Throwing Eggs: Yoshi's New Island Review

One for Nintendo and especially Mario fans this week as we take a look at Yoshi’s New Island for the 3DS. While this is not the first outing for the plumber’s dinosaur partner in recent years, it is for this particular series of games. If you’re not familiar with the Yoshi’s Island series, the original popped up on the SNES console back in the early 90s. 

The premise for the newest arrival to the series is the same: you control Yoshi and have to get baby Mario to the goal of each level, gradually progressing through worlds until you reach the final boss battle.

Like previous games, this is a side-scrolling adventure, harking back to the 2D hay day of the 16-bit SNES. But the game can be viewed in 3D, with Yoshi, enemies and objects jumping off the screen against the background. 

Game play wise it is not very hard. It does become a bit more of a challenge in later stages, but usually a couple of tries is enough to get through most levels. The controls are pretty straight forward as well so it’s a good family game for people of all ages. Even if you do speed through the levels, there are a lot of items to collect which you will never find on the first run. This gives a lot of replay value if you’re bothered about getting 100 per cent completion. 

The only thing that really annoyed me after a while was the music. There is very little variation, with the soundtrack to most levels sounding almost - if not - the same. There could have been a few more tunes recorded for a game with so many stages. 

Yoshi’s New Island gets 7/10.

From Up on Poppy Hill Review

From Up on Poppy Hill is a 2011 Japanese anime produced by the world famous Studio Ghibli. Chances are you will probably have seen films produced by the movie studio without realising it even if you are not an anime fan (thinks Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, Ponyo).

I’m not a big anime fan myself but like previous movies by the studio, From Up on Poppy Hill has a way of connecting with audiences the world over despite cultural differences. The movie is set in the Pork of Yokohama, in 1960s Japan and tells the story of the blossoming romance between 16-year-old Umi and classmate, Shun.

The story is very gentle and is a departure from previous works by Studio Ghibli which all include some form of magic, spirits or monsters. From Up on Poppy Hill features none of this magic that made the studio famous, opting to tell a simple love story instead. While a little slow in places the film is visually stunning. It’s drawn in the same colourful and detailed style as its predecessors and is a treat to the eye. In an age where most cartoon films are drawn entirely on computer, the artists at Studio Ghibli have shown they can still surpass this with a traditional, entirely hand-drawn movie.

Also rather uniquely to a Studio Ghibli film From Up on Poppy Hill has some musical numbers thrown into the mix as well. I was not keen on this myself but then I am not a big fan of musicals anyway, but it is nice to see the studio try new things.

I give it 6/10.

Pacific Rim Movie Review

So I saw Pacific Rim at the cinema and thought I’d check in to leave my thoughts on the film.

So let’s get to it. If you haven’t seen the movie or watched the trailers you should still be able to guess what it’s about just by looking at the poster outside the cinema. Unless you’re blind. Huge robots’ fighting giant monsters is pretty self-explanatory.

In the near future a dimensional tear appears in Pacific Ocean. Giant monsters start to pour through and, being angry at mankind for no apparent reason like all monsters are, they start to destroy cities. The world’s answer to this is to build giant robots to kill them. Yes, that old chestnut.

The premise is quite silly but once you get over that this is quite a fun movie. The graphics are very impressive and the fight scenes are nothing short of epic.

One of the only problems with Pacific Rim is that at times it tries to take itself too seriously. Which, considering what it’s about, is impossible to do. I ended up not caring about any of the characters, nor did I learn any of their names. The filmmakers try to ram a lot of sad back stories down your throat in the first hour and it just doesn’t work, simply because you’re counting down the minutes to the next robot-monster smack-down. Which let’s be honest, that’s the only reason why anyone would want to watch this film. Also, the characters are either clique stereotypes or have no personality whatsoever. 

Names? You want names. Erm…you’ll find none here. 

Also the film has some strange bits that not everyone will notice when watching it the first time round. For example, at the start of the film, the leader of the robot defence program is told that the plug is being pulled. He gets told that the governments of the globe will only continue to fund the robots for another eight months.

Why eight months? Are they already four months into the new financial year or something? This isn’t explained. It just seems like such a random number. 

Also, the reason the robot program is wound-up is because the governments are building giant coastal walls to keep the monsters out. But these aren’t finished yet. Why would they retire their only line of defence before the new one was finished? And there are a few others which I won’t go into here or else I’d spoil it. 

If you like Godzilla movies (except that awful 1998 Hollywood version) and rock-em-sock-em-robots, you’ll enjoy this.