Childrens Toyshop
Welcome to The Childrens Toyshop, here you will find all the latest and traditional toys in our toyshop. You can search and locate the best selling Toys Games & Puzzles to purchase online and have delivered to the door. We have a large selection of Video Games with reviews.
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Video Games : Super Mario Sunshine
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Rating: 
- I remember why my heart belongs to Sonic...
It's been a long time since I played a Mario game, speaking as a 24 year old veteran who loved and finished all the original games on the NES, SNES and Gameboy. So when I got a Gamecube, I was excited to find out how Mario has aged.
Well, it seems he hasn't. The game is pretty as can be expected, but it looks like it was created for toddlers with bright primary colours everywhere and cutesy, rather vapid characters.
Looks can be deceiving though, and the gameplay is very tough. Each level is a struggle and a frustrating one - failure means playing the whole level through from scratch and big boss fights are so slow, you're not sure whether you're doing the right thing at all until he finally keels over. The controls are hard to get to grips with (especially the double/triple bouncing) and that's from someone who's happy memorising tricky skateboarding and fighting moves. The Fludd water-pump which is an integral part of the plot (hah) is a silly concept and also fiddly and difficult to use. The camera control is so poor that Mario turns into a shadow and disappears behind walls for long periods, getting you dead fast.
I'm sorry Mario. I'd love to see more from you, but please, let's have a little more ingenuity like in your early days. I loved you once!
Rating:
- Review for Mario Sunshine
This is the greatest game ever! It will keep you playing for months, even years! There are a classic variety of easy/medium/challenging/difficult parts, and the graphics are first class!
Thank you for reading
Max (The fudgeking)
Rating:
- A nice little holiday, but you wouldn't want to live there
Ah, 'Super Mario Sunshine', one of the little gaming gems that Nintendo promised for years, and the game considered to be the sequel to the Nintendo 64 game 'Super Mario 64'. I was there on the launch day of the Nintendo64, the geek that I am, and bought 'Super Mario 64' there and then. And I loved it. 'Super Mario Sunshine', then, had a lot to live up to. I bought it, played it from start to finish, and felt, to put it bluntly, disappointed.
Don't get me wrong, 'Super Mario Sunshine' has a lot to offer; it looks pretty, very pretty (the water-effects, heat-haze, and paint on Mario's clothes, in particular, are great), the controls are just as responsive as they were in 'Super Mario 64', the gameplay is addictive (in a frustrating, 'No I don't want to come outside; I'm not going anywhere until I finish this *%$@#! level!' kind of way), and it's all presented in the typically shiny, Nintendo-spending-years-over-it kind of way.
Where 'Super Mario Sunshine' fails, for me at least, is it's depth. The game just feels a little bit superficial from start to finish. The holiday-island setting, while obviously an effort to put some variety into the Super Mario games and take the action away from the mushroom kingdom (see? told you I was a geek), just never really grows on you. As you play the game you never feel like you're immersed in the environment as much as in 'Super Mario 64', and, while some of the levels are fun the first time around, most leave you thinking that you must be missing something. The inhabitants of the island that you meet along the way (big soft of lumps, with grass skirts and shirts) suffer from a horrible lack of imagination on the part of the designers, and as you play you sometimes find yourself wishing you'd get dragged away from the sandy beaches and blue skies, and thrown back into Bowser's damp old castle.
I don't like giving Nintendo a hard time either, so any Mario fans, please don't hate me, but 'Super Mario Sunshine' just feels a little shallow to play. The game isn't anywhere near as vast as 'Super Mario 64', and the levels are sometimes repetitive. Admittedly, the exceptions, and there are exceptions, are absolutely brilliant; the rollercoaster battle with mecha-Bowser, cleaning a sea-monster's teeth with Mario's back-mounted water-cannon, and fighting a shadow manta-ray that splits in hundreds of little ones when you attack it. But for every one great level you get three or four so-so ones that'll take you five minutes to finish. 'Super Mario Sunshine's a funny sort of game.
My advice, should you want it after I've probably dashed most of what you've already read about this game, is to get hold of a copy cheap, pre-owned even; it's a nice little game, but in their efforts to add something new to the genre, it seems Nintendo have left the gameplay a little bit shallow at times. But then maybe I'm just being picky...
Rating: - We're born of frustration, born of frustration, yeah!
This clever game is a rather odd mix of elements from the best few Mario-related titles from Nintendo: just a few minutes playing this and you will notice Super Mario 64, Luigi's Mansion, Super Mario RPG, Super Mario World and even a bit of Super Mario Bros. 2 creeping in.
The plot is simple enough: Mario (and friends) have their holiday spoiled by an imposter who looks like Mario, and Mario sets off to clear his own good moustachioed name. A simple set-up for a plot which twists and turns in many different ways depending on which choices you make, much like Super Mario 64, only more enhanced. In SM64, you had the castle and its grounds to explore. Fair enough, there was a lot there, but Sunshine is a lot more open in that respect, with a whole island to run around on, there is amazing dextrous, go-anywhere freedom introduced.
The main addition to this game is FLUDD, Mario's backpack. FLUDD can be used to shoot water in different ways: its main use is to clean up graffiti, which is fair enough as the game's focus is on a battle against pollution, but it can also be used for flight, a novel function, and with a few different 'flight' nozzles, there is plenty of entertainment to be had there. Yoshi, of course, also pops up too, and (thankfully!) you can at last ride him again, which is mercifully easy to do.
With all the makings of a Good Solid Game, you would think that Sunshine could be damn near perfect - alas, it has faults.
Firstly the controls. I came to this game expecting a new Mario 64. I was disappointed by this - the controls are a lot more spongey. Although Mario moves, and responds, even quicker than so in SM64, the variety of moves is severely limited. Those fabulous triple leaps, backflips, diving slides and ground-pounds are all possible, but with no less than a great amount of effort on your part. All attacks (drop-kicks, and the like) that Mario once had are gone (save from jumping) in favour of FLUDD (which, after playing Luigi's Mansion, you will find very frustrating to use - Luigi's Poltergust is a much more responsive and user-friendly backpack device!).
In fact, frustration does play a huge part in this game; the camera angles are VERY annoying (what happened to the Lakitu-cam of SM64?), the moves limited, the puzzles often TOO hard (by all means make them hard, but we want to actually progress with the game once in a while!). Sections where Mario plays without FLUDD are often the worst - you find yourself trying to play SM64, and failing. And fighting a baddie with FLUDD - you find yourself trying to play Luigi's Mansion... and failing. Constant restarting and frustrated despair make sure that you need to be patient with this one.
All that being said, though, this is a must-have game for any Gamecube owner. Graphically speaking it is marvellously done (yes, whisper it solftly - the graphics ae better than those of Mansion, eek!), with the beautiful rendered water and shiny exterior of Shadow Mario, just to look at it is pleasure in itself. And, although the puzzles in it are frustrating, the immense pleasure in solving them really is worth it. Classic Mario humour also plays a part, and it is true that this has the old charm to it - you will want to ride Yoshi again, fly with FLUDD, and swim (something which you cannot avoid doing in this game, I promise you).
You will like this game, you will hate it, you will love the controls, you will be frustrated, you will chuckle at the characters, you will wish they all went away. This game may not 'call' you to play it over and over again, in the tradition of Super Mario World, but what the hell? It's a good, but very difficult game. You need a challenge. So get it. Another classic from Nintendo.
Rating:
- Putting Sunshine into the Gamecube
All of the N64 Mario games were quite good but I came across Mario Sunshine and being a Super Mario 64 fan I went and got it.
My first few hours of playing resulted in me completing most of the levels at ease but further on into the game, playing the same levels over and over again in order to collect all of the stars was a bit tedious. It was wuite fun though.
I thought Super Mario 64 was a brill game and none can match it. Obviously nintendo tried and suceeded in making a game that children will enjoy a lot but for teenager and grown ups this isn't really the game to get.
Don't think that this is the end of the world though... The game is reasonably good. It may not be perfect but I found it quite good fun and some people probably will.
- I remember why my heart belongs to Sonic...It's been a long time since I played a Mario game, speaking as a 24 year old veteran who loved and finished all the original games on the NES, SNES and Gameboy. So when I got a Gamecube, I was excited to find out how Mario has aged.
Well, it seems he hasn't. The game is pretty as can be expected, but it looks like it was created for toddlers with bright primary colours everywhere and cutesy, rather vapid characters.
Looks can be deceiving though, and the gameplay is very tough. Each level is a struggle and a frustrating one - failure means playing the whole level through from scratch and big boss fights are so slow, you're not sure whether you're doing the right thing at all until he finally keels over. The controls are hard to get to grips with (especially the double/triple bouncing) and that's from someone who's happy memorising tricky skateboarding and fighting moves. The Fludd water-pump which is an integral part of the plot (hah) is a silly concept and also fiddly and difficult to use. The camera control is so poor that Mario turns into a shadow and disappears behind walls for long periods, getting you dead fast.
I'm sorry Mario. I'd love to see more from you, but please, let's have a little more ingenuity like in your early days. I loved you once!
Rating:
- Review for Mario SunshineThis is the greatest game ever! It will keep you playing for months, even years! There are a classic variety of easy/medium/challenging/difficult parts, and the graphics are first class!
Thank you for reading
Max (The fudgeking)
Rating:
- A nice little holiday, but you wouldn't want to live thereAh, 'Super Mario Sunshine', one of the little gaming gems that Nintendo promised for years, and the game considered to be the sequel to the Nintendo 64 game 'Super Mario 64'. I was there on the launch day of the Nintendo64, the geek that I am, and bought 'Super Mario 64' there and then. And I loved it. 'Super Mario Sunshine', then, had a lot to live up to. I bought it, played it from start to finish, and felt, to put it bluntly, disappointed.
Don't get me wrong, 'Super Mario Sunshine' has a lot to offer; it looks pretty, very pretty (the water-effects, heat-haze, and paint on Mario's clothes, in particular, are great), the controls are just as responsive as they were in 'Super Mario 64', the gameplay is addictive (in a frustrating, 'No I don't want to come outside; I'm not going anywhere until I finish this *%$@#! level!' kind of way), and it's all presented in the typically shiny, Nintendo-spending-years-over-it kind of way.
Where 'Super Mario Sunshine' fails, for me at least, is it's depth. The game just feels a little bit superficial from start to finish. The holiday-island setting, while obviously an effort to put some variety into the Super Mario games and take the action away from the mushroom kingdom (see? told you I was a geek), just never really grows on you. As you play the game you never feel like you're immersed in the environment as much as in 'Super Mario 64', and, while some of the levels are fun the first time around, most leave you thinking that you must be missing something. The inhabitants of the island that you meet along the way (big soft of lumps, with grass skirts and shirts) suffer from a horrible lack of imagination on the part of the designers, and as you play you sometimes find yourself wishing you'd get dragged away from the sandy beaches and blue skies, and thrown back into Bowser's damp old castle.
I don't like giving Nintendo a hard time either, so any Mario fans, please don't hate me, but 'Super Mario Sunshine' just feels a little shallow to play. The game isn't anywhere near as vast as 'Super Mario 64', and the levels are sometimes repetitive. Admittedly, the exceptions, and there are exceptions, are absolutely brilliant; the rollercoaster battle with mecha-Bowser, cleaning a sea-monster's teeth with Mario's back-mounted water-cannon, and fighting a shadow manta-ray that splits in hundreds of little ones when you attack it. But for every one great level you get three or four so-so ones that'll take you five minutes to finish. 'Super Mario Sunshine's a funny sort of game.
My advice, should you want it after I've probably dashed most of what you've already read about this game, is to get hold of a copy cheap, pre-owned even; it's a nice little game, but in their efforts to add something new to the genre, it seems Nintendo have left the gameplay a little bit shallow at times. But then maybe I'm just being picky...
Rating:
- We're born of frustration, born of frustration, yeah!This clever game is a rather odd mix of elements from the best few Mario-related titles from Nintendo: just a few minutes playing this and you will notice Super Mario 64, Luigi's Mansion, Super Mario RPG, Super Mario World and even a bit of Super Mario Bros. 2 creeping in.
The plot is simple enough: Mario (and friends) have their holiday spoiled by an imposter who looks like Mario, and Mario sets off to clear his own good moustachioed name. A simple set-up for a plot which twists and turns in many different ways depending on which choices you make, much like Super Mario 64, only more enhanced. In SM64, you had the castle and its grounds to explore. Fair enough, there was a lot there, but Sunshine is a lot more open in that respect, with a whole island to run around on, there is amazing dextrous, go-anywhere freedom introduced.
The main addition to this game is FLUDD, Mario's backpack. FLUDD can be used to shoot water in different ways: its main use is to clean up graffiti, which is fair enough as the game's focus is on a battle against pollution, but it can also be used for flight, a novel function, and with a few different 'flight' nozzles, there is plenty of entertainment to be had there. Yoshi, of course, also pops up too, and (thankfully!) you can at last ride him again, which is mercifully easy to do.
With all the makings of a Good Solid Game, you would think that Sunshine could be damn near perfect - alas, it has faults.
Firstly the controls. I came to this game expecting a new Mario 64. I was disappointed by this - the controls are a lot more spongey. Although Mario moves, and responds, even quicker than so in SM64, the variety of moves is severely limited. Those fabulous triple leaps, backflips, diving slides and ground-pounds are all possible, but with no less than a great amount of effort on your part. All attacks (drop-kicks, and the like) that Mario once had are gone (save from jumping) in favour of FLUDD (which, after playing Luigi's Mansion, you will find very frustrating to use - Luigi's Poltergust is a much more responsive and user-friendly backpack device!).
In fact, frustration does play a huge part in this game; the camera angles are VERY annoying (what happened to the Lakitu-cam of SM64?), the moves limited, the puzzles often TOO hard (by all means make them hard, but we want to actually progress with the game once in a while!). Sections where Mario plays without FLUDD are often the worst - you find yourself trying to play SM64, and failing. And fighting a baddie with FLUDD - you find yourself trying to play Luigi's Mansion... and failing. Constant restarting and frustrated despair make sure that you need to be patient with this one.
All that being said, though, this is a must-have game for any Gamecube owner. Graphically speaking it is marvellously done (yes, whisper it solftly - the graphics ae better than those of Mansion, eek!), with the beautiful rendered water and shiny exterior of Shadow Mario, just to look at it is pleasure in itself. And, although the puzzles in it are frustrating, the immense pleasure in solving them really is worth it. Classic Mario humour also plays a part, and it is true that this has the old charm to it - you will want to ride Yoshi again, fly with FLUDD, and swim (something which you cannot avoid doing in this game, I promise you).
You will like this game, you will hate it, you will love the controls, you will be frustrated, you will chuckle at the characters, you will wish they all went away. This game may not 'call' you to play it over and over again, in the tradition of Super Mario World, but what the hell? It's a good, but very difficult game. You need a challenge. So get it. Another classic from Nintendo.
Rating:
- Putting Sunshine into the GamecubeAll of the N64 Mario games were quite good but I came across Mario Sunshine and being a Super Mario 64 fan I went and got it.
My first few hours of playing resulted in me completing most of the levels at ease but further on into the game, playing the same levels over and over again in order to collect all of the stars was a bit tedious. It was wuite fun though.
I thought Super Mario 64 was a brill game and none can match it. Obviously nintendo tried and suceeded in making a game that children will enjoy a lot but for teenager and grown ups this isn't really the game to get.
Don't think that this is the end of the world though... The game is reasonably good. It may not be perfect but I found it quite good fun and some people probably will.