Namco Bandai Video Game Shindig

August 26th, 2008

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to go to a blogger event being held by Namco Bandai.  The fine folks at Namco Bandai thought to bring a couple of their hot video game titles for us to play and enjoy. 

Overall it was definitely a cool experience.  Arriving at the event was a little harrowing at first as it was a hotel room at the end of the hall and my wife and I had no idea as the protocol or etiquette regarding these things.  Do we just burst in? do we knock?  should we have dressed up? what the hell is going to happen?

Fortunately for us, the door was a-jar and as we walked in we met the very nice Maral from the PR company and she showed up around.  Here is a breakdown of all the games we got to play:

We Cheer (Wii):  I wasn’t planning to play this game when I saw it.  It was definitely too girly for me.  You could see all the guys in the room avoiding the game, and only looking forward to playing the “boy” games.  Yet, it seem like everyone who played it had a great time.  So eventually I gave it a shot and was definitely surprised at the entertainment value.  While it is still a “girly” game, it was definitely fun to play.  Players must follow the cheers done by the on screen cheerleader team.  Points are earned by waving the Wii remote and knunchuck in the designated pattern shown on the screen, the accuracy and timing of the movements are scored on a system like Guitar Hero, showing a bar fill up for every good to perfect move done.   The music accompanying the game was mordern dancing and cheerleading songs, and while it didnt appeal to me, I am pretty sure that most tween girls would recognize or enjoy the song.  One note on the game play was that it definitely gave the player a work out with several complicated routines and high speed movements.

Active life-Athletic World (Wii):Wow, this game kicked my butt, for those who used to play the old 8 bit nintendo, this game was create by the same group that made the power pad.  Sticking to the same concept a game pad was also included with the game.  The game consisted of a variety of solo and co-op mini games that called for the player or players to run in place or jump up and down in various directions.  This might have been my favorite of the two Wii games that were previewed.  Games included running in placing and jumping over various logs and obstacles.  The games were surprisingly complicated in the sense that they didnt just require you to just jump or run in one place, there were several instances where you needed to lean on one foot or jump diagonally or sidways in order to complete the game.  The co-op play required a great deal of synchronization and team work which is pretty refreshing for the video game genre (especially since it had to do with movement and activity).  I had a lot of fun playing the game with Nick, one of the Namco Bandai reps.

(On a side not, these kids have the best job ever, they are just out of college and get to go to NYC and other places and play video games.  I basically do the same, and I do it for free.  But I guess I am too old now for that life, its like figure skating or tennis, I am totally past my prime.  Boo hoo!)

Naruto Ultimate Ninja (PS3)- I was never a Naruto fan and this put me at a distinct disadvantage when playing this game because I didnt know which ones were the cool characters and which ones were the characters that the programmers put in so that they could have a bigger cast.  Needless the game had a large amount of characters.  With whomever you use, the game play is at once simple and complicated.  Simple in the fact that a spaz like me can take a controller that I am not familiar with and somewhat hold their own doing all the special moves and such, and complicated in the sense that there are enough complexities in the fighting systems and game play, especially the counter attacks and evade moves that all levels should be quite happy. On top of this is the next gen graphics and animations which could fool a regular person into thinking that they are watching the cartoon and not a fully interactive game.  The game was rendered very well and the animation scenes do not appear to be repetitive and are entertaining which cannot be said for games of this type (ie Dragon Ball Z Budokai).

National Geographic Panda (Nintendo DS)- This game is basically like Nintendo Dogs in which you are incharge of taking care of a group of Pandas (instead of dogs).  The game takes place in real time, so if you play at night the game will be at night as well.  While I was not into the game, there was a couple of little kids playing the game and they seemed to get some enjoyment out of it, more power to them.  I was hesitant to tell them that Panda’s are pretty vicious and have killed their fair share of people in China, but instead I told them that there was no Santa.  I wouldnt want to break their faith in those adorable creatures.

Afro Samuari (PS3/Xbox 360)- This was the game that I was really fired up about seeing and playing.  I recently saw the entire first season of the Anime show and bought the DVDS.  For those who dont know this is a bloody graphic anime voiced primarily by Samuel L. Jackson (”a personal friend and fan of this site” not entirely true).  Needless to say it kicks ass.  Now I was curious how they would translate the radness of the show and I think they accomplished the job.  The cell shading (how the game was colored and designed)looks exactly like sketching out of a comic book, it looked pretty good. The action was intense and graphic, with a generous amount of blood and splitting people in half.  When Afro Samuari would slice a leg or arm you would be able to see bone and muscle being torn apart, this game is definitely for little children.  Game play was pretty simple, with a lot of button mashing but from discussion with the press team, it looks to be a very combo based game similar to “Devil May Cry” where players can pull off an unlimited amount of combos on enemies.  Needless to say without going further into the details, after playing the game I could certainly be convinced to purchase an X-box 360 or a PS3 to play the game.

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