Kidzworld's Official Blog

This week’s gaming news post covered Cave Story for the Wii, an independent game that’s recently hit it big. A lot of indie games are awesome like Cave Story, and even free to download or play online! Here are a few free indie games that are just as good as a lot of regular games.

• Spelunky – Maybe the best free game ever made. You explore randomly generated caves for treasure and adventure, and the game just never gets old. I could play this until the end of time.
• Knytt – Explore a new world with sweet platformer gameplay. Give it some time to grow on you.
• RunMan: Race Around the World – It’s been described as “what an even better Sonic game would be like.” That’s some high praise, there.
• Dino Run – Escape the apocalypse! Also, dinosaurs!

How to Train Your Dragon was this week’s big game. The game is based on the movie which was based on the book, so I’m going to give a quick list of recommended books about games for all the gamers on this blog. If you can find them in a bookstore, flip through and see if it’s something you’ll like.

• Guinness World Records 2010: Gamer’s Edition – Solid gold (not actually made of gold, that would cost too much). Let me just flip to a random awesome record here: “Most Popular Puzzle Game Series of the Century”: Bejeweled. Here’s a cooler one: “New Super Mario Bros. DS Fastest Completion”: 44 minutes, 2 seconds. Full of records and other awesome gaming stuff.
• High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games – A little old now (released in 2002) but fun gaming history with plenty of pictures. I’ll be your dad even played some of those old systems in this book.
• The Book of Games Vol. 2 – A little tougher read, but really awesome info on the gaming industry. Why Volume 2? ‘Cause it’s better than Volume 1.
• The Art of the Video Game – Nothing but awesome pics of great games. Beautiful book.

This week’s game releases include Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, and on the very same day, another game (one that’s not so kid-friendly) will be released based on Dante’s Divine Comedy. I decided that this should be a growing trend, games based on awesome literature, so here are some games I’d like to see that fit that mold:

• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – There is a classic, hilarious 1984 text adventure based on this classic, hilarious 1979 book. But text adventures are a little hard to get into ever since games got, you know, graphics, so we need a new Hitchhiker’s Guide game. Besides maybe the Ratchet & Clank series, not enough games are funny nowadays.
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies – This mixture of a famous Jane Austen novel and, well, zombies is getting a movie made of it pretty soon. So it’s the perfect time for a video game beat-em-up adaptation to go along with it!
• The Three Musketeers – This book’s due for a comeback. Lots of good combat actions between muskets and rapiers, and a good story to back it up.

This week’s gaming news post covered Vancouver 2010, the primary game of this year’s Winter Olympics. But there are other games for the Winter Olympics out there, both from the past and present. Let’s go through them.

• When they say Vancouver 2010 is the official game of this year’s Winter Olympics, there is actually one more: Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games. If you’re playing the Wii, this is the only official game you get for these games, and if you have just a Wii, chances are you’d rather play as Mario, Sonic, and pals than generic folks anyway. I like Yoshi way better than “German Athlete #3.”
• You can go back to previous years of official games. My recommendation: Nagano Winter Olympics ’98 for the Nintendo 64. It was made by Konami, and somehow had more events than they include nowadays. You could play curling!
• Then there’s one of the few unofficial games ever released, 1986′s “Winter Games.” It was released on a ton of different consoles back then, and is about to be ported over to the Wii Virtual Console in the near future. There are some who say this game has the worst controls of any ever made. It’s, uh… Not that good.

In our latest gaming releases post, we covered three new DS games, because apparently they’re all that’s coming out now. We had only six Kidzworld-qualified games come out this week, and only five last week. There were, I don’t know, twenty or more the week before that. But don’t worry, we’ve got some big games coming up this month, though certainly not as awesome as November was.

First off, we’ve got the next DS Zelda title next week! The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks should be amazing, and it fits in your stocking!

A bit on towards Christmas, we get Guitar Hero Van Halen, which I don’t think I even have to look up to make sure is a new Guitar Hero game featuring mostly Van Halen music. Sounds like some classic guitar solos are coming up, if you’re in for a bit of a challenge.

And for a change of pace, on the day after Christmas, the next Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles comes out.

So, don’t lose hope, there are still some great titles coming out this month.

This week’s news post talked about the new Karaoke Revolution. Here’s the full tracklist.

1. “7 Things” – Miley Cyrus
2. “99 Times” – Kate Voegele
3. “A Labio Dulce” – Iskander (en Español)
4. “ABC” – The Jackson 5
5. “Addicted to Love – Robert Palmer
6. “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now” – McFadden & Whitehead
7. “American Boy” – Estelle feat. Kanye West
8. “Beautiful” – Akon feat. Colby O’Donis
9. “Ben” – Michael Jackson
10. “Black Horse and The Cherry Tree” – KT Tunstall
11. “Burning Down the House” – Talking Heads
12. “Crazy” – Seal
13. “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” – Rod Stewart
14. “Dancing Machine” – The Jackson 5
15. “Disturbia” – Rihanna
16. “Enamorada” – Miranda! (en Español)
17. “Feels Like Tonight” – Daughtry
18. “Gives You Hell” – All American Rejects
19. “Human” – The Killers
20. “I Kissed a Girl” – Katy Perry
21. “I Melt With You” – Modern English
22. “I Ran (So Far Away)” – Flock Of Seagulls
23. “I Want You Back” – The Jackson 5
24. “I’ll Be There” – The Jackson 5
25. “I’m Yours” – Jason Mraz
26. “Just Dance” – Lady Gaga feat. Colby O’Donis
27. “Love Hurts” – Incubus
28. “Love Is a Battlefield” – Pat Benatar
29. “Love Story” – Taylor Swift
30. “Man On The Moon” – R.E.M.
31. “My Life Would Suck Without You” – Kelly Clarkson
32. “No Me Doy Por Vencido” – Luis Fonsi (en Español)
33. “Pocketful of Sunshine” – Natasha Bedingfield
34. “Rehab” – Amy Winehouse
35. “Ser o parecer” – RBD (en Español)
36. “Sex On Fire” – Kings of Leon
37. “Shout” – Tears for Fears
38. “Si Me Besas” – Lola (en Español)
39. “Smile” – Lily Allen
40. “So What” – Pink
41. “Solid” – Ashford and Simpson
42. “Soul Meets Body” – Death Cab For Cutie
43. “Space Oddity” – David Bowie
44. “The Logical Song” – Supertramp
45. “This Love” – Maroon 5
46. “Viva La Vida” – Coldplay
47. “What Have I Done to Deserve This?” – Pet Shop Boys & Dusty Springfield
48. “What Hurts The Most” – Rascal Flatts
49. “Wicked Game” – Chris Isaak
50. “You Found Me” – The Fray

Our latest releases post announced that Konami’s legendarily difficult rhythm game is coming to North America, but much easier than the Japanese games. But, the real question is: Who has the hardest rhythm titles? Guitar Hero/Rock Band representing the west, or the Bemani rhythm games representing the east? These YouTube videos should let you decide for yourself.

Guitar Hero/Rock Band:

• Extreme difficulty drums on Baba O’ Riley

• Extreme difficulty Guitar on Bark at the Moon solo

• Extreme difficulty Guitar on Cliffs of Dover

Pop ‘n Music:

• a song apparently called “Super Japanesque“

• Classic 4 hyper, lets you see exactly what’s going on in the arcade version

• a song called Fantasia, in a performance that the game rates “No bad!”

Battle of the Bands

We’ve got two more Rock Band/Guitar Hero games this week, according to this here news post I just wrote. That’s added onto Beatles Rock Band, DJ Hero, Guitar Hero 5, Rock Band Unplugged, and Guitar Hero Smash Hits already over the past couple of months, and then we’ve still got Guitar Hero: Van Halen set for later this year. Time for them to battle, I’ve decided, in my own little tournament, to see which game is most likely to garner the most purchases.

1st Matchup: Guitar Hero 5 v. Rock Band Unplugged

GH5 moves on. I’m glad there’s a portable Rock Band now, and at least it’s original, but it’s still no contest.

2nd Matchup: Beatles Rock Band v. Guitar Hero: Van Halen

Well, let’s compare the album sales of the bands each game is using. Van Halen: 200,000,000 albums sold. Wow, that’s a lot. The Beatles: 200,000,000 albums sold… in the US alone. Beatles Rock Band moves on.

3rd Matchup: DJ Hero v. Band Hero

Two “Hero” games? Which will sell more? I have no idea. But DJ Hero is more interesting to me, so I’ll give it the edge.

4th Matchup: LEGO Rock Band v. Guitar Hero Smash Hits

Guitar Hero Smash Hits was basically just all the old Guitar Hero songs, but allowing you to play them with any instrument. Not a horrible idea, but it’s just an expansion, so LEGO Rock Band has to win.

2nd Round, 1st Matchup: Guitar Hero 5 v. DJ Hero

Guitar Hero 5. It’s the main series, and DJ Hero is just getting off the ground with its new turntable peripheral. GH5 will sell more than twice as many copies, I’m afraid.

2nd Round, 2nd Matchup: Beatles Rock Band v. LEGO Rock Band

Not even close, slightly modified Beatles will beat LEGO David Bowie any day of the week.

FINAL MATCHUP: Guitar Hero 5 v. Beatles Rock Band

Well, in the US Beatles Rock Band has sold more so far, and almost paradoxically, Guitar Hero 5 won in the UK. Is it a tie? Yes, but I’m not going to let that happen. Beatles Rock Band is the winner, by a coin flip. It landed tails.

Well, we learned in today’s Kidzworld gaming new releases post that in Wii Fit Plus, you can weigh your dog or cat, even though they can’t really play any activities! Well, I’m here to give Nintendo some ideas on how to better integrate our pets into the game:

1. If you have a dog, then the screen should show a picture of a kitten and make meowing sounds. That’ll get your dog running, or barking, or jumping, or something. At least he’ll be burning calories. Just switch roles if you have a cat.
2. Let’s add in some really high pitched notes into the game at various points, just see how your dog reacts.
3. Toy bone-shaped Wiimotes are a must.
4. Wii vitality sensor technology inside a tempting ball of yarn for your cat.
5. Maybe a new Wii balance board that can double as a scratching post?

And today’s question for you all: Do your pets ever even react to what’s on your TV screen?

There are four different cars you can get as a bonus for pre-ordering  Gran Turismo, and I’m going to give them all to you at once here, so you can decide.

• Amazon.com – 2002 Enzo Ferrari
• Gamestop – 2009 Bugatti Veyron
• Game Crazy – 1974 Lamborghini Countach
• Best Buy – 2008 Citroen GTbyCITROEN

I truthfully can’t decide which is my favorite out of those, but I think I’m going to go with the Ferrari anyway.