Universal Studios Day 1: Afternoon

JAWS

JAWS… the cheesy, campy ride that everyone immediately thinks of when Universal Studios is mentioned in casual conversation.  People have proposed to their loved ones on this thing, for God’s sake.  So how is it?  Getting on the ride, it actually advertises itself as the Amity Boat Tour.  There was no mention of Jaws other than on the warning sign posted at the entrance.  We began by boarding a Jungle Cruise-esque boat with our nonchalant tour guide pretending to steer the boat as it glided along a track.  The tour was basically structured as a tour of the town of Amity, describing it as the town that suffered the horrible attack of Jaws that the famous movie was based on.  Pretty soon, not surprisingly, the tour comes across another tour boat sinking, having just recently been attacked by Jaws.  Our boat was called in to help just a little too late.  Oh well.  Anyway, the animatronic wonder makes his first appearance with a quick splash and an explosion of a gas station before our guide lobs a grenade at him by using a portable launcher.   

We then head into a boathouse to take cover.  Jaws starts ramming the walls of the boathouse, so we flee only to have him pop out of the water right next to us as the tour guide attempts to lead us to a boat dock.  This boat dock happens to be located right next to a power cable, which Jaws stupidly bites into, frying him dead.  Everyone cheers and we head back to the beginning.  I happened to be sitting on the left side of the boat, which is where you want to be if you want to be splashed or right next to Jaws when he’s at his most “menacing”.  Susan and I both had a campy good time on this ride and it should be held as some sort of rite of passage for theme park enthusiasts.

After Jaws, Susan wanted to go see the Animal Actors on Location show since it was closer to starting time.  I wanted to ride the Men in Black Alien Attack ride so we decided to split up and meet when I was done. 

Men In Black: Alien Attack

A quick note on this one: If you want to get ahead of the line quickly.  Getting in the single rider line is definitely the way to go.  By this time of day, the lines had started getting a little longer but I was able to get almost straight on anyway. 

So MIB: AA as far as I could tell didn’t have much of a storyline to it.  Basically it serves as a recruitment training program for the MIB agents.  The ride itself is on a track similar to a lot of dark house-style rides with the car spinning quickly back and forth a good bit as you spin around firing at aliens.  The firing part is the unique gimmick of this ride as it acts as a sort of shooting gallery with your car being equipped with a gun that you fire at alien targets as the ride progresses.  It basically proceeds in this fashion until you come across a giant alien at the end that apparently involves setting explosives in its mouth that are detonated by driving your car in and spinning around a lot.  This was a fun ride that was worth taking a little time to try out.  For those who get sick on spinning rides like my wife, you might want to stay clear.  Since I was able to get through the line so quickly, I decided to head over to Animal Actors on Location to watch it with Susan since it hadn’t started yet.

Animal Actors On Location

This was most likely Susan’s favorite attraction at the park, only trumped by a squirrel that came up to her foot and looked at her outside the E.T. ride.  It was basically comprised of some animal trainers showing off some movie animals and how they are trained.  It was a pretty interesting show, featuring a bird from Evan Almighty and the lab from Marley and Me, among others.  At one point, a volunteer in the audience sitting right next to me had a bird fly up and snatch a dollar out of his hand.  It was pretty neat to have something like that as close as it was.

After this I was able to convince Susan to ride the E.T. Adventure as I had mentioned earlier and she seemed to enjoy it, partially because the fake E.T. that sat in a basket in front of the bikes was attached to the bike she was on.  After this we attempted to go to the Disaster! Ride but it was having issues, as it had been all day.  Instead we decided to go to Shrek 4D.

Shrek 4D

The interesting thing about the fact that we went to Shrek 4D is that neither of us are big Shrek fans.  We were mostly doing it to kill time until the next showing of Terminator 3D.  The premise of Shrek 4D is that it picks up where the first movie ended.  Basically Prince Farquaad has come back as a ghost and kidnapped Fiona.  Of course, Shrek & Donkey hop in a carriage to give chase and save the day.  So first off, the movie is in 3D, which was very impressive in places.  It gives the 3D you would see in a local Cineplex a run for its money.  The 4D aspect of it involves the seats they’ve put you in.  The seats are positioned in a familiar theater-based setup but each seat has been rigged with some small hydraulics to simulate things like bumpy roads.  The show will also spray you with air to simulate bugs crawling around your legs and spritz you with water to simulate donkey sneezing.  Overall, it was pretty entertaining and air conditioned but the bumpiness of the seat motion I found a little annoying.

We missed the next showing of Terminator since Shrek took so long, so we went back over to Disaster to see if it was operational yet. 

Disaster!

Susan and I both enjoyed this one.  The fact that it featured Christopher Walken pretty much made it awesome for me, regardless of the entertainment of the ride portion.  So this takes a while to go through.  You begin in an initial room where the assistant director of Disaster Studios needs to select a few actors to appear in their next movie.  He selects some random volunteers from the audience and everyone goes to the next room.  The next room is the director’s office where Christopher Walken makes his grand appearance.  The hologram they use to make Christopher Walken appear to be present is so lifelike and seamlessly integrated with the environment that at first I thought it was an actor they hired that just looked and acted exactly like Walken.  After the director discusses his next picture, Mutha Nature, and his vision for Disaster Studios, everyone is then lead into the next room which appears to be a movie set with several scenes set up.  The actors selected at the beginning are then placed in their appropriate spots and several scenes are then filmed within a brief 6-minute time period.  It’s done in a pretty humorous fashion with the scenes coming into play later in the ride.  We were then lead into the next room where are herded on board a subway train to aid the director in filming the last section of the movie.  For those familiar with the history of Universal Studios, this section of the ride will be familiar as it is essentially the classic Earthquake! Ride that they have re-imagined into a movie shoot.  The subway train heads into the next room where an earthquake strikes causing the street above to come crashing down with a semi sliding into the train, water to come pouring into the station and another train to fly off the tracks into the train.  The whole time the First Unit Director (or somebody like that) is encouraging everyone to react in terror at the ridiculousness going on around them.   

After everything is complete, the subway train backs into the previous room to let everyone out.  As the train is backing out, we get to watch a trailer for our newly completed film that includes scenes the actors were in earlier as well as clips of everyone in the subway car.  We particularly enjoyed a scene of a grandmother getting struck by lightning and exploding while gardening.  Overall, this one is definitely recommended and takes a good 20 minutes total to get through.  As a result, you really get your money’s worth regardless of the wait time.

After this we finally decided to make our way over to Terminator 3D since the next showing was coming up.

Terminator 3D

We are shown a pre-show video featuring Cyberdyne technologies and how they are improving the world through their innovations.  I found this video delightfully cheesy and outdated, featuring such communications innovations as the ability to tuck a child into bed from hundreds of miles away using bulky robot arms attached to the bedframe.  After the video gets interrupted by Sarah & John Connor, era T2, the cheerfully annoying Cyberdyne Director of Human Relations ushers everyone into the theater.  At this point, she introduces the latest Cyberdyne technology, a robotic fighting force.  Several Terminator robots then are revealed via raised platforms across the sides of the auditorium.  At this point, the proceedings are interrupted again by the Connors propelling in from the ceiling.  Everything up to this point has been all live action.  A three large screens act as the backdrop of the auditorium.  While firing their weapons and threatening the human relations lady, John & Sarah are interrupted by a T1000 that first appears on the screen, oozing out in a very cool 3D effect.  He then walks through a portal and appears on the stage, giving chase to the revolutionaries and killing the annoying Cyberdyne lady.  Arnie then ride a motorcycle from out of the screen, firing a shotgun at the T1000 and spewing cheesy one-liners like there’s no tomorrow.  He then grabs John and drives through a time portal into the future.  The next section of the show is primarily on screen and Arnie & John are pursued in the future by all manner of evil robot as they seek to destroy the Skynet complex.  Through a series of action sequences involving lots more one-liners, they arrive at the center of Skynet where a giant liquid robot mantis thing proceeds to attack them.  When John asks Arnie what it is, he replies that it’s the T1000000.  Really? 

Anyway, at this point the actors are back out on the stage with the bug attacking them via awesome 3D effects across all three screens.  This section I felt was very cool and one of the most interesting examples of 3D I had ever seen.  Given the age of the ride (mid-90’s), I was very impressed.  I can only assume that they’ve probably updated the technology since it first opened.  Anyway, they freeze the robot using liquid nitrogen or something and destroy it.  Then they blow up Skynet and everybody celebrates.  Susan and I both really liked this one, despite the cheesiness of it in places.  I definitely recommend it to anyone visiting.

After Terminator 3D we made our way out of the park and ate dinner at Pastamore, a decent Italian place on the Universal Citywalk outside the park.

In summary, I really enjoyed this theme park for several reasons.  First of all, the rides were consistently of a high quality and most were pretty lengthy.  There’s nothing that aggravates me more than having to wait 40 or more minutes in line for a ride only to have it last a minute and be less than amazing.  A second positive point to the park was that it had more shaded areas than many I’ve been to owing to the fact that it was designed like a movie studio with a lot of closely grouped together buildings.  A third positive aspect was that many of the rides were indoors, offering a nice break from the heat. 

Universal Studios Day 1: Morning

Having just gotten back from our honeymoon, I thought I would write down our experience at Universal Studios to any curious.  I'll be breaking it up into sections, so keep a look out for future blogs on it as well.

We got up first thing in the morning to make sure we arrived at the park before the patrons began flooding the streets with gibbering nonsense and long lines.  Deciding to go in a roughly clockwise pattern around the park, primarily to hit some of the more popular rides first, Susan and I began our sojourn into theme park territory with the Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit roller coaster.

Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit

The line for this coaster was mercifully short, owing to our excellent of strategy of getting to the park early.  The coaster features a stadium-seating style arrangement with each seat having its own set of speakers and a small touch console in front of you.  The console features six different styles of music to select from.  I initially selected the Rock & Metal, hoping for something awesome.  Unfortunately Universal deems nonsense such as Limp Bizkit roller coaster-ready.  So I backed out and went to the Electronica section where I immediately set my eyes on and jammed my finger at the awesomeness of Daft Punk’s “Harder Better Faster Stronger”.  So if you’re wondering what the music selection is for, in case you haven’t already guessed (and God help you if you haven’t…),  the roller coaster blasts your music selection into your brain and it’s twisting you about and plunging you through several loops and twists.  I enjoyed this one quite a bit.  Unfortunately, due to a heavy breakfast and a few too many inverted 540 helixes, the Rockit left Susan feeling nauseous and uneasy for most of the morning.  In an attempt to help her calm her stomach, we decided to proceed to an attraction that’s more of a show than an actual ride, Twister: Ride It Out.

Twister: Ride It Out

While waiting on the ride to start in a queuing area, we were treated to not one but two extended trailers for the movie Twister.  As much as I enjoy watching Bill Paxton discuss how harrowing his movie-making experience in central Oklahoma was (“right in the middle of TORNADO ALLEY!”…that Jean De Bont is so dangerous…), I was anxious to get the thing started.  The attraction is basically presented as a tornado simulator.   We were led to three rows of platforms under what appeared to be a shed with standing room only.   The set where the tornado was to occur looked not unlike Belk, Alabama, with some rusty pickup trucks sitting by an old gas station.  Then the sky gets cloudy; tornado weather is at hand.  This is actually one of the neater effects of making an indoor area look like a stormy sky through the use of special effects.  Then the winds began picking up greatly with the tornado materializing in the middle of the set.  A truck began spinning its wheels as it’s pulled backwards toward the funnel and a very cheesy cow on strings is pulled across the set.  Somehow on the opposite side of the stage from where we were standing, a fire was started by an power pole falling onto a gas pump igniting the whole thing as the fire got pulled into the tornado.  The fire was real.  I could feel the heat, and it was a gratifying climax.  As far as a recommendation, it was kind of neat and I could see it being a good break from the heat in the afternoon since the whole thing was air conditioned.  Susan was still feeling sick after this one, so I decided to go it alone for the next ride, Revenge of the Mummy.

Revenge of the Mummy

Revenge of the Mummy is a sort of mixture of haunted house and indoor roller coaster.  The queue for the ride (which I waited on next to no time at all like most of the rides in the park) features Brendan Frasier hamming it up in an interview, as he often does.  Once on the ride, it features an animatronic mummy telling you to join him and he’ll reward you with gold… or be punished… You know, that sort of thing.  The ride seems to assume you do not want to join him as it then sends you into another room with the mummy’s booming voice proclaiming ominous threats of doom as bugs crawl out of the walls.  This effect was done using giant projection screens.  The card then flies backward out of the bug-filled room and more crazy stuff happens which culminates in you climbing a big hill that leads straight into the mummy’s mouth.  The mummy has apparently eaten a lot of spinning scarabs of varying colors since that is mostly what you see as the ride then whips around lots of tight twists and turns in mostly darkness.  After a minute or so, you go into what appears to be the exit area with a theme park operator on a video screen thanking you for riding and hoping you had a great experience.  At this point, the operator then bursts into flames as the mummy’s voice comes back in yelling more threats at you.  The ceiling then catches on fire, real fire, before the ride shoots you back into the darkness of the roller coaster section once again.  After more rotating beetles and coaster fun, you then head to the real exit with Brendan Frasier hamming it up again as you leave.  Overall, this was possibly my favorite ride in the Universal Studios part of the park and was a great experience that I highly recommend to visitors.  After this, Susan was feeling a little better so we made our way over to her most anticipated ride, The Simpsons Ride.

The Simpsons Ride

The queue for this one was in typical Simpsons form, pretty entertaining.  It definitely made the wait more bearable, which didn’t matter too much anyway since we only waited a few minutes.  The whole ride has a very carnival-esque feel to it with fake ads for different booths and various supporting characters running booths in the queuing line, for instance Groundskeeper Willie running the booth that involves hitting bottles with a baseball.  After being ushering into a second queuing area with just the group that will be in the car with us, we were treated to an original Simpsons short that lays out the premise of the ride, that being that Krusty has opened a new theme park called Krustyland but that Sideshow Bob has connived his way into getting the Simpsons into the first pilot group with a plot to kill them.  Meanwhile Maggie is left in charge of Grandpa, who promptly falls asleep allowing Maggie to wander into a nuclear radiation-infested room.  We, along with the Simpsons, were then ushered onto the ride where Bob proceeds to change the ride’s setting from Thrilling to Killing, setting off a whole sequence of ridiculously rough-and-tumble events, culminating in a giant, radioactive Maggie saving the day.  The ride is motion simulator-based where we were basically seated in an eight-person car that shakes, spins and tilts around using a series of hydraulics while the action is projected on a massive 80-foot high IMAX screen.  I thought it was pretty neat but ultimately nausea-inducing.  It was pretty much the only ride in the park that made me queasy and it certainly did nothing to make Susan feel any better. 

After this we made our way over to the Animal Actors on Location show which unfortunately had not started yet.  So while Susan was recovering I decided to wander into the E.T. Adventure ride.

E.T. Adventure

E.T. Adventure is a very tame dark house-style ride in which a group is seated on these bicycle-looking contraptions that hang from a rialto facilitate the illusion of a flying bicycle.  It was fairly primitive but got the job done.  Before boarding the ride I was issued a passport to E.T.’s home planet, or some such nonsense, where I gave them my first name and they gave me a bar-coded card to give to the ride operator.  The reasons for this become apparent later.  I was also treated to a video explaining the plot by Spielberg.  So I boarded the ride, and the first part involved E.T. fleeing from the nefarious F.B.I.  After escaping and doing the whole “flying across the moon” deal, you know what I’m talking about, I then arrived on E.T.’s home planet, where I was treated to a semi-grotesque menagerie of E.T.’s friends celebrating his return.  I want to point out that the set design on this portion of the ride was very impressive with lots of vibrant details from E.T.’s home planet that children should really enjoy.  At the very end of the ride, I was treated to E.T. then thanking myself and the other guys on the ride by first name (Aha! You see what they did there!).  I thought it was ok and a pleasant diversion.  I have a sort of soft spot for these old rides like this and the Monster Plantation at Six Flags over Georgia.  As a side note, I came back with Susan and rode this one again because I thought she might like it, and I was correct.   She thought the little mini-E.T. creatures that I found kind of creepy were cute.

Susan was still feeling kind of crappy, so we decided to watch a show to let her relax a little in some air conditioning.  So we made our way over to the Horror Make Up Show.

Horror Make Up Show

This one is basically intended to demonstrate how the make up in horror films were done.  The make-up specialist they brought in was way, way too hammy and got on my nerves almost immediately.  He did demonstrate a couple of interesting special effects on an elderly Philippine woman with a heart condition that they kept picking on in the audience.  It had a fairly cheesy ending involving a guy in a monster suit chasing the effects guy around.  If anything, the show didn’t feature enough behind-the-scenes special effects looks.  Overall it was an ok distraction, but nothing I’d recommend wholeheartedly unless you wanted to get out of the heat.

We then made our way over to Finnegan’s Bar & Grill for lunch, which featured traditional Irish food.  I thought my Bangers and Mash was actually very good but Susan seemed to be disappointed with her veggie burger.  After lunch, Susan was feeling better so we headed over to the notorious Jaws.

Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix Review

The first time I ever laid eyes on Mario Sunshine I thought, “Wow, there’s no way Mario could get more flamboyant than that…” I was so incredibly wrong.

DDR:MM contains many of the same trappings as previous DDR games. If you’ve played one, you’ve played them all, as ‘they’ say. The big and most obvious different with this one is of course the presentation and the story mode. DDR:MM features seven Mario game-based characters to dance as, with or against. It also features a plethora of Mario-based music with some public domain classical music mixed in as well. I never thought I would be playing DDR to a Mario song, and it feels weird to do so. Having Mario prancing about on screen as if he had been impaled by a giant rainbow and stuffed full of cotton candy and buttercups did not help to easy the uncomfortable feeling I had while dancing along.

Poor Waluigi. To date, this is the only Mario game that he has been placed front and center as the primary antagonist. If playing second fiddle to Wario isn’t bad enough, he has to act menacing in a DDR game? Geez. Next thing you know, he’ll be showing up as a villain in the next iteration of Nintendogs. The story mode in general is pretty thin, but really, it’s more than I expected. Anything more than ‘Pick song. Dance.’ Is more than I expected.

One thing I immediately noticed about this game in comparison to other DDR games is how easy it is. It might be a great starting place for people wanting to get into DDR if it weren’t so hard to find. As a result though, the hardcore DDR fans will find little to interest them here unless they just really want to dance to Mario songs.

Overall is it worth a recommendation? If you are into DDR or Mario then perhaps. Or you could always get a bunch of friends over and mock it. 

Speedy Gonzales: Los Gatos Banditos Review

Speedy Gonzales: Los Gatos Banditos for the Super Nintendo is an interesting experiment. They’ve basically taken the fast platforming of Sonic the Hedgehog and threw Speedy Gonzales, not one of the most popular Looney Tunes characters, in the midst of it. The level design isn’t as clean as Sonic so you will find yourself speeding along only to stop dead in your tracks to perform some awkward platforming. The enemies seem to be mostly bland and forgettable but the graphics are brightly colorful and crisp and suit the gameplay nicely.

The difficulty seems a little more gradual than many of the licensed games from this era, possibly still too steep for small children though. And given the tone and style of the game, this seems to be part of the audience they were trying to reach. I will definitely say it is much more suited for the younger age set that the frustratingly difficult Road Runner’s Death Valley Rally. Nevertheless, getting a competent platformer from a licensed title is a rarity in and of itself, so I think the game is worth a play or two.

A Whole Heapin' Helpin' of Video Game Reviews

Psychonauts (Xbox)

Tim Schaeffer never fails to amaze me. This guy has been responsible for some of the most humorous, innovative and just plain fun adventure games out there. Psychonauts is no different and fits so well within his body of work that it should come as no surprise that this game is highly creative and expertly designed.

The game is very story-driven with some of the most ingenious game mechanics I’ve seen in quite some time. Much of the early part of the game takes place in a camp to train future Psychonauts, people with extrasensory powers who are put through the ringer to render them capable of battling fiendish psychoses and mind-boggling (quite literally) nemeses. You play as Raz, a wannabe Psychonaut, who sneaks into the camp against his parents’ wishes in order to fulfill his destiny of mastering his psychic abilities. You then get pulled into a sinister plot involving a deranged doctor who wants to steal the psychic cadets’ brains to power a crazy super tank. You of course must rescue kids’ brains and stop the mad doctor with a few twists along the way.

The first thing to point out is that this is one of the funniest games I’ve played in a long time. From a level built around an extended Godzilla parody to a boss fight with an Ultraman mockery who shouts out literally what he’s doing before attacking to ridiculous luchadors to all sorts of crazies walled away in an asylum, the humor is highly diverse, ensuring that it could appeal to a wide range of people.

Even if all the game had going for it was the comedy, it would still be a great game. Fortunately though, the game also features some masterful level design with some incredibly epic (and sometimes frustratingly difficult) platforming. From the multi-layered, multi-scaled stages mixed with strategic board game of the Napoleon level to the gnarled, twisted platforming of the upper floors of the asylum to the crazy meat circus as you near the finale, the game never grows stale and always leaves you wondering what crazy imaginative world will come next.

If you haven’t guessed by now, I whole-heartedly recommend this criminally underplayed game unless of course you hate yourself. And if that’s the case, then you should probably go play Cabela’s Big Game Hunter.


Lego Rock Band (Xbox 360)

It seems like every time I’ve brought up Lego Rock Band people get confused. Why would they make a Rock Band game with Legos? Is it just the same Rock Band with Legos?

To answer the first question, they did to reach a more kid/family-friendly audience. Who doesn’t like Legos, right? Along with the cute and wacky Legos characters and storyline they’ve put in the game, the developers have also put together a family-friendly setlist to accompany it (for the most part…I’ll discuss this later).

To address the second question, it’s still basically Rock Band. Have they added any new or interesting features? Yes, in a couple of different ways. Some have been added to make the game a little more kid-friendly (are you seeing a theme yet?) and some have been added to flesh out the story mode a little more to bring out the humor that we’ve come to expect from a Lego game. One key thing they’ve changed to make this more family-oriented is that when you fail in a song, the song doesn’t stop. You just lose some points and keep going from where you failed. They’ve also added a Very Easy difficulty that basically has so few notes that it was thrown in to cater to very small children who just like to hold instruments and do whatever they want on them without worrying about creating havoc for the other players. To flesh out the story mode, they’ve added challenges that feature such ridiculous scenarios as requiring your band to rock so hard they demolish a building that the construction crew was having difficulty with or thawing out a ship that had been frozen over in the arctic, not to mention the whole alien finale. It’s also great to see some of the bands in the setlist represented as Lego characters like Queen, David Bowie, Iggy Pop and the mighty Spinal Tap.

Speaking of the aforementioned bands, and I had alluded to this earlier, is the questionable nature of the setlist for families. Why songs like Iggy Pop’s The Passenger or Spinal Tap’s Short & Sweet were included are beyond me. Do children listen to Iggy Pop? Maybe they associate him with the guy from Snow Day. Who knows? Then there are things like Ride A White Swan by T. Rex and Make Me Smile by Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel that I have to wonder if anyone will recognize. It seems like they are trying to please both the families and the Rock Band die-hards and I’m afraid they may end up losing some of both. I also had an unrelated qualm with the number of songs in this game comparing to previous Rock Band games. The setlist is about half of what it is normally. On the positive side of things, there are some great songs that families will love to play over and over again such as Ghostbusters and Kung Fu Fighting. One other question might be running through your head if you’re a long-term Rock Band fan. Will previous download content work with this game? The answer is sometimes. Harmonix has gone through all the previous download content and flagged it as family friendly if appropriate to Lego Rock Band. Sometimes the decision is questionable (Smash It Up by The Damned is family friendly?), but overall it makes sense why they would do this. Lego Rock Band is for the kids and Rock Band 2 is for the grownups.

You may have noticed I haven’t really discussed the core mechanics of the game much. This is because it plays exactly the same as previous Rock Band/Guitar Hero games and if you don’t know how those work, then you probably don’t have a video game console anyway because you live in a hole two miles below the surface of the earth.

Overall, it’s a little hard to determine whether I can completely recommend this game. But given its family friendly nature and enough songs to appeal to the core Rock Band fan with the ability to export them to your hard drive, I think I could safely suggest trying it out, particularly if the price point drops further.

Guitar Hero: Van Halen (Xbox 360)

Neversoft and co. have never shied away from spin-off games in the Guitar Hero series. With entire games for Aerosmith and Metallica as well as games such as Smash Hits and Band Hero that utilize the same formula, it becomes difficult to keep track of all the Guitar Hero games being churned out on what seems like a bi-monthly basis. So what sets GH:VH apart from other titles in the series other than just having a lot of Van Halen songs? Unfortunately not much. The formula is the same and they’ve even seemed to take a step back from GH: Metallica. Rather than having a fully fleshed out story mode like the previous game, in GH:VH you just get a list of songs to play with the actual Van Halen songs being portrayed in a live concert.

Front and center in this game is the massive ego of Eddie Van Halen. The opening cut scene even features Eddie coming out on stage and playing the song-length guitar solo Eruption as a spotlight focuses exclusively on him. This sets the tone of the game right from the start. As perhaps a peace offering to David Lee Roth, the game features no songs from any other singers. No Hagar. No Cherone (not to say were clamoring for him… sorry Gary but you just suck). Given than Van Hagar had a couple of pretty big hits, especially Right Now, I think a lot of people will call foul on this. An additional thing to note is that the other artists in the game, hand-picked by Van Halen apparently, seem at first to be highly at odds with the actual Van Halen music (Blink 182? Yellowcard?). But then it dawns on you. None of the hand-picked songs are anywhere close to as technically proficient on guitar as Eddie. The songs were basically picked to further feed Eddie’s ego.

So are the songs themselves fun to play? If you are a guitarist, then you will be in heaven on the actual Van Halen songs and be bored with most of the others. If you play bass or drums, you will probably start seeing a lot of the same patterns repeated throughout the songs. It’s telling that some of the hardest drum songs in the game aren’t Van Halen’s except “Hot For Teacher” (which is just as crazy here as it was in GH: World Tour) and a couple of others. The vocals are David Lee Roth. You will know immediately if this is your cup of tea, so I won’t spend any time on it.

Overall, this feels like much more of a slapped together effort than the previous Guitar Hero: Metallica with limited input from the band other than picking the song list. If you are a guitarist and want a fiendish challenge, this might be worth picking up especially if it gets cheaper or if you took advantage of the offer to get it free with the purchase of Guitar Hero 5 when it first came out. Otherwise, you may want to steer clear.


Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (GameCube)

Reboots of old series can be a tricky beast. Sometimes they succeed such as in the case of Metroid: Prime and others fail miserably like Golden Axe and Rygar. The best reboots take what made the original unique and fun to place and incorporates those traits into a complete makeover that breaks new ground of its own. Prince of Persia: SOT is such a game. The original PoP implemented a finely crafted, challenging and deliberately paced platform puzzle game which influenced other games such as Out of this World and Blackthorne. There are quite a few cell phone games using the same basic mechanic as well.

So what could a reboot of Prince of Persia bring to the table? Naturally it would be 3D rather than 2D like the original with excellent graphics for this generation. But many 3D games have attempted to capture the spirit of 2D games and fallen flat. What could SoT do to keep the spirit of the original while remaining an engaging and original game in its own right? Fluidity is a key part of this successful re-imagining. The original game was praised for the fluid movement of the prince and how gracefully he leapt through all manner of traps and pits. SoT does it one better. The platforming elements are incredibly fluid and feel almost effortless for how impressive the movements are. But that same fluidity has also been worked into the combat sequences. Using graceful, sweeping attacks that involve flipping, leaping off walls and gallantly slashing, the combat in SoT is a sight to behold as well as play. You will find yourself looking forward to the combat sequences just to see the prince in action.

So ok, the fluid movement looks cool and the controls respond well. What else? Honestly the game could have done this and probably still succeeded in what it set to out to accomplish. But rather than be content with a few really cool ideas, the developers also included a great new feature implemented exceedingly well: the ability to rewind time using the titular Sands of Time. By activating the sand, it allows you to rewind time a few seconds to before you made perhaps a misconceived leap or failed to block a blow from an enemy properly. Does this make the game too easy? I don’t think so. I felt the game had an excellent blend of challenge versus fun. I rarely found myself getting really frustrated with the game, but I also never got bored.

I haven’t really mentioned the storyline much because honestly it isn’t terribly substantial. It involves a bad guy trying to get his hands on the sands of time and an imperiled princess. But the story isn’t really the star here. I think people who like platforming and third person action games will love this game, particularly if they are the sort who likes platform-based action games but finds a lot of the actual platforming to be tedious or frustratingly difficult. I give this game a hearty recommendation to anyone that enjoys the sheer act of playing a video game. As a final word of warning though, I haven’t played the following PoP games, but I’ve read that the difficulty in them increases significantly. So be aware of that.


Mike Tyson’s Punch Out (NES)

You know what’s awesome? Punching people in the face. This is the first video game I recall playing that truly captured the satisfaction of punching someone in the face. Originally an arcade game and expertly ported to the NES, Mike Tyson’s Punch Out, and later Punch Out after Tyson got all bite-y, was packed full of wacky characters with incredibly satisfying and addictive gameplay.

In many respects Punch Out is less a boxing simulator and more an early rhythm game. The actual strategy of boxing mattered very little in Punch Out beyond using uppercuts and gut shots appropriately. Rather, the game focused more on memorizing patterns and reacting quickly and precisely to the enemies’ attacks. Watching someone stabbing buttons on the controller in Punch Out is not unlike watching the furious feet of a hardcore Dance Dance Revolution addict in the midst of some throbbing techno beat.

Another thing to note is that Little Mac was reduced in size from the arcade version due to the technical limitations of the NES, but it ended up working in the favor of the game. Watching Little Mac take on these massive boxers twice his size made the victories all the more satisfying whether it be the flamboyant Don Flamenco, the grossly obese King Hippo or the belligerently burly Bald Bull.

Is there even a question as to whether I would recommend this game? Of course not. It’s one of the most solidly entertaining games for the 8-bit generation, or any other generation for that matter. Play it and enjoy.

SNK vs Capcom: Match of the Millenium (NGPC)

Ever heard of the Neo Geo Pocket Color? Are you a fighting game fan? If the answer to those two questions is No then Yes, then you sir or madam have done a grave disservice to yourself. The NGPC not only had one of the most solid lineups of fighting games for any console, greatly in part due to SNK’s direct involvement in the launch of the handheld, but it also featured quite possibly the best D-pad I have ever used, designed specifically to be used in fighting games. The biggest negative to the system in my eyes was the lack of back-lighting, which given its competition with the GBA and little marketing muscle behind it ensured a quick demise.

So I talked about the handheld a little. How about the games? Well, due to the lack of success for the handheld the library is not huge, but if you were to look at the % of quality games released, this little guy would be near the top. And SNK vs. Capcom: MotM is probably the best fighting game for the system, which is pretty high praise considering the sheer number of good to great fighting games released for it.

Like its home console brethren, SvC:MotM features a solid and diverse lineup of characters from all manner of SNK and Capcom fighting games. Despite having to scale back on the graphics for a handheld, presenting the fighters as sort of chibi figures, the graphics are crisp and clear with a solid frame rate and no slowdown that I ever noticed. And as any fighting game fan knows, these are critical components of a well-balanced fighter, balance being a key word here. This is I feel one of the most balanced fighters I’ve played in a long time with each character having distinct strengths and weaknesses that never seem too exploitive. At no point did I use a fighter that I felt was significantly more powerful than the others.

In closing, I suggest that you immediately hit up your favorite online auction site and snatch up a Neo Geo Pocket Color and as many fighting games as you can, especially this one.


Clash at Demonhead (NES)

Ah, the days of the NES… The days when even a mediocre platformer could stand out amongst the wretched dreck populating the system in its hayday, which brings us to Clash at Demonhead. Point #1 working in its favor is that it begins with an overhead map akin to that of Mario 3 or Bionic Commando with multiple branching paths in places that allow you to choose the direction you wish to play. Once selecting a level, it changes to your typical side-scrolling platformer. The game also features upgrade-able weapons, not too common in this era. Point #2 in its favor is the responsive controls. In an era where many platformers featured imprecise, slippery or unresponsive controls, CaD manages to create controls that feel natural and intuitive.

Point #1 against it is that the graphics are rather bland. The game lacks a lot of the detail of the great platformers of the NES such as the Mario series, Kirby’s Adventure and the like. Point #2 against it is that the actual platform levels tend to be rather repetitive and not particularly inventive in any way. The enemies likewise are somewhat uninspired as well.

So it sounds like it about breaks even, right? Like I alluded to at the beginning, here’s a classic example of a mediocre platformer that does just enough to set it apart from the throngs of terrible games inundating the NES. Whether or not it’s worth playing is entirely up to how much you enjoy platformers. I say, why not? It could be worse.


James Bond Jr. (SNES)

Does anyone remember this cartoon/merchandising blitz from the early 90’s? No? I can’t say I’m surprised. It featured basically the “nephew” of the exotic super agent 007 (I personally suspect him of being a bastard child from one of Bond’s hundreds of conquests… I mean, why the Jr.?) setting out to thwart the evil organization S.C.U.M. in their various nefarious plots.

Of course, this is completely irrelevant to the SNES game of the same name as it gives you even less plot to go off of than the TV series did. The first level consists of mediocre platforming, delivering bland gameplay even for a licensed title on the SNES. Then for some random reason, it switches to a side-scrolling shooter where you pilot a helicopter shooting down planes and bombing tanks. I don’t recall Jr. bombing tanks in the cartoon… This section is somewhat enjoyable at first but quickly becomes tedious as it goes on for far too long.

I don’t want to penalize a game for trying to mix things up and implement different sorts of gameplay, but when all of them are done poorly, that’s when I take umbrage. I think there might be a 3D driving section also, but honestly I got so bored I stopped playing after the helicopter level. I say, just don’t bother.


Ninja Warriors (SNES)

Most little known games for the SNES are rightly left forgotten. Donald Trump could build a tower with the cartridges of terrible games for this system. But sometimes, we come across a hidden gem, an unheralded game with fun gameplay and great graphics that somehow slipped through the cracks and never achieved the success it deserved. Ninja Warriors is such a game. With the actual cartridges now relegated to rare status, fetching pretty high prices on eBay, most will discover this game through the use of emulators. I was lucky enough to snag an original copy in a pawn shop, but regardless of where you get this game, I guarantee you will have a good time with it.

Ninja Warriors is a beat-em-up similar in gameplay to Final Fight and the like but in 2D rather than having a slightly isometric perspective. Where it excels is in its tight controls, richly textured graphics, and fun beat-em-up action. You can choose from three different fighters, each with different abilities to aid you in your fight. One thing this game does right over many other games of its ilk is in variety. You are always coming across new locations and enemies to traverse and fight respectively. No longer do you have to deal with killing the same drably dressed street thug over and over again with a slightly different name.

The plot? One of the most awesome things I’ve ever heard. Here’s a synopsis coutesy of Wikipedia detailing the plot of the arcade original from which this is based:

The game is based in a dystopian future where the Bangler, the President of the United States in 1993, issues martial law on the nation, with the military having total control over the law - but not the ninjas. A group of anarchist scientists decide that it is time to revolt against the government. Knowing full well that approaching the military themselves could be considered an all out suicide mission, the scientists create two prototype cybernetic ninjas that can sustain various forms of damage in order to do the mission for them. These ninjas, code named "Ninja" and "Kunoichi", are sent by the scientists in order to assail Bangler and end his tyranny once and for all.

I have no real negative comments for this game. You need to play it. C’mon, man… Ninjas… I promise it’s better than Wrath of the Black Manta.

Zack & Wiki Review

It seems like the old school graphic adventure is making a small comeback. With old LucasArts franchises like Monkey Island and Sam & Max being updated for a new generation and games like Phoenix Wright doing well for the DS, things are looking pretty good for adventure game fans. For every Professor Layton that performs well enough to warrant sequels is a Zack & Wiki, a game that was critically acclaimed but that people just did not buy. It’s unfortunate because although it is not without its faults, I feel Zack & Wiki is a solidly entertaining point & click adventure game with some of the most fiendish puzzles I’ve seen in quite some time.

The plot is pretty inconsequential, involving a ghost pirate that requests that you scour various worlds for his body parts so he can reward you with his awesome pirate ship. The visual design of the game is very animé-influenced with a very kiddy-oriented appearance. This is highly deceptive given the very high difficulty of the game as it progresses closer to the end. I would also like to point out that the monkey, Wiki, was highly irritating. But what’s an animé without an annoying creature to torment the main character?

The puzzles in general are very clever and require a lot of lateral thinking skills. Some, particularly toward the end, can get very frustrating due to what I refer to Sierra Adventure Syndrome, the practice of a game forcing you to restart to a much earlier point in the game due to a random object you didn’t collect that you need much later in the game. With Zack & Wiki being divided into different worlds with each puzzle area being self-contained, it isn’t quite as bad as having to restart the game. But some levels are very long and missing a crucial switch or item can lead to replaying through thirty minutes of game over and over again to get it right through trial and error. This sort of situation doesn’t become a real nuisance until fairly late in the game when the time to play through the levels grows to 45 minutes or longer. Also, this game more than many requires a LOT of trial and error to getting some of the puzzles since there are hidden traps and murderous enemies scattered about randomly.

I think a key issue with the game though is the control scheme. Wii Waggle is ok in moderation if it isn’t broken, but when a game such as this one is highly dependent on the motion controls and they just plain don’t work, particularly in timed puzzles, it can be very irritating. And this game does indeed have its fair share of unnecessarily irritating moments due to bad controls. But I don’t feel they are frequent enough to not recommend the game.

Overall, I think Capcom has done a fine job of creating a fun and challenging puzzle adventure albeit one with questionable controls. Adventure game fans take note.