Death Smiles: Countdown to North America Invasion

[brentsg]

I'll say it again. This forum needs an ignore feature.

[cools]

My favourite reviews are the ones that used to appear in Amiga Power. A sprinkling of facts mixed up in a bizarre situation comedy.

They made me want to play the games. The same way the reviews Rob creates do.

Clinical dissections of game mechanics are dull as shit. I'll find them out when I'm playing, and discussing with other players, and from the manual etc. A review should make me want to either play or avoid the game, regardless of genre.

[TaygetaVendetta]

If you have skylights or unsteady roofs it may be time to get flying pig insurance: OXM gave Deathsmiles an 8.0/10 in its August issue. The written review is entirely positive and the short length of the game is forgiven for the multiple game modes, varying levels of difficulty and "complex scoring system".

I don't want to type the entire thing out, but here are the postitive and negative bullet points in the corner of the blurb:

+Deep, complex scoring system
+Absolutely beautiful art design
+Solid leaderboard support
- A bit to hardcore for anyone but shmup fanatics

While printed game magazines don't have the importance/pull they used to, OXM is in every grocery store and bookstore I've been to, so apparently its still widely distributed and read.

[Chi_Ryu]

My favourite reviews are the ones that used to appear in Amiga Power. A sprinkling of facts mixed up in a bizarre situation comedy.

I'm with this man, Amiga Power reviews were fun (A review that starts with the phrase "Liberty is a bitch who must be bedded on a mattress of corpses" - Louis-Antoine St Just, Thermidor, Year II", and where most of the criticism of the game's engine is captions to the screenshots is fine by me [Kick Off '96 review, AP65]).

I don't want a strategy guide in a review (I read strategy guides for this, and that's after I've played a game a few times), I want an overview - any big picture strengths and weaknesses pointed out in a way that doesn't bore my pants off. FWIW I enjoyed Zigfried's review. I've played plenty of DeathSmiles and DS MBL (bought them both on PCB, and more recently on Xbox 360) and understand the scoring system well; I didn't buy the game after reading an in-depth "this is how the mechanics worked" review, I bought it after hearing fellow gamers say "hey, I really enjoyed this game!" and after watching a couple of video clips.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Went down to my local Gamestop today 6/26/2010 and put down $5.00 on a reservation for the XBox 360 LE variant DS! game. Asked the Gamestop sales associate if it'll come out next week. She said that it'll be out on Tuesday, the 29th. Should be cool to finally see a Cave game ported to a U.S. gaming region console after all these years of waiting patiently.

It's still not too late to reserve a copy for yourself, folks. So for last minute game pre-order procrastinators, do so before the door shuts for good and then it's truly too late do so.

Am curious to see how well this U.S. region 360 DS! port will do sales-wise in the North American console market during the first couple of weeks of being on the retailers' shelving. It'll eventually be marked down in price if & when Aksys says for retailers to do so -- that's a given.

Makes me wonder if this U.S. region port will get a wide distribution outside the niche speciality video game shops like with the big-box retailers like Wal-mart, K-Mart, Target, Best Buy, CompUSA, etc. A wider distro base can't certainly hurt.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Kyle]

Went down to my local Gamestop today 6/26/2010 and put down $5.00 on a reservation for the XBox 360 LE variant DS! game. Asked the Gamestop sales associate if it'll come out next week. She said that it'll be out on Tuesday, the 29th. Should be cool to finally see a Cave game ported to a U.S. region console after these years of waiting patiently.

Ah hell, I have Tuesday off. I pre-ordered online out of fear of there not being any local copies. I'm tempted to cancel and try my luck.

[Zigfried the Trizealot]

Aksys has landed wider distribution in the past, although the size of the box and lower price makes me doubt this one will get the same treatment. It doesn't make much sense for a store to give a game additional shelf space for a lower per-item profit, unless they're expecting it to be a big seller.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

We'll see what happens next Tuesday, the 29th if any copies do come in locally. I'll definitely ask how many copies were reserved and how many actually came in.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Kyle]

We'll see what happens next Tuesday, the 29th if any copies do come in locally. I'll definitely ask how many copies were reserved and how many actually came in.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

Okay, so I called my local Gamestop. The sales guy actually knew what the game was. He said it looked fun but he did not have a 360.

Unfortunately they do not have any copies coming in. He called the other store in town and it was the same story. Hopefully that is not representative of the norm. I'm curious if the limited edition hurt distribution like Zigfried mentioned.

I have two day online shipping so it's all good.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Interesting to learn that some Gamestop retailers aren't getting their allocation of this game despite some locations getting a few paid reservations in. Hmmm, could it be an exclusive online distro deal with Gamestop rather than having the LE DS set distributed to their retail stores? I hope not.

Makes me wonder how many copies will be allocated/sent to the "Game Trader" franchised store locations spread across the USA as well? And the U.S. based "FYE" (For Your Entertainment) stores sell video games/consoles also (they used to be associated with Suncoast but those stores got shut down and FYE took their place instead).

It will be interesting to learn how many LE DS sets and regular edition DS copies Aksys has actually produced for intial distribution. Of course, they could always print up more copies if the demand outstrips supply -- but that is unlikely. I do know that with some games, they are given a 2nd print run as soon as the 1st print run has been distributed/sold.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[MachineAres 1CC]

Interesting to learn that some Gamestop retailers aren't getting their allocation of this game despite some locations getting a few paid reservations in. Hmmm, could it be an exclusive online distro deal with Gamestop rather than having the LE DS set distributed to their retail stores? I hope not.

I think some of this problem might stem from all the problems GameStop incurred with the Record of Agarest War port that was released a few months ago by Aksys. A lot of people reserved the game, but then a ton of people ended up not buying it (there were also TONS of problems with the packaging itself, they said over 80% of the copies shipped ended up with the box badly damaged or torn while still in the shrink wrap,) so lots of GameStops are stuck with a bunch of copies of a VERY niche game that doesn't sell very well even though there were reserves for it. It would make more sense to have more of an online deal to save the cost of all the shipment to stores, but we'll see how it all pans out.

[Zigfried the Trizealot]

The Agarest box was horrible... I hope they've learned from that fiasco. Mine is only "crinkled" and I feel lucky.

[HeWhoGoverns]

Just to let you guys know, most Gamestops won't have Deathsmiles on Tuesday. They will have it for sale on Wednesday. it comes out on Tuesday, so thats when it ships, and it reaches stores a day later. A stupid system, I know., but thats how it works. The only games that are actually available for purchase when they "come out" are the street dated ones, like your big releases and surprisingly, your movie games. They get those a week earlier, and hold on to them until street date.

[BulletMagnet]

I find that it's kind of a crap shoot - sometimes the stuff I reserve is there on Tuesday, other times I have to wait an extra day, not like it matters a heckuva lot either way, just call the store and ask if it's in yet before going there. For whatever it's worth I got the annoying-girl robo-call for DeathSmiles earlier today, so hopefully I'll have it soon.

[StarCreator]

I can only imagine the crazed fake grin that gets plastered on the girl's face as she reads countless names of games that mean nothing to her into a microphone.

It almost makes me wish I had reserved at GameStop just to hear that, actually.

[TaygetaVendetta]

I find that it's kind of a crap shoot - sometimes the stuff I reserve is there on Tuesday, other times I have to wait an extra day, not like it matters a heckuva lot either way, just call the store and ask if it's in yet before going there. For whatever it's worth I got the annoying-girl robo-call for DeathSmiles earlier today, so hopefully I'll have it soon.

I got a call from Gamestop as well and I've never gotten the call and not picked the game up the very next day. Gamestop's site listed it as shipping on 6/28, so we should be able to pick it up tomorrow. Strange it shipped on a Monday, as a majority of publishers ship their games on Tuesday.

[Game Rogue]

GameStop chick Ashly left me a vm to pickup Deathsmiles tomorrow and do forget to bring trade ins.

[njiska]

This is good news. If they've already shipped to retail, there's a chance my Amazon.ca order might actually ship tomorrow and I might get to play Deathsmiles before I leave for Cuba on Sat. Be sweet to get in some last minute bullet hell excitement.

[schnoo]

i want to start my own thread to make sure people boycott IGN subscriptions:

"Like many top-down shooters, this one will probably cost more than it is ultimately worth. For hardcore fans, that won't matter one bit. That's because this bullet-hell arcade shooter is coming from Cave. If you know what that means, that's all you need to know. ..."
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/110/1102156p1.html

While IGN loved trying to sound like they were into shmups, they always ruin their stances.

I never have and never will pay for an IGN subscription. Please refrain from supporting them as well.

[Rob]

Please refrain from supporting them as well.

I'll try...

[njiska]

Please refrain from supporting them as well.

I'll try...

I can't say that i'll try, but i'll try to try.

[Anesthetize]

"HI! THIS IS GAMESTOP"

"HI, THIS IS GAMESTOP CALLING WITH AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE!"

"HI, THIS IS ASHLEY FROM GAMETOP!"

[Game Rogue]

OXM issue 112 gives Deathsmiles a 8.0

+ deep, complex scoring system.
+ absolutely beautiful art design.
+ solid leaderboard support.
- a bit too hardcore for anyone but shmup fanatics.
? do people (not killed by the joker) real smile when they die?

Only four paragraphs long and no mention of the LE sku.

[Kyle]

Anyone attend the midnight release party?

[GaijinPunch]

- a bit too hardcore for anyone but shmup fanatics.

I'll admit if you don't spend about an hour on it might be hard to realize just how painfully fucking easy this game is... but if you're reviewing a game you should give it at least an hour.

[evil_ash_xero]

- a bit too hardcore for anyone but shmup fanatics.

I'll admit if you don't spend about an hour on it might be hard to realize just how painfully fucking easy this game is... but if you're reviewing a game you should give it at least an hour.

I'm not really good at shmups, but saying DS is "a bit too hardcore" is a VERY clear indicator that the person reviewing the game has no clue. Well, at least he gave it a good score. But this game is really easy.

[evil_ash_xero]

i want to start my own thread to make sure people boycott IGN subscriptions:

"Like many top-down shooters, this one will probably cost more than it is ultimately worth. For hardcore fans, that won't matter one bit. That's because this bullet-hell arcade shooter is coming from Cave. If you know what that means, that's all you need to know. ..."
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/110/1102156p1.html

While IGN loved trying to sound like they were into shmups, they always ruin their stances.

I never have and never will pay for an IGN subscription. Please refrain from supporting them as well.

"Top down"?

[lmagus]

Did anyone receive it yet?

I really want to know if it works in NTSC-J xbox.

[CStarFlare]

- a bit too hardcore for anyone but shmup fanatics.

I'll admit if you don't spend about an hour on it might be hard to realize just how painfully fucking easy this game is... but if you're reviewing a game you should give it at least an hour.

To be fair, to anyone who's not a shmup fan three hits = game over is going to seem pretty fucking hardcore.

[chempop]

Any word on JPN compatibility?