Do I really need to do a review about this game, I mean reaslly. Its Mario, we know him, we love him, he has been the only fat guy to star in so many sports games, there are millions of Mario accesories out there (I spent $3 on a Mario energy drink just because it had Mario on it). Yes, Mario, the Italian plumber who has done more than any other video game character (I don't see Master Cheif bringing video games back from a crash do I). Originally dubbed Jumpman the carpenter, Mario has made games that parents could always trust, all the mario games have been good (well, Super Mario Sunshine was a little bad, and the movie was more of a flop than anything). But Mario has bounced back from its little dip called sunshine with SUPER MARIO GALAXY!!!!!!
Ok, here is basically what it is...MARIO IN SPACE!!!! Let me start at the beginning-Peach is throwing a party, and Bowser is not invited because he is a loser that no one likes. And this pisses bowser off, so what else does he do, than kidnap the princess. And he takes here off into space, and since Mario is so dedicated to the princess, he goes after her. That is when he meets Rosalina-a fairy girl, thing, who resembles a Princess Peach that just has hair over one eye. And Rosalina gives Mario the power to jump from galaxy to galaxy, to gather stars so that Rosalina's space station can get powered up to go after bowser's brigade. That is basically the story in a nut shell.
It cannot be a mario game without awesome worlds, and Galaxy delivers. Some of the levels are so awesome and beautiful because of all the colors. And with the new levels are new power-ups. Power ups such as boo mario (where you control as a boo), Bee mario (mario in a bee costume), Ice Mario, Fire Mario, and more. And the more stars you collect, the more galaxies you open up. So, you will want to keep going to just see what is behind the next door.
And there are awesome boss battles with creative designs. The boss characters are the usual gang-petey parhana,bowser JR, and so on. But the boss battles are made in a way that is completely new. You have to find out how to do it while using the new controls and and the new power ups.
Speaking of the controls, using the Wii-mote feels natural when playing galaxy, like this is the way mario is meant to be. At first, yes, you will be a little confused...the first levels, you will feel yourself tilting your head, beleiving that it is helping. But after you get the jist of the game, you will have fun. Going around the galaxies with amazing gravity effects is worth buying a wii for, and the graphics arn't that bad either. With colors galore, this game is really fun, and for drug addicts, some levels will bring back some memories.
But still, this game is fun to play, and has a storyline that will make any old school mario fan happy. And with music that will bring back the good old days in all of us. The game only needs 60 stars to beat, but after words, you can try youre best to get all 120. Now, is there anything wrong with this game. Not really, just some levels are a little boring to collect all 100 coins, and some other levels are not all that imaginative. But still, those are not really that bad. So, I give SUPER MARIO GALAXY a
9.0/10
Ahh soccer, a sport that is very popular all around the world, well, except america. For some reason soccer has been not accepted in the U.S., so super mario strikers was made for the gamecube. It was a good game, but there were some problems that needed to be handled. And then came Super Mario Strikers Charged for the Wii. And is it better than is predacessor? Well read the review.
Super mario Strikers Charged is more of a futuristic update of the original gamecube game. If you have played the original you know that the strikers games have been the most violent of all the mario sports games. There is tripping, pushing (like super strong pushing), getting hit in the face with a flaming soccer ball, the goalie getting his hands caught on fire, people getting farted on, crazy stuff. Ok, lets talk about characters, and when i say talk I write and you read quitely. The original characters from the gamecube strikers are back, with new, futuristic looking equipment that really attracts me into the game. Mario, Luigi, peach, Daisy,Wario, Yoshi, DK, Waluigi, and bowser are the characters that you start out with and there are three more to unlock by playing through the strikers cup. Each character has his or her own special ability and strikers move that each help to get success. And each character is a coach of a team of four that you may choose, the team mates are the classic boos, koopas, shy guys, moles, birdos, toads, and so on. And each of the team mates have special abilities and tallents too. For example, the birdos are slower than the toads, but they are better shooters, and the shy guys and the koopas are equal, nothing better nothing worse. So stratagizing is a must. It is obvious that strikers charged is more advanced than strikers for the gamecube, and that is good.
Now as I mentioned before, to earn more characters you need to play through the strikers cup, and lets say that is an experience. At the beginning, it is like a walk through the park, easy and nice. But as you advance through the cups, you start to feel more and more pissed off by the game. Each cup is at a harder difficulty than the last, and in some games that is good. But not this game. Strikers charged, as you reach the final cup things get a little, uh, tough. The person who designed the A.I. of the computers you face off against in the strikers cup mmust have been angry at his boss, or maybe it was his/her last week at the office or something because the A.I. varies so much from match to match. At one match, you can beat the opposing team like it was nothing, but in the next match, the team is ball-bustingly hard. If the computer wants you to lose, it is obvious, by that I mean, the team you are facing against goes from easy to godlike invincible, ok maybe its not that bad, but sometimes its like the team goes from 5 year old smart to Yale graduate with the flip of a coin. And that may cause some people to lose their cool and purposly throw their controller at the TV and blame it on the wrist strap (I mean really, only people who are stupid would put that much force into a swing that would break the wrist strap and fly into the TV). As I play the near unstopable teams,struggling to win, I ask myself, how could a little kid play this? But with the amazing visuals, as you lose i a very harsh way, at least it is pretty to look at the opposing team kicking your butt.
And lets talk about multiplayer, like in the firs game, the grudge match is the most fun of the game. Playing against friends in the same room, or connect to Nintendo WiFi connection for some online action, either way it is the best part of the game. With all the combinations of teams there are, there is no way you will put this game down for a while. And unless you are very patient, you won't be playing against the tough A.I. for long, and you will go to multiplayer.
And with the holy crap strong A.I., I give super mario strikers charged for the Wii a
9.0/10
Now everyone, whether they like to admit it or not, have once either watched the pokemon anime, collected the cards, or played the gameboy games. It was an amazing fad, it lasted for a couple years then died down, but to me it wasn't a fad, it was a whole new world. I played every game that had the word "pokemon" on it (yes even pokemon dash,as depressing as it is) and they were, and still are, the most fun to play. Although the anime has...well..."fizzled" into a slump of crappiness, the games are still awesome. Ok now that my ranting is done, lets get to the game.
Pokemon diamond and pearl keeps the ball rolling that the original Pokemon red and blue started. You are a boy (or girl) who wakes up one day and is sprung into a series of events that cause him to take a pokemon partner from the three starter choices. In this game, there is Turtwig (grass type), Chimchar (fire type), and Piplup (water type), and of course they are all cute, then when they evolve, they turn into a big cool looking monster. Throughout the game, you meet some new pokemon of all types, and some you have seen before. There are some that are awesome looking and there are some that just are useless (I'm talking to you bidoof), and there are some that you have seen before and that nobody wants, like Zubat. Zubat has been in every game and i have never found any use for it.But, I digress. You have seen all this before, you start out with one pokemon, then you catch another,then you level up, fight eight gym leaders, then eventually get to face the elite four. Pretty normal right, we have all seen this before, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work, it IS fun. But there are some advancements, the whole game has been re-made to make the whole environment pop out at you. Diamond and Pearl has the whole game actually look 3-D and not flat like the others. And of course there are more pokemon than anyone can choose from, whether you like fighting type,flying type,ghost type,etc. And that is what really attracts gamers to play pokemon, to choose their own team with their own strengths and weaknesses. And what fun is it to keep this teams awesomeness to themselves, that is were the battling and trading parts come in.
The most amazing part of Diamond and Pearl is that when you want to battle someone, you don't have search for those old link cables,dust them off, then untangle them, and finally after 30 minutes of that whole process, you finally get to battle for that short time. The main facet of Diamond that I fell in love with, is that the whole battling process is wireless. So I can battle one of my friends in a snap.
Pokemon Diamond and Pearl has its good points and its bad points. And because I am a reviewer, and now a retailer, I am now going over the bad parts. One, the "new" pokemon in Diamond and Pearl are somewhat, lame. There are some pokemon that you just want to ask yourself, who would make such a pokemon? Like I said before, Bidoof, is just a gineapig, and Picharisu is a squirrel version of pikachu, not very imaginative.Two, most of the new pokemon are just pre-evolved or evolved forms of previous pokemon, such as ambipalm, the evolved form of apalm and happiny, the pre-evolved form of chansy. And they even added two more forms for eevee to evolve into, JUST LEAVE EEVEE ALONE! HE HAS ENOUGH EVOLUTIONS! Sorry about that. And three, the types of pokemon in the game are either lush and over populated or very rare. For instance, it is very easy to find a bug,ground,rock,water,and normal type pokemon anywhere, but it is really hard to find a fire and grass type pokemon in the wild. So when the gym leader uses pokemon that are weak against fire type, you are S.O.L. then.
So with the bad points and good points, Pokemon diamond and pearl keep the pokemon feeling alive and well. And that is nice to have the feeling of holding in your hands a series that has been around for a long time.So with the good and the bad, I give pokemon Diamond and Pearl a
9.0/10
Platform-Nintendo DS
Rated-E
Spiderman 3, a good movie, but the game, not so much. Spiderman 2 the game is the game that brought all the physics into play with web swinging. And Spiderman 3 for the Wii just raised the bar. It may seem a little bit hard to get used to the controls, because you look like an idiot just going from building to building. The controls ue both the wii-mote and the nunchuk, for swinging your right web, you hold down B trigger, flick your hand, release the B trigger,and swing again, and the left web works the same way but with the Z trigger. So you look like you should be wearing a helmet when you play. And the fighting is equally as stupid, to hit, you have to fling the wii-mote around like a spaz, and there is no web tie anymore, you can only blind the evil people, and then hit them with a three punch combo. So fighting isn't the bright point of the game, but maybe the story will be brighter.
No. Not at all. It is as usual that the story differs from the movie thatadds more villains to fight and more action, which is good. But the bad art is that the cut-scenes are very sub-par. You would normally see these cut-scenes from a first year PS2 game, and the character design is polygony. The voice acting would be great if the actors didn't sound so bored. Its like having impressions of the actors from the movie beeing done by Ben Stine (the guy from the dry eye commercials). And Kirten Dunst isn't in this game, she is played by a very bad sound alike. So with the cut-scenes bad, we should expect the same from the gameplay. The gameplay design is like playing a PS2 game, blocky and the buildins are bland and boring. You ould normally expect that the sequal to a game would look and be better then its predicessor, and you would expect even more to see it on a next-gen console when the predicessor is not a next-gen console. So with the terrible visuals and bad gameplay, is there anything good about this game? Yes and no. The new villains in the game look cool, such as the lizard,kraven, and morbius, but in the end, it is not even fun to fight them with the crapy control skeme.
So with the good and bad i give Spiderman 3 the game a
6/10
Platform-Wii
Ever since I was a wee lad, Dragonball Z was the best show out there. It was my first anime. So it gives me great pleasure to give this review on Dragonball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 2. Ok thats a mouthfull so why dont i just call it DBZBT2 ok. To start off with DBZBT2 has the most playable characters that i have ever seen, and that can be good or bad. What i say by that is the characters can range from Buu with about 6 bars of life to Hercule with 1 bar of life, so this can lead to some unfair matchups. But that aside, this is the most action packed DBZ game ever made. The fighting system is so great that you will feel satisfaction in every punch that you make as the enemy flys to the other side of te arena.
There are the basic selection of fighting styles-story,dueling, tournament, but there is an RPG element with the customization menus. The story mode goes through the whole series AND the DBZ movies. That is something that has never happened in previous DBZ games. The movies are even put in order with the show so the tree of might goes after the saiyan saga. That is the way it should be. The american voice actors of the show are brought back to this game thanks to funimation entertainment. Oh did i mention that thee are over 120 playable characters that range from Dragonball's Father Gohan to Dragonball GT's 7 dragons.
Ok so what i have concluded-great fighting, awesome voice acting, great character design, interactive environments, a long story mode, a game based on a great series (except for Dragonball GT) and what you get is DBZBT2. But there is one problem that isnt that big of a deal. That problem is that in some story modes you have to fight the same guy over and over and over again but just with different characters. But if you can get over that repetativeness then this will be your favorite game ever. So Dragonball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 2 is given a great
9.5/10
Rating-Teen
System-PS2,Wii
So go out and buy it now. You must get this if you are a DBZ fan.
If the pen is mighter than the sword, then is the paint brush mightier than the pen. Who cares any way, when playing Okami, you will beleive that the paint brush is mightier than the atom bomb. In Okami the world is in danger due to an evil multiple headed snake called Orochi (creative isn't it, Orochi means snake) and a warrior, a sword, and the help of a lone white wolf want to defend there home. After the warrior is severely wounded, the last hope is the white wolf. The white wolf unleashed a howl that gave energy to the warrior that allowed the orochi to be killed by the swipe of his sword. As orochi was vanquished, the white wolf cried out a little bark and then closed his eyes, and never opened them again.
Now that was just the prologue, the main story starts 100 years after that day, where a mysterious man goes to the shrine of the warrior that defeated Orochi. The man has an evil look in his eye as he pulls the legendary sword from the shrine. With that Orochi was released back into the world, and darkness loomed over the earth once more. When a God sees the darkness, she runs straight to the statue of the white wolf, where she places a spiritual sheild on its back. That shield is the sheild of the God of all Gods: Amaterasu, and then the statue comes to life and is granted magical powers of the earth.
Amaterasu works with a bug that doesn't like to be considered a bug who also has the ability to use a paint brush, as does Amaterasu. And there are many different types of brush attacks (13 in fact) such as, bombs, cutting, and even restoring life to dead trees. And to earn these attacks, Gods have to be restored to normal form when they are inprisoned as constellations. And these Gods are probably the goofiest animals you will ever see (like the pig: the god of explosions???? ).
The actual controls are tight and the movements of Amaterasu is like controling a motorcycle. The environment is beautifully colored and well designed. And the cutscenes may be boring just reading, but the story is so great that it is worth sitting through the text. And the cutscenes when you restore a area back from darkness was so beautiful, it brought a tear to my eye. While I'm on the subject of controls, the fighting can be a bit repetative by the just press square button repeatedly, but the brush is what is useful when trying to away from that repetativness.Also, the environments are so vast and beautiful, you may get lost a couple of times, due to the fact that the little bug that questions you when you leave a certain area, WHEN YOU HAVE TO IN THE FIRST PLACE. That fact confuses you to stay in that area and get lost for hours upon hours. So with that i give Okami a
8.5/10
Rating-Teen
System- PS2