Controller Punch!

Well, now that I’ve resurfaced from the fallen utopia of Rapture (and a pneumonia-induced comatose state), I feel it’s time we take a look at what is held by many as the greatest game OF ALL TIME! *blows trumpet*

During the Bit Wars of the late 80′s and mid 90′s, the Sega Mega Drive (known as the Genesis in North America) was quickly scrapping to the top spot, on the back of such mammoth hits as Sonic The Hedgehog and sponsers such as Pat Riley and Joe Madden. However, Nintendo had an ace in the hole.  Three years and sixteen developers later, the dream of the previously dubbed “Super Mario Bros 4″ had come to fruition. Shigeru Miyamoto and Shigefumi Hino (of Pikmin fame) helped bring this masterpiece to light, and apparently had planned for Yoshi to come along before this game. However, the graphical limitations of the NES proved far too constricting to Nintendo’s lime-coloured lizard.

Continuing the winliness we saw on the cover of our last Goomba-stomping romp, Mario is seen soaring across a bright blue sky riding a content yet alarmingly leery Yoshi. (Not to self: Never trust a Yoshi with candy.) I could go on a bit more, but anything with a cape-clad stubby Italian plumber riding a freaking DINOSAUR is bound to be incredibly sexy awesome.

In a shocking turn of events, this game actually has you save the princess from Bowser, unlike previous games in which you contemplated your son’s death and attempted to solve the mystery of The Origami Killer. Needless to say, no great innovations in storytelling here.

This game introduces Yoshi, a friendly dinosaur companion of Mario’s who helps him and his brother through many adventures. Yoshi’s abilities range from fire breathing (after eating a red shell), flight (after eating a blue shell), and a devastating landing-stomp (upon eating a yellow shell). Overall there’s not much I can say about the gameplay, as so much has already been said. The core formula is present once again, and why fix what isn’t broken?

Super Mario World is a great game, and my second favorite of the main series side-scrolling platformer Mario titles. One may think that after so many amazing games in the series, Nintendo couldn’t possibly screw-up. However, we’ll see next week how Nintendo fucked up 15 years later.

BONUS:

I believe Justin McElroy of Joystiq said it best when he said that Bioshock “didn’t need a sequel”. Which is entirely true.

Bioshock was the brainchild of Ken Levine and the spiritual successor of System Shock 2, one of the few games that kept me glued to a PC screen. It was an Ayn Randian tale of a fallen under-sea utopia named Rapture in an alternate history 1960. It was an atmospheric thrill ride, and it’s morality-driven storyline has been praised by many. The game wrapped up in a fairly satisfying way, and there was no serious need for another. However, we were given one anyway.

My biggest fear with this game was that the story would be it’s greatest hinderance and the developer’s last concern, seeing as Ken Levine and the A team weren’t working on this one. Nevertheless, I bought the special edition and sat down with a 2 liter of Coke and a plate of tots. I popped in the disc, started it up, and was thoroughly (bio)shocked.

Unlike the first game’s story which was far more cold in nature, Bioshock 2 centers on, believe it or not, the importance of family. As you make your way through some new districts of Rapture, you come across more and more audio tapes of this game’s antagonist, Sofia Lamb.

(SPOILERS UP AHEAD!!!)

Basically, the plot boils down to this: Every dead bodie’s ADAM contains the memory of the holder. Sofia Lamb believed that if she were to instill all of these memories into one person, they would then hold all the knowledge of the dead. In doing so, they would become self-unaware, and therefore think only of other people: The first Utopian. Sofia tested this on someone of the name Gil Alexander, but the ADAM proved to be too much for him. Therefore, the subject would have to be a Little Sister, as they were the only ones who could withstand the ADAM in their system. And it just so happened that someone had previously turned Sofia’s daughter Eleanor into a Little Sister. And you were here Big Daddy. Becaues of this, you both had a physical dependency on one another, and needed to be together or else you (Subject Delta) would expire.

(SPOILERS OVER)

The story would end up being a choice between the greater good of the people, or self-will.  It was far better a story than I had anticipated, and all and all a better game than I had expected.

It’s safe to say that this is anything but a cash-in, and is a worthy successor to the greatest FPRPS on the Xbox 360.

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