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March 21, 2013

Review – Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon

Review Luigis Mansion
Luigi steps out from the shadow of his famous brother, only to once again find himself cast into the shadowy halls of haunted dwellings, where legions of spirits wait to spook the hesitant hero. When the Dark Moon floating over Evershade Valley is stolen, the colorful poltergeists infesting the area begin causing mayhem, prompting Professor E. Gadd to summon Luigi’s assistance in getting his paranormal research back on track.

Rather than tackling one large mansion, Luigi will be transported to several locations, dispatched from the Professor’s bunker via a device that pixelates and transports him through security cameras, ala Tron.

The handheld release offers a stage layout for each area, where Luigi will accomplish small tasks toward recovering the pieces of the Dark Moon hidden within each, which feeds a quicker action based style of game versus a spiraling haunted mystery.

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November 11, 2012

Review – Paper Mario: Sticker Star

Review Paper Mario Sticker Star
Though it will likely come as no surprise to hear that Bowser has once again crashed the festivities of the Mushroom Kingdom, it’s not entirely his fault. Given that the Kingdom has a party for just about everything, the Koopa King would be hard pressed to show up when there wasn’t an event being held.

This time Bowser crashes the party during the annual Sticker Festival, where his attempt to seize power causes royal stickers to scatter across the Kingdom, setting Mario up nicely to do his hero thing – said thing being to visit deserts and snowy peaks in order to retrieve the stars and bring Bowser’s latest dictatorship to an end.

Naturally, the 2D paper aesthetic runs deep in this 3D landscape, from cardboard health bars to enemies that crumple when stomped – an ideal environment for Nintendo’s attempt to augment the series with layers of stickers that litter the landscape to provide players with the means to once again defeat Bowser’s minions.

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December 21, 2010

Mario Sports Mix Dated

Filed under: News Feed — Tags: , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 3:06 pm

Mario Sports Mix
Nintendo’s apparently all about announcing games tied in with Square-Enix this week, the latest update being that the Square-Enix developed Sports Mix will see Mario and company bringing hockey, basketball, volleyball and dodgeball to a single Wii disc on February 7, 2011.

The game offers 4-player trash talk opportunities both locally and online, and that’s pretty much the gist of the announcement for today.

Though if you are craving more you can catch the trailer and some art after the break.

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December 19, 2010

Regarding Anniversaries

Filed under: News Feed — Tags: , , , — Jamie Love @ 1:30 pm

Super Mario Bros 25th Anniversary
I wouldn’t have anticipated Mario tossing his trademark hat into the ring for the most divisive release of 2010, but here we are. The 25th Anniversary Edition, which essentially wraps a book and CD around the SNES release of Super Mario All-Stars has produced equal shares of grumblings and indifference from some acquaintances this week, while at other places, Eurogamer comes to mind, you can hear people rustling pitchforks over the release and review.

Odd as it may sound, at no point did I stop to consider this a game release, or something that was reviewable – just a commemorative grab that made it to North America in time for the holidays and potentially prettied up the shelf. All-Stars simply fills the inside of the box to justify the package getting space on retail shelves – if it was just a random box of Mario swag, where on earth would poor Nintendo stock it after all?

In some ways the release could come across as something better suited to Club Nintendo, but then of course it would cost one hundred times more. In other ways the release could have offered more not only from the Mario library to create a truly commemorative game, but also as a videogame release, seeing as that is the medium Mario is celebrating his place as a founding institution of.

What say you sugarfiends?

November 24, 2010

Your Wednesday Dose of Zen

Filed under: News Feed — Tags: , , , — Jamie Love @ 2:11 pm

Taiko Drum Master
With so many people on one side of the border escaping work early, it seems like those left behind on either side could use some cheering up. Enter this commercial for the latest outing of Taiko Drum Master on the Wii from Japan, complete with character cameos and an insanely excited Japanese family.

Catch if after the break.

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July 1, 2010

Your 2010 Elite Status Club Nintendo Reward

Filed under: News Feed — Tags: , , , , — Jamie Love @ 10:28 am

Club Nintendo
From my inbox to your ears comes this year’s reward to those gamers who sacrificed food and clothing to get their fix and feed the Big N, myself included – I hadn’t been paying attention and was surprised at the email.

Anyway, lesson learned – it pays to fill out surveys in the middle of the night because Nintendo’s reward for Platinum Status (600 Coins) this year is a 3.9 by 4.6 inch tribute to Super Mario that I feel will look very awesome in my living room. The choice between this or a calender took exactly 0.01 seconds to make.

Let me know how many of you are expecting one of these in the mail now – now being sometime between today and December that is.

June 2, 2010

Review – Super Mario Galaxy 2

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 12:30 pm

Super Mario Galaxy 2
Anyone who really believes that Japanese game design has a declining role against the success of Western game development needs to dunk their head in a pool of water – specifically the floating pools of water suspended in the air, rotating between connections with other pools as Mario attempts to swim toward the next checkpoint. Somewhere along the way players will also be hitting switches that alter the directional force of gravity while trying to grab a star, and the significance of a rare second mainline Super Mario title during a single hardware cycle becomes as clear as those small floating cubes of water.

Within Mario’s Galaxy, anything can and will happen. And what’s truly surprising is the depth of logic at play while navigating the sea of sudden possibilities that shows the complete lack of inhibition proving one of Nintendo EAD’s greatest design strengths.

For some a building is a place where action takes place around or within. In Super Mario Galaxy 2, bricks break free of structures to create pathways toward star portals, launching players through the roof and into the sea of stars overhead.

Short on filler and stuffed plump with that type of energy, the results are often extraordinary.

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