Getaway Review

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It’s time to look at a thriller film from not too long ago. It seems like the kind of film that wouldn’t have really gotten all that well known but I’m sure people would take a second look at the posters and promotions. It’s got that Need For Speed kind of vibe right from the get go which is always fun. The plot of someone being kidnapped and the hero being forced to do everything the villain is admittedly not the best. I never liked the idea of the hostage situation much in part because there is really no winning in that situation. Once you’ve done everything they want there is no reason for them not to murder the hostage and the hero as well. Typically the climax involves a lot of plot hax to compensate for this as the heroes defy the villain but for some reason they don’t murder the hostage. That’s just how it is sometimes.

The film starts off with Brent driving away from some cops and after an extended race scene they crash and he escapes. We then find out through a bunch of quick cuts and time jumps from past to present that his wife was kidnapped and he is now following a bunch of demands from someone who has bugged the car. If he doesn’t follow the orders then the wife will be destroyed. Meanwhile a kid shows up to try and take Brent hostage but he stops her and now she must also stay in the car or the wife will be destroyed. This means that Brent is effectively forced to square off with two villains and that won’t be an easy thing to do. Ah well, looks like it’s crunch time for him!

Getaway does seem to underestimate the audience a bit though with how many times we see the flashback to show us that the wife was kidnapped. I thought it was pretty obvious early on but we get the flashback 10-15 times for good measure. Once the film actually gets started then the plot is able to move. At this point the movie does get pretty fun. Yeah the demands can be annoying as Brent keeps talking tough but ultimately has to follow the orders because there really isn’t anything else he can do. That bit can be a bit repetitive but for the most part the film’s about the chase scenes so you don’t have to worry about this too much.

Brent is first introduced as a mysterious character. Despite being the one forced to do the villain’s dirty work, he’s got the cool shades and doesn’t really talk much. He’s a total wild card and as the film progresses we learn more about him. He may not be a professional or something like the guy from Taken, but he’s a gruff individual who is a great racer so he adapts to the situation well. He’s a solid lead who is willing to do just about anything to get his wife back, but does draw the line at being told to destroy a kid or doing anything like that. He’s not going to turn into a villain. Part of what makes his character work is that we don’t know a lot about him. He’s portrayed as an average joe who’s stuck in this situation.

Then we’ve got the kid who probably got a name at some point but I can’t remember what it was. She starts out as a pretty tough character who has a gun and seems to be a bit of a hoodlum. This ultimately doesn’t seem to stick, but she is definitely a girl of many talents as she is also a genius. This character is probably the most “convenient” one to show up during the movie because what are the odds right? She really makes the difference in solving this film to a great extent. Well, convenient or not she looks good here and is a fun character. She does complain a lot at first and seems slow on the uptake for the given situation, but to an extent you can see why she is upset. The kid just wants her car back. (More like a teenager really but on Wikipedia they just refer to her as the kid so that’s what I figured I’d go with.

There are really no other big characters in this film aside from the villain. The villain has no character beyond the fact that he is always goading the heroes on and is one step ahead of any plans that they may have. He’s not bad, but I can’t really say that I thought about him all that much as a character. He’s more of a plot device and this does lead to a rather unsatisfying ending. This kind of ending can work out well sometimes in the right context, but here it’s more annoying than anything. I’d be down with a sequel to wrap things up though.

The make or break point here will be how much you like car fights/chase scenes. Do you like them or do you love them? Almost the whole film is a series of long car chase scenes. Some will go on for over 10 minutes at a time and you have to be ready for them. Personally I enjoy car fights a lot. They are better than underwater fights, airplane battles, or pretty much any other fights outside of human interactions. If it’s got to be a vehicle then I’ll take a car. I also thought that the car scenes in this film were particularly good. They were better than the ones we saw in Need For Speed or even the original Fast and the Furious film. In part this is because you could really feel the impacts here. When a car got crushed it got completely totaled. There was no coming back from that.

The scenes with the cop cars following Brent also felt more like the Need For Speed chases than the actual movie’s version did. So personally these scenes are what amplified the film for me. They were just a lot of fun and I didn’t get tired of them. I could totally understand how they could get repetitive though so it really does depend on how much you enjoy the chases. It’s really the whole point of the film and you could argue that the rest of the plot is really just a backdrop for it. The focus was and is clearly on the car scenes. As for the technical elements like the writing, it was okay. I wouldn’t really say it was that impressive, but it could have been worse. The special effects were great and so it all balances out into a pretty good film. There’s a lot of replay value here since the film isn’t all that long and the car scenes hold up to the tests of time.

Overall, Getaway is one of those films that is surprisingly solid. I wasn’t expecting anything amazing earlier, but as of now I would probably have this as my definitive car based film. It’s a simple, but effective movie that hits the right notes and keeps the momentum going strong. If you haven’t seen it yet and love a good car based thriller then you really need to check it out. See what you think on if the hostage situation is resolved through plot hax or not. Personally I would have expected the villain to take out the hostage as soon as the heroes begin to enact their plan, but maybe you’ll see why he didn’t do that.

Overall 7/10

Brave Review

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Video games based on movies always have a certain reputation that comes along with them. People just expect these games to not be very good and this is warranted by the multitude of games that came out in the early 2000s…..or did they? See, a lot of games based on movies did come out in that era, but I’d argue that a lot of them were really good. The Matrix, Spider-Man 1-3, X-Men 3, etc. These games were actually a lot of fun and then you’ve got titles like The Incredibles or Superman Shadow of Apokolips (Based on a show at least) which were also solid. Now there have been some terrible ones like Finding Nemo, but I’d argue it balances out well. Brave is a solid game in its own right and I’d recommend checking it out.

The plot seems to cover what the movie did in abridged form although I have not watched the movie yet so I can’t say that with 100% confidence. Basically the main character’s Mom is turned into a bear so now she must find a way to turn her back. Meanwhile there is an evil bear who is spreading evil throughout the world and corrupting everybody. If he isn’t stopped soon then there will be no going back. The lead has to learn that bravery is something that comes from within and the way to save her Mother may have something to do with this. The only thing left to do now is fight!

The gameplay is fairly standard. You start out at the Ring of Stones which is effectively the hub world although I hesitate to say that because there is nothing to do here. It’s a blank field you can run around in and it leads you to the 9 levels. Each time you clear one level then the gateway to the next one opens up which allows you to challenge it. There’s not really much more than that to do here so maybe lets just call it the hub. Once inside of the level the goal is to get to the end. This is done by running and jumping through the obstacles. You’ll have to beat a lot of the levels as it is part beat em up. When you beat all of the enemies the force field will leave and you can proceed forward. The levels are fairly quick and you can knock out the full game in a few hours. I don’t know exactly how long it took me, but it was between 4-6 hours I’d say.

In combat you have two weapons. The first is the sword which the game seems to think is your main weapon but don’t let that fool you. It’s nice and you can slice enemies up pretty quickly but there’s no reason to use it. The reason for that is you have a bow which fires unlimited arrows machine gun style. While the damage is slightly lower it compensates well with how many arrows you’re shooting. You can also run at full speed while shooting which is rare for any game. As a result there is no downside to constantly shooting as you are running. Not a bad idea right? I went with the arrows for the whole game and it was worth it. I didn’t die at all throughout my whole playthrough (until the final boss) which yeah that isn’t too impressive considering what game it is, but it still felt pretty good.

As you play through the game you will find upgrades for your sword and arrows as well as other costumes and tapestries which increase your base stats. You can also buy other upgrades at each save point which are pretty handy. They aren’t hidden all that far away from the main path so I was actually able to get almost all of them despite focusing on just clearing the game the whole time. It’s really not much of a time sink to quickly turn around and grab them so I’d recommend doing so. Additionally if you aim to get the Platinum trophy you’ll need to do this at some point anyway so what better time than the present right?

The graphics are fairly decent. It does look more like a PS2 game than PS3, but it’s not like the character models are blocky or anything. You’re always still sure of what’s happening next and there are a good amount of cinematics here to give you that movie feel. There isn’t really a soundtrack unfortunately so that does keep this from feeling like a higher budget title. I’d say that the main giveaways to this not being a big AAA game is how there are some re-used cutscenes and how simple the controls are. I don’t think simple controls is inherently a bad thing though. With good level design and a solid gameplay option you can really make this work out. Just look at the old Sonic or Mega Man games. There weren’t a bunch of controls but they were still a lot of fun.

If anything holds this game back it’s the length, but you can buy this game for cheap nowadays so I don’t think you’ll feel too badly about it. There is also the replay value thanks to the trophies which keeps this from being too short as well. Brave is just a fun game and it feels like a nice relic of the past. You don’t really see quick cash-in games like this anymore and it’s a shame. It’s not the kind of game you’d buy for 60, but it’s one that is always fun to stumble upon in Gamestop. It’s easily worth the price nowadays.

Overall, Brave is a very good game. I’m not saying it’s great and it’s not going for game of the year awards, but there’s really nothing bad to say about it. The ability to shoot endless arrows is admittedly very cheesy, but it does help this feel more like an arcade game. You can just dive into the game and take down as many enemies as you can. You can even turn it into a minigame with yourself to see how long you can go without getting hit. Some of the last levels will give you a nice challenge there and as I mentioned I did die a few times during the final boss. That one throws enemy after enemy at you so taking them all down isn’t the easiest thing in the world. It’s good reaction time practice since if you jump at the right time you should be able to dodge any attack.

Overall 7/10

Cricket on The Hearth Review

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It’s time to look at a short Christmas film I saw last year. I haven’t seen too many films with a cricket in the lead, but typically it’s worked pretty well since crickets are just a lot of fun to hang out with. This one is a little weaker than the average Christmas title though because the characters aren’t great and the story is a little on the weak side. Still, it’s entertaining enough and makes for a good viewing even if you don’t need to see it again.

So the film starts off with Bertha and a nice young man being together. It looks like this will be a happy little romantic tale, but then he is called into war when everyone is drafted. Unfortunately he does not return and Bertha’s household is quite poor. Her father Caleb does his best to make ends meet as an inventor and falls into the hands of a selfish business man. The guy uses Caleb for all he’s worth but the man endures in the hopes of at least getting enough money to keep Bertha safe. Still, the situation isn’t getting any better and now this owner wants to marry Bertha. What will they do?

The plot may sound pretty terrible here, but there are a few details I left out. Why would Bertha ever even think about marrying this guy? Well, the trauma of losing her man was too much for her so she ultimately went blind. Then Caleb figured that he should try to let her think that everything is okay so he gave her a very optimistic look at things. He was not an accurate pair of eyes for her and he also made the corrupt business owner sound good which was his biggest mistake if you ask me. So as far as Bertha knows this guy is actually pretty nice and has helped the family a lot over the years. It’s all trust based upon a lie which is unfortunate.

Still, you can probably tell that this isn’t really my kind of plot. Everyone’s a little at fault here. Lets start with Bertha, she really shouldn’t have become blind just from hearing a lot of bad news. No matter how tragic it is it’s just hard to buy into that. I’d also have liked her to have stayed strong and not want to marry anyone. The man’s body was never found so if anything this would still feel like a rebound. Bertha just wasn’t a great heroine for me, she was too passive.

Then you’ve got Caleb who goes way to far in trying to make Bertha think things are okay. I don’t have anything against the sentiment of trying to help her get through this, but there are limits to how far you can stretch the truth before it just becomes a lie. He could have at least told her that the owner was no good. I feel like she should have been able to figure it out, but the lion’s share of the blame still goes to Caleb. He really took them down a dangerous path.

As for the cricket himself, he’s a good guy. At least he is actually trying to sabotage Bertha’s efforts, unfortunately the villain was actually quite smart. He figures out that it is the cricket almost right away which is really scary since most people would not have jumped to that conclusion so quickly. He sicks a bunch of animals after the cricket and then destroys them. Why didn’t he destroy the cricket? I dunno, but this guy was definitely pretty merciless. I was not expecting the gunshots at all, especially not in what was otherwise a light hearted Christmas special. The villain may not be a good guy, but he definitely knows how to execute a strategy as well as silencing underlings. The film handles this animal violence as well as it could with the whole thing being off screen as you just hear the gun and the villain laughing, but it wasn’t exactly needed to show how ruthless the guy was. If anything then the film should have given him human underlings to bump off. Nobody would mind them getting shot away.

The animation isn’t bad. It’s definitely got that retro feel to it and flows pretty well from scene to scene. I don’t think it’ll come across as all that memorable, but works out well in what it sets out to do. Meanwhile we get a few songs. They all basically sound the same, but are also solid. I can definitely work with these and it does give the film a grander feel even if the plot doesn’t really warrant it. I’m always up for seeing some songs in a film.

Overall, Cricket on the Hearth is not a film that will really be making my rounds in future Christmas viewings. There just isn’t a whole lot in this film to make it stand out in the crowd or compete with the bigger titles. The characters aren’t all that likable and the cricket isn’t as helpful as you would expect. He loses just about every fight he is in and never seems to be a match for the villains. He just gets lucky that they always choose not to finish him off. The main guy who vanished at sea has a plot twist that everyone saw coming, but I don’t think that quest aged well either. It’s not a bad movie so if you want to check out a quick Christmas film then by all means go ahead. It just won’t really do anything for you and you’ll quickly head back to something a little more classic like Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer.

Overall 5/10

Alien: Resurrection Review

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This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative.

It’s time to look at the next Alien installment. I think we all already knew what to expect from this one, but even so you can’t help but feel a little disappointed at how bad this one is. Why can’t the Alien series just adapt what should be an easy premise into a great film? This one makes about all the mistakes it can and you’re never left engaged in what’s going on. If you’re going to be a terrible film you should at least be interesting like Resident Evil or something. That one kept you guessing so you would at least have fun during all of the craziness. This one couldn’t manage that.

The film starts off 200 years after the last one. Ripley has been revived so that the scientists could get her alien. They decide to leave her alive though since she has super powers and they’re hoping that she somehow doesn’t use it to wreck their plans. This is all a pretty illegal operation of kidnapping humans to use as expendables in the Xenomorph project so you’d think they would want to silence everyone right away. Well, a group of mercenaries led by Frank show up and we immediately can’t accept these guys as characters to root for. They’re literally trafficking humans across the cosmos to be murdered. You can have a group of bandits as the lead like in the Guardians of the Galaxy so long as they aren’t pure evil. These guys are terrible and since the scientists are established as villains with Ripley being insane….we have to root for the Xenomorphs this time. Lets see if they can crush all the humans!

Resurrection really made a mistake in making everyone an antagonist. I like a good villain vs villain fight as much as the next guy, but it only works in the context that there do exist some heroes who can fight back. If it’s just a bunch of villains running around then there’s nobody to root for. None of them are all that interesting either. The best member of the rebels would be Frank almost by default. At least he tries to act like a real commander and resorts to blackmail really quickly just to let everyone know that he’s still corrupt. Unfortunately his role is incredibly minor here.

Then you’ve got Ron who is probably the worst member of the group. His first scene is him picking on Dom for not being able to walk and from there he tries to make some moves on Ripley. There’s no real point to his character and while they may be trying to have a gruff lead here, it doesn’t work. Then there’s Dom who exploits the fact that he is in a wheelchair here to load a bunch of guns here basically proving the security guards right for thinking twice about letting him in. I do have to quickly say that this was one of the biggest stretches in the movie. What’s the point of having a metal detector if you’re going to let everyone in anyway? It buzzes for someone’s water bottle which of course turns out to be a gun later on. It buzzes for the wheelchair and later on we find out it’s because there was a gun inside. If you’re not going to test the results then the whole thing is pointless. It can’t eve detect when a robot walks through it.

Then we have Annalee who is trying to be the detective here. She intentionally acts a little slow at times to get everyone to leave her alone. That being said, she is intimidated way too easily. The whole scene with Ripley was pretty awful for her and she never really became a likable character. There is Ripley too of course, but she is pretty much dead to the world throughout the film. She lets her emotions get the better of her whenever they do pop up and she rarely uses her powers in a useful way. She’s got super strength and speed, you’d think she would use that to do more than just intimidate the characters around her the whole time. She’s just an annoying lead with no real personality. There is a twist about her which makes sense almost from the jump but the film waits til near the end to actually confirm it.

I think the scene where you realize that Ripley isn’t going to get any better is during the basketball scene. The whole scene is stretched out quite a bit and somehow the film messed up what it’s going for. This is supposed to be a cool scene where Ripley beats up the guy trying to get too fresh with her and shows them why she is the main character. Instead she forgets how to talk again doesn’t really get to do anything beyond sinking the shot before they are interrupted by the scientists. That was not the way to do this.

I can’t think of any solid tunes here so you can forget about watching it for the soundtrack. The film’s incredibly violent as expected so that’s something to consider when watching the film. Everyone dies in various ways and in this case they don’t even seem to have a chance against the Aliens so it’s not as if it’s exciting. It’s just violent to tick off that box. The writing is also very weak. Aside from all of the characters being unlikable there is also quite a bit of language so the film fails on all technical levels.

At this point…what’s left? Resurrection has to go down as one of the weakest creature features out there. Even the Xenomorphs didn’t seem as cool because they were drooling even more than usual. It’s probably because they were in daylight more, but I don’t remember them looking quite so bad. I prefer the sleek Xenomorph look where it’s more of a hard shell. Maybe they were a little nervous here though. One of them did get jumped by a bunch of others after all.

Overall, Alien Resurrection is definitely a mess of a film. It tries to get in some interesting visuals and ideas with the people in stasis, the alien farm, and stuff like that, but it all falls flat. None of that made me think the film was about ot turn things around and a big part of that goes back to the writing being no good. You can’t properly execute any ideas if the writing isn’t on point. There is really no reason to watch this movie. It’s all about a bunch of unlikable characters getting murdered by aliens and the plot is just a backdrop to that.

Overall 1/10

Dusk Diver Stats and Records

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Stats time!

PS4 Trophies 7/38
Money 25,925
Shards 53/153

Chapter Stats

Chapter 2 S Rank
Chapter 3 A Rank
Chapter 3 S Rank
Chapter 4 S Rank
Chapter 5 S Rank
Chapter 6 S Rank
Chapter 7 S Rank
Chapter 8 S Rank
Chapter 9 A Rank
Chapter 10 S Rank
Chapter 11 S Rank
Chapter 12 S Rank

Yumo

HP 4
SP Max
ATK Max
Luck Max
Moves 3
Just Dodge Max
D. Arms 1

Leo

Atk 1
TP 0

Everyone Else

Atk 0
TP 0

Dusk Diver Review

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It’s time to look at a game that I hadn’t heard of before receiving for Christmas. From the aesthetic and cover right away you get that anime vibe which is always good. I tend to get more excited for games like this with a colorful art style and lots of cinematics. Usually these games are on the long side, but surprisingly this one is only around 6 hours or so. I nearly beat the whole thing on New Year’s, but the final hour took one last batch to complete. It’s definitely a great game with a solid post game plan.

The game focuses on the lead character Yuma who suddenly finds herself in a world filled with monsters one day. She is able to transform into a Super Saiyan type fighter and with the help of a cat defeats them. We then learn that there is another world that exists parallel to the human world and there are a few deities who fight them off every day. Somehow Yuma was thrown into this world and now the deities are unable to transform back into their true forms while she is around. Until they figure out a way around this Yuma will need to do the fighting for them. She agrees to do this while she’s on summer vacation, but once she has to go back to school that’ll be it for their agreement. The monster incursions have started happening more frequently and with greater intensity though so Yuma is going to have to bring her A game to this.

Just judging from the general plot and the huge hub world I’m still surprised that the game is so short. It just feels like we could have had a few more chapters thrown in. It’s better for the game to be direct and end early rather than forcing a long length on us though. As I mentioned earlier there is a lot to do after you beat the game anyway. You can train up your partners and work on getting all of the PS4 trophies. This should take you a long time to accomplish so that’s always something to consider. I didn’t even get to visit a fraction of the shops or learn just about any new skills during the game. I just focused on maxing out my attack power and taking it from there.

Lets talk about the gameplay though. This is your classic 3D beat em up. Each chapter starts with a few conversations with the deities and then you go to the other world through a dimensional rift. The only way to enter these rifts is to have some dragon scales with you so be sure to grab them when the Boss tells you that she senses one. Typically she says that once per chapter and to enter a rift that’s usually all you’ll need. There were 2-3 times where I needed to grab 5 or so, but running around the hub world and getting them doesn’t take up much time. It does make me think that this whole gimmick was rather pointless, but I’m thinking the developers really wanted to show off the town and figured you may not check it out otherwise. It’s probably true, but I still don’t like forced collectibles. It’s not nearly as intrusive as in platformers though so it’s not a big deal here.

Once you’re in the other world then you turn into the blue flame haired Yang Yuma. You’ve got your standard power attacks, standard moves, and a summon which brings out a guardian to land a quick combo. It’s like an assist in a Capcom Vs title as they’ll quickly go back into the air until you summon them again. It takes a block of energy but they do a lot of damage so it’s usually worth it. The big incentive with these guys is they chip away at an enemy’s armor really quick which is very handy. I always use them to get rid of the enemy’s armor and then finish the opponent with my final smash. It takes 3 bars, but does a ton of damage. Even bosses tend to lose a full bar of health if you’ve destroyed their armor. The armor regenerates quickly so be sure to smash it entirely before going for damage to save time. It’s a good tactic and I should know because I S ranked all of the missions except for 1. (Got an A….)

When you have enough super meter you can also transform into a magical girl. I was surprised that we got 2 different super forms here, but it’s fun enough. All of your stats greatly increase and you also get another super attack. For some reason it’s weaker than your normal one, but still fun to have. The main value here is just in your normal attacks getting so much stronger. You can really just rely on them to an extent although the form doesn’t last very long.

The game’s only fault may be that some parts aren’t super polished. At times when you click on X to get the next text to come through it won’t work so you have to click again. There are also a lot of typos in the text so I don’t think anyone actually reviewed it. Some people are pretty big grammar sticklers so they wouldn’t like that, but it doesn’t really bother me. It would have been an easy fix, but it’s mostly just letters left out here and there or ones that are close to each other like a v instead of a b.

As for the game’s cast, it’s fairly compact. There are a few deities with Leo being the main one. He’s a good coach type character who is always around to help Yuma out. Leo and Boss tend to keep way too many secrets though. I don’t see why they didn’t come clean with Yuma from the start as it would have saved them a lot of trouble. The other two deities are pretty good even if they never get quite as much to do. Running into the villain base was definitely not their smartest decision though.

Then you’ve got Yuma who is a really fun lead. She tends to take everything in stride which is good. She’s not the type to panic or question every little thing that happens in the monster world. For her it’s just another job. I’m glad she was the lead and not her friend. Her friend seems pretty pointless in the game as she just shows up for free food now and again and also tends to faint a lot. I suppose you need a friend like that to make the main character look even better, but Yuma was already solid so I don’t think she really even needed the help. Finally you’ve got the little girl who shows up near the end. She’s a fun character although if you’ve played Crystar then you probably already know how her character arc is going to go. She’s a good example of a quirky character who doesn’t go over the top and so manages to be a fun character to have around.

The graphics here are definitely really nice. The town looks vibrant and the same can be said for the gameplay. The level and character designs are on point and there’s just a lot of color here. You’ll know you’re playing a PS4 game right away. Then you’ve also got a pretty nice soundtrack. It’s very fast paced to the point where even Yuma’s ringtone is a battle song. Then you’ve got an anime opening type track which plays sparingly during the game as well. There are certainly no complaints here.

Overall, Dusk Diver is a fun game. I can’t really say that I had any complaints with it. Buying the game at full price may cause you to be a little upset at the length, but otherwise it’s not short enough where I’d feel like I was ripped off. By the time you get all of the trophies you’ll likely have been here for quite a while as well. I’d definitely recommend buying this game. Odds are that you probably haven’t heard of it before now either so the more people that play the game the better. Maybe that way people will start spreading the word. If the game ever gets a sequel them I’d definitely be up for that.

Overall 8/10

Wario Land Shake It Review

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It’s time to take a look at a Wario game that I hadn’t gotten around to purchasing until very recently. It’s always nice to see him take the center stage. While Mario is certainly the more heroic character, Wario’s definitely a guy that doesn’t let everyone push him around. He just goes at the villains with all he’s got and makes for an entertaining lead. Shake It is a solid game that is slightly held back by the treasure mechanic, but does bring a breath of fresh air into the usual Nintendo platformer.

The basic plot is that a mysterious pirate has kidnapped a bunch of fairies. One of them manages to escape and convinces Wario to help in exchange for a bunch of treasurer. The fairy also heads to a local pirate for help as well and she decides to come along. Can this trio really stop such a powerful adversary or are their stories about to come to an abrupt end here? Only time will tell, but this could get dangerous.

The gameplay has your usual end goal. You have to get to the end of the level only that’s not where the level stops this time. You have to free the fairy there and then dash back to the beginning of the level with a 2-3 minute time limit. If you don’t make it then you’ll have lost. You get to keep whatever treasure you grabbed on the way to the start. You have a few different control options like the usual jumping and ground pounding, but also new ones like slamming into opponents or throwing them at obstacles. You’ll get the hang of these controls pretty quick and from there on it’s just a matter of plunging through.

Each world has 4 levels and there are 5 worlds here. You may think this sounds extremely short right? Well, it’s not a particularly long game, but it’s almost as long as the usual platformer. (Most platformers are around 6-7 hours) I’d put this game in at 5 hours personally. Each level won’t take you longer than a few minutes. So you may wonder why you can’t just beat this game in 2-3 hours or something right? Well, the game forces you to collect a ton of treasure in order to unlock each world. You’ll need 200K for World 5, 150K for World 4, etc. It’s around 700K in total I believe. I usually got around 20-30K per level so I only had to do a little grinding for the final world. If I didn’t have to worry about treasure I could beat the levels way sooner. As if the mock you each level has a very direct route from start to finish. However, if you want to get the treasure you’ll have to go through a bunch of alternate paths to get at it. The levels don’t become super long or anything like that, but you do realize the time you’re wasting throughout.

I’ve never been a big fan of forced items. I don’t like the idea of the game telling me how I have to play it because you are effectively being penalized for blasting through the game. As a bit of a speed runner myself I like conquering the games and just showing them what’s up. I can’t do that if the game is holding my hand the whole time and taking me down the various paths. Since the game does show enough restraint not to make the counts too obsessive it doesn’t hurt much, but it just limits the game from being quite as fun as it could have been. At least its upfront about how much treasure you’ll need for each world at the beginning so you can plan it out as you’re going through the game.

The graphics here are definitely really good. I was also impressed that we got a full opening anime movie to start the game off with and one at the end as well. Why does Wario get all this fanfare rather than Mario who is supposed to be the company’s mascot? It doesn’t make any sense to me and I was thinking about it for quite a long while. I’m sure there is some rationale to this and I’m thinking it’s that Nintendo can experiment more with Wario, but I’d love this treatment for the next big Mario platformer. The soundtrack for Shake It! isn’t quite as impressive as in Yoshi or Mario, but it’s a decent array of songs. None of them really stood out to me though.

Then we have the bosses which are pretty inspired. One of the final ones does get a little cheesy with the only way to beat it being a move that you were never formally taught to do in this situation. Ignoring that, all of the bosses have unique designs and ways to defeat them. There are no recycled fights like you would see in most of Nintendo’s other big games. In part this is because each world only has 1 boss instead of 2 and I think that makes sense to keep each fight fresh. They’re all a lot of fun, but the best boss has to be the final one. Not only does he have a proper two phases like a Mega Man villain, but his design and moveset are really something special. The guy can fire off giant energy blasts and makes it look easy. Additionally he just feels like a final boss. The guy has his own throne. I’d love to see him make a comeback at some point. He’s one of the few Nintendo villains I’ve seen who is played completely straight. He has no comedy moments to speak of.

There’s a good amount of replay value here after beating the game. You can work to find all of the treasure chests or even complete all of the bonus missions. Then with that treasure you can buy some extra heart containers or the opening movie to re-watch at your leisure. I don’t think the game will still last for much longer after all of this, but it’s a fair amount of content that really helps justify the price even further. The game goes for around 15-20 nowadays which is a fair price in my opinion. It’s rare that Wario gets his own game so I’m glad Nintendo put some real effort into it.

Overall, Wario Land Shake It! is a pretty fun game. It was more enjoyable than I expected as the motion controls were actually handled well here. You don’t use them much at all except for aiming and it was pretty responsive. Wario makes for a fun lead and the game just feels very unique. It can’t be compared to Nintendo’s other titles so easily. Hopefully we get a new Wario Land game at some point, I think there is still a lot that can be done with it. I also think Nintendo should consider a crossover game someday with Mario, Yoshi, DK, and Wario mixing and matching all 4 of the styles. That would have the potential to be Nintendo’s best platformer yet!

Overall 7/10

Madden 19 Review

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It’s time to look at one of the newest installments in Madden. It’s definitely been a fun series throughout the years and I’m proud to say that I own almost all of the installments in it. Madden 19 continues the series strong run into the modern era and it’s the kind of game that you could play for a very long time. It’s one of the only sport games where I end up playing through a full season before the review so I could really take in the smooth gameplay. There’s really not much to say against this game although there is a feature or two that take away from it being the perfect Madden title. (2004 will always be the best one)

First things first I jumped into Franchise mode. It’s really quite sad how this mode has gotten the shaft in favor of other titles over the years. You rarely hear people getting hyped about this one anymore, but to me it’ll always be the best mode. You just pick your team and play for as many years as you want. There is now the option to play the Franchise online which sounds interesting. I assume that means all 32 teams will be controller by someone online, but does that mean the matches have to be scheduled? I know there are also a lot of rage quitters so I wonder how the game handles that. Either way I don’t have PS+ so I had to play the franchise offline but that made it extra nostalgic.

As expected there are a few new bells and whistles here. For starters every player has XP as if this was an RPG and you’ve got missions for every game. Clearing them gives you more XP and you can use that to level up specific techniques or even the coach. I’m not sure if I’m 100% happy to have these extra things because I prefer to just play the game with my own playbook, but it doesn’t really harm things offline. Online it could mean that you end up being completely outclassed though if all of their players are maxed out. So I dove into the games and managed a 10-6 record. I managed to get a first round bye which was nice, but then I lost to the Eagles in the Divisional round 37-27. Considering I was playing as the Cowboys it was a pretty rough way to go. My backup quarterback fumbled twice and I also threw a pick. In the end we just couldn’t get past that. (And the random holding calls from my offensive line)

In a lot of ways the games have gotten even more realistic than they used to. A holding penalty suddenly showing up to wipe away my first down happened about as much as you see on TV for the team. Then there are also the constant injuries that would happen every game. Pretty much every important player on my team had to leave at least once during the game and several were out for weeks. I had to sign 3 more quarterbacks during the season to keep my team afloat until Dak arrived again in the final game of the regular season….only to get knocked out during the Eagles game. I’m really tempted to turn off injuries for the league next time I do a season.

Granted, I got a lot of mileage out of Dak. I ran for over 1300 yards as him and while my passing yards were only around 2800 or so, it worked out pretty well. My favorite play in the game is quick slants as there are a lot of options on the field and typically if they’re all covered well then you can run for it. Usually I would run for about 15-20 yards a piece. Of course I do recommend diving each time you run at the end because a direct hit would probably lead to a fumble. Running the ball normally was okay, but Zeke felt extremely slow so I usually wouldn’t get a lot of yards. I did go to Exhibition after the season to play as the Ravens real quick and their running back was so much faster. It just feels nice to blow past everyone.

On the defensive side it felt about the same as usual. You go after the quarterback or stay with the cornerbacks. It can be really tough to make any stops though and half the time it feels like you don’t have any real power here. I played defense for a little while and eventually turned it off. One of the best features here is the ability to skip one side of the ball. I would set it to Offense only so I would only take over at that point and the defensive side would be simulated. It was a pretty good balance if you ask me. Special teams is pretty good as well though and they tend to keep that one in. Field goal kicking has been greatly improved as it’s back to a “click x button twice” style as opposed to flicking the stick. It just feels a lot more natural now. Punting is also pretty good so these parts of the game are as good as can be.

The graphics and presentation are top notch as you’d expect. Madden has always been amazingly consistent in these areas and it shows how much effort the company puts into the game. Madden is a flagship title after all so you would expect it to always be this good. The players throw their clipboards away after a game and they’ve even got most of the celebration dances in. You can now choose how you celebrate after a play as well and the commentators really have a lot of good dialogue options so they typically know what they are talking about. It’s really rare for them to say something unrelated during the game.

Now lets talk about the only parts of the game that don’t work so well. First up, I like the concept of their Longshot mode which is where you get to start the game from college or high school and make your way to the championships. The problem is that the game has long cutscenes that cannot be skipped which is not something you want to see nowadays. I don’t think it was ever a good thing, but I understand that there may have been technical limitations at some points. Otherwise there is no excuse not to be able to skip cutscenes. That just hampers the mode quite a bit.

Meanwhile you’ve got the soundtrack which isn’t so good. EA’s always gone for very loud music which I guess ties into Football, but it can be a little obnoxious while you’re on the menus waiting for the next game. You’ll probably want to turn it off as soon as possible. Fortunately it is easy to do that. The final thing I have to mention here is that it’s still really tough to ever throw deep balls. One thing I liked about the older Maddens was that you could take shots down the field. Nowadays if you do that you’re going to get picked off. There are good receiver catching mechanics that have been added like the RAC option, but they don’t solve this issue. Typically the way to advance are short passes that go for 10-15 yards and that’s it. There are no long balls and that’s a shame.

Overall, Madden 19 is definitely a fantastic game. There is an endless amount of replay value to be found here as the game has tons and tons of different modes. It’ll take some time to master all of the mechanics since there are a lot of them and in general Madden has never been an easy game. You need to have great reaction times and to be able to scan the field right away since everyone’s positions will be constantly moving. Still, if you are able to do that you will find yourself dashing through the competition. Maybe you can even go for the Platinum while there are still enough people playing the game. Regardless Madden continues to be the greatest video game series out there right after Super Smash. I’ll definitely go after Madden 20 once the price has dropped to the 5-10 dollar level like this one did.

Overall 9/10