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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 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

The King of Fighters Ex 2 Howling Blood Review

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This is one of those games that has a story behind it! I actually purchased the game quite a few years ago. The problem was that I had to wait until I purchased the first game. It took a while, but I pulled that off about a year ago….only this game would not work. Since it had been so long since I purchased it at Gamestop, I couldn’t get a refund. That was all right, Game Boy Advance games are some of the greatest of all time. They will eventually start to work and I would be ready! Finally, that day came…and I was ready!

When the game started to work I knew that I had to seize my opportunity. I quickly beat the game with the first team. There’s not really much of a story mode here of course as it’s your standard Arcade Mode. It uses a 3 on 3 system (Not at once of course. It’s 1 on 1 and you move on when your teammates are defeated) and there are 21 fighters, which makes for 7 teams. That being said, just about all of the story modes play out in almost the same way. The first game was infamous in that fashion as I beat it well over a dozen times only to see the exact same cutscenes and identical dialogue from the villains. No matter what the new hero would say, the villain would just go on a tangent. I don’t know if it was that similar here, but definitely close to that.

That being said, it didn’t even matter. See, the game had to have the last laugh. The cartridge was in Japanese for some reason and there’s no way to switch the language setting. It’s safe to say that I was mind blown as I could not actually read any of the dialogue in the “story mode.” The game must have been laughing a little too hard as the next time I put it in, the game had stopped working. I could probably try to revive it once again, but there’s no real reason to do so. I got what I came for as I beat Arcade Mode once. There’s little reason to beat it 6 more times, especially considering that the dialogue is in Japanese.

There’s no real replay value here except for just battling computers or hoping that someone else has a GBA with the game. Beating Arcade Mode with the 7 teams should take you about 3 hours or so. The game’s definitely not a long one so you will be done with it in no time! Since it only goes for a few dollars or so in person and a little more online, I’d say that it’s still worth the purchase. Just make sure that your game has the right language setting or you’re toast!

The graphics and soundtrack are essentially identical to the first game. This is one of those games that you could really believe is just a recoloring of the first title as they are that similar. The sprites are just about the same and likewise with all of the combos. I’d say that the graphics have aged decently well and I’ve always been a good fan of the classic sprites. They really made you feel involved in the game and the fast soundtrack makes the fights more enjoyable. The soundtrack isn’t very memorable, but it gets the job done and you’ll be ready to crush the competition!

As for the gameplay, it’s your standard Street Fighter styled way to fight. You can throw out some quick attacks or just more powerful ones that are easier to dodge. Every character has some special attacks and you can also have an ally jump in to help you out when you’re in a pinch. The gameplay is fun and very easy to get used too. It’s hard to picture myself ever going up against experienced fighters in this one though as I find the controls to be a little hard to grasp. It’s a pure button masher for me so I just press everything and wait until I win. If that doesn’t work, then rinse and repeat the process until it does!

There’s not much more to say about this game. As I mentioned, there’s really nothing to do after Arcade Mode except to maybe enter Vs and have a little fun there. Beyond that….it’s basically Game Over. Still, I definitely won’t be forgetting this game anytime soon thanks to the epic story behind it. The game may have had its laughs, but I still managed to beat the game before it powered down again so I count this as a perfect victory. I haven’t played many King of Fighter games at this point, but I look forward to challenging more in the future. I’m always up for a fighting game after all and sometimes trying out a classic with no real gimmicks like this one is the thing to do when you need to get back into the genre! (Of course, Super Smash Bros literally blows the genre apart on its own)

Overall, King of Fighters Ex 2 Howling Blood is a solid game. If you bought both of the GBA games at the same time then you would probably be a little disappointed as it is essentially the same game in a new wrapper. I don’t even think that they increased the character count all that much and it may have even gotten lower. That being said, I certainly haven’t unlocked anyone so there are probably 1-2 more guys to unlock. If you want to play a fighting game from the old days, then this is definitely the title for you. There can be unlimited replay value if you really like the gameplay so it all rides on that. With this game down, it’ll be time to go back to the Legend of Kay and maybe some MnM’s as well.

Overall 7/10

The Amazing Spider Man Review

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After looking at the cover in Gamestop for a very long time, I finally took the plunge and bought this title. There was no chance that the game would be under a 7 due to the style of gameplay and how fun the Spider Man games are so it was a safe investment. While the graphics and plot may not have been the greatest, the solid gameplay ensured that Spiderman has hit it out of the park once again. Spiderman may not be the best in all forms of entertainment, but when it comes to video games, no superhero consistently dishes out such great titles!

The plot of the game takes place after the first Amazing Spider Man movie. Smythe has taken over Oscorp and is developing a lot of robots to protect the city. Unfortunately, a virus gets out from one of the old human/animal hybrid experiments that had been going on. The city quickly becomes infected and Smythe orders the robots to destroy everyone. The only way to protect the human race is to eradicate it of course! Spiderman breaks The Lizard out of jail so that a cure can be developed. Will Connors be able to make one in time or is the city doomed!?

So, the plot is rather standard and I wouldn’t call it that engaging. It does try to play out a little like a movie, which is commendable, but probably utilizes the first person camera angle too much. We rarely get to see Spiderman on camera except for when you’re doing the Xtreme challenges later on. It’s also interesting to note that most of the bosses have nothing to do with the plot either. Spiderman just randomly runs across them while going from place to place. Just about every boss is a hybrid in this version so they are basically immune to the virus. The other bosses are typically robots.

The cutscenes do provide some unintentionally funny scenes though like when Peter and Connors are yelling at each other after the first cure doesn’t work. They keep spinning each other around trying to be menacing, but failing epicly and then Peter just faints. That was certainly not his best moment although I’m sure that he gave it his all. I felt bad for Stan Lee’s apartment though as Peter allows Connor’s to trash the place and also use up a lot of Stan’s money. The poor guy can’t catch a break right?

As for the graphics, I can safely say that they haven’t aged too well. It’s mostly that I don’t really like the style/colors that were used. Everything looks detailed, but in more of an unattractive/ugly way than the polished Spiderman 1/2/3 games for the Gamecube/PS3. Those games as well as the original PS1 titles just look better than The Amazing Spider Man. That’s just how it goes sometimes I suppose, but I expect better from a PS3 title. The soundtrack is really good though and the fast paced themes will really make web slinging around the city a lot of fun. The bosses and minions are also more engaging as a result. It may have the best themes in a Spiderman game as most of the other games were not that memorable in that respect.

All right, time to talk about the gameplay! That’s the aspect where the game really hit it out of the park. The hand to hand clashes have never been better as you are really in full control of when you want to dodge, web out of the fight, web the opponent, or throw some punches. The way that the controls are set up makes it so easy and so enjoyable. You could really just have fun beating up the opponents for quite a while, but if you are in a hurry then you can just throw something to stun them. Of course, the point is that you will rarely want the fights to end! Naturally, the boss battles are an extension of this and you will have fun laying into them. If you want to crush them all with ease, my favorite strategy is to punch, punch, punch, web away when the spider sense flashes, then immediately web back to them and punch some more. It works quite well for most of the bosses.

The web swinging part got a lot of mixed to negative reception back in the day and it is quite different. I’ll certainly admit that it’s weaker than it was in the older games. Webbing higher and lower is more difficult than it should be here and you also feel like molasses at times. Luckily, that’s what we have Web Zipping for. Also, it’s still not bad though and just doesn’t live up to the older games. I also like the free fall aspect as I have fun free falling for the lolz. It’s a nice effect.

Everything’s just so smooth and that’s a good thing because the game has a very nice amount of replay value. Naturally, collecting all of the trophies ensures that and I am actually aiming for the Platinum in this title at some point. For starters, there are 700 comic book pages to collect. No matter how fast you are at completing the levels, this is bound to take you some time. Playing the game in the night setting is the best way to go about this. There are also 20 Xtreme challenges to complete although those are rather short. There are a lot of people to rescue on the streets, Getaway Cars to snag, Police Copters to Assist, and many other missions throughout the city. We can’t forget the classic “Stop the muggers” missions that are a staple in the Spider Man series. The missions aren’t excessive, but they will definitely bump up the play time. You’ll also need to beat the game on hard mode to get some of the final trophies while also taking a lot of photos. The post game content is long without feeling over the top in terms of how much grinding you will have to do.

While it’s essentially been mentioned, I can’t stress enough how great it is for the city to be back here. Just web slinging across the city for no real reason can be a lot of fun and I missed that feature when they took it out for Edge of Time and Shattered Dimensions. Seeing it back in its full glory was great and the game did a tremendous job of recreating the place. You may even recognize some areas as you explore the place. I also liked the twitter feed that the game added during the loading screen. It’s cool to see what everyone’s saying as the disease spreads. I think it was a bit of a missed opportunity as there were no guest stars there are hidden references, but it was still a blast.

Overall, The Amazing Spider Man is a really good game for the PS3. It really keeps in all of the core Spider Man features that you have come to expect over the years. The plot isn’t as engaging as any of the older games (Friend or Foe not counting) and especially pales when compared to Edge of Time. Still, the gameplay will always be the most important factor for a game and it’s so much fun that the game will really pass by before you know it. The replay value just adds to the excitement! I would have liked some bonus costumes to wear though as those were fun in older games. Maybe I just haven’t found them yet. I highly recommend buying this game and you can experience the city like you used too!

Overall 8/10

J-Stars Victory Vs+ Review

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This is a game that was definitely unlikely to come to America when it first came out. If this had arrived just a few years earlier, I’m confident that it never would have made the trip to the USA. Luckily, we’re starting to get better with licensing anime fighters like this one thanks to the power of leaving their voices in Japanese. It’s a trade off that I’m definitely willing to make and I’m sure that many anime fans actually prefer it this way. The crossover is as great as you could expect!

There actually is a Story Mode in this game. Essentially, all of the various Shonen Jump manga series actually take place on an incredibly large planet called Jump World. Before you start the story, you can choose to play as Luffy, Toriko, Naruto, or Ichigo. Depending on who you pick will determine which characters you meet along your quest to enter the legendary tournament and prove your superiority to the rest of the cast. Along the way, you can help other characters through quests and recruit some strong fighters to your team. Once you complete the tournament, the real villains appear and they aren’t here to have tea!

I mentioned that this was a crossover already, but I should explain a little more about how extensive it is. Just like how Super Smash Bros crossovered characters from the many Nintendo franchises, Playstation All Stars Battle Royale did the same for Sony’s fighters, Marvel vs Capcom brought together characters from their companies, and Justice League vs Mortal Kombat did a nice mixup, J-Stars Victory Vs did the same thing. There are 39 playable characters from 24 different series. Coincidentally…or not, Super Smash Bros for Wii U also represents 24 different series thanks to the inclusion of Ryu from Street Fighter. Super Smash Bros does have over 10 extra characters to J-Stars, but this is just the beginning for the J-Stars franchise and we can look forward to more sequels at some point. Video Game Crossovers are always a lot of fun and as I’m a fairly huge Shonen Jump fan who has read several of the series, I can definitely appreciate the interactions. I’ve read 12 of the 24 series that are in J-Stars so I definitely know a lot about more of the characters.

Also, you heard me right. There are actually a lot of interactions and a fairly deep plot in story mode. This is something that quite a few of the other crossovers that I mentioned lack like the new Super Smash Bros and MVC3. It was great that the game added the story mode as it adds more enjoyment to any title. I completed Luffy’s Story Mode and aim to do the other 3 at some point in the near future. I decided to do one story mode, then complete another game, and rinse/repeat the process until all 4 are done.

Aside from Story Mode, there are quite a lot of other things to do here. There’s an Arcade Mode that you can play to test your skills. Completing it doesn’t seem to actually unlock anything as far as I know, but it’s a great way to earn money and may be even more effective than Story Mode at that. There’s also a mode titled Victory Road, which is basically an Arcade Mode that is more mission based. There seem to be quite a few levels to complete here, but an incentive is that you will get 3 trophies as you complete it. That’s not a bad deal!

Those 3 modes alone should already take you many hours to complete. This is no short game by any stretch of the imagination. The replay value is essentially limitless as the gameplay is a lot of fun so you can enjoy many matches in local multiplayer or through online. Trying to nab the Platinum will also extend the journey a little. It’s not too much of a grind though and it’s not unreasonable either. It will force you to really experience the Story Mode as you will have to complete several extra quests and fight more ships than you would have otherwise. You will also need to complete all Victory Road battles along the way. The Platinum is worth the effort though since it’s the ultimate bragging right as far as the PS3 trophies are concerned.

Now, it’s about time that I talk about the actual gameplay right? It’s a 3D brawler and you have to defeat your opponent a certain amount of times in order to win the match. You can do a 1 on 1 battle or go up to 4 on 4 at a time. 1 on 1 is probably the most direct, but 4 on 4 can be quite epic since so many things are happening at once. You have standard attacks as well as power ones and special abilities. You can use the R1 button to block or mix it with the other attacks for even more techniques. You really have a lot of attack options, but you will most likely find yourself sticking to one or two favorite combos after a while. I’ve been playing as Luffy a lot so I go with his rapid fist option all of the time.

Once your team has gotten enough encouragement, they will be ready to go into their Victory Modes. At that point, you can use your Final Smash to attack the opponents. Even if you are a team of 4, you will only control 1 character. The other 2 will be helping out as A.I. allies and one character can be used as a support fighter like in Marvel vs Capcom 3. I felt like a lot of effort went into the gameplay because each character feels like he/she did in their own games. I can really only speak for Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece, because I haven’t really played modern games for most of the other franchises. Naruto’s combos feel like they did in Ninja Storm, while Goku’s combos seem to be straight from the BT series. Even Ichigo’s attacks feel like they did in Soul Resurrection. This way, you know what you are doing with your favorite character right off the bat if you had already played that character’s game earlier.

The soundtrack is naturally very good as it uses music from all of the various SJ titles. You can even choose which music theme you want to play for when you activate your Victory Burst. The large variety of themes is a lot of fun and most of the series get their own stage as well. My favorite is probably the Athena one with my least favorite being the Bleach stage. It’s unfortunate, but there are just too many walls to navigate around if you ask me. The graphics are solid and you can easily tell who’s who. The manga effect isn’t quite as smooth as it is for the Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm series, but it’s still good and effective at evoking that manga effect that the game is going for. Nothing beats looking at the Kamehameha wave..unless it’s being tossed at you!

Now, we have to compare the game to Super Smash Bros for a minute here. Super Smash Bros does win the battle in terms of soundtrack, graphics, gameplay, and replay value, but J-Stars takes it down when it comes to the story mode aspect since Super Smash Bros surrendered that. Taking one win against the ultimate video game is still some good bragging rights though and I look forward to seeing what J-Stars has up its sleeve for the sequel.

Overall, J-Stars Victory Vs+ was a lot of fun. It’s still amazing that the game actually managed to come out in America. This is certainly worth purchasing and there’s enough content to last you here for quite a while. I’m still working on getting the Platinum on the side so you can expect an update for this game at some point. As a big Shonen Jump fan, I can do no less! I eagerly await a sequel for this game and wonder which other characters will be added to the fray. Hopefully we can get around 60 playable characters next time so each franchise can have more reps. This is easily one of the best PS3 games on the block so you need to purchase it as soon as possible!

Overall 9/10

Calvin Tucker’s Redneck Farm Animal Racing Tournament Review

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That’s a really long title right? It’s a little sadder when you realize what it’s actually abreviating. Calvin Tucker’s Redneck….hmmmmm. It’s all very intriguing and a little sad. On the main menu, they actually edit the title and take the word Redneck out. The game developers and marketing guys must have not been on the same page, but I suppose that it happens. This is certainly not one of the high budget games that you will look at and be amazed at how far it’s gone. The gameplay actually looks better on the Nintendo DS, but I can’t confirm that at this time.

When you enter the game you have a free play mode and tournament mode. Being the epic gamer that I am, I launched right into the tournament mode. There are about 5 tournaments if I recall correctly and each one is 4 races with the exception of one that is only 3. Each stage is only two laps so it’s actually a fairly short mode. Keep in mind that you need to win the tournament or you’ll have to try it again. I had to try again 2-4 times, but the game wasn’t very difficult. The controls were the only challenging part and you get the hang of them eventually.

The gameplay is fairly straight forward as this is a racing game. Get to the finish line first and you’re the winner. You hold the Wii Remote horizontally in this game, which is usually the default setup for all racing games. You gain items throughout the course that you can use to throw at opponents or give yourself a boost. Each character has their own special ability that you get to use every time you collect 8 coins. There are a lot of coins in each level so getting enough coins is a rather simple process. It shouldn’t take you very long at all. You really want to be a character who has a good special ability since it can make a big difference between winning and losing.

Almost all of the characters in this game are called Billy, which is a really fun concept. I forgot which Billy I used, but he’s the one who has a booster as his special ability. I highly recommend going with that guy for the tournaments once you unlock him. Alternately, having a special ability that throws something at an opponent can also be very useful when you’re in a tough spot. Remember to keep your eyes on the road at all times since even a small bump can really launch you off the track. Bumping into other opponents will typically hurt you more than them so I wouldn’t recommend that either. Just steer clear of everyone else and drive a solid game. So long as you do those two things, you should be all set to rock and roll.

As for the soundtrack, it’s a little on the generic side. The themes that play are what you would expect from a farm title. I would have preferred themes that took the racing a little more seriously. Something action packed and quick would have been my ideal choice for the game even if the actual gameplay isn’t very fast. As it is, the music doesn’t really help the game. Neither does the graphics. They aren’t downright terrible, but I have seen Super Nintendo games that have looked better so take that as you will. The character models aren’t very clear and it can be very hard to see an obstacle until you are already crashing, which isn’t cool.

A good thing to remember is that you can hit the minus button to reset your car after you crash. I didn’t learn that until the final tournament and it can really help you when you’re in a pinch so always keep that option in mind and it’ll help you a lot throughout your races. The controls are a little sketchy when turning, but they’re not as bad as they could be. I believe that the main problem is just that the cars are super weak so banging into anything will really cause you to do a big turnaround and get into some trouble. That’s where the reset button comes in handy.

There’s not a lot of replay value here and you can probably be done with the game in a few hours depending on how easy the races are for you. If you do find them to be very easy, then you can probably beat the game in 2 hours and have nothing left to do. This is not a game that has a whole lot of replay value and you may never pick it up again unless you have someone to play it with. The multiplayer option is its only form of replay value and that’s only if you want to play this over a better racing game like Mario Kart.

It’s easy to think of this as a bad game, but it’s actually a tough call between giving it a 4 and a 5. I got it for only a dollar or 2 so the content wasn’t bad considering that, but it’s almost not fair to lower the bar for the game on account of the price. At the same time, I could see the game getting a slightly lower score if I had bought it for retail price way back in the day. It’s safe to say that the rating has a small impact on what I ultimately end up giving the game.

Overall, The Calvin Tucker game is certainly one of the weaker racing games that I’ve played in a while. It’s better than Quad Kings, but that’s not saying a whole lot. I felt like the game didn’t really put a lot of effort into the actual racing, which is a little odd considering that it’s a racing game. I can only assume that the budget was incredibly small, which is why it doesn’t look or sound very good. The gameplay is the main part though and it’s not really that bad. If the game had been a lot longer then it may have been an issue, but it was a very short game so I didn’t mind it all that much. I think that I’m going to have to give the game a 4. It may be the best 4 that I’ve ever played, but I don’t think that there are enough positives to totally warrant a 5. This is one racing game that you may want to skip, but if you find that you have an extra 2 dollars lying around, maybe you should skip out on ordering that frappe and just buy this game. It’ll last you a little longer than the frappe after all!

Overall 4/10

Madden 25 Review

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All right, it’s time to review my first PS4 game! The Madden series is still one of my favorite video game titles out there because it is consistently good. It has many fans and many anti fans as you would expect from a series that sells so well. Sometimes the game doesn’t seem to have changed all that much, but when you’ve got a good thing going, why wreck it right? This one may be a step down from Madden 13, but it’s still a really good title and it’ll tide me over until I eventually buy Madden 15. (Potentially sometime during football season)

The game has quite a few modes. Naturally, we have the classic Play Now title, but there are also other modes like Ultimate Team and Skill Trainer. Skill Trainer is sort of like the Minicamp Mode from Madden 2004 and I thought that it was nice to see it brought back. The drills can be a little difficult to complete as you have to do the correct action 9 times out of 10 in order to get the gold trophy. I got all of the Golds for passing, defending and Pre Plays but I didn’t go and complete the rushing ones yet. Perhaps at some time, but I’m not aiming on getting the Platinum so it could be a while. They are also decently difficult as rushing is the trickiest to complete for some reason.

Speaking of which, that gets into my one big negative for Madden 25. It’s more of a negative for the PS4 than the game though since this appears to be the case for just about every online title. You can’t actually use the online battle services unless you buy PS+. A lot of the fun that I had in Madden 13 was when I was fighting other players online. The fact that I cannot do so now without buying the subscription is pretty sad. I don’t plan on getting PS+ anytime soon so the game will have to lose some replay value there. It also means that the Platinum is unattainable, which is unfortunate.

Ah well, beyond that, the game is rock solid as you would expect. The graphics look stunning and EA has always done a great job of making sure that their games were ahead of the curve. Of course, it also helps that I’m finally experiencing what the power of the PS4 can really do. There are few games that look quite as good as Madden and you can just stand back and appreciate the textures and backgrounds as the announcers start to set up the game. Otherwise, it can be a little bit of a hindrance because you can’t skip the opening for a few seconds, but what’s a few lost seconds here and there right? I still appreciate the huge amounts of effort that they put into the game.

I can’t really comment on the soundtrack as it was strangely absent a lot of the time. Either that or it was simply too subtle to notice. That’s a decently good thing as older Maddens typically had a pretty underwhelming array of themes. All you need is the main theme for when the match is about to start as that one is always great. Beyond that, I wouldn’t mind if there wasn’t any music here as it’s not really needed during the gameplay. The theme for the main menu is quite catchy so that’s better than nothing.

As always, there is a lot of replay value to be found here even if you can’t get the Platinum. You can go through the Connected Career mode to battle through various seasons. Honestly, just that mode alone can give you enough things to do for 50-100 hours. Skills Trainer will buy you a little more time and then you can try collecting as many trophies as possible. Trust me, Madden has never been lacking in content and that doesn’t change with this title. The no online hurts, but it’s certainly not a game changer.

I haven’t really talked about the core gameplay. If you are familiar with the NFL rules then you should be okay. If not, the basic goal of the game is to score points and stop the other team from scoring. The actual controls are fairly simple to use, but tough to master, which has always been a good mix. Running the ball can be great if the opponent is not expecting it, but you typically won’t go far. Like the real NFL, passing the ball is where all the action is and you have to be very careful about what throws you decide to go for. The defense is incredibly skilled and they will always beat your receiver to the ball if it is between them so you should almost never go for deep balls. Once you are really experienced at the game, then it’s all right to try these throws since you can take control of the receiver and beat out the defender yourself. It’s incredibly satisfying, but also difficult to pull off.

Madden 25 also constantly updates so the stories that play on the bottom of the screen are similar to the ones on the NFL’s official site. It’s cool to see how current the title is and it even updates the roster for you. Seriously, Madden 25 seems to have thought of everything and there are even Papa John ads throughout the game where the announcers will talk about how good it is. That was pretty neat and it’s not distracting from the actual gameplay so it’s a fun addition. The commentary may be a little limited, but it’s still a great feature during gameplay and it’s fun to hear them talk about what you’re doing on the field. It would be essentially impossible to make it perfect so I’m also satisfied with this.

Madden simply feels like a next gen title. Unfortunately, the game maybe starts to cross the line of being too realistic as turning while running with the ball can be a bit of a hassle now. For example, in an older Madden, you would turn and your player would crisply just keep running in a diagonal direction. Now, he has to actually turn to make the cut, which will briefly make the player stutter and that makes turning a little less effective. This change isn’t terrible and there are many new features to help compensate for this as you can use super stiff arms and other techniques, but the open field running was better in older titles. Once you learn all the tricks of the trade, you’ll be ready to do great things, but I can’t imagine that you will be running the ball very often.

If you want to know a good pass play that essentially works in every single Madden game, I highly recommend screen passes to your running back. It’s almost 100% guaranteed on 1st and 10 or 2nd and 10. The only times where it is dangerous to use it is in a short situation like 3rd and 1 as the cornerbacks will be a little too close for comfort. Alternately, you can use screens to your wide receiver occasionally to keep the opponent off balance. It’s not flashy and you will be fighting for each yard, but it works quite well. Slants are your next best option, but you have to be watching carefully before you release the ball.

Overall, Madden 25 is a very fun game. The no online is regrettable, but older Madden titles didn’t have this feature and I still enjoyed them a lot so this game is safe. The graphics are great and the soundtrack has noticeably improved since the themes are typically instrumental now, which works better with the game. Skills Trainer is fairly difficult, but it’s also a lot of fun and not much of a grind although I would expect some of the trials to take several efforts to complete. There’s a lot to do in this game so it’s well worth the initial 60 although the new price of 13-15 makes it even better. It’s not quite as good as Madden 2004 or Madden 13, but it gives 12 and 11 a good run for their money. Now that we are getting close to Football season, this is a good game to buy to get you in the mood and then you can trade up to Madden 15 once 16 comes out.

Overall 8/10

Lego Jurassic World Review

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This game is fairly new and it covers the plots of the first four films! I recently finished watching all 4 titles so it’s fun to relive the adventures in the Lego format. Each film gets 5 levels to itself, which makes for a solid amount of stages to get through. This is the first Lego game that I’ve played aside from Lego Marvel if I recall correctly and it’s definitely fun to check them out. I do like the little nods and fourth wall breaking that they give the dinosaurs.

The first world deals with the first Jurassic Park being unveiled and a few key players have been invited to see if it’s ready to be opened. Their seals of approval are all that the park need, but the T Rex may scare them from doing this! The second world has one of the guys reluctantly come back to the island…the second island anyway to save his friend, but he ends up getting stranded! The third world has the main character of the first film come back to an island filled with dinosaurs for money and has to use his wits to survive. The final world features Jurassic Park. It has finally become an attraction, but a new dinosaur escapes so a master Raptor trainer will have to deal with her! If you’ve seen the films, you’ll understand the plot anyway so I just provided a brief summary in case you didn’t get the chance to view them.

Lego Jurassic World is roughly 7 hours for the main game and getting all of the additional collectibles would likely stretch that to around 20-30. It’s a good length for the game and the average level was around 20-30 minutes although some of the puzzles would make me take a step back and think for a little while. Still, you shouldn’t expect to blast through every puzzle without a few delays so the completion time should still be pretty similar.

If you’ve played a Lego game before, then you should be fairly used to the gameplay and format. The gameplay has a bit of an overhead view, but it’s still 3D for the most part and plays out like Ultimate Alliance. You can punch and each character has 2-3 special abilities like crawling through tunnels or climbing a wall. Once in a while, there will be some minions to defeat and you can just smash them to bits with your punches. Quick time events appear for boss battles like the T Rex vs the Spinosaurus. You can never really lose in this game as you will infinitely respawn, but it’s not meant to be difficult anyway. Playing the Lego games is more about the experience and just enjoying the adventures.

I found it ironic that this game actually fixes some of my complaints from the film. Namely, the animal violence. The pigs will often escape the Dinosaurs in this version and even offer a little chuckle/snortle when they escape. Instead of eating each other, the Dinosaurs will usually just chase one another and even most of the humans end up surviving. Lego Jurassic World is a comedy adventure so it makes sure to never let things get too serious. I rather enjoy this as I don’t want to see the animals get eaten even if they are made of Legos. Like this, you can really sit back and enjoy the game. You’ll even see some Dinosaurs jumping on motorcycles and wearing cool sunglasses. It’s very surreal and epic.

The graphics are decently good. It’s a Lego game so it’s hard to say that the graphics are actually very good or if they are simply decent. Naturally, I will always prefer more of a traditional art style like Mario Sunshine or Super Smash Bros 64, but the actual Lego figures look fairly bright and colorful so the graphics definitely aren’t bad. They did a good job of recreating the areas and considering that everything is made out of Lego pieces, it’s pretty impressive.

The soundtrack is fun as the game tries to remix the main Jurassic Park theme with as many variations as possible. Whenever a Juke Box, Phone, Stereo, TV, or Bicycle bell makes a sound, you’ll typically hear the theme. There must be dozens of variations to find in the game and it was a nice touch. Most of the other themes are likely public domain or from the films, but the classic jingle will is definitely something to keep an eye out for whenever it shows up.

The trophies are all doable and fairly simple to achieve. It will take some time as you must go through all of the levels once again and collecting all of the Lego Pieces will be tricky unless you buy some upgrades. It’s a bit of a grind, but it’s actually very satisfying to break all of the objects around you and gather the pieces. It actually doesn’t get tedious at any point so that’s a good thing. Still, it’s a fair Platinum as they should be time consuming and you’ll have fun exploring the islands as you get yours. That’s a good amount of replay value and getting the Platinum will have meant that you’ll have done all of the extra tasks anyway so I don’t need to go into those. Needless to say, there are many characters to unlock and races to complete.

I’ll admit that I had been slightly hoping that the T Rex would defeat the Spinosaurus here as an in joke for the fans, but the Spino still pulled ahead. Granted, we got to help the T Rex here as it wouldn’t have even been a close fight otherwise. Maybe the game is actually trying to tell us something here….hmmmmmm. Either way, the T Rex will always be awesome and we can’t forget the Raptors. There’s even a twist ending in this game that I assume leads into Lego Dimensions. That will definitely be a fun title as a bunch of different franchises will be meeting up. My Lego video game collection will likely be growing as I get more of these titles, but at least now I can say that I’ve played the latest Lego game. They’re always guaranteed to be fun as the formula is quite sound. They aren’t too short or too long so they’re just right as a break from the other games that I’m playing like Flip’s Twisted World.

Overall, Lego Jurassic World is a fun game. If you like the Lego games, then you’ll definitely enjoy this one. If you haven’t played any before, then this is a nice jumping on point. There are a lot of things to do and you should enjoy it so long as you enjoy Platformers. You’ll be able to really start learning about the Jurassic Park franchise and the humor is well done. Of course, the price is rather high at the moment, but never let that stop you from getting a fun game.

Overall 7/10