The game starts out with Mario, Luigi, Peach and the Toads being in Peach’s Castle celebrating her birthday. Suddenly a large cake appears and from it the Koopalings jump out and captures Peach and escapes in a Doomship. Mario, Luigi and two Toads, blue and yellow, give chase which starts the whole adventure. From Peach’s Castle, two red Toads shoot out Peach’s birthday presents that are different power-ups to assist the heroes in the search of Peach.

Three new items are introduced to the game, the Propeller Suit which allows Mario to spin up in the air to gain access to other areas, the Ice Flower, which was seen in Super Mario Galaxy, as the opposite of the Fire Flower, and finally the Penguin Suit which works in the same way as the Ice Flower but allows one to glide on land and got better control in water and on ice.

The Mini Mushroom appears along with the classic Mario items. Yoshi appear as well having a similar role as in Super Mario World with Super Mario World 2 elements, such as being able to flutter in the air for a short distance.

The biggest news with N.S.M.B.W is the multiplayer mode, where one can join forces with a friend at the same time to play cooperative or competitive. Co-Op is not a new thing, but new for a Mario game who until now had been the same until now, with the small exception of Galaxy where another player could assist Mario/Luigi with his/her Wiimote.
What negative sides does New Super Mario Bros Wii have then? Well, there are a few things that make me complain.

The first is the length. The main story is too short for being a Mario game, it took me 2 days to complete it. This is somewhat redeemed when the search for Star Coins and the hunt for the 9:th World starts, but the game should have had at least 12 Worlds with an extra hard world to make it enjoyable.

The second is the soundtrack. The majority of the music is from New Super Mario Bros, remade for the Wii. There are some catchy tunes but sadly it didn’t give the WOW-feeling that Super Mario Galaxy gave me when I heard the soundtrack for the first time.

Thirdly, the lack of online gameplay, compete online with other players from all-around the globe would be awesome or why not cooperate to take down that castle that always bothered you? Online gameplay is something you have to learn Nintendo, but don’t fail like you did with Super Smash Bros Brawl.

Overall, N.S.M.B.W is great and definitely worth to buy, despite the negative factors. With Super Mario Galaxy 2 around the corner along with other games, this is a great game to play while you wait for them!

Back to finding the Star Coins…

©2012 Noob Talk Gaming Community. All Rights Reserved.

On the last few years, soccer fans have been very disappointed by the PES titles. Starting with the little glitches of the game and ending up with the awful in game menu,  Pro Evolution Soccer lost it’s king of football title, leaving the crown to be taken by the FIFA series developed by EA.  Fortunately for us, Konami decided to listen to what the gaming community has to say, and after gathering a lot of resources from different forums, they finally managed once more to create a master piece.

The first thing that strikes you from the moment you start the game is the user friendly interface (which now is actually friendly). Although the old black and pink color scheme remains,  menus are better organized,  also giving the player more control over the team’s tactics or line up formation.

Once you start the game, if you do not really look for small aspects that really matter you will get the feeling that this is just an ordinary soccer game. But it’s always the details that make the difference. Thanks to the remodeled graphics engine, the players, the pitch and everything else looks more realistic than ever before. Animations are more lifelike, and the players resemblance  is astonishing. Also, some work on the interaction with the ball has been done, adding even more on the scale of realism.  One more noticeable thing is that the in game character do not only look like the football players in real life, but they also have the same attributes like them (shooting,speed etc)

One thing that could have been improved ages ago in PES is the free kick system. Sometimes it feels like you have no control on them what so ever. I don’t say that the targeting  in the old FIFA versions was good (aim a circle and shoot the ball exactly in that direction), but Konami could have come up by now with a brilliant idea on how to improve it, especially that many players have complained about this. Also the penalty shots have been changed a little, it’s just a minor change between the camera angles when the player executes it,the view now  being normal( from above/side ). I don’t really know if this affects the game in any way but as long as it’s something different from the other versions, in a game like this it’s a good thing.  Speaking of penalty shots, I was quite surprised to see that the AI players do miss A LOT.  Let’s face it, it’s not acceptable  to miss like 2-3 penalties in a game,  thing that happens here quite often even when playing against well known team. What’s more, is that the opponent players just rush to you when you have the ball. Well that’s the idea you may say.True, but they rush in high numbers, sometimes 4-5 players grouping near one man,and simply acting like a wall, stopping the opposition. (speaking of men.. I really want to see a PES version with women) .Maybe a little more tweaking on the AI would have helped a little. Some minor adjustments could have been made on the commentators as well. They seem to be argued with one another as they never engage in dialogues, one of them does not even speak so much, making the presentation rather boring sometimes. One thing that was funny to encounter during playing was players simulating faults (did not see it in previous versions).  Of course that the referee does not leave that act unpunished so if the AI players try to get away with it, they will be booked. Looking forward for a version where they will kick you in the chest with the head.

That’s about all that can be said about PES 2010. I only presented the things that are less/more different than the other versions, I am not going to talk about the principles of a football-sim game because everyone has played or seen on TV a football match.

©2012 Noob Talk Gaming Community. All Rights Reserved.