Cerise Magazine

By Stephanie Pegg

Portal, Valve , 2007

Portal: A Gateway Game?

I don’t play First-Person Shooters. This is arguably a shocking way to begin a review, but the reason will become clear in a little while. I don’t play them for several reasons: my hand-eye co-ordination isn’t great, I’m less interested in aggressive play in favor of resource building play and, I think crucially, I get very disoriented by the rapidly changing point of view. Many of my friends love them, which is fine, but I’ve generally steered clear of them beyond occasionally glancing over someone’s shoulder as they go out and shoot things.
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By Abby Wilson

Star Fox, Nintendo EAD/Argonaut Systems, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, 1993

The other day I was browsing through some of my old Nintendo 64 games in a big plastic box I keep beneath my TV. It’s probably my favorite way of avoiding homework; my, my, look how dusty these games are! Look, now they need to be organized. Genre? Title? Let’s do both and see which one works the best! I happened upon my old copy of Star Fox 64 and fired it up. I’m the only one in my family who actually enjoys this game – my siblings preferred Mario Kart or Goldeneye 007. I laughed at “Do a barrel roll!” long before the internet capitalized on it. (more…)

By Robyn Fleming

Barbie as the Island Princess, Activision, Nintendo DS, 2007

Not long ago, I played my very first Barbie video game, Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses for the Nintendo DS. It’s a platformer, and though I am notoriously bad at jumping and generally loathe platformers, I actually enjoyed it. And I really enjoyed the storyline, which featured a princess saving her sisters and her father through the use of special dancing shoes which represented the unique interests and skills of the princesses.

So I was pretty excited to play the most recent Barbie video game, Barbie as the Island Princess. Unfortunately, it was a major disappointment.
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By Teresa Lee

Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, Empire Interactive, Windows , 2006

Does Ragnar Tornquist think he’s George Lucas? Because Dreamfall would appear to be the equivalent of The Empire Strikes Back in what will be The Longest Journey series, which has at least one more installment on the horizon, as well as an MMORPG spinoff. I don’t want to spoil anything, but if you go in expecting a happy ending, or any resolution, you will be disappointed. I’d have to call this game The Longest Trailer; It has a powerful story, but it can’t stand on its own without the first game or promise of a sequel. If you haven’t played the first game, you really should before you even think about picking up this one. Dreamfall assumes you know what happened in The Longest Journey, and as much character development as there is in this game, you won’t care or understand any of it unless you’ve had prior experiences in this world. (more…)

Lower Regions, by Alex Robinson, published by Top Shelf Productions, 2007

The first thing I really noticed about Alex Robinson’s Lower Regions is that the nameless warrior-woman protagonist appears to have armpit hair. She also has a fairly genre-standard set of women’s armor – something with a short skirt and a low neckline – but I’m so used to seeing that kind of outfit in fantasy media that my eye tends to skip right over it. But armpit hair? Really? Couldn’t be, I thought. It must be her somewhat unkempt tresses peeking out from behind her arm. But still…
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By Ariel Wetzel
Super Mario Galaxy, Nintendo, Wii, 2007

Super Mario Galaxy is the most intuitive game right out of the box that I’ve played since Katamari Damacy. Galaxy pushes the platform genre by getting out of up, down, left, and right. Direction is relative as Mario moves through space, and gravity simply flips out from under him. Use of space and gravity, combined with a beautiful world, inviting two-player mode, and the inherently engaging Wii remote, is what makes Super Mario Galaxy so dang fun.

I found Super Mario Galaxy to be best experienced with others; if you’re a social gamer, Galaxy has a built in active role for your co-pilot with the second controller in “Co-Star Mode”. Your “Co-Star” uses the second Wii remote to freeze enemies, literally point where to go, make Mario jump, and collect and shoot Star-Bits at enemies. As one friend pointed out, youngest sisters and brothers everywhere are going to get a lot of play time in with the second controller. At my less hierarchal household, we took turns passing the controller back and forth when we beat a level or died as we worked on the same save file.

Galaxy is a great game for bonding with your friends. However, something feels a little empty when turning it on to game alone without anyone to see how bad-ass you are for tickling a bee-queen. (My opportunity to play actually came from a fellow gamer bored playing solo; I borrowed the game from a friend because he was bored after beating the game and didn’t want to go back and collect the remaining 60 stars to unlock the playable Luigi.)

Super Mario Galaxy is fun and approachable for nongamers; the dimensions give Galaxy a bit of a learning curve. Whereas my gamer instincts let me pick up the remote and scale a sinking tower while upside down, friends felt a bit of vertigo watching Mario slingshot into space.

Super Mario Galaxy actually has a pretty good story for a platform Mario game. The tired Bowser-captures-Princess plot is rehashed and not especially compelling, not to mention Bowser’s intent to force Peach to live by his side is disturbing and inappropriate. What works for the story is that what Mario does in game–collect star-bits and stars–makes sense with the story. Mario is helping a woman named Rosalina, the watcher of stars, repower her spaceship so that he may travel to confront Bowser.

I never expected a Mario game to be so beautiful. The world-building is fabulous: levels are collections of colorful planets and shapes floating over a bright constellations. The music, tranquil and orchestrated, is reminiscent of Epcot Center, and indeed playing Super Mario Galaxy like a theme park ride, disorienting, but delightful in its engaging details. Show this game off: it’s an essential title for the social gamer.

Article © January 2008 by Ariel Wetzel.

By Abby Wilson

Pitfall!, Activision Games, Intellivision, 1982

I’ve always wished that the Intellivision was more well-known. Most of the games on it were ported to other systems at the time (most famously Burger Time), so its owners weren’t getting any sort of exclusive feeling of superiority (unlike many Xbox 360 owners I know today – get over yourselves, Halo 3 is boring). Pitfall! is one of those games – I’m fairly sure it’s appeared on almost every game system in existence, including the Intellivision, which is actually the only version that I’ve ever played.

The story is reminiscent of Indiana Jones, that archetypical adventurer. You are Harry Pitfall (at least he wasn’t named after the dog!), and you are adventuring through the jungles of South America. Treasures abound, but watch out! Large rivers filled with hungry crocodiles block your path, rolling logs threaten to mow you down, and cobras stand ready to take your life. Also, there is an underground passage with some brick walls and a scorpion. It’s hard to know what purpose all of these serve, but Harry knows what he wants: all of the treasure he can find.

The game is a basic side-scrolling endeavor, with the fun twist that you can go either left or right at the start of the game, making it feel as if the jungle is vast and easy to get lost in. It is. Your goal is to collect as much treasure as you can in twenty minutes, while avoiding pitfalls, scorpions, and other natural hazards. Each piece of treasure gives you points, while every time you get hit by a barrel or fall down into the underground causes you to lose points. On top of all of these complex things to remember, you only have two lives. Want Harry to learn how to swim? Lose a life. Want to see that giant scorpion (seriously– it’s half as tall as you!) up close? Lose a life. The jungle is dangerous, my friends!

I’ve also never beat this game. Why? I have very, very little patience for it. The Intellivision controller is not famous for being responsive; the river of swear words that fly out when I miss a jump by one pixel is epic. Also, there is no music to accompany you. It adds to the immersion, I guess, but when I’m being eaten by crocodiles I’d really like to be able to hum a catchy 80’s tune. I also really want to know why there are brick walls underneath the jungle!

There has to be some sort of odorless gas that gets released every time I play this; when I turn the game off in frustration, I swear that I’m just going to play He-Man next time. And yet, every time I go to the basement to turn the Intellivision on, my view turns to Pitfall. “Maybe this time I’ll be able to beat it,” I say, as if my memory has been completely wiped. “Maybe I’ll find the end of the jungle.” I never do, and I don’t think I ever will.

Article © January 2008 by Abby Wilson.

The Order of the Stick Adventure Game: The Dungeon of Dorukan, Giant in the Playground Games and Advanced Primate Entertainment, 2006

I’ve been a fan of Rich Burlew’s comic, The Order of the Stick, for several years. When I was perusing the shelves of my local tabletop gaming store and saw that there was a game based on the comic, I snapped it up in a hurry, despite not knowing anything about it.
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Mass Effect, BioWare, Xbox 360, 2007

By some happy coincidence, Mass Effect, BioWare’s latest RPG offering, was released on my birthday, which meant I got a copy right away, and I didn’t even have to buy it for myself! I popped it in the Xbox 360 that night, and I haven’t stopped playing since.
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Cooking Mama: Cook Off, Majesco, Nintendo Wii, 2007

Games like Cooking Mama: Cook Off are why I love the Nintendo Wii. Many gamers would assume that a game about cooking food with a matronly Japanese woman should not be fun, it should be stupid. Yes, Cooking Mama: Cook Off is a novelty game—one of those games you show off to your friends because it’s just so darn weird—but it’s a really entertaining novelty game. Imagine the control scheme of Trauma Center: Second Opinion and the off-the-wall action of Katamari Damacy meets the Food Network and you have a good idea of how the game plays out. The premise of Cooking Mama: Cook Off is that you are learning to cook under Mama, a kerchiefed, manga-style, incredibly adorable head chef. Mama guides you through fifty-five different recipes, presented as a series of minigames, from countries all over the world. You can also choose to compete against a friend, or against computer-controlled opponents for fabulous prizes to outfit your kitchen.

The presentation is simple but effective. Your kitchen is rendered in appealing cel-shading with bright colors and simple shapes. The food is depicted more realistically than the setting, with appropriate proportions and textures, and it often looks quite delicious. There are only a handful of musical tracks in the game, and although they’re catchy they become repetitive quickly. The sounds when cooking are great—chopping lettuce, pounding mochi, patting hamburger and stirring eggs all sound distinctive and realistic. It would have been nice if Cooking Mama: Cook Off had utilized the Wii Remote’s speaker, but no such luck. Mama pops up occasionally as a static 2D sprite, ready to fix you with her sparkly eyes and shout encouragement in her cute Japanese accent. Wonderfurr! At first I thought Mama’s thick Japanese accent might be a bit insensitive, but it makes sense in the game world (she is Japanese, after all) and it’s clearly authentic as opposed to an imitation meant to mock and embarrass. I showed the game to a group of international students enrolled in an English as a second language program and they loved it—if Mama’s accent doesn’t offend a group of Asian students struggling to master their own English skills, who will it offend?

Charming as they are, the graphics and sound are just icing on the cake (sorry, no more food puns). The real fun lies in the assortment of minigames, and their innovative control scheme. Mama’s recipes require you to chop, boil, stew, stir, grill, fan, wash, fill, peel, season, and manipulate food in dozens of ways. The Wii remote becomes your all-purpose cooking utensil: turn it upside down and swish it in a circle to stir sauce, hold it vertically and swing it down and to the left to crack an egg on the side of a bowl, turn it like a crank to work a meat grinder. The possibilities seem endless, but they’re not, which is one of the game’s main drawbacks. Once you’ve played it for a couple of hours you’ve seen every minigame, even if you haven’t mastered every recipe. After six hours I had unlocked everything and I was ready to move on, thankful I had rented the game instead of paying the full cover price of $50.

But even though I exhausted the possibilities it offered, I would rent Cooking Mama: Cook Off again for the sheer entertainment value. Everyone who saw the game loved it: me, my girlfriend, my girlfriend’s mom and little brother, my beer-swilling skier friends, the international students, and my hardcore gamer roommate all tried their hand at cooking with Mama. The game’s charming Japanese wackiness enticed giggles and shouts of encouragement from everyone. You haven’t heard backseat gaming until you’ve heard someone shout “Crack the egg, dumbass! Crack the egg!” If you’re looking for some light gaming for a weekend with friends, Cooking Mama: Cook Off is a good bet.