A little over a week, and I've already beaten a Christmas game.
By Video_Game_King 8 Comments
New Super Mario Bros. Wii
( Yes, this is the first game that I beat in 2010.) Let it be known that this decade began with...actually, it began with me swearing off GIMP forever, but in terms of Renegade Ego, let it be known that this decade began with New Super Mario Bros. Wii! But it is not a new beginning; in fact, if this were any sort of beginning whatsoever, it would be the beginning of 1990. I'll explain that later, when it actually becomes more relevant.Why? Because I have a blog that needs writing! And it's a new era, so I wish to be more creative in this blog. As such, I'll start somewhere before the story: the game itself. The first thing you're bound to notice is that the box, unlike all other Wii games, is red, because......actually, I have no idea why it's red, since the only other red game I know of isn't even a Mario game. My theory is that since I've two green 360 games and a few white Wii games that have yet to be beaten, Nintendo made the box red so I could pretend that my pile of unbeaten games is just the Italian flag. Think that's weird? What about the disc? Four characters looking at you, never averting their gaze. Creepy when I open the box to find them staring at my soul, even creepier when I take the disc out of my Wii to find them looking at me, as if to say that they didn't forget me this entire time.
Yes, kids. No longer is it just Bowser Jr.; now the Koopalings have come into play. We still don't know how exactly the Koopalings were birthed, so I imagine Bowser spends less time playing dolls with Peach and more time trying to explain this confusing crap to the only kid we know wasn't born in some sort of horrible way. Meanwhile, Mario's tasked with rescuing Peach, but this time, he's not alone! He has help in the form of Luigi and two useless Toads. Those last two are kinda crap in terms of character selection (for God's sake, it's MARIO!), but that didn't affect my opinion of the game, mostly because I played this game alone. Even if I did play it with friends, I don't think it would've changed much, given that the game somewhat compensates for more players (more power-ups, for example), and that not much has changed.
That's what I was getting at before. I'd tell you that I was referring to Super Mario Bros. 3 with the 1990 thing, but I have this odd feeling that you stopped reading the blog at that point to look that up on the-what the hell was I talking about? Oh, right, Super Mario Bros. 3. Yep, NSMBW rips off so much from that game that it should've been called New Super Mario Bros. 3. *boos rain down upon me (not in a SMB way)* OK, OK, bad joke, but still, the point is legitimate. You navigate a world map to get to levels, playing mini-games to get some power-ups/extra lives, exploring regular levels, midway castles, and the occasional airship. Hell, even some of the levels are ripped straight from SMB3, like Cloud City or the Hammer Bros-esque Toad rescue diversions.
But to be fair, not everything was ripped from Super Mario Bros 3.; some of it was ripped from Super Mario World. Things like Yoshi. * changes music* This game just bumped itself up an entire point in that one move. He can eat enemies, he can make weird sounds that somehow cause him to levitate, he can act as a sort of launching platform, and best of all, you can't bring him to the overworld!............................* record scratch* Wait, what's that? You CAN'T carry him from level to level? You mean, like, castles and ghost houses prevent you, right? Oh, you can only use Yoshi in the level you get him in? The hell? How am I supposed to tackle these levels without Yoshi? No, screw the Luigi help system, that's for people who admit that they suck at something like Mario! I need something else! The billions of lives that make me think Mario sucked off about 3 Hindu gods don't count!
Then again, there's a lot in this game that isn't necessary. The ghost houses don't need to be in the game, since they're just haunted house themed regular levels; some of the waggle moments don't need to be there, simply because it's hard to steer a controller AND control Mario simultaneously; those stupid MGS wall hug parts aren't necessary, like in the DS prequel, and that reminds me: why does this need to be on the Wii? Everything here could've been done on the DS quite easily, and the parts of this game that actually use the Wii's features won't destroy the game if they're gone. So I give this game the Sho-crap! I forgot, boss battles. Predictably, they're all some Koopa, but unfortunately, only a few of them are actually some sort of memorable challenge; the rest seem to follow the format of "stomp their brains in, dodge as they shell across the room, repeat twice more." The only example I can think of that doesn't do this is Bowser, the final boss. It begins with the classic tossing of the turtle into the lava, but then things get ugly. He grows to the size of Optimus Prime if he were standing on his tippy toes and begins chasing you in an epic....chase....through the castle. You have to dodge bursts of fire and navigate a chaotic labyrinth of platforms to rescue the princess and....knock him in the fucking lava again. Goddamn it....Should've Been on the DS Award. That is all.
Review Synopsis
- It's a decent game with some creative moments, but it ultimately relies too much on old school charm to stand on its own.
- The power-ups are a mixed bag, ranging from the awesome to the superfluous.
- I don't know what's creepier: the story or the disc.
I'd like to post this Left 4 Dead 2 parody, but since it might be NSFW, I'll just link you to it and provide this filler video:
Cybernator
( Also, this is the second game I beat in 2010.) Let it be known that this decade seconded with a fairly mediocre SNES shooter that showed a lot more promise than it actually delivered. OK, I'm not going to continue this "let it be known" crap for the next ten years, but I think you get the point: Cybernator isn't that good a game. Sad, because it could've been so much better with a few changes.Changes like the story. This is the point in a blog where I usually make stupid jokes about the plot, but there are no jokes t be made here, only a simple statement: there's too much f'ing story. It should've been limited only to the title screen, which shows all that needs to be said: a random spaceship blowing up 3 other spaceships. But no, it somehow manages to stretch itself further than that: it's the future, and there are two countries at war: Earth and somebody else I don't remember. As a giant-robot-operator general guy, your job is to win the war for all of Earth. That may not sound insistent, but that's mostly because I can't recall every detail the game shoved down my throat in labored text screens and in-game conversations telling me why I'm shooting things and how it benefits this space war thing.
Then again, you're bound to die, anyway, because of the awful controls. The first thing you're going to notice is the odd button configuration: A does not jump nor shoot, but rather dashes you right into the very thing that wants you dead. Instead, B is jump, and Y kills things. Or it would kill things if you could aim your gun properly, but since you aim with the same buttons that move your mech, you'll spend a lot of time shooting butterflies instead of the actual enemies. Granted, there's a button you can hold down that makes the gun stay still, but since everything in every direction wants you dead, such a button only works when you've eliminated every other threat on screen.
Throw in some unfair boss battles, and there's about a 423% chance that you will die. This is where things get a bit weird (as if everything else up to this point wasn't already odd): you don't have any lives at all. Instead, you get a small amount of continues. "What's wrong with that", you ask me, completely oblivious to what's wrong with that. Here's the problem: it seems like a thin excuse not to include any checkpoints in the levels. This leads me to believe that it's also a shallow way to force extra game time on you, since there are only seven levels and not much reason to replay the game. It gets the Steel Battalion Award for very obvious reasons.
Review Synopsis
- TOO MUCH STORY!!!
- Broken controls ruin the shooting part of this shooter.
- Cybernator wants you dead.