BoxBoy! Review

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In 2015, HAL Laboratory and Nintendo released BoxBoy! for the Nintendo 3DS. The puzzle-platformer was based on a simple premise of a box being able to duplicate other boxes to navigate through dangerous levels filled with lasers, cliffs, and saws. This brain buster received positive reviews from most critics but will it receive one from me? In this game, it’s okay to be square so let’s start this BoxBoy! review.

BoxBoy! Plot:

During my Boxboy! review I wasn’t able to come up with a clear plot. Use your imagination when cyphering what the small cut scenes mean in BoxBoy! as there is no dialogue. The story is ambiguous but here’s my interpretation of what is presented. As BoxBoy progresses through the story a giant box in the sky presumably BoxGod grants him a BoxGirl as she falls from the heavens. Perhaps these levels are trials placed before him for BoxGod to determine whether he is worthy of granting his prayers. BoxBoy must have been lonely in his world to wish for a BoxGirl.

As BoxBoy continues to progress through trials, BoxGirl waits outside in the hall. After some time, BoxGod grants BoxBoy more power to overcome the obstacles that are presented. After a few more trials, BoxBoy wishes for a best friend. BoxGod grants him his wish by giving him RectangleBoy. With a best friend and girlfriend, BoxBoy’s life is feeling complete.

After completing more trials, BoxBoy and his friends make their way deeper into the hall where they discover a mysterious object that flashes a vision before them. The object shows them BoxWorld being protected by BoxGod. Suddenly, a giant asteroid collides into BoxWorld, not even BoxGod can protect the planet from the massive destruction that surely would destroy the planet.

Completing more trials reveals another mysterious artifact. It’s missing a section of it in the shape of a rectangle. RectangleBoy sacrifices himself so the article will power on. The article drills into the ground revealing more trials for BoxBoy to complete. After more trials, BoxBoy and BoxGirl discover another artifact, with strange powers floating around it. BoxGirl is drawn to it and refuses to leave much to the dismay of BoxBoy who is left to complete the final trial by himself.

Finishing the last trial, BoxBoy is granted more power. He returns to BoxGirl and the final artifact as the ground begins to disintegrate due to the massive asteroid that is closing in on the planet. BoxBoy uses all of his power to plug up the ground as BoxGirl watches helplessly. Exhausted from the power surge, BoxBoy finds a grave to die in. Heartbroken, BoxGirl jumps into the grave and dies next to BoxBoy. Their deaths complete the ground and activate the artifact that turns out to be a giant weapon of defense. The artifact wards off the incoming asteroid and sends it back into space. With the asteroid gone, the planet begins to come alive, turning from pitch black to a growing landscape of green.

Of course, all this is unofficial, it’s just my take of the events in BoxBoy! but it’s fun to speculate.

BoxBoy! Gameplay:

BoxBoy! is very cleverly designed in the advancement of its levels. There is nothing to the graphics, just black and white objects on the screen. BoxBoy! slowly wades you into the puzzle pool and before you know it you’re in the deep end. Introducing small little gimmicks as you progress makes it so the game isn’t overwhelming. Some puzzles can take time and I found myself visualizing my moves in my head before performing them. If you kill BoxBoy it’s not the end of the world, he’ll just repopulate at the last checkpoint which is never too far behind. If you are really stuck, the game will offer you a hint for each level. I did use the hints on occasion but for the most part, I was able to solve the puzzles on my own. During my BoxBoy! review it was helpful to at least have this option available to me. There were only two levels that were completely out of my league that made my brain strained after messing around on them for a half-hour. Finally, I turned to good ole YouTube to figure out how to get past those levels.

There are 16 worlds to navigate through, each consisting of sub-levels. Each world has a theme to it, but probably not the type of theme you are thinking. No, this isn’t an ocean theme or space theme, these themes are new obstacles. BoxBoy! is all about getting from point A to point B. There’s no time limit it’s just as simple as getting BoxBoy to the end of the level however you deem necessary.

Each world will introduce you to a new gameplay element. At first, BoxBoy just replicates one box that you can use to climb over walls, put into gaps, or protect him from deadly objects like lasers or saws. That’s the easy part, but the deeper you dive into BoxBoy! the harder it gets. Advance levels will have BoxBoy replicating up to seven boxes that he can attach himself to. You’ll use those boxes to hook yourself onto other objects or protect him from dangerous creatures. There are even levels where cranes will reach down and pick up BoxBoy. All these levels make for great puzzles. Remember playing Oregon Trail in school? That was pretty fun and I always looked forward to that. BoxBoy! would be a great educational tool in schools, forcing kids to critically think and problem solve.

Memories:
I downloaded BoxBoy! for my Nintendo 3DS maybe a year ago. I had fun playing it before bed and was able to beat it within a week. It gave me a little brain exercise before going to sleep, although sometimes it’d keep me awake longer than I expected, thinking on how to make it past one more level.

BoxBoy! Review Score:

If you want a simple game that doesn’t hide what it is, BoxBoy! is for you. It doesn’t disguise itself as anything but a puzzle platformer with a good variety of levels to play. You will feel smarter after completing the game, I know I did! A great puzzle game for anyone that loves that genre.

BoxBoy! scores an 8.1 out of 10.

If you want to own BoxBoy! for the Nintendo 3DS, you can download a copy of the game on the Nintendo Eshop for $5.

What would you write for your BoxBoy! review? Were there any levels that frustrated you? How do you interpret the plot of BoxBoy!? Have you played any of the sequels? Let me know your thoughts and comments, I’d love to read them.

Star Wars: Starfighter Review

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After Star Wars Episode I was released in 1999, Star Wars fever was back and that meant an abundance of new video games for us to play in our favorite universe far, far away. In 2001, LucasArts released Star Wars: Starfighter for the Playstation 2 followed by a special edition released for the Xbox. Today, I’ll be strapping on my helmet and piloting three different ships in an attempt to help save the galaxy. I’ll be reviewing the Special Editon for the original Xbox. The Force is average with this one, so let’s jump to lightspeed and read this Star Wars: Starfighter review.

Star Wars Starfighter Plot:

Taking place right before the events of Episode I, you are introduced to three playable pilots throughout the game. Rhys Dallows is a rookie pilot who dreams of flying for the Naboo Royal Space Fighter Corps, he doesn’t have any experience and is kind of a dweeb in my opinion. The next pilot is Vana Sage, who is a bit of a female scoundrel. She works for the Trade Federation as a mercenary pilot. The last pilot you can play as is Nym, who is of the Feeorin alien race with his head looking like a blue squid. Nym is a space pirate with a troubled history with Vana who had captured him for the Trade Federation before the game takes place.

The plot will intertwine the three pilots together as they take on the Trade Federation. Rhys passes training and joins the Naboo Fleet in a mission to escort the Queen as she travels. The fleet is ambushed and Rhys’ mentor is killed by an unidentified fighter ship.

Vana is the meantime overhears an intercepted radio transmission while she is doing training exercises with the Trade Federation. They deem her exposable after she hears the message sending droid ships to attack her. She defends herself and escapes to a nearby droid factory where she destroys the generators. Nym who has escaped from his prison now hunts Vana in an act of revenge. He finds her and captures her, but with her silver tongue, she manages to convince him to spare her life in exchange to tell him where the droid production factories are.

Nym and his team of pirates manage to disable a few Trade Federation freighters and steal the valuable cargo. The Trade Federation tracks Nym down and blows up his secret base. Rhys, Vana, and Nym meet up and decide to strike back against the Trade Federation together.

The final two missions are ones you’ll be familiar with if you’ve seen Episode I. It was exciting to take these on and I’m happy to include them in my Star Wars: Starfighter review. The second to last takes place on the rolling green hills of Naboo. Similar to when the Gungans and droids fight, you must defend the shield generators to help the rebels survive. The last mission is almost exactly like the mission that Anakin takes on in his yellow Naboo Fighter. You must disrupt the communication satellites, kill the lead mercenary who killed Rhys’ mentor and blow up the Droid Control Ship by flying inside it and bombing the generator.

After the successful defense of Naboo, Vana seems to join the Naboo fighters with Rhys as Nym declines and says he has valuables to deliver to his pirate crew.

Star Wars Starfighter Gameplay:

The entirety of the game takes place in a cockpit of three different starfighters. It was fun being able to play as the Naboo Fighter as those always stuck out to me from the first episode as a kid. Make sure you choose the layout correctly for your tastes however as I made the mistake of switching controls every few missions which messed up my flying skills and took away from the fun of my Star Wars Starfighter review.

You can choose to have a cockpit view or third-person view of your ship. Most games I always pick the third-person view but I choose to stay in the cockpit as Qui-Gon Jinn would approve. The three ships handle pretty much the same, but they have different special weapons. Nym’s was the best as they recharged after awhile unlock Rhys’ who when used was gone for good.

Missions vary from training runs, escorts, defending a base, taking out a target or disabling other ships. Taking place in space, a lava planet and Naboo gave the missions a good change of pace. The controls are manageable but I wish I could turn quicker as it was difficult to pilot around other ships who were on my ass. I played on “medium” difficulty and I think that’s the highest I’d suggest. There are about 15 missions to play and I was able to beat each one after two-four attempts. There’s a couple that took forever to beat including the final mission which didn’t give me much direction on what to do during certain areas.

Graphically, I thought the Xbox would showcase better graphics. If you flew too close to a building or object the details of it quickly disappeared, especially on the interior of the droid command ship. One thing that I got annoyed with real quick was when I’d get dinged by a laser. My whole controller would shake violently and during the final mission, it was shaking throughout the entire mission making it difficult to steer. When I wrote notes down for my Star Wars Starfighter review my hand was still shaking! (Okay, it wasn’t that bad)

Some Star Wars games really suck, some don’t. Star Wars Starfighter falls right in the middle as a good rental game for the weekend but one that once I’ve beat I wouldn’t revisit.

Memories:
I was really into Star Wars during my childhood, I love the original trilogy and enjoyed the prequels before I realized what they really were…garbage. Don’t even get me started on the new Skywalker trilogy. Puke.

Anyway, I remember playing Star Wars Starfighter in middle school for my Xbox but it didn’t hook me. I’d beat the first few missions but I’m sure it got too hard for me to continue. If you want great battles in space in the Star Wars universe you’re better off looking at the original Star Wars battlefronts for the PS2, although the new Battlefronts have some decent dogfights too.

Star Wars Starfighter Review Score:

Star Wars Starfighter is an okay game, not the greatest, but not the worst. I was wishing that a game solely focused on space fighter simulation would offer me more but I just didn’t find it that enjoyable. The characters are predictable. I didn’t play the multiplayer but I do applaud them for putting that into the game.

Star Wars Starfighter scores a 7.3 out of 10.

If you want to own Star War Starfighter for the Xbox you can purchase a preowned copy for $5-$10.

What would you write in your Star Wars: Starfighter review? Do you remember when it first came out? What was your favorite ship to pilot? Did you struggle with the final mission? What’s the best Star Wars game out there? Leave me a comment with your thoughts and memories, I’d love to read them.

God of War II Review

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After the smash hit that was the original God Of War, Santa Monica Studios followed up with the sequel God Of War II in 2007 for the PlayStation 2’s twilight years. Kratos would cement his legacy as a video game God with his second adventure. As Kratos says “I am what the gods have made me!” Let’s see what this game is made of and slash our way into this God of War II review.

God of War II Plot:

Nobody can escape their past, not even Kratos. Still haunted by the memories of slaughtering his wife and daughter, Kratos is unhappy and disobedient to the other Gods on Mount Olympus. Despite warnings from Athena, Kratos continues his rampaging ways until Zeus tricks him into giving up his powers before killing Kratos. Action games rarely have great stories, but I was happy to report in my God of War II review that this game features a great one.

On his way to the underworld, Kratos meets Gaia, a titan who reveals she once cared for Zeus as a baby before he grew up and betrayed the titan race, enslaving them for eternity. Gaia tells Kratos he can change his fate by finding the three Sisters of Fate who can alter time and prevent his death.

Kratos embarks on an epic journey after leaving the underworld. During his trip to the Island of Creation, Kratos meets several imprisoned titans who are seeking revenge against Zeus and the other Gods for their roles in the “Great War”. The titan Atlas, reveals to Kratos that the key to killing Zeus is the Blade of Olympus which Zeus used to originally kill Kratos.

When Kratos reaches the Sisters of Fate they refuse his request enraging him. Kratos fights and successfully kills all three sisters and steals the Loom of Fate, a tool used to alter time. He uses it and travels back to the point where Zeus kills him. With the Blade of Olympus Kratos strikes down Zeus nearly killing him. Athena rushes to the scene where she begs Kratos not to kill Zeus. Kratos ignores her and sends the final blow down upon Zeus, but before the blade strikes, Athena throws herself in front of it sacrificing herself and allowing Zeus to escape.

Before she dies, she tells Kratos that he is the son of Zeus and that Zeus was afraid Kratos would kill him as Zeus did to his own father. Using the Loom of Fate, Kratos travels back to the Great War and takes all the Titans with him as they descend upon Mount Olympus for vengeance. Kratos proclaims that the rule of gods is over.

God of War II Gameplay:

Similar to the first game, God of War II is a hack-and-slash platformer with small puzzles. What stood out right away is the emphasis on more puzzles and problem-solving than the original. They feel warranted and give extra content to the game, which made my God of War II review a bit longer. Instead of decapitating countless foes, which don’t get me wrong is a great time, the violence is split up into a section between killing enemies and solving rooms with puzzles.

The Blades of Chaos are back, which is a fan favorite and personal favorite of mine. Kratos will also acquire the Spear of Destiny and a giant barbarian hammer, good for squishing heads like grapes. More weapons mean more bosses, and you know I love a good boss fight. The bosses of God of War II are not only more fierce but often dwarf Kratos in size starting with the statue in the first level. The environment seems bigger too, there’s so much to explore and the atmosphere makes it believable that you are truly in ancient Greece. I found myself actively rushing through the puzzles just to see what boss I would face next but half the fun, as they say, is the journey.

Just like the first game, there are plenty of chests and secrets to power up Kratos and his weapons. Kratos will also have access to magic which comes in handy when facing multiple opponents. The combat is smooth, the bosses are fun and the exploring is addicting. All of it makes for a great game and a worthy sequel.

Memories:
It took me a long time to beat God of War II. Not because it was a difficult game, but because of the bug that came with the game, unfortunately. I had the remastered HD compilation of God of War I and II for the PS3. There were no issues during my playthrough of the first game but once I got to the second, there was a rare glitch. I had the original PS3, and when you faced off against Perseus the PS3 would freeze. I reloaded my game a few times but every time, it would freeze. Eventually, after a few attempts, it completely broke my PS3 and made my system unplayable. I was not pleased, to say the least. Thankfully, my dad generously bought me a new one a week later. This PS3 was the slim version but I had reservations for fear of breaking my second PS3 so I waited a few years before returning to the series. I looked it up on some game forums, and it was a common issue for owners of the original launch PS3. There was a lot of “hush-hush” and no comment from Sony and Santa Monica on the situation that caused it but I remember it vividly. Sadly, my old PS3 never recovered and now sits in my dad’s basement broken. Thankfully, I was able to still write a God of War II review.

Aside from that terrible outcome, God Of War II was a fun game that I played through a few times over the years but I’ll always associate it with the death of my original PS3.

God of War II Review Score:

The first God of War was amazing, and the second picks up right where the original left off with an incredible story, addicting gameplay, mesmerizing environment, and memorable epic boss fights. Santa Monica Studios once again came through with a mega-hit and launched Kratos into one of the best PlayStation mascots. If you love an epic story, hack-and-slash gameplay mixed in with a few puzzles, this game is for you.

God of War II scores a 9.5 out of 10.

If you want to own God of War II for the PlayStation 2 you can purchase a preowned or a new copy between $10-$20.

What would you write in your God of War II review? Who was your favorite boss to take down? Which weapon did you enjoy the most? What are your memories from playing this game when it first came out and how does it compare to the first game? Let me know your thoughts and comments, I’d love to read them.

Quest For Glory 1 Review

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Point-and-click adventure games were popular in the 1980s and early 90s. The king and I mean the absolute king of them was Sierra who developed and produced the series of Quest for Glory, King’s Quest, Space Quest, and Leisure Suit Larry. In 1989, Sierra released the first installment of Quest For Glory for the MS-DOS. A few years later in 1992 Sierra released an upgraded graphics version titled Quest For Glory: So You Want To Be A Hero. It is this version that I will be reviewing today and what a treat it is. Hut of brown, now sit down and read this Quest For Glory 1 Review.

Quest For Glory 1 Plot:

Quest For Glory is shrouded in German lore and fairy tales. You are an unnamed hero looking to prove yourself. After seeing a flyer advertising for help in the town of Spielburg, the “hero” decides to travel to the small town and see what the fuss is about.

After exploring the town you realize Spielburg is very much in trouble. Three terrible things have befallen in this sleepy town. Ten years prior, the Baron Von Spielburg had attempted to drive out Baba Yaga, an evil ogress who lurks in the forest causing all sorts of trouble. After an unsuccessful attempt, Baba Yaga curses the town and castle. Baron Von Spielburg’s eight-year-old daughter is abducted and disappears. The Baron searches for his daughter, day-after-day with his men for years but returns with fewer and fewer men each time as the surrounding area is full of monster and brigands. Years pass and the Baron’s son sets out for an early morning hunt with his guards. He is separated from the group and never returns, his horse comes back with bear claw marks all over it and everyone assumes the worse. The Baron falls into depression, and Spielburg suffers from it. The town is in need of a real hero!

You enter the town searching for clues on solving a few different quests. Spielburg is full of wonderful characters who have unique personalities. It’s not just humans that call Spielburg home, there are centaurs, mages, goons, and cat-like humanoids called Katta. Everyone plays a role in the story and everyone has a story to tell. It’s a wonderfully crafted town, one I wish I could visit in real life.

Slowly but surely, you start to put together the pieces of what has transpired in this town. The first of the three major quests you need to solve is finding the Baron’s son. Stumbling upon a cave with a bear chained up, you wander deeper in to find a Kobold, which is a strange evil creature that practices magic. Defeat him, and you’ll be able to free the bear who transforms into the Baron’s son.

With his son home, the Baron starts to regain hope that the Hero may still be able to find his daughter and rid the land of Baba Yaga. After a few other quests, you’ll find yourself inside the Brigand fortress. Making your way through their traps the Hero discovers the Brigand leader is none other than Elsa Von Spielburg, the Baron’s daughter! She had been put under a spell from Baba Yaga but with a special potion that the Hero creates before entering the fortress, you break her free of the curse.

Leaving the lair of the brigands, you take a magic mirror. With it, you visit Baba Yaga who is looking to turn you into a frog. Reflecting the spell with the mirror turns her into a frog and sends her brown hut on chicken legs flying away from Spielburg leaving everyone in peace. Our Hero is crowned at the castle and hailed as the Hero of Spielburg!

Quest For Glory 1 Gameplay:

If you aren’t aware of what a point-and-click adventure you are probably a young gamer! This genre of game was made popular on computers with the use of a mouse. There are several cursors at your disposal in Quest For Glory and I used every one of them during the Quest For Glory 1 review. Using the eye cursor and clicking around your environment will give you descriptions of items, characters, the environment and even make you aware of booby-traps. A mouth cursor lets you speak with characters, bringing up dialogue boxes with subjects to ask about. A hand cursor will pick up items or open doors and the character cursor will let walk the Hero in the direction that you click it.

Everything is extremely well written from all the puns, jokes and detailed descriptions of every nook and cranny in the game. Roberta and Ken Williams helped shape the game but Corey and Lori Ann Cole directed the masterpiece. The attention to detail is second-to-none, every screen is filled with colorful items, blades of grass, beautiful melodies and of course secrets galore! I could write Quest For Glory 1 reviews for days with how much I love this game.

Exploring the land of Spielburg is a treat, but when doing so you better be prepared. You’ll face brigands, goblins, and plenty of monsters in battle. When in battle, a separate screen will come up where you can click on a few options to drain the health bar of the opponenet. For example, if you have a sword you can click stab or swing, but your enemy is always moving, ducking behind a shield or swaying back and forth waiting to strike you. You must know when to strike to do damage, and you must not swing wildly or else your stamina will drain. If you tire yourself out, you’ll die from exhaustion. Dying is part of the fun in Quest For Glory. Each death comes with a funny recap of where you went wrong and there are hundreds of ways to die, each one with a scolding or joke. Just make sure you save your game often!

Quest For Glory offers three different hero choices. You can choose to be a “fighter” swinging a sword and ducking behind a shield you fight every monster in your path, fearless as they try and kill you. Perhaps you’d like to be a “thief”, lurking in dark corners, breaking into homes and stealing valuables as you strike your opponents with your dagger. Not into fighting or stealing? You have the option of playing as the “magic-user”, a spellcaster who can shoot flaming darts, float objects to you, and unlock secret compartments.

Each hero has a few different sub-quests that you can play through, making multiple playthroughs a must. You’ll experience different secrets, dialoges, and puzzles to solve.

Memories:
Have I gushed enough about this game? Probably not, it’s one of my favorite all-time games. It’s one of the first games I ever remember playing, and I put hundreds of hours into it as a kid. The puzzles were a bit too advanced for me but it was so fun to watch my hero walk around on the screen and talk to others, battle monsters, and even die. Whenever my Grandpa would come to visit, I’d boot up the computer and show him what I was doing in the game. It’s one of the four core games from my childhood, and I truly love it. After not playing it for almost ten years, I rediscovered it in college and finally beat the game!

Quest For Glory 1 Review Score:

If you want the most complete experience of a point-and-click adventure game that’s the perfect introduction into the genre you must play the first Quest For Glory, but make sure it’s the VGA remake! This is a true masterpiece especially for the time that it came out. If you love adventure, clever puzzles, putting together clues, and battling various monsters than perhaps you too want to take the Quest For Glory. I did, and I couldn’t have enjoyed it anymore. Now that I own the game again, I play it every year. I can beat the game in less than two hours now but it’s still very fun.

An essential game for your computer collection. Does my nostalgia for the game skewer the score a bit? Yes, I’m sure it does and frankly, I don’t care.

Quest For Glory 1: So You Want To Be A Hero scores a perfect 10 out of 10.

If you want to own Quest For Glory, and in fact the whole series which is games 1-5, you can purchase it for $10 on Gog.

What would you write in your Quest For Glory 1 review? Who did you play as? The fighter? The thief? The magician? What was your first Sierra game? Do you still play point-and-click adventure games and if so what one do you recommend for me?

Super Mario Kart Review

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Nintendo and Mario had already changed the video game industry with Super Mario Bros for the Nintendo in 1985 and they would do it again with Super Mario Kart in 1992. Released for the Super Nintendo, the game would create a whole new genre for video games with competitors copying the formula like crazy in the following years. Today, Mario Kart is still going strong with a new release every couple of years. How does the original Super Mario Kart hold up today? Rainbow road starts here, so let’s avoid the edges and finish first in this Super Mario Kart review!

Super Mario Kart Plot:

You won’t find a story here, just good ole’ fashion racing against your buddies.

Super Mario Kart Gameplay:

Nintendo is the king of finding new formulas that work for video games. Super Mario Kart would become a household name combining popular characters from the Mario Universe and sticking them on go-karts zooming around tracks throwing banana peels and red shells at each other. A simple concept that would become the staple of many weekends for friends that continues today. My wife in particular wanted to be included in the playthrough for my Super Mario Kart review.

In Super Mario Kart you’re able to select from eight racers, each of them having different driving abilities. Mario and Luigi are the standard racers, good at handling, acceleration, and top speed but masters of nothing. Whenever I play Mario Kart I always pick Mario, I know, not exciting but I’ve found that it suits me. If you’re playing against them, they’ll try and block your path. Bowser and Donkey Kong are slow at accelerating but get them up to speed and they drive faster than the rest. When you race against them they’ll be throwing banana peels and fireballs at you. Princess Peach and Yoshi accelerate quick and when you’re behind them they’ll leave poisonous mushrooms and eggs in your path. Finally, you can race as Toad or Koopa Trooper who excel at handling and drop poison mushrooms and green shells on the track when racing them.

You can see already that Super Mario Kart has a great cast of characters, and I feel like eight racers is a decent number on the Super Nintendo. When you race you’ll be able to select from four different cups. Mushroom, Flower, Star, and Special Cup make up the circuits you can try your hand at but you can only race the Special Cup unless you beat the first three circuits on 100 CC. Speaking of racing classes you’ll be able to race on 50 CC (easy) 100 CC (normal) 150 CC (hard). You have to really suck to lose any race on 50 CC. I completed my Super Mario Kart review on 100 CC.

Each course will have question mark boxes that you can run over to gain a weapon. This is where Super Mario Kart gets real good. You don’t have to be a great racer to win, Super Mario Kart is about luck too. Weapons include green and red shells. Green ones are thrown in a straight line while the red ones track the racer in front of you. Banana peels can be left behind to spin out opponents, feathers will make you jump over obstacles and racers, coins speed you up, mushrooms give you a short speed burst, stars make you invincible and a lightning bolt will shrink racers slowing them down. Super Mario Kart has the “rubber band” effect which means the worse off you are in the race, the better weapons you’ll get to help you catch up to first place.

It’s not just weapons from other racers you have to avoid but each course will have obstacles. You can expect ice blocks, jumping moles, oil spills, flopping fish and green pipes scattered around while you zoom around on the track. There’s a significant skill increase when racing on 50 CC to 100 CC. I can lap opponents on 50 CC but when 100 CC comes around I struggle to place. I didn’t spend a lot of time practicing for the Super Mario Kart review and I’m sure with enough time I’d be able to crush opponents as my wife does. After all, every other Mario Kart game I’m almost unbeatable when it comes to my circle of friends, but for some reason, I really struggle with the original. I think the handling is too sensitive for my taste. Don’t even get me started on the original rainbow road.

There are a few other modes you can play including a time trial, one-on-one race but the only one worth your time is the battle mode. You and another opponent will have three balloons attached to your driver. The courses aren’t race tracks, instead, they are arenas filled with question boxes to pick up weapons. Shoot your opponent three times and you win. Simple as that, but lots of fun.

Memories:
I don’t have too many memories of Super Mario Kart. I never had a SNES growing up so my time with the game came after college. My wife and I spent a night playing it where she kicked my ass up and down the courses on 100 CC. At 50 CC I was able to actually beat her in a cup, but when the skill ramped up she beat me. She had it as a kid and would play it with her brother so she had the advantage. It’s the only video game she’s able to beat me at and I could tell she was loving every moment of it.

Super Mario Kart Review Score:

Super Mario Kart should get all the credit for starting the kart racing genre. I think it’s a little rough around the edges with the skill level and annoying music. The cast of eight racers gives a great variety of choices and there’s a decent amount of courses to race on. Battle mode is an important inclusion for people that aren’t racing experts. Super Mario Kart was a solid start in the genre but other Mario Kart games would certainly outshine the original.

Super Mario Kart scores a 7.9 out of 10.

What would you write for your Super Mario Kart review? What did you think of Super Mario Kart when it first came out? Who is your favorite racer to use? Have you mastered Rainbow Road? Do you prefer battle mode or cup mode? Let me know your thoughts and memories of Super Mario Kart, I’d love to read them!

If you’d like to own a copy of Super Mario Kart, you can purchase a preowned copy on eBay for the SNES for $15-$20.

Overcooked Review

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In 2016, Ghost Town Games teamed up with Team17 to release Overcooked for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and later the Nintendo Switch. This extreme cooking game chopped up all the competition in a wonderful co-op cook-off. Today, I’ll be reviewing Overcooked for the PS4. We are examining the cooking chaos theory in this Overcooked review!

Overcooked Plot:

A giant spaghetti monster is terrorizing the planet. One to four brave chefs must prepare themselves for a feast of a lifetime. Prepare yourself as you hone your skills to defeat the spaghetti monster who is threatening to devour the planet with his unquenchable hunger. Practice your cooking skills and defeat the monster with a ginormous feast to save the world! You’ll be supervised by the Onion King and his trusty pet dog, Kevin. This Overcooked review scores bonus points for including Kevin.

Overcooked Gameplay:

Technically, you can beat Overcooked by yourself but what fun would that be? Overcooked is meant to be played on the couch with friends. You can team up with three other chefs in the kitchen as you chop, steam, bake, cook and probably burn various dishes. My wife and I played the entire game together and it couldn’t have been more fun. I was warned before playing it that Overcooked was the number one game to ruin marriages due to the stressful environments and blame tossed around. We had our fair share of that, but we spent more time high-fiving each other than throwing our controllers on the floor.

Overcooked is a simple game. Orders will come into the kitchen from customers and you’ll have to find the ingredients, properly prepare them, cook them, plate the dish, send it out and wash the dishes. Each level you’ll be timed and have a minimum score to reach in order to pass the stage. You score points based on how quickly the order goes out, the faster you get it out, the larger the tip from the customer. If you miss an order, you get docked points. You’ll be preparing burgers, pizzas, burritos, cakes, sushi, salads, and soups to feed the bellies of your hungry patrons.

You can choose from a variety of chefs to represent yourself. You’ll be able to choose young to old, multiple races as well as animals or robots. Overcooked doesn’t take itself seriously, which makes it all the more fun. Working together to put out delicious dishes with your pals sounds fun already, right? It is, but Overcooked is no normal cooking game. Oh no, not in the least bit. Your kitchens will rarely be in restaurants. Instead, you’ll be cooking up recipes on iceberg islands, lava-spewing rivers, split food trucks racing each other, pirate ships swaying back-and-forth in the ocean, and space stations. On a rare occasion, you do cook in a city restaurant, expect the unexpected! Earthquakes, busy cross-walks, and mice will disrupt your kitchen as you work to send out the orders on time. Make sure you keep an eye on your food because if you get distracted on the chaos surrounding you, you’ll kitchen will catch on fire. Keep that handy fire extinguisher nearby!

The Chaos theory runs deep in Overcooked. Nothing is too crazy to be excluded from the kitchen. You’ll have to study up and think quickly on your feet in preparing the food as your ingredients disappear, the environment turns deadly or your partner is a complete nincompoop. Once you beat each level you’ll face off against the Spaghetti Monster in the ultimate showdown of hunger and all-you-can-eat food. Satisfy the beast and his belly will explode.

Overcooked wasn’t too difficult and you’ll be able to beat it within five hours of playing. I would have liked to see a few more levels but the developers did release more in DLC, although I never pay for any of that crap. It’s a simple enough game where anyone can pick it up and play including kids. Looking over my Overcooked review notes, I’d ask my wife what she thought of certain aspects. It was fun to discuss what we liked and didn’t like throughout our playthrough.

Memories:
I bought Overcooked for my wife on our PS4. She loves cooking games and I thought it’d be a great way to play together. It was everything and more that I could have hoped for. We had a ton of fun playing Overcooked together each night after work. We mastered each level quickly as we three-starred each stage on way to the Spaghetti Monster. There were a few times when we’d blame each other for failure but it was so much fun to replay the level we didn’t care if we lost.

There’s a head-to-head challenge that you play but we never tried it. It wouldn’t be fair to her to smash her in the kitchen as I let her think she runs the show. Overcooked became so popular in our home that we’d invite my friends over for my wife to play with. She’d yell and cuss them out whenever they messed up which was most of the time. I think she enjoyed bossing them around.

It’s a fun game to revisit from time-to-time and you can bet that we have all the DLC and also three-starred those levels. When Overcooked 2 came out just a few months later I made sure to pick it up for her birthday. It’s a perfect game for any lover of cooking sims or chaotic games that require teamwork.

Overcooked Review Score:

Overcooked has a simple premise, cook and serve. It took only two people at Ghost Town Games to nail the recipe. Its gameplay is so addicting and makes the levels worth playing, again and again, to see if you can beat your personal record. I’m always amazed when fantastic games are developed by a small group of individuals. Ghost Town Games knew exactly what they wanted to create and dished out a near-perfect couch game to be played with family and friends. You don’t need in-depth gameplay or a fantastic story to have a superb game and Overcooked exemplifies that.

Overcooked scores a 9 out of 10.

What would you write for your Overcooked review? What did you think of Overcooked when it first came out? What was your favorite level to play? Did you play it with friends and if so are you STILL friends with them? Who was your favorite chef to use? Let me know your thoughts and memories of Overcooked, I’d love to read them!

If you’d like to own a copy of Overcooked, you can purchase a brand new edition with all the DLC on eBay for the PS4 for $15.

Astro Warrior Review

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Sega released Astro Warrior for the Sega Master System in 1986. The space shooter is one of the first games I ever played, so I thought it was time to show it some love and review it for today’s article. How does it hold up from my childhood? Let’s hop into the ship and blast away at tennis balls and macaroni and cheese in this Astro Warrior review!

Astro Warrior Plot:

Until officially reviewing this game, I didn’t think Astro Warrior had a story. Reading from the manual there’s a small plot.

“An assortment of nasties called the Devil Star Imperial Forces are set to invade the galaxy. There’s only one hope – you, the ASTRO WARRIOR. You’ve got to lead the Allied Forces from the deck of your flagship Astro Raider on a daring mission. Breakthrough a triple-zone defense, destroy the enemy and ultimately take out the mother ship.

Remember, between you and “Mission Accomplished” there are some brutal creatures out there. On their ships, in the fortress, on the mother ship. So be careful, and good hunting!”

So there you have it, the Devil Star Imperial Forces are coming, better pony up and blow them into space. That’s at least what I did for this Astro Warrior review.

Astro Warrior Gameplay:

Most space shooters that I can recall are horizontal shooters with a screen that scrolls. Astro Warrior is a vertical shooter where the screen will scroll up as the enemies come down on you. There are three stages in Astro Warrior, once you beat that cycle they will repeat with slighter tougher enemies who fire at you.

The graphics are fine for 1986, nothing that will make you write home but sufficient for a space shooter. In the background, distant stars will glow and glisten which I thought was a nice touch. You’ll face many different kinds of enemies on your quest to defeat the mothership. Most of them are easy to avoid, but a few can be tough.

Enemies come in many different forms and colors. There are purple balls that I’ve nicknamed “seizure circles” go ahead and try and say that fast. These purple balls flash intensely as they fly toward you. Green jumping jacks, red arrow tips, yellow pinwheels, and bat zoomers populate the other ships that you’ll face on level one.

The second level is the “red” area where the enemies take a jump in difficulty. Most enemies now shoot at you and have unpredictable patterns. Level three is what I like to refer to as the “geometry zone”. It’s a green level that has multiply triangles that flutter in every direction. In my opinion, those are the toughest opponents of the game. There’s pogo sticks, spiders, and blooming flowers. If there was an enemy on screen, I had a name for it as a kid. You’ll read more on that soon.

Each level has a boss that you must defeat in order to progress. They are all pretty easy, but my favorite is the second boss as he is the only enemy in the game to shoot lasers instead of balls. A fun little touch to the game is after you defeat the boss your ship will jump into hyperspace as the stars zoom past. You’ll find yourself in an asteroid field before advancing to the next stage.

The final boss is nicknamed “Belzebul” which may be a reference to Bezelbulb which is another name for devil or demon. After defeating the mother ship, the game will go on a loop as you return to stage one. The enemies now shoot balls at you making the second run a little tougher.

During your mission, you’ll collect power-ups in the forms of ships. It’s very important to collect these as they add speed, firepower and two assistant ships that tag along providing massive support. I’ll give a warning though about collecting too much speed as this Astro Warrior review almost didn’t happen. I usually only collect one or two of the speed boosts because as the saying goes “speed kills” is very much true in Astro Warrior. If you have maxed out speed, I start to lose control of the ship and crash into enemies if I move the ship too quickly. I like to have medium speed so I can still fly around comfortably instead of zooming into the nearest enemy.

Memories:
Astro Warrior perhaps is the first game I ever beat in my life, that goes to show you that with enough repetitions, a six-year-old can defeat the Devil Star Imperial Forces. It was also when I discovered that not every game had “endings” which was disappointing to a boy who loved cut scenes.

I have two older sisters and occasionally they’d play the Master System with me. Astro Warrior was one of the games that we’d pop in and play for an hour. It was easy enough for everyone and didn’t require them to read to me or explain sophisticated plot points. We were all the same skill level as we’d breeze through the first stage, struggle on the second level and rarely ever reach the third stage. It was exciting whenever one of us did it. We used to nickname some of the enemies that appeared on the screen. My favorite was the yellow wheels that shot yellow balls at your ship, we nicknamed the macaroni because they look just like the cheesy wheels found in the pasta boxes. Sometimes we’d make a box and play, that was the simple life back then.

The music will forever be stuck in my head from my youth. If you just hold up the menu image I can hum the tune note-for-note. The Astro Warrior review might surprise you with the final score, but at least it had killer music.

Astro Warrior Review Score:

Astro Warrior is an easy game but a fun one. The music is catchy and it’s fun to blow up the enemy bases and ships. It’d be a great “beginner” space shooter for anyone who is being introduced to the genre. It doesn’t offer much after you beat the game and unfortunately you can beat it in less than eight minutes. That knocks the score down.

Astro Warrior scores a 6.3 out of 10.

What would you write in your Astro Warrior review? What did you think of Astro Warrior when it first came out? What was the toughest level or enemy in the game? Did you collect all the power-ups? Let me know your thoughts and memories of Astro Warrior, I’d love to read them!

If you’d like to own a copy of Astro Warrior, you can purchase a preowned edition on eBay for the Sega Master System between $5-$20.

Driver 2 Review

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After the critical and commercial success of “Driver” developer Reflections Interactive released the sequel “Driver 2: The Wheelman Is Back” in 2000 for the PlayStation. Would the sequel be a smashing success like the first entry? The Wheelman is back and so is TigerChainsaw for this Driver 2 review!

Driver 2 Plot:

Tanner is back from the original Driver. As an undercover cop who helped bring down a crime organization in the first game as the wheelman, Tanner is hired again to go undercover. This time, Tanner will be infiltrating two deadly gangs with help from his partner Tobias Jones. After a gruesome murder leaves a Brazilian gangster dead, Tanner tracks down information on the murder that involves a man named Lenny who is a Chicago money launderer. Lenny has been working for a gang in the U.S. but has made a deal with the Brazilian gang to come work for them.

After a few missions in Chicago, Tanner and Tobias travel to Havana, Cuba where it’s rumored that Lenny is working. Lenny’s ex-gang is run by a man named Caine and his hitman Jericho who are working on tracking him down. It’s revealed that Lenny has left Havana on a boat headed to San Diego where he’ll travel to Las Vegas afterward to do some more work.

Tanner takes off for Las Vegas hoping to catch Lenny there but instead captures Jericho and uses him as a negotiation tactic for a truce. Teaming up with Caine, Tanner works for him in Las Vegas while securing more info on Lenny. Tobias has been working undercover for the Brazilian gang for their leader Vasquez who has been working closely with Lenny. They discover that Lenny and Vasquez have left for Rio, Brazil. Jericho and Tanner continue to work together as they close in on Lenny. Tobias’ cover is blown and he is shot by Vasquez’s men. Tanner and Jericho rush to chase down Lenny before he takes off in a helicopter. They damage the helicopter as it takes off with gunshots. As the helicopter stutters to safety, Tanner turns the gun on Jericho and reveals he’s an undercover cop. It’s assumed that Jericho is arrested by Brazilian police as sirens in the background grow louder. Tanner takes off to chase the damaged helicopter. He finds the wreckage and arrests Lenny closing the case and shutting down one of the most wanted men in two separate gangs.

Driver 2 Gameplay:

The first Driver shined with the car damage and physics of driving. Like Driver 1 (Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York) Driver 2 features four cities that you’ll visit and drive around. This time as mentioned in the story you’ll be burning rubber in Chicago, Havana, Las Vegas, and Rio.

This is where Driver 2 outshines the original. Chicago wasn’t much to look at but I felt like I was really visiting Havana, Las Vegas, and Rio. With Havana, it had cars from the 1950s just like the real country does due to the U.S. embargo on shipped goods to Cuba. As someone who has been to Las Vegas a dozen times, I loved driving the city on the PS1. I was very impressed with how they were able to create recognizable landmarks from Vegas including the strip with the Eifel Tower, the Pyramid, and the Pirate Ship, all real landmarks from Vegas that were fun to drive by. I’ve never been to Rio but I got a sense of the culture there with the exotic beaches and colorful sidewalks.

Another upgrade from the original Driver is the number of vehicles in the game. Instead of just cars, the game now features trucks, vans, buses, limos, and various cars to drive bringing a more realistic feeling to the game. The biggest upgrade to the gameplay is the fact that Tanner can get out of the vehicle and steal other cars. If your car sustains too much damage, just hop on out and grab another. Remember, this is before Grand Theft Auto III, so this is highly impressive. This earns high points in my Driver 2 review!

Those were the highlights of the upgraded gameplay, now let’s take a look at what I found annoying. I give the developers credit for taking Tanner out of the car and giving him the ability to run around and flip switches or steal cars, but controlling him on foot may be the worst and most awkward feeling ever. I lost out on several missions because Tanner wouldn’t run the way I was directing him. It was terrible with the joysticks and wasn’t much better using the directional pad. If you are going to install a groundbreaking game mechanic, make sure it doesn’t suck!

The next issue I had was the slowdown of the gameplay. Driver 1 suffered a few times from overpopulating the screen with cars which it’d slow the gameplay down but that was every now and then. In Driver 2, the slowdown effect was constant and in almost every mission. There were missions that I played through with the cars crawling by as my own vehicle struggled to accelerate. It just seems like the game had too much going on for the PS1 to handle it all at once in a smooth sequence.

Perhaps it was because I didn’t own Driver 2 in my childhood, but I noticed right away that the difficulty setting was much higher than the original. That’s not a bad thing as I said in my review of Driver 1 that every mission I beat on the first or second try but in Driver 2 the missions are much more difficult, don’t get me started on chasing that truck that tosses bombs out the back. I felt like when I beat a mission it wasn’t from my driving skills but out of pure dumb luck. You just had to get lucky that the cops or whoever was crashing into you missed you during that playthrough.

Driver 2 kept the fun mini-games that I loved in the original but threw away the amazing game menu from the original for a boring standard menu that comes with every game. They also got rid of the ability to select missions or take a break. If you wanted to go for a ride you’d have to exit the main game and go back to the menu. In the original, you could go to your hotel room and have a few options which was a nice touch. That’s all gone now, unfortunately.

I was able to beat the game but was left wanting more from the story. Gone was the interesting characters from Driver 1 with too much personality, replaced by dull typical gangsters. My Driver 2 review craved more content as it wasn’t satisfied.

Memories:
I have thousands of memories of Driver 1 from my childhood but not many from Driver 2. I had a few friends that had the game but aside from playing it for a few hours with them, I had never given the game a shot until now.

Driver 2 Review Score:

Driver 2 adds a few upgrades to the gameplay and enhances the vehicles and cities that you drive in giving it a fun and realistic feel to the game. Unfortunately, they also subtracted a few things that made me fall in love with the original game. Put them both together and you get more subtractions than additions with Driver 2 acting as an original game instead of a sequel. It’s a fun game still with plenty to offer but I prefer the original.

Driver 2 scores an 8 out of 10.

What would you write in your Drive 2 review? What did you think of Driver 2 when it first came out? Were you excited to steal other cars? Did you enjoy the story? What was your favorite city to play through and did you have a favorite mission? Let me know your thoughts and memories of Driver 2, I’d love to read them!

Borderlands Review

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In 2009, developer Gearbox teamed up with publisher 2K Games to release Borderlands to commercial and critical success on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 among other various platforms. The first-person shooter combined RPG elements, an open sandbox, and a wealth of characters to stamp the original Borderlands into the gaming industry. Today, I’ll be reviewing the PlayStation 3 version. Let’s load up on weapons, and catch a ride into this Borderlands review!

Borderlands Plot:

Borderlands is set on the fictional planet, Pandora. This desert planet is ruled by bandits, dangerous wildlife, and vault hunters. What is a vault hunter you ask? A vault hunter is an individual who is seeking the rumored vaults on Pandora that contain alien treasure and technology. A vault hunter not only must find the secret vaults but learn how to open them.

Mega-Corporations rule the Borderlands universe and the Atlas Corporation first uncovered some of the alien technology in vaults allowing them to grow and overtake some of their rivals. Looks for more alien vaults, they turn their search to Pandora but ultimately have to pull out due to the overwhelming wildlife and unfriendly natives. A new corporation has since moved in, the Dahl Corp brought with it thousands of inmates and criminals to help keep the dangerous wildlife at bay while workers mined or searched for the vaults.

After discovering that the vault is real, the Dahl Corp sends a message back to headquarters which is intercepted by the Atlas Corp. With the discovery of the vault, Atlas sends a private mercenary force called the Crimson Lance to hunt for the vault. Dahl abandons the hopes of opening the vault and leaves behind its massive convict force. As the vault hunters descend on Pandora, they face dangerous wildlife, gangs of bandits, and mercenary thugs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxjTH8fvDD8

The Vault Hunter is contacted by Patricia Tannis after defeating a few of the bandit leaders on Pandora. She confides in the hunter that the vault is real and that it can only be opened once every two-hundred years and the time for it to open is approaching. The hunter secures pieces to the vault key as they prepare to open the vault. The Crimson Lance commander contacts the vault hunter and reveals they’ve been betrayed by Tannis and promptly cuts off the planet’s communication system that is similar to a walkie-talkie signal.

Storming the Crimson Lance base on Pandora the vault hunter discovers that Tannis was imprisoned and forced to betray them. The vault hunter rushes to the vault having to battle ancient guardians along the way. When the vault hunter reaches the vault, they see the Crimson Lance commander has successfully opened the vault and is now battling a huge monster called the “Destroyer”. The Vault Hunter joins the fight only to witness the Destroyer gobble up the Crimson Lance. After killing the Destroyer, the vault is sealed for another 200 years locking the vault hunters out.

Borderlands Gameplay:

Borderlands offers a lot to players in a variety of gameplay elements. Everything is customizable starting with which character you select. You have four choices on who you take your journey with, each with different powers and abilities. My favorite thing about Borderlands is the option to play couch co-op throughout the entire game. I’ve played Borderlands three times, twice by myself and once with my wife. The best time by far was playing with my wife and seeing her react to the characters and battles. (She enjoys Harvest Moon and Overcooked for a perspective of her tastes)

From left to right: Roland, Lilith, Mordecai and Brick.

I chose to play as Roland who is your typical soldier who totes an assault rifle around. My wife played as Brick a big brawler who fights with his fists as well as his guns. There’s also Lilith who is a siren, a type of mage in the game, and Mordecai who is similar to a scout. I wish I had to do a Borderlands review with each of the characters but I only have so much time.

Guns, guns, and guns! Borderlands has countless guns to choose from. Every character you kill will likely drop a weapon that you can choose to use if you’d like. There are 17 million guns in Borderlands, yes you read that correct, 17 million! Each gun has special features, looks, or abilities like freezing, fire, acid, or shock bullets. There are six different types of guns, you’ll carry sniper rifles, bazookas, pistols, sub-machine guns, assault rifles, and shotguns. With all these options you can imagine that quite a lot of thought goes into selecting which guns you carry. You can have four on hand, and about 30-40 in your backpack. You also use grenades and electric shields so you can see where customizing what you carry is a critical part of Borderlands.

You’ll face numerous enemies, mostly human enemies but there is the occasional encounter with the wildlife. Most enemies are the bandits, like psychos, midgets, and the crimson lance. All are quirky and have some type of one-liner to yell at you when they attack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRL3JQqG4Z0

Pandora is an open world to explore with 127 missions to complete. My wife and I spent as much time completing all the side missions which totaled around 80 to level up gaining new powers and strengths to add to our characters. The missions are your typical “Hey go kill this guy” or fetch quests, but all had their charm. Games that offer tons of content tend to do well in my reviews, and this Borderland review certainly fits that mold.

Bosses are another fantastic part of Borderlands. Every mission we started I was excited to see the conclusion end with a boss. Just to name a few of my favorites King Wee Wee a midget boss, Sledge, and Master McCloud. The final boss was kind of a disappointment as the Destroyer was some blob who didn’t put up much of a fight.

The humor and dialogue make Borderlands special. The writers knew how to craft each character to make us laugh and enjoy interacting with them. I couldn’t write this review without mentioning Claptrap. I hated him at first, tossing him aside like a square trash can, but as the game progressed I enjoyed returning to him time after time to hear him talk about a mission or trying to make himself sound important.

Memories:
Borderlands is much more fun with another player, so I encourage you to find someone to sit on the couch with you for a week or two and take down the Crimson Lance. When I first popped in Borderlands my wife (then girlfriend) commented within ten seconds on how she thought the game was stupid because of the graphics. She had never played a game with cell-shading before and didn’t know what to think about it, but after an hour of playing, she loved the game and all its quirks. She too especially loved Claptrap.

The most annoying but loveable robot in Borderlands, Claptrap. My wife and I refer to him fondly as Clappy.

We spent the next few weeks playing through Borderlands and when we were finished, she wanted to do it all over again. I was happy to introduce her to a franchise where the goal wasn’t to grow a garden or cook food. We have since gone on to play all the other Borderlands together. Now if only I could get her to write a Borderlands review!

Borderlands Review Score:

Due to the massive wealth of guns in the game, Borderlands will be a different game every run through. The characters stick out, the missions are fun and the leveling up is addicting. This mesh of a first-person shooter and RPG was a big hit and I recommend playing it with friends. There are so many secrets to discover and lots of treasure in the form of guns to uncover. Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of Borderlands if you haven’t!

Borderlands scores an 8.9 out of 10.

What would you write in your Borderlands review? What did you think of Borderlands when it first came out? Did you play it by yourself or with a friend? Which character did you select and did you enjoy the boss fights? What did you think of Claptrap? Let me know your thoughts and memories of Borderlands, I’d love to read them!

Advance Wars Review

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On September 10th, 2001, one day before the horrific terrorist attacks hit the United States a turn-based strategy game titled “Advance Wars” was released for the Game Boy Advance. Nintendo didn’t believe the game could be successful in the U.S. due to the slow turn-based gameplay, but thankfully they released it in the West anyway. Advance Wars was met with critical acclaim spawning numerous sequels. Let’s crank our engines and dive deep into this Advance Wars review!

Advance Wars Plot:

The war takes place in the Cosmo Lands, you are a tactical advisor for the Orange Star Army where you gain commanding officers throughout the game the further you progress. The entire war seems to be one big misunderstanding. There are four armies, the Orange Star, Yellow Comet, Blue Moon, and Green Earth. You will end up battling the other three armies throughout the game but it’s all part of the mastermind Sturm who commands the Black Hole army to weaken the other armies so he can wipe them out without resistance and rule Cosmo Land. Sturm used a doppelganger clone of one of the Orange Star commanding officers to incite the aggressive nature of the three armies, tricking them into thinking that the Orange Star was the aggressor.

Once you defeat the other three armies, the twist is revealed. After the other armies figure out what’s going on, they unite with the Orange Star and takedown Sturm and the Black Hole.

When he gets excited or angry he spouts smoke from his ear holes.

Commanding Officers: Throughout the game, as you advance to new battles you’ll be rewarded new commanding officers to take control off during the war. Let’s take a look at who they are and their special abilities.

Andy: He’s the first commanding officer that you use in the game and turned out to be my favorite. He has the ability to repair damaged units.

Andy

Max: He’s your typical “Hulk Smash” character who can double the damage when you attack enemy units.

Max

Sami: She looks like she should be nowhere near a battlefield but she can send units advancing them double their normal distance. (Insert joke about going the distance with her)

Sami

Advance Wars Gameplay:

About 10 years ago I wrote my first Advance Wars review but wasn’t satisfied with that website or review so I went back and replayed the game. Advance Wars, to put it simply is a turn-based strategy war game. A HARDCORE, turn-based strategy war game. This game is so hardcore with its strategy that the game won’t let you start the campaign mode unless you complete the tutorial mode and even that is not easy. To put the strategy into context, there are a ton of units to control. Each unit has a certain amount of health points, each unit can travel a different number of squares, and each unit can cross a certain terrain.

The units are infantry (regular soldiers) mechs, (soldiers with bazookas) transporters, small tanks, medium tanks, recon jeeps, artillery, rockets, and missiles. That’s just the ground units!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvdaDJI8iOA

Sea units include battleships, submarines, loaders, and cruisers. Air units include fighters, bombers, transport helicopters, and battle copters. It gets crazy from here as each one of those units can attack certain things, cross certain terrain, capture certain areas, or carry certain units. You can capture cities to make money and you use the money to build bases, airports, and ports, which you use to build new units.

The concept of the campaign is the only simple thing about the game. Cross the map, enter battles, survive and repeat Simple, yes? Each army has a few commanding officers and each officer has a special power. Special powers include capturing cities faster, moving units further than normal, repairing units, and mass destruction.

I was able to beat the first 25 missions or so on my own. Most of the time I could win the battle on the first try but on a few occasions, I had to replay the mission. During the last four missions, the game was so hard that I had to use a walkthrough. I know that’s not satisfying but it was highly needed. Although I will brag that in the final battle I didn’t have to use a strategy guide and won on the first try. The battle lasted over three hours. No joke. Oh, and once you beat the game you unlock the campaign again only it’s set on Advance. I didn’t even attempt to try this mode as the normal mode was hard enough.

Overall, this game took me around 50 hours to beat. It’s perfect for the Game Boy Advance and had pretty good graphics for its time in 2001. The soundtrack is catchy and upbeat which goes along with the cartoon side of the war. You don’t get graphic deaths and mass body graves but you do see explosions, ships sinking, soldiers shooting, etc…

I only have two small problems with the game. One, I would have enjoyed more of a story. The game had around 10 really interesting characters with cool designs and personalities. I wish they would have increased the story with each character and gave them interests or reasons for fighting in the war. They are really well-drawn characters with colorful designs that make them pop from the screen. The other problem I had is how hard this game is! If someone in their twenties struggles to get past some battles then how in the world is a 12-year old going to beat the game, let alone the tutorial?

The game does do a lot of things well though. It’s extremely addicting once you understand how the game works and would be super fun to play with a friend. You can link your Game Boys up to battle each other!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Yo1URkbTkw

Memories:
I first encountered Advance Wars when I was in seventh grade. It was summer vacation, and my mom and stepdad were going to visit Maine for a week. My stepdad’s parents lived there during the summer months at their cabin located right on the ocean. It doesn’t sound too bad except my step-siblings would be coming too. My mom and stepdad were married the year before so I had only met his children once before. I grew up living with my dad, and the weekends I spent with my mom were on a different schedule than my stepdad’s children so I never saw them. We all were of similar ages, I was 13, my stepsister was 14 and my stepbrother was 12. Needless to say, I wasn’t thrilled that they were tagging along so my mom bribed me to behave by buying me the new Game Boy SP and Pokemon Ruby to go along with it.

While driving through Maine’s mountains and scenery (very beautiful just not to a 13-year old) I had my nose buried into Pokemon. My stepbrother was in the back seat with me and he was playing his Game Boy Advance. I noticed he was pretty focused on his game. Thinking he must be playing Pokemon, (Why else would you play a Game Boy) I casually looked over to his screen and instead of seeing Pokemon battling each other, I saw armies battling each other.

The graphics were pretty good so they kept my attention. He explained to me that it was a strategy turn-based game and let me try out the tutorial. It was pretty hard to grasp. Controlling armies, navies, air forces, and many other types of weapons was very confusing for a 13-year old. Now go ahead and point out the fact that my younger stepbrother understood the game and I didn’t. But he was some type of freak, and by freak, I mean super genius who went on to get an engineering degree at the University of Michigan, his Master’s at MIT and I’m pretty sure he is working on his Doctrine now. That was my first taste of Advance Wars, but it wouldn’t be another ten years until I’d play it for myself when I first reviewed this game in 2014.

Advance Wars Review Score:

This is a great strategy turn-based game for your Game Boy Advance collection. I highly recommend it as it holds up very well even after almost twenty years. After playing Advance Wars, I actually felt smarter. It was like playing chess and really made me strain my brain when thinking about not only my next five moves but my opponents as well. I’d like to think I am now a warlord capable of defeating any army or foe.

Advance Wars scores a 9.5 out of 10.

What would you write in your Advance Wars review? What did you think of Advance Wars when it first came out? Who was your favorite commanding officer? Did you beat the game on your own or did you need some help as I did during a few missions? Have you played against a friend yet? Let me know your thoughts and memories of Advance Wars, I’d love to read them!

If you’d like to own a copy of Advance Wars, you can purchase a preowned edition on eBay for between $8-$45, but hurry up because there are not a lot of options!