Vlog: My Courses in Mario Maker

My most recent addiction has been Super Mario Maker, the Wii U title that regularly has thousands of viewers on Twitch and has allowed gamers worldwide, whether talented or not, to exercise their creative muscles and show everyone how great (or horrible) their Mario-making skills really are.

I am not going to claim to be perfect at this whole endeavor, but I am having fun creating my own courses. The trouble? You need people to give your courses stars to be able to upload more and more courses. My limit is currently 10, and I have uploaded 6 courses, which means I am quickly running out of uploads.

So, here is my attempt to get my courses out there for people to discover and try. I have included videos of these courses (only successful play-throughs, mind you) as well as codes for each of them so that those of you out there that are lucky enough to have this game in your library can search for these courses and play them. I will eagerly follow anyone that decides to play and star my courses, of course, because we are all supportive in our Mario-making endeavors.

So, here they are - enjoy!

Wartime Waterway - 829D-0000-006D-3383

The Airship Shuffle - 7252-0000-0085-1E0A

Castle Climb 'n' Fall - 6819-0000-0072-691F

A Boo-tiful Mansion - B333-0000-00A0-9DEA

Can't Stop ... But I Gotta! - 9FD2-0000-005E-CF0F

The Ride of Doom - 871D-0000-0096-E438

Nerdy Month in Review: August 2015

This August was perhaps the craziest month ever in my life. Between taking care of two kids, preparing for the school year, and taking the family out to Chicago and back, I had little time for my usual nerdy endeavors. I did fit a few things in, though, and I'll sum them up here.

TV
I cannot remember the last time the little lady and I watched Avengers, but the last episode we saw was from the aftermath of the Skull invasion. It was a really fun episode in which we are introduced to Spiderman and the "web" of lies concocted by J. Jonah Jameson at his expense. Spiderman and Captain America were able to relate for most of the episode, since most of the world has no idea that Captain America was being impersonated by a Skull and did not actually want the entire population of the Earth to bow down to them. The headline for The Daily Bugle at the end of the episode, though, as read by Spiderman, really put the episode over the top: "Captain America defeats Spiderman and the Serpent Society!?!?" Comic gold.

I have continued to watch Dexter, but I am still on season 2. Getting in Dexter is tough because there are two young 'uns that cannot watch it, or even walk through the same room while I watch it. So, I need to tuck myself into our breakfast nook in the kitchen with my headphones and laptop while they are playing outside or off doing something else. I had forgotten how great the relationship between Dexter and Doakes is in that season - the writers really did a great job of building up that tension throughout the entire season. I am about to watch the episode in which (spoiler alert!) Doakes ends up discovering Dexter for what he really is, and the episode that follows that is, if I remember correctly, one of the best. I am looking forward to it, but not looking forward to seeing more of Lila at the end of the season.

Season 2 is not my favorite season, but seasons 3 through 5 mark what I believe is the best ark in the entire series, and I bet I'll get some writing in on that.

Video Games
Remember last time, when I said I would play more Legend of Zelda, and more Mario, and more games in general? Yeah, no.

The only game I play regularly is Candy Crush Saga because it's the only game I have time to play, in between being a dad. It's a fun game, and only recently have I found that there is actually a little bit of skill required to get the three star rank for which I always aim. I mean, you don't need much skill - it's still mostly luck - but I have started to develop strategy for levels instead of just mindlessly playing it and hoping for some of the good pieces.

I did sit down and play a depressingly bad game called Chicken Shoot. Seriously, it's bad, and racist, and not well tested, and racist. I would say it's so bad it's good, but it's also racist. Like, really racist, and pointless. I think I might start a series of posts titled "Game You Never Knew Existed," and Chicken Shoot will face my wrath in a much more extended entry, perhaps with some video!

Movies
I spent a rather lengthy blog post on it, so I won't elaborate here, but we did watch Return of the Jedi with the little lady. Please reference my incredibly long rant about the movie from the previous blog post if you are curious as to how I feel about the experience.

We have also been watching the Marvel movies with the little lady, making sure to have good conversations about the violence in them so that we continue to be good parents as well. We watched Iron Man, which continues to age better than I thought it might. Robert Downey Jr. has the role down so well from the get-go that I can't help but feel like it was written for him in the first place. I also constantly forget that Terrence Howard played Rhodes in the first movie. I always get annoyed at switched like that in the middle of a franchise, but really, Don Cheadle has way more fun being a superhero than Howard would have had.

We also watched The Incredible Hulk, the forgotten Marvel movie that, as far as I know, remains canon even though most people pretend like it never happened. I believe there is a Marvel One-Shot that takes care of the loose ends (the fate of Abomination, the tease about The Leader), but I haven't read much because I want to see it, but I also haven't gotten a chance to see it. They should just put them all out on one DVD, or put them on Netflix.

Anyway, that movie isn't great, but it isn't bad. The humor seems ill-placed in it for some reason that I cannot quite identify, even though I feel like each moment succeeds in and of itself. I am glad Edward Norton was recast - Mark Ruffalo plays The Hulk perfectly, with his mannerisms and attitude. I am looking forward to the return of General Ross in Captain America: Civil War - he seemed like such a caricature in this movie that it wasted William Hurt's talents. I hope he's got some good things to work with in the new film.

Books
Reading is tough, since it takes me considerable mental energy to do it and do it well. I enjoy reading, though, and have managed to work my way through The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and am almost done (I think) with The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. I really hate that there is hardly any narrative thread - I like stories that are clever, not clever (and, I will admit, often humorous) little tidbits that are attempted to be thrown together into a story. It's the same sort of problem I had with Stephen King's It - make a collection of short stories and lose the need to connect it all, since the connection kind of sucks. I am enjoying the books, to a certain extent, but after reading It and Faithful and now this, I am really longing for a story.

(Hopefully) Coming Up in September...
Well, there will be more Dexter, damn it. I will have to wait until at least the little one goes to bed, and even then still sit somewhere all on my own to get through it without interruption, but it will happen. I think getting all of the way through season 3 is an overly-ambitious goal, but getting into season 3 should be doable.

The little lady and I should also continue getting through Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. She'll want to do it - I just need to remember to remind her.

I will read more - I have consistently read every night before going to sleep for about a week and it will continue. I hope to start Stephen King's Joyland by the end of the month.

Video games? Look for a post that describes a regular Twitch playing time, hopefully every Saturday morning (since it's the only uninterrupted time I can get the TV). Also, as I mentioned, I want to start the new series of posts called Games You Never Knew Existed. I hope I can make it happen, at least once a month, as well as continue going through My Collection of Unfinished Games.

My Collection of Unfinished Video Games, Vol. 1

Does anyone else start games, go through huge amounts of time when you cannot play said games, and then, when you finally have time to play games, you want to play something else? I am pretty sure I am not alone here, and combined with my need to complete 100% in any game that I play (not that it happens all that often), this extensive list is something that nags at my mind quite often.

Here's a bit from My Collection of Unfinished Games:

Pikmin 2
Approximate % Complete: Probably 95%
Willingness to Return to It: Low
Trials and Tribulations: The game is a solid one, a definite upgrade over the original in terms of the amount of content. I still think the first one is the more solid game - the structure and pacing is amazing, as well as the replay factor - but this one offers a deeper experience (pun intended).

The deeper, of course, refers to the caves. The caves, man. Those things take so damn long to complete, particularly later in the game, and if you miss something near the bottom, you need to do the whole thing over again. Lucky for me, I am obsessive and over-prepared, so I always go in ready for the worst. I am a very conservative Pikmin player, doing everything in my power to avoid losing any of those little guys. Seriously, the noises they make are so sad and pathetic - I feel a twinge of sadness every time I lose one. As a result, the caves aren't usually difficult so much as they are just kind of annoying.

Thankfully, the main story is one part of the game I did complete. I got everything in it, rescuing Louie from the crazy cave monster and finding every single possible treasure out there, as well as filling up my entire creature log. "Huzzah!" I thought, when I gathered everything. "Whaaaa?" I thought, when I explored the menus and found the challenges.

Do you remember me referencing that one guy at Nintendo who has cruel and unusual ideas? That guy that simply must exist, given the existence of the final level of Super Mario 3D World and the Grandmaster Galaxy in Super Mario Galaxy 2? Yeah, some of these challenges are certainly this person's creation. Most of the challenges are innocent enough, simply giving you a bunch of Pikmin and asking you to collect everything. When you get deep into these challenges, though, you run into levels full of water in which you have no blue Pikmin, or fiery levels with no red Pikmin. Moreover, you only get the best rank if you don't let a single Pikmin die. Yes, you read that correctly - they all must live if you want 100%. It should be clear, therefore, why I do not yet have 100% in this game. It is, quite simply, stupid.

Will I ever revisit it? I find it unlikely. The game, while solid, simply gets to the point where I find myself more frustrated than appropriately challenged. If I ever find myself with endless amounts of time (oh man, that's a funny idea), I might consider it, if only because I really don't have many missions left (something like 7 or so).

Fun fact: some guy on Twitch once tried to tell me he beat the whole game, and then I asked about the challenges, and he brushed them off, saying he didn't do them and then moving on to another topic quickly. That guy has not beaten Pikmin 2. Not by a long shot.

Super Mario Sunshine
Approximate % Complete: Maybe 70%?
Willingness to Return to It: High
Trials and Tribulations: I think I've probably restarted this game about 4 times, each time with the intention of finally getting all 120 Shine Sprites. Well, that has not happened. Not yet, at least.

I like the game enough - it's a solid Mario adventure (even if my brother thinks it is a good game, but not a good Mario game) and has its fair number of challenges. It is more difficult than the previous entry in the Mario series (Super Mario 64) but not so tough that I want to throw my controller at the TV. There's variety to the challenges presented, a remarkable amount of depth, and just when you think you've discovered almost everything, it throws a bit more at you (like making you go through those FLUDD-less stages with FLUDD and collect red coins).

It's that final piece that has, perhaps, made me stop playing for large amounts of time. There is so much to discover in this game, including 30 blue coins in every level. I refuse to look up how to do things, or where things are located - I want to find it all myself. So, that makes the blue coin adventure kind of tedious. I desperately want to find them all, and on a good day, I might have the patience to find them. After I haven't had the time to revisit the game for long periods of time, though, I often find myself saying, "Hey, it's time to play something else for a while."

I'll probably get back to this game at some point in the future, when I finish something else (that's funny - me finishing something), but until then, I'll simply keep telling myself that I'l get back to it someday and finally get all of those damn blue coins. It's really a great game, so it would be worth it to get through it all just for some sort of ending screen that is different from the original ending screen.

Okay, so yes, sometimes I look things up.

Fun fact: I watch this game on Twitch fairly regularly, only to be grumpy throughout it because speed runners skip all of the fun things. I just can't be happy.

Mario Kart Wii
Approximate % Complete: Maybe 80%? Maybe 90%? Tough to call
Willingness to Return to It: Very Low
Trials and Tribulations: It seems silly to put a Mario Kart game on this list given how relatively easy it is to achieve everything in most of them. Back in the day of Mario Kart 64, it was simply enough to get gold trophies in each cup on each cc (and unlock those ghosts from the time trials, I suppose) to get 100%. Mario Kart Wii, however, has some additional criteria.

Instead of simply saying, "Hey, you won, here's a gold trophy, it doesn't really matter how you got here," Mario Kart Wii decides to give you a rank as well. Yes, I know - this is not the first Mario Kart game to do that, but it's the first Mario Kart game where I actually thought, "Hey, let's try to do this." I tried in vain for quite some time before throwing in the towel, and oddly enough, it took quite some time before I gave up on this one, even though successfully getting a rank of three stars on each grand prix is closer to impossible than completing either of the other games on this list. You see, in order to get three stars, you need to use virtually no items, avoid nearly every wall, and come in first on every race. This might work if the other racers didn't use items, but to win without using any items, particularly when you work through the higher cc's, is a nearly impossible feat. Screw Nintendo for making it essentially impossible for me to get 100% in this game.

Thankfully, in Mario Kart 8, the star system, while still annoyingly present, works out much more fairly. If you get first on all four races, you get three stars, so maybe I can get 100% on that game. Unfortunately, in games with an online portion, I don't really know what I ought to consider as 100% complete. That's for a later blog post.

Fun fact: I still do battle mode on Mario Kart Wii as opposed to Mario Kart 8 because Nintendo dropped the ball big-time and didn't create battle maps for this game. For those that haven't had the pleasure, you battle on regular racing courses in Mario Kart 8, making it impossible for me to truly put Mario Kart Wii away, despite my annoyance with it.

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That's it for today's piece of My Collection of Unfinished Video Games. In the future, we'll move into some older consoles, like the Game Boy!

Game Profile: Super Mario 3D World (Wii U)

Since I rarely play games in time to properly review them, I occasionally take a post to discuss whatever games I am playing at the moment, and create a "review," of sorts, that may or may not convince someone else to play it or not play it. These games may be recent or old - either way, you get to hear about it from what I hope is a different perspective.

Mario has gone on many adventures by now, and despite the fact that these games tend to follow the same kind of dynamic (run and jump to get places, pick up power-ups here and there), most of them feel incredibly unique. Sure, some feel like retreads (New Super Mario Bros. U feels like leftover levels from New Super Mario Bros. Wii) and others don't always feel like genuine Mario experiences (Super Mario Sunshine, as good a game as it is, just doesn't always play like you'd expect a Mario game to play), but on the whole, when you go into a Mario game, you tend to expect something different.

Super Mario 3D World is no exception - pulling its gameplay style from Super Mario 3D Land, this game manages to present some wonderfully innovative gaming experiences. From the multitude of stages, to fighting Bowser in his car that looks like a product of Pimp My Ride, to the chaos of multiplayer (seriously - it's harder to play multiplayer than it is to play alone), this game offers a continuous barrage of things to catch your interest. Just when you think a series of levels feels the same, over and over again, you get hit with something completely different, forcing you to adapt to face the new challenges.

That doesn't mean the game is particularly difficult - overall, if you care mostly about the main game (excluding the extra worlds at the end), and you consider yourself an experienced gamer, then you'll have no trouble finding your way to the end. If, however, you are the level of gamer that our little foster daughter is, you might find some levels are rather vexing. The game does offer its share of challenges, and for experienced gamers, those challenges don't come until the end, but overall, this is not the hardest Mario outing (that, in my opinion, belongs to the real Super Mario Bros. 2, known as The Lost Levels here in the US).

The game, like pretty much every Mario game these days, follows a map screen in which levels pop up each time you beat one. Sometimes you've got a single path to follow, and other times, you have a couple of choices. To avoid spoilers for those that haven't played it, there are a bunch of worlds, and each time you beat a castle, you move on to another world. Each level has its own care of collectables - the typical ones have three green stars and a stamp. The stamps can be used to post messages to the Miiverse, Nintendo's attempt to make gaming into social networking (really not my thing). Once you beat enough levels in the game, you start being able to see with which character you beat the level, meaning yes, in order to unlock everything in the game, you need to beat every level with every character. If you play primarily alone, like I do, then that means you essentially need to play through the game 5 times (so far, I've only bothered to do that in world 1). Notice I said five times, as opposed to four - there is a hidden character much later in the game.

I do primarily play alone, even though the little lady is more than happy to play with me, but in order to effectively play this game with others, you need excellent communication and the ability to coordinate your movements almost effortlessly. Unfortunately, that's just something I cannot do with our little one, try as I might, but I could see it working well with the right group of friends. I worked through New Super Mario Bros. Wii with my brother and a friend, and we managed to coordinate extremely well most of the time, rarely giving in to the temptation to put ourselves in a bubble and let one person advance while the rest of us get dragged along. I think that the temptation to do that in Super Mario 3D World would be greater, mind you, but the levels are not impossible to do together if the group practices coordinating and timing things effectively.

Even if parts of the game aren't that tough, the game is quite long, even before you go through and do every level with every character. I myself am a completionist, so if I miss any items on my first play through a level, I play it again right away to get what I missed. If that isn't your strategy, you'll find some levels blocked off because you don't possess enough green stars. I am also unsure of how exactly to unlock the extra worlds - I imagine you need all of the green stars, or to get to the top of each flagpole at the end of each level - because I made sure to get everything in each level before moving on.

Some fun breaks from the main action involve Captain Toad - you get to play as him on some levels in which the play style changes considerably. You need to follow a 3D path in what amounts to a level shaped like a cube, without jumping, but hitting switches to unlock other paths and changing the camera angle to see all of your options. The levels are fun, and I am under the impression that the game Captain Toad: Treasure Trackers is essentially this style of gameplay the whole time, so that is a game I might make the time to check out at some point. The little lady would certainly enjoy that game, and it would probably be more on her gaming level than Super Mario 3D World.

What impresses me most about Super Mario 3D World is that when it does get difficult, it gets really difficult. The extra worlds can get insanely hard, especially if you want to collect everything, and after about fifty to sixty tries, I still haven't managed to beat the very last level in the game. I recently started going back to play through the other levels as the other characters as a break from the frustration of the final level, going back and making attempts at it when I have the right items in my possession. I hope this eventually does the trick, because after all, I need to complete that level five freaking times in order to unlock everything. Thanks, Nintendo.

As usual with Nintendo titles, the sound, music and visuals are clever and beautiful. The music reflects the light-heartedness and fun of the game, while the visuals are cartoonish and bright (unless it's one of those underground levels, then sometimes you are puttering around in the dark). There are levels in which you need to watch the shadows on a wall to get the whole story, and some that keep the camera above you as you navigate a maze-like area. It's no Super Mario Galaxy in terms of the scale of each level - it's as if original, platforming Mario levels have been stretched into 3D - but it's still great to look at.

Overall, this game, like nearly every Mario title before it, is an instant classic, one that captures one's attention quickly and never stops throwing creative challenges into the mix. From platforms that appear and disappear based on the beat of the music to bodies of water that move in the air, forcing you to jump between them, this game does what a game is supposed to do: challenge you repeatedly and make you marvel at the world in front of you. The creativity on display in this game is quite impressive, and if you still haven't picked up a Wii U, or have a Wii U and somehow missed this game, you need to alter your priorities.

And if I ever beat that final level, you will all be the first to know. Well, second to know - anyone within a several-mile radius of my location will probably hear the screams first.