Tag: Review

Spider Man (2002) (PC,PS2,GC,XBOX) Review

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In the past four years of writing reviews for this website I haven’t really delved into the world of super heroes, we’ve all seen the movies but what about the video games that came after them?, I haven’t really played many super hero games but after Sam Raimi released the first Spider Man film I remember begging my parents to buy me the game that Christmas, I recently repurchased the game for nostalgia but was it as good as I remember?

spider-man-the-movie-pcThe first thing that stands out with this game is that it doesn’t have much in common with the movie at all, the first stage of the game actually takes place long after Peter is bitten by the spider as its his mission to track down Uncle Ben’s killer.

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The rest of the game has a unique story line, Spider Man ends up taking on all of sorts of super villains including The Shocker, The Vulture, Scorpion and Kraven the Hunter (Kraven is only in the XBOX version of the game), of course the Green Goblin is still the main antagonist in the game but apart from one level every time you fight him its different to the movie, even the final battle doesn’t take place where it does in the film, I personally really like that the game is so unique but some people may be a little put off by its differences.

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Spider Man is a general beat em up game and it consists of 24 stages, most of the game is boss fights which are all really fun, some stages require Spider Man to hide in the shadows and sneak about but most of time you will be beating up bad guys and trying to complete a goal to finish the stage, Peter doesn’t just fight with punches and kicks as he can also use different fighting techniques by using his web, there are a lot of moves you can unlock but for me the most useful was shooting my web at enemies while I was swinging through the air, other useful moves include tying up bad guys with your web, pulling enemies towards you by lassoing them with your web and creating an exploding shield around your body, you do have to be careful though as you can run out of web and it can only be topped up if you find a blue spider, you can also top up your health by finding red spiders and you can unlock new fighting moves by finding gold spiders.

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The biggest problem I have with this game is that when you are outside you cant land on the street otherwise you will die, its kinda annoying because in the movie Spider Man is able to walk about in the street so why cant he here, it doesn’t make any sense what so ever.

The game controls pretty well when you are stable or fighting, I found the controls to be tight and responsive but when I was swinging I had a lot of trouble trying to make Spider Man go in the direction I wanted him too go, he just kept bumping into the sides of buildings and due to the way the game is designed sometimes he would grab onto a building when I bumped into it, this slowed me down and was a particular pain on levels where I had to chase the villains.

Graphically for a game that came out in 2002 it looks fairly impressive, I was very surprised with how smooth the animation was when I was playing the game, for some reason the cut scenes look quite pixelated which really sucks considering how great the game play looks.

I don’t remember any music in this game at all which isn’t a good sign because that means that it blatantly wasn’t that good and I cant really comment on it because like I said none of it was memorable to me.

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Through out the game you will gain points depending on your performance, these points will unlock loads of really cool secrets, the best in my opinion is pin head bowling where you can team up with a friend and can swing into bad guys to get points, other unlockables include secret cut scenes, being able to change Spider Man’s model so you can play as Mary Jane, a Police Officer, Peter Parker etc, you can unlock the ability to play a Green Goblin campaign if you beat the game on the Hero or Super Hero difficulty, this campaign is almost exactly the same as the main game and I recommend skipping it.

Spider Man is a pretty fun licensed game, it’s not perfect by any means but it definitely stands out with its unique story and different game play styles, it’s really cheap to pick up these days and if you ever come across it I recommend picking it up especially if your a Spidey fan.

6/10

I hope you enjoyed this review of Spider Man the Video Game 2002

If you respect my opinion, I will respect yours

you can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

 

 

Death Note Anime Review

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Death Note

I have reviewed many anime films on this website but have never gone over a show before, I suppose I have to start somewhere and what’s a better show to start with than the mind bending sadistic show that is Death Note !

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This is Light Yagami an intelligent high school graduate and natural genius, Light is the first human in the anime to find one of the famous note books known as a Death Note, a Death Note is a notebook owned by a Shinigami (God of Death) and if a human beings name is written in the Death Note that human being will die of a heart attack after 40 seconds, the author of the Death Note can choose the method of death if they write that in the Death Note within 30 seconds of writing the victims name, another rule is that they can only kill a victim with the Death Note if they know the face of the person they are killing the reason for this rule is that there may be many people who share the same first and last name

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Ryuk is the Shinigami that dropped the Death Note into the human realm, he did this for his own entertainment and he enjoys watching Light use the Death Note.

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Light originally uses the Death Note to kill criminals, his father is the chief of police and because of this he has been brought up with a strong sense of justice, unfortunately for Light his mysterious murders start a serious police investigation that is led by his father, he also gains a lot of support from followers who think of Light as a god and these followers refer to him as Kira which is the Japanese pronunciation of the word Killer, the police hire a private detective who is known as L, L suspects Light of being Kira and he sends people to investigate him this makes Light begin his journey towards madness and he begins to use the Death Note to kill anyone who gets in his way making him a very dangerous serial killer.

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Later on into the anime Light actually joins the investigation team that is investigating him, the show gets really intense the further you get through it and its really cool to see just how psychotic Light becomes when his evil persona begins to take over his life.

Without giving away too many spoilers that’s about all I can say about Death note, it is one of the most unique anime I have ever seen, the animation is amazing for 2007, it uses a great blend of shadow and light effects to help emphasize the dark nature of the show as well as to give the art a more realistic style, I thought the voice acting on the English dub was very well done its not often that you can notice the amount of love and effort that was put into every characters personality and style of voice, I cant say much about the music in the show, none of it was that memorable and I didn’t even enjoy the theme song that much.

Death Note is a very popular anime and it has reason to be, I don’t think it could be recommended for everyone due to how dark the premise is but if you like dark anime then you should give this one a shot.

They did release two specials after the show ended the first was Death Note Rewrite Visions of a God and the second was Death Note Rewrite 2 L’s Successors, apart from the first 10 minutes both of these are just a compilation of clips from the show and I recommend skipping them

I hope you enjoyed this review of Death Note

You can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com
You can find me on miiverse by searching for draskafer

My opinion of the Disney live action remakes

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Why do directors feel the need to remake movies that have no reason to be remade?

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Unfortunately this seems to be the the problem with the Walt Disney Classics collection, the first of the classics to be remade was 101 Dalmatians in 1996, the movie was met with massive success at the box office and it has since become one of the most beloved Disney films among fans, the main reasons that the 101 Dalmatians remake is so beloved is because not only did it correctly follow the source material but it also added new twists to the story, one of biggest differences is that the animals don’t talk, not only that but the casting was fantastic Cruella De vil was played by Glen Close and they could not have picked a better actress for the job, she manages to be threatening but still hilarious and over the top just like the original, the rest of the cast are great too but none are more memorable than Hugh Laurie and Mark Williams who played Jasper and Horace they are hilarious and by far the best part of the movie.

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With the massive success of 101 Dalmatians we couldn’t wait for the future Disney remakes and so when Tim Burton announced that he was remaking Alice in Wonderland it created a lot of hype, and with an all star cast including Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter how could it possibly go wrong?

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Well we didn’t exactly get the dark Alice in Wonderland remake we expected and instead we got this horrible excuse for a movie, it wasn’t sure if it was remake, a sequel or a retelling of the original story, it wasn’t weird enough and it kept trying to bring logic into what is supposed to be a world filled with nonsense and it was just awful, critics panned this movie for its bad casting, terrible CGI and lackluster story telling, unfortunately the movie was still successful which was probably due to it having Disney’s name to it and because of this not only is there going to be a sequel but other directors saw the movies success and started to remake all of the other Disney movies.

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The next three movies to be released were Maleficent, Cinderella and most recently The Jungle Book, out of all three of the movies the only one I was really excited about was Maleficent because it was advertised as the story about how Maleficent became evil and I thought that would be the main focus of the movie but instead it was just a really bad retelling of Sleeping Beauty, it added some good aspects to the story by giving Maleficent a more understandable reason as to why she is bad as well as giving her a backstory, but apart from this most of the acting wasn’t very good, the film was pretty boring and the only part of the movie I really enjoyed was Angelina Jolies performance as Maleficent, Cinderella which is by far the weakest of the remakes was pretty much the exact same film but remade with less likable characters with the exception of the prince who gets more screen time than he does in the original and as much as I don’t like the new evil step mother compared to the original I have to give the remake credit for giving her a reason to dislike Cinderella, for the most part I  enjoyed the Jungle Book remake, I thought it was clever with the way it expanded the story of the original film while also sharing more similarities to the book, I hated the little boy who played Mowgli as I found him to be extremely annoying and honestly it didn’t feel like he was the right casting choice to play Mowgli in my opinion, the CGI was great and the animation flowed smoothly and worked well with the characters and the movies environments, the only thing I really disliked was the casting not only did I hate the little boy who played Mowgli but I also hated almost every voice actor in the film as I just didn’t feel that they were the correct choices to voice those characters but most of this hate goes towards Bill Murray as Baloo and Christopher Walken as King Louie, I think they shouldn’t have made the animals talk at all, it worked in 101 Dalmatians favor so I don’t see why it couldn’t have worked for The Jungle Book as well, with all that said and done I do feel that people should go and see The Jungle Book as it honestly is a pretty good movie despite some of my more negative opinions of it.

So as you’ve probably already guessed, I’m not a big fan of the Disney remakes, I have nothing against some of these movies getting remade or retold if the more modern versions follow the source material and at least try to capture what the originals did, some Disney movies in my opinion don’t need to be remade at all due to their not being much wrong with the original a great example would be Beauty and the Beast which is soon to be remade, if Disney want’s to remake some of their old movies then I think they should try to focus on the older classics that could use updating such as Snow White, Pinocchio or Bambi otherwise I just think that beloved movies should be left alone to be loved and not remade for modern audiences and as a quick cash grab.

Thank you for reading this article about my personal opinion on Disney remaking their movies, please remember that this is purely my opinion and if you disagree that’s fine.

You can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com
You can find me on miiverse by searching for draskafer

 

Titanic the legend goes on (2000) Review

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ITS PARTY TIME, ITS PARTY TIME !!!

Ummm spoilers if you actually care

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You know sometimes directors will make movies based on real life historical events?

and sometimes those movies will have some small changes compared to the real event just so that it translates better to a movie?

well in 2000 an Italian film director called Camillo Teti decided to tackle the horrific sinking of the Titanic by making it an animated children’s movie starring talking animals and a rapping dog.

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The plot is fairly similar to the James Cameron movie that came out a few years prior to this, a girl who is supposed to marry some total douche goes on board the Titanic and meets a poor man who she falls in love with,the boat hits an ice berg and she eventually loses her new love to the icy waters after the Titanic sinks, the only difference here is that no one dies and there a sub plot regarding a detective finding a jewel thief.

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The animation is terrible, first of all the entire film uses these horribly dull colors meaning that nothing is really able to stand out, another problem is the frame rate is just awful, a lot of the time it looks like someone is flicking through a flip book and sometimes the animators don’t bother to animate things at all this is especially more noticeable in the background scenery, clouds wont move and sometimes background characters will remain still, this lack of flowing animation makes the movie feel less realistic than it already is.

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This is a musical and honestly the songs are not that bad, they don’t need to be in the film and do nothing to help the plot but they aren’t really annoying in any way and one song in particular is actually pretty catchy and yes I am talking about the rapping dog.

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The voice acting is really bad, just like Anastasia it just feels like no one wanted to be in this movie, every character sounds so bored and uninterested and I cant think of a single character in the entire movie that I enjoyed listening too, some times the English dub of the film comes across as really broken, some sentences get cut short due to editing issues, some of the characters are hard to understand and some of the dialogue is just genuinely bad.

People really hate this film and its not just because its bad, the biggest problem with this movie is that the director tried to make a light hearted children’s musical out a of major disaster which only happened just over 100 years ago.

To no ones surprise this is a bad film but I think everyone should watch this at least once because just like food fight its hilariously terrible especially if your drunk.

I hope you enjoyed this review of Titanic: The Legend Goes On

You can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com
You can find me on miiverse by searching for draskafer

 

Book Review: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol

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Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is one of the most famous books of all time and its also one of my personal favorites, please follow me down the rabbit hole as I review this masterpiece of classic English literature.

So if you dont already know the book follows the adventures of a curious young girl called Alice through a magical world of weird and unusual things.

Alice is a very mature person but she is also very naive and she has unrealistic views on how the world should work.

One day she is sitting on the bank with her sister who is reading a very boring book with no pictures, Alice complains about this and talks about how in her perfect world books would be nothing but pictures, she ends up seeing a white rabbit in a waist coat run past the bank, this makes Alice curious and so she follows the rabbit down a rabbit hole and into the unusual world of Wonderland.

Without giving away any spoilers I will say that the novel is very different to the Walt Disney version of Alice in Wonderland, where the Disney film is very light hearted and comical, the book has a bit more of a darker tone and it also tackles a lot of adult themes including Puberty (Even though its written as a metaphor, its still obvious what the book is trying to portray)

I’m not saying that the book isn’t kid friendly but I would say that you may want to read this one with your child.

There are a lot of new characters in this book that you wont recognize from the film, the most memorable for me are the Mock Turtle and Gryphon.

Alice is a lot more bearable in the book as she is more independent and she is able to think for herself almost all of the time.

This is a fantastic book and overall I think it spreads a good message, that there does come a time to grow up and that life wont always go as we plan, the book is great way of showing people that living in a world with no rules and no consequences can be just as bad if not worse than living in a world that does have rules and consequences that follow.

Whether you like the film or not, I think everyone should read this book at least once, I have read the book multiple times and I’m not planning to stop any time soon.

Perhaps one day I will get around to reviewing the movie or better yet maybe even the second book.

I hope you enjoyed this Book Review of Alices Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol

If you respect my opinion, I will respect yours

you can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

 

Lets Take a Look at Miimoto

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So you may be aware that Nintendo recently announced a new line of apps they are creating for smart phones and tablets, this is in my knowledge the second app they have officially released with the first being the rather popular Pokemon Shuffle.

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After Pokemon Shuffle’s wide success Nintendo started to advertise a new game called Miimoto which allows players to create a Mii and to keep them inside of their phones or tablets.

Everyone was skeptical of this because Nintendo also admitted that a big portion of the game would need players to buy items with real money, this is very similar to the many online game scams out there such as Habbo Hotel and Club Penguin which are free to sign up for but everything else will cost money.

Miimoto got released today and i decided to download it to see what it is all about.

Please keep note that only some of these images are of my mii, this is because I forgot to take screenshots during the setup of the app.

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The first thing you will need to do is sign in with either your Nintendo ID, Facebook, Google Plus or just via the Nintendo Website, then you will need to create a mii for the app, my first complaint is that I couldn’t transfer a copy of my mii from my Wii U to my phone and instead had to start from scratch, this is something I hope they fix in the future

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After you have your mii you can either answer questions about yourself to go into polls for example I got asked my favorite food and how I deal with stress, you can buy some clothes for your mii, if you sign up today you get a free Mario hat, you can take photos of your mii which you can then send to friends over social media, email or snapchat, you can add friends either using social media or by scanning that friends QR code other wise they need to be sat right next to you and you can play some mini games to help you earn some free coins for shopping as well as some other goodies.

This is the games menu which is used for selecting multiple options

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From here you can view your profile, change clothes, change the way your mii looks, search through multiple greetings, take pictures of your mii and you can also store pictures in a gallery, complete some rather boring Nintendo Missions (Add friends for 100 points, create mii for 50 points etc) you can create a QR code which you can use to send your mii to multiple accounts and devices, look for gifts from friends or Nintendo, and change the apps settings.

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When taking a photo you can pose your mii in different positions and you can even change the images background.

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Finally what is by far my favorite feature of the app is that your mii can talk to you and they even have a voice which you can customize .

Pros

  • Free to download
  • Fun photo feature
  • Lots of choice for mii creation
  • Minigames are quite fun

Cons

  • Not much to do
  • Not enough freedom of choice
  • Adding friends is difficult
  • Your character seems to be stuck in the room and cant seem to leave at all
  • In game items are not cheap

At the end of the day Miimoto is an ok experience but it needs a lot of work, the biggest issue with the game is that you will get bored quickly due to the lack of things to do.

There are a few things I would do to fix some issues, first of all we need to be able to leave the building so that we can communicate with other mii’s, this could also be a new way to add friends, the shop needs work because at the moment you can only buy fashion items and very few furniture, instead of charging us to play mini-games how about we get one free game a day because at least then we would have more of a motive to boot up the app, giving us free rewards for registering Wii U/3DS games, finally Nintendo you need to add this to the E-shop there is no excuse and it would be much easier to play this on the game pad while looking at the game on the TV.

I know I haven’t been very positive regarding the app but please keep in mind that this is only day one of the apps release, yes it’s true that Nintendo should have given us more things to do before the app was released but that doesn’t mean that things wont get better in the future and when they do I will update this article.

If you would like to add my mii to your miimoto here is my QR Code

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I hope you enjoyed my look at Miimoto

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

 

 

Rayman 2: The Great Escape (PS1, PS2, N64, 3DS, Dreamcast, PC) (1999) Review

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Rayman_2

After the massive success of Mario, Sonic and the Legend of Zelda making it big in the world of 3D gaming it was of no surprise that the rising video game star Rayman would soon be joining them and the result was one of the most beloved games of all time Rayman 2.

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Every resident of the Glade of Dreams including Rayman has been captured by an army of robotic pirates led by Admiral Razorbeard, the reason behind doing this isn’t explained very well and my only guess is that they are only doing this because they want slaves.

Rayman manages to escape the Prison Ship and returns to the Glade of Dreams, here he finds out that the pirates have destroyed the heart of the world causing Rayman to lose his powers,luckily a new fairy called Ly is on hand to help rayman regain his powers while he is on his quest to rescue all the slaves from their kidnappers.

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Similar to its predecessor Rayman 2 is an action platformer and the only major difference here is that this game is 3D and apart from that everything else is essentially the same, Rayman can run, jump, hover and grab and swing from pink rings, throughout the game you will sometimes run into Ly the fairy and when you do she will either give you a new power or she will enhance  power you already have making it more powerful and useful for example you can get a hover expansion which allows Rayman to fly in certain areas.

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The main objective of the game is that Rayman needs to find and collect four ancient masks in order to awaken the god Polokus, once awakened Polokus can help Rayman by destroying all of the Pirates who remain in the Glade of Dreams while Rayman returns to the prison ship to take on Razorbeard.

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There are still some fetch quests for Rayman this time around but luckily they are not required, one of the objectives is to find and collect all 1000 yellow lums (800 in the PS1 version) these yellow lums make up the heart of the world that was destroyed by the pirates, they are spread all over the glade of dreams and collecting them all gives bonuses in certain versions of the game in the PS1 version you will unlock the beta level of the original Rayman 2 before the game was made into 3D and in the pS2 and PC ports  you will unlock a minigame for each level that you collect all of the yellow lums, the PS2 and PC version also allow the player to purchase new upgrades and abilities using the lums you have collected.

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Another collectible in the game are the familiar spirits, these creatures have been locked in cages all over the land, Rayman can free these spirits in a similar manner to first game by simply punching the cages, in the PC and PS2 port if Rayman brings these spirits to Ly the fairy he can take part in different minigames that he can try to beat in order to gain a health expansion.

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In most versions of the game Rayman will travel throughout the Glade of Dreams via the Hall of Doors a magical portal to each stage in the game.

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The PC and PS2 ports of the game scrap the Hall of Doors for an open world environment that Rayman can use to access all of the stages while also using the hub world for access to new content such as the shop and Ly’s minigames.

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I have played a lot of 3D platformer’s in my time and out of all them this one has the best control and the smoothest frame rate, this was a big surprise to me because Rayman has so many abilities that it should make some of the games main mechanics quite difficult but instead everything is perfect and it feels great, this came out on the same systems as Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot but it feels better than some of the more modern Mario Games and that is just mind blowing.

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The visuals in Rayman 2 are obviously going to be very different to the original game due to the leap into 3D, I like the visuals here but it’s hard to love them after playing the first game where its visuals were absolutely outstanding, the new look and style brought to Rayman 2 is nothing more than just ok and don’t get me wrong they are not by any means bad graphics, for the time they were up to par with the systems it had to work with, its just nothing about them is really unique or memorable which is more of a disappointment than an actual problem.

The soundtrack unfortunately has the same problem but in my opinion its worse, no music in this game made me sing along or made me feel any emotion, I’m sure there are people out there that love the soundtrack presented here but for me it was nothing more than generic and uninteresting.

Rayman 2 is a really good game but its not quite as unique as the original and that’s not really a bad thing especially considering that they are completely different experiences, the story is interesting, all characters are likable, it controls great and the only real disappointment were the visuals and soundtrack and even then that’s just a personal preference.

In my opinion I wouldn’t say that Rayman 2 is quite as good as the original game but I would recommend it out of the 2 of them its still a great game and the lack of needed fetch quests does make it a lot less stressful. 7.3/10

I hope you enjoyed this review of Rayman 2: The Great Escape

If you respect my opinion, I will respect yours

you can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

 

 

BRUU The Gourmet Tea Club 2016: January Box

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DSC_0085Another month passes by and we are soon into the new year, a new month also means a new box of BRUU which is nice because I somehow managed to misplace my last box, thankfully my new box has arrived and so I can finally enjoy fantastic Tea once again.

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We got another letter which I think we will get in every box, this months letter spoke about the new year and how you can now enjoy a new Teatox range and yes that is a pun for detox its essentially a new line tea for people who are looking lose weight or commit to regular fitness, I wouldn’t mind trying a sample of this myself as I may have over indulged myself a tiny bit over the holidays, they also mention the shortbread company Walkers and no its not the same as the crisp company, Walkers were kind enough to supply us with some short bread biscuits which are the perfect treat for a Tea box as Tea and biscuits go hand in hand, we were also supplied with some Sutton seeds (A type of flower) unfortunately I wont be planting these as I have a naughty dog who will happily destroy them, I have however made sure to donate them to my mother who loves gardening so they haven’t gone to waste.

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Now to the most important part the Tea

Japanese Cherry Green

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This is a Tea inspired by an ancient Japanese tradition called Hanami where people would sit underneath cherry blossom trees and would appreciate the beauty of the blossoms, looking at various types of flowers was also a smaller part of the tradition and it makes me wonder if the inclusion of the Sutton Seeds was in reference to this, it was a really interesting blend because it doesn’t use too many ingredients but it has a really good taste, I found that it tasted like ordinary green tea at first but once I swallowed a mouthful it left a taste of cherries and overall it was a very nice blend of Green Tea.

Turkish Delights
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This blend uses a traditional Chinese oolong tea leaf, The first thing you will notice is its very sweet and fruity smell, it reminded me of the Turkish delight candy but I’m not sure if that was the idea and if it was then BRUU deserve some serious brownie points, I didn’t find that it tasted of Turkish Delight but I did really enjoy the flavors that were there, to me it tasted slightly sweet and reminded me of a weak green tea but its a really good tasting weak green tea if that makes any sense.

Rukeri Rwandan Black

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This is a really basic blend of two types of leaves Rwandan Black Tea and Orange Pekoe, on the letter in the box it states that this blend can be spicy, I didn’t find it to be spicy at all but I did find that it tasted quite strongly of Orange Peel which a lot of people will tell you is not a very nice taste but here it seems to fit the Tea really well because it for some reason tasted really good and that’s just another example of the talent that goes into making these unusual Tea’s

Overall this was a very good box, I would say that I prefered this over the last box as it packs a little more flavor but so far all the boxes I have received have been great.

Lets see what February brings

If you would like to join Bruu, you can do so by clicking the link below

http://bruutea.co.uk/

You can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

Rayman (1995) (Atari Jaguar, Sega Saturn, PS1, GBA, PC) Review

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The recent Rayman games Origins and Legends have gotten a lot of praise since they have been released and they are very popular among both old and new fans of the series, I recently ordered a copy of Rayman 2 and I’m still waiting on that to arrive and while I am waiting I figured it would be a good idea to revisit the original game and too see if it still holds up today.

 

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Rayman has a fairly simple plot, Mr Dark steals a ball of energy called the Great Protoon, due to the Great Protoon being taken away smaller balls of energy called the Electoons are scattered across the land and are stuffed into cages by Mr Dark’s minions, a local magician calls upon Rayman to find and rescue all of the Electoons and to defeat Mr Dark returning the Great Protoon back to its resting place.

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Rayman is an action/adventure platformer with a twist, your job is not too simply get to the end of each stage but too also find and rescue six Electoons in every level.

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This may seem like a farily easy task but I guarantee that this will be one of the most difficult games you have ever played, Rayman has no mercy not only are the majority of the cages hidden in ridiculous locations but most of them require you to find small sparks in order to make the cages appear and these sparks are very easy to miss due to their small size, for example one stage requires the player to jump off a cliff to a cloud below, they then need to crawl under a small spike covered roof and then fight a rock troll only to be brought to a dead end, the player will need to walk to the left wall and look up they will then see the spark which they must jump up to grab, they now need to back track to the top of the cliff where the cage will be waiting.

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Not only is getting the cages difficult but the general game play will also provide quite a challenge, the world that surrounds Rayman may seem innocent but almost everything is out to kill you, Mr Dark’s Minions are not too dangerous as most of the time they can be taken out with a couple of punches, the biggest threat is the environment I tended to be killed the most by pitfalls and spikes as this is a very difficult platformer which requires precise jumps and good reflexes in order for you too survive.

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But fear not as a fairy called Betilla will help Rayman through out his quest by occasionally giving him new powers.

  • Telescopic fist: This ability allows Rayman to attack his enemies by literally throwing his fist.
  • Hanging: This ability allows Rayman to hang off of ledges, this is very useful for helping rayman reach far platforms as well as avoiding enemy attacks
  • Grappling Fist: This ability allows Rayman to swing from these floating pink and red rings, some sections of the game require this ability to complete
  • Helicopter: This ability allows Rayman to hover temporarily
  • Running: This ability allows Rayman to sprint

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Rayman does have its fair share of Boss fights, all of these battles are very creative and each is unique in how it attacks and how it can be defeated, my favorite battle is against the Mosquito in world 1.

With a game as difficult as this tight and responsive controls are extremely important, luckily Rayman’s controls are perfect, the game runs smoothly with responsive controls so if you die it will always be your fault no matter how difficult the game gets.

Graphically the game looks outstanding, the game goes for a cartoon style look and it really pays off, it suits the silly atmosphere of the game perfectly some of the finer details really help the game feel more realistic than it needs too which is a nice touch, while playing you will notice plants blowing in the wind and when Rayman steps on a light platform you can see the effect that his weight has on those platforms, these days such small details may not seem too special but for a game that came out over 20 years ago this is very impressive.

Even more impressive is the games soundtrack, this is in my opinion the best part of the game and its definitely what I look forward too the most when I play, you can sense the amount of love that went into every track in the game, almost every world uses a different music style to help fit the atmosphere from the charming and happy music of the first world all the way to the rock and roll soundtrack that accompanies the final boss all of it is amazing.

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The original Rayman is one of the greatest games ever made, sure its hard and it can be a real pain in the butt especially when it comes to collecting all of the cages, but with all that aside you still have a fantastic platformer and if collecting the cages is putting you off playing the game then I recommend you use the cheat to unlock em all because honestly that’s what I usually do as I hate collecting the cages and some of them are just too hard to find which is the games only real flaw.

Different Versions of the game obviously do have some big differences due to console restrictions but if you want to play the game in all its glory I recommend either you pick it up on PS1, PSN or PC, some of the handheld versions of the game are very restrictive but the best version in opinion is the GBA port (Rayman Advance), its lacking in the awesome soundtrack, and a few levels are completely missing but apart from that everything is essentially the same and I recommend picking it up as its quite cheap.

Rayman still holds up today and is still mostly a fantastic game the only problem is how cryptic getting some of the cages can be, other than that this is a game I highly recommend

8.6/10

I hope you enjoyed this review of Rayman

If you respect my opinion, I will respect yours

you can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

 

 

Sonic Heroes (2003) (GC, PC, PS2, XBOX) Review

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Happy New Year and to kick of 2016 we are going to be looking at another controversial 3D Sonic game

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Sonic Heroes released in 2003 and was Sega and Sonic Teams attempt at making a next generation Sonic game that uses Team based mechanics, just like Shadow the Hedgehog this game also has a reputation of either being a piece of crap or a pretty fun experience.

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Sonic Heroes is split into four main campaigns Team Sonic, Team Rose, Team Dark and Team Chaotix, each of these teams have unique story and for the most part a different objective which ties into the games main plot.

Team Sonic receive a threat from Dr Robotnik about some new scheme he is creating and so Sonic, Tails and Knuckles run off to find and defeat Robotnik.

Team Rose are on the hunt for Big the Cat’s Missing Frog and Cream the Rabbit’s Chao Chocola.

Team Chaotix work for a detective agency and they hunt down a new client who offers them a lot of money if they rescue them from where they are being kept prisoner.

Team Darks story begins with Rouge the Bat searching for a hidden treasure when she accidentally comes across Shadow the Hedgehog and Omega (a security bot built by Robotnik),  Omega is angry because Robotnik locked him away for so long and Shadow has forgotten everything about himself and his past, all three of them seek out Robotnik for revenge and answers to why Omega and Shadow were locked away.

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How you play the game is that you control three characters for each team one Speed Character, one Power Character and one Flight Character, In teams Sonic, Dark and Rose you will need to use all three characters to pass obstacles and defeat enemies while trying to get to the goal ring as fast as possible.

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Team Chaotix are personally my favorite team to play as they are the only team that offer new gameplay, while playing as Team Chaotix you will need to play through all the same stages as the other teams but each with a new objective for example in one stage you need to find and rescue a lot of Chao and in another you need to find and blow out a bunch of flames that are hidden through out the level.

A big problem with beating the game with all four teams is that you will literally be playing through the same stages over and over again, yes each team does use slightly different paths but most of the time its the exact same stage and its gets really boring and repetitive, this is why I enjoy Team Chaotix the most they offer a more unique gameplay and its a nice break from the action style gameplay of the other teams.

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While playing through each stage you will find small golden keys that you will lose if you take damage, these keys are very important because if you manage to survive a stage with a key you will be sent to a bonus level which will either allow you to earn lives or you can try and catch one of the seven Chaos Emeralds.

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The controls are some of the worst I have ever used in a Sonic game, the characters move way too fast which often causes players to hit unforeseen enemies, some areas in the game require rail grinding and these controls make these sections a lot more difficult than they need to be, far too often did I try to quickly switch rails and the game decided to fling me far into the distance making me fall to my death, the awful controls make the special stages almost impossible to play which is extremely annoying because you need to play these to get the Chaos Emeralds and just getting to the special stages isn’t that easy of task to complete in the first place.

Glitches are not uncommon in this game so be wary if you ever to pick this one up, my advice is to mostly use the power characters as they are strong enough to take out a lot of enemies as well as moving at a reasonable pace, flying characters are by far the most useful this is due to a glitch allowing you too quickly build up your Team Blast bar by quickly throwing  your team mates using the flying character, the speed characters move far too quickly and I recommend you never play as the speed characters unless you get to section where they are needed.

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Team Blasts are a new type of special attack where all three characters in your team will work together to destroy every enemy on screen.

The music in the game isn’t really anything special, I love the vocal tracks but the level themes are just basic and not very catchy which is a shame because for me the music is what I look forward to the most when I play Sonic games and especially when I play the 3D games as they have a reputation of not being some of the best games out there.

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The visuals are amazing in this game, Sonic Heroes looks like one of the old 2D sonic games brought into the 3D world, the level designs are perfect rail sections are only implemented when they need to be, surprisingly their isn’t too many loops, every area is unique and offers a new gameplay style for example in the jungle levels you will find frogs that can make platforms appear and disappear and the Casino levels offer pinball and bingo sections to help you earn a whole load of rings to help you on your adventure and its not too often that you will die due to bad game design.

 

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The game has three types of Boss battles within the four campaigns you will either fight Dr Robotnik in one of his aircraft’s, another Team you meet while on your adventure or a barrage of Robotniks robots, for the aircraft’s just use the speed character because you can glitch the game by spamming homing attacks on the boss killing it almost instantly and for the other two I recommend a fully powered flight character as you hover in the air avoiding enemy attacks and due to the flight character being very over powered by using this character you will beat the level very quickly.

If you collect all seven Chaos Emeralds and manage to beat each Team’s campaign you will unlock Final Story which is the games real final boss and its eventual conclusion.

I wont go into too much detail here due to spoilers but I will say that this boss is a blast to fight, if 3D sonic games have one good thing about them it is almost always the final boss, the real enemy of the game is not Dr Robotnik but is a returning villain from past Sonic games that long time fans will surely enjoy fighting once again.

In conclusion Sonic Heroes is a really fun game with a lot of really big problems, it looks amazing but it plays and feels horrible, the soundtrack is not very interesting and the whole game feels rather repetitive, its not quite as bad as Shadow the Hedgehog but that doesn’t mean it’s a good experience.

Sonic Heroes is ok at best, its a shame because if all of these issues didn’t exist it would of been a classic 4.0/10

I still want a sequel though, come on Sonic Team its been almost 13 years and we want a Sonic Heroes 2 just make this one not so broken please.

I hope you enjoyed this review of  Sonic Heroes

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