Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (Review)

From the very start, the newest game in the Mario & Luigi series is leaps and bounds better than the previous Partners in Time entry. The story this time around sees a mysterious virus causing the Toads in Mushroom Kingdom to become extremely fat. During a meeting to find a cure for the outbreak, Bowser storms the kingdom's castle only to be defeated by Mario. He stumbles off to a forest where a merchant sells him a strange mushroom that it gives Bowser an ability to suck up things. It also puts him temporarily under the merchant's control, which turns out to be Fawful from Superstar Saga, making a welcome reappearance. Bowser again storms the castle and swallows the brothers and everybody else up, while Fawful plots to take over the kingdom. It's a crazy story and one that is actually engaging to go through, showing us aspects of the Mario universe that have never been seen before (Bowser‘s Insides notwithstanding). The game also features some of the best humor I've ever experienced in a Mario game. Like in Superstar Saga, Fawful’s lines are pure gold and Bowser is just hilarious.

Mario & Luigi don’t really do anything new in terms of gameplay, so Bowser joins the fray as a fully playable character. This adds a completely new take on a franchise that was starting to get a little stale. A good portion of the game is spent playing as Bowser and it feels more like Mario and Luigi are supporting characters with Bowser as the star of the show. In combat, Mario and Luigi still focus on jumping and hammering, Bowser mainly attacks by punching and fire-breathing. In addition, Bowser can use his newly-acquired vacuum ability to inhale some enemies and let the Bros. deal with things. Outside of battle, the Marios have to help Bowser out in a variety of ways since they are stuck inside him. At certain points, Bowser tries pull off extraordinary feats that he would not normally be able to do. When this happens, Mario and Luigi power him up by playing a variety of mini-games and unlike the past games these are actually pretty enjoyable. One of my favorites is a recurring mini game where Bowser needs his arm muscles powered up and you have to play a rhythm-based game as Mario and Luigi where you hit balls of electricity with into the muscle tissue with your hammers.

It seems that the developers have learned from their previous mistakes, and have improved this game based on that. Partners in Time suffered from featuring enemies that simply had too much HP. Well, this time around, all the enemies' HP got toned down a bit and have their attacks boosted instead. Some of the enemies hang around a bit longer than they have any business to and a lot of enemies have attacks that are just flat out cheap and over-powered, but it’s a hell of a lot better than Partners in Time’s time wasting showdowns. It'll take around 10-15 hours to complete the game, and beyond that there's still rare items, beans, and fun side-quests to invest more time in. Overall I’d say that Bowser’s Inside Story is actually better than the original Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga in terms of quality. It’s full of laughs, entertaining gameplay and takes the best qualities of the past games, and adds new twists to them to create a very enjoyable experience that belongs in any Mario fan’s library.

Songs I Like - Vol 5: "Sweet Dreams" (Beyoncé)

Sweet Dreams is the most recent single from Beyonce's I Am/Sasha Fierce album, which I still haven't gotten around to buying despite owning the previous two albums. I've recently become enamored by a guy I've become friends with in the pass couple of weeks and I think of him everytime I listen to this song.

Sweet Dreams Lyrics:

Turn the lights on

Every night I rush to my bed
With hopes that maybe I'll get a chance to see you
When I close my eyes I'm going out of my head
Lost in a fairytale, can you hold my hands and be my guide?

Clouds filled with stars cover the skies
And I hope it rains, you're the perfect lullaby
What kinda dream is this?

You could be a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare
Either way I don't wanna wake up from you
(Turn the lights on)

Sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare
Somebody pinch me, your love's too good to be true
(Turn the lights on)

My guilty pleasure, I ain't going no where
Baby long as you're here I'll be floating on air
'Cause you're my

You can be a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare
Either way I don't wanna wake up from you
(Turn the lights on)

I mention you when I say my prayers
I wrap you around all of my thoughts
Boy you're my temporary high

I wish that when I wake up you're there
To wrap your arms around me for real
And tell me you'll stay by side

Clouds filled with stars cover the skies
And I hope it rains, you're the perfect lullaby
What kinda dream is this?

You could be a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare
Either way I don't wanna wake up from you
(Turn the lights on)

Sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare
Somebody pinch me, your love's too good to be true
(Turn the lights on)

My guilty pleasure, I ain't going no where
Baby long as you're here I'll be floating on air
'Cause you're my

You can be a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare
Either way I don't wanna wake up from you
(Turn the lights on)

Tattoo your name across my heart so it will remain
Not even death can make us part
What kind of dream is this?

You could be a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare
Either way I don't wanna wake up from you
(Turn the lights on)

Sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare
Somebody pinch me, your love's too good to be true
(Turn the lights on)

My guilty pleasure, I ain't going no where
Baby long as you're here I'll be floating on air
'Cause you're my

You can be a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare
Either way I don't wanna wake up from you
(Turn the lights on)
Either way I don't wanna wake up from you

Hung - Season 1 (Review)

I guess any show whose opening title sequence features someone stripping naked is worth a look. Hung is about Ray Drecker, a high-school teacher in a mid-life crisis. His wife left him for a another man, and his house caught on fire and his insurance policy just lapsed. With no other options, Ray takes the advice of Tanya, a woman he just slept with, to use his god given gift of a big penis to whore himself out with Tanya as his pimp. Hung feels like a combination of three fairly recent shows: Secret Dairies of a Call Girl mixed with Weeds and just a little pinch of Californication. Hung had a lot going for it before it premiered, mostly do to its casting. Thomas Jane is fine lead actor despite appearing in rather forgettable films like The Punisher, while Jane Adams in the role Tonya gives the standout performance and it took me a while to figure out that I recognized her from her brief stint as Niles' second wife on Fraiser. Sadly, while the casting and premise are solid, the execution is very lackluster.

The overall arc of this season basically sees Ray and Tanya adjusting to their new lives as prostitute and pimp. The story arc remains rather stagnate and repetitive for the whole season. Time is constantly wasted either reminding Ray and Tanya why they need to stick it out in their new line of work or watching Ray have sex with lots of pretty women. There's not much difference in plot between the first couple of episodes and the last few and the sole diversion we get during this time is a completely pointless love story between Ray and Jemma, his best client. Nothing is gained from the romance in terms of character development and the revelation of Jemma's intentions for Ray are unbelievably asinine.

Even worse is that a lot of the supporting characters have genuinely interesting stories to tell, like Ray's supposedly gay son Damon who has some complex and twisted emotions hiding beneath his surface. He gets an unresolved storyline at the end of the season that shows that he could be just a straight kid with pretensions of being gay. It would have been nice to see this aspect of his personality explored a bit more, but apparently the show was more interesting in watching Ray have sex, continually contemplate his situation and do other things we've seen him do multiple times throughout the season. There was so much opportunity for Hung to be more than it wound up becoming which was an an underwhelming debut season. The show was inexplicably renewed for a second season early in its run and I hope the show becomes a bit more engaging next year. Hung isn't a bad show, its just not what it was hyped up to be.

I Can Do Bad All By Myself (Review)

Madea Goes to Jail failed to get me interested in seeing anymore Tyler Perry movies, so I didn’t have any intentions on seeing this one until I was dragged to it anyway by friends. Well, I figured it couldn’t be too much of a waste of time. The film has some kids breaking into Madea’s house, who proceeds to call their aunt, April to look after the brats. Naturally, April has her own problems like her abuse of alcohol and her dirt bag married boyfriend. A handyman named Sandino moves in with her to repair her home and bonds with the kids. April faces the usual conflicts associated with every Tyler Perry film before coming to a proper decision before the credits roll.

I must admit I was surprised by this movie. Maybe it was because I wasn‘t expecting much, but I enjoyed it. Sure, the melodrama is uninspired and sees April having to make choices that any sane person would solve instantly like having to choose to be with a disgusting, degrading, and just plain evil married man or a friendly sexy Mexican guy who likes to help others, but it’s mostly pulled off effectively thanks to decent casting. Taraji Henson in particular is a wonderful lead actress as she knows what to do to convey her character’s emotions and as a result they feel natural, while Adam Rodriguez is likable as the required knight in shining armor. The kids are played well, though their main job is to act cute and sympathetic. Their backstory and current dilemma is ridiculously cliche, only missing physical abuse to complete their sob story. There are also some outstanding R&B performances in a nightclub by some big name artists like Mary J. Blige and Gladys Knight that resonate with the themes of the story

Madea Goes to Jail was a schizophrenic film, flipping randomly between comedy and cheap hard-hitting melodrama; this outing is way more consistent. Madea is still the highlight as far as spitting rapid fire jokes and one liners are concerns and the film does a good job of letting the humor bounce off of the emotionally charged moments without feeling abrupt. The downside is that the comedic moments are more prominent in first half of the movie and almost nonexistent at the latter end, but luckily it doesn’t affect the overall tone as badly as in Madea Goes to Jail. Although the movie doesn’t change my opinion of Tyler Perry films, at least there’s a chance that his talents are starting to improve.

My Weekend at AWA 2009

This past weekend I unexpectedly went off with a large group of friends to Amine Weekend Atlanta (AWA) in... well Atlanta. AWA is some kind of 3 day anime, video game, pop culture convention that one of my friends go to every year and this year I was invited to go with him and his friends at the cost of 70 bucks. So I figured "what the hell", I've never been to anything like this before and it's been years since I've been on anything even remotely resembling a vacation. What followed may as well have been the most fun I've have all year.

("Part of my motley crew")

There were 12 of us on this trip, a few I've met before (most of them only a week ago) and we plowed into 2 vans and spent about 5 hours on the road heading to Atlanta. The hotel we spent our weekend at was ritzy, but cheap, charging five dollars for some stupid bottle of water and fifteen bucks a night for an internet connection. While in our conjoining rooms, I slowly but surely started bonding with these people. We all had similar interest and attitudes and just had a blast screwing around with each other. The day before leaving I bought the new Mario & Luigi game with intention of playing it when there was dull down-time between events, but I barely touched the thing as I was spending all my time laughing and messing around with my new friends in the room and during the convention itself. ("Various Kingdom Hearts Characters" )
("Angry Video Game Nerd Vs. Nostalgia Critic" )

The main attraction to this convention is seeing a bunch of people cos-play as bunch of different characters. Over the course of the weekend I saw a lot people dressed as my favorite characters: Mario Bros, Zelda, Pokemon, The Joker, and even The Angry Video Game Nerd and The Nostalgia Critic. The thing I learned from all of this is that cos-play is less about people actually wanting to be these characters and more about people just wanting to show off some cool stuff that they made. One of the only things my friends complained about that I noticed more towards the end of the convention is that the cos-players showed an over reliance on certain franchises. Well over 80% of the people dressed up as characters from Bleach, Naurto, or Kingdom Hearts. It would have been nice if there had been more variety of franchise representation.

(It's Over 9000!!!!)

(The Comedian(Justin) and Rorschach)
(The Mario Sisters)

There was quite a full list of events planned at this convention from watching various anime to pokemon trivia contest to cos-play 101, but I didn't attend most of them. Usually the lines to these things were too long for me to tolerate, so I usually spent most of time with one of my friends in the dealer's room where you can buy rare Japanese merchandise. There were action figures, DVDs, video games, dolls, and swords. I managed to walk out there with a Dragonball Z and Sonic the Hedgehog figure, a Kirby doll, and a couple of Mario Galaxy cards. The downside was that everything was overpriced, a side effect of most of the items being imported I suppose.

(Rikki Simons: the voice of GIR)

(Set phasers to stunning)

The place I spent a huge chunk of time at towards the end of the convention was the artist room where people can go and view and buy fan art. Nathan and I spent too much time and money here, but all of the drawings were just too good to pass up. The coolest thing we managed to do in this room was meet Rosearik Rikki Simons who did the voice of GIR from Invader Zim. We got pictures with him and he autographed some pictures and it was just too cool for words. I really wished I had job so I could buy some more stuff. (I think I just rediscovered my love of Pokemon)
(A yeti eating chris's head, a flamer, and Nathan)

Come Sunday afternoon it was time for us to depart this wonderful locale and head back to our dull reality. Overall I had a blast and have come to find the friends I roomed with as people I can't wait to see again. Nathan and I made plans to go another convention in November, but I seriously doubt that would actually come to be. I'll definitely go back to AWA next year if these people go as well.

The Real World: Cancun (Review)

MTV didn’t give anyone time to recuperate after the end of Real World: Brooklyn, giving us a new season only two months later. The Brooklyn season sort of returned to the more respectful Real World of old with legitimately interesting people learning from each other even when they were fighting about something stupid. I expressed concerns that Real World: Cancun would undo all of that and go right back to the sleazy, moron-fest it’s been for the last decade and, for the most part, I was right. None of the cast members this season had any interesting stories to tell or even showed something resembling common sense and every episode showed them going to clubs getting drunk, hooking up and getting into arguments.

However, The Real World is nothing without drama and Cancun was actually decent for a little while because there was near constant confrontations. There’s an engaging and intense feud between the house bitch Ayiia and punk rocker Joey that becomes increasingly severe as each episode goes by. Unfortunately, Joey winds up getting kicked out of the house for an unrelated incident and since Joey was one of two people in the house worth watching, most of the entertainment of the show went with him while Ayiia proceeded to do nothing for the rest of the show. After the Joey/Ayiia arc, the season drags on with a love triangle story between token black girl Jasmine, morally weak-minded, two-timer Jonna and co-worker Pat. It was fun to watch for maybe one or two episodes, but it stretched on and on and on for far too many episodes with little to no fireworks exploding. It became redundant and mind-numbing to watch after so long and showed how unlikable most of the women on the show were. With the slight exception of the underused Emilee, the women in this season were without morals. They slipped into bed with anyone, betrayed anyone for no apparent reason and then cried because they got called on it.

The best cast member without a doubt was crazy party boy Bronne. He mostly stayed out of the drama and just did his own thing which was playing jokes and just goofing around. Once again, all good things come to an end when Bronne gets kicked out of the house (he’s was still on the show, he just had to find a new place to stay) and any source of humor the show had leaves with him as he’s barely featured after that. The other two male cast members were CJ and token gay guy Derek, but they don’t do anything of actual intrest…well CJ gets to tryout for the NFL but it’s plays out rather irritatingly. All in all, The Real World: Cancun returned the series to it’s predictable trite. The season started of kinda promisingly and then faltered with stupid plots that lingered into the last couple of shows. If it wasn’t for incredible Bronne, intriguing Joey, and the temporarily interesting drama, Cancun would have been garbage. The next season is set to be in Washington D.C so maybe there’s some hope for it to good, but I wouldn’t hold my breathe.

Jackass 2.5 (Review)

Jackass 2.5 is nothing more than a glorified dvd bonus feature that was released straight to dvd exactly one year after Jackass Number Two’s dvd release. The film is comprised of deleted material from the second film with interviews from the cast interspersed throughout making the feature a bit more like a documentary than the usual compilation of stunt footage, but thankfully the guys are pretty interesting to listen to. There was two movies worth of segments filmed for Jackass Number Two, and about 90% of the unused bits ended up on the extra features sections of that movie’s dvd. Almost all of that footage was as funny and well done as the footage that made it in the film, but most of what is shown in Jackass 2.5 are failed stunts or stuff that wasn’t noteworthy to begin with. There’s some pretty good stunts here like Bam’s ass kite, the obstacle course race and the gang riding mini bikes through a grocery store, but most of the stuff here is fairly mediocre and forgettable and of course Dave England has to keep taking a shit on camera much to the disgust of everyone. I thought Jackass 2.5 was pretty good. It’s not as incredible of a comedy outing as its theatrical counterparts, but there is enough funny material in the film's brief run-time to give it a look.

Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time (Review)

The sequel to Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga didn’t endear itself to me as well as its predecessor. In fact, I’d say it’s a noticeable step backwards. This time around Professor E. Gadd has made a time machine and Princess Peach decides to test it out. While in the past she gets attacked by Princess Shroob. Mario & Luigi then proceed to go back in time to save her and they see an alien race called the Shroobs attacking the Mushroom Kingdom of the past. Later, they meet their past selves (i.e. Baby Mario and Baby Luigi), and the four team up to save their past and present from the alien race. The story is just annoying, nothing that happens in the past directly affects the present. The baby Mario bros don’t get their minds erased or anything at the end of the game so why are the present versions unable to remember any of this? Even worse are the antagonists, the Shroob army, led by the intolerable Princess Shroob. They’re smug, annoying, cliché, and speak an unintelligible language which renders any chance for proper characterization impossible. From what I can gather, they’re just evil and want to take over the world because it’s there. The game tries to throw a plot twist at us late in the game, with a couple of hints along the way, but everything I hoped for was more interesting than the actual twist.

The gameplay is pretty much the same as the last game, only this time there are four characters to work with. The Mario team still have humorous abilities used to gain access to new areas. When traveling together, the baby bros ride piggyback on Mario & Luigi. The team is required to activate 4-person panels, throw the babies onto trampolines to discover areas above-ground, and split up to simultaneously hit switches to open up further parts of the levels. There are a few more moves, but I found myself doing these same actions over and over, and unlike Superstar Saga, the situations in which these abilities are used don’t become more challenging as the game progresses, so it gets fairly repetitive.

Despite the addition of the babies, the battle system is the same as before. The bros attack is replace with bros items. There’s a large selection of items that, like regular attacks, depend on timed button presses. These are kinda cool but tiring to pull off because of how confusing the button combinations are. Most of the items have the characters launching themselves at enemies and you have to press the right button for the right character when they appear. The timing can be too rapid and random at times, but the amount of damage these moves do is worth it. The thing that’s really bad about the battling in this game is that there are a tons of enemy encounters, and most (if not all) of the battles are very lengthy, so a ludicrous amount of time is spent in mostly simple combat. The bosses are even worse, they’re easy to conquer, but have way to much health and take an insane amount of time to defeat. I found myself completely bored in the most of the fights and practically took a nap during the final boss. Even if you're using lots of powerful items it just takes forever to deplete their large amounts of HP. Ultimately, the game feels like it was either rushed badly or the developers didn't put much effort into it. There are some moments where the humor and the gameplay manage to be on par with the original, but they’re not enough to save this mediocre RPG. There’s a new game in this series coming out this week and it looks like it could be an improvement. Here’s to wishful thinking.

Jackass Number Two (Review)

Jackass: The Movie was intended to be the finale of the Jackass series. Afterwards Bam Margera and his crew went on to star in their own spin-off series, Viva La Bam, while Chris Pontius and Steve-o did a spin-off of their own called Wildboyz. Several years later, both shows ran their course and Jackass headman Johnny Knoxville decided on a whim to reunite the crew and do another movie. Jackass Number Two progresses exactly the same as the first movie in that it’s comprised of a series of stunts and pranks with no plot. Everything about this second feature is bigger and better than the first, from the stunts and jokes and even the technical quality of the film itself.

The TV series and initial film featured a lot of the guys pulling pranks on the unsuspecting public, but since then the cast has become more recognizable so almost all of the segments here are the guys inflicting punishment on each other. The only time the public gets involved is when Johnny and one other guy don prosthetics and poses as old people. These bits start off funny but get a bit repetitive each time they pop up. The stunts preformed this time around are just hilarious from the guys having a medicine ball fight in the dark, Bam Margera getting several things put on or up his ass, Johnny trying to catch an anaconda in ball pit, or the really bizarre song and dance finale. The only real bad skit is watching Dave England take a shit…again…its just not funny. That bit aside, I can’t find anything remotely bad about the film. It’s not high art, but I’m up for a Jackass 3 if they ever make it.

21 (Review)

21 is based on the Ben Mezrich book "Bringing Down the House”. It’s about an MIT student named Ben Campbell, who can’t afford to go to Harvard med school. His physics professor Micky Rosa offers him a spot in his secret card counting team earning tons of money by counting cards at Blackjack in Las Vegas casinos. Ben gets into the lifestyle, which inevitably comes around to bite him in the ass. I’ve been wanting to see this movie for a while now, despite never reading the book or viewing any of director Robert Luketic’s previous films. I found it to be a lively drama, but it’s kept from greatness by some rotten direction choices. The movie had an interesting premise and how these guys were able to work the system intrigued me. Sadly, I never felt like I was really seeing the tension of the card-counting system. There’s loads of exposition in a training sequence, and while I got the gist of it, the actual mechanics of the gang’s scheme never felt like they were expounded upon seemed to cause the blackjack sequences to lose some of the excitement they’re suppose to contain.

From the start of the film, the direction of the plot is too predictable. The big rule Ben has to follow is keeping his emotions out of the game and never gamble, so obviously, there will be a point where he gives in to all the fun and fails to pay attention to the consequences. There are some relatively weak side stories along the way such as the needless conflict between Ben and his best friends, conflict with a fellow team member, and of course, the forced love story. The best friends melodrama fails to make an impact (or make much sense) as it comes out of nowhere and the conflict doesn’t seem to stem from anything other than Ben not hanging out with them on weekends(when he’s in Vegas). The quarrel with the teammate was predictable and didn’t service the story in any conceivable way and the same goes for the love story which was just there for the sake of having it, a horrible trend in movies these days.

It also doesn’t help that apart from Ben, nobody in the movie has any perceivable sympathy. Luketic made the poor decision to basically sacrifice the human element of the film which creates problems throughout the story, like when we’re expected to relate to the card counting team or Ben’s friends but they come off as twats who have nothing better to do than pursue their own interests and screw each other over. The antagonistic forces of Micky and the obsolete Vegas video surveillance security forces are just plain infuriating and obnoxious and I couldn’t wait for their comeuppance…which to the film’s credit was pretty satisfying.

In spite of all this, 21 was still fairly enjoyable to watch, primarily because it’s well paced and does a decent job of making the strategy architecture thrilling through use of detail-oriented photography and special effect. Jim Sturgess delivers an excellent performance as Ben and the same goes to Kevin Spacey as Micky (at least until Micky start acting like smug twerp). It’s an okay movie that could have been much better if a little more common sense had been applied the production.

Metroid: Zero Mission (Review)

My friend replaying the first Metroid Prime along with the Prime Trilogy’s recent release on the Wii has got me in the mood to play through some of the games in the franchise. Metroid: Zero Mission is a retelling of the first Metroid game for the NES. It adds some of the conveniences of the later games like save stations and a much needed map system, which pretty much eliminates the big problems I had with the original game. The game follows intergalactic bounty hunter Samus Aran as she ventures through Planet Zebes to destroy the evil Mother Brain and the space pirates armada. This version of the game tacks on a new final area and final boss that feel a little too disconnected from the rest of the main story, although it does help tie in some bits of Super Metroid.

Throughout the game, you explore the many areas of the planet, acquire different upgrades; such as morph ball, missiles, and the varia suit. The basic formula of the game (and every other game in the series) has you progress through the game until you reach an obstacle you can't overcome, so you have to backtrack (a lot) to get the item to overcome the obstacle. All of the weapons and upgrades will help in the mission and have their own interesting uses. The morph ball can let you roll up into a ball and reach tiny spaces, The missiles destroy certain blocks (and kills enemies faster) so blocked areas can be accessed, while the varia suit allows Samus to enter areas with high radiation and heat. After you get an upgrade, you immediately use it's core purpose, allowing you to practice with it. But you still find uses for all of the abilities long after you find them. All of the abilities are easy to handle and easy to control. The game has a very impressive gameplay control scheme, which helps create an atmosphere that puts you in Samus’ suit. The level designs are very good. Almost every room is unique, each with it's own set of puzzles and obstacles.

In the original game, there were only three bosses. But this one added a couple of new mini-bosses which, sadly, they only exist for the purpose of testing out new skills and weapons. The game isn’t that difficult as long you seek out the health and ammo upgrades. There is a rather sudden and bizarre increase and then decrease in difficulty at latter end of the game. Mother Brian is a horribly cheap bastard of a boss with attacks coming in at you from every angle at every second, while the new final boss hardly puts up a fight. Metroid Zero Mission mostly stayed true to the original game and the improvements to the game's formula have simply reduced frustrating and unnecessary difficulty found in the original due to the technical limitations. I enjoyed it and believe it’s a must play for fans of the series.

The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge (Review)

It's somewhat interesting how The Nightmare Before Christmas became a mega-cult hit in America roughly over a decade after it's initial release. Now-a-days its the go to franchise for the emo/goth crowd and the movie itself has become a lot more noteworthy to casual audiences. I've only seen the film twice before, largely due to the interest from the film's inclusion in the Kingdom Hearts series. In Japan, the fandom of the movie never really died down so it comes to no big surprise that Capcom decided to make a game based off of it. The game acts as a sequel taking place one year after the events of the movie. Jack, still longing after something different, decides to go out in search of new scares again. Before departure, Dr. Finklestein gives Jack the Soul Robber, a gooey whip that can stretch out and change shape. But, when Jack returns to Halloween Town, he finds that the towns changed for the worse. While absent, Lock, Shock and Barrel have sewn Jack's nemesis Oogie Boogie together again and he is lusting for revenge(as you can tell from the game's title). The story and writting is pretty stale and bare-bones, but it is at least tolerable due to the admirable voice acting. A few of the the original VAs returned, Chris Saradon is Jack, Ken Page is Oogie Boogie, and the characters who have new voices are quite similar to the originals.

The game is a modified version of Capcom's own Devil May Cry series and the game doesn't do much to hide this. Like DMC, the levels are presented as a series of chapters, each of which is relatively short consisting nothing more than killing a horde enemies and maybe fighting a boss. There's a version of DMC's “Style Ranking”, where constant attack combos result in a “coolness title” that will increase upon scoring more and more hits on opponents. And at the end of each level, the game tallies up how well you did in four categories (damage, time, surprise, and max combo), then assigns an overall ranking. It doesn't do any of this as well as Devil May Cry, but it did it well enough to ensure I was at least mildly entertained til the end. The thing that really sticks out for the game are the Boss Battles which act as musical numbers...of course, what would Nightmare Before Christmas be without some singing and dancing? The songs are modified versions of songs from the film (only one song is brand new) and during the fight you collect notes as you hit the boss, grab enough and everyone will start dancing while you press onscreen buttons to inflict massive damage. The songs and dancing sequences are the only part of the game I really like and helped the game stand on it's own a little better. Mega-fans of the movie will get a lot more mileage with this game than most people. The game is solidly put together despite most of it being copy and pasted from others and it applies the Nightmare Before Christmas brand pretty well. It's just an overall good game.

Jackass: The Movie (Review)

Every teenage boy has one. That R-rated movie that they're too young to see and no matter how much you beg and plead, your parents just won't allow you to see it. Jackass: The Movie was my one. I was a big fan of the Jackass television show and I was 14 when the series hit the big screen and I kept holding out hope that my parents would let me see it, but to no avail. I finally bought the dvd about 2 years later and found it to be well worth the wait. For the uninitiated, Jackass was a popular MTV show that ran for about 3 years. Johnny Knoxville and his group of frat boy-esque friends performed various dangerous, disgusting, and hilarious stunts or pranks. The show faced the expected controversy of having brain-dead teenagers attempt the stunts that show warns people not to try, but it wasn't enough to stop Jackass from becoming one of the MTV's most popular shows.

Jackass makes the transition to the big screen flawlessly, this is largely because the show was nothing more than a bunch of random segments and the movie is just as much. Just like the show there is no plot or no script, it's all just pure idiocy at its best. With the exception of the opening and closing credit sequence, the actual technical quality of the film is only a slight fraction better than show, at best. The only real difference is that since the film isn't confined by rules of television, the cast knew they could get away with doing stunts they could never do on the show. So, we get a couple of stunts that are more dangerous and crude than usual, like Johnny trying rocket roller skates, Steve-o and Chris Pontius firing fireworks from their anus and groin respectively, and Bam Margera trying to get his mom to say fuck in addition to plenty of unblurred male ass running about. This crew of pranksters just keep on dreaming up more elaborate ways to punish themselves and it just gets funnier as the film goes along. Some of the stunts are a little too much like the paper cut bit or the incredibly unneeded segment were Dave England poops in a department store display toilet, but the good bits far out weigh the bad. The end result is a collection of some of the best physical comedy available. It's not smart, it's not witty, it's just solid entertainment.

Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga (Review)

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars gave birth to further adventures for Mario in the RPG genre. While Legend of the Seven Stars essentially evolved into the Paper Mario series on later home consoles, it also gave way for a rather interesting and enjoyable handheld outing in 2003. Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga is the first Mario game to legitimately feature Luigi as an important character and equal contributor to an adventure as it seems fair to state that he only really existed in the classic games if there were two players. The game sees Princess Peach visited by an ambassador from the Beanbean Kingdom, but instead it turns out to be a witch named Cackletta. She steals Peach's voice, which she needs for some nefarious purpose and heads back to Beanbean Kingdom. Mario and Bowser (and Luigi, who accidentally gets dragged along) decide to temporarily team up and head off to figure out what Cackletta's up to. The story may not be that in depth, but the way it plays out is fantastic. The cast of characters are highly amusing (especially Cackletta's underling Fawful, whose every line is pure gold) and there are even a few appearances from characters who have missing for a while.

What sets Superstar Saga apart from the other Mario RPGs or games in general is that Mario & Luigi work in tandem both in and out of battle like they were joined at the hip. Oftentimes you will need to utilize the two in synchrony to solve puzzles and unlock new areas. Even as they walk around the screen normally, if Mario or Luigi jumps up a step and the other brother is still on the lower level, the two won't advance any farther. I found that this does tend to get rather annoying at some points when one of the brothers refuse to jump properly forcing them to repeat a long jumping sequence. There are a lot of mini-games and obstacles that require extensive use of all Mario & Luigi's somewhat amusing abilities. For instance, Mario can drink a bunch of water and have Luigi hit him with a hammer to squirt it out on a fire or Mario can set Luigi on fire and send him running through an obstacle course. While these inclusions are refreshing to see and break up the "battle after battle" formula, some bits start to feel a tad overdone and a couple "mini-games" that occur in the final location really grate on the nerves

Fights are done in a hybrid of real-time and turn-based. In battle the brothers attack separately, apart from special moves that use both of them. Like Legend of the Seven Stars, you have to time button presses just right to increase attack damage, perform special moves and avoid attacks, but Superstar Saga adds the ability to counterattack. When enemies attack, depending on how they move or what their facial expression is, they'll attack either Mario or Luigi and you have to react accordingly with either a hammer strike or jump attack. Learning their patterns to dodge or counter them adds an extra bit of interaction to battle that most RPGs lack. The battles really aren't that hard. A few bosses will have you struggle, but I found that the special attacks (which don't cost much energy to use) takes them down in no time at all. Overall the game is generally pretty easy, but a lot of fun. It's unique and it's one of the most original RPG games out there. I'd say give it a try if you can find it.