Category Archives: 5 Star Games

Star Fox Zero Review

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Let’s just say that I’m glad that I basically got this game for free since I used a contest prize to pre order this title. This isn’t the Star Fox game that we deserve. Star Fox Zero was supposed to bring this franchise back to life after its sad demise at the hands of Command. Unfortunately, Nintendo dropped the ball on this game in a big way. It’s not even so much that the game is short because length isn’t all that important compared to other aspects…sometimes…but the controls are some of the worst that I’ve ever played. Aside from Wii shovelware titles, this may have the worst controls for any AAA title. It really drains away any enjoyment that you could have taken from this game.

As far as the story goes, the game is essentially a remake/reboot of Star Fox 64 or the original. I forgot which one had this plot actually. Andross wants to destroy Corneria so a galactic war begins. Both sides suffer heavy losses and Team Star Fox is called in. They get the job done and their small group is more powerful than any army. The leader is Fox McCloud, a man who must avenge his father’s death by saving the universe. No task is too much for this young hero and he eagerly rises to the occasion along with his tough crew. Falco is the resident hot head who talks a good game even though he always tends to lose. Slippy doesn’t talk tough and still manages to lose a lot. Finally we’ve also got Peppy, the tough veteran who always ends up losing. Thing is, Fox is the only one who tends to win since the A.I. isn’t good against a villain attack in the gameplay. It’s a shame for them.

All right, let’s start with the positives because there are quite a few negatives here. I did enjoy the visuals. The space fights looked visually appealing and the game certainly looks pretty polished. The character models are not quite as good though and the game is pretty lazy which may have given them more time for the visuals. For example, the game uses the same recycled footage before each level as a mini conversation is had and there is really nothing to be found beyond the levels. More on that later.

The soundtrack is pretty fun. We have some nice remixes from the older Star Fox games and the themes are all very heroic and inspiring. It’s not quite Mario, but the themes never get dull and you’ll appreciate them. This may be the game’s greatest positive now that I think about it. A more mild one would be the fact that the characters are pretty charismatic. It barely counts since they are relying on character development from older games though. Fox and the others don’t really have much of a personality beyond a one line description that can fit each character. You are really just supposed to know who they all are at this point. Still, Fox has always been a cool character and that doesn’t change here. I don’t like Peppy, but Slippy and Falco are cool.

Unfortunately, we get a new character for this game who adds nothing to the story. There used to be a character named Krystal back in the day, but fans were really divided on her and she was axed from the series in this reboot. Instead, we have a new female fox who is naturally pink. I forgot her name, but her only role is to appear for about 5 minutes and flirt with Fox for the entire duration. That’s it…her role is just to flirt with Fox. Nintendo couldn’t have made a more unlikable, 2 dimensional character if they had tried. You could say the same for Andross although for different reasons. He’s also 2 dimensional and unlikable. Partially because of his design and just the fact that he’s not interesting at all. I think Pigma or Wolf would have made for a better final boss. Wolf’s cool as always, a shame that he gets around 2-3 lines here.

All right, let’s tackle the big issue in the room. The motion controls! Why would Nintendo revert back to this tired gimmick that got old a day after the Wii came out? Motion controls never work and they never will work. Sensors will never be accurate enough and it’s a hassle to keep on spinning in your chair to lock on to enemies and fire. As a result, the levels simply aren’t fun to play whenever you have to fight someone. That’s why I avoided enemies whenever possible and just zoomed through them. It is very difficult to aim and boss fights become artificially difficult. With proper controls, I’d say that you could breeze through these guys. As it stands, you’ll have a tough time of it. You can turn it off to an extent, but a slight one. Instead of always being on when moving, it’ll just keep on affecting your aim…which is just as bad. You still have to move the Gamepad in order to hit anything so that’s not much of a help.

It goes without saying that because of this you have to use the Gamepad. It’s a mandatory part of playing Star Fox Zero which is really a shame. I never liked the Gamepad and things like this remind me why that is the case. The instant I played the first level or two and noticed how restrictive the controls were, I knew that the game was going to have it rough. From fairly early on I had a feeling that a 6 was the highest it could go and the rest of the negatives kept it from reaching that spot.

Let’s talk about the game length. The game was nice enough to keep track of how long it took to complete it and I beat the game in 2 hours and 52 minutes. That’s considering that I was stuck on the boss for almost an hour and the fact that I lost to another boss once and in another level once more. This game is incredibly short for 60 dollars to the point where you could and should call it a ripoff. This is not worth 60 dollars and should have only been 30 upon release. You simply can’t justify the price point.

Replay Value is what could save the game from this short length, but there’s not as much as there should be. For starters, there is no multiplayer mode. Yes, there seriously isn’t a multiplayer mode in this game even though it would make perfect sense. Star Fox Assault had a terrific multiplayer mode. So, the only replay value is going back to get all of the medals and I don’t even know what doing that does. Maybe it unlocks a new level or something. There are 70 medals scattered around the 14 levels so that should buy you some time I guess. I definitely wouldn’t want to go after those. Even beating Arcade Mode sounds like a bit of a drag and especially when the only thing you unlock is Sound Test. I can’t verify that Sound Test is the final mode since I’m not going to try and unlock it, but that’s what I’ve heard around the web.

Yes, this game really won’t last you very long and it is easy to see why a lot of people are upset. They should be upset. This game got a lot of hype from Nintendo and it was even delayed a bit to polish up the graphics since it got bashed so hard at E3. Well, the graphics are better, but the controls are downright terrible. There was no quality control in this title and it feels so empty. I don’t think the developers put a lot of heart into this title. Even little things like the fact that the voices come from the Gamepad is annoying. Why do you have to hear the music from the TV on your right and then the voices from the Gamepad speaker below you? It makes no sense and it is like the game is trying to force you to just play with the TV off. Good luck with that.

After you beat the game there is a quick scene, but you won’t really miss anything if you didn’t stick around. I was hoping for an actual cliffhanger or something instead of what we got. Fox’s Dad seems to possibly be alive since he interfered a whole lot for a ghost so maybe that will be a plot in the sequel if the sequel has anything resembling a plot and if one is actually made. I don’t see this game selling all that well at all.

I almost forgot to mention the various gadgets that you have. The Landmaster, The Gyrowing, and the creature form of the Arwing. They’re all pretty bad I’m afraid. The Gyrowing is very slow and it is just around so you can use a Clank ripoff to hack the villain controls. It buys time for the levels. The Landmaster and the robot just suffer from terrible controls. Turning around is a hassle when it shouldn’t be and everything is made much more difficult than it otherwise would be. I suppose that these things wouldn’t be negatives without the motion controls, but that’s simply how the cookie crumbled this time. The controls are simply terrible.

Overall, Star Fox Zero is pretty disappointing and a final reminder for fans around the globe that we don’t want anything even slightly related to motion controls for the upcoming NX. It should be really hard to mess up with this kind of game, but Nintendo went above and beyond expectations on how to destroy hype. Making the motion controls mandatory was the main mistake here. 60 dollars for under 3 hours of story content is also pretty suspect in and of itself. Zero is a cash grab, nothing more and nothing less. Nintendo is hoping that enough loyal fans will buy the game to make a profit instead of trying to make a good game that everyone can buy. I don’t recommend buying this title and if you want to have a good space epic with Fox and the gang, just buy Assault instead. It’s a much better game than Zero in every single way. As sad as it sounds, I played the game for under 3 hours and I’m not sure if I’ll ever have a need to play it again. There is no real reason to go back to it and I actually think Star Fox Guard has a decent chance of being a better game when all is said and done. That’s quite scary. Nintendo, give us a proper Star Fox game or a new F Zero title for the NX. If not, I fear these two franchises may be gone for good.

Overall 5/10

Block Party Review

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No not Block Party, BLOCK Party! I’ve played a lot of cash ins in my day, but none quite like this one…..sorta. Okay, that line’s a stretch, but this one is better than some of the recent titles that I played like We Ski. The games here actually had some thought put into them and they’re actually a little more original than you would suspect. Saving someone from getting eaten by a dog? I can roll with that and you certainly wouldn’t expect to see a game plot like that one in the average Wii title. Unfortunately, the game’s reliance on motion controls gets a little dicey at times. It’s probably just my remote, but the games were unwinnable so I ended up not being able to unlock 2 of the games.

As the title boldly yells, there are 20 games to be found here. That’s not a bad number if you ask me. Did you ask me? I sure hope you did because there’s my answer. Unfortunately, it looks a little less impressive than you would think since about half of the games are clones. It’s almost hard to tell at first, but when you actually think about it, you’ll quickly realize that you just did the same thing twice. The only difference was the background and the animations around you. It’s a clever trick, but one that won’t work on this blog reviewer.

Let’s talk about the minigames..or the ones that I can remember anyway. The most iconic one is definitely where you have to save a kid who has been eaten by your Dog. He’s a huge dog and is actually bigger than the player, but that just ups the stakes. You have to playfully tap him with the newspaper to distract him so you can save the other player. It’s a tricky minigame and it’s impossible if your remote’s motion controls are broken so good luck trying to beat it! Another minigame is where you have to stop the Ants/Bugs from eating the Sandwich/Cake by blasting them all to smithereens with your Ray Gun. I have a feeling that the game’s developers did not like animals, which is always regrettable. I’m fine with blasting monsters, but let’s not get ants. They mean well and just want a solid dinner. The gameplay is solid for this one though.

We’ve also got Sack racing/Trash Pulling. In these minigames, you must shake both Wii Remote and Nunchuk to move forward. Trash Pulling wouldn’t work, but I was able to beat the Sack Racing one. It’s a good exercise for your wrists, but make sure that you don’t lose since you definitely wouldn’t want to try beating it again. Trust me, it’s not in your best interests. One of the best minigames is one where you jump on a trampoline and must perform the motions and click the buttons that the screen tells you to. It’s all about reaction times and I definitely enjoy that kind of game.

The best minigame by far is one where you have to track an egg with your eyes as it goes under various plates. The game never feels like it’s cheating and you can get a very high score as long as you’ve played Super Smash a lot over the years. That’s definitely a game that I could play quite a few times. Another good minigame is one where you have to fly through the sky and collect as many fruit as possible. It’s simple as you just move back and forth, but it’s executed well and the controls are very responsive. We also can’t forget the Clothesliner/Volleyball as you try to keep your balance as you go across the stage. The controls can be a little more iffy here, but when they work it’s quite fun. This is a game that can get competitive. Another good minigame concept is the Balloon Shooter. There are two versions. One where you’re shooting balloons to save the kids and another one where you’re blasting discs in the sky. Both are good, but a little glitchy as you could have sworn that you hit the objects, but the game calmly tells you that this didn’t happen. It was probably rigged, but it’s extremely easy anyway since the A.I. is bad at those games. It’s strange, they’re amazing at some of them, but terrible at others…ah well. That’s enough game summaries, you get the jist of it. A lot of them were actually quite fun and hold up well. The controls aren’t great, but they still beats most of its rivals anyway.

I actually like the graphics quite a bit. They’re simple and to the point so they effectively illustrate what’s happening to you at all times. The characters are all presented fairly accurately compared to what you would think of when looking at a kid. The soundtrack is a little more dicey though and that’s mainly due to the sound effects. The kids are always laughing…always! There was even a glitch where they were laughing for so long that the game couldn’t load up and I had to beat it again. The game seriously needs to calm down with that as the gimmick doesn’t exactly help the game. It’s not bad and can be a little amusing I suppose, but why? That’s the question that the developers need to ask themselves before including something in.

I also don’t trust the Auto Save feature on this game. I beat most of the worlds only to find out that I had to start from scratch the next time. I don’t know why that happened, but at least the game is short. Most of the levels are 30-60 seconds long so that means you should be able to beat it all in less than 20 minutes. That’s a very short game so I feel bad for anyone who spent over 10 dollars on it. 2-5 is not that bad although even then you may want to think about this choice for a while.

There is also absolutely no replay value so don’t count on that for help. The game doesn’t even save your high scores for each game, which is a shame. (Saw what I did there?) So…what are you supposed to do? Unlocking the minigames is literally the only thing to do here. Then you’ll just be chilling with friends and to be honest this game can definitely get quite competitive. On your own…..forget about playing this. There’s no real point, the only entertainment to be had here is the entertainment of playing with a friend.

Overall, Block Party forgot to include the actual party. Seriously, you need some kind of replay value in the game or you’re just a 15 minute distraction. I guess it can be good to have for Finding Nemo load screens, but that’s about it. It’s a shame because I thought that the minigames were actually pretty decent. Surprisingly, the game actually put some effort into them. Sure, there are glitches and the controls can be unresponsive, but I feel like the game did quite well with the very limited resources at its disposal. It probably made them a quick buck and succeeded in its mission. I recommend this title if you don’t mind the fact that it’s only about 15 minutes long. It is definitely one of the best Wii party games although the console has a huge selection of them. Play the dog minigame and watch him overpower all of you! (Also be warned, not all of the games on the cover are actually included inside!!)

Overall 5/10

Spyro Shadow Legacy Review

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Ah…this game was definitely intriguing. I’ve got to say that it’s probably the glitchiest game that I’ve ever played and I can’t help but feel that the developers didn’t spend a whole lot of time on it. The game must have been rushed or just made for some easy $$$ because the creators could have done better. The core game is actually pretty fun, but suffers from a variety of issues.

The plot is fairly light. The Shadow Realm has been claiming the inhabitants of the entire world so it’s up to Spyro to use a crystal to travel between the world and the Shadow World. You free 3-9 people in each area, rinse and repeat. It’s possible that Red is behind this, but Spyro thinks that the true mastermind may be someone who’s even stronger and possibly more deadly. He’s in for the fight of his life!

The interesting thing about this Spyro game is that it’s basically an RPG so it’s quite different from the other Spyro games. You obtain level ups and complete a lot of side quests to advance the main story and earn easy EXP. Grinding out level ups can take a long time with enemies so the quests are important and a lot of them are necessary to complete the game anyway. By the end, I had completed every side quest, but that’s where the tragic part of the game comes into play.

I made it all the way to the final boss, but I didn’t have enough emblems to fight him. No matter, I’ll go and beat the mandatory side quests to get the final emblems right? Wrong! The instant I left the final boss island, my fate was sealed. There’s no way to get back since the airship that took me there the first time was no longer in service. I was now stranded on the regular island and the ironic thing is that I can’t even beat the side quest with the orb because I need to buy something from the final islands. I doubt this was an intentional level of risk to the game so it just speaks to the lazy game developing once again. I’ve heard of games with game breaking bugs, but this is quite sad.

Supposedly, the only way to avoid this is to make contact with the teleporting pad on the final island so that it’s activated, but I had activated it (Which is how I used it the first time) but it simply stopped working. It seems like the pads go dead after a while since most of them don’t show up on my map even though they did on the walkthrough that I saw. Was my copy also glitched individually aside from the well known game break? I don’t know, but either way it’s not how I wanted to end my experience. I was running around the game for hours trying to figure out where it all went wrong and this is what I get in return.

It’s a shame because the game was mostly enjoyable otherwise. It did have a terribly slow start, I’ll grant you that. The game didn’t explain anything all that well so there was a lot of trial and error at first as you had to teach yourself everything. Once I was mostly done with the first world (Out of 3) I had finally gotten the hang of it all and that’s when I finally began to enjoy the game a lot. Leveling up and completing the fairly simple quests was a blast. I learned each area like the back of my hand and things were going well.

The graphics are sub par though and I’ve seen better looking Game Boy Advance games like Sonic Advance or Mario World. Everyone is really pixelated in this game so I think the character models must have been too big or something. The soundtrack is also a little laughable since there are like 2-3 themes in the entire game and whenever you are in the Shadow World it is just one theme. The same one for the entire game, which is more than a little iffy. They can afford more tunes…right?

As I mentioned earlier, there are quite a few glitches aside from the game ending one. You’ll constantly find yourself falling through the ground or through the sky. You’ll die for no reason or enemies will become invincible. It happens quite often to the point where you actually grow used to it. It’s still no excuse though and it’s part of the reason why this game, which should have gotten an easy 7 drops all the way to a 5. Partially also because I was pretty salted about having to end the game right before the final boss. That’s just such a sad way to go.

Naturally, there is no replay value since you can’t actually make it to the end anyway! If not for the glitch, you could spend some time getting the final level ups and beating the final quests, but that wouldn’t last very long. The actual game is of a decent length though and it should last you around 5-10 hours I’d say. It depends on how quickly you figure everything out for yourself.

There were 2 boss fights before the final battle. They were interesting because the game turns a little 3D, which came out of nowhere, but did help to capture the epic scope of these fights. These bosses weren’t playing around and were a blast to fight. It’s too bad that the game didn’t have more bosses since they were actually created with a lot of detail and dedication. It’s a shame that the whole game couldn’t have that.

To use magic in this game, you have to draw on the screen with the stylus, but it’s very picky so you’ll be drawing the same object many times. It’s a little annoying, but not as bad as the fact that you have to teleport around the place a little bit at a time and usually run out of magic energy so then you have to find some enemies to beat. Otherwise, you can run from area to area, but you can spend a good 15-20 minutes just getting somewhere, which is tedious. Again, if you can teleport anywhere in most versions, then this isn’t an issue. Maybe my game was glitched. If not, then this is just bad game design if you ask me.

I didn’t really touch on the gameplay right? It’s overhead and you can ram opponents, whack them, or shoot fire. You can glide and you’ll get stronger throughout the game. It’s fun since you’ll get abilities that are actually very useful and you’ll wonder how you survived without them. Trust me, they save you a lot of heartache and grief.

Overall, Spyro Shadow Legacy is the kind of game that can break a person’s heart. It had a lot of potential to be good and by all accounts it should have been great. Unfortunately, that’s simply not what happened. Instead, glitches completely destroyed this game and made it create sad memories instead of happy ones. It could have brought a whole new direction to Spyro, but instead it will forever be remembered as the worst game in the series by a long shot. The others were all great, but Shadow Legacy will simply be forgotten. If you want a good RPG, play Final Fantasy instead. Shadow Legacy does have a legacy all right, just not the right one!

Overall 5/10

We Ski & Snowboard Review

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I didn’t really care for We Ski after I had bought the game. I only gave it a 4/10 and the game simply wasn’t all that much fun to play. The controls were bad and the game lacked any real heart to it. So when I saw the sequel, I knew that I had to instantly buy it. After all, there’s no way that it could be any worse than the first right? This game is an improvement, there’s no doubt about it. But if people said that this game still wasn’t good…well…they’re not wrong. They’re really not wrong! Still, I like to see some improvement.

The Snowboarding angle is really what hits it home for me this time. I didn’t like Skiing and I still consider it to be a little dicey although it is certainly possible to make a good video game around it. That being said, Snowboarding is a lot more fun and an instant improvement as far as the gameplay is concerned. Once you go with the board, you’ll never go back to the original way to play. One of the improvements is that the hub world has changed to a more structured mission system. You can still have fun in free roam, but it’s not as mandatory to scour all of the mountains. You simply talk to someone for a mission set and then you work to beat all of the difficulty levels for each minigame. Racing is naturally the best one if you ask me. That one actually had some thought put into it.

Furthermore, the soundtrack wasn’t all that amazing in the first game. Luckily, the developers realized this and acted accordingly by adding in some classic music from various Namco games. This includes Pac Man and I may as well say that this was a very good move on their part. Nothing beats listening to good music if you’re riding around the world right? So, that was definitely a solid improvement. Not to mention that the free roam was also a lot more fun. The areas were bigger and more varied. When you fall down, you even do a quick bounce on the snow and you can fall into large fissures. It’s pretty awesome and adds a level of danger that the first game simply did not have.

Unfortunately, I’m not here to gloss over the negatives of the game so let’s take a whirl at it. For starters, the gameplay is still really bad. Being better than We Ski is a slight start, but it’s certainly not everything. It’s still hard to make any real traction at times and you will often find yourself struggling to keep your balance. I always think about greater things while waiting for the game to end. Still, I did play a good amount of it to ensure that I was ready for the review.

The sad part is that the gameplay for the multiplayer events actually isn’t that bad. Likewise, that includes when you play the minigames in single player mode. It shows that the game at least has a little hope, it simply gets thrown to the wayside when things get rough. If you’re just playing it for the multiplayer then you have gotten your money’s worth. If you’re just going to play this for the single player, then you may as well be eating Cinnamon Crunch because you’re in for a long ride. The difficulty levels almost seem unfair in how they’re handled and it makes me wonder if you need some kind of level ups or power ups in order to actually take the win.

There are a few different minigames to be found here like races, Curling, Slopes, Tricks, and I think there’s another one that I’m forgetting. Moguls is fun (Basically the slopes game) because you have to navigate your way through the hills and have a blast while doing it. Keeping your balance is pretty tricky though. Races are definitely the best minigame for sure, but make sure to keep on swinging your Wii Remotes to stay at full speed!. After that, you’ve also got the tricks minigame which isn’t bad, but I kept on performing the same trick over and over! I still appreciate the dedication though. So….not a bad array I suppose.

I actually like the graphics though. They tend to grow on you after a while and that’s always a good thing. The characters are clear and the snow is fairly exciting…….well, there’s not a whole lot of other things to see here! Still, I stand by my theory that this is one of the better animated cash in games. That’s a start even if you can’t see a whole lot of difference between this game and the first installment.

This game actually has a level of replay value thanks to the multiplayer games and the fact that there actually is a lot to do here. It may not be the ultimate game in that area, but it serves its purpose and for that reason, it’s certainly worth the 2-5 bucks that you would have to pay for the experience. It’ll also bolster your Wii collection and that’s always a good thing.

Overall, I guess this game is a fine purchase, but make sure that you don’t get wrecked by the price. Make sure you get it for the 2-5 dollars that it is worth. Otherwise, you’ll feel bad and the game will make you feel even worse. Honestly though, the game can be a little amusing even if I’m struggling to write enough for this review to reach 1000 words. That’s my target for just about every game, but it can be tough to reach sometimes so I’ll just let it end naturally this time. Just know that it’s better than the first We Ski and actually a fairly decent game. It’s not bad, but it’s not good either. It’s a way to spend 30 minutes, but you may prefer just using it as a CD via Free Roam. These Pac songs basically write themselves! Spoiler Alert: I reached the 1000 heh heh

Overall 5/10

Naruto Powerful Shippuden Review

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It’s time to finally review one of the newest Naruto games. As you may recall from my Rock Lee review, I was not a fan of the manga series and I actually gave it a 0 for effort. The game’s story is pretty bad to be honest and shows me why the series didn’t know what it was doing, but the gameplay is good. This raises a pretty big issue that I’ve never really had to tackle in a video game before. What wins out, the horrendous plot or the gameplay? It’s a tough call so it’s time to explore this issue in the review.

There are two story modes in the game, but it may as well just be one since you have to keep on going back and forth between the two. The story modes belong to Naruto and Rock Lee. Each character will have 4+ missions at the ready when starting and you can keep on completing the missions until a gate appears. The gate can only be opened by a certain amount of keys. Let’s say you’re in Naruto mode and the door will only open if you have 2 Naruto keys and 2 Rock Lee keys. Can you guess what that means? It means you have to go to Rock Lee mode and beat some missions to get the necessary keys. It’s odd because this sort of defeats the purpose of having two different story modes right? It’s just not right!

Naruto mode plays it straight for the most part and actually adapts the manga. It covers the Shippuden series all the way through the Kage summit, which is pretty impressive. There are also a lot of filler missions that you have to play along the way to defeating the final boss since you need those keys. It’s slightly luck based as to when you will beat the game as well since there are a lot of paths that just lead to more filler missions and keys. It’s why I completed Naruto’s story at level 75 without beating Rock Lee’s, where I got to level 100 a long time ago. You just have to try and pick the right path or you may complete just about all of the filler missions along the way.

Rock Lee’s story is the one that decides to include as much low quality humor as possible. Those certainly get old fast and you’ll want to just focus on the gameplay so you can ignore the plot. Remember how I mentioned that I got to level 100 very quickly with Rock Lee? Well, wait until you make it to the Kisame boss battle and then use that one to grind with the expert criteria “Don’t get hit” Completing the mission while following that guideline will give you over 4000 exp points per battle and that’s enough for 3-5 level ups. You can easily just keep on beating that boss until you are at level 100 and it should take you about 30-40 seconds to beat the boss each time. It’s an incredible grinding level and I felt pretty proud of myself for figuring that out. I’m sure that there’s somewhere like that for Naruto, but it’s barely even needed. Just beating all of the filler will likely get him to level 90 or higher.

The levels follow a specific formula depending on the objective. There are survival missions, where you must survive for 30-90 seconds without fighting back. Those are certainly the toughest missions since a few hits can typically down you if you’re not prepared. It’s always good to have an ace up the sleeve for these missions. (Meaning a level up that you haven’t bought with your EXP yet) The best missions are the boss battles since they’re just a classic 1 on 1 fight where you can overwhelm your opponent with pure power. The only boss battle that wasn’t too enjoyable was the Deidara one and that’s because he just hides in the sky the whole time. Not very sporting of him is it?

Another fun mission type is the one where you just have to defeat 30 enemies. Simple and to the point. Another tricky type is one where you can’t let enemies pass you to the goal line. For the most part this was easy, but towards the end it got a little dicey. The minions are just so fast and it’s hard to stop them all. The most annoying missions are the ones that play out like a platformer. You have to find scrolls, minions, or just the goal line. You can actually get lost with how many rooms are available and the levels are just a little too long for my liking.

The gameplay is smooth though and it should remind you of the original Naruto Ninja Council games. It’s essentially the same concept so it’s cool to see them making a comeback into the modern day. Just keep on attacking and the bosses will certainly fall before you. As for the graphics, I’ve heard that they were great from one reviewer, although I’m not sure if he was serious or not. Regardless, they’re all right, but all of the characters are drawn really small with disproportionate bodies so it’s a little hard to say for sure. Everything is fairly bright and clear so I suppose that I’ll give the game kudos for that. Aside from the PSP, there still aren’t any extremely powerful portable consoles yet so you have to weigh in your expectations accordingly. I will say that the graphics are pretty good when you really think about it. They hold their own and then some.

As for the soundtrack, it’s typically just the same themes over and over again. There is not a whole lot of variety , but there is one or two really good themes that managed to sneak in there. When those scenes arrive, just be sure to savor them and to remember the good ole times of Naruto as you defeat whichever boss is before you.

As far as replay value goes, the game has a little. By the time you will have beaten the game, there shouldn’t be a whole lot of missions left, but enough to last you 2-3 hours. After that, you’ll probably be at level 100 with both characters so then the game will be over. Considering the size of the game though, I’d say that it’s not lacking in content. There’s enough here to certainly warrant your purchase.

Overall, Naruto Powerful Shippuden is very good from a video game perspective. The gameplay is solid, the graphics are good, and the soundtrack can also be pretty epic at times. Unfortunately, story mode really drags it down. The game has a constant stream of bad jokes that would only make the cast of Pixels smile and it really drags on. You’ll enjoy the game more if you just skip all of the cutscenes and jump right into the gameplay. I definitely have to deduct a pair of stars for the story. That means that this is probably the most positive Rock Lee product that I’ve reviewed since the show will probably get a 1-2 at best and the manga was a big 0. So, the gameplay is good enough to recommend this title, but I’ll recommend picking up Naruto Clash of Ninja 2 instead.

Overall 5/10

All Star Karate Review

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It’s been a while since I stopped by the 5 dollar bin at Gamestop right? Yeah, I had that thought as well so I quickly snagged All Star Karate on my next trip over there! It’s definitely worth the 400 or so pennies that I had to launch in order to secure this title. It’s a pretty long game and there are tons of unlockables and other bonus content to really make this a heartwarming experience. Was All Star Karate the best game that I’ve ever played? In a sense…it was the best Karate game that I’ve ever played!

The plot centers around a teenager who loves to watch movies and eat ice cream. I forgot his name since he’s just that forgettable, but the important thing is that this guy never gives up when he’s in a pinch! One day, he comes across an old man who teaches him how to fight. The hero’s relationship with his friends starts to get pretty strained as a result of this and what about the ninjas from his dreams? The main character is definitely going to have a lot to deal with as he tries to become a black belt!

It’s easy to be proud of this game considering how much content is involved. As I mentioned earlier, this game is pretty massive! There must be at least 50-70 levels in this game, but I’ll know the real amount once I plug it into my stats and records post. There are also bonus levels that are around apart from the mandatory ones and we even get challenge mode versions of several stages. You unlock things based on your rank at the end of the level and it gives you a real incentive to keep on playing. (If you really like the game) Of course, the gameplay needs to be good if you’re going to be playing all of those levels so let’s see how it did.

This is a Wii game so you can expect that you’ll need to move your arms a lot. This is really where the game crashes and burns. Due to the nature of the game, it may not have been too much better on another console, but it would have been a lot easier on the arms. This is the kind of game that you have to play in batches since it really does end up hurting your arm a lot. I don’t remember playing a game that painful since Barrel Blast for the Wii!

Back to the actual gameplay. It’s sort of like dance dance revolution for most of the game. You have to match the symbols on the screen. One may signal you to punch out with your right arm and the other one will motion to your left. There are around 21 moves that you can pull off and you just have to keep on doing them. This accurately describes most of the minigames since they are just variations of each other. Tying up the belt, Mimicking, Follow the Sensei, and Learning the Kata are examples of this kind of minigame. From the 50-70+ levels, I’d say that they make up at least 60 of them. If you don’t like the sound of this gameplay, you’re definitely going to find the game very repetitive.

Luckily, there is one mode that is a whole lot more fun than those other ones. This is the sparring mode where you actually get to fight your opponents! You have to use the moves from the other modes, but you can do them at your own pace so it feels like a fighting game. The moves can be a little limited, but I’ll take what I can get at this point! This certainly helped the game and it was my favorite part! (There’s also a 3D mini game where you fight ninjas, but it barely appears and the whole FPA (First Person Attack) mode didn’t do any wonders for the game.

I do give the game props for trying to develop the characters a lot. (Even if it didn’t really make them very likable) The sensei is one of the main characters and his character development was rather odd. His sob story implies that he destroyed his mentor…although it was an accident. After that, he went on to train the main character and he disappears very mysteriously at different points in the game. The origin story just came out of left field and if it was trying to make the game more emotional…it failed. The sensei talks tough and I can tell what personality the writers were going for…but it just doesn’t work. He’s a little too mean to the main character and his big plot twists don’t really help either.

Karl is the main rival of the game, but he’s easily one of the weakest rivals a guy could have. He loses every single fight against the main character. Keep in mind that the main character fought him when Karl was a black belt and the main character was a white belt….intriguing eh? Despite his constant losses, Karl always comes back to brag and insult the main character. The humiliating part is the fact that the main character always makes sure to point this out. Karl does get the main character to engage in a street fight though and his first big plot twist is pretty epic. I guess I liked Karl in a parodyish way. I did appreciate all of the insults since the main character needed a rival, but he’s too petty and weak to take seriously. If nothing else, at least he makes the main character look good in comparison.

As for the main character….he can be a little annoying. He decides to learn karate, which is noble…but then he basically betrays his friends. He falls asleep whenever they go to watch a movie and he just acts distant in general. The friends start to get mad at the main character and vice versa so this is one of the big side plots the entire time. Every game needs a little drama I suppose, but I was actually more on the friends’ side than the main character’s. It did depend on the situation though since I was on the lead’s side when they forgot about his big tournament and didn’t stick up for him when Karl was around. The main character talks tough and he learns what it means to be a karate master. He has a solid scene where he lunges at Karl and his trash talking is good as well. Unfortunately, he does tend to get scared a lot and the danger room scenes can be a bit much. I guess you could say that he’s slightly under the average video game lead.

I do give Story Mode credit for the cutscenes as well as the length. The cutscenes aren’t really cutscenes since they’re just illustrations and text bubbles with some mild movement, but they do have voices for the lines, which helps it all feel a little more real. The length is a given as well so it’s safe to say that I was impressed with the overall format of the mode. Having a story mode in itself can be dicey for a 4 dollar game.

The graphics are naturally sub par to say the least. Everything looks pretty choppy and there is a bit of lag in between certain moves, which can look rather odd. The controls don’t always work that well either since this is the Wii Remote system. The soundtrack is decent and it reminds me of the Balls of Fury game. I’d say that this one isn’t quite as good though so both of these areas don’t help the game all that much.

One factor that helps the replay value a little is the fact that we are given a multiplayer option. Since the sparring mode is an option, that could actually be a lot of fun. This was before the online days so it’ll have to be local, but I imagine that the servers would have been down by now anyway. Including the extra levels and unlockables, this game definitely has no shortage of replay value!

Overall, All Star Karate is about as good as I thought it would be. The gameplay wasn’t great and it can get repetitive, but you don’t really mind all that much while playing. It does depend on the level as well since some will require you to do over 80 gestures while others can be beaten in a minute or two. The game is a little painful thanks to the Wii Remotes though (literally) and nothing about the game really screams “Excellent” or even “Very Good!” There is a lot of replay value in the game, but there really isn’t a lot of incentive to do everything in this game. It’s definitely a bargain for 4-5 dollars and I would definitely recommend it to those who love the Wii Remotes and want a good fighting game. If not, you’d be better off getting Street Fighter IV for around the same price as this one. This couldn’t match up to some of the other 5 dollar games that I’ve gotten, but I was still pleased to see that it was a complete game. (Unlike Casper) If you actually do get this game, make sure to let me know how you liked it!

Overall 5/10

Elebits Review

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Do you remember Elebits for the Wii? Well, it was never the most popular game around, but it was always at Gamestop. I would pass by it just about every week. Finally, the decision was made to purchase the elusive game. After that…it sat around in the backlog for 2 or more years. Now, I finally went back and finished it. Was this game extremely awesome? Well…let’s just say that this was not the case!

The plot revolves around a boy named Kai. He dislikes the Elebits and he just wants his parents to acknowledge his skills. The Elebits are really a way of life at this point and they power just about everything with their electrical abilities. One day, Kai’s parents leave and the Elebits all begin to go crazy as they cause a blackout to affect the entire planet. (or city) Kai quickly grabs his Dad’s legendary Capture Gun and sets out to recapture all of them. Still…what could have made them go berserk!?

Kai is the main character and he’s definitely not the next Mario. He has no good reason to dislike the Elebits. Naturally, he provides us with a reason, but it’s not something that I can sympathize with. He may have been alone a lot, but it’s not really the Elebits fault. If not for them, his parents wouldn’t have their current hobby. Kai gets his much needed character development by the end of the game, but I still couldn’t say that he was a likable character. He has a lot of room for improvement and the sequel could help with that.

The gameplay is really what didn’t click with me. As you may be aware, gameplay is the single most important attribute for a video game. You can have terrible looking character models and background while still being a great fighting game. That being said, you can have amazing graphics and die out from the gameplay. This game’s gameplay may not be the worst that I’ve seen, but it’s just not my style. Remember I Spy?

This game is essentially like that. You have to locate the Elebits scattered across the park and blast them with your capture gun. This is the kind of game that many would say was meant to be for the Wii. The truth is..this game would have been better on the PS3 or Gamecube. We are pretty well aware of how the motion controls can make things difficult right? Well, this game purely relies on pointing and turning so that was definitely a little more difficult than necessary.

The thing is…there’s really not much to the game. You spend 29 levels just shooting at the Elebits with the occasional boss battle thrown in. The bosses were actually pretty fun to fight against so I wish that there had been more of them. The game did show a lot of improvement in the second half as well. Once we finally got to leave the house, it was just more fun to take on the Elebits. The areas became pretty diverse as you fight in the streets and outside the park. I wish that the whole game could have been like that. The first 7+ levels you are stuck inside of the house and the levels really aren’t that interesting.

One of the bigger issues with the gameplay is how long each of the levels are. I’m all for long levels, but you need to have some kind of checkpoint system in place. The levels in this game go up to 25 minutes and you can imagine how annoying it is to replay a 25 minute level. It would be like having to start all the way from scratch in Shattered Dimensions whenever you lost a life. One could argue that it’s a good challenge and you just need to learn how to play. One could try to debate this…but I don’t agree. This is just tedious and it certainly doesn’t help the game. I lost my fair share of levels in this game and I was never thrilled about starting over.

The game does give you a lot of content. You can edit each stage, make whole new stages, and even explore the story levels on your own with no time limit. These options definitely make the game a little more appealing in terms of replay value. If the levels had not had a time limit from the start, I’m sure that I would have enjoyed them a little more.

The graphics for the game are decent. The actual cutscenes look pretty terrible since it’s like you’re reading from a book. It’s just a bunch of pictures/stills that keep on going. I can’t say I was impressed on that front. The narration is also really bad. This must be the worst voice acting that I’ve ever heard for a video game. Trust me…it’s not something that you’ll miss! The actual gameplay is pretty good though. You can clearly see an Elebit even if they are on a completely different stage. Moreover, you can even blast the Elebit, which is pretty good on the gameplay side. Usually, it just won’t work because the game can’t read such a long distance action. This isn’t the next New Super Mario Bros, but it looks good enough to satisfy me.

The soundtrack is less impressive. There are at least 29 different tunes in the game, but they’re all pretty forgettable. They’re supposed to be soothing to help with the gameplay I suppose, but I would have liked some fast electronic music. Maybe even a few guitar strums for that epicness factor. We didn’t really get any of that and I would say that the soundtrack is definitely in the sub par category. The insert song during the credits was pretty good, but that wasn’t enough to save this soundtrack.

This is a game that you likely won’t enjoy at first. You really need to let the game grow on you and by level 15 or so, you may actually enjoy it. I can safely say that I was heavily leaning towards a 4 when I first started the game. After picking the game up a few years later to replay it, I still kept the 4 in heavy consideration. I was only able to get through two levels on my first shot before I had to call it a day. Slowly, I began to play more levels per shot. I took on another 6 after that and then I marathoned most of the levels that were left. It’s still not a game that I really care for, but I can see the appeal of it. Trading levels online and trying to beat the custom ones would probably make things a little more interesting.

Overall, This game really isn’t my type. I’m not a huge fan of the controls and the gameplay isn’t very exciting. The stages are really important in this type of game and the opening levels definitely don’t succeed. I prefer to just rush into an arena and throw everything out of my way to find the Elebits. Unfortunately, this way won’t really allow you to win very often so I had to take a more cautious approach. That’s likely a factor in how the game got to be more enjoyable. Still, it goes against my gaming ways! You should enjoy this if you want a challenge for your observational abilities. Personally, I’d rather play a nice game of Bakugan!

Overall 5/10

Epic Mickey Review

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Epic Mickey certainly got a lot of press when it first came out. He was finally getting a big game and it was going to be very dark. With the Phantom Blot as the main enemy and the graphical abilities of the Wii behind it…how could Epic Mickey lose? Well, this just goes to show that platforming isn’t always as safe as it seems. Mario pulls it off easily enough, but he basically invented the genre.

The plot involves Mickey the mouse as he decides to head to the magician’s lair. After the old man leaves, Mickey quickly rushes to the painting, but he spills a jar of paint and oil on it. He then gets sucked in by the Phantom Blot and some pretty trippy dreams commence on his trip down. Mickey finally lands and he’s in a troubled world. Everyone basically lives in despair after the pain disaster. Can Mickey save the planet from the repercussions of his actions? It will be tough, but Mickey Mouse is the only one who stands a chance against the Phantom Blot. It’s up to him!

The plot is simple enough. It’s mostly a non factor though since the plot briefly appears in the beginning and then it progresses at a snails pace. There are over 70 missions in the game and that’s barely counting side quests. Most of the story missions basically are side quests. Examples include: Finding some ice cream, Finding a burgler, Finding Power Sparks, Finding flowers, etc. More on this later though. Let’s look at our cast of characters.

Mickey Mouse is the main protagonist and he’s always ready for danger. Unfortunately, he’s not a very good character. I can’t really say that I found myself rooting for him. His dilemma was pretty sad, but Mickey was just so bland that you couldn’t really sympathize with him. It helps that he only talks in text bubbles, but they weren’t very good text bubbles. Mickey is typically surprised at what’s happening and he doesn’t mind showing his friends how scared he is of the Phantom Blot. I dunno…this isn’t the Mickey that I remember from Kingdom Hearts. I guess Mickey’s still got to wait a while before he gets that hardcore. Still, scaring an old man for the lolz? Definitely not what I would expect from him.

The Phantom Blot is as intense as ever, but he’s really a mindless monster in this version. I remember him having a little more personality in the comic where he was just a guy dressed as a dark ghost. He does bear a striking resemblence to Venom in the way that he roars and he’s basically a really large symbiote. He may not have any character at the moment, but he’s still a tough creature to deal with. Let it be said that he also has a degree of intelligence since he makes plans and figures out what Mickey is about to do with the fireworks. He makes for a good villain in the game…I just wish that he could have appeared more.

Gus is Mickey’s ally in adventure and his courage is matched only by his ability to state the obvious. He started out as a pretty hardcore character when he was taunting the villains. Unfortunately, he lost most of his gusto after that and he was really just around to give Mickey moral support. He can fly and Gus seems to be pretty smart, but he never really developed into a character of his own. He could have been replaced with Donald or even Goofy and the game’s dialogue could have been a little more interesting. Gus wasn’t bad, but he was basically nonexistent.

Oswald is the mean rival for Mickey. He’s mad that Mickey stole all of his glory and also had a hand in the death of his best friend. Those are decent reasons to be mad at Mickey I suppose, but what’s Oswald going to do about it? He spends most of the game running away from Mickey until he finally decides to help take down the Phantom Blot. After that, Oswald thinks up the plans while Mickey does the hard work. It’s a decently fair deal I suppose. Oswald gets his big moments, but I couldn’t take him seriously. He talks so tough, but he never actually wins the battles that counts. Actually…he doesn’t win any battles.

The graphics for Epic Mickey are passable. They aren’t very good, but they are decent enough where I wouldn’t consider them to be bad. They aren’t at the level of Brawl or Skyward Sword, but they are slightly better than Balls of Fury. No photo shop appearances are to be found here! The fact that Mickey is constantly melting can be a little intriguing, but it’s intentional at least.

Epic Mickey’s soundtrack is definitely one of its weak points. None of the tunes are exciting and you’d think that you were walking through the park instead of fighting some pretty serious threats. Even the big battle with Phantom Blot is pretty generic. The composers could take a few pages out of the classic Mickey games like KH2 and BBS to see some true boss tunes.

All right, it’s time to really talk about the game. The main problem that it had was the pacing for the story. If you thought that Skyward Sword had too many sub quests (I personally found them to be pretty enjoyable) then you’re definitely not going to like the campaign. From the 70+ missions to reach the final level, I’d say that over half of them are basically side quests. You need to find so many things that it’s scary and nobody will help you unless you complete a task.

The formula for Epic Mickey is quite simple. Enter a world and try to get to the next one. The exit is always blocked off and then you have to ask for help from the general populace. They will ask you to do something quick and easy or tedious and easy. After you finish, then it is off to the races! Imagine doing this over and over and over again. Travelling between worlds isn’t exactly a cake walk.

Going between worlds requires going inside of a painting. This transforms the game into a classic 2D sidescroller and you have to complete a brief level. This can make things a little dicey when you have to go back and forth between worlds. It will always be the same level as long as you keep going into the same painting. I don’t know why they even added the painting gimmick for the 2D levels. Allowing Mickey to go from one world to another instantly is what should have happened like a classic Sonic or Mario game. The paintings just drag things out. I actually did like the 2D levels, but they are immensely easy and there really isn’t a point to them in the end.

The game also suffered from a lack of action. The gameplay is essentially Mario Sunshine style. You can jump and move around, but most of the enemies can only be defeated by using your acid or transformed into heroes by the water. This goes into the morality system, but I’ll go into that later on. The enemies do appear quite a lot, but blasting them with the water/acid can get a little old. You must also remember that this is the Wii remote so it’s not very responsive. I mostly just skipped the enemies whenever I could to save some money. There are around 3-4 bosses in the game and…there is no final boss. The last boss fight involves going through a few towers and lighting up the fireworks. Yes…you don’t actually fight the boss in this boss battle.

The actual 3D gameplay should have been a lot of fun, but it really wasn’t. This is partially due to the camera, but also due to the fact that Mickey isn’t very fast. It takes time to get anywhere and the levels aren’t nearly as fun as the Mario ones. They’re pretty enclosed and there isn’t a whole lot of room to run. This is because most levels have a few side quests at the ready so it only takes a while to leave the level because of them. Otherwise, you’d finish a world in a matter of minutes.

The morality system doesn’t really do all that much in the game. You have the option to finish a mission the nice way or the mean way. For example, I fed Captain Hook to the sharks instead of breaking the device that was mind controlling him. The game makes the choices a little intriguing in that the good choices are always much harder to accomplish than the mean ones. Unfortunately, nothing really becomes of this. My acid meter leveled up instead of my water one, but that’s really the only change that happens. The story goes on as it would have regardless of your choices and the townsfolk will just be a little meaner to you. No significant changes arise due to your decisions.

Not a huge negative on the game’s part because I suspect that it is mostly just my TV, but it can be really hard to see some of the levels. They are extremely dark and my TV just can’t handle it. It works very well if it’s a light cutscene game like Final Fantasy XIII or Street Fighter X Tekken. Other games tend to be a little dicey. Oddly enough, this is probably the first Wii game that it has happened too unless it had some troubles with Lost in Shadow. Typically, it is just PS2 or Gamecube games.

One thing that Epic Mickey succeeded in was making sure that the game was long. It definitely took a while and it’s much longer than its rivals in Mario and Ratchet and Clank. It’s no Kingdom Hearts, but for a platformer Epic Mickey’s duration is impressive. Unfortunately, I would argue that this wasn’t very good for the game. It definitely dragged on during many parts and cutting out a few hours may have helped.

The story for the game could have been a lot better if another big element had been changed. I’m talking about the cutscenes. All of the big cutscenes are animated, but they are silent and you have to read the text at the bottom of the screen. This just didn’t work out so well. I’m sure that they were trying to make it retro and to feel like the old cartoons, but it didn’t work. At least go in a Legend of Zelda direction and have everyone but Link being able to talk. What made it worse was the animation for the cutscenes. It was purposely done in a way that made them look pretty terrible. It was just unappealing to the eyes and one could picture the N64 doing a better job of it.

We’re getting to the end of this review, but another thing that can be sad is the fact that there is no replay value. None. The game starts you back at the first level and you can try to make better decisions and complete more quests. I’ve always preferred for a level select to be included and most platformers allow you to just have fun in free play once you have beaten the game. Being taken back to the first level is something that just isn’t done very often anymore and it’s always a little sad to see.

Well, if you do bother to beat the game again, there are collectibles to obtain. Pins are awarded to Mickey through various quests and they can also be found in hidden areas by melting a certain patch of the wall or maybe underground. You can try to get all of them, but you have to be very careful since the game auto saves, which makes it very hard to go back for something. More often than not, you would just need to start over again with a new game.

Ultimately, the biggest problem that Epic Mickey faced was the fact that it wasn’t very fun. There were times were I felt a little drowzy. The gameplay is constantly broken apart by the endless cutscenes, which stops you from really getting into it. The 2D levels are too easy since it’s basically impossible not to defeat them in a few minutes and the game just stalled for time too much. The last part of the game just keeps on going and going way past the point where they should have called it a day. If only I could have at least gotten a final boss fight to end things with a bang. If only….

Overall, Epic Mickey had a lot of potential, but I can’t say that it fulfilled it. This is one of those times where I can safely say that the console had a part in keeping it down. Getting rid of the motion controls and allowing for better animation on another console could have easily pushed it up a point. As it is, the game just isn’t as fun as it could be and it really dragged on. All of the negatives for the game keep it from really entering the positive territory and the story didn’t help matters. Technically, the game had a lot of good ideas in terms of the 3D meets 2D gameplay part and the overall story, but it just wasn’t able to execute these ideas. I’m confident that the sequel will be better, but Epic Mickey is not going to be the next Kingdom Hearts of Mario Galaxy. If the sequel can refine the gameplay and work on the other issues, then it has a real chance. (I have hear that the sequel works on the “game dragging on” issue so that’s good) I can’t really say that I recommend the game, but if you really like platformers and don’t need a story to go along with it, then you may enjoy it. Just be warned that the game is loaded with mandatory side quests.

Overall 5/10

Prince of Persia The Fallen King Review

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The Prince of Persia franchise is a pretty good one. I enjoyed the film that came out and both games for the PS3 were very well done. I enjoyed the GBA installment as well and the only one that left much to be desired was the “Battles” spinoff for the DS. This is another Nintendo DS spinoff so there was definitely a reason to be a little worried. I’ve actually been working on this game for years and I finally got around to beating it. It’s definitely a decent game, but nothing more than that.

The plot is pretty convoluted and while it is a sequel to the PS3 game, it’s back to just being the Prince. (Evidently the epilogue explains why this is why, but I wasn’t about to spend money to buy the DLC) The Prince is basically looking for the King so that he can help out to stop the dark forces that he unleashed in the last game. He finds a mysterious being by the name of Zal, who is also dealing with some issues at the moment. Pieces of the puzzle have been stolen and villains are running rampant with all of their newfound power. The Prince agrees to help out Zal since he’s such a nice guy. Can they find out who the mastermind is and stop him before it’s too late? (The plot is a little vague because my recollection of it isn’t too good. Good ole Wikipedia definitely helped for the early parts.)

The gameplay for the game is essentially the traditional 2D Prince of Persia style from the good ole days. What’s the problem? Well, you should always be able to jump in a 2D side scroller. Always! Unfortunately, you can’t do this. The stylus is used to control everything and it’s very sensitive. A single misstep will cause you to lose and be forced to go through a long part again. I’m guessing that’s why the developers decided to give the player infinite lives. The only way to jump is if you are leaving a platform and tap the air or the next platform. This will cause the prince to do a little jump, which may destroy you when he jumps unexpectedly. Your partner (Zal) is around to fire energy blasts that can’t hurt your opponents or to disarm them. He grabs onto the purple energy, which is used to finish off puzzles. He can do all sorts of things that are just variations of each other throughout the game.

The actual combat is pretty rough. You have to tap the enemy and hope that the Prince won’t roll and leave you open for attack. The enemies are generally pretty easy since you just need to attack, block, attack, over and over again. It’s a winning cycle, but a tedious one at times. You really don’t feel like you’re fighting at all since you’re just tapping the same part of the screen a lot of times. Thanks to the infinite lives, nothing will really be a challenge for long. The final boss took some time because I couldn’t figure out what the game wanted to do, but I eventually solved it. (Hint…some giant swords can be stuck for a while.)

The Prince is all right, but definitely nothing special. He talks a good game and saving the world is a cool goal to chase after. He just doesn’t do anything noteworthy and The Prince is really along for the ride. I’m sure that he can fight, but there isn’t anyone for him to fight. Most of the game is just banter between him and Zal, but it’s not very good banter. The writers could learn a thing or two from the Sly Cooper writers.

Zal is really the only character in the game aside from the Prince, or at least the only notable one. I did not like him because it felt as if he was constantly making things harder for the Prince. They just need to hash out their differences and team up long enough to go and save the world. Zal may have some noble sentiments in there, but it’s hard to root for him. It doesn’t help that the plot is so vague and the story isn’t that well told. He’s just a really unmemorable guy who happened to be around for most of the game.

Graphically, the game isn’t very impressive, but the cutscenes aren’t bad. The “cutscenes” are stills where we get to see the plot advance. The artwork may not be top tier, but you do know what is happening and how to get there. While in gameplay, you’ll really just see a pixelated figure running around. The Megaman Battle Network games would put this one to shame. The Prince’s super form is awesome, but you can only see this thanks to the illustrations. In gameplay, it’s just not that effective. I don’t think a whole lot of effort was put into it.

There isn’t really a soundtrack. Sure, there is music in the game, but it’s just generic desert music. Nothing special and you won’t be remembering it after a while. This is unfortunate, but just how it has to be. I don’t believe that the music even changed all that much for the boss battles, but maybe it was a little different. Either way, I typically don’t expect much out of the DS games in terms of music, but this won’t win the game any stars. (Now, the GBA had some incredible tunes!)

Uh oh, this is not sounding like a positive game is it? It definitely fails as far as sequels go and it’s really just filler. I think the game was quickly made for a few bucks and you can tell that the quality control just wasn’t there. That being said, the game was pretty long so you definitely got what you paid for. (I got it for 5-10 dollars, which wasn’t bad) I forgot how many levels there were, but around the same as a typical Mario game. Unlike Mario, you cannot go back to play previous levels and you are permanently stuck to the world that you are up to. This means that I can only play the final three levels if I wanted to relive the good ole days. Trust me, I have better games to play so I wasn’t planning on it, but it’s disappointing that the option isn’t even there.

Overall, this is easily one of the worst Prince of Persia games. I’m tempted to say that it is the worst, but I’ll have to go and play the other one a little more first to be sure of this. The story is pretty dull and the characters aren’t very interesting, but the gameplay length is good. The actual gameplay could be much better, but it could also be a lot worse. I would say that the game isn’t very good and it gets repetitive very quickly. Still, the game is decent and I would never say that it was a downright bad game. I do wish that the stylus didn’t have to be used because the controls are definitely prone to cause unnecessary deaths because any movement will have the Prince running or jumping to his doom. I can’t say that I recommend this game and buy the New Super Mario Bros game if you want a true 2D side scroller.

Overall 5/10

The Chronicles of Narnia Prince Caspian Review

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Narnia is immensely popular and I finally got around to reading the book series a while back. Prince Caspian was a decent book and the film adaption was intense since it had more action than the other titles. That being said, I doubt many people had high hopes for the game. It’s a movie tie in and the production values didn’t look very good. The Narnia game for Gamecube wasn’t that good and when a Gamecube game isn’t very good…you’re usually doomed. This game was about what I expected and maybe slightly better…maybe.

All right, the plot is pretty tricky through the game, but I’m sure that you’ll get it as you watch the cutscenes. Prince Caspian is told to flee his castle because the villains want to destroy him so that he won’t be the heir to the throne. Caspian escapes, but things aren’t looking good for Narnia. Before he is quickly knocked out, Caspian uses the legendary Horn to summon the 4 Kings of Old. Peter, Susan, Lucy, and Edmund. They may just be 4 kids, but they are ready to defend the kingdom. The time to rise is now!

A solid plot on paper, but the video game doesn’t really do it justice. For one thing, let’s talk about the graphics. They’re laughably bad and possibly the worst that I’ve seen on the PS3. Some of the cutscenes are actually scenes taken from the movie…and the movie was live action. So, you’ll have a live action segment and then back to the animated features. The Narnia game for GC did this as well, so I was not greatly surprised. That being said, I don’t consider this to be a good method. It’s essentially the easy way out, since they don’t have to worry about the animation. The actual animation just doesn’t feel like a PS3 game and you’ll feel like it’s a really old Playstation 1 game.

The soundtrack is incredibly generic and it feels like they probably just ripped it from the film as well or just opted for public domain music. It just doesn’t seem like they put any effort into any part of the game. The camera can be difficult since you can’t really move it, which limits your field of vision. You can walk all the way around an object to fix the camera or just shoot blindly. The latter saves time and usually works, so I recommend that method.

Usually I would have started talking about the characters by now, but there’s really nothing to say. Their only character is from the live action segments or the few cutscenes where they actually talk. None of the characters are likable and it’s just hard to root for them. They really don’t seem to know what they’re doing and are way over their heads. 4 kids can’t take down an army and the villains are just too numerous. Caspian’s accent is a little thick and he seems to have a very weak will and nearly jeopardized everything because he forgot how to move! The kids don’t believe Lucy even though you would have thought that they’d have wised up by now. Lucy’s response is to ditch them and find Aslan on her own.

I should also mention that the game only contains 6 levels. Not quite as long as you might have expected eh? 10 levels is really the minimum amount of levels that you can really afford to have in a game. That is still short, but at least you’ve cracked double digits. Having just 6 levels can be a little insulting. If I had bought this game at its original price, I would have felt cheated. I got it for 10 dollars, but that’s still pretty short. There are bonus levels and things to unlock, but why bother? I like to complete things myself, but there’s just not much incentive to finish everything in this game. I would do it if there was nothing better to do, but there will always be something better.

The gameplay is just as underwhelming as the rest of the game. If the gameplay had been more fun, I can guarantee that the score would have been higher. How do you mess up a generic hack and slash gameplay? Well, this game pulls out all of the stops in that regard. We’ve got infinite lives to take away all of the danger. There are a lot of puzzles that are easy to solve, but very time consuming. Finally, we’ve got a decently large amount of glitches. There’s nothing worse than having to start a boss fight all over again because the enemies forgot to appear and start the cutscene. (Similar thing happened to me in Star Trek the other day)

For combat, you really only have two buttons with the sword. Just keep hitting the square button and you’ll beat everyone. Arrows are also good to use and you can beat just about everyone very easily. There aren’t any real bosses until the final pair of levels, but they’re easy enough. Slash and dodge, rinse and repeat. There are a lot of enemies, so it can feel like a beat em up at times. That would be fun if it weren’t so easy. Plus, the fight scenes are pretty scarce and we don’t have almost any for the first half of the game.

Not being in combat can get pretty dull at times. The characters don’t run very quickly and there are a lot of things to do. Usually you’ll be putting wheels together or turning spindles. You just operate the devices and move on. You keep on doing that dozens and dozens of times until you’re finally set. Sound tedious? Trust me, it gets very tedious. The loading times for the game can also be pretty long so don’t look for that to save you!

As mentioned earlier, there are only 6 levels. One thing that I should mention is that the levels are longer than the average one. I don’t want you to think that I’m trying to masque that fact. Each level can take you around an hour or more, so this can still be considered as a 6+ hour game. That being said, I would rather 10 short levels than 6 extremely long ones. The game auto saves for you, but you’re never even sure when you’ve beaten a level unless you exit and check. The way that they made the game just wasn’t that good.

For “Replay Value” there are chests that are scattered through the levels. They aren’t really hidden and you may actually find them all as you are going to the end. You open them with keys that you find and they unlock things. That being said, I ended the game while holding 91 keys because I just didn’t care enough to go and open a lot of them. Going to open one would take precious seconds and those seconds add up. The game just feels long while you are playing it and perhaps I would go back and open the chests at a later time. If I ever replay the game, that it what I would do. If the chests part intrigues you, that can make the game more enjoyable.

Overall, what more can I say about the game? It’s not a bad game per say, but they did a bad job of handling it. Technically, it should have been a good game. The battle style has potential and the plot could be interesting. They just didn’t put any effort into making the characters likable and there’s really no excuse for such animation. The soundtrack isn’t exactly a good one and the game is far too short. I don’t really recommend this game since there are literally hundreds of games that are better, but get it if you are a big Narnia fan. You will need to be, if you want to enjoy the game. I think that the developers also stopped caring the ending is extremely abrupt. One second, the heroes are chasing after a villain. The next second, they’re being thanked and then the game ends. It just hits you in an instant and the game is over. Personally, I’m just going to go ahead and play a Terminator game and just forget this one for a while. It will go into the vault of many games…destined to be forgotten! For a true war game, I recommend checking out Dynasty Warriors Gundam!

Overall 5/10