Mario Galaxy 2 (100% complete play-through) 10/10 I'll elaborate in a moment.
Mario Galaxy (Second Playthrough
Luigi run 8/10
Now originally, I'm sure I would have rated the first Mario Galaxy 10/10 because it was a phenomenal game, but after doing a straight 100% play-through of MG2 followed by immediately returning to MG1 to get 100%, it's clear that MG2 is the superior game. The overhaul of the world map is a much more welcome change when you actually go back and replay MG. It's not to say a free-roaming overword isn't a bad thing, because we've seen it can be done well, it just wasn't executed very well in MG and it has to due with the restraints of the Rosetta's odd star-ship.
The level designs and the goals, hell everything in MG2 just seem so much better/funner and surprisingly more polished than those of MG1. You can really tell the gang was pouring their heart into this one. Yeah, a lot of effort and heart was put into MG1 and making it the bet Wii game by the time it launched, but with MG2 you can just feel that the devs were having a blast throwing around ideas that they couldn't implement originally due to time restraints.
I wish I could glow about MG2's soundtrack, but honestly I didn't listen to it much while playing, so I couldn't distinguish it from the frst game's (which is great, albeit over-rated IMO) but overall, I definitely call MG2 the better game.
Also recently completed The Beatles Rock Band. It's hard to rate a game like this, but I'm going to try anyway.
Overall experience was probably an 7/10. The game isn't perfect, no game is. With a minimal set-list (obviously expanded by DLC which I don't really plan on purchasing) it did the best it could with the songs available, which were all great tracks, a lot of which I consider favorites of mine by the band. The gameplay was the same ol' same ol' at first, then we picked up a second mic to try our hand at harmonies, which while not technically adding much to the game, did add to the fun factor. By that I mean, the score's don't matter much but it was definitely fun to see "x2 FAB!" for the first time, but also - there were some pretty funny/hectic moments when say Yours Truly would take up backing vocals (and bass) and realize I wasn't the proper range for that song, and having to have my cousin switch mics quickly so I could take over lead vocals, because they were out of his range too.
In the end, while a short experience (the story mode that is) and an easy one, it was still enjoyable and totally worth the
$15 I spent on it
In other words, sooooo glad I didn't ever pay full price for this.
Next review:
Fragile Dreams ~Farewell Ruins of the Moon~
Here's a teaser: The controls are as wonky as people say, but so far they're not THAT bad. Also, while the voice acting has some rough spots, it's surprisingly good! The actors do a good job at conveying emotion and pulling you into their desolate setting, they just needed to work on some of those awkward pauses between words.. haha.