Pushmo World Review

Back in 2011, 3DS owners were treated to a fantastic little puzzle title called Pushmo. Last month, the Wii U received its own version called Pushmo World. So how does the new edition stack up?

Review: Mario Golf World Tour

One of my favorite things about video games is the ability to experience things you would otherwise be unable to do, like being good at golf. Thankfully, the Mario Golf series has allowed athletically-challenged gamers like me to enjoy the thrill of golf without being exposed to the dangers of sunlight and green grass. Mario Golf World Tour for the Nintendo 3DS is the newest addition to the Mario Golf series. So is it worth your hard-earned coins?

Review: Kirby Triple Deluxe

Kirby Triple Deluxe for Nintendo 3DS is the latest game starring Kirby, Nintendo’s flagship pink puff. It is somewhat of an unofficial sequel to Kirby Return to Deamland (Wii, 2011). It is also the first portable Kirby game since Kirby Mass Attack (DS, 2011), and the first Kirby game on 3DS. So does it copy the success of its predecessors, or does it suck?

Review: Six for the price of… some.

One thing I love about thrift stores is when you find a sparkling gem of video game history, just waiting to be discovered. Sometimes, the store does not know that the game is valuable, or they have no way of testing it, so they sell it for cheap. Either way, I managed to get a copy of the Genesis 6-Pak for $2.  Not bad, eh?

For those unaware (probably most of you), the Genesis 6-Pak is a collection of 6 Genesis games on a single cartridge. Those games are as follows:

• Streets of Rage
• Golden Axe
• Revenge of Shinobi
• Columns
• Super Hang-On
• Sonic the Hedgehog

To properly rate the entire 6-Pak, I played each game to (or near) completion. Here we go!

Streets of Rage is a ‘hip cops kicking bad guy butt’ brawler a la Double Dragon.  You run around the city beating up baddies, using a variety of weapons that can be found on the street, such as knives, glass bottles, and pipes.  This is probably the only K-A rated game (equivalent to today’s E) you’ll ever play that lets you hit hookers with baseball bats. Not even joking.  Plus, you have a special move where you call in a police car and they launch a bazooka and kill everyone in screen. Why can’t I just be the guy in the car the whole time? Anyways, at the end of most stages you fight a boss, which can be a pair of gymnastics ninjas, a really angry luchador, or a fat guy with heartburn so bad he can breathe fire. Again, I’m being totally serious. My favorite part was the end, where you fight the end boss, who, ironically, looks like a boss, like at work. And you fight him in his office. And he sits in his chair and calls his minions forth. Then he pulls out a gun and kills you. Awesome.

Golden Axe is like Streets of Rage, only set several hundred years in the past. Instead of being an 80s rebel cop, you’re a shirtless swordsman (or woman, or dwarf). And instead of thugs and hookers, you fight skeletons and trollops. The game does change it up a little by letting you ride dragons to burn the crap out of people. Oh, and you can beat up elves to get magic potion, which more or less produces the police bazooka mentioned previously.  It’s actually kind of surprising how much Golden Axe and Streets of Rage have in common. In fact, both games feature the same energy-replenishing meat roast so prominently displayed in video games. The biggest difference is that Golden Axe is slightly shorter, but slightly more difficult.

Revenge of Shinobi is a pretty big let-down. It’s a side-scrolling ninja adventure game where you beat up other ninjas (of course, we all know that none of these are true ninjas, since we can see them). It appears to use photographed images for the characters, so they look real-ish, but the game is so hard, that none of the semi-nifty graphics can make up for it. Think Ninja Gaiden, with the same difficulty, better graphics, and way less fun. Also, Spider-Man makes a cameo. (In versions before the 6-Pak compilation, Batman and Godzilla were there, too). What the crap?

Columns is another one of those ‘line-up-three-gems-to-make-them-disappear’ type of game. Sets of three gems fall from the top of the screen, and you can change the order they fall in to try and remove as many gems as possible. The game does count diagonal lines, which is somewhat uncommon in games like this, so that’s nice. Plus, there’s a beginner mode that lets you get used to the game by showing you where all your potential scoring opportunities are for the the first few minutes. Not a bad game, really. It’s pretty outdated now, but in its day it was pretty popular.

Super Hang-On is a pseudo-3D racing game on motorcycles. Like many racing games of the time, the object was to get to the checkpoint to add to your timer. If your timer ran out, you lost. To be honest, the game is basically Rad Racer, only surprisingly, with worse graphics (considering the NES was 8-bit and the Genesis was 16-bit). The most intriguing part was the difficulties. The easiest one has 6 stages (which really just means checkpoints), so the harder the difficulty, the longer the race. The Genesis version is a port of the arcade version, which may explain its semi-suckitude.

Thankfully, I played Sonic the Hedgehog last, which helped wash the stink out of my thumbs from some of the other games.  It’s still impressive to see how fast and how good Sonic games are, especially when compared to other games of the era.  It’s no wonder the blue blur is as popular as he is. It’s no doubt that Sega owes much of its success in the 80s and 90s to Sonic.  Clearly the highlight of the 6-Pak (even though it’s been played a million times), Sonic the Hedgehog gives you a taste of the exciting rivalry that was Mario vs. Sonic.

For those if you with short attention spans, let me summarize what these games are:

• Double Dragon
• Double Dragon (medieval edition)
• Ninja Gay-den
• Tetri-jeweled
• Rad Racer (suck edition)
• Fast, awesome, cool game

All in all, it’s a good collection. As noted, not all of the games are superb, but the fact that you can get 6 good games for the price of… whatever it cost new, helps make up for some of the games’ shortcomings.

Pros:

• Six games on a single Genesis cart!
• A piece of history!
• Sonic!

Cons:

• Some of the games are kinda lame
• Sonic makes the other games look bad
• Only one Sonic game…

This game has earned a Blatantly Biased:

Review: WaveRace 64

You might find it strange that it would take me this long to post a review for a game that has been out for some 10-15 years, in addition to it being one of the most popular for the N64.  Well, believe it or not, I didn’t own this game until a year or two ago, and I just got around to it.  So get off my back!!

Just kidding.  Anyways, I just finished the delightful WaveRace 64.  As you may have surmised, it’s a jet-ski racing game for the Nintendo 64.  It also sold nearly 3 million copies worldwide, so it was a pretty big hit.

In any case, the game is a simple, yet fun racing game.  You pick a vehicle (the character stays with each vehicle, so you don’t pick both), and then you race it.  Sounds simple enough, right?  Well, there’s more to it than that.  Scattered around the track are buoys labeled L or R, which means you have to pass by the Left or Right side of them.  Every time you do this correctly, your power meter goes up one notch.  Once it’s full, it stays full until you pass on the wrong side of a buoy.

The game has 10 tracks, including one practice track, which may seem a little short, especially when you compare it to other N64 racing games (Mariokart [16 tracks] and F-Zero [24 tracks plus the randomly generated X cup]).  I now understand why one of the creators of Wii Sports Resort said that the wave runner portion of that game would be deeper than WaveRace 64.  But don’t let that get you down.  It’s a really fun game with plenty to do.  The locales range from your standard beach side harbor to a swamp to, yes, the arctic.  Yeah, buddy!

We all know that one of the issues with many N64 games is that they don’t look very good by today’s standards.  But WaveRace still looks quite nice.  The water effects are surprisingly good for the system, and I never experienced any graphical slowdown.  As for sound, there is an announcer that isn’t too terribly annoying (which is important to me, although you can turn it off anyway), and the music is quite good.

All in all, it’s a fun little game.  Sure, it may not keep you playing for weeks and weeks, but it’s quite good, especially with multiplayer.

Pros:

• Fairly easy to learn
• Looks good for an N64 game
• It’s fun!

Cons:

• Too short

This game has earned a blatantly biased:

Review: Metroid Prime 3

As you all know, I have a habit of getting around to some games long after they are released (sometimes 10 years or more), so this one should seem new in comparison.  So there!

So, back in the early days of the Gamecube, Nintendo released a somewhat controversial game called Metroid Prime.  It wasn’t full of porn or anything like that, but it was a first-person shooter of sorts, which threw a bunch of Nintendo fans into a hissy fit.  You see, up until that point, Metroid was all about side-scrolling platformers, and good ones at that.  But then those fans played the game.  And then they changed their diapers.

Several years later, the Metroid Prime trilogy comes to a close with Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.  As you know (if you played the first two), Samus has spent the last several fighting a band of Space Pirates who use a mysterious and volatile element called Phazon to mutate into super soldiers.  At some point, a certain Phazon being takes on the appearance of Samus and begins to wreak havoc on the universe.  That’s where we come in!

In Metroid Prime 3, you get the same Metroid-style platforming mixed with an immersive first-person view.  In the story, Samus teams up with some of the Federation’s other bounty hunters to defeat the Space Pirates and determine what Dark Samus has to do with the whole thing.  But, the good thing about this game is you can use the Wii remote to point and aim at the screen, and once you’ve spent a couple of minutes with it, it works like a charm.  After I finished the game, I tried to play a FPS with a regular controller, and it seemed so primitive and unintuitive that I may or may not have thrown up.

One thing about the Metroid Prime games is their difficulty.  The first one was very, very difficult.  There were very few save points, a ton of enemies, and huge, obnoxious bosses.  The second game was even harder.  In fact, it seemed like they ramped up the difficulty just because.  Metroid Prime 3 is hard, but for the most point, it’s a fair hard.  By that I mean that the difficulty increases steadily and if you take the time to look around and find all of the hidden items, it’s a highly enjoyable game.

That’s the fun part of the Metroid games, after all.  Look around and try and find all of the hidden items and rooms.  In fact, there is a special room in the game that lets you download maps for the different planets so you know exactly what room all of the goodies are in.  It was exceptionally helpful, and because of it, I was able to finish a Metroid game at 100% for the first time ever.  Awesome!

The game suffers from very few flaws.  Some of the objectives are extremely obscure, and one of the bosses halfway through the game was harder than most of the others.  The game does include a new hint system, but it rarely gives you a hint more helpful than, “Check your map for objectives.”
In short, the game is a fantastic finish to the Prime series.  It’s at least as good as the first one, maybe better.  I love all Metroid games, and to be honest, I’m a little sad to see this series end.  Hopefully they’ll make more somewhere down the line.

Pros:

• Excellent Wii-remote controls
• Extremely fun gameplay
• Several large and beautiful worlds to explore

Cons:

• Somewhat confusing at times
• Slightly unbalanced difficulty

This game has earned a Blatantly Biased:




Btw, you can get the entire series on one disc in Metroid Prime Trilogy, where all three games feature Wii-remote controls for the price of one game!  Totally worth it!  But hurry, it’s already becoming hard to find!

Review: Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games

(Note: This review applies to the Wii version of the game.  The DS version is similar, but some of the events are different.)


Yes, I know it’s a little late to be reviewing a game that revolves around an event that happened months ago.  And I know most places in the US (except my hometown, of course) don’t have anymore snow.  But I take give you these things as I finish ‘em.  So… yeah.  Let’s get to it!

A couple of years ago, Nintendo and Sega teamed up to bring us Mario & Sonic at the Olympic [Summer] Games, which, based solely on the popularity of the two main characters, sold about a bazillion copies.  Late last year, the same co-op team brought us the winter version.  The first one was mainly motion-control based.  For example, you would shake the Wii remote and nunchuk as if you were running to do the 100-yd dash.  This time around, it’s about the same, although the controls are much less tiring.  It’s more a matter of steering down a slalom than running your guts out.

As is the case with most sports games, this game is considerably more fun with friends.  Computer players are either incredibly stupid or filthy cheaters.  In fact, this game’s difficulty is all over the board.  Some events  can be won on the first try without practice, and some events can take hours to get good enough to win.  All in all, it’s not too hard to unlock all the events.  It’s more time-consuming than anything.

The game lets you play individual events, or play Festival Mode, where you play all the single events or all the team events over a 16-day period. It can take anywhere from about a minute to 30 minutes to complete a given day, depending on the included events.  In fact, a couple of the days only have cut-scenes, with no play at all.  Others have 3 full events, which could be Ice Hockey, Ski Jump, or one of my favorites, Curling.

Of course, the most fun probably comes from the Dream Events, which take standard Olympic events and throw them into Mario’s or Sonic’s world.  For example, Dream Ski Jump takes you into a Mario Galaxy-style world, complete with the original music and planets in the background.  Dream Curling is essentially bowling in Sherbet Land, with Frappe Snowland music in the background.  Other events, like Dream Figure Skating (Mario on Ice, pretty much) are less amusing, for obvious reasons.

There are also three party games included.  They are simple, not terribly fun, but they’re there.  You play an event, and depending on who wins, you get a certain number of darts to throw at balloons, or things like that.

All in all, it’s a quite fun game.  I can’t in good conscience say it’s as good as its predecessor, because it’s not.  It’s seems a little less polished, and there’s a little less variation.  Also, they ruined Toad’s image.  You can’t play as him, plus whoever did his voice did a terrible job.  It’s awful.  If they had known I’d be reviewing the game, they’d have probably thought twice about Toad’s voice actor (cause you know that my blog is one of the biggest and most popular sites in the world!).

In any case, it’s a good game for one player, and a pretty great one for multiplayer.  You can even play as Miis (and earn and buy costumes for them to wear, which is fun).  It may not be worth $50 to everyone, but it’s certainly worth at least $30.

Pros:

• Several different events
• Exciting Dream events
• Great for multiplayer

Cons:

• Inconsistent AI
• Toad’s voice is awful
• It’s time a bit time consuming to unlock and buy everything

This game has earned a Blatantly Biased:

Review: Photo Dojo (DSiWare)

This morning, Nintendo gave all DSi owners a sweet treat: a free game!  That’s right, the brand-spankin’ new Photo Dojo is available from now until June 10th for the low, low price of free!

Photo Dojo is a simple little game.  You use the DSi Camera to take pictures of yourself in certain poses, then record a few voice clips, and then become a powerful kung-fu master!  It’s really quite simple.  Taking the pictures can be a bit difficult because they have to be taken from about 6 feet away, but it can be done without too much trouble.  I would recommend having a friend help you out.

After taking some pictures of yourself, you get to record various sound samples for moves (such as “Take this!” or “You fight like a girl!”).  These sounds are then used as you roam the countryside looking for fights.  Not only that, but after recording your sounds, you can take a picture of something to use as a backdrop.  Naturally, I chose the bathroom.
The game has a 2-player VS mode and a 1 player mode.  In VS mode, you share the same DS.  The left player uses the D-Pad to move and the L button to attack.  The right player uses the ABXY buttons as a D-Pad and the R button to attack.  It works surprisingly well.

1 Player mode has you plowing through as many bad guys as you can take on.  Each one is represented by other characters in your roster, so the more fighters you make, the more random and crazy it gets.  Everyone once in a while, you’ll even get a mini or mega fighter (with high- or low-pitched sounds to go with them).

All in all, it’s a pretty sweet game, especially considering the price.  And even at 200 points, it’s a steal.  The game is really fun and crazy funny.  So, if you have a DSi, get it now.  You might as well, even if you don’t like it much.  It is free, after all.  And if you don’t have a DSi, you’re crazy.

Pros:

• Unique and fun fighting game
• Very inexpensive!
• Put yourself in the game (sounds, too!)

Cons:

• Can be difficult to take some of the pictures

This game earned a Blatantly Biased:

Terrible Turdsday!

And now, it’s time once again for your favorite make-fun-of-crappy-games bit!  This week, we examine a REAL gem of a game.  Lemme tell ya.

This crappy NES game has a crappy NES name.  Well, actually, it’s more of a short story.

Chapter 1

Wizardy

Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord

The End

Personally, I like the name I gave it better: Gizzardry – Puking Clowns on the Bad Underwear.  That would have been a much better game, I assure you.

Let me show you what that would look like!

Look at that pretty dragon!

Remember those old text adventure games, where you have to type each command, like Go South or Get Rock or Break Wind?  Well, this game is pretty much like that, except, as you know, the NES controller has no keyboard.  Well, not much of one anyways.  I guess if your commands looked like BABSelectABBStartBBABBB, you’d be ok.  Fortunately for the universe, the game has several commands you can use!  Like LOOK!  Or like, TALK!  It’s so freakin’ AMAZAZING!!

In short, this game is stupid.  Don’t buy it.  Don’t play it.  Don’t look at it.

For the record, I didn’t buy the game.  Some dirtbag mugger guy gave it to me.  Stinkin’ weirdy.

Pros:

• Makes a great coaster!
• It’s not Bill Laimbeer’s Combat Basketball
• Makes ET for Atari look fantastic

Cons:

• Must you ask?

This game has earned a Blatantly Biased:

Review: WarioWare D.I.Y.

For those not familiar with the WarioWare series, let me enlighten your unfortunate brains. It’s basically a set of 5-second microgames that run in quick succession. For example, the first game has you aiming a golf ball toward the hole. If you sink it, you win the game and move on to the next one. If you miss, you lose a life. The next might be aiming a finger directly up a prominent nostril. The longer you go, the faster the games become. Once you lose 4 lives, it’s over.

Yeah, I know. Sounds insane. And by all accounts, it is. Since the first WarioWare game for GBA released back in 2003, there have been literally hundreds of different microgames released across all of Nintendo’s platforms. And now, that number has literally exploded, since the latest WarioWare game lets you make your own games! Make your own characters, animations, and music and let the fun begin! Granted, it can take some time to make a really solid game, but it’s quite literally one billion times easier (for most people) than having to do the programming yourself.

The game also comes with about 90 microgames for you to play. Plus, if you think a game needs some work, or just want to the copy the structure or music or art, you can do that, too! There are also some games that only lack some drawings, so sketch in some stuff, and you’re done!  And if that weren’t enough, the game comes with a song creator and a comics creator, so you can make full-length tunes and fun comics. You can also go online and download new games from Nintendo or any of your friends.

So, in short, the game lets you make your own stinking games (some of which will likely be stinky), music, and comics. What fun! And don’t worry; there are plenty of tutorials and tips, so even if you don’t have game design experience, you’ll be a top super game maker in no time! That being said, go out and buy the game and make some stuff! We can even share, dangit! Ok, bye!

Pros:

• Make almost any kind of microgame you want!
• Custom music and art!
• Free downloads every week!

Cons:

• You can’t quite make ANYTHING
• No custom sounds
• Can be a little difficult to learn

This game has earned a Blatantly Biased:




Here’s a clip from a game I made from scratch.  I even entered it into a contest and won a $50 prize package!  Enjoy!

Exciting Robots that do Tricks while Racing!

The Excite series is one that, in my opinion, has always been treated with very high quality. The original Excitebike was extremely fun, quite challenging, and a great 2-player game. Excitebike 64 was easily one of the best games of the N64 era, with a level editor, crazy minigames, and 4-player action. The launch of the Wii saw Excite Truck, which changed bikes to trucks, but kept the exciting high-octane action of the previous versions. And now, a mere 2.5 years later, we have yet another great Excite game: ExciteBots: Trick Racing.

ExciteBots is an interesting game. Instead of racing bikes or trucks, you race various robots shaped like small animals or insects. For example, you can be a tree frog, a ladybug, or my personal favorite, a bat. The controls are basically the same as Excite Truck: you turn the Wii Remote like a steering wheel to drive. This makes it harder and easier at the same time. While almost everyone is already used to steering to drive something, the controls are very accurate, so for some areas, you have to be extremely precise in your movements. But that’s not a bad thing.

You may start the game and feel that it’s essentially ExciteTruck with new vehicles, but it’s much more than that. You see, ExciteBots is a video game that knows it’s a video game. What I mean is that it never tries to be something that could be done in real life. Granted that ExciteTruck was never exactly physics-accurate, but at least it had real trucks with 4 wheels and such. ExciteBots doesn’t care that you can drive a giant centipede over a hill, grab a red bar with a mechanical arm, spin around it while gaining speed, launch off of it at insane speeds, and then do a 1080 before you hit the ground again.

Sounds insane, but really, that’s the whole appeal. You see, the Wii Excite games work a little different than normal racing games. Rather than win, you have to have enough Stars at the end of the race to unlock the next one, so technically you could lose the race, but still move on. Strange, but it can be fun, especially considering some of the things you do in the race. For example, pick up an item block and a set of bowling pins will appear ahead of you. You get one star for each one you knock down. Another one might be a giant football in the middle of the road. Kick it through the uprights for a field goal (3 stars, of course). And don’t forget my favorite: Find a piece of bread. If you get it, a sandwich fixing appears further ahead. Get all the pieces together and get a Super Sandwich! Seriously! How can you not own a game that lets you get a Super Sandwich?

There are also plenty of mini-games to keep you entertained. You can play an entire game of bowling, kick soccer balls into goals, hit clowns in the face with pies, go fishing (all while driving, of course)… it’s just plain crazy. There’s even a Poker Race. You start with a set of cards, and you can exchange them for other cards if you can find them on the track. Get more points for better hands! Plus, you can send replays to friends and award them some of your stars if they can beat your score. Or, play local multiplayer, of course.

Excitebots is a crazy game, to be sure. But that’s not a bad thing. It’s a very fun game, almost as much for single player as it is for multiplayer. It’s also a little easier to unlock everything that the last one (which is nice). Plus, it’s only $40 new (probably less, now), so it’s definitely worth buying. Get out there! Race! NOW!

Pros:

• Insane and crazy racing
• Hilarious and awesome bonuses and minigames
• Very affordable and very fun

Cons:

• Some of the motion controls are a little repetitive at times

This game has earned a Blatantly Biased:

3-D Wormage!

Good day to you, friends! I hope that you Monday is not full of fail! In any case, the game I will tell you about today follows the ridiculous and hilarious adventures of Earthworm Jim. Specifically, Earthworm Jim 3D for the N64. This game was kind of based on the cartoon, which by the way is hilarious. Jim gets conked on the head and the villians take over his brain, forcing Jim's superego to intercede and force the bums out.

Anyone who knows Earthworm Jim knows that the games are about as insane and games come. Some level objectives in previous games included launching cows, bouncing small dogs into a meat grinder, and battling giant snot wads. This one is no exception. As always, expect plenty of cows, falling refrigerators, and total insanity. The objective is to collect all the golden cow udders, which are kind of like stars in Mario 64. My favorite part? Jim is talking to Elvis and Elvis says, "That guy lured me in here. I wouldn't have followed him, but he offered me a cheeseburger." LOL! Also, you get to shoot old ladies in the face. And there's plenty more insane plot (or lack thereof) in this game.

Sadly, the goofiness is hampered by the extreme and unforgiving difficulty. The first few levels are easy enough to accomplish. After that, it's almost not worth it. As an example, one level requires you to float around and collect marbles in the air. The problem? Jumping pirahnas that pop your balloon instantly. And that's not even the worst part. It took me 20-30 lives to even get that high in the level, and that was with an invincibility cheat turned on. So, I had to go all the way back up and try again. About 20 times. This is only one of the insane udder locations.

Also, you can't beat the game unless you get every udder. Not that it's worth your time, because the boss battles are stupid. No, seriously. You ride a pig through a sty and collect marbles while the boss shoots missiles at you. The first time was semi-amusing and mildly annoying. But then, every boss battle after that is the exact same setup, but with a faster boss and more marbles to collect. DUMB. In short, the game would have been ten times more fun with less difficulty. I will say, however, that the music was really good. So... listen to the game. It's more fun than playing it sometimes.

All things considered, it's not a terrible game. But know this: I was using a cheat device which game me unlimited lives and unlimited energy, and it was still incredibly frustrating. So, you'd probably really like this game if A: you like challenging games, B: you're a masochist, or C: you're dumb. Feel free to select multiple answers.

Pros:

• Hilarious missions
• Excellent music
• Classic demented humor

Cons:

• Too hard (especially the repetitive boss battles)
• Jim's voice can get annoying
• Also, too hard

This game has earned a Blatantly Biased:

Podracing! (Nothing to do with MP3s)

Way before podcasting was podracing. And some little kid was like the best one there. A 6-yr old was the winner. Which is crazy, cause I've been playing this podracing game for hours and I can't win very easily. So, the next game for N64 week is Star Wars Episode 1 Racer. It's an entire game based on the cool podracing scene in Star Wars Episode 1.

As far as racing games go, it's not too bad. You hop in a pod and race around. For an N64 game, it has really good graphics. The levels flow by really smoothly with very little slowdown. And it's fast. It doesn't seem quite as fast as F-Zero, but F-Zero is the ultimate in racing. Anyways, the pods are nicely rendered with interesting and active backgrounds to entertain the eyes.

Control-wise, it's not too bad. It's easy enough to pick up and win the first few races without much of a problem. The pod floats nicely side to side and around corners. There are a couple of problems, though. Really tight corners are difficult to get around without slowing down a whole lot. And of course, the computer players go around it just fine. Also, some levels require you to jump across large gaps, which tends to be problematic at times.

Anyways, let's talk about the difficulty. The initial races are easy enough to beat with no problem. But then the fun begins. To unlock a track, you only have get 4th or better in the race before it. That sounds easy enough, but some of the later tracks are difficult not to get last place in, so it can take a while to unlock everything.

As far as the music goes, the game actually features orchestrated music from the movie, which is nice. The weird thing is it only plays on the third lap. Which brings me to another point. Each track takes 3 laps to complete, which is normal. But each lap can take upwards of 2 or 3 minutes, so you could spend 7 or 8 minutes on some of the longer tracks. That's crazy. Maybe it's just because I've been playing Kirby Air Ride, whose laps can take like 30 seconds if you're quick enough. In any case, it seems a little long, but at least it's not like NASCAR (300 laps. In a circle. No kidding).

All in all, it's a pretty good game. Party-game-wise it seems a little hard to see everything that's on the screen, so it may not be the best multiplayer game, but it's not bad. I think that the later tracks are too hard, but that's just me. And I'm right.

Pros:

• Great sense of speed!
• Good graphics and music
• Lots of tracks and characters

Cons:

• A little too hard at times
• No music on the first two laps
• Opponent voice clips are repetitive

This game has earned a Blatantly Biased:

Shadow Man.. More like, "Bad? Oh, man!"

Here's a look at another bargain bin title for the N64. It's called Shadow Man, and it's loosely based on the comic book of the same name.

Shadow Man is the story of a guy who becomes some kind of creepy voodoo warrior. His mission is to retrieve a bunch of dark souls so the bad guy can't get a hold of them himself. Oh, and there's lots of creepy bayou undertones. And swearing. Oh, and zombie things that make same sound effect over and over again.

But before I rip this game to shreds, let's talk about the good things. Control-wise, it actually works very well. It is similar to Zelda games in that it's 3rd person and you can run, jump, and grap onto ledges. You also have a gun. That shoots some kind of soul-breaking beam.

The character animations are actually done fairly well. You can swing across ropes and edge along cliffsides. If you have your gun out when swimming, the character uses his only free hand. So it works quite well.

The actual graphics, however, are not so good, even for N64 times. They either tried too hard to make things look good or they didn't try hard enough. Either way, people are blocky and walls have pretty low-resolution textures. The main character looks like a wasp with that 10-inch waist of his.

Anyways, at first it seemed like a kind of dark, cool adventure. But it's very easy to get lost, which makes it very easy to lose interest. And very easy to stop having fun. And aren't games all about fun?! Yeah!!

As far as the actual platforming goes, it works quite well. It's easy enough to swim, jump, and run around. The one thing that I do hate is that if you touch lava, you instantly burst into flames and die. And then you have to start the level over. So, a guy who can control souls is a walking tinder box. Lovely.

In short, it's kind of a weird game, and one that would require quite a bit of patience to complete. Patience that I don't have at the moment. Besides, I paid like $2 for it, so I'm not real worried about finishing it. I got my $2 worth.

Pros:

• Nicely animated character models
• Good platforming controls
• Decent voice-acting

Cons:

• Easy to get lost
• A little too weird
• Instant lava death

This game has earned a Blatantly Biased:

Opposite of Dream Creatures

This week I'll be reviewing several N64 games that I have beaten on my way to my 50 by 4-19 goal. The first is a bargain bin title called Nightmare Creatures that I bought without knowing anything about the game, other than I remember the commercial back in 1997-ish with a voice-over by Maurice LaMarche, who does the voice of Brain on Pinky and the Brain.

Alright, so the game follows the story of the London fires of 1834 (history, anyone?). Apparently, some jerk named Adam Crowley found a secret recipe for a potion that would horribly deform and disfigure whatever drank it. Naturally, this is where werewolves come from. And giant leprous sewer rats. And other... creepy... things.

When you begin the game, you can choose to play the heavily clothed and bearded man, or the scantily clad woman (stereotypes, anyone?) Your job is to rid London of the monsters and track down the turd who started this mess. Actually, you don't actually have to kill everything. Unless you want to clear each level with 100%. It's up to you.

Most of the levels are very similar. You run around, kill monsters, hit switches, and make your way out. But it's not a totally monotonous game. Your player has several combos you can use, like spin moves, jump attacks, etc. These can do more damage and kill enemies quicker than by just mashing B the whole time.

There is also a nice weapon system that lets you combine guns and explosives with your attacks. For example, my personal favorite is the buzzsaw weapon. Basically it makes every take slice enemies to bits. Plus, each enemy can lose appendages and still live, so with the buzzsaw item you can hack off the arms and legs and heads of your zombie attackers. Schweet. In the first picture above, you can see me slicing trenchcoated zombies in half (gratuitous violence, anyone?).

Naturally, a platformer such as this has to have boss battles. For the most part, they work well. You hit a switch to shoot spikes at the guy, or throw dynamite at him. As you can see to the right, a civil war veteran is throwing large kitchen knives at me. How quaint. The problem is it seems like they didn't test the boss levels very well, because they can be extremely frustrating if you don't do it right. Plus, your character does not become invincible after you get hit, so you can get pummeled with no chance of recovery.

The game isn't overly lengthy, which is good because it gets pretty crazy towards the end. The last couple of levels are actually really hard, simply because there are so many enemies to kill. I prefer to run past them if I can, but even that can become difficult since they like to bust through windows and jump on your head unexpectedly.

All in all, it's a decent game for its time. The controls work well and the items add some excitement and hilarity to the already-neat zombie slaying. It's probably a little too difficult and frustrating for most people, but the first half of the game is quite fun.

Pros:

• Kill zombies and monsters with dynamite and saw blades!
• Learn made-up early-19th-Century British history!
• Chop things in half!

Cons:

• Too hard toward the end.
• Controls are a little funky sometimes.
• Enemy AI is all over the place

This game has earned a Blatantly Biased:

Shake It Up!

Wario has been a mainstay of Nintendo gaming since his excellent debut in Super Mario Land 3 for Game Boy. In fact, there are now two Wario franchises: Wario Land and WarioWare, which are both totally different, but totally amazing series.

Last year, Nintendo released the latest of its Wario Land games, Wario Land Shake It! for Wii. You hold the Wii remote sideways, and if you give it a good jostle, Wario will punch the ground, shaking the level, which can trigger switches, set off bombs, and make enemies lose their balance.

The most notable trait of this game is the hand-drawn animation. Everything is very cartoony, and fluidly animated. It looks very nice, and helps add to the already absurd style of Wario games. Also, the controls are really good. If you pick up a dazed enemy or a bag of money, you can shake them (by shaking the Wii remote, of course) and see what comes out.

The game also features some anime-ish cutscenes to give the story a little more meat. Anime's not really my style, but it's always nice to see they put the extra effort to have things like that. Also, they have Wario in them, so they're automatically hilarious.

There are plenty of levels to play (nearly 30, I believe), and each one has its own hidden treasures to find and missions to complete. Some of the missions are easy, like shake garlic out of five enemies. Some of the missions are nearly impossible, like collect nearly every coin in the whole level, or complete the level without getting hurt once. Either way, the missions add lots of depth to an already fairly-deep game.

As we all know, the music in a game is extremely important. If the music sucks, it can tarnish the entire experience. Wario Land games have typically had really good music. This one... not quite as good. I'm not gonna say the music is terrible, because it's not. It just doesn't always fit the mood. Some level musics are better than others, but overall the music could have been better. It's certainly not a deal breaker, but it could have been better.

But that's really the only place where the game doesn't really shine. The levels are very well designed (some nice nods to the best Wario Land game ever), and there are some truly hilarious moments, especially in the boss fights. I've gotta say, these are some of the best boss fights of any Wario game (or any game for that matter) that I've ever played. Pure hilarity.

All in all, it's a great game, and one that Nintendo fanboys (such as myself) should add to their collection without question. Everyone else should become a Nintendo fanboy and then reread this paragraph.

Pros:

• Classic Wario Land action!
• Excellent level design
• Good controls

Cons:

• The music could have been better
• Some of the submarine levels are overly difficult
• Some of missions are near impossible

This game has earned a Blatantly Biased:

Nine means no in German, but not in English

Mega Man 9! It's a new take on an old classic! Play it!

If you haven't played any of the Mega Man games, stop reading and go play Mega Man. Now, continue reading.

We've all played at least 1 of the old-school Mega Man games. They're tough as leather, but they're loads of fun. Lots of crazy wacky bosses, tons of robotic enemies, and lots of robot-killing spikes. That always makes me wonder. The spikes are made of metal. The robot is made of metal. He can endure water, laser beams, and explosions. That's like humans being destroyed by piles of flesh. Ok, I never should have brought that up.

Anywho, Mega Man 9 is a new game based on the classic NES Mega Man games. In fact, to ensure that the game held true to the classics, they made the screen go all flickery and weird when there were too many enemies on the screen. Awesome.

One of the best parts of original games was the music. It was bumpin', it was kickin', it was awesome. And this one is no different. Naturally, not all the songs are #1 hits, but there are some memorable tunes. Hooray!

Mega Man 9 is, in short, a worthy retelling of a classic mad scientist tale. All the excitement and difficulty of the old titles is intact. Plus, to ease the pain of some of the harder levels, the game takes cues from some of the later Mega Man games by letting you purchase power-ups that can be used as any time. My favorite? The item that lets you hit spikes and not die. I love you, spike-death-preventer.

Conclusion? Buy this game. It's only $10! If you don't have a Wii, go buy one. Then reread this paragraph.

Pros:

• Classic Mega Man action
• Perfect homage to a great franchise
• You can save!

Cons:

• Some levels are too easy, some too hard
• Some of the powers aren't very useful

This game has earned a Blatantly Biased:

Secret is the Operative Word

And here we are with yet another game that starts with M. How quaint. You've probably never heard of it. It is called Milon's Secret Castle. Now, you have heard of it. Let us discuss it. And by that, I mean let me tell you about it.

Milon's Secret Castle is an old NES game that borrows heavily from Super Mario Bros. and Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle, both of which are great NES games. You start outside of a castle and you have to work your way in, unlocking items and buying potions to get to the end.

The controls are similar to Mario games, in that you can jump really high, and you can find things hidden in bricks. Also, Milon shoots bubbles which can break bricks. That's some heavy artillery bubblage there. An added 'feature' is that Milon starts walking slow, but if you hold down the button, he speeds up. So... yeah. Energy conservation or something.

As you progress through the game, you find shops in the most random of places. These shops provide you with the most random of items, such as a potion that will make you shrink if you get hit with a boxing glove (I'm not kidding). You need these items to progress. Otherwise, you just get punched for no reason.

The game sounds interesting, no? And it is. It's fun, too. At least, for the first few minutes. After searching for a very long time for somewhere to go besides the bottom floor of the castle, I just gave up. It's ridiculous trying to find everything. After looking up the location of some of the items, I found out for an essential item, you have to break a certain brick, then push the brick next to it in it's place, and then shoot the empty space. And somehow you're supposed to figure this out on your own. Yup. Another NES game with the difficulty set way too high.

The game certainly has its share of frustrations. There are enemies that can go through walls, so there's really no safe place to be. Also, when you get hit, Milon doesn't flash invincible for a few seconds like in most other games. So if you get stuck in a corner with an enemy, you'll be dead really fast. And since you get one whole life and 6 HP, you usually won't live very long. Also, there's no passwords or save points or continues. So... beat it on one life or be smart like me and give up.

To be fair, it has also has its share of good traits. It's done nicely with music and sound effects that fit the mood. The enemies are varied and difficult, but also predictable, so they are beatable.

All in all, it's a semi-decent game. I try to judge games like this based on other games of the same time period, and I can see myself playing this for quite a while as a kid. It's definitely not the worst game I've ever played.

At the very least, it's worth the $1 I payed for it.

Pros:

• (Mostly) good controls
• Good graphics and gameplay for its time
• Takes some of the good things from Mario and Crazy Castle

Cons:

• Extremely confusing
• No indication of where to go
• Very hard to find essential items

This game has earned a Blatantly Biased:

Have You Met My Friend Troid?

And here we are again, you and I. One of us, enjoying the fun and excitement of beating a new game every two days. The other, writing this blog. I kid, I kid!

This time, it was Metroid. For the NES. Yeah, it's an oldie. That much is for sure. And, like many games of the mid 80s, it was ridiculously difficult (I'm lookin' at you, TMNT 1!). But, as we know, these early and sometimes less-attractive titles has since blossomed into indispensable franchises.

In any case, this is the first time Samus was called on to save the galaxy. At least, the first time that was documented in video game form. We see many of the same enemies we see in current-generation Metroid games, only slightly less 3-D.

To be honest, Metroid starts out as a really fun game. The physics are nicely done, the graphics are good for their time, and the sound and music fit perfectly with the ambience. That luster tends to wear off, however, when you discover just how stinking easy it is to get lost.

Ok, I'm going to be frank here. I'm not the most patient person in the world. And when you've played games like Metroid Zero Mission, it's easy to say that this version is total crap. You have no map, no indication of where to go, no hints... you're in the dark, buddy. Yeah. It's a dang hard game. We established that. But even so, it's a fun play. Even for NES days, it has it's enjoyable moments.

Now, let me be honest again. I never actually finished the game. At least, not without cheating. A lot. I made a nice map to begin with, but the game got so hard that I couldn't get far enough to explore new areas. So... I used a small, but effective cheat code. It only gives you 30 health. But as soon as you drop below 30, it gives you 30 again. So... yeah. Minor cheat code.

The bosses are not what you might expect from current Metroid games, except that they are very difficult. I have decided that they are actually just baby versions of the monstrosities that Ridley and Kraid have since become. Very, very mean babies.

In any case, the game really is well done, even through 1987 eyes. I actually wish more games like this existed, because that would mean we'd have more matured franchises to play today. But I digress. The game is good. I won't lie. It's hard. Harder than Contra (seriously!). But it's good.

And even if the game wasn't that good, I'd much rather battle Metroids than battle hemorrhoids.

Pros:

• The dawn of Samus!
• Great controls and presentation
• Classic music

Cons:

• Hard
• Very Hard
• Too Hard

This game has recieved a Blatantly Biased:

Pinball? Famous?

Another one bites the dust! This time it was Pinball Hall of Fame: The Gottlieb Collection for Gamecube. It's a bunch of pinball tables! Alrighty then!

Pinball Hall of Fame: The Excessively Long-Named Gottlieb Collection is an amalgamation of several old-school (and I stress old) pinball games all rolled into one (get it?). It includes tables from all the way back in the 50s, to some that are a little less stupid. I kid. But seriously, compared to current video game pinball tables, some of these are lame.

And I guess, there's a reason for that. They're trying to conserve the nostalgia of the older tables. They have no music, they have really strange themes and backgrounds, and I kid you not, one of them has a score counter that can go no higher than 9,999. Wow.

In all seriouslessness, though, some of these tables aren't too bad. There's one from 1993 with a golf theme. That one's pretty good. And really, none of them are terrible. In fact, the physics are, for the most part, quite accurate to real life.

But we haven't even got to my favorite part yet. You can enter cheat codes. And one of those codes lets you play forever. How amazing is that? Yeah, I know. Cheat codes are for cheaters. No duh. But I think that's about the only way to unlock everything. Which I have done.

Ok, so, in addition to the pinball tables, they have a few old-style arcade machines, like the love machine, that randomly selects how much in love you are with the other person. I recommend not playing this game with a sibling of the same gender.

Also included is a Playboy table. Seriously! But it's not what you think. It's Playboy as in rich person who gambles, not Playboy like Women-As-Objects Monthly. It's not so much a pinball table as it is a table with holes in it that you launch a pinball into. Each hole is marked by a playing card, so you try to get good cards (as if you can control it) and get the best hand. Yup.

So, in conclusion, I believe there's a reason this one is a bargain bin title. It's pinball, yeah. And I love pinball. But after games like Metroid Prime and Pokemon themed pinball, it's hard to go back to stuff like this.

Pros:

• Classic pinball tables
• Realistic physics
• Bonus arcade games

Cons:

• BOOOOORING! (sometimes)
• Annoying announcer
• There's a scary monkey on the 'Central Park' table

This game has earned a Blatantly Biased: