Hero on Tour Review

Ryan Church — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:19:30 GMT

Guitar Hero Ds on Tour
Written by: Deo Gen Z

Intro: Hey guys it's me Deo Gen Z with the review for Guitar Hero on
Tour. If you were wondering what happened to Obsessed_Jam_Jake, well
unfortunately he will no longer be doing reviews for us. It's nothing
bad, he just can't do them any more, so I figured I would take over
the written reviews from now on. Ok now let's get into it, Guitar Hero
on Tour is the Guitar Hero game specially made for the Nintendo Ds.
Instead of using a regular full blown plastic guitar as used in
console games, Guitar Hero on Tour features a new peripheral for the
Ds called the Guitar Grip. In this review we will look at the new
peripheral as well as the track list, graphics, and other aspects of
the game.

Guitar Grip Peripheral 6.7 This was the brand new peripheral that made
On Tour possible. My main problem with the peripheral was the
cancellation of the orange fret. The makers of the game claim that On
Tour is difficult enough without it, but I must contradict them by
saying no in fact it is not hard enough. The second problem is the
unfortunate fact that if you play for more than an hour straight,
you'll likely need to get your hand amputated. Yes this is a main
complaint as well with the peripheral, that hand cramps are eminent.
Even though these flaws are obvious, you must consider that they made
a Guitar Hero game for a portable system. Now on the positive look of
the peripheral. They did well with what they had to work with. It was
quite inventive to place something in the Gba slot of the Ds, and I
honestly see no other way for them to have accomplished this feat. The
changeable face plate is one of my favorite points on the peripheral.
The fact that you didn't have to buy a face plate, and that you could
simply make your own custom face plate delighted me. Also I
appreciated the easy conversion from the Ds Lite to the old Phat Ds.
This peripheral could have been much better, but was truly not that
bad and is rather enjoyable when you're on the go.

Graphics 6.2: We know that the Ds does not specialize in graphics, but
the developers seemed to have been extra lazy. They made as many
shortcuts as possible to just be done with the game it seems at times.
For example if you notice the base player is gone, along with the
decorated fret boards that come with each character. It might take a
tad longer, but come on thinning out the band just to be lazy is
unacceptable. They also cut the short little bonus videos in between
careers which ticked me off. Some venues were poorly lighted to the
point where you could not tell what was going on in the background. I
like to think that since this was the first Guitar Hero game on the Ds
that they spent most of their time on the Guitar Grip, thus leaving
them a finite amount of time to improve small things. Luckily they're
not horrible and you spend most of your time looking at notes and not
so much the scenery.

Story 5.0: The story for Guitar Hero has never truly been rich, but it
appears that in On Tour they over simplify it way too much. The funny
cut scenes you would expect in the career mode of Guitar Hero have
been reduced to mere text screens informing you to move on to the next
venue. Honestly you could even go as far to say there really was no
story mode. That being said for veterans of the Guitar Hero series, we
already know not to expect a story and that's all right. Career mode
in Guitar Hero on Tour is used to unlock all the tracks, except one.
This is a rhythm game, so if you wanted well directed story then I am
afraid you've ventured into the wrong genre.

Gameplay 8.8: The game play is simple and easy to learn. On Tour like
other Guitar Hero games makes you press colored buttons and strum
according to notes on the screen. As we have seen in the past this
experience is simple yet addicting. This factor does not fail in On
Tour. Instead of strumming a strum bar, you take your guitar pick
stylus packed with the game and slide it over the touch screen. One
problem with the strumming I found was the touch screen sometimes does
not recognize the strum causing you to miss a note. Other than that it
is great to have Guitar Hero on the go. If you have a Guitar Hero
craving and no Wii present On Tour definitely satisfies it. There are
six different modes. They consist of Career, Guitar Duels, Quickplay,
Practice, Tutorial, and Multiplayer. I found this game really fun and
a great travel companion.

Multiplayer 8.0: You can link up with a friend who also has the game
and compete in a Guitar Duel. I must say the guitar duels are a
magnificent feature that really boosts the overall score of Guitar
Hero on Tour. Some of the attacks you launch on your opponent are
absurd and hilarious. One of my personal favorite attacks would have
to be setting your opponent's guitar on fire. The one problem I have
with multiplayer is the lack of wi fi support. Other than that small
snafu multiplayer literally rocks. Also it has been announced that
when Guitar Hero Decades, the second Guitar Hero game to come out on
the Ds, is released the two will be able to song swap. This nifty
feature will allow you to share songs that are not on your game card
with the person who does have the card. Hopefully Decades will fix the
no wi fi problem.

Bonus Material and Unlockables 5.7: I was quite disappointed to see
the lack of unlockable guitars in a game where the guitar means
everything. In Guitar Hero III the guitars were wild and innovative,
but that is not the case with On Tour. The costumes were pretty basic
as well, because lets be honest there was nothing spectacular with the
character roster you had to choose from. What I find most annoying out
of this lack of unlockables was the fact that there was only one bonus
song. Don't get me wrong I like the bonus song, but a mere one song
does not satisfy my appietiet for bonus material. So I hope Red Octane
and the rest of the Guitar Hero team understand that unlockables in a
Guitar Hero game are like peanut butter to jelly, you absolutely need
them.

Replay Value 8.9: As much filth I have spewed over this game I want
everyone to understand it is indeed a good game and like Guitar Hero's
of the past, you'll want to play this one over and over again. Once
you unlock all the songs which will take you about a day, there really
is not much else to do. I didn't focus on getting all the pathetic
unlockables because they just did not seem worthy of wasting my time.
Even though I skipped out on that, I find myself revisiting the songs
often. The greatest part of this game is the fact that it is portable
which means you can rock out any where at any time. This gives the
game a replay value that console bound versions just cannot game at
least on the portable standard.

Track List 9.0: Even though the track list was small they gave you a
great variety of tracks. I really enjoyed many tracks they put on
there that I already knew such as Breed by Nirvana, but like every
Guitar Hero game does I found new tracks that I fell in love with such
as Youth Gone Wild by Skid Row. Most of the tracks had cover band play
them, which surprisingly was enjoyable. Usually I prefer masters and
remakes by the band, but the cover bands were really great and sounded
like the originals. Even though the tracks had to be scaled down as
far as size and sound quality, they sounded fantastic especially when
hooked up to speakers or headphones. Although small this soundtrack
really did rock.

Final Score: 7.7
This game is definitely a buy and I would recommend it over Guitar
Hero Aerosmith. Even with the many obvious slip ups this game makes,
it is still a great edition to your rock collection. I love to rock on
the go and it really satisfies your quick urges without having to
start up your wii and slip the wii mote into the Les Paul controller.
I wanted to give this game a score in the 8 region, but I just can't.
They need to solve the problems mentioned earlier in this review if
they want such a score on the next Guitar Hero Ds game which will be
Guitar Hero Decades. I have confidence they will fix what is wrong
with the game since they have the peripheral all figured out which
initially took up most of the time during development. At first I was
quite skeptical about the game and felt they were raping the
franchise, but now after playing it see that it is indeed quite fun
and definitely worth the buy if you have a Ds. Ok so that concludes my
written review of Guitar Hero on Tour. I am not too sure why Ryan
wanted me to review this game since he already did, but due to the
summer drought of games we really didn't have many options. So now you
guys know I am a permanent written reviewer for Nintendo Radio, feel
free to send me comments or ask me to review a game at the email
address provided deogenz@gmail.com

No More Heroes Video Review

Ryan Church — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:06:00 GMT

Hey everyone! I decided since we are in the middle of a summer game drought that I would review an older game that people have requested the most. So here is my video review of No More Heroes for the Wii!

Nintendo Radio Comic #1

Ryan Church — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 19:48:45 GMT

Hey guys, we now have an official Nintendo Radio Comic strip team. Here is the first comic strip that they made!

Episode 44

Ryan Church — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 20:34:14 GMT

Hey guys its me Deo Gen Z. Episode 44 will be posted here
http://www.whatzinsidemyhead.com/nintendoradio/index.html enjoy.

Alone in the Dark Review

Ryan Church — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:49:51 GMT

Hey everyone. Here is my Alone in the Dark Video Review. I hope you enjoy it. I will be reviewing the most asked for game next, No More Hero's.

Comic Strip Artist Needed!

Ryan Church — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 10:16:22 GMT

Sup my loyal fans. I'm thinking about having a little comic series thing on the website that of course has to be funny. I want it to make fun of the Nintendo Radio Staff, and some games. So. I have no artistic skills whatsoever. Thats where you guys come in. I want this thing to be weekly so I need somone who is artistic, funny, and dedicated. Hell, you don't even have to be artistic. I like stick figure comics too. I just want something funny and a dedicated one every week. If you are interested, then email me at nintendoandotherstuff@hotmail.com . Just put comic strip artist or something like that in the subject line. Thx guys.

Guitar Hero DS Review

Ryan Church — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:09:21 GMT

Sups guys, here is Nintendo Radio's review for Guitar Hero DS. Enjoy!

Boom Blox Review

Ryan Church — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 10:10:59 GMT

written by: Obsessed Jam

Boom Blox Review

When you were a kid, I’m sure you played with blocks. I sure know I did. And my favorite part about playing with blocks was knocking them all down in the most interesting and destructive ways possible. Boom Blox for the Nintendo Wii does just that, and even better, you don’t have to clean up after yourself.

Gameplay:

Boom Blox’s controls are more intuitive then I expected them to be, but they are also rather simple. The whole game is revolved around knocking down, or blowing up towers of blocks. To do this you can throw rubber balls or bombs at them, or pull pieces out Jenga style. Each is done by pointing the Wiimote at the screen, holding down a button, and moving it accordingly. The power of throws can be controlled by how hard you flick the Wiimote, and pulling blocks can be done with the utmost precision and carefulness, but also as fast and hard as you want. This is where the physics system shines, because each and every action that you make is perfectly translated onto the screen. Light throws will lightly knock blocks over, setting up combos and chain reactions, while hard throws will topple the whole thing over.
Boom Blox is one of the few Wii games out there to get the controls right. It’s a very simple game with a very simple concept, but EA and Spielberg did it right. It gives you the feeling that you are physically interacting with the game, and it’s one of the few Wii games out there to make me feel that.
The blocks themselves play a very big role in the gameplay. All of the blocks aren’t the same, different colors mean different attributes. For example, green blocks are harmless until two of them touch, and when that happens they explode, causing all kinds of havoc. It’s up to you to figure out which blocks do what, and which ones you need to hit, and how much strength you need to use to get your objective done.

Graphics:

By looking at the games kiddie farm animal inspired presentation, it’s hard to believe that it was created by the same man that gave us Jaws. That’s right; Steven Spielberg himself directed this game. Apparently he made it so he could play games with his son, and the graphics show it. They are very simple, very basic, and nothing impressive. In this case though, they really don’t need to be outstanding. This game is all about the gameplay, but it would have been nice to see a more original art style.

Single player modes:

There are three single player modes. Adventure, explore, and create. Adventure mode has you going through a very basic storyline that nobody cares about, but along the way you have to do many puzzles and mini games that get harder and harder each time. There is also a reward system that gives you medals depending on your final score, which keeps you coming back wanting to do better each time.
Explore mode gives you a bunch of puzzles that let you “explore” all of the blocks and movements that you can do. There are over 60 of these puzzles, and some of them are really hard. This mode will keep you busy for a very long time.
Create mode is really cool. Here you can create any puzzle you want, take it to versus mode, send it to friends, or blow it up and pause, rewind, or put it in slow motion. This is my favorite single player mode. Adventure and Explore are ok, but once you complete them there just the same puzzles over and over again. There are a lot of them, but you’ll still recognize them once you play through them lots. In create mode there are literally no limits of what you can do. If you’re the type of person that likes obsessively setting up domino's and playing puzzle games, then you are absolutely going to love create mode.

Multiplayer:

This is where the game really shines, and is the games strongest selling point. If you have friends over at your house constantly, then you need to have Boom Blox. Multiplayer in this game is great because of the many game modes and ease of use. I honestly play this game much more with friends then I ever did with Wii sports, because it’s just that much fun.
You can play either co-op or competitively with up to four people at once, but you’re defiantly going to be playing competitively more, since it’s a lot more fun. Games range from who can shoot the most points for the highest score like a duck hunt rip off, or, my favorite, see who can knock down he most blocks out of four towers to get the most points. The trick to this game is that you have to constantly think, because the last shot that you took could have set up your opponent perfectly to knock down the whole tower. There is a lot of strategy going around in Boom Blox, and playing it with friends makes it that much better.

Conclusion:

One month since Boom Blox has been out, it has sold 60,000 copies. While these sales aren’t terrible, they should be much, much higher. The Wii needs more games like Boom Blox. It needs more games that use the Wii remotes unique abilities and not in cheap gimmicky fashions.
If you can get over the farm animal art style, then you will fall in love with Boom Blox. Being a puzzle game, you will eventually figure them all out, and have adventure and explore modes completed. But the multiplayer ca literally supply limitless hours of fun, and is really something that every Wii owner needs to experience. Make sure you at least rent this game, but I highly recommend that you buy it.

8.0/10

Wii Phat Get Phatter Program Week 2

Ryan Church — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 04:58:07 GMT

Written by: Ryan Church
Hey guys, this is Week 2 of the Wii Phat get Fatter program, so here is my final vid for this workout. Enjoy!

Lego Indiana Jones Review

Ryan Church — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:26:03 GMT

Written by: Ryan Church

Hey guys, this is Ryan here to present the video review for Lego Indiana Jones from Nintendo Radio. Enjoy!

Wii Fit Video Review

Ryan Church — Sat, 31 May 2008 12:27:54 GMT

Nintendo Radios review of Wii Fit.

Wii Phat Get Fatter Program

Ryan Church — Tue, 27 May 2008 05:02:26 GMT

Can I actually GAIN weight with Wii Fit? Lets find out!

Lost Winds Wii Review

Ryan Church — Mon, 19 May 2008 21:09:10 GMT

Written by:Ryan Church
Hey guys, here is my video review for Lost Winds for Wii Ware. Hope you enjoy it!