Check Out Super Mario Party Jamboree for Nintendo Switch Releasing Oct 17th!

Are you ready to join the biggest Mario Party yet? Nintendo has an early look at the new Super Mario Party Jamboree game for the Nintendo Switch family of systems, releasing October 17.

Jam-packed with fun, Super Mario Party Jamboree features over 110 minigames, 22 playable characters (including newcomers to the series, Pauline and Ninji) and more ways to play than ever before.

Here are just some of the many festivities that await in Super Mario Party Jamboree:

• Mario Party Mode – Travel to a tropical party paradise and play your way across a total of 7 distinct boards with friends, including the brand-new Goomba Lagoon and Rainbow Galleria boards! Plus, Super Mario Party Jamboree includes two returning favorites: Mario’s Rainbow Castle from Mario Party and Western Land from Mario Party 2. Hit the Dice Block and you may come across a Jamboree Buddy along the way – characters who unlock game-changing abilities, from copying opponents’ items to launching you across the board.
• Minigame Bay – Explore an assortment of minigames in this mode, like daily challenges and 2 vs. 2 matches.
• New Motion Control Modes* – Grab your Joy-Con controllers and fly through the air in Paratroopa Flight School, move your way through Toad’s Item Factory and cook to the beat with Rhythm Kitchen.
• New Multiplayer Online Modes** – Join the 20-player race to finish first in Koopathlon, where you’ll collect coins during minigames to advance through a giant racecourse. Or take on Imposter Bowser in Bowser Kaboom Squad, a cooperative battle for up to 8 players.

Plus, a 3-month Nintendo Switch Online Individual Membership is also included! Anyone who pre-orders or purchases the game prior to March 31, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. PT will receive a Nintendo eShop code for a 3-month Nintendo Switch Online Individual Membership (not valid with Nintendo Switch Online Family or Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack memberships)! The code never expires and will come either in a packed-in pamphlet (while supplies last) with physical versions of the game, or by email if the game is purchased digitally.

And as you can expect from a Super Mario Party game, there are still even more surprises in store! The party kicks off with the release of the game next month. Pre-orders for Super Mario Party Jamboree are available right now!


-- Your friends at Nintendo

* Joy-Con controller required for motion-control minigames. Motion-control minigames not compatible with online mode or Nintendo Switch Lite.


** Any Nintendo Switch Online membership (sold separately) and Nintendo Account required for online features. Membership auto-renews after initial term at the then-current price unless canceled. Not available in all countries. Internet access required for online features. Terms apply. nintendo.com/switch/online

Article by: Susan N.

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Race to the Finish is Ultimate Godspeed on Steam!

Zurich, Switzerland - April 29, 2024 – Ninoko announced that Ultimate Godspeed is set to launch on Steam on May 27th ($12.99) for PC and macOS. This party racing game is all about modifying the racetrack. Place unique items on the level and bring chaos to the race! Use different objects like ramps, platforms, holes or mischievous traps. Freeze other players with the ice patch, kill them with deadly rotating saw blades, or obscure their sight with oily surfaces.

Ultimate Godspeed is set in a universe ruled by different tribes of gods: There are gods that command the winds, nature, technology, or even death. The player controls one of the divine champions, chosen for the Kagashi Festival. A racing event in honour of the gods.

The players race from point A to point B while collecting points. Each round starts with the players choosing from an assortment of randomly generated items. The chosen items are then placed all over the level by the players.

Items in Ultimate Godspeed are objects like ramps, platforms, holes or traps like an ice patch where you lose control, deadly rotating saw blades or oily surfaces which can obscure the player’s sight. These items allow for different playstyles like building shortcuts, blockades or chaotic death traps.

After placing the items, the players race. They can drift, boost or jump across the level, while evading traps and using shortcuts. 

A round ends when all players reached the goal. They are then rewarded with points for rank, speed and traps. They can even lose points. 

This process then repeats, while items from previous rounds remain, which leads to fascinating new ways to traverse the level or just utter chaos.

The goal is pretty simple: The player with the most points wins.

Links

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1435750/Ultimate_Godspeed/

Website: https://ultimate-godspeed.com/

About Ninoko

Ninoko is an independent game studio based in Zurich. Founded by Pierre Lippuner, Jan Schneider and Denise Hohl in fall of 2020, the studio is currently working on their first official release. The team is also a part of the mentorship program of the Swiss Game Hub. The three members graduated from the Game Design bachelor at the ZHdK in summer 2020 and have collaborated on different game and interactive media projects in the past. They all are generalists who can find their way around programming, animation and art with different specialisations.

Article by: Susan N.

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Earth Defense Force: World Brothers - PS4 Review

Earth Defense Force: World Brothers by developer YUKE'S and publisher D3 Publisher—Sony PlayStation 4 review written by Pierre-Yves with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

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It was just another day, humanity was simply minding its own business, and then bam. Aliens attack. Again. Actually again, again, again, again as this time around, you've got enemies from across the Defense Forces seemingly under a banner of a new big bad that has split the world into literal pieces. With no choice to pick up a weapon and fight in humanity's defense once again, welcome back to the field Commander in Earth Defense Force: World Brothers.

The latest EDF entry is an interesting one as it takes the campy-ness, doubles it, and makes it work in a family friendly style that the rest of the series cannot say the same for. I was a bit worried about this direction as I wondered if it may not be too campy for long-time fans but it doesn't take long to settle into the action and the dialog across the sixty missions that make up the first stretch of the game. Once that's done, higher difficulties are unlocked and the rest of the trophies can be hunted down.

Returning to a class based structure as is common with the core EDF titles, this time around you'll be creating a squad of four to take out and fight back against the invaders with in a 3D action style. Going this route allows for one customizations such as four Lancers with different weapons or four separate class types to really be able to adapt to the field. Hell, with all of the campiness you can even take Aya from Onechanbara to fight against the invading hordes!

The overall structure is simple enough but without some of the provided DLC I could potentially see some frustrations at times especially when getting into late game. The reason is, as standard, your squad units will receive armor points for successfully completing a mission. That's about all that is given to you as if you want new or more powerful weapons, you're going to have to rescue one to three other EDF members in the field and hope that they give you what you want. Generally speaking? This was not that case.

This is where I worry that may turn off some people due to the fact that it's random and there's no control over any of it. There are no skill trees or upgrade paths, it's just random to acquire variations of a class, new weapons, and new accessories. If you already have one it's a bonus as it gets upgraded but over the course of the main campaign? I was rocking only a handful of level 2 squad members, weapons and accessories.

Otherwise, if you're here to hunt down giant monsters and space aliens you've come to the right place as there's no shortage of that! From start to finish the objective is simple, shoot to kill everything in sight. From time to time there may be another objective such as defending a landmark but overall, it's done in the same manner as eliminating everything coming at it. Between the classes and the weapons (as they unlock) there are plenty of different ways to go about this and there are trophies for all of them!

Finally, while there is some diversity in gameplay from an Infantry Unit to a heavy infantry unit like a Lancer, to a Wing Diver that takes to the skies into a Ninja (yes Ninja) that strikes lightning quick, when it boils down to it it's not really what these individual units can do separately, but what they can do together which makes this combination of a four person squad interesting. Fly around to quickly get out of harm's way and then drop back in with a heavy weapon (as long as you're in range) and let loose. Enemies getting too close and your weapons take time to fire up or would cause your units themselves harm? Keep someone close that either specializes in melee weapons like swords or punching gloves or go with the classics, a shotgun. If it comes to getting up close and personal you can't go wrong with either or these two!

Summary

That's really all there is to it. Earth Defense Force: World Brothers is simplified fun and even at its toughest running on normal, players shouldn't have an issue dispatching the newest set of does to attack Planet Earth. The only real issue is the pacing of the upgrades but once you're passed that there's nothing to worry about other than how many missions can be crammed into an evening.

Score: 7.5 / 10

 

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Mario Party 8 - Nintendo Wii review

Mario Party was a great game when it first came out. It has all of the trimmings of a great kid-oriented game, and it certainly appeals to that audience too. But I remember our neighbor and one of our other friends, back when I was in college and in my 20's, coming over to play until all hours when my wife and I were exhausted too. There were times Heather and I would go to bed and others would stay up playing it. The idea behind a video game that operated like a board game made for quick set up and tear down time, easy save options so you didn't have to worry about trying to put a board in a safe spot until later, and introduced minigames that made the experience more interactive and skillful than say, a game of Monopoly.

There have been a lot of different Mario Party games over the years - and we picked up number 8 not too long ago for our Wii. Our kids have always enjoyed the series, and while we haven't gotten every iteration of it, we've owned several. And let's be honest, the big kids (my wife and I), enjoy them too.

Graphics - 4:

Going to have to be brutal here. The Mario skin over top of it is cute in its own right, but the graphics themselves are underwhelming. Recently I reviewed a game called Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn and complained about how the combat textures and graphics overall looked like they would be right at home on a Gamecube. Well, this game fails to even meet that standard. At least some of the art in Fire Emblem had some nice art, but really here everything feels a bit 'chunky' - almost like it was designed for the Gamecube and not a higher end system (and let's be honest, of the current gen systems, Wii is the weakling of the group, so when a game doesn't even live up to those standards? It's a problem). Another oddity is the game doesn't push widescreen - you get black bars along the left and right sides. The bright colors and familiar Mario themes help save this game from taking a dive to an even lower score, but all in all, a pretty disappointing effort here.

Sounds and music - 4:

The melodies are not so bad I guess, but the music quality seems really low-end. It just feels like the music should be a lot better than this. Another problem - the sound effects. They are really, really repetitive. The board ones are a bit worse than the mini game ones, but they are pretty underwhelming to begin with, and when you mix them up so seldom, they grate just a bit more.

Gameplay - 6:

There's a wide variety of minigames, but the control schemes are actually quite a bit more limited. This is actually not a bad thing, it helps keep the games from getting too confusing, and they generally make good use of the Wii control's movement support. You'll be waggling away on a lot of them, though there's several games where you hold it like a regular controller and use the directional pad and the 1/2 buttons (usually the more combat oriented mini games). I did not have many problems with the controls, but I play more games than any of my other family members. Even my wife commented on several occasions that she felt like the controls were not responding very well. Menus navigate easily enough and the boards have some interesting variety to them not found in older versions of the game, so that helps. Some people whine that there's too much luck involved, but it's supposed to emulate a board game, and those often rely on little more than luck. So, with that in mind, the minigames provide a level of skill to the proceedings that negate the 'too much random luck' argument, in my mind.

Intangibles - 8:

Pretty much the one thing the got right. The game has a nice, solid Mario theme going on. That's always a good place to start. There are a ton of minigames, and they do a good job (most of the time) of integrating the Wii motion controls. There's quite a few modes and you can customize your game settings a fair amount. Also, as a multiplayer game, it works so much better than a single player game in my opinion. It would benefit from some online play, but honestly I doubt that there are that many people who are online and playing this game anyway, so the option (or lack thereof) might be a relatively moot point.

Overall - 5.5:

Now, a lot of points are lost on the technical side of things. There's a good chance that the audience won't mind - so that makes a huge difference here. I've got 3 kids. Every time I've proposed we sit down and play the game as a family activity, at least 2 and my wife quickly volunteer. Of course, that's when you notice things like questionable controls or the odd graphics. It's a flawed game with a great premise and the potential to charm an audience like my household provides. This of course helps, but it does not completely mask the shortcomings of the game itself. It's almost more of a teaser of what could have been, than what was.

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