Are the Mario Brothers Terrorists?

It should be easy to picture the scenario. Two stalwart heroes set out on a magical journey to save a beloved princess, kidnapped by a spurned, giant fire-breathing turtle. They run at full speed, collecting all the money and eating all the fungi and plants they find; slaughtering all that stand against them.

The story of the Mario games are simple, but let us consider for a moment what's really happening here. Princess Peach gets kidnapped what, every couple of weeks? Is she really so helpless? Well, she can fly. Also, she is far smarter than Bowser as shown in the Paper Mario games. How does she keep getting kidnapped? I would suggest that for an answer we examine her relationship to Bowser. Bowser is hopelessly in love with Peach. Apparently this is why he keeps kidnapping her. Now seems like a good time to mention that Bowser's son, Bowser Jr... calls... Princess Peach... Mom.

In Super Mario Sunshine, Bowser Jr. admits that he knows that Peach isn't his mother, but it is highly suspicious that he has been calling her Mom for so many years.

Speaking of the royal family, where is King Toadstool? He was there in Super Mario 3, but that was all a play (maybe). The only king to be seen in either kingdom (the Mushroom kingdom and the Koopa kingdom) is Bowser. Neither Mario nor Luigi are kings, they're both common plumbers. Is it possible that Bowser is the rightful king of both kingdoms? Married to Peach who turned to a common plumber to murder the king (over and over again)? Imagine Peach giving a subversive speech about how the koopa menace with their filthy goomba cronies must be expelled, making the land safe for the people (and toads) to thrive. It's a koopa cleansing and who better to lead the slaughter and wash away the evidence than her secret lover and plumber on the side Mario (Luigi is there too, presumably to try and make nice with Daisy)?

Mario has a history of this suspect behavior. Consider the case of a man, matching his description operating under the obvious pseudonym, "Jumpman." You know this tale, now let's look at the other side. A hapless ape named Donkey Kong and his damsel Pauline (the girl in the original Donkey Kong's name is Pauline) climb to the top of some scaffolding for a midnight picnic. The interspecies nature of their relationship is immaterial, the Mushroom kingdom has different standards you know? When suddenly, a marauding maniac wielding a hammer races up the scaffold, bent on absconding with Pauline in a racist rage. The previously gentle giant desperately hurls barrels at the offender in a feeble attempt to save his lady. Having failed miserably, he spends the next few decades wallowing in awesomely obscure jungles.

Look at Donkey Kong. Does he look angry or scared?

I'm not saying that any of this is true. In fact, I'm almost certainly reading way too much into this. All I'm saying is, look a little closer... into his eyes... the eyes of a maniac. And Peach? Oh Peach, you're not fooling anyone.

Review Slice: Halo Reach's Forge Mode

He looks guilty to me.

Halo: Reach sure delivers the goods. A robust story mode (as extolled by my homey Scott Kieffer over at That Gaming Site); an outrageously fun multiplayer offering; and to top it all off, an extensive level editor.

In the above mentioned level editor, known as Forge Mode, you embody the Guilty Spark of Halo 3 fame (whom I erroneously thought was named Silent Cartographer which was odd as he was not at all silent) and make your way around an enormous series of islands, building pretty much anything your heart desires. You are given a huge portion of the pre-built assets from the game proper, so all you have to worry about is where to put the sand bags instead of having to actually make/texture/map/code weight etc.

The suite also has smaller elements for a more customized space if that's what you really want, though the pieces come in standardized sizes and figuring out how to change that is a real pain.

Where Forge Mode really shines though is the allowance of co-op. That's right, you can build stuff with a friend. Let him jump off your ramp and see if he dies. Have him fill the room with guns while you go build another bunker. One would never really think about it, but it's far easier and more fun to be creative when you have someone to help you.

If all of these positive aspects seem too good to be true, that may be because they sort of are. A major caveat to the mode is also Halo's biggest feature. The Xbox 360 controller, as shooter-friendly as it is, is just awful for the type of precision something like Forge Mode requires. The limited amount of buttons means that all of the assets and options have to be accessed through menus and since nearly every button is already in use, some useful commands simply aren't available. Most notable is the inability to create objects inside a structure. Since your cursor has to be pointing at the sky in order to enable the context sensitive creation menu, everything you want to be in a room had better be there before you put a roof on the place. It's a gripe about something I'm sure was insurmountable from a design perspective, but it would have been nice to be able to use a mouse and keyboard.

Overall, Forge Mode is an excellent addition to what is almost surely an excellent game. Alone it may not be worth $60, but if you already have the game, you should try it out with a friend. If you're on the fence, get off the fence and hop on Forge Mode. Upload your horrible map and let people play it. Or just make fun of other people's maps that are all just penises.

Metroid: Other M: Review

When it was revealed that the guys who made Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive (including all of the Beach Volleyball iterations) would be making a Metroid game, the gamersphere erupted, and rightly so. What a worrying proposition right? Samus with breast physics? Ridley spraying blood all around the room? Thankfully none of this happens in Metroid: Other M. What we have instead is classic Metroid with a twist (read: a bunch of twists).

Metroid: Other M stands as one of two rare attempts (including Metroid: Zero Mission) to inject some semblance of story into the Metroid universe. The story has typically been pretty simplistic. Metroids kill things, space pirates want the Metroids to do pirate things (presumably with eye-patches), Samus has a gun on her arm. Other M endows Samus with tons of character development, something we haven't seen in her before. Apparently with good reason. Other M tells the story of why Samus, being a solitary bounty hunter (who to date has collected apparently no bounties) is always so keen on helping the Galactic Federation. In the process she comes off as highly feminine (to the extent of wearing high-heels in the Zero Suit for some reason). It's totally different than I (and thus, by proxy, you) expected Samus to be, but honestly it's kind of cool to see a heroine who is also a girl. Unfortunately, this leads her to periodically stopping to tell you about how sad things make her. It's humanizing, but it's annoying. The rest of the story is ham fisted and decidedly Japanese which, depending how you feel about anime, is either silly or good. Using Super Metroid as a jump-off is a good decision though as it leads to some truly harrowing cinematics.

Above: Samus is totally sad.

The cgi movies on the other hand are beautiful and action packed. If all that humanizing left you wondering if Samus was a powderpuff, her cg antics flipping around and killing everything will leave little doubt. Samus is hardcore. If you still need convincing, the in-game action will sell you. The control is a bit strange with you holding the Wii Remote sideways (like New Super Mario Bros.) and controlling Samus in 3-D space with the D-pad. It takes a while to get used to, but eventually it feels like second nature. Missiles and free-look are handled by pointing the Wii Remote at the screen. The missiles/free-look mechanic sounds like it would be awesome, but the Wii Remote it far too imprecise and slow moving to do what it is really supposed to. Thankfully, the generous auto-aim in the regular side-scroll mode enables you to shoot the crap out of everything effectively, stunning bigger enemies for the missile coup-de-grace.

The game is actually a pretty good mix of side-scroll, first-person action (although you are stationary in first-person, which is annoying), and even some over-the-shoulder stuff. Not all of this works that well, but none of it is game ruiningly bad. Being such a mix allows for many long absent suit-upgrades make a welcome return. Bafflingly though, Samus the independent bounty hunter agrees not to use much of the suit until her ex-boss/father-figure says so. For some things it makes sense (power-bombs may kill survivors so, duh), but for some things it makes no sense. Hey Adam, I'm standing in lava and dying, do you mind if I turn on my heat-resistant suit? Pfft. People keep saying this makes more sense than Samus finding these upgrades each time, but it clearly doesn't.

Altogether though, Other M is a welcome addition to the Metroid timeline (occurring after Super Metroid which was the final game in the timeline). Team Ninja (despite Samus having comically huge breasts, high-heels, and the voice of a fifteen year old girl) added some awesome flavor to the series and took risks that mostly paid off.

This is a Metroid. It wants to kill you.

If you're on the fence about Other M, get off the fence (and clean off those shoe prints) and go buy it. It's $50. It'll be 10-15 hours well spent. And if you get stuck, look up, it's not bad game design, you're just being stupid.

Just Cause 2: Review

Just Cause 2 follows what can only be described as the first Just Cause (I'm really running out of ways to introduce sequels, fast). I'd like to preface by saying that the first Just Cause was not very good. I may even say it was downright bad. Besides looking pretty, it was so off-putting as to almost warrant its own retro-review.

The second game however came in to say it was sorry and it'll never do it again. If you've seen any of the outlandish stunts that take place in the commercials and videos of the game and wondered if you've already seen the best parts. You should know that those were only the best parts if you are not very creative. While the bulk of the environment is not too terribly destructible, pretty much everything can participate in some kind of explosion. There is rarely a moment in which you wish something would explode and it doesn't. Stuff even explodes when you've had nothing to do with it. Sweet.

And while the explosions themselves don't really look that great (there are moments that you can actually see the triangles that the fire is made from (yeah, 3D fire and explosions are all made of triangles)), everything else is phenomenal. The islands of the fictional south Asian country of Panau are huge and you can explore all of it. There's towns, mountains with snow, deserts, the whole gamut. And it's all believably far enough apart. From one corner of the map to the other is easily 20km. That's really far, especially for everything in between to be accessible.

Now you may be wondering, "Ja'far, you handsome man of color; how does one traverse all that real estate?" The answer is, with planes, boats, cars, an endless supply of parachutes... and a tether. You can tether just about anything and use it to pull yourself around both on land and when parachuting off of something. The tether itself is perhaps one of the most versatile tools in recent videogame history and most of the fun of the game comes from tethering one thing to another thing and watching hilarity ensue. You can tether a dude to a car and drag him. Tether a dude to a gas tank and fire him off into space (or around the room with hilarious results). Tether a dude to another dude and so on. The tethering possibilities are endless. Tether.

All this tethering and parachuting does come at the cost of accessible controls however, so if complex controls aren't your thing, you will find it hard to do probably half of the best stuff in JC2. You'll still have a good time blowing up all of the government's stuff though, and that's good since that's essentially what the game is actually about.

You will please note the tether.

The story, while being paper thin, is actually somewhat deeper than it lets on. Probably because it waits until the final cutscene to reveal that there are actual undertones to all that tethering and exploding. Even the story being what it is doesn't mar the game as a whole though. What does mar the game is the length. While a good time is to be had with all of the above shenanigans, after about 15 hours, I was looking for the game to end. At that point I felt I had parachuted and tethered to my heart's content. There was however over 10 more hours to go. The fact that there are only 7 actual story missions and the rest of that time is spent on side missions really starts to wear thin. Go here, kill that dude is fun for a while, but why am I on this island again?

Overall though, JC2 is a mega fun game. Is it worth $60? Well, it'll keep you busy for a ton of hours and with the Mercenary Mode you get for completing the story so you can continue your tethering and uh, whatever else it is you do, I'd definitely say so. Is it game of the year? You do know God of War 3 came out this year right?

Played on XBox 360 on Experienced (Hard).

God of War 3: Review

At long last, the much anticipated God of War 3 from Sony's Santa Monica studio comes flaming at your PS3 with the rage of Olympus. As the third game in the series, God of War 3 completes the story of Kratos and his revenge mission against the inhabitants of Mount Olympus.

The story is most definitely a continuation of the previous games so if you haven't played at least the other two games, I suggest grabbing the God of War collection (good thing it's only 30 bucks for two sweet games on one Blu-Ray huh?). There really aren't too many twists to the tale though and if you decide to just jump right into the third you haven't missed much. Long story short, Kratos is mad. Go kill everything.

For those who have played the other games though, there is plenty of fan service to go around. Even if you haven't experienced the past games, if you know a thing or two about Greek mythology, you'll appreciate the accuracy and level of detail that went into crafting this living piece of visual literature. Small touches like Hephaestus being cramped in a cave or the fact that Apollo isn't the one in the chariot (that's apparently Helios) really show the team's effort at placing this new character in the guise of an old story.

Speaking of the level of detail, one would be hard pressed to find a better looking game. Running at a slick 1080P and never stuttering a single frame, even when things got ridiculous (and they do... a lot) the polish and sheer scope of what this game makes the PS3 do sort of makes me wonder if any game in the future could make things feel any bigger. Some of the characters in this game that actively move as you move and parts of which are clearly visible are larger than the entirety of some games. The redesigned enemies offer a refreshing take on the series mainstays as well with minotaurs looking more like bulls, gorgons looking more like snakes and so on.

The only issue I have with the visuals also has to do with the camera. The camera is totally computer controlled, freeing up the right stick for rolling around like you're on fire. The good part is that the camera pretty much stays where the action is, while showing off the amazing backgrounds and architecture. The bad part is that some of the environments don't actually contain any aforementioned action, but are still important (and pretty). At these areas there are scenic overlooks that let you stop and watch bodies fall into hades or look at the tornadoes in tartarus. Perhaps this was the best way to present these scenes, but it really feels like someone was just like, they should see this too.

The control is tighter than ever with new sound design making chains sound and thus feel more chainy and transitions between sweet spin-around-and-kill-everybody moves and smash-that-guy's-face-off moves looking less video gamey and more realistic (in a fantasy sort of way) without sacrificing gameplay. The magic leaves something to be desired and feels really underpowered as compared with previous games. I think the only times I used the magic (besides when it was required) was just to see what it was about. That's too bad since magic was my primary tool in the other games.

If you're looking for some good old fashioned, outrageously fun gameplay with a story that at least keeps your interest during the cutscenes, or if you just always kind of wanted to put your thumbs into Poseidon's eye sockets, God of War 3 is the game you need.

PS3 exclusive. Played on Hard.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Review

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is developer DICE's second try at bringing Battlefield to consoles after making the series a smashing success on PC. The first game in the Bad Company series introduced us to our heroes (the men of Bad Company if you can believe it) and introduced us to the amazing procedural damage engine known as the Frostbite Engine. The first game came off as little more then a tech demo as the already paper thin story was marred by the stereotypical cast of relatively unlikeables.

The second one however is looking to take the crown from Modern Warfare and it makes no bones about it. This sort of video game rivalry hasn't been seen since the days when "Sega does what Ninten-don't," was the mantra. BC2 picks up almost exactly where the first BC left off with our heroes stranded, wondering what to do next. Thankfully the writers over at DICE know what to do and the story that unfolds comes off as actually pretty good (for the type of game it is).

While the game itself does fine at standing on its own merits, the reliance on everyone having played Modern Warfare 2 for a lot of the fan factor sort of leaves me with a weird feeling. It's one thing for a dev to make little fan-service nods across a couple of games, it just seems weird to me when game characters are taking pot shots at the competing series ("They'll just send in some pussy ass Special Ops with heartbeat sensors on their guns!"). Having said that, I must comment that I think the story in BC2 was far better especially as a sequel than that of MW2, if for no other reason than it flowed properly with a beginning, middle, and end. Although the ending (spoiler-free) does suffer from a bad case of Halo 2 syndrome in that it seemingly comes in to interrupt the good part. As always, I consider that cheap and poor form.

The gameplay itself is pretty standard shooter fare with the addition of the aforementioned Frostbite Engine adding a whole new dynamic to the battlescape. It really adds to the mayhem of a big battle when you can't really just duck and hide to reload and expect your cover to stay there the whole time. Sure this leads to a lot of deaths, but I think it's worth the added realism. It kind of saddens me though that there are still some parts right in your path that are indestructible. Some amount of indestructibility is to be expected, but at times it just got ridiculous. At one point I was told to use explosives to make a path and after wasting a bunch of grenades and rockets, I discovered that the explosives they were talking about were a stack of barrels that I could just shoot. Still, the engine more than pulls its weight and makes for a really nice selling point.

I can't help but feel that the game could have gone through QA a little longer though. There were some really weird bugs that weren't game breaking, but really off-putting. There were times when the squad would stop and talk about really off-topic things and the quality of voice acting would suddenly shoot up. My guess is that whatever caused the guys to get stuck also triggered some cut dialog. That, or those parts are supposed to be that way. There was one genuine bug though in which the members of the BC squad simply weren't present in a video in which they were talking and interacting with other people. Again, things continued as if nothing had happened, but the damage was done.

I know that many of you readers will want to hear all about the multiplayer, but I fear I may not be one who could adequately review that part. The reason is that I've become convinced that there must be a bunch of it that I'm missing. For a game looking to take the top spot, there can't possibly be so little to the multiplayer. Sure the modes are fun, but are there really only four of them? Also out of the five or six times I've tried the multiplayer, I have only seen two maps. Where are all the maps? I'll keep dying my way through that for a while and if I strike gold, perhaps I'll review that part separately.

Does Battlefield: Bad Company 2 take the crown as top war shooter? For single player, I'd say so. Even some areas of multiplayer are better. And especially given the tenuous state of the competitor, I think we may have a new champion.

Is it a good game? Yeah, it's good stuff. Go get it. And stay frosty (yeah, they say that too).

Played on Xbox 360 on Hard.

Heavy Rain: Review

So Quantic Dream showed a tech demo a few years back. They said they're making a game and it's going to look like that. We all said no way. In truth the game itself doesn't look like the tech demo. Somehow it's way better looking. Heavy Rain's main draw is that it is essentially a video game in cop drama movie clothing, or is it vice versa?

The game centers around four playable characters on the hunt for the serial killer known as the Origami Killer. Said killer has been killing little boys you see, and that's bad. In fact, said killer has been drowning them. Wanna know in what? Probably rain. The story itself is rock solid in its roller coaster, whodunit style that was the hallmark of really good cop flicks. It's a story that will keep you guessing until the end as the red herrings swim all around and the ending is never telegraphed (though I am really bad at mysteries).

The Dad of the newest missing son jumps through these crazy hoops to answer the games tagline question, "How far would you go to save someone you love?" All the while giving a believable performance as someone who has nothing else to lose and his (now) only son to re-gain.

The private investigator rough and tumbles his way around the city working all the leads and busting a few heads along the way. All the while keeping his asthma inhaler at the ready lest a flare up take the big man down.

The girl finds herself caught up in this whole mess and gets sucked further and further into the drama, losing more sleep than her insomnia already took.

And the doped up FBI agent with the aid of some sweet future glasses (the game takes place next year you know) and one of those Dirty Harry cops plies his Federal law trade up and down the block.

All these fine folks are some of the most human characters in video games to date and each has their own unique personality that is felt in every move they make and everything they say.

That's where the games troubles pop up however as the game does take place in an unnamed east coast, US city (with subways and a building that looks suspiciously like the Chrysler Building). Why does everyone in New York--I mean unnamed-ville--sound like Europeans with bad American accents? Because they are. It's a bit jarring to get into an involved scene and get sidetracked thinking about if that's how you say that word. It's not game breaking, but it is weird.

What is sort of game breaking is the control scheme. I get that we are trying something different, but there's a reason why nearly all games use the sticks for movement. Holding R2 to walk doesn't really work as well as it sounds like it should (which is already not at all). I suppose it could have been made better if the look sensitivity were more consistent though. I can't tell you how many times my incredibly humanesque character looked like an idiot spinning in circles trying to turn a corner.

The rest of the controls play off well, which is nice since the game is essentially all quick time events. The presentation of the button presses sometimes gets sort of muddled up in the scenery, but I'm of the impression that the alternative was worth forgoing. I'm glad the buttons don't just pop up in random spots on the screen. This also affords neat analogs to the on screen action which range from brushing your teeth to climbing out of sinking cars.

Heavy Rain isn't a game for everyone. I for one am inclined to say that Quantic Dream's last game, Indigo Prophesy was better. But for anyone who liked that game, likes a good mystery, believes games may not be just for kids. Go buy Heavy Rain.

PS3 Exclusive. Beat on the hardest difficulty.