We're almost through all the games, now. As you'll recall, I've been reviewing all the games I played at the gaming marathon for SpecialEffect. Previously reviewed: Poo, Tsuro and Ricochet Robots; Love Letter, Forbidden Island, King of Tokyo and Dobble; Towerfall, Monaco and Nidhogg. Now three more video games. I'm afraid I don't have much great insight into these. By the end of the night I was struggling to remain awake and focused.
Rock Band... something
Was it Rock Band 3? 4? I'm not even sure. I think it must have been 3. I was very, very tired. Everyone knows Rock Band, right? Every player gets an instrument and you have to play the music in time with each other. Except you're not quite playing the music, you're pressing coloured fret buttons or hitting coloured drum pads in a pattern that appears on the screen and is mostly in time with the music.
The biggest problem with Rock Band is the pain of getting the latency adjustments correct. I think the video streaming kit added enough video and audio latency that the automatic calibration just wouldn't work. You're supposed to just hold the guitar up near the speakers and it will handle the calibration itself, but we kept trying and it kept failing. Playing Rock Band with the video out of sync is a deeply frustrating experience. You feel helpless and unable to figure out what you're doing wrong. Too soon? Too late? Who knows? You're just wrong. We had to recalibrate more than once before we got something satisfactory.
I do like the drums best. They don't induce hand pain like the guitars, they don't result in everyone laughing at you like with vocals. The main problem is finding a comfortable way to sit that lets you hit the bass pedal quickly, cleanly and repeatedly without it sliding away from you across the floor. When everything gets overwhelming it is the bass drum that you start missing, whether by failing to sufficiently release the pedal each time, slowing sliding off it, or just getting so overwhelmed that you start ignoring it in a futile attempt just to get the other drums right.
Overall, I love this game very much, but it can be frustrating to play. I wish the equipment was sturdier and more comfortable, and I wish you got better feedback to understand whether you're messing up or the game is just miscalibrated.
Nintendo Land
Nintendo Land is a superb collection of Nintendo minigames. It's really what Wii Party U should have been. There's quite a lot of variation between games – some are a bit ropey, and some are not great for parties. We focused on the three all-vs-one games, which are by far the best party games. This is exactly the kind of game the Wii U's gamepad is perfect for – asymmetric games where one player acts in secret.
Mario Chase
A fairly straightforward hide-and-seek game. One player is Mario, the rest are toads. It's really easy to understand and the controls are as simple as they can be. Mario can see a map of the playing area with the locations of all players on the gamepad. The toads can only see their own views in split-screen on the main monitor, and they need to cooperate well to spot Mario and keep each other appraised of his location. They can't outrun him, so they need to corner him. Mario can try to lose them by slipping round a corner and doubling back while they can't see him, or by making use of terrain features like vanishing bridges and slides. The end-of-game replay can be particularly satisfying for Mario as he reveals how sneakily he avoided the toads.
Luigi's Ghost Mansion
This one's a fair bit more complicated. One player is the ghost, invisible unless a player shines a torch on them or a flash of lightning illuminates them through the mansion's windows. They simply have to creep up on the other players and catch each of them unaware. The players have to band together to watch each others' backs and pay attention to the vibrations that let them know a ghost is nearby. Only if they can find the ghost and shine their torches on them for long enough to deplete all their health can they win. If the ghost catches every player then the ghost wins. To make matters worse, the torches, which don't have much range to begin with, rapidly deplete their batteries, forcing players to be sparing in their use and to make risky dashes for replacement batteries when they appear. A sneaky ghost will lurk just close enough to panic players and make them use up their batteries before striking when they are vulnerable. This game is really hard as a ghost hunter, but it does reward teamwork. It's not my favourite game, but can make for a nice change when you've had enough of the others.
Animal Crossing: Sweet Day
This is by far the best and most hilarious of the games. One player controls two guard dogs, one with each control stick. The other players control naughty animals trying to steal all the candies. The animals get larger and slower the more candy they are carrying, but they can drop it to make a quick escape. The dogs win if they catch an animal three times, the animals win if they manage to hold simultaneously a target amount of candy. While it can be a bit tricky to get the hang of controlling two guards at once, it allows for some great fun attempting to outmaneuver the animals. For the animals, again, communication is key. They need to alert each other to where the dogs are. I do worry this one might favour the animals a bit too much once they're really coordinated – they can pick up and drop candy into a few piles, keeping a high degree of maneuverability until they have accumulated enough candy to eat it all at once. Still, the dogs don't need to catch every animal – just the slowest one!
Sports Friends: Barabariball
These were weird. I only played Barabariball, perhaps the most normal of the bunch. I didn't really like it all that much, but I was pretty sleep-deprived. It's sort of a cross between Super Smash Bros and soccer, I suppose. A bit like the Kung Foot minigame in Rayman Legends, but with more falling to your doom. You have to get the ball in the water on your opponent's side of the screen, you get a limited number of air-jumps (which sort of double as health, I think?) and you can hit the ball or your opponents. Don't fall off the bottom or you lose a point. You get to pick characters and fighting styles but I couldn't really tell what differences there were. I hear it's actually quite deep and complex, but I was not in any state to appreciate deep and complex gameplay by this point.
Next time: Overcooked! I saved this one for last as it was my favourite of the night.
