I love the Super Mario series, but like a lot of people, I feel more strongly endeared to Mario’s brother Luigi than Mario himself and so I was delighted when I found out that one of the first games on the Gamecube (Luigi’s Mansion) would feature Luigi as its main character. But that’s not all! Luigi’s Mansion also has a slightly stronger story focus than the other games in the series and a somewhat darker tone – these are two things I’d always hoped to get from the Super Mario series.

The story goes that Luigi is notified that he has won a mansion through a contest which he doesn’t even remember entering. Mario goes ahead to check it out and Luigi follows shortly afterward. When he arrives in the mansion, Mario is nowhere to be found and the whole place is full of ghosts and very sinister. Luigi is soon cornered by a ghost and doesn’t know what to do, but he is then saved by Professor E. Gadd who defeats the ghost with his invention, the Poltergust 3000 which is a special kind of vacuum cleaner. E. Gadd explains that this mansion popped up overnight and is filled with ghosts who had escaped from paintings. Luigi is trained in the ways of the Poltergust and must recapture all of the ghosts and save Mario!

Unlike other games, you’re not running around and jumping on platforms and enemies to get through levels, instead you’re slowly exploring a massive mansion. You’ll find yourself in a lot of dark, atmospheric rooms where you have to figure out how to make the ghosts appear. Sometimes you’ll just have an onslaught of smaller ghosts attacking you, other times you’ll be targeting a specific ghost. For example, in one level you have to do things with the toys in the room in order to make a ghost baby appear. The fact that there is a ghost baby in the game at all shows how this is quite a bit darker than the series usually is. It’s a nice change of pace in every regard.

Overall, I’m very fond of this game. I like getting a bit of character development for Luigi. I like the introduction of Professor E. Gadd. I like the additions to the lore of the series. I like that lots of the ghosts are actual characters, rather than generic creatures. I like that soundtrack is nice and spooky, but also that there is sometimes nothing but background noises. I like the more puzzle-oriented style of gameplay and the fact the game world is one big mansion. I guess it is a bit short and it could do with a smidgen of variation, but overall it’s a very enjoyable experience. Perfect to play around Halloween time.

Rating: 8.9/10

Buy it here.

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)

I always loved the Mario Kart series – the previous games had already been pretty amazing. Mario Kart Wii and Mario Kart DS are two games which I’ve had hundreds of hours of enjoyment with and which I continue to love to this day. So it should mean a lot when I say that this one blew them out of the water and became an instant favourite for me.

The unique selling point of this installment is that it introduces race tracks which have anti-gravity sections.  The anti-gravity aspect is quite fun and allows for exciting scenarios like racing up a waterfall. But, I think, what really sets this game apart from the rest is the fact that it is the first to be on a console which supports HD graphics. Every single level is absolutely gorgeous and the Mushroom World has never before felt so real and immersive. You’ve got creepy old haunted houses, airships up in the clouds, lands made of sweets, ancient temples and more. It was really exciting to see how old, returning tracks looked after their HD makeover too: Toad’s Turnpike (from Mario Kart 64) is now a beautiful highway in and out of a city,  Rainbow Road (also from Mario Kart 64) is now a really beautiful, sparking mural above a darkened city and Sherbet Land (from Mario Kart: Double Dash!!) has gone from being a bland, frustrating and uninteresting snowy race track to a beautiful snow covered road in the night. Every last track is a delight.

One thing that the game has been criticised for is it’s character selection and, I’ll admit, there were some odd additions, such as Bowser Jr., Birdo and all the Kongs other than Donkey, but I’d hardly call that a negative aspect of the game. You get a nice number of characters (including the Koopalings for the first time) and I never felt frustrated by the selection. Sure, there are maybe one too many babies and different variations on other characters, but I guess they were easy to make and I doubt they were instead of unique characters.

Of course, what most people like about these games is the multiplayer: once again, you can have a really good time playing locally with friends, or you can play with loads of people online. However you do it, it’s always highly enjoyable. Battle Mode has been changed so that you now only battle on the race tracks, but I’m not too bothered by the lack of battle specific areas. Plus, a new mode called MKTV allows you to watch and edit replays of races, which is really fun – you can even upload to YouTube!

What this game does for the first time in the Mario Kart series, is offer several pieces of additional content which can be purchased or added for free. Several Amiibo will give you unique Mii costumes (including Sonic and Mega Man!) and you can also download 200cc for the first time (which is really hard) as well as some Mercedes vehicles. But most excitingly, Mario Kart 8 has two packs of downloadable content which contain some really exciting things. You can get Link as a playable character and race around Hyrule, you can race as Isabelle or Animal Crossing Villagers and race in an Animal Crossing village and you can even race on some brand new F-Zero tracks! It’s some of the best downloadable content I have ever purchased and it really thrilled me as a Nintendo fan.

On the whole, this game is superb. It’s really fun to play by yourself or with friends and seeing all of the beautiful race tracks and leisurely speeding through them is an amazing experience all on its own. This is definitely something you should try.

Rating: 9.6/10

Buy it here.

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)