Along with PayDay 2, Charlie Murder from Xbox Live Arcade, and my beloved Animal Crossing: New Leaf, I guess I'm also playing Dota 2 because you have to launch the game to watch the International 3 tournament. Now, please enjoy this ACNL update from me, then answer the call in the comments and tell us what you're playing!
Kotaku - This morning, when I loaded up Animal Crossing for the first time in a month or so, I found myself nose to nose with the infamously angry Mr. Resetti.
Resetti, a subterranean animal who gets off on yelling at people who reset their video games without saving, was there to yell at me for just that. I'm guilty, it's true. I neglected my town. I deserved to be scolded by an irate mole.
Do you meet the following conditions? You live in Europe. You have a copy of Animal Crossing: New Leaf. You have a friend who has just bought a 3DS XL and hasn't registered it (or registered it after the 6th of August). Then check after the break to get your friend a free copy of [...]
July 2013 saw just over a million sales across UK gaming retailers, a 33.3 percent year-on-year drop.
July 2013 has seen UK gaming retailers report their worst month in history.
Citing official chart company Gfk Chart-Track, that gaming retailers in the UK sold just over one million games last month. Sales are 40.4 percent lower than in June, and 33.3 percent lower than July 2012.
Few high-profile game releases were cited as a cause for the poor sales, with only three new releases making the top 50 sales chart: Pikmin 3, Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, and Dynasty Warriors 8.
Sony's PlayStation 3 exclusive The Last of Us was the best-selling game of the month, followed by Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition and Animal Crossing: New Leaf.
In the coming months, retailers will be looking to the release of in September and the launch of the next-generation consoles later in the year will buoy sales.
All in all, UK gaming retailers reported around £23 million ($35.6 million) from game sales.
Report claims that UK video games sales figures for July were the lowest 'on record'.
The figure allegedly puts sales 40.4 per cent lower than previous month June, and 33.3 per cent lower than July 2012.
Just over £23m was generated at games retail throughout the month, the mag states, "almost half" that generated in June.
July saw few major new releases, with only Mario & Luigi: Dream Team Bros, Pikmin 3 and Dynasty Warriors 8 cracking the top 50. The Last of Us was the top-selling game for the month, followed by Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition and Animal Crossing: New Leaf.
The UK high street has long-suffered from declining sales. Last...
WAKE UP!
15 years ago, you'd go to the store, spend hours laboring over your "new game" decision and tear open the cellophane in the car so you could check out inserts, cartridge art, and The Almighty Instruction Booklet. The developer created the world you were about to enjoy, and his word is law, and it is written in the instruction booklet. That was our ritual growing up. My brother and I would trade the box and the booklet, make note of each button's use and any plot information, and by the time we reached the floor in front of our oversized wood entertainment center, we were well versed in everything we needed to know before playing the game.
Now, developers ensure you don't get lost with detailed and, more importantly, playable tutorial sequence. Press A to jump, yeah-yeah, we know all that crap, but as games get bigger, so do the gameplay systems. It's an natural way to include more people in our favorite hobby. In fact, some tutorials are so well-disguised that you're too engaged by the narrative to notice you're actually learning something. Unfortunately, Mario & Luigi: Dream Team makes the mistake of vastly over explaining its relatable and friendly brand of RPG gameplay ultimately equating to a nap on the ride back from the store.
I have to wonder if the effect is intentional! Mario & Luigi games have appeared on three separate Nintendo handhelds and recently told the who normally drives the conflict. On Pi'illo Island, you'll be chasing Princess Peach through a series of dreamshellip; or are they nightmares? The Pi'illo Folk has been trapped in nightmare crystals for centuries thanks to an evil force, and that force kidnapped Peach during one early Dream World jaunt. Now you'll have to dive into Luigi's dreams to free the Pi'illo and rescue Peach. While this sounds like a compelling setup, the execution is excruciatingly slow, with frequent interruptions and copious amounts of funny-accent dialogue creating a clog even the most skilled plumbers would struggle with.
Dream Team's incessant instruction and self-celebratory dialogue feel painful and keep you from enjoying the gameplay more than they enable it. The developers, Alpha Dream, may have been playing too much Animal Crossing: New Leaf. Thankfully they've retained the franchise's signature "active" battles. Once you've engaged an enemy on either 2D or 3D maps (more on that in a second), you enter battle. Mario's evasive and attack-emphasizing is assigned to A, and Luigi to B, even if it is the .
Timing your inputs is easy to learn, difficult to master, and new enemies will force you to cycle and stay fresh for every new test. You can't stomp your feet on a spiked opponent, right? Mario and Luigi are outfitted in gear named "So-so boots" or "Acceptable overalls" so you'll have to keep that in mind and destroy all manner of Pi'illo wildlife with the appropriate attack. Combat is only one mechanic, and there are several kinds of gameplay within the Dream World.
While the overworld is fully modeled in 3D (with some of the handheld's best glasses-free depth), the Dream World operates in 2D and, as you're actively jumping around in Luigi's brain, Dreamy Luigi stands in for the other brother with a batch of unique platforming abilities. Luigi-trees slingshot Mario with mustache branches, as a gust from the Luigi-vortex waiting in the background pushes question mark boxes forward for Mario. Even better, battles let you multiply Luigi by the hundreds and gather him up for devastating effect.
Rolling up a huge ball of Luigis by tilting the 3DS from side to side and crushing the enemy with an enthusiastic mashing of the A button feels great. You can aid the brothers in battle by activating power badges on the touchscreen too. The first you get lends health in a pinch while others add attack power and more. The Dream World (as weird as it seems to abandon the well-made 3D over world for classic Mario-brand side-scrolling) proves to be inventive and entertaining, once you've cleared the massive tutorial hurdle. Even the cast of Atlus's Persona 4 would think they had had of the explaining.
I like using the touchscreen to manipulate Luigi, and any game that lets me flip the DS sideways and interact with just the touchscreen in fun ways scores points with me, but I couldn't stand another second of chattering dialogue. My A button may have fallen off, but digging deep enough, getting lost in Dream Team's topsy-turvy worlds, results in satisfying mechanics as usual.
You'll want Leo to come and deliver sweet release at some point. Even viewed from Luigi's subconscious lens, which turns a groundskeeper into a rabbit-chasing, lawn-loving fiend early on, many characters drone on without fail. There's a lot more to enjoy in Dream Team than this review might suggest, but you'd have to sit through a lot more exposition than this in-game.
Fans of the series will find more to love than the rest, but Paper Mario 3D allows players of all levels to get to the point a lot faster. Though Dream Team has one of the better 3D effects, in both 2D and 3D gameplay, you're more likely to shut your eyes than cross them. There are hours of entertainment for patient players willing to read and giggle at silly accents, but I'd rather explore Bowser's dreams instead.
Copy provided by publisher. Exclusive to 3DS.
Assassin's Creed is a series of historical action-adventure games with a heavy emphasis on stealth, combat, and free-running. The game is presented in a third-person perspective which takes place in 2012,and follows the path of Desmond Miles as he uses the Animus to relive the memories of his Assassin ancestors while protecting them from the Knight Templar's. If you are a fan of action-adventure stealth games like Assassin's Creed and looking for more games with similar gameplay then find the recommendations here
WAKE UP!
15 years ago, you'd go to the store, spend hours laboring over your "new game" decision and tear open the cellophane in the car so you could check out inserts, cartridge art, and The Almighty Instruction Booklet. The developer created the world you were about to enjoy, and his word is law, and it is written in the instruction booklet. That was our ritual growing up. My brother and I would trade the box and the booklet, make note of each button's use and any plot information, and by the time we reached the floor in front of our oversized wood entertainment center, we were well versed in everything we needed to know before playing the game.
Now, developers ensure you don't get lost with detailed and, more importantly, playable tutorial sequence. Press A to jump, yeah-yeah, we know all that crap, but as games get bigger, so do the gameplay systems. It's an natural way to include more people in our favorite hobby. In fact, some tutorials are so well-disguised that you're too engaged by the narrative to notice you're actually learning something. Unfortunately, Mario & Luigi: Dream Team makes the mistake of vastly over explaining its relatable and friendly brand of RPG gameplay ultimately equating to a nap on the ride back from the store.
