Gameplay in Sacred Stones pits you through a arduous campaign of twenty one  turn-based missions. Initiating a mission will introduce you to Fire Emblem’s recognizable grid based system to put your troops in formation to withstand enemy attacks. Once within range you can initiate a battle sequence to eliminate enemy troops. These are decided by a large number of factors, such as terrain, the type of weapon used, and your chosen character’s stats. Chief of these factors is the Fire Emblem “weapon triangle” which gives certain weapons an advantage over others. The triangle is as follows: sword wielding characters have an advantage over axes, axes beat lances, and lances beat swords. There is a similar mechanic present in magics. Keeping this in mind during gameplay will make a big difference on your performance.

The opposing turn serves mainly to grade your strategic performance during your movement phase. The enemy AI is pretty ruthless and if you made a mistake in positioning your characters the computer will punish that. This is fairly typical of strategy RPGs but the stakes are amplified in Sacred Stones, where character death is permanent and you will never get to use that character for the rest of the game.

When a unit bites the dust you have two options: either continue on without them or restart the chapter to avoid their death altogether. The former option is usually the safest as units in Fire Emblem are unique characters and there is no telling when you will get an additional unit of that class, so you may go into new fights crippled without a valuable class. Permanent character death can be a frustrating mechanic but the increased tension is better for the game in my opinion because there is a unique weight behind every decision that you make.

The campaign of missions is interjected by a relatively forgetable story that frequently falters in generic fantasy tropes. The dialogue portion of the game is still enjoyable however, with sharp and generally well done writing highlighting every character’s personality. Every aspect of the plotline is skippable if you desire but paying attention to the story will grant you bonuses in battle as certain units will gain statistic bonuses if they fight alongside a character they relate to. 

Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones is not the longest RPG on the market, clocking in at about twenty-five hours at the climax, but the game is easy to pick up again to try developing a new character or playing again on a harder difficulty. After a small set of missions designed to help you into the game you are given a split between two campaigns following either Ephraim, the prince, or Erika, the princess. Fire Emblem is a great value for your money if you are willing to invest the time in it.

On the whole I would reccomend Sacred Stones to anyone who thinks they are up the challenge. The game is a different experience than anything on the platform and its thinking oriented gameplay makes it an easy game to occupy your time with on long commutes. If you can put up with the frustrating character death Fire Emblem’s satisfying and exceptional gameplay make it a worthy addition to any GBA owner’s library.

Presentation: 8/10        Entertainment: 9/10        Value for Money: 9/10        Overall: 9/10

Two of the guinea pigs get adopted and then subjected to abuse in the form of being dressed as a princess and driven in a remote control car.  The fly escapes and flies off.  The mole gets crushed by a garbage compactor, and the third guinea pig escapes.  After some random humor, he reunites with the team and they drive off in motorized hamster balls.  Yeah.  They try to sto the weapons system, but it turns out the mole was the bad guy all along.

I can’t write any more of the plot, so you’ll have a reason to see the movie.  You’ll need it.  This movie was absurd, even for a Disney movie.  I mean come on, MOTORIZED HAMSTER BALLS!!!!!!!!!!  If you feel like torturing yourself with this, go ahead, but I warned you.

Score: 3/10

The 70th Issue Of The Skateboard mag

 The Skateboard mag started March 1 2004 from people who quit working for transworld skateboarding. They’ve got all kinds of interviews, ads, points of view on skateboarding, reviews of skate team that went on skate trip around the world and more! They don’t censor anything so this is for older readers probably about 13+. Because this is called The Skateboard mag its not just for skateboarders but also people who are taking a peek into the sport.

You’ll probably want to get this if you more pictures than expression.

The June 1980 Issue of Skateboarder

Skateboarder Magazine

This is the classic mag that started it all.

They started in 1964 as a quarterly  publication for one year. they then stopped publication until the skateboarding craze of 1970 and have been doing it ever since. This magazine is for skateboarders only which is why it’s called SKATEBOARDER. They’ve got all kinds of interviews like Mike Vallely’s five favorite pro models or Levi Brown on turning pro.

Almost bottom line:  Skateboarder magazine is good for anyone who wants a good magazine with a classic layout and and fresh set of articles that don’t feel like theyre using the same words every issue, get this.

The movie and book (and I’m talking from a learned perspective, having experienced both) are so wildly different that if you changed the names of the characters and places, it would be quite hard to consider them as having stemmed from the same inspiration.

The Book: How to train your dragon, by Cressida Cowell 

Summary

In the book, the humans and dragons are at peace, though not as equals. The dragons are considered pets, and are quite small. The main character, a smallish Viking with a longish name (Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the third, Heir and Hope to the Hairy Hooligan Tribe) and his ten classmates must complete a rite of passage to be accepted as full members of the Viking tribe: catch and train their own dragon.

Problems start for him quickly when he catches one of a common species of dragon, and this one in particular has only one thing spectacular about it, its peculiar smallness. This would be fine if Hiccup was anyone else, but being the chief’s son, he’s pretty much doomed. To make matters worse, said dragon is stubborn, temperamental, and ignores everything he says.

That isn’t even the worst of things, though, as a gigantic sea dragon has recently washed up on the island and is threatening to devour the entire village.

Review

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, despite the fact that it was intended for audiences half my age. Maybe it was the humorous take on everything, or maybe the surprisingly dark epilogue, but I think it was mainly that… I dunno why. I just liked it.

The Movie: How to train your dragon, by Dreamworks entertainment 

Summary

The Vikings have been at war with the dragons for three centuries, ever since said Vikings moved to the island of Berk, which is actually a nice place despite Hiccup’s claims that it “snows nine months of the year and hails the other three.” The dragons have regularly attacked the village, burning down houses and taking the livestock. (As a result, despite the length of time the village has been there, every house is new.)

During one such raid, Hiccup, who has a gift for all things mechanical (though he sucks in just about every other area) tests out his new bola-launcher on one of the offending beasts. By pure chance, he manages to snare the most dangerous and elusive breed and it crashes on the other end of the island.

Unfortunately, for the remainder of the battle, he proceeds to screw everything up in his haste to tell someone, and no one believes him when he does. So he decides to go find where it landed, kill it, and then bring back the body to prove it.

He finds it, and there’s a few tense moments where he debates on whether to kill it or not, and at the last second cuts it free. It scares the crap out of him, then flies off.

To make a long story short, he ends up doing a dangerous balancing act of hiding the dragon, whom he nurses back to health, and appearing halfway competent in the training classes, which are essentially “How to kill a dragon” (unfortunately, he fails, going from completely hopeless to top scores)

Things get worse when his father, the chief, discovers the dragon’s nest and sets out to end the war once and for all… in favor of the vikings.

Review

In all actuality, this wasn’t bad either. Perhaps the mandatory love interest didn’t add anything to the story, but when do they ever? It was quite enjoyable for the most part, and I was surprised at the end… it had a twist that was darker than you’d expect in a family movie.

Comparison

While both are quite (Meaning here: Extremely) different, both versions are good in their own respect. Maybe I’d be happier if they’d kept more from the book, (namely, the Green Death’s post-mortem poem) but at the same time, beggars can’t be choosers.

Book: 9.5

Movie: 9.5

Comparison: 7.0

There are eighteen different types of Glooples, ranging in difficulty from “Complete Pushover” to “You Will Not Survive”.  Note that these are only my descriptions.  The easiest is the regular Gloople, which just wanders across the screen and only stuns you if you run into it.  The next-easiest Gloople is the Stickie, which wanders like a regular Gloople, but when it hits something, it dies and releases a sticky goo.  Then comes the Biter, which lunges at you in an attempt to eat you.  After that comes the Meltie, which releases acid when it dies and tries to hit you.  The Sharp is spiny and invincible – unless you go behind it.  The Clutter shoots little baby Clutters at you in an attempt to slow you down.  The Inkie moves toward you like a Meltie, but if it hits you, you are temporarily blind.  The Grinder is invincible unless it rolls through Meltie acid or hits something explosive, in which case it takes five hits to destroy.  The Fuzzle is an upgraded version of the Biter that can regenerate health.  The Oozle is a combination of two regular Glooples.  It takes three hits to kill and will absorb and kill you if it touches you.  The Torchie is sometimes on fire and leaves a trail of fire behind it.  If it’s lit, it will explode when you kill it.  The Frostie freezes you if you kill it or it hits you.  The Gray is a combination of an Oozle and a regular Gloople and shoot lances out of their bodies at you.  They are invincible unless they are in the process of this and take three hits to kill.  The Amalgam absorbs other Glooples, gaining health for every one they absorb.  If they absorb enough, it splits into two.  The Horror is a combination of two Biters.  It can shoot its teeth at you and turn other Glooples into Biters.  The Void Eater is a combination of a Gray and a regular Gloople.  It has two attacks: a gravity well/shockwave combo, which draws you toward it then kills you, and a gravity beam, which draws you toward it and insta-kills you if you hit it.  The Queen has blades coming from it.  To kill it, you have to hit it (not the blades) with your sword once.  The Razor Queen is an extremely powerful version of the Queen that takes five hits to kill.

This game is addictive in its simplicity.  You will find yourself playing it for hours trying to get that last award or reward.  It will entertain for hours.

Rating: 9/10

Conclusion: Thes nes has horrible graphics (compared to today’s, but is has great pixelated graphics) which is what makes it happy and fun to play. 10/10

It also has an achievement system.  There are only a few achievements, but they range in difficulty from somewhat hard to OMG IT’S FREAKING IMPOSSIBLE!!1!.  Sample achievements are to complete a match with only a pistol and to place first in a match on the highest difficulty.  If you get all of the achievements, you are a master at this game and can truly say that you have beaten it.

Overall, this will entertain you for about five hours…but that’s really good for a flash game.

Score: 8.75/10

Stronghold: Crusader Review

If you say you have never heard of the (Insert School Name Here) phenomenon “Stronghold” then you are lying. Even if it’s interface and production values aren’t quite up to par with the rest of the market this title’s ease of copying and pirating have made Stronghold the most commonly played game in (Insert School Name Here). Needless to say I’ve completely exhausted Stronghold one so when I saw the sequel on the shelf for bargain price it was hard to resist. This stand-alone expansion pack can be played without the original Stronghold on your hard drive and addresses and tweaks most of the complaints aimed at the original Stronghold while still amplifying all of flaws in Stronghold’s engine. If you can put up with its shortcomings, Stronghold Crusader is a great buy (or torrent!) for anyone looking for a unique way to play a strategy game.

The Stronghold franchise is unique in that it stresses economic objectives and castle design just as much as the creation and manipulation of ground troops. Unfortunately the economic aspect of the game is still painfully underdeveloped and your only key to financial success is growing wheat as a food source and producing stone for export. In order to run your industries and grow your armies you will require you to keep your popularity meter high or else your vital peasants will desert you and leave your kingdom inoperable. Running out of food is a huge and likely fatal occurrence and keeping your granary stocked is either painfully easy or teeth clenchingly broken. All agriculture needs to be placed on green oasis ground in order to grow; thus a common feature in the crusader maps is a central oasis area to fight over for food. Unfortunately the instantaneous process of building creation means someone can easily clog all the area with cheap farms from the outset and immediately rebuild them once your troops walk across the map to destroy them, making it a game changing exploit. Placing down farms and buildings is not worth your time and you’ll wish Firefly had a quicker method of amassing gold. The thing that sets Stronghold apart from other RTS (real time strategy) games are the tactics of building and countering castles, and that is what I will focus on in this review.

Firefly studios learned from the popular multiplayer mode of Stronghold one and focused Crusader on a competition layout where everyone has the same monarch to defend and the same resources. Although the campaign mode does return it is dramatically scaled back and serves mostly as a tutorial stage. The real meat of the game is the Crusader mode, and if you played Stronghold one don’t even consider the other options and start up this game. Crusader mode is identical to the multiplayer mode of the previous Stronghold but has more play options and let’s you play against Stronghold’s infamously brain-dead A.I. The one thing weighing the first game back was the lack of long term entertainment options so being able to customize your own games is a welcome addition for anyone interested in playing Stronghold competitively.

The greatest improvement that Stronghold: Crusader adds to the Stronghold formula is not the impressive new units but all the polish and refinement done to the game’s statistic backbone; Swordsmen are much quicker and can now be used on offense, religion is now a viable popularity boosting tactic, and walls are much less susceptible to ground troops to discourage rush tactics. The original Stronghold’s interface was an intimidating jumble of resources and abilities and this distillation of the interface makes playing the game a lot more elegant and satisfying to play. The other new addition you are probably interested in is the new mercenary post building where you can recruit the fearsome abilities of Arab desert warriors. Unlike the returning European soldiers Arab mercenaries do not require weapons built for them, making building an army a faster proposition for competition. The new units typically have weaker armor but unique special abilities, like the weak but easily mass produced for labor Slave or the napalm hurling Fire Thrower. These deadly abilities are balanced out by the double sum of gold that they cost. Mastering the Arab units and their abilities is thrilling and a major selling point for Crusader if you want to upgrade.

If you are considering buying Stronghold Crusader you will have to contemplate your stance on strategy games and the Stronghold franchise. The graphics have certainly aged and the bizarre interface is a hurdle to jump in accessibility. If you enjoy RTS games and traditional competitive games such as Chess then you will likely enjoy Crusader’s unique blend of action- strategy. If you prefer more accomplished and sensory games than tactical or competitive games then you’ll probably find the game more of a dull frustration than a fun experience. I recognize the flaws in the game but enjoy the army building aspect.

Rating: 6/10      Fair

Halo 3 is the latest entry in the Halo series.  If you read my earlier review on Halo 3: ODST, you will know what that series is about.  If not, scroll down and read it.  If you are too lazy to do that, then I will explain it here.  You play as the last of a line of super-soldiers called Spartans.  You are fighting the Covenant, a theocratic alliance of alien races bent on eradicating the human race.  They are composed of the Grunts, or Unggoy, the Jackals, or Kig-Yar, the Drones, or Yanme’e, Hunters, or Mgalekgolo, Engineers, or Huragok, Brutes, or Jiralhanae, and the Elites, or Sangheili, who have defected and are now allied with the humans.  In the process of the war, a parasite known as the Flood was released.  The Flood consumes and destroys all intelligent life it comes into contact with.  An ancient race known as the Forerunners constructed a series of installations known as Halos to destroy the Flood and their food supply – intelligent life.  A few surviving specimens were captured and contained on the installations, which the Covenant view as holy relics, meant to begin an ascent to godhood known as the “Great Journey.”  The Flood have a sentient leader: the Gravemind.  It vaguely guides the Flood in its movements.

So, on to the story.  You (Master Chief) have destroyed two Halos: Installation 04 and Installation 05.  The monitor for Installation 04, 343 Guilty Spark, is accompanying you, since its Halo was destroyed.  You crash-land on Earth in an attempt to stop the Covenant forces on the human home planet from activating a Forerunner artifact found outside the city of New Mombasa, Kenya.  (You may recall this as the city in which Halo 3: ODST takes place.)  You meet up with Sergeant Avery Johnson, a prominent figure in all three Halo games, and the Arbiter, leader of the Elites.  When you reach a UNSC outpost, you are assigned the task of destroying the Covenant anti-air guns.  You do this, but are unable to stop the last remaining Covenant Prophet, the Prophet of Truth, from activating the artifact.  This tears a hole in Slipspace, which is used to travel long distances at a time, to outside the Milky Way galaxy, right to Installation 00, The Ark.  From here, all of the Halos can be activated at once.  Unfortunately, the Flood has followed them there on the former Covenant Holy City, High Charity.  Truth is bent on starting the Great Journey and is there to activate all of the Halos.  He kidnaps Sgt. Johnson because he needs a human to use the Forerunner technology.  You have to rescue him to prevent Truth from wiping out all intelligent life in the galaxy!  You temporarily team up with the Gravemind, since your interests are temporarily the same.  You and the Flood charge toward the chamber where Truth is and kill him.  Suddeenly, the Flood turn on you and you have to battle your way through them to get out.  You discover that a replacement for Installation 04 is being built, and decide to activate only that ring to destroy the Flood in the area.  You need an activation index – but the only one you know of is with Cortana, your A.I. partner from the first two games.  You go to High Charity to retrieve her from the Gravemind.  I’m going to stop there so you actually have a reason to play the campaign.

The multiplayer is a beast of a mode, featuring such gametypes as Slayer, Infection, Rocket Race, and Capture the Flag.  There are twenty-one maps for you to play on.  These have such traits as having two facing Man Cannons (devices to launch crap), you being able to go outside the boundaries – only, if you do, you get killed withing ten seconds, and more!  You are given the option to chat with your teammates using the Xbox Live headset, or to just play without knowing what your teammates are doing.  With an addicting ranking system, you will be entertained for hours with just multiplayer.

The weapons generally stay away from the cliches such as the “laser gun” which is the standard of sci-fi.  In fact, the only laser gun in the game is a devastating weapon that can reduce a tank to a smoking hulk in just one shot!  This is known as the “Spartan Laser”.  Its downsides are that it has only five shots and takes a while to fire.  The assault rifle has a display that tells you how many rounds are left in the clip, and the Needler fires pink crystalline shards that home in on opponents and can explode.  The two powerhouses are melee weapons.  They are the only weapons that have plenty of shots and can kill in one hit.  These are the energy sword, which can only be used on one enemy but has more uses, and the Gravity Hammer, which creates a shockwave, but only has twenty shots.  These are just a fraction of the weapons available to use in Halo 3, all of which are powerhouses in their own right.

Overall, this is an excellent game, and I am extremely psyched for the next game, Halo: Reach.  If it is half as good as this, it will still be an excellent game.

Rating: 9.9/10