Tag Archives: Wii

Pirate’s Quest: Hunt for Blackbeard’s Booty Review

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It’s time for another Wii party game. It’s actually been quite a while since I got to play one so this was nostalgic. The actual games are better than most in this genre although that is fought back by the limited content in this game. Seriously, the game only has 5-6 minigames which is significantly less than pretty much any other party game. Name a title that has less minigames, I’ll wait. I give the game some kudos for actually getting a story together with actual cutscenes though. It’s not much but it shows that this game has more of a budget than the rest.

So the main mode is story mode of course. You can also just play the minigames freely in multiplayer mode as well which is where you’ll likely spend most of your time after beating the game. After all, there is nothing else to do. The main story mode has 3 worlds which each have the 5-6 minigames. It’s just the same ones that get recycled so this is an obvious ploy to extend the game without actually coming up with new content. It’s a little sloppy and forced if I’m being honest, but at least it’s only 3 worlds so it could have been much worse. The cutscenes explain how Blackbeard found his treasure. They’re fairly low budget, but not half bad. The story should last you for a full 2 hours. Multiplayer can be infinite but considering that you’ll likely switch to Mario Party before long, I doubt you’ll be sticking around. There’s really almost nothing to do in this game so buying it at full price would have been crazy. For only around 2 dollars though, it’s really not a terrible bargain.

The graphics are pretty underwhelming but what else is new right? It’s what I’d expect from a Wii game of this caliber. There isn’t much of a soundtrack either so just focus on the minigames. On a technical level the game does not surpass expectations and merely meets them half heartedly. So far this review has been pretty tough on the game eh? It’s time for the actual games then to see if they can save the title. First off is Poloball which is actually my favorite. It’s like Golf, but actually exciting and with more stakes. Essentially you have to hit a ball through about 10-16 checkpoints. Once you cross them all, then you get a poison ball and want to hit all of the other balls. Whoever gets the poison ball first naturally has a huge advantage over the others. The game can theoretically take a long time if everyone is good though. This is because the gates are narrow and if you bump another ball then you can shoot it far away. As a result, everyone could keep shooting each other’s balls away for a while which would make for a big stalemate. Hopefully that doesn’t happen.

The swordfighting game is probably the weakest one. It’s about swinging your Wii remote as the sword so you can see why this didn’t work out too well. The remote just won’t listen to you half of the time and it feels like the computer always has the edge. You’ll just want to keep swinging and hope for the best, but it doesn’t make for a very balanced minigame. It was generic at best. We had the tag team boat racing where one character controls the cannons while the other steers. This one is pretty fun although I don’t like the fact that if you get too far ahead of the opponent he is brought up to where you are. Kind of defeats the whole purpose of the minigame don’t you think? That felt like a big flaw.

Another minigame is treasure hunting. It’s also 2 on 2 which the game seemed to love. You have to dig for chests while the other team tries to whack you on the head. Then you switch placed after a certain amount of time or it happens instantly if they get both of you at the same time. This game has a lot of strategy behind it and I definitely enjoyed the game. You really have to try and stay one step ahead of your opponent throughout the game. Teamwork is also important because if both players go after one person then the other one has free reign. It’s pretty well done for the game. As you can see, in general the minigames are actually pretty good. They’re just really limited and you can only play a minigame for so long before you grow tired of it. I doubt I’d want to play too many games of poloball back to back after all.

Technically there are a bunch of a costumes, weapons, and characters to unlock. You’ll just notice very quickly that they don’t make for much of an incentive to grab them all. I was happy to grab some along the way with the in game currency but they’re way too pricey. I would have to play the game for a very long time to get them all and I’m not willing to make such an investment in time. Not on this game anyway and especially without any trophies for my efforts.

Overall, This game ranks up there with Casper as one of the shorter games. Perhaps the campaign is longer than the others since it is 2 hours, but in terms of actual content this one is way shorter than that. The lack of minigames just can’t be ignored. While there are unlockables they seem purely cosmetic so it’s not as if they really add a dimension to the game. If you find this title for 2 dollars then you should probably snag it but otherwise I’d advise getting a better party game instead. There is no shortage of other options to be honest as even the newest Mario Parties are better games than this one. Sorry Blackbeard, but my treasure is in another title.

Overall 5/10

Kawasaki Quad Bikes Review

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It’s time for a racing game that has really fallen to the side of the road. Nobody really knows about this game and that includes me. I just happened to run across it at Gamestop one day and thought that I should pick it up. It was only two dollars after all so that sounded like a steal to me. It plays out as you’d expect with really choppy Wii sensor controls but I can live with that. It’s pretty basic but you’ll quickly find that it has some replay value.

There as really two main modes, Tournament, and Free Play. Fortunately the game is multiplayer enabled so you can ride the tracks with a friend. It’s not 4 player so you can already feel the budget limitations. There are also a very limited amount of stages. There are 3 Cups with 8 races each but instead of 24 levels, a bunch of them are reused. I didn’t count them all since the screencaps are deceptively similar to each other to prevent you from even trying to undertake this task. Once you complete all of the tournament cups, you can try to do so again under a different difficulty setting. I didn’t bother with that since you can easily earn enough money to unlock the extra characters from the first three, but if you really like the game then that’s a good option.

You won’t be playing this game for very long, but the content is fairly reasonable. Multiplayer already adds replay value and the different difficulties should last you a while. The computers are fairly good even on default, but they tend to crash into the obstacles. Assuming that they don’t in the other levels, it’ll be extremely hard to beat them. This is partially due to their skill and partially due to the level designs and controls.

As I mentioned, the controls are rough. In the game you are constantly shaking since the ground is riddled with holes and bumps. You will barely be able to keep going straight during this time and turns are really tough without slowing down. If you go too fast or too slow during a hill then you’re probably going to lose valuable seconds from crashing. If the game doesn’t want you to crash just yet, you’ll simply get stuck. That happened to me a few times and it certainly gets pretty intense. I didn’t ask for this….but it’s how it goes. I like the concept of the game and bikes always make for a very dynamic gameplay style. This title just didn’t really make use of that.

However, while the gameplay is pretty bad, it’s bad in a fun way. I never had a problem replaying the levels because they are all pretty short. You can also restart a level as many times as it takes to win it so if you’re worried about having to restart a tournament from the beginning if you lose the last level, don’t be worried. Just replay the level (Before you cross the goal line though or the trick won’t work) and you’re all set. It’s a nice little trick that makes the game a whole lot better. Without this trick the game could have certainly gotten very dicey.

The graphics are all right. They’re certainly nothing special of course, but they’re not as bad as you may have expected. The soundtrack is also pretty bland but what else is new right? You’ll definitely need to be playing this game for the gameplay or just to laugh at it. Regardless of what your plan is, the game should be reasonably enjoyable for a weekend. You won’t be playing it long-term but what could you get that will last you for hours on a 2 dollar budget? It’s a pretty good deal for the price.

One addition that would have been fun for the game would be more bikes. There are only 6 bikes if I can recall them correctly and you unlock the extra ones almost instantly. That leaves nothing else to use your stars on so they quickly become pointless. Even if they were just color swaps, I would have liked to have gotten a bunch of other bikes to spice up the gameplay.

Overall, The name of this game is hard to recall and people may not really remember it, but I think the game’s about as good as you could expect. It’s certainly not going to worry the Need for Speed developers anytime soon, but I like to think that this game will inspire other companies to give the bike genre a shot. The main thing to learn from this is to have an even ground. The game would probably get a 7 if the path was smooth since that is really the main obstacle that hurts the game. So many things would be fixed if they just did this. I’d recommend picking the game up if you see it although odds are that you’ll be in the same room as a better racing game.

Overall 6/10

Rabbids Go Home Review

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It’s time to delve back into the world of Rayman. The first game for the GBA didn’t work out so well but I’m still trying to fix it. In the meantime, this spinoff seems like it will do just fine as a little filler. It actually has some pretty tight gameplay but it is limited by the rather lackluster story and certain elements of the game that just weren’t really thought out. Ironically enough, the bad/cartoony graphics actually help the game from sinking any lower. Sword Art Online level graphics for this game would have made it quite disastrous indeed. As it is, the game actively mocks you throughout.

The general plot is that the Rabbids want to get to the Moon. Apparently that may even be their home. They hope to collect enough trash to let them reach it. By their estimation, you’ll need 23000 feet of trash to get that high. This means they’ll have to do things like say “Nothing personal kid” and teleport behind the person to steal their stuff if necessary. More likely, they’ll end up mugging the person. The Rabbids have no inclination to work with local authorities and have decides that they’ll take down anyone who gets in their way. So begins the mission.

Each level is about grabbing a lot of junk and snatching a big object by the end. You may steal a plane, a dying person, a wheel, a boat, etc. It all becomes trash once the Rabbids grab it. You then make it to a dirty toilet and flush your way back to base. The game spares no expense with the crude humor as the toilet is quite dirty each time you use it. Their base is under the toilet which isn’t very sanitary and then you go back to the hub world (It’s like New York City) and find another one to use. It’s pretty formulaic with most of the levels being pretty similar.

The gameplay is like Super Mario Galaxy meets Mario Kart. It’d a 3D adventure and you control a Rabbid who is pulling a Shopping Cart. You put all of the junk in it by making contact with objects. You can swing your Wii remote to attack and you can also use the boost to get through larger jumps. Enemies will attack you so shake the Wii Remote to take them down. The actual gameplay is incredibly simple so you’ll know what to do almost immediately. From there, it’s just a matter of getting through the levels.

Each level has 1000 pieces of junk in it and on average you can expect to get somewhere in the 800s. Do your best to get a lot since you can theoretically hit the 23K mark a lot sooner than way. I got to skip quite a few levels myself using this method. There is some replay value as you can naturally keep collecting junk until you reach the secret ending, but lets be honest…who wants to do that. Since the story is one of the weak parts of the game, that’s the last thing I’d be tempted to do. This is a game where you turn it off as soon as it is completed. The main campaign is reasonably long and should last you a few hours regardless. It’s a pretty easy game and you’ll likely only lose a small handful of lives. By and large there isn’t much of a challenge.

All right, here’s where the game gets iffy. The Rabbids strip anyone who is in their way. You literally snatch their clothes off and leave them in underwater. You do this to absolutely everyone that you pass and it gets pretty tricky. Everyone panics and gets cold after doing this, but the Rabbids don’t seem to care. When you hit an animal, the same thing happens only you take the animal and 2 pieces of meat. It’s rather disturbing. The whole game is pretty disturbing at times if you really think about it. These guys are not heroes either as you see them defying authority and picking fights for no reason at times.

As I mentioned earlier, the game also mocks you with its cutscenes. You get the same recycled animations quite a few times after they initially debut. I suppose the developers couldn’t be bothered to come up with 31 different animations. Several of the levels start to get copied off of each other as well. Maybe the budget was just a little more limited than I thought. There certainly wasn’t much of a soundtrack as the themes started to repeat as well. I will give it some props for actually having lyrical songs though. That was unexpected even if I can’t really remember much about them even though I just beat the game. It’s not a very memorable array of songs.

As I also mentioned, the graphics aren’t good and that’s a good thing. You can probably guess now why having good graphics would have been a problem. The game tries to make everything seem as ugly as possible. While that’s a pretty sad goal, the game is good at achieving it so I suppose I have to give them that much credit. Then the Rabbids start laughing and yelling at you again and you wonder what the game was thinking. You can’t even skip most of the cutscenes so get ready to see them quite a few times.

It’s really a shame since the gameplay actually isn’t that bad. Finally, a 3D Wii game where the controls were actually tested quite a bit. I’m not saying that it’s a AAA game, but the gameplay never glitches or anything. It feels fair throughout and you can turn on a dime. The controls are the highlight of the game and as I always say, the gameplay is the most important facet of the game. The levels went by pretty fast because the gameplay was pretty solid. Even the Hub World is pretty well thought out. The place is laid out pretty well so you can get anywhere with ease. It’s simple, but effective.

Overall, Rabbids Go Home had potential but it’s not like I ever had high expectations for a Rabbids game. They are some of the worst main characters in all of video games. At 2 bucks the game was too cheap to pass up, but it showed its true colors right away. The gameplay could have given this game a 7, but I have to deduct 2 points for the really terrible story. The crude humor and stripping mechanic were both just pretty bad ideas. This is one of those games that would have been better without having any cutscenes or a plot. The game also comes across as a rather mean spirited title at times. The Rabbids end up kidnapping people who are seriously injured after all and hijacking a plane which led dozens to perish. The body count in this game is rather high and while it is cartoony so the game certainly isn’t violent or dark, it just doesn’t work well. There’s nothing likable about the Rabbids and you just end up rooting for the humans even if you know that they are doomed.

Overall 5/10

M&M’s Adventure Review

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It’s time for another game in the M&Ms saga. The previous ones weren’t all that bad. The DS game’s gameplay was pretty interesting and you can’t really mess up a racing game. This was the first one to be a full platformer though so that naturally came with some considerable risks. It has quite a few glitches and plays out like a slightly higher budget version of Ninjabread Man at times. The game definitely makes some mistakes and I’d have to call it a bad game. It’s not on the same level as some of the other disaster titles, but it makes enough of the wrong moves to sabotage itself like having to replay a whole chapter if you lose. Lets dive in!

The game starts on Christmas Eve as the M&Ms are getting ready to lock up for the night. Unfortunately, a security breach occurs and all of the M&Ms are stolen. The heroes have to quickly re grab all 120 of them before leaving, but they are now being guarded by a Snowman who likes to yell “Its hot”, The Easter Bunny who is very hungry, The Nutcracker who wants to blow everyone up, and the Halloween Man who is trying to scare everyone. Fortunately our brave heroes won’t back down when candy is on the line.

The gameplay is very straight forward. It’s a 3D adventure that “should” play out like a Mario game. You move and jump as you cross the level. Getting to the end is your destination, but not the goal. You must find all of the M&Ms in each level or else you’ll have to replay it anyway. Each level has 3-4 areas which can be as large as an average level in another game. You must beat them all without losing all of your lives or you’re sent back to the beginning and you’ll need to grab the M&Ms again. That is definitely the most annoying part of the game. Most of the levels aren’t all that difficult, but the last 2 are tough. There is a huge jump in difficulty between levels 2 and 3.

Level 3 has you go through many jumps with metal birds trying to peck you along the way. It seems like you can possibly step on them or lure them to a bomb, but it’s much harder than it looks. With enough repetition you’ll get through it, but the levels can be long so you don’t want to have to replay them too much. Fortunately to counter this, the bosses are incredibly easy. The only one that is even a little difficult is the final boss which is also very generous with health bits everywhere. For the Cupid you just have to hit a bunch of switches. Taking down the Bunny just means luring him to candy and you lure the soldier to poison smoke. You lure the Lantern to bombs and take out the Snowman by hitting a lot of switches. Either the developers didn’t put too much thought into the bosses or they just didn’t want to make them too difficult. Imagine having to go all the way back at that point.

There is one part of the game that is just unfair though. In Green’s last level there comes a point where you have to board a boat as cannons shoot at you. The problem is that you die instantly for no reason. It’s possible an unintentional glitch in the game or something, but that’s it..you’re done. The only way around this that I found was to just jump in the ice cream and swim to shore. It takes up a lot of health, but at least I lived. I wasted a lot of lives trying to figure out why I was dying though. It would be like an invisible energy blast hit me or something.

Fortunately the game has so many glitches that you can exploit them as well. You can jump on air to skip parts of levels by just mashing jump and you can also achieve infinite lives. The way to doing the latter is getting a lot of coins like 98 for example. Then you reach a checkpoint. After that you grab the final 2 and keep on going. You get the extra life from this and then even if you die, you’re brought back to 98 coins at the check point. Since the coins reset despite the life sticking around, you can keep on getting lives forever. Figure out what section it the toughest for you and do the coin trick at the nearest checkpoint. This helped me a lot in the Snowman level. Hey, if the game is going to pull out cheesy tricks to stop me from winning…then two can play at that game!

The graphics are nothing special, but they get the job done. You can always tell what is happening and the level designs are pretty clever. The Christmas levels have the best designs for sure, but the Halloween level is surprisingly spooky as well. There are creepy portraits everywhere and even the music feels rather dire for the heroes. I think they put more effort into the soundtrack and levels than the gameplay so their priorities may have been a little mixed up. It was fun hearing Jingle Bells and Sleigh Bells ring at the end. It helped show that the developers cared about this game at least a little.

There isn’t any replay value here though. Once you gain the 120 M&Ms you are completely done with the game. That’s the end of your adventure and it’ll be time to put the game back in the drawer. The campaign isn’t all that long, but it is artificially lengthened by having to play the same levels as all 3 characters each time. If you ask me, you shouldn’t have to collect all 120 M&Ms to see the ending. That’s like having to grab all of the Stars in a Mario game. It’s something you should want to do, not something you have to do. Mix that in with the tedious nature of having to replay levels while looking for M&Ms and the game definitely gets hurt quite a bit.

There’s also a glitch where you’ll turn invisible if you try to approach the M&M machine. I guess the game won’t even let me look at the cool candies that I’ve collected eh? Well fine, I didn’t want to look at them anyway. I should quickly mention that each M&M has an ability. Red can fly whenever you see a flight symbol, Yellow can double jump, Green can swing her tennis racket whenever she finds a tennis symbol. Red’s flight levels are the best part of the game so I wish they had appeared more. It was certainly better than the main part of the game.

Overall, This game had a lot of potential, but the gameplay’s just a little too weak. You know there’s a problem when some levels are purely luck based. I almost died at the very end with Green because you have to dodge falling rocks for about 3-4 minutes. I barely survived and since I had 0 lives left that would have been fairly upsetting. I do like the challenge at times as some of them can be fair, but then we should get more lives or every stage should be its own level. That would fix a lot of issues. I died a lot of times on the revolving Ice Cream door which is easily the toughest part of the whole game. Seriously, just try to get out of that one in one piece. It can hold its own with some of Mario Maker’s toughest levels. Having to go back all the way is just too much of a detriment. The game is only about 5 dollars so if you want a real challenge it’s worth taking a look. That being said, it’s not always fun to play and games should at least be fun. I’ll have to give this one a thumbs down and I recommend Mario Galaxy instead. Even the ending was very lackluster.

Overall 4/10

Flip’s Twisted World Review

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It’s time for one of the lowest budget, glitchiest games that I’ve ever played. Flip started out as a reasonably fun game, but as the worlds went on it got worse and worse until it was finally sitting at the bottom of the pile. I’ve been working on this game off and on for years and I was finally able to conquer it. It’s a journey that isn’t for the faint of heart and I certainly wouldn’t call it an enjoyable game by any stretch of the imagination. This is one game that should stay forgotten.

The game follows a magician named Flip. He gets into some mischief and is involved with the 7 World Pieces being stolen. His former friend turns evil with power and now we have to find them all before the other kid destroys the world. Flip’s not a very nice guy though and will do whatever it takes to win on the way there. Don’t bother begging for mercy because Flip won’t offer it. He’s after one thing and one thing only…the Universal Scepter. Once he has that, Flip will be the king of the world.

The gameplay tries to be like a 3D Mario, but with a gimmick. Uh oh…here come the gimmicks. Why do games always feel like they need a cheesy gimmick? In particular, why do all Wii games have motion controlled gimmicks? I don’t understand anymore. The gimmick is that you can shift gravity in 4 directions which lets you walk on the walls or the ceiling. It has potential and can be interesting, but Gravity Rush exists. It completely invalidates this game because the whole gimmick was handled so much better. It’s a shame, but the games aren’t even in the same league.

Flip also gains a new ability in each world. By the end of the game, you’ll have Thunder, Water, Fire, Ice, Metal, The Book, and another ability that I’m probably forgetting. You’ll rarely use some of those abilities, but others like Water are always useful. Ground Pound is underrated as it’ll help you get through all of the obstacles. It’s your best option in about 90% of the tasks that you’ll be faced with. For most of the levels, you just have to get to the end, wherever that is, and find the Chapter Stone. Each level is extremely long and has around a dozen rooms which all function as mazes. Suffice it to say, you’ll be here for a very long while.

Lets talk about why this game was bad. First of all, the level designs are terrible. When you walk into a room and have absolutely no idea what you’re supposed to do, that’s a problem. The game also lets you go back through the door you came from for no reason. It’s never helpful as there is never a point in the game when you have to backtrack and the worst part is that you’ll typically have to clear the trial again. For example, I was in one of the last rooms in the final chapter when I fell through an old door. (Gravity shenanigans) and it took me to the start. I now had to clear about 6 mazes again to get through. One of those I initially cleared through a glitch so it took a while to figure out. You should never have to redo what must have been 30-40 minutes of work just because you took the wrong door.

There is also an infamous cave level that is pitch black. The point of it is that you use your fire abilities to light the way, but they barely give you any light at all. You’ll still be stumbling through the dark the whole time and as always, the old doors are around so if you go through them by mistake, you have to find the 3 switches again. This is the level that had me stumped for months and after a while I was too triggered to even watch the Youtube video on how to escape. I had to conquer the game so I grabbed a few bottles of Water and a lot of big dinners and months later…I did it. It wasn’t fun though, it was simply a challenge and that level alone doomed the game to a negative score.

The boss battles are also tough to figure out at times. You don’t know when they are actually taking damage and it’s just a lot of testing until you find the right strategy. None of the bosses were designed very well. The final boss is the only one that at least came with a cool character and stage design. Still, it wasn’t a fun boss either as he kept spinning the stage and glitching through it so you’d have to die and come back again. The good news is that jumping off of a stage doesn’t count as a death, it only counts when you lose to an attack. That’s nice since the game would be that much tougher without such a feature.

The audio is also pretty iffy here. Sound effects rarely ever occur except for a very long end cutscene. Most of them just have music and sometimes even the music will cut out. There isn’t much variety either as the game maybe has 5 different tracks that it plays. The standard one keeps on ringing for quite a while. I don’t know how long it took to beat the game, but I’d wager that it’s around 20 hours or more. It’s a long game so I can’t even say that I’ll breeze through it. Nothing’s worse than a long game that is boring and not fun to play. It’s a bad combo.

It almost goes without saying, btu the graphics are very bad as well. Flip’s always wincing or using recycled footage for his celebration. His level “celebration” is that he clenches his fists, closes his eyes, and looks at the ground. Then the screen starts spinning around him while he remains as still as a statue. He does this for every chapter, which gets old fast. The glitches make things even worse on the graphics and overall, the less said on this the better.

I feel like the game wasn’t even trying with the plot either. You’ll have characters talk to you and stuff, but it all feels like empty fluff. Nobody is actually doing anything and after a short while you’ll forget what they’ve said. It’s just a very empty game and one that probably isn’t even worth the 2 dollars that I got it for. There’s nothing driving you to this game at all and I don’t know what the developers were thinking.

Overall, Flip’s Twisted World is a bad game. There is replay value technically as you can go collect all of the maps and silver coins, but I can’t picture anyone actually wanting to do that. It just wouldn’t be fun and it would simply be a grind just so you can say you completed the game 100%. While it may have tried to be a big 3D adventure like Mario or the others, Flip failed miserably. Even without the glitches, the levels just weren’t thought out very well. They feel like they were slapped together with no heart or thought put into them. I can safely say that I consider this to be the worst game that I have ever played. While I probably wouldn’t give it a 0 overall, I can’t imagine what a 0 star game would be like. Rather, I can imagine what it would be like, but I can’t imagine myself ever playing one like that. While a 2 may seem generous for good ole Flip, at least it was a game. It still had platforming, levels and the like. I think giving it a 0 would be harsh, but we all know where it stands.

Overall 2/10

Spongebob Boating Bash Stats and Records

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Stats time!

Play Time 1h 15m
Total Drive Points 12130
Grades: 18 As 8 Bs 3 Cs
Events Started 45
Events Finished 35
Events Won 22
Parts Collected 100
Knock Outs 65
Ring Outs 26
High Combo 548
Drivers 9/9
Boats 18/27
Levels 22/22
Classrooms 6/6
Game Options 2/3
Videos 18/18
Total 75/85