Two Worlds, One Flop, and an Ageless Italian
By Thomas Hodgson

Two Worlds, for the Xbox 360, has everything one could hope for in a multiplayer role-playing game: expansive free roam environments on a next-generation console, an easy to use combat system, and plentiful side quests. The game was hyped and offered a lot of promise but something too good to be true always is. The game belly flopped like the fat kid at your condo pool, falling further than The Postman and harder on its face than J. Lo’s Gigli.

The game is practically unplayable due to the fact that every five seconds the screen jitters and lags. I kid you not that literally, every five seconds, right on cue, the screen does the two-step right before your eyes like some sort of choreographed seizure. I was sincerely dumbfounded that I had actually found a game which made attaching a car battery to my testicles look like an enjoyable way to spend a few hours.

Now to be absolutely honest, I didn’t play the game longer than an hour. If you’re asking yourself, “Well then how is he qualified to be telling me about this game?” please re-read the paragraph above. Do you honestly even need to hear my plot synopsis? I assume there are horses you can ride, armor you can wear, and spells you can cast, maybe even a sword or bow and arrow you can use. In all honesty, if you can play this game any longer than an hour and actually enjoy it you deserve a macaroni plaque with glitter that I will personally make and embroider for you and send directly to your house. The game is so drastically bogged down with glitchy animations and bugs that show such a lack of concern for integrity and completion that it’s an open insult to anyone who rents this game, let alone purchases it.

You’ll find better voice acting in porn than you will find in this game. The combat system is the same stupid animation over and over and I repeat, it’s a Nam video game flashback I never want to see again. And worst of all, the enemies you face are scaled to your skill level, defeating the purpose of leveling up or questing with parties to attack things of higher experience because they don’t exist. That is where the fun lies in multiplayer role-playing and Two Worlds has cut it out like a tumor.

Everything I did see was cookie-cutter, textbook role-playing game. I killed a rabbit, a boar, and then was killed by a bear. The landscapes pushed the Xbox 360’s capabilities like MTV’s Next and Parental Control have advanced us creatively as a race. If anything, this game devolved the system, turning it into an Atari 2600 playing Pitfall. With today’s current rate of evolution in next-gen consoles and software, it has become increasingly difficult for companies to produce garbage. Even the worst games are released as average. How they fell this far short of even being considered remotely average is the only thing this game can consider as an accomplishment. This game makes Shaq Fu look like Legend of Zelda.

In summary, the problem with this game is, well, everything…in case I hadn’t mentioned.

ON A HAPPIER NOTE

Super Mario Galaxy

If you own a Nintendo Wii and for some reason don’t own Super Mario Galaxy yet, stop being stupid and just buy the damn thing. Outside of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, it is THE reason to own a Wii. Being what Nintendo has called the true sequel to Mario 64, Super Mario Galaxy puts you back in the fat, plumber shoes of the world’s favorite Italian stereotype, Mario.

With Mario plots still characteristically predictable like a Steven Seagal or Jean-Claude Van Damme movie, Bowser kidnaps Princess Peach to where all bad horror movies go: outer space. Unlike Jason X and Leprechaun 4, the cosmos don’t ruin our beloved Guido hero, who gives chase, venturing across the universe looking for his sweetheart. Each galaxy has its own unique set of themed planets which offer a terrific variety of environments and challenge as you collect stars and inch closer to Bowser’s whereabouts.

The most beautiful, well-rounded, and ingenious release since the Mario franchise’s induction, Galaxy’s low-gravity atmospheres combined with the interactivity of the Wiimote pushes the platformer genre to new, breath-taking heights. Yet as far away and foreign as you are from the place Mario calls home, it never seems more than a stone’s throw from the classic look and feel that has solidified the franchise as the best of the best, melding the old with the new in a seamless fashion that doesn’t skip a beat. Outside of a few problems with camera angles, Galaxy is as perfect a title the Wii has seen or will see.

Super Mario Galaxy proves two things: Mario, like a fine wine, improves with age and the Japanese have really good halucinogens.