Up Next: Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal

I bought this game from a kid for five bucks. He was hosting his own video game garage sale in front of his house, or "VEDEO GAMES" according to his hand painted sign. 

I had played the first game in the series in college and missed the second one entirely. But a game about a lombax and a robot who get increasingly larger and more ridiculous weaponry doesn't need a story. Sure, it's got one - a pretty decent one actually. But its unnecessary. 

Interestingly, there are similar elements to Mario 64 in this one. There are areas that require you to use a long jump or high jump and they are performed the exact same way.  Granted, Mario didn't have a suck cannon or a gun that shot out little robots or hot lava, but it's still interesting to see the influence carrying over to more modern games. 

Something that the Ratchet and Clank series has always been known for is it's great commercials. Here's all of them, ever.

I'm excited for this one. It's not too tough, and it's a ton of fun. Plus, I heard that there's a level in this game that has Mario Galaxy style planetoids.

Why I Never Finished It:
As fun as the game is, with its unique weaponry and crazy worlds, it lacks a certain stickiness. I'm not sure if its because the dialogue was written for 12-year old boys or if its the slightly disjointed story, but I never had the motivation to see this through to the end. But now it's time for Dr. Nefarious to meet his doom.

Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal for PS2. Let's Do it!

Review: Mario 64

Mario 64 kicked off the 3D generation. It introduced the world to the analog thumbstick. It was the first game to have a controllable camera. Almost every game released in the past 15 years likely has elements that can be traced back to Mario 64. It is a revolutionary game. It also sucks an arguably stupid amount of balls. How can a revolutionary game suck this many balls? Let's-a go and find out in the review.

Design
In addition to revolutionary controls, Mario 64 also started a new design structure. Princess Peach's castle serves as the "hub world" from which you can access any of the 15 areas in the game. Each area contains seven stars to collect, and they can be collected in one of a few ways: They can be hidden somewhere begging to be found, achieved by beating a boss, or will appear upon completing a specific goal like nabbing 8 red coins or flipping some sort of switch.

The game never gives you explicit instructions as to what to do to get the star, but at the start of each level, you're given a clue about where each star is or how to get it. This gives the player a genuine sense of discovery and creates the feeling of being young and exploring the nature of the world. This is the best thing Mario 64 has going for it. The fact that anyone who plays it - whether for the first time or hundredth time - will get an instant feeling of nostalgia because it instantly transforms your brain into thinking like a kid.

*GASP* Yay!

The other benefit of this design is that you can play levels out of sequence. If you get bored or frustrated with a particular star you can just hop over to a different level and try something else. There's a sign in the game at the beginning that even suggests you do this and "come back after your more experienced" to collect the tougher ones. After you've collected a certain number of stars, Bowser's dungeons open up, allowing you to fight him for keys that open other sections of the castle.

It's a rock-solid structure that has been copied and pasted over to the modern 3D Mario titles and seems to get better with every release. The controls got better with every release too, because, honestly, they had nowhere to go but up.

Sweet Movie Moves.

This is the first time Mario was moving in 3D, and considering that, the controls are extremely impressive. Mario has half a dozen different jumps which allow for creative movement through the levels - providing players the opportunity to create their own shortcuts if they had the skills to pull it off. Skills being the key word there - the jumps actually require practice and skill, so when you finally figure out a shortcut or get a star that can only be attained by pulling off a tricky series of jumps, you feel like a platforming hero.

Hardest level in the game, Tick Tock Clock

The problem is that moving in 3D makes things much more imprecise. This would be fine if the majority of the levels didn't require you to pull off exact movements over bottomless-instant-death pits. Leading to hundreds of do-overs and thousands of F bombs. A lot of these levels take a good 10-15 minutes to beat. When you get right to the end and then slip off a ledge because of slippery controls it makes for a rage fueled, couch punching festival.

What this game takes is patience. If you try to turn a 180 before coming to anything other than a full stop, Mario will do this funky U-turn. So picture you've just stopped short of falling off a ledge. Your instinct is to immediately turn the other direction. Well if Mario is still slowing down from running, he will pull a U-ey and end up falling off the ledge anyway. Once you get used to this strange mechanic, along with the wonky camera and other anomalies buried in this game, you will absolutely enjoy it. Just don't walk in thinking you're playing Mario Galaxy. Because you're not.

Presentation

Everything in this section needs to be tempered with the fact that:

A) Mario 64 was released in 1996 and
B) This was the first game of it's kind


To call this game beautiful would be a misnomer. Looking at stills, Mario 64, while extremely colorful, is very blocky and simple. But in motion, it's absolutely everything it should be. It's whimsical, imaginative, and just simply fun.

Let's-a Go!

This was also the first time Mario ever had a voice - aside from this. The story of how Nintendo ended up with the high-pitched, playful voice of Charles Martinet. During his audition for the role...

"[t]he directors let him audition and told him,"You're an Italian plumber from Brooklyn". At first Martinet planned to talk like a stereotypical Italian American with a deep, raspy voice. He then thought to himself that it would be too harsh for children to hear, so he made it more soft-hearted and friendly, resulting in what Mario's voice is today. Martinet has also stated that he kept on talking with his Mario voice until the audition tape ran out." (From Wikipedia)

How awful this game would be if Mario talked like a gruff "New Yawkah".

"EH! LET'S GO!" instead of "Let's-a go!" would ruin the game entirely. They made the right choice. Mario doesn't talk much, but his little quips and grunts give him an enormous amount of character and likability. Cementing Mario in his place as king of games.

The other element that must be mentioned is the music. The melodies of Mario have always been an important part of the series - I mean who do you know who can't "doo doo doo" the music from the first Mario Bros? Nobody. I mentioned how the music changed my opinion on the game in an earlier post, but it really makes the experience. Relaxing and cool music for the water levels, frantic and exciting music for the aerial levels. Just fantastic. Here's some of the fantastic tunes:

Stuff I Liked:

• Perfect level design in almost every level
• Exploration/discovery heavy experience
• Music is beautifully composed
• Fantastic foundation for future controls

Stuff I Hated: 

• The camera was really difficult to work with at times
• As revolutionary as the controls were, they were still in need of refinement. They got better with every release but there were hundreds of "mistakes" made because of the control issues. 
• Bottomless pits. They're awful in every game and this is no exception. One slip up and it's start over-ville 

There's a saying among Christians that goes, "If you want to know the father, look at the son." Or "If you want to know God, look at Jesus."

I feel like the same is true with the N64 and Mario 64. If you want to know what the N64 is like, play Mario 64. And now I feel as though not only I know what the Nintendo 64 is about, but I love every polygon it ever produced.

Review in Ten Words or Less: 
Revolutionary. Nostalgic. Frustrating. Beautiful.

Finished (For Real): Super Mario 64

Boom. You see that?  In the top right? One HUNDRED and twenty stars. This single screen shot represents almost two months of controller spikes, rage quits, f-bombs and couch punches. But it also represents almost two months of discovery, triple jumps, wall kicks and unadulterated joy of exploration.

In comparison to beating Zelda II, where I stood up a cheered for myself and jumped around my darkened living room at 2 in the morning; my completion of Mario 64 last night resulted in the largest sigh of relief I've ever exhaled. I just laid down and actually thanked God.

What was the epic ending to this herculean effort required on the part of the gamer? A cake. Thanks, Princess GLaDOS.

Wow, what a delicious looking ca-ARE THOSE CHERRY TOMATOES?!

Four Left.

Remaining Stars:

- 100 Coins on Tick Tock Clock (insane)
- 100 Coins on Rainbow Ride (double insane)
- "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" on Rainbow Ride (no room for screwups)
- 8 Red Coins in Bowsers Last Castle (Chicken Sandwich)

109 Stars! 11 to Go!

Thank you. Thank you to everyone who made me feel awful for giving on up Mario 64. Your belittlement and bullying steeled my resolve to finish this game for real - with 120 stars stuffed in the pockets of my blue overalls.

I realized I needed to slow it down. I needed to get over the fact that Mario 64 doesn't control like Mario Galaxy, no matter how much I wanted it to. I got used to the camera, made peace with the controls, and have a standing gentleman's agreement with the bottomless pits.

In the past week, I have gone back and collected the stars which I thought I would never get. I have stopped using Youtube walkthroughs altogether, and have found myself really enjoying playing this mid-90s masterpiece.

Rainbow Ride/Bottomless Pit Town

Of the 11 stars I have left to get, I need:

- Four from Tick Tock Clock
- Five from Rainbow Ride
- The one from the secret flying Stage on the Top floor of the castle
- The one from collecting the eight red coins in the last Bowser level.

I'm fearing for my life (and the life of my controller) for the 100 coin star in Rainbow ride. The entire world is one huge bottomless pit. But, as stated before, me and the bottomless pits have reached a gentleman's agreement.

I'm excited to finish this. I'm so happy I didn't give up on it. Thanks, jerks.

100 Stars

So, silly me. I overlooked an entire level - Tall Tall Mountain. I had never seen any footage from it, never heard anyone talk about it, and its entrance is so inconspicuous, if I wasn't counting up the remaining stars I needed to gather, I would have never even thought to look for it.

It calls back to the first Mario game with the unique mushroom platforms, but other than that it's a fairly forgettable level. I'm even having trouble finding a picture of it on Google Images.

Shrooms, mahn.

Anyway, it was a nice break to find six relatively easy stars, which helped me reach the 100 star milestone! Now it's back to collecting 100 coins in each level and dealing with the infuriating Rainbow world. If you listen real close, late at night, you can hear faint F-bombs floating in the breeze, coming from NJ.

FINE!

So after my rage quit earlier this week, I told my facebook friends about my forfeit. They were not happy. I was called a quitter, a disappointment, a fraud and I think someone called me stupid. So fine. I will do it. I will get 120 stars and beat this damn game. I'm up to 89, and there's some stars I need to get that will surely end up in a couple broken controllers. I'm gonna do it. Now everybody shut up.

Finished - Mario 64

 

Completion Time: 18:28

Stars: 82

The title of this post is a bit misleading.  I didn't so much finish Mario 64 as much as I'm finished with it. I have had enough of this game. I didn't even beat Bowser at the end. I got to him twice and then fell off the level because of horrid design flaws and that was it. I had enough. There are some fantastic levels, and some incredible moments, but there are also some inFURiating sections and elements of this monster.

I'm upset that I'm walking away from Mario 64 with a bad taste in my mouth because it really is a revolutionary game. But I will likely never play it again. The frustrating elements aren't worth the good moments. 

Sorry Mario. 

Review coming shortly.

 

Slow Go & iPhone Gaming

The past two weeks have been non-stop work for me, which has left little time for console gaming. But it has allowed a huge amount of time for handheld gaming.

I'm down a DS and a PSP after selling them to pay off a ticket last year, so I'm left with the old iPhone/iPad. Now the selection of games on iOS devices is literally out of control - so much so that probably 90% of the games on there are trash. The remaining 10% is made up of quick, short burst gameplay - things like Angry Birds, Cut the Rope etc. Those games are fine, but I wanted something I could sink my teeth into. I'm in DS withdrawal, so I really needed something meaty. I ended up with two great games.

Chaos Rings

 

Chaos Rings is a Square-Enix RPG, developed exclusively for iOS devices. It works around the limitations and benefits of the touch screen very well making the control very smooth and easy to use, in other words, there's no "virtual buttons", it's essentially sliding and tapping wherever you like. 

The story is unique for an RPG. Four teams of two partners wake up in a large castle the leads to four different worlds. Once the omnipresent leader of this castle decides the time has come, the teams must fight to the death, leaving the winning team with the gift of immortality. You can play the story through from each of the four teams perspective, adding fantastic replay value and making for a richer story.

The somewhat traditional turn-based battle system works great, with unique characteristics. The most prominent feature is the "Pair" attack. You can choose to command both characters to attack at the same time, which deals greater damage, but then allows the enemy to attack you both at the same time, leaving you extremely vulnerable. This device plays on the risk/reward mechanic and makes things very exciting. There is also a "tide meter" which indicates who has the "lead" in the current battle. Attack first and fill the meter halfway in your favor; and when it's in your favor, your attacks are sometimes twice as potent and lead to a lot more critical hits. When the tide turns to the enemy's favor, you're attacks and defenses are weaker. 

The Ho-Hum Hub World

The only thing I really don't like about Chaos Rings is it's hub-based level structure. There's no open world to explore, no towns to visit, no side missions or quests to conquer. You finish a world, get a cutscene and are transported back to the mysterious castle. You can replay levels and choose the level of monsters you'll be fighting, but that only serves to grind up your stats. This leaves the whole world feeling a little shallow, however the designers worked with what they had and made do as best they could.

The last thing I'll mention is that on top of being a well designed RPG, it's also a well designed app. It supports multi-tasking. If you're interrupted by a call or text, the game will save your place - starting you right where you left off the next time you open the app. Even going so far as to create a quick-save of your data if you close the app entirely before saving. 

All in all, it's a fantastic game. I'm about 6 hours into my first playthrough and still haven't beaten the first storyline. It's price of $13 carries the sting of being 13x higher than most games on the app store. But think about it like this - you're getting a PSP quality RPG for $13 instead of $40. Definitely worth the price of admission.

Puzzle Agent

Puzzle Agent is a game developed by Telltale, and follows the point-and-click model of the old PC games of the 90s, but adds logic puzzles in at every turn. If you've played any of the Professor Layton games on the DS, that's essentially what you're getting.

You are Nelson Tethers and you work for the FBI's Puzzle Research Division. Receiving a call from a small Midwestern town about a messed up eraser factory, you rush into action to save the day. Only when you arrive you are "puzzled" (see what I did there) to find that no one in town is particularly cooperative and most of them would just like you to leave - but not before giving you puzzles to solve!

The graphics are unique and have almost a crayon drawing feel to them and lend the game an element of innocence over the darker themes and characters. There is full voice work for nearly every character in the game and it is all done very well. It's impressive that a strong level of effort went into making a iPhone game with good voice acting, and yet major console releases can't seem to figure it out.

The puzzles, which make up the majority of the gameplay, are hit or miss. They cover so many styles of puzzles from jigsaw to logic to just-plain-weird that the touch controls are all over the place. Some of them were fantastic and really made me think, while others required more precision than most people can muster on an iPhone, while others were so abstract that I just ended up guessing over and over until I got the answer the game wanted. Most of the time I found myself annoyed by the puzzles - rushing through them to uncover the rest of the mysterious story.

While the plot kept me going, it only did so for about 2 hours. The game is dreadfully short and ends in a gigantic cliffhanger ensuring that you'll buy Puzzle Agent 2 for another five bones. And unlike Chaos Rings, Puzzle Agent is not a well designed app. No multi-tasking, it sucks your battery dry, and it crashes quite often. There is no auto-save either so when that happens you're pretty much boned. The devs did a remarkable job in creating this series, but they need to realize what platform they're developing for. If you're shooting for AAA status on the appstore, make your game a good app, not just a fun game.

I have a harder time recommending this one. It's only $5, but it's little nitpicks are hard to ignore. If you love Professor Layton and can't wait for the next one, give Puzzle Agent a try, but all others, stay away.

-- -- --

I'm leaving for Chicago tomorrow for a few days and when I get back, I'm right back in the grind, so it may be another few weeks before I finish Mario 64, but thanks for reading and I'll keep you dudes posted on any progress.

Word up.

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