I finally got a Wii last Christmas. It was the Mario 25th anniversary red Wii with Wii Sports and New Super Mario Bros. Wii. I managed to beat Bowser shortly afterward, but I just managed to find all the secrets and complete the game 100% a few days ago.

I have never owned a Nintendo DS, so the only time I ever got to play the original New Super Mario Bros. was in short plays at display kiosks. So the whole New Super Mario Bros. concept was pretty new to me when I first played New Super Mario Bros. Wii. I’ve always liked the 3D Mario games, but it was great to play a new side-scroller again, since the 3D games aren’t the same due to their open-world feel. I liked the inclusion of the 3D moves, such as the wall jumps and the butt stomp. I also liked the homage to Super Mario Bros. 3 with the costumes Mario could wear. The raccoon tail was more fun for flying in Mario 3 than the propeller cap, but the penguin suit in New Super Mario Bros. Wii was much more fun than the frog suit. Mario could still swim really fast with the penguin suit, but he wasn’t slowed down on land, and he could slide on his belly, which was fun. :)

I liked that the blue mushroom from Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels was used again, this time to better effect. In The Lost Levels, the blue mushroom was evil, since it caused you to shrink or die, depending on if you were currently using a power-up. Here, the mushroom caused you to become very, very tiny, and let you access hidden locations, jump really high, and run across water. It was great to see that the blue mushroom seems to have finally found it’s place in the main game series. :)

The music is always a high point of Mario games, and the animators took it one step further by having the characters in the game react to the music. The creatures in the game would dance or hop when the vocals kicked in with the “da da” refrain. I love cute things, and this really made my experience all the more enjoyable. I stopped playing many times when I encountered an enemy just to see how he’d react to the music. :)

It was great to see the inclusion of both the Koopa Kids from Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World and Bowser Jr. from Super Mario Sunshine as bosses. It helped make the games feel like they really were part of the same series, despite being presented in different play styles. The best part about the game for me though, was the end battle with Bowser. It was the most nerve-wracking, adrenaline-pumping boss battle I’ve played yet in a Mario game, and I enjoyed every second of it. :)

I thought I’d try Peanut Butter & Co.‘s mighty maple peanut butter. It’s really good. I’ve always enjoyed honey roasted peanut butter, but I didn’t care for peanut butter sandwiches. I always had to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But the mighty maple was so good, it didn’t need jelly. Now I can actually say that I do like peanut butter sandwiches. :)

I liked the movie when it first came out, but I’ll admit I let my distaste for Disney sequels cloud my enjoyment of the movie at the time when every DVD would have several sequels to the Disney classics advertised in the trailers. Now that I’m older, I appreciate that the movie is actually the pilot episode of the television series, rather than a true sequel. When viewed in that light, rather than put up against the original film, the movie is actually quite enjoyable.

I enjoyed the evilness of Jafar and Iago’s conflict between his loyalty to Jafar and his newfound friendship with Aladdin. I also liked the songs, which while not as memorable as the original film, definitely are catchy and would get stuck in my head for a long time after I watched the movie. I wasn’t too crazy over Gilbert Gottfried’s singing voice though. It was quite overused, and not at all appealing to the ears. I liked it better when it was subdued and used sparingly in the series finale movie, Aladdin and the King of Thieves. I wish they had used one of Disney’s great imitators with singing talent, like Jim Cummings or Bill Farmer. If Bill Farmer could make Goofy sound good singing in A Goofy Movie, I’m sure he could have handled Iago. :)

The thing I was most pleasantly surprised about in this movie was how well Dan Castellaneta performed the voice of the Genie. He really sounded like Robin Williams at times, and I was quite surprised that he was able to quickly switch to voices while singing, and that it sounded so good. He often drifted into the deeper Homer range, but it worked as the Genie since he’s always going all over the place vocally anyway.

The quality of the film is nowhere near that of the Disney classics, but it was never meant to be. The movie was a great set up to the animated series, which I enjoyed a lot.

I just played through the second episode of the Doctor Who adventure games, Blood of the Cybermen. The puzzles in this one were better than the first. They were all something that I would imagine the doctor actually doing. There was a repeat of a puzzle from the first game, but it was one of the better ones. And it only happened once. There was repetition of the puzzles again though, although they did make it more interesting the second time when they added obstacles to it.

The voice acting still seems quite uninspired though. It’s once again decent, and better than a lot of adventure game voice acting, but not that great. There’s one line by Matt Smith where he says a word the same way twice when it’s supposed to be said with enthusiasm the first time. The way it’s said makes it sounds like the voice-track skipped.

But, the story and music are really good, just as they were last time. :)

I enjoyed The City of the Daleks, but there was one thing that kept it from being as good as it could be. They repeated puzzles too many times. Especially the maze puzzle. It was an OK puzzle the first time, but not great. I enjoyed the wire puzzle and the pattern puzzle since they seemed like something the Doctor would actually do. But the maze puzzles seemed a little weird, since I couldn’t imagine the Doctor pushing little circuits through electrified mazes.

If it would have only been done once, I would have let it slide and just chalk my dislike of the puzzle up to fangirl nitpicking. However, they put in three pattern puzzles (but it actually made sense why there would be three of those in the storyline). Then they put in three of the maze puzzles, which were the weakest puzzles.

The rest of it was great though. The storyline was really good, the voice-acting was good, and the music and sound-effects were good. I was surprised that the stealth gameplay actually fits in an adventure game so well. Maybe the suggestion on the Telltale forums that they make a Firefly game would actually work if they made it like this. I’m waiting for the next episode with great anticipation. :)

I played Space Quest II a little bit when I was a little girl, but I wasn’t very good at it. A few years ago, I finally completed the game.

This one had a lot of deaths and points where you could get stuck (although all early Sierra adventure games do, so I won’t hold that against it). The game also lacks much of the humor of the rest of the games in the series, but the storyline is pretty interesting.

It’s really not that bad of a game either, considering the era it was released in, so it is worth playing. Most of all, the events of the rest of the games in the series are tied in directly to the events of this game, so it’s a must play to keep from getting confused.

Since ScummVM now supports Sierra’s SCI games, I decided to play through Space Quest III. I love that the designers put themselves into the plot of the game. I haven’t played many Sierra games, but that is one thing I really loved about them. I love how Ken Williams showed up in so many of their adventure games. :)

The ending of Space Quest III was great. At first I thought I had done something wrong, and I thought I was going to get the dreaded Sierra death screen again. Then I laughed once I saw where Roger was headed. :D

I played Space Quest II a little bit when I was a little girl (although I wasn’t very good at it), but I never played Space Quest until years later. A few years ago, I finally completed the game.

I never completed the SCI version, so I’ll talk about the original AGI version here. Like all early Sierra games, there are many deaths and dead-ends. These games always contain the dreaded cliffs and stairs, where you die just fumbling with the interface.

But, all qualms aside with the interface, I did enjoy this game. An underdog is always fun, and you can’t get more of an underdog story than a janitor saving the entire universe. The humor isn’t as rampant as the later games in the series, but I did enjoy the humorous references that were there (such as ZZ Top playing in the bar).

The later adventures of Roger Wilco are more fun and funnier, but this one is worth a play, even if just to see where the whole story began.

I just finished Space Quest V. Just one more to go! This one’s my favorite so far, even without any voices (although I missed Gary Owens as the narrator ;)). It was great to finally see Roger as a captain. I loved how they fleshed Roger out as a character even more in this episode, and I loved the animation of Roger when he first tried to hide before the narrator corrected him. :D

Every character in this game was interesting and memorable. The parodies of the original Star Trek were great here. I didn’t watch the original show, but I watched most of the movies and I did see Trouble with Tribbles (mostly to see where the Deep Space Nine episode came from), so I got the jokes that directly referenced that episode. :)

I love where this story is going after the revelations learned from the time traveling in the last game, and the fact that Roger has now begun on the path towards that future. It’s just a shame that there never was any Space Quest past part 6. I would have loved to see what Space Quest was like when they finally reached the part X and part XII that were featured in the last game. :D

Interestingly, when I played through Space Quest V I realized I completed it when I was a little girl, but I didn’t remember that I did until I played through it again. I always used to buy Sierra games since I loved the art, but I only remember playing all the way through Freddy Pharcas. I wonder if there’s any more I’ve played through but forgot that I did?

Space Quest IV was the most enjoyable Sierra game I’ve played so far. I enjoyed the storyline, the voice acting was pretty good, and the music stayed in my head even after the game was over. Best of all , it’s completely mouse-controlled so no more evil stairs! :D

The only thing that irritated me was that darn Skate-O-Rama section. It was an easy puzzle, but they gave no indication to you that you could fly up into the rafters. I didn’t know Roger was floating. It looked like he was crawling. :¬:

But, other than that I enjoyed it a lot. I love time travel stories. :)