The graphics were amazing for utilizing the Wii’s capabilities. The difference between the male and female was usually the chest in the DS version but for the WII you got the different weight forms and also the height differences. The viruses also had distinct characteristics that just stunned me while I was playing. The overall effects of the graphics were great, especially during the slowed time effects.

This is probably the shortest part I will write but the sounds to the game were very complex in meaning. The calming yet pressuring music made sure you knew if you were messing by the song changing when you mess up a little too much. Also, the different areas had different music.

This game is fun, the fun factor is a 5/5 and it’s definitely has high replay value. The reason for this is being the fact that your judged on how well you do in the game based on how many mistakes you made or at least when time draws to a close to ending.
To the story you get some neat songs during the story telling part of the game which really sets the mood. Overall it was very fun and I particularly enjoyed it a lot.

Overall the game hits high notes: the controls could have been improved slightly and I would have given it a 10 but other than that it has succeeded is counter part on the DS for sure and it is very fun to play as two different doctors in the game. I Will have to rate it a 9/10, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants the thrill of being a doctor.

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And as luck would have it, one approached me; Kitsume has joined the team and is going to be writing game reviews, primarily for Wii games with other game reviews strewn out here and there.

Welcome to the team, Kitsume.

A profile of him, (And all other authors at the Socialist Gamer Review) will be up shortly under the About Section. [Note: Link at the top]

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Many games try to achieve this lofty goal, a dynamic, apparently ever-changing world which players can become truly immersed in. MMORPGS like to make this claim often and while it is true that the games are very active and alive, can they truly claim to have built a living world?

I would claim far from it. Most MMORPGs have more static and boring NPCs than most games. While there is much movement, the only non-players which move are the ‘invading monsters’ or other such attackables. The reason the game seems alive is because it is full of living people. The world itself is lifeless, dull.

NPCs are one of the largest problems. While developing various entertainments for the players, NPCs are largely ignored. What attention is given to them is put purely in a utilitarian sense; What do they need to provide for the players? Equipment, Items, Quests; Environment is woefully left off of the list.

I recently acquired a Wii Ware game called Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles; My Life As a King.

The entire purpose of the game is to build a kingdom. this kingdom starts off quite empty with just yourself and a few citizens. However as you build new houses other people are shipped in and quite quickly you have a rather bustling city under your charge.

The game itself has no adventures or “action” which your King directly takes part in besides talking to your citizenry. You delegate this work to your adventurers who busily scurry about doing various errands before each of their missions. The towns people will carry about on their normal business, walking along to inspect your new stores and parks, shopping for their meals, buying things at the market, and talking to each other. You can talk to them as you please and they enjoy talking to their little king, but in general, they go about their business regardless.

This, when paired with the oft varied and changing dialogs when you talk to them creates a very dynamic feel to a world in which little is actually happening.

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Given it’s lack of “Massive Multiplayer” this review falls under the jurisdiction of my single player review criteria.

Gameplay: The largest difference between this Mario Kart and previous ones obviously is the control. While the option to use the “classic controller” is there, the game comes with a wheel to insert your Wiimote inside. The controls with the wheel are mostly intuitive, the D-pad deals with items, the 1 and 2 buttons are break and acceleration respectively, and the B button if you so choose can be used to drift.

The Bikes handle differently than the karts, although for all the complaints lobbied by those who’ve played the game, the only real difference is that they turn differently, have a minor boost ability and don’t drift as well.

The game runs par usual; You and your foes are an epic contest… To see who can go around in a circle three times the fastest. Epic Indeed. They added more racers as well as you can now have twelve people in a race at a time. This makes the competition a lot more fierce and grouping on the tracks is a lot tighter.

The difficulty of the game has improved; That is to say that it has become harder in all three modes from the previous games. Whereas in the previous Mario Kart games the three difficulty levels had very little variation, 100CC and 150cc both take good sized upward hikes in difficulty from their predecessors.

Graphics: Everything in the game looks smooth, clear, and sticks with the usual Mario “cartoonish” theme, meaning everything is bright, colorful, and drops you right onto the various points of The Mushroom Kingdom Infrastructure that they sell permits to race on.

Sound: The background music is perky, happy, and generally guaranteed to get stuck in your head. The sound effects for explosions, etc are pretty normal. The voices of the characters are amusing; the range from baby mario’s cute (but much more vocal than he ever was in yoshi’s island) lines, to Bowser’s growling.

Fun: I preface this section with the following disclaimer: The game being reviewed is MARIO KART. Now returning to your normally scheduled program:

Like it’s predecessors, Mario Kart Wii has the ability to summon forth hours of entertainment. Playing alone, there are three levels of 32 tracks (plus mirrored tracks) to burn your way through.

The real fun, however, comes from it’s Multi-player. With up to four people on a single television or up to 12 on wifi (w/ up to 2 on the same console). There can be a lot of man-made chaos to fight your way through. The human element makes a large difference in gameplay and unspoken rivalries can quickly form between players.

While at first I lamented the inability to speak to your fellow players, as I believe gaming communities greatly increase the enjoyment of the games, after spending a few days straight playing the game with my room mate something occurred to me that I’d forgotten from the days of the N64: Mario Kart induces swearing better than any other game known to man. Therefore it might have been wise to not include voice-chat as could easily have reduced the family-friendly-ness of an otherwise perfect party game. However, it might have been nice at the very least to be able to send messages to one another asides from the ones on your friends list.

Replay value of the game on single player, like most things, has it’s limit. However, with the addition of a world-wide Wifi network, the ability to download other peoples best speeds on your favorite track and battle in two different modes, the multiplayer replay value is almost endless.

Overall: By and Large Mario Kart Wii is an excellent game. I would even go so far as to say it is a must-have for all Wii owners. Unless of course you’re violently opposed to racing games. Or were a victim in the past of Tramatic Blue Shell Shock Syndrome.

On a related topic: I have created a website tonight (Currently just an under construction page, basically) that will soon be home to the Mario Kart clan that Blanks and I are creating, the Blue Shell Socialist Undercurrent.

Edit: For the potentially interested, my friend code is 2621-3027-2402

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I do have a particular game in mind for my first review which should, at the latest, be up within the week.

Apologies for the super-short and vaguely pointless update. See you later this week.

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Awhile after each session the GM posts a session review on the google group which he made for the group. He asked that the captain and one other person post character journals of what went down. While they are occassionally a bit of a hassle since I’m not always in the writing mood, I do think that, as a whole, the character journals are a good thing.

Not only do they serve as a useful reminder for what has happened in the past, but they help players to get to know their characters. They also serve as a good place for between play character development. Having your character reflect on the exploits that they have so far endured is a good way to figure out exact how your character thinks or to alter that thinking.  Especially when you have longer term character development plans for a character that would take them a good way from their starting mental state.

As a whole, I thought that the character journals were a good idea. Even though I was the only one who didn’t have them as “optional” I’ve still enjoyed writing them. I’d be somewhat curious to find out if other people have used similar tools for development of their characters. So, drop a comment or email if you feel like telling a story.

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It has been somewhat hard, through all the battle over-hype to track down the actual numbers behind the potential nominees.  The best play-by-play I’ve found so far is The Blog From Another Dimension. They have a good overview of the way things have been playing out so far.

Overall the media has like to portray Obama as being the underdog, who is barely fighting against Clinton’s experienced hand. In reality, his charisma and strong call for a change in the corrupt government as it stands has brought quite the uprising since his campaign began. While at the beginning he was an underdog, for sure, since then his campaign has battered and surpassed that of the Clinton camp. Now, with Obama ahead in states and delegates, Clinton is panicking. She’s fired her campaign manager, trying new blood to revitalize her campaign.

I applaud the turn-over. The idea of Clinton is the white house I find a rather disturbing one. A democrat though she may be, no one who would actually compare themselves to Harry Truman is someone I would ever want to see in the white house. She represents staying with the same old political ambiguousness that we’ve been dealing with for years. There is no difference between people like her in the democrats and many of the same in the republicans.

I’ve heard far too much political doublespeak from Clinton to ever cast my vote towards her.  Add to this her strong anti-gaming stance over the years and no politically-minded gamer could support her in good conscience.

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Alas, I’m feeling ineloquent and time is short, as pollsters are already moving out in parts of the country to cast our future. And so, rather than using this soap-box to stand up and give my own, long-winded and potentially un-grandiose plea for those of you voting later today to cast in favor of Obama, I instead send you forth to this link. It is a blog post written by the creator of xkcd, a web comic which I personally enjoy. It does not try to argue some sharp point, berate too many of the failings of the other candidates or any of those usual politics. It is just a short, quiet plea for a better future.

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While the worst the men are going to be getting personally is a  fine, theirs in a story which is just one brilliant military manuever in the fight over copyright laws and bittorrent. Bittorrent has been soaring in popularity as one of the most popular ways of sharing files, due to the difficulty involved in tracking those who use it, and the grey legal standards surrounding whether hosts of tracker files can be charged, because they technically hold no control over what their users host.

I personally am a large fan of torrents. They allow me to download things in a relatively easy fashion, usually at pretty good speed, although that all depends on what other people are connected. I’m also not a large fan of copyright laws. I’m not saying that one should be able to frolic about, taking things that other people made willy-nilly, but the way they’re implemented and enforced is often flawed. In this case it’s utterly rediculous. Yes, it’s true that the Pirate Bay is used by a lot of people for the sharing of various illegal copies of games, videos, whatever. But to be charged with “promoting other people’s infringements of copyright laws.”?

All they did is to allow people to connect, communicate, and share files with eachother. Any time you allow people to share information between eachother, there will be information that someone doesn’t want passed. This doesn’t mean that you can take down anything that enables people to communicate data purely on the grounds that it enables them to share data. While I hate to summon forth the stereotype “1984″ sign, that’s basically what it leads to.

The sharing of information should not be infringed unless it is a matter of extreme security. You don’t need every schmuck on the street knowing how to make a nuclear bomb from things they can buy at the grocery store, but downloading a musician’s discography? Problem? I think not.

Source Article: Pirate Bay Says It Can’t Be Sunk, Servers Scattered Worldwide

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The question posed before the socialist of today who would see hope on that path is the following: Who do you pay your vote in order to make a step towards that state? It becomes painfully obvious rather quickly that one is selecting the lesser of evils. Unless the rules regarding “third parties” can be changed, there is no hope of a real socialism coming anywhere in the foreseeable future. Between the two parties, obviously the democrats are better, but there is much confusion over who within the democrats to select..

Revisionism Watch, as this collection of posts shall be called, shall follow the various candidates in their attempts to take nomination (and likely election) into the seat of power over the world’s most powerful capitalist nation. And of these candidates, who may do the most harm to any hopes of revisionism and who just might do a bit of helping…

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