Super Mario Galaxy

I just "finished" Super Mario Galaxy today. (110/120 stars, so pretty close). The game critics have said they think it's the best game of all time, or at least one of the best of all time. Is it that good?

The best word to describe it is fun. Plain and simple, it's fun. There is just enough variety, just enough new things to discover, with no filler crap and well placed check points. It's not an addictive type of fun either. I never felt I had to keep playing to "progress" the story. Whoever "directed" the game did a splendid job of pacing.

The gameplay mechanic of planets makes the game really varied and therefore fun. Just watching Mario flying from planet to planet aided with a quick twirl of the wrist is a visceral joy. They added just the right amount of motion controls and except for a few dumb minigames (taking out the trash ftl), it adds to the experience. The controls include a second player option, which is a perfect way to include any person watching. (The link leads to a humourous story of shared gaming)

And of course there is the nostalgia factor. Who hasn't played Mario before? To add to it, they included a storybook which evocates feelings of lost childhood innocence. And then the music. The music is my favourite part of the game. The orchestral Mario music is....magical. I shit you not.

Despite all the positive comments, I don't think it's the best of all time, but I think it ranks very highly. There are a few flaws, the biggest one for me was that it was too easy. But that might be what made it so fun.

So if you want fun, play Super Mario Galaxy. Fun is guaranteed, but expect nothing more.

Godfather

I always have a tough time posting in the summertime. It's seems like there are so many activities to do that blogging becomes secondary.

This weekend, I hit up Docks, saw my cousin Eric there with his gf, played 3 softball games + practiced, checked out Missisauga Ribfest, ate out for dinner twice and had a BBQ with extended family.

I also opened Godfather for Wii, which I had bought 8 months ago. Wow, that game is violent. Maybe I'm not in the right demograph for these type of violent sandbox games, but having it on the Wii makes it even worse. The controls are really well done and you perform violent actions, like beating people up with bats (or my favourite, the flaming 2x4), punching them, grabbing them, throwing them around, choking them, etc. After my initial shock, it became really fun. I still can't bring myself to needlessly kill innocent civilians, but I have no problem with rubbing out rival mobsters. Check out the video to see it in action.



Godfather is my favourite movie, so maybe I was destined to like the game as well. If there is a popular license, the actual content can be subpar and the license can bring it up to make it an enjoyable experience. Like Transformers the movie for example. Maybe I'll like the Transformers game, even though it was rated horribly by all outlets.

A nice touch is that I recognized a lot of the real life NYC locations in the game. I can't wait for a game to recreate Toronto. This is one of the first "sandbox" games that I've played. I've somehow managed to avoid GTA all this time.

EA did a relaly good job with the Godfather license. They've recreated all the characters from the movie and you follow along with the movie plot For example, one of the early missions has you beating up the college preppie who violently raped Bonasera's (Funeral Director in the opening of the movie) daughter. Another one has you accompanying Luca Brasi to befriend Sollozo. Another mission has you helping Micheal Corleone protect the Don at the hospital. I can't wait to play out the rest of the movie. This leads me to believe that I'll give Scarface a try as well, although I didn't like Scarface as much as The Godfather movie.

So far I think this is one of my favourite games for the Wii. Right up there with Zelda for single player games. But now, I can't wait for Smash Brothers Brawl, Mario Galaxy and Mariokart Wii.

Transformers Review

As I try to recall my childhood, Transformers exists more in my imagination than on the TV screen. Much more time was spent using my imagination to play with my Transformers than watching the show itself. My imagination was limitless and satisfied my every desire, and therefore Transformers was the best thing....EVER...as a kid. But twenty years have passed and if I was pessimistic, my imagination is sadly overshadowed by things like sex and money. As a kid, the battle between good and evil was so clearly defined as a fight between Autobots and Decepticons, but real life is never as clear. This loss of innocence is something everyone laments. So how can you objectively evaluate something that puts you in touch with your childhood innocence? You can't.

Perhaps that's why I felt exhilarated coming out of the theatre. Speaking from my gut, it was an AWESOME movie!!!!!!111!!!!one!!!!!!!!!! It was a movie that satisfied my inner child's impulses. And really, that was the kind of mood I was in considering the subject matter. It gave me big explosions, giant robots fighting, cool transformations and ultimately good triumphing over evil. What more can you expect? What more can you want?

At the same time, part of me wishes for more. I have a habit of reading reviews immediately after viewing a movie to get differing opinions. I hadn't even look on Rotten Tomatoes beforehand to get a feel for the rating (bad, 57%). Some of the following ideas were from reviews I read, and they make good points that were perhaps "clouded" by nostalgia.

*** SPOILER AHEAD ***

One common theme was that the plot was very simplistic/juvenile, but in my opinion, this is largely irrelevant for a movie like this. The subplot with Anthony Anderson and the Blonde was largely pointless and wasn't even that funny. And yes, there were plot holes and such, but it was serviceable and that's good enough.

Personally, I thought the majority of the jokes were funny, while some failed miserably. I didn't like any of the scenes with Sector 7, but I really liked the early scenes when the boy is trying to get the girl with Bumblebee's help.

A lot of people complained about the quick cuts in the battle scenes and having too many closeups. I admit some parts were tough to follow, but overall it was well done. The last battle could have been more involving though, because it just seemed like random battles were happening all over the place without much purpose. There wasn't much satifaction when one decepticon was defeated or sadness when an autobot was injured.
    I think they missed a great opportunity to develop the Autobot characters (besides Optimus) further. For example, I struggled to remember which one was Jazz when they said he was destroyed. On the Decepticon side, I wished they played up the Starscream and Megatron conflict. From what I remember, it seemed like the downfall of the Decepticons was usually due to inner squabbling and pettiness and unfortunately the movie didn't reflect this.

The effect were undoubtly top notch, but I do have a small bone to pick. I thought the robots were too complicated. You couldn't really tell how they transformed from robot to vehicle. It's so much more obvious in this video.

It was great that they paid homage to the original transformers by saying things like, "Autobots, roll out", "One shall stand, one shall fall", "Lord Megatron" from Starscream, "More than meets the eye", and seeing a sword arm on Optimus. On the other hand, Optimus also says "My bad" - wtf?

*** END SPOILERS ***

Then there is the matter of Michael Bay directing the movie. Everytime there was a cheesy needless slow motion shot, I sighed. Speilberg got heavy billing as the executive producer and I think his influence is really felt for the first half of the movie. But it's all Bay for the second half.

Choosing Micheal Bay as director was controversial, but I would argue it's appropriate since the source material is for young kids and you can't expect that much more from it. It delivers exactly what a young boy would want out of a movie and Bay is a person that can deliver exactly that. By the end, the boy has the girl, car AND Transformers buddies. What more could you want?

Nothing.

Convocation

It's the time of the year for Convocations!

I recently attended one at Queen's for my sister's graduation with a Bacheleor of Education. This entry is a bit of a rant, since I'm comparing it to my own crappy Convocation.

First, my convocation was almost 2 years ago (wow, has it been that long already???). Convocations at Waterloo are held in the PAC (Physical Activities Complex). For our year, they graduated everyone in the Engineering Faculty, including grad students, which totalled around 800-900 people. This meant that the whole floor area was filled with graduates and the stands were filled with families. Since there were so many people, they had to restrict guests to two per graduate and made available extra tickets by special request. On the actual day, the PAC was completely packed with people.

This led to the first problem: noise. This was compounded with the fact that I was in the very back row. I had to strain really hard to hear anything and even then it was difficult. The seating area was flat and the platform for the presentations was not raised very high, so we couldn't see very much either. Eventually, we all resorted to talking amongst ourselves and adding to the noise problem. This meant that the speeches were hard to hear and they didn't seem very engaging, but I really couldn't say either way. Because of the large number of graduates, the ceremony lasted a long time. So long in fact, that graduates were leaving mid ceremony to exit the premises. They also happened to present the Masters and Ph.D students last, and by then, the auditorium was half empty.

In contrast, Queen's graduation ceremony was held in an old hockey arena. Not as large as the PAC, but it felt much more intimate and inviting. They were also graduating similar numbers of people, but I suspect a lot of them didn't show up. Their acoustics was much better and this meant that I could actually hear the speeches. The speeches also happened to be pretty entertaining and inspiring. One of the honourary degrees was given to a chinese imigrant who reports/photographs for a Kingston newspaper and he talked about his interesting life. Then Masters/Ph.D graduates graduated first, followed by the undergrads. When the undergraduates were recieving their degrees, it got a little more rowdy, but not to an unacceptable level. It was a little boring when they were going through all the graduates, but luckily I had brought my time machine (as Victor likes to call it) along with me. No one left the building until it was all done. It felt like a relatively short and efficient ceremony. There was a reception with lot's of (free) food afterwards. Bonus!

Overall, the quality of the ceremony was obviously better than Waterloo's, which my parents and my sister agreed to as well. From what I hear, they've improved the graduating cermemony since my graduation (they even had Malcolm Gladwell speak at the Waterloo Arts Convocation), but I still think the level of professionalism and quality is much higher at Queens. Oh well, maybe the moral of the story is that I needed a time machine for my own ceremony.

Cooking Mama/Trauma Center

I only managed to get about a half hour of Wii time in this weekend and it was used to try out Cooking Mama.

I tried making a few basic recipes and also tried a few of the multiplayer recipes. It's fun at first, but I have a feeling the novelty will wear out (I haven't gotten to that point yet though). There's no narrative to the game, and the Iron Chef mode is fairly simplistic. The competition is judged by points determined by how well and quickly you did the tasks for the selected recipe. Points are an abstract concept when dealing with food, even though Iron Chef has to eventually resort to them as well. The difference being Iron Chef's points are based on taste, presentation and creativity; whereas, Cooking Mama's are based on game skill. The food looks the same at the end regardless of how well you did throughout and there's no judge at the end that criticizes the result, which would have been welcome.

One other aspect that annoys me is that the cartoony art style means the food doesn't look realistic and therefore not that appetizing. If the food looked appetizing, it would give a better sense of achievement when finished. I really didn't try it out long enough to give a fair evaluation, so I will reserve any further judgement, but I must say there is a visceral thrill in chopping up those veggies with the wii-mote!

I also tried out Trauma Center earlier in the week, which is another adapted game from the DS system. It's a surprisingly strong title with an engaging storyline and an attractive anime art style that complements an excellent implementation of the controls. Perhaps the strongest indication of its appeal is that my sister sunk 12 hours into this game on the weekend...and she's not a gamer. Dr. Dre has also mentioned that "it's the best game for wii". It really is an unexpectedly thrill to fix up these people and make them better!

So far, from the DS games adapted to the Wii, the one major area that is lacking is sound. There needs to be more variety in background music as well as much more variety in sound effects. Also, voice acting would be welcome. The other area is some of the controls may need a little more polishing, since it was adapted from a stylus game and not built ground up for the Wii. But for $22.80, I have absolutely no regrets!