Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story

Remember my little year of Gaming I did last month? Well I finally was able to get my hands on a game that I suggested for the Nintendo DS. The third of a series that started with the Gameboy Advance Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside story has a lot to live up to. From it’s off the cuff humor to Fawful being the main villain there is something special to be had.

In the graphics department it really shows of some really interesting features. The entire cast of characters looks even better than they did in Partners in Time with amazing clarity. The map of Bowser’s insides and the over view of the Mushroom kingdom has a unique charm of their own. One of the best-looking things in the visual department is the occasional cinematic cut scenes that really amp the story.

Sound wise you are getting some of the best the portable system has to offer. Despite the occasional bits of gibberish that the bros speak you get some good voice work when it’s used like Bowser’s pre-battle voice and Peach yelling for her pint sized hero. The music is the first thing you’ll remember and things only get better with the sound effects. You’ll have a difficult time trying to find something to dislike in it.

In the game play department it has taken some changes, but at its core the same game from previous incarnations. The use of action commands determines the strength of the attacks and defends you from taking damage or delivers a counterattack the forces of Fawful and what lives in Bowser’s body. The specialty attack system is no longer the use items like fire flower and green shells by giving it a traditional “magic” based system. Bowser’s battles take a unique twist however by inhaling enemies that will give the Mario Bros. something to fight, give Bowser a power up, or both.

If you’ve played one of the previous games you will get something you know and love while a few unexpected changes. On of those changes are some story specific mini-games that are annoying in my opinion like helping Bowser eating his veggies or a pattern based game that gives the Koopa king at little extra strength. The comedic story is back, but overall I think it could have been done better. Like I’ve said before Mario and Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story is a must have for a DS owner and will score 8 out of 10 Drunken Heart Points. Finally to quote Fawful, “I have fury.”



Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash Up

Another day another Turtles game. This time around it is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Smash-up for the Wii. Ubisoft is at it again and this time around they are turning the heroes in the half shell into a game that is very much like Smash Bros. Unfortunately I’m starting to think Ubisoft couldn’t make a decent Turtles game. Hell it’s fact because just look at Re-shelled the update to the TMNT 4: Turtles in Time.

To kick things off this game is using the models that are similar to the animated movie where Mako voiced Splinter for the most part. Don’t get me wrong they look good, but this is might as well be a scale job in that respect. They definitely tried something with the alternate costumes but it’s not that special. The stages you fight in you know they tried to make it seem like a Smash Bros meets TMNT, but it seems to lean more to the turtles side. The levels are overall uninspired and seem more to be more generic than anything. If you go through the Arcade mode there are cut scenes that try to be more like the comics like Arcade Attack, but this time around you get voice acting.

The voice acting makes me think of the latest TMNT series, which despite the fact that I have an overall distaste for it is a great thing. The voices do match up well for the characters so you can’t really blame it. The music seems to be generic to and is very forgettable. The sound effect do sound good overall though there should have been a little more like splashes of water and the sound of trains decoupling for starts. It’s like they focused on the attack more than the stages, which would have seriously helped, give you a better feel for the levels.

Game play wise it’s like they took Smash Bros and made it with normal fighting game style of going about it. There are very few ring outs and usually if there is a chance for a ring out you get to wall jump like in Ninja Gaiden to get back into the fight. The power ups are a bit of a joke even by Smash Bros. standards and in that they have Mr. Saturn as a weapon. It’s like they took what a ninja would use as a weapon and have that as a power up and added a few things they thought would be cool like an orb of lighting surrounding the character.

Honestly Ubisoft was just trying to turn this game into a poor rip-off of Brawl and after playing they failed miserably. At times a character would fall right through a platform when I wanted to land on it. So once again I’m going to have the give the heroes in a half shell a score that I wish I didn’t have to. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle: Smash-up for the Nintendo Wii 5 out of 10 Drunken Heart Points.



This week's giveaway question

In Super Street Fighter four characters were introduced to fight with the eight world warriors and the four members of Shadaloo.  Only two were in Street Fighter 4's console release.  Which two weren't in that SF4?

Borderlands

You know there are a few Shooter RPGs. This combo of two genres has had a couple games like Fallout 3 and Mass Effect. Well there is one game that I’ve heard a few good things that falls into the genre. It is called Borderlands it’s for the PS3.

To kick off the game does have a nice contrast in the graphics. The world looks fairly nice and the character and enemy design is more of an animated type of feel. What I mean is that all the characters remind me of the game 13 in the terms of looks. Personally I think this is kind of a slight cop out in that because your looking at a game that is to be played on a high def console and yet it looks like it belongs on last gen.

Sound wise you got your typical things. There are some decent sound effects and some good music. What you’ll mostly notice is the voice acting. The characters are well preformed for the most part and you’ll certainly find something nice in there.

If I were going to describe the game play to you I would easily say that it is fairly similar to Fallout 3 at its core. You’ll go around play doing various tasks leveling up your character along the way. In a way I see this as a major annoyance because while I was playing I easily noticed that you constantly had to accept a mission, do it, and go back to progress even further. Sure I can see why it’s needed but you shouldn’t have to go back and forth multiple times.

There comes the times where you end up facing a boss character. I swear the only thing I did was die. I mean I was doing everything I could possibly think of and still get hammered. One thing that really pissed me off though was how many times I actually missed. Don’t get me wrong I’m a fairly competent gamer in the shooter genre but for fucks sake if you are using a sniper riffle and have the cross hairs on an enemy their shouldn’t be a fucking miss, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOUR AT POINT BLANK RANGE! Plus 90 of the time during a boss fight I wasn’t killed by a boss by the little assholes that around. Trust me there are little assholes around the game.

If I had played the game online my experience would probably been better, but I seriously doubt it. From the research I did this game adjust the difficulty for multiple players by giving opponents more hp than they would in a single player mode. I can see someone having fun with this, but when I wasn’t bored with this game I was getting hot under the collar. Borderlands for the PS3 receives only 6 out of 10 Drunken Heart Points and the fan boys of this game can suck on my pistol if they don’t like it.



Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ulitmate All Stars

Fighting games and the Wii is typically a bad idea. After all this system really excels with the Rail Shooter Genre. That isn’t an opinion that’s fact. The Wii is to Rail Shooters as the Dreamcast is to fighting games. Anyway when it comes down to it there is any company that could make a decent fighter on Nintendo’s family console Capcom would be the one I would place my bets on. With Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All Stars the latest game in the versus series Capcom is taking that challenge and pulls out all the stops with a star studded cast. Unfortunately us Americans are only familiar with half of them.

To kick off the game is a visual festival. During one of my play-throughs of Arcade mode I got distracted just from admiring the well-detailed backgrounds. Granted there is one that does kind of cheap out with just going with 2-d sprites but you have to look really close to notice it. The characters are designed amazingly and really are representative of their respective origins. Take for example Megaman Volnutt. I swear that he looks almost exactly like he did in his game albeit that there are slight changes. They didn’t even mess with the art style much except bringing characters who were originally 2-d into 3-d. I mean Viewtiful Joe pretty much looked how he did in two games I’ve played.

In the sound department the music will take you for a ride. Sorry I had to reference MVC 2, but that doesn’t make it untrue. I really enjoyed the games music in all respects and certain tunes do get stuck in your head. In the sound voice-acting department they stuck with the Japanese Voice actors for most of the characters so no worrying about a bad localization in that area. Of course the sound effects are great but for this type of game there is some room for improvement.

The game play from what I observed seems pretty balanced considering. The only time where you’ll have a tough time is when you face the final boss and just like previous Versus series games it is a pain. If you really want a good experience a GameCube or Classic Controller is better, but the Wii mote and Nunchuk set up isn’t anything to sneeze at, or if you want to drop 80 dollars pick up the specially made fight stick from Mad Catz. This will probably go with out saying but everyone who buys this game is probably going to play as all of the Capcom characters before going with the Tatsunoko side, but those characters are pretty interesting in their own right.

Well to wrap this game up my overall experience had me smiling all the way. Very few fighters on the Wii have actually achieved this and Capcom proved that they could still provide a quality game no matter what the console is. So Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All Stars scores 9 out of 10 Drunken Heart Points.