EDIT: Hey look, as of 8/9/11 I’m #11 in the world rankings!

The French company Neko Entertainment (French company with a Japanese name? Huh?) was putting together a retail puzzler called DodoGo, yet for some reason or another, the game ended up being split in half and offered as two DSiWare downloads: DodoGo! and DodoGo! Challenge, both of which are big fish in a small pond- outshining most other games available in the e-shop.

It’s a tropical island in the time of the dinosaurs, and the dodos are in danger! A tidal wave has swept over their nests and scattered the eggs all over the island and adjacent islands, and it’s all up to you to get them safely back to their nests. But the diabolical Caiman Vinicius has his eyes on some eggcellent dinners, and goes about setting all the animals on the islands against the eggs.

If you’ve played Mario vs Donkey Kong: March of the minis, then you’ll be familiar with DodoGo’s gameplay style. You are given a certain number of tools to use on each of the 160 normal levels and 32 bonus levels that comprise DodoGo! and DodoGo! Challenge, which you must use strategically to get the eggs in the nest and in a good mood. With these tools you can alter the landscape in order to avoid hazards that will lead the Dodo eggs to their doom and ultimately, their extinction (though you kind of have to wonder what the point is when they went extinct anyway). The ways in which you manipulate the stages are nearly endless. You can blast, burn, cut, spring, dig, smash… the list goes on and on. And not only are there hazards in the landscape, but some levels contain the animals that Vinicius has pitted against you. These animals must either be avoided or used to your advantage. You are awarded medals based on your performance at the end of each level. The goal is to save at least one egg in each level, though you must save all of them to get a medal. In the bonus levels you control an automated robo-egg. Your goal in these is to collect all the targets scattered about in order to unlock goodies like new avatars, disguises for your eggs and jokers, which can be used to skip the exceptionally nasty levels.

The game is played using all touch controls, though the D-pad can be used to scroll about the area (or the ABXY buttons if you’re left-handed), which is extremely helpful as you work on the many tricky puzzles.

As far as aesthetics go, the game is very pleasing. The stylised cel-shaded graphics and catchy music fit the goofy theme of the game. The soundtracks during the actual levels do a good job of staying in the background and not getting annoying if you’re struggling for a long time on a particularly devious puzzle.

Their are a few drawbacks, though my gripes are small. The controls usually go smoothly, but can be touchy, especially when you need to stop an egg from blundering into a hazard. They won’t always respond to your commands which led to quite a few do-overs. DodoGo also had it’s fair share of bugs. Sometimes an egg would die but I could still see it there, though it was like a ghost and completely unresponsive to any commands. Also in Dodogo Challenge, one of the cutscenes seemed to be missing its sound. Then there are disguises that you can equip to your eggs to make the experience extra-silly. The disguises are different in DodoGo! and DodoGo! Challenge, yet in Challenge when you equip a disguise, it appears in the levels as one of the disguises from the first game. It may not impede your puzzle-solving, but it is slightly annoying.

DodoGo! is a game full of charm. Those silly, laughing eggs can’t help but make you smile as the roll and bounce about the levels to their nests. Not only that, but it’s a challenging game that will stretch the limits of your creativity and ability to think outside the box. Though the initial tutorial levels go a bit slowly, you’ll soon find yourself immersed in a wealth of tricky and varied levels that really require your best thinking cap to get through. And the replayability is high because you’ll want to keep doing levels over to get the highest score on each. While it does have some drawbacks DodoGo! is by far the best and most fun puzzle game I have ever played. It’s well worth the $8 (plus $5 if you want to pick up Challenge as well) and then some. I have a hard time figuring out why this didn’t become a retail game, because it’s certainly more than good enough.

Since I got my DSi I have been playing a lot of downloads. And by a lot I mean a pretty unhealthy amount. Being bored and being a writer has made me want to flex my essay skills with a few reviews of some of the games I’ve played. While I am no professional gamer or professional reviewer, I do hope that they will still be informative. So without further ado, here is the latest game I finished (with 100% completion I might proudly add):

Shantae: Risky’s Revenge

In the sequel to the popular Shantae, we revisit Sequin Land for more ponytail action. The original installment was for Gameboy Colour and is virtually non-existent today, so don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of it before. I hadn’t. But now we deprived people can enter the Shantae universe and enjoy all it has to offer.

Shantae is a half-genie bellydancer employed as the guardian of her home, Scuttletown. Things are peaceful… but only for about the first two minutes of the game. Risky Boots, once thwarted by Shantae is taking her revenge by stealing a very important artifact- a magic lamp- from Shantae’s uncle. Now Shantae must race (or dance) to find the three magical seals before Risky does so that the horrors within the lamp will not be unleashed.

Shantae is an action/ adventure platformer with RPG style exploration and freedom of movement. You control our hair-whipping half-genie as she explores the areas and dungeons around Scuttletown in search of items and seals, learning a few new tricks along the way. It features old-school style gameplay but unlike most old-school games, it’s not incredibly frustrating for those who weren’t playing in that era (like me).

One minor gripe is that it really doesn’t take advantage of the two screens. The action is on the top screen while the bottom screen is taken up either by an item list or an absolutely useless map.

The graphics may look Gameboy style at first, until you see Shantae move. The animations are incredibly fluid and the scenery beautifully detailed. What’s more, the environments (in a few areas, anyway) are layered so that you can see baddies moving around on the next plane in the background of the plane you’re on.

As far as controls go, they’re smooth as silk. Most of what you do will be button controlled. The addition of some touch-screen commands, however, feels awkward and out of place, not to mention annoying. To equip an item you have to tap on it. This can get hairy when you’re fighting and dodging on the top screen with hordes of enemies surrounding you and you have to look at the bottom screen to quickly switch out items. A button control for this would have made a lot more sense.

The only other gripe- which may not even be perceived as a gripe to some- is the obscurity of where to go next, most often in the dungeons. Characters will give you clues as to the next big step if you’re so inclined to talk to them, but generally you’re going to get lost a lot and have to criss-cross dungeons trying to figure out where the heck you go now. Many might see that as a refreshing challenge, though, and not mind a little elbow grease when it comes to finding their way.

In all Shantae was a thoroughly enjoyable game. It and Dodogo! are the most professionally presented games with the most polish in the e-shop. It really feels like you’re playing a retail game instead of a download. While Shantae may be rather short and more expensive than any other DSiWare game, I don’t regret one penny of the $12 I spent on it. This is very rare for me to say, and usually reserved only for Pokémon and Zelda games, but I think I’m going to play this one again.

Well you may have noticed that there’s a couple new DSi paintings in the ‘latest artwork’ section, and now I’m getting back to sculpture too. I can only do little ones right now and I haven’t the energy to paint them yet, but it’s a start! My latest health challenge is ear infections because of my impacted wisdom teeth. I currently hunting down a competent oral surgeon.

It’s been quite a long time since I wrote any inspirational blogs. Mostly because not a whole lot of good things has happened to me lately. But I have decided to share with you a little story from my childhood that still moves me even to this day.

When I was about 7 or 8 I attended a summer camp for children with visual impairments. We were doing a craft one day in small groups, colouring paper feathers with crayons to make Indian headbands. One child in our group was completely blind and would ask about each crayon as he picked it up. ‘What colour is this?’ he would ask. ‘That is purple,’ someone would reply. ‘Oh, he would say, ‘is it a colour of beauty?’ ‘Of course,’ someone would always answer. ‘That’s good,’ he would say as he would begin contentedly colouring by feel, ‘I want it to be beautiful.’

Hey all (if any of you are left), it seems that the hiatus for the comics is going to last a while longer. It’s been nearly 4 months since surgery and I’m still incapacitated. I had hoped to get the comics updating months ago and I am extremely frustrated. The problem? A new medication that I’m taking that was supposed to help with something that was triggering the spinal headaches. Well, the cure is worse than the ailment. I have been EXTREMELY dizzy for 3 months now. And it’s not a medication I can just stop. In fact, it won’t wear off ’til late September. I found that anti-biotics for some weird reason help the dizziness, but my doctor is understandably reluctant to put me on them for so long in case I build a tolerance to them, making them ineffective against any infections I might get. Sooooo, as you can imagine I am feeling very frustrated and angry. I want more than anything to work on the comics and my sculpture, but it’s just not happening. Rest assured they WILL eventually return; I want them to update more than anyone.