Wednesday 27 July 2011

Review: Metroid Prime 2 Echoes


It's well known that I'm a lover of the Metroid franchise.  Samus is one of my favourite video game characters, and is near and dear to my heart.  Does Metroid Prime 2 live up to my expectations of the Metroid franchise? Read on!

The game starts as Samus is respoding to a distress signal from an unknown planet.  Her ship is damaged in the landing, so she begins to search for the people that sent the distress signal while her ship auto repairs.. and thus the adventure begins.

The first thing I noticed about this game is the atmosphere.  You land in a creepy cavern, with vines hanging from the roof, its dark and kinda eerie.  Then undead soldiers start coming alive, and it just feels so right.  The great atmosphere continues throughout the game as you explore the Agon Wastes, the Bog, and the Tower (can't remember the real names, sorry).  Another twist that this game has is that there is a light world and a dark world to each area.  The light world acts just like areas in Prime did, but in the dark world, the atmosphere damages Samus, and so it is necessary to stay in light "bubbles" in order to stay alive.  I've heard some people say they don't like this mechanic, but personally I didn't mind it.  The bubbles were close enough together that it wasn't inconvenient to use them.  With one exception: the boost ball guardian.  This is a tough fight, and you have to do it with no light bubbles, which makes it even tougher.  I would argue that this is the toughest boss in the game by far!  Here's a Youtube link as my cast of this part has unfortunately been deleted ><.


Another difference in this game from normal Metroid games is the amount of usage the morph ball gets.  In most Metroid games the morph ball is just one more tool Samus uses to get through small areas, but in Prime 2, the morph ball is used for platforming and boss fights.  I thought this was really great, as I enjoy the morph ball a lot, so it was nice to finally get to use it (see the final boss fight, phase 2 for an example).  I enjoyed the ammo system in this game as well, the light and dark beams were a nice change from the normal Ice beam, wave beam etc.

I also enjoyed the boss fights in this game a lot more than Metroid Prime 1.  I found a lot of the bosses in Prime 1 to be very gimmicky.  However in Prime 2 the bosses require you to use all the tools available to you at the time, and often have very interesting mechanics (for instance Quadraxis which uses spider ball, sound visor and all your ammo)

Here's the vid of me defeating the final boss, it showcases some of the different mechanics in the game (note, I have a suit that stops me from taking damage in the dark world)



Overall I truly enjoyed this game, and would definitely rate it above Prime 1.  This was one of my favourite Metroids, I would rate it second only to Super Metroid.  Thanks a lot to Drakeonk for donating it, I had a blast!

Rating- 4 spider ball boosts out of 5

Friday 22 July 2011

Follow Friday Featuring Guns Are Toys!



Hello again everyone, it's Friday so once more it's time for Follow Friday, this time featuring Guns Are Toys (Guns).

Guns has been an active member of my community for some time, and I've been really happy to have him in my chats.  Guns has a great sense of humour and has a lot of fun whether he's in a chat or playing the games himself.  One of the things I like about Guns' casts is that he plays games a lot of other people don't play.  Guns loves Magic, and has casted himself play Magic on multiple occasions.  Other games which he has played include Killing Floor, Oblivion and Magicka.  Lately Guns has been playing through Monster Hunter Tri (A game I am completely unfamiliar with).  He's been having a tough time getting some viewers in his room, and I really believe it's because people just don't know about him! I highly recommend him if you're looking for a caster that doesn't just play the games everyone else is.   His cast looks and sounds great, and there's no reason y'all shouldn't be watching him, especially if you're into the Magic.

Here's a highlight of Guns' playthrough of Oblivion, where he enjoys a random glitch ^^



So please give Guns_are_toys a follow, expand your gaming horizons people!

Friday 15 July 2011

Follow Friday Featuring EddieRuckus!



Hello again everyone, it's time again for Follow Friday, today featuring EddieRuckus!!!  Now I know I said Follow Fridays would generally be for new people, but I'm making an exception today.  Eddie is less than 100 followers to 1000!  At 1000 followers he is doing a run of Dead Space 2 on the hardest mode possible, so lets get the word out and get him to 1000 followers!!

My husband Solidbeef first introduced me to Eddie's casts.  The first night I watched Eddie, he was playing Rock Band, and wow, was he good.  Eddie can play most songs on hard mode to a tee, while still managing to read chat during the song.  One of Eddie's weekly features is Rock Band request night, which is exactly as it sounds!  Eddie plays the songs requested from his viewers, who pick from the list of all songs he has (and he has a lot).  Rock Band request night is one of my favourite casts, it's usually a fun time all around, and really has the feel of hanging out with your friends while someone rocks out your favourite songs.  Besides Rock Band, Eddie tends to play newer games such as Dead Space and Mass Effect.  Though... he did do a stint with Hello Kitty Party Adventure.. but he probably doesn't want me mentioning that.  Here is a highlight from one of Eddie's casts where he shows his prowess at driving a boat!



Eddie was also the brains behind the Chatiatank and Beefboomer pictures, which came about from our L4D sessions.  We play L4D versus on his cast quite a bit, and it's a really fun time, always enjoy killing Eddie in front of as many people as possible.  Here's one of the banners from his channel for our L4D casts (and don't worry he has a watermark to match.

Eddie loves him some L4D


Eddie is involved in the community and is really supportive to his friends; he was the brains behind Meat Aid, the event to get Meat_Jesus to 1000 followers. He can also be a troll of most epic proportions (see banner above), and (most importantly to me Kappa) Eddie is a mod in my channel and a great one at that!  So follow EddieRuckus, lets get him to 1000 Followers!!

Monday 11 July 2011

Review: Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (TTYD)



System: Gamecube (played on the Wii)
Score: 3/5

Mario (pronounced mar-ee-o to me Kappa) is one of the best known characters in all of video gameland, he has been a plumber, a ref, a tennis star, a soccer star, and many other things.  In this game, Mario once again dons that hat of paper super hero, out to save his princess and the world from a brand new threat!

Instead of taking place in the Mushroom Kingdom, the main hub in the game is a place called Rogueport.  The princess went off on a search for treasure, and (surprise surprise) has managed to get herself kidnapped! The twist here is that it's not Bowser that has done the kidnapping, it's the X-nauts, a brand new threat.  After receiving the treasure map, Mario is off to collect the 7 stars to save the princess and the world!!!

Rogueport is the main hub in TTYD, you'll get to know the inhabitants well
TTYD is an RPG in the style of Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario (N64).  You will join forces with a variety of partners throughout the game, each having a special skill you will need to solve puzzles and defeat your enemies.  For example Flurrie (or boobs as we called her) can blow away certain portions of walls to reveal passages, or Mario can ride on baby Yoshi (Mourny) to cross large gaps.  Each partner also has a specialty in battle, some are able to hit airborne enemies, while other specialize in ground enemies. .

You can see why we called her boobs
One of the really neat parts of the game, is you not only control Mario, but Peach and Bowser become playable characters, with their own side stories.  You control Peach as she wanders around the enemy base, and teaches a perveted computer what true love is (what, he watches her shower!).  Bowser's levels were my favourite; desperate to stop Mario and kidnap Peach for himself, he follows Mario throughout the world.  The neat part is that Bowser's levels are like the original super mario levels, complete with flag and castle at the end, but with a definite Bowser touch.

Bowser levels are my favourite, Super Mario with a Bowser touch.
Overall I really enjoyed this game, it has a very light feeling to it, and it is fairly easy to complete.  I did not grind or do any sidequests at all, and was still able to defeat the final boss (not without some trouble, more on that later).  Some of the dialogue is incredibly repetitive, and I found myself, mashing A to get through it all.  The characters tend to tell you multiple times what to do, and it can get boring having to hear you have to go to Petalburg for the 4th time.  The combat system is incredibly innovative for an RPG.  On top of the standard interface you would expect for an RPG, you fight on a stage, with the audience and the stage itself having a major impact on the outcome of the battle.  Should Mario perform well, and complete "stylish" moves, the audience will cheer, filling up Mario's star power, allowing him to perform special actions.  The audience can be bad as well though, as they can throw items at you that do damage.  The stage proved to be the worst part of the game for me, especially at the final boss.  Here's a highlight of the final boss fight, where the stage freezes me three times in a row, causing me to lose the final boss fight!  Thanks Erl181 for the highlight.


Overall, this was a fun game, and I truly enjoyed that playthrough.  It was actually quite long, especially since I didn't do any of the sidequests, which would have added even more time to the game.  It's a fun game to play, but the lack of any voice work, and the repetitive dialogue did get to me.  Also, the runup to the last boss has two incredibly long (and frankly sort of uninteresting) cutscenes, with no skip cutscene button.  This means if you die on the last boss, you have a looooong wait to get back in the fight.  (I actually had ppl leaving because they just couldn't watch the cutscene again).
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door gets 3 busty ghosts out of 5

PS Toadette is now my favourite Mario character!

Friday 8 July 2011

JTV a week in review: July 2-9

Oh hello again everyone! It's time for my week in review segment.  Since I didn't do a review last week, I'll make up for it here!

As always, it's my blog so news about me comes first of course!  I continued on my journey with Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door, finishing off Twilight town and moving on to a deserted island.  After getting rid of Flavio (what a waste of space) and earning the trust of Cortez, I moved on to Poshville!  Before reaching the sixth star I had to solve a mystery on the train, and there was the return of Doopliss!  After defeating the Smorgs on the train, it was off to Fahr Outpost and.. TO THE MOON.  That's right, I'm in the final runup to the end boss, and will finish the game on Saturday, so tune in!

Mario has a rough landing out of being shot to the moon by a cannon!
TwitchTV Q&A
On Saturday, MANvsGAME had Jacob from TwitchTV on his cast to answer some questions from MANkind about TwitchTV.  Emmitt was to be there as well, but had to attend a meeting at the last minute.  All in all the night was enlightening, and Jacob did a good job quelling most fears about the switch to twitch (see wut I did thar?).  Jacob informed us about many things that were coming to twitch, such as new emoticons (thank god) and some sort of personal messaging system similar to Meebo (but better).  Personally I really wanted there to be more critical examination of the way TwitchTV is completely focused on E-sports, but I understand why MAN was reluctant to press any harder.  Horror (who appeared on the cast later) did help me feel better by fully admitting it was a conscience decision to only market E-sports (as opposed to other admins who say it was only because "it was easier").  That may seem like the same thing, but to me it was a very important distinction and I feel better for having heard Horror admit it.  After Jacob had answered all the questions he felt he could, he got off the skype call, and Horror then joined the cast.  Horror's segment was also very informative as we learned about why Horror's icon is a cat, and what exactly a "furry" is.  To watch the complete cast in it's entirety, go here.

We now know why Horror's avatar is a cat, mystery solved!

Meat Aid
 In other news, Meat_Jesus hit 1000 followers this week, with help from Dan.  Meat-Aid was originally planned to help Meat hit 1000 followers, but hitting this goal early wasn't going to stop EddieRuckus from doing Meat-Aid.  Eddie and Jhnnycrwsh hit the Rock Band 3 hard with some awesome playing.  Tons of people showed up to celebrate Meat's tasty triumph!  Congrats again to Meat Jesus on reaching 1000 followers, you deserve every one of them and more!


Follow Friday Featuring Drakeonk!!

Hello again everyone!
Well it's Friday and that means it's Follow Friday time!  Sorry I've been slow with the blog posts, this has been a really busy week for me at work.  Now, for today's Follow Friday, I am featuring Drakeonk!  Drake is perhaps better known for being a huge supporter of both MANvsGAME's cast and mine, sending us most generous donations (my first gift to the PO Box was from him!).  Drake has also made appearances in some of our many L4D versus casts, and he's always fun to have on the team.

Drake is a new caster, with July 4th being his first official cast.  The first game he cast was Super Metroid, which he completed in one sitting (which of course endeared him to me even more!)  Here's a highlight of his Mother Brain kill, and escape from the planet.


Drake has a great setup, and plays some really fun games such as Donkey Kong Country, The Magical Quest Starring Mickey, and Kirby games!  He has smooth video and audio, and has no objection to having people on skype calls with him (ppl he knows of course). Drake casts every morning at 10 am EST, and is debating doing some night casts during the weekends.  That amount of casting should let you catch Drake whenever it's  most convenient for you. Drake has been a huge supporter of our community, so lets give him some support back ppl!! Follow Drakeonk and give his cast a try!

Friday 1 July 2011

Follow Friday Featuring Kornon!!

Hello again everyone!  It's time again for Follow Friday, where I feature a caster I think you should be following.  In case you're wondering why I'm not profiling one of the people I regularly pimp (such as Meat_Jesus or Eddieruckus, who you should TOTALLY follow), I'm trying to expand people's viewing range, though I will get to those guys on here, don't worry.  Todays Follow Friday is going to someone who has been part of my community for some time, Kornon.

Kornon only started streaming a week ago, so this is your chance to get in on the bottom floor of a caster who I'm sure will get much bigger.  I found him because I woke up early and there wasn't really anything on.. so I started browsing the channels, lo and behold, I see Kornon way back at like page 5!  I didn't even know he casted! I hopped in his stream and he was playing Megaman 2.  His setup was really good, he's got a webcam and a camera, and the stream is super smooth.  He is really friendly and chats with the people in his room quite a bit (at the expense of his extra men).  So far he has played Super Ghouls and Ghosts, Ghouls and Ghosts and Megaman 2 on his stream.  He's been sticking to the retro games of late, but he says he's up for just about anything!  As he's a new streamer he doesn't have many highlights, but here's one of his boss kills!




I had a blast in Kornon's room, and I highly recommend you check him out!  He streams in the mornings, and says he normally stops when GQ starts, so he's a great GQ preshow!  Please check out Kornon and support an up and coming caster who I'm sure will grow super fast!