Mario Kart Wii

Mario Kart Wii was released in Japan on April 10 2008, Europe on April 19, Australia on April 24, North Amercia on April 27, and a year later released in South Korea on the 30th of April.

This game utilizes a steering wheel add-on for its gameplay and was it main campaign to market the game to users.

The game is filled with many variations of levels, motorcycles and includes an online mode which you can race up to 16 people.

So has this game run out of gas, or has it used a golden mushroom at the last moment to cross the finish line?


Lets Find out!

Gameplay:
You may be wondering why we went to gameplay first. Well its because there is no story to the Mario Kart Franchise, and well its mostly about the other features.

The game is boxed with the accessory called the Wii Wheel, a basic steering wheel where you stick the Wii remote in it and then you can steer your self to victory.

So the gameplay is simple for a racing game, A to Accelerate and B to Break. The game with Kart's also includes Motorcycles, which kinda ruin the title "Mario Kart". With the Motorcycles, they can boost at any time by lifting up the controller which can get you out of any tight situations.

There are a great selection of Karts and Motorcycles and many different characters to choose from. There are also many different Mario Kart weapons like shells, banana's and the dreaded Blue Shell. So with all these items, you can easily go from first place to last in a second. As some people say, it all depends on luck to make to finish a race.

The game includes 8 cups, each with 4 maps in the cups, 4 cups are new maps made especially for the Wii and 4 are for classic maps from the SNES, N64, GBA, and the Gamecube.

Artstyle:
The artstyle is as always nice. Good amount of cartoonish detail, and the classic maps are just good looking.

Music:
The music was composed by Asuka Ota and Ryo Nagamatsu, which they used same melodies from other Mario games and also created new ones. In total the game has over 43 total songs in the game itself. Sounds can also be heard in the Wii remote speaker, when you crash into things or when a projectile is headed right for you.

Multiplayer:
The multiplayer is the main part of Mario Kart Wii. With using the Nintendo Wifi-Connection up to 12 player can join in a race online with friends, people in their region or just anyone around the world. The game is enjoyable, until a hacker goes into the game with their unlimited items. Good thing Nintendo is working hard to ban these people of the servers.

Final Verdict:
To conclude, Mario Kart Wii is a good game compared to Brawl's online it was one of the better titles in the Mario Kart Franchise. But that really changed when Mario Kart 3DS came on to the scene.

Gameplay----- 8.0
Artstyle------- 7.0
Music--------- 6.0
Multiplayer---- 9.0

Final Verdict: 8.5

Starfox Adventures

Starfox Adventures was released in North America on September 23 2002, Japan on September 27 2002, Australia on November 15 2002, and in Europe on November 22 2002.

Starfox was one of Rare's last titles before it became a first party developer for Microsoft.. This game was criticised for its Zelda like gameplay instead of the shooter like in previous installments. Some say it was its strong suit, others say that is what dragged this game down the trash hole.


So is this game that killed Starfox or is it a unappreciated treasure?


Lets Find Out!

Story:
The story begins with the blue fox named Krystal, one of the "Princess" characters. So you play as her for a little bit, she drops her staff, and then you get to the real action. You are Fox, in the Arwing shooting asteroids, collecting power-ups and we all just love it.

Then you go on the planet and find out the real gameplay. But to continue, fox finds Krystal's staff and he then uses it to fight the sharptooth clan and other types of enemies.

Eventually, Fox discovers he needs to find the Spell stones and place them in the temples on the shattered pieces of Dinosaur Planet. At the same time, he must also find the 7 Krazoa Spirits to free Krystal.

Gameplay:
Like I said the gameplay is a big letdown, where you are shooting with the Arwing and then you land on the planet. Unfortunately you cant use a gun, as General Pepper says "Were trying to save the planet not blow it up".

Then you find the staff, and it feels a lot like Ocarina of Time. Well truth is, it is like it. Rare was actually using the same engine that Ocarina of Time used, and the game was suppose to be on the Nintendo 64. Fun fact, the game wasn't even suppose to star the Starfox crew, the game was actually called Dinosaur Planet and the main character's name was Sabre.

When the game was in production, Nintendo realized that Sabre was almost Identical to Fox, so they made a Starfox game out of it.

Art-style:
Its art-style is not great but good for the GameCube reputation. At the time the graphics were considered good and were praised for it. Not much to say in my opinion, I found the frame rate was smooth and the character's were well modelled.

Music:
The music was composed by David Wise. The music was comforting and slow, perfect for this game. The music also gets intense when facing a boss or enemies so the soundtrack was good.

Final Verdict:
The final Verdict for this game is for me eh... Why you may ask, well for one this game was basically a experiment for Nintendo, and well for some people it was praised for it game-play, and some say it was just to far away for the game.

There was just this one part in the story which really ticked me off.

There is a area in the game called the Lightfoot village, you have to do two challenges to move on in the game, one is just a collect the flags mission, while the other one is a rapid fire mission of your button for your life. I had to try 50 times and call my friend which was a rapid fire master. He beat it, but after 10 try's first.

So this game ruined Star-fox, but we then got Star-fox Assault.

Story---------------- 6.5
Game-play---------- 7.5
Artstyle------------- 5.5
Music-------------- 5.5

Final Verdict: 5.5