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Now Playing: SMG2, Crackdown 2 and iPad…

Mario is just one of those things in gaming. I’ve always enjoyed Mario platform games (right back to Donkey Kong being one of my top 5 arcade favourites), but I have gotten to the point where I’m just not finishing them. Sunshine on the Gamecube was the last Mario game where I faced the final boss, and that was by getting the bare minimum shine requirement.

I may have only gotten half way through the original SMG and barely 25% of the way through New Super Mario Brothers on the Wii. But I still bought SMG2. Thankfully, I am enjoying it.

I felt that although SMG was a good game full of ideas, too much of it felt a bit like they were reaching for new things to do. SMG2 (so far) feels organic. It feels right. It feels good. wait, that’s caffeine. well, anyway, it’s a good game.

There are two wrinkles to me getting too far into this game. One, is Crackdown 2. Having only played the demo and the first 15 minutes of the game (Most of which is the demo), I think I can say it’s comfort food. But then, most of my gaming is comfort food. Mario games and platformers USED to be my comfort food, replaced first by shooters and now it seems by open world mayhem games. Games like Heavy Rain and Mario are me straying outside those confines.
Crackdown 2 is that burger I have from Grill’d every Friday lunch. I order the Bombay Bliss Veggie Burger most weeks, and occasionally have a Beef Burger with egg and bacon (To make any fast food ‘Australian,’ add egg. Don’t ask me why, just be glad it’s not vegemite)
So Crackdown 2 is expected to offer few surprises, but then, I didn’t really expect it to. I didn’t expect a Mass Effect style rewrite where the developer took to heart any and every minor complaint from the original and offered up a massively different sequel. SMG2 feels like Miyamoto and co may have looked at the feedback from the original (and sales figures- while healthy- were under expectations for a marquee game like a Mario platformer) and tightened up the graphics on level 3 as well as the gameplay. Ruffian havn’t done this, possibly down to a very short time constraint and likely small budget. I’m guessing the guys who replayed the first game and/or hunted down the collectibles will be the ones who notice the similarity more. It’s the same city, which is the kicker, unlike say, Vice City which was GTAIII tech with changed art.

The other big news, I have my iPad. I didn’t expect to pick on up for another week but as my Wife and I are heading interstate for a few days, we thought it would be a good opportunity to see if an iPad would be all the computing we’d need away from home in preparation for an overseas holiday later in the year. That said, I’ve got all of my iPhone games to try like Canabalt, Attack Force and Poker Smash and have picked up Angry Birds and Plants VS Zombies. I’m considering Mirror’s Edge as well as some Popcap puzzlers. I’m open to suggestions…