User blog:Element Knight 375/Reviews of my Top 5 Favorites

I've been intently watching the videos by the Wiiviewers (a man and his two sons who review games, compare them, play them, etc.) lately, and I thought it might be a fun idea to provide my own reviews of my Top 5 Favorite Video Games, as shown on my user page.

As such, the games I will be reviewing, in order, are Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Mario Kart Wii, Star Wars Battlefront, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and Boom Blox Bash Party.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Where do I start? This is bar none one of the best games out there, at least for Nintendo titles. I'll start with a backstory and then move on to the review:

The game follows the bath of 36 characters total from the Nintendo universe who are forced to take their own paths in an impropmtu quest to stop the efforts of the Ancient Minister, who has been causing bombs to detonate that cause mass destruction through negative matter. And he does it by having R.O.B.s activate the bombs and dies along with it! Yeah, that's nice. Kill innocent robots that remind you of WALL-E. However, the Ancient Minister turns out to be an ally and all of the characters ultimately join up to combat Tabuu, a metaphysical being who is trying to wipe out all of the heroes who can get in the way of his conquest.

This game is known well by now for its proactive Brawl function. It allows up to 4 players to fight in teams or against each other to defeat opponents based off of rules set before hand, by optional parameters set up in the Special Brawl section. It also allows you to play through a very long Adventure Mode, in which you can find trophies, stickers, CDs, and ultimately new characters to add to the roster.

Now for the review. There are so many reasons why this is my favorite game. I really love the updated graphics and new appearances of characters, as well as the movesets, which (aside from Luigi's Negative Zone) really stay loyal to the histories of characters and make the experience feel real. The Adventure Mode was fun, but very long, taxing, and difficult at times. However, I did find it clever to include so many puzzles and searches to unlock new material.

Another group of favorites is the one with Photos and Replays. The replays are great, as they allow to relive great victories. However, it's the Photos that I have insane fun with. Not really because I like taking pictures of the action, but because I love taking pictures of Pokemon and Assist Trophies in action, as it's fun to look through them and remember ones you recognize.

The Masterpieces are a stroke of genius. I love being able to go in and play a few of the classic titles without having to go through the long task of downloading them. Because of them, I actually got to play a little bit of the first ever Zelda title, as well as the first Mario and Kirby titles.

Classic Mode is also pretty great. It allows you to go in and adventure your way through adversity to earn riches. These riches can be used in the Coin Launcher, another fantastic function where you can play to earn new stickers and trophies for your collection. I also like the Events section, as it's a fun way to create scenarios and see how you stack up to the challenges.

A very, very high point is the Stage Builder. I love the fact that it was easy to use, and that you could choose your own music and name for the stage.

Negative Aspects
There are a couple of things I didn't like about the game. First of all, I absolutely HATE Luigi's super move. When you get to play as Luigi in a game, you expect to have a fun time and remember his greatest achievements. But now they include a Super Move that's built from his hatred for being in Mario's shadow? That's NUTS! Luigi's proven himself tons of times. He rescued Mario in Luigi's Mansion, and you can also play through as him in Super Mario Galaxy, where he's the one who saves Princess Peach in the end. I would have very much preferred it if he used the Poltergust somehow. Another thing I didn't like was the fact that in Team Brawl, you were assigned a particular color for a particular team. It would have been fun if you could pick a team and change around the color swaps for each of the team members to make it more comfortable. The last thing I didn't like is...let's see here, um... WHERE'S TOAD!? Toad is one of my favorite characters of all time, and yeat they couldn't squeeze in one more character to fill the void? Ridiculous. In fact, they should have brought back characters from Melee as well.

Conclusion
SSBB is a phenomenal game, the best fighting game on the market in my opinion. Believe me when I say that your collection of Wii games is in no way complete without it. I highly, highly recommend it.

Mario Kart Wii
This is another wickedly phenomenal title. The second most recent title for the Mario Kart series, this game is highly updated from its predecessors in a number of ways. For one thing, the constant number of players in a race is set at twelve, a total of four players more than titles like the first installment, Super Mario Kart. This means that each race is a selection of half the characters in the game (oh yeah, there are 24 characters, too).

A couple of great features to the game are the many racing options. The options are Grand Prix, Time Trials, VS, and Battle. Grand Prix is updated well, with a total of eight cups divided into Nitro Cups, or new courses, and Retro, which consists of improved versions of older courses. This also features a fun Mirror Mode, which I unlocked rather recently. However, this is very challenging and disorienting at the same time, making it impossible to make any good headway.

Time Trials are also improved because you can try to really challenge yourself in order to unlock new characters and vehicles. For example, I wanted the second Mii outfit so bad that in late summer I made it like the only thing I did when I could stand it.

VS mode is fantastic. I love the ability it gives you to set the rules for the races and to pit yourself against your own challenges. I play it constantly now for the fun of it.

Battle mode is a recently discovered favorite of mine. Although by far my favorite option between the two is Balloon Battle, as it depends solely on skill and accuracy. This is not to say that I discourage your playing Coin Runners, but it's not my cup of tea.

Speaking of vehicles a couple of paragraphs ago, I love the variation in them, and the fact that they make it pretty easy to determine the ratings for one.

The WFC feature is enjoyable, but prone to hackers, so you enter at your own risk. However, it's healthy to go there once in a while to see how you stack up against other players and determine what you need to improve.

The multiplayer option is also fun, because you can not only race in teams (either with or against the other players), but you can also see how you stack against other human players in a crowd of CPUs. This makes it a really excellent tool for seeing who among the players can work their way through the adversity best.

Negative Aspects
There were a good few things that I didn't like. For one thing, I wasn't crazy about the automatic assignment of voices based on color for your Miis. It means if you don't like the voice your Mii has, you have only the options of dealing with it, changing your Mii's color to something you like less, or not playing as your Mii at all. As such, I would have liked the option of choosing a Mii's voice.

In the VS mode, I would have enjoyed the ability to customize the number of players and laps in a race. They're not deal breakers, but they're things that you tend to notice over time, and I don't much see why they didn't provide those options.

In Battle mode, I would have likes more variation in vehicles. It's not much of a disadvantage for me, as the Standard Kart they offer is my favorite one in general. But if other players decide they want another vehicle more, they should have that option.

There were some instances where the game made it far too hard to play effectively. For example, despite my relative ease with the 150cc Star Cup, it got insanely hard when I was trying to hit first to get Mirror Mode. So I think that they should have made it so that you don't ever have to fail despite trying as hard as you can possibly try.

There were also some problems with the bikes. With the Mach Bike especially, despite its great qualities I couldn't use manual drift. Whenever I tried, I just ran right into the wall and/or rough.

This last one isn't a criticism as much as it is an idea. I quickly got bored with the tracks in the game, despite the fact that they were all creative and fun. Therefore, I think that the game should have a level builder like in Trackmania, so that way you can have endless fun with endless options.

Conclusion
While there were some flaws with the game, that doesn't change the fact that it is a great gaming experience. When I first got Mario Kart Wii, I'd never even played a shred of Mario Kart myself before. This game was the perfect way to learn the mechanics of the series as well as have incredible, realistic fun. For this day and age, I find this game to be the king of all racing games and I'd say it's a must-get if you're a fan of the Mario Kart series, or even if you aren't.

Star Wars Battlefront
I haven't gotten on a long streak of playing Battlefront in a long while, but it's high up on my list because it has extremely high value as an old favorite. In fact, my dad has been playing only Battlefront for like the past year, and I still at least match him in skill (I may still be better). This should be able to show you just how much I used to play this.

Essentially, the game is a strategic run-and-gun-type game that has three modes. The first is Historical Campaign, where you can play special levels that conform to the events of the movies. You can play through the Clone Wars campaign, which is the first couple of movies, and through the Galactic Civil War campaign, which is the original trilogy. I found this one to be quite fun, as you continually had a set challenge that you had to overcome, and it actually did remind me of the events of the movies, so it achieved its goal. The main downside is that you have to continually have to use a cheat to have immediate access to all the levels in a given campaign, regardless of whether or not you've played it through.

The second is Galactic Conquest; the way this works is: you choose a faction to play as, either Clones, Rebels, Imperials, or Droids, and then you're given a certain amount of planets on which you have to obtain victory. Along the way, both you and your enemies have access to bonuses that could help in the battle. After a while, if you are victorious enough, you have the option to launch a characteristic attack and remove a planet from the map, making your job easier. This Galactic Conquest was great to pass the time, although it wasn't quite as strategic as the one in the sequel, which I found slightly disappointing.

The last is our personal favorite, Instant Action. In this mode, you can select levels that you simply want to play in, with even scores on both sides. In most battlefields, you can pick which era you want to play in, meaning you can choose between Clones VS Droids or Rebels VS Imperials scenarios. You can also turn heroes on or off, meaning you can control whether or not the jedi for the factions will be in play. This is a great mode for simply playing around, learning the ropes, or exercising your strategic skills, so I found this to be the best of the three.

The crowning jewel of this game is the graphics. They are wonderfully realistic, the 1st person make you feel like you're really there, and the level design is pure art, superior to the shallow designs in the sequel. The laser blasts are even more realistic than in the other titles, and the characters are far superior. For example, the clones had waaaay better outfits in this title, and the jedi were better designed.

Another incredible feature of this game is the Splitscreen multiplayer, which can be infinite fun and a good way to build teamwork skills. My dad and I get constant fun out of this mode.

Negative Aspects
There were only a couple things I didn't like too much about the game.

First of all, I consistently found myself wanting to play as a Jedi, despite the blocky movesets, so I think they should have eventually given you that option, as in the sequel.

Secondly, much of the game was just far too simple. The Historical Campaign was great, but you didn't much feel like there was a ton of stuff you were doing differently from what you did in Instant Action. The objectives in the sequel were a bit of fun, and this sequel would have been good if they had been there, but if they were hypothetically going to be featured, they should be optional things you could do in order to gain the upper hand, like destroying certain structures.

As I mentioned earlier, the Galactic Conquest in this game was pretty lackluster. You may say that this is an unfair evaluation, because after all, this was only the first title in the series. However, the Galactic Conquest in the second title was so much improved that you would think they'd have at least featured one or two obvious elements in the first one.

Lastly, WHERE OH WHERE WERE THE SPACE BATTLES? The space battles in the sequel were mindblowingly fun and required fantastic strategy, almost like a separate game-within-the-game. The air combat in this title as it is is excellent, but the space battles added a whole new dynamic which I would have liked to see in this context. Although, perhaps the space battles were a bit too advanced in nature to do well with the limited resources at the time.

Conclusion
Star Wars Battlefront is certainly missing a few key things that were covered in later titles. However, I do have to take into account that this was made in a time different from now, where there wasn't quite as much advanced technology and programming options to fulfill all the wants and vices that players would almost inevitably end up missing later on.

If you take that into account, the Battlefront is utterly FANTASTIC for its time! It had incredible problem-solving value, realistic gameplay experience, and varied gameplay options relative to some of the other contemporary titles. At the heart, it is, as my dad once said, "The greatest army-man game I've ever played."

Therefore, Star Wars Battlefront is a definite masterpiece, and if you like Star Wars or run-and-gun games, then this is one of the titles for you, no question.

Wiiviewer Reviews
Don't take my silly word for it. Watch videos from the guys behind the hype, the Wiiviewers!