THE YEAR IS 1962. God (sometimes also known by the more humble name of Stan Lee) is sitting in his office at Marvel publishing wracking his brain for a new idea for a super-hero. The Fantastic 4, the X-Men and a number of other previous titles are all doing well, having lead to a surge in demand for quality comic books. Fortuity shines on our intrepid hero and he glances across to see a spider making it’s way steadily up his office wall.

Forty-seven years later, this chance event had lead to arguably the most famous, most well recognised and best loved super-hero character in comic, television and film history. With dozens of off-shot comic lines, several reinventions and re-tellings of the original seventeen page short in what, at the time, was to be the final issue of Amazing Fantasy, and three smash hit films (even if the third was crap) to reintroduce good old Spidey to yet another generation. When you consider it like that, Spider-Man : Web of Shadows (in this instance for the Nintendo Wii) has a dizzying legacy to stand up to.

Something which it does in spectacular style.

From the city spanning opening, punctuated by an extremely famous piece of classical music (which I of course have forgotten the name of) and a Spidey that is decidedly more aggressive than we are used to seeing him, to the fist full of alternate endings. Dictated by your decisions at key moments in the story, you can influence not only the final outcome of the game, but also some of the more important events along the way as well.

You have a meter that shows your general leaning either towards the “good” traditional red Spider-Man, or the “bad” black Spider-Man. We were promised during early development of the game that, for the first time, we would actually b given the opportunity to play Spider-Man as an anti-hero. Or even an outright villain, and I’m happy to say that, for once, the pre-release claims were right on the money. Not just little acts of selfishness, but outright cruelty, such as (spoiler alert) during the battle with a symbiote infected Wolverine. Upon defeating him you are given the two options of how to proceed, and if you choose the black option Spidey lifts him above his head and, literally, rips him in half at the waste. Dropping him back onto the floor in two pieces.

I could go into great detail of the plot and game mechanics, but personally, I think the game is so well made that it needs nothing further. The more important part of a review, after all, is the simple question of whether it’s any good or not. And the answer is a resounding, explosive YES. The game is absolutely amazing, and as far as I’m aware is identical to the Playstation 3 and X-Box 360 release in everything except graphical complexity. Certainly the games rooftop opening is exactly the same and I am now looking forward to playing the HD version as well to compare the two.

Spideyness: 9.5/10

Graphics: 9/10
Gameplay: 9/10
Audio/Music: 9/10
Plot/Scripting: 9/10
Overall: 9.5/10

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At first glance you would think that it is a child’s game but I personally enjoyed playing it. When you start off you choose your name, the town where you live a name and set the date and time and then it cuts to your journey to the town. Once you arrive you have a choice of 4 or 5 different houses to choose from.

Once established you have free roam of the town and you can interact with the town’s folk that already live there and they will help you and give you helpful hints and tips throughout the game. You start out with a clothes shop (where you can buy clothes and make your own designs), newsagents type shop (where you can buy and sell things you want and don’t want), museum (where you can donate things you find such as fossils, fish and insects, look at the stars and have a coffee down stairs.) and a town hall (where you can pay off your house, change certain things in the town and send and receive mail to the town folk or even your friends).

It is a great game to waste time with or even catch up with your friends from all over the world via the Wii Internet connection, all you do is go to the towns gate and add your friends ‘friend code’ and you will receive a code yourself which you give to your friend and get them to add you so you can both send mail to each other, talk to each other with the speaker and even visit each others towns where you can collect different fruit off the trees and plant them in your own town, go shopping together or just generally help out and have fun.

I really enjoy playing it as there is so much to do and they even celebrate days like we do i.e. Halloween you can go around trick or treating, they have a fireworks display on both bonfire night and New Years Eve. Also they have flea markets on set days (once a month I think) where you can go in the towns folk houses and see if there is anything which you would like to buy and in turn they come to you and you can sell anything which you don’t like for how much you like.

Overall a very enjoyable game for all ages.

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UNFORTUNATELY MY DVD-encoder is completely beyond the meager electronics skills of this wayward games reviewer, but I’ve never been one to let something that simple sway me from my life’s…uhm, something other or other. Whatever, the point is, it’s been a while since I last wrote anything even remotely like a review. The itch has struck again, so I apologise for the pictures being a mixture of Google supplied and digital camera snaps of my TV screen. But at least I’m back on form with my very first X-Box 360 review.

Alas, I picked a rather…colourful game for my first choice. Regular readers will remember that I dabbled with Alone in the Dark on the Nintendo Wii some months ago. I was…unimpressed for the most part but allowed a lot of slack with the flakey gameplay given the overall quality of the story and the experience as a whole.

Sadly, the “next gen” version of the game does not hold even such a complimentary standing as that. The story is, as with the Wii, outstanding, and extremely well scripted. For the most part t’s identical to the Wii, with only some minor differences apart from the ending which is both more and less open at the same time. Mostly in so far as there are two which are dependent on whether or not you pop some lead (no that isn’t a euphamism) in Sarah’s skull or not.

Unfortunately however, even the outstanding plot and scripting, and the addition of a mostly open environment (almost the entirety of New York’s Central Park) do little to make this game anything more than a passable few days. Though it does give you an easy 1000 points for your gamerscore. Not much more than twelve hours of gameplay once you knuckle down to it. Though be warned, the Handyman Carnby achievement can be a real bugger to get.

The control scheme is the real killer for this game. Especially with the driving sections. Though they do make the game flow better, allowing you to move from one location to another much faster than on foot, and without having to worry overly much about the monsters scattered around the area. Unfortunately, the cars are so gruellingly painful to control that it almost kills the game entirely. A number of occasions I came very close to losing all patience and just packing it in. But I persevered, and all I can say is that it was an overall pretty “meh” experience.

Worth looking through for the plot, but not much else. Something to pick up cheap, or rent as I did.

Graphics: 8/10
Gameplay: 4/10
Audio/Music: 8/10
Plot/Scripting: 9/10
Overall: 5/10

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I live in a small apartment with little room for exercise equipment, but would much rather work out at home rather than drive to a gym. So I had high hopes for the Wii Fit right out of the box — and for the most part, it hasn’t disappointed.

Pros:

1. Watching others play is almost as entertaining as playing yourself, especially if they have poor coordination.

2. The game’s balance board is intelligently designed, and sensitive to precise movement. It integrates well with the gameplay, resulting in a smooth fitness-gaming experience. While I did hear some complaints from the big footed persons in my life, regarding the size of the board, it was fine for my size six (female) feet.

3. Wii fit can really make you fit – The exercise instructions are clear, and easy to follow. If you put the effort in, your heart will be pumping and you’ll get a pretty good work out.

4. I’m having a good time while getting a bit of a better bod. Wii Fit is definitely more fun than the treadmill. Honestly, we need more games like this for America’s gigantic youth. Enjoyable gameplay (personal favorites include slalom-skiing, and tightrope-walking) make you forget that you’re engaged in physical fitness.

Cons:

1. Uses BMI to determine your physical health. BMI is a flawed system, but I suppose is a decent enough health indicator for these purposes. However, someone with a lot of weight from muscle will be considered fat by the Wii Fit, which is humorous to me, but probably not to those individuals.

2. Locked content. It’s not terribly hard to unlock, and the purpose for it is clear – as you progress with your fitness, you unlock more levels. But the levels are unlocked based on time spent playing, and with some of the exercises and mini games being quite short (as in only a few minutes,) it can leave you repeating the same thing over and over again before unlocking new levels. And that’s not cool.

3. It’s a little on the expensive side. At $125+ US Wii Fit isn’t cheap.

4. Too much time fiddling with the remote gets annoying. There’s no way to program the system to play multiple fitness routines in a row, resulting in many pauses to navigate the game menus.

Overall, I recommend the Wii Fit for anyone who wants to get a little fitness out of their gaming experience. While not perfect, it has managed to mesh together exercise and fun, leaving the Wii Fit with a thumbs up from this reviewer.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to spend any time as of late tracking my progress with the Wii Fit. As a small business owner, I often have to wear many hats, and don’t always find the time for gaming that I would like. However, the rewards my business brings is certainly worth it at this point in my life. Currently though, with the economic downturn and all, I’ve had some to spend a lot of my time looking for Small business lending options.

An expert in small business lending, Jon M Queen also knows about funding for businesses and business loan companies. Find out more about the profile of Jon Queen here at LinkedIn.

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It had been a long, long time since I played a single-player Mario game when I decided to pick up Super Paper Mario and give it a spin. I mean, how could a simple game like Super Paper Mario compete with all of the inventive and interactive Wii games that I generally enjoy? But, having played most of my collection to death, I wanted to try something different, and had heard good things about the title, and therefor, it found its way home with me.

Super Paper Mario for Wii didn’t begin well for this gamer. It opens with a very lengthy dialog scene, which the player is forced to read through. I was ready to play and almost fifteen minutes of intro, was, in my opinion, far too much. However, after getting through the dreadfully long opening sequence, I was finally in the action and ready to boogie.

One thing that I was immediately impressed me was the toggling between 2-d and 3-d modes, at the press of a button. The 3-d mode can only be played in short bursts (or Mario’s health begins to decline), but its graphically rich and shows off paths and items that the player would normally miss in 2-d mode. Sometimes 3-d mode is needed in order to pass a level, or find a door, but often I like to use it just to see any hidden gems (or coins in this case), I could be missing.

Also, in this Super Mario installment, our hero is given a little fairy pixel friend, who helps Mario to find otherwise invisible doors and items. To use her you need to point the controller at the screen, and then you’ll see any hidden secrets which are uncovered through her abilities. It’s kind of a neat touch which further helps to differentiate this Mario game from past versions.

Now, the actual premise and game sequences are pretty much what you would expect in any Super Mario game (saving the world/princess and whatnot), so don’t go expecting too much a riveting plot. However, the new touches and improvements certainly make Super Paper Mario a must play for any fan of the franchise, and should at least be given a strong consideration by casual fans who want to enjoy some nostalgic fun.

Also, I should mention that it took me many days to really get into the game, as I had been having strong flu-like symptoms. Thankfully, I came across an excellent resource which provided me with information on Treatment for Symptoms. For more ideas on treatment for symptoms and other related concerns, head over to the blogger profile of Dan Neumeister. Also, Dan Neumeister can be found here on Scribd.

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