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New Super Mario Bros 2 is the second game for New Super Mario Bros. The original game debuted on the Nintendo DS hand helds. This one however is now on the Nintendo 3DS. The original NSMB was a huge hit on the DS because it was Mario, but Mario remade. It's basically Super Mario Bros. Remade onto the hand held systems. Everyone loved it. Now we have NSMB Wii and NSMB WiiU. The game play is your basic Mario plat former. You go through worlds, each world has a castle with a boss and when you beat the boss you move onto the next world. Not really much to explain more about the game play. However I had a few issues with it. Now it is a fun game don't get me wrong. But this game is missing a lot. The point in this game is to collect as many coins as possible. This is a nice new twist on a Super Mario game. They also introduced a coin rush mode into the game where you play a few levels that have a lot of coins to collect and a short time limit. The other nice thing about this one is it has DLC. The DLC content are new coin rush maps, one they included for free. When you get your one million coin goal all that happens is you get a new background on the game menu, that's it. Not really much of an award.

The issues I have with this game is it is so plain. The backgrounds, the level designs, and the overall game play lasts only a couple of hours. Sure if your a perfectionist like me then you want to try and unlock all the levels and the star coins. But while your playing through the worlds or even navigating each world to your next level it's just so plain compared to NSMB for the Wii or even the WiiU. The environment in the Wii and WiiU titles are fun, interactive, and adds some life to the game. Compared to the first one on the DS, they really didn't change anything at all besides collecting coins. This I found was very disappointing. It's like they didn't care all to much about this game because they wanted to boost sales on the 3DS system because it is a Mario game. Maria game = sells a lot of consoles.

However when you complete the game you unlock Star world. I like the levels in Star World but when you beat the game and didn't really focus on collecting the star coins it's frustrating to try and go through these levels because it costs a butt load of star coins just to even go to the first level in star world. I do like how they added that feature to the game though. They do have a co op mode within the game as well where you can a friend can connect locally and play the game together collecting your coins or just plain and simple beating the game. I am happy they are sticking with the co op route of things even on the DS systems. Overall the game play is fun, just a bit upsetting with the lack of effort put into this game and the boring environments. I would recommend picking up Paper Mario Sticker Star before this game.

The 3DS uses the graphics very well in this game. The textures are crisp and it looks really good. The only problem which was mentioned up above is the plain environments and bad level designs. Almost all of the levels had a plain background and was really fast and easy to run through. Not a whole look of level creativeness in this version of the game at all. The animations on all of the enemies are great. Like in the first one the enemies dance to the beat of the music as they are walking. I still think it's funny when they hop around or swing their arms to the music.

The soundtrack is basically the same one used in the DS title. Most of the levels have a good soundtrack and goes well with the game but it is all just from the original game. All of the audio in the game is what you'd expect from any Mario plat former game.

Overall the game is fun, just upsetting on the level design and environments. I mean go watch a video on NSMB for WiiU and compare it to the 3DS version. I wish I was playing the WiiU version is all I am saying. I do like the co op mode in the game and how you can also play as luigi. I also enjoyed the Coin Rush mode which you unlock after the first world is beaten. They have also included a free DLC coin rush map pack for free for a limited time to celebrate the anniversary of Mario. This map pack is known as the “classic map pack” because you play re designed levels from the original Mario games. They are also fun. If you are debating between NSMB or Paper Mario Sticker Star I recommend you pick up Sticker Star before this game.

Paper Mario Sticker Star is for the 3DS system. Paper Mario Sticker Star is not like the original Paper Mario for the N64 or the Wii versions. This version of Paper Mario is a new and fresh approach to the series. I personally loved the original for the N64 because of the RPG style. With Sticker Star there is still the RPG battle system but it's not nearly the same. With Sticker Star you actually go around peeling, buying, and finding stickers, You use these stickers as your battle commands. You have your basic stickers like the shoe (jump), and your hammer. But there are also a lot of different variations of these stickers like the fire hammer which does damage to all enemies. These stickers can also be powered up or you can even find them. These are known as shiny stickers or even flashy stickers which are much more powerful version of other stickers. There are a total of six worlds and each world has it's own different theme and style like with most mario games. Sticker Star does stay to it's routes by adding a lot of humour within the game. There were several times in the game where I had a good laugh.

So of coarse your roll is to save Princess Peach from Bowser once again. Basically what happens (without giving away spoilers) is everyone is at the sticker festival. While everyone is paying attention to Mario and Peach talking about the royal stickers Bowser sneaks in and steals one of the royal stickers. These royal stickers have great power within them and Bowser uses it to capture Peach and wipe the floor with Mario. Of coarse it is up to you to recover the seven missing royal stickers and rescue Peach.

With Sticker Star I found there was a lot more puzzle work to do than any other Paper Mario. What I mean by that is you have to do a lot of back tracking to other levels to progress. I did enjoy this aspect of the game but some of the times you have no clue where to go or what to do next. There were to much hidden paths to find to advance to the next level. I did enjoy that there was lots to do. If not rushed it is a 12 hour+ game. No replay value but it is longer than most recent Mario games out currently. The exploration is a huge part of the game which makes it even more enjoyable. Most of the bosses are challenging but have the option to make it easier if you know what stickers to use. I do wished they kept how the original one was. You get into a battle, earn XP, gain levels, etc... I am very happy that they added something new to the series but I missed the original game play style.

Sticker Star does stay true to the series of being a fun 2D style game with 3D environments and objects. These objects can be turned into super stickers which can deal a lot of damage or be a good support tool. Some of these include a fan or a vacuum or even a baseball bat. Each has it's own unique purpose. Overall the game play is as fun as it's always been and if your a Paper Mario fan I would check this game out you will have some fun. It is probably the worst one out of the three but still a lot of fun.

Paper Mario Sticker Star has your same 2D graphics as any other Paper Mario game in the past. You play as Mario who is made of paper and talk with NPC's who are also made of paper. Almost everything in the game is made of paper. You play as 2D but the environments are 3D. The game is very colourful and has a lot of variety. Each world you enter is a completely different environment. A little feature that I found really neat was whenever you got a shiny or flashy sticker and moved your 3DS around the stickers will shine as you move it around.

Paper Mario Sticker Star also has a lot of great battle animations. The animations on the enemies and environment are very well done. They really did stay to the name of “Paper” Mario.

The sound track for the game is what you would expect from any Mario game in the series. So catchy and soothing for the most part. When you go underground they did re use the classic soundtrack from Super Mario Bros. The audio is what you would expect from any Mario game. Never bad, always good, and always catchy. It seems to relate to the game very well.

Overall Paper Mario Sticker Star is a very fun and enjoyable game. There are some things that do affect the overall score. Some of the younger audiences may find this game confusing at some parts and well get lost and will not be able to figure out where to go next. Most of the time they do not tell you where you need to go, it's basically go and figure it out for yourself. There were a couple of times I needed a small walk through to figure out where I needed to go next. I also believe they really didn't need to add the RPG battle system in this version of the game. Yes, battling with the stickers is a cool and new concept but when you win a battle it doesn't really feel like you've accomplished anything from doing it. Yes, you may earn coins or health when you defeat them but I missed when you gained experience, levelled up Mario, use badges, etc... That was very fun to me. Overall Sticker Star is a fun and enjoyable game but if your looking for the “old” Paper Mario this is not it. But try it anyways, you may have a good time as I did with it.

Pokemon Black and White 2 is basically the same as all previous pokemon games for the handheld systems. You collect your 8 badges, fight the elite four, the end. But with Black and White 2 they have added so much more to that concept.

Yes, the point of the game is still the same as it always has been but with BW2 they make it so much more dynamic. The game overall will take you over 30 hours to beat if you do not rush the game and explore the new and improved Unova region. The story in BW2 is very well done. It makes you feel so involved with what is going on in the game and has some really epic and memorable moments. 

So you start in Aspertia City which is a new city added to the game. There are a bunch of new locations added to the Unova region. For the first time in Pokemon history you start in a big city not a town. You still get the same starters from the original BW games but you don't get it from Professor Juniper in this game. BW2 takes place two years after the events of BW. As mentioned the Unova region changes significantly. New locations are accessible in the southwest and northwest of the region. There are a few locations that are not accessible anymore such as the challenger's cave. There are new gyms and new gym leaders. The Unova pokedex is expanded to include Pokemon foreign to the region. The player is able to choose to play as the boy Nate, or the girl Rosa, as they travel across the region against their rival, Hugh. There are several changes to the game which makes it feel like a new adventure, not just a sequel to BW. You start off with new characters, the HP and EXP bar for pokemon has been redesigned and looks much better. New location have been added to the game such as Aspertia City, Virbank City, Floccesy Town, Lentimas Town, and Humilau City. Some of the new characters include Hugh, Colress, Roxie, Marlon and Benga. Older characters like Cheren, Bianca, Elesa, Ghetsis and Iris all receive redesigns. All Unova gyms have redesigns. There have been several changes made to existing locations, such as Driftveil City and Nimbasa City. Every trainer has their own fully animated sprite. They are much smoother. Several attacks have received new battle animations. The C-Gear has been redesigned. The Unova Pokedex has been expanded tremendously to accommodate older Pokemon. All returning gym leaders and champions receive new sprites. Route 4 has changed and also differs between BW2. Victory Road has been changed as well. The Cold Storage is now gone and has been replaced with the Pokemon Tournament. These are just some of the new features and changes to the game.

One of my most favorite features with the new pokedex is the habitat list. What that does is if your on route 4 for example and you are wondering what pokemon you can get from that area, just simply turn on your habitat mode for route 4 and it will show you all of the pokemom on the route. I found this feature extremely handy. A lot of pokemon are now catchable in BW2. One example of this would be Eevee. You are now able to catch them in the wild grass, and as much as you want! BW2 seems like a very polished game compared to BW. They expanded the world tremendously, they made the story more interactive and interesting. The new gym leaders are all extremely fun and all of the gyms are redesigned with new puzzles to get to the gym leaders. Another great feature that was added to BW2 was Join Avenue. Basically it's a little place that you can recruit NPC's to open their own shops to buy rare items. Now when you first get an NPC to join with their shops they start out at rank 1 and sell not so useful stuff. When you recommend and NPC to one of the stores it will gain popularity and when it does your shops will be upgraded once you hit the popularity target. When that happens they will start to sell better and more rare items for you. Overall I was extremely impressed with BW2 and yes it is a direct sequel to the originals. I feel that they are completetly new games and a whole new experience. Worth every penny.

The graphics in BW2 have also been improved. One of the biggest improvement to it are the sprite animations for the pokemon, trainers, gym leaders and moves. All have received a graphical update as well as more frames so that the animations are much smoother looking. Each trainer now has their very own sprite animation as well as all of the pokemon in the game. The game runs a lot smoother than BW ever did. The battles are extremely smooth and run quickly. The movement in the environment is smoother as well. The environment received an upgrade as well. When you are battling a pokemon the grass around the pokemon also moves with the air during the battle. A lot of the pokemon moves have also received an overhaul. The pokemon moves has also received an update. The moves all look smoother and better. Overall I was extremely impressed with the overall quality of the game.

I have always enjoyed the audio in all of the pokemon games especially in BW2. Most of the Black and White music has been slightly remixed, in addition to the Gym Leader and Champion music from Kanto, Johto, Hoenn and Sinnoh. The remixes are very well done. My favorite music within BW2 is when you fight one of the three legendaries reaming around. All of the audio in BW2 has also received a slight upgrade in quality. Overall same great audio that we have all loved with some new ones!

Conclusion:

Kingdoms of Amalur (KoA) is an open world RPG developed by Big Huge Games and published by EA Games. In KoA you start off by creating your character how you want it and you start off dead. Yes, in the game you are dead but luckily the "Well of Souls" revives you from the dead. The story is crafted by R.A Salvatore, Todd McFarlane, and Ken Rolsten. You may ask that one of these names sounds familiar? Well Todd McFarlane is the creator of Spawn and R.A Salvatore is New York Times best selling author. Ken Rolston created the story for Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. The story is so in depth and is huge. Reckoning is only the sliver of the story. The game starts off you waking up from on top of a pile of corpses because you were brought back to life from the Well of Souls that the dwarves created. You start the game by escaping from an unknown place and a long the way you meet up with some pretty important characters while escaping. KoA has a ton of customizable options within the game. You choose how you want to play, what type of fighter you want to be and whether you want to be evil or good. There are class combinations such as rogue/mage or mage/warrior, anything you want. The game has tons of weapons, armour, skills and professions to customize how you want to play. The main story itself has about 25+ hours of game play but if your the type of person who likes to do all the quests and complete everything the game has to offer then your looking at 100+ hours of game play.

The controls are really easy to learn from using spells or quickly using items. You can map items onto a quick selection option where say you want to assign a potion that increases your armour value then map it for quick use. Spells and skills are used by assigning them to four different spots. You activate these by holding down the "R" button and using X, A ,Y, B. You can also control the camera using the right analog stick or clicking it to make the camera center on your character. The game runs very smoothly and the things you can do are endless. One thing I liked about the characters you create is the option to carry and secondary weapon with you. For example if you were a pure sorcery character you might want to have a staff as your main weapons and chakrams as a secondary. So your attacking with your staff with the "X" button and you decide to switch and up to use your chakrams. You do this by pressing the "Y" button. 

KoA has a professions where you can create potions, gems to socket your armour or weapons, blacksmithing and others. You go around the massive world and discover reagents which are used to create certain items. If your a fan of blacksmithing then you may want to put your skill points into it so you can make better armour and salvage from higher quality weapons and armour. When you salvage unwanted weapons and armour you receive materials for blacksmithing. Potions are a bit different. You go around the world and pick herbs which you use to create tons of different types of potions and elixirs. If your more of a rogue then you can also put points in stealth, lockpicking, and detect hidden. Everytime you can a level in KoA you get one skill point to put towards any skill such as blacksmithing, lockpicking, stealth, etc.... Once you choose where you want to put your point you then get 3 class points where you decide what type of character you want to be whether you want to play a rogue, warrior or mage. The last thing you do is decide your "destiny". These are determined by cards and you use these cards to decide what type of class you want to be. For example if you are a pure might character, the more points you put into might you can go up the tier for might fate cards. Tier one for might you will be known as a brawler and will get specials like increased damage and increased block. 

So you've decided what type of character you want to play. What do you do from here besides the main story? Well if you want to see what KoA offers go to the hundreds of side quests in the game. Go do faction quests to become a better thief or mage. The things you can do in KoA is endless. Go do some dungeons, go explore the massive world, go craft something. One thing I really enjoyed about this is the random loot system. Most people didn't enjoy it but I thought it was a great addition. When your looting a chest or a corpse you always get completely random loot. As in you fight a monster and lets say you die right after you looted him. Say he only dropped you 120 gold. Well the next time you kill him he may drop you some armor instead. It's always random. Only downfall to this system is when you unlock a really hard chest or dispell an advanced chest the loot can be as bad as 100 gold or you may get an epic item.

So from the hundreds and hundreds of quests to the huge exploration of the world all the way to professions and completely customizing your character there are a ton of things to do in KoA. 

Another great part of this game besides the gameplay are the wonderful graphics within the world of KoA. The entire world is colorful and vibrant. The wilderness and environment are always changing as your exploring the world and the different zones on the map are all different in terms of the environment. The animations are well done. The spell effects, enchant glows, etc... are all colorful and life like. The water effects are very well done and interact with it's surroundings and environment. As your walking you can't help but wander off in a different direction just to explore the area and see what it has to offer. The bosses are huge and all look outstanding. 

The music in KoA is very soothing while walking through the different zones and suit the environments extremely well. Then there is audio during boss fights, cinematics and combat that all suit them very well. When your engaging a huge boss the music really gets the adrenaline flowing. The voice acting in the game when interacting with other characters in KoA are all voice acted very well and adds to the feeling of great story telling. The sounds while walking around like the water or birds add to the game that much more. Overall it is very enjoying, relaxing and helps make KoA that much better of an experience.

I highly recommend this game. This could easily be the years best RPG of 2012. If your a fan of RPGS, Skyrim, story telling, action you will highly enjoy this game hands down. Even if your not a fan of the genre there is bound to be something in the game to suit your needs. From the great combat system, the levelling system, customizing options, and the environments, this is a must buy game. If your still unsure be sure to rent it first. Go out and pick a copy of KoA up, you will not be dissapointed.