Kung Pow Pixel: Duck Tales (Woo-oo)

In honour of Capcom announcing the release of a remastering of the NES classic Duck Tales I'm sharing with you a pattern I am putting into my to-stitch pile!

I think the game is going to look great and it will certainly be in my wishlist for the Xbox 360. Are you excited about this game?

As always, click to enlarge, and if you have any problems reading the pattern let me know. I can always send you a PDF via e-mail. Leave a comment, or e-mail me, my e-mail is in the right side-bar!

Kung Pow Pixel: 3DS Demos

I got my 3DS some months ago, but haven't been able to afford many games for it. Now with access to Internet once again I've been downloading some demos. So here's some thoughts on those I've played recently.

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed

I played Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing on the Xbox 360 quite a lot. I enjoyed the game, but it doesn't change much after your first play through, so I was happy to see while playing the demo that Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed (SASRT) seemed a bit more in depth than it's predecessor. In this game your car can transform into a boat and a plane, depending on the area of the track, and this was a lot of fun, although tricky to master the flying parts. This meant that no two laps of a track were the same, as for example, the first time round you drive, the second time round you boat and the third time round you fly.

In SASRT you can also earn experience points with which you can upgrade your car. You can get these points for performing stunts whilst racing, sliding round corners to boost, or using an item to successfully attack a competitor. This hopefully means there will be more reason to play once you've completed all the tracks. This is a game I'd definitely like to get, but whether on the 3DS or on the Xbox 360, I'm not sure yet.

Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion

Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion takes Mickey back to the Castle of Illusion (from Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse released on various Sega consoles in the early 90s), where various toons are trapped. I found this to be a fun little platformer, though very simple. It's also a very wordy game, which, especially for a demo, I found to be a little bit off-putting. I think this is the kind of game I would probably pick up if I saw it for less than £10.

Heroes of Ruin

I had blanked on the fact that this is a Square Enix game when I downloaded it, thinking it was something in the Heroes of Might & Magic series... Anyway, it was pretty fun to play. It's not the typical RPG I'm used to from Square Enix, with a choice of class, a lot more choice for your character's appearance and small choice of quests, it felt like something halfway between a JRPG and a western RPG. I think I would enjoy playing this game and would like to get it sometime.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate

I've admittedly never played a Castlevania game properly before, but I downloaded this demo because I've heard so much about the series. It was quite fun to play, though I found it to be very tough. It looked nice and sounded nice, but I don't have much more to say about this game. I don't think I'll be looking to buy this game any time soon.

Kung Pow Pixel: Pokémon X and Y

I don't get very excited about most games, but I love Pokémon games and always get excited about them.

Pokémon X and Y were announced last week for the Nintendo 3DS. This is exciting for a number of reasons. First of all, it's a 3DS game. I don't think many people were really expecting that after Pokémon Black and White and B&W2 were released for the regular DS. It was rather an eventuality as Nintendo won't be able to support the DS forever after the release of the 3DS, but Nintendo did rather seem to be putting it off, as even spin off games such as Pokémon Conquest were not released on the 3DS. Secondly, it looks, from the few screenshots we have, like they've made quite a change to the graphics and the battle environments, which look much more dynamic.

The attacks look way cooler too!

The starters don't look too bad. I'm especially enamoured with Chespin, he looks quite similar to Oshawott, who was my starter in Pokémon Black, maybe that's why. I also quite like Froakie as he's quite an original looking water type, though Fennekin reminds me a lot of Vulpix and Victini as it's another fox-like fire type.

Pokémon X & Y are coming out in October world-wide, so I hope to be able to get one at launch. At least I hope that I will be able to get Black 2 before then, as I am itching to play that too!

Kung Pow Pixel: Some New Old Games

A bit of depression has settled in, which means doing stuff like writing on this blog seem a bit too much to bear sometimes, which is why there have been less posts over the last few days and why this Kung Pow Pixel isn't very in depth.

Every day Michael and I go out for a walk after breakfast, if we didn't we'd have very little reason to leave the house! This morning we ended up going into the only game shop in town. We don't usually go in there, because it is expensive and not very inspiring - you can't even look at the box art properly,  because they don't put out the games, just boxes with photocopies of the cover inserts. Today, however, it was so cold and we weren't prepared for it, so we took shelter in the shop for a few minutes.

This was fortunate for us, but not so much for our wallets. The shop had out a basket full of Xbox, PlayStation 2 and GameCube games for a Euro a piece. We managed to leave with only five games, though there were a few more I would have wanted, but left behind.

These are the games we ended up with. Ty The Tasmanian Tiger, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil, Ratchet: Gladiator and The Mark of the Kri. We didn't know whether the Xbox games would work on the Xbox 360, but it turned out they did. If they hadn't it wouldn't have been so much trouble, but I just hate using the original Xbox controller.

Not a bad little haul for five Euros!

Kung Pow Pixel: Games inspired by crafts

First of all, if you haven't seen my article over on Nintendo Life, please go and check it out!

This week I'm going to take a look at some games inspired by crafts, mainly in their design, but also in their mechanics.

Kirby's Epic Yarn

I bet you saw this one coming. Its big selling point was that it is set in a handcrafted world. On launch day Nintendo even had people yarn bombing London with fantastic Kirby themed knitting. In Kirby's Epic Yarn you play as Kirby who in this game is made of wool. He can change his shape and he can suck up enemies and turn them into little balls of wool. He can even affect the patchwork scenery around him my pulling parts of the background down or unzipping it. The feel of the game is very relaxing, sort of like crafting in that way!


Super Paper Mario

I suppose the other Paper Mario games would count too, but this is the only one I've played. In Super Paper Mario Mario is a 2d paper cut-out in a paper cut-out world. You can collect Pixls, which are little fairy-like creatures who give you extra powers, for example, as the characters are in a 2D world you can turn so that you become invisible. I think I would have loved to have a Paper Mario sticker book when I was younger, creating my own adventures for Mario.

Little Big Planet

The main character of Little Big Planet is Sackboy, he's a small knitted doll who you can dress up. There are loads of clothes and accessories you can add to him to make him look however you want. The surroundings feel almost like a toy box, as you use stickers to change the environment and parts can be pushed and pulled around as they're on wheels. Sackboy himself has inspired numerous amounts of crafts.

Dynamite Headdy

The world of Dynamite Headdy is a stage and the characters are puppets, literally  You play as Headdy, who is himself a puppet, and your main weapon is your own head, which is detachable and thrown at enemies. It's a very hectic game, which I imagine reflects a real life stage production. You can see people working in the background and sometimes the backdrops even fall down. Maybe not so crafty, but I like the idea of using puppets in a game.

Kung Pow Pixel: Games that have inspired me

I don't talk about games much, even though they are the subject of a lot of my crafting, so I'm bringing Kung Pow Pixel over here. I would like to take a moment to write about games that have inspired me, games I love making crafts from.

Wario Land 4

This game is a lot of fun. I had played the previous Wario Land games, but unfortunately gave up on them, but this one was just right. Hard enough that I didn't play through it all in one sitting, and not so hard I couldn't do it. And the sprites in this game are beautiful. It's such a bright and vibrant game, I just had to stitch up Wario and I hope to make more using this game's sprites in the future.

Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland

I love the Kirby series, and for my last birthday my boyfriend bought me Kirby's Adventure for the NES, and even though he accidentally bought the German version of the game I still loved playing it. So when I saw the 2002 remake Nightmare in Dreamland on the Game Boy Advance at a games fair I had to get it. The game itself is brilliant and the sprites art even more so. This, and Kirby and the Amazing Mirror are my go-to Kirby games for sprites.

Klonoa: Empire of Dreams

I once tried to play the Klonoa: Door to Phantomile on the PlayStation, but didn't get very far. It wasn't my game, so I never got the chance to play it again. However, after hearing my boyfriend, and one of his brothers, rave about it, I picked up Empire of Dreams for the Game Boy Advance. It's a wonderfully fun game, and only as difficult as you want it to be, as the levels are fairly simple to get through, but it gets hard if you want to collect all the bonus gems. It's not a game I've made anything for yet, but I have been inspired by it, and am sure to make something in the future.

The Pokémon series

Pokémon is probably the most influential game series of all time for me and who doesn't love Pokémon? My go to games for cross stitching are FireRed and LeafGreen, they have the best sprites for Gen 1 Pokémon, however, my favourite Pokémon game would have to be Black. The update to the graphics and gameplay was done really well and the new Pokémon added were more imaginative than the previous two generations. Pokémon is probably my most stitched subject matter and will continue to be for some time.

As you might have noticed, all games I've mentioned here are Game Boy Advance games. The Game Boy Advance is such a wonderful little handheld console, and the games produced for it have been really inspired, and really inspire me.

Introducing Kung Pow Pixel

I've started a new blog, it's called Kung Pow Pixel. I've started Kung Pow Pixel not because I'm giving up on this blog, but because I feel that EveningEmma is very much about my crafts and I realise this is why a lot of people visit, to see my progress. I've often wanted to write about what games I've been playing or what I've been watching, but found it inappropriate content for over here. Kung Pow Pixel will be less about what I'm creating and more about what else I'm doing or enjoying, just for fun.

I'm not abandoning EveningEmma by any stretch of the imagination, so don't unfollow me yet! I hope you'll pop over to Kung Pow Pixel, read my intro post and stick around for a while.