I’m going to keep things kind of brief in this entry, mostly because I will have a video later on talking about Youtube stuff and I’m kind of swamped with things I gotta get done today (and tomorrow). Not like it will make any major difference as I didn’t really have much extra I wanted to talk about. I will still talk about Youtube projects to a small extent and will of course feature a “Game of the Week” section.
Basically, here is a rundown of the stuff I originally planned to get done this weekend. First, I of course had to upload today and yesterday’s video and of course update the blog today as well. Yesterday we had a Mario Kart Wii session for the Blargg Pit’s Gaming Nights section, plus we have a Mario trivia event tonight as well (and I am the host of the warm-up section, not to mention a regular on the main trivia). In addition to that, I had some Mario Party 6 videos to finalize for this coming Tuesday and I have to start and get cracking on my 3rd Year Anniversary special, which I am doing some major, unintentional slacking on. Then of course I also planned for the Youtube update video tonight as well.
Then, at 12 PM yesterday afternoon, we got the phone call of extremely bad timing. It was my uncle asking if we could have our cousins stay the week with us (the same cousins I bitched about in a December entry). Of course, we couldn’t say no because they live in Arizona and we never get to see them as often as we normally get to, even if it was a major inconvenience for all of us (for different reasons). I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love my cousins and as I have always stated before in older videos of mine, I am a true family man. I put family on perhaps a higher pedestal than my own health. It’s just that it was a major inconvenience on everyone’s part and we pretty much had to and will continue to rearrange our plans and our schedule pretty much on the spot. Oh well, what’s done is done.
However, because my cousins are so into the Wii, I actually got to play some Mario Party 8! Of course, I wasn’t actually playing against them, but I had the controller for most of the time. In fact, it’s kind of a funny story. My littlest cousin, who is about only 4 or 5 years of age, thought she was picking all 4 characters for herself. I rolled with it for awhile, but then when I tried to make her realize she was just controlling one of them, she didn’t really listen. So at one point during the match, she was cheering for all 3 characters she wasn’t controlling, and was wanting bad things to happen to Dry Bones, the one she was actually moving. And of course, since kids can’t comprehend how the motion controls work, I had to control pretty much the whole game for her, and whenever I had a decision, I had to ask her what she wanted to do. Safe to say, Dry Bones didn’t get any candy or dolphin rides the entire game. However, I was owning the mini-games….which is a shame because she turned the bonus stars off….. Nevertheless, it was a very interesting experience to play a match in the perspective of someone who didn’t realize what exactly was going on. Maybe next time I’ll try to be more clever and try to win without her realizing :P
Anyways, thought you would enjoy that little anecdote. Gotta say, I’m actually looking forward to Mario Party 8, despite how freaking long the games can take in that game.
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Last Week on Channel SlimKirby:
Mario Party 6 – With the end of the project drawing near, the extra videos have begun. I end up getting 2 wins and a purposeful loss on Solo Mode (a lot of people think I sucked at the one I lost despite the fact I made it clear that I was losing on purpose -_-). Then I put myself in the driver’s seat for a taste of Mic Mode, where the voice recognition of Star Sprint is as solid as pudding. Then it’s on to the first part of Mini-Game mode, featuring Battle Bridge, Mount Duel, and Decathalon Park, all modes that I end up ruling with a Gamecube controller shaped fist!
Notes: This week of MP6 videos went pretty well I must say. It’s kind of disheartening that I felt more confident with these videos than some of the actual Party Mode boards.
The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask – I could’ve only stalled the beginning of the first temple for so long. Finally I start the Woodfall Temple after some sneaking around in the Deku Palace and some sticky work in the swamp.
Notes: I’ve learned something from this project; I can never make my fans happy. They either complain about me missing something, complain about not making progress, and complain about the way I accidentally pronounce things. I understand my mispronunciation of “Sonata” is wrong and it can kind of be annoying to hear that mistake several times (because of the fact that I record all of my videos in advance, I often learn my mistakes after I’ve already recorded them. I just really wish some people would actually “think” before posting something. Is it really that much to ask? Apparently it’s way too much for society in today’s world.
Next Week’s Schedule:
Monday (28th) – Majora’s Mask #19
Tuesday (29th) – Mario Party 6 - Mini-Game Mode Part 2
Wednesday (30th) – Majora’s Mask #20
Thursday (1st) – Mario Party 6 – Final Extras and Closing
Friday (2nd) – Majora’s Mask #21
Saturday (3rd) – Majora’s Mask #22
Sunday (4th) – TENTATIVE: 3rd Year Anniversary Special
Notes: As you can see, we have two things to note here (technically 3).
1). First off, Mario Party 6 is ending on Thursday, and that date will be final. So after Thursday, Mario Party 6 will be a done deal.
2). We have something “TENTATIVE” on the list. What does this mean? Basically, I’m not sure if I will be able to release the 3rd Year Special on that date or not. It really depends on how much I can get done during this hectic week. I would like to be able to just sit down and work through it, but that luxury will be very hard to obtain.
3). This note is not as obvious mostly due to the fact that I conveniently have enough Majora’s Mask episodes for this next week. However, after #22, I will be out of them, so I’ll have to find a way to record some more. Because of this, I may take a few days off after the 4th to get some more episodes recorded, but after that, it should be smooth sailing.
Finally, I have a few things I wanted to discuss in regards to the Youtube section of the blog. I was considering doing a little more with section, maybe going into some details about possible video landmarks, and maybe having something like a “Comment of the Week” or something. It’s still a work in progress (in terms of theof the thinking process), but as usual, suggestions are welcome. Just don’t make it something that will take me hours to finalize)
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Game of the Week:
Today’s Game of the Week comes from deep space, and once again from my DS library. This is a game I brought up briefly in one of my Mario Party 6 videos and gave it a fairly harsh mini-view (mini-review) based on the first and only time I played the game. Recently I went back to it to give it another chance, and figured it would be appropriate for this section.
Star Fox: Command
Although Star Fox Adventures is usually considered the black sheep of the Star Fox series (mostly due to the fact it’s almost a Zelda clone), at least I found Adventures somewhat unique with its own charm. In my opinion, I think this game actually did quite a bit to test the waters and test its fans with something new.
The thing about Command is that it tries to be a bit more interactive than the other Star Fox games. Instead of going from planet to planet on a rail system and blasting things all around you, in this game you actually have to strategize your own movements before you actually get to the blasting. It focuses a lot more on the strategizing than the actual action-packed dogfighting. Basically, whenever you start a mission, you have control over a specific number of pilots and their aircrafts (varies from mission to mission) and you have to plan their flight path. You generally want to aim for enemy waves, giant missiles, and bases, and the goal for each mission is usually to take out all of the enemy forces. Whenever you come into contact with an enemy force, you go into flight combat with that force, and you have to take out all of the units before time runs out (your fuel gauge). If any enemy units or missiles come into contact with the stationary Great Fox, or you run out of turns before defeating everything, you will fail the mission and have to start from the beginning. It’s a pretty neat concept, but it gets hindered quite a bit by something I will talk about later.
The strategizing aspect of the game is really quite fair, and usually doesn’t take a genius to figure out. You are generally given enough time to complete each mission and enemy units don’t generally come out of nowhere. Even in the normally annoying “fog-of-war” segments, you are given the option to mark out some of the fog to see what you normally wouldn’t be able to in other games without memorization. Plus, the enemy AI is pretty predictable with what it does.
The problem with the game, in my opinion, comes from the action and flying segments where you actually have control of the Arwing and when you are trying to take out the enemy units. The controls, although not terrible, are pretty hard to work with and get used to. You move the Arwing around with the touch screen and you fire your lasers with either the directional pad or the A, B, X, and Y buttons (don’t think there is really a different). Now, I don’t know what you guys think, but if I had never played the game and if someone was trying to explain the controls to me, I would be confused with how that would even work. They just seem so inconvenient for the type of game Command is. With that being said, the controls somehow work pretty well despite how stupid they are. It just takes a lot of getting used to….A LOT of getting used to. The problems with the controls are actually pretty situational. In my opinion, the most annoying thing to deal with in the entire game are the missile chases. Basically, whenever you come into contact with an enemy missile, you have to play a mini-game where you have to chase the missile through a series of beacons while trying to shoot it down. It sounds pretty simple, but when you try to combine both the moving and shooting controls, while going at really fast speeds, it becomes a very annoying challenge. If you miss just one beacon, the missile gets away and moves closer to the Great Fox. Also, the beacon courses are actually randomly set, so you can’t expect to get the same beacon path every time. I wouldn’t even call the mini-game a challenge…..it’s just annoying. You can make it to the very end of the mission, with just one missile remaining, and fail the entire mission just because of the stupid missile chase.
Besides that though, it’s still a pretty solid title. It’s far from being the best Star Fox game, but if you can get used to the controls and the gameplay, you can actually find quite a bit of replay value. There are multiple branching paths to the story you can unlock after you complete the game once, and so far, from what I have seen, each path is actually pretty unique with different map layouts and challenges across the board. As for the game’s storyline, it’s actually kind of dull in my opinion, and the majority of the stories seem to focus on the failing relationship of Fox and Krystal, where Fox is a complete dick and Krystal is an uptight bitch (excuse me for the language, but that is the impression I got).
Overall, I would give the game a 3/5. It’s nothing spectacular, but it’s not as bad as I originally thought it was. Once you get past the controls, it’s actually a pretty good game with some nice replay value, albeit with some problems in repetitiveness. Still though, glad I gave this game another chance.
LP Possibility: Because it’s a DS game, “NO!” but even if it wasn’t a DS game, I would still be somewhat hesitant in LPing it. Because I like 100% playthroughs, I would definitely not be interested in covering the entire game. It’s just has so many different paths, none of which seem to have any major difference, and it just seems like it would be a hassle, and almost a little boring.
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That’s about it for this entry folks! I’m not really sure if I am going to update next week, because I will probably be more focused on my 3rd Year Anniversary special, but I’ll let you guys know beforehand if I decide to cancel next week’s update or not. Later!
- SlimKirby
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