Pokémon: X and Y 3DS review

Even before you begin reading this review, you'll have probably defeated the Champion and captured Zygarde, or the the trio of legendary birds, Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres (highlighted one, two and three in Spanish!) but I still hope you enjoy my review! (Bet, you haven't caught all 718 Pokémon?!)


Pokémon X and Y is a game, featuring mainly the brand-new 6th generation of  Pokémon creatures although features many other popular Pokémon from Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh and Unova. It is set in the brilliantly new Kalos region, which is based on France, and even features a parody of the Eiffel Tower, Prism Tower, the main attraction in the Parisian city of Lumiose and home to the 5th gym leader. The gameplay is the regular Pokémon catch and battle, although the battles have been transformed into the third dimension, creating a much more realistic fight between Pokémon and their trainers. The storyline has similarities to the previous games, a evil organisation wanting to capture and utilise the Legendary Pokémon of the chosen version of the game. In X and Y there two versions of legendaries, Xerneas and Yveltal. I chose Y, so I have Yveltal, whose move is exceptionally stronger and even has the abilities to heal him, making him much more tactical than Xerneas for battling purposes. It is traditional storyline of Pokemon,you start at home with your mother with no Pokémon, set a journey to become a grand Pokémon master and champion, starting at the professor's lab to acquire your starter Pokémon.The XY starters are Froakie, a turquoise Water-type frog. Fennekin, a flaming red Fire-type fox and Chespin, a grassy-green fighting Grass-type hedgehog. I completed the main storyline in 1 week, defining its simplicity, it's less challenging than the previous games for experienced gamers. The post-game content is duller, lesser and easier than the previous games, just capturing Kanto legendary and anime fan-favourite Mewtwo in a peaceful lonesome cave to hunting and capturing the bird trio in another lonesome cave. Overall I wish the massively postponed accompanying Pokémon Bank app will come with a update for the main game, extending the post-game storyline.

My character having a photograph taken behind the Kalos Pokémon League

Pros:

+Fun, traditional Pokémon storyline 

+3D battling brings a new perspective 

+New batch of brilliant Pokémon 

+Pokémon Bank (in hope for update!) 

Cons:

-Weaker, duller post-game content

-More simple than the previous games.

-short similar storyline 

97% GOLD AWARD

Gameplay: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5tkeMtZM9uU

Buy the game: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nintendo-Pokémon-X-3DS/dp/B00B7JT5F4

Mario Party: Island Tour 3DS Review

What a brilliant way to start up 2014's 3DS games line-up with a brand-new banging partytastic Mario Party Island Tour! The game revolves round Mario and co. playing colourful and fun mini-games on a magical, jolly tropical island. There is a hugely-giant variety of mini-games ranging from matching monsters to a picture to a imitation TV show copying catchphrases of the characters. The party boards, are of all different styles from a Mario-Galaxy themed board to a Bowser's Bizarre Volcano!. There's a wealth of playable characters from Mario to Bowser Jr. although I wish could be more playable characters such as in previous Mario Party games or the Mario Kart series of games. Bowser's Tower was surprisingly easy, although increases in challenge progressively, the boss battles range from a Tower Of Goombas to Bowser himself?! Overall I wish the gameplay could have been more challenging, but with the settings to change settings of CPU characters' level of difficulty meaning you can create the simplicity of fun or a great challenge for hardcore gamers. The multiplayer is brilliant, allowing 3DS users, even who don't own the game, the fun experience of it, as may seem solitude and lone playing it solo.

Gameplay of Rocket Road (Mario Galaxy themed stage) 

Pros:

+Colourful Fun 

+Grand variety of mini-games

+Wealth of characters

+Change gameplay settings

+Simplicity to challenging 

Cons:

-Want more playable characters

Gameplay: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hXyF71T83Po

Buy The Game: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mario-Party-Island-To
ur-Nintendo/dp/B00CETU3EI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1391111378&sr=8-1&keywords=mario+party+island+tour

73%-BRONZE AWARD

My Favourite Website

My Favorite web site is PicMonkey.com it is awesome 

It is a picture editor which you ca use to change pictures to make them look awesome and professional.

Here is 2 of my creations using this website



By Sam Shackleton

Website Review: Museum of Mario

The Museum of Mario is a interactive journey from 8-bit Mario to Modern Era 3D Mario, it allows to explore the history of Super Mario with clickable features such entering the insides of a Donkey Kong arcade to info about Mario's and co. latest Wii U adventure Super Mario 3D World
It is developed by gaming website IGN in corporation with Intel. The interactions are although limited on unsupported devices such as the iOS machines. It also includes famous and familiar audio sounds and tracks, with many hidden interactions to discover!

Screenshot of the website's front page

Site:http://mario.ign.com

  

95%-GOLD AWARD 

FutureLearn

FutureLearn is a online website that was founded in December 2012 (so about 1 year and 2 months now) It is majority owned by UK's Open University's, it contains vast online courses which are very interesting.



Some of these courses include:

• The Secret Power Of Brands
• Inside Cancer
• Good Brain Bad Brain
• Shakespeare
• Begin programming: build your first mobile game
• Causes of War

These are only a few of the courses that I can remember of the top of my head.

I have high hopes for Programming a mobile app, as I am doing that course myself. many of the courses have already been tested, and more are to come.

Window Surfaces, Good or Bad?

First of all what are the Window Surfaces.

                                   

At First impressions the tablet is quite think, which could be annoying in the tablet aspect, although it is relatively thin if you are using it for the computer aspect, it took what seemed like forever (5 -10 minutes) just to turn on and if you need them in lessons it not a very nice time wait.

The Good Points

• Looks nice
• Decent battery life (8-10 hours)
• Already comes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint.
• Has a USB plug in.

although personally I have found myself that the bad out weighs the good on this tablet.

• It seem to take forever to launch for me. I was left there waiting for the tablet to load up.
• Apps take 10-15 seconds to load up.
• It is very hard to learn how to control it, so it becomes very hard and frustrating.
• Has some charging issues.
• The key Board is not very sensitive, those that are used to hearing the typing on their keyboard will find it frustrating when they have to go without.
• The keyboard is uncomfortable.
• frequent Wi-Fi reliability issues, requiring restarts and/or enabling and disabling Wi-Fi until you get the Surface to reconnect successfully.

I personally have found that the window surfaces are not the best 44/100


For other review check out:
http://searchconsumerization.techtarget.com/tip/Surface-RT-review-The-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly
this is a great website which shows, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

App Review: Asterix Megaslap

Asterix Megaslap is a game for iPad/iPhone and Android based on the French comic Asterix The Gaul. It includes comical illustrations and is a fun concept, although hurts your finger to continuously rotate your finger to fill the power gauge to the maximum, a iPad stylus is recommended to assist your gameplay.  Disappointedly the areas, are ridiculously tedious and repetitive, as your flying character keeps departing and returning to the same areas. Secondly there is only one playable character as Asterix, as there is no appearance by Obelix, accept as a collectible character token, and think he should be added as a playable character. Basically the objective of the game, is for Asterix to send a Roman soldier flying through the air, with your strong muscles, as progressively level up, you earn upgrades and power-ups to send him flying further, overall I think a application update should be added, which adds new playable characters from the series and new areas to fly to.

Screenshot of gameplay 

Pros:
+Comedic illustrations
+Fun gameplay

Cons:
-Tedious and repetitive
-Hurts your finger to utilise full power of Asterix (recommended-buy a iPad stylus here)
-No Obelix!
51%-MODERATELY FLAWED
Links:
More info on Asterix The Gaul comic:
http://www.asterix.com
Download The Game:
iOS:https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/asterix-megaslap/id657761961?mt=8&uo=4
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bulkypix.asterix

Gaming Review: Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW!

Today I'll be reviewing Adventure Time: Explore The Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW!. I am reviewing the Nintendo 3DS version of the game, it may slightly differ from its home-console counterparts. My review may seem bias since I am great fan of Adventure Time :) 

Adventure Time: Explore The Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW! is a video game based on the Cartoon Network smash-hit TV series (For those of you who don't what Adventure Time is, it is a TV series, about Jake, a dog and Finn, a human boy, who go on insane adventures!, its won an Emmy for Best Animation). well, in this game, Princess Bubblegum sends Finn, Jake and co. to a dungeon to defeat the lurking villains down there. The voice-over work done by the TV cast is fantastic, voicing every speech made by each character, which lightens the game and brings the characters to life, also creating the comedy of the television series, in the game. Creator Pendleton Ward wrote the storyline, so it's basically like a hugely-long Adventure Time episode on a games console!!
Now to gameplay... the dungeon are fairy bland with not much imagination or detail with a harshly-low number of items, monsters to fight or allies to interact with. Greater comedy is added to my version of the game (and on the Wii U gamepad) by BMO, the Korean GameBoy owned by Finn and Jake, with humorous silly-talk voiced over all by Niki Wang.

Pros:
+Hilarious Voice-acting
+BMO!! (Wii U and 3DS only)
+Good Gameplay
+Comedic storyline written by creator Pendleton Ward

Cons
-Bland and boring dungeons

84% SILVER AWARD

Links:
More info on Adventure Time:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Time

Gameplay:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d-49Lu0798I&list=PLBgBDirvTL9ATgUXOU18OUrAFOv0sVYO9&feature=plpp

Buy the game: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Adventure-Time-Explore-Dungeon-Because/dp/B00EPZ8VAW/ref=sr_1_1?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1390594691&sr=1-1&keywords=Adventure+Time

Surface - Interesting or Interrupting?

Surface - Interesting or Interrupting?

This is a review of the Microsoft Surface RT (1st gen)., mainly pointing out its negative features :/ if you would like to read the good bits go to Jacob's post or the Surface website and make up your own mind. These are entirely my own opinions and no others.

After many schools have started to think about purchasing tablets for use in lessons, some choosing iPad's others Microsoft's Surface, the benefits are all there but what is there if you see beneath that, what is the actual reality of their use? What are the issues schools will face, why choose one over another and my first impressions.

First Impressions

When I booted the surface one of the main things that stuck out to me was the long time it took to load up Windows 8 and then get to work. In comparison to an iPad it was slow but the Surface is running a slower, more processor intensive operating system so this is to be expected. I felt it should be more optimised for the device instead of being unique, maybe booting into the Metro interface (Modern UI) with less live tiles and completing other task as and when required rather than loading the desktop and all the icons etc. this would increase load time of apps but make it quicker overall. 

Then came to using the fabric attachable keyboard, it felt counter intuitive even though I was used to typing on touch screens this felt totally different. When it came to using the trackpad it felt unresponsive and I felt some feedback on the buttons would have been useful.

Overall I feel the Surface is a great tablet for work/personal use and is a great portable, although heavy tablet that could be used by anyone. I certainly found it a useful and interesting device to use. A huge reason for picking one up is that it has the full compatibility and full use of Windows 8, this means any program installed on your desktop can also be on your tablet, it also has a full desktop version of Microsoft Office.

Issues for schools

If this is going to be used in education certain features or bypasses need to be prevented, otherwise the devices will not be used for learning but instead students will find ways to waste lesson time, when this affects learning teachers may choose not to use them and replace them with the dreaded textbook!

From my experience students have chosen to waste time taking 'selfies' of themselves, photos of others, and with unrestricted downloads from the app store playing games with their friends. This leaves learning in the sideroad and hopefully with time the novelty will wear off but i fear it may not and students learning will be impacted.

Sadly there are few ways to block these features on the Surface and there is little in the way of third-party apps to provide this type of future, until then this will become an issue for the developers or Microsoft.

Why choose a Surface?

Firstly, the cost, when Microsoft brought out the Surface 2 they offered heavily discounted tablets (60% off the RRP) this swayed a lot of schools away from the the more expensive iPad. Along with the promise of pre-installed Office 2013 Home and Student the deal became even more tempting. Especially as most schools have IT systems which are Microsoft server based, this allows easy access to the servers from the tablet over the existing network.

Specs

Ben

YouTube Review: Vsauce

Hey Bloggers, Calum here!

Today I'll be reviewing the YouTube channel Vsauce, which asks and answers ludicrously ridiculous questions such as Is Anything Real? or What Does Human Taste Like? in great detail considering the science behind the questions. It was created by Michael Stevens, A American guy who now lives in London, who has a degree in Psychology from University of Chicago. I think the channel is scientifically and humorously awesome, and would be great to use more often in science lessons. He always begins the video with 'Hey Vsauce, Michael here", just like I begin this blog. There is also a Vsauce2 and Vsauce3, Which shows internet memes and Vsauce3 answers gaming-related questions such as How Much Are Mario's Coins Worth? or The Science Behind Sonic The Hedgehog?
 Hope you enjoyed my review! :)

Michael Stevens from Vsauce

Pros:
+Educational
+Scientific
+Fun
+Detailed
98%-GOLD AWARD
YouTube:
Vsauce
Google+
+Vsauce
Twitter:
@tweetsauce 

My first time using a Windows Surface!

I think that Windows Surfaces are so awesome!

Pro's:

# They come with Microsoft word, powerpoint e.t.c. already installed! :)
# They have a stand
• The keyboard has bullet points!
😃 And faces!
• You can use the touchscreen and/or the keyboard
• You can put a USB/mouse in it
• You can use it like a computer
• It would be a great birthday present (*hint hint*)
• You can move the onscreen keyboard
• They are awesome
• The interface is cool
• There are apps

Con's:

Yes, unfortunately there are cons...

•The keyboard doesn't recognise you typing very well
•The keyboard is uncomfortable

Jacob 😃

Website Review - Geoguessr

My favourite website is Geoguessr because I like geography. Geoguessr puts you in a random place in the world and you have to try to guess where you are. It would be great to use in geography if we had finished all of the work because it can teach people what other places look like or where those places are in the world.

Site - http://geoguessr.com/

By Jacob

Website Review - World Wide Maze

Chromes World Wide Maze lets you take any website into a online maze , Although you do have to be on the Chrome internet for it to work.So it would work at school as it doesn't have the correct software, but is still great fun to try at home. Complete Challenges on the internet to see who is the best at that website in the world.

Use Your tablet or phone to control your in game character.

The website can have some problems with picking up your tablet or phone, as the internet connection might be slow so it won't properly work.

Advert - http://youtu.be/7AvTl9aU5D8                                   

Site -  http://chrome.com/maze/pc/not-supported/                 

Gameplay - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vmhkSVVowo     

By Heidi

  

My review of Watch Cartoon Online

This website allows the user simply to watch 100s of popular cartoons such as The Simpsons and Adventure Time, the day after they’re aired in the country of origin, so you watch brand-new episodes on your sofa. It can used with any device (I preferably use my iPad) it is thankfully legal but is sometimes categorized as Copyright Infringement, so may have worrying illegalities and has irritating advertisements, although the broadcasting corporations such as FOX and Cartoon Network have not shut it down.  

Site - http://www.watchcartoononline.com

Good Points

• Watch instantly and day after broadcast
• Thousands of popular cartoons
• Legal

Bad Points

• Irritating ads
• Categorized as Copyright Infringement
• People uncertain on legality.

89%/100%

By Calum