Mario vs Donkeykong: Miniland Mayhem

Day acquired: 5.20.2011

Day completed: 6.7.2011

Thoughts: This game marks the third entry in the series which began on the gameboy advance. I remember playing that first game and thought it was great, but never bought another game in the series until I found a good price on a used copy of Mini-Land Mayhem at Best Buy.

It's been so long since I played the original GBA title, I had to watch youtube videos to remember it. I thought that the minis had been in the series since the get-go, but that's innacurate. In a very un-Nintendo like way, the series has actually changed drastically in every iteration. In the original game, it was basically a direct sequal to Donkey Kong. You have complete control over Mario and are solving puzzles by dropping fruit on enemies, jumping to vines, etc. In the first game for the DS, the minis have center stage, and the game has taken more of a Lemmings turn. You have complete control over each mini, you can stop them and move them with the stylus. MLM embraces the lemmings formula even more, eschewing the control you had over the characters before. Now you can only start them moving with the stylus, for everything else you must manipulate the environment. Every level introduces a new puzzle element such as Warp pipes, gravity zones, springs and moving platforms. Unfortunately, while each world focuses on whatever new element it introduces, by the time you move onto the next world, the previous elements are forgotten and you use on the new element.

Pros: The game is suprisingly compelling. It's not the deepest experience, but Kept wanting to pick it up and play the next few stages. The Boss Battles are generally fun, and the final battle is difficult.

Cons: Unfortunately by simplifying the controls, the game becomes a little too simple. There's usually very little challenge to solve the puzzles, what challenge there is often comes from collecting all the items in the level, but even that I was able to do more times than not. I played through the whole game in a day (granted I was on a plane to Chicago for most of it, so I had a lot of time) The game tries to compensate for this by having you play through the game a second time in a 'remixed' fashion. The only change though, is that now when you guide your little minis to the door you're trying to unlock, it has to be in a specific order. In the first go around it didn't matter what order they went into the door as long as no more than 5 seconds pass between characters walking through the door. It adds some challenge, but not enough. I didn't consider the game completed until I finished the second gothrough, but that's mainly because I didn't feel like I earned that victory, it as too quick.

Final Thoughts: I wouldn't spend a lot of money on this. Pick it up cheap, it's fun enough for the couple days it takes you to beat it. What this game has really done is make me want to go back to the original Mario vs Donkeykong and finish that...

Prince of Persia: The forgotten Sands

Date Acquired: September 2010

Date Completed: May 17, 2011

Thoughts: Prince of Persia debuted on the Apple 2 computer in 1989, and on Windows a year later. When it made it's inevitable assault on home consoles in 1992, it was completely beneath my attention. I knew of it, never bothered to check it out. And while the original game was released for every system under the sun, the sequal only made an appearance on Apple's system, and the franchise went dormant, largely unheard of until it's rebirth as the Sands of Time in 2003. This time it had my attention. Sands of Time was a wonderful game, full of charm, great graphics, interesting puzzles, it was very compelling. It's two immediate sequals were received fairly well, but couldn't match Sands' appeal. When the current generation of consoles launched, Ubisoft Montreal tried something new, a very graphically stylish game that was simplistic. I enjoyed that game tremendously, but it didn't sell well, and that was the end of that experiment. The Forgotten Sands is the newest entry in the franchise; apparently being released to coincide with the movie that also was released in 2010. Fortunately only the timing was the same, and the games have no similarities with each other. This game is more of a 'throwback' Sands of time-era Prince of Persia.

The Prince of Persia franchise appears to be on the verge of going dormant again. I've long wondered how well this series could possibly be selling. It doesn't seem like it would be embraced by the core gaming market. It seems actually, that Prince of Persia has evolved into, and been replaced by the Assassin's Creed franchise. Both franchises are developed by Ubisoft Montreal. The Prince of Persia influence is clearly apparent in Assassin's Creed, but the core gameplay and concept seem to resonate more with the main core gaming market. I myself, admit with some shame that when I first tried Forgotten Sands, it was immediately after heavy sessions with Assassin Creed 2. As soon as I walked into a scenario where I was suposed to climb to the top of several giant machines and flip levers to rotate them, I groaned and exited my game, not touching it again for several months.

Eventually I returned to Forgotten Sands, this time it had been months since playing Assassin's Creed, and I was no longer unconsiously comparing the two games. I surprised myself by how much I enjoyed it right away. There weren't too many giant machines with levers to mainpulate, the game's core mechanic was platforming puzzles, made possible with new powers, most notably the ability to freeze water, which I had a blast with. The prince could find a stream of water trickling down and then freeze it, allowing him to climb it like a column. Or a wall of water could be frozen, allowing for wall jumps. Eventually the puzzles get more complicated, requiring you to jump through a wall of water, then freeze the water before you get to the column behind it. The game also adds elemental-based powers which to be honest, added very little to the experience. You acitvate them by using one of your energy slots, the same energy slots that allow you to freeze time. I found myself conserving these slots for when I needed to freeze time, rather than activating my ice blade to take out a random group of thugs.

Pros: Like all of the games in this series, it's a fun experience, not overly challenging, just a nice time-waster. The achievments in this game are a plus for me as well. They are easy to get (I wound up with 900), but still require you to try things that end up making you better. I spent most of the game trying to get the achievement that asks you to get 50 kills without taking any damage or using time powers. This is especially difficult because you rarely get 50 enemies at once, so you can kill 30 enemies without being touched, but now you have to go platform for 45 minutes and still take no damage or rewind time, which is difficult to do. There are other achievements for using different attacks a certain number of times. Many of these I wouldn't have even known about if it wasn't for the achievement, as there's no tutorial for the game, and honestly who reads the manual?

Cons: This was very much a 'more of the same' experience. Ubisoft didn't put a lot of effort into pushing new boundaries here. The better ideas likely being saved for the Assassin's Creed franchise. The game's not particularily challenging either. It's unlikely I'd have been satisfied if I'd spent the $60 it cost new at retail. Fortunately, Ubisoft games drop in price very quickly, and I got it for $10 4 months after it came out.

Conclusion: This game probably wouldn't exist at all if it hadn't been for the movie, but it is LEAGUES better than 95% of movie game tie-ins. It's not a particularily memorable game, and not a must-play, but it's a fun time-waster and easy source of achievement points.