[h2]GBAtemp book game club #82[/h2]
Big Bang Mini (NDS)
Occasionally we have a broader theme to these selections but other times we just pick games worth sharing and this would be one of those times. Developers Arkedo Studio's had burst onto the scene just over a year before with a fairly radical take on the "breakout clone" genre with their "Nervous Brickdown" game (if you ever got one of those 9999 in 1 tetris games from a tourist trap then it was kind of like that but for breakout/arkanoid clones but with many of them being good) and that appeared to signify they "got" handheld games.
This game then arrived at the end of a particular sparse/shovelware heavy January (though Desmume had just got a massive update making DS emulation the focus of many once again) where it immediately found quite the fanbase that continues to this day (though it is not as prominent as it might be).
Gameplay itself is kind of hard to describe- in some ways it plays like the shmups we were discussing some time back (albeit a clever integration of the vertical and horizontal subgenres) and in others it resembles the amusing "Magic touch" flash game (which has a nice DS homebrew port). Either way many consider it a fine example of a game made for the DS. Some would criticise the need to unlock things but you can always download a save.
Aside from a quick dalliance with Windows Phone 7 the developers have seemingly left handhelds behind and gone on to do several great throwbacks to classic gameplay styles for the likes of Xbox live arcade and PSN (see the arkedo series and "Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit").
[prebreak]Rest of the article[/prebreak]
Try as we might we can not resist turning a phrase here. Was Big Bang mini indeed a big bang or just a small whimper? Gameplay is also quite similar to one of the favourites of these little sign offs in the DS homebrew title "Meteroa".
We are working on getting a new searching mechanism working with the new forum software now our tag system has been changed. In the meantime all the editions are in this section and hopefully GBAGOTW should get you the other entries in the series. gbagotw.
GBAtemp aspires to be more than a news relaying site and as such has several features aimed at sharing information and generating discussion beyond that of the news of the moment. The GBAtempbook game club/GBAtemp game of the week feature is part of that which aims to continue to have that aspiration be a reality.
Though we hold there is more to it when pressed the quick summary would be "a user driven review/discussion of a selected title", our side of things is to make the selections and share a bit about the title and the interesting things surrounding it but for the reviews and bulk of the discussion we look towards those that wish to participate in the feature.
Commercial releases, homebrew code, ROM hacks and things like leaked beta releases of games for the GBA, DS and Wii will be what we mainly look to, though there may be the occasional dalliance with things the DS can emulate. That said games are frequently not single platform/console brand affairs and should the franchises in question appear across several platforms we will aim to make note of it.
The notion of making yet another "best ? games for these consoles" feature is not one that fills us with a burning desire to carry on and though we certainly do not exclude games based on quality there are all sorts of interesting titles and ideas that developers try, especially among the devices we tend to look at, and those frequently make just as good things to start a discussion on.
Big Bang Mini (NDS)
Occasionally we have a broader theme to these selections but other times we just pick games worth sharing and this would be one of those times. Developers Arkedo Studio's had burst onto the scene just over a year before with a fairly radical take on the "breakout clone" genre with their "Nervous Brickdown" game (if you ever got one of those 9999 in 1 tetris games from a tourist trap then it was kind of like that but for breakout/arkanoid clones but with many of them being good) and that appeared to signify they "got" handheld games.
This game then arrived at the end of a particular sparse/shovelware heavy January (though Desmume had just got a massive update making DS emulation the focus of many once again) where it immediately found quite the fanbase that continues to this day (though it is not as prominent as it might be).
Gameplay itself is kind of hard to describe- in some ways it plays like the shmups we were discussing some time back (albeit a clever integration of the vertical and horizontal subgenres) and in others it resembles the amusing "Magic touch" flash game (which has a nice DS homebrew port). Either way many consider it a fine example of a game made for the DS. Some would criticise the need to unlock things but you can always download a save.
Aside from a quick dalliance with Windows Phone 7 the developers have seemingly left handhelds behind and gone on to do several great throwbacks to classic gameplay styles for the likes of Xbox live arcade and PSN (see the arkedo series and "Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit").
[prebreak]Rest of the article[/prebreak]
Classic game room did a nice review of the title
Try as we might we can not resist turning a phrase here. Was Big Bang mini indeed a big bang or just a small whimper? Gameplay is also quite similar to one of the favourites of these little sign offs in the DS homebrew title "Meteroa".
We are working on getting a new searching mechanism working with the new forum software now our tag system has been changed. In the meantime all the editions are in this section and hopefully GBAGOTW should get you the other entries in the series. gbagotw.
GBAtemp aspires to be more than a news relaying site and as such has several features aimed at sharing information and generating discussion beyond that of the news of the moment. The GBAtemp
Though we hold there is more to it when pressed the quick summary would be "a user driven review/discussion of a selected title", our side of things is to make the selections and share a bit about the title and the interesting things surrounding it but for the reviews and bulk of the discussion we look towards those that wish to participate in the feature.
Commercial releases, homebrew code, ROM hacks and things like leaked beta releases of games for the GBA, DS and Wii will be what we mainly look to, though there may be the occasional dalliance with things the DS can emulate. That said games are frequently not single platform/console brand affairs and should the franchises in question appear across several platforms we will aim to make note of it.
The notion of making yet another "best ? games for these consoles" feature is not one that fills us with a burning desire to carry on and though we certainly do not exclude games based on quality there are all sorts of interesting titles and ideas that developers try, especially among the devices we tend to look at, and those frequently make just as good things to start a discussion on.
