Mario's Picross

I'm not sure how I haven't yet talked about my love of the Picross series of games from Nintendo.  The concept is surprisingly simple, yet amazingly difficult to master.  There's a simple grid, anywhere from 5x5 to 15x15, and there are numbers indicating how many squares in each row or column need to be filled in.  A "15" would indicate the whole row is filled in, while a "0" means nothing gets filled in.  However, a "3 4" indicates there's a group of three and a group of four that need filling, but when you have fifteen squares to choose from, it can be difficult to figure out which ones are right and which ones aren't.

The later games in the series increased the size of the puzzles and even took them into the third dimension (because adding a z-axis to everything makes it harder), but having just wrapped up a recent play through of the original game, I figured I'd talk about it.

Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins

Every now and again I like to dust off (read: blow in the ports and stuff a cartridge in) my old Game Boy and see if I still remember how to play a game.  A while ago I took a look at one of my favorites, Nintendo World Cup, but while that was a fun way to blow off steam, when I think to my Game Boy days, there's one game that tends to rise up above the others as one I'd play over, and over, and over again, finding every hidden secret and memorizing every stage until I could probably talk my way through it like some twisted version of Lifeline.

But man, putting it in now and playing through it...this is one messed up game.

Top Eleven: Things I Blogged About In 2014

Another year of writing, complaining, and commending down, hopefully many more to go.

Each year I've done this blog (read: last year) I've done a year end "wrap-up" where I scour through my archives and attempt to locate the eleven articles that mean the most to me.  Maybe they're connected to an important memory, maybe they were extremely emotional to write, or maybe I just had fun writing them.

And yes, there will also be a "bottom eleven" coming as well.

But for now, let's look back at the articles I'm the most proud of from the past year.

Review: Mario & Luigi: Dream Team

I've talked about why I prefer Luigi over Mario before.  I won't go into all that detail again.  However, I will say this:  There was great potential in Mario and Luigi: Dream Team to truly let Luigi shine, but it feels a bit wasted somehow.  Luigi gets some of the best moments in the game, and yet he still feels like he's just there to "help" Mario.

It's still a ridiculously fun game, but let's get a bit more into it.

Top Eleven: Reasons Why Luigi Is Better Than Mario

There is no bigger video game mascot than Mario.  

Okay, actually, that's not correct.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Pac-Man is actually the most recognizable video game mascot/character of all time, with Mario a very close second.

However, while I've played so many of his video games that any time anybody says "Who is it?" in a movie, my brain automatically fills in "It's-a me, Mario!", he hasn't been my favorite brother.

No, that honor goes to Luigi.

So why is it the world's most standard second banana is my favorite?  Here's a list of eleven reasons why.

Paper Mario: Sticker Star Review

Mario, in of himself, is not that great a character.  He's world-famous, easily recognizable, and stars in some superb video games, but if you asked me to talk about who the character is, I'd falter.

Here's a quick list of things that are really off the top of my head (no really, I'm just now trying to think these up) about Mario:

He goes "yahoo" a lot.
He's very upbeat.
He's always willing to save a princess from dragon turtle things.
He likes to go-cart.
He once had a talking, water-spraying jet pack for a sidekick.
He gets along well with dinosaurs.
Different types of plant life do different things to his body.

That's a pretty bland character, because there just isn't much personality there.  Mario doesn't ever really say anything besides "okie-dokie," "let'sa go," or "it'sa me!"  Luigi, on the other hand, has a lot more depth, since we know he's a bit of a coward, but still willing to walk into danger.  He's fiercely loyal to his brother.  He tends to be a bit clumsy, and acts goofy at strange times.  He can be a little lazy, and doesn't really get into the pomp of ceremonies thrown by the princess ("What, another cake?  Wake me when this kingdom discovers booze.")

Now, there are some small exceptions to this rule, and they tend to come in the RPGs featuring Mario.