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* Crackdown 2

After a recommendation on a previous blog post, I decided to pick up Crackdown 2 and give it a go.  When I first started playing, I noticed immediately that the game took place in the exact same city and all of the game models were the same, not a huge problem though.

The plot was just beyond weird, it started out with you as an Agent going through the city and then you're introduced to the Mutants.  Basically, the mutants have taken over the city and rule it by night, the only way to destroy the mutants are to visit different stations to enable them, and when 3 of them connect you are to protect a beacon until it is fully charged and releases its power destroying all mutants in that district.  Mutants were also in the first game, but they are in the game for like half of a second, but they aren't in any strong numbers.


The occurrence of the mutant is basically being blamed on a terrorist organization called "Cell," and these people are basically just dudes with guns in the game, you don't really learn much about them at all.  During the entire game, you really don't learn much at all about them, which was kind of lame since I kept doing the same shit over and over again.  Near the end of the game, their female leader Katalina Thorn attempted to contact me on the headset, and said that I was a pawn or some shit, but I don't even fuckin know who was bad or not.  I assume the game wanted the Agency to be bad and Cell be good, but since the game also tried to force a plot twist on you it was impossible to really tell good from bad.  Basically, Cell released the virus which turned a shit ton of people into Mutants, and the Agency wanted to kill the mutants and take back the city, which sounds worse to you?



Agility
Just as before, this traits is what causes you to run faster and jump higher.  This trait has basically zero change from the first game, there are still the 500 agility orbs and rooftop races that help increase this skill.  The one addition to this, is that once you reach level 5 you can do a "Wing Suit" which is basically a suit that allows you to glide through the air, there are certain rings that you can maneuver through, but I honestly didn't care enough to even try to learn those controls.  As before, this is definitely the easiest trait to level up, since you're constantly jumping around on top of buildings and suck, it's impossible to avoid the green glowing orbs.

Driving
In my opinion, this is the skill that they increased the most when it came to the sequel.  Just as before, you can drive and steal cards just like in any GTA game, but I hardly drove cars in the 1st game because it was basically useless.  In this game however, any time you die you are spawned at a destination of choice with a vehicle, unlike the 1st game where you could only get Agency vehicles from the Agency Tower.  Driving was much easier and people were also a hell of a lot easier to hit.  You couldn't believe how frustrating it was to try to run someone over in the 1st game, it was impossible to get that skill up to its peak.  This game at least lets you have fun with the vehicles, and you will most likely be driving around a lot more than you did in the first game.

Explosives
Grenades in this game wasn't exactly the most fun thing to do.  In the previous game, I was using them all of the god damned time, but this time your skill doesn't affect the blast radius or strength of a grenade, all leveling up does is unlock other grenades.  Now let me tell you, the grenades that you unlock really aren't that great, the best grenades there are, are the ones that you pick up off of fallen enemies and bring them back to a drop zone to unlock them.

Fighting
This trait just wasn't as fun in the sequel, maybe because they really didn't do anything to improve on it.  The moves are all the same, the build up is all the same, zero improvement.  The stronger you get, the faster people die when you kick them and you can pick up and throw larger objects.

Guns
The improvement on the guns skill isn't exactly an "improvement".  Just as the grenades, your skill has no affect on your aim or strength of the weapon, all it does is unlock other weapons when you get to a drop zone.  The weapons were pretty cool though, if you play it I recommend trying out the Harpoon Gun, that thing was awesome.



If you're a fan of the 1st game, you might as well pick this up to at least give it a try, but don't expect a fantastic game that will blow your mind like the first one.

Blade Runner 2?

So several weeks ago I heard a rumor about "Blade Runner 2," I first took it as just a crappy internet thing such as that on the level of Ghostbusters 3.

Blade Runner 2

 
So this evening I'm on Facebook and my good buddy on the Replica Prop Forum posted about it so I had to do some research on it.  Turns out...... the rumour unfortunately is true, why I say this is unfortunate is because sometimes things just need to be left alone.

Why else will I most likely dislike this film...... is that I have an affinity for the ORIGINAL CUT.  If you read my previous blog about Blade Runner, you'll learn about the differences between all 4 cuts (yes, fuckin' four of 'em), seems like Ridley Scott just couldn't come up with a real version for the film, so he decided to make one for everyone under the sun.  Now since the "Final Cut" is well, most likely "final," we will probably have to watch a sequel which is based off of the ending in the Final Cut, which according to me is a non-canonical ending to the film.  It will break my heart to have to see a sequel to a film that I love so much, only to have the director go off on his own tangent again, and I can only wonder if I should just wait for the 8th cut of the DVD to come out before I even see it.

Regardless, the movie is set to come out for 2014, maybe my opinion will have changed by then?  Not sure.  Only question I have.......

IS DECKARD A REPLICANT?!

/rant.


So do you guys think that Blade Runner 2 is a necessary movie to be made?