Video Game Review: Elebits for Nintendo Wii

They’re like little dust balls, lice, or even mice (except they squeal like kittens) just running around loose all over the house, all over town- its anarchy. They’re actually called Elebits though. They are little creatures that generate electricity, and they have all escaped during a lightning storm; now there is no power for lights or any electronics to work. It’s your job to capture them, and re-power the city, or world I should say, by zapping, or ‘sucking’ them in.

The story opens up, and Kai, a boy (you) is left in charge to collect the elebits with your dad’s zap gun. You never actually play as Kai though. The game is in first person shooter at all times. He’s just the one who will be telling the story.

Each level requires a certain amount of wattage (each elebit has a different amount of wattage depending on its color, and how you capture it, depending if the elebit is confused, scared, or happy, when you catch it, the wattage will differ) to pass on to the next level.

The game itself is a first person shooting game. Only it’s not hard like some other difficult first shooter games on the market right now. The controls are quite easy to use. The zap gun is easily used by pressing the A button, or the button underneath the remote. Then the nun chuck is used to move around the environment.

Elebits is like a search and find, where’s Waldo type of hunt, only much more advanced, and exciting. You move around using the nun chuck and basically search the room up and down. You capture an elebit simply by placing your zap gun target onto it, then press the A button. It’s really simple seeing how most elebits are slow moving.

As you capture elebits your gun will gain more power. This is when things get messy, and a little difficult. For one when you start throwing beds and desks around, sometimes you end up blocking yourself into a corner, and the only way out is to throw more things around. Also as you collect more elebits, certain things become unlocked. Such as lamps, televisions, and other appliances. One the appliance is unlocked, you can zap out a bucket load of elebits by pressing the A button. However some items require an action, and not all of them tell you what the action is.

Trying to figure it out wastes precious time. Each level gives you either 5 minutes or 15 minutes, so you have to use your time wisely, or you could end up failing the level mission. Opening doors sometimes can be difficult, but honestly I’d prefer to use the word annoying. The door requires you to hit the A button and hold it, and then you are to twist your wrist just as you would motion to open a real door. This is not the difficult part, but what is, is when the door quickly shuts on you. So basically you have about 1 second to react. If you don’t move fast enough, you have to do it all over again. Times a wasting, and the clock is ticking.

The game also comes with a generous assortment of tunes. Not vocal music, just chimes, and beats. Each time you pass a level, you also get a new song added to inventory. I think it’s neat, because God forbid they used only one song or two. You’d get annoyed quickly seeing how each mission ranges from 5 to 15 minutes. Hearing the same repetitive song could be annoying and bothersome.

As you pass each level, the game gets a little more difficult. Not extremely ‘I quit’ and throw the remote to the floor difficult though.

The game adds in some bad guys (they’re not really bad, but they can cause level failure). If you happen to make too much of a mess, a spiny elebit will come out. If this elebit throws itself at you, or you shoot it, you take damage. You will only be allowed to take 5 hits. So you have to watch your step, and not be too messy. As you become more accustom to the game though, these elebits will not even be an issue.
You also want to make a note to capture purple elebits as soon as you spot them. They throw balls of fire at you, and you take a hit. These elebits can kill you off pretty quickly if they aren’t taken care of.

Some levels also require you to stay quiet. The sound decibel will vary depending on the level. If you make too much noise, you fail the mission. This can be tricky, because as you advance some elebits will add to the noise. By either knocking dishes on the floor, or knocking things over as they try to escape you.

Also as the game increases in difficulty, you get more options to your gun. Through out levels there will be circular orbs and boxes for you to crack open. You get a new action to your gun. They range from the vacuum. This is the most fun; your gun becomes a big suction, and basically will suck up the elebits in huge amounts. If you find the vacuum in the level, you will clear the level quickly.

There are also shield orbs. This protects you from taking any hits. There are electrical orbs, in which I believe add power to your gun. –As the gun increases in power, it is able to lift heavier objects. Messy time! There is also the laser, this will target in on any surrounding elebits, making it easier to catch them in a quick manner.

Other levels require you to not break anything. You get a varying limit where you’re only allowed to break up to 10 items. This can be tough to do, especially when things get knocked over, and tossed around easily. You have to make sure you don’t toss anything into a vase, or glass. This limits the fun in my opinion. I love being able to freely roam, and make a huge mess without having to worry about breaking things. But you will get plenty of these levels to just run around and cause chaos, so I guess the added difficulty was needed.

About every 5 or 6 levels you pass, there will come a boss level. This battle for me was easier than catching elebits. The boss levels prove no real difficulty. So long as you know how to use the controllers, you wont have a problem at all. I like this, because Nintendo in the past has had a fair share of impossible bosses to beat. Being able to beat a boss gives a newer gamer the sense of accomplishment. However for a hardcore gamer, it’s also extremely disappointing to be able kick off a boss in less than 2 minutes.

Some levels also have cannons that will shoot at you. These are more annoying though, than they are a challenge. You can easily toss them aside by pointing your gun at it, and flipping the wrist. However, spotting them is not always so easy. So you will get shot a

few times if you don’t find the cannons fast. They are small and usually are hidden in high places, or sidewalls.

Besides story mode, you can also play Elebits in multiplayer mode. Up to 4 people can play. It’s basically whoever can catch the largest wattage/most elebits wins.

You also have an elebits album in the main menu. Here you can view all of the different species of elebits that you have caught, and learn a thing or two about them. This is a great advantage to you. You will learn sometimes where they hide, and or their weaknesses.

Okay so now that you got the basic point of the game, let me get into what I like, and dislike about Elebits.

DISLIKES

-Sometimes during game play the remote will go nutty, and the screen will point up at the ceiling.

-Being able to open doors and have them shut on you is terribly annoying.

- The lack of directions on certain actions is annoying

- Certain actions are too difficult to accomplish in a timely manner. For instance, putting a piece of bread into a toaster, or a pile of clothes into a washer.

- Some levels are repeats of the last. I’m not saying it gets boring or repetitive though. Just adding it as a note. Only one level I know of repeats 3 times. However when the repeats happen, new doors are opened. So you do get to explore a new room or two.

- I hate when I corner myself into a pile of mess. It’s hard to get out, and wastes time.

- I don’t know if it’s just me, but if you play this game for too long, you suddenly find yourself having a headache. I don’t know if it’s the 360-degrees of constant twirling and swirling on the TV, or if it’s just me. But my head hurts after about an hour of game play. It’s the same feeling you get when you stare at a computer monitor for too long.

LIKES

- I enjoy being able to throw things around with ease when my gun is powerful enough.

- I like how dresser draws open, refrigerators, closets, and everything in the home or level is intractable. No object goes unusable.

- I like how you feel you’re a human metal detector.

- The story pictures are beautiful.

- Music changes with each level. Nothing is repeated.

- I like the elebits that fight back (the spiked ones, and purple ones). It gives the game a neat challenge.

- Appeals to a wide assortment of age groups. Children or adults.

Now moving on to the graphics.

Like I’ve said in past reviews regarding Nintendo games, I’ve always been a fan of Nintendo’s carton looking games. This game is yet another Nintendo masterpiece. The levels are colorful, and bubbly. It’s sort of equivalent to Nintendo 64s Super Mario world 64. (Inside the castle)

The graphics however, are not up to par with the technology that exists today in gaming… but this is why I like it.

This game has already provided me with hours of fun, lack of sleep, and eye twitches.

It is definitely a great buy. You can purchase it at either Wal-Mart or Target for the best price. Or visit their sites. www.walmart.com or, www.target.com. The game will come to about $50 after taxes. However, if you wanted to get it for the lowest price, I’d just google it. www.google.com
You will not be disappointed.

Game Review: Animal Crossing Wild World for Nintendo DS

Okay folks, my review on Animal Crossings: Wild World for the Nintendo DS, has been a long time coming. I felt I could not give a complete review until I got my DS a Wifi connection. The time has come.

I got this game for one reason, and one reason only. Animal Crossings was probably the finest game I had played on my game cube. Adding Wild World to my DS game collection only made sense.

I was able to purchase it on the day of its release at Gamestop for $34.99. Believe me this game was selling out like hotcakes at McDonald’s on a Sunday morning.

The game itself starts off a bit like the one on game cube. You’re leaving home, about to start a life on your own away from your parents. You answer a few questions, before the game itself starts. You choose your name, your gender, and the name you would like to call your town. After all of this basic stuff, your character arrives. (The neat part is if you don’t like how he/she looks, you can always restart the game. The characters face can and will change every time you start a new game. Or add a new person to your town. –You are allowed to add 3 more friends- say a brother, or sister to live in the same house as you)

Upon your arrival you will be greeted by a raccoon named Nook, he is the owner of Nook N Cranny’s, the town’s local shopping center. Nook takes you to see your home, and then he slaps you with a bill. However you don’t have any money. Dang! This is where the games actual play is put in effect. You have to earn that money, and believe me it won’t be an easy, or fast job to complete.

From here Nook leaves and asks you to meet him back at his shop. You have to choice to either, get to the shop and start working immediately, or you can go and check out your house and the town.

Yech, its rather small and ugly looking house. It will be up to you from here on out to decorate your home to your preferences. I will get into the home furnishings and decorations further on however.

You get to Nooks, and he asks you to perform little annoying missions to earn some bells (money). You have to deliver packages, introduce yourself to all of the animals in town, and post a bulletin for Nook. This is basically just a tutorial, it gets a little annoying, but once you complete the tasks you get to roam free, and Nook hooks you up with a town map. This makes it easy to locate other animal’s homes, when you first start off.

The number of animals in your town will vary from time to time. At one point you will have up to 10 neighbors, and sometimes you will have 8. The animals tend to move out, and move in about once a week. However sometimes it takes awhile for a new animal to move in. Your neighbors will vary from friendly and bubbly, to complete grouches, each animals personalities will differ from the last, and you may even grow more fond of one than the other. Don’t get too attached though, when move out on you sometimes, you can’t take it personally. You will see a large variety of different animals. Rabbits, dogs, toads, pigs, bears, chickens, roosters, ducks, hedgehogs, squirrels, monkeys, cats, chipmunks, etc. The list goes on and on.

Now just how does one pay off that home loan?

Well there are many, many ways to pay Nook back. At first you most likely will be selling Nook sea shells that you happen to find at the beach, which is always located at the very far bottom of the town. You can also run errands for the animals in town. They will either give you bells, clothes, or furniture.
You can then sell the clothing and furniture you were given to Nook, who will buy them from you. This is basically how you make money.
There are also hidden tips to making bells that aren’t as obvious.

-If you hit rocks with your shovel, sometimes a rock will release bags of bells. Keep hitting it, and the bags of bells will get bigger. There will only be one money rock per day in your town.

-If you go up to a tree and shake it, sometimes a bag of 100 bells will fall to your feet.


Okay, so now you have some money. However don’t pay of the loan just yet. First your going to want to purchase some tools from Nooks shop. A major necessity is the fishing pole, shovel, net, axe, and the slingshot.

Once you have gotten the pole you can go fishing. This is where things get fun. You find a river, or the ocean; once you see a dark shadow in the water, release your line. When the line starts shaking, reel him in! It’s easy. One can spend hours fishing. There are quite a few fish to catch too, 56 different species to be exact.
Once you have caught fish, you can either bring them to the museum, or have them put in the aquarium. Or if you have caught two of the same fish, sell the extras to Nook. There are a few rare fish that Nook will pay almost 10,000 bells for. Now remember different fish come out at different seasons. Animal crossing Wild World is set in real time. So if it’s February 7th 2007 for you, it will also be the same date in Animal Crossings. (You can however change the time in the game if you’d like)

The net is used for bug catching. There are 56 different bugs to catch. Like the fish, rare bugs are worth big bells. You can donate bugs to the museum, or sell them to Nook.

The shovel is used for digging, hitting rocks, digging up cut down tree stumps, and planting flowers. If you happen to be walking around your town and see a star shaped marking on the grass or sand, that would be where you would dig. What you dig up is a mystery every time. It could either be a fossil, (take this to the museum to have it identified) a pit fall (if you happen to step on a star that contains a pitfall your character will fall into a hole- just hit the A button to get out) it could even be furniture that another animal may of buried, or a gyroid. (A Gyroid, is a wooden type totem pole looking thing. If you place it in your home it will make noises) Gyroids are found the next day after a rainstorm in large quantities. I usually sell them to Nook, as they are worth 800 bells each.

The slingshot is used to shoot balloons down in the sky. Balloons come every now and then, and you will see them floating in your top screen. The balloon usually has a gift attached to it. If you happen to get lucky and shoot it down, the gift will fall to the ground. Usually the gift contains a piece of furniture for your home. Shooting balloons down is probably the most difficult task that this game has to offer.

The axe is used to chop down trees. Now you don’t want to go crazy with cutting them all down, it will make the animals in the town upset. The axe is used to lighten up areas that have too many trees crammed together, causing you not to be able to make your way through. Cutting a few trees down just makes it easier for you to move around the town in a quicker manner.

Now lets move on to your home. Collecting furniture will prove no easy task. There are many different types of sets one may want to acquire. You either get furniture by buying them from Nook, or getting them from completing tasks from animals in town. However you may also acquire furniture in the lost and found. There will be two dogs waiting by your main gates, ask the dog to the left if anything has been lost. He will show you a list of things if there are any. Feel free to take everything if you want.

There are 576 different pieces of furniture. So it will take a lot of time for you to get them all. Once you have gotten a piece though, don’t be afraid to sell it. You can always repurchase it, as it will be saved in you catalog. (Your catalog is a list of any furniture you may have had in your possession in the past, regardless of whether its in your house at that time or not)

There are also 64 different wallpapers, and 64 different types of carpets for you to decorate your home with. You can get crazy and creative.
You also will have the option to join the HRA. This is a home rating system. Every week you will get a letter in your mailbox from the HRA with a grade on your home. If you get a great score, sometimes the HRA will send you a gift and congratulate you.

I know there are ways to do feng shui in the home as well. I haven’t mastered this yet, but I do know if you master it, you will get some sort of gift from the HRA.

Decorations also go beyond the home. You also can plant flowers and trees all throughout the town. Be careful you don’t run through flowers though, as you can kill them. If you plant a lot of flowers, sometimes there is a good chance of creating hybrid flowers. These are rare occurrences, and these types of flowers will never be available at Nooks.

However if you don’t play the game for about a week or so the town will become overrun with weeds. They’re easy to get rid of though; you just stand over them and pick them. Its pretty easy. There also is a small chance that you will find a patch of clovers. If you pick them, there is a random chance of finding a 4 leaf lucky clover. You can wear it in your hair, or put t in your home.


There is also the Able Sisters shop. This is where you go to buy different clothing patterns to wear. Here you can also create your own styles to wear, or use as a pattern on your umbrella. The cost to make your own clothing will always be 300 bells. It’s neat because after you create a new pattern, and put it on display, sometimes animals in your town will sport the new look as well. You can also purchase accessories like glasses, beards, hats, and hairstyles here when they become available. Two different accessories will be available each day.

Also when you pay off your loan, your house will get larger and larger, and so the bill from Nook will also grow. However if you keep paying off your loan you will eventually earn yourself the mansion. The best and very last upgrade to your house. It consists of 3 levels and 7 rooms total.

Another neat feature is message in bottles. You can purchase them at Nooks. You can then write a letter to someone, anyone really. You never know where it ends up- it travels to other wifi Animal Crossing DS users. I like to leave my email address in the letter and a little gift, and see if someone emails me letting me know they got my message. Sometimes you may even get a message in a bottle washed up on your shore.

You can also write letters to other animals in your town, usually they write back and add a gift. So it’s fun to do. You may also write letters to other users in your house, or write letters to other wifi users on your friend list.

As you upgrade your house, Nooks store will also upgrade, becoming larger and nicer with each upgrade. Eventually there will also be a hair salon in Nookingtons. You can take your character here for a makeover for 3,000 bells. Your hair style and color will change depending on how you answer the hairdresser.

Now just when you think things are becoming boring, a special even will pop up. You can find all the details out about special events on the town bulletin board.
There will also be special visitors in Animal Crossing: Wild World.

A reindeer will come for a visit on Christmas Eve. He likes to hide in your town. If you happen to find him, he will give you a Christmas themed piece of furniture for your home. If you continue to seek him, each time he will give you another piece of furniture. Save these pieces, they are the only types of furniture that you cannot re-order. However if you get doubles, sell them. They’re worth a lot of money.

When it is snowing in your town, you will also sometimes find balls of snow. If you roll them, you will create a snowman. Its hard to do, and takes some concentration and fine hand skills to pile one ball on top of the other. Once he is made, he will give you a gift, which is worth a lot of money. You can make a new snowman everyday and everyday get a new gift.

On the 4th of July at night, if you look at the top screen you will see a display of fireworks. If you go to the town center you will find Tortimer, the town mayor. He will give you sparklers to hold during the festivities.

On Halloween everyone in town will be dressed in costume. You have to be careful, if they run up to you, you must give them candy. Make sure you buy candy at Nooks in advance; if you don’t have candy they will give you a trick. There will also be a visitor named Jack. If you find Jack roaming about tag him. He will give you a piece of Halloween furniture. Seek him out as much as possible without getting tagged by other animals. Otherwise they turn your Halloween furniture into jack o lanterns, which are worth nothing. His furniture is also worth a lot of money, so if you get doubles sell them to Nook.

There is also a random chance of a sea gull named Gully that sometimes will wash up on shore at the ocean. He will look dead when you find him, but if you keep prompting him to talk, eventually he will wake up. He will then tell you a huge story about why he washed up, and then he will give you a rare foreign gift. These gifts are worth a lot of money if you sell them To Nook. However they also make the house look nice, and will raise your HRA score.

Gracie is a fashion designer; she will visit your town about once a month. You never know when she might pop up, she doesn’t leave a bulletin, but if you talk to the animals, sometimes they clue you in. If the animals talk of Gracie, she will be in the town. It’s now up to you to find her. When you do she will ask you to wash her car. If you wash it nicely she will give you one of her fashions. You can either wear the clothes she gives you, or sell them to Nook. Her clothing is worth way more bells than any other pieces of clothing you may come across in the game.

Redd, a raccoon that looks like Nook; only crooked will also visit once a week. He will send you a letter and let you know when he will be visiting. He will also send you the password to get into his tent. If you loose the password you will have to ask every single animal in town what the password is. So keep the letter till he visits. Its annoying having to hunt down which animal has Redds password. Redds tent has a variety of rare items that sometimes does not sell in Nooks shop. Here is where you may come across paintings for your museum.

However, sometimes his paintings are fakes and worth nothing. So it’s really a gamble unless the insurance man comes to visit-, which doesn’t happen as often as you would like. At Redds sometimes you loose, sometimes you win. It’s sort of a gamble. His prices are also extremely high; so make sure you visit him with quite a few bells in hand.

There will also be an old woman selling turnips every week, if you buy them, then sell them at Nooks you can make a huge profit.
The prices of turnips rises and fall each day, just don’t let them spoil. They will rot and be useless in one weeks time if you don’t sell them.

During spring and fall seasons your town will also be visited by a beaver that will hold fishing tournaments. It’s simple really, catch the biggest bass, and win the trophy.
There will also be spring festivals, fall festivals, and other activities for you to participate in.


THE GRAPHICS

The game itself may look lame and childish, but in reality it has a lot to offer. The town you will be in is very colorful. Everything is in a 3d type atmosphere, and sort of reminds me of a more childlike colorful Southpark.


If you have the wifi connection this is where things get very fun. Now before you get all excited, you must remember you have to have a friend code plugged into your friend rooster, and that friend must have you plugged in as well for you to visit, and have visitors. It’s the most annoying process that Nintendo has added, seeing how not everyone has 10 friends who own animal crossings.

There however are forums and websites where you can exchange your friend codes with others. (By the way the dog at your main gate will give you your friend code)
The best site I have come across for friend code exchanges is www.animalcrossincommunity.com

Once you have exchanged codes with someone you can then visit their town or have them come and visit yours. Once you have a visitor you can exchange furniture, play, pick different fruit, then plant them in your town for fruit variety, or just gossip. It’s really a lot of fun being able to explore someone else’s town, seeing how each one is different. However you also have to be careful when you let someone in your town you don’t know. It wouldn’t be fun to have them cut down all your trees, steal hybrid flowers, and ruin your town, like some people just may do. If you see any sort of activity you do not like, you can just turn your DS off, and take them off of your friend rooster. However the site I provided gives other users a rating, so you can see comments from other users, if that person is a good visitor, or a bad one. A bad visitor can ruin all of the fun if you happen to come across one.

Don’t let it stop you from having visitors though; you can rid your town of bad visitors easily. Remember though, when you do have visitors that are new, try and monitor them.
If they don’t chat back when you ask them something, or if they keep running through your flowers, ask them to leave. If they don’t, like I said turn off the DS. There are many known hacks to this game, so if you feel someone is suspicious, kick em’ out!

I have been nothing but impressed with Animal Crossing Wild World. The game is a great buy. The fun never runs out. There is always something to do in your town, or in others. You will not be disappointed if you purchase this game.

Just a note- I myself cannot wait for the launch of Animal Crossings for the Nintendo Wii.
Mii crossings; however that review will have to wait for another day in the future. Sigh*

Nintendogs: Chihuahua and Friends for DS

I’m 25 years old and totally love cutesy tootsie games. When I spotted my 9-year-old nephew all up into his Nintendo DS talking to it, I wondered what the heck he was playing. “Nintendogs.”
This sounded interested, so I backed up and watched him go at it for a few minutes. I realized in that brief moment I too needed to have this virtual dog game.

A week later I spotted the game in Gamestop for a whopping $29.99. I was not happy about the price, but it looked like something I would like. The game itself reminded me of a sweet handheld Tamagotchi on steroids. There were a few breeds to choose from, I of course choose the Chihuahua & friends version.
You’re not limited to just Chihuahuas though, you can choose other breeds such as Dalmatians and friends, Labradors and friends, or Dachshunds and friends. Each game has a total of 18 puppies for you to use/unlock.
They all have the same game play, just different dogs, so honestly buying more than one copy of Nintendogs is wasteful. Plus you can obtain these other breeds through Bark Mode. (I will cover this later)

GAME PLAY

When I got my new puppies home I was excited to get going and start taking care of him. I was first taken to a pet store where I could view the available puppies, and then I could choose one. I choose a white colored long coat Chihuahua.

Next I was prompted to call him over by whistling, and then I was to pet him until he liked me. Last but not least I was asked to give him a name. This was the first game in which I was using the DS’s microphone. I named my little guy ChiChi. Next he comes home with me. Yay!

So now what?
I’ll be honest, I was very confused, but the game took me through a sort of demo mode on how to train my dog. Here I taught him how to sit down by tapping his head and dragging the stylus down in a quick motion, and then speaking ‘sit down’. It took Chichi a few times to learn the trick, and once he had it, I had to save the trick in my tricks list. You’re only allowed to teach him 14 tricks until the trick list is full. However you can delete old tricks to fill it in with new ones. I found this annoying. My puppy should have endless opportunities to learn and remember his taught tricks. I found it lame that you could make him forget some. I wanted a super dog. However no matter how much I wanted it, I wasn’t going to get it with the limit of only 14 tricks.

I pet my dog, and tried numerous times to teach him tricks. In the hour I had him he learned how to lie down, play dead, and give me his paw. After that he got tired of learning, and I was told I had to wait till tomorrow to teach him new tricks.

Okay. I’m fine with that, so lets go for a walk ChiChi.

GO OUT:

In this mode you are given a few options. You can take your dog for a walk, go to the pet store, kennel, dog motel, second hand store/thrift shop or enter your dog into contest.

THE DOG MOTEL:

This is where you can keep your dog before you save the game and leave. Here they make sure he is fed, and cared for while you are away from the DS. However this is unnecessary seeing how even f you leave the dog for days at a time, he won’t die.

PET STORE:

This is where you buy things that your puppy needs. Be careful because you have a limited amount of money, so as of now your main focus should just be items of care, such as food, water, and shampoo. You may also buy toys here as well, and accessories such as collars and bow ties for the fashionista puppy.

KENNEL:

Here you can purchase more dogs. However you can only play with one at a time, so this dog you purchase can be saved at the dog motel, where you can pick him up and use him instead. I wouldn’t purchase a new dog until you get the gist of the whole game, and have enough money. There will be 3 dogs here to choose from as well.

THRIFT STORE/SECOND HAND SHOP

Here you can sell things your puppy does not need. If you happen to find a gift on the street, which you already have, it’s a good idea to sell it to earn some money.

GO FOR A WALK:

This is an etch a sketch type of map, here you are taken to a screen, and you use your stylus to trace a route for your puppy. At first he won’t go very far seeing how his stamina will not allow it. However the more you walk him, the farther he can go next time. On the walk you may run into gifts, and other dogs for your dog to play with.

Your dog will also go pee and poop when you’re walking him. You have to clean up the poop by simply pointing your stylus on it. It will then be disposed of. You can also walk your dog to the park or gymnasium from here.

At the park you teach your dog how to play Frisbee fetch and bring back. Once he is good enough you can enter him into the disc throwing competition. At the gym you teach him how to run through an obstacle. Once he learns it you can enter him into the endurance competition.

COMPETITIONS:

DISC THROWING:

You can enter your dog into this competition; you must earn a certain amount of points to move on to a higher level up. You also earn money here. At first though your puppy most likely will not even score a point. The farther you throw it, the more points. However he has to catch it.

ENDURANCE:

Your puppy has to make it through the obstacle course in a set amount of time completing tasks such as running through a tube, walking the see saw, and jumping over hurdles. If you haven’t trained him enough at the gym he will most likely fail.

OBEDIENCE:

In this competition you simply use the commands you have taught him at home. Such as sit, shake, and free command. In this mode you simply choose whatever trick you want the dog to perform.
You need a certain amount of points to move to the next level.

BARK MODE:

This is used to link up with another DS player. For instance my nephew had been using Dalmatians & friends, so I simply have to stand within 30 feet of him, and we can begin communicating by writing messages as our dogs play. Once our dogs become acquainted and play with one another that breed is added to my/our game. It’s like a collecting game. At my age it’s sort of hard to find someone willing to connect… seeing how this game is geared more towards younger children. I’ll probably never get a Dachshund. Heheh.

GRAPHICS:

The graphics in this game are pretty realistic, and all of the dogs look almost lifelike with a cartoon like edge to them. The neighborhood walk is also pretty nice looking. However the background inside of our home look pretty blurry. However you can purchase new apartments with trainer points, which make the environment in the background look much, much better.

REPLAY VALUE:

Well it’s sort of hard to say, as a kid how much replay value came out of a Tamagotchi? About a week or two, or until the batteries died, I swear I don’t know one kid who ever bought new batteries for that game. You just bought a new one when it died out. It was cheaper actually.

That’s probably all one will get from Nintendogs, a week or two, although the game play may sound exciting, it gets boring really fast. Once you have your dog trained, and you beat the competitions over and over again you really are left with nothing else to do. The game play is not exciting enough for me to even want to earn money for a new apartment.

MUSIC:

The music plays softly in the background, and it’s not annoying it sort of just drowns out and you don’t even realize there is music.

Nintendogs has its own music though separate from background music. There are 4 rare records in which you can find in the neighborhood by tapping the stylus down to the sidewalk, he may or may not randomly pick up an unseen gift. The gift may be a record for you to play on your record player at home.

You can also record a message on your record player by hitting record and saying something. With this other players can listen to your message while in ark mode. Pretty neat. Not only that, you can change the pitch of your voice so you sound like a devil or a mouse. Something fun I missed from the 80’s. However recording time is limited to about 20 seconds, so you don’t get to say much.

I’VE GOT A BONE TO PICK:

The very first day my dog learned a few tricks, however when I entered him into the obedience competition he nearly forgot everything I taught him, and sort of did whatever he pleased. This was disappointing, because when I brought him home, he was performing them like a pro. He seems to do this often when in competition, throwing out everything he learned, and making a fool of me! Haha.

The second day after having my dog when I went to voice command him to sit down, he actually jumped up at the screen in an attack type action. He looked aggressive and seriously went to bite at me (in virtual world). He’s a bad boy.

Not only that after being fed and quenched, I then began to use voice commands again. I figured maybe he was just mad at me leaving him all night.
Nope, he still was aggressive and didn’t want to listen to me at all. After a few pets to the head he lightened up though. However when I went to use his tricks like play dead, paw, etc. He preformed none of them properly. It was almost as if he needed a tune up overnight.
These are tricks he’s supposed to already know, and they are stored in his memory, he should be performing with no issues. Only he doesn’t.

Another thing I dislike is how difficult it can be to get him to understand a command or trick. In the competition shake means to give the paw. However I was using the shake command when he shook his butt around. When I used the command in competition he failed because it was the wrong action they were looking for. I say paw. They say shake. Ahhh! There should have been an included list on proper voice commands so you don’t screw up.
So next I was forced to look online for the proper voice commands for the proper actions. I find it really bothersome to have to do so.

OVERALL:

Nintendogs is a cute game, however it lacks in so many departments. For $30 I expected to at least have more than 2 weeks of game play. Once you teach your dog 14 tricks, you do not want to delete any to teach him new ones, so it was unfair for Nintendo to do that.

RECOMMENDATION:

Wait for it to go on sale. Even if it looks oh so cute, and oh so adorable, and your kids beg for it, it’s a game that will loose it’s cool really fast. If you can’t find it for $15 or less, pass it by. It’s more frustrating than fun.

Game Review: Shrek The Third For Nintendo DS

I don’t know what possessed me to cough up $29.99 for the movie made video game Shrek The Third. Usually they stink! But the cover was cute, and I’m always a sucker for eye candy. Plus there was only one copy on the shelf, leading me to believe that this game was hot! But what kept me from purchasing it for the wii for only $20 more is beyond me.

STORYLINE:

I was at first greeted by Donkey, and he went into a very long and boring explanation on what’s going on and why you’re here………

Shrek is sent out to seek an heir for the throne seeing how the king has fallen ill. Shrek of course finds Artie, whom is also Fionna’s cousin.
On their quest back Donkey is accidentally turned into a parfait, and the kingdom is once again taken over by Prince Charming.

It is up to you to find fairy dust to heal Donkey, and also up to you to regain order to the kingdom.

Pretty pathetic storyline, wouldn’t you say? At least I thought so. I was really hoping the game play was not as bad as the storyline.

THE GAME:

You are controlling 3 characters from the very beginning, Shrek, Puss and Boots, and Artie.

The controlling is very strange though. You each character has it own special abilities unique from the other characters.

SHREK:

Can wail himself into enemies, and break through thick object with ease.

ARTIE:

Can use his little dagger to either throw or stab with. He also comes with a shield to protect himself from hits.

PUSS:

Can jump to extremely high places with ease, and crawl.

You easily move each character through the 2D side scrolling levels using the D pad and using the stylus to perform special moves. In the game you simply tap on the picture of the character you want to control.

GET THE PICTURE?

Now it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what’s happening next. The 3 have to work together to make it to the end of the board.

Yes in this strange new game play you will be controlling each character individually to progress on. It’s more of a puzzle than a game.

The game is very similar to Super Paper Mario for the Wii, when it comes to dealing with puzzle solving and using each character to move on. You’ll be using Shrek to break walls, Puss n’ Boots to jump walls, and Artie to throw his toothpick stick up at high levers and at enemies.

This is where I encountered my first problem with the game. You must get each character to the end of the board in order to get to the next level. The game developers came up with an easy linking technique, this way you could have all 3 characters walk at the same time.
They thought it was easy didn’t they? The linking is deeply flawed though.

Every time I link up with the other 2 characters they fall from the link when I take a few steps forward. I guess they want you to move in slow motion. Which is nearly impossible to do when a giant living tree is ready to stop on you. If you do not link up, the other 2 characters will just sit there frozen and not move or follow you.

Having to constantly link back up every 10 seconds is just a pain in the rear, so I easily grew frustrated just in the beginning of the game, and ended up just walking each character to the next.

Each world is filled with another puzzle, some difficult, some way too easy. In order to get through most lands you will need Shrek to knock over giant enemies or break walls, Artie to use his throwing dagger to activate levers, and Puss to jump up to high places. That’s seriously pretty much it. Their moves and uses are limited and do not increase over time.

DONKEY!:

When you are having a difficult time in battle you can summon Donkey who will help you using his magic. He can either freeze enemies making it easy to kill them, or levitate you. His power is limited though, and you cannot summon him every 5 seconds. The game though is so simple that you really won’t need him.
You only run into about 4-5 enemies in each level. You can easily take them out by wailing into them using Shrek. The rest is all puzzle solving, and making sure you don’t fall into a hole.
Holes will kill you more than enemies.

THE GRAPHICS:

The graphics in Shrek the Third were actually pretty impressive, and looked very true to the actual movie, the lands were very colorful and inviting, and the backdrop scenery was pretty impressive as well. However many levels looked very similar to the last only with a different puzzle to solve. Therefore I cannot praise the graphics.

SOUNDS:

The characters are limited to grunts and oomph noises in the game. In the background you will hear cheesy medieval type music, but it’s such a low hum that when you’re into the game and thinking hard about what to do next, the noise is barely even heard. This is a good thing.

MULTI PLAYER:

Yes. If you can convince your friends to buy the game that is, then nerd out and plan a 3 way Shrek gaming party. If you and 2 of your friends are within 50 feet of the wifi signal or a wifi area you can all link up and battle together.

I like this feature instead of having to link up with the characters on my own and having them unlink easily. *This type of game play can cause blood battles between kids, so monitor game play. Haha.

In multi player you don’t have to worry about unlinking. You all control a character, making things much easier. (Unless you have a little idiot in your group-hehe-) There are also a few silly mini games thrown in. But like all included mini games in DS games, they’re all the same, but look different.

REPLAY:

None really at all!

The game is easily beaten in less than a day if you go at it all day. There are only about 20 levels, and each of them only takes a minute or so to complete (unless you’re really, really bad at gaming). Once the game is beat there is honestly no reason to go back at it and give it another round. It’s one of them games that land in the closet to collect dust after you have finished it.

ISSUES:

The game had issues from the start. The storyline was just garbage, and I have yet to see the movie. I truly hope the movie is not as cheesy as this game was.

1. Linking technique does not work for longer than 10 seconds or 10 footsteps.
2. They used a new character from the third movie as a game played character. Many Shrek fans from the past would have surely rather of used gingerbread man, or Pinocchio as a third character. Seeing how I did not see the movie, all I got was a brief description in the game on who Artie was, and now I’m playing as him. Bah!
3. The non-stop switching of characters every 5 seconds is downright annoying.
4. Horrible re-play value

THE GOODS:

1. The graphics were decent
2. Very little violence, so young children can play it without their parents freaking out. 6+
3. Multi player

OVERALL:

At the $30 price tag is it seriously a game worth passing up. If you cannot find it for less that $15 don’t even bother. Honestly they could have set the whole thing up much better instead of throwing in the ridiculous broken linking technique.

RECOMMENDATION:

Only if it goes on a major sale, other than that, no, it’s not worth a purchase.