Super Mario 3D Land - All-In-One.

I'm getting used to being late with these updates. I've completed Super Mario 3D Land for the Nintendo 3DS. The game was developed by Nintendo EAD Tokyo and was published by Nintendo. Super Mario 3D Land is the first game for Nintendo's 3DS that really makes use of the 3D capabilities of the system beyond some graphic fluff. The title was clearly designed from the ground up around the 3D aspect. It's the first title I've felt compelled to play with the 3D mode turned on for the entirety of the game. Super Mario 3D Land is something of an oddball. It takes from Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario 64 to create it's own thing. It takes Super Mario Bros. 3's tightly focused levels and mixes them with Super Mario 64's smaller open world design. The resulting blend works surprisingly well. The game's camera is a large part of the success. It maintains perfect position at all times. They had to change a few things up as far as control is concerned. The long missing run button returns. And because of the 3D nature of things, pressing down to enter a pipe wouldn't work, so you'll use the shoulder buttons for that. The game first appears to be on the easy side, and once you've completed the game for the first time, a second more difficult playthrough becomes available. This second quest really extends the game for those who will feel the need to collect all the star coins and get the flag for every last stage. Graphically the game looks like your typical mainline Nintendo production. Everything is bright and colorful and clean and safe. They're not really pushing any graphic boundaries here. Musically it's much the same as the graphics. The music does a great job and feels entirely well produced and highly professional. But again it also feels rather Nintendo safe. I would like to seem them take a risk once in a while. Super Mario 3D Land is the purest Mario title produced since the advent of 3D gameplay. There's no fluff or filler, and the 3D is more than a gimmick for this one. And that's a good thing. I really liked my time with the game. It gives me some hope that future of the system might be more substantial than gimmicky. I'm giving Super Mario 3D Land an 8.5.

Battlefield 3 -- All-In-One.

Here I am again with another late entry. This time it's for Battlefield 3, produced by Digital Illusions CE and published by Electronic Arts. I played the Xbox 360 version. Battlefield 3 is a team based multiplayer first person shooter that aims to deliver the chaos of war. The Battlefield series has always excelled at delivering said chaos. Problem is, the battlefield itself has changed in this post Call of Duty world, and DICE and EA have positioned themselves and the game to take on the behemoth. The resulting single player campaign and co-op missions are less than special. They share the same faults as their Call of Duty counterparts. They're filled with that Tom Clancy peppery military banter and minutia and that oh my god go go go sense of action. And just like Call of Duty it's awful and is the very definition of hollow. It's a good thing you don't play these games for the single player aspects. Battlefield 3 delivers on the multiplayer side offering up numerous modes of play. Conquest remains the same as it was in Battlefield 1942 and is one of the best online modes ever created and it's still the heart and soul of Battlefield. They're also offering up Rush, Squad Rush, Team Deathmatch, and Squad Deathmatch for those looking for a change of pace. Battlefield 3 runs on the Frostbite 2 engine and offers up a mostly impressive destructible environment. You'll get stuck on a bit of rubble from what used to be a building too often for my tastes and it always seems to happen when you're being fired upon. The buildings come apart in amazing detail, but the physics of the character movement can't seem to cope as well as they need to. Battlefield 3 is a great looking game. It's graphically impressive. The music is minimally used to great effect and the sounds of battle are crisp and clean and boom through the speakers. The series tradition of planes and helicopters controlling like alien contraptions continues. Outside of the air vehicles the game controls beautifully. The unlock system is greatly successful in keeping you playing as you're never far away from the next new gun or gadget. The flaws in Battlefield are inherent to the genre whenever playing with the public. Especially in playing Conquest. Having to depend on teamwork from the public means you're going to be behind the eight ball a lot of the time. The great thing about Battlefield though is sometimes all it takes is one squad that knows what they're doing to turn the tide. In the eighty some hours I spent getting the thousand achievement points in Battlefield 3 I would say fifty of those were spent having fun, and thirty of those were spent being frustrated. Battlefield comes with a clear cost, and for me the good still outweighs the bad. I'm giving Battlefield 3 an 8.