Super Mario Sunshine

About a month ago my computer went down for about 2 weeks. Long story short, a RAM stick died. Seeing as I don’t have cable this left me with reading, taking photos (which I don’t do much of during winter), and playing video games. So I read some and got 100% game completion on Super Mario Sunshine. Here’s a review!

First off, I know the game is rather old. I never got around to actually beating it before this so yea… you can just deal.

Overall Super Mario Sunshine is a rather good game. The controls are fairly decent, if you’ve played Super Mario 64 you’ll get the jumping down in about 3 minutes… the only new one is a spin jump. The FLUDD controls are… interesting. You have your standard spray nozzle, and a specialty nozzle. The specialty nozzles are a hover nozzle(which is the most useful), a rocket nozzle used to reach high places, and a dash nozzle which has about 3-4 uses in the entire game. Yes, the dash nozzle is that useless. The biggest change is that Mario can no longer punch. Evidently holding onto the FLUDD controls tires out his arms too much or something.

The voice acting is kind of sketchy. Mario doesn’t actually talk, although he does make his standard noises when hurt. I hear a lot of complaints about FLUDD, but honestly its supposed to sound like a computer voice. In that aspect I actually think it’s the 2nd best done voice in the game, although it talks too damn much when it does talk. The mushroom people and most of the random NPCs don’t talk usually other then some kind of “hello”. Princess Peach is amazingly badly done. She’s supposed to be an adult and she sounds like she’s about 8!

**********SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!!***********




Baby Bowser has probably the best voice in the game, he sounds like a kid but still menacing. He also seems to have the intelligence of a kid, seriously… Peach being his mama? Which is a nice surprise.

Bowser on the other hand has the worst voice in the game in my opinion. He’s the giant koopa of doom, he’s supposed to be deep voiced, have his menacing laugh. Vicious, dangerous. DIE MARIO DIE! If you played Mario 64 I am sure you remember his laugh whenever you entered one of his levels. But NO!!!!! He sounds old and tired. He doesn’t even roar! I get that he is supposed to play father figure for his son kind of in this game at the end. But he is still the main Mario villain and instead of “THE PRINCESS IS MINE! EAT FLAME!!!!!” he splashes his bathwater at you!



***************END SPOILER********************

The music is good, nothing too terribly memorable but it matches the setting of the game and what you’re doing at the time. It’s Nintendo, so this is kind of a given.


My only real complaint, aside from the voice acting, is the blue coins and some of the mini-games to get Shines.

Most of the mini-games are rather fun, nothing I’d play again just for the hell of it, but they’re not bad. A couple of them though are damn horribly involved to get to and harder then the final boss level! There’s one in the main level hub that will take you at least 5 minutes just to get to, and when you do you need to have at least 30 lives because you will die in it that much.

The blue coins are another issue. There are 240 blue coins in the game, you can exchange 10 coins for “that”… that of course being a Shine. I’m used to hunting for items. Some of my favorite games are Metroid and Zelda, both of which revolve around finding hidden items. If I hadn’t had a game guide I would’ve never found some of them they’re hidden in such exoteric spots. In one world for example half the world is a beach… there are 3 Shine paintings under the sand… each holding a blue coin. You are not going to find them without some kind of guide. In another level you have to hose down a certain fruit basket to get a blue coin. Again… who is going to think to water the fruit basket?

Overall, not a bad game. No where near the best Mario game. But if you have a Wii it might be worth picking up, just remember to find a guide online if you want to get all the blue coins, and hence Shines.

This has been Gwen. Your pissed off, ranting redhead. And I prefer when all Bowser did was laugh and roar.

Black History Month

I am white, if you look at my photo on this blog that is fairly evident. That being said it usually means that I can not get away with the stuff other people can without causing a scandal. If I actually cared about that this blog would be very boring though… on with the discrepancy!!!!!!

I don’t care about black history month. It means absolutely nothing to me. Before you go “OMFG GWEN IS A RACISTTTTT!!!!!!!@! WE MUST BOYCOTT!” or call Al Sharpton… actually do call Al Sharpton, I’d take great pleasure in blasting that racist’s arguments to dust. Er, where was I… oh yes, before you go being an idiot let me explain.

I do not really care about history in general. I know some of it, but rarely the names or dates or the person’s race for the most part, because I don’t view it as important. I know a black man invented peanut butter and a few hundred other uses for peanuts, don’t ask me his name though, I don’t view it as important. Does it matter that the guy was black now, not really. I ALSO know we have the first black president in the White House, Barack Obama. And about the Crusades (they all failed just so you know… think about that before you say you’re “going on a crusade”), the Great Library of Alexandria which unfortunately got burned down, and various other things.

So, we have black history month… where is white history month? Don’t tell me it is always “white history month” because that is BULLSHIT! So where is white history month? How about Asian history month? Latino history month? Oh, its because they were oppressed and made slaves. I did say I know my history… EVERY race has, at one time, been slaves to another and the slave owner. I am not doing your research for you, you can look it up yourself. It just happens that black people being enslaved is the most recent. So if we’re doing it because they were oppressed then why do we not have Indian (native American) history month? We almost completely wiped them out! And don’t say it’s Thanksgiving, if anything that seems to be celebrating it.

Ok, that’s it, I’m done.

This has been Gwen. Your pissed off, ranting redhead. And black history month sucks and Sharpton can kiss my ass.

Valentine's Gifts

This rant is mostly directed towards guy’s getting their girlfriend/wife a gift. I went into a grocery store the other day. Not unusual… I do like to eat after all. And I heard a Valentine’s Day advertisement over their radio.

If you haven’t read the last post I made I am not exactly a fan of Valentine’s Day. I find it kind of crass to go “OMFG! IT IS LOVER’S DAY! YOU MUST GET YOUR LOVER GIFTS!!!!!” Oh, and making it mandatory to buy roses in the dead of winter… yea, THAT’S not a way to try to make a premium off cut roses.

That being said, if I ever got what was advertised as a gift for Valentine’s Day in that commercial whoever gave it would be single really god damn quick.

“Gift cards make a perfect gift for Valentine’s Day!”

Gift cards…

You give a gift card when you have literally no idea what to give, that’s why they’re now staples for relatives at Christmas. You do not give a gift card to your lover on Valentine’s Day! Roses? Fine. Chocolate? I have a weakness for chocolate, I’m a happy girl. Stuffed animals? Are we back in grade school again? But a gift card? The only even remotely acceptable one is to a spa, and those come as gift certificates showing you did actually think.

For all those reading I’ll give you some advice. If you are doing Valentine’s Day plan something with your love. Make the gift something non-cliché. A lot of us like getting dressed up. Something romantic is almost always a good bet, whether at home or out. Romantic does not have to be expensive either, some candles help a lot. And for the love of the Goddess don’t buy a fucking gift card!

This has been Gwen. Your pissed off, ranting redhead. And this is probably not the last for the Valentine’s Day topic.

Valentine's Day

Ahhhhh, Spring. I love Spring, the birds are chirping, flowers blooming, the smell of love in the air. Wait... what do you mean its not Spring?! Then why am I smelling love in the air? Oh, Valentines Day is coming up. *groans*

I don't hate Valentines Day but I sure don't like it. Why? Hmmmmm, how about because its a conspiracy by the candy, florist, and card companies to sell more merchandise.

Seriously, Valentines is the time of the year when chocolate sales jump through the roof, about the only other time that rivals it is Halloween, and that’s to be given out to tons of kids, not just to your mate. At least the price of the chocolate stays pretty constant for Valentines... I can't say the same thing about the cost of roses. Year round you can find a dozen roses for decent prices... until about the week before Valentines. Then the roses swallow a whole bunch of love steroids (SUPER ROSES HO!!!!!) and the price inflates to $30-$50 a dozen! I don't know about you but if my mate is shelling out $50 the flowers better last more then a bloody week. And no, I'm not getting into the cards.

Another reason? Well, quite frankly I just don't like being told to buy shit for people because I "love" or "like" them.

I do know why people with a partner like Valentines though. Guys like it because its a date they don't have to really remember. There’s so much advertising and crap being sold(at greatly inflated prices) that you'd have to be deaf and blind to not notice. Women like it because the guys remember it(for above said reason) and we get stuff.

The thing is buying your mate something for Valentines doesn't show you love them though. All it shows is that you got pulled into the commercialization around the holiday. If you really want to show your mate you love them then you should show it throughout the year. Buy them something just for the hell of it, plan something romantic as a surprise(lets face it, romantic stuff is NOT a surprise on Valentines Day), save that $30-$50 and create an entire rose garden! Use your imagination. Hell, I'd love a rose garden over week old dead roses!

This has been Gwen, your pissed off, ranting redhead. And I’m going to lil cupid so I can steal his bow and shoot people in the… *TWANG!* OUCH! Ohhh, honey… lets get married…

Breaking with the past, younger people supporting gay marriage.

I was given this today by a friend.

Usually I'd have some witty remark to go with this. I'm not feeling good, so you guys get what you get... sorry.

I have my own theory as to why the younger generation is breaking with their father's views. Their fathers are well... old. They grew up in a time where if you were gay you sure as hell didn't let anybody know. The girls grew up in a society where they probably had gay friends. If you grow up with them then you're less likely to have issues with them... unless you're just a bigot in general. Then again their mothers are siding with the daughters it seems. Maybe if the dad's weren't Republicans that had to pander to the crazies of the religious right they'd be siding with their daughters too... no way to really tell.

This has been Gwen. Your pissed off, ranting redhead. And my sick ass is going back to sleep.