Hulk for GCN! Smashy smashy was never so fun!

So it’s the weekend. This is the time of the week where people can party hard, go out and do stuff, not have to worry about work, that kind of thing. Me, I rent video games. Last weekend was a bit of a bust because both games I wanted were out at Rogers Video and Blockbuster. Oh, wait, Blockbuster didn’t have either of these new titlesat all, never mind available. Stupid Blockbuster. I guess what I’m trying to say is, fight the damn Americans and rent your movies and video games from Rogers instead. Unless you live in the States, then do whatever the Hell you want.

So back to the story, both games were rented out already and there was nothing else that I really wanted. But what were these magical games that could grab my interest so exclusively? The first was Burnout 2: Point of Impact. I’d assume that it’s a great game because the first was really good. Oh, it’s a racing game of you cared to know. And I’m not big on racing games, so you can bet it’s really good. The second was even more appealing, but since it wasn’t so much of a sequel as Burnout 2 was, I must admit that I was a little skeptical.

That second game was Hulk. I’m not sure why I was at all skeptical about it. Spider-Man was great. X2: Wolverine’s Revenge was even better. So that makes a 100% success rate for next-gen video games based on Marvel movies. Why should Hulk be any different? Well, to be completely honest, I’m always skeptical about a new game that doesn’t come from Nintendo or Capcom. And it just so happens that Universal Interactive made Hulk, and they don’t exactly have the best track record. But today I went back there and took that game for all it was worth. And let me tell you, it was worth all 6 of my dollars.


If I had to sum this whole review up into one word, it would be “incredible”(pun intended). Hulkis a very fun game to play, or at least I think so. Basically, it’s just another 3-D brawler, but seeing as I love that type of game, it fits me perfectly! On the flip side, there are a few stealth-oriented levels peppered throughout the game, but they’re not all bad, and definitely not something that would take away from the overall goodness of the game. But, I’ll get to that a little bit later.

Now as I said, the game is first and foremost a 3-D brawler. If you don’t quite get that, think Double Dragon or River City Ransom in 3-D. If you’re still a bit perplexed, it’s a game where you walk around and beat up enemies. I guess if I had to compare it to any other game, it would be Minority Report. They’re the same kind of game at heart, they both have lots of fighting, they both have lots of stuff to break, and they both have a lot of the same options and special features. But, Hulk has no guns or jetpacks, and Minority Report has no Hulk. I’d say they’re about even on my rating scale, if Hulkisn’t just a bit higher.

I guess the first thing that I should cover is the main game. Or, Story Mode, if you will. What this consists of are many different levels with cutscenes in the middle. And that would be one of my first gripes. The cutscenes seem to be too many in number. It’s not really the FMVs that get to me, but the actual in-game cutscenes. In some levels there are none, but in some, there’s one every few steps. Luckily, not too many levels are like that, and it doesn’t hamper the gameplay too much. And, as for the length of the game, I’m not quite sure because I haven’t beaten it yet. But if the last two Marvel games are anything to go by, there should be more than 25.

That said, the levels themselves are actually nice and long. To be more specific, they canbe nice and long. Most enemies in the game will regenerate infinitely and you can just sit there all day pounding on the same guys over and over. But if you prefer to run from these sorts of areas, you could beat the levels a lot quicker. Not to say that they’re short if you don’t intend to waste time. They can still be pretty good length, but as in most games, they all vary. Some are long, some are short, but it all comes together in the end.

As stated earlier, you’ll be playing as the Hulk for about 70% of the game. It’s good old smashing and bashing everything in sight. You can do a lot of things to rid yourself of enemies. The basic idea would be to punch them into submission, but you can also jump attack, clap, stomp, throw, bludgeon, and squish them to death if you wish. Much like in Wolverine’s Revenge, Hulk has a rage meter, and when that gets full, Hulk gets stronger, his attacks have longer range, and he might get a bit faster. It’s hard to tell, really. The only really noticeable thing about it is that you can do this super huge sonic wave attack that takes out anything in front of you.

But of course, you can also use the surroundings to your advantage. Hulk can pick up virtually anything around him from pipes to smashed helicopters and beat enemies with them. Or if you prefer, you can just throw them. The only time the fighting can really get overwhelming is the boss stages. The first boss, Half-Life the vampire, is relatively simple to beat, but the catch is, you can’t touch him or he’ll drain your energy. The second boss fight is against a red Hulk-like guy named Madman, where you have to destroy computer consoles while avoiding him and his cronies. Then once that’s done you have to fight him in his rage mode. And if that wasn’t hard enough, there’s the constant threat of the respawning bazooka guys. And that’s only what I’ve seen so far.

For the other 30% of the game, you’re playing as Bruce Banner, scientist on the lam. His levels are a lot less action oriented, having him rely mostly on stealth to survive. Yup, just when you’re having fun pounding soldiers’ heads into the floor, the game goes all Metal Gear Solid on you. Of course, I really shouldn’t compare this to MGS, because if I did, Hulkwould rank about as highly as that fungus growing behind most department store toilets. But that’s just the Banner levels. The rest of the game still rocks the house. The only part that really amazed me about these levels is that the guys who made it have a different excuse for every single level as to why Banner can’t go Hulk. But as you can probably tell, I don’t want to write anything else about the stupid Banner levels.

So, what do you do when you’ve beaten the game? Well, first off I’d suggest beating it on the two difficulty levels that you didn’t the first time through. After that, it’s just playing for fun. Of course, there are plenty of extras in Hulk. Extras make me happy. Most notably is the Challenge Mode. It’s more or less just fighting arenas where you can see how many bad guys you can kill. There are five different Challenge games, the first two are endurance matches, the second two are timed matches, and the last one, entitled “Hulk Smash”, I haven’t played yet so I can’t tell you what it is. The first one is unlocked at the beginning of the game, but the other four open up as you progress through the Story Mode.

Next up we have the “Hulk Unleashed” section, which is comprised of a bunch of movies and such. There are two trailers for the Hulk movies, the first being the infamous “teaser trailer”, and the second being the more recent “trailer trailer”. There’s also one of those “Making of” videos, but it’s the making of the game, not the movie as you might expect. As you progress through the game, you can also view any FMV scenes that you’ve seen here. Finally, there’s a “Hulk Movie F/X” movie, but it’s locked so I can’t tell you exactly what it is. Popular speculation leads me to beleive that it has something to do with the movie’s special effects. In addition to that, they’ve added some movie production art to sweeten the deal and make the fanboys salivate.

Finally, we have the cheat menu. Strangely enough, you have to unlock all the cheats with codes. Well, maybe that’s not that strange but you have to unlock almost all the production art and one of the movies with said codes as well. Then there’s the complication. There are two different ways to enter codes. And each code works uniquely to one of these ways, never both. The first way to enter codes is to simply go to the “enter code” menu and type it in. The second way is to find a cheat console somewhere in the game and type it in there. Ant it pretty much goes without saying that these cheat consoles are only in Banner’s levels, and they’re pretty out of the way. I’m not even sure if you can find out the codes in the course of the game or if you have to look them up in a magazine or on the internet. And, a cool little rumour that’s going around says that a super-secret code will be given in the Hulk movie that opens some kind of new gameplay mode. If it’s true, I think that’s pretty cool.

So, now that I’ve covered every possible aspect of gameplay, what about the rest? I’ll start with graphics. Just to give early warning, this game is cel-shaded. But not in the traditional sense. Only the characters really look it, and it’s more of a comic type shading than a cartoonish style. All in all it looks pretty good, especially on the non-human characters. The environments are pretty well done, but some of the textures just don’t look right. Not that they’re all pixely like in Super Mario Sunshine, but there seems to be a lack of detail. Other than that small problem, the game looks very nice, and even the most spoiled of graphics babies should enjoy the way Hulklooks.

I, being the audiophile I am, place a lot of weight on the music/sound of a game. The Hulk only disappoints in the aspect that the background music is rather faint and can get annoying. It’s not anything catchy that you’ll be humming. I suggest turning the music volume all the way off (but keep the sound volume on) and put on the radio or a CD. Something like Rammstein or Disturbed would suit Hulkvery well. As for the sound effects, they’re all good. The clanging, smashing, all that stuff, it’s all there and it sounds just fine.

As for voices, the voice acting is done rather well, almost as good as in Batman: Dark Tomorrow. The fact that enemies are very vocal makes for a hilarious experience. “Oh crap!! I need backup!” and “Hey! Put him down!” are just a couple samles of the rather humourous things enemies will say as you pound your way though enemies. Even banner talks to himself while you play his levels. My only gripe is that Hulk never talks. No “Hulk smash!” or “Hulk angry!“. Just grunt and roar, grunt and roar. Oh well. All in all, I think this category did pretty well.

And now we come to control. As was Wolverine, Hulk controls a bit sloppy, but it really doesn’t matter since you’ll be mashing the A button most of the time. One significant problem is aiming. It’s tough to get Hulk to face exactly where you want him to, and using the lock-on function is mostly useless, because enemies are almost always in groups of 4-8, so you probably won’t lock-on to the guy you wanna hit. Like I said, just pounding the A button will do fine in most cases. Another problem is launching the rage attacks. One of them is B+Y, and as those familiar with the GCN controller will know, pushing those buttons at the same time is quite the task. Luckily, you can also press Y+X to do (I think) the same attack. Another problem is the first-person look. Control is way too sensitive and it’s basically useless. Final gripe here is that you have no control over the camera whatsoever, which changes angles with the wind. So, I’d say the controls are mediocre at best.

Finally, we come to replayability. Essentaily, it’s a rather reply value-less game, but you can go through it at least 3 times, one for each difficulty level. After that, it’s just Challenge Mode and playing around with all the different cheats, some of which can actually be quite entertaining. Of course, if you’re really hyped up about the movie, you an watch the trailers over and over again, as I did with my Ocarina of Time/Master Quest disc while waiting for The Wind Waker.

For a final score, I give Hulk an 8. The lack of good music and sloppy controls lost one point each. But, I can tell you enough that this is an extremely fun game while it lasts. You might just want to rent it once or twice because it’s not gonna last much longer after you finally get bored with it. Or, if it eventually goes down to $20 like Spider-Man did, then you should definitely think about buying it. I know I’m gonna enjoy this game all the way until it has to go back. Yeah. Rent good idea, buy only if bargain bin. Hulk angry if you not play Hulk’s game. Hulk want smash more little people. Hulk really need voice in game.


Yup. That’s how I feel about Hulk. If you wanna take my word for it, go ahead, but if you’re some kind of stupid person that doesn’t like beat ’em up games, you can go play some other game. But Hulkis great. I strongly urge anyone and everyone to go and at least try it out. Very, very fun game. Needs two-player smackdown mode though. Maybe that’s what the mysterious “movie cheat” will be. Who knows? It is just a rumour after all.

So this brings an end to article number 11 I think, not including Chat Radio, but including the Gallery and Guides. I think so anyway. Yeah. Well, the Easter thing was the 10th, but I did include Chat Radio in that figure. But the numbers don’t really matter, it’s the quality of my many, many offerings, right? I guess it doesn’t matter either way because I don’t really have many readers yet. But 3 is a good start. So that’s all for today, see you in the MegaMan 4 article!

As a bee

Aaaahhh. Now that my project is done, I have a bit more time on my hands to do anything else. So, I’ve got a new article on the way, and I promise to finish the MegaMan 4 article by Wednesday at the latest. I guess I should be studying for exams, but I’m pretty smart and I still have a whole week to study, so I should be okay. Chat Radio 9 might be up anytime between now and sometime around the MM4 article. While I’m on that topic, we decided that CR8 was good enough as it is and won’t be getting a real ending. So that new article I mentioned may be up by tonight, or sometime tomorrow. It all depends on how much I feel like writing. ~Ryan out.

Not bored yet

Holy crap it’s already June. It’s kinda nice to know that I’m still “passionate” about the site. I’d have lost interest in anyhitng else by now. But alas, I’ve got exams in two weeks, and a huge history project due sometime in between now and then, so besides finishing Chat Radio 8, I won’t be doing anything else for the site until about the 20th. So that said, I uploaded CR8, or at least half of it. Read it to find out why.
~Ryan out.

Nintendo Surprise: The Nintendo surprise bag

It’s really amazing how much merchandise that Nintendo pumps out. Sadly, most of it isn’t exactly the kind of stuff you want to buy, and very little of it is worthy promotion for the GameCube and GameBoy Advance. Sure the Pokemon line goes over really well with kids, but very few older Nintendo hardcores want Pokemon toys all over their room. I don’t. At one point, I did have a small Gloom hanging out on my dresser, but it got lost. Kinda unfortunate because Gloom is one of my favorite Pokemon.

Of course, they have gone to certain lengths to make Mario and Zelda action figure lines. You saw a few of them in Hylian Idol. We even got a few burger restaurant deals, one promoting Super Mario Bros 3 at McDonald’s, which was a long time ago. Last year, there were Mario toys at Wendy’s, which I believe came along to help sell Super Mario Advance. The most recent was the Burger King deal, which was a menagerie of Nintendo most popular characters, such as Mario, Link, Donkey Kong, and Kirby. Everyone loves Kirby. Why we didn’t see any kind of promotion for his TV show is beyond me though.

(>o.o)>

Whee! Look at him dance! I guess that’s an ample intro for today. I really don’t think it’s that necessary anymore. After all, they do sway off the path of the articles a bit. But in the quest for longer and better articles, I must do what I have to do. But, enough redundant rambling, I’ll just start the article now.


A long time ago, actually, less than a year to date, I was browsing the dollar stores of a faraway land and came across quite the treasure. It was a simple plastic bag with candy in it, but that was just the base idea. This bag of goodies was a Nintendo Surprise. Of course, the surprise wasn’t really there, since there was a transparent area on the front of the bag. That and they all had more or less the exact same things in them. I went back this year to seek more of the bags-o-fun and I found them, only they had changed a bit.

The old Nintendo Surprise contained a sucker, a Ring Pop-like thing, a slab of gum, and a game tip card. They all sported different characters. The gimmick was that you could collect all of the different characters and candies. I guess the only surprise is what character bust you found in the ring pop. There were 2 different sucker “statues”, 6 character busts in the ring pops, and 18 different portraits in the gum. The only problem with this is that they seem to be extremely rare, and no kid would be able to resist eating them.

Now, produced by Au’some Candies, the “Nintendo Surprises” are simply plastic bags containing a bunch of gum. It’s really a sad story. Why? Because the gum was the only collectible that you could really eat. the others left plastic remains to collect. Fortunately, you won’t want to eat the gum after you try one piece. it tastes absolutely horrible. Bad, sinful, imperfect, rancid, unsuitable, wicked, tainted, hurtful, noxious, and terrible are all words that go hand in hand with this gum. the package says “sour” but this stuff tastes worse that eating Kool-Aid powder. I kid you not.


As I stated in one of the above paragraphs, there are 18 slabs of disgust that you can collect. Though, Au’some Candies seems to have cut a few corners when they were making them. The different characters are the following: Mario, Princess Peach, Luigi, Bowser, Paratroopa, Larry Koopa, Ganondorf, Ludwig Von Koopa, Yoshi, Ganondorf, Link, Link, Link, Diddy Kong, Link, Donkey Kong, King K. Rool, and Donkey Kong. Notice the abundance of Link. Even the two different DK gums are the same picture, just one is reversed. At least they look pretty good and not at all like some poor African kids drew them on.

I also mentioned earlier that the Nintendo Surprise contained a card with a game tip on it. These ones are no different. But the use of the word “latest” is a bit of an exaggeration. At least now. I guess that I forgot to mention one little detail. After a little bit of researching, I found out that these things were made way back in 2001. I suppose it’s not as bad as the Hulk gum that my brothers got. If you read X-Entertainment, you’ve seen it before. And if you want a bit of a more in-depth look at the 8-year-old crap, check out Matt’s Video Store article.

So, here’s the contents of one of the packages. It seems a lot more impressive than it really is. A LOT. There’s not a lot I can say about this pile of crap that I won’t say later so instead I’ll tell you about this GameBoy Advance link cable that I’m holding. Firstly and most importantly, it’s a pretty shade of white, with a white tip for the first player, and gray tips for the second, third, and fourth players. That said, it obviously has four heads to link GBAs together. It’s made by Pelican and was a lot cheaper than buying three Nintendo-brand cables. there’s also a little switch on the connector that enables it to work with GameBoy Colour units. Back to what’s important.


As you can clearly see, they come in a wide variety of colors. All three colors of the… uh… groraninkbow. Ha. Got outta that one with style. Oh yeah. Anyway, it’s plain to see that a character is not confined to a single color. They can appear on any one of the three shades of gross. If you look even closer, you can see both Donkey Kongs and how it’s the same picture, just flipped horizontally, just as I said. On the upside, I was lucky and scored both Koopa Kids. I’m at a loss to see why they didn’t use all of them. If they hadn’t repeated characters there would have been enough to host all seven of ’em.

Now, I’ll try my best to describe what all of them taste like. Orange is clearly the best of the three. Incredibly enough, it does taste like orange candy-type stuff. Only it’s way too soury-like. Bad memories of Kool-Aid powder are coming back… Yuck. Well, I guess I was wrong. Pink is definitely the best. It tastes decent, much like one of those sour soother things. It’s still not worth eating, but at least it doesn’t make me want to throw up so that there’s a better taste in my mouth. Green is supposed to taste like apple, I think. It does a little bit, but then you notice that it has a hint of BILE in it. The package wasn’t lying when it said they were sour. Maybe not as sour as some other candy, but it isn’t exactly tame.

Look, it’s the Game Tip card! When I say card, I don’t mean card in the normal sense, or even the tradeable sense. It’s just a piece of hard paper with a picture and some words on it. Oddly enough, it’s the only thing included in the Nintendo Surprise that isn’t collectible. I guess you could collect all of the different tips, but to date I’ve only seen three different ones, and I and my brothers have been through at the very least twenty packs of this stuff. Oh, I forgot another important thing. The gum’s taste lasts for an average of 40 seconds. You’d be much better off with some Wal-Mart candy machine gum.


As usual, you can click on the pics to enlarge them if you want to read them. The first tip is for the Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages. It’s pretty handy, and is something you might not think of right away. But, most people who played the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past have already figured this out. The second “tip” is both asinine and redundant. It tells you that in Super Mario Advance Luigi can jump the highest. It might have been helpful, but the game itself gives you this tip, so like I said, it’s redundant. Note that they have French tips too. If you can’t read the language, don’t worry, it says the same thing. This also leads me to believe that Nintendo Surprises were only distributed in Canada.

For the sole purpose of writing this article, I saved some of the plastic carcasses from the original Nintendo Surprise. Shown above are the sucker cases. There are only two to collect, so if you went the whole nine yard to get all the gum pieces, you’d have a lot of extra sucker cases. The two characters chosen to be immortalized as suckers were Mario and Yoshi. I don’t see why not. But they could have just as easily modded the Mario mold a little and at least made a Luigi. Oh well.

If you did manage to get you hands on a lot of these guys, they could be used as really low-budget action figures. I have several Yoshis and use them to war against my Star Wars figures with Mario as their leader. The detachable bases can also double as hats or a bad game of stack-the-sucker-bases. That’s what they seem to be doing in the picture above. To tell the truth, I’m really scraping for idea for this one. There’s a cool picture of a pelican on my GameBoy Advance link cable.

Pictured above are the remains of a couple of my Nintendo ring pops. They come in the same colours as the gum, but they taste a whole lot better. In fact, so do the suckers. Everything tastes better than that gum, except clams. I hate clams. Stupid chicken nugget-looking clams. I hate you, clams. I hate you and your cousin the oyster. In fact, I hate all seafood. Except sushi, I’ve never tried sushi. Or lobster. It’s pretty sad, but I plan to try it the next time we go to Red Lobster. Which should be in about 3 years. So I may never try lobster until it’s too late. I bet lobster tastes better than that stupid gum. And clams.

By now you should be aware that this bag of sugar was made for kids. This is further evidenced by the fact that the rings barely fit onto the second joints of my fingers, never mind the third. It also teaches us that Link doesn’t look good in pink. Red, blue, and green yes, but pink no. Yoshi can come in any colour and seems to be enjoying his orangyness quite well. I think green Yoshi is a bit jealous of orange Yoshi’s happiness. And Link seems to be jealous of both of their decent colour palettes and full bodies. Poor Link is just a bust of himself.

While I’m writing about shoddy Nintendo products, I guess I should mention this GameCube watch. It’s not really that bad, I did get it for free after all. My complaints focus mostly on the extremely easy to press buttons, causing the time to change by itself. If compared to most digital watches of today, it’s got no options, just the time and date. No fancy bells, whistles, or beeps. Then again, the time and date are all you really need. I never need a stopwatch or alarm anyway, so I guess I don’t care.

Now, back on topic, after finding my goods, I went to the dollar store next to the dollar store I had just been in. There I browsed the party favors and found some Groucho masks without the mustache. I had to have them. I’m not sure why I wanted them, they don’t fit, but I wanted them anyway. So that’s me with one of the masks on. Wow… I look nerdier than usual. It would probably have been a good idea not to upload it, but nobody who would judge me reads this site anyway. I guess I’m safe.

So to turn around the theme of the article and show a excellent Nintendo product and add some cool, I’m including another picture of my AGB playing MegaMan Zero. Once again, it’s an awesome game and if you have an AGB, you owe it to yourself to get it. Really. Or you could just wait a few months and get MegaMan Zero 2. Or you could not wait and import RockMan Zero 2 if you don’t care about knowing what to do or can read Japanese. In any case, it’s one of the best games I’ve played in a long time. Well, that’s about that for that.


So now you know what I was blabbering on about in that one news update. Ummmm… this whole conclusion part is the toughest thing to write. I guess I could mention that I have plenty of gum left if anybody wants to try some. I’m more than willing to let go of a piece or eight. That’s all I have to say for today. I have no more ideas about what to review, so I don’t know when the next article will be. Maybe I’ll finish that MegaMan article sometime within the week.

Wario Ware, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!

Everybody say hello to my first GameBoy game review! Everybody loves GameBoy, regardless of whether they side with the GameCube, Playstation 2, or(God save their souls) X-Box. Why? Nobody really knows. It might be because it has the biggest library of games ever(probably over 1000 by now), or maybe because it’s portable. Personally, most of the franchises I love the most are on the GB. These include MegaMan Battle Network, the Legend of Zelda, Golden Sun, the Wario Land series, and a couple others.

Now, Nintendo has just released a new Wario game upon the public. The only thing that separates it from the other Wario games is, well, everything. Until now, Wario has only starred in adventure games and Wario’s Woods. Now the Wario Land games, I adore. Especially Wario Land 2. They all host huge worlds for Wario to adventure through on his never-ending quest for riches and treasure. Wario’s Woods was a bit different… actually, it was a lot different. It was somewhere in between Tetris, Puyo Pop, and Dr. Mario. Strangely enough, though, Toad was the main character…

Wario Ware Inc. takes gaming to a level that nobody had ever dreamed of until now. It redefines the term “mini-game” and will either suck you in immediately or give you that ‘Get it away. I feel dirty’ feeling. There is no middle ground. You will not say ‘It’s an OK game’. You will love it or hate it. I originally downloaded the ROM because a)I couldn’t grasp what the big N was trying to do, b)I can’t rent GB games, and c)I don’t like to take risks when it comes to buying video games. But, had I just went all-out and bought it, my sacrifice would not have been in vain. I LOVE THIS GAME. So without further adieu, I’ll get to the revieu.


Wario Ware Inc., like I said, is a very innovative game. At the heart of the little black pak is a barrel full of 5-second mini-games. Yeah, I thought it sounded weird too, but oh, I was wrong. When you start, the games lets you sign in your name, and then shows you a little cutscene of the game’s story. Then you start. One after another, these 5-second mini-games are thrown at you, providing you barely enough time to think about what you’re doing. Luckily, before the game starts, your objective flashes on the screen. These objectives consist of things like ‘cook’, ‘stomp’, ‘sniff’, ‘dodge’, and ’tilt’. Basically, if you have slow reflexes, you’re going to fail.

Now there are several levels in the game, each consisting of a bunch of the mini-games. Every level is hosted by Wario or one of his friends. I find this confuzzleing because Wario seems like the type that wouldn’t care to have friends. Maybe he does have a sensitive side under that greed and mean after all. After you beat a number of games, you’re treated to a “Boss Stage”. These stages have no set time limit, only limited by your skill, which is mostly just good timing. Did I mention that any and every mini-game utilizes the Control Pad and/or the A button. Simple, but strangely entrancing.

The story, or what I get of it, goes a little like this. Wario is just watching TV when he sees a commercial that shows how well GameBoy games are selling. Wario, never one to turn down possible profit, immediately throws on his biker outfit, jumps on his hog, and heads out to get a computer. He gets home with his new laptop and starts to make games after a quick renovation to his hilltop home. Only, he falls asleep as soon as he starts. He realizes that he’s gonna need a little help to do this, and he decides to call up his closest buddies to help him. That’s about it. So now I’ll give you a quick overview of the first couple levels.

We start our “adventure” at Wario Ware Inc. Wario has got a bunch of beginner games for the player to practice with. So, he jumps on his trampoline, and into his… radio? Now it starts. Oh, I should also say that you get 4 lives for each level. If you fail to complete your objective you lose a life. So we get to play a few games. 10 if it’s your first time. The games include a Spy Hunter parody, a Super Mario Bros parody, a Pac-Man parody, and several ‘catching’ games. The boss stage is simple. You’re Wario, you punch a small disc-like thing-on-a-string until it goes over the bar and you finish it off. Beat this and you can move to the next level. If you come back to the level later, you can keep playing until you lose.

The next level is the town’s local disco, Club Sugar. In this level, your host is Jimmy, who looks like a cross between Wario, Disco Stu, and a clown. Or maybe just a clown in polyester. Anyway, Jimmy’s level lasts for 15 mini-games. They’re a bit tougher here, with games like ski jumping, karate chopping, and lots of other sports-oriented stuff. It’s also home to the best boss game that I’ve seen so far. It’s a very simple spoof of Punch-Out!!, probably for all of us Animal Crossers who can’t get the the real game yet. It’s prettey simple, dodge and jab. Eventually the enemies will do one-hit kills, so practicing is a must. As I said, you can return to level after you’ve beaten them and play as long as you want, but I warn you, the games all have varying difficulty levels, and some of them can get extremely tough.

The third and last level I’ll sum up is the Gelateria. At this point, you can choose one of three levels to move on, and I chose this one, because the host is Mona, and well… you know how it is. Mona has a little sub-story. It seems that she’s once again late for work and now she’s on the lam because she was speeding. Oh, and she was attacking police cars with eggs, snot and banana peels. The genre of this level is “Strange games” and strange they are. Some of the objectives include flying a paper plane, catching toast, sniffing up a booger, picking a nose, and brushing teeth. The boss level is pretty stupid here. You have to hammer a nail in, and if you miss even once, you lose. Luckily, the other games aren’t too hard and you should still have 4 lives by the time you get this far.

Now that I’ve helped you get to know what the game is all about, I’ll gt to the real review. The graphics are a good point to start at, I think. Now, with this game, as you can see from the shots, it’s hard to say if the graphics are “good” or not. It’s a very mixed bag. There are cartoony full-color animations, stick figure mini-games, outline games, and even some portrait-esque backgrounds. I’d say that overall they work very well with the way the game is presented. It’s like the wind Waker, the graphics wouldn’t work any other way. If course in WWI you could give all the mini-games Golden Sun quality, but it would take away from the charm. Trust me.

But how is the sound? Well, once again, it’s a mixed bag. There are a lot of voices and sound effects, which all sound very good and fit right where they belong. OK, so the voices are a littlebit grainy. But you can’t expect perfection from the GameBoy. Even with the little grain, they sound just fine. There is music, but it changes so rapidly you really don’t take the time to notice it. And if it does annoy you, simply turn it off. It’s that simple. Not a whole lot else to say about this category.

Gameplay seems to be a big issue these days. Since it’s a Nintendo game, the controls are perfect. Of course, it would be hard to screw up since it only uses the Control Pad and the A button. Like I said earlier, the game itself is very fast paced, and I think it’s really fun. Again, this game is definitely NOT for everyone. If you like to take things slow, don’t play it. If you have a slow reaction time, don’t play it. If you have an X-Box, don’t play that. I’m not sure why, but I find Wario Ware Inc. pretty funny. To be truthful, there isn’t anything really funny in it at all, but I find myself laughing a lot when I play it.

Replay value? Length? It’s all about “how many hours is it?” these days. Why don’t people ask “is it fun?” any more? I’ll tell you this, It will not take you long to finish this game start to finish. But if you want to unlock every game and earn a flower (beat a set score) for every one of them, it’s gonna take some time. As for replayability, you could play this forever. Like Space Invaders and Frogger, it’s a never-ending quest for a high score. If Nintendo put this in an arcade machine, they could stand to make a LOT of money. But they put it in cartridge form instead. I’m kind of confused why they didn’t put the Nintendo Puzzle Collection on the GB instead of the GCN. It would have worked a lot better, I think.

Well, that’s about all I have to say about Wario Ware. I urge you to try it out as soon as you can. Not that I’m encouraging piracy or anything, but o should play the ROM first to see if you like it before you consider a purchase. $50 is a lot for a shot in the dark. I must say though, that I’m strongly considering dropping my paycheck on this game. Now if only Aria of Sorrow hadn’t come out recently. I’m really torn between a few different games right now, and my budget only has room for one. Not only that, but next month, at least 4 must-haves are coming out. I need a new job! Somebody pay me to do this!


Yeah, like I said, somebody pay me for this! It sure would help motivate me to write more often. Oh well. I guess I’m doomed to live the life of an unemployed leech. No fricikn way I’m going back to Xentel. I don’t care how well they pay, it’s just not worth it. I need a job where I’m actually doing something. But enough about that.

Sorry I still haven’t completed the MM4 article. I guess the moment just passed and I lost interest. So I guess I’ve learned something from doing this. I shall pass that lesson onto you, in case you have some kind of aspiration in the future. Always do something while you want to do it! Don’t put it off! Just look at what happened to Quest for the Cube. That could have gone somewhere. No it wouldn’t. Who an I kidding? Well, that’s all for today, have a good week and don’t get SARS!

Doodle bop

Today I added a picture of a turkey and Felix to the gallery. I did them in MS Paint, so they’re rather poorly-drawn, but I still find the turkey quite comical and charming. Maybe I should get people to submit their own art… ~Ryan out

UPDATE! – I was on a bit of a downloading spree today and came across a fun little gem. I knew that I had to write about it. Go check it out. NOW. ~Ryan out