Category: Mario

Seeing green

I’ve recently knocked off two more to-dos from my 2011 video game backlog/wishlist. At the expense of playing new games, I’ve managed to complete the solo guitar career in Guitar Hero: Van Halen. I was going to go back in to dig out a few more achievements and up my cheevo/gamerscore ratios, but someone at Activision decided that you don’t deserve achievements unless you’re playing in a full band of people who are experts at the game. So maybe I’ll just let this one go.

I also hunkered down and played through the entirety of MegaMan Legends again. Well, the entire story anyway. I wrote off the objective of collecting and upgrading all the special weapons before I started because who has the time to grind that much money? I was shooting for the Shining Laser, at least, but the stupid race game that you need to win to get a part for it is too dumb and hard so I gave up and just beat the game with the buster. Whatever. The charm of MegaMan Legends is in its characters and world design, not collecting everything.

I’ve decided that now I’m going to clean up the rest of the green stars in Super Mario Galaxy 2 – a task I thought would be much less annoying than it is. The green stars are just tedious filler to begin with, but some of them are placed in incredibly frustrating locations. I wrestled with the Whomp King for almost ten minutes, trying to get on top of him so that I could collect the star floating above the fortress in Throwback Galaxy. Once I decided it was impossible, it took me another few minutes to get a good enough wall jump off of his face to grab the star. I know they won’t get any easier from this point on, but if they get any harder, I may just give up on this fool’s errand.

TE on E3

I haven’t really been into E3 the last few years. Less free time is probably a factor, but also I no longer spend every day with a group of people who are also interested (re: the high school clique). I find myself considerably less excited about video game things when I don’t have people to be excited about video game things with.

That said, I’ve generally just followed Nintendo’s E3 stuff this year, which should surprise nobody. I read about the Xbox SmartGlass thingy and couldn’t care less, and I have no idea what Sony’s up to besides that half-hearted Super Smash Bros rip-off. I really couldn’t care either. I play video games because I like Mario and Zelda. I used to like MegaMan too, but they don’t make those anymore.

I managed to get myself pretty pumped up for the big Nintendo press conference, so much so that I actually took a really early lunch break so I could watch it live on my phone. It wasn’t a terribly exciting show overall, but it served it’s purpose: I want to buy a Wii U more now than I did last week. I love the things they’re doing with the GamePad. Asymmetrical gameplay is neat, but not really new for dedicated Nintendo fans (that’s yet another story). I’m much more interested in the way it’s going to be used as a physical inventory manager or sniper scope or TV remote.

Regarding the most controversial part of the presentation, I’m not really that excited about Nintendo Land. Sure, it looks neat, but I’m more of a solo gamer. If it’s packed in with the Wii U I’ll spend time with it, but if it’s sold separately I’ll likely pass. Wii Sports was revolutionary enough that I would have purchased a copy, this seems less so. And Nintendo already has a great game that unites their franchises: it’s called Super Smash Bros.

Obviously I’m going to buy Zombi U. I bought Dead Island, didn’t I?

For some reason, I just don’t feel the passion for new 2D Marios anymore, but I’ll definitely get New Super Mario Bros U. At the very least, I’ll be able to get Stephanie to play with me, and we had an absolute blast with NSMB Wii. I’m less sold on NSMB2, but it’s Mario, so it’s going to be good and I’m going to buy it. Might be a little disappointing after the stellar Super Talking Time Bros 2 though.

Paper Mario: Sticker Star looks great, and I’m sure I’ll adore it when it launches, but I’m just not really interested yet. Maybe I’ll have to go back and play The Thousand Year Door again to remind me how good these are.

Project P-100 and Tank! Tank! Tank! both look like a ton of fun, but seem as if they might wear thin pretty quickly (much like Custom Robo). Online multiplayer would probably be necessary to justify a purchase. We’ll have to see how robust they are before making any real judgement.

Bit.Trip Runner 2? EXCITED!

I really wanted to, but couldn’t really get into Epic Mickey, so I’ll likely pass on the sequels. Sorry, Warren Spector. I know you did your best, and I respect that. It just didn’t click for me. Goes for Scribblenauts Unlimited. I am behind these games 100% in theory, but I just didn’t have enough fun with them to back that up with dollars.

I’ve been sold on Darksiders II since before it was announced. I enjoyed the first one enough to play it twice in a row – a very rare occurrence. Luigi’s Mansion is another game to bear that distinction. It may be because it was the only GameCube game I owned for about a month, but I also really liked it! I hope the sequel launches before Christmas.

I like the idea that the new Tomb Raider might release on Wii U, because I like what I’ve read about it so far. As for any other 3rd party offerings I haven’t mentioned yet? I probably don’t care about them. Although Assassin’s Creed III may be the first game in the series that I play because I dig the American Revolution setting.

The two big games for me are the ones that led the two big Nintendo shows. On Wii U, it’s Pikmin 3. I could play Pikmin over and over again forever if there weren’t so many other games that deserve my attention. It’s a short game, but who cares? It’s super fun! My secret shame is that I still haven’t finished Pikmin 2… the perfectionist in me won’t accept Pikmin losses to anything but boss monsters, and so I inevitably lose focus while trying to savescum my way through its deadly, deadly caverns. I’ll get there some day. There isn’t enough information on Pikmin 3 yet to be excited about it for any reason other than it’s Pikmin 3 and its beautiful HD graphics. I really would love to type more words about it, but there’s not much else to say. Maybe a speculative post in the near future.

In my 3DS’ future is Castlevania: Lords of Shadow: Mirror of Fate. The title could use a little pruning, but the game looks amazing! Lords of Shadow combat and story with Symphony of the Night exploration? Assuming it plays as nicely as it sounds, this could very well be the perfect video game for me. If you’ve played those two games and aren’t excited about what looks like a mash-up of the two, there’s something seriously wrong with you. You really should get that checked out ASAP. It’s probably cancer eating the “good taste” part of your brain. Seriously, talk to your doctor.

If there’s one thing I’m sad I didn’t see, it’s either of the Monster Hunter games for 3DS. I will be broken-hearted if they are destined to remain exclusive to Japan. If the 3DS weren’t so damn region-locked, I would import them and learn Japanese so I could play them. That’s how much I love Monster Hunter. Then again, MH4 isn’t even out in Japan yet, so we’re going to be playing the waiting game for a while anyway.

That’s about it. I’m sure there’s something I forgot to mention, but if I forgot it, it probably wasn’t that impressive in the first place. Now the real question is how I’m going to be able to afford (in both time and dollars) to play all of these games.

Random musings

I just realized how ironic it is that I said “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” was too much of a mouthful for a title. (You know, because my website’s name is an octosyllabic monster)

My Super Talking Time Bros 2 LP is coming along swimmingly, though I feel the onset of burnout. I guess devoting every spare second I’ve had to it for the past week was maybe a bad idea. Gotta learn to pace myself better.

In any time I have that I’m not putting toward STTB2, I’ve been soaking up more completely useless trivia than you can shake a gunblade at from the Final Fantasy Wiki. Do you understand the plot, character motivations, and mythology of Final Fantasy XIII? Because I do. I probably know more about FFXIII’s story than FFXIII does.

I’ve finally started reading Monster Nation, the sequel to the superb Monster Island. It’s good, but not quite as hard to put down as Island was.

Trying to eat less sucks. Now I’m hungry all the time. Even right after a meal.

I cannot believe how many more people are on the 4:42 bus home as opposed to the 5:14. I had to stand for half the ride home yesterday! I have never been so put upon as this.

I was looking at DLC costumes for Final Fantasy XIII-2, and can’t help but think that Square-Enix got something backwards. Noel is a more competent Medic than Serah, and she’s a better Ravager than he is, but Noel got the black mage costume and Serah the white mage. Geez, gender roles. Also Noel’s black mage outfit lacks a pointy hat. Epic fail.

Why does iTunes delete all the ringtones off my iPhone whenever I install the new firmware? Nothing else ever vanishes. Just the ringtones.

Is Minecraft still big enough that Mojang is really getting away with charging $25(ish) for it? I was super excited about gettiing the Xbox version until I saw the price.

Look what I did

Yup. I was so excited about Super Talking Time Bros 2 that I decided to Let’s Play it. Blind. The way I see it, those dudes at Talking Time (and me, slightly) worked so hard on it and were really looking forward to someone LPing it, so it’s time I give a little back to the community. One video in and I already love it; I cannot wait to see the surprises that it has in store for me!

(Let’s Play MegaMan X will resume as normal on Sunday.)

Christmas in May

Hey you guys! Super Talking Time Bros 2 is out! Get it from this page!

I had totally forgotten about this little project a long time ago. I kind of randomly thought about it on the bus this morning and there it is! It’s too bad though; since I let it go completely, I never really sat down and polished the three levels I submitted for it. Hopefully someone else on the team cleaned up at least anything that was broken in them.

If you’re going to play it, make sure you head over to the Talking Time thread and tell the kids there how much you like it.

In other news, I should have internet again by the time I get home, so no more lunchtime phone-blogging for me! Hooray!

Journey to the southeast

Remember back in November when I posted a short list of video game goals I’ve set for myself? Well I haven’t completed any of them, but I’ve set myself down the path to a few! For one, I stayed up late one night plucking green stars in Super Mario Galaxy 2 and spent most of my Christmas break plowing through Batman: Arkham Asylum. Mostly though, I’ve been getting back into Fallout 3.

I picked it up again mostly because I feel like I should finish one massive open-world adventure before starting a new one (Skyrim), but I quickly remembered just how much I love playing it. I was a little worried that since I’d put it down for so long that I’d completely lose my bearing, but I got right back into it and had no trouble reorienting myself. I credit that mostly to the level of detail in the game, which allowed me to easily look up the quests I was working on and the places I’d been exploring.

I haven’t completed any quests that have elements outside of Megaton, and where the main story is concerned I haven’t even been to Galaxy News Radio yet. I do have a fairly long to-do list, though. While I’ve decided that my main objective is to find Rivet City (trying to find a new home for an orphaned boy), I constantly get distracted by other landmarks I pass by, especially since I’ve been trying to get there by going through the city. I’ve spent hours upon hours getting lost in the maze that is the ruins of the metro system.

After giving up on making my way through the ruins of D.C. I decided I’d head back to Megaton to sell off all my garbage and resupply. Form there I figured that I’d skip around the city and just head south, which is fairly open terrain. Not far from Megaton I ran into a pack of wastelanders who were unusually happy, and tried to sell me what they only described as “strange meat.” I declined, but one of them game me some for free, claiming I’d get hooked after one taste. I still haven’t eaten it.

Continuing southward, I came upon a small “town” which was just three houses among the rubble of a bigger community. I talked to a young boy there (he was the only person around when I arrived), and he told me that he thought it was strange that people who visited  never stayed long. I then talked to an old man who told me to run away and not to try getting into the shed behind his house.

Being the ever-curious wandered that I am, I waltzed over to the shed to see what was inside. Finding it locked, I was about to try to pick it when I heard a stern voice say “I hope you’re not planning on breaking into my shed.” I told him I was just passing through, and subsequently went into his house and had a chat with his wife. The both of them were a little odd; something was definitely up. So I went upstairs and stole the key to the shed. Before I got back downstairs, I overheard the woman telling her husband that she was suspicious of me and that he should keep an eye on me.

I then proceeded to wander back to the shed and went in. It was exactly as bad as I’d thought. The shed was filled with cages, torture devices, and fridges full of “strange meat.” Oh, and human skeletons were all over the place. I immediately left, and found myself surrounded by the couple and another man, all pointing weapons at me. I had more than enough weaponry on my person to take them, but I decided not to cause trouble and pretended that I was cool with what was going down in town. They put their weapons away and went back to their own business. Needless to say, it was time for me to get the hell out of Dodge.

I continued to the southern border of the capital wasteland and then eastward toward Rivet City. On my way there I helped the Brotherhood of Steel find some not-destroyed books in the Arlington Library and killed my first mirelurk king, among other things. Currently I stand at the door to the Citadel, staring out over the river at the silhouette of the huge ship that is Rivet City. While my trek seems like it’s nearing its end, I can’t imagine that whatever still lies between me and my destination is going to make that last leg easy. I’m sure looking forward to it though! Unless it’s super mutants. I’m sick of those guys.

Xmas notes

I’m highly considering writing up a full article about my christmas haul – for old time’s sake, if nothing else. There are a few related notes I don’t want to hold in. They are as follows:

  •  I wasn’t as excited about Christmas this year as I usually am. I’m not really sure why. Guess being old has ruined another thing for me.
  • Stephanie bought me Batman: Arkham City, which forced me to start burning through Arkham Asylum. I played it for roughly ten straight hours yesterday. Now I can’t wait to start Arkham City because it’s supposed to be even better, but how is that even possible?
  • Mario Kart 7 is great, but damn, do my hands cramp up when I play a 3DS game that uses the shoulder buttons a lot.
  • Just Dance 3 is not a good game for fatties. I only played two songs yesterday and I’m still a little winded.
  • This is a terrible time to cut down on junk food consumption. There are tubs and tubs of baking in the freezer, calling my name…
  • I only got two video games for Christmas. Not that I’m complaining, it just seems weird. Though not so much when I consider that I only asked for three.
  • I naively ventured out to pick up a copy of Skyrim yesterday (because I had a gift card). Waited in line at Gamestop for over half an hour. Boxing day/week people suck.

24 sentences of materialism

Alright kiddies! I totally forgot to do a “24 Days of Materialism” feature this year, and the best thing I could come up to sort of replace it is this: The 24 Sentences of Materialism. It’s basically the same concept, I choose 24 things I like and tell you to buy them, only this time I’m ripping off the long-dead Video Game Article‘s “One Sentence Reviews” feature. So here’s a list of video games, albums, books, and TV shows that I love and think you should buy for yourself or your loved ones (and also a link to a related webpage for each). Honestly, I think this is the hardest thing I’ve ever written. It’s terribly difficult to express everything I want to say about a product in only one sentence.

1. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword – Take one part Ocarina of Time, one part Wind Waker, mix well, and then tweak everything just slightly: provides a surprisingly fresh Zelda experience!

2. Monster Hunter Freedom Unite – Why not help persuade Capcom to bring MH Portable 3rd or MH3G by picking up what is easily the best game in the series to date (that is available outside of Japan).

3. Groove Coaster – A rhythm game that’s incredibly simple, but will still suck you in with its trippy visuals and eclectic track selection.

4. Volchaos – A rather superb Xbox Indie game that brings back the glory days of video games: short, challenging levels, and a great sense of satisfaction when you get them right.

5. Fallout 3 – I don’t know why I don’t spend more time with this game; it’s so unlike anything else I play and all the more wonderful for it.

6. Super Mario 3D Land – The game that justifies the 3Ds’ existence.

7. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island – Getting this game (and The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap) for free because I paid too much for my 3DS makes it totally worth it.

8. Anima: Ark of Sinners – It’s not really very good, but you can see potential shining through the blandness and kludgy controls.

9. Tron Legacy Soundtrack – Oddly enough, this is probably my favourite music to listen to while playing Minecraft.

10. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – The Live Anthology – Just slightly less than four hours of pure delight.

11. Bound Together – Who could ask for more than an Earthbound tribute remix album?

12. Back in Blue – I love OC Remix but don’t generally love their albums, but this Mega Man 9 tribute is awesome all the way through.

13. Private Line – 21st Century Pirates – There must be something in the water in Finland, because they’re so good at hard rock/metal.

14. How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack – This one really should be mandatory reading for every human being.

15. The Forever War – Best novel I’ve read in… forever?

16. 5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth – This comic collection goes beyond hilarity and does its best to teach you some very important lessons.

17. GameSpite Journal 10: The SNES Turns 20 – What kind of gamer wouldn’t want to read a book all about SNES games?

18. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Ultimate Collection Vol. 1 – A huge, beautiful history lesson.

19. Futurama Season 6 – The first few episodes are kinda weak, but the quality shoots up after that and has me very excited to get BD set of the second half.

20. Community Season 2 – Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas.

21. Criminal Minds: Suspect Behaviour – It’s like Criminal Minds if Criminal Minds sunk all the budget into the script and had first-year college students do the rest.

22. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (80’s) – Campy, cheesy, corny; whatever you want to call it, it’s all goofy nostalgia.

23. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood – I liked the original series, and this one is better in every conceivable way.

24. Fringe Season 3 – Somehow this show has gotten to a point where I feel it might be better than LOST.

TE @ C4

It’s gotta be… weeks now since I went to Central Canadian Comic Con. It was cool, I must say. Though I guess I’m not as much of a nerd as I thought it was because it was (local) Nerd Mecca and I wasn’t super-psyched about it. Oh well. I took a few (blurry) pictures while I was there. Everything from Minecraft to papercraft, and even one ass that did not belong in that costume. Actually I took a few pictures of those, but I figured one is enough to prove my point and deleted the rest. Be thankful. There’s an alternate universe where this post is all pictures of asses that shouldn’t be seen by human eyes.

         

         

              

         

         

              

              

         

I like lands in three dees.

I was going to write a post about how sad I am that I only got a week to play Super Mario 3D Land. Then I realized how stupid that was. I’ve beaten the game already. Full clear, too. I really did pour every extra hour I had over the last week into the game. Yes, Skyward Sword is going to be eating up most of that free time for a while to come, but I still have lunch hours and other not-at-home downtimes to use to plug away at Mario.

Obviously, the game is worth playing again. Hell, you have to play through it two times to clear it completely anyway. But it’s a fun game! That should really go without saying. I don’t have an exact record of how many times I’ve played through Super Mario World and Super Mario 64, but I can assure you that both figures are in the double digits.

The real tragedy here is that between Mario and Zelda, I’m going to be completely ignoring my recent-ish purchase of Bit.Trip Saga. I talked a bit about Runner not long ago, but hadn’t played any of the others until I picked up the collection. The other games are generally just as good a Runner, with the exception of Core, which I like a little less because I’m terrible at it. They’re not the most robust or feature-packed games, but they are fun and addictive, which is really all you need. As fun as they are though, I don’t have enough drive to play them over other games because they’re high-score games. A game can be super fun, but if there’s no sense of progression I will most likely leave it by the wayside. Runner is the only one that really has any complexity to it (beating stages and collecting gold), and I’ve already played the WiiWare version of that one to death. I guess Fate is a little more complex too, and that’s probably the one I’ve played most via the Saga.

The other game I feel bad about neglecting here (and let’s ignore that list I posted two weeks ago) is Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Overclocked. I got it for my birthday and have been slowly making progress in it over the last couple months, but I’ve sort of hit a brick wall. The SMT series has a reputation for being hard, and knowing that I chose to play the game on easy mode, yet I’m already running into battles that I’m barely making it through. And I’m really not very far into the game. So the reason I’m shying away from this one is the difficulty barrier. It’s not so much that I don’t like hard games, it’s just that I don’t really have time to learn hard games. The back half of Super Mario 3D Land is downright evil sometimes, but it’s all just reflexes. You’ll never fail because you didn’t take into account what element goombas are weak against. Whereas I’d revel in games like Devil Survivor back in the day (see Final Fantasy Tactics), spending hours learning and breaking them, I just can’t afford to fight a battle multiple times just so I can pin down the right team I need to win. This isn’t a detraction from the game itself of course! I do really like it, but it’s just not likely going to see completion until I decide to sit down and focus on it and it alone.

And there ends my complaining about not having enough time for my favourite hobby. For now. I’ll be far to entranced by new Zelda over the next few weeks to care. I’ve also taken the liberty of scheduling a couple articles on the next two Sundays. Yeah, articles. Not sure if those really matter now that I’m WordPressin’ it up. Ehhh. I’ll keep it a thing for old times’ sake. Maybe the next time I reinvent the site I’ll just mesh them in with everything else.