It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas (2002) Review

December 10, 2015December 10, 2015 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

It’s Christmas Eve and an evil business woman is going to legally own the Muppet Theater if Kermit and his friends cant raise enough money to pay off the Theater’s loan.

This movie is brilliant and not in the sense that its a perfect movie but more to do with the films premise, for those who are unaware this film is a Muppet’s version of It’s a Wonderful life.

Of course its not as dark and depressing but it does have a lot of charm and originality for what is essentially a remake of an already existing property, the Muppet’s are great as usual and they provide a lot of very funny jokes including some that are purely for the adults.

Whoopi Goldberg plays an amazing God, its so funny to see such a chilled out lord of the universe and who wouldn’t love a God who is a massive fan of Spongebob? (from the movie haha not sure if Whoopi really loves Spongebob)

There are so many references in this film from Steve Irwin to Star Wars, the only reference I didn’t like was the Grinch and that was because instead of choosing to reference the original they chose that terrible Jim Carrey Movie.

I don’t know how they do it,but somehow almost every Muppet movie has a sad song that makes me cry in this case its about Kermit wanting his life back, trust me guys this rivals the goodbye song from Muppet’s Take Manhatten.

It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas is a surprisingly very good film, its not perfect but its nice and that all you really need for a decent family flick, all of the actors, actresses and Muppet’s do a fantastic job and the film is genuinely quite charming.

Do yourself a favor and pick this one up this year.

Thanks for reading my Review of It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas

The next Christmas movie I will review is

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !!!!!!

You can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

Ernest Saves Christmas (1988) Review

December 8, 2015 ragglefragglereviews3 Comments

“The Name is Santa Claus!!!”

Ernest played by the late Jim Varney (who many of you will recognize as the voice of the Slinky Dog in the Toy Story movies), is a hapless taxi driver working on Christmas eve, he drops a passenger off at the airport and it just so happens that the next person to hop in his cab is Santa Claus.

After almost 100 years of service Santa is ready to retire and pass the sack over to someone new, the person he has in mind is ex children’s show presenter called Joe Carruthers.

Santa tries to explain to Joe who he is but of course everyone thinks he’s crazy which results in him being arrested and ridiculed.

Without giving away all of the best the bits, that’s pretty much the entire movie, Santa needs to convince Joe that he isn’t crazy before 7pm on Christmas Eve because otherwise Christmas will have to be cancelled, and of course only cinemas biggest idiot is able to save the day.

Ernest Saves Christmas is the weirdest Christmas movie I have ever seen, the Jokes are really bizarre and half of the time I’m not even sure if they are jokes, even though this isn’t the best written movie of all time, its really bland and most of time it doesn’t make any sense but somehow it’s really entertaining and I blame that mostly on how genuinely badly written and weird the movie is, of course Jim Varney as usual does a fantastic job as the lovable idiot Ernest and the guy who plays Santa Claus is amazing, he has the perfect look,tone of voice and personality for a Santa Claus character and I don’t think anyone could do a better job.

It’s a terrible and perfect movie that everyone should watch at least once.

Thanks for reading my Review of Ernest Saves Christmas

The next Christmas movie I will review is

You can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

Rudolph and Frosty Christmas in July (1979) Review

December 6, 2015 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

Before I sat down and watched this movie i’m not gonna lie I was quite worried that my experience would be a complete repeat of the last review, before watching the film I decided to do a bit of research and this is when I found out that it was a Rankin/Bass production which quickly turned my worries into excitement and nostalgia.

For those who are not familiar with Rankin/Bass they are a small production company that made their fortune in the early 1960’s until the late 1980’s making many different types of animated films and movies based on well known stories and fairy tales, they made a lot of Christmas related movies during their most successful years some of the most popular ones to my knowledge are Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer , Santa Claus is Comin to Town and Jack Frost all of these films were made using traditional Stop-Motion animation but they made many other films using standard animation and live action recordings.

I don’t know how I managed to skip Rudolph and Frosty Christmas in July as a kid because it’s definitely a very special movie, I was very surprised when I was watching this because I started to notice that almost every character from the other Rankin/Bass Christmas movies made before this one had some sort of appearance in this movie and from doing some extensive research I found out that for the most part they even used to original voice cast for each character which was a really cool nod to the other movies and more importantly their fans.

This is Lady Boreal who is a very important character in this Christmas Special as she is the person who gave Rudolph his red nose, the fog Rudolph’s nose was used to clear on that one foggy Christmas Eve was not a just a fog but was instead a fog of evil snow dragons sent by the Wizard Winterbolt.

Rudolph’s Magic Nose has been protecting Santa from Winterbolt for years and now Winterbolt has finally had enough, he’s sick of Santa ruling the north pole and so he try’s to find a way to put out Rudolph’s nose for good.

The rest of the movie is just Frosty and Rudolph trying to defeat Winterbolt, they meet their friend who is an ice-cream man, Rudolph and Frosty join the circus and a lack luster battle against Winterbolt pursues.

Frosty and Rudolph Christmas in July is not that great which is real shame because a lot of the other Rankin/Bass movies are fantastic and don’t get me wrong it has the charm and the perfect animation to make a wonderful and innocent family Christmas movie, the big problem is that it doesn’t make a lot of sense and too often it feels like it only existed so that Rankin/Bass could put all of these characters in one movie, the plot wasn’t that interesting compared the other Rankin/Bass films but in the movies defense I have had to sit through a lot worse movies during the holidays.

Thanks for reading my Review of Rudolph and Frosty Christmas in July.

The next Christmas movie I will review is

You can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

Four Christmases (2008) Review

December 4, 2015December 4, 2015 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

They gotta celebrate four Christmases with four families and all in one day.

Four Christmases is about a couple Brad and Kate played by Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon who always lie to their parents and make excuses as to why they cant visit for Christmas every year, unfortunately for them on this particular year they made the excuse that they couldn’t make it because they are doing some charitable work over in Burma when in fact they are actually going on vacation in Fiji, all flights get cancelled due to fog and a news team comes in and interviews them live about how they feel about the holiday being cancelled, of course as you may expect all of the parents see the news report and are very excited because now Brad and Kate can spend christmas with each of the families which is great the only problem is that each of their parents are divorced which means that they will need to fit in visits to all four families on Christmas day.

The movie has a really interesting plot that honestly I have to give praise too as it’s definitely something that could actually happen in real life, I would be surprised if this hadn’t happened to anyone especially given the large number of divorced parents in the world.

What I hate about the movie is everything else first of all it is so obvious that Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon did not want to be in this movie, I don’t think I have ever watched a movie where the actors and actresses have looked so bored and uninterested through out an entire film, Reese Witherspoon did occasionally have fun playing her role a good example would be the bouncy castle scene where she is trying to get back her pregnancy test that had earlier been stolen by a child, the same cannot be said for Vince Vaughn his performance through out the entire movie can be summed up in just two words boring and awkward.

As what is probably expected all of the families are very different and each over play their lifestyles to give off a comedic effect, the families are great and each of them have left me some memorable moments from the film, you got Brad’s angry dad and his abusive kid’s which is the complete opposite to Brads mom who is what most people would call a hippy, Kates mother is played by Mary Steenburgen an award winning actress who has performed in many popular films such as Step Brothers, Elf and Back to the Future 3, Kate’s Mother is dating a Pastor and so to Kate’s surprise shes actually become a christian and Kates dad is just normal

The movie is advertised as a comedy and yet the jokes are just about as childish and cliched as they can get, I didn’t expect much else from this movie given it’s average rating on IMDB but the problem I have is that the film almost does have good Jokes but for some reason it moves on before even executing them, a great example of this is a scene in Brads mum’s house where a kid finds some Marijuana Brownie’s and that’s the joke he doesn’t eat them and it’s never even mentioned again, the kid finding the brownies is not funny but what would of been funny is the affect the Brownies would have had on the kid yet for some reason the movie doesn’t even try to make a joke out of the situation.

Four Christmases was a really disappointing movie, it had a great premise but an awful and effortless execution, the cast was just as boring as the film, the jokes aren’t funny and the entire movie is so predictable that you will know what going to happen before long before it ends.

Thanks for reading my Review of Four Christmases, please comment below if you think I was too harsh and remember this is just my opinion plenty of other people like this movie, I’m just not one of those people.

The next Christmas movie I will review is

You can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) Review

December 2, 2015 ragglefragglereviews1 Comment

There will be spoilers, so keep that in mind

“Every time a bell rings an Angel gets it’s wings”

It’s a wonderful life follows the life of George Bailey, as a young lad George enjoyed a regular childhood of playing in the snow, climbing trees and trying to find adventure in his every step, unfortunately for George after he saved his brother from a near death experience he went death in his left ear.

As an adult George is married with three kids and has taken over his fathers job as a bank manager and everything is going absolutely fine until eight thousand dollars goes missing just when the Bank inspector arrives, this causes a warrant to go out for George’s arrest and at this point he’s lost it.

George runs to nearest bridge and hes about to jump when he sees another man fall into the river, George jumps in and saves the screaming man, the man tells him that his name is Clarence and that he is George’s Guardian angel.

George tells Clarence that he wishes he had never been born, Clarence decides to grant George’s wish and he shows George what life would be like if he had never existed.

Every time I watch this movie I cant believe that there is a Christmas movie about a man wanting to kill himself and yet it is so good, It’s a Wonderful Life is one of the most iconic Christmas classics out there and and with good reason, it manages to send a serious message about suicide while also having enough charm and character to keep it’s audience thoroughly entertained.

The film surprisingly has quite a bit of well written humor on offer and lets not forget it’s brilliant cast, James Stewart (George) and Henry Travers (Clarence) have a really good connection not only as their respected characters but also as actors, throughout the film both of their personalities bounce of each each other perfectly and it’s this connection that really helps the film maintain such a wonderful atmosphere for such a dark subject matter.

The film is runs for over two hours and unfortunately Clarence doesn’t make an appearance until near the end which is a real shame because as much as the rest of the film is still brilliant at maintaining an interested audience I always felt that he should have been in the film more often than he is.

It’s a Wonderful life is and always will be my Favorite Christmas movie of time and I most defiantly recommend to any fan of classic Christmas films.

Thanks for reading this review of I’ts a Wonderful Life

Next film I will review is

You can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

Is there a true meaning to Christmas?

November 29, 2015 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

Whats the meaning of Christmas?

Some would say its too celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ

Others would explain that its about spending time with family and appreciating those around you

and these days most children would say that its about getting presents from Santa Claus

but is there a real answer?

In order to try and figure out an answer to such a controversial question I think that we should at first talk about what Christmas used to be about.

Christianity is probably the most famous and popular religion in the world and of course December 25th is a very important day in regards to the Christian faith as this is indeed the birth date of Jesus Christ.

Christians traditionally celebrate Christmas by acting out the birth of Christ through Nativity plays, opening advent calendars which are used to count the days before Christmas, Singing songs about the good Lord and by exchanging gifts between friends and family members to help remind each other of the gift of God.

Whats that?

Christmas cant be a Christian tradition because your child plays Mary in the Nativity every year at her non catholic school, you and your family knock on doors singing Christmas songs to your neighbors, your children open a door on their advent calendars every morning in December and on Christmas day they have lots of presents to open.

You say you do all of this without fail every Christmas but you and your family are not in any way religious?

Well I would be lying if I said that you didn’t make a good argument, so how did we change Christmas from a religious holiday to a holiday that is celebrated world wide?

The answer to this is quite simple, all we actually did is we just made a few slight and sneaky changes first of all the Nativity hasn’t changed much if not at all and I think this is important because it helps remind us of the holidays origins.

Advent calendars are known to provide between 24 and 25 chocolates as a little treat for children to enjoy every day leading up to Christmas but originally they included small wooden religious figures such as baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the Angel but most of them were just used to help children count the days leading up to the birth of Christ, the days leading to Christmas are known as Advent according to the Christian Faith.

Christmas Carols have always been a thing but the songs have changed immensely from what used to be sung, for example most Christians would sing O Little Town of Bethlehem or Hark the Herald Angels Sing but most non religious Christmas lovers may sing Rudolph the red nose Reindeer or Jingle Bells which of course have absolutely nothing to do with Jesus or the religion that follows him.

Earlier I mentioned that Christians would give gifts to friends and family members in order to help remind them of the gift of god, the biggest difference here is that traditionally you would give one small gift to a friend of family member and most of the time this would be hand made, these days children tend to get loads of presents which will usually include an I-Pad an XBOX or a computer and of course these gifts are usually brought by Santa who I may talk about in a Christmas blog next year.

So whats the meaning of Christmas?

I hope this article has left you pondering an answer to this question, personally I like to celebrate Christmas like most people of the 21st century but I have always considered Christmas a celebration of the birth of Christ and I don’t think that will ever change.

I suppose the true meaning of Christmas is what ever you make of it but in reality these days the meaning is more to do with corporate companies making a lot of money on advertising than it is too do with religion or appreciating family and to me that’s a very sad and unfortunate reality which will probably never change.

Why else do you think we see Christmas stuff in October

I hope you enjoyed this festive article

Any references to Christian celebrations are in reference to old Christian traditions

I know this is slightly early for a Christmas blog but there is a good reason behind this.

Every two days from the 2nd of December on-wards I will be using a special system which will select a random Christmas movie for me to review (even if it’s not animated) and I may also be doing some collaboration blogs with another blogger which will involve some fun Christmas antics.

The First of the Twelve films I am going to review is

Look forward to that and for now Happy Holidays

you can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope (2014) Review

November 15, 2015May 28, 2019 ragglefragglereviews4 Comments

One Knight, One Shovel, One chance of success

Was Shovel Knight an epic masterpiece or were Yaught Club Games digging them selves a very deep hole?

Shovel Knight and Shield Knight are two adventurers who formed a strong relationship with each other, together they would adventure across many lands and discovering many treasures on their travels, one day they tackle the tower of fate seeking a magical amulet, unfortunately the amulet is cursed and upon its discovery Shovel Knight blacks out and awakens outside only to notice that the tower has been sealed and Shield Knight was no where to be seen.

Grieving the loss of his beloved, Shovel Knight gave up his life of being an adventurer and went on to live in solitude, with Shovel Knight gone an evil sorceress called The Enchantress gathered the Knights of the Order of the no Quarter and they started to wreak havoc on the land, Shovel Knight discovers that The Enchantress had unsealed the Tower of Fate and is using it as her new castle, Shovel Knight decides that the only way to save the land is too defeat The Enchantress in the Tower of Fate and to hopefully reunite with Shield Knight.

Shovel Knight plays and feels very similar to three very popular old school Nintendo classics, Duck tales on NES, Mega man and Super Mario Bros 3.

The game is a 2D action plat-former, players will need fight there way through each world using their shovels to their advantage, unlike a traditional Mario game players can not defeat enemies by simply jumping on them as this will cause Shovel Knight to take damage, instead you will need to use your Shovels to bounce off of your enemies you can also hit enemies with your shovel similar to using a sword.

Of course your shovel isn’t the only weapon Shovel Knight can use as there are also items called relics which can prove to be quite useful in the more tougher areas of the game, you can either buy these items from a merchant in town and some items can only be bought by secret merchants hidden each in knight level.

My three favorite relics are

Flare Wand: A magic wand which allows Shovel Knight to shoot balls of fire

Dust Knuckles: This item allows Shovel Knight to punch through blocks of dirt and enemies quickly and effectively

Propeller Dagger: Allows Shovel Knight to temporarily dart through the air for a short distance

Shovel Knight uses a map system which draws inspiration from Mario 3, this doesn’t surprise me as Mario 3 perfected the formula for over world maps in video games and in turn many developers choose this style due to that games success, with that in mind it should be no shock that Shovel Knight follows this formula having the player needing to defeat certain levels to unlock new paths, bumping into other adventurers who want to duel and entering towns to stock up on items.

There are eight knights that you will need to defeat before you can gain access to the Tower of Fate Spectre Knight, King Knight, Treasure Knight, Plague Knight, Mole Knight, Polar Knight, Tinker Knight and Propeller Knight, every time you defeat of one of these knights a new path on the overall map will open allowing you inch closer and closer to the Tower of Fate each time.

You may also bump into wandering travelers on your journey, these travelers will fight you if you cross paths so be wary of which path you take.

Towns will prove to be very important pit stops on your quest as they will allow Shovel Knight to buy new weapons and armor as well as to increase his maximum health and magic, it is also a good idea to speak to the town bard as he will buy any music sheets that you have found while adventuring.

Meet the Troupple King this cross between a trout and an apple will surely prove to be the most useful stop in the entire game, the Troupple King has the ability to create ichors which Shovel Knight can drink.

These ichors come in three colours.

Red: replenishes full health and magic

Blue: become temporarily invincible

Yellow: absorb all near by treasure

Make sure you choose your ichors wisely as you can only hold two at a time, also in order to use ichors you must buy a Troupple Chalice or two from the apple man in town.

Visually Shovel Knight is stunning it has a similar art style to the Nintendo Entertainment System using what appears to be 8 bit visuals, of course there is no way Shovel Knight could run on the NES due to how fast the game runs as well as its large colour palette.

The soundtrack is absolutely perfect for this style of game, its beautifully composed and there is not a single track in this game that I do not love, its not just the composition of the soundtrack but its also the direction that really helps create such a wonderful game play experience, each section of the game has what I consider to be the perfect choice of music for example when the game is intense the music is intense, when shovel knight is dreaming the music is still a lot of fun but its much slower and when your in towns the music is cheerful and a little silly which suits the towns superbly as the towns people are wacky and unusual.

Shovel Knight is a fantastic game and for a project that was only possible due to crowd funding it’s absolutely amazing, make sure to visit the hall of heroes to see paintings of all of the crowd funder’s as well as a secret boss fight.

I don’t know what to say apart from that the game is perfect and as an extra treat when you beat the game you will unlock extra challenges that you can complete and in a more recent update a brand new game called Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows has been added for free and is also available upon completion of Shovel Knight.

but I will get to that adventure some other day

FOR SHOVELRY !! 10/10

I hope you enjoyed my review of Shovel Knight

If you respect my opinion, I will respect yours

By Padawan

Want me to review a specific game/movie/product or do you have a general question you would like me to answer? if so please email me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

Dead Space (2008) (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) Review

October 9, 2015 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

SHOOT THE LIMBS !!!

Dead Space is one of those games that has had a lot of praise over the years since its release, I have played through Dead Space a countless number of times and I have formed what I believe is a fair opinion on this apparent gaming masterpiece.

Many fans of the series love the games because of the countless gory ways that the protagonist can die, but in my opinion gory visuals are not needed to make a game good, so I’m going to look at every thing else and I will form my opinion from all the aspects I believe are often forgotten.

You take control of this unfortunate fellow Mr Isaac Clark, Isaac is the Engineer of the ISG Ishumura which is a specially Engineered ship which is carrying a team of explorers across multiple planets to find resources which are needed to help earth survive after an unforeseen event which caused the planet to almost go extinct, after successfully stripping multiple planets of their resources, unfortunately the ISG Ishumura eventually ends up crash landing on a mysterious planet and this is where the game begins.

As soon as the game play starts Isaac and his crew are almost immediately attacked by a very strange race of creatures called Necromorph’s, these creatures kill the majority of the crew and those who survive are separated from Isaac leaving him to fend for himself.

The Necromorph’s themselves definitely add a unique combat style to the game, instead of plowing enemies full of lead like most shooters, Dead Space has the player needing to shoot the enemies in the limbs instead of the head or the chest, this may not seem too special but it does add a whole new feel to the general FPS experience.

Of course shooting all of these aliens is going to need some serious fire power, luckily Dead Space is not shy on weapons as throughout the game Isaac will find many weapons which he can use to shoot, beat and decapitate aliens all day long.

Some of my favorite weapons include the Plasma Cutter which is a powerful single shot weapon, its essentially shoots hot lasers and once it’s fully upgraded it can cut through limbs so quickly that it could make a Jedi jealous.

My next favorite weapon is the Pulse Rifle, this military grade machine gun will tear through your enemies like there is no tomorrow .

and finally the Ripper shoots sharp metal blades at your enemies and of course this can cause a lot of damage, a lot of Dead Space players don’t like this weapon as it can be quite complicated to use as you need to curve your shots in order to have maximum damage, but trust me when you get the hang of using it the ripper will be an excellent addition to your arsenal.

Other interesting elements to Dead Space are the many different scenarios and puzzles that the game throws at you.

When your not collecting resources and trying to escape the ship, Isaac will at times need to deal with Zero Gravity areas, having to temporarily step outside the ship and into the empty atmosphere that surrounds him and this draining his oxygen every second he is outside and finally using his Kinesis Module to pick up heavy objects and to slow down certain aspects of the game.

The graphics in Dead Space are for the most part very impressive, the aliens look great, the environments are very well detailed, the finer details such as blood splatter and shadows are very well done but the human characters look like they came out of a top quality PS2 game which is very disappointing considering that everything else is up to par with a PS3/360 game, its sort of like making a really healthy salad of bell peppers, tomatoes and lettuce and then covering it with bacon and syrup, its not a massive problem but the addition of the bacon and syrup can make a very healthy salad a little off putting.

Dead Space doesn’t have a lot of music but I believe that this benefits the games style and feel greatly, Dead Space is a survival horror which relies on the player listening to the environments in order to avoid being killed by sneaky Necromorph’s, a lot of games rely of music as it helps build up the feel of the game play and helps avoid boring the players, so the fact that Dead Space can keep the player so tense and immersed with such a limited soundtrack is very impressive.

Dead Space is one of the most immersive experiences I have had with a video game in a very long time, it really kept me on my toes and it often had me panicking and genuinely feeling uncomfortable which is the best results that a survival horror can give, the graphics are amazing apart from the graphics of the in game AI’s and the lack of music really helps intensify the game play, Dead Space is also one of the goriest games I have played in a long time, the game isn’t too graphic when the player is just blasting enemies but when you die a death cut scene will play showing the gory nature of how you died in great detail, the controls are absolutely perfect and the game runs at a smooth 60 FPS so if you die only you are to blame, the story is really interesting and it only gets more and more crazy in every installment of the series, one of the main aspects to the story is trying to find Isaac’s missing wife who contacts Isaac as a hologram throughout the game.

Will he find her in Dead Space 1? you will have to play to find out.

Dead Space is one scary, intense and genuinely awesome experience that everyone should play 8.9/10

I hope you enjoyed my review of Dead Space

If you respect my opinion, I will respect yours

Happy Halloween

By Padawan

Want me to review a specific game/movie/product or do you have a general question you would like me to answer? if so please email me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

Halo: Combat Evolved (XBOX) (2001) Review

August 12, 2015August 12, 2015 ragglefragglereviews1 Comment

The Halo series is one of the most beloved video game franchises of all time, the series is often said to be revolutionary and a marvel to modern gaming.

I played the original Halo when it first got released and my 8 year old mind was blown away at how amazing the experience was, but does it still hold up today 14 years later compared to the newer entries of the series?

Halo’s plot is very heavily story driven, so I am going to explain the basic plot with as very little spoilers as possible.

A UNSC Space Craft called the Pillar of Autumn is heading home after the effects of the battle of Reach (A game I will get too some other day).

During the lengthy journey home a very large ring called a Halo is discovered, shortly after the discovery the Pillar of Autumn is attacked by a religious Alien Race known as the Covenent, when the ship is about to be taken over Captain Keyes (Commander of the Pillar of Autumn) orders the games protagonist the Master Chief to protect Cortana who is some very realistic Artificial Intelligence that holds information on the UNSC and the location of many hidden planets including Earth.

The Master Chief and Cortana escape the Pillar of Autumn but unfortunately Captain Keyes gets kidnapped by the Covenant, this changes Master Chiefs escape plan to a search and rescue which sparks the rest of the events in the game.

Halo is a first person shooter which for me is usually when I realise that I wont like the game as I have never really been a huge fan of this game play style.

Don’t get me wrong the game play is fantastic as it controls and feels really good but there really isn’t much that makes the game play feel any different too most other first person shooters with the only major differences being that it takes place in space and you are killing Aliens.

You spend the majority of the game on foot blasting the Covenant with an array of weapons including the famous Pulse Rifle which has been a staple to the series from the very beginning, personally as much as I love this weapon I would say switch for a shotgun as soon as you can because trust me later on you will meet another form of enemy which are very vulnerable to the shotgun bullets, for your secondary weapon I recommend that you find your self a Sniper Rifle so that you can take out most enemies from a distance before getting into a real battle (This is mostly for those play on the higher difficulty settings) the sniper is also in my opinion the best weapon to use on the more powerful and better protected enemies such as Elites and Hunters, you will also be armed with some frag grenades and some plasma grenades (Sticky grenades).

When your not on foot you will either be riding, driving, or shooting from some sort of vehicle, Halo offers a wide range of vehicles that you can use to your advantage, the most common you will see in this game will be Warthogs which are the main transport used for the Marines of the UNSC, another UNSC vehicle is the Tank which I highly recommend if you are lucky enough to find one.

The covenant also use vehicles which you can high-jack, the most common Covenant vehicle you will find is the Ghost which is a small hover craft type vehicle which is armed with a fairly powerful laser cannon, you will also see Banshees from time to time these are the same as ghosts but they have the advantage of flight so they can prove to be very useful, Wraiths are another type of vehicle you will come across every now and again, Wraiths are the Covenant’s version of the Tank.

Graphically the game is a bit disappointing, now before anyone comes to murder me please hear me out !!, the graphical design of the game is absolutely mind blowing and for the time not many games could compete with the efforts of game design that Bungie (Game Devs) put into this game, but generally for a game that got released in 2001 everything looks a little bit pix-elated which is not a massive issue but it is quite disappointing when comparing it to other games that got released the same year such as Fusion Frenzy and 007 Agent under fire.

on the other hand the soundtrack is absolutely amazing, at this point I gather that most of you are familiar with the main theme song for Halo, if you are you will be pleased to know that the theme song plays a hell of a lot in this game.

Halo Theme Song – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5yVOFokLVY

The rest of the music is still very good, its very orchestral and really is a wonderful experience for players to enjoy, it holds fantastic artistic values and is perfectly conducted to suit the games premise.

Overall Halo: Combat Evolved is a fantastic game that I highly recommend to any fans of First Person Shooters or fans of SCI-FI in general, it’s the beginning of a fantastic story, the game control smoothly and plays at a fun and fluent pace, the only complaint I have is the not so great graphics for a game that came out in 2001, I highly recommend playing the 360 remake Combat Evolved Anniversary because of this.

9.7/10

I hope you enjoyed my review of Halo: Combat Evolved for the Xbox

If you respect my opinion, I will respect yours

By Padawan

Want me to review a specific game/movie/product or do you have a general question you would like me to answer? if so please email me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

You can find me on Miiverse by searching for draskafer

Yoshi’s Wooly World (Wii U) (2015) Review

July 16, 2015July 16, 2015 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

At last the long awaited sequel to Kirby’s Epic Yarn has been released, or at least it has been in Japan and Europe because unfortunately the USA wont be seeing this game until October, but luckily for me I’m not American and I have already played through and beaten the game.

So is this game a beautiful knitted scarf from Grandma or is it a hideous knitted Christmas sweater from Pound Land?

Once upon a time in a magical fluffy world,the Yarn Yoshi’s lived in peace and happiness, one day an evil wizard called Kamek mysteriously appeared and cast an evil spell which turned the Yoshi’s in to bundles of yarn, two Yoshi’s managed to hide from the effects of this curse and watched sadly as their friends were taken away, Kamek proceeded to scatter the yarn bundles all over the land most likely thinking that he managed to capture all of the Yoshi’s but unfortunately for him that was not the case and the two surviving Yoshi’s traveled all over the Woolly World in the hopes of stopping Kamek and restoring their friends back to life.

Wooly World plays and feels very similar to most other Yoshi Games but the benefit in this particular entry to the series is the lack of the annoying crying baby that you need to carry around, which is a very nice touch to the series because as much as I love the Yoshi’s Island games that is one aspect that I do not miss one little bit.

Yoshi can run, jump, eat enemies and turn them into Yarn balls, throw the yarn balls and he can even do that weird air running thing he does just like any other Yoshi game, the only massive difference in this game is that everything is made out of yarn.

Obviously the fact that everything is made of yarn does leave the game open to some new gameplay elements which could only be pulled off in this sort of setting.

Some examples of these unique gameplay elements include

Throwing yarn balls at empty canvases to create knitted platforms

Pushing light woolly walls to find secrets

and unraveling loose strings of yarn to help you discover secret paths and hidden items.

Other aspects which are common in most Yoshi games include finding invisible paths, throwing balls of yarn (Eggs) at hidden clouds to find secrets, collecting the five flowers in each stage and so on.

A new collectible in this game is the bundles of yarn that Kamek Scattered across the land, each stage has five hidden within and if you collect all five of the yarn bundles you will unlock a new Yoshi you are then able to play as.

You can also scan your Amiibo’s to unlock special Yoshi’s based on the character you scanned into the game, but if you scan the Yarn Yoshi Amiibo you will be able to have that Amiibo help you too beat tough stages.

If you collect all of the flowers in a world then you will be rewarded with a brand new stage, this is very similar to unlocking the bonus stages in the New Super Mario Bros series.

If you manage to find some secret doors in certain levels, you will be greeted a small vehicle section this allows Yoshi to change into many different vehicles and other forms, these sections are a lot of fun and my personal favorite of these bonus areas was playing as a giant Yoshi as it reminded me of Godzilla

The game controls wonderfully which isn’t much of a surprise considering that most of the Yoshi games have tight and extremely responsive controls, the controller layout of the Wii U game pad is perfect for this particular game and if you don’t wanna play with a game pad you can play the game with any controller for the Wii U or the Nintendo Wii.

The game can be very difficult at times as the later levels can be very unforgiving and I can see this upsetting some younger players, usually I would for see this as a problem but Nintendo were right on the ball as they included a mellow mode which makes the game much easier and is recommended for the casual gamer’s and people who don’t want too much stress or challenge, personally I prefer the classic mode but mellow mode can still be a good choice for days when your too tired to handle some of more difficult parts of the game.

Throughout the game you will be collecting gems, you can use these gems to buy special one use power-ups for your Yoshi, I personally never used these but my brother did and he said that they proved to be most useful, one of the most beneficial power-ups to me would have been the ability to not die if you fall off of a ledge as this is this is what killed me the most during my play through.

Yoshi’s Woolly World is a real piece of Art to look at, if you were impressed with the visuals of Epic Yarn you have not seen anything yet, the major difference here is that everything is fully knitted allowing a lot of detail and creative visuals, everything looks so fluffy that I just wanna jump into the game and hug everything, this visual style offers a a few unique and special aspects to the game, for example if you throw a yarn ball at a Pirana Plant it will wrap around it and you can see the plant being slightly squeezed showing that it is only made out of yarn and is not at all solid, and if you eat a water melon you can shoot the seeds at loose fluff to help you gain access to new areas.

The Music is again wonderful, Woolly World has a nice and innocent soundtrack throughout the majority of the game, its very pleasant to listen too and is at times very relaxing, I really hope that Nintendo releases a soundtrack for the game soon.

Yoshi’s Woolly World was the game that made me go out and buy a Wii U, ever since I got the system back in December I have eagerly awaiting this games release and I am mostly pleased with the final product, the only two issues I have is that the game is a bit short as it only has six worlds and I feel that two more worlds would have really benefited the game play, the only other issue I have is the lack of available players, having two people play the game together is great but I am fairly certain that Nintendo could have quite easily allowed up to at least four players at once and this is an aspect I hope they add in the future with an update.

Yoshi’s Woolly World was a fantastic game that anyone can enjoy, it has tight controls, wonderful visuals and audio and is genuinely an adorable treat to play, I only wish that game it self was a little longer.

9.7/10

I hope you enjoyed my review of Yoshi’s Woolly World for the Nintendo Wii U

If you respect my opinion, I will respect yours

By Padawan

Want me to review a specific game/movie/product or do you have a general question you would like me to answer? if so please email me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

You can find me on Miiverse by searching for draskafer

ragglefragglereviews

MOVIES, VIDEO GAMES, FOOD AND BEVERAGE, ANIME and just about everything else

Tag: Dan

It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas (2002) Review

Rudolph and Frosty Christmas in July (1979) Review

Four Christmases (2008) Review

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) Review

Is there a true meaning to Christmas?

Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope (2014) Review

Dead Space (2008) (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) Review

Halo: Combat Evolved (XBOX) (2001) Review

Yoshi’s Wooly World (Wii U) (2015) Review