Last Friday, it was revealed (sort of) that Princess Peach would be returning for the next Super Smash Bros game. That was kind of obvious, but there is a more interesting topic here!
Will her panties be remodeled as nicely too?
It’s not over yet
Category: Pretty ladies
Super Princess Peach – A review
(Un?)forutunatley, once while I was out with a bunch of friends, I mentioned that while I would never buy the game myself, if it did manage to find its way into my posession I would play it. So a couple of those friends took it upon themselves to go and buy me the game for my birthday as a gag gift. Now, I’m something of a penny-pincher when it comes to spending money on others, so a $40 gag gift seems like a lot to me, even if split between two people. So now that I do own the game, I had to play it. After all, I’m a man of my word if nothing else.
Alright, all that intro-esque crap aside, let’s take a look at what this game’s all about. In true handheld Mario fashion, you start by picking a warp pipe as your save file, and are greeted by a (rather leenghty) intro scene. It gives a few details of the game’s setting, Vibe Island, and how Bowser has set up a vacation home there. He manages to unearth a treasure called the Vibe Scepter, which allows the holder to toy with people’s emotions. With it, he has Mario, Luigi, and a boatload of Toads captured. Meanwhile, Princess Peach is enjoying a leisurely stoll with Toadsworth, and when they return to see the mess left behind, Peach immdediately sets out to save Mario, the Toads, and that green guy.
The game is laid out like pretty much every Nintendo platformer out there. Which is to say, it starts with the nice, quiet plains area, which serves as a training ground for the basic game mechanics. Then as you progress you see all the cliché game areas, including the forest, the haunted house, the volcano, and the seaside. I’m not really complaining about that, because that’s exactly what I expect from this kind of game, but it would be nice to see at least one somewhat original area.
The red heart initates Rage, which makes Peach stomp about like a three-year-old having a temper tantrum, and encases her in a ball of fire. Obviously, it’s good for burning things up and killing the more durable enemies. It also helps with pressing switches and other things that need a good stomp. The yellow heart will send Peach into Joy-town, making her swirl around in a nigh-impenetrable tornado. Enemies will be blown away, and it can also spin things like windmills. Flying is also possible while Peach is Happy, so it pretty much goes wihtout saying that Joy is the most useful emotion. The green heart will make Peach Calm, which restores the life gauge at an alarmingly slow rate. I guess it’s fair enough though, since giving you a recovery ability at all is a little cheap. The last heart, the blue one, makes Peach Sad. While Sad, she’ll run around at double speed, which helps cross falling platforms. She also acts like a huge water fountain, her tears able to spin waterwheels and grow sprouts into huge beanstalks.
All of the emotions in the previous paragraph are fueled by the Vibe Gauge. Using Joy to fly will sap it the quickest, while Clam will drain it pretty fast as well. The easiest way to replenish this gauge is to pick up the various blue crystals which are pretty much all over the place. The other way is a little more… sadistic. Peach can pick up enemies with Perry and toss them around much like Wario could in his side-scrollers, but there’s more to this than just tossing bodies around. If you need a quick Vibe gauge refill, you can have Perry swallow any held enemies whole! I still find it entertaining to watch goombas get muched up one by one.
Ugh. I kind of wish I could take that back. I mean, thanks to the miracle of technology that is the backspace key, in theory I could. But it’s not going to be happening. Why? I unno.
Sound is a mixed bag. While it’s passable and up to par with whatever it’s supposed to be measured against, it’s just not memorable at all. not once after playing the game did I catch myself humming a tune. It might have been because I mostly played the game early in the morning, and my brin isn’t on enough to register music that early, but there’s no way around it. The music is forgettable. Sound effects are Nintendo standard. There’s nothing overly offensive, but no really great menu selection sounds either. And menu seletion sounds are what make or break a game. On the upside of it all, Peach has far fewer voice samples than Mario and Link do, so that’s one less annoyance to worry about. Or at least I didn’t notice them, because her voice is so high pitched that only dogs can hear it. My dgs weren’t barking at the game either, so I think we’re okay.
I really don’t know what else to say. Suffice to say, I’ve gotten really bored with reviewing games. I think I’m evn repeating my greivances about repeating myself now. And that’s pretty damn bad. Well, I can at least guarantee this is going to be the only article or anyhitng I ever write with period jokes.
I find it sad that I’m no longer ever trying to hide the filler junk within paragraphs of semi-pertinent stuff.
It hit me around the time that I got to world 3 that playing Super Princess Peach was a very déja vu experience. And while it ook a while to figure it out, I did come to a conclusion: Super Princess Peach is the girl version of Wario Land. Seriously. the only difference is that Wario Land is one of the greatest serieses to ever grace the handheld realm of gamienessness. Yeah whatever. The point is, it’s got all the same elements: long and well-designed levels, temporary powers, lots of secrets and alternate routes, and not-overly-difficult gameplay. While they are similar in nature, SPP still can’t quite match up the the greatness of Wario Land. I mean, Wario Land 2 is (in my opinion at least) the second best original/colour GameBoy game ever released (next to Pokémn Blue), so that’s quite a bit to live up to.
In addition to hearts, you can also buy Vibe Gauge extensions, mini-games, music tracks, and all sorts of other crap. In the end though, you only get a small assortment of goodies at the shop. The rest are all scattered throughout the various stages. You even have to go through each level again once you’ve finished the game, because they’ve all been relpenished with more junk. Top that off with extra stages in each world during the second playthrough, and you’ve got a pretty long game. Easy, but long. So I guess it balances itself out somewhat. Finishing every stage and collecting every item will yield a rather useless prize, an unlimited Vibe Gauge. Wow. Totally not worth it if you’re doing it for the prize rather than the satisfaction of 100% completion.
In the end, I suppose Super Princess Peach is a decent game. It’s relatively fun, and it’s certainly got the Mario platformer charm. It’s just not something you’re going to be playing over and over again. Hell, I just barely made it through the second time. I guess the best thing that could possibly come out of it is that Peach might get a better moveset in Super Smash Bros Brawl. Other than that, my impressions of Super Princess Peach are pretty meh. B+, because I’m a generous guy.
Spewing from the mouth of Hell
You know, I read this entire post, and all I could think is “when did Hilary Duff get hot?” Because I totally didn’t notice. Usually I’m pretty keen on that kind of stuff, but this one totally slipped by me. But honestly, the real mystery here is why is she dating a pantywaste like Joel Madden? Seriously. I’m a hunky shirtless cowboy, not a detective. So anyone, feel free to chime in here. It’s making my head spin.
Say, have I mentioned how awesome my job is yet? Well it is. Most days I have so little to do that I completely forget what I did all day by the end of my shift. Also, I put up walls. I dunno. I just thought maybe I’d bring it up. Seemed like something I should do. The one strange thing is that I’m getting satisfaction from helping other human beings. That’s never happened before, so I’m a little afraid.
And to complete today’s completely worthless blog post (Not at all like yesterday’s. That bacon man should define your outlook on life), a horrible, horrible website! It changes more often than Mike’s! (Though that’s not what makes it so horrible)
To betray me with a kiss
Well, we now know everything there is to know about that Wii thing. I just hope that the so-called “Wii Points” are easily to obtain. Like through EB or something. Because I have no credit card, and I’m gonna need me somma that Virtual Console goodness. I think the thing that makes me giddy the most are the Wii Channels. Getting the weather is neat, but you know I’m going to be spending many, many hours on the Mii Channel.
The fact that they’re bundling Wii Sports with every console is nice, even if it is just filler. I’m a little bummed that Metroid Prime 3 has been pushed off the launch list, but looking at it from a marketing standpoint, I think it might sell better when not overshadowed by Zelda. Which, by the way, is like the greatest gift ever. A Zelda game at launch? That means they’ve got enough time to make at least two more before the Wii’s lifespan is up. Here’s hoping.
This morning I was working on a half-finished article that’s been sitting around forever. It’ll probably be up tomorrow or Saturday. Then another one’s due next week sometime. Maybe. There’s a whole stack I need to get done, and frankly I don’t think it’s gonna happen quickly. Just make sure I don’t stumble upon any new article material for the next couple months, okay?
Oh, and if you can’t appreciate Jessica Simpson’s boobs, you’re no friend of mine.
You look so good in blue
Here’s the official site of The UK’s premier newspaper “The Sun“. You’re probably thinking something like “Why would anyone want to check out a site about a newspaper?”. The answer is simple: Page 3!. That’s why!
Couldn’t help myself. I read Mike’s post today and couldn’t resist a parody promoting boobs. Here’s more for those disappointed with that link (boring chicks).
Mate1 Hates You
Mate1.com is a big bag of sham. You know why? I’ll tell you why. But first, let’s hear the story about how this all came to be. Let’s face it, that’s pretty much all the material I’m gonna get out of this.
It was just another day, and I was going about my daily routine. Doing the same old things like sleeping in, playing video games, cooking, and surfing the internet. Our story takes place during that last one there, surfing the internet. It’s a common thing I do, and I can never get enough of it. If I lost the internet, I’d probably shrivel up and die within a week.
So anyhow, I love the internet and like I said, on the whole, I never get bored of it. It’s got unlimited potential, you see. But I do get bored if I use it for too long at one time. See, I have my daily rounds that I check (Gorillamask, The Sneeze, X-E, etc.), and once I’ve visited all those sites, I’m kind of out of ideas. I know there are tons of other sites that I could check out for entertainment, but for reasons unknown, I rarely do.
Now every site’s got their ad banners. At least a good 98 percent of them. I click on these banners every now and again, assuming they advertise something I find interesting, they manage to really grab my attention, or I’m just bored and don’t really have a next cyber-destination in mind. You’ve likely seen the Mate1.com banners floating around. They’re nearly everywhere. Now, Mate1.com is a website that I would normally never visit. But on that particular day, at that particular time, I just couldn’t resist the underwear-clad girls in the banners any longer and I clicked.
Upon clicking this banner, I was transported to a sign-up page that asked for my basic personal information. Since I was bored at the time, and really didn’t have anything else to do, I said to myself “This should be good for a larf” and started filling it out. I also have a compulsive need to fill out website membership forms, so that was a big part of it. Don’t know what it is, but I really enjoy filling out forms…
Before I get back to the story, maybe I should explain just what Mate1.com is, for those unfamiliar with the ad (I assume everyone who reads this site has a solid understanding of the internet, but just incase…). Basically, it’s an online dating service. Meaning you fill out some information, and they find a bunch of other user who either have similar interests as you or that fit that criteria that you search for. People can also do their own searches and end up finding you. It’s not an original site idea, but as I said before, the banners are everywhere and every man is likely to give in at one point, because they all feature pretty girls in their underwear.
Now I’m not overly interested in normal dating, and online dating ranks even lower on my list of things to do, but upon seeing how many little things Mate1 has for users to fill in, I was simply overjoyed. Again, I don’t know why, but I love fiiling out forms. So I got to it, and spent somewhere around half an hour filling out little tidbits of information about myself. I didn’t care if anyone ever read it, but it all got filled out. I even uploaded a couple pictures of my handsome self.
After everything was filled out, I became less amused with the site and, as I didn’t much care for searching for other people, I left and went on my merry way to see if Wii Fanboy had any new updates since the last time I checked (which was likely about an hour earlier).
Night came and went, and a new day was born. I woke up towards noon and hopped into my computer chair (after a few other, less you-want-to-hear-about-them events), as I usually do not long after I wake up. I signed into MSN Messenger (appearing offline, of course), and then booted up Firefox. About an hour into my rounds, Messenger notified me that I had received an e-mail from Mate1.com. Intriguing! Well, I’m not one to ignore e-mail, so I opened up my inbox and checked it out. As it turns out, it was notifying me that some 20-year-old fox had send an e-mail to my Mate1 account. Eager to find out whether they’d be constantly spamming me like this or if someone was indeed showing interest in my humble being, I clicked.
Then “tragedy” struck. I got this:
Yeah. Mate1.com is a jackass. Here I am, with an e-mail in my inbox, that could very well be from someone who may play an important role in my future (I highly doubt it, but I’m not one to write of any possibilities), and they have the gall to try to make me pay actual money to see it? I don’t think so! I may be a sucker most of the time, but I know a sham when I see one. If you’re gonna ask me to pay for something, say it right away. Don’t dangle goodies in front of my nose then snatch them away and tell me I can’t have them until I fork over some cash. No. Doing it that way just makes me pissed off and will make me less likely to give you money.
After giving the Mate1 “give us your money” screen a good flipping-off, I left the site, intending never to return. But then they came.
My [regular] inbox never saw them coming. It was the “someone has sent you a message” e-mails. They came from all directions. Usually two or three, maybe even four a day. My belief that they were simply spam to get me to pay was growing stronger by the message, but I still couldn’t give up on the small ray of hope that people were actually responding to my hilariously filled-out profile. I wanted desperately to, but I couldn’t. So I decided to get to the bottom of this. Since each e-mail came with a user name, it was a simple matter of looking up those users to see if they were legit.
Fortunately, all of Mate1’s search functions work just fine for free member, and even better, there was a nickname search! So I started copying screennames and pasting ’em into the search and seeing what happened. In the end, most of the profiles were either very legitimate or very well-faked. One person even e-mailed me twice, and based on my knowledge of past spam e-mail, that almost never happens. It looks like people are, in fact, trying to contact me. So to confirm this theory, I had to come up with a new plan.
My grand scheme was to place my real e-mail in my self-description box on my profile page, and if people really were reading through it, they would find that and then e-mail me directly, skirting around Mate1’s little tollbooth. A day passed, and there was no response, but I still got Mate1 alerts. I checked my profile to make sure I spelled it right, and low and behold, they had removed the e-mail address! to be fair, there was a warning saying that would happen, but I assumed that the admins were too lazy to follow up on it. Way to prove me wrong, Mate1. Way to prove me wrong.
My last bastion of hope was a tricky one. Since they wouldn’t let me directly write out e-mail addresses or links, I came to the conclusion that only one thing would work. I then proceed to suggest googling the words “Torrential Equilibrium” to anyone who reads the profile. To this day, the suggestion remains, and my plan… well I don’t know if it worked. If it has, nobody bothered to e-mail me after getting a brainful of my writing. I imagined that might happen.
So that’s pretty much how my struggle against Mate1.com has gone so far. At current, they’re leading about 2-1, but I’ll keep trying my hardest to find ways to get around paying them. Not that I really care about contacting anyone out there in internet world. I just really want to beat Mate1. You know what really drives me to it? The fact that women get to use all their services free. Yeah. That’s right. Chicks can send you messages all day, but they’ll never recieve anything in return because no man will ever pay money to use this service. Not only are they pissing off men around the globe, but they’re probably crushing all sorts of women’s hopes and dreams too by instituting a system where they’ll never ever get a reply to their advances. In conclusion, Mate1.com hates everyone.
But you know, now that I think about it, the joke’s really on them. I don’t have cheques or a credit card, so even if I wanted to pay them, there’s no way I could. But I’m not giving them a damn cent as it stands, so it doesn’t make a difference. The really fun part is that I jsut wasted like 20 minutes of your life making you read this dumb story that doesn’t go anywhere. That more than enough to keep me entertained. If ever I’m bored or sad, now I’ll just be able to sit back and think about how someone read through this entire article thinking it would go somewhere or be even remotely entertaining. Ah. Good times.
By the way, I know you’re itching to see it, but I can’t link to my profile because any link goes straight to the home page. You can try looking me up if you like, but I’m not going to give you any hints. You’ll have to use all the knowledge about me you’ve learned by reading this site over the years. Good luck with that. I’ve come to the conclusion from conversations with people that nobody retains any information they read here. That’s probably for the best though…
She likes to sleep, I like to stay up all night
If you don’t appreciate this photo gallery (probably NSFW), get off my website now.
In other news, that kind of thing was long overdue here. Also, it turns out HAL’s cutting Mr. Game & Watch from Super Smash Bros Brawl. ‘Tis a sad day indeed. A couple others are getting axed too (Young Link, Ice Climbers), but I don’t care nearly as much. Besides, Young Link is being “replaced” by Wind Waker Link, and Ridley is now on board too (as well as Young Bowser, but that’s no more than a “meh”), so it kind of evens out. In the the end though, it doesn’t matter which characters are there, because the game is going to rock all over the place regardless.
Mass Review Time: Episode 1
I did a little shopping over the past week, and rather than talk about each item separately in the blog as I usually do, I figured I’d take a page from Mike’s book and do a mass review of the stuff I bought. It just seems so much easier that way, and you only have to sit through one boring article rather than four boring bog posts. Everyone’s a winner! Except you. And everyone but me. So in conclusion, I’m the only winner.
• Item #1 – Boston – Walk on
Now, many of you should know that I really love Boston. I mean, they’re a fricking sweet band, how could I not? In any case, most fans think that Boston’s releases went downhill after their second, Don’t Look Back. I’ll admit that Third Stage was a little weaker than I’d hoped for, but Walk On is awesome.
The disc is split into three parts. The first three songs are kickass, even if “Surrender to Me” was featured on Don’t Look Back. The second part of the disc is the “Walk On Medley”, a set of four songs that could stand on their own, but come together to make what could very well be the rockingest 12-something minutes ever recorded. The last set of songs is a bit weak and forgettable, but that’s forgivable due to the high quality of the rest of the album. Hell, the “Walk On Medley” alone is worth the purchase price (which was about $12). Seriously. It was basically the reason I bought the album in the first place. Also, I really love “Surrender To Me”. Score: A
• Item #2 – Guilty Gear Dust Strikers
The most expensive item on the list, totaling up to about $40, is a game I’ve been looking forward to for a while. Why? Well, to be honest, the DS doesn’t exactly have a great catalogue of fighting games. The only one I had before this was Jump SuperStars, and as great as that game is, it wasn’t going to last me forever and I don’t feel like importing Bleach and it’ll still be awhile until King of Fighters DS is released.
But now it sounds like I’m making an excuse for buying it. That would be because it hasn’t exactly been getting the greatest of reviews. they say it’s too far from the base GG material or something, but I’m not seeing what’s so wrong with it. Granted, my only previous GG experience is with Guilty Gear Advance, but I loved that game immensely. GGDS seemed like the next logical step. I’ve been playing it a lot since I got it, and I’m very much enjoying it. Of course, I’m pretty crap at fighting games (makes you wonder why I love them so much), but I’m even starting to get reasonably good at this one.
Basically, the game takes the base fighting game mechanics (think Street Fighter, but cooler) and tries to cross-breed them with Super Smash Bros. This ends up with multi-tiered stages, items, and up to four fighters. It’s a little more hectic than your run-of-the-mill fighter, but I’m convinced that it works. Word on the street is that Guilty Gear Isuka for PS2 works in a similar fashion. The only thing that they forgot to implement was Wi-Fi multiplayer, which is strange considering how long it was delayed for.
Aside from the fighting, there are a handful of touch-screen minigames, all of which are kinda dumb and/or hard except for one. Their only purpose if to unlock movesets for a single customizable character. And speaking of which, those would be the only unlockables in the game. It’s odd for a fighting game not to have a small warehouse worth of unlockables in this day and age, but I don’t think that the game suffers any because of it. Mostly because I’d never be able to get half the stuff unless it were time-released or something else not relating to skill. Score: B+
• Item #3 – Bust-A-Move DS
Have you read my Bust-A-Move article? That alone should really be enough to justify why I dropped $20 on BAMDS. I mean, why not? It’s portable Bust-A-Move, which in itself is worth even $30. Not to mention that the damn game has been out since December or so and this was the first time I’d seen it anywhere. A chance encounter is all it was, and I couldn’t have hoped for better.
So how is it? It’s friggin’ Bust-A-Move! Do I really need to tell you how it is? To be honest though, it is a little tricky to get used to. See, the D-pad is way oversensitive for Bust-A-Move, and there’s no control stick, so what’s a guy to do? Well duh, this is the DS we’re talking about. Obviously you get to aim with the touch screen, which works awesome once you get the hang of it, which takes maybe five minutes tops. Also it features 5-player single-card multiplayer. Top notch!
One odd thing to note is that both DS games I picked up were made by Majesco. What a silly coincidence. Score: A
• Item #4 – Haunting Ground
I saw this game one time at Superstore and I was like “Holy crap! New Capcom survival horror game!” but it was like $35 and I didn’t feel like taking that chance. Luckily, while I was perusing the games down at the Best Buy, I found it for a meager $20. That was more like it! While it was clearly more of a budget title, I was pleasantly satisfied with Obscure, so my susceptibility to a cheap survival horror game was at it’s highest.
I haven’t played very far yet, but for what it’s worth, I’m very much enjoying Haunting Ground. If you’ve ever played a Clock Tower game, you’ll have a very good idea of how this one goes down. If not, here’s the lowdown: you’re a (rather busty) girl trapped in a big spooky castle being stalked by a big spooky ogre-man. The catch? No weapons. Unlike most survival horror games, Haunting Ground really emphasizes the survival bit by leaving you almost completely unarmed, save a few defensive items to help slow down your stalkers. Unlike Clock Tower though, you are aided by a friendly dog who will attack your assailants for you, but it’s still more of a run-and-hide game.
I probably just suck at it, but I’m finding this game almost as difficult as it is entertaining. That damn ogre-man is a lot more persistent than I need him to be, but it does add a good bit of fun to the game, as it’s always more rewarding to complete a difficult task than an easy one. The dog is also really cool. He’s animated really well, easily the best video game dog I’ve seen to date. Oh, and he acts like a real dog too, with the not listening to you when he doesn’t feel like it and all. The scenery is also insanely pretty too. If you like graphics, you’ll love this game to no end. If you like gameplay, you’ll like the game too, but maybe not quite as much. Sadly, the music is little more than atmosphere… And speaking of atmosphere, the game builds so much tension that lesser men will pop while playing it. Score: B
Love me faster than the devil
Hilarious: DS Lite review
Awesome: GBA/DVD Player
Sexy: Nicole
Brilliant: Real-life Mario Bros.
Tomorrow: Brain Age
Just gimme gimme gimme fried chicken!
So I had a “job offer” this morning. Didn’t do that at Timmy’s, so I had no idea what it would be. There, they just finished the interview and said they’d give me a call to tell me when I start. Turns out the thing was just a bunch of red tape, and it took less than half an hour, but I do have some light reading to do. Oh, and I officially have a job now.
Afterwards I went to McDonald’s to get some breakfast, and it wasn’t until I was done eating that it dawned on me that I had eaten breakfast before I left. Oops. Just thought that was kind of a funny little story.
Since I don’t have anything else important to say, I’ll just dump a few more links on you. I’ve been doing it all month, why stop now?
Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit 2006 site
Hilarious news report on a leprechaun sighting
Satoru Iwata’s keynote address transcript
Zelda: Phantom Hourglass trailer (check the right-hand sidebar)
All sorts of video game speedruns. Impressive to say the least