I now own the whole series, which means that a review will be coming soon. (Relatively anyway) I enjoyed it a lot the first time and Strauss is still one of the better main characters so expect a fun review.
I now own the whole series! You can be sure that a review will be coming up once I’ve finished it all. Still the best Superhero cartoon of all time!
It’s back to The Amazing Spider Man! Once Dan Slott brought Peter Parker back, he seemed determined to make the main character as unlikable as possible. The comics went through some dark times, but these issues aren’t related to Slott. I believe it’s because they are .1 issues, but at the same times, the plot feels relevant enough where these issues could be main ones. Regardless of where this takes place, Spider Man is back to being a good character with an engaging plot like the good ole days. It’s a pretty good Spider Man story. While I won’t let me enthusiasm get the better of me and say that this is worthy of a 9 or that it’s one of the best Spider Man comics ever, it’s a good improvement and hopefully this sets the bar for future Spider Man stories.
There is a gang war going on with the various villains trying to grab some power. Wilson Fisk, Tombstone, and a gallery of other big gang members want to seize control and that’s being really bad for Yuriko. She is a cop who is in charge of the district where all of the action is and while she may be good, she’s not ready to tackle supervillains. She decides that it’s time for Wraith to take command again (Her alter ego) and she slowly starts to cross the line between being a hero and a villain. Spider Man tries to warn her many times, but then he must make a choice. Does he continue to try and persuade her to join the light again or should he take her down before innocents are hurt? These questions are pondered as all of the villains make their move.
As mentioned earlier, this comic was fun to read the writing was actually well done this time around. Spider Man felt like the experienced veteran that he should be portrayed as. He was able to easily dispatch foes like Bullseye and Hobgoblin with no real effort. Spider Man is powerful despite only having the “proportionate strength of a spider” and his spider sense is an invaluable ability that can get him out of just about any jam. Spider Man also has to make a hard choice with Wraith and I’d say that he made the right one. He gave her a chance, but at the end of the day, Spider Man can’t let the fight against crime get personal. If she’s crossing the line, then it’s time to go and take the win.
It was interesting to see some of the gang members also show some loyalty for once. When Black Cat tried to move into the territory, the minions were not buying it. They still work for Tombstone even if he’s in jail. It’s commendable for what it’s worth. I can’t say that Tombstone and Hobgoblin should really invite that much respect considering that they’re always getting busted, but they can fight, which is always a game changer. In fact, Tombstone gets his his own fight in this comic, which is actually pretty impressive. It’s not very surprising to longtime comic readers who remember the days when he would actually fight, but still good to see. Some villains stop fighting and get rusty like Green Goblin.
Black Cat’s sideplot seems like it’s going nowhere fast as she still blames Peter for what Ock was doing for so long. I suppose that it can be tough to accept that someone else was controlling Spider Man’s body for so long, but in a world where aliens visit every other Tuesday, that should not be a huge issue. These things happen and not being friends anymore is one thing, but she turned back into a complete villain. I do like the new costume though and the ASM series has been pretty good with giving old characters new designs that are an improvement over the originals, but I hope that Black Cat makes a move and soon to avoid the usual formula.
Mr. Negative gets a fairly large role in this comic collection as he helps to steer Wraith down the wrong path. He presents Wraith with the alluring offer of some evidence to take down other villains so that he can gain some territory. It’s an intriguing proposition since Wraith can take down some villains, but then he can make a move. Personally, it sounds like a good bet, provided that Wraith keeps some perspective on this. If you got some evidence that could take down a few big mobsters, wouldn’t you accept it even if it was from someone who was not exactly a law abiding citizen? I personally don’t have a problem with this.
Naturally, the issue isn’t black and white. The evidence helped Wraith put a corrupt judge behind bars, but the judge’s family was also in a bind, which is why he made the move. The evidence was also only partially accurate. So, Wraith can take the judge down, but some innocents will be lost or she can let him go free and then more innocents may be convicted or the flip side of villains getting away scott free with more blackmail. These are some pretty heavy choices and Wraith has made this very personal because one of her comrades was destroyed in the line of fire during one of the earlier gunfights.
Of course, Wraith goes too far when she takes a life and acts like a vigilante through and through, but up until that point, she hadn’t really crossed the line. A little breaking and entering, intimidation, deceit, but these are things that you could picture Batman or even Captain America doing when necessary. I think Spider Man may have blown some of these acts out of proportion, but a small spark can lead to a fire and in the end we see that Spider Man was right to be worried.
Of course, you can sympathize with why Wraith is frustrated with the system. Villains break out of jail constantly and consistently get around to hurting more people. Batman is used to his villains getting out of jail within a day and the same could be said for Marvel’s prisons. The system is very corrupt in the comics with a lot of cops being on the villain’s payroll. Lawyers are so good that felons get to leave jail on technicalities a lot and justice is rarely served as more and more people are added to the body count. Still, Spider Man is right when he says that this essentially doesn’t matter.
Saying it like that looks bad so I’ll clarify here. Of course it matters and that’s why you have the people without powers trying to fix the system or at least improve it. At the same time, the heroes can’t take justice into their own hands or they will become villains and be a problem for the others. They can just keep on taking out the villains as quickly and efficiently as possible to save as many people as possible. They can help the cops, but they can’t actually become the executioners. Spider Man’s certainly been tempted to go too far, but he keeps himself in check and that’s where his famous responsibility comes from. That’s why being a superhero isn’t for everyone. Some just can’t handle it and turn into the next Punisher.
One area where The Amazing Spider Man is typically not lacking is in the art. It’s nice and streamlined for the duration of the issues and the fight scenes are pretty good. Good art makes a good comic even better so I was able to blast through this collection while standing in line for the new Star Wars film. It’s a good way to get yourself hyped for the feature film. With the writing also being solid, this made the comic a complete experience.
Overall, This is probably the best Amazing Spider Man volume that I’ve read in the modern era. If we’re counting special events like Ends of the Earth, then that changes, but this was definitely a good comic. Wraith also makes for a compelling vigilante/villain who tries to do the right thing, but is a little too extreme about it. I’m almost positive that her character will return at some point, but it’s definitely hard to say when this could be. If you’re looking for an emotional collection that discusses morality and letting the system do its job, this is the comic for you. You can finally see Spider Man as he was meant to be portrayed. Eventually I’ll probably check out another volume in this series with the main issues so hopefully it can be this solid.
Overall 8/10
It’s been a while since I read a book that wasn’t an anime based (Well, novels came first, but I watched the anime before reading the novels) or was about comic book characters. I should probably get back to regular novels soon, but that’s in the distant future since it would just be too overwhelming at the moment. Not to fear though, these DC books have the action that you’re looking for and working with an established franchise has its perks. The book is very short and you can read it cover to cover in a very short amount of time. As a result, it makes this a fairly short review to write.
Some citizens have been concerned about a mysterious bat monster that has kidnapped many people and seems to get a new victim each night. Batman hears about this and looks into the matter, only to find out that it’s his old enemy, Man Bat. Man Bat is a very tricky foe so Batman can’t afford to pull his punches and he’ll have to outsmart him. Unfortunately, someone was also poisoned during this crisis so Batman has to enlist Poison Ivy’s help in order to cure him. Poison Ivy has never been a big fan of humanity so Batman knows that it is a risk to ask for her help, but he’s Batman so he can take care of himself.
It’s a quick story and it’s always interesting to read a book as opposed to a comic since extra details are given. Books have to spend time describing the scenery and telling us what the characters are doing since we can’t see it for ourselves. That being said, the book does have about a dozen or so pages to illustrate some of the events that are happening, but the point remains. It’s a fun thing about books while not necessarily being much of a positive or a negative. It’s there and it has to be there, but it’s an aspect that does take up a lot of time and makes the actual adventure feel a lot shorter.
Poison Ivy gets a solid role here as she helps out in a critical moment and shows that some villains can still do good deeds once in a while. I’d actually argue that she would have been out of character if Ivy had not helped out in the end since this does help to further her own goals. It would have been counter productive not to have helped. Unfortunately, Man Bat is not a very interesting villain so I would have preferred for the big antagonist to have been someone else. There’s just nothing interesting about Man Bat. He’s a guy who can turn into a bat…that’s about as unoriginal as you can get where villains are concerned. I just don’t fullllly understand the reasoning behind making the character so important in the Batman franchise, but that’s neither here nor there.
The writing in the book is good and the font is in a nice size which makes for easy reading. It’s been a while since I read the other Batman and Superman books, but this one can reasonably hold its own against them. It lacks the same amount of action that some of the others had, but it’s interesting enough compared to the average book that I can give it a solid seven. There are no real negatives to be had here and the book even deals with helping the environment, which is always a nice plus. As everyone in New York can testify, the weather has been very wonky as of late and climate change seems to be speeding up. Wayne Industries is helping out and others can now join in so that the DC universe is protected from this. I wonder if Stark Industries can say the same.
Overall, This is a fun Batman book. It would have been neat if we had gotten some more villains and heroes into the story, but then the actual book would have certainly needed to be extended a little. The short length of the book likely limited its options, which is why you have to consider the trade off between size and content. You can easily read this on a rainy day and I can’t speak for the going rate of this book as I read it via the library, but I’m sure that the price is reasonable, although you should check if your local library has it just in case.
Overall 7/10
All right, it’s Star Wars time! This film got a lot of hype as to be expected since this was a sequel that people had been waiting for. It smashed the box office and looks to easily reach the billion mark while still having enough steam to get a few extra hundred million. I’m in the camp that still doesn’t see it challenging Titanic or Avatar, but it will go far. After seeing the film, I can safely confirm that it is a solid movie. It’s not great, but it’s pretty good and that’s good enough for now.
The film’s plot is a little hard to describe in part because it doesn’t have much of a plot at times. This is actually a bit of a negative for me, but that’ll be mentioned later. The Sith may be gone and the Empire is gone, but the First Order has arrived so the resistance is still the resistance and nothing has really changed for them. At this rate, they’ll never be able to cease control of the universe or become the big heroes that they’ve always wanted to be. Times are tough and it’s a losing battle as all of the Jedi have been destroyed with Luke Skywalker being the final one. The villains are looking for him, but nobody knows where he is.
Meanwhile, Rey is a lady who lives on a desert planet and she comes across a robot who has a map, which leads to Luke Skywalker. Finn also landed on the planet after barely escaping from the First Order and he pretends to be a part of the Resistance to impress Rey. The two of them must now make it to the Resistance to give them the coordinates and if they want to live to tell the tale, they’ll need some help from Han Solo. The First Order is serious business so the heroes have to watch their step.
Rey’s a decent main character. She knows how to fight and decides to help BB-8 get to Luke. She’s fairly selfless and does well to survive in such a harsh environment on her own. To an extent she’s fairly generic, but that helps to fuel the similarities between her and Luke. I’d prefer for her to be a little more headstrong, but maybe that trait will come with practice and overconfidence. That would definitely make her a great heroine! She puts up a good fight in the final showdown although I felt like the fight scene was a little bizarre.
As mentioned, she is already an experienced combatant and in particular, she’s good with a weapon. This training seems to leave her in the final fight or maybe it was just a problem with the choreography. For some reason, she constantly throws out thrusts (A stabbing motion with the Lightsaber) which leaves her vulnerable many times, but Kylo is so weak that it doesn’t end up mattering all that much. The fight was still odd though because Rey seemed experienced enough in the intro to have fought a little better than what she displayed there.
Rey is much better than her male counterpart, Finn. For starters, I didn’t like how Finn was constantly out of breath for most of his earlier scenes. I get that he was a little nervous, but cmon now. It’s not the greatest way to make the main character seem cool. He panicked a lot and the possible romance between him and Rey is already off to a terrible start. This is why we have the friend zone, so random romances won’t occur. I give the film props for avoiding this right away though and it’s possible that this will lead nowhere, which would be great.
Still, I just didn’t find Finn to be a cool character. It doesn’t help that he got wrecked in his first big fight scene. It’s good that he realized what it means to be a hero, but realizing that a little sooner and helping the civilians out on the planet in the intro would have been nice. Better yet, he could have decided not to abandon everyone because he was scared. This character has a ways to go to be even slightly likable.
That being said, Finn’s much better than Kylo. Kylo is a terrible villain and I love how Wikipedia hyped him up a lot. They say that he’s already shown to be as strong as Darth Vader and in interviews they were saying that he’s not totally evil and believes himself to be morally justified in his actions. Either a large part of the film never made it past the director’s cut or it was just false hype. He basically defines the term “Generic villain” and the worst part is that he’s an emotional villain. Kylo is just plain sad and the instant that his mask comes off, the character became a joke.
Did you think that the Jupiter Ascending main villain was bad? This guy’s just like that. He gets emotional constantly and is always panicking. He is always on the verge of tears or losing his revolve so he has to talk to a broken mask and an old man to steady himself. Unlike Vader, he allows his underlings to sass him, but since he’s constantly getting humiliated, I suppose that it’s tough to think of a counter. When a guy who’s never even used a lightsaber before it able to hold his own against the main villain, there’s something wrong. Even when Rey is wrecking Kylo, you have to wonder why anybody fears him. His Force abilities are clearly not very good and he forgets to use them when in the heat of battle. He gets overwhelmed a lot and I can’t say that I will be glad to see him in the sequel. This is a villain who is not necessary and I’d probably take any other Sith from the Star Wars series are a better villain. There are probably ones out there who are even worse in terms of character, but I’m sure that they’d at least be tough. The old man isn’t very interesting either so I’m going to be ready for some new villains to spice things up. I want the Sith to return.
So far, they’re definitely not hinting towards any of the old villains showing up, but that’s okay. The video games and comics will likely deal with the what if scenarios more. The old guard doesn’t necessarily need to show up and upstage the new guys, but I definitely wouldn’t mind since they have earned a spot on the hype train. One old character that I was glad got a small role was C3PO and R2-D2. C3PO’s all right and beats the other robots since he can at least talk in English (Talking in gibberish with a character translating is always annoying) but he’s still not the most interesting character out there. I’m waiting for him to grow an arm cannon and start firing, now that would be epic!
The visuals are pretty fun and I’m always up for a nice aerial fight in space. The characters have their blasters ready and the Lightsaber battles are also good. They are noticeably better than the older films although III had the best fights from the series. Once we get more Jedi and Sith, that should probably change as this is more of a prelude than anything else. Having more action scenes would have definitely been good since the film is actually pretty light in that category. More exploration and dialogue than anything else, but building up the universe is important. I’m assuming that the sequel will be upping the stakes. I can’t say that the soundtrack was too memorable, but I’m almost positive that there was an opera styled song in there somewhere. Films rarely have very memorable soundtracks so it’s not a big deal. We had the classic intro theme, which was certainly fun to hear.
For better or worse, this film was really aimed at creating as much nostalgia as possible. Similar to Avengers Assemble (Cartoon) the film tries to reenact as many scenes as possible from the original film. I dare say that most of this film is filled with references to the older ones. We have the classic Darth Vader vs Luke fight scene, dashing across the desert, and dozens of other such moments. This is fine for the most part and it’s nice to remember the old scenes, but it also left little time for character development, fights, and new plots to move forward. Even the climax is extremely similar to a classic occurrence, but it’s not quite as epic as the original, but that can be said for just about every scene. It tries very hard to be Episode IV, but it just doesn’t work.
A complaint that I had with the film is that it actually dragged on a little towards the middle. I’m not going to call the film boring, but there were parts of it were you would just be waiting for something to happen. It’s just not the most fast paced film out there and I feel like the film could have just been a lot more exciting. The characters limited it, but even with that, a few more space fights or some cool dialogue about Siths and Jedi could have helped. In part, I blame this on the fact that Luke is the only Jedi now. I think this was a pretty poor decision to have made because I don’t want the status quo to have reverted all the way back to IV. It just makes it all the easier to add in more homages and remake scenes from the original.
It was nice to see Han Solo again after so long. He did a good job during the fight scenes and showed that he’s still more adept at it than Chewy. Chewy meant well, but for some reason he wasn’t firing his shots all that accurately so he was mostly a liability this time. Ah well, he can still roar and Han is fine with firing the shots himself. Unlike Luke, Han is a character who continues to look good and does his older self justice. Unfortunately, I can tell that Luke’s going to be a very dicey character. He’ll probably snap out of this soon, but let’s just say that his personality had a big change due to a tragic event. As a result, he’s going to be the generic old guy who whispers words of doom constantly. He basically left the universe to fend for itself, which is very irresponsible and is just sad. I was never the biggest fan of Luke, but this is a new low for the Jedi.
As you can see, I certainly had my share of complaints during the film and it was enough for me to know instantly that it was going to only go as high as a 7. A 7’s pretty good, but it does seem low for Star Wars. That being said, it was still a good film and one of the better ones this year. It’s a fun sci-fi film and while you probably couldn’t call it an epic as much as the original, it still has its stakes. Several planets are blown up in the film and the new weapon is pretty intense, I even created a level in Mario Maker based on the concept.
Ranking the Star Wars films from best to worst, Episode IV is still my favorite. That one’s simply classic at this point and did a great job of starting the franchise off on a high note. Next would be Episode III, Episode VII, then Episode VI, Episode V, Episode I, and finally Episode II. The Force Awakens is pretty high in the list so it’ll be cool to see where the sequel stands. It’s too bad that the main villain will likely return, but aside from that I can easily see the sequel being a solid improvement. We’ll likely have more fight scenes and that’s always exciting.
A good thing that Star Wars has, which has stood the test of time is that the film’s tone/atmosphere is good. It’s pleasant and is part of why the film is easy to just watch and enjoy. I’d compare it to the MCU (Iron Man, Avengers) films in that regard. It goes less for comedy although still has some of it within, but it’s not always foggy outside or the heroes are always panicking. It’s not super grimy and since this is the future, I think everything should look pretty modern. It’s why I was thrilled when Rey got off the desert planet since that wasn’t the best locale.
Overall, I enjoyed The Force Awakens. Now Star Wars can be around for the next generation and once the trilogy is over, we can fully compare it to the original two. I’m fairly confident that this trilogy will end up winning as a trio of 7s is actually fairly likely. This film was what Battle of Gods was for DBZ. It tried to bring back the old audience while getting new viewers in. With that over, I expect everything to get more intense in the sequel and I’m ready for some epic Force abilities from both the Light and the Dark side. We’ve also got the spinoffs and prequels coming up so Star Wars is here to stay at last. Hopefully it has long legs in the box office and continues to rack up the cash so we can also get some new video games!
Overall 7/10
I always try to grab a poster or a picture that has the title in some form, but that wasn’t really possible this time. (*Possible = Quick Google Search) The image that I did grab was still pretty neat though. The Lego craze continues and it’s a fad that I much prefer to the stop motion from back in the day so I’m cool with it. Lego films don’t have the highest amount of replay value out there and they tend to reuse jokes after a while, but they’re always fun the first time around and this one was handled well. Lego’s leave little room for hype moments, but that’s not the point of Legos anyway. This ended up being a solid Lego adventure and one of Marvel’s better ones. (Wait a sec, how many Marvel Lego adventures are there anyway?….)
The Avengers were getting ready for a nice party when Iron Man’s suit is hacked by Ultron! Locked into his suit, Tony can only watch as Ultron tries to humiliate the Avengers by messing up their party. The Avengers will have to think quickly if they want to win this round. Ultron’s army of droids are not going to be easy to defeat and the Avengers are forced to call in a little help to deal with the menace. The Avengers roster has been strengthened with the addition of Vision, but the twins are nowhere to be found. Perhaps for the next special although Scarlet Witch may be the only one to join due to Quicksilver’s ending.
I have to say that Captain America definitely stole the show here. He made a lot of good puns about Ant Man throughout the film. The other characters would always grimace and wince, but that just made it all the better when Captain America would continue. He was unfazed by the reactions of his partners and rightfully so. When others doubt your puns, that doesn’t mean that they are bad. I thought that they were quite clever and he was easily the best character in the entire film. He did a good job during the fights as well.
This short is a comedy first and foremost of course even though there are some quick action scenes. The fights are enjoyable and there are a lot of homages to the actual film. This was to be expected of course and it’s always interesting to see how closely the Legos can emulate the style of the original film. Hawkeye’s costume is barely trying to emulate the film style though as it really stands out with all of the red coloring. It’s hard to totally see what the film was going for, but I actually did like the style though.
We even get some guest stars to show that this is in the same continuity as the Ultimate Spider Man show. Spiderman and Iron Spider arrive to turn the tides and let the heroes know what is going on. They’re left behind so the role is definitely a very small one, but it’s always nice to have a cameo from our favorite wall crawling superhero! There’s not a whole lot more to say about the characters. They’re all in character and slightly more comedycized (New word now folks!) like in Teen Titans Go, but not over the top to the point where the characters would not be likable.
I’m definitely ready for a DC vs Marvel Lego adventure at this point. The possibilities would be endless and I could finally have Batman and Superman defeat their Marvel counterparts. I could almost see Iron Man being the one to fight Batman since the MCU has made him really popular, but either way, DC should take the fight. They’ve always been portrayed as the stronger verse in my eyes and seeing them get some credit would be fun. Even if it’s just a comedy adventure, I could see both sides getting some decent Lego fights in there and the format would also mean that Superman wouldn’t need to hold back! If he broke his opponent, it would just be accompanied by a pun after all.
If I have a complaint for this adventure, it’s just the same complaint that I have with basically all Lego films. A lot of the jokes you’ll see a few miles away and they tend to not actually be that funny. I typically won’t laugh at any of the jokes, but I tend to not laugh at most jokes so it’s not saying much. It’s fairly enjoyable, but I’m still not a fan of Lego animation either and it does prevent the specials from having any real fight scenes. Again, it’s more a complaint for the format than anything and watching this is still a nice way to spend 20 minutes.
Overall, The special is pretty fun. It makes for a fun little watch and that’s why there’s not much to say about it. To an extent, it’s like reviewing an episode, which is why I don’t do that. It would be hard to elaborate an awful lot about it and even then, the average episode has more content to be discussed than a Lego film since the Lego adventure is just a quick battle without the extra layers of characters and plot. It works well for what it is and I still say that this is a fairly solid Lego adventure. It inflates the Marvel animation count and that’s what counts in the end. I recommend checking this out and you can watch it while cooking lunch instead of having a conventional timer.
Overall 7/10
The Grinch is a classic tale that many likely grew up with or have at least heard of. I remember singing the songs for Choir and the concept behind the Grinch is decent enough. That being said, I was disappointed upon actually watching the original film. It hasn’t stood the test of time and is easily one of the worst Christmas specials on the block. If the Grinch didn’t have a dog, things would be different, but it’s simply too overdone for the duration of the entire film even if the ending is inspirational.
The Grinch is a creature who lives in a cave, but can never sleep because the aliens who live below are constantly making a ruckus with their loud instruments. They find it enjoyable so it doesn’t matter how loud they play. To punish these creatures, the Grinch decides to destroy their Christmas by stealing all of their presents and Trees, but are gifts really the meaning of Christmas? The Grinch is about to find out that material possessions aren’t enough to cancel such a joyous day.
This special is very short and is only about as long as your average cartoon episode. The Grinch goes around stealing everything until the end of the film where he realizes that it was all meaningless and turns over a new leaf. I have nothing against the actual plot and it wasn’t all that bad. This special was made around 50 years ago and the animation still holds up decently well. The Grinch’s character design is good and I still think that The Mask drew some inspiration from it. That being said, there is one thing that holds the film back.
The Grinch has a dog who is completely terrified of the fiend and is always forced to lead the charge in the Grinch’s wild plans You end up feeling bad for the dog since nothing goes his way and he’s constantly put in danger. If you’ve seen the Angry Birds trailer for the upcoming film, you’ll remember a scene where the main bird kicks another one into the ocean. It’s a very mean spirited way to show off the film and while it’s supposed to be funny, you have to question how you can laugh at such a deed. It just brings down the film and I’ll take crude humor over this nonsense.
The Grinch’s dog completely ruined the film for me. I doubt that the film would have gotten anything more than a 5 or maybe a 6 anyway, but that was not going to happen now. It’s not nearly bad as real animal violence from films like Hunger Games since it is still animated and nothing seriously bad happens to the dog, but the concept behind it is still not good.
Aside from that, the film was decently interesting. I do think that it would have been much better if the film took place on Earth so we could have some human banter from the other characters instead of them all just deciding to sing. We could have gotten a scene like in the Charlie Brown Christmas special where one guy tells the world the true meaning of Christmas and Christ’s birth. I can safely say that such a scene would have helped the film regain some of the ground that it lost thanks to the dog. The aliens aren’t bad, but they just seemed unnecessary and the odd world with its unique inventions were all right as well, but they also didn’t ultimately add anything to the plot. Not a bad thing, but I’d prefer a city like New York to be in the film any day. Since the Grinch is a good guy now, it would be interesting to see how the sequels handle the situation. Maybe he’ll just turn back the leaf and go to his old ways. I wouldn’t put it past the Grinch since he is not someone who should be easily trusted.
Overall, How The Grinch Stole Christmas may be a Christmas classic, but that doesn’t actually mean that it’s a good film. The Grinch is definitely a villain who you can root against, but he’s not a great character and his whole character arc happens very suddenly and not without a whole lot of foreshadowing. It makes you wonder what the point of his endeavor was. The film had a good ending though and at least the moral was sound. I thought that the animation was decent and there wasn’t really a soundtrack, but the film is old so that would have been very tough. I don’t recommend this film and if you want to watch something that’s a little more emotional, then I invite you to watch Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Careful though, it may bring tears to your eyes.
Overall 3/10
Stats time!
There are no real stats here…..There are many more minigames to unlock though so maybe I’ll go back to this title again someday…maybe.
Nothing gets you hyped quite like a new Pac Man game right? That’s what I thought when I first bought this game, but after playing it once, I put it in the backlog with a lot of other games and I figured that I probably wouldn’t see it again for a very long time. Years later, I ended up taking it out once more to play it with my brother and my cousin as a party game always has the potential to be a blast. It’s much better with multiple people, I can tell you that for sure. That being said, this is still a game that needs a lot of work and should have been much better, but terrible decisions on the developer’s part limited the title.
There’s no actual story mode, but that’s all right. I wasn’t expecting one. You can go into the main Party Mode or have fun in Minigame Mode. That’s the only thing to do here so the game is going for quality over quantity. Party Mode has 4 worlds I believe and each world has its own set of minigames inside of it. The actual stage has long loading times though and each turn takes forever. This is one of my big complaints and it’s a little sudden, but let’s dive into this issue right now.
The main drawback that keeps this game from being very good is the fact that playing a single board will take a very long time. After each turn, each character will do a little dance, strike a pose, and then slowly walk up to the final area of where to go. Rinse and Repeat for all 4 characters, play the minigame at the end of the level…and then do it all over again. This is why I was bored out of my mind when I played the game on my own the first time. If you aren’t playing with anyone else, it’s a very boring experience.
I’m not saying that the actual minigames are bad though. I actually enjoyed them and the ideas were quite good. There were kart minigames and even some classic “Press A as fast as you can” ones in there. Minigames about timing and memorization…just a lot of options. There are a very good amount of minigames in the title even if you will inevitably playing them more than once. It’s why I don’t think it was a good idea to limit the minigames to each world. Combining them all into one world would give you more variety. Still, I did enjoy them and the minigames help save this game from being downright bad.
It does bring up another issue though, which is that the minigames aren’t available for free roam mode. In Mario Party, once you play the minigame once, you unlock it. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works in this one. You have to use lottery points that you earn during the stage and that will typically come at the expense of actually winning the level, which is always disappointing. As a result, you’ll have enough coupons to maybe…maybe buy one minigame at the end of the level. So, you need to spend about an hour or 2 per minigame and there are quite a lot to unlock. It’s just not an efficient system and it takes forever to make any actual progress in the game. That’s not even counting the fact that each player’s coupon section is separate instead of merging the coupons from all players. It’s just terrible honestly and as a result, you’ll never want to play Minigame Mode since there are no good minigames to play. Better stick to Party Mode then.
The actual Party Mode is very much like Candyland or Trouble. You move along the course and the goal is to get to the end. You play a minigame and your rank in that battle determines how far you move. 5, 3, 2, or 1 step forward. Once you are near the end, you will need to come in 3rd, 2nd, and then 1st to finally win, which is actually a very good mechanic to even things up. This prevents a player from simply walking up to the goal line thanks to a few lucky rolls of the dice. It is sad to win a bunch of minigames only to find out that it still isn’t enough because you’re landing on bad spaces. It’s just not right!! I highly recommend playing the short version of each board to give yourself a nice estimate of how long the full version would take. Trust me, it does take a considerable amount of time so keep that in perspective.
I like the graphics to an extent, but I have to admit that they seem to be a little bad on a technical level. Everyone is very small, compact, and practically chibi. It’s very intriguing to see and it can be amusing, but the Gamecube can do better. The graphics are very dark and don’t seem to be very inspired. It’s possible that my Gamecube’s lighting is just starting to fade, but games like Sonic Adventure 2 Battle and Mario Sunshine still look great so it may have to do more with the fact that nobody can stop Nintendo’s powerful graphics. These were good times!
As for the soundtrack, that part of the game was pretty decent. There’s a nice Pac Man remix and a few other tunes scattered throughout the game. Unfortunately, the main theme that plays during your walk through the board is very boring and doesn’t make you excited for the games. It’s essentially just elevator music and I expect more from my Namco games. It had such possibilities, but couldn’t live up to the potential.
Unfortunately, there just isn’t a lot of replay value here. The actual games take way too long and you can’t even have fun just playing the minigames on your own because they are just too expensive. Buying them is simply not worth putting the time into the games so the only form of replay value here is to grab a few buddies and have a quick game. As a group, it’s decently fun and that’s the only reason that it barely manages to pass a 5, but if you’re on your own, the game turns into a 4. It’s a shame that the game missed these opportunities since there’s no reason it should have even gotten under a 7. This was no cash in party game in terms of how the minigames went on. They all had heart and it felt like the developers put some effort into them. This was just nullified by the bad system of unlocking minigames.
Overall, Pac Man Fever is no Pac Man. I gained some respect for the game after playing it as a group, but that’s still not a good sign for any video game. You can buy it for a terrific price so that at least helps you to get your money’s worth, but there are better party games to get. Buy one of the older Mario Party titles and experience a true party game. Mario Party was and likely will always be the greatest party game on the block. (Smash Bros doesn’t count!) Everything that Pac Man Fever can do, Mario Party can do better. So despite the positive score, I don’t recommend picking up Pac Man Fever as long as better options exist on the market.
Overall 6/10
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