Well, this is gonna be awkward. And confusing as hell.
By Video_Game_King 23 Comments
Mario Superstar Baseball
( First, because I'm playing this song for absolutely no reason.) Second, because I think it's pretty obvious that I'm not into sports. The closest things you'll find to sports games in my entire list of beaten games (and, just for the hell of it, StarFoxA's mere imitation) are two Tony Hawk games (except on StarFoxA's list. I'm not gonna make a habit of this, even though I totally should.). So in enters Mario Superstar Baseball, an actual sport game wrapped in a colorful Mario wrapper. Unfortunately, this game proved to me that I can't digest wrappers.The only thing that wrapper is good for is letting me set things up with some type of story. Mario is in the Mushroom Kingdom (supposedly after the Great Mushroom Civil War), just hanging out, when he receives an invitation from Bowser to play some baseball. There's just one problem: his entire team is shit. Mario must now make like Genghis Khan and conquer his nearby enemies before forcing them to join his army. Standard Mario stuff, and not much to complain about, but it does fail to explain one key aspect of the game: why it keeps calling me a fag. No, I am not making this shit up, the game will call you a fag at every opportunity. Daisy will yell it while up at bat; the game calls you a fag when you get a strike; and it even calls you a fag when you strike out the computer! My conclusion: the game hates me, and will do everything in its power to prevent me from having a good time.
Of course, this is all probably par for the course in baseball games. I wouldn't know, as the only other baseball game I've ever played is that Ken Griffey Jr. game for the N64. Mario, not being par for the course (haven't really played Mario Golf, either), adds a bunch of stuff to the mix, even if it all amounts to nothing. Certain players have chemistry between each other, which amounts to dick when you realize that people bat alone, and that words of encouragement usually precede balls of head-hitting. You can also throw star pitches, which are super powerful pitches with weird-ass trajectory quirks. You can also star hit, but why the hell would you? It usually just drives the ball down the middle, and regular charge hits work much better at moving the ball. In fact, now that I think about it, charge everything works well. Sure, you have a ton of options when it comes to pitching, but all of them immediately bow to the charge pitch. That explains why I was charging everything in the single player mode, turning things into a repetitive mess.
Oh, right, there's a single player mode. Remember how I said that Mario's team consisted entirely of five year olds who had trouble spelling tee ball, let alone playing it? Blame RPG stats for that, or more accurately, the fact that they're pulled off poorly. Batting does not determine how far a ball flies, but how big your bat is; pitching doesn't determine anything because Mario's already good enough, you idiot. Everybody else sucks, though, which explains why you spend most of the single player mode recruiting other players through missions. Don't be fooled by the name, though, as these missions pop up randomly in games. They range from embarrassingly easy (get a hit, you dumbass) to fiendishly dickish (get these guys out in three batters). Oh, and you have to win the game for it all to mean anything, which you already know as hard. What you don't know is that ties don't count, either, which really sucks when you realize that baseball is a lot like gay sex: it favors bottoms. I'd call the game out for it if Bowser Jr. didn't walk around the map handing out freebie characters. That's how I beat the game: Bowser freebies. What do you get for beating the game? A simple picture and the chance to play again on a harder difficulty. I give this game the Mother Brain Award for Being Such a Passive Aggressive Bitch.
Review Synopsis
- The controls need quite a bit of adjusting.
- Same with the AI.
- Or maybe I just suck at the game.
Aw, I always thought Drew was a lady's man.
Evil Zone
( What?) No, seriously, what? I was supposed to do this first paragraph on how I jumped from game to game, searching for one that was actually playable/beatable, but fuck, look at this game! Nothing about it makes sense. Keep in mind that I'm not saying this is weird because it's Japanese, like I'd say about, for example, anything Shin Megami Tensei; I'm saying that even the most Japanese guy you could find would look at this game and explode into a billion gallons of blood and confusion.
However, they all sound batshit insane. Again, confusion arises: is it the voicework that's insane, or the script? On the one hand, that Ihadurca thing I said; on the other hand, one of the characters (or voice actors, I can't tell) starts eating a sandwich in the middle of his speech before his wife bitches him back into relevance; on the third hand, some of the story pictures are upside down, because, hey, why the hell not? Notice how none of this relates to the gameplay, which also sounds pretty insane. People have called it a one-button fighter, but they're wrong; it's a two button fighter. That's right, this game could fit on an NES controller and still have a useless button. One button attacks, and one button guards. It sounds simple until you realize that like any Super Smash Bros game, you perform special moves by jamming forward and attack. This is where things get awesome, as you and your opponent start dodging, sidestepping, and exchanging blows, like it's an actual fight. Best of all, though, unlike Tekken, grabs don't destroy the game, since grabbing your opponent is as easy as grabbing a sweaty, naked dude. DON'T ASK WHY, DAMN IT!!!
Instead, ponder the roughness of this what-the-fuck sandwich. For example, you can charge your HP bar for super-moves, but why you'd want to isn't very well explained. You need three charges to do anything, and while these super moves do decent damage, you could get equally good results from any other attack. This assumes that you're using melee, as projectiles turn out to be shit. Not regular projectiles, but the ones that look like they can do decent damage. I suspect that they could if they flew straight, but the reality is that they actively avoid your target, possibly because they're looking for a way out of this game. Or maybe it's because hitting them would require touching a biker chick wearing short shorts that look like permanent residents of Ass-Crack City. I can't tell, because this game is seriously confusing. I found myself saying this (or similar phrases) more times than I did pushing buttons. The weirdest part of it all? I like this game. Obviously, this game gets the 後背位で拍子抜け悪 Award for What?
Review Synopsis
- The story's more confusing than an FF12 orgy.
- The gameplay is surprisingly fun, if a bit flawed.
- ˙noʎ ǝsnɟuoɔ pןnoɥs ǝbɐssǝɯ sıɥʇ ǝʞıן ʇsnظ 'ǝɯ sǝsnɟuoɔ ǝɯɐb sıɥʇ ʇnoqɐ buıɥʇʎɹǝʌ3
23 Comments