Star Wars Episode 1 Racer Review

Alright So as promised another review.
I played this game on the N64 a lot as a kid, but it is better known to be an arcade game. I don't feel like a long introduction so lets just dive in.

Gameplay: Well it won't take a genius to figure out this is a racing game. There are 25 courses and none of them feel repetitive, although many are similar. I hope I don't need to explain the basic premise of a racing game, and it's the same thing here. What is great here is the upgrading. In each race you can win drugnuts, which is money. You can spend this money in he parts shop to upgrade your pod racer. This ends up being an awesome gimmick as upgrading one pod will upgrade all of the pods you've unlocked. There's plenty of unlockable pods and none of them feel the same, since they differ in stats and how easily they explode. Coupled with this is the games speed. In this game 300 is considered slow and while 500 will be the norm, it's not too hard to get above 1000. Also there is a huge difficulty gap in the game, which is annoying. The beginning of the game is easy and hardly takes any effort to beat, but then about halfway through the game it becomes mind-numbingly difficult. I wouldn't actually care about this if the game wasn't so hard that after 6 years I still haven't beaten all the courses. So there's no items alla Mario kart, which is a blessing and a tragedy. Without items the entire game boils down to skill, which lowers the multiplayer value since newcomers will never want to play. However, having a racing game that's all skill and no luck isn't that bad, especially after playing Mario Kart Wii. While you may lose, it' not cheep in any way other than that the computers are horribly over skilled in the latter courses. So it's a fantastic, fast, and difficult racer.

Music: So, only a few gripes so far right? Well if I gave individual scores for each category like some people do this would unfortunately score low. What's the problem? The music, or rather the lack thereof. There is the music for the title screen and on the final lap you get a great a great song from the movie, but it's always the same song. But that's not even a problem compared to the fact that otherwise there is absolutely no music. I can't understand why that is, but this means that the only thing you ever hear are the sound effects which can be annoying (if I have to hear Anakin Skywaker call me a slimo again I'll puke). So this is just sad, moving on.

Story: You kidding me? It's a racing game! I don't even know why I left the category here. The only time I will ever complain about story is in an adventure, action, or RPG game. This has no, and needs no story. Nough' said.

Replayality: I said something about multiplayer, but multiplayer's main problem isn't that it's not newcomer-friendly, but that you can only play with two players. I can see why they did this, as sometimes it's hard to see what's on the screen with one player, let alone when you only get half the screen. But without 4-player action the multiplayer really suffers, especially when Mario Kart 64 is sitting nearby with 4-player compatibility and a much more friendly approach to newcomers. Also once you beat a course there's no reason to go back in single player because you won't get money. So replayability is only found in the fact that you will have to play this game over and over again to beat the latter courses.

Graphics: Alright, this section just might get a perfect score. It seems that what the developers didn't put in music, they put in graphics. Compared to today I'm sure most would shun what I say, but this game will literally push an N64 to it's limits. With the high speeds and great graphics the N64 can barley keep up and when your getting to the really high speeds the frame rate really drops, something I've never seen, even with smash brothers.

So in summary the game is fun it's even got more depth than a regular racer. However it gets a little boring on the easy tracks, especially with no music, and frustrating on the latter tracks. This game will be fun, but not for very long unless, like me, you refuse to let the computer win. Well I'm going to try to give the game an unbiased score (which is hard with all the memories I have as kid trying to beat this), but the final verdict is; 7.2/10. I think people should play this even if they don't like racing games (which I really don't) also I think if there was a sequel they could easily fix the problems with this one.

As a little PS, I'm sorry I didn't get this out sooner, but I had to paint my Grandma's house. So...

I'm Out

Zelda Philosophy

A friend and I have always said that you can find lots of great imagery and symbolic storytelling in video games, specifically Zelda. A prime example that we always point to is the three-part Triforce, is symbolic of God's three persons. I have never thought till now however, that anyone would actually create an in depth analysis of the Zelda series. Of course this means that I have seen someone who has, and he is Luke Cuddy. I read the first few pages, (the ones I got for free) and I think that it's hilarious that someone devoted their time to making this, but it does look like it actually has some philosophy in it, so it's not a nerdy fan fiction. Anyway, there's no way I'm buying this book and I don't actually take this seriously, I just thought I could post this as a little LOL.

Sorry I couldn't find something more appropriate for Turkey-Day, but this will just have to do. By the way if you want a link to that book it's right here

I'm Out

Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards review

Alright so I recently whipped out the ol' N64 recently for no reason and I thought, "some of these games I have are worth a review." So I'll doubtlessly review more later, but today it's Kirby 64!
So that's the only picture this time since I don't play this with an emulator. Now, first up...

An Introduction: For those unfamiliar with the pink puff, I'll elaborate shortly. Kirby's main gimmick is that he can suck almost any enemy and swallow it into oblivion. The uniqueness of this (as if it wasn't already strange) is that when Kirby swallows certain enemies with special powers he will gain what power they had. In addition to this Kirby can fly, alright? So Kirby usually will go from the start point of each level to the end doing whatever it takes, simple right?

Gameplay: It is simple, but Kirby 64 adds a new twist which (sadly) has never appeared in any other game. When Kirby swallows an enemy he can spit them out, not new. But when pinkie swallows the enemy, that's it you can lose the power and get a new one, or just stick with the one you have. In Kirby 64, however, you can take the power out of your mouth at will, and if you want to, throw it at your enemies, but believe me there's a much better use. In this game, if you throw your power at another enemy that would give you a power, then the two powers will combine, giving you a combo power. So in this way, while this has the smallest number of powers compared to any other game, (Fire, Ice, Spark, Bomb, Rock, Cutter, and Spike) if you include the combos, it has a total of 37 powers, which is more than any of the other games. In fact one of the most enjoyable things in the game is just getting different combos and seeing what powers they give. You got the fire sword, a lightsaber, fireworks, a volcano, even a curling puck. In addition to the powers, you got 22 levels and 7 bosses, which could be thought of as levels. They all have a fantastic design and look exactly like they should. Lastly on the note of difficulty Kirby has always been centered towards little kids, probably due to the childish nature of the characters, and levels (when every world is named after a food such is the case). Since the game is centered on kids most of the series is made so that anyone with hands big enough to reach all the buttons can win. But make no mistake, Kirby 64 is easily beatable by an older gamer, but to get the final ending can be quite a task. To get the final ending requires getting all of the crystal shards (hence the name of the game). Some shards are just in the open and, more or less, hidden; others will require you to use a certain power on a part of the foreground that has cleverly masked itself as being part of the background. So in finality, it's a great platformer with clever powers; it's fairly short, but with great level designs; the difficulty is low, but not to be ignored. So overall, pretty good, could be better, but hey.

Music: The music here is bar none. I've always loved Kirby music and this is no exception. Kirby tunes are known for there bouncy happy feel, and there synth. In fact if I ever hear a Kirby song without the synth, it just wouldn't be Kirby. But the synth is there. There's a wide enough variety of songs that are all bouncity and happity that you won't get bored, but the boss battle music is able to bring the, final battle, get serious, feel. So I haven't said much other than that the music is awesome have I? Can I say anything bad?...I don't think so .

Story: Kirby was never meant to have a story, but we got a hint of one. Ripple star (which is heart shaped and for some reason is not the name of the water planet) is populated by fairies who get there power from a large crystal. The fairies are always happy and pleasant, so it's no surprise that they were attacked by Dark Matter, who tries to take their crystal. While Dark Matter is attacking, one fairy (who I just recently learned actually has a name, Ribbon) is chosen to take the crystal away to safety. As Ribbon jets off, three smaller versions of Dark Matter begin to follow here in hot pursuit. The three blobs destroy the crystal and send Ribbon plummeting to her death (or rather her soft fall on Pop Star). We all know that Pop Star is where Kirby is, so we all can probably guess that they meet up before the first level and then after one thing leads to another Kirby decides to help Ribbon because he wants to get out there and eat some enemies. So after the first few levels we come upon a waddle dee, then Adeleine, then finally King Dedede. All three we initially find possessed by tiny Dark Matters and promptly beat the snot out of all three, then they all decide to team up with Kirby in their successive order. Don't worry we still get to play as Kirby, but the other guys show up in the background for supportive reasons. So that it actually is the whole story, no summarizing or abbreviating, in fact when you play the game you might as well skip all of the opening sequences because I already told them to you. But I digress, anyway the story is there, even if it's pretty poor, but Kirby doesn't need a story, he just helps out because he wants to show off his awesome powers.

Replayability: Even though you wouldn't expect it from a Kirby game I give this game kudos here. The single player mode will have you coming back just straining to beat that Boss battles mode, and maybe to collect all the cards. So even for single player there's a reason to play more, but there's actually a decent multiplayer game, three even! I'm not going to bother describing them, but I'm going to say that it's like Mario Party with only the games, and only three games. You can play with anywhere between 1-4 players and the games are really the most fun with more people. So good replayability, but this reviews getting long, so you can find out about it on your own after you beat it the first time.

Graphics: Kirby is a round ball with stubs for arms and legs, what do you expect? Well I think the graphics are great and well polished, and about as good as you can get on the N64.

Closing: So the game seems to be absolutely fantastic in every way. The only drawbacks are that the game is only moderately long and the difficulty only makes it seem shorter. So with that I'll give this game 8.4/10. That's that, check back on Saturday.

Mini Hiatus

Alright, one week without updates is bad enough, but two weeks? I'm sorry this is unacceptable. So, to try to make up I'm going to try to review two games this week, one tomorrow and one on Saturday.
I feel compelled to make some excuse though. So last weekend I was backpacking, I couldn't post if I wanted to. The weekend before that was my last weekend of work (i.e. I was too busy to do any thing). So since work is over that means I will be able to devote more time to my blog, of course I still have school, but my goal is to always try to get one review every other week and the week I don't review I will try to find something worth mentioning.
As a small side note I recently saw a movie and finished a book.
The movie was Madagascar 2 I'm just gonna say I thought it was funny, but slightly offensive at some parts. It's no that offensive just a little, so I say go and watch.
The book is Brisingr. This is the third book in the Inheritance Cycle (better known as the Eragon books) I will just shortly say that this book is better than the second and maybe the first. It's an excellent story with excellent writing, so read it (after the first two)
Dah-Dun Dun!!! (my reading rainbow sound effect, remember?)
Alright so I'm gonna work on those reviews.

I'm Out