N64 Game Review #4- Mario Tennis

Games of this type often present somewhat of a dilemma when it comes to creating a solid review. The main problem I had when attempting to start this particular article was my inability to stop playing the game. I can’t very well hold the ridiculously shaped N64 controller and attempt to type coherent paragraphs simultaneously. This realization brought me to a crossroads. Should I give up on life and simply continue enjoying match after match of over-the-top tennis action? Or should I get my shit together and follow my life’s passion, which has recently become writing a review for each of the millions of N64 games that I possess? As you can clearly see, I chose the latter. There will be plenty of opportunity for merriment at a later date. For now, we all must continue to grind away and achieve our goals. But enough with the pep-talk. We have cartridges to discuss.

I knew from the second that I reverently lofted the standard gray cartridge that writing a completely unbiased review would be impossible. This game brought me so much joy as a child, and writing a bad review for it would pretty much equate to punching Santa Claus right in his fat face. I did, however, attempt to truly evaluate whether or not this game stood the test of time. If I had never played it before, would I still enjoy its ridiculous tennis action? In a word: YES. I’m really not even certain what to write about this game. It has basically zero flaws, and has stood the test of time admirably. Instead of wasting your time with this nonsense, I encourage all of you to go and play it yourselves. But just in case you haven’t lost interest already, here are a few particulars.

Character Selection


This game has a decent number of characters to choose from, including all of the classics that you’ve no doubt come to expect. Also present is the standard allotment of character bastardizations such as Waluigi. These characters have (unfortunately) come to be expected as well, so there really isn’t any use in complaining about their presence. I do refuse to use them, however, in a futile form of protest.

Gameplay

This game is fun, addicting, and backed by smooth controls. This happens to be a potent combination, and I’m sure that many have found themselves wasting their days away playing match after match.

Game Modes

One of the only things this game lacks is variety. There really aren’t any mini-games to speak of, save for the one where you attempt to guide the ball through golden rings that hover above the court. That isn’t to say that the ring mini-game isn’t fun in its own right. I just think that a few more different types would have added to the overall experience. The basic choices for game modes are the standard exhibition match or a number of tournaments of varying levels, all of which provide a sufficient challenge.


Final Thoughts



I realize that this review is fairly short and to the point, and I think that it comes with the territory. Not every game needs a 1500 word review, particularly a pick-up-and-play Mario sports title. To conclude, I would like to say that I highly recommend this game to everyone who enjoys having a good time. Start looking for more frequent reviews pretty soon, as well as a resurgence of some other content from our other writers.


FINAL SCORE: 9.5/10


This game isn’t perfect, but its damn near close. This is certainly one of the better Mario sports titles ever created, and you would be foolish not to give it a shot.

-Joe

Movie Review #3-What's Eating Gilbert Grape

I apologize for the lateness of this review and the others that are supposed to run. Nothing would make everyone happier at Zeminican Productions than if we could put up reviews every week, but sometimes life catches up to us. Anyway...

I got a new movie review and guess what? It’s not animated, yay! Thing is,this movie doesn’t make me go yay, it’s kind of depressing. If I wanted to see a sad Napoleon Dynamite, I’d turn to the 1993 film “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.” Note the title sounds like a question, but it’s really a sentence. That makes no sense.

The movie goes through the life of Gilbert (played by Johnny Depp) whose life sucks ass, and the movie doesn’t hesitate to remind me of this. Gilbert is the caretaker of his family, which includes his morbidly obese mother (we’ll get to her), his two sisters (one older, one younger, both bitches) and the autistic Arnie, his younger brother (played by Leonardo DiCaprio). He also has an older brother and a father, but the brother ran away and his father hanged himself, good times.

The death of Gilbert’s father is the reason why his mother is obese and since the family lives in small-town Iowa, everyone is fascinated with her fat ass. Little kids pay Gilbert and agree to play with Arnie just to peep through the window at that whale of a woman. She has not left the house in seven years and all she does is eat. She complains a lot too, cause she’s fat.

I’m not sure what to make of autistic Leo DiCaprio, every time I see him act… retarded, I think of Robert Downy Jr. in “Tropic Thunder” making that line about “going full retard.” DiCaprio GOES full retard. He’s got the autistic mannerisms down pat. His shtick gets annoying at times, but I have to admit, it’s some quality acting.

So this movie shows various scenarios that depict how depressing Gilbert’s life is. Example, the only way he can amuse himself in town is to try to bang this married lady whose twice his age, this sounds nice except he gets cock-blocked by the lady’s husband. It’s a sad day when Johnny Depp can’t get laid. His sisters also bitch him out for no reason and force him to bathe Arnie. He is too polite to say something his mother about being fat and has to hide the fact that he is reinforcing the floors of the house so she doesn’t break the foundation by moving (their house is shitty). Arnie does dumb shit to make life difficult for Gilbert by making loud noises and climbing the water tower (which everyone finds to be very entertaining).

So the monotony is broken up by meeting Becky, a travelling trailer chick who gives Gilbert the idea that maybe he should leave town (yeah, they fall in love too, who da thunk it). Whether or not he does this, I won’t say. This movie barely crosses the threshold where it’s watchable enough where I’m not going to reveal the ending.

Final Score: 6/10

This is basically sad Napoleon Dynamite. It isn’t bad, it doesn’t bring anything that makes it great either. It’s a solid Depp film and DiCaprio is a very convincing retard. I didn’t like how the movie ended either, there was a certain scene where I thought that should have been the end, but the movie went on. It’s mediocre at best.

-Brian

Kirby's Dream Course

Guten tag frieunden. Today I will describe Kirby's Dream Course, a very non-popular game for the Super Nintendo. Created in the latter portion of 1994, it was shrouded in obscurity till it was discovered in the late fifth grade by Konrad M. He later showed it to me and I was taken by its simplistic, yet riveting game play, early 1990's electronic-jazz music, and pre-directx graphics.

So you might be asking, what exactly is this game? Well, you're in for quite a surprise. Kirby's dream course is a mini-golf game with a Kirby theme to it. The game starts with an intro video which I have yet to see. The main menu has a flamboyant Kirby with the game title behind it. Pressing the start key in my Logitech rumble pad, I enter single player mode and enter my name. And by entering my name, I actually draw it out with a pencil on the game. Such a futuristic feature for a game that was made when I first learned how to integrate e^x dx. Oh how the days have gone by. But back to the game. The first level is an introduction to the game in which Kirby must run over three enemies that are positioned as a triangle.


Kirby can launch himself into the air with different levels of front AND backspin and with right/left spin or remain on the ground with right/left spin. As Kirby lines up a shot and fires a tomato is used up. If he extinguishes his four tomatoes without replacing them he feints due to over exertion and promptly kills himself following his awakening. Tomatoes can only be replenished if Kirby runs into an opponent or finishes the level. Once there is only one enemy left, the enemy becomes the hole in which Kirby must go into to finish the level. If Kirby manages to get a hole in one he receives an extra life.

As the game progresses, the levels introduce new enemies. Some of these enemies give Kirby a special power such as amazing vertical jumps, or freezing so that Kirby can freeze a pool of water and skate over it, or even to turn into a rock and fall straight out of the air while ignoring the principle of conservation of momentum. There are a plethora of skills that Kirby can acquire, but I can not list them all.

As the game continues, the levels become harder and the themes become darker. As Kirby tries to make his way to the end of the level he reminisces about the days when he was a heroin addict underneath the Golden Gate bridge; covered in filth and vomit but what college student isn't? But through the enlightenment of mini golf he managed to escape his old life and now a successful stock broker and video game character.

My final words in this review is that you have to try to the game and then decide what to think of it. Many people have turned away in disgust, but others have taken comfort in its innocent nature.

FINAL SCORE: 7/10

N64 Game Review #3- Quest 64

The prospect of reviewing this game gave me a sort of Christmas-like anticipatory feeling. Except on THIS Christmas morning, rather than being greeted by a boatload of presents, I fully expected to be greeted by a dirty man wearing red taking a shit in my mouth. For this reason, it took me much longer than planned to work up the courage to even load up this game. As it turns out, however, critics who hail this game as "the absolute worst of all time" and my childhood nightmares might not be completely accurate after all.

Quest 64 opens in mid conversation between a character who is presumably to be user-controlled and some sort of authority figure, quite possibly the king of Shit Village. In any event, no background is given and you are informed that you've been insisting to go out and save your father, despite being a child (Your character appears to be about 6 years old. No exaggeration). Your character is named Brian, which makes no sense considering that the dialogue in the game is completely text-based and a new name could be chosen without any consequence. Regardless, the King tells you to go to some village with an exceedingly long name and speak with the king of said village. It sounds easy enough, but it ends up being close to impossible.After traveling down hundreds of staircases in the castle and arriving at the bottom, you step out into the world. Its shouldn't be to hard to find Ononomonoghtville, right? Well if it weren't for the notable absence of any map, it might not be such an ordeal. As it is, however, the only navigation tool you possess is a crude compass in the upper right-hand corner. Its small size basically renders it useless in any practical situation. And since no directional advice was given concerning your destination town, it has no use whatsoever. At this point I saw a road, chose a direction, and hoped for the best.

It was on this road that I had my first taste of battle. The battle system of this game is actually pretty unique, all things considered. You and each of your opponents have a certain radius where movement is allowed. You have four different elemental attacks at your disposal, and each one requires a different range for maximum effectiveness, creating a need for a little strategic planning. The problem, however, is that you enter into a random encounter every three or four steps. This eventually becomes VERY tedious, and I found myself cursing Brian's lack of monster dodging skill. I couldn't figure out to heal aside from the healing spell that you eventually unlock, and this led to a few premature deaths.
To be honest, I actually didn't get very far in this game, when playing it as a child or presently. This is mostly because the first boss is apparently unbeatable. At the very least I was unable to beat him, save for the time that I used Game Shark enhancement. The boss is some sort of bandit that you're supposed to bring to justice in order to proceed to the next town. I'm not entirely sure, as the premise is pretty weak, and depth of story isn't exactly this game's strong suit. Either way, I got a pretty good feel for all major aspects of the game, and I feel qualified to grade it based on that alone. I never claimed that these reviews were particularly in-depth, and playing the games for only a short time is the only way I can possibly make it through my entire collection in a timely manner. Also, combining these contemporary impressions with childhood memories makes for some interesting scores.

FINAL SCORE: 5/10

Instead of a mouthful of shit, Santa gave me a nice little gaming diversion.

This game doesn't do anything particularly well, but it doesn't do anything exceedingly poorly either. Therefore it is decidedly average. Quest 64 tries to be more than what it is, namely an epic adventure. And while there is nothing epic about this game, it does provide some fleeting entertainment. Oh, the music actually isn't half bad either, just a little repetitive. I don't recommended this game for those looking to be entertained, and rather those who like to say that they "survived" things. You know who you are.

-Joe

Movie Review #2-Wizards

Well readers, I’m coming out of left field with the 1977 film “Wizards.” This is easily one of the most obscure films I’ve ever seen and before I saw it, I noticed there are very few reviews out there for this movie, so I had no clue what to expect. When I got through it… oh my god. There were just some things that I could never adequately explain, so I took a few pictures with my cell phone. I apologize if they may not be of good quality. Readers, this may be one of the few in-depth looks at this movie, lets see if it holds up to scrutiny.

Ok, we begin with a narrator setting the scene: Humanity is all but wiped out by nuclear war and radiation clouds turn any survivors into mutants. After a while, elves (think Keebler), dwarves (not very relevant) and fairies (who apparently prefer their women remain topless or naked at all times) pop up out of the ground and just kind of build a society. Then the narrator cuts to a scene of this random elf lady at some party and she looks up at an overcast sky and decides to enter her house for no discernable reason.

So far this is fairly easy to follow, but the movie begins to throw some curveballs. So at this time, her fellow party-goers go check on her and discover the following scene: She is in bed, she has aged about 50 years and has given birth to twin babies. No explanation at all. This is the first two minutes of the movie.

So these babies are the main characters of the movie. One is Avatar, the kind and good child. The other is Black Wolf who as the narrator puts it “spends his time torturing small animals.” As this line comes out, little Black Wolf looks at a baby deer and using black magic, turns it into a dragon. I don’t think that’s torture; I find that kind of awesome.

I think I need to backpedal a little and establish one point: this movie is animated. I’m cutting this movie a break because it is the 70’s, so it pretty much involves the animated characters moving on a still background. This movie uses a lot of stock footage too (this is a big deal later).

Anyway, the mother dies and the two kids fight. There’s also this theme of technology (represented by Black Wolf) versus magic (alluding to nature and represented by Avatar). Avatar defeats Black Wolf, who gets banished and has to live in a wasteland. Avatar goes on to be the leader of the free world of sorts.

Fast forward a few years and Black Wolf has grown to be one creepy mofo.


He is still at odds with his brother and with the whole “tech vs. magic” theme going, he sends a robot assassin to kill everybody that believes in magic. This assassin isn’t fucking around either; he kills an old man as he is reading to a group of children. He also chases some minor character around, but that scene really isn’t important.

Avatar grows up, actually he doesn’t grow up. He’s a midget. He is some boozehound who is kind of an asshole. So Avatar and some dude that looks like Voldo from Soul Caliber are talking about stuff and SWEET JESUS BOOBIES!!


This slutty looking fairy is Eleanor, who is kind of an odd character. She has big boobs. For a fairy, she’s pretty tall. She has big boobs. Despite her slutty outfit, everyone is cool with her and don’t make any sexual remarks toward her. She has big boobs. This may not be visible in the picture above, but the artist actually took the time to make the outlines of her nipples visible through her outfit. Reason why she is in the movie: She has big boobs.

The narrator pulls away from the boobies to provide some background on the war between Avatar and Black Wolf. Black Wolf is the ruler of the mutants in the wasteland and he repeatedly sends them into Avatars land to attack. There are some issues with this: even though the mutants are twice the size of the elves, they are intimidated by them and often lack the motivation to attack them. Pissed at their incompetence, he tells them to dig “pre-holocaust artifacts” which turn out to be tanks and warplanes.

Cut back to Avatar, Voldo and Boobies having a discussion when the assassin busts in and mows Voldo the fuck down. Fight ensues, Avatar stuns assassin and Boobies is flipping some serious shit (apparently Voldo was her father). Cut back to Black Wolf in his evil throne room and oh sweet mother of god…


Yes, that is in fact a swastika. While digging for artifacts, Black Wolf comes across a movie projector that plays Nazi propaganda films (these are actual black and white films) featuring his new role model, Adolf Hitler. This movie just took me some place I didn’t think I was going to go. So Black Wolf comes up with this idea that he can inspire his troops with these films just as he was inspired.


So he shows his troops the footage and (channeling Mark Madden) they all get FIRED UP. They may not understand German, but after seeing the face of Hitler, they’re ready to wreak some shit. They head off to what in my expert opinion is the most fucked up battle scene in the history of cinema.

The elves see the mutants coming and they don’t care because they always win. Black Wolf is with his army and with the movie projector, projects the image of Hitler and the Nazis into the sky.

The elves are absolutely shocked. They are confused, dumbfounded and utterly flabbergasted by this (some of the best WTF faces in the history of animation). They are so shocked that they ignore the fact they are being attacked and get slaughtered. Somebody actually thought of that. What a genius.

Word reaches Avatar and Boobies about the projector and they with the help of some dude and the assassin (who is on their side now), they set out to destroy the projector. I’m not going to explore the story any further because this is a movie where I actually do not want to reveal the ending for those who haven’t seen it. A host of fucked up stuff happens, an acid trip, fairy hookers and an old man spanking another old man’s bare ass with a two-by-four.

Final Score: 8/10

For a low budget, non-Disney animated film from the 70’s; this is a pretty good movie. It uses stock footage creatively and the story moves along quickly (only 1 hr. 17 min.). This movie is so nuts, so random and fucked up; I like it. This is a movie that some people may like and some may hate, but I recommend watching it (even if only for the battle scene with the Hitler footage). The boobies also helped this score.



-Brian

Movie Review #1-Star Wars: The Clone Wars

While Joe is plugging along with his N64 reviews, I’ll be providing a change of pace with some movie reviews. I’m doing this to prove that I can contribute to this site by doing more than just slapping people/getting slapped by people (crossing fingers to hope “The Four Seasons” sees the light of day). There’s no rhyme or reason to what I’m choosing; I just pick random movies.

Fun Fact: I’m a fan of the Star Wars movies, video games and other assorted stuff. The 1977-1983 films are ageless and while the prequels don’t live up to their predecessors, they at the least were fun to look at. I totally forgot there was an animated Star Wars film (Star Wars: The Clone Wars) that came out in theaters last year. This is probably because it was bad, but because of my fandom of the Star Wars pathos, I felt compelled to see The Clone Wars.

Well I put the movie on and it took about 5 seconds for me to cringe. Instead of opening with the iconic scrolling text set to the music of John Williams, I get some Phil Collins-esque bongo drum remix of the original theme while some corny narrator establishes what is going on this movie: war between Jedi/Clones and Sith/Droids, Samuel L. Jackson is in this movie (Note to self: I should write a post about how Samuel L. Jackson is the biggest movie whore ever), and infant Jabba the Hutt has been kidnapped. The last point apparently is the plot of this movie, although it never really is established why this is important, it has something to do with territory, but whatever.

Before I go on about the movie, lets talk about the animation. George Lucas is a billionaire; there is no excuse for this animation to be this bad. He should have enough money to bankroll a half-decent animation studio or to at least bribe a few Pixar guys to help out. My main issue is with the character’s faces, the lips do not match the voices and they look as if it is forbidden for any humanoid character to have a rounded face in this movie. Forget the lightsabers, it looks like Obi-Wan can stab fools with his pointy face.

So back to the plot, basically this is the format of scenes: fighting/action followed by dialogue/sassing which ends with forced humor and then the cycle starts over again. I’m amazed at how consistent this cycle is, I can almost exactly predict what is going to happen next in every scene. That’s just sad.

What “The Clone Wars” does that separates it from the other movies (besides by being animated) is introduce new characters and force humor on the viewer. Let’s start with infant Jabba the Hutt, since apparently it’s central to the movie and it’s existence opens up a variety of questions: How was it born? How do Jabbas procreate? Is it like watching two snails go at it?

Samuel L. Jackson’s only contribution to this movie was the decision to have David Eckstein’s wife aka Asoka (Pictured below and I probably didn’t spell the name right) be Anakin Skywalker’s apprentice. She is annoying as hell. I’d like to poke her giant bug eyes out every time she opens her mouth. Her whole repertoire of acting consists of complaining and “I going prove myself!” type speeches. One word sums her up: Unnecessary.

There’s also a bunch of other random stuff going on: a female R2-D2, a medical droid that sounds high, they show two aliens making out for a few seconds (Yeah, they go there) and this running gag about droids being sassy that never is funny. The evil battle droids from the prequels now speak in this movie, spouting stuff like “Oh no!” and “Let’s get out of here!” This makes no sense at all because they say this and then march face first in cannon fire. If it looks like they value their lives, why are they walking towards their doom? The clones are dumb as hell as well, they run right into the droids that are shooting at them and then they act surprised that they’re getting slaughtered. Most of the action scenes involving the clones and droids just running headfirst into each other, it’s not that exciting, especially because none of the main characters are involved, which makes these scenes irrelevant. The Phil Collins music isn’t helping either.

I recall exactly one scene that made me chuckle, after a dialogue scene (Note the cycle), the movie cuts to a random shot of R2-D2 in a desert, a Jawa walks up to R2-D2 and gets tasered by R2-D2. Cut, end of scene. It had no purpose whatsoever, but I liked it because it was the only unpredictable scene in this whole movie.

Yeah, the movie plays out predictably, Anakin, Obi-Wan and David Eckstein’s wife rescue mini-Jabba and all is right in the universe. There’s a few forgettable action scenes, some signature bad Star Wars dialogue, and there’s a few lightsaber battles for good measure. The movie just kind of ends with the characters just kind of staring at the camera, wondering what the hell to do next; cut to black.

Final Score: 5/10

Make no mistake; I think this movie was bad. I’m not that offended though, I look at this movie in the same light as the live action Super Mario Brothers movie, it has very little to do with the original material, but that doesn’t make it stab-your-eyes out bad. I’ve seen worse CG movies (Final Fantasy: Spirits Within comes to mind). I’m also cutting this movie a break for not having Jar Jar Binks in it, if it did, I would be a lot harsher. Hell, rent it if you’re one of those people who likes to laugh at shitty movies.

-Brian

N64 Game Review #2- Donald Duck: Goin' "Quackers"

I chose to review this game next using a strict grab-bag policy. Meaning that I literally reached my hand into a bag filled with all of my N64 games, rummaged around blindly, and chose one at total random. This is most likely the method I will use for all of my future selections unless I manage to set up some sort of request system. Also, the reviews should start coming in at least once a week, and most likely much more frequently.


I was pleasantly surprised when this game was pulled from my N64 tote bag. Not only had it been on my mind ever since I decided to write these reviews, but i figured that it would make for a quick and easy write-up. I definitely wasn't wrong in assuming this. Now that doesn't necessarily reflect negatively on the quality of the title. Some action and platformer titles just make for a quick play. As far as quality is concerned, my expectations were fairly mixed. The only Donald Duck type game that I remembered playing previously was Duck Tales on the NES. That was a winner, so i decided to keep an open mind.




The first thing about this title that surprised me was the instant presence of voice acting. I know that this wasn't unheard of in the N64's heyday, but it would certainly be fair to categorize it as uncommon. As an added bonus, it didn't sound garbled and ridiculous, something all of us have occasionally experienced with more advanced consoles. Now, just because the voice actors could be heard fairly clearly (as clearly as "duck-speak" is able to be audibly rendered) doesn't mean that their words had any substance behind them. I honestly didn't really even catch what the conflict of this game was. As far as I can tell, some evil duck wizard has allegedly stolen hundreds of teddy bears, and Donald can't go home until he travels the world and collects them all. If this sounds ridiculous, thats most likely because it is. I didn't, however, expect this game to have a deep and engaging plot, so lets call it a wash.


Donald Duck: Goin' "Quackers" consists of four worlds, each containing four levels and a boss. I played through the first world in its entirety, and that gave me more than an adequate understanding of how this game works. The levels are pretty much split evenly between side-scrolling action and linear forward third-person. This gives things a nice mix, and I found myself at least partially enjoying both types.
The objectives of each level are both simple and identical: find three teddy bears and once boss piece. Th boss piece looks like a golden pizza slice, and you need to locate all four (one in each level) before you can access the boss. In other words, you can't just blindly make your way through the level, because simply beating it will get you nothing if you don't find that piece. The teddy bears, on the other hand, are optional. I think. Its actually very difficult to tell what purpose those stuffed little mother fucks actually serve. After I had beaten the world one boss, I went back and collected all of the stupid bears. What I got for my trouble was a bonus level where the objective is to run towards the screen while an actual live bear chases you. And when you successfully conquer this level, a reward consisting of absolutely nothing is all that you receive. So I decided that the bears are useless, despite the fact that I thought the premise of the game was to collect them. Apparently I was wrong. Either way its entirely frustrating.

Now that we've covered the overview, there are a few specific mechanics that i would like to touch upon. Firstly, the HP system. The only indication you have of your proximity to certain death is an archaic face-reading system. It goes something like this: happy face, sad face, death. I kid you not. In the upper-right hand corner of the screen (you can clearly see it in the above screen shot) is Donald Duck's face. When he is smiling, you have two hits remaining. When he looks upset, you have but one hit remaining. After the second hit, you die. Its as simple as that. Well, as simple as a ridiculous face HP meter is likely to be. It wouldn't have been as bad if I had known of this little quirk from the start. But alas, I learned the hard way, as I'm sure did every other patron of this game (I imagine 10-year-olds crying in frustration).

One last qualm I have with this title is the presence of partial invincibility. Much like in popular titles such as Super Mario Brothers, certain items can be encountered on-screen that will render Donald invincible. In the case of this game, that invincibility-inducing item is a cupcake. Upon consuming the cupcake, Donald strikes a few poses and begins to swing his arms wildly in front of him, destroying every enemy in his path. Simple enough, right. Right, that is until I was jaunting merrily along, enjoying my alleged invincibility, when I hit a bush and died. That's right, I was killed by a bush that was barely even visible over the background of the level. So I guess even total vulnerability has its limits. Aside from that, however, the mechanics are actually pretty solid. Punching or jumping on an enemy causes them to disappear in a cloud of smoke, and Donald continues merrily on his way.

The first boss (pictured above) really couldn't have been that much easier to beat. You punch some new born chickens in the face, jump on a big fat chicken, and repeat the process two more times. Piece of cake.


All in all, Goin' Quackers actually isn't that bad of a game. While a tad frustrating, its also fun, entertaining, and brings out your inner child. Now if this were the year 2000, I definitely wouldn't recommend dropping 50 bucks on it. But I'm sure that these days you could pick it up for fairly cheap, and I kept that in mind while calculating the score.

FINAL SCORE: 6.75/10


-Joe

N64 Game Review #1- Rugrats in Paris: The Movie

Let me begin by saying that this is by far the best Rugrats game that I have ever played. I'm not saying that this magical title is impervious to future usurpers, but for now it stands alone as the king of baby games. That being said, this is also the only Rugrats game that I've ever played, and it does little to persuade me to expand that particular gaming library.

At first, Rugrats in Paris: The Movie (RIP for short. Ironic) actually fooled me into thinking that it was an adequate platformer for its time. This illusion lasted all of 45 seconds. I decided to change things up with this title and start my evaluation with the multiplayer mode. Basically, it consists of four minigames, three of which have very unclear goals. All of the mini-games are played with an alternating player system, and can support up to four players.

The first mini-game, ski ball, is what initially fooled me into believing that this game wasn't terrible. It actually seemed pretty straight-forward. Whoever scores the most points wins, right? Wrong. The entire points system is based entirely on the collection of tickets that arbitrarily appear along the path of the ball. The position of the tickets often interferes with the path that leads to the highest point locations, and it wasn't until after the round was over that I actually knew about the ticket scoring system. Needless to say, I just assumed that they were some kind of bonus, and proceeded to mostly ignore them and go for the big points. Expletives flowed like a river from my mouth when I realized my mistake.

The second mini game started me off in some sort of bumper boat-like device and gave absolutely no explanation as to what I was supposed to do. There were tickets laying around, and by now I had learned my lesson about their value and decided to collect them. Aside from the tickets, the only other things that provided any sort of interaction were these strange little statues that started dancing and singing if you knocked into them. I randomly decided that I was supposed to activate all of them at once. This proved impossible, however, and I ended up just collecting all of the tickets until time expired. I ended up scoring 13 points for literally puttering around and collecting tickets. I fail to understand how that qualifies as a game. Adding my accidental 3 first-round points to my total, I now had 16 points overall.

I failed to mention earlier that I had a choice of six Rugrats to choose from when I started the mini game challenge. I picked Tommy because I'm not an idiot and I know that he is the freshest baby around. The other choices are what you would typically expect: Chuckie, Angelica, Phil, Lil, and Chuckie's asian sister. The reason that I bring this up now is that in game #3, it doesn't matter who you chose to represent yourself. Because when the game started, I was a frog. It makes absolutely no sense that I would be controlling a frog. Last I checked, there were no green, slimy Rugrats. I don't think that there was even a black one, let alone one of a different species. All I'm saying is that this seems like a strange time for diversity. Anyway, this game actually was straightforward despite the frog issue. I was tasked with eating as many bugs as I could within a certain time limit. Essentially, I could rotate on my lily pad and stick my tongue out to ensnare my prey. I ended up snagging every single bug and was very proud of myself. Proud of myself, that is, until I saw my score for the round, which was a cold, hard ZERO. What the hell? I know that up until now the scoring was entirely based on ticket collection, but there weren't even any tickets in this game, just bugs and frogs! Cursing Christ for allowing this game to be created, I decided to hold off on killing myself and try out the last remaining game.

This game, called Bumper Cars, started me off in the same bumper boat vehicle as game number two, but instead of water, I was in a little bumper car arena with three other characters. The goal of this game was to have the most balloons at the end of a two minute period. Bumping the other characters caused them to ejaculate their balloons, after which they could be collected. I hit each character a few times until I built up a lead, then went and hid in a corner and watched the other idiots battle each other. They never thought to chase me. When the round ended, I had the most balloons and was therefore the winner. But I wasn't going to get my hopes up, because once again no tickets had been involved. However, the game arbitrarily awarded me six tickets for being the victor! Now why on earth couldn't it give me any fucking tickets for my epic bug snatching performance?! Some mysteries will never be solved, I suppose. Another question I have is why couldn't this game be played in split screen mode? Instead, it forces each player to alternate competing against three computer-controlled players. It just seems very inefficient.

Now that I had become sterile playing the mini-games, I figured that I might as well try the adventure mode, which, after all, is supposed to be the main reason for playing the game in general.

I once again selected Tommy from the same pool of characters, and promptly began my "adventure." I started off in Reptarland, a fictional amusement park that I'm guessing was featured in the actual film. The first thing I noticed was the presence of those god-forsaken tickets. With a heavy heart, I began to collect them while wandering around this amusement park wasteland. To say that the controls were loose would be a compliment. They were horrific. I would aim for a ticket, and end up hitting a wall a full three feet away. I mean, I get that babies aren't the most coordinated creatures, but can we just pretend for the sake of my sanity? For fuck's sake. Anyway, I honestly couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do besides wander around and collect those stupid tickets. I don't need to play a game for this kind of experience. I could just wander around some abandoned fairgrounds or something. It would probably be slightly more creepy and significantly more fun. I did keep seeing signs for mini games, but seeing as how they were the same damn games from multiplayer mode, I wasn't about to go anywhere near them. So instead I scoured the area and scrounged together about 13 tickets. I them accidentally located some sort of ticket exchange building in an obscure corner. I figured I would be living large, considering that I had just spent the last 15 minutes collecting all of the tickets in the area. I was quickly pulled back into reality, however, when I realized that the cheapest item was 60 tickets. I guess I was supposed to win more tickets by playing those awful mini-games, but I just didn't have any gas left in the tank. And besides, I have no idea what the items did or if they were in any way associated with advancing through the game. The one that cost 60 tickets was baseball glove, and I don't think that would be very useful to a baby. Frustrated, I switched the game off and walked away from this nightmare forever.

In conclusion, RIP is a terrible game, and I do not recommend it to anyone, unless you have some sort of baby fetish or are looking for a few laughs.

FINAL SCORE: 1.5/10

I don't care if it follows the movie or not. I wanted to follow IT with a hit of something. I gave it an extra .5 because the cartridge is black instead of the traditional gray.

-Joe

Grab That Branch

I'm fully aware of how many projects we keep promising to deliver. Let me assure you that progress is exactly what we expected at this point. We do, however, expect a slowdown these next few weeks with all of us heading back to our respective colleges. With that in mind, I just wanted to let everyone know that Sean and I, along with our good friend Brian, have been tossing around some ideas regarding possibly launching something that we could produce easily while in school and possibly provide episodic content for. Generally, we have considered creating some type of weekly review for a variety of media such as video games and movies. We have decided to review only things that haven't been tapped by the main online market yet (for example, we don't plan on covering things that have been reviewed by AVGN, The Nostalgia Critic, Spoony, etc.). We already have some very original ideas for content as well as format. We're pretty excited about it so i thought I would share some of our preliminary thoughts on here. We'll definitely provide more details as they come. Also, I'm fairly certain that I'm going to start doing some written video game reviews, so keep an eye out for that.

-Joe

Clash-tastic

Filming for The Four Seasons (working title) is currently at somewhat of a standstill. While what has occurred would simply be labeled as a "creative difference" in many circles, here at Zeminican Productions we like to provide the entire back story whenever possible.

Essentially, two of our actors are currently at odds. For those who have seen the video description, you know that the punishment for failure while competing within "The Course" is a firm, open-handed slap to the face. Well, lets suffice it to say that our loser took some personal offense at the force and perceived personal motivation behind said slap when it was administered on the set. Saying any more would give away the outcome of the challenge. But we promise to publish the entire story after the video is released, as we find it quite humorous.

All of that being said, both Brian and Tim have verbally agreed to complete work on the project. We hope to gather everyone over the next two weeks and wrap up filming. We're looking at an approximate filming deadline of August 22, with one or two weeks after that designated for editing. Hopefully it won't take nearly that long, considering that scene 3, which is the bulk of the project, is already more or less completely edited.

Right now we're shooting for the beginning of next week to resume filming. More to come as soon as we have some definite plans.

-Joe