Why I Would Probably Play Kinect Disneyland Adventures
Three things:
I don’t have kids.
I don’t have a Kinect.
I’m not creepy.
I kinda want to play Kinect Disneyland Adventures.
Sometimes I talk about Disneyland, and sometimes I talk about video games, and Kinect Disneyland Adventures is basically a Disneyland video game.
See?
Maybe it’s the fact that it’s a (from what I gather) faithful re-creation of Disneyland in a video game. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m kind of a Disney nerd. Maybe it’s the fact that I like minigames. Oh, wait, it’s the first two, and also a fourth thing that is kind of like the first thing.
I’ve been a Disneyland passholder for the past two years. I LIKE IT THAT MUCH. I of course know other people with Disneyland passes; I’m not creepy (see: bullet 3, above). So, it is pretty much a given that I currently have better access to real Disneyland than the average person. However, I think it would be pretty cool to walk around inside a virtual re-creation of Disneyland, because I love virtual re-creations of things. This is the fourth thing.
THE MOST FUN IN THE WORLD.
Wouldn’t you love to play a Virtual Louvre game? Or at least, download the Virtual Louvre demo from Steam/PSN/XBLA so you can see just how many arms the Venus de Milo doesn’t have? (spoiler: all of them) We’ve been promised virtual reality since forever, and this is practically Holodeck Disneyland.
“DUDE can you believe the wait times here”
At least, I assume. I haven’t played it! (THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT OF THE ARTICLE.)
Until then, I can always wait for the Minecraft Disneyland guy to finish his full-scale replica of Disneyland in Minecraft. And I can always go on public Minecraft servers where there are some other Disney nerds that are obsessed with re-creating things for my benefit.
Those balloons look…sharp.
Unless you want to buy it for me. Come on, it’s 20dozen—the end of the world. You don’t need the money.
Buy This Stuff: “Even Though I Didn’t Have to Pay For It” Edition
Stacking (PSN/XBLA)
Sometimes I have a hard time connecting with my friends when we talk about video games.
A trip to Gamestop:
Me:You should check this game out! It’s amazing.
Them:What game?
Me:THE SLY COOPER COLLECTION.
Them:Haha, no.
Sly Cooper, Katamari, Ratchet and Clank…don’t even get me started on what happens when I try to get them to play Portal.
Me:It’s like two hours long!
Them:Yeah I’ll play it.
Them:[NEVER PLAYS IT]
As soon as I booted up Stacking, I knew it was going to be one of those games.
You play Charlie Blackmore, the littlest Russian stacking doll, in a world where every living person and animal is a Russian stacking doll. There’s a plot about an evil Baron kidnapping your family here, but I’ll be completely honest, I missed some of the text at the very beginning, so I don’t remember all of the details. He’s bad, and you’re good.
Charlie has the unique ability to stack with other dolls, inhabiting their bodies. Each doll type has a special ability that is either useful in solving puzzles (unlocking doors), or just funny (farting). Sometimes they’re both (farting on other dolls).
Each level has several challenges for you to solve, and each challenge has more than one solution. After you solve a challenge once, you’re encouraged to replay the same challenge to find another solution. This helps enable your OCD, and also unlocks trophies/achievements. There’s also a set of “hi-jinks” in each level, which are various ways to make trouble that also earn you trophies/achievements/trips to the psychiatrist from all of the OCD.
The game is fun, creative, funny, and you get to jump inside of people’s bodies and make them do stuff. If you’re a PlayStation Network Plus subscriber, it’s free; it’s $15 otherwise (1200 Microsoft points on XBLA). It’s a good idea, so do it.
I’ve had some mean things to say in the past about the PS3 but I’ve come around recently, mostly because I’ve wanted to play Uncharted 2, and to do that I have to play Uncharted 1, and to do that I have to have a PS3. That’s a lot of numbers.
So, now I have a PS3, which means I can compare it to the Xbox 360 and we’ll all read it and laugh. Specifically, I’m going to mention the things that I think either one does better than the other one. That sentence does not make a lot of sense but I think the rest will.
1. Controllers
In 2006 I wrote the following about the PS3 controllers:
Today, Sony revealed their new design, which looks—surprise—exactly like the old controller. Thanks, Sony, for remaking the second- or third-worst controller I’ve ever used.
What a JERK AM I RIGHT? The point was, I wasn’t too fond of the PS2 controller. I’m warming up to the PS3 controller, BUT.
Little paddle buttons instead of triggers on L2 and R2? Uh I guess. Games that use the L1 and R1 buttons as triggers where the Xbox 360 would use the actual triggers as triggers? What kind of backwards world is this.
Xbox, you win controllers.
2. Scaling
By now you have probably guessed that I do not know what order these items should go in. Here is a relevant piece of information: I bought an old HDTV when I got my Xbox 360, by which I mean, it was already old five years ago, so the only resolutions it can display are 480i (in AV circles, “poop” res), 480p (“poop-pee” res), and 1080i (“get a real HDTV”).
Most games are made with a 720p native resolution, and the console of choice will happily scale the graphics to the resolution that your TV is set to.
If you have an Xbox 360, that is. The PS3 likes to play things at their native resolution, but if your resolution isn’t supported, hey guess what? You will get the next lowest thing, which, in my case, is 480p. Did I mention that most games are made with a 720p native resolution? I think I did! Yeah I typed it and everything, it’s there.
But OKAY, whatever. Uncharted 1 (and I’m pretty sure Uncharted 2) both run in 1080i, which is good enough for me. And the 480p games? They don’t look that bad. Which brings me to #3,
3. The PS3 is making me realize that maybe everything doesn’t have to be in high-definition and that everything that pushes “HD” just might be a scam to get us to buy new televisions and re-buy all of our old content in new high-definition formats just like all those people who sold their VHS collections to buy DVDs.
Did you know we are all sheep? Ok.
4. Games
Cool games bro! Uncharted 1 is really good so far, and I’m really looking forward to beating it and then playing Uncharted 2, just so that I can beat it and then play Uncharted 3. And then I can watch the Uncharted movie!
LittleBigPlanet is pretty fun. Apparently the second one is out in like two weeks. Shipoopi.
ModNation Racers is like LittleBigPlanet had a baby with Mario Kart, which is a really disturbing mental image now that I think about it. Basically you can design everything about your character and your kart and your track and then race people. I love it. Someone made Two-Face on there. Your life is incomplete without seeing it.
3D Dot Game Heroes is kind of cool. I played it for about a half-hour before getting into Uncharted and I haven’t gone back yet, but I did manage to make that robot from that robot comic.
5. Misc. Other Features of the PS3 that I Like
This article was sounding pretty anti-PS3 until #4, but I really do like the new thingy a lot. It’s shiny (not literally) and it has new buttons and it makes all kinds of sounds and flashy stuff appear on this box in my house. It also does this fancy stuff:
I can copy save files to a thumbdrive! I can copy files off of a thumbdrive to the internal PS3 hard drive!
It’s a better Blu-ray player than the dedicated Blu-ray player I had! Go figure!
FREE PSN! This is great because my free Live Gold subscription that I had from Microsoft is running out, also I rarely play online games.
I GET TO HAVE A SLY COOPER AVATAR and PRESUMABLY THERE WILL BE ANOTHER SLY COOPER GAME AND I WILL BE ABLE TO PURCHASE IT AND ABSORB ITS EXPERIENCE INTO THE FABRIC OF MY BEING.
That last one might be the greatest thing I’ve ever said or thought or written.
