Guitar Hero: On Tour

Rocking Everywhere You Go! Even On The Can :3

Platform: Nintendo DS
Publisher: Activision/RedOctane
Developer: Vicarious Visions
ESRB: E10+

Guitar Hero: On Tour for the Nintendo DS is the first handheld Guitar Hero in the franchise. It takes what is so good about the console versions by throwing in a "guitar grip" (or whatever you want to call it) that you plug into the Game Boy slot on your DS and you use the touch screen to strum and whammy. The overall experience isn't bad at all actually! the only downside is that it can get quite unconfortable after ten or fifteen minutes of play, but one trick I found quite useful was holding it up against my chest and playing it.
The songs range from artists such as: Smash Mouth, Incubus, Nirvana, Blink 182, ZZ Top, Maroon 5, and so on. Just like in Guitar Hero for the consoles, the songs you think are awful can actually be alot of fun to play! like for instance I can't stand Smash Mouth's "All Star" at all! but I had a pretty good time playing it. The only downside about the setlist is that there are only 25 songs to choose from which isn't bad considering how much is crammed on one little DS cartridge.
If you enjoyed the battle mode in Guitar Hero 3 then you'll be pleased to know that it's back with a few DS twists. For instance your guitar will catch on fire and you'll have to blow out flames using the DS microphone and you'll also get people wanting to sign autographs and you'll have to scribble on the DS touch screen, overall it doesn't feel gimmicey it really feels like the guys at Vicarious Visions really thought about what they were doing and made sure it worked, which it did! even though it is really awesome that you can play with a friend via download play, unfortunately we don't own a second DS and couldn't try it out. But luckily there are bots for every song so in case you have no one to play with, you can always play alone if you want. One thing that would've made it awesome was the ability to play online against others, but it's not in this one unfortunately.
All in all it's quite a package, you get the game and a "guitar grip" for a retail price of $50. The songs and graphics are nice and the gameplay definately stays true to Guitar Hero's roots. Vicarious Visions understood this and they delivered very well on this one.

***-- 3/5 Jeffrey Poss

The Good: Good setlist with songs that are fun to play; Battle mode is a blast!; good graphics even for a DS game; it's Guitar Hero in your hands how could you not be happy with that?!

The Bad: Controls can get pretty awkward after a few minutes of play; no online play; only 25 songs

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

The Super Smash Bros. series has always been a big hit for Nintendo ever since it was released for the N64 version, selling over 2.3 million units in the U.S. and 1.4 million in Japan. With numbers like these it didn't take long for Nintendo to decide whether or not to make a sequel. In December of 2001, Super Smash Bros. Melee was released and has sold over 4 million units in the U.S. alone making it the best selling Gamecube title ever. It became clear that creator Masashiro Sakurai and Nintendo had something on their hands with a simple formula of fighting Nintendo characters. Does Super Smash Bros. Brawl work like a charm like the rest of it's predecessors? well, in the words of the Tootsie Pop owl: "Let's find out".


GRAPHICS - Previous Smash Bros. games have always looked very detailed and polished, especially in the stages. Super Smash Bros. Brawl is a step further with enhanced graphics, detailed character models, and great stage designs. And to add it all up it holds up at a very steady framerate with no dips whatsoever. But what will really impress people the most is how unique and well thought out the stages are! there's a stage where you're in a pictochat screen from the Nintendo DS and one where you're in a WarioWare type stage where you have to accomplish what the words that pop up on the screen say, succeed and get a bonus and if not then you don't. For a Wii game this is top notch looking game along with Metroid Prime 3 and Super Mario Galaxy so you won't be disappointed here.

GAMEPLAY - If you've played any of the previous Super Smash Bros. games before then you'll know what to expect. Pressing up on the analog stick makes you jump, pressing A is your attack button, B is your special move, and Z is to shield. The game can support the gamecube controller, wiimote, wiimote/nunchuck combo, and the classic controller. All four work very well and should give everyone their own favorite style of playing.
Unlike games like the Street Fighter series where you have to do all kinds of button presses to do a special move, Super Smash Bros. has always simplified it by tilting the analog stick either up, down, left or right and pressing either the special button or attack button, it works very well.
Another new thing in Super Smash Bros. Brawl is the Smash Ball, during a battle a floating ball will appear on the screen and the one that breaks it open can unleash a final smash in his or her opponents. Each of the thirty five characters have their own unique final smash and they all balance out very well.
Another new thing to the mix are the new third party characters Solid Snake and Sonic the hedgehog. Solid Snake is a slow but strong fighter who is more military weapons focused with his special moves than most if not all the characters in the roster, Sonic on the other hand is more focused on speed and spin attacks. Both characters work very well and it really makes you wish there were more third party characters to the mix.

SOUND - If there's one thing that Super Smash Bros. is sound! with over thirty composers ranging from music legends such as Koji Kondo (Super Mario and Legend Of Zelda), Kenji Yamamoto (Super Metroid and the Metroid Prime Series), Tomoko Sasaki (NiGHTS), Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger) and many many more. The main theme is composed by Masashiro Sakurai who is best known as the composer for the Final Fantasy games. The main theme is more choir based than most fighting games who have a more upbeat techno style.
Put simply: if you've heard it in a Nintendo game you're more than likely going to hear it here, there's just to much music and audio here it makes you wonder how Nintendo crammed it all on one disk.
Also there are songs that you can unlock, if you're battling a foe and you see a golden CD then you can pick that up and have it stored in your music library, with literally hundreds of songs there will be alot of CDs to collect!

REPLAY - Super Smash Bros. Melee kept people busy for over six years. Brawl looks to raise the bar! with so much content to unlock such as trophies, music, stickers, Super Smash Bros. Brawl will keep you busy for a long, long time. In addition there's online play where you and four other people can hop online and basically beat the snot out of eachother, the one with the most KOs is the winner. When the game was released a month ago the online had some really bad issues due to the high amount of traffic Nintendo's servers were recieving, now it seems that they have cooled down and are running pretty well. Unfortunately the game does have some lag issues, most people claimed there was no lag but unfortunately it does exist. Most games run pretty smoothly with a couple hiccups here and there but there are some matches where I can't do a thing! a normal two minute match would last like five or ten minutes, fortunately it's not like that all the time.
Another new mode is the Subspace Emissary mode. Subspace Emissary is a side scrolling beat-em-up game where you must stop the Subspace Army from invading your land. On paper it sounds interesting and it kinda is, but unfortunately it isn't perfect. Some stages just scroll around slowly like in Super Mario Bros. 3 where it really doesn't need it in the first place, plus some of the enemies are so annoying they want to make you rip your tounge out! put simply, some of the stages just weren't well thought out. But with that said, it's a pretty fun mode with lots of secrets to find and enemies to fight, also if you don't feel like spending hours and hours trying playing matches to unlock all the characters then you'll be happy to know that you can play through this mode and unlock them that way.
Just like in Halo 3 you can save replays and screenshots from the matches that you've played and save them to either the Wii's flash memory or an SD card, but the only downside is that you can only save up to three minutes.
Got an idea for a stage? fortunately for you there's also a stage editor where you can make your own stages and send them over the internet, and just like the replay modes and the screenshots you can send them over the internet to your friends, it's very neat!


LASTLY - Super Smash Bros is a game that has so much content in it that it will keep you busy for a long long time, games are expensive and Nintendo knows that. It may have taken a while but it's here and it's awesome! buy it, play it, and prepare to not ever be able to feel your butt ever again!:P

***** 5/5 Stars Jeffrey Poss

Pros: Fun and very addicting gameplay; four types of controller support; third party characters are a nice addition; great sound; literally hundreds of classic songs, trophies, stickers and other stuff to collect; compelling online play; Subspace Emissary mode is pretty fun; saving replays and screenshots; easy to use stage editor; lots to do!

Cons: Online is pretty laggy; Subspace Emissary is fun, but also frustrating; main menu song gets very old after a while; you can only save up to three minute replays:(

Rock Band (X360)

Okay I'll admit it, I don't own Guitar Hero. When it first came out I thought it was fun but I didn't think it was worth the money. Then Guitar Hero 2 was released in 2006 (or last year if you're a 360 owner) and many people were all over it like morbidly obese children on a pile of twinkies! but of course I didn't wish to pick it up. Then a few months later Guitar Hero 3 came out and I saw how well it sold in its first week! but alas, I haven't the money to pick it up. And then there was Rock Band, I remember when it was announced thinking that it was just a Guitar Hero rip-off....oh how was I wrong! I remember seeing it at E3 last year seeing how neat of an idea it was to mix Guitar Hero with Karaoke Revolution and top it off with a new drum game, but hearing how much the critics were raving over it got me a little interested. Boy I'll never forget how much fun I had when I first opened it up Christmas morning and just started jamming with my brother and my parents. Put simply: Rock Band is the greatest party game you'll ever play! find out why.


Graphics - The graphics are a big step over Guitar Hero 2 & 3's. Sure the character models still look like toys but on the other hand they also look more human.
But everything is as you would expect when you're playing GH3, everything has that music video look to it as you're playing and for the most part everything looks very authentic and very nicely done. But aside from that, the notes are little rectangles instead of circles which make sense because when you're holding your guitar and look down at them, the buttons look like rectangles. But they all look very nice especially when you go into Overdrive mode where the note bar looks all golden and shiny:D.


Gameplay - The gameplay is of course Rock Band's strong feature. You can play either a guitar, bass, drums, or you can sing via the Xbox Live Headset or the Rock Band Microphone. You can play solo with each instrument, but the real fun is getting your chums over and playing together! they did call this Rock Band for a reason right?;) the guitar is basically like you would expect if you've played Guitar Hero where the notes slide down via the note bar (at least I think that's what it's called) and you have to hit them by holding down the correct button(s) and hit the strum bar at the right time. If you've played Karaoke Revolution then you know the drill as far as the singing goes, you sing into the microphone and try and match the pitch of tone on the bars that show up on the screen. The drums work almost like the guitar does except you have a kick pedal that you hit when you see an orange bar (little hint: don't stomp on the kick pedal like an old roach! you're gonna break it that way). Out of all the instruments included with Rock Band, the drums are definately the hardest to master! but if you have good hand/eye/feet coordination, then hopefully you'll be just fine.
One of the best features included with Rock Band is called Band World Tour where you and your buddies must travel to diffrent places around the world and perform songs to earn fans, fame, fortune, private jets, all that good stuff. BWT is surprisingly addictive, especially when you're earning tons of fans! the frustrating part is where you're playing songs that either you or your pals don't know or they're too hard that they screw up and eventually making everyone mess up their parts as well, however you can save your fallen comrades by earning enough juice in your energy bar and kicking into Overdrive mode not only saving your partner, but earning more points as well. Another downside to BWT is that it's offline only, meaning that if your only friend(s) in the world are not around where you live, then you're out of luck....unless you can play with your feet of course.



Sound - It wouldn't be a music game without sound and boy does Rock Band have it! some of the songs range from "I Think I'm Paranoid" by Garbage, "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult, "Highway Star" by Deep Purple, "Can't Get Fooled Again" by The Who, and may more! For the most part everything holds up very nicely, if you're performing is top notch then you'll get the crowd singing with you, if you're performance is bad then you'll get booed off the stage like a bad comedian. If your guitar is in Overdrive mode than you can change the sound of your guitar via the switcher, you can also earn more points if you have a long note by pressing down on the whammy bar, sure these are nothing new, but it is a pretty sweet addition for someone who doesn't own GH like me.



Replay - Besides Band World Tour and the solo career, there are two competitive online modes called Tug Of War and Score Duel. Tug Of War is where two players play a song with the same instruments and each player will perform and build their meters and try and decrease the other guy's meter in the process and vice versa, the one with the longest bar at the end of the match is the winner. Score Duel is kind of like Tug Of War except it's more scoring based, meaning the one with the most points at the end wins. Overall the online modes are addictingly-fun and you'll be finding yourself playing immediately after you win or lose! the servers hold up pretty nicely too, I've only played like one or two matches that contained lag but I barely noticed it. In addition there's also downloadable content that is produced via the Marketplace every week to keep the experience rolling for months to come.......that is,until they announce the next Rock Band or something...





Overall - Dude if you have about $200 and an Xbox 360, then you simply must own Rock Band! By yourself or with your pals you'll be jamming until months to come. Buy it, play it, have fun, and of course ROCK OUT!................wow that last part was lame, but at least it's truthful!!



***** 5/5 Stars Jeff



Pros: Fifty-eight songs including downloadable content will keep you rolling for months to come!; best party game around; sweet graphics; singing is fun even for those who don't like to; drums are challenging and a great addition; Band World Tour is awesome!; great sound makes you feel like you're on stage infront of a crowd; online play is addictingly-fun!

Cons: $170?!; Band World Tour isn't online; songs you don't know can mess you up; where the heck is Lifehouse; The Faunts; Audio Adrenaline; and DC Talk?!?!

The Orange Box (Xbox 360)

Back in 2004 a little game called Half-Life 2 was released and won alot of critical and commercial sucess due to it's advanced physics, lighting, graphics, heck you name it! no one has seen any other game like it, it was just plain awesome! Instead of deciding whether or not to make a sequel, developer Valve Software made the right move by making episodic content and finishing the ground breaking story of Half-Life 2. In 2006 they released Half-Life 2: Episode 1. A year and a half later, they released Episode 2...which later came known to be as The Orange Box. The Orange Box consists of five amazing games: Half-Life 2, Episode 1, Episode 2, Portal, and Team Fortress. Has Valve really made the best video game value ever?.......well yeah! but lets see how each game holds up now shall we?


Half-Life 2 - In case you're not familiar with the story of Half-Life 2, you play as Gordon Freeman arriving on a train to a place called City 17 that is being overrun by the Combine who are these group of soldiers who are basically trying to make life miserable for the people of City 17. Long story short, you meet up with Barney Calhoun, Eli Vance, his daughter Alyx (who plays a very significant role), Dog, and Dr. Isaac Kleiner to try to get rid of the Combine leader Dr. Wallace Breen.
Some might complain that the visuals are dated and the character models are really showing their age, but luckily Valve went the extra mile and updated everything to make it look more up to date, and it shows because everything just looks wonderful! the lighting can cast shadows whereas the PC and regular Xbox didn't have, the water has reflections, if you're holding something and move around fast enough you'll get that motion blur that most 360 games have. Overall everything just looks awesome! and not to mention that Half-Life 2 alone is a 15 to 20 hour experience, that right there is worth the sixty bones!


Half-Life 2: Episode 1 - Episode 1 takes place at the end of Half-Life 2 where Alyx and Gordon have to escape from City 17 with information they found from the Citadel. This time the game introduces Alyx as an A.I. buddy and let me tell you, she's the best A.I. buddy in any game you'll find to date! in most games where your A.I. buddy just wonders around aimlessly like a loose wheel, Alyx.......is just the opposite! she knows how to take care of herself, she finds cover if she needs to, she never gets in your way, and more than anything you just feel glad that she's around. Overall the game isn't very long it should take around four to six hours to complete, but man oh man it's a very sweet experience from beginning to end and in alot of ways beats the original HL2!


Half-Life 2: Episode 2 - Again, Episode 2 takes place after the events of Episode 1 where Alyx and Gordon escape from City 17 and they have to flee to White Forest to give the information they found in the Citadel to Dr. Kleiner and Eli. This time around Alyx and Gordon have a sweet ride around! that's right! White Forest is a long way, so they meet up with these aliens called the Vortigaunts and they give them a sweet car that looks like a yellow mustang only more beaten up. Along the way you'll meet a new race called the Hunters who are these blue-ish green creatures with two legs that shoot exploding darts at you. Episode 2 is about the same length as Episode 1 but just as amazing if not, more amazing as its predecessor!


Portal - Portal is a puzzle game where you play as a test subject that is given this portal gun called the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device and is given orders by this hilarious robotic monitor named GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System) to complete all these complex mind bending puzzles.
Put simply: Portal is simply THE best puzzle game ever made! every puzzle in the game will make you go "oh man that's so brilliant!". And GLaDOS herself really makes the game fun due to her hilarious and well written dialouge, just about every word she says is catchy and funny.
The only downside is that the game is about three hours long, which is short compared to most games. But when you get through with that there are some challenges that you can accomplish like completing the levels in a certain amount of steps, portals, time, and there are also some advanced stages where you'll really have to put on your thinking cap for (unless you're like me you'll just go online and read a walkthrough:P). Overall we can't say enough great things about Portal, it's funny, it's ingenius, and like I said before it's the best puzzle game you'll play to date!


Team Fortress 2 - Team Fortress 2 is the sequel to the hit game back in 1998. It's been in development for quite some time due to some balancing issues but it's finally here and boy is it sweet!
You play up to 9 classes: Scout, Soldier, Pyro, Demoman, Heavy Guns, Engineer, Sniper, Medic, and Spy. Each class has their own abilities and personalities, like for instance the Demoman is a black scottsman that throws grenade launchers, and the sniper is australian who.....well snipes people of course. This is the most wackiest multiplayer game I think I've ever played! like for instance you press the right thumb stick in to yell out for a medic, the Pyro has a mask on so it's all muffly sounding when he says "medic!", it's very funny.
The game has capture the flag and conquest type modes where each team will have intelligents and one team will have to capture the other team's intelligents and vice versa. The conquest mode is where you have to capture certain parts of a map, if you've played these kinds of modes before then you already know what I'm talking about. The only downsides to TF2 is that there are only six maps out right now and they're fun, but as you can also expect they get old pretty fast, hopefully Valve will release some more maps sometime soon via Xbox Live Marketplace. Another problem I have is that alot of the matches I've played are very laggy, and it's not just my connection if you go into the forums you'll find out that alot of people are having the same problems. I mean it's playable and all but the lag does exist and it is something that needs to be fixed, hoepfully down the line Valve will release a patch and fix all this up because I would love to see more people online playing this awesome game.
Overall Team Fortress is outstanding and addictive game that people will be playing and treasuring for years to come!


Overall - You're getting five amazing games for the price of one, which is the greatest gaming values of all time! if you own a 360, a PC, or a PS3 and you're looking for a great game for your money, then Orange Box is for you! buy it, play it, and just have fun! I know I am:).

***** 5/5 Stars Jeff

Pros: Five games for the price of one; Half-Life 2 alone is a 15-20 hour game; Alyx is a great A.I. Buddy; Portal is amazing!; Team Fortress 2 is addictive and balanced out nicely; facial expressions are so good it's actually quite scary; 99 achievements = fun to earn and replayable; great storylines and characters; top knotch voice acting!

Cons: Wish the lag was all fixed; only six maps in Team Fortress 2?; Portal and Episodes 1 & 2 are on the short side; Episode 2 ends on a cliffhanger!

Jeff's Top 10 Games Of 2007

2007 was a great year for gaming, there were titles for just about everyone! needless to say I had a pretty tough time deciding what to put in here. But I've made my decision, here are my top ten games of 2007 and why:



10: Super Mario World (Virtual Console): Instant classic; tons of places to explore; Bowser = most epic boss battle ever; YOSHI!!!.

9. Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 (360): Short but very sweet campaign mode; great storyline; controlling vehicles by holding the right bumper!; multiplayer and coop is a blast!


8 Super Paper Mario (Wii): Side-Scrolling RPGness; great storyline and writing; great sense of humor; you can switch from 2D to 3D foo'!

7. Crackdown (360): Going anywhere and doing just about anything has never been this much fun; leveling-up goodness; coop is awesome especially online; literally endless possibilities!


6 Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii): It's Metroid and it's on the Wii; great controls; great storyline; great bossfights; beautiful graphics; awesome music; it has voice acting? oh em gee!


5. Rock Band (360): Want a good party game and have $200? look no further; drums are tough, but a blast!; Band World Tour is great and addicting; "Don't Fear The Reaper" and "I Think I'm Paranoid"!! now of only they could include some Lifehouse and Audio Adrenaline songs then you've got one heck of a game!


4. The Orange Box (360): Five amazing games in one? you're joshin' me right?!?!; and one of those amazing games is Portal? and.....it's hilarious? aw man dude!; what?....Team Fortress 2 is addictively awesome?? geezoloo bro you're making me really want it now; and....and....all of the Half-Life games included have updated visuals? dude I gotta buy this now! *scram!*


3. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (360): Short but epic single player; finally COD has gotten with modern times!; storyline is excellent; multiplayer will leave your keyster with bedsores; possibly THE hardest game I think I've ever played!

2. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii): The genre of platforming has been redefined!; Mario's in space:D; awesome graphics even for a Wii title; hands down THE best Mario music ever composed; the Fire Flower, Rainbow Star, and Super Mushroom make a triumphant return; and dude....Mario wears a bee suit, what's not to love?!

1. Halo 3 (360): Epic moments from begining to end; outstanding music that jumps in at the right moments; a great ending to a masterpiece of a trilogy; voice acting is very well done; jaw dropping visuals that span out as far as the eye can see; best animated cinematics to date; Forge mode = endless possiblities; the online multiplayer will never make you turn your 360 off ever again!

So there you have it, congradulations to Halo 3 and the people who made it! it was a pretty tough decision on what to crown the winner but overall I had to give it to Halo 3, it's just an awesome game. I'm sure you're wondering "where's Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed and BioShock n00b?!" well......Mass Effect has sex scenes and I don't go for stuff like that; Assassin's Creed was fun but I hated the storyline, sure the Animus machine is interesting and the gameplay was awesome but when you mix it in with a Da Vinci Code-ish storyline, you're not going to have a very good game; and as for BioShock....well I've only played the demo and I thought it was pretty fun but I never bought the game, so yeah.

Anyway here is a list of games that I'm looking foward to checking out this year.......if they do come out this year that is. Anyway here they are in random order:

Super Smash Bros.: Brawl
Street Fighter 4
Splinter Cell: Conviction
Mercenaries 2: World In Flames
Tiberium
Sonic RPG (working title)
Rainbow Six: Vegas 2
Halo Wars
Battlefield: Bad Company
All Points Bulletin
Borderlands
Mario Kart Wii

Super Mario Galaxy

Mario is without a doubt the most popular video game character on the planet, if it wasn't for him we wouldn't be playing games with storylines. Back in 1996 when the Nintendo 64 launched everyone's jaw dropped to the floor when they saw the quirky plumber in 3D, mainly because no one has ever seen anything like it. In 2002 a sequel was made for the Gamecube called Super Mario Sunshine, even though it got alot of critical and commercial sucess, it just wasn't the same as Mario 64 due to the heavy use of Mario's water jetpack F.L.U.D.D. Five years later a sequel by the name of Super Mario Galaxy is released! is it a true Mario sequel? well let's see.

STORY -Unless you've been under a rock for over 20 years then you pretty much know what to expect from the story. Mario attends a festival in the Mushroom Kingdom to celebrate a comet that flies over the planet every 100 years when all of a sudden *gasp!* Bowser and his gang kidnap Peach and take her into outer space! knocked unconcious on a mysterious planet, Mario meets up with Princess Rosalina, the keeper of the Cosmos. So it's up to Mario to bring back all the power stars back to Rosalina's dark ship and save Princess Peach as well.

GAMEPLAY -Mario is not always known for his stories, but by the way he plays. Put simply: Super Mario Galaxy is possibly one of the best playing Mario game to date, of not ever! just about everything in here works! and the best part? no more red and blue coin collecting! although there is purple coin collecting but it's not too bad.
To jump you press A on the Wiimote and shake it to attack your enemies with Mario's spin attack, after like one minute or so you should have the controls nailed down.
Also there will be moments where you're riding on a stingray and you tilt the Wiimote like a key to steer, there will also be instances where you're riding on a ball and you point the Wiimote up to the ceiling and use it as a joystick. But what really sticks out is the variety of suits that Mario wears! if you're familiar with Super Mario Bros. 3 then you know what I'm talking about. There will be instances where Mario dresses up like a bee and flies around for a limited amount of time and there will be instances where Mario will pick up a fire flower and use it for simple puzzles, it's a great implication that works very well and makes you wonder why Nintendo didn't think of this years ago. But unfortunately even though the controls are great, they're not perfect. Don't get me wrong they're close to flawlessness but there are some moments where it can get awkward when you're walking around planets, but it's pretty minor.

GRAPHICS - Hands down the best graphics on the Wii to date, every planet is uniqe and never looks the same anywhere! and to top it all off the game runs at a solid 60fps that rarely dips at all. Sure it's not Xbox 360 or PS3 graphics, but it comes pretty darn close! this is next-gen Mario at it's finest.

SOUND - The sound and music is another crown jewel in this game. Sure there's not too much voice acting in this game, except for the excellent work by Charles Martinet as the voice of Mario. Unfortunately I don't have surround sound so I can't really tell you how it is with it on, but what I will tell you is that everything sounds a whole lot clearer than it did in Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario 64. But what I really liked was the sounds from the Wiimote when you blast off from a planet or shoot a star at someone, some people may not appreciate it, but I certainly do. But what really catch your ears is the music! put simply: The best Mario music I think I've ever heard! Mario has had some very catchy tunes in his day but this really stands out as some of the finest. You'll find yourself whistling the music as you go about your day, it just never gets old! heck I found myself just visting a galaxy just to listen to the music.

REPLAY - Once you have 60 of the 120 stars you can beat the game. But if you're like us you're going to want to find every last star this game has to offer to unlock what should be the best unlockable character.....possibly ever! and even then you're going to find yourself doing it all again because that's the way all Mario games have ever been. This whole game is just a ton of fun. Sure there aren't too many side missions....well okay there aren't any! but the game is so rich with secrets that you'll want to travel back to previous galaxies just to find them all.

FINAL WORD - To put it simply: The best Mario game since Super Mario 64! it's beautiful to look at, alot to explore, and just flat out one of the greatest games this year, if not of all time! Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto still has it and I can't wait to see what else rolls out of his sleeves. If you own a Wii you must own this now! it's that simple.

Editors Choice!
!*****! 5/5 Stars Jeffrey Poss

The Good: 3D Mario with classic implications; amazing graphics; awesome sound; wonderful music; replayability; just plain fun!

The Bad: Some awkward angles make it a little hard to control; a few sound glitches on the Wiimote; the fact that you're reading this and not playing the game!!

Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

It's no secret that the Call Of Duty series has dominated the WW2 genre, the only downer?...well the WW2 genre has gotten really old really fast. Luckily Infinity Ward has taken the WW2 franchise into new territory - Modern times! (hence the name "Modern Warfare"). Does Infinity Ward's direction work? hmm...let's see shall we?

STORY - Call Of Duty has always been known for you playing as multiple character s from diffrent nationalities, Call Of Duty 4 is no diffrent. You play as a US Marine and a British SAS trying to find these group of guys who are simply up to no good. There aren't really too many twists in the story, but it is really good and very satisfying at the end, that's all I'll say.
There are alot of "wow!" moments like Call Of Duty 2 had whereas Call Of Duty 3 hardly had any.

GAMEPLAY - The gameplay in COD4 hasn't really changed much, but hey if it's broke why fix it? the controls in Call Of Duty were always very good and Call Of Duty 4 just makes it even better. This time instead of click the left thumbstick to use your binoculars you click the left thumbstick to sprint and that comes in handy a whole lot more than binoculars.
What really makes Call Of Duty feel like Call Of Duty is tons of dudes, excellent A.I., and nonstop action and gunfire, Call Of Duty definately stays true to its roots and at the same time improves alot over it's predecessors. Put it simply, the game feels right!

GRAPHICS - It's hard to believe that this game looks this good and at the same time runs at 60 frames a second! everything from the guns, the character models, the lighting, just about everywhere you look it's gonna make your jaw go straight through the floor, even if you have cement floors! Although there are a few graphical textures that just did not impress me, like for instance I wen into the bushes and the textures were very flat and undetailed, it's not a huge deal and it's forgivable because the rest of the game looks amazing and runs very smoothly, but it's still noticable.

SOUND - Just about the whole game (except for the All Ghillied Up mission) is nothing but gunfire, shouting, just nonstop action everywhere. Possibly some of the best sound I think I've ever heard! Not to mention the voice acting is amazingly well done, I'm no marine but I would imagine this is how they would sound if I were in battle.

REPLAY - The single player in call of duty should take you like around 5 hours or so to complete which is pretty disappointing but at the same time it really feels good because Veteran is a PAIN to complete! so if you're just after all the achievements they're strictly singleplayer and you'll get probably most of them if you play through it on Veteran. However, despite no multiplayer achievements there are "challenges" you can complete to earn experience points, which to me are just as good as achievements.
Even though the singleplayer is is short there's still an arcade mode like there was in Halo 3 to give it more replayability, I would love to elaborate on it but unfortunately I have not tried it out yet.
But you'll probably spend most of your time in the multiplayer which by the way is awesome! Infinity Ward put as much care into the single player as they did in the multiplayer and it really shows. One of the best features is the leveling up system, if you're familiar with games such as Rainbow Six: Vegas that gives you your experience points after you've played a match....well that's not the case here. INSTEAD the experience points are mapped while you're playing the game, like for instance if you kill an enemy, that may count as 5XP or 10XP depending on what gametype you're playing, it really sets a new bar for online FPSs.

FINAL WORD - Despite a short singleplayer mode, Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is possibly one of the best games you'll play all year! the singleplay is great, the multiplayer is amazing, and most of all it should definately be one of the games to pick up this holiday season. Just be sure to wear brown pants before you play this game;-).

!*****! 5/5 Stars Jeffrey Poss

The Good - Breathtaking graphics running at a solid framerate; great A.I.; awesome sound; fun arcade mode (I guess0_o..); very addicting and balanced multiplayer; errrm....just about everything you see!:D

The Bad -Singleplayer ends pretty quickly; a few bugs here and there; Veteran is torture to complete! (not a flaw, but still!)