Super Mario Sunshine Review

Super Mario Sunshine

Publisher: Nintendo Developer: Nintendo Platform: Nintendo GameCube Players: 1 Release: 2002 Genre: 3D Platformer / Adventure Rating: 9.0 \ 10.0: Excellent

Above is a scene from Gelato Beach

Super Mario Sunshine, as some know, is s sequel to Super Mario 64, despite being almost nothing at all like its predecessor, or any Mario game in general. Mario and Peach are vacationing in the tropical paradise of Isle Delfino, but their plans are ruined when they arrive at the airstrip to find that Mario's face has been drawn in paint-like goop. From there, you must locate the FLUDD-- Flash Liquidizer Ultra Dousing Device-- on the other side of the airstrip. FLUDD is a device built in a similar manner to a jetpack composed of a water tank and a nozzle. You'll use FLUDD for cleaning up "graffiti", defeating foes, and more. When you find FLUDD, a cut-scene showing him identifying Mario plays, in which he scopes Mario out from his perspective, and footage of previous Mario games plays on the bottom-left corner of the screen. You must squirt the thick-painted nose of the Mario face painting until a giant goop-covered (and toothless) Piranha Plant erupts from it. You'll encounter this foe many times throughout the game. Squirt his open mouth three times to defeat him. Once you've taken him out, the paint will clear away, and the game's first Shine Sprite appears. FLUDD later explains (yes, FLUDD can talk, and I will therefore refer to FLUDD as "he") that Shine Sprites are magical objects that once gathered around the Shine Gate, which brings sunshine to Delfino, and they've gone missing. It's up to you to recover all 120. And that's only after you get arrested and brought to court and charged for dirtying up Delfino with graffiti. Of course, Mario isn't the true culprit. It's his mysterious imposter Shadow Mario (who I know the identity of and won't tell). As soon as you're released from court and into Delfino Plaza, the Pianta police (the Piantas, as well as the Nokis, debuted in Sunshine) order you to clean up the mess. Near the ocean, you'll find another huge mess. You'll have to once again fight "Goopy Piranha", the big goopy Piranha Plant as I like to call him. Once he's defeated, the mess clears and the Great Pianta Statue erupts from the ground, and Shadow Mario swoops in and snatches Peach. You'll have to squirt him till he drops Peach, and then the adventure truly begins. Shadow Mario runs off and paints a rainbow M on the Great Pianta Statue and hops through it. Rainbow M's act as portals to stages. As you collect more Shine Sprites, more and more destinations are revitalized, such as the boathouse and the lighthouse. The boathouse serves as a shop, where you can exchange blue coins for Shine Sprites. If that doesn't sound very Mario-ish, wait till you see some of the old enemies' new incarnations: Piranha Plants are goopy and toothless, Bloopers tread land, have four realistic tentacles and suckers, and die in water (with the exception from the super speedy ones you get to ride on water and can even move on land-- so awesome!); and Koopas look almost nothing like their original selves-- unless their incarnations from the 1983 arcade game Mario Bros., released two years before Super Mario Bros., count, as they crawl in both games. There aren't even Goombas! I'm not at all trying to make the game look bad, though. (Although I could complain about the cruddy camera, as well as the return of the one-death-and-you're-out-of-the-level concept). Adding to the un-Mario-ishness, but to the variety, are the FLUDD's secondary nozzles. If it wasn't unusual enough to see Mario short-sleeved and wearing a jetpack-like device, FLUDD has a Hover Nozzle that allows you to hover shortly; a Turbo Nozzle that allows you to burst across the landscape with sonic speed; and a Rocket Nozzle that allows you to burst skywards and snatch out-of-reach items. I'm still not at all trying to make the game look bad-- as the series has evolved throughout the last decade, some of these things have become more and more true to the modern Mario formula.  Noticeable are the visuals, which hold up very well for decade-plus old game. There are a few rough models, but I the exotic landscapes are almost beautiful, and the water looks surprisingly realistic. The tropical-themed soundtrack is memorable as well. One of the greatest features about the game is that it has an more elaborate story, unlike nearly every other Mario game. In addition, the game's well-rendered cut-scenes are fully voiced! Sure, Peach had some lines in SM64, but no one else did. The un-Mario-ishness is combated by features like Yoshis (that spew fruit juice that transformers enemies into floating platforms and will evaporate if they run out of juice) and secret platforming stages in which you're deprived of FLUDD by Shadow Mario and an amusing acapella rendition of the "Super Mario Bros. Ground Theme" plays in the background. I highly recommend Super Mario Sunshine to any platforming fan, with the exclusion of Mario-haters and Super Mario 64 worshipers. Once I got far in the game, all my complaints meant nothing, and I loved the game. Super Mario Sunshine, as well as GameCubes, are hard to come by these days. Just be aware-- you don't need a GameCube system-- you can always get a Wii and a GameCube Memory Card and controller(s). It may be one of the only GameCube games I've played, but rest assured that it's one of the greatest titles in the system's library

Ups
FLUDD has multiple nozzles
Great visuals
Catchy soundtrack
More complex story
Secret platforming stages

Downs
Some untraditional elements are not good

ESRB: E Content: Comic Mischief Price: ???

Super Paper Mario Review

Super Paper Mario

Publisher: Nintendo Developer: Intelligent Systems Platform: Wii Players: 1 Release: 2007 Genre: 2D Platformer / RPG Rating: 8.4 \ 10.0: Great

Above is a 3D scene from the game's first stage

I'll assume that Super Paper Mario is a rather untraditional entry in the Paper Mario RPG series-- it's more platformer than RPG. The game begins at Mario and Luigi's house on a peaceful day. Luigi states that it's so peaceful, it's boring, and that he wished that something surprising would happen so they could go on another adventure. They're suddenly told by Toad that the Princess has been kidnapped, and probably by Bowser-- no surprise. So the Mario Bros. sneak into Castle Koopa while Bowser is plotting to kidnap Peach, and he spots Mario and Luigi. Suddenly, a mysterious, deranged figure appears out of thin air. He says that he's Count Bleck and that he's captured Peach. He casts a spell on Mario that renders him unconscious, then creates a vortex that sucks up everyone but the portly plumber. Mario wakes up to see a butterfly-like creature named Tippi who warps him to Flipside, a town in the sky that will soon be consumed by a vortex if Mario can't recover all eight Pure Hearts. After you find an ancient magician in a room behind an invisible door in the first stage,  which begins in 2D, he charges you all the coins you have (or 10,000 coins, his original price, which I highly doubt you'll manage to collect) to gain the ability to "flip". By pressing A, you can "flip" into 3D. While in 3D, a meter will appear under your HP display-- your Dimension Meter. If your Dimension Meter empties, you'll take damage. In order to defeat Count Bleck, you'll need the assistance of Peach and Bowser (who will eventually escape Bleck's grasp and wind up in Flipside, and become playable.) and several ancient creatures called Pixls. The first Pixl, Thoreau, allows you to grab certain enemies and items and toss them. The second Pixl, Boomer, can transform into a bomb to destroy obstacles and activate switches. The third, Slim, lets you become so thin that all moving hazards will pass through you if you stand still. The fourth, Thudly, allows you to jump up and slam into the ground, dealing heavy damage to unshielded foes. And the fifth, Carrie, transforms into a hovering platform, allowing you to move much faster and cross pits of spikes. These are the Pixls who will find during the first half of the game, and there are even more to discover. Throughout the game, you'll play as Peach and Bowser and escape Count Bleck's fortress, and they will join Mario on his quest as fully playable characters. Peach can float with her parasol by holding down the jump button, and Bowser can breath fire by crouching. However, I sometimes think the hints you receive from Tippi to help you solve complex problems are overly cryptic, making me stuck on certain parts of single stages for a very long time (thank goodness for Save Blocks). Also, some stage segments require you to use multiple characters (you can easily swap you character out from your item menu), like flipping into 3D with Mario in order to get on top of an otherwise un-scalable object, and then gliding over a long gap with Peach and her parasol, it can be frustrating to fail and have to repeat the process. Additionally, the script is very text-heavy. The writing is hilarious, but there's just so much, and sometimes I just wish the characters would shut their mouths! Still, Super Paper Mario is a superb platforming-RPG, and I hope to see more games with its unique dimension-swapping concept.

Ups
Unique dimension-swapping concept
Creative and humorous
Variety of playable characters
Platforming focus
Pixls

Downs
Very text-heavy script
Difficult stretches

ESRB: E Content: Comic Mischief and Mild Cartoon Violence Price: $19.99 (Retail)

Metal Slug Anthology Review

Metal Slug Anthology

Publisher: SNK  Developer: SNK PlayMore Platform: Wii Players: 1-2 Release: 2006 Genre: 2D Shooter / 2D Platformer Rating: 9.1 \ 10.0: Excellent

Above is a scene from Metal Slug 4
 

As its title implies (and its release date, too), Metal Slug Anthology is a collection of the seven home console and arcade Metal Slug games released 1996 through 2006 that celebrates the tenth anniversary of the series.. Those seven games are Metal Slugs 1 through 6, and Metal Slug X, MS 2's improved remake. The Metal Slug series tells of a military called the Regular Army and there war against the evil General Morden and his army, the Rebellion to foil his plot to rule the world. All seven playable games are pixel-perfect ports of their arcade counterparts, so the main differences are the control scheme and the adjustable difficulty, which can be modified from the game-selection screen. Since these differences are so small, players of the arcade versions of the games should already know what to expect. Pure, intense, action fueled by waves of military vehicles, destructive weapons, and plenty of other militaristic aspect. I once struggled to beat even the first stage of a Metal Slug game due to my limited quarters, but you now have the option to play with unlimited lives. This allows you to see how good you really are at the game, due to the complete lack of the stress of coin-deprivation, for that made me nervous when playing the arcade versions. You'll otherwise have to spend virtual credits. Better yet, you're actually still rewarded for beating a game even with unlimited lives. Completing the game on Easy mode rewards you with three virtual tokens. Completing the game on Normal mode gets you four tokens. And beating it on Hard mode gets you five. But what are the tokens for? For purchasing in-game memorabilia! All this adds up to a very good collection, but as much as I've enjoyed the Metal Slug series, none of the games have been perfect, which is about my only reason not to give Metal Slug Anthology a perfect score! Either way, I highly recommend  Metal Slug Anthology to anyone who has the slightest interest in action games.

Ups
Nonstop intense action
Awesome weapons
In-game memorabilia store
Adjustable difficulty level

Downs
No Metal Slug game is perfect

ESRB: T Content: Blood and Violence Price: $49.99 (Retail)