December 2015 - Jeff's Gaming Blog

FAST Racing Neo Impressions

I received a Nintendo eShop gift card for Christmas, and I used it to buy FAST Racing Neo for Wii U. It’s a futuristic hovercraft racing game like F-Zero or Wipeout. But in FAST Racing Neo, you must frequently toggle between two phases (orange and blue). There will be orange and blue boost pads and jump pads throughout the courses, and your ship must be on the correct phase to use them. If you touch them while on the wrong phase, it will slow you down dramatically. So you’ll need to switch phases effectively, while also evading other ships and avoiding obstacles in a very fast racing environment.

In addition to boost pads, there are also boost orbs that can be collected. These charge up your boost meter, which you can use whenever you wish. Efficient usage of boosting will be crucial in later courses.

Many of the courses have twisting tracks, dangerous jumps, and crazy obstacles. One has pillars of fire that erupt from the track itself, while others may have giant boulders that fall onto to the track or inconveniently-placed pillars in the way. Another has a giant mechanical bird that at first appears to be part of the background, until it starts pecking at passing ships! Some of these obstacles may seem a bit unfair when they first hit you out of nowhere, but you’ll learn to avoid them. Still, some of the later tracks are quite challenging.

Most of the game modes are pretty standard: There is a championship mode, a split-screen multiplayer mode, a time trial mode, and an online mode. But there is also a “hero mode,” in which you must win a cup without exploding your ship (no respawns). I have not unlocked this mode yet, but it sounds like quite the challenge.

After just a couple hours of gameplay so far, I am enjoying FAST Racing Neo. I’m not sure if it’s quite in the same class as F-Zero, but it is a fun, polished game with great graphics. It’s definitely a bargain for just $15 in the Wii U eShop.

Here is a gameplay video showing the Storm Coast course in championship mode:

For those wondering, I also received Xenoblade Chronicles X and Wii Fit U for Christmas. I may have separate blog entries and/or videos of those games at some point in the future.

Amiibo Festival – Desert Island Escape

If you’ve read my first impressions of Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival, you’ll know that I found the board game to be quite boring. But fortunately, the game has other modes as well. I’ve recently spent some time with the Desert Island Escape mode. This mode is just for one player, and it requires three Amiibo cards. The game comes with three cards, so this shouldn’t be a problem.

The cards you scan are the characters that will be stranded on a desert island. The object is to find three logs and a sail, which are hidden somewhere on the island, to build a raft and escape to freedom. You have seven days to accomplish this goal, with each day being represented as one turn for each of your characters. Unlike the board game layout, the island is represented in hexagonal spaces which give you more freedom to explore where you want.

You start with only three days worth of food, so you’ll need to collect fruit, fish, and/or honey along the way to replenish your stock. You can also pick up items such as stones, string, sticks, and cloth in order to make tools. Those tools will help improve your odds of finding food or getting past obstacles. A shovel lets you avoid pitfalls, a fishing rod allows you to catch fish, a slingshot improves your chances against enemy creatures like snakes and centipedes, and a net improves your odds of getting past the bees and scoring some honey.

Each character has a special ability. For example, dogs like Goldie can sniff out nearby items, allowing you to go directly to the goodies you need. Bears like Stitches are good at finding honey and fending off bees. Cats like Rosie can catch fish without a fishing rod.

One game, I made the mistake of selecting Eugene to be on my “ugly all-stars” team. Eugene is unpredictable but strong: Some days he can move forward 7 spaces, which is very helpful. But other days, he’ll be lazy and will refuse to move at all! That’s not being a team player!

At night, your characters will set up a tent to rest. You can choose to place the tent on any spot that you’ve already explored. If you have enough items, you can make a tool from the items you’ve collected. When you’re ready to proceed, you’ll eat and sleep. In the morning, you’ll start out the new day from where you pitched your tent.

As soon as you’ve found all of the parts you need for your raft, you’ll immediately assemble the raft and escape to freedom. You are scored based on how much of the island you’ve explored, as well as how much food and how many days you had left.

Unlike the board game, I’m really enjoying Desert Island Escape. It’s quite fun and I’m looking forward to playing it more. I actually think Amiibo Festival may have been better received if this had been the focus of the game. There are 30 islands to escape from, and each one seems to take about 10-15 minutes to complete. I’m not sure if this mode will have much replay value once those are completed, but at least Amiibo Festival isn’t a total loss. Here is a gameplay video featuring Stitches, Goldie, and Rosie:

Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival also has other modes that I haven’t unlocked yet. I’ll have more blog entries discussing those in the future, so I hope you’ll continue to visit Jeff’s Gaming Blog! See you next time!

Splatfest: Naughty vs. Nice

The North American Splatfest is underway today (from midnight to midnight, Eastern Standard Time). The teams are holiday themed, where you can choose to be naughty or nice. I’ve chosen the “nice” team, and I’ll be providing updates on my progress throughout the day on my quest to reach the rank of “Nice King.” As corny as that sounds.

The maps for this Splatfest are Urchin Underpass, Flounder Heights, and Mahi-Mahi Resort. Flounder Heights is one of my top-5 favorite maps, while Urchin Underpass is alright, and I still haven’t played enough of Mahi-Mahi Resort to form a strong opinion either way.

Team Nice Update #1: I’m using my Aerospray RG, at least for now. I started out with 10 matches, with my “Nice” team winning five and losing five. Even though I haven’t had any disconnections in-match, I have been repeatedly disconnected between matches. It’s hard to go on a nice run when you keep getting separated from your better teammates.

I’ve made it up to the rank of Nice Defender. But I’m not optimistic about Team Nice’s chances for one reason: I was the leading player on my team for all ten of the matches I’ve played so far. If I’m the best player every time, we’re in serious trouble! 😀 Still, ten matches is a very small sample size. I’ll update this again soon though, so keep checking back!

Team Nice Update #2: My second attempt at Splatfest didn’t start out very well. My team lost the first three matches I played, and five of the first six. But then, my luck seemed to change a bit. I ended up getting more help from my teammates–I even had a level-50 player on my team for a couple of rounds. Prior to that, I had been getting lots of teammates with ratings in the teens/20s.

My teams ended up winning five matches in a row. Although, there was a disconnection in the middle of that run, so it wasn’t the same team throughout. After the streak ended with a loss, I called it a night. I finished this session with six wins and six losses. In total, my record to this point is 11-11. Still too close to call. If you’re keeping track of your wins and losses, please leave a comment!

My ranking is still a Nice Defender, but I have 42 of the 50 points I need to become a Nice Champion. I’ll be back with another update in the late afternoon or early evening. Whether you’re naughty or nice, I hope your Splatfest is going well!

Team Nice Update #3: I gave Splatfest another go this afternoon, and it didn’t go well. I was often put with lower-ranked players (with levels in single digits or teens) and I was often put against significantly higher-ranked opponents. The matchmaking in this game really sucks sometimes, especially during Splatfest.

I started a total of 17 matches: I had 4 wins, 9 losses, and 4 disconnections. The disconnections were especially frustrating, because my team had large, late leads in two of them (the other two were early/close).

I noticed a few of my matches were against other “Nice” teams. So I expect the nice team to win the popularity vote, but I predict the naughty team will win overall.

I raised my rank up to “Nice Champion,” and I have 30 of the 99 upgrade points needed to reach Nice King. I’ll probably give it one more try later this evening.

Team Nice Update #4: After losing my first match of this session, I decided to switch from the Aerospray RG to the N-Zap 89. Even though that may hurt my ink totals, I figured it would allow me to be a bit more lethal at splatting people (not that I’m good at that anyway). I still lost the next two matches though, and I was considering giving up my plan of becoming Nice King.

And then it happened. I ended up with two level-30+ players on my team for a change, and we won. Two of the players left, but two level-40+ players joined in. For once, we had a superteam! Soybean, Pon, Alex, and I stuck together and won several matches in a row. Some of the players started to come and go…I even got disconnected once…but I was on a roll. My teams won a whopping fourteen matches in a row!

The 13th win earned me the title of Nice King, but I played one more match (so that people could see my king title before I retired to my throne, haha). So this session netted me 14 wins and 3 losses. My overall grand total (not counting disconnections) was 29-23. Still relatively close…but I still have a hunch that Team Naughty is going to win overall. I’ll be back a bit later with the final results.

FINAL RESULTS: Nice Squids Finish Last

Team Nice won the popularity, 59% to 41%. But Team Naughty won 59% of the battles. And winning counts for six times as much as popularity, so Team Naughty is a big winner. I guess Santa won’t have many presents to deliver this year, with so many naughty squids out there. 😉

I ended up scoring 18 super sea snails for earning the rank of Nice King. I hope you all enjoyed the Splatfest!