Mega Man II

As a member of the Long Island Retro Video Game community, I constantly find myself surrounded by older gamers discussing the glory of their older games. Many of these veteran gamers I know grew up on the Nintendo Entertainment System the same way I grew up on the Gamecube. I have spent a lot of time discussing why Gamecube games are still a fun option for the gamer with nothing else to play, but what about the titles my fellow retro gamers grew up on? What about the classics?

Mega Man II originally released for the Nintendo Entertainment System on December 24, 1988 (24th? REALLY? Hahahahahahahahaha). This game is considered not only to be one of the best games sold on the console, but one of the best action games of all time.
Already we have a problem.

This game came out almost 30 years ago and I still hear people praising it for its quality. I encourage thee to realize, when discussing games, that there is an enormous difference between a title that is perfect, a title that is perfect considering its age, and a title that actually stands the test of time. Having never played Mega Man II before, I decided to investigate; is this game actually good, or does nostalgia play too big of a factor when discussing Mega Man II?

Mega Man II - NES/ Nintendo 3DS

Okay no need to dance around this: Mega Man II is fantastic. It totally stands the test of time. Which is awesome! Because that means that the opinion of older gamers is still valuable to us young-punk gamers who think we know everything about what makes a good game.

The magic of Mega Man II comes in the form of variety. MMII is broken up into 10 levels, each with a different tactical and aesthetic theme. Not only do each of the 10 levels feature different colors, enemies, and music, but they each demand totally different playing strategies. At the end of each of the 5-8 minute (if you die as often as I do) levels, is a boss fight. None of the bosses are too hard, though they certainly provide a fair challenge. Once each boss is defeated, Mega Man gains a new ability, usually a new offensive or tactical weapon. Essentially, the more bosses you defeat, the stronger you become.

The most remarkable aspect of this collection of levels is that the player is free to attempt each one in any order they desire. That being said, there are definitely recommended level sequences. You see, each boss you defeat earns you a specific new ability, and some levels are MUCH easier to complete after having been awarded certain specific abilities. So while the player is always free to choose which level they'd like to attempt next, they are also free to determine which weapons they need in order to progress through the game as easily as possible. To some extent, this results in a bit of trial-and-error playing, but it also encourages creativity that runs parallel to the nurturing of your Mega Man skillz.

This side-scrolling shooter/platformer is hard. But not too hard. It's also unfair. But not too unfair. Games of this time period had to be kept small due to hardware limitations, but they also had to have lasting appeal since there were fewer developers to pump out new games every week. An old game had to be kept small, but still last. How do you do that? Make it hard, but not so hard that it will keep people from playing it. Man, what a nightmarish challenge it must have been to get everything just right. Very few games balanced the equation perfectly, but Mega Man II did.

By the end of the 1-2 hour game, not only will Mega Man himself be equipped with a large assortment of different moves and weapons, but you, as the player, will have gained the cleverness needed to use them all when appropriate. The gradual acquisition of each new moves eases players into and out of a gaming experience for which they are required to master each of the title's nuances. Walking away from any game after having mastered the controls feels exhilarating, which is why it is extra sweet that Mega Man II seems to have been designed with this satisfaction in mind. In the end, Mega Man II comes so highly recommended because it leaves the player with the feeling of mastery, fluency, and unrivaled satisfaction.

Gunman Clive

My experience with Gunman Clive started as one of those rare times when I actually purchase a game on a friend's recommendation. Shout out to my friend Andrew for suggesting this one to me. The game's price of $2 on the Nintendo 3DS E-shop was also a large contributor of why I went ahead and bought it. Turns out it was worth all 200 pennies, because Gunman Clive is actually pretty damn great, so let's talk about it.

Gunman Clive - Nintendo 3DS

Intro / Summary
     Gunman Clive is a side-scrolling shooter platformer that combines the best platforming elements from Rayman Origins with the best shooting elements from Mega Man II. You move from the left side of the screen to the right side of the screen shooting anything that is A) alive, and B) isn't you. Complete each level by jumping on platforms, climbing ladders and trying not to die as much as you are totally going to die. There are 20 levels each taking about 75 seconds to complete if you don't die, and something around 3 minutes each if you die as often as I did. All together I beat the game in about 65 minutes on a long car ride my band and I took from Long Island to Washington D.C. last week, and I did continue to play it on a harder difficulty once the game was beaten which believe it or not is something I don't normally do. The fact that I took the time to replay this game immediately after having beaten it means the game was either too short, or the game was really fun to play; I am going with the latter on the grounds that I feel a game can really only be too short if you paid $20+ for it, and beat it in 65 minutes- Once again, this game cost me $2, so I consider myself to have gotten exactly what I paid for, and I was pretty down with it.

Good Things: Also the title of a great Reel Big Fish song
     One of the first things to be noticed about Gunman Clive is the visual style and the musical score; both are beautiful. The game employs a visual effect that makes it appear to have been hand-drawn frame by frame, complimenting the game's ol' western style. Gunman Clive looks like the music video for A-ha's Take On Me meets an old western film. Swag-tastic.
    Gunman Clive prizes itself on the classic easy-to-play, hard-to-master technique. All you are able to do in the game is jump, walk, and shoot, but the level design is so clever that even these old-school moves won't get boring before you finish the game. The game is pretty tough, being at about "diamond" on a hard-scale from Vanilla pudding to Dwayne "the rock" Johnson, but it is never frustrating because of a combination of different video game staples being removed from Gunman Clive. First, there are no lives in the game, which means no Game Overs. Live are outdated and dumb for reasons that have been discussed infinitely by gamers who aren't me, so if you need an explanation on that, go somewhere else and come back. No lives in Gunman Clive. Without any lives, checkpoints aren't really necessary either, because the threat of being thrown back to the start of a 55 second level in which dying has no penalty really isn't that scary, so those are removed as well, which would only be frustrating if the levels were long, but they are not. The game presents a challenge intense enough to make sure that it won't be completed in 20 minutes, but it is not so unfair that it frustrates the player. I believe "sweet-spot" is the proper term here, but I've always found that term to be suggestive (made worse by the pink-colored text), much like how utilization of the word "moist" suddenly begins to make me feel sticky out o....sorry, lost my train of thought there. Difficulty curve is just right.


The game has a very modest length. Games these days (or at least the ones I have been playing) have the most aggravating tendency to last about 6 hours longer than the amount of time for which I care to play them. I always think it is rather cocky of a game to assume that I will refuse to quit playing if it gets boring just because I'm already 10 hours in and I might as well finish it. Well, those games are fucking wrong, and they're the games out of which I take the most pleasure in ripping apart. Gunman Clive, like I said, is only about an hour long if you only play through it once. Honestly, the fact that this game is so good, while being so short makes me fear that the developers lost confidence during development and in the voice of an insecure 13 year old mumbled at some point "aw shucks, no one is gonna wanna play this game!", so they made the game an hour long assuming that no one would ever want to play it for more than an hour any way. Now don't get me wrong, I am glad that the game was only an hour long because it means I have more time to play other games, but honestly, this may be the first time ever where I wish a game was longer, but perhaps only by or hour or so. Also, you can play as a duck after beating the game once. This mode is called "Duck Mode" and it makes me giggle.

Short-Comings: "Homecoming" is a great Green Day song that sounds similar to "Short-Comings".
          Hmm...the game is short...but like...that is a good thing when playing simple games...I mean, Pac-Man is a great game, but does anyone want to play that for more than 20 minutes? I got nothing for short-comings. Gunman Clive is a great game, and it is so short that it ends before fucking anything up. So I am going to use this space to quote something profound I read on Kotaku: "The longer a game is, the more it has to justify its length." OR a different quote by Ben Yahtzee Croshaw of Zero Puntuation: "Madworld is a 6-8 hour game with enough unique ideas to fill a 3 hour game." I isolate these points because they have to do with length, which is a HUGE fucking problem with games nowadays. To all game developers everywhere: If you only have enough good ideas to keep me entertained for 5 hours, then your game should be 5 hours long. BAM. That's all folks. Gunman Clive has enough unique ideas to keep me REALLY satisfied (another sticky phrase) for 1 hour, and so the game is 1 hour long. And for that, Gunman Clive, you get my virtual glad-hand.

                                                                                                 Conclusion:

This game is $2 and is one of the best games I have played in a long time. You can beat it in a single lunch break and get right back to playing Super Smash Bros. afterwards, so just do it. I'm serious. I know I am just a computer, but seriously, buy this game and play it. Recommended to everyone.

Super Smash Bros. for 3DS

I've been writing on this blog for over a year now and I'm sure that all 6 people who actually read it have been beginning to wonder when I was going to get around to reviewing a game about which people actually care. Well, today is that day, because this is my review of Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo 3DS.

I have to admit, I am a veteran in the world of Super Smash Bros. I understand the game, and I understand that those who don't play competitively see the game differently than those who do. I am on the edge of both worlds, so I will try to see this game with no preference to either perspective. Instead, I will take you through a journey of what my Smash Bros. 3DS experience has been like for the last week.

Super Smash Bros. for 3DS is the first entry in the legendary Smash Bros. series to appear on a handheld, and if you ask me, it's a pretty fucking good idea partially because no one owns a Wii U right now, but mostly because Nintendo has spent the last year upgrading the 3DS via all sorts of hardware and software improvements from system updates to the release of new limited edition consoles BUT has completely forgotten to release any fucking games for the damn thing. I was looking forward to Smash Bros. on a handheld because of the convenience of being able to play anywhere I go. My parents still live in the same hometown I graduated High School in, but now I am in college and most of my friends live in different states than I do, so being able to not only bring the game back and forth from home to school but being able to bring the multiplayer experience anywhere I go was something I originally found to be extremely appealing, but not so much anymore because the online is complete and utter shit. Many, nay, all people who owned Super Smash Bros. Brawl agreed on two things: Final smashes were horse shit, and the online was embarrassing and irresponsible. 6 years later, we are still faced with the later issue. Out of my 20 attempts made JUST NOW to play a 1 on 1 online match against a random opponent also using the online features, want to guess how many of them were successful? 0. 0 times. I was kicked to the start screen before the match had even begun, with the furthest I ever got being gaining access to a training area which I can only guess comes right before a match- I wouldn't know, because I never got to play one.

My next thought was then "okay whatever". I'll just play some single player. The main excitement that comes with any new entry in the Smash Bros. series is the thrill of both unlocking and using new characters or old characters with new abilities, and in this department, Smash Bros. 3DS really excels. Out of the 49 characters, not even the 2 or 3 sets of clones feel exactly identical, with the exception of Pit and Dark Pit, which I let slide because I loved Kid Icarus: Uprising. However, with the multiplayer options being limited to local multiplayer, an issue I plan on discussing in just a hot second, the player is forced to experience the thrill of new characters by playing single player modes in the game. Classic mode is the main single player mode mostly because it is the only single player mode that can be used to unlock characters. Once you play classic mode with the appropriate characters, you'll unlock every hidden character, of which there are only like, 10, and once you have unlocked every hidden character, you'll want to try them out in more single player modes, once again because multiplayer is hardly an option. Classic mode, however, is not the most suitable testing grounds because, in it, you can't turn the items off, this only being a problem because of the fact that almost every single item in the game just kills you. Blue Shell, The Beetle from Skyward Sword, every Assist Trophy, the Smash Ball, almost every Pokemon, every Bomb-omb, Gooey Bomb, Exploding X bomb thing, every capsule which is ALWAYS a bomb in disguise, and a properly placed bumper all really don't do anything more than just kill you, which believe it or not, reduces the fun of actually becoming good with a character by about 1 fuckton.

So what else is there? There is no online, and classic mode isn't any fun, so what I decided to do was try out a bunch of characters by playing against level 9 CPUs in Smash mode with, of course, the items turned the fuck off. Playing against random CPUs with 3 stock as I attempt to beat the shit out of them with my favorite Nintendo characters of new and old is actually the most fun I get out of the game, but like everything else in it, I am beginning to see how short-lived this is going to be as something about the CPU's tendency to spam both counter-attacks and shield has me convinced that the AI isn't actually very good in the game. In fact, there have been an unacceptable amount of times where I decided that instead of fighting in the fighting game, I thought that it would be more fun to wait in a corner and see how long it would take the CPU to notice that I am preparing to kill it. In the end, the CPU struggled desperately to convince me that my hacking away at it with a sword was something it preferred for me not to do. Instead, the characters against whom I played seemed much more concerned about their health as mostly all they ever did was run around or jump a bit, as opposed to hitting me back, even on the highest difficulty setting.

And so finally, we reach the last selling point of this game, the local multiplayer. Traditionally, local Smash Bros. took place on the living room sofa with 13 of your closest friends and 1 kind of smelly friend who heard you got the newest flavor of Mountain Dew and invited himself over. You'd all gather around the TV for better or for worse and enjoyed the $50 dollar investment made by one friend as you played his game with his controllers on his console in his house. Now, in order for even the most casual collection of players to indulge in the joy of local Smash multiplayer on the 3DS, each participant must own not only the $40 game, but the $200 system. Now I admit, this shouldn't be a problem for children who plan on spending study hall trying to escape from a hard day at middle school with a round or two of Smash Bros, but I am in college, a place where people come to study and learn, not fuck around with video games all day like how I do. I do have a few friends on campus who own the game, but because those who don't play Smash Bros. understand that we no longer need a TV to play, we are often kicked out of common rooms and forced to squeeze 4 dudes into my small bedroom, which I dislike not because of the small size of my room, but because the small size of my bed ill-suited to seat 4 grown men in a fashion that can be described in a manner other than "really gay".

Despite all of my bitching, Smash Bros for 3DS is an excellent entry to the series. In fact, I'd say it's second best with Melee being the first best and Brawl being the worst. There are advantages to having it on a handheld, but I don't really think anyone would argue the fact that the game is supposed to be played on a console with 6 bowls of chips, 14 friends, and 2 girl friends who would prefer to be doing anything besides play video games all night. As an entry in the Smash series, Smash Bros. 3DS is impressive to say the least, but as a game, it just can't be considered as good as people want it to be. The online doesn't work, the single player options are limited unless you are a masochist or a completionist as the collectibles are nearly endless, and the salvageable modes in the game are only fun for a short while due to mediocre AI. If you have the game, I am SO excited to play with you next time we are all home and have the game on us, but if you were one of the more skeptical players who decided to wait and see if this game was going to be executed properly on the 3DS, I declare that you don't have to get it if you don't want to. It's not a "must-play" for the console.

**EDIT** I have friends at home and in other parts of the state who have assured me that my poor experience with the online in this game may be the fault of my school having bad internet service, and not because Nintendo likes online multiplayer as much as I like eating glass. Fine. They are probably right, although I have heard about other players and professional gaming companies complaining about having as much trouble as I had. If your online mode works, ignore what I had to say about my experience, and go play it because it is probably awesome. I, on the other hand, will sit here in my bedroom and whine on the internet like a normal Nintendo fan.

Back To Dream Land!

One of the first things I did when I got back to college was hit up the local Gamestop to see what's good. They treated me really well there last semester and low-traffic shopping malls are some of my favorite places to score inexpensive games. Among the games in the store was a Wii game I had heard about recently but knew very little about. Used some saved up store credit to grab myself a copy of the late Nintendo Wii title, Kirby's Return To Dream Land. 

Kirby's Return To Dream Land - 

Nintendo Wii 

Intro + Summary

In recent years, Kirby games have been reviewed consistently pretty well, but I never hear about many people playing them. Mostly, I hear about how the games are too short, too easy, or both, making the latest installments in the Kirby series simply not worth the $40 that could be spent buying other popular titles. This is why it took a lot of faith for me to invest in a Kirby game that cost $45 "used" after all these years. Still, I did it and I regret nothing. 

       Kirby's Return To Dream Land is a side-scrolling platformer that keeps the gay puff-ball's signature ability to inhale and copy his enemies at the forefront of the game-play experience. This time around, there are no yarn-related gimmicks or racing antics. It is just classic Kirby doing the thing he and we all love the most. This time, the antagonist is a mystery until the last chapter, and it becomes evident that the evil bad-guy is neither the classic Meta Knight nor King Dedede, because they are actually playable characters! Kirby's Return To Dream Land features 4 player co-op, much like how a number of modern Super Mario games do, making this title ideal for a either a group of friends looking to kick back and enjoy something silly and fun, as well as the perfect title for someone looking to play a fun single player game, which is how I played it.

      Does anyone remember Kirby's Nightmare In Dream Land? It's a GBA game that I remember being played by a lot of kids who lived through my generation of gaming. Nightmare In Dreamland was an incredible, memorable, and fun Gameboy Advanced game featuring the very same Pac-Man impersonator starring in today's review! Why bring it up? Because unlike the easy, short, and mildly boring Kirby games of recent times, Kirby's Return To Dream Land feels more like the fabulous Nightmare In Dream Land than any other comparable game in the series. In fact, it feels like a direct sequel - a game that takes what we all loved about Nightmare, and added to it, enhanced it, and further illuminated the bright world that was the Nightmare from which we never wanted to awaken. 

Good Things

Kirby's Return To Dream Land (at the time it was released) was one of the few times we saw the  Kirby formula in its purest form. Kirby's Squeak Squad for the Nintendo DS was received kind of well, Kirby's Epic Yarn although critically acclaimed was not the Kirby we all knew and loved, and the same could even be said about Kirby Air Ride for the Nintendo Gamecube, back in 2003. Kirby's Return is an awesome game because it succeeds in doing the things it tries to do. 

       For those who don't know, Kirby's only inherent ability is the ability to inhale enemies in each level. Kirby is usually able to copy the powers of his inhaled victims, sometimes resulting in Kirby wielding a sword, being able to breathe fire, or even turning into a laser-shooting UFO, all depending on the ability of the inhaled enemy. These copied abilities can be used to vanquish other enemies and reach the end of the level and/or unlock secret paths leading to collectibles. The main attraction to the classic Kirby games is the excitement that comes with using different powers in different levels. The objective of the game is to reach the end of each level, but the fun of the game comes from using different powers to do so. With this in mind, it becomes obvious that all any Kirby game would need to do in order to satisfy players is provide an abundance of fun levels in which the player can experiment with fun abilities. This, Kirby's Return To Dream Land does perfectly. I said PERFECTLY. With 7 worlds, 5 levels per world, 1 boss level per world, and countless collectibles whose collecting of allow you access to addicting mini-games, KRtDL offers non-stop variety in abilities and levels from the beginning to end, something recent Kirby games have been lacking. 

       To provide further contrast between Kirby's Return and more recent Kirby titles, I'd like to point out that Return has a very Nintendo-typical difficulty curve. For those who are unfamiliar, classic Nintendo games usually have a way of opening at an almost irresponsibly easy level, and then getting exponentially harder as the game progresses. I died in this Kirby game. I was concerned about my life-count in this Kirby game BUT, I never got frustrated at the Kirby game. Rather, I got frustrated at myself, because I got cocky once I noticed the game was easy and as soon as I got cocky, the game got hard. This game has the ideal difficulty level in my opinion. The later levels were quite difficult, but never made me want to rip my gorgeous hair out. The opening levels were difficult enough to suggest that I couldn't play the game with a blindfold on, while easy enough for me to learn naturally as I played. 

     Finally, a full arrangement of colors and appropriate art-style made this game a pleasure to look at, while its soundtrack literally had me going to Youtube and searching for the game's music even while the game was off, "Peaceful Place" being among my favorite tracks.

Short Comings

I find myself squinting and starring at the title of this section and saying "hmm...". Ehh I suppose you could say that this game isn't really much more than what it is. This is a platforming game starring Kirby and his friends using abilities to get from one end of the level to the other. The story is negligible and there isn't any depth to the game, nor is there anything that makes you care about Kirby other than how cute he is. Not that anyone was asking for an emotionally moving Kirby game! - I am just saying that this is not any game from which you'll walk away as a different person than who you were before you played it; it's just fun on a basic level. 

The game can be a tad-bit repetitive towards the end, as it is very possible to become fluent in the ways of every ability at around the 6 hour mark of this 8 hour game. However, that hardly makes the game any easier, plus the number of collectibles will keep any completionist playing for long after they complete the main story. I completed the main story and only achieved a 63% completion rating. This being said, the game is fun enough to justify an 8 hour story mode with ease. If this game was 20 hours, while it got repetitive after 6, we'd have a very different game here. 

     The final short-coming is the following: once the main story is completed, the only reason to continue playing is to obtain every collectible. Once every collectible is obtained, you will be able to unlock every mini-game, and that's it. The only incentive to extending your playtime beyond 10 hours is to unlock mini-games that are fun, but may not be worth the hours of grinding. I wouldn't know- I didn't unlock them all.

To Whom Would I Recommend This Game?

Nintendo fans, ANYONE who liked Kirby's Nightmare In Dream Land, anyone looking to play some fun local multiplayer, anyone who is looking for an excuse to dust off their Wii (or Wii U), anyone who wants to see Kirby on a console as opposed to a handheld, anyone in the mood to play something short and sweet

Number 4 Favorite Gamecube Game

Number 4, fo' sho.

Number 5 Favorite Gamecube Game

Half way there, boys. Half way there. 

Number 6 Favorite Gamecube Game

That Number 6 spot!

Number 7 Favorite Gamecube Game

Enjoy the Number 7!

Introducing: What's Good With That Game?

So first, a little prologue: I was getting a little bored with the Playground Series, so I decided to start a second series called What's Good With That Game. Allow me to state that the Playground Series, my series of reviews of games that meet certain qualifications, WILL continue, but will coexist with What's Good With That Game. WGWTG was conceptualized so that I could continue writing while I play new games. In the past, I've had to take breaks from writing in order to play new games to write about, but that sucks and WGWTG should create more opportunities for me to write without increasing the amount of time between each post.
What's Good With That Game will be an archetype of posts where I will describe a game that I have started playing only recently, and haven't finished yet. In each post, I will describe my initial feelings about the game, progress so far, what I am expecting, and what I didn't expect. Inspired by my friends all asking me "so what do you think of this game so far?" I imagine that this series is going to be a lot of fun, so I am more than excited to launch my first post right now. So get ready, because this next series is going to be so prime.

What's Good With That Game: Metroid Prime

Metroid Prime. This game's legacy extends beyond that of Halo, Gears of War, and Call of Duty, as it's debut from 2D to 3D made the jaws of players not only drop to the floor, but break through to the earth and pop out the other side of the planet. Much like how The Legend of Zelda switched from 2D to 3D on the Nintendo 64, the Metroid Series transcended dimensions on the Nintendo Gamecube. Frightened fans awaited the release of that tiny little disc and when they finally summoned the courage to start up their Gamecube's with the new game inside, they were spellbound. Samus Aran in 3D. It was amazing. Graphics, gameplay, story, depth, length, feel, controls. It's no wonder why I saw it's name make on of the top 3 spots on each and every list of Best Gamecube Games I came across. So why am I playing it for the first time at age 19, and not 10? Well, the reasons are as good as they are bad.

The game is deep. REALLY deep. The game is all story mode, much like Legend of Zelda, but the story is never explained to you. In fact, learning the story is almost optional. Keeping in mind that I am only about 20 percent through the game, it seems that the actual story behind Metroid Prime is contained in text scattered throughout the world Samus is exploring. In addition to each of Samus' weapons one may observe by playing Super Smash Bros, she has a myriad of abilities more geared towards exploration. One of these abilities is a scanner. Entering Scanner Vision will enable you, as the player, to scan different objects, enemies, and terrains in order to learn more about them. Often, the information gained by scanning is obvious, for example, when it comes to enemies, but other times, sections of terrain, buildings, and walls can be scanned. The information pulled from these locations sometimes is ancient Chozo writing translated by Samus. Reading this deciphered text is key to understanding the story, but is easy to miss. If you do miss these opportunities, then gameplay will still be fun, but you will lose a dimension of depth. After about a half hour of playing, I started asking myself "You know, running around shooting things is fun as fuck, but what the hell am I here for?" It wasn't until I started to make a habit of scanning my surroundings was I able to begin to understand the small puzzle pieces of the story. Once I realized that THAT is how the story was being told, I fell in love. 20% in, and I am in love with this game. It would appear that instead of spoon-feeding you the story via cutscenes, this game is making the player seek the story out. Every time I enter a new room, I become ecstatic at the possibility of learning more about the story. So basically, to answer my question asked about half-a-rant ago, this game didn't appeal to me as a child because there was a lot of reading, a lot of uncertainty of where to go next, and I didn't quite see the game for what it was.

So I am 20% into the game, and I am only putting it down to go to class or wipe my ass. I LOVE it. Next is a bit about what I didn't expect, and what I am expecting from now on.

I did not expect to like this game so much. I thought it was going to be too difficult for me, too boring, too dragged out. AND I thought I would hate it because it is in 1st person. I do NOT like first person games. In my most recent years, I have learned to appreciate 1st person cameras very occasionally (Mirror's Edge), but generally, they are not my cup of tea. Now that I am playing a 1st person Metroid game, I cannot see it working any other way. The whole idea of Metroid Prime (as far as I can foresee) is to keep the player guessing what is going to come next. It is not supposed to be mysterious in a creepy way, rather it is supposed to be mysterious in a magical way - in a way akin to the feeling you got when you were a little kid reading a Disney book. You would fall in love with all of the pictures and words on one page, then when you turn that page to see more, you are even more awestruck then you were on the previous page. That's how Metroid Prime is so far. By the way, ten years old and the graphics are only slightly worse than anything I've ever seen in a Halo game. For that reason, I have come to the conclusion that this game ages marvelously. Anyway, I didn't expect the game to be so multidimensional. There are so many layers to it, as I touched upon while describing the method by which you gathered the story. The controls are tight, the graphics are beautiful, and the depth is so appropriate.

20% into the game, I understand that even though this game is supposed to be amazing, maybe even the best on the Gamecube, games have flaws- even the best ones. I anticipate that the game might eventually feel a little dragged out, predictable, formulaic, and perhaps some longer sections may start to blend together. It would appear, so far, that the formula for this game is similar to that of Legend of Zelda, but without the dungeons. What I mean is that you seem to guide Samus through a medium-length section of the world, she'll find a new power-up which will allow you to progress further into the world, and occasionally, you'll fight a boss. It is not boring yet, but it may become, as I already stated, formulaic and predictable. I hope that I am wrong about my anticipation, but these kinds of issues are found all over the gaming world, especially with really good games. Legend of Zelda is the best example.

I have found 1 Chozo artifact. I wonder what they do and how they will work into the story. There's no questioning how they influence the gameplay - you will have to find all of them without the game just handing them to you periodically throughout the game, but their influence on the story is something that I am very excited to witness. Sections of the game require something called a Spider Ball. I can't wait to get that because it sounds so cool.

My incompletion of this game is essentially why I decided to terminate my Top Ten Favorite Gamecube Games series- because I understand that no list is complete without it, so once I finish this game, be on the lookout for a full review. Until then, Ill keep you updated with posts regarding my progress. Wish me luck!

To Hold You Over

I can't believe I forgot to mention this.
http://www.gametrailers.com/shows/pop-fiction/videos-clips
http://www.gametrailers.com/shows/pop-fiction

Gametrailers.com features a show called Pop Fiction. I've tried to tell my friends about it but I remembered today that I could also use the good ol' reality to advertise. Pop Fiction, the way I describe it, is essentially Myth Busters, but for video games. The show's team of gamers investigates rumors or secrets within video games to find the truth about their existence. Gametrailers also has a much younger sub-series called Pop Facts. Pop Facts is basically the same thing, but the episodes are much shorter. I HIGHLY recommend these shows. A new episode of Pop Fiction is released monthly, and Pop Facts are released weekly. Enjoy!