That is the one thing about the Wii Shop release schedule, you never know what is going to come out until it's already out. In this case I saw a Jeff Gerstmann tweet about a new Blaster Master WiiWare game... I checked it out and sure enough there it was, how I didn't know about this before blows my mind. I'm a huge fan of the original Blaster Master, it's one of my top 5 personal favourites of all time and I even own a copy of the obscure release of Blaster Master: Blasting Again on the PS1. Turns out while I neglected to check out the Wii Shop SunSoft some how came back and released this game, also the original became available on the Virtual Console. Anyway, enough story on to this new title.

First of this isn't a remake, or even in the same universe as the original series (Blaster Master (NES), Blaster Master 2 (GEN/MD), Blaster Master: Enemy Below (GBC) and BM: Blasting Again), it's some kind of alternate universe game. It stars a scientist named Alex who decides to take this meta-virus head on by hopping in to SOPHIA and grabbing a really big gun. It makes about as much sense as the plot did in any of the games. While the original game take place across a really giant map full of interlinked passages, here the map is fairly small but broken into sections which are color coded. Also as in the first game you navigate the main map mostly inside the tank and get out of the tank to enter smaller rooms, one of which contains the area boss, who holds the power-up that you need to get to the next area.

So far the thing that kills Overdrive is poor game design and clunky controls. First the tank controls sluggishly, in the original NES game the tank moved fast and even carried momentum if you turned the turret the opposite direction you where jumping, in Overdrive you stop DEAD and fall like a rock. It takes some getting used to. Another big annoyance so far, is that you have to use your special tank powers far too often. The coolest thing about Blaster Master is how your tank gets upgrades as you go along but in the other games you only need to use them in specific spots to get to new areas. In Overdrive you'll be constantly using the grappling hook just to get up what should be normal ledges and it isn't even as simple as pointing your turret up and shooting, nah, you have to point the turret up, put the tank in the exact spot, jump and shoot the hook at the peak of the jump... just to get up to a area that you should be able to get back to quickly and easily.

Then there are the enemies and the terrible enemy placement. In the original game there where tricky enemies but you had ways of dealing with them, usually with the homing missiles or the thunder break (a lightning bolt fired down below the tank) but in Overdrive you can't deal with enemies below you. The developers love to stick standard enemies that pace back and forth on the floor, except they frequently put them on ledges so small and usually below you so that you have to take a hit just to shoot them. There are also a couple of sections in AREA 3 that force you from the tank to reach small rooms usually you have to climb down a ladder except the enemies home in on you and the tank enemies can kill Alex in two hits and since you can fire from ladders, this creates stupid near impossible sections that are just flat out cheap and frustrating. These enemies just should not be place in these situations or have their damaged lessened, this is just poor game design, it's makes some of the AREA 3 rooms nearly impossible to get to without a full life bar or extreme luck and that is simply BROKEN gameplay. Did I mention that Alex also slowly loses health when outside the tank? It's true, that makes thing even more fun. Though I should say that this has only happened in AREA 3 and no where else in the game so far (area 1, 2 and 4).

Finally there is the on-foot controls for when you are in the small man-sized rooms where you control Alex in an over-head view. The only really poor thing is that the mapping of the strafe button, the B button... that is the trigger under the Wii-Remote and since you are holding the remote NES s.tyle holding that button is tough while trying to use the control pad... yet button 2 controls the single use bomb that you only occasionally get a pick-up for. So they put a required move on a hard to reach button and a one-time use move on the easy to reach button... what? I could easily see tapping the B button for the bomb and holding the 2 button to strafe, but whatever, can't really do anything about it. Also for some reason button 2 cancels in this game and button 1 selects, which would be like pressing A to cancel and B to select on a NES controller, WEIRD. Oh, and the map is on the Minus button and the get out of tank button is PLUS, which is reversed from the original Blaster Master, I keep pressing the Minus (like select) to get out and accessing the map.

There are two things that I do like so far it's the power-up system and the game's music which so far is all remixes of the original game's tunes. You can find power-ups that are sort of like energy tanks that extend your life bars, the tank's are found on the main map and you have to explore the dungeons to find Alex's and of course many of them are locked up in places you can reach without the right power ups.

I'll keep playing my way through the game and I will post my final thoughts as soon as I finish the game. I have probably said too much for a first impression but their are problems with Blaster Master Overdrive that really needed addressing in detail. Talk to you later. Loading Complete!

Welcome to NLU Weekly #86, I'm going to try to keep this pretty short as I am sticking with my plan to be more concise instead of writing 3000+ word blogs that take two or more hours to write. It's gonna be tricky as I have quite a bit to talk about, so goes the agenda: Finished: Mass Effect 2, Quick Fire Impressions, Contest Winner and Closing Out. Get ready... Go!

Finished: Mass Effect 2
This is going to be one of the shortest finished articles in recent memory. Usually I have a pros and cons list and then discuss each point in detail but I think that I am going to save the details for maybe a future full review. Besides I don't know what I can say about ME2 that hasn't already been said. It's a really great game, it fixes all the major problems of the first game and has a great story and some exciting shooting. As for stuff I think could be improved, list time.

- I don't mind the ammo system, in fact I love watching the red hot thermal clip fly from the weapons, but the enemies at times don't drop ammo enough forcing you to waste time searching around for it.

- Teammate AI. They are okay at finding cover on their own, but they tend to get in your sight lines. The other real problem is if you command them to take cover at specific spots they won't move until you tell them to fall in or order them to a new position which leads to them getting smoked if the enemy flanks and you're busy with enemies of your own. They need to adjust on the fly without my help if they encounter too much trouble. Finally, they are too aggressive when their shields/health is low, they don't wait long enough between shots for their health to regenerate before popping up again.

- Planet scanning. BORING and MONOTONOUS. There should be a set amount of good deposits for you to quickly launch probes at and then hidden ones that you can search for if you want to be thorough.

I'll see if I can write up that review sometime this week and when that happens I'll share it with you. Finally, play Mass Effect 1 first, then play ME2, the details that you will run in to are well worth the 15-35 hours it'll take you to blow through the first game on easy.

Quick Fire Impressions
I downloaded two XBLA games this week, I had a ton of Microsoft points (over 4000, $50) and decided to grab Splosion Man and Chime both for 400 MSP. My impressions: Chime is an interesting "zen" kind of game where you can't fail while listening to repetitive trance type music, not really worth the points in the end, though appearantly 60% of the profits go to some sort of charity. Splosion Man is a game by Twisted Pixel, I actually enjoyed their first game The Maw, but Splosion Man is a game I am not sure I am going to like. It's one of those trial and error kind of games, except you need to go fast and get it right to get through some of the sections. I just know it's going to drive me to a fit of rage at some point and you don't want to be around me when that happens...

Contest Winner
I don't usually enter contests, it's not because I don't usually win, it's more that I am too lazy to enter them. But on Xbox Live at least in Canada (I'm no doubt sure they have similar contests in the US), they have contests when all you do is download a FREE gamerpic and usually play online or get a specific achievement and you are entered automatically. I did this with a play and win contest for Forza Motorsport 3. I ended up being one of the 12 or so secondary prize winners. I was rewarded with: A Forza Motorsport 3 T-Shirt (a simple black shirt with the Forza 3 logo on the left front side), 3 months of Xbox Live Gold, 2800 MS Points (which is how I ended up with so many as that added on to my previous totals from Christmas) and a Forza 3 Jacket and Hat for my Live Avatar. I would like to thank the crew at the Gamespot Forza Paintshop Union for the win, because I have only played Forza 3 online with them, so I'm partly crediting them for my luck. Thanks guys, we need to race again soon.

Closing Out
That about does it for this week, sorry about taking last week off, I was unhealthily into Mass Effect 2 at the time. As for what is coming in the future... after I finish my second Mass Effect 2 playthrough this time as a renegade, I am probably going to either go nuts and finish those games I got for Christmas or I am going to got even further off the deep end and bring back a RPG packed new series of Alpha's Picks. Either should keep me busy or drive me to insanity either way it'll be good times (though I am not so sure about the insanity part). I'll talk to you later. Loading Complete!

Hey guys, this week's NLU Weekly is going to be a little different than normal, usually I have an agenda of many different things to cover, but this week I really have only one thing to talk about... Mass Effect. I finished the game way back in 2007, but only managed that one playthrough... until now, over the last week or so I have played through the game twice. It's unusual for me to finish a game more than once these days, but twice in a week is just crazy.

What spurred this on was the fact that you can continue any character that you complete the story with over to the upcoming Mass Effect 2, which arrives in just 3 days. I wanted a few various characters to carry over to ME2 because of the changes Bioware made to the c.lasses in ME2 so that each one has at least one unique power which makes each one much more interesting to play as. In Mass Effect (1) there are three main character c.lasses: Soldier, Adept and Engineer. The other three c.lasses were simply a combination of the those three: Infiltrator (Soldier/Engineer), Sentinel (Adept/Engineer) and Vanguard (Soldier/Adept) and didn't really have anything unique about them. Without rambling too much I now have a Infiltrator (Tactical Cloak), a Soldier (Concussive shot, Adrenaline boost) and a Adept (access to every biotic power), I'd like to have a Vanguard because the new biotic charge looks awesome, but I am not sure that I will have time for a fourth playthrough.

Anyway enough about why I was playing I really want to talk about Mass Effect (1) in general. I reviewed the game back in 2007 and these playthroughs have really cemented a few things for me from that review. There is one thing that nearly ruins my enjoyment with Mass Effect and that is the tank-rover the M35-MAKO this thing is one of the worst vehicles I have ever encountered in a videogame. It should be awesome, a moon buggy crossed with a tank, it can climb almost vertical mountains, has roof mounted cannon and is even equipped with jump-jets. Buuuuuut, it controls horribly, just trying to drive in a straight line when the terrain is anything less than perfectly flat is a frustrating experience. When it hits sharp bumps or falls long distances you never know which direction you'll will end up going when you hit the ground again. It flips over, it resists turning around if the turret is not facing forward and then there is the aiming of said turret... Unless you are facing down hill or on level terrain you do not get true aim using the on screen reticule. Because you are able to tilt the camera much further than the turret can physically aim with the turret on the roof you really never know if you are going to hit your target which leads you to getting smacked around by enemy fire.

Then there is the matter of the MAKO's shields and the MAKO vs. the Thresher Maw. The MAKO's kinetic barriers (aka shields) are massive, but there is one design flaw with them... I never timed this but it feels like it takes the shield literally 5 minutes to fully recharge. Which means that if the enemies take down the MAKO's shields that means you'll probably have to wait at least 2 or 3 minutes before you are back in fighting shape. The Thresher Maw... scariest. thing. EVAR. There are only about 4 or 5 in the whole game and they usually appear on flat ground on the unexplored planets and they pop out of the ground and spit acid at you. These are intense fights for one real reason, sure the Maw can do plenty of direct damage to the MAKO's hull with its acid attack, but it has another trick up it's sleeve. It can kill you in ONE SINGLE HIT. It pops underground after a certain amount of time and then resurfaces in another location and that location can be right underneath you. If this happens it is an instant death... if it doesn't kill you it will send the MAKO flying usually flipping it messing up the camera. It makes the Thresher Maw encounters annoying and something you will want to avoid at all costs.

The next weak point of Mass Effect (1) is the side missions and unexplored planets. All the side missions are the same, you head down to an unexplored planet head in to a cookie cutter base or ship and kill all the enemies inside. Maybe a few them will end with a negotiation with a character or something but usually all it takes is to clear the area. There are two types of bases/facilities an underground one and a warehouse looking one and only one ship type. The only difference is that there are different mazes of boxes on the floor. It is insanely repetitive. The unexplored planets are probably the biggest bummer, first you have navigate them with the piece of **** MAKO, but all you'll find down there is the aforementioned base, a wrecked space probe (aka debris), some kind of anomaly (a alien corpse or an old ruin of some sort) and two or three hidden mineral deposits because your high-tech spaceship apparently can't scan mineral deposits from space *rolls eyes*. Plus the maps themselves are terrible, you'll get the impression that they used a random terrain generator because some of them have impassible mountains that just beg for a pass/valley for you go through so you don't have to drive out of your way to get to where you are going. A couple of them do have roads, but they are few and far between. These are all optional, but many of the achievements require you to complete a majority of these side missions, though if you do take them on you'll end up with tons of money and XP.

I know I made Mass Effect sound like a terrible game but it's almost as if there two different quality levels to the game. The side stuff is pretty uninteresting but the main game and story missions are really well crafted. You'll be using the dialog wheel to make all kinds of interesting choices and to go about each situation in quite a few ways as you attempt to save the universe from destruction. The combat in these sections isn't half-bad either you'll even have a few boss fights along the way. If you want to read the full details of the good elements or even other lower tier bad elements read my full review from 2007, but to conclude Mass Effect is one of those GREAT games that have a couple of nasty flaws that keep them from being c.lassics.

The most exciting thing is that all these problems have been dealt with in Mass Effect 2 so that has me looking forward to the sequel even more. I know I kind of ranted there, I just need to get all those annoying issues out of my system. Anyway, I will have coverage of Mass Effect 2 sometime next week so look forward to that. I think we got 'em Shepard. Loading Complete!