Game Review: Punch-Out!! (Wii)
Like many gamers I have a long standing relationship with Nintendo and an innate love for many of their franchises. And while I wait with bated breath over every announcement for the newest Mario or Metroid, there is one franchise that I have wanted to be brought back for quite a long time now. That franchise of course is Punch Out!!. My history with the series dates back to when I first received a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) as a Christmas present in December 1989. I did not receive Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!! alongside the system but it was the first game I ever purchased for the system. I spent many a long gaming session attempting to beat Iron Mike and sadly I don’t remember it ever happening.
My game cartridge stopped working a long time ago and no amount of blowing into it would get it to work. But a few years ago I was able to relive some of my childhood memories by playing the Mike Tysonless version of Punch Out!!. Attempting to take Little Mac to the World Title re-kindled my long forgotten love of the title and got me to think about how great an updated version of the title would be for the Wii. After all wasn’t the boxing portion of Wii Sports just begging to be made into a full game labeled Punch Out!!. Late last year my visions were answered when Nintendo announced that Next Level Games, developer of the generally well regarded Super Mario Strikers and Mario Strikers Charged, were going to be in charge of a Wii version of Punch Out!!.
Chris’s Personal Best of 2008: Games
A couple of days ago I wrote a post that was somewhat critical of the way GiantBomb selected their game of the year. I want to make it quite clear that I wasn’t criticizing game of the year awards (I love ordered lists) nor their selection in general (its their opinion), so please don’t take this post as me being a hypocrite because that certainly was not the intention. With that said I believe I should note that my gaming disappointment of 2008 goes to Grand Theft Auto IV. I just didn’t have anywhere near the amount of fun I had with previous games in the series and while I didn’t hate it like some people, I didn’t like it much either.
But this post isn’t called Chris’s Personal Disappointments of 2008 but rather Personal Best so let’s get to that.
(Oh and this is going to be long)
The XBOX Experience is New
When attempting to review the poorly named New XBOX Experience the easy thing would be to call it a blatant rip-off of the Wii. On first glance those accusations would be accurate, from the avatars to the “channel” system it certainly looks like a Wii rip-off. However after having played around with it for the past few days I can gladly say that there is far more substance to the NXE than one would think.
New XBox LIVE Experience!
Our best video game writer, Chris, will be writing a little something about Microsoft’s latest development, NXE, aka the New XBox Experience, for the XBox 360. In the meantime, TG Daily has their own first impression. Their impression is a little more positive than mine, because while I like the new look, I was used to the old one, and currently still prefer the old 2D-panel design. Plus, avatar creation seems like a direct ripoff of the Nintendo Wii. It is my favorite addition, as I really only wanted the Wii so I can make my own avatars. Mine looks like Conan O’Brien.
Let’s just kick back and see what Chris has to say, though. He matters more than TG Daily. His article is slated to appear both on About 12 Minutes as well as his own blog, kariyanine.com.
