Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue were the first two games in the Pokémon series to be released in English (there were two before them, but they weren’t much different to this). Much like every main Pokémon game, the story is that you are a young trainer who has been sent out by a professor in order to fill a Pokédex (which is done by catching every kind of available Pokémon), and to also become a Pokémon champion.
Since it’s the very first and there is a much smaller number of Pokémon, this is probably the only game in the series where you are likely to actually ‘catch ’em all’ (if you discount the impossible to catch Mew). For anybody who may not know how these basic things work: you get into RPG battles with wild Pokémon and use your own to fight and weaken them, once they were very weak, you throw a Pokéball at them to catch them, and from then on they will fight for you. You also fight against the Pokémon of other trainers, and beat your way through various gyms and then finally the Pokémon league.
The game takes place in a region called Kanto, and you’ll doubtlessly have a lot of fun exploring the world. You’ll find yourself in large forests or caves, abandoned factories, giant graveyard towers and even sailing across the sea. Of course, being a game for the original Game Boy, the graphics are not amazing, but I don’t think this is an issue. The places still look like they’re supposed to, and they all have a nice ‘atmosphere’ to them (perhaps due to the soundtrack).
On the whole, an excellent game. It has its flaws, for example sometimes it’s pretty hard to figure out what to do next and things can occasionally feel a bit slow, but they don’t make it any less wonderful. Throughout this review, I’ve referred to this game in the singular, even though Red and Blue are different games, but the differences are VERY minor and basically boil down to the selection of Pokémon available. You have to do multiplayer trades with the other game in order to get every single one (you can also battle friends). So my score for this game is 9.6/10.
(If you buy this game now, it may have trouble saving, if so, read this for a solution.)
First it was the Faroe Islands, and now, for my second entry on a randomly picked country, it is Singapore! Coincidentally, much like the Faroe Islands, Singapore is also a collection of islands, rather than one mass.
In the past, there were many rainforests down in Singapore, but sadly very little of them remains in the current world. Steps are being taken, through land reclamation, to restore them, but it seems this could be a depressing case of too little too late. As you can infer from a lack of countryside, the place is very heavily urbanised, and there are over five hundred different cities there. Singapore is also the name of the country’s capital city, which makes it rather easy to remember.
If you’re wondering what might be done for fun, Stikfas is based in Singapore. For those who don’t know, Stikfas is a cool collection of customisable figures. You buy, for example, a pirate set, and you’ll have all the pieces needed in order to make a pirate figure. But you aren’t bound by that, all the pieces from all the sets are compatible, and people have a lot of fun making their own original figures. I had a lot of fun with these in the past, I even made an original one of my own, maybe I should photograph him sometime… But, yes, sorry, gone off on a bit of a tangent by using things I already knew about!
Should you ever be interested in visiting the country, Sentosa is the best known island resort to stay at. There are many fun and exciting attractions there, including large open beaches, an aquarium and theme parks. All sounds rather nice. It would be a lovely sunny break, and even if it weren’t sunny, it’d still be warm. At the moment there is a lot of rain, though it is still thirty degrees out, which is nice really, I like rain.
And so those are a few facts about Singapore. I could have also mentioned thing such as authors from that country, or spoken a little about the food they eat there, but I’ll just give you those links instead, rather than making an overly long entry and risking the loss of your attention!
All finger puppets can be bought here.
This is one of those short books which you can very easily read in one sitting. Every page has a picture of some unhappy looking character along with a small depressing sentence. The front cover is a typical example of this.
As you read through, some of the characters will have a very small storyline surrounding them (the talking tree is the best example of this) with each following instalment for them making their life just that little bit more sad. It’s a strange sense of humour really, it shouldn’t be funny at all, yet it is. I suppose it’s because what happens to the characters is so ridiculously sad, that it would never happen in real life, and so we’re laughing more at the absurdity of it, rather than anything else. I suppose the contrast of bright colourful characters being so utterly depressing is another factor of the book’s enjoyment.
What I quite like about this book is that it, unlike nearly all other books, really benefits from being read in a group rather than being read alone. It’s quite fun to look through the book with a friend, and if you find one which is particularly funny you can remember the page and show it to somebody the next time you see them. It’s quite a small book, so it’d be quite easy to carry it around with you so that you can show it to people.
Though, while good, this book is far from perfect. A big setback is the price, it costs just as much as an average book (and it is as nicely made and everything, as the average book) but since it is just collection of funny pictures along with sad captions, the price does seem a little high. Plus, I did find that they weren’t all hilariously funny; while some of them definitely very funny, (for example, a dodo replying to the dinosaur with “All MY friends are dead.”) others were a little hit and miss (for example, a cassette tape saying “all my friends are obsolete”). Overall, I’d give the book a 7/10
While I do tend to prefer reviewing originals before I review remakes, I don’t think I’m ever likely to play the original Snake Eater, and so I shall just review the 3DS version as if it were the original. I also hear that it’s pretty close to the original anyway.
This game has a storyline which, it seems, the creators went to a lot of trouble to tie into real historical events. When you start playing for the first time, you’ll be treated to a thirty-minute long cut scene which establishes the story. This opening movie mixes actual historical footage amongst the scenes. In fact, all of the cut scenes in this game are a real upside; they’re very much like something from a film. Through these, you really get to know and like the main characters, especially Naked Snake, the protagonist. He may seem as if he’s just a typical tough guy at first, but you learn that he’s really rather loveable.
But, finally onto the subject of the actual gameplay. As Snake, you sneak around the jungle and into various enemy buildings and such, you have to avoid the guards and win the various tasks you’re given. Using various weapons to fight your way through when necessary, especially during boss fights. When you’re hiding under a table, and you see a guard coming your way, it gives you a real feeling of suspense! However, this suspense is occasionally let down by the fact that those guards can be complete idiots… Occasionally they’ll just entirely forget having discovered a body a few minutes ago, or miss seeing you walk right passed them. Though I suppose, the harder the difficulty you set it to, the more intelligent they are.
While the gameplay is very linear and you pretty much go to one place, do something, then get told to go to another place, there is still plenty to do other than just carry on with the story. You have a whole jungle to explore, and it’s full of secret little areas and items to discover! One particularly little fun thing, is the fact that every different area of the game has a small Yoshi doll hidden in it, so you can enjoy hunting around for them. I believe other versions of the game have a different type of doll.
What I also like, is that, while the game has a relatively serious story, there’s also a nice mixture of sci-fi and fantasy thrown into the mixture of things. This, for me, is a very good upside as, what is in my opinion the best boss battle in the game, is very surreal and verges very much into the realm of horror. But there’s also a lot of humour thrown in too, the small dialogues when you save the game for example, are hilarious. This game will certainly make you feel all of the emotions!
Overall, while it may occasionally feel slightly repetitious at times, this game is certainly worth playing and its faults can easily be overlooked. 8.8/10
I’m sure you’ll remember a recent entry in which I explained that I’ll be doing some challenges on this blog. Well, it seems that, most likely, the challenge about planets will not happen, but, the philosophers one will, and so this is the first!
Since Socrates is so often called the father of western philosophy, I decided I would tell you a little about him first. Interestingly, he isn’t known to have written anything of his own, instead all information about him comes from his contemporaries. But, basically, this is what’s known about the life of Socrates: he would teach various young people about his philosophical ideas (most notably Plato), and this ‘corruption’ of the youth is what lead to his eventual execution (because his ideas contradicted those of the current religion). He was also known to have rather poor personal hygiene (even by standards of the past) and to have a rather poor relationship with his wife. When he was executed, they handed him a cup of hemlock and gave him the option of either apologising and having no further punishment, or drinking it and dying… He chose the latter. He was, supposedly, so sure of his belief in the afterlife, that he didn’t fear death at all.
But of course, that’s all biographical information; I guess I should talk about his beliefs… But that’s tricky. Since he didn’t write for himself, we can only trust what Plato and Xenophon wrote about him. However, Plato at least, is known to have used Socrates as a mouth piece for his own views, and so it’s hard to distinguish between what Plato believes and what Socrates believes. Something very definitely Socrates-linked, is his method of getting people to reach the correct conclusions, not by telling them, but asking them questions which will get them there themselves. I quite like that. He also gave the argument that it’s better to be good, because then good men are your ally and bad men are your enemy, than it is to be bad, because then both good and bad men are your enemy, but that may have been Plato. What’s also interesting is that certain groups in some religions (I.E. Islam and Christianity) see him as a prophet.
But yes, that’s Socrates, and this has been the first of my entries on philosophers. Plato might come next…
