Zen Pinball 2 – Mars

This is essentially a follow-up to my first blog entry about Zen Pinball 2. I bought the Mars table tonight, for $2.99 plus tax. I’ve tried most of the tables in Zen Pinball 2, and Mars was my favorite. Not only is it fun to play, but it’s visually appealing and has some pretty good music too.

Zen Pinball 2 - Mars screenshot Wii UI played a few games of it tonight, and did okay, but not great. I probably need to look into the documentation to see if it says what targets do what (in terms of the missions), so I can adjust my strategy to fit the goals. Either that or just keep playing and learn as I go.

There did seem to be a problem listing the online rankings though. When I tried to view them, it just said “Please wait while connecting to the Ranking server” and never moved past that screen. I’ll have to assume there was a temporary problem with their server, because my connection was working fine; I was able to buy and download the table after all. I’ll try it again another day.

I’m also still playing Batman: Arkham City, though admittedly not as much since I got Animal Crossing: New Leaf. There are still so many things to collect in the game, it’s overwhelming. I’ve already decided that I’m not going for 100%, but I’m still far from done. I have beaten the Haley Quinn’s Revenge scenario (though I didn’t find all of her balloons), but I’m focusing on collecting Riddler trophies and destroying the security cameras in the main Batman mode for now. My overall percentage is currently at 60%.

batman60pct

Tank! Tank! Tank!

I decided to give Tank! Tank! Tank! a try try try. It was originally a Wii U launch game, but they recently converted it into a “free” game. And by free game, I mean a skimpy demo that wants to charge you money for DLC for practically everything. But first, I had to download it. You need to have 2,121 MB (over 2 GB) free in order to download it, which is ridiculous when you consider how little content the demo actually has. I had to delete both of my Rayman demos and Wii Street U to make room for it. Once you start the game up and enter your name and choose your icon, you are presented with an option of playing story mission or multiplayer.

Tank! Tank! Tank!I chose story mission. After choosing a support character and watching a short video, you are taken to a screen where you choose your mission. Only one is listed, so naturally I chose that one. I clicked the mission, but nothing happened. Do I need to pick a different tank or something? I scroll through the list of tanks, and only one is available. I re-select it, yet I still can’t start the mission. At this point, I’m wondering if I’m overlooking something really obvious so I look up a video on Youtube, only to see someone else confused by it as well. The story mode is not available in the demo. So why isn’t that clearly stated when you try to start it up? Wow, what a waste of time that was.

The other mode is the multiplayer mode, and that does have three modes you can try: Monster battle, free-for-all, and team versus. In monster battle, everyone teams up to destroy a common enemy. It may be 100 big spiders or one gigantic monster. The action is okay, but there’s nothing particularly captivating about it. And it has this annoying habit of popping up huge notices, telling you a teammate has been killed or showing the monster’s health level. I can understand why it would want to display that information, but must it be in a gigantic window smack-dab in the middle of the screen? It blocks your view and it makes no sense to put it there when there’s all sorts of free space in the corners.

Tank! Tank! Tank! Gameplay screenshotAs for the other two modes, they’re your standard deathmatch battles (but in tanks, of course). Free-for-all is every man for himself and team versus is a team battle. I was just playing against computer opponents, but I could see how this could be fun if you had three other friends to join in the action. And that is probably the ideal crowd for Tank! Tank! Tank! If you often have a group of friends over to play multi-player games, you might want to give this game a try. But if you primarily stick to single-player games like I do, this isn’t even worth the free download.

Tank! Tank! Tank! Gameplay screenshot

Wii U Panorama View

Today I gave the Wii U Panorama View demo a try. Panorama View is an app where you are essentially watching a video, but using the Wii U GamePad, you can turn and look in any direction. The eShop categorizes it as an “interactive video.” The demo is a short trailer (under two minutes long) that gives you a brief sample of each of the video tours available. This includes:

  • Double Decker Tour, London, UK
  • Kyoto Sightseeing, Kyoto, Japan
  • Bird’s Eye View, Ancona, Italy
  • Carnival in Rio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Wii U Panorama ViewThe concept is cool, I’ll give it that. Based on the demo, it is fun to immerse yourself in the various locations and have the freedom to look in any direction. Unfortunately, the video quality isn’t all that great. The videos are available for $2.00 each in the Wii U eShop. This leaves one question: Well how long are the videos? Curiously, the eShop doesn’t even say! A quick web search shows they range in length from 5-8 minutes. I was hoping the videos would be longer than that, but you’re really paying for the novelty.

Personally, I don’t plan on buying any of these video tours, but I may consider any future video tours. Imagine one of an astronaut going on a space walk. Now that is something I would buy. Or maybe a day at an amusement park, going on roller coasters. An undersea journey could also be impressive. This idea has potential, so I hope Nintendo will continue to provide new content for this app.

Wii U Panorama View Kyoto SightseeingWii U Panorama View Bird's Eye View