Style Savvy Review for Nintendo DS

     I HAD to give this game a shot! With such high review scores and recommendations, I was pretty enticed to try out this fashion game. And besides that, I was already interested when I found out that it was a fashion game that didn't play down to it's audience. It treats you like a person, not a generic 8 year-old girl that likes Barbie dolls. So here's what I got out of my experience:

= Try this on for size! - Here's the barebones of Style Savvy: Look at your customer's personality and clothing style and try to match it. That's it! Unfortunately, it didn't really work for me. I don't think anyone really knows that I secretly love women's clothes. I also have no better way of wording that sentence either at the moment! I mean it in the sense that I love the way women look in different fashions. It seems so much more fun than what guys tend to have going on. I looked forward to playing since I think that I may have a good eye for what goes with what to make an attractive outfit. I wanted to have my own store and sell styles that I liked. That's what any fashion store would do, right? You don't go to Hot Topic to find stuff you'd see at Abercrombie and Fitch (Their clothes don't breathe worth a damn by the way). Unfortunately, that's not what you get with Style Savvy and it was a bit disappointing.
     You get your own store and you get to choose what kind of fashions it sells, what the front of the store looks like, and even the music of your shop! None of this seems to factor into what kind of customers you get. I ran a boho-chic shop (Think indie, earthy wear) and I kept getting teenyboppers and elite class women. I went out of my way to make sure the game recognized what kind of clothes I wanted to sell but it just wouldn't give me the right customers.

+ Maybe this is more you? - There is a bit more depth to the game than I've seen with a couple of other fashion-oriented games, not that I've played any though. There's a bit too much to go through and they'd all get small explanations anyway so lets just shoot right through what else Style Savvy offers.

• Hard Sells - Just because someone wants what they asked for doesn't mean you have to give it to them. Sometimes someone just wanted a prissy mini-skirt but you just don't have it. Offer them something else that might compliment they're current attire or personality and you might rope them in to try something new. 

• Fashion Shows - You can enter into fashion shows to win premium clothing pieces and gain recognition for your store. They're incredibly easy to win though, I can't say that I felt like my competitors were even trying.

• Guest Designer - A company can hire you to design a piece with one of their own stylists but the only thing you can do is change two colors of specific designs on the clothes. Kind of a missed opportunity right there because how cool would it be is you could really just make your own designs?

• Customize The Store - You get to choose the looks, the sounds, and the styles of your store as well as making your own mannequin displays, creating advertisement flyers, and declaring sales.

• Magazine Features - At times, you can be interviewed for a magazine article where you can show them one outfit and two additional pieces of clothing to show off. I didn't get interviewed more than once and customers were constantly asking for what was featured in the article when I could no longer acquire them.

• Seasonal Outfits - The styles that you can buy actually change around the year.

• Interact With Other Store Owners - You can connect to the internet to obtain exclusive fashion items and receive flyers from other players to shop at their stores. For a game like this, this specific feature is genius to me. 

- Sorry, I wanted leather, not pleather - For all that it does to vary the gameplay, there's just so much that it fails to fully deliver on which sucks because there's so much potential! The more you play it, the more you begin to see that the whole game is just based on giving clothes to picky NPC's. I expected more from Style Savvy.

- The Fashion Police have arrived - I wanted self-expression. I wanted to dress up women and I wanted to influence the styles of my new customers that were looking for something different or to change the perspectives of those who think certain clothes and colors can't mix. It wasn't here. I mean, it is but it follows a method that takes creativity and passion to a more mechanical level. Don't mix brands even if the clothes go together, don't work with customers who don't want what you have, it's the design of a game with the goal of attaining a win with no reward at the finish line. Animal Crossing is a good example of what this game should have been with it's surprise events, constantly changing cast, and rewards out the wazoo.

+ That is, like, so you! - Playing dress-up with your character is extremely varied, deep, and my favorite part of the entire game. There are so many styles when it came to the eyes, hair, lips, clothes, highlights, eyeshadow, you really get to make your character exactly how you want! While it's not on the same lines of customization available in a game like ModRacers on the PS3, it's comparable to Little Big Planet's sackboy creation tools. A GREAT feature in a game such as this!

- I had no idea - They don't really help you in this game at all. If you have zero fashion sense, you're gonna have to figure it out for yourself because the game rarely ever clearly recognizes what you did right or wrong. There's no indicator for what goes together either except for brand names, colors, and common sense. I was asked to prepare an outfit for the customer many times and a bunch of them were flat out rejected. I have 7-9 items in that outfit and it could be literally one thing that makes the customer flat-out disgusted and she won't tell you what it is. To me, the outfit made complete, perfect sense but it didn't work according to the game's logic and it didn't care to illustrate why that was.
     Also, be sure to get a hold of the booklet because there were a few things that are immensely helpful to your success that are just never brought to your attention, things like expanding your inventory and gaining the ability to declare sales.

Story and Presentation

+ Made in Japan - You can tell from the aesthetics that it came from Japan. In fact, I believe this game was brought over to the states after becoming such a huge success overseas. It works really well for the game actually. It's got some aesthetics in common with the popular Bratz dolls and the design brings a lot of life to the game making everything feel happy and upbeat! While it might put off some potential buyers that aren't into things they shallowly cast off as "anime crap" I can't think of a better look for Style Savvy.

= Oh. Em. Gee. He JUST looked at me! *scream* - As you start to branch off into your own store and strive to become the best stylist internationally, you are basically being pimped by a dude named Dominic who is oh-too-cute! He pays for your store and helps you finance things as you go along. Your co-worker won't stop gabbing about how cute he is though and sometimes it can get annoying but it never really bothered me. That's about all the story there is though.

Sound

- You missed a beat... - The soundtrack is horrendous. I dunno how many people it's likely to affect but it's looping began to aggravate me. Past that, there's nothing good to hear or anything that adds to the experience really so I suggest turning the volume down. All the way.

Graphics

= Not so Haute Couture... - It ain't pushin' any limits but it does what it needs to to serve the style they're goin' for.

Should you buy it?

     No, at least, not for yourself anyway (that is if you're the stereotypical, hardened gamer that desires complicated mechanics). But I would advise any and all gamers to not hesitate whatsoever in getting this game for any girl you know that is into the whole fashion scene or loves dress-up. I'd say the perfect age for this game would be in the 12 and up area. And if you're looking to get a girl into gaming at all, I'd be inclined to say that they might learn a thing or two through Style Savvy that someone else might learn through an action game or an rpg. I may actually write up an article on that sometime, we'll see. Otherwise, a rent could definitely not hurt if you've ever been interested in something along these lines. I did enjoy my time with the game as a whole for the most part.

Style Savvy was developed by syn Sophia and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS. Played for 12+ hours and got my store "Neptune*" up to a three-star store rating.

Super Street Fighter 4 Review for Xbox 360 and PS3

     In 1991, a game hit the arcade scene that would forever change the face of the 'beat-em up' genre. Street Fighter II was a sequel to the original 1987 Street Fighter title and is arguably the most influential fighting game ever. In 2008, Street Fighter IV was released to critical acclaim and major success. It boasted new characters, graphics, moves, backgrounds.....pretty much everything had been improved upon. So, did Capcom manage to improve upon such a fantastic game?

GRAHICS + PRESENTATION

= Same old, same ole! Nothing major has changed graphically, although the game does appear to be a bit sharper around the edges now with marginally improved lighting and textures. I guess if it ain't broke etc.

+ Look! A hippo! More backgrounds have been included and although they offer no new gameplay elements themselves, they all help bring the fighting to life that little bit more. Special mention must go to the African Eclipse background with the hippos. :-)

+ Still looking good there!! 10 new characters have been added to SSF4 and each one of them has been faithfully re-created from their previous incarnations. The 2 exceptions to this are Hakan (a Turkish oil-wrestler) and Juri (loosely based on Tae-Kwon Do) who are completely new to the series.

SOUND

++++ IT'S GONE!!! Yes ladies and gents! Never again will your ear-drums be assaulted by some god-awful J-pop lunatic singing "IN-DES-TRUCTABLE!" I can finally stop seeing my therapist now! :-)

- BINGO! What the hell is it with the Japanese and annoying voices for characters? Cody grates the hell out of me whenever he shouts "Bingo" and the screams of the female characters as they lose, make me wanna bathe my ears in razor-blades!

+ Bring the beat back! Capcom have brought back character theme music during the fights. By this, I mean they've re-mixed all the old music from SF2 etc. A fantastic little touch.

GAMEPLAY

+ Who do I pick 1st? 2 brand new characters plus 8 characters from previous SF games? Yes please. From 3rd Strike and Alpha 3, there is almost more than enough variation for SF veterans and new-comers alike.


+ Can you move like me? Capcom are spoiling us further by giving every single character 2 Ultras instead of just 1 this time around. This further opens the door for combo potential.

- "Almost" enough variation! Ryu, Ken, Sakura, Dan, Akuma. It feels like there are too many carbon copies of characters here. Compared to the uniqueness of fighters from other games ie: Blazblue, SSF4 does feel like it slightly cheats you with the character selection.


- A.I (Awful Intelligence). I'm used to cheap A.I in fighting games but SSF4 just crosses the line into down-right cheating. The amount of times the A.I will read your button inputs and then counter is ridiculous! Plus, all the A.I does is attack. You can't pressure it or condition it. This was a minor problem in SF4. In SSF4 it is not acceptable.


- Slow motion. Online still suffers from massive amounts of lag, often at the most inconvenient of times. I've also found out that the spammers are still taking advantage of this, demonstrating no skill what-so-ever and dis-connecting if they lose!


- Priority! Some moves have a very strange level of priority. For example: Chun-Li's 2nd Ultra (Kikosho) can be interuppted by a simple jab! Throws can be stopped mid-animation whilst other characters normal throws will go through Supers+Ultras!? Other special moves have been worked on such as Ken's 'Flaming Dragon Punch' which now has a ridiculously quick recovery time. Offline, this is quite annoying. Online it's an absolute f**king nightmare!!

+ Online vs. Offline. Always, if you can, play SSF4 offline against your friends! Online is nowhere near as responsive. Offline SSF4 is a LOT of fun! Online, it just becomes frustrating.

= Out with the old, in with the new! Call me crazy but I really enjoyed the Survival and Time Trials from SF4. I see no reason as to why they were taken out. In their place are several new online (what a surprise) features. Endless battle (replaces player matches), team battle (exactly as it sounds) and Tournament Mode (recent DLC release on Xbox Live). The trials from SF4 make a return in a new format and are slightly easier to pull off this time, but many still require more skill than many players are able to achieve!

Should you buy it?

Despite it's faults, I would say that this is a resounding 'yes'. If you've got more than one pad and more than one friend, you owe it to yourself to play this against each other. Don't worry about online play too much and just enjoy versing other people offline.

Super Street Fighter IV was developed and published by Capcom. Hours played: 100+ (both online and offline). Review is based on the Xbox 360 version.

Achievement difficulty: 9/10. It's the trials that are the real killer here!

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night Review for Xbox 360 and PS3

     Maybe you've heard of a little series that goes by the name of Castlevania? Despite it's following and the great record of it's titles, I'm always surprised to find that there are so many gamers that don't know a thing about it! Well now there should be no reason to know nothing of this great series! Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is on the PSN (PlayStation Network) and XBLA (Xbox Live Arcade) marketplaces. This game was so well loved that all of the Castlevania games today use the same formula established in this 1997 PlayStation title.
     You see, Castlevania used to be a side-scrolling adventure game, pretty straight-forward. Symphony, however, changed up the game by using the exploration gameplay found in the beloved Metroid series, thus creating a new style of games dubbed, Metroidvania. It's a timeless game and in my opinion, it takes what Metroid does and does it even better. Here's the review for Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

Gameplay

+ Simple, yet intricate - There's a jump button, a right and left attack button, and a back-dash button. That's it. and the game merely requires the use of only those four buttons. You can always go head-first at an enemy and succeed. It may be a little harder than observing all of your abilities at hand but you certainly don't need them which gives it appeal to those who aren't good with complicated controls. But there's another layer to it.

     Depending on the weapon you're using to attack, there's a certain amount of recovery before you can attack again. You're also stuck to the ground during that recovery. If you can be ingenious enough, there's a way around the recovery. If you attack while jumping, the recovery of the attack is reset when you hit the ground allowing you to jump and attack again or immediately attack when you hit the ground for a quick two hit combo. Eventually a flow is gained (YES!! FLOW!!!) and you'll find yourself hopping forward, slashing monsters out of the way as you speed on through. Even battles with tougher enemies become fast paced as you time your jumps and attacks to dodge their attacks and counter them quickly. 

     There are a lot more examples I could go through but figuring it all out is part of the fun and strategy of Castlevania. That tip up there is a key one to learn that's applicable to the rest of the Castlevania series.

+ How did I do that!? - One thing about certain games that I'm in love with is when they keep certain aspects a secret from you. You got frustrated with the game or got bored and just started mashing buttons and you accidentally did something you didn't know was even possible! There's a plethora of different commands you can perform with different weapons for secret attacks, secret magic spells you can perform, there are even different ways of getting around the environment if you can figure it all out. 

+ Left or right? - Alright, I love Metroid. It's fun, addictive, different. The only thing I don't like about it is that I never felt as compelled to explore the world as I would like to be. Symphony of the Night delivers on exploration and rewards curiosity in spades. It is rare to play a game that is so unbelievably rewarding and wrapped up in secrets. Break holes in walls to find secret weapons and rooms, find special switches that only appear to do nothing unless you have the spark of curiosity to investigate them, the surprises are never-ending. I mean, as scary as Dracula's castle is, it's so imaginative and exciting that you can't help but feel like you wish you could be there. It's hard to stop until you've uncovered every unexplored area in the game.

+ A pinch of RPG - Alucard (who you play as) is built up of various stats. These aren't stats you choose or influence the rise of but they are made up of numerical values and they affect certain aspects of the game. You can use items and equipment to raise specific stats for the duration of their use allowing you to work with stats that you personally find important. You also gain better stats as you level up from killing monsters. It's not a huge element to the game but it has just enough to make a difference in the way you go through the game.

+ How would you like to play? - There's a weapon for just about everyone's preference when it comes to dispatching the monstrosities within the castle, and being able to have a weapon assigned to one of two different attack buttons, you're free to customize the way you want to play. If you want to go through weak hordes at a fast pace, there are gauntlets. If you'd rather stay away from enemies, there's a spear. There are tonfas, wands, flails, maces, broadswords, ninja stars, it's all up to you! They all have different properties and work in different ways with their own secret attacks and everything! You'd be hard pressed to not find a weapon you can be happy with.

+ There's so much! - When you begin playing, you're gonna be sad when you realize you're close to the end. Luckily, the game has a few ways to extend the life of it's duration. When you've gone through the entire castle and you get to the first ending, I don't think you'll be satisfied with the results, and you shouldn't be. To get the real ending, you need to go through the inverted castle!!!! Not only is it just flipped upside down but there are new enemies, bosses, items, weapons, abilities, it's like a whole new game! And after that, you can go through the whole game as Richter Belmont, an older protagonist of the series, who utilizes the trusty Belmont whip and a completely new move-set. Believe me when I say playing with Richter is so different, it's like playing a new game. There's some amazing content and replayability here!

= Medusa Heads - I personally don't think it's a negative against the game but I gotta call out the Medusa Heads for being so irritating in the Clock Tower. They're such bitches that I guarantee everyone will have their own anger-filled rage-story the first time you run into them at a low level and get ripped apart by harpies. I'm not gonna be specific about why they're so irritating, I'm going to let you have the fun of finding out why. Enjoy!

Story and Presentation

+ Alucard will Kill. Dracula. - Dunno if that pun really worked out or not. Anyway, the story isn't exactly at Mass Effect's level but it is indeed a step up from Mario and Kirby games. Normally you play through the Castlevania games as the Belmonts, a family tasked through the generations with the slaying of the ever-immortal, Dracula. Symphony of the Night changes this up a bit by placing you in the shoes of Alucard, son of a human mother and Dracula, and Alucard is out for blood; His father's blood! 

     The game utilizes unique devices to propel the story forward that are always intriguing and unpredictable making a supremely simple story into an addictive fare.

+ "What is a human?" - The voice-acting is so cheesy you just can't help but love it! Sometimes it gets so ridiculous that you can't help but have a giggle. This is nowhere near being taken seriously but it is absolutely meant to be enjoyed.

+ Welcome to my castle... - This is Dracula's castle and you know it. The environment combined with the monsters and the soundtrack, they mix together to make the Reese's of gaming. The choice of exploration adds a lot to this title as well because the game didn't show you this and that, you discovered them. They didn't exist until you found them! From hideous creations, to rooms filled with eerie sequences making you wonder if you really saw what you just observed, they bring Dracula's castle to the forefront of your imagination. There's nothing like it out there. It's addictive, beautiful, harrowing, and creepy all at once and you can't stop wanting more!

+ Is there no end to them all!? - I could go on for days about all the great things of this game but I did want a shorter review and that's not what I'm getting at all! Just to touch upon a couple things very quickly: The bosses are crazy awesome! Some of them are straight-up cool and some, like Beelzebub and Granfalloon, are so repulsively sickening that they will never fade from a gamer's mind. EVER. 

     The diversity in enemies and their appearances are astounding. There's always a new monster to dispatch and a new strategy to formulate. You will always be on your toes and you will love every second of it.

     Finally, the art direction. Whoever came up with the concepts of all these monsters, locations and such, who I believe is Ayami Kojima, is an imaginative genius. Everything is so beautiful to look at and so detailed too! And that's saying something for a game with 13-year-old graphics!

Sound

+ GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!!! - That's you after playing this game. It's everyone after playing this game. The music is fantastic!!!! Symphony of the Night has some of the most treasured music in the history of games. So much atmosphere is added to the entire game through the soundtrack, every song becomes memorable. You'll be addicted and at times, you won't even want to leave the section of the castle you're in because it would mean the end of the song. Unfortunately, they stay with you which may cause you to lose sleep since the only way to get them out of your head is to keep playing the game.

= It's nice - The game's from 1997, what do you expect? The sound effects are what they need to be and that's that. It's not like they're blasphemous in quality.

Graphics

+ Like a fine wine... - It's a 2D game made up of pixel art. It's not really flexing much muscle but it more than makes up for it in subtle and detailed animations and it's diverse palette of colors. Every time I look at the game, I instantly gain a feel for it's moody architecture and atmosphere. I had no problem looking at this splattered across my HDTV. In fact, I think I'd feel maybe even a bit upset if the graphics were drastically updated from the original game. It's hard not to appreciate the visual detailing, the time and care that went into the way the game looks. It's a very beautiful game by my standards.

Should you buy it?

     Ok, I would say anything if it meant you purchasing and buying this game. This is a timeless masterpiece. It is by definition timeless! Really! It's on almost every top-games-of-all-time list out there and it won game-of-the-year from several different critics. I can't even think of one negative for the game. I played it back in 2007, beat it twice. I just went through it again and it is still just as good. 13 YEARS OLD AND IT IS STILL KICKING THE BUTTS OF THIS GENERATION'S GAMES!!!!

     I've recommended this game to so many people and they always blew it off because of several factors: They don't like scary-looking games, horror isn't their preferred genre, they don't like Dracula, they think it's just a dated game surrounded by false memories of nostalgia, I don't care what your reasoning is because it doesn't apply to Symphony of the Night. Any one of those people that finally caved and played it raved to me about how amazing it was. You will too but you just have to buy it first.

     One thing I do need to say though is that if you have a choice, get it for the system with the d-pad you like. If you can't, it won't make the game worse but it helps ease a little frustration that can come up from that. So buy it. NOW! BUY IT NOW! NOOWWW!!!!!1!1111!!!1!1!!!!1!

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night was developed and published by Konami. It is available for download on the PlayStation Network Store and the Xbox Live Arcade Marketplace for $10 (It's a steal!). Played for 13+ hours or so, got the true ending with 200.6% of the map complete and finished an entire run with Richter. 

Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 Review for Xbox 360

     Oh boy, Team Ninja really ruined a good thing with this sequel to the original xbox title. Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball was a great game in the way that it was simple. That same simplicity also allowed for anyone to pick up and play whether they were familiar with games or not and instantly have fun. It did have deeper mechanics but getting them to work was pretty much luck. It was basically a barebones volleyball game with some staring-at-girls-in-swimsuits mixed in and it still managed to be enjoyable. Now it's even less than that. It's practically nothing.

Gameplay

- What could go wrong? - I'll tell you what; EVERYTHING THAT MADE THE FIRST ONE GOOD! I gotta say, I'm very bitter towards this game because it's what made me think selling the original was ok to do. I thought, "Well, they didn't put much stock in the first one and it was fun. I bet they're just going to simply bring the game into HD land and that'll be that. Why not play the first DOAX with better graphics?" Thank God I didn't pay more than $10 for this one. Turns out they tried to tweak the way the game played and now it just straight-up sucks. Literally nothing is enjoyable anymore. They even make it harder to look at the girls by complicating camera controls FAR TOO MUCH! There're are new modes and minigames but they aren't even worth a mention because they're all too boring or conceptually broken.
     What happened guys? What made you think, "We should play around with the only 2 things that were good about our first game?" Do you even see what you've done!? What a harsh reality this is.... Just, really... I shouldn't even go into specifics about the gameplay because really, it just doesn't work. That and it would be an essay-length list of complaints. None of it works. None of it is fun. Just imagine pressing buttons on a blank screen and pretending you did something good and that's essentially what playing any single part of Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 is like.


- Look at me! - Well I can't because I have NO CONTROL OVER THE CAMERA! The one third that makes up this game is looking at the girls of Dead or Alive while they do miscellaneous actions and poses for the viewer (you) and they made that hard to do. In the first game, it would choose the camera angle and you could zoom in an obscene amount. You could also tilt the camera to look around. It basically let you see what you wanted to and how you wanted to. Not this time though. It still chooses angles for you but you have extremely limited views within that angle, so to see what you want to you have to activate the camera mode.
     Let me see if I can come up with a clever analogy for how the camera controls... Alright, imagine you're walking down the street but instead of just simply walking and making it easy for yourself, you can only move one body part at a time. To take one step, you move one arm forward, then the next, then step forward with one leg, and then step next to it with your other. Imagine dealing with that sort of deliberation with the camera as the segment to look at your girl is coming closer and closer to an end and the girl will not stay still so right when you get to the right angle, she turns around. Seriously, it's not fun or enjoyable. It's just stupid.

= Poker night - Alright, one okay thing I guess. There are a few gambling games you can take part in such as Poker, Blackjack, Roulette, and slots. All I can say is that they're exactly what you'd expect and they work the way they should. The End.

Story and Presentation

= Zack's at it again... - In the end of the first game, Zack's island was sunk and no one could play volleyball no more. Now Zack's using a futuristic technology to bring it back from the ocean. He then issues out invitations to all the hot chicks he knows which contain a fake offering of information to lure the girls back to his island for more volleyball. Really, the only bit of story you get are in cutscenes at the beginning and end of the game. They're charming for what they are but it's not like they add to the overall value of the title.

- I have two breasteses - We know that now thanks to all the attention they call to themselves with their individual breast physics. The man inside of me isn't exactly aroused and the rational human part of me can't figure out how this got a pass. The two breasts work independently from one another, cool, I get that. They gain immense amounts of jiggle from slight vibrations in the Earth. In fact, they rarely ever stop moving and it creates a sense of wonderment when they're not moving, that I don't get. There's no way to tone down the jiggling either. It's just two floating orbs attached to a lady with Jello that are determined to create their own gravity independent of the planet's. Good job guys.

= A tropical paradise - With all of the elements of the environment and the soundtrack, you definitely get a tropical island vibe. It not so good you can smell sea-breeze in the air but it gets the job done.

Sound

- We speak in many tongues - At least they think they do. No one sounds like their heritage and even if they do, the accent is so phony you can't help but get irritated. Terrible voice acting on the American side here. Stick with the Japanese voice samples.

+ We're Jammin' - Even though I hate the majority of the music on here, it's still adds to the feel that I'm on a tropical getaway. No one should have to listen to "Loving you" or anything from B*Witched though... Weren't those songs way, WAY behind us? I'm gonna have to listen to some hardcore rock to get that stuff outta my head...


+ Splash, Swoosh, Crash... - It has sounds of the ocean in here... Yeah... I just felt like I needed at least one more positive and I really do like ocean sounds.

Graphics

- Nothing to see here - Even from the screenshots you can see that there are some things about the aesthetic of 3D anime chicks that just don't bode well in the HD world. A lot of textures are lacking, the character models aren't detailed at all, the water looks terrible. While it's not an ugly game and it doesn't look old or dated, some design choices just make it a bland experience. Nothing is ever really given the chance to pop unless you're talking about bright colors. Compared to the Ninja Gaiden games, this style could translate A LOT better than it did.

Should you buy it?

     Don't. Don't waste a single thought more on this game. When it comes down to it, the only thing it's good for is slight arousal every once in a blue moon but that's it. It's not worth your time or money. And should you stick it in your xbox, know that the achievements are gratingly irritating, hard, and the most time-consuming I've ever seen. To get all the achievements legitimately takes 4,400+ hours. Seeing as how a lot of the stuff is based around luck and 4,400 hours is based on perfect luck, expect a ton more where that came from. It's just not worth it in any shape or form. Leave it be.

Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 is developed by Team Ninja and published by Tecmo. Played the game for 30+ hours. That's right, I tried getting some of the achievements... *sigh*

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Super Mario Galaxy 2 Review for Wii

     I'm probably going to go down in flames for this one. "So first you write an article about how Sonic games aren't bad and now you bash Mario? What a ******* fanboy...." I don't really care. Think what you want. Not liking Super Mario Galaxy 2 just reminds me that I'm not a gamer working the gears of the gaming industry or blindly following the herd. Anyway, It released a couple of weeks ago and I was finally able to give it a shot. Let me also preface this review by stating I didn't really enjoy the first one either. It just doesn't get my goat. If there was ever a series of games to get me completely raged out within the first level, it's 3D Mario games. You'll find out why since the same applies to this latest addition. I know I've already stated that I didn't like the game but you should at least know why.

Gameplay

- Jump for imprecision - I cannot stand the way Mario controls. I tend to have great reflexes and timing when it comes to games (or at least think I do) and Mario goes out of his way to ruin everything I try to do. At times he responds to my commands with cat-like reflexes and then he'll feel like a tank a second later. I don't get it! All the dude does is jump! It's all he's ever done! Why is he so bad at it? I guess my problem with it is that there's no flow to be found and you all know how important flow is to me when it comes to platformers. Somehow Mario just translates into some kind of mess filled with deliberation.
     Crouch + Jump = High-jump Back-flip. Running Start + Crouch + Jump = Super Long Jump. The "equations" I've just laid before you piss me off about this game. Let's say I'm doing a series of forward jumps and I see that I really need that back-flip to come out asap. Well, I'm not going to get it. The second I need to do it, he'll do a long jump instead because he still has momentum from the previous jumps. Unfortunately I can't even begin crouching before I hit the ground since Mario slides forever when crouched with momentum and if I jump during that slide, I get a long jump. I have to deliberately make Mario stop moving before I can back-flip. I really don't want to do that. The platform I want to be on is now moving away from me and if I don't get on it, I'll have to wait forever for it to come back.
     Also, every long jump I didn't want almost certainly throws me to my death. I probably wouldn't die either if Mario actually controlled well. If you begin jumping, make sure Mario is facing the way you want because he will travel in another direction for no gamer. I've jumped off so many edges because of this ****. I'M HOLDING THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION!!!! JUMP THAT WAY WHEN YOU TOUCH THE GROUND!!! Ceasing to jump barely works better since Mario can't just change directions. If it's not exactly 180 degrees in the opposite direction (and this counts from the second you begin moving the stick) Mario will want to RUN AROUND to the opposite direction. IS IT TOO MUCH TO JUST TURN AROUND YOU ****!?!? After that, he'll run off the cliff and no matter what I do, he will not grab the ledge because Mario doesn't know how to turn the **** around so I'm dead. 
     Whine, whine, whine, right? Well it wouldn't be so bad if this **** didn't plague me for the entire game. It was so hard for me to have fun because Mario would seldom ever do what I wanted even though I knew full-well that he was capable of executing it. 


- Turning the world on it's head - Ok, when you make a game that has gameplay dealing with playing upside down, choose a control scheme and stick to it. It felt like the damned control scheme changed every thirty seconds when I had to go upside down. Sometimes it wouldn't react to my controls at all. I could rotate the control stick in every which way and Mario will still travel forward like a mindless, glitched-out zombie. Sometimes he just stands still! Look, either design the controls to work a certain way after you move past a point or design the camera to follow Mario around IN A WAY THAT MAKES SENSE.


- The camera sucks - Dear God, it just does. Inquiry: What advantage, visually, do I have when the camera is zoomed in, pointing straight at the ground? Answer: None. Part of what adds to the imprecision of the platforming is that the camera works like a new college student that believes he can make every shot into an artsy-fartsy one. Seriously. It does not help me when the camera thinks any angle will do and that I'm perfectly capable of compensating my movements with every change of the angle. I could if Mario controlled that way but seeing as how he's really a tank that's set in moving down a straight line, it doesn't work. It doesn't work! And to add on top of that, you can't control the camera almost at all. And even when you can, the second you move it'll move to it's own preferred angle.


- This is harder? - I read a few reviews and seen a few previews and the line I see the most is that since we already played the first Mario Galaxy, it gives Nintendo room to make the levels more difficult and boy, are they hard. LIARS!!!! YOU'RE ALL ****ING LIARS!!! If I didn't know better I'd say it's easier but that's only because the levels are so short. It's really not difficult at all. In fact, it lacks so much difficulty that it's boring. I could not wait to be done with the game. I wanted to stop playing it everyday I started playing it. Out of 5 worlds with around 5-7 galaxies each world and 100+ stars, the game didn't even start getting fun or inventive until the fifth world which is around 74 stars in the game. I'm not really sensing a hard or difficult game here.


- HOW DO I STOP THIS THING?! - The new rock mushroom that turns Mario into a rolling boulder sucks. There's no way to control the speed or even stop the thing unless you hit a solid object. The thing is just badly executed. This is just one more thing that contributed to my deaths.

= What a rush! - After a while, the game starts picking up and the fun begins, after a while meaning within the last fifth of the game. After that, all the levels start gaining a flow, begin experimenting with ideas, and become challenging. It was really enough to make me smile from ear to ear. Unfortunately there's not a whole lot of it and it comes way too late.

+ No glitches - If I had to say one good thing about the game I guess it would be that there are no game-breaking glitches. At least none that I ran into.

- Bosses suck - Incredibly simple and weak bosses. They die way too quickly and are much too easy to go up against. I also hate realizing that the majority of creatures Mario fights don't even have a beef with him. He just destroys them. At least it's understandable why Kratos kills most things.

Story and Presentation

= What do you expect from the story? - It's basically non-existent like it normally is in Mario games. Go save Peach. Peach is saved. The End. Considering it's Mario, it doesn't really need more than that either.

+ What do you expect from the presentation? - It's a Mario game. Nintendo normally pulls all the stops to make sure the game is polished and visually inviting. It feels just like you're used to a Mario game feeling like. 

+ Lubba - I can't find a good picture but just imagine Rosalina from Super Mario Galaxy being replaced by McDonald's purple monster, Grimace. A lot of people tend to hate his guts. I like him though. No, he's not as visually attractive as Rosalina or as involved in the story as she was but I found him pretty charming with the way he makes fun of Mario and the cheesy jokes he comes up with. And concerning all the complaints that Lubba is constantly reminding you to take a break, I played for many hours at a time and he only advised me to take a break once. He isn't even in your face about it. You have to voluntarily speak to him to get that message and you even know he's going to say it before you talk to him. If you don't want to hear it, don't talk to him. And sometimes I think I'm a whiny gamer...

- Is it inventive/creative? - I dunno, maybe I just don't know what I'm talking about or it was hard to see it being so flustered with the controls but I didn't see a whole lot of creativity here. I mean, yeah, it takes effort and imagination to think of these things but they didn't build on any of their ideas which kinda signals to me that they were kinda running on fumes when coming up with the levels. Being creative or inventive to me is doing something in a way that either changes the perspective of something you're used to or coming up with something you just straight-up haven't experienced yet. Also, since it's happening in a AAA game, I expect those ideas to be fun. You'll have to excuse my lack of evidence of what's creative or not since I forgot the names of the galaxies and I don't have the game anymore.
     There was one galaxy where the platforms appeared and reappeared in a 4/4 time rhythm. Cool idea. Then you pair it with the cruddy controls and you have Mario Hell. What I found to be really clever were a lot of the ideas that came forward on the sand galaxy in the fifth world. When you're sliding down a sand hill while dodging rollers coming from behind and then to have the sand turn into a thinning waterfall, or when you're on a sand bird that's being destroyed by cactus and other obstacles, they just had me smiling because they progressed ideas they had already worked with. It felt fresh and it was fun. It also worked well with the game's controls. Other than that, I don't get what everyone's fascination is with Super Mario Galaxy 2.

Graphics

+ Same old, same old - It's using the same engine as the first Mario Galaxy which makes it one of the more beautiful titles on the Wii, it's just nothing new to look at.

Sound

+ Sounds good to me - The score in this game is enchanting and intimate. A few of the songs really got me and began sending shivers through my whole body. It's also nice to hear a Nintendo game actually use an orchestra. My favorite track is the World 3 theme. I could listen to it on repeat forever. Also, Nintendo better use an orchestra for Zelda. I'm done with Midi.

Should you buy it?

     As you can see, I don't have a lot of fun with Mario games. The whole thing just feels like a marathon to see how long you can stand playing it before you accept the idea that it's just not THAT good. In fact, I feel like it's pretty easy to pick on current Mario games for the same points that you can pick on the current Sonic games for. Actually, after playing the game for myself and looking back on other reviews, it seems like they're just die-hard Mario fans and they simply suck at playing games. Someone said it was "unforgiving" in it's difficulty. Unforgiving is not gaining 40+ lives after the first 3 levels you play. Nintendo actually went out of it's way to make hard things easier which makes them, well, easy. It is also not player error when the game works against you becoming comfortable with the controls at every point.

Buy it - If you love 3D Marios and you especially liked the first Mario Galaxy. There's really no reason why you don't have it. It's perfect in that regard plus it's got Yoshi. It's also got a TON of replay value. And I mean A TON!

Rent it - If you feel like you just need to play it to see what everyone's talking about, give it a rent. I guess it's your call in the end.

Stay away from it - If you don't like 3D Mario games or you feel like Nintendo has its titles catering too much to the casual gamers, there's nothing for you here. It's still easy as hell and the same as Mario games ever have been. Also, if you didn't like the first Galaxy or thought it was just okay, ignore the populous claiming it's better and harder than the first one. THEY'RE LYING!

Super Mario Galaxy 2 was developed and published by Nintendo for the Wii. Played 10-12 hours to the end with 108 stars collected before not caring anymore. Now I can play something enjoyable for a change...