Tag Archives: Nintendo

Spongebob Squarepants Lights Camera Pants Review

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I’m always up for a retro Gamecube game and I got this one as a souvenir from my very first SSB4 tournament. It’s a Spongebob party game so I thought that it would make for a decent playthrough and who knows…maybe it would be a lot of fun! Unfortunately, it was actually less fun than I had expected and that’s mainly due to the lack of options within the game. It’s very short and compact to the point where I feel bad for anyone who may have bought this on day 1 at full price. I shudder at the thought!

The plot of the game revolves around an episode that is being created about Mermaid Man. The director is looking for actors willing to grab the roles that are left, but they’ll have to earn them by playing a lot of games. Spongebob and friends are up for the job! There’s not much of a story though because every cutscene is basically just the director talking to the organizer of the event. Rinse and repeat a few times until the commercial is done. The game is incredibly short as a result. Each area has 3 mini games to complete and then you move on to the next area. I forgot how many areas there are, but one playthrough should be enough to easily get through the game. It’ll take you around 2-3 hours I believe and if you skip cutscenes, then that total significantly decreases.

One of the problems about the cutscene at the end is that it isn’t handled well. Every time you beat an area, you get to see one scene from the episode. Once you beat the game…you get to see the full episode. The problem is that you’ve already watched 90% of it so instead of enjoying the final product, it’s just really boring. The episode has such low replay value that even just watching it a second time isn’t very long. It’s also about as long as a real episode so that final cutscene just drags on and on. I would actually recommend just skipping it since it’s unlikely to get you hyped or impressed.

Granted, the episode had some good lines in it. I forgot how old Mermaid Man was nowadays and he just doesn’t understand anything that’s happening. It’s like Knuckles from Sonic Boom, but not nearly as funny. I can see the humor of Mermaid Man though and he’s decently funny, but I’m not sure if the other characters can keep up. It’s purposefully campy like the classic Superfriends so a show about Mermaid Man would have some potential, but again…I wouldn’t want to see any episode twice. At least not twice in the same day!

As for the gameplay, some of the minigames do have potential, but nothing is handled right. Every minigame has a mandatory timer so that none of them can end before 3 minutes. (Typically) This means that even the most enjoyable of games will start to drag on. I’ve always preferred stocks/lives/health points to a timer system since it encourages you to get good and really take on your opponents. With a timer system, you can build a big lead, but you’ll still have to wait for the timer to finish. It’s just not fun and drags the minigames down.

The best minigame is easily the one that ripped off Mario Party. I’ve noticed that just about every party game rips this minigame off, but that’s a good thing since it’s always fun. You have to balance on a ball of sorts and knock your opponents off. It’s fun, but the area is so small that it can be very hard to do anything without falling. You could say that this takes skills or you could say that the game tried too hard to make it an even playing field for newcomers and pros alike so a lot of the enjoyment was squeezed out. Nonetheless, this is the best minigame in the whole collection. (Again, not much of a collection though) There’s a nice car minigame and climbing the mountain is decent as long as your partner doesn’t sabotage you. There’s even a nifty Soccer game. Again, the problem is that you have to play these games until the timer ends and some of the minigames actually end up copying each other, which isn’t cool. In such a short game, this is pretty unacceptable.

Even the enjoyable games could have been better if the company had put more of an effort into the project. This game is definitely a cash in and may have been phoned in by the devs. I can only imagine what the reviews would be like nowadays for a game like this one. Spongebob was apparently a good show back in the day (It never caught my eye) so it deserves a lot better than this.

I’d say that the graphics are decently good. They won’t be something to write home about like Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, but they’re not that bad either. They’re essentially a nonfactor while playing the minigames. You can still tell what and where everything is and that’s the important thing. The game will be over before you know it after all. There’s not really a soundtrack to speak of. Any tunes that were in the game were instantly and completely forgotten. That’s the problem with having such a forgettable soundtrack.

There is also no real replay value here. Why are most of the minigames 2 vs 2 contests? That doesn’t really make sense for a party game. If you’re a group of 3, then one person is going to have to be with the computer and I can assure you that you won’t have a great experience. There are a few free for all contests, but it’s a very small number of them. I don’t understand the thought process that went behind this and maybe the developers forgot that they were making a game midway through. Once you have beaten the game, there’s really nothing to do. The only thing that you have for replay value is really just playing the minigames again a few times. Yeah…I don’t think I want to do that anytime soon. You can go for the high scores, but that’s not much of an incentive either. This game is definitely lacking in bonus content.

Overall, This is a game that’s best left on the forgotten shelves. I planned to get a few other Spongebob games, but that might have to wait for a while after this. The next time that I want a Gamecube game, I’ll just get Kirby Air Ride or Gotcha Force. Granted, Gotcha Force is going for 100 dollars and up right now so it’ll also have to wait for a little while. There’s really no reason to get this game and the only reason that it’s not lower is that some of the minigames are decent. It’s not borderline unplayable or anything like that, but there is no reason to play it. This would be a bad game if it didn’t even have that or if it forced you to keep on playing them over and over again in a very stretched out story mode. Either way, I do not recommend this title and you’re better off getting just about anything else. I was really torn between giving this game a 4 or a 5 and in the end, I had to go with my gut.

Overall 4/10

Pokemon Shuffle Stats and Records

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Stats time!

Play Time 3h 50m
Stages Cleared 57
Pokemon Caught 36
Streetpass Tags 0

Stage Stats Rank Caught or not (Y/N

Stage 1 S Y
Stage 2 S Y
Stage 3 S Y
Stage 4 S Y
Stage 5 S Y
Stage 6 S N
Stage 7 S N
Stage 8 S Y
Stage 9 S Y
Stage 10 S N
Stage 11 A Y
Stage 12 S Y
Stage 13 S Y
Stage 14 S Y
Stage 15 S Y
Stage 16 S N
Stage 17 A N
Stage 18 S Y
Stage 19 S Y
Stage 20 S N
Stage 21 B N
Stage 22 S N
Stage 23 S N
Stage 24 S Y
Stage 25 S Y
Stage 26 S Y
Stage 27 A Y
Stage 28 S Y
Stage 29 S Y
Stage 30 S N
Stage 31 B N
Stage 32 S Y
Stage 33 B Y
Stage 34 S N
Stage 35 A Y
Stage 36 A Y
Stage 37 S Y
Stage 38 S Y
Stage 39 S Y
Stage 40 S Y
Stage 41 A N
Stage 42 S Y
Stage 43 S N
Stage 44 S N
Stage 45 S N
Stage 46 B Y
Stage 47 S Y
Stage 48 A Y
Stage 49 S N
Stage 50 A N
Stage 51 B N
Stage 52 S Y
Stage 53 B N
Stage 54 S Y
Stage 55 C N
Stage 56 S Y

Super Mario Maker Stats and Records

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It’s stats time! They will likely be changing a lot as I’m still playing the game, but I may as well have the post up. I’ll just update it from time to time.

Play Time 141h
Stages Uploaded 7
Stars 84
2/10 Medals
100 Mario Challenge Easy Mode 13 Clears
100 Mario Challenge Normal Mode 0 Clears
100 Mario Challenge Hard Mode 0 Clears
Courses Played 388
Total Plays 1225
Lives lost 952

Uploaded Stages Stats

Spiny Jump 11 Stars 32 Plays. Clear Rate 4.34%. 9/207 successes
Stay High and Dry! 12 Stars 27 Plays. Clear Rate 21.91%. 16/73 successes
Shortcuts are for the casuals B) 13 Stars 37 Plays. Clear Rate 3.28%. 9/274 successes
Bigger is better? Don’t Fall!!!! 10 Stars 24 Plays. Clear Rate 22.22%. 6/27 successes
Traps AHOY! Go for the weapon! 10 Stars 34 Plays. Clear Rate 2.97%. 8/269 successes
Fight fire with fire!! 9 Stars 37 Plays. Clear Rate 2.39%. 4/167 successes
Terry!!! 15 Stars 55 Plays. Clear Rate 9.23%. 29/314 successes

Super Mario Maker Review

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Mario Maker got a lot of hype before it came out, but I’ll admit that I didn’t buy into it for a while. Like Splatoon, Mario Maker honestly didn’t catch my attention. It looked…okay, but I just skipped every video that Nintendo posted about it. I actually didn’t see more than a minute of any Mario Maker video, it just didn’t look that good. I’d buy it…someday. Gradually, the game got more and more press (I skipped the Nintendo World Championships, although I finally watched it about a week ago) and my cousin also got hyped about it. I figured that I’d get it for my Birthday (Which is about 6 months from now) but this is the kind of game that you want to have right away. The hype for it won’t die out anytime soon, but right now is when all of the activity is. Part of the fun is also playing levels made by your friends and vice versa so waiting would hurt that give and take a little. So, a little while ago, I felt sick on a Thursday and decided that I couldn’t make it to classes that day. While feeling sorry for myself and snacking on some munchies, I decided on a whim to go to Best Buy and get the game. (Along with the Gamer’s club) It’s definitely been worth the purchase and the game is a blast. Certainly one of the best Mario games of all time by default with how much replay value there is and how much effort was put into the game. That was a long intro, but I wanted to give some background info on this title. I seriously wasn’t sold on it, but the game turned out to be excellent and I’ll still be playing it weeks from now.

There’s no story mode here at all. One of those would be cool, but I’ll admit that it makes little difference to be for a Mario game. Yes, a story mode would be a good thing and it would help the game out, but it wouldn’t actually affect the overall score and it’ll barely be missed. The gameplay is why Mario games are so good and this one has the aesthetics of 4 different Mario games. Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros 3, Super Mario World, and New Super Mario Bros. Right off the bat, I have to say that it’s impressive that the developers were able to incorporate all of these themes. It’s incredibly impressive that you can switch between these layouts at will as well. It feels like you’re playing multiple games and with fans already recreating the real levels from the original versions, it’s really like you own 4 whole Mario games along with infinite levels to spare. If you were wondering whether 60 dollars was overpriced for this game…don’t. Of course, with the Best Buy Gamer’s Club, I’ll never need to shell out another 60 again with the 13-15 dollars off each game.

There’s a lot to talk about for this game so let’s start with the technical part. The soundtrack is easily 5 stars. I would love to be able to pick which music would play in your custom stage, but it’s fine. You will barely even be able to tell which tune is playing because it so perfectly fits with the gameplay. The classic themes that you would expect from the Mario games are present and you’re even able to recreate music themes from many other franchises, which fans show off in their auto play levels. It’s really cool and shows that I still have more to learn about this game so that I can fully use the utilize this sound editor program.

As you would expect, the graphics are excellent. I know that Mario’s cartoony style is supposedly a lot easier to make impressive when compared to realistic graphics, but it doesn’t take away from how good it looks. I consider Super Smash Bros for Wii U to have some of the greatest graphics of all time after all and it’s a good part of why the game is so fun. Playstation All Stars could have learned a thing or two from the series…okay, maybe a few dozen things. On a technical level, Mario Maker cannot be beat.

You may be aware of this, but Mario Maker has 100 playable characters in the 8 bit style. Each character has a taunt, run animation, and a change in direction animation. Even while jumping, each character has an animation like Toon Link, who takes out his Deku glider from the Wind Waker games. Again, these little things are very impressive when you consider how many characters are in the game. Sure, some of them are a little uninspired like the mystery block, but fans will still have a kick out of this. It’s the ultimate Mario game with all of these details and as many people have said, the New Super Mario Bros Games could really end after this. Hey, I’ll still buy a new one as the professional levels are still a lot of fun, but anything they could do (almost anything I suppose) we can now do as well.

There isn’t really a main menu here, which I think is a little sad, but it’s not much of a factor. The main mode that you will be spending time in is Course World. This is where you can look up any course that has ever been made. You can search them by difficulty or just input specific stage IDs that you can find on the Nintendo Life website, which has a listing for just about all of them. (That the users upload of course, it’s voluntary) As mentioned earlier, it’s a lot of fun to play levels made by others and to trade tips. I’ve played a lot of levels by Destroyer14/Destroyer_199 and we try to make levels that the other can’t beat. Destroyer has succeeded so far so I need to make an impossible level that’s still fair. (Meaning, no invisible block spamming)

Another mode is the 100 Mario Challenge. It allows you to play 8 levels on easy and 15-16 on Normal mode. It’s a good way for the game to randomly give you a few levels to defeat and you have 100 lives to achieve this. There’s also hard mode, which is incredibly difficult as you would expect. The incentive to play this mode aside from finding new stages is that you unlock characters this way if you don’t have all of the Amiibos. I’ve unlocked around 15 characters so far and while I don’t think I will be getting all 100, it is a fun little incentive. There’s also the 10 life Mario challenge. The fun part about this mode is that you play levels that were pre set into the game. These are more or less professional which is nice. They’re a lot easier than most of the levels that you’ll see on the 100 Mario version, but then you’re rewarded for beating all of them with the 4 World Championship levels from the Nintendo event. Those are decently tough and one of them in particular was quite the challenge. Naturally *cough* I beat them all and unlocked the Skinny Mario variant!

The game keeps track of how many stages you’ve played, your number of tries accumulated through those tries, and the lives that you’ve lost. It’s a fun little statistic as you will try to get the numbers as high as possible. Not necessarily the lives, but even that I don’t mind getting as high as possible because it shows just how much you’re playing. Some levels I’ve played about 100 times before finally defeating, but it feels so satisfying when you finally beat a level that stumps you like that. The game also keeps track of how many stars (likes) you’ve gotten from the other players, which is useful because it affects how many stages you can upload. Initially you can upload 10 stages and that number doubles once you hit 50. The maximum amount is 100 stages at 5000 stars. That should take a while, but if you’re good at social networking, it shouldn’t be a problem. There are many people who will be glad to play your stage and star it if you do the same. There are also simply so many players that there’s a good chance people will get to play it. I doubt I’ll make 100 stages as I have the most fun simply playing the levels, but I’ll work to at least get 100 stars eventually. (I’m at around 6. I’ll start farming for them once I upload 10 stages.)

The game is called Mario Maker so I should talk about the stage creation part a little. It’s quite good and a staple for how all games should go at this mode. Of course, you’d need a high budget to recreate what Mario Maker has done. You can really do just about anything with the items that you are given and there’s a nice variety of them. You can throw a bunch of Bowsers at the opponent and have hundreds of blocks in the stage. You can alter the length of the stage and the possibilities are just so great. Whether you make a boss level, a puzzle one, or just an ordinary stage, you can make it all. I do have a complaint or two with this level. I feel like you should be able to zoom out so that you can look through your stage a little easier. It can be a little time consuming to look around , but this is just a bit of a nitpick. Considering how great the stage builder system is, it’s not much of a flaw. I just feel like you could improve it a bit that way, it would certainly make things easier for me.

It’ll be interesting to see what Nintendo does for this game as far as DLC is concerned. There is a lot that can be done, which includes more stage objects and enemy types. Adding slopes would be cool as well and who knows, maybe Nintendo will add some characters like Luigi and Toad for the modern layout. I could really see that happening since it wouldn’t be too hard to bring in their character models. Wishing for Sonic or Pac Man in the modern version would be wishful thinking at this point, but you never know I suppose. I doubt that I would buy any DLC for this game, Super Smash is really the only one where I take that plunge. Still, there’s always the chance if it’s big enough I suppose.

For those saying that the Wii U has no games, it may be time to finally quiet that tune. The Wii U may be an inside joke as every third party takes shots at it, but that hasn’t stopped Nintendo from assembling some great first party games. Super Smash Bros, Mario Maker, and Hyrule Warriors are all star material. Those games are incredible and alone make the system worth purchasing. Throw in New Super Mario Bros U, Super Mario Bros 3D World, Sonic Lost World, and the other games, then the Wii U is a very good purchase and worth your money. It can easily hold its own against the PS4 and Xbox One in terms of quality. I’ve spent more time on the Wii U at this point than I have for most of my other consoles with Super Smash Bros rapidly approaching 1000 hours. (Best game of all time) This phrase is thrown around a lot, but Mario Maker is worth buying the Wii U console for.

Overall, Super Mario Maker is a game that has lived up to the hype. Yes, it’s partially very hype inducing for me because my cousin owns the game and that sparks a nice competitive edge to the game. To an extent, all games are better with friends. It’s why you spend so much time playing the multiplayer aspects of a game. I still play Super Smash Bros just about every day with my brother and my cousin. In this case, you can think of the single player as a multi player mode in a way since everyone makes their own levels. You’re able to make 100 levels even if you can’t upload them right away, you can just store them offline until you get the medals. You’ll definitely find inspiration to keep on making more and more levels. This is a game that will remain relevant for years to come and I don’t see it really stopping until the Wii U servers are eventually taken down, but we won’t have to worry about that for some time now. If you haven’t picked this game up yet, then I highly recommend it. While I didn’t jump onto the Splatoon hype train, I jumped onto this one and I’m staying aboard. I highly recommend doing the same!

Overall 9/10

Rec Room Games Review

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It’s time to play another game from the 5 dollar bin. I got this one for under 2 dollars so I’d say that it was a steal. It’s too bad that the game didn’t actually end up being good though. That was a bit of a let down since party games should automatically be a lot of fun. How can you mess up short mini games? All you have to do is come up with an activity that will be fun for 30-60 seconds and you have your mini game.

The game jumps you right to the mini game selection screen. All 20 of them are available from the get go and there are no other modes to look at. Literally, the only other option here is to jump to the credits and mayyybe options, but I don’t think that there are any. Seriously, you’re basically thrown to the games and there is 0 replay value. Your high scores aren’t even recorded, which is pretty odd for a game like this one. This means that unless you really like the mini games enough to play them a few times, you’ll be done with this game in an hour or less. There is nothing to keep you and it’s rare to find a game with 0 replay value, but this title pulled it off.

The graphics are decent I suppose. They didn’t put a whole lot of effort into them as you can imagine, but I wouldn’t say that they look downright bad either. I dunno, I guess it’s just hard to make a game that I think looks really bad. You’d have to put in a lot of effort to give a game that appearance and I don’t think that companies want to do such a thing. Not just yet anyway! The soundtrack is rather forgettable. It’s decent though, but I’d like some more variety. A few more tunes to keep me excited and ready for whatever comes next. Rec Room doesn’t pull that off, but why should it? This game was in the 2 dollar bin for a reason right!

In the end, the only thing to really talk about here is the mini games. I can either stretch this section out a bit or let the review end early. Hmmm, decisions decisions. Not all of the mini games are lousy, I feel like I should say this as a disclaimer. Some of them had some real potential and others actually managed to live up to that so kudos to the game. If you really think about it, this game could have gotten a quick 7 had it been on the PS3. Then again, I recently played a game with bears on the PS3 that was pretty bad so….maybe not. (That game’s still probably getting a 5-6 though)

The best mini game here by far is the Box Maze. You have to use the Wii Remote to tilt the surface of the stage as you gradually guide your ball to the correct hole. It takes skill and passion. A whole game on that could be interesting so long as it isn’t too repetitive and a plot surrounding the game is around to keep you interested. It was one of the first games that I played so I actually got a little hyped to see how the game would end up. Smack A Squirrel was also decent except for the concept, but they’re toy squirrels so that helps a bit. After all, I’ve skipped out on two Wii Games because they promoted animal violence. *shudders* The problem with this game is that your hammer is unresponsive and often times it will stop you from actually hitting the squirrel and you just tap it, which has no effect.

Then we got to some of the dicier games like Bowling. Wii Sports did a much better job with it than this game, but I’m sure that nobody is surprised at that. Good luck hitting anything with your swings! Alley Ball is another decent game. You have to flick the Wii Remote up to try and land the ball inside of the rings. The controls were surprisingly smooth for this game and it’s certainly a keeper. Disct Toss and Ring Toss sort of make each other a little redundant and likewise with Rubberband Sharpshooter. As you can imagine, throwing anything with the Wii Remote controls is a formula for failure. Table Tennis was probably the most disappointing game in the collection simply because it should have been good. Tennis should always be fun and it’s so easy to implement, but the game forgot how to make your characters miss. As long as you flail around with the Wii Remote, you can keep on returning just about every ball which leads to some very long points since the computer doesn’t want to give up either. The controls don’t hurt this one much, but are still a factor.

Darts is fairly decent, but the controls make it hard to ever hit your target. Chinese Checkers and Peg are quite similar and both of them are no fun at all. Maybe these games are better in real life, but I don’t see the appeal of moving across an empty field or just making lines until everything is gone. These titles couldn’t hold my attention. HillbillyGolf was pretty terrible and even worse than the real Golf. At least..in this version. You throw a little baton thing and the game is really broken. Foosball is surprisingly not that good as you simply can’t control your players quickly enough to do any real damage. Back to flinging the Wii Remote around until you win!

All right, back to the fun games…or as fun as you can get here. Trashcan Basketball is fairly interesting even if you’ll never be able to hit it. You have to throw paper in a trash, but the controls are incredibly unresponsive. Good luck trying to do anything here. Tic Tac Toe Toss has some potential, although the rules are a little odd. You throw things to connect the lines and the game operates on pure chance. Air Hockey is decent. As expected, the controls hold it back a little, but it still manages to be decently fun.

Table Hockey is a lot of fun and actually has a semblance of skill and effort as you try to score. Controlling your players is as difficult as in Foosball, but it’s more fun and actually feels real. Dodgeball is another one of the best games and I may have to actually dethrown Box Maze. Yes, I changed my mind during the review, but I forgot about Dodgeball. This is why it’s good to have the game’s cover in front of me! I made a monster comeback in my first attempt at the game so you can bet that I will not be forgetting it! I didn’t talk about all of the games, but I mentioned most of them. There are 20 in total, so feel free to play them all! (It’s all you can do here anyway)

Overall, Rec Room Games is not my idea of a fun time and odds are that it’s not yours either. Most of the games are simply not balanced correctly so some are too long while others make you wonder how they’re supposed to be fun. There are some enjoyable games here, but considering how long it takes you to beat them, you can still get bored in 30 minutes quite easily. With no high scores to think of, replaying the minigames by yourself or with friends is the only thing to do. This lack of replay value is what ultimately made me decide to give the game a 4 instead of a 5. It was close and the games are good enough to get a 5, but the title just feels lazy and that’s inexcusable for any video game title! I do not recommend this game, even for 2 dollars you could….well, maybe you can still get this game. It’ll still get you your money’s worth, but maybe you should just get a Pepperoni Pizza at one of the dollar shops where it’ll cost you 1:50. Then you can save the other 50 cents for your insurance. No worries folks, I’ll be reviewing more bargain bin games soon!

Overall 4/10

We Ski Stats and Records

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There’s not much, but just enough!

26/60 Stars

Course Stats

Rabbit Road B Rank
Fox Way S Rank
Deer Step B Rank
Eaglesight B Rank
Owl’s Next C Rank
Elephant Stage B Rank
Snake Pass A Rank
Wolf Hill S Rank
Lion Peak D Rank
Sharkskin C Rank
Bear Claw A Rank
Camelhump D Rank
Dolphin Park C Rank

We Ski Review

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I rarely ever give video games a negative review. I’ve played hundreds of them in the past and have probably only considered around 10 of them to be downright bad. That being said, I’m afraid this game earns that. While it may have some redeemable features, it’s not enough to break even and I really won’t be missing this title. It was quite the challenge playing it for as long as I did.

There’s not really a story mode here. You’re launched into a very snowy island and have to fend for yourself. It’s tough, but your Mii is ready for whatever obstacles he may face. Prepare for a lot of not very helpful NPCs as they will tell you to be careful, but not much more than that. You can run around taking photos and doing side quests like that or just tackle each of the Ski trails. The one sad thing about the Ski Trails is that you’re just trying to get a solid ranking. You’re not actually racing or competing with the other racers in any shape or form. That’s a bit of a let down since I can tell you that the racing is the best part of the game and I only got to experience that through multiplayer mode.

For the Ski Trails, you get ranked on how fast you completed the level, how quickly you were moving, how many tricks you did, and how good you were at turning. If you get 3 S+ rankings and 1 D, your ranking for that stage ends up being a D. It’s a very dicey way to score a section and will make you wish that it was more like a regular video game which gives you a nice average. It doesn’t help that the game isn’t all that fun so you may not bother trying to get your ranking any higher after a while.

Why is the game simply not fun? It all comes down to the controls. This game is very unresponsive and you will find it accepting your commands after a delay at times, which can destroy you in the tricks category. Turning in this game is broken as the game wants you to do a lot of really small turns to get a passing grade, but it’s extremely difficult to do so while still getting a good ranking on speed. It’s just hard to get any traction in the snow and your character will simply refuse to move from his spot. It can get quite annoying and makes you restart the level once again.

Naturally, the game uses motion controls so you’ll be tilting your controls every which way to try and move, but it will be to no avail. You’ll quickly realize that it’s all futile, but at least you’ll understand the controls right away. You simply won’t be able to win with them…that’s a shame. As mentioned earlier, there are various modes here like racing and Moguls, but they all play exactly the same way. You’ll be riding down a slope with your Skis and it’s a fight to the finish!

On the bright side, the graphics are actually fairly decent. They’re not amazing, but they get the job done and the game is certainly very clear so you always know what is happening. The soundtrack is also fairly good. You can actually hear some Pac Man music if you strain your ears. I can’t prove this, but it certainly sounds like the classic theme, although it may have been slightly remixed. Either way, that’s reason enough to play the game right? Wrong!

There’s not a whole lot of replay value to be found here unless you actually like the game. If you do, then you can have fun in multiplayer or completing all of the quests in Single Player. Unlocking everything at the shop should buy you some time and getting all S ranks will be no small feat. You can probably spend lots of hours just owning all of the events as long as the controls are doable for you. The game is deceptively difficult thanks to the controls though so that really extends the game’s length. Seriously, it’s just unreal, but I did get an S rank or two myself so that was neat.

See, I just can’t get past the controls. Try as I might to like the game, it simply didn’t work for me. The game didn’t grow on me like the MnM’s game did. That being said, I’m still planning on getting the sequel at some point. It may just be the power of a good trailer, but the sequel actually looks really good and the gameplay seems to have sped up quite a bit. That’s what I’m talking about and the excitement/hype is very real now! I can’t guarantee that the sequel will be a good game, but I certainly hope that it can rise to the occasion.

Overall, We Ski can proudly show itself off to the world as one of the only bad games that I have ever played. At its core, We Ski still shines as a game with potential. The multiplayer mode is actually quite fun after all and the Skiing can be all right when the controls are actually working smoothly for a change. These things are just inconsistent at best and dicey at worst so you can’t really count on the game. A game should never be frustrating to play and I don’t really see myself playing this game again. It’s time for it to build up dust in the game collection area, but at least it had its moment. If you manage to get all S ranks in the levels for this game, you’re a true warrior!

Overall 4/10

M&M’s Break ‘Em Review

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Red and Yellow MnM’s debuted in 1954. I felt like throwing that out there to start the review as it’s a fun fact in the game. The characters have been around longer than I would have guessed and that’s definitely pretty neat. It shows that the game will always have a history behind it. Unfortunately, this was not a very good game at all. I started to get a feel for the gameplay at the end, but it really could and should have been much better than the final product that we were given.

There is a loose plot so that’s neat. The MnM’s seem to be starship captains or something and they’re ordered to stop this mean peanut looking villain from destroying or conquering the world. To do this, they will have to travel across many different lands and defeat all kinds of strange and powerful creatures. They definitely aren’t scared of a mission like this and head off into the bold unknown to conquer it all. While there is a story, we only get an opening cutscene at the start of the game and one at the very end. It’s the bare minimum, but I’ll take what I can get here.

The gameplay is similar to Tetris except that you are the block. To eliminate other blocks, you just bump into them. Most of the blocks are color coordinated so you need to find a pipe to turn you into that color and then destroy them. Bumping all of the colored blocks will open the gate that leads to the end of the level. If you take too long, a gray skull will chase you and a single hit will mean your death. It’s like an old Mario game, but without the mushrooms. You should be prepared for complete obliteration from any contact with an enemy.

There is no way to stop as you will bounce forever. Your only good options for escaping are simply bouncing away or altering your speed. L is to slow down and R is to speed up. These techniques are crucial to completing the game so I would advise you to practice using them as soon as possible. There are also a lot of treasure chests so you can gain extra points. Every 8000 or so points will award you a new life. That’s a good thing because you don’t get any new lives otherwise. This can make some levels very hard if you happened to waste a life during the early parts of the game.

Some of the bosses are very tough to beat with a single life as you have to completely anticipate where they will move. All of the bosses have the same gameplay, their movements just differ from each other. Unlike you, they aren’t bouncing, but just fly across the screen. You have to hit their glowing weak point around 5 times and you can let them touch you while in motion. It’s fairly simple, but I still had to play one boss battle about 50 times before I finally nailed him.

One trick that I would recommend is just turning the game off if you lose a life to a boss and don’t win the fight. That way you’ll keep the life. It’s worth keeping the game on if you lose a life, but beat the boss though as you can just keep on losing levels until you earn another life through the points. I’m glad about the point system as the game could have been verrrry tedious otherwise. In a way, the no life system was just an artificial way of making the game seem longer than it is.

The length isn’t bad though as there are around 7-8 worlds and each one has 3-4 levels, which have 3-5 levels within them. This will certainly last you for a few hours, which will justify the low cost of the game. That being said, there is absolutely no replay value to be found here. Once you beat the game, your progress in the story is deleted and you get to start from scratch. I suppose that you can just play the levels again, but I don’t even count that as story mode as it is just old content with no real multiplayer features.

As for the soundtrack, it’s pretty forgettable. I wouldn’t call it a bad soundtrack, but having one or two good pieces would have gone a long way for the game. I remember the boss themes being fairly decent, but you could tell that no real thought went into it and you could easily find better music themes in every Nintendo game. Pick a random Nintendo theme from any of their games and it will probably be more memorable than this whole soundtrack. That is Nintendo though so it’s to be expected.

The graphics are decent I suppose. The Nintendo DS has never been great in that department as the sprites and character designs usually look a little stretched. That is naturally the case here as well, but it would be hard to avoid. As long as you can easily identify everything, then I’d say that the graphics are a success so I’ll give it props there. It won’t be earning the game any points, but it won’t hurt the title either.

Overall, I got this game for around 2-4 dollars so I would say that it was completely worth the purchase. I’d probably be upset if I had gotten it for something like 20 though so I’m glad that didn’t happen. I was thinking of giving the game a 4 when I first started it, but then I played the game more and as I mentioned earlier, it grew on me. I had to play some levels dozens of times and yet I kept on going. It’s the kind of game where you don’t mind losing a whole lot. Like Flappy Bird in a sense. The losses don’t really frustrate you after a while and you just want to keep on challenging the level until you win. It’s one of the reasons why the Mario games do so well. It helps that the levels are decently short, I believe that the timer is set to a minute or two, so that’s how long each level would likely be. I may be lowballing that though as it’s just an estimate. 3-4 minutes could be a tad more accurate. If you see this game in stores, I’d recommend checking it out. At the current low price, it’s worth the purchase. This isn’t a great game and it’s not even as good as the standard title (7) but if you want to use up some hours on a decently short game, this one is as good as any. At the very least, you will actually find it to be decently challenging even if some of the bosses are a little fake. (Not showing any color so it’s literally impossible to injure them) Some nice irony is that the final boss is weaker than the rest of the villains in this game. I only have a few more MnM games to go and then I’ll be completely caught up!

Overall 6/10

Club Penguin Game Day Review

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It’s time to take a look at one of the new WIi games that I got to play. This game was a steal over at Gamestop since it was only a little over a dollar. How can you beat that right? The short answer is…you can’t! This title is very short as you would expect and I’m not even very familiar with the Club Penguin franchise, but it’s easy to enjoy the game anyway. It’s really short so I likely would have been sad buying it for 20, but it’ll give you some fun.

There is a light plot as you decide which group of penguins you want to hang out with. I went with the red team of course since I always go with the red group. Red is such a cool color right? You are tasked with conquering the island by taking over the bases of the other teams. There are a few areas and each one has 4 minigames so the game is fairly short, but still long enough that it doesn’t feel as rushed as your average 1-2 dollar game. The minigames are also quite fun for the most part. I’ll list a few of them (The ones that I remember) to show you just how fun they were.

One of the minigames rips off the Mario Party series as everyone is on top of a ball and you have to knock the other Penguins off of the arena to score a point. Keep on doing so and you will win! This was probably my favorite minigame. It’s a lot of fun and the game has heart. Another fun minigame was the sledding one. You get into a canoe and you have to make it to the goal line as quickly as possible. It’s rather self explanatory.

One minigame that I wasn’t a huge fan of was the sack race. You have to wave the Wii remote around a lot, which does a number on the wrists. I do like races though so there’s always that. We get a snowball fight towards the end of the game, which is fun since it’s like playing a third person version of Call of Duty. It takes a lot of skills and gets quite competitive by the end. There’s also a level for rolling a snowball and you have to grab as much snow as possible to win the match.

There are around 12 minigames and you can see how they are higher quality than the average Wii party game. My only complaint might be that some of them can be a bit long, but they’re still quite fun on the whole. If you don’t have a Mario Party game to play, I could definitely see you deciding to play this title from time to time. There is some replay value as you can beat Story Mode with all 4 colors for maximum personal satisfaction. The game’s short enough that this won’t really feel like an obstacle for you. Sounds like a plan right?

Between the minigames, there is a little free roam through the various areas. With a little more of a budget, I could see some big things happening here. We could have had rival encounters with other Penguins and some bonus minigames with high stakes! As it is, any dialogue is fairly rare and the only real cutscene is the final one of the game as the other Penguins are forced to acknowledge how awesome you are for winning the gold trophies. It was probably the proudest moment of the main character’s life and he’s just getting started with the wins.

The soundtrack is ultra generic and you’ll forget all about it as soon as you turn the console off. That sounds a little sad, but no worries, it beats having bad music right? If you strain yourself, you may remember the main theme of the game as it’s a little catchy. The graphics are decently good. They’re not as bad as they could be, but they’re not exactly at Mario Galaxy levels. They serve their purpose and the game is always nice to look at.

I’m already starting to run out of things to say about this title. There really isn’t much to discuss past the gameplay and the replay value here. The game is 4 players so you can have a blast playing it with friends. I’m not sure how long it can last as entertainment, but hopefully long enough to make you feel like you got your money’s worth. I know that I got mine even though I may only play this game one more time in my immediate future.

Overall, Club Penguin Game Day is another good find in the 5 dollar bargain bin over at Gamestop. With Wii games soon to be discontinued, I had to make my move fast before things could get out of hand. The graphics and soundtrack are decently good and the minigame selection was actually a lot better than I could have expected. It’s hard to recommend buying this game with a straight face since it’s really short and you could just buy Mario Party for the superior experience. That being said, it’s not a bad game by any means and you can buy this instead of a slice of pizza the next time that you find yourself needing some entertainment on a rainy Friday night. This game will not disappoint you there and you will realize the wonders of the Club Penguin world!

Overall 6/10