Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Review!

Zelda.wikia.com

I have been waiting to do this review for quite some time now. The Legend of Zelda is one of my favorite series, and Skyward sword proved itself to be a worthy addition to the growing collection. Compared to other Zelda games, Skyward sword has a very unique feel. This is specifically due to the fact that it runs on the Wii and uses the Wii’s Motion Plus. This allows for a much more intuitive gaming experience, and has dramatically changed the way any Zelda game is played.

In the game you can control your “Skyward Sword” by swinging your Wii remote. The control you have over your weapon is incredible. The Wii does a fantastic job of accurately registering your swings and translating that into the move performed in the game. Enemies in the game have certain weak areas, so you are required to perform precise swings with your Wii remote to inflict damage to that area. Along with this, many other moves are carried out through the Motion Plus such as a barrel role and rope swinging. The use of the Wii’s functionality allows the gamer to have much greater control of their character, and to complete battles uniquely as apposed to repeating the same move over and over again.

As we all know, the Wii is lacking in the graphics department. Skyward Sword took this into carful consideration when designing their game and created a new graphic style for the game. It is less focused on realism, and more on creating an environment that can be played on the Wii while still being easy on the eyes. The graphics are somewhat cartoon-like, but do not look blocky. They are still fluid and smooth and this helps to mask the Wii’s short comings.

ew.com

The plot follows the standard Zelda story. The princess is captured and you must rescue her. You live in the peaceful city in the clouds known as Skyloft and until the kidnapping of the princess you have no real knowledge of the “surface”. After she is kidnapped you find the sacred “Skyward Sword” which comes with a spirit who helps you on your quest to save the princess. After you acquire your sword, the first portal to the surface is unlocked. As you complete the game new portals are unlocked, each taking you to a vastly different environment.

The style of the game mimics every other Zelda game. As you procede through a certain area you unlock a dungeon and you must use critical thinking to solve an array of different puzzles in each dungeon. At the end of each dungeon you must fight a “boss”, and once you complete this you get a reward. Although this pattern is very universal for all Zelda games, this game is unique in the sense that it forces you to fully explore every area. Even after you make it through all of the portals and think you are ready to save the world, you have to go back and find things you missed along the way in each area. This keeps the game interesting and is especially good for players, such as myself, who dread the end to an epic game.

Overall my opinion is very biased. I am a hardcore Zelda fan, so I knew that I had to like this game. It is incredibly fun and intuitive. It has a wide range of different environments, weapons and enemies. It has smooth graphics, at least for the Wii, and it is challenging and lengthy. For any Zelda fan, it is something you must have, and even if you have never played a Zelda game before I am confident you will find the game well worth your money.

Twisted Metal 2: The Bossiest Bosses

One thing I say about older games is that they knew how to make bosses. The first boss is the devil himself, he drives a tank named minion. His special weapon is a tri-force of missiles accompanied by a freeze blast, this does quite a bit of damage and he uses it frequently. If he doesn’t feel like shooting you, he can simply ram into you at fast speeds dealing more than enough damage.

Despite all these things if your decent at playing the game he is a pretty manageable boss, mostly because he is essentially only a little more than a single typical foe. He handles just like any other car and is even a secret unlock-able character.

Minion is mere child’s play compared to the games final boss, Dark Tooth. Dark Tooth is sweet tooth’s father, and is arguably the best boss in twisted metal history.

As a young child I could not even comprehend fighting this behemoth of a boss. So I would just drive around the streets of Hong Kong hoping not to run into this mad man, while my dad dealt with him. I even had nightmares of Dark Tooth. As you can see in the picture, Dark Tooth is a giant ice cream truck with a flaming clown head to top it all off. At a distance he will shoot spinning, flaming, ice cream cones at you, freeze you, and throw his flaming clown head at you. His attacks are even more brutal as you get close, because he will do all of the above, and also proceed to jump on top of you. Only the fastest of Twisted Metal’s characters can escape Dark Tooth, for he has amazing speed. Defeating this monster is no easy feat even for the most hardened of twisted metal players. But if you manage to do so you win right? Wrong. After this beast there is one final challenge there is one final challenge.

You manage to destroy the truck, but not the flaming clown head. To destroy Dark tooth once and for all you must kill his head.

This final form has no where near the god like amounts of health his previous form had, but if you take this form of Dark Tooth lightly you’ll pay with your life. He still has all the weapons in in his arsenal, and he can dish the damage out. With a powerful special you can take him out fast enough. So those are the bosses of Twisted Metal 2, some of the craziest bosses ever made.

My Top 5 Video Game Soundtracks of All Time

This is just my opinion of the best video game soundtracks based on games I have played. I am sure as I experience more games and hear more songs this list will change, but for now I though I would share my top 5.

1) Halo

2) Final Fantasy VII (One Winged Angel)

3) Assassin’s Creed 

4) Call of Duty, World at War: Nazi Zombies (Der Reise)

5) The Legend of Zelda 

Twisted Metal 2 Character Review: il Portatore di Morte

This is a review on a specific character from the first game I’ve ever played, Twisted Metal 2. To read my review of this game in general go here, https://potassiumpizzaparty.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/twisted-metal-the-only-good-car-destruction-games/.

also, check out my other character reviews here, https://potassiumpizzaparty.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/twisted-metal-2-character-review-my-old-favorite/ and here, https://potassiumpizzaparty.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/twisted-metal-2-character-review-thumper/

So unless you speak italian you’re probably wondering what il portatore di morte means, it means the bringer of death. I wrote it in italian for a few reasons, 1. I’m mostly italian, 2. I’m learning how to speak italian, and 3. I wanted an excuse to mention that my last name (Mori) is a form of the word death in italian.

The person behind the wheel: Mr. grimm is the grim reaper, he enters twisted metal because he is addicted to souls, he can never get enough of them. If he wins he will wish for the worlds population to plumet so that he can have a sufficient feast. Now if you look at the character picture above, he looks like a badass, and he should! He’s the god damn grim reaper! But in the video sequence after his victory he appears like this:

And he talks in this whiny voice, “Calypso…. I can’t take the pain…. ughhh…. I need more souls….” This disappointed me, I would expect more from the angle of death. The way Mr Grimm gets screwed is that he gets his wish, and the whole world is turned into a battle ground where death rates skyrocket.

But obviously the human race eventually becomes extinct and he has no more souls to eat ever again, so he comes back whining to Calypso.

The Car: Mr grim has been in every twisted metal game ever released, and he always has driven a motorcycle. Except of course in my least favorite twisted metal game of all time, twisted metal 4. In that game he appears as “Captain Grimm” and drives a crazy boat with wheels, just plain stupid. Throughout all of the twisted metal games Mr grimm has always been one of my favorite characters game play wise. I tend to like characters with extreme strengths and weaknesses as apposed to more well rounded characters. Mr Grimm excels in speed and special weapon power. In Twisted Metal 2 he has my favorite handling by far, his max speed is 131, and has powerful special weapon that can be used at any range. For his special Mr Grimm summons a soul in the form of a bloody skull that races across the screen, doing major damage to whomever it may hit.

The freeze attack definitely helps, but given the attack’s sheer speed you dont always need it.

As I said in my last post I would love to hear from you if you’ve ever played any of the twisted metal games, or if you want to talk classic games in general.

Twisted Metal 2 Character Review: Thumper

This is a review on a specific character from the first game I’ve ever played, Twisted Metal 2. To read my review of this game in general go here, https://potassiumpizzaparty.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/twisted-metal-the-only-good-car-destruction-games/.

also, check out my other character review here, https://potassiumpizzaparty.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/twisted-metal-2-character-review-my-old-favorite/

The person behind the wheel: When me and my dad picked twisted metal up again I ventured out from my normal mister slam and started trying to play as other characters, Thumper quickly became one of my favorites. The driver of thumper is named bruce, he lives in LA and is part of dangerous gangs. He enters the contest because he’s tired of fighting for his life everyday and wants to be somebody. If he wins he will wish to be the ruler of the world.

Like almost everyone else he too gets screwed by his wish, He becomes the ruler of the world, but the world has been reduced to ruble due to the twisted metal contest. So he hardly has anything to rule over.

The Car: Bruce drives a pink low rider. The car has average handling, decent armor, and the most powerful special weapon in the game. Like I said the car has average handling, but average in this game is pretty spectacular. Thumper does not handle like a low rider at all, it can reach 105 mph and fly across the map if you hit a jump right.For Thumper’s special weapon a flamethrower shoots a flame out the front of the car dealing massive amounts of damage. This weapon can be a little tricky to get a hit with, but combined with a freeze shot, Thumpers decent handling, and the weapons range it isn’t too hard.

Like I said in my last post I would love to hear from you if you’ve ever played any of the twisted metal games, or if you want to talk classic games in general.

Spyro, Spyro, Spyro!

Spyro.wikia.com

My brother’s birthday is on the 19th, and for an early birthday present we took him to BestBuy and let him get any game of his choice for the Wii. After a bit of searching he found it, Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure. This instantly brought back a wave of memories. Spyro is definitely on my top list of games. I used to have the old GameBoy Spyro games and they would consume hours of my life. Spyro is one of those games that just never gets old, and I couldn’t wait to see how this new game lived up to its older counterparts.

Although I did not get a good chance to really sit down and play the game yet, I did watch my brother play it for a while and the first thing I noticed was the glowing portal like object that plugged into the Wii. The game came with different plastic toy characters which, when placed on this portal, changed the character you controlled in the game. This immediately grabbed my attention and brought up many questions. This seems like a cool feature from the outside, but it is hard to tell if it is just a selling point and has no real benefit to the game.

I still must sit down and really try out the game for myself and than I will be putting up a review of it along with my review of Zelda, Skyward Sword.

Chronicle Movie Review

Beyondhollywood.com

A few weekends back I went and saw the movie Chronicles. I was very exited to see this movie and had been looking forward to its release sense late last year. From the trailer the movie seemed very appealing. It looked like it had a strong plot that was not to predictable, and I really enjoyed how the movie put special powers into the hands of normal teenagers who had no intention of being super heroes.

Although I went to the movies with high expectations, I was greatly disappointed. The main problem I found with the movie was its use of the “handheld camera” effect. This was done to add the feel of the movie being a real documentation of the events that occurred from the perspective of the main character, and eventual villain “Andrew Detmer”. Although this idea adds an interesting twist to the movie and helps bring a strong sense of realism to the film, in many instances it took away from the actual experience of the film. the final fight scene had to be shot from an array of different camera angles, ranging from police car cameras to news station helicopter cameras and even store security cameras. It was hard to follow the fight and to make out which character was which and this prevented me from enjoying the baddassery of the fight scene.

The ending was a bit of a cop out as well. Although I will not spoil it here, I felt like they built up the movie with a strong plot and then tore it down with a very sloppy ending. I would not necasarilly recomend this movie, but I still did enjoy it. The acting was descent and, until the ending, the plot was strong. the movie had its funny moments and it did a good job of exploring the consequences of putting unlimited power in the hands of a teenager.

Twisted Metal 2 Character Review: My Old Favorite

This is a review on a specific character from the first game I’ve ever played, Twisted Metal 2. To read my review of this game in general go here, https://potassiumpizzaparty.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/twisted-metal-the-only-good-car-destruction-games/.

The person behind the wheel: The only character I used to play as on twisted metal when I was young was Mr. Slam. The driver of Mr. Slam is named Simon Whittlebone, he is a nerdy ginger who’s profession is that of an architect. He enters the contest because his dream of building the tallest building in the world was taken from him. If he wins he will wish to have his chance to finish his masterpiece, but like just about everybody else in the contest he gets screwed over by his wish. Before he is able to finish his building he falls from the very top of his building all the way to the ground.

Needless to say, he kicks the bucket. Just a random side note, I’ve always found that term strange… it refers to when somebody ties a noose around their neck and kicks a (in this case) bucket out from under their feet. But who stands on a bucket while trying to kill themselves? Come on go all out! Kick a stool, or if your really adventurous, a chair.

The Car: He drives a tractor who’s handling is (as the game states) sluggish.

His max speed without turbo is 91 miles per hour, which sounds fast, but I don’t think the programmers realized how fast 91 miles per hour is, so it’s agonizingly slow in-game. The car also turns slow, overall it is difficult at best to handle Mr. Slam, but what else would you expect from a tractor? Each car comes equipped with a special weapon that only that vehicle may use. For his special Mr. Slam makes use of his claws, he picks other vehicles up and slams them about three times, hence the name Mr. Slam. This special weapon does a more than decent amount of damage and it’s recharge rate is fair, but for the attack to connect, your target must be directly in front of you, and can’t move for about 2 seconds. When you Combine this with Mr. Slam’s unresponsive handling, you get a special that takes the accuracy of a surgeon to hit.

The freeze attack aids Mr. Slam’s special greatly, but when I used to play as him all those years ago I could never remember how to use the freeze attack. Nevertheless I still managed to get enemies in the grip of my tractor, I have no idea how. Mr. Slam’s shining feature is his ability to take damage like a boss. He is one of the two most armored characters that do not require a code to play as.

If you have ever played any of the twisted metal games I would love to hear from you, but otherwise I do believe that old games have a certain charm to them that newer games simply don’t have, wether its the old Spyro games, super smash brothers, or old pokemon games. I’ve never really been able to put my finger on it, so I’d also love to hear from you regarding such.

Twisted Metal: The Only Good Car Destruction Games

Tomorrow a game that I have been waiting for a very long time will be released, Twisted Metal. The twisted metal series has been through a lot, and has had many great games, except for twisted metal 3 which was okay and twisted metal 4 which was just awful, and I hardly even consider it to be a part of the series. Twisted metal 2 was the very first video game I ever played, and the story goes like this. when I was about 3 years old, my dad would hand me an unplugged controller while he played twisted metal with his friends so I thought I was playing. One day my dad plugged my controller in and I actually could play the game.

Me and my dad recently started playing twisted metal 2, so that we could get our time in with it before the new one came out. My first thought was, were the graphics always this bad? I mean I knew they would be bad simply because the game is so old, but they were far worse than I remembered or expected. But strangely, as we played more and more I got used to the graphics, and now they don’t seem too bad.

My second thought was, how the hell did I deal with these controls? The controls for the game were awful and unresponsive. But, like the graphics, as I played more I got used to them and discovered that the controls weren’t bad, they were just hard. With a little bit of practice you could get your character to do whatever you wanted them to do.

The controls to the game are hard, but the game itself is even harder. Back in the day me and my dad would easily beat the co-op tournament every time we set out to, but recently it has been a feat we have only accomplished 3 times. Now the first idea would be to lower the difficulty from medium to easy right? Wrong. Because after the first boss on easy, a screen comes up with a big stop sign that reads: “No losers beyond this point, change the difficulty and play the real game.” Yeah, they dont make games like they used to! calling you a loser because you were trying to have some fun.

Now as for the story, it’s pretty simple. There is this guy named Calypso, and he as all these super awesome powers. He can grant anyones wish, so he hosts a contest every year called twisted metal, the winner gets his wish granted. Everyone who wins gets screwed over by their wish either by the way they worded it or by Calypso just being messed up, unless they wish for something incredibly simple.

Now I didn’t do much research on this, but twisted metal has got to be one of, if not the first car destruction game out there. This genre of games is generally terrible and the twisted metal games are the only car destruction games I’ll play. I’m not exactly sure what they do but the game feels so different than other games like it, and its just so entertaining and fun.

The characters drive a variety of cars ranging from dune buggies, tractors, monster trucks, motorcycles, drag racing cars, ice cream trucks and much more. I’ll be doing character reviews of my three favorite characters this week.

Overall old games have a certain charm that newer games simply don’t have, for me twisted metal 1 and 2 have the most of that charm out of all the older games I’ve ever played.

Rise Against and A Day to Remember

picturesdepote.com

I just recently purchased tickets for Rise Against’s spring tour with A Day to Remember and The Title Flight opening for them. They will be playing at Bakersfield’s Robobank theatre on April 16th. This show is a big deal for me because Rise Against is one of my all time favorite bands. My taste in music has taken many sharp turns over the years, but Rise Against has always been at the top of my list. They are not only incredible song writers, but they back up their songs with a positive message and for me that defines a great band.

A Day to Remember is also one of my favorite bands. Although I have only seen them once during Warped Tour 2011, and it was very brief, I am extremely excited to see these bands play. I went to a Rise Against concert last spring and purchased general admission tickets so I have a good idea of what to expect. I will most likely take many of pictures and maybe some of them will end up on here.