Super Mario Land 2 Six Golden Coins - Review

It's Christmas time!  A time of family, friends, engagements and awesome gifts.  I've wanted to play Super Mario Land 2 6 Golden Coins for ages, so naturally, I was pretty stoked to get it for Christmas.  Thanks Nollsy!  Super Mario Land 2 6 Golden Coins was originally released back in 1992, I only ever borrowed it from friends and I never owned it, until now.  While Nolls tore into some of the new books I got her I decided to play Super Mario Land 2 6 Golden Coins.


Lullaby milk is great!  It tastes great and really helps you get a good nights sleep.  I know some people don't like milk, they are odd people.  There is something so comforting about milk it reminds of being a kid.  Playing Super Mario Land 2 6 Golden Coins I found myself asking was this the creamy comforting goodness I remembered?

Story

Like many games of the time, the story is simple.  The evil Wario decides to take control over Mario's Island along with his castle.  Mario needs to collect a golden coin from each of the six zones and use them to unlock the castle gate.  Once inside Mario needs to traverse the castle and kick out mean and slightly crazy Wario.


Overall the story is simple and to the point but that isn't a bad thing.  The simplicity is what makes it so fun.

Visuals

There is something so fun about 8-Bit graphics, it's amazing the fact so much could be made with so little.  The game has some great visuals, running around the innards of a living whale was fun, or the spooky graveyard and of course traversing the tree zone.


Overall the visuals are fantastic, they might be 25 years old but they don't feel like they have aged.



Music 


There is something about hearing 8-Bit music that just makes me smile.  The music is very upbeat and positive, even the boss battles and Wario's Castle.  The soundtrack is created by Japanese composer Kazumi Totaka.  Totaka has worked on Tetris, Dr Mario, Animal Crossing, Wii Sports, Pikmin 2, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Yoshi's Island DS to name but a few.


The soundtrack is a little shy of thirty minutes.  My favourite tracks included; 'Choose Pipe', 'Mario Zone', 'Pumpkin Zone', 'Athletic', Graveyard', 'The Moon', 'Invincibility', 'Boss Battle' and 'Wario's Castle'.


Overall the soundtrack is fantastic and is so much fun!

Gameplay


Super Mario Land 2 6 Golden Coins is a classic platformer.  As with almost all Mario games, there are hidden areas and lots of fun power-ups including my favourite fire flower.  Instead of getting an extra life for every hundred coins you collect you can play the slots and try to win them or other items.


The enemies are fun and for the most point are not too awkward with the exception of some of the bosses, the worst being the one in Space Zone and Wario himself.  To be fair Wario isn't the worst but the enemies just before him are awkward and I found myself losing my power-ups to them.


Overall the gameplay is fun and reminds of me the games I used to play growing up.





Final Thoughts


So, after a few hours of playing how did I feel?  Pretty good!  Super Mario Land 2 6 Golden Coins is a classic game.  It has a light story, fun visuals and music, along with great gameplay.  I'm glad I finally have it in my collection and look forward to playing it in the future.  This one gets 4 out of 5

8-Bit Gaming Conference - Review

Just arrived back last night from Ireland's first 8-Bit Gaming Conference in Griffith College. There was so much to see and do; my better half and I both really enjoyed it and are already looking forward to next year. The atmosphere was brilliant; there were so many gaming enthusiasts & we couldn't get over the amount of rare games & consoles on display.


During one of the panels, we got to hear about how the idea for the 8-Bit Conference came about from one of the organisers.  It was only really conceived a few months ago in a pub (he jokes 'as all good ideas are'). It came from a desire to organise a gaming related event. With a lot of work and little sleep, their idea became a reality.  It's hard to cover everything we got to see and do while at the conference but I will sum it up as best I can to try to do it justice.

The first area we entered was the Retro Gaming Museum, which was fantastic.  They had dedicated display cabinets for both Mario & Zelda, and some of the items featured were really rare.  I thought it was really awesome that they actually had copies of E.T. on the Atari 2600 - which reminds me I really must watch the documentary on Netflix, Atari: Game Over.


While they were many great retro consoles on display, a number of which you were also allowed to play my favorites had to be a rare SNES developer console and the Atari Lynx handheld console.  I was lucky enough to play a Japanese prototype version of Mario Kart on the SNES developer console, which was a lot of fun. The owner of the prototypes explained how these were sent, in various forms (complete, incomplete, slightly different to release versions) to journalists for gaming magazines in the 90s and 2000s. These prototypes and advance copies were often then sold and traded around into the hands of collectors. For me though, getting to play Donkey Kong on the Gameboy (hooked up to a big screen!) was probably the highlight for me and made me really want to buy a Gameboy again.

Next, we moved onto the Arcade Room - this was awesome!  They had a number of Arcade Machines set up and built by Mini Arcade Systems, an Irish company.  Not only did we get to play as many games as we wanted free of charge but they also had free sweets next to every machine.  Not surprisingly, we spent quite a bit of time here hunched over machines, despite being soaked through from being caught in the rain. We even missed the Sega Arcade panel because of it. We easily could have spent the rest of the day there, trying out many of the 800+ available games from Sega, Nintendo, and many more classic systems.


Three things became apparent after being in the Arcade Room. First, playing retro games on an old style bartop arcade machines is a lot of fun. Second, having a player 2 makes it even more fun. Third, we want to buy one of these machines as soon as possible - perhaps as a Valentines Day present to ourselves.

                                                             photo credit 8-Bit Gaming Conference

To be honest I was really happy just to have seen the Retro Museum & The Arcade Room but there was even more to enjoy.  There were multiple panels on retro gaming - the one we went to was on collectibles which was really interesting.  We not only got to hear from the event organiser but also from some avid collectors.  I really liked hearing from the guy who had his whole house dedicated to not only retro gaming collectibles but also his collection of literally hundreds of old CRT TV's & monitors - his reason being, you need a good display set up for the full retro gaming experience.  It was great how excited everyone was, and they were also seriously talking about putting together a gaming museum in Ireland which, in my opinion, would be epic.


On the second floor there was so much going on. There were some really good cosplayers including two people (dressed as Squall and Rinoa) who were there talking about Kupocon.  What is Kupocon I hear you ask?  It is a celebration of all things Final Fantasy including; games, music, special guests & more.  We will be attending next year in Birmingham as the London event has already sold out.  Outside of this, there were tournaments being held and retro games & consoles on sale along with lots of handcrafted items.

photo credit 8-Bit Gaming Conference

photo credit 8-Bit Gaming Conference

 photo credit 8-Bit Gaming Conference

Overall we had an awesome time and based on an interview done with the event organisers they are even looking at bringing it to Cork which would be awesome.  For any of you who missed out on it this year, I cannot recommend highly enough that you check it out next year.

A Wii Bit of Fun

My first introduction to the Wii was not a great one, let me explain.  I am what you might call athletically challenged, I mean I can walk without falling over but little outside of that. So when I had to head a virtual ball a few times it did not work out so well.  Overtime I warmed to the console & saw its potential, to me it was & still is a good console.


The console focused on fun, family & friends, while you can play alone the best experiences to be had are definitely with a group.  The Wii Remote, Nunchuk & some of the accessories are great &
although graphically the games were not very impressive it was never really about that.  Nintendo designed a console I really felt brought people together & reminded people what it is to just have fun.


I feel what damaged the console & stopped it being as successful as it could have been were the poor budget games that very quickly flooded the market.  As always Nintendo wanted to make their console not only appeal able to all demographics but also to all developers. They made it easy & relatively low cost for developers to release games on their platform, which was great but also had its draw backs.


In this post I wanted to highlight some of the great games that were released on the Wii & give you a good reason to buy it or go back to it.

I type these words with a high level of confidence when I say I don't think there is any gamer that has not played at least one version or another of Mario Kart.  At its core the idea is very simple; drive round some great tracks with crazy power ups & try to come first place. The game itself is so much more than that & no matter how much you play there is always time for one more race.


Like previous installments there are different cups made up of a number of courses, some are new to the series & others are old favorites.  You have the option of playing Grand Prix, Versus, Time Trails & Battle.  The big difference with Mario Kart Wii outside of the new tracks is all the ways you can play, you can use:

Wheel accessory along with the Wii Remote
Wii Remote & Nunchuk
GameCube control pad
Wii control pad


The music for Mario Kart Wii is so positive & up beat that it's impossible not to smile when you hear it. It may sound cheesy but some of the music reminds me of being a kid playing in the park in summer time without a care in the world.  There is only one sound in the game that no matter how well your are driving or how confident you are about taking first place washes all of that away & makes you sweat, of course I am talking about the dreaded Blue Shell. With that one exception all the other music & sounds are awesome & non fear educing!


Visually speaking the games looks great from the design of the Karts & Bikes to the tracks themselves. Some of my favorite courses in design & to to play are; Choco Mountain, Delfino Square & Rainbow Road.  What did he say? Rainbow Road!  It's a great looking vibrant course & can be very challenging. While picking the course won't help you win any friends the joy & relief of coming first place cannot be replaced by anything else.


I think any truly great game is simple to play & hard to master, Mario Kart Wii is a good example of this.  Once you have played every course a few times you think yeah I am pretty good at this, that is until you take on other players & not just AI.  Mastering skills like drifting & getting a speed boosts at the start of a race are essential. The collectible power ups can shift the balance of a race massively, someone that is last place can get just one power up & end up taking first place & someone in first place can quickly be knocked down to last place. Some people get very frustrated with this system & on occasion I have too. What I love about it is that you can be last place on the last lap & still have a chance of winning & if you are in first place & miles ahead of everyone it isn't a guarantee your going home with the gold. The other players keep you on your toes & ensures you never become complacent or over confident.


For me the only real flaw is when using the steering wheel I don't find the karts/bikes maneuverability to be as good as it is with the GameCube or Wii Pad. Overall a fantastic fun driving game with no huge flaws & is one of the key reasons to buy a Wii or dust off the one you have.

Ah Wario Ware, even saying the name makes me smile.  The first time I played it was at a friends house, a bunch of us were just hanging out & spent probably no less that three hours playing. While it would be easy just to say its a bunch of mini games it's a lot more than that & definitely not to be over looked.


There is a sort of story to the game, Wario discover a magical Form Baton that he and his friends use to have wacky adventures.  While the story is lacking it is not the sort of game that really needs one.


The game is silly crazy fun & the music used in it is equally so.  I love that the music sounds like it is encouraging you to have fun but also act quickly, this is really important in later levels where the game gets pretty manic. I like the design of the mini games themselves, the simplistic almost cartoon style animations along with the designs of Wario & his friends.


In terms of gameplay I can't say it enough but it is so much fun!  One of my favorites parts is the tutorial, strange right? You have this very serious & droll voice telling you how to hold your Wii Remote along with a little soul music playing in the background & then he says something funny at the end, for example:


The Umbrella

Hold the Form Baton vertically, thumb resting lightly on the button.
Through this stance, you channel the quiet dignity of a circus clown.


Another favorite of mine is a running game which requires you & your team mate to jump at different times & try to get as far as you can.  Being honest you don't really need to jump you can just move the Wii Remote or Nunchuk up quickly & it works just the same but it's more fun if you actually jump. My only real flaw with the game is that when you start you can only play single player. To unlock multiplayer you need to play the whole game through once solo, this seems strange as the game is clearly made to be played by more than one person.


I can sum the game up in five simple words; wacky, fun also buy it!

I played House of the Dead 2 for many years in the arcades & loved every minute of it. Unfortunately over time you end up moving on to other games & start to forget about killing zombies, killer toads & imps that can control axe wielding suits of armor. Of course that is until it gets released on the Wii & you say to yourself "oh yeah I loved playing that game I must buy it".


The story is set a short time after the original, you are in Venice looking for missing Agent G. After battling a few enemies you find G who is wounded & gives you a journal detailing almost all the bosses & their weak points.  I always thought G was really great for doing this, it's just a shame it did not do him much good. As always there is a rich mastermind that thinks causing chaos & destroying civilization is a good thing & his name is Caleb Goldman, which being honest is a pretty cool villain name. You get to shoot your way through a horde of different enemies & try to save the world.


If ghosts listened to music then I think the House of the Dead soundtrack would be one of their favorites. Spooky noises, eerie screams & moaning zombies help fill the game with despair.  This of course works well with the setting of the game & helps create a grim atmosphere.


For the time graphically speaking the game looked great but I wished they had done a remastered HD version of the game. The set pieces & enemies really add depth to the game especially with some of the bosses. One of the features I loved was the blood & gore effects you got when killing enemies, it was always so brutal but so cool!


I loved using the gun on the arcade version & while the Wii Gun is not quite the same I feel its pretty close. Although some of the boss were cool & added some great tough battles it was always the regular enemies I liked best. There was the big chain saw guys you had to shoot a ton of bullets at to kill. There was the dual axe zombies that you have to wait for them to reveal there face so the bullets would not deflect off their axes. Of course once of my favorites is the zombie toads that would come out of no where & bite you.  Rescuing civilians was great as often you were rewarded with health packs, however failing to save them resulted in tears & a bloody mess.


Has the game aged? Yes most definitely. Is it still a great gore filled shooter with a cheesy story line & zombie toads? Yes.  If you have not had the chance to play it before or want to play it again the Wii version might be the way to go.



Once again another post draws to an end, I am reminded that I still have my Wii set up downstairs in my living room & I should really play it more. I regret in some ways that I did not play more titles on the Wii but my focus was usually on the Xbox 360.  Here are some the games I wished I had played & still might:


Super Mario Galaxy 2
New Super Mario Bros
Donkey Kong Country Returns
Xenoblade Chronicles
Mad World
Kirby's Epic Yarn
Pikmin

End Of An Era......Change is Coming

At this point in my life things were starting to change. Not only was I leaving England & moving to Ireland but also a new era of gaming was about to begin - for me & for everyone else.  The beloved 'cartridge' was being quickly replaced by a new format the 'disc'.

Before I move fully into that I want to make a few honorable mentions.  Just so you know I did not own any of the following consoles but did get to experience them all.

The first time I played a Nintendo games console (apart from the Game Boy of course!) was at a friends house.  The game I played was about an over weight & short plumber wanting to rescue a girl obsessed with wearing pink. Of course I am talking about Mario or more specifically Mario Bros on the original Nintendo Entertainment System.  Like many platforms the objective was simple; move through levels & save the Princess - simple but not easy.  You take on a multitude of enemies & get to visit many colorful worlds.  While Mario was an enjoyable experience it never captured me the same way Sonic did.  Maybe I just prefer animals to people.......hmm.....wait, that's not entirely inaccurate.

The next console I played was the Super Nintendo!  We had a bring something you love to school day & one of the kids brought in a Super Nintendo.  We all got a turn on it & the game I played was Street Fighter 2. Her legs were oh so powerful, cute hairdo & a short blue dress - Chung-Li was my lady.  The first time I achieved her signature move 'spinning bird kick' was awesome - not only because it looked cool but was also the winning move in the match.  After this I continued to play a lot more Street Fighter 2 but I played it on the Mega Drive.

I had a friend in England very religious parents his Dad was even a Vicar.  His parents were against violence & did not like there kids watching a lot of TV.  Naturally they had cable TV with over 200 channels (which at the point & even now is a lot of channels!).  On top of that they had so many toy guns that if they were real you would have an arsenal big enough to take over a small country.  The best thing they had though was N64 more specifically Golden Eye.  While me & my friends enjoyed watching our friend play Golden Eye we did on occasion actually get to play it too.  Without a doubt by today's graphics its look very out dated but the game play itself was superb. They tried using faces that looked like real people - well sort of.  As a whole it was a great game & well worth the play.

I am sad to say this is the end of my time in the UK & with cartridge rich consoles. I own a multitude of consoles & even now I like to play my old cartridge games.  There is just something about those consoles I can't leave behind.  Maybe it is the characters or the games but one thing is for sure I will always go back & play them.

Game Boy More Than Just Tetris

My first handheld console was the Game Boy. I bugged my parents for a long time about getting me this & they eventually did.  They were nice enough to get me the magnifier light as well - why would you need that? Problem was if you were not in a really well lit room it was sometimes a struggle to see what was happening on the screen.  But hey I still loved it!

You know what game I got with it? Tetris? No actually it was Terminator 2 Judgement Day which was pretty awesome. While it is nowhere near as enjoyable as Robocop vs The Terminator it was still a good platform game.

Batman Return of the Joker was probably one of my favorite games on the Game Boy. You get to be Batman chase after the Joker & use cool gadgets.  I began a love affair with Batman after I watched the 1990 movie.  Before you judge to harshly I had not read any Batman comics after I did I realised the movie was not as great as I first thought.  Being honest I still think Micheal Keaton's portrayal of Batman is the best to date & yes I have seen that gravelly voiced actor try to play Batman & I was not impressed.

Tetris. I think that is all I need to say about this game really - alright fine I will expand a bit.  This game if you excuse the pun was a game changer. A simple to play game that was hard to master & anyone with even slight OCD tendencies loved this game.  Even now typing here I long to be playing my old Game Boy - that come to think of it my parents may have.  If you have not played Tetris or have never heard of it there is a chance your dead or zombie - wait no zombies were human once so no your dead.  Wait a second dead people were alive.......  so nope there are no valid reason not to have played this masterpiece.

A big shout out to Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins.  A brilliant game with awesome bosses including the 3 little pigs - turns out not so innocent & I feel sorry for the wolf! Who could forget Mega Man: Dr Willy's Revenge - the name made you laugh & also made you wonder what it would be like to have a blaster for an arm. A tough but brilliant action platform game.

Before moving on to the next console in my gaming life I wanted to give some shout outs to some other great titles:

Game Boy Gallery 5 Games in 1 (one of first games I tried - loved it!),
Battletoads
Pokemon
Alleyway
Battle City
Dr Mario
Donkey Kong
Kirby's Dreamland.

See you next post!