Chuzzle

At the behest of my friend, and fellow group member, Wren I decided to check out the game Chuzzle. It's a PopCap game, so I knew from the start that I was in for a good bit of repetitive but addicting game play, but what I did not expect was a full on assault of cuteness.

This game has almost everything an e-tard could want in a game. Vibrant and colorful visuals, repetitive techno music, and a mode where you can never lose no matter how hard you try. However, I don't usually pop a few rolls when I want to sit down and play videogames (I hear that's like taking icecream scoops out of your brain) so I must say that most of that appeal is lost on me. However, what I do like about this game is that it managed to make me like games like Bejewled.

As a rule I hate Bejweled clones. I hate the original, the sequel, I hate Hexic HD, Santa Balls 1, 2 and 3. There's just not much in the genre of lineing up same colored objects that I enjoy, however there is something that I do love, and that's Rubik's Cubes. Playing Chuzzle is like solving a neverending rubik's cube that's peppered with explosions (and explosions make everything better).

So I guess I must reluctantly say 'check it out' to the Chuzzle. It's no Insane Aquarium, but I guess not every game can be as fun as feeding your pet fish.

swimming, and why videogames don't need to include this feature

The game I've planned to discuss in this entry is Mario Galaxy. I love this game a lot, it's easily the most fun I've had playing a traditional Mario game -- and I know that's a bold statement to make, but hear me out. The reason this has been the best Mario experience for me is because it's the only one I've ever had that was relevant. I grew up playing Master System (or Genesis, but honestly which name is better guys?) so I missed out on Mario 1, 2 and 3, as well as Super Mario World and Yoshi's Island. The Dreamcast had already failed by the time I got my N64 so when I finally got around to picking up a used copy of Mario 64 I was about ready to get my PS2. And by the time I found a cheap Gamecube the backlash to Mario Sunshine was so huge that I couldn't possibly have cared less.
However, none of this stopped me from rushing out to grab Mario Galaxy the day it came out. Let's face it: think of a game you like, and it's probably a Mario title. Simple as. However, there's one feature that's always been in these games that they need to remove.
Swimming.
Think back to good old Mario World. You're running through World 1-1 bouncin' on Gombas and evading Piranha Plants and then you slip down your pipe into creepy cave World 1-2 and you're running around and you hop on some eerily suspended girders and you're running along ontop of the level and you find the hidden warp zone and what level does it allow you to skip? The swimming one!
Even since the first (real) Mario game they knew that swimming was no fun. You could skip the water levels super easily in Mario World 3 as well (warp whistles were all too easy to come by in that first world). Every one of those pesky levels where the giant fish would jump up and eat you were unbearable, and they popped up relentlessly in every 2D permeation until Mario64 came along and made swimming suck in revolutionary new ways.
Now you can drown, whoopdy-fuck. If swimming is annoying in a 2D world with a fixed perspective, what good could possibly come from tossing it into a 3D world where your camera is driven around by a blind razor backed turtle base head? It's fucked up. I remember practically bashing my brains out with that stupid banana shaped controller when I had to swim around behind that douchey little eel in Dire Dire Docks.
So it kills me, it really kills me, to have to bitch about this same bloody game play component TWENTY-THREE years after Nintendo initially acknowledged that it sucks. Come on guys, shape up.