Category: Mario

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.

Attack of the Supper Squid

Ah, this November just gets better every day. Matthew Good was great of course, but I have even cooler news.

Remember how last year the kids at Talking Time made their own game with the Super Mario Bros X level editor? And how I was super excited about it? And how I contributed three levels of varying quality? Super Talking Time Bros. 2: SUPER SQUAD is now in production, and should be ready to roll early next year. I have of course submitted a stage, and the flame of my passion for creating Mario levels has been reignited.

The first stage I submitted is this one, and I quite like it. Zaidyer’s a fan too, which is good because he’s the project lead. It’s sort of ripped from my personal project, but totally redone. Because it sucked before. Now I’m pretty proud of it. It’s certainly more exciting than anything else I’ve made.

I submitted this one too, which I’m less proud of. I can’t exactly point out why I don’t like it much though. It was already made, I just changed the goal area to meet TTB2 requirements. Really I think I just submitted it because I wanted to have more than one level in the game. I think I’ll hit the drawing board again this weekend and put something better together.

My point here is that if you have a computer and even a mild sense of what would make a fun Mario level, participate! Even if your thing is a sucky bag of sucky suck, we have a peer review process that will help to make you a better level designer! It’s what kept the first game from being just another mess like RMN Bros. The original Super Talking Time Bros. sturned out great, and to be completely honest, I’m a little more excited about TTB2 than Super Mario 3D Land. Crazy, I know. But if you’re a Mario fan, you owe it to yourself to check these out.

Wishlist

So I’ve played a lot of video games over the course of my life up until now. Only now, real life gets in the way a lot and I spend a lot more time longing for video games than actually playing them. It’s a sad state of affairs, but it’s the way she goes. I’ve decided that for fun, I’m going to make a small list of game accomplishments I’d like to make in the next year. Keeping in mind of course, that this is the abriged version. I could go on for days about games I want to play.

Another note of minor importance is that these aren’t in any specific order. I’m just noting them as they come to me. Putting them in order would likely be impossible. Oh, and none of these are games that I’m actively playing. Most have been set aside in favour of other games, and a handful I haven’t even started playing.

  • Final Fantasy XIII : Defeat Vercingetorix
  • Final Fantasy XII : Complete the story / acquire all Espers
  • Final Fantasy VI DS : Complete the story
  • Dissidia: Final Fantasy : Earn “All characters at Lv50” accomplishment
  • Dissidia 012 : Start playing
  • Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together : Complete the story
  • Monster Hunter Freedom Unite : Complete offline quests
  • Monster Hunter Tri : Play it sometimes
  • Monster Hunter: Dynamic Hunting : Get all cheevos
  • Secret of Mana (iOS) : Complete the game
  • MadWorld : Complete the game
  • Little King’s Story : Complete the game
  • Epic Mickey : Complete the game
  • Earthbound : Play again
  • Super Mario Galaxy 2 : Find all green stars (June 11/12)
  • Pokémon White : Complete Unova Pokédex (Oct 6/12)
  • LEGO Rock Band : All single-player cheevos
  • Catherine : Complete the game on Normal difficulty
  • Guitar Hero Van Halen : Complete tour mode (May 23/12)
  • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D : Complete Master Quest
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker : Play again
  • Deadly Premonition : Start playing
  • Batman: Arkham Asylum : Start playing (Jan 2/12)
  • Fallout 3 : Complete the story (Jan 15/12)
  • Picross 3D : Complete all puzzles (May 14/12)
  • MegaMan Legends : play again (June 7/12)
  • Borderlands : Complete all story missions, all reasonable secondary missions
  • Luigi’s Mansion : Play again (Aug 29/12)
  • Pikmin 2 : Story mode full clear
  • Pikmin : Play again
  • New Super Mario Bros. Wii : Complete World 9

So yeah. Ain’t nobody can say I’m not a goal-oriented person. The relevance of my goals is questionable, but I have them. Game developers really should stop making new ones so I can catch up though. Maybe just put a freeze on new games for 2012? Not that it really matters. Once Super Mario 3D Land, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, and Mario Kart 7 arrive, it’s all over anyway.

Lights of Ecstatic Species

November is going to be the bestestist month ever. Super Mario 3D Land and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword come out a week apart from each other, and the latter comes bundled with a CD of the Zelda 25th anniversary symphony tour and a gold Wiimote. But besting even my insatiable lust for Nintendo games (and swag, and VGM), I’m going to see Matthew Good in concert.

If I had a bucket list, seeing Matthew Good live in concert would be damn near the top of my bucket list.

Van Halen might have been the first act I really liked, but Matthew Good was the first artist I ever truly got into. After getting Beautiful Midnight for a birthday or Christmas or something and listening to it every night for months, I was hooked. Napster hit the scene not long after, and I was able to listen to some of Matthew Good Band’s older tracks, but was constantly put out because I wasn’t able to find their previous album, Underdogs, no matter how hard I looked.

Back then I was still fairly green as far a music goes, and I was unsure about asking for the follow-up album, The Audio of Being, because I hadn’t heard any music from it (a trait I still have). I really wanted Underdogs, but I ended up getting The Audio of Being for Christmas in aught-one, and I may have listened to that one even more than Beautiful Midnight. I know that for several months, I not only put it on to listen to as I fell asleep, but also listened to it repeatedly as I whiled away my after-school hours on an emulated copy of Picross 2.

Over the years I’ve lost the vigor to keep up with new CD releases, so whenever I see a new Matthew Good album on store shelves, it’s like a tiny little Christmas for me. The two that really got my blood pumping though, were In A Coma and Live at Massey Hall. He actually did a tour to support In A Coma right after it’s release, but it was a bar show, and since I was afraid of bars at the time, I didn’t go.

In A Coma, by the way, is the gigantic 3-disc collection of not only his best work, but new material as well. The first disc is essentially the “greatest hits” disc, with a few new and unreleased songs thrown in for good measure. The second is part acoustic versions of old songs, part Loser Anthems (a limited edition EP), and half B-sides. The last disc is a DVD filled with music videos (with commentary), and some behind-the-scenes stuff. It’s essentially the physical manifestation of a wet dream for me.

Live at Massey Hall is exactly what it sounds like, and the reason I’m so excited to actually go to a show. I listened to both discs of that album every day that I got a chance for at least a month and still make time to listen to it on the long trips to and from work. So yeah, I’m pretty pumped. I thought new Zelda was going to be the event of the year for me, but I think it’s been topped. If the show is anywhere near as wonderful as the live album, I guarantee that I’ll be walking on air for weeks afterward.

So yeah, just wanted to share that. November 7th can’t come fast enough. </fanboy raving>

UPDATE – I just got an email from Chapters that’s going to make Novemeber even better. Way, way back in May or June or something I pre-ordered the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Ultimate Collection Volume 1 as a birthday present for myself (as it was due to release mid-September), which is a collection of the first seven original TMNT comics, plus a bonus Raphael issue. But then, less than a month before the shipping date,  I got an email saying it was delayed to January 2012. Sucktastic. Today’s email however, says it has been un-delayed to November 22! Hooray!

I’ve never been really into comics, but I’ve always wanted to read through the original TMNT series. Even if they never produce another one of these, I’ll be glad to have the first few. While searching for that image, I found out that Kevin Eastman headed up a new TMNT comic series in August (issue #1 promptly sold out), and that Nickelodeon is producing a new animated series next year. Oh, 2012 is going to be a good year. New Turtles cartoon, new Nintendo console, end of the world. I feel like I’ve forgotten something important though…

Mirror, mirror, on the… everything.

I started up Master Quest mode in Ocarina of Time 3D the other day, and it threw me for a much bigger loop than I’d expected. I finished Master Quest on the Wind Waker pre-order bonus disc many years ago, but this is different still. In this version, the entire world is flipped around.

Actually, I can’t recall if the bonus disc Master Quest was flipped or not, but I certainly feel like I’d remember such a thing.

Anyway, I’d heard about the mirrored world before the game’s release, but shrugged it off as an insignificant change. After all, I never had any trouble adjusting to the mirrored courses in Mario Kart. Why would this be any different? Oh, maybe because I haven’t spent as much time with all the Mario Karts combined as I have with OoT. I’ll admit that in my old age I can’t remember where all the heart pieces or gold skulltulas are, but I have the maps and puzzles quite clearly committed to memory. The only game I know better is Super Mario 64, though not by much.

Anyway, playing the mirrored OoT is terribly unsettling. I can only describe the sensation as being like walking into your kitchen and finding that someone has exchanged the contents of every drawer and cupboard. It’s weird. Almost alien. It’s far more disorienting than I imagined, and it’s almost frightening that I constantly find myself getting lost in Kokiri Forest. I can’t imagine how much trouble I’m going to have navigating the Lost Woods and Gerudo Fortress.

Oddly, the Deku Tree’s flipped version didn’t make it any harder. Maybe there were so many other changes that my brain just interpereted it as an entirely new dungeon with some familiar scenery. Hopefully the rest of the dungeons go as smoothly.

On the flip side, it’s kind of nice to have a new challenge. Remixed dungeons are all well and good, but now the entire world has an air of freshness to it. Yeah, it’s just backwards, but I can’t just cruise around Hyrule on autopilot anymore. I actually have to put a bit of thought into which way I’m headed. Twice now, I’ve walked out of Castle Town and wondered where Kakariko Village went. And I’m sure it’ll happen several more times before I’m finished with the game.

In other Zelda news, the three extra stages in Four Swords: Anniversary Edition are so awesome. Grezzo needs to remake even more old Nintendo games. Or just re-release Four Swords Adventures with similar extras. As much as I like handheld Four Swords, the big screen version is just so much prettier. And has a little more variety.

Oh, I’m getting all excited about Zelda now. If there’s a surprise last-minute delay on Skyward Sword I might pop. Or play Wind Waker again. Know what? I should probably just do that anyway. It’s a crime that I’ve finished Twilight Princess more times than Wind Waker. Ramble, ramble, ramble…

Another year is gone so fast

I’ve been to the dentist three times in the last month or so, and I’ve come to the conclusion that they use dental floss made of tiny razor blades there. I’ve gotten into the habit of flossing (almost) every night, and yeah it hurt a bit at first, but now I feel no pain when I floss. My gums don’t even bleed anymore. I’m used to it. But at the dentist’s office? Hurts like a bitch.

In other news, the iPhone’s camera takes way too long to initialize. I was downloading the Virtual Console version of Final Fantasy III yesterday, and the most amazing thing happened. I tried to take a video of it, but by the time my phone’s camera started up it was over.

So normally when you download something from the Wii Shop, Mario will run laps across the screen collecting coins. Sometimes he will be Firey Mario and you can press A to shoot fireballs. Occasionally Luigi will run across instead. But yesterday, Mario and Luigi swam across the screen. In the five years I’ve owned the console, I have never seen this happen, and I’ve sunk way more money than I’d like to admit into Virtual Console and WiiWare downloads. Even my youngest brother hasn’t ever seen this, and he’s probably used the shop as much as -if not more than- me.

So yeah, I wanted at least a picture of it, but the stupid iPhone is stupid and can’t take spontaneous pictures.