Halloween Treats : How to make Adorable and Spooky Owl Cupcakes

October 19, 2015 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

Get your aprons on, your mixing spoons at the ready and prepare to crack some eggs because Halloween has just gotten more delicious.

With Halloween only getting closer and closer, it wont be long until all of us are rotting our teeth with delicious candies, mouth watering chocolates and those apples that people cover in toffee in the hopes that children wont realize that they have actually been tricked into eating fruit.

I decided that instead of buying candy in the usual retail stores I would instead attempt to make some Halloween themed cakes, after much debate about what creatures to base my cakes on I eventually chose owls due to them not having as much love as cats and spiders during the holiday.

What you will need to make these awesome treats

Golden Caster Sugar

Butter

Self Raising Flour

Cocoa Powder

6 Medium Eggs

Malteasers

Orange Frosting

Milk chocolate Buttons

White Chocolate Buttons

First thing you want to do is to preheat your oven to 190 degrees, next line your cake tin full of cake cases

why fill it?

Nearly 30 cakes is why

Soften 280g of either salted or unsalted butter (I used Salted) and add it to your mixing bowl

Add 200g of self raising flour to your mixing bowl

Add 280g of golden caster sugar to your mixing bowl

Add 1 table spoon of cocoa powder to your mixing bowl

and finally crack all six medium eggs into your mixing bowl

Stir the mixture until it has become fairly smooth

Now add the mixture to your cake cases almost filling them but leaving space for them to rise

Place the cakes in the oven for 25 minutes

Once they are cooked remove them from the oven and allow them to cool, once they have cooled you can now do the messy part of decorating them.

Cover the top of each cake in the orange frosting

add a malteaser beak to each cake (I don’t recommend trying to cut them to make a beak shape as I tried this and it did not work in my favor at all)

Add two milk chocolate buttons to each cake to make the owls big eyes

Cut two white chocolate buttons in half and make the owls claws (You may run out of white chocolate buttons and if you do it doesn’t hurt to use the milk chocolate buttons for feet, I had to near the end of decorating)

Finally eat them XD

Thank you for reading this blog

I hope my some what useful cake recipe proves to be a lot of fun for anyone who wants to give these a try, if you do make these you don’t have to follow my decoration technique so by all means get creative and use your imaginations.

You can email me pictures of your halloween cakes at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

Happy Halloween

By Padawan

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

Disney Infinity 1.0 (PS3, XBOX 360, WII, WII U) (2013) Review

September 15, 2015 ragglefragglereviews2 Comments

Well I finally caved in and bought Disney Infinity

Disney Infinity is Disney’s answer to the Skylander’s franchise, in a very similar fashion to its competitor Disney Infinity requires the players to purchase toys in order to play the game.

The way this works is that you will need to place the figures you have purchased onto the Disney Infinity base, Once you place the characters onto the base they should then appear in the game (ADD ONE FOR SINGLE PLAYER AND TWO FOR MULTIPLAYER!!), once the characters appear in the game you can then either play around in the toy box or you can play a play set (Campaigns), to access a play set you will also need to add that play set piece to the Disney Infinity base.

If you decide to play in the toy box, you will be in a sandbox style game which allows you to simply build your own Disney Infinity worlds, which you can then play in these worlds with various characters including those who are not part of any play sets.

I’m not a massive fan of the toy box mode but I’m sure that the reason for this is my lack of interest in sandbox style games, the toy box mode has a lot to offer and can be great way to pass time when your bored or have friends over, you can add many different objects and toys to your world and many of these can be interacted with, for example if you add a car you can drive it, if you add a weapon you can use it to destroy enemies and you can even build race tracks.

You can earn new toys and items for your toy box by using the Disney Infinity Vault, You gain these items by using a random selector, you can change the items by selecting shuffle and you can gain an item by selecting spin, this will give you a random item from the list that is shown at the time.

When you add new characters to the Toy box they will be added to the Hall of Heroes, the Hall of Heroes is where you can see your entire collection of figures presented as statues, once they reach level 1 they will gain a bronze statue, but if you level them up even more they can be upgraded to a silver or gold statue.

Any power disks you have will also be added to the hall of heroes once they are added to the Disney Infinity Base, there are two types of power disks, circular power disks which can grant characters new powers and abilities and hexagon shaped power disks which can add new items and themes to the toy box.

When your done messing around in the toy box, you may want to play some of the many campaigns that are available within Disney Infinity 1.0.

The Starter pack comes with three different Campaigns which are based on different Disney properties, the campaigns that come with the game are Monsters University, The Incredible’s and Pirates of the Caribbean, each of these campaigns offer a different game play style.

The Monsters University play set has the player taking control over Sulley, Mike or Randall, the objective is too help Monsters University gain more fear it week tokens than their competitive college Fear Tech, the way you earn these tokens is by scaring over students, vandalizing the Fear Tech campus and by setting up pranks all over both the MU and Fear Tech Campuses.

The Incredible’s play set is full of intense super hero action, you can take control of all the entire Parr family (Mr Incredible, Mrs Incredible, Dash and Violet) and as a small treat you can even play through the entire play set as the films villain Syndrome, I think this is awesome but I would have loved it if Jack-Jack was a playable character or even better would be Frozone.

I WANT SAMUEL L JACKSON IN MY DISNEY INFINITY GAME DAMMIT !!!

Your mission is too clear the city of Omnidroid’s, rescue the pedestrians from super villains, help the police capture and arrest many creative villains and trouble makers and finally defeating Syndrome once and for all.

Last but not least the Pirates of the Caribbean play set is an adventure style game filled with swashbuckling action and piracy, you can play as either Captain Jack Sparrow, Captain Barbossa or Davy Jones.

In this Adventure you must find hidden treasures which when combined will create a super weapon which can be used to help defeat the dreaded Kracken, a unique game play style to this particular play set is that it offers the unique ability of customizing and sailing your own ship across the ocean giving the player a sense of freedom for exploration and adventure.

Each of these play sets allow the player to purchase new items in the toy store for example in monster inc you can buy a paint ball gun which you can use to shoot students and in Pirates you can buy new swords for your character and new cannons for your ship.

Graphically Disney Infinity has a very cute and very interesting art style, the majority of the game looks very cartoony and everything is drawn like a toy, for example when you play as a character you will notice that you can see where the arms and legs have been attached to the body, also when you die in the game your character will explode separating its limbs from its body.

I really like that the game looks like a giant toy set because this helps give off the illusion that the figures you buy are toys and not just regular figures, this makes spending your money on Disney Infinity feel more rewarding when compared to similar series such as Skylanders and of course Amiibo.

The Audio is nothing special as its either just the music from the movies or its new tracks that are generally not that memorable or interesting.

Disney Infinity 1.0 is a great game if you like the Disney properties, due to the type of game that Disney Infinity is it’s not worth the money if your not willing to empty your wallet on all the characters and play sets, apart from this it has great controls, adorable graphics and is genuinely very addictive and a lot of fun to play, the only downside is the lack of decent audio tracks and lack of game play for people who don’t want to get into the collection side of things.

7.0/10

Personally I am a collector and I will be releasing collection updates when I upload small reviews of the additional play sets.

My Collection so far 7/29

I hope you enjoyed my review of Disney Infinity 1.0

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

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

Book Review: Kingdom Keepers Disney After Dark by Ridley Pearson

July 3, 2015 ragglefragglereviews1 Comment

There will be Spoilers !!!

That’s right I’m reviewing a book and if your wondering why its taken me three years to get around to book reviews that’s because I have never really been a huge reader but I have recently decided to try and delve into the world of literature and too give you my opinion on some popular and obscure book titles.

The first book I am going to be reviewing is Kingdom Keepers: Disney After Dark by Ridley Pearson, this title is the first in this very popular series.

The book focuses on the lives of five teenagers (Finn, Charlene, Philby, Maybeck and Willa) who have been offered the opportunity to become virtual Disney Hosts, if you have ever been to Walt Disney world you will have noticed cast members walking around and offering help and guidance to the guests.

These teenagers are becoming DHI’s (Disney Hosts Interactive) allowing them to have holograms of themselves walking around the Magic Kingdom as virtual cast members, all five of them agree to have virtual versions of themselves created and afterwards they part from each other and get on with their lives.

Or at least that’s what they wanted to happen but unfortunately every time they go to sleep they wake up as their holograms in the Magic Kingdom, they learn that they have no control over this ability from an old man named Wayne who they meet every night while they are in hologram form.

Wayne explains to the teenagers that a great darkness and evil is trying to take over the Magic Kingdom and possibly the world, these evil entities have been code named the Overtakers, Wayne also explains that all five of them have been chosen to be the heroes who will eventually save the day.

The Overtakers seem to be famous Disney Villains who reside in some of the parks more famous attractions, The villain in Book 1 is Maleficent the evil witch from Sleeping Beauty, she is very spooky in this book and she tends to talk in a whisper like and raspy voice which definitely makes her character much more creepy.

She uses a lot of magic throughout the book although most of time she is using to try and kill the five heroes and at times the book takes a very dark turn because of this, by far the scariest part of the book for me is when all of the dolls in its a small world come to life and start trying to bite the five main characters.

The only character I really connected with in the book was Wayne and that was because he was very mysterious and a lot of time I personally felt that he had a very ghostly vibe to his character which often allowed me to see him as a guardian angel watching over the heroes, unfortunately he was also the only character that i found remotely interesting as a lot of the other characters were a bit too normal and boring for my tastes.

I was very impressed that the way Ridley Pearson described the layout of the park and the attractions was very accurate to the layout of the Magic Kingdom in real life, this is a nice touch for people who visit the parks often as they can visualize the descriptions in the book to those areas in the real park.

In conclusion Kingdom Keepers Disney After Dark was a fun book to read but overall it wasn’t that interesting and at times I felt that it overstayed its welcome, if your a fan of Disney then this book is definitely worth your time and even if your not a fan of Disney this book is fairly cheap to pick up and is worth giving a shot especially if your a fan of adventure and fantasy.

I hope you enjoyed this review of Kingdom Keepers Disney After Dark by Ridley Pearson

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

Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone (PC) (2001) Review

June 18, 2015 ragglefragglereviews1 Comment

Alohomora

I remember playing Harry Potter video games when I was a child, I used to own the Philosophers Stone on the Ps1 and both the Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban games on the PS2.

There are many Philosophers Stone games and the most rare of them all is the second generation version (Ps2, Xbox and GameCube) due to the price of this game being rather ridiculous I refused to buy it until I could find it for cheap in a flee market or a charity shop so when I saw the PC version being sold for penny’s in my local charity shop I quickly snapped it up expecting to be playing the rare second generation version only to be surprised that this particular game was very unique in itself and actually provided a completely new experience I didn’t expect.

The only question now is was that experience good?

You play the game as the Young wizard Harry Potter who has just started his first year at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, you spend the majority of the game attending classes such as Defense against the Dark Arts, Broomstick flying and Charms.

When you attend a class you are almost immediately told to trace over a shape using your mouse, you will need to hit a certain percentage of the shape in order to proceed to next difficulty of the spell learning minigame, you are required to pass level 1 which will award you five points for Gryffindor and after you succeed you will be taken to the next level, the more levels you pass the more points you will earn for Gryffindor but you are only required to finish level 1 in order too continue with the main game.

The only time that attending a class is any different is when you take part in a flying lesson because instead of tracing shapes this time you will need to fly through many different rings, this section works surprisingly well using the keyboards controls considering that for most of the lesson you will be using the speed up key which makes your broom stick fly much faster than usual.

After you finish the tracing mini game you are always then told to complete a bunch of challenges which mostly rely on you using that new spell, you will often be taken into a number of rooms to perform these challenges, you will also have the opportunity to collect the challenge stars which depending on how many you can find will award you with different amounts of points for Gryffindor once the challenge is complete, these stars are really easy to find so you should almost always be awarded maximum points for completing these challenges.

When playing through the main game you will also have the opportunity to collect other items, one of these items is the Bertie Botts every flavor beans which are only needed for you to give to Fred and George Weasley as they need it for a top secret practical joke they are planning on Slytherin.

The other collectible items are the famous Witches and Wizards cards which are hidden in secret areas all throughout Hogwarts, some of the cards you can get from Fred and George but the Majority you will need to find yourself, collecting all 25 cards only gives you a slightly expanded ending to the game so its not really worth the effort unless you really want to get 100 percent.

The general gameplay is mostly 3D platforming which works extremely well using the keyboard and mouse, the game runs smoothly providing you play on an XP operating system otherwise you will have serious lag and slowdown due to the game being so old.

You will play levels based on many of the famous scenes in the movie by far the most memorable part of the game for me was avoiding Filch and Mrs Norris in the forbidden section of the Library.

There are a few boss fights in the game but they are not that difficult as most of time just casting spells blindlessly will defeat them, the only boss I even had the slightest trouble with was the final boss and even he wasn’t that difficult.

The music is very memorable of the film which is a nice addition to the game, not all the music is from the movie but the original tracks are also very fun to listen too so its difficult to complain about

Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone for the PC is a decent title in the Harry Potter game franchise, this particular version is a lot of fun but it is way too short as it can be finished with just a few hours, the game also feels very bare as most scenes from the film are missing which really is a shame, on the bright side there is a level based on a section which was only in the book which is a nice touch, it has tight controls, fun music and ok game play.

Unfortunately as much as I enjoy this game it is not one of the best Harry Potter games I have ever played but it is a lot of fun for what it is so I am going to rate this game slightly better than an average score 5.5/10

I hope you enjoyed my review of Harry Potter and Philosophers Stone for the PC

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

Splatoon (Wii U) (2015) Review

May 30, 2015 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

Is Splatoon a brand new and innovative experience or is it just a game of paint ball?

When Splatoon first got announce at E3 last year the reaction from most Nintendo fans was firstly excitement for a brand IP and secondly fear due to the game being a First Person Shooter, personally I was ready to pre-order the game when I first saw it but I did worry that it would end having a generic FPS feel and not so much a Nintendo feel.

After almost a year of waiting Splatoon has now finally been released and I am ready to share my opinion with you all.

The first thing that shocked me about Splatoon is that before we even got any explanation of a plot we had to create a character by choosing gender, skin tone and eye colour.

I chose to play as the female inkling as I prefer her character design over the design of the Male inkling.

Once you’ve chosen your character and his/her features you are then taken to a short tutorial level which teaches you the main mechanics of the game.

Splatoon mostly focuses on multi-player game play in a mode called Turf Wars, in Turf Wars you will first need to pick your weapon, at first you will only have access too a weapon called the splat shot junior which is simply a standard machine gun but as you battle you will earn more money allowing you too go to shops in the main hub where you can buy new weapons and clothing.

Each weapon, shirt, hat and pair of shoes you buy each come with a perk which can help enhance your characters abilities during Turf Wars for example some items will give you a faster running speed, quicker re-spawn times, allow you to hold more ink and so on.

The different weapons are definitely the most interesting due to the various variety of weapons available and the different battling styles they offer, my favourite weapon at the moment is the 5.2 Gallon which is a more powerful version of the splat shot but it has a shorter range, another favourite weapon choice is the roller which is essentially just a giant paint roller that you can roll all over the map spreading Ink everywhere while also running over and taking out enemy players.

Each weapon also comes with a sub weapon, these sub weapons are only available after you spread enough Ink, some examples of these weapons are mines, sprinkler systems and giant Ink canons.

When you enter a match of Turf Wars you are put into a team of three other inklings and its your objective to cover more of the map with Ink than the other team before the timer stops.

When your not in Turf Wars there is still plenty to do in the main hub, one of the more interesting things is that if you speak to another player you can order their clothes and weapons from this guy in the alleyway called Spyke this is super cool as it appears that every players has a random assortment of clothing available in stores upon booting the game, the only downside to ordering it is that you need to wait 24 hours before the gear is available.

Other cool things are small arcade games that you can play if your bored or stuck in a lobby waiting for a game.

A local multi-player mode called Battle Dojo, in Battle Dojo you and a friend go against each other to see who can pop the most balloons before the end of the match, killing the other player will take away points from there score so this game can be a fun a little blood bath if you want it too be.

The Single Player Campaign has you working as an agent for a creepy old dude called Captain Cuttle Fish

and its your mission to rescue to Zap Fish from the evil Octarians, The Zap Fish provide all of the electricity in Inkopolis (the world of Splatoon).

The Single Player Campaign is great it has a lot of action when you are running around and blasting the Octarians but it also has a lot of puzzle and strategy elements as well.

Yes this is a shooter so you are going to have to use good aiming and strategy to take out enemies but certain parts of the levels will have the player needing to throw Ink Grenades to distract shielded enemies so that they become vulnerable to enough to hit and also the creativity of the stages also offers a wide variety of puzzles, some stages will have an invisible floor and invisible platforms which you will need to find by spraying your Ink in order to make the path clear, another example is that some stages have sponge platforms and if you shoot these platforms the sponge will absorb your ink and will expand this will help you reach higher platforms and some platforms that are further away.

The most iconic part of both multi-player and single player is the ability to turn your self into a squid, you can do this whenever you want and the ability has many advantages as well as disadvantages, if you turn into a squid you can hide underneath your own ink making you invisible to enemies and you can also swim through your own ink allowing you to move through out the levels and maps faster, turning into a squid is a very good strategy to use in both multi-player and single player.

The disadvantage is that you cant swim through enemy ink, you cant fire your weapons or grenades while you are a squid and if you walk on enemy ink you will get stuck making you slow down.

The final thing relating to gameplay I want to talk about is Amiibo Support, Splatoon has three Amiibo available Inkling Girl, Inkling Boy and (Limited) Inkling Squid.

If you find the amiibo section of the main hub and you scan your amiibo it will offer you additional challenges in the single player campaign, completing these challenges will offer you awards such as money and armour.

Graphically the game looks fantastic, I personally feel that it has a similar graphical style to the Jet Set Radio games , the game has had a lot of work put into it which was very much needed as the competition when it comes to FPS’s is the Call of Duty games which as much as I’m not a fan of that series I cant deny that it has an extremely large fan base which in reality is probably at this point bigger than the Nintendo fan base.

My favourite aspect of the look of the game is the shininess of the Ink, you can clearly see where the brightness of the sun is hitting the Ink while the Inklings are fighting and that small detail really helps make the game look and feel more realistic, another thing I really like is that some miiverse art that people make is occasionally painted on the walls as graffiti which is a great nod to fans and the best part is that these miiverse images are enhanced to look like actual graffiti instead it just looking like the developers have simply thrown it on the wall.

The games music is pretty fun to listen too it reminds me of a lot of rock/punk bands I would listen too when I was a kid, the music isn’t too memorable but the main theme song I honestly cant get out of my head.

The Splatoon Main Theme

I am pleased to announce that Splatoon surpassed my expectations and is in fact a fantastic game, it has very tight and easy to learn controls, fun and energetic on-line game play, the local is also pretty fun, I like the character customization that was thrown into the mix as it makes playing on-line have a reward system allowing you to spend money that you win on new weapons and clothing, the single player campaign is a lot of fun but its way to short and its a bit of a disappointment especially if you don’t happen to have internet access as you will getting a lot less out of the game.

Apart from that Splatoon is like Jet Set Radio meets Super Mario Sunshine an odd mix but the final result is absolutely brilliant.

9.2/10

(Guest Post) 6 Easiest Ways to Get More Followers on Instagram

May 26, 2015May 26, 2015 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

Instagram is at this time, the fastest, most fun and amazing way to share the beautiful and exciting things in life with family and friends, Instagram is used by both individuals as well as businesses to get seen by the world and get admired for what they are posting.

Making your place on Instagram might be easy but becoming popular or making yourself known on this social media platform is no easy task as everyone is trying to reach the top, having more and more followers to follow on Instagram might seem easy but in reality it is a very difficult task as only uploading good pictures or videos is not enough and there is a lot more that you will have to do in order to get more followers and enjoy success on this medium.

This article explains some of the easiest ways to get more followers on Instagram and share your posts with a larger audience:

Announce yourself to the world

Social media is all about creating a colourful and creative presence; the more creative and the most amazing presence you manage to create for yourself and the large number of followers you will able to attract.

Create your area of expertise or niche and keep on adding content to it as it will not only establish you as a serious user but also help to get more followers steadily over a period of time.

Connect with people who share similar tastes

Instagram brings hundreds and thousands of people together on one platform and many of them share the same likes and interests and thus it is very easy to get connected to people who share similar tastes.

Check out the people who have similar mind set and add posts accordingly to get more followers and enjoy more exposure on this social platform.

The Photos and People option is the best way to get started on this.

Start hashtag trends

Hashtags are based on popular trends which are a great way to get noticed and increase followers, there are already too many hashtags existing on Instagram and just adding to them will not serve any purpose, the need is for unique and creative hashtag trends that attract people and are relevant for the content that you are posting, this is one of the most effective means to increase your list of followers on Instagram.

Time your posts and content

Just posting content and being on Instagram does not serve any purpose, you need to time your posts and content the right way so that when you post anything it is noticed by people and attracts followers, you will have to ensure that you post a picture or a video regarding an event that has taken place recently as it will lose its worth with the passage of time and will eventually fail to interest followers.

It is very necessary to act smartly and time the posts and content for best results.

Connect with other social networks for better exposure

Reaching out to users with other social networks like Flickr, Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare is a very smart move as it will help to appear on those social networks when you make any new post or comment on Instagram, it will result in better attention as people will already know you and are more likely to follow you.

All you need to do to connect with other social networks is to go to the Linked Account settings via the settings page on Instagram and look for the best options to extend your network, there are all the available options to start working on your social networking.

Use Gain Followers to enjoy more followers

There are hundreds and thousands of applications and services that make tall claims and promises about getting you followers for Instagram, however not all of them can be trusted as they do not fulfill their promises, there are only a few approved and tested applications that can help to get more followers without any problem.

On these apps, the follows can be purchased through tokens or some other methods to earn the tokens.

Get your Instagram flowing with this great app available here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gain-followers-for-instagram/id928851838

Instagram has become a global platform where people from all over the world share their posts and making a place in this platform has become very simple with the help of some of the easiest ways.

Padawan here I did not write this article and I have no credit in it what so ever, please go and check out this app, this person was kind enough to contact me asking if they could post on the website, I really like the app myself and I can see it being very beneficial to many Instagram users.

I enjoy writing articles but I also enjoy helping out other bloggers who have great ideas and products that they want to advertise and share with the world.

If you have any questions, requests for reviews or if you want to just genuinely contact me you can do so at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

Little Nemo the Dream Master (1990) (NES) Review

May 16, 2015May 16, 2015 ragglefragglereviews1 Comment

“What do you dream, when you dream Little Nemo”

Little Nemo the Dream Master was a game created by Capcom for the Nintendo Entertainment System, the game itself was based on a series of comic strips titled Little Nemo in Slumberland which ran from 1905 to 1926.

The comic depicted a young boy called Nemo and the adventures he went on in his dreams, the comic strip was very creative and completely original at the time.

I find it odd that Capcom who were very high in the industry decided to make a video game based on a comic strip which at the time was over 85 years old, but still its Capcom we have to give them credit since they were responsible for some of the greatest games of that generation (MegaMan, Ducktales, Ghost and Goblins), So how did Capcom’s attempt to make a video game based on a very old comic strip turn out?

As you may have guessed the game takes place in Nemo’s dreams and within the fictional world of Slumberland, One night Nemo is visited by the royal messenger who tells him that the Princess of Slumberland has requested Nemo to be her playmate, Nemo isn’t fussed on the idea at first but after much persuasion he eventually agrees and is given a gift of candy, Nemo climbs aboard the Royal Messengers blimp and they both fly to Slumberland.

In the game you take the role of Little Nemo and its your objective to collect a set amount of keys to open the door at the end of each stage, the game is a platformer so expect to be doing a lot of jumping, unlike most platformers of the time this game a has a twist as Nemo will need to take the abilites of the animals around him to reach hard to reach places and too pass certain obstacles, you take these animals powers by throwing candy into their mouths until they fall asleep and once they are sleeping you simply jump onto that animal in order to have full access to their unique abilities.

You cant use the candy on all the creatures in the game but the vast majority of creatures do allow you too feed them the candy, depending on which creature you knock out will determine what new ability Nemo will gain, for example if you take the frogs ability Nemo will be able jump much higher than usual, taking the bee’s ability allows him to fly, taking the gorillas ability allows him punch things with brute strength and riding the lizard allows Nemo to walk up vertical platforms.

these are just a few of the many unique abilities available in the game.

When you finish a stage you are presented a small cut scene of Nemo waking up and his mother yelling at him to go back to bed, these cut scenes are very cute but they are also a very clever nod to the original works by Winsor McCay as the comic strips he wrote also ended in this manner.

This game is pretty adorable and it has a fairly innocent plot but be careful where you tread as this game is also very difficult, I personally find the game to have a similar feel to Ghosts and Goblins which is another very difficult platfomer made by Capcom for the NES, Little Nemo is not as difficult as Ghosts and Goblins but it definitely requires a lot more strategy due to having to constantly switch between the different animal abilities as well as needing to collect the keys before finishing each stage.

The game may be difficult but the level and character designs are wonderful, since the game takes place within Nemo’s dreams the levels are very imaginative, the first few levels are fairly basic with simple setting such as a forest and Nemo’s backyard but the later levels are very cool and creative some of my favourite stages include Nemo’s House which has the player controlling a pint size Nemo through his home while helping him avoid everyday objects such as dishes and cutlery but at a much larger scale.

My favourite stage is called the House of Toys this stage is an on rails platformer, Nemo is in a toy room and is riding a toy train, while riding the train Nemo will need to act fast to avoid enemy attacks and too collect the keys, the train is extremely well animated and the train noises are very impressive and to a point even quite realistic considering the restrictions of the NES and it honestly blows my mind every time I hear it.

From the opening cutscene to the end credits the games graphics are truly something to marvel, everything is extremely well animated, pixelation of the backgrounds, landscapes and general art style is smooth and nice to look at and the colours choices really suit the games innocent and charming atmosphere.

With this being a Capcom game as you might expect the music is absolutely superb, the music isn’t quite as fast and upbeat as the music you may hear in the Mega Man franchise nor is it quite as intense as the Music in the Ghost and Goblins or Demons Crest series, the music is very innocent and at times even quite relaxing and this suits the games atmosphere because before the final stage the game is not at all scary and Nemo isn’t not really threatened so the nice music is a good choice and when you do reach that final stage the music does change to a more darker and scarier tone, the music is very memorable and I often find myself humming it on a daily basis.

With such a difficult platformer you need good controls and luckily the controls are tight and very responsive, the controls them selves are very easy to learn, and the simple layout of the NES controller makes the games controls and general game play easy to grasp for any player.

Little Nemo the Dream Master was a risky choice for a video game due to the original works ending 64 years prior to the games release, the game is an innocent little platformer with difficult but fair game play, some of the best colour choices and level designs of any game for the NES and the music was a very smart choice from the developers due to its calm and friendly nature suiting the game perfectly.

Little Nemo the Dream Master is the type of game which quite literally a dream come true for many gamers due to it’s innocence, fantastic gameplay, and overall charm.

The game is perfect,not only is it a fantastic example of a hidden gem for the system but I would also argue that its one of the greatest games ever made.

10/10

Thank you for reading my review of Little Nemo the Dream Master for the NES

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

Also me and some friends have recently started playing games together so please check out our YouTube Channel Hoenn Rangers, I love Little Nemo and so do my friends so one day we may play the game on the show.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYmN8F6Q-eGOD0gp0anCdcQ