Super Mario Sunshine

After playing through Luigi's Mansion for the first time in a year, I decided to give Super Mario Sunshine another go! Super Mario Sunshine is one of my overall favourite video games, this game got so much play from me back when it came out and has been played through several times even after the GameCube was retired. I originally got Super Mario Sunshine as part of the Nintendo Power Bundle, that gave me the game, a T-Shirt, and a 2 year subscription at a discounted price, and it was worth every penny.

This game was very much the Mario game that everyone was waiting for on the Nintendo GameCube, since people didn't exactly get what they were wanting with Luigi's Mansion, although this isn't considered one of the best games in the series. Super Mario Sunshine was highly revered due to its gameplay and typical Mario storyline, it expanded on the Mario universe by giving the player more of a sandbox feel and also permitted players to get stars in whatever order they wanted without giving many boundaries.

Super Mario Sunshine starts out with Mario and Peach en route to a tropical resort on the Isle Delfino which is mainly inhabited by the Piantas and Nokis. Upon arrival, it is discovered that the entire island has been completely polluted and covered in graffiti, and all of the Shine Sprites have disappeared giving the island a perpetual shadow. The island's populace believe Mario to be the culprit due to the fact that the shadowy figure that they have seen committing the crimes suits his description, and Mario is then incarcerated after the discovery. After convincing the island's population that he is not the guilty party, Mario finds the FLUDD Water Cannon, Mario's answer to Luigi's Poltergust 3000, and sets out to remove the islands of its blight.

Giving this game another playthrough, it was fun as it always has been. I really love the story to the game and the gameplay that it gives the user. The controls were very fluent and seemed to improve upon the miscues that Luigi's Mansion had, and even allowed the player to use several different Yoshi characters that each have different traits at some points.

So since your GameCube has all ready been dusted off, you might as well bring out some Super Mario Sunshine and give it another playthrough!

Luigi's Mansion

So I decided to surprise you guys with a Halloween "Themed" blog post, about the Nintendo GameCube launch title Luigi's Mansion. For me, the history with this game was an ebay purchase over a year ago in order to play the title for the first time ever. Being a Nintendo fanboy at heart, I purchased the GameCube on launch but for some reason never got the launch title that was Luigi's Mansion, so it took 9 years for me to finally do it.

At a first glance, the game was very strange and didn't feel at all like a Mario Title, but that was the point.... it was Luigi and not Mario. This is the problem that forced a lot of gamers away from this game early on, they were more familiar with what they had in Super Mario 64 and wanted more of that, and they had to wait until Super Mario Sunshine was released until they were able to get their fix.

The game begins with Luigi approaching a large dark mansion on the outskirts of a forest that is later discovered to be haunted by various ghosts, most notably Boos which are a staple of the Mario Franchise. These ghosts are all being investigated by Professor E. Gadd who lives in a small shack close to the mansion, and utilizes Luigi to test out his new invention the Poltergust 3000, which allows him to catch ghosts Bill Murray style.

Luigi had apparently won the mansion in a contest despite not having entered any contest to begin with, and while attempting to meet up with Mario at said mansion, Mario disappears in an apparent ghost kidnapping and it is up to Luigi to find his brother and free him of the ghosts and ghouls inside.

Professor E. Gadd with the Poltergust 3000

Giving this game a 2nd playthrough a year later, the game is just as fun as before. The game is faily linear and straight forward, not giving too many routes to get lost in, however some exploration is needed since the game won't straight up tell you what to do and where to go, which is a great feature since many games now hold your hand the entire way through. I loved the fact that there were really no "boss" battles, sure you will run into larger ghosts that have certain mortal ties to the rooms they are in, but the game doesn't actually stop the action to introduce a boss much like that in games of the Zelda series.

The controls were a little funky, but it didn't take long to get used to them. The Nintendo GameCube's controller was the first controller to utilize dual analog sticks by removing their typical "C" buttons and replacing it with a yellow stick to represent the different buttons. This stick is what controlled your Poltergust 3000, and it was often awkward to attempt to use it along with the buttons above it.

What I really enjoyed about this game was the fact that it really opened up Luigi as a character, and allowed the Mario universe to span outside of Mario himself. Growing up in the late 80's and early 90's, Mario was everywhere and everyone always knew of Mario AND Luigi; who was never really given any spotlight other than being a secondary character in the series.

Go ahead and bring out your GameCube, dust off Luigi's Mansion and give this game a 2nd playthrough! The new Luigi's Mansion 2 will be released on the Nintendo 3DS in Quarter 1 of 2012.

*Post-Play* Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

CONS:

So with The Force Unleashed completed, I'd have to say that I was sorely disappointed with the game. Now back when this game came out, I got two copies for free because I worked some media events with LucasFilm but I was only given the version for the Wii and the Playstation 2. The PS2 game went to Wal-Mart, and the Wii game was the one I kept, and I had a lot of fun with it. It wasn't a great game, but it was at least playable and enjoyable, and probably one of the better 3rd party games for the Wii that you're going to find. A little over a week ago, I was walking through my local GameStop and saw the XBOX 360 version of this game laying in their used selection for only $10, I decided that I'd pick it up and give it a go since I had never played it outside of 5 minutes at a friend's house. When I finally put the game in, I was a bit disappointed with it overall....

The first thing that got to me was the loading times, holy shit it took forever to get anything going. Even from going to your Options it took at least 5 seconds to load and get back to the main page, and I don't even know why... the main page shouldn't have to load what so ever when entering it from a subfolder. In game loading is also a disaster when going from mission to mission, it takes much longer than you'd prefer; while running from area to area, you actually get to see the buildings and terrain growing around you, awful.

Now the controls.... whooooo doggy, fuck them. The controls are so clunky, that you will kill yourself by slipping off ledges and cliffs more than any enemy would. Often I am attacking a stormtrooper or something and my combo of repeatedly pressing the X-Button makes me take steps forward which launches him off of a ledge, which means you start the fuck over. The controls are also quite unresponsive, in the middle of a battle you'll be trying to target onto someone but can't, and if you target onto something you'll often grab onto some rock or boulder. Pressing your Force Attack buttons like lightning often won't work unless your character is in zero motion, same with the enemy you're attacking.

The combos are also an awful part of the control scheme, there are about 20 different combos that you have to memorize, but they're not easy.... often it's like "x,x,x,b" but then you get to some complicated ones like "x,x,x,x,LB(a+y)"...srsly....wtf is that. I honestly don't have the patience to figure some of these combos out, so I just unlock them for the shit of it because I have the points, so whatever; never used 'em.

The level designs are also a flaw, with a jumping/platforming game like this, you'd think there would be a shit-ton of things to land on...right? Well no... instead you just slip off something if the game doesn't want you to land on it. The level designs are way too linear, really doesn't give you much room to explore; other than to go find Jedi Holocrons to give you more force points or lightsaber crystals. Often times stormtroopers will get stuck in the layout, you'll think you cleaned an area but you will still hear "ptew...ptew....." but can't find the motherfucker, so you can't just leave him there.



PROS:

What was pretty cool was the fact that you could customize your character based upon lightsaber colour and outfit. When it came to the lightsaber colour, you could get "compressed, regular, or unstable" in any certain colour. Difference? Fuck if I know, I didn't see anything different about them, and I really don't care to google it. The outfits were pretty neat, about 14 or so in the game, but what sucked about them was that you couldn't change it during a level or else you'd go back to your last save point.

The alternate endings were pretty neat, the only choice you had at the end was to either attack the Emporer or attack Vader, one way is good the other is bad if that makes any sense.

GameStop Purchase - Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

All right, so I finally bought The Force Unleashed for the XBOX 360.  I actually owned two copies of this game once before, one on the PS2 which I sold back to Wal-Mart and one copy on the Wii which I still own.  From my understanding, three versions of this game exist, one being the 360/PS3 version and the other being the PS2/Wii verson, along with the Nintendo DS game.

I got the copies of the games originally for free as a gift from Lucasfilm for doing some commercial or stage show for them, I forget which, but that was prior to me ever owning the PS3 or the Wii, so my two free copies (why 2, I don't know) ended up to be the crappiest ones, guaranteed.

Now that I finally spent some hard earned $9.72 on the game, it is now time for me to give this game a shot.  The Wii version was all right for what it was, and it actually has different levels; guess we have to buy two versions of the game to get the full stories.  I will chime in again after I get started and complete the game, and give my insight on how it was.