In case you couldn’t get enough of my Metroid: Other M video review, or I was talking way too fast for your poor human ears, there’s a slightly remixed version of the transcript available over at Ciao.

It’s pretty much what you’d hear in the video, but it does contain some different takes and brand new comments, such as:

Some further comments:

• Writing the text review after the script is much weirder than the other way around.
• Despite having about six thousand words between them, I still didn’t manage to talk about how Other M actually raised my opinion of the Prime Trilogy and even Metal Gear Solid 4! I find that Other M and MGS4 fail for a lot of the same reasons, but even Hideo Kojima knew enough about story structure to resolve his plot-lines, albeit haphazardly, and get the hero to confront the villains, even if the showdowns sometimes were anticlimactic. And, he even makes most of his cutscenes skippable!
• Rewatching the video always cracks me up, if only because I find my efforts to talk slowly as hilarious as they are ineffective.

Metroid switches development houses once again, as Team Ninja tries to provide some insight on Samus’ past and we wonder if they could have failed more epically.

Featuring monologues, monotones and many destruction sequences.

I really need to work on my ridiculously slow editing speed, not only because I’d like to get my opinions out to you guys faster, but also because I force myself into a media blackout until I get the review done. This, in turn, is bad, not only because I do enjoy my Zero Punctuations but also because I end up feeling guilty anyway if I make the same joke as someone else. And, it turns out, Yahtzee opens up with the same crack as I. Sorry!

Of course, by the time I get to that opening joke, Yahtzee’s review is already over, so maybe I also need to work on making these videos shorter?

Nah, I know you guys come here for the most impossibly detailed reviews this side of Alpha Centauri.

Speaking of games with Sid Meier‘s name in them, will I get to Civilization 5 before November? Time will tell!

It’s been a long time coming, but the video version is finally up: Join the JRT Show as I critique one of the holiday season’s heaviest hitters, Nintendo‘s return to its oldest franchise, New Super Mario Bros. Wii for the Nintendo Wii! Featuring dragons, mushrooms and pillow-fights.

This episode has been at 95% since early December, so there exist a couple of dated comments, but NSMB Wii is still going strong in the charts; I figure the review can still be helpful. The sound should be clearer than usual, but there are a couple of instances near the end where it fluctuates out of its own volition. You’d think it’d be easy to fix, but it only appears at the final encode and not while editing, so I suspect metaphysical shenanigans. Probably one of those damn Boos.

Next review will be of a much fresher release and it will be up… soon!

One of the hottest titles this holiday season and the biggest Shigeru Miyamoto release in a long while, I take a look at Nintendo‘s New Super Mario Bros. Wii for the Nintendo Wii.

As the seminal (PC) gaming connoisseurs over at RPS might put it, my analysis starts a bit like:

It’s hard to believe it’s been more than three years since my review of the DS version. I think that my writing style has changed a bit, but I have an innate aversion to looking at my older pieces for too long, so I can’t say for sure.

Find out if “Punch-Out!!” is worth picking out by checking out the video review! I promise it doesn’t rhyme nearly as much as this teaser.

But it does have horrible puns!

Even though I had much less time to map it out, I was convinced that things would go much smoother than in the saga of the MGS4 playthrough. My optimism was duly greeted by a barrage of malfunctions and misunderstandings that delayed the review considerably, but, hey, better late than never.

There are a couple of gags that reference the MGS4 episodes, but they are quick enough not to bother anyone who hasn’t seen those. Think of the gags as a special treat for anyone who heroically sat through that viewing marathon.

Trailer:

Little Mac’s polygonal update with the Punch-Out!! remake coincides with a fresh approach to my reviews; this is the first one written in conjunction with the storyboard for the video review.

It also pretty much served as the script for the video so, even though they still are quite different, the two versions are as close as they’re likely to get. It would certainly be very interesting to know which format you thought was best and I’ll investigate with polls, as soon as I get the rest of the site in working order.

During the research for this review, I couldn’t resist popping in the old Super Punch Out!! for the SNES. I remembered playing it of course, but I was shocked to find out that not only had I finished it, I had two separate save game profiles, both with some insanely fast time records!

I really hope some time traveling was involved because that was fifteen years ago and I am way too young to start feeling old!

Another blockbuster review I could only do at Ciao! and I add further fuel to the “Nintendo Fanboy” fire, by reviewing, and loving, Super Mario Galaxy for the Nintendo Wii.

The argument is that while I’m usually all about the story and the creativity, I’ve panned many games that lacked in those departments, I seem to be handing out free passes when it comes to Mario games. After all, you can’t get more clichéd than “Save the Princess” and the platforming mechanics have been the same since day one, right?

Well, the way I see it, the real story with Mario is the surreality that inescapably envelopes you as you are playing his games. Nintendo is careful not to break the formula, but they almost always surpass the absurdity of the previous instalment, be it with Bee and Boo suits, or with Mini ‘Shrooms, Brown Leaves and other power-ups with questionable illegal connotations. The result is absurdly fun games.

Of course, sometimes Nintendo does release a Mario game that feels played out, or relatively common and I have no qualms about panning it. But, even though most games from 2007 will be old hat by that time, I’ll certainly be playing Super Mario Galaxy with my nephew in a few years: it’s that good.

Another franchise I’ve loved since childhood and thus really wanted to take a shot at reviewing was Nintendo‘s exclusive Metroid. I finally pull the trigger over at Ciao! and review the culmination of its “Prime” rebirth.

Personally, I always liked the classic, side-scrolling, “Metroidvania”-styled games more than Retro Studios‘ FPS-esque take, but there is no denying that all three Primes were excellent games that made the most of the technology available to them: And there’s nothing truer to the spirit of the series than that.

Except maybe the endless exploration and the massive battles against gigantic bosses, but, wouldn’t you know it, they had those too! So, the question is, exactly how much did I like Corruption?

Finding some time away from beach volleyball, swimming and sunbathing to return to my top nerdy activity, that of playing children’s games, I review the deliciously bizarre WarioWare: Smooth Moves for the Wii.

I was very impressed with the original WarioWare, for the Nintendo Game Boy; it had the clever idea of 5 second “microgames” and a quaint way to merge it with the story. Even though later installments dropped pretenses of story integration and focused solely on the wacky microgames, they still are pretty entertaining to play and make for a fun multiplayer experience on the Wii.

My Wii coverage concludes and my “career” as an amateur reviewer comes to a close, as I gleefully analyze The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

Traditionally, I reserve “perfect” ratings for games that can be enjoyed universally and absolutely. In a “precise rating” system, I saw Twilight Princess as either a 9.0 or a 9.5, so I really was debating whether I should give it a perfect five out of five for Ciao. It’s a game that you need to be a gamer to appreciate, not something you can pick-up and have fun without making a little; unlike New Super Mario Bros. or Pro Evolution Soccer 6.

But it was so brilliant once you get into it, in the end I figured it was worth the fiver. A bit like KotOR or Oblivion, only those games are still rated a little higher in my mind.

Anyway, this was my last review to appear on Ciao! for a while, as I was recruited to write for a dedicated gaming site. I had to review games of a much lower profile than Twilight Princess and I had to be much more concise and humourless, but getting paid a couple of cents per word instead of a couple of cents per review did make me feel more professional.