Friday, December 30, 2011

Video Game Review: Super Mario Land 3D


Super Mario Land 3D is the best Mario game I've played in years. Everyone knows Mario, so I'm not even gonna bother summarizing the story or anything. Let's start with the graphics. They're good. Very good for a 3DS game. Next subject. Sound/music. It was also very good. With many remixes of familiar songs and a few new memorable themes, you'll be whistling like a whimsical little kid while playing the game, and even sometimes afterwards.

Gameplay. Obviously the most important part. The gameplay was the best in a Mario game since Super Mario Sunshine in my opinion. Sure Galaxy was fun and all, but the gravity puzzles got annoying and it just didn't have the same feel that earlier titles in the series had. SML3D goes back to the more classic gameplay style bringing back the basic run and jump controls from the 2D games into a 3D plain. The 3D effect, while admittedly the best use of the feature to date, still doesn't really add anything special to the game and most gamers will probably choose to play without it for the majortiy of their playthrough.

Replay Value. This is the part that really impressed me. At first I was a little saddened by the seemingly short length of the game. But once you beat the game, you unlock with is essentially Super Mario Land 3D: Master Quest, adding a whole new level of awesome to the game. Most, if not all of the levels are fun to play over again, unlike many of the stages from Mario Galaxy or New Super Mario Bros, and this is only helped by the three hidden golden coins in each level and the option to play as Luigi after your first playthough.


So yeah. Super Mario Land 3D. Great game. A must-have for all 3DS owners. If you have one, go out and get it. If you don't, well then that's too bad. Play a friend's copy some time. If you already have it, then good for you. Super Mario Land 3D gets a 9/10.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

30 Day Drawing Challenge: Day 8

Day 8: Favorite Animated Character


Considering a large number of blog posts have been about the games and even the name of my blog, it may not come as a surprise to many of you that my favorite animated character is indeed Sonic the Hedgehog. Does this make me a furry? I'd like to think not...

Monday, December 26, 2011

Belated Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone~! Sorry I'm a little late, been crazy busy the last couple of days. It's always fun celebrating Christmas twice when you have divorced parents, and then a third time over at your girlfriend's house. So yeah, what did everyone get? I got a hand warmer, the 3DS version of Sonic Generations, some clothes, Wii MotionPlus (for use with Skyward Sword which I'll probably do a blog post on in the near future), a Music Bullet, some money, and an RC helicopter. That last one was totally unexpected, but fun nonetheless. It's also equipped with a mini camera and completely awful Engrish instructions. This is a scan directly from the manual...


So yeah. Fun stuff.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

30 Day Drawing Challenge: Day 7

Day 7: Favorite Word


Hurray for calligraphy. Yeah, wasn't sure how to do this, so I just wrote down my favorite word all fancy like. And that's it.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Ragnarok Online


This was an awesome game. It may not have had the best graphics in the world, or the best battle system or anything, but the atmosphere was so great. From the pleasant upbeat towns to the darkest, hell-like dungeons and caves, this game had scenery that would just make you say "Wow," each time you find a new map. And the music. The music was amazing. Some of the best background music ever, imo. Just listen to this track.



So peaceful. Anyway, the game's pretty old now, but it still has a pretty decent sized fan base. I decided to try it out again a few days ago, and although there are a few changes here and there, it's still the same old RO I know and love. If you're interested, you can go check it out at http://www.playragnarok.com/. If not, well, then... whatever.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Katawa Shoujo


Four Leaf Studios' Katawa Shoujo finally has a release date of January 4th, 2012. For those of you who haven't heard of the game, it is a project started by a group of users from the /a/ (anime) board on the 4chan website. Here is a description taken directly from their website:

"Katawa Shoujo is a bishoujo-style visual novel set in the fictional Yamaku High School for disabled children, located somewhere in modern Japan. Hisao Nakai, a normal boy living a normal life, has his life turned upside down when a congenital heart defect forces him to move to a new school after a long hospitalization. Despite his difficulties, Hisao is able to find friends—and perhaps love, if he plays his cards right. There are five main paths corresponding to the 5 main female characters, each path following the storyline pertaining to that character."

Although I never got through the Act 1 demo they released over a year ago, I'm excited to see how the full game turns out.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

So funny story...


The rest of the 3DS Ambassador games actually were released on Friday, the day after my previous blog post... Although it's kind of terrible. Now that I can actually play them, I'm not as excited about them as I thought I would be... Funny how that works, eh? The list of new games includes...
- The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
- Wario Land 4
- WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$
- Mario vs. Donkey Kong,
- Mario Kart: Super Circuit
- Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3
- Kirby & The Amazing Mirror
- F-Zero: Maximum Velocity
- Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
- Metroid Fusion

I did forget how much I liked Kirby & the Amazing Mirror though. Probably one of my favorite Kirby games...

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Club Nintendo Update


So Club Nintendo updated their rewards a couple days ago. For those of you that don't know, Club Nintendo is Nintendo's fairly recent customer loyalty program. (Ok, as of 2008, so I guess not that recent.) Anyway if you've been collecting coins for a few years like myself, you'll be happy to hear the new rewards. They include...
- Super Mario Kart (Wii VC download)
- 3D Classics: Xevious (3DS VC download)
- A Legend of Zelda 25th Anniversary poster set
- Fluidity (Wii)
- Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again (3DS VC download)
- Peach & Mario notebook

Granted I probably won't get any of these. But this does mean that there should be more VC downloads available as rewards in the future, so I am looking forward to that. By the way, hey Nintendo, when do I get the rest of my 3DS Ambassador games???

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

30 Day Drawing Challenge: Day 6

Day 6: Favorite Book Character (Can't be a Movie)


I've never really liked reading all that much, but when I was a kid I read the first three books of the Artemis Fowl series. Holly Short was my favorite character in the book. So yeah, this is her. I tried to make it look like it was drawn from a high vantage point to make her look short, but perspective drawing is hard...

Sunday, December 11, 2011

30 Day Drawing Challenge: Day 5

Day 5: Best Friend


He knows who he is. Although I made him look a lot cooler than he looks in real life. :P

Also, sorry for the lack of updates lately, but as you probably already know, it's finals time for many of us college students, so... yeah...

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Movie Review: World's Greatest Dad

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

30 Day Drawing Challenge: Day 4

Day 4: Favorite Place


I have a lot of favorite places, but since I figured a drawing of my room or my girlfriend's bed would be kind of boring, I decided to go with the beach. Specifically Oceanside beach here in sunny Southern California. There's a Ruby's on the end of the pier that has amazing food...

Friday, December 2, 2011

Art Analysts are Stupid

Art analysts have got to be some of the dumbest people on the planet. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying all art critics are stupid, many of them are very good at what they do. But I'm not talking about the people who look at a piece of art and think about how much time and effort must have went into making it. I'm talking about the people who think just because a person scribbled a few lines down on a piece of paper and called it art, it's automatically considered a philosophical masterpiece.

Anyway, the reason I'm writing this post is because I'm taking an art class in college this semester, and we had to do art analysis today. I was going along, throwing together the usual BS for an assignment like this, when I see this...


Then I read the summary for it. "Fountain, a work of 1917 shown here in a signed replica of 1964... Fountain was an ordinary porcelain urinal set on its back."

At first I think, ok guy, very clever. You made a urinal and to tell everyone how much work you put into it you're going to call it art. Then I read a little farther... "Marcel Duchamp, whose 'ready-mades' probed the border between art and life in a way that later generations have returned to again and again. A ready-made is a work of art that the artist has not made but designated.

... HE DIDN'T EVEN MAKE THE DAMN THING. This guy took a urinal that someone else made, laid it on it's back, scribbled his signature on it, called it art, and it went down in our history books as a very important piece of art history...

No... just... no.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Bacon


I had a lot of bacon today. And soup. Very salty soup... I'm going to die so young...
Anyway, bacon is very tasty. Did you know this online store ThinkGeek has an entire section dedicated to it? Well, they do. Here it is: http://www.thinkgeek.com/caffeine/bacon/

Yeah... I'll do a more substantial blog post tomorrow. I've been really lazy lately... Also I haven't had access to a scanner so I haven't been able to upload the drawing for Day 4 of the drawing challenge, which should be coming up in the next couple days or so... Anyway, that's all I have to say for now. Laterz.