Super Mario Galaxy

Date Acquired: 11.12.2007
Date Completed: 5.10.2010
Thoughts: I don't know why it's taken me so long to finish Mario Galaxy. I've had it since it came out and I've played it off and on, but always got pulled away from it. I don't remember why I stopped playing it originally. Probably due to the girl I was dating at the time (Funny how many more games I play when I'm single). I remember I got back to it last year in the summer when my Aunt and Uncle and their 10 year old son Nicholas came to visit. My Aunt and Uncle went to the ballet and I offered to stay home and watch Nicholas. It turns out his obsession is Mario games, and he didn't have Mario Galaxy, so He started up a new save file and played it for hours. I played with him, we'd trade off but I let him do most of the playing of course. When he left he had about as many stars as I did, after one night. That got me back into the game though, and I added another 20 or so stars to my total before getting pulled away from the game again. This time I know for sure it was because of the girl I was with at the time.

What got me back into the game the third time was, unsurprisingly, the sequal. I'd known for a while the sequal was coming, but Mario games always come out in the fall, so I assumed I had plenty of time. Then came the press conference earlier in the year when Nintendo announced the release date for Galaxy 2: May 27th, and Metroid: Other M would be coming out a month later. Since then Metroid has been delayed 2 additional months, but Galaxy 2 is still on schedule and has already been paid for. So it might be nice if I 've already finished the original.

It's a shame I didn't play this game more, because it's fantastic. Far from just Mario 64 with a fresh coat of paint, this game really impressed me with it's variety and inventiveness. In previous Mario games you'd get 12-15 levels, and you'd have to go into each level 8 times or so and do something different to get the stars. Not so here, there are TONS of levels, and none of them you would need to visit more than 4 times, and many of them you only visit once. It almost feels wasteful to see a whole level used one time then tossed away as I move on to the next level. But the creativity is what really stole the show for me. The concept of gravity and what Nintendo did with it was brilliant. The last level where you meet Bowser is incredible The powerups were good also. Boo Mario and Bee Mario were fun additions to the powerup repertoire. I can't say I was real impressed with the game's attempt to add a story. It was uninteresting, but it's like watching porn, you have to put up with a feeble barebones story to get the good stuff. And like porn, I could overlook it.

To do: I finished the game with the minimum 60 stars, I would like to go back and see some of the levels I missed. I probably won't try to get all 120, but it's weird 'finishing' the game with only half the possible stars. Galaxy 2 has 240 stars, so I wonder if 120 will be required to finish that game? That will make it looooong. Which is fine with me.

TMNT

Date Acquired: 10.10.2009

Date Completed: 5-7-2010

Thoughts: Every gamer who grew up in the 80's and 90's has fond memories of Ninja Turtle video games. Somehow avoiding the licensed game stigma, the Ninja Turtles turned in respectable games on pretty much every system they appeared on: NES, SNES, Genesis, Gameboy and of course, the arcade. Generally waning poplularity has kept the Tutles out of the public eye in recent times, but 2007's animated movie led to a video game adaptation returning the Turtles to our consoles once again.

My saga with the game is a bit unusual. I rented it when it first came out, played it about halfway through and took it back. I wasn't particularily motivated to finish it at the time. However as time went on, something ate at me. This game has an obnoxious achievement point system. You get 24 points for beating level 2, 28 points for level 3, 32 points for level 4 and so on...This led to me having an acheivement score that always ended in a 3 or 8 which was annoying. So eventually the game was in the bargain bin at gamestop and I decided to fix my gamerscore, so I bought it. I played it just enough to get a normal score, and then left the game again with 535 points or so. But I always knew I'd come back to the game eventually. It represented a too-simple source of achievement points that I just couldn't pass up. Basically you get the full 1000 points doing little more than just finishing the game. After I finished Bioshock 2, I was in the mood for something different, something simple and mindless, and I'll admit, I noticed Chris had started playing it and also stopped at a midway point so he was just one level behind me.

I never saw the movie, but from what I gather, this is a pretty faithful adaptation (Though the Sarah Michelle Gellar-voiced April O'Neal doesn't appear in this game which is a shame. I know it's just her voice but still...)This game doesn't represent anything innovate for either video games in general, or even just videogames starring the ninja turtles. Early in the game you control whichever turtle the game gives you, and then later you can switch between them. As usual, Raphael is the weak link, the short range his sais provide, don't have any other trait that offsets it. You'd think speed, but no, Michaelangelo's nunchucks actually provide the most speed and have a decent range. And of course somewhere along the way, people got the idea that Raphael is everyone's favorite turtle because he's 'edgy' and has " 'tude ". So he gets a starring role in the game, and you have to put up with his same 3 voice clips over and over again, including an annoying 'Heeeeere's Johnny' what that has to do with anything, I just don't know.

I was a little surprised when I checked gameranking's cumulative score and saw how low it was. It's not gaming art, but it's decent. I would have guessed it pulled in about a 70 but it was closer to a 50. Oh well, I had fun with it, it's an adequate time-waster and a great source of achievement points.

To Do: Um, nothing. I have 1000 achievement points, weren't you paying attention? I will never play this game again. It will eventually be tossed into a pile of games that gets traded into gamestop when they give me a bulk deal for 4 or 5 games at a time.