Glover

 N64, Glover (1998) game

The N64 is in large part a home of the 3D platformer and is a defining piece of the machine to me. But what do you do when you've played all the big platform games? You begin to explore the lesser known titles, the ones that didn't score so highly in N64 Magazine. It's only taken me around twenty-five years to get to 'Glover' and funnily enough, this is the only N64 game I remember seeing advertised on TV! It did interest me, but not to the extent of buying it at the time (it came out before I even owned an N64, too, since the game was released the year before I bought my console). Perhaps I never saw it going cheaply in the years after, and more pertinently I've never been as interested in puzzle games as I have in the freedoms to explore and experiment the best 3D platformers have afforded. Yet I always carried this one in mind over the years and finally got my hands on a copy, eventually leading me to play it as my summer N64 game, a tradition of the past few years. Platforming standards were high on the N64, two of my favourite all-time games were in that genre ('Banjo-Kazooie' and 'Donkey Kong 64'), with others close behind ('Super Mario 64' and 'Banjo-Tooie'), so it was always going to be a tough school to break into my affections, and certainly at first I found it on the level of the weak 'Starshot: Space Circus Fever' as a bit of a disappointment, though that eventually rose to the level of fellow puzzle-platformer 'Space Station Silicon Valley' of okay-ish gaming quality.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but while I have found a certain satisfaction in beating the hardest parts, it never grew on me to the extent I could happily call it a good game (unlike, say, last year's summer platform-puzzler, 'Blast Corps,' of which I still have happy memories despite it generally being much harder). Part of that, if only a small part, is down to the first-generation graphics, which, while not as scrappy as parts of 'Body Harvest' (released in the same year, but much more ambitious in scope), include a lot of average textures and little of the beauty seen on the title screen as we travel around the main hub with its grassy greenness and imposing wizard's castle dominating the landscape. So far, so much more 'Super Mario 64' than 'Banjo-Kazooie,' which, while many would argue for the purity of gameplay in Mario's first 3D adventure, I prefer the atmosphere and inherent freedom in Banjo's first outing, the latter really showing the swift grasp on the N64's power and potential by Rare (that also came out in 1998!). Graphics aren't the most important aspect of a game, of course - if that were so why would anyone be playing old games at all since the newest, shiniest releases would easily put them to shame, though I'd also argue that in the same way art mediums have different attractions for different people, I love many of the visual styles of the past, whether they were enforced by processor size or were a deliberate artistic choice, so either way a game can be successful or not in the arena dependent on subjective views.

Sound is a little more of an issue - rain down a beautiful, ethereal theme or a catchy tune, and it can do much to enhance the involvement of a player, but if you get it wrong it can simply annoy. 'Glover' tends to fall more in the latter category than the former with often somewhat grating background music, though they include the option to change the volume of both music and sound effects independently so that's a boon, if adding further irritation by the lack of such changes in-game, only allowing them to be made from the main screen! That brings us neatly on to the technical flaws of the whole: there's a lot of fogging and pop-up as was common in many a title of this era unless they were technically gifted in their programming. Sometimes it doesn't make that much difference, can even add to the atmosphere in some cases, such as 'Turok: Dinosaur Hunter,' but when you have levels where you're not quite sure where to go it can be a bit annoying that things aren't clear enough to plan a route and you can sometimes find yourself having to leap into the unknown, never a sign of good game design. I could criticise the stereotypical choices for level theme, but they're age-old clichés of the kind that have been around since platforming became a genre: you've got the sandy beach and running waters of 'Atlantis,' the cartoonish bright colours of a circus in 'Carnival,' more watery beach style coupled with ships in 'Pirates,' an ancient landscape of lava and stone with 'Prehistoric,' the tropes of classic horror in 'Fortress of Fear,' and the obligatory space level of 'Out of This World.'

It's not that the ideas are bad, the puzzling isn't too bad at all, though I was stumped (by the stump part of a palm tree no less!), by one particular head-scratcher in 'Prehistoric 3,' but more on that later. It's pretty standard stuff and the game eases you in gently (until you reach the Bonus level at the end of the first world, a version of 'Frogger' that requires serious learning on the precise movements you have to make to succeed!), with both a Practice level that teaches the basics, and a first level that requires the use of your knowledge, but is in no way taxing, as you'd expect. I wasn't fully conversant with the game's language at first, such as the fact you can't kill some enemies, only stun them, or for another example, I didn't realise to begin with the magic cards you're supposed to collect were required to unlock the Bonus level at the end of each world, nor that some were well hidden, they just appeared to be a way of getting a good score - run into them as the little glove man of the title and you score less points than if you manoeuvre the magic ball (there's a lot of magic stuff), into them, even more if you do it with the ball in its fragile natural crystal state - it fell from the towers of the wizard's castle into each world and needs to be returned... Yes, the 'plot' is pretty terrible, but that could often be the way with old, old games so it's continuing a quaint tradition in that sense and if the gameplay works the story is going to be pretty irrelevant to how much you enjoy the experience anyway.

To score the most points you have to collect as many cards in quick succession as possible - you're able to do that for little batches as they tend to be in clumps, though controlling the ball can be tricky as you have the realistic physics of an actual disembodied glove (if such a thing were possible!), that grabs this spherical bounty and requires more effort to push it up slopes, or reacts to the contours of the terrain, as you'd expect a ball to. You can bounce it, you can throw it, you can bounce and then throw it from the apex for maximum height, and they managed to work in a number of moves to enable movement of this precious item to the end goal so it can return to its rightful place on the castle and restore the wizard. It's a slim motivation for the action, but it gets things to the point of doing - I hate to complain about a game's controls and keep revisiting this criticism recently, whether it be 'Super Mario Galaxy 2,' 'Sleepwalker' or 'XIII' I've expressed my discontent repeatedly, but the situation crops up again with this one: controls are awkward. Part of that is the learning curve of understanding the game's language in both how puzzles work and how to interact with this slippery, but vital item you control. Glover himself, when divorced from the ball, can walk about independently, jump and double-jump, even crawl flat on the floor (though I don't remember that ever being implemented in any puzzles other than a way to avoid the blast of 'living' sticks of dynamite, one of the later enemies you encounter), but he's quite slow, there's strangely little use of the analogue stick's levels of sensitivity, or at least there is, but the full pressure applied doesn't result in much pace.

I suppose when you've only got two 'fingers' for legs you aren't going to get about very quickly, and a player probably does value the incremental movements when at platform edges and with threats all around, but it can still be irksome when crossing large distances. Even with the ball 'in hand' you don't roll along all that quickly and I could never decide if it was quicker to do a straight roll or to dribble the ball, bouncing it repeatedly. Speed tended to be more of an issue when you're trying to beat the Time Trials which was a whole other side to the game, though a much-needed one since the main story was over quicker than I was expecting - there are six levels divided into three standard platforming sections, then a Boss level and the Bonus level (which isn't required to complete the game, unless you want a 100% rating, which I did), which isn't too bad, but I was expecting a final confrontation level in the castle itself, as so often happens - a final test of all the skills and knowledge you've gained. Instead you beat your mirror opposite, the evil glove (yeah, don't ask!), the wizard pops out of his castle and it's game over, simple as that. Not that it was the kind of game I wished would go on, and in fact I didn't originally plan to beat the Time Trials as it would seem like a chore to keep playing when I'd done just about everything there was to do - except I hadn't, there was a Bonus ('Frogger'-ish), a couple of levels where I hadn't located all the cards ('Prehistoric 1' and '3'), and the Bonus level at the end of that world.

Time-trialling gave me an easier task to accomplish between the tricky bits of those others, which is why I made the effort. And by then I was comfortable with the controls and how everything worked and the game had settled down from the restrictive, high frustration levels of earlier to an acceptable experience, if not necessarily the most fun. I'd have described it early on as like playing 'Super Mario 64' if Mario was a water balloon crossed with a Slinky, and while I can praise the game for managing to incorporate so many moves, they could be confusing and took a long while to become second nature. Even then it was very easy to make a mistake and either press the wrong button or hold it for the wrong amount of time: press A to lob the ball, hold A to hit the ball, press B to bounce the ball, hold B to throw the ball in an arc, and combinations of such. You could also jump on the ball and use it as a trampoline or control it by running about on top of it, useful for traversing water where it was too deep to get a grip of the ball (having no legs Glover couldn't swim and use the ball as a float), the downside being controls were reversed making life more difficult (this was a deliberate attempt to increase difficulty as on the Easy level controls weren't reversed, according to the manual). Making things needlessly hard to control isn't something that endears me to a game, and coupled with the frustration of being too easily ruined by a careless mistake in the controls with plenty of instant death potential, as well as the odd glitch, took away from what could have been a classic.

Glitches were encountered as early as 'Atlantis 3' where you dropped down the side of a cliff to a 'secret' cave in which a foreboding black obelisk stood - if you pushed into this shape you'd appear in another area, but couldn't move. I tried several times to do it, but each time the same result, the only way to escape was to quit out of the game, very bad design! Until I patted the ball in ahead of me and for some reason when I walked in separately I appeared atop the ball in this other cave and could move around. I can't imagine this was meant to be, but if it was there was no indication of what you were supposed to do, or why! The other glitchy thing was the camera itself which acted like it was your enemy (hindered by some unintuitive button mapping such as 'R' used to magic your ball into a different material, bouncy ball, bowling ball, magnetic ballbearing or crystal, rather than centring the camera behind you as in most 3D games), and would get stuck on scenery so that you could run off into another part, unable to see yourself since the camera was still 'outside' a location (for example going into the small cave at the base of the cliff beneath the stone circle in 'Prehistoric 3'), or almost as bad, it would insist on a particular angle and didn't like me trying to circle the view. Or if you were close to a wall and zoomed in to look around you, the camera couldn't move because of the wall... None of this exactly inspired confidence, which is why I take less shame in admitting I did have to look up the solution to one, final puzzle - I located the last of the cards in 'Prehistoric 1' hidden behind a wall where there were slight cracks, so I suspected the last set of cards in 'Prehistoric 3' would follow the same logic and spent a long time searching along every wall and floor without the merest hint of a crack.

Most puzzles weren't this difficult and I began to think there was something wrong when I finally caved and input the cheat to locate the nearest cards in a level (Glover turns into a pointing hand to indicate direction). I felt this was a reasonable option since I'd exhausted all possibilities I could think of and the cheat had been given to me in the end credits upon completion of the game, but when I'd collected all the usual cards and then activated the pointer it veered all over the place like it was broken and that was the point I thought there might be a glitch so I dug out my trusty N64 Magazine booklet guide and found the solution was as simple as getting the Triceratops female, who runs after you with love hearts streaming from her if you came close enough, to follow you and hit a palm tree with a tiny love heart symbol on it! The annoying thing was that I'd already tried this tactic on other parts of the scenery in that area, maybe even that tree, but had never noticed the heart symbol. For the most part the game was a test of skill more than observation or brain power, and while I'd say finding those last cards was technically the hardest, simply because I could not do it and had to get help, in terms of testing my ability the 'Frogger' Bonus was the toughest thing in the game: I spent hours trying to judge the timing and distance of jumping this frog from block to lily pad to log - it took me a long time to recognise the distances were very particular so that you needed to use either a sideways leap or a diagonal one, and even then it was easy to get out of the right line, but do it I did.

And that wasn't even the toughest thing in the game after all: the 'Prehistoric' Bonus level was even more challenging, being a run towards camera down this tunnel full of pitfalls with a wall of fire chasing you... And you have to collect all 60 cards... And you have to time everything exactly right since here you're playing the ball itself and have to bounce to get some of them which slows you down... And, I have to admit, at time of writing I haven't yet succeeded so I'm stuck at 98% completion, though I'll keep trying. I will say the game was reassuringly structured with its repetition of three levels, Boss and Bonus, and even the familiar world themes are slightly pleasant for being such tropes that sometimes it was close to being a little taste of 'Banjo,' yet it really wasn't close to the technical achievement of that seminal title and had far too much that seemed like it was almost designed to make you froth at the mouth, it was so unfair - sometimes I'd beat a Boss and didn't even know how I'd done it, it was just suddenly over! And while I commend them for including Hi-Score tables and Time Trials (which you can either do 'in-game' where you have the advantage of using Checkpoints if you die, or the external option from the main screen where you don't and have only until the clock counts down from the best time - the only level that really challenged me was 'Carnival 3' where you have so little time and so much to do), neither of these things have ever really been a strong game-lengthening motivation to me as a rule.

I will praise them for the many save files they included, one of the most I've seen as an on-cartridge option, equalling the six of 'Jet Force Gemini,' an addition that could promote multiple people to compete against each other for scores and times, all sharing the same cart, which is a great idea, though for me it was just myself and it's also less impressive when you realise the levels are generally fairly small, plus all the added technical limitations, it shouldn't be so much of a surprise they could allow for so many files. But my final opinion is that 'Glover' was conceptually sound, but needed a stronger design and programming team for the best implementation, much like 'Space Station Silicon Valley' or 'Bomberman 64,' and I can imagine an updated version could be a vast improvement. But for the purposes of review I can only regard what is before me, and this didn't quite make it - I'm not a lover of 'Glover,' too much of a bother.

**

XIII

 GameCube, XIII (2003) game

Nostalgia plays its part, no doubt, and if you have no connection to a game that can adversely affect how you perceive it - such was the case for me when I finally got around to this FPS which I'd bought some years previous, but had never played originally. I like a good shooting game with multiple objectives and a game world to explore rather than linear levels and mindless blasting, but this didn't really deliver. The 'Cube's Controller was sadly not suited to the genre which may explain why there were far fewer quality titles - only 'Turok Evolution' came close to the great games of the N64 era, with 'Timesplitters 2' providing a vast package of options. But still, for me it's down to the C-stick which replaced the C buttons of the N64 Controller: precise and immediate control of sidestepping, and by extension, circle-strafing (a key strategy), as well as the ability to tilt the view up or down, couldn't be bettered, but with the C-stick you no longer had that instant precision instead reducing movement to a drunken wobble as the stick moved up or down as well as left and right, nor was it as responsive. A game may still break through troublesome or unintuitive controls (see 'Hitman 2' on 'Cube), but it certainly reduces its potential and playability - you need to feel you have complete control of your character in life and death situations, otherwise it's the same as that feeling of unfairness you get when dropping off the side of a level in a platform game when it was the camera, or failure of controls which was responsible rather than giving you a sense of either your own skill or deficiency.

Perhaps if this game's options had allowed the controls to be mapped as a player saw fit it might have worked better, but only two control schemes are included (I opted for 'Goofy' as the only slightly less annoying one). That I'm beginning this review with such a technical examination shows how much this was a standout issue, making a big difference to me, and the truth is, coming to it new, I'd already experienced many of the innovative ideas included that may have provided more of a sense of impressive workmanship at the time of release, and which, if I'd encountered here first might have made me more generous. I don't know why I never had any interest in the game at the time, maybe it was the comic book style that had already put me off 'The Wind Waker' when what I really wanted was a more realistic 'Zelda' (and later got!), or more likely a review in NGC Magazine that wasn't as high as I might have expected. Whatever the reason, it took me until this year to play it, having previously bought it cheap on ebay, and needing something to play between matches of the World Snooker Championship I looked to that time last year's surprise success of 'Starsky & Hutch' and wanted another 'Cube title to hopefully recreate that fun experience. I had low expectations with that game since it was based on a licence, and we all know games in that position tended to be weak, so I was pleasantly surprised. The opposite was the case with 'XIII' - it, too, was based on a licenced property, a graphic novel this time, and one I knew nothing about, but I didn't exactly go in with high expectations, I just had the feeling an FPS had a good chance of being good.

Never much of a fan of cel-shading, the gimmicky stylised visuals that were having a heyday in the early 2000s, that certainly wasn't a draw to me, and I don't think it helped the game - I'd have much rather they translated the comic (if they were basing it on such subject matter), into a more realistic vision, but that was the USP they were going for, but it was entirely a gimmick: while it was useful to be able to see enemies' footsteps to know when to creep up on them unawares, the zoom-in frames showing a headshot in action was entirely unnecessary and a flamboyant addition that took me out of the moment. Fortunately, blood could be turned off so it wasn't a gory game (though weirdly, you can't turn off the swearing/blasphemy so you have something that looks pretty clean, yet has the foulest language, especially for the time, when such things weren't common, at least on Nintendo platforms), but it was counterintuitively realistic in other ways such as the lack of ammo available and the need to conserve it as much as possible, death if you fell from height, and (more understandably), not being able to carry a body or hold a hostage while holding a two-handed weapon. And yet you could sometimes shoot someone in the head and they didn't die instantly and required further shots, which is ridiculous! There was something about the whole production that didn't give me a feeling it was put together right. It discouraged me from giving it the benefit of the doubt so I was actively expecting something wrong, whether that be glitches or issues with collision detection (which I don't think I actually experienced), to the extent that when I came across the puzzle in the sanctuary caverns and you had to press a stone obelisk to open a door to progress, I thought there was something wrong with the game that when I pressed the action button and nothing happened.

Searching online I accidentally stumbled across the answer, which I'd never have looked for if I thought it was an actual puzzle rather than something wrong with the game - searching for a 'game-ending glitch' I read that there was a shape hidden in the next room which had to be inserted as a key, so I was annoyed at the game for this atmosphere of things being off since I prefer to work it all out for myself. Okay, it was my fault for failing to look around harder and come across the missing piece of the puzzle, but even so it was an annoyance. The weapons were okay, but again they tended to be very realistic in a way that didn't match with the cartoonish visual approach, so you'd fire an automatic weapon and the muzzle would pull up (no way to brace?), affecting accuracy. It was meant to be played with Auto Aim on as default, another irritation of mine since I prefer to rely on natural skill rather than making it too easy, and criminally there was no aiming reticule so you have to manoeuvre your sights over a target in the most cumbersome way - in all those old shooters like 'Goldeneye' (how long did you think it would take to mention that!), 'Perfect Dark,' even 'The World Is Not Enough' used the R-trigger to aim, but not this game. Instead (like 'TWINE' and the 'Turok' games), you have the addition of a jump button which turns things too much into a platform-gaming style when it wasn't needed - should have concentrated on the shooting, as much as I enjoyed crawling through air ducts and the like, although it was jumping across things that was the trickiest.

I will say they advanced the ideas shown in 'TWINE' to some degree: in the Bond game you had a watch grappling hook which enabled you to climb in specific locations, and so was the case here, except you could also swing, even if that did add to the platforming woes (swing too far where there's an overhang and it cuts off the connection, plunging you to your death). Not that it was a good idea, but the execution was technically impressive. If we're going to talk about the technical, I must come down on the negative side, however, and not just because it's an old game, sometimes due to bad choices: the loading times for levels were too long. The point of GameCube using the smaller in diameter optical discs as opposed to the DVDs of its contemporaries, was to reduce loading times, but it could be really frustrating, especially if you were on a bit where you had to keep going back and trying again, the bitesized combat faring badly next to long load times. Worse, there were cutscenes you couldn't skip! That's a crime, because once you've seen something once you don't need to see it again and only added to the frustration when you want to get straight back into the action where you left off. And that's another thing, the game is so linear, it's not one of those where you're let loose in a level and get to play it how you choose: you have to do it the way the game wants you to, tied so strictly to a story there's no wiggle room, so you have to keep retrying sections until you do exactly what's required to progress, causing it to have a charmless atmosphere about it.

You do have the option to save at any time, but rather than giving you a choice to go back to that exact point it's only a marker to take you to that level (with checkpoints where at least dying drops you back to them rather than the beginning of the level). Much like 'Hitman 2' the frontend shows its third-party genesis rather than having that Nintendo slickness in everything being laid out neatly and logically - you can't replay levels unless you've saved them, there's no neat list to pick from, so I did go along saving each level in case I ever did want to return to one, but the truth is, I didn't! And a good thing, too, since there were about half as many save slots as numbers of levels (the back of the game box says thirty-four), so it wasn't good planning unless it's meant only to be played all the way through, in which case why include save slots at all? You'll definitely need the first aid kits dotted around levels, but again, controls mess you up very well! You go to use a kit and regain health, only to slip on the D-pad and the game thinks you want to switch to a gadget instead of back to your weapon, so you're fighting to get a gun, all the while being shot and almost negating the first aid you've just used. Bad design. There are also the niggles of inconsistency - granted it's something of a given in most games, but it was so specific in this: one of your abilities is lock-picking and you have a tool for the job (which made me think of 'Splinter Cell,' both of a similar vintage), but you can only pick certain locks, the ones where a context-sensitive symbol appears on screen. There are plenty of doors but you have to learn to recognise which ones go somewhere and which are effectively just painted scenery.

There's also the big idea of having items lying around which can be picked up and used as weapons, or broken, and again, you can pick up some, but not others (the back of the box proudly claims you can pick up eight objects, which sounds so stingy!), so that turned out to be little more than another gimmick. It may be useful if you have no ammo left, but they're only any good in tight combat and you can also use your fists, or even better, grab someone from behind to use as a shield. That was a better idea, although again, I'd experienced similar things in 'Splinter Cell' and 'Hitman 2.' I don't know how long the graphic novel had been around, but this game seemed to draw inspiration from other games, as I've mentioned, or films like 'The Bourne Identity' which would have been fresh in people's minds at that time. The first Bourne story was written in the Eighties, at most, so I'm sure that goes back further, and you can argue that spy stories, amnesia, all that kind of stuff isn't anything new anyway, borrowing from each other as a genre, but the use here didn't strike me as fresh or original in any way, 'XIII' just didn't have the flair of its apparent inspirations. Strangely, the longer I played the game the more I saw parallels to 'TWINE' - not just the jump ability or mostly linear levels, but even the locations themselves: early on you're in a bank and have to fight your way out, you're running around in the woods, sneaking aboard a submarine later in the game, even battling a helicopter! Again, these are all things that can be traced to the genre's genetic memory, but it was all so specific, and 'TWINE' had only come out three years before... Unlike that superb game there was no incentive to replay, no chance of bettering your accuracy, completion time, score, it really gives the impression of being a singular experience rather than something to dip into when you feel like it, no room to explore and examine.

The story was pretty uninteresting to be honest, not something where I'd want to search out the original source material because I was so impressed - I believe there was a film or a TV series, maybe both, based on this, trying to turn it into a franchise, but you need more content than what this was giving. Maybe the original story was great, but it didn't translate all that well into game form - you can see the beginnings of games trying to edge into film territory with the narrative apparently the most important thing about it all, and a voice cast that included actual 'names,' but the point of a game is to experience the freedom and variety you don't get in real life, not just a story you watch unfold, and in that regard this one falls short. I was amazed to discover the guy voicing XIII himself, the character you're playing, was from David Duchovny - not that I care about the actor or have watched his work, but for such a well known actor I really felt it was one of those 'phoned in' performances where all the way through I was thinking 'this guy isn't up to much,' only to discover it was a proper actor behind it! Adam West was a bit better as your superior, General Carrington, though I'd never have guessed it was him until the credits. Even the voices were better in 'Starsky & Hutch,' which just goes to show you can't judge something based on it being a licence or not, though they tend to have less chance of being good.

In the interests of completeness, I did try out the multiplayer which caters for full bot support, which was nice (although I think 'Timesplitters 2' already did that, and certainly 'TWINE'), though there weren't a huge number of options - I did like The Hunt mode where you're chasing down a creepy Grim Reaper figure that gets smaller every time it's shot and kills you instantly if you touch it, but was disappointed that all the levels I played were specifically for multiplayer, based on the game's environments, rather than adapting actual in-game levels. Perhaps it would have provided some fun with human participants, I don't know, though the control issues would always be there. I'm not saying I had no enjoyment of the game at all, it was reasonably competent and there were certain areas that were either challenging in a good way or where I admired the scenery: the twisting ravines out in the desert, the confines of the submarine, the hedge maze gardens were quite beautiful... and I have happy memories of playing certain parts, like the snowy exterior before the cable car, though nothing stood out as being amazing and memorable in the way earlier N64 entries in the FPS genre were so successful. They were a high bar that was set for me and nothing has come close to them (I know how good they remain as I've replayed them all this decade).

There is the addition of trying to track down all the evidence, with little packages or files left in certain parts of levels throughout the game, and I did enjoy that extra task, though I didn't give it much mind at first which may be why I was missing one piece at the end (unless this is a glitch since I found something in the final level, yet still had an empty slot), but it wasn't enough to make me want to replay it again on a harder difficulty. The stop-start nature of the gameplay was bad enough at the standard difficulty, too many times having to restart sections or a level and sit through the same dialogue and action. I think it's just a game of its time that wasn't quite as innovative as it may have seemed. The passage of time tends to root out the flaws in games and make them much clearer, although saying that I now want to go back and read what NGC said about it - it may be they saw it for what it was back then, maybe why I never wanted to pay full whack for it? It didn't live up to my hopes as a suitable April/May snooker substitute so next year I'll have to be more careful in my choices - eventually I did get to the stage where I wanted to get back to it rather than finding it a bit of a chore to get into, but never enough that I'll be thinking happily of it for years to come. I wouldn't say it's bad enough that I want Number XIII's amnesia, but I think it would take that for me to play it again!

**

The Stars At Night

 DVD, Lower Decks S3 (The Stars At Night)

As much as I love it when they bring back an actor to reprise their old role from past Trek, that didn't guarantee an episode in this series would be good, rather it's when they're making Trek in their own right with their own angle and style, while still (just about), fitting into canon and the realm of in-universe believability, hitting the key elements of plot, drama and character, when the series really succeeds - sings, even. That moment is reached in what could be seen as an overused cliché of the cavalry coming to the rescue at the critical moment, but in this case is a very specific victory, a restatement of the meaning and necessity of the little ships that could, as all, every one, of the California-class starships burn in to protect the Cerritos and destroy the evil Texas-class Aledo. That they were led by Mariner after a change of heart, realising she was wrong to give up on her Starfleet career, is one of the most Trekkiest things that could happen: forgiveness, overcoming personal feelings, doing good rather than being bitter... It's these kinds of themes that made Trek stand out from the crowd, and the lack of which has made it sink into a crowd of identikit pessimistic sci-fi of modern times, so once again it's refreshing to find it in the unlikeliest of places: an animated comedy version of Trek. I wouldn't always say its heart is in the right place, but every now and then it turns things up to maximum warp and does it like it should be done, and that's why it's the only modern Trek I can honestly say I like.

As always there's plenty I don't like: they persist in the bad language, the casual language, the amount of times someone was insubordinate just in this episode... Understandable that Freeman is angry with Buenamigo, and it's good to see her so riled up in defence of her ship and crew, but you can also see hints of why she would be Captain in what's often considered a lesser branch of Starfleet, that she isn't always diplomatic enough, or that she doesn't always have the right idea in a pinch (Freeman's belief that AI doesn't get surprised when Ransom suggests dropping out of warp for a surprise attack was a little unfounded, an overestimation of its capabilities and a minor weakness in Freeman's armour, because it certainly was surprised, even if overwhelming odds had something to do with it). I loved the run through the Bridge crew's suggestions, it's very Trekky them all chiming in, but it wasn't until Boimler told her to shut up that they were able to focus on the one idea that might work. That's another bit of insubordination, and as goodhearted as it was (well, in a way - Boimler's determination not to get out of a Bridge officer's good books is a selfish response, not wanting to ruin his record!), intent on letting Shaxs have the spotlight in order to make up to him for earlier offending his sensibilities earlier when Boimler had mimicked him and upset the sensitive Bajoran Security Chief, it's another example of how not to behave as a member of Starfleet. But leaving aside all that, I like that Freeman isn't portrayed as a perfect Captain because it shows not everyone is at the Picard gold standard and it creates additional internal logic for her posting to such a situation, all while giving us something to root for, in her successes and her failures.

That's one of more attractive aspects of the not-quite-Utopian ideal of the Cerritos: that the characters are not quite finished, they have their flaws that we can see get ironed out over time, much in the way 'DS9' started where not everyone was likeable, or immediately gelled, they had their own unique ways, and while that was a little more acceptable since it was a melting pot scenario of different cultures interacting, and in the monoculture of Starfleet (forgetting all the aliens, it's the standard behaviours that matter, like Tendi standing up for a check on sentient microbial life), you'd expect things to be more like 'TNG,' 'LD' has places to go. Sadly, thanks to the vagaries of modern streaming content we got only a fraction of seven years worth of twenty-six episode seasons (and films to come after that!), the series ending at five ten-episode seasons, but the potential was there and now and again we see it realised. What's more special is that they tended to achieve that in the season finales which, judging by modern Trek's track record, was especially noteworthy. The reality is they were playing to Trek's strengths, at least in this regard, since they were able to work in little arcs and subplots while concentrating on day-to-day life, episode-to-episode stories rather than being locked in to a season-long plot that had to be resolved in the finale, something which very much hamstrung the other series of recent times.

It also helps how much they hew close to traditional Trek, too, and I still can't help but admire simple things, or those that should be basic staples, such as Phaser beams being fired, or the little flash when a ship goes to warp, the stretching of warp, ship's logs, the look of the interiors (carpets), uniforms, all the aesthetic backdrops that should be a given but have so often been ignored or avoided. It may be a series that's laughing and joking around, and that can sometimes harm it when the goal is a joke rather than a serious point, but here, even though it's only a twenty-five minute running time, they squeeze in more than the lazy, bloated (what seems like) hours of 'DSC,' 'Picard' or 'SNW.' The very real threat of our times is artificial intelligence taking people's jobs, quite apart from the ethical situation of governments having the ability to track its entire population, banks to judge who should be allowed to have their money or confiscate it, and so many other issues of rights as society and culture continues to fracture. It's good to escape from all that in Trek, but at the same time we expect it to reflect elements of our time, so AI being such a big change in life was a good theme to bring in. Trek's always had a varied view of life, artificial or not (even in this episode Billups cites Commander Data as a model for the crew to follow as they prepare for their big race against the machine, saying those isolinear chips had better be a blur, which is a nice Trekference, but also relevant!), so it makes sense for it to be explored. Not that they really have time for much depth, it is still a sub-half hour animation, perhaps due to which it's easier to give it leeway if it doesn't succeed, but compared to the running-time-to-satisfaction ratio of the other Treks, this one is far superior.

Artificial life isn't the only view here, as Tendi almost causes her ship to lose its big space race (which is fortunately more than the mere physical A-to-B of other examples in sci-fi in general, and Trek in particular - even this season we had good Rutherford racing his bad self, something that's called back to as the problems in the AI stem from it being Rutherford's own implant code), when she thinks there's the possibility of sentient life in the soil - considering Starfleet tends to believe in evolution as a theory then surely all living tissue must be protected at all costs since it could supposedly grow into life, but that just shows how ridiculous the idea is and how no one really lives that theory as reality! But it was a great moment when in the midst of this important race for the future of their ship's class, they're forced to pause until they can be sure it's safe to proceed - it's that selflessness that I miss from Trek and just isn't as much in evidence these days. It heightened the drama and when Dr. T'Ana is making the determination about whether there's life there or not it's actually quite tense, so all tribute to the writing, acting and directing to bring that together when it could easily be laughed off as a joke. Almost as good is that Tendi's vindicated afterwards - not by life being present, but the accommodating attitude of everyone who mentions it, and that she was right to act that way, and of course doing the right thing achieves Freeman a victory by pointing out the AI's cold efficiency in refusing to follow protocol.

It becomes a little bit 'Frankenstein' when the Aledo (with its NA-01 registry to show it's even more special than the more usual 'NX' prefix for experimental vessels throughout Trek history), turns on its creator, killing Admiral Buenamigo (conveniently meaning he never has to face his crimes, but poetically just), and going rogue since its roots are in the same code that created Badgey. Oh, dear. At least we didn't have Badgey back to make matters even worse, just the glimmer of evil potential when the now-expected post-credits cliffhanger shows the implant-like technology (I presumed a starship-sized piece of the Texas-class puzzle that enabled the Admiral to communicate with it, but actually Rutherford's original implant left behind on the Pakled ship in 'No Small Parts'!), is salvaged by a mysterious green glow. But what works best about the whole situation is the effectiveness of these new ships as a villain. It works to the series' strengths, and Trek's in general, with superb starship encounters and conflicts to the extent I wish we could see some flashbacks to the Dominion War on this series, they're done that well: from the wholesale ravaging of the Starbase where Buenamigo sits on his new AI fleet, the Texas-class ships ignoring the Cerritos as if it's no threat to them at all (much like the Borg, which makes them immediately cooler and more deadly), to the brave Sovereign-class that flies to the rescue (although I must admit it did take me out of the moment a little when it was called USS Van Citters after the marketing guy at Paramount, I think, and also unsure about reusing music from the 'Crisis Point' films when this is serious). Again, they've got that banking turn, the firing of torpedoes, the grand beauty of a starship coming into battle, all down perfectly!

That a Sovereign-class gets pummelled and then they turn on Cerritos (even braver of Freeman to distract them from their current targets), makes the situation ooze with threat, then we have a space race in earnest as she has to escape her pursuers, everyone working to the best of their ability: the best of what makes Trek work. Though all four of our Ensigns (and ex-Ensigns), are key to the episode (perhaps Boimler's subplot as offending and then pleasing Shaxs was the weakest strand), it could be said to be a Carol episode as she gets so much to do and has so much impact, but it's really a full ensemble in the best way possible. We're seeing a Starfleet crew working as they should, no rebels or limelight-hogging Burnhams to shortchange the experience, and while stories like this aren't entirely true to the lower decks nature of what the series was meant to be, seeing things happening on the Bridge, having our lowly crewmembers integral to events of ship-wide import makes it suitably grand for a season finale. As much as it can be pleasant to have our people down below, seeing things from their perspective, the series had built up the Bridge officers to the extent they could carry the story if needed, and it'd pretty much always been that way, at least from Season 2.

They can reference or joke about things by this time that we enjoy as an audience, like Boimler's impressions of T'Ana, Ransom and Shaxs, or the rumours the California-class ships could be decommissioned, so there are still those elements that allow the series to hold onto its title as well as giving us the kind of Trek we've been yearning for since the old days and which is surprisingly rare, perhaps because Trek tends to go so far off-piste now as to lose its essentials. The threat never makes that much sense, I don't see Starfleet ever retiring human(oid) interactions for automata (not to mention the glaring omission of a history lesson on the M-5 computer from 'TOS,' surely the greatest warning from history there could be!), as while second contacts aren't the same as firsts, they still need to be handled with a personal touch. It's fun to see so many Trek (or even sci-fi), tropes, such as Freeman's description of a Brigadoon-type planet which only phases in a couple of times a year ('Meridian'), as if they're a common occurrence (the peasant had a good point about them sending a Replicator next time as opposed to mere supplies - although once again we have 'aliens' who may as well be 21st Century humans by their attitudes and language, which I am tired of, it's only so funny to see aliens behaving that way, a small note in such a good episode). We see the 'battle-ready' preparations for this big contest, except it's things like Ransom giving a stirring talk on how to command a chair (complete with lifting the leg over the back in Riker-esque manner - now that's funny!).

That whole sequence where the crew are doing what they normally do on missions, but quicker, was great fun, combining a slight absurdity with the tension of the stakes, and well created drama in a situation where either one or the other is going to be in the lead, always a difficult thing to pull off (the Pod Race of 'The Phantom Menace' notwithstanding). What I enjoy are the many Trekferences thrown in, like T'Ana getting her swagger stick out like Captain Styles in 'Star Trek III,' the even more overt M-5 computer display in how Buenamigo communicates with the Aledo - he even smokes a cigar so you know he's bad (and he'd also recall Gul Dukat when he expresses disgust at not just wiping Rutherford's memory: "I should have erased all of you," like Dukat coming to the conclusion he should've killed all Bajorans!), since smoking is generally considered madness in Trek time, other than Rios in 'Picard,' but then that was inserted by people of a different vintage who weren't necessarily on board with the idea of smoking being a negative I suspect (thankfully reversed by Rios' exclusion from Season 3, and a reiteration of smoking's villainous status with Vadic). We get Starfleet Command depicted like the Tillman Water Reclamation facility that used to stand in for Starfleet Academy in the old days (and was seen as 'recently' as in 'Voyager,' from which they were recreating the same shot), so that was a nice touch (though odd that people are seen walking along the transparent tube in the foreground when you'd expect some kind of shuttle going through), and the dark room with the long, oval table and individual lamps could be the exact one from 'Star Trek VI'! Mariner discovers her and Petra's 'mysterious benefactor' is actually Admiral Picard (must have been newly promoted), though she was hoping for a Romulan or Xindi cabal.

One of my favourite Trekferences, simply because it reinforces the reality of this future time, is when Petra goes all condescending about Mariner knowing how money works, reminding us the Federation doesn't use the stuff (which makes you wonder where Picard got his from if he's financing this archeological thing - not sure he'd approve of running through ancient temples being chased by Ferengi, though... it's a nice way to bring Picard's name in since we were never likely to have Patrick Stewart show up in it). It's true to Mariner's character that she eventually realises she should be back in Starfleet, for all her bad-girl attitude she's a good girl at heart, and I liked her rationale that Starfleet is just an idea, but the people matter, persuading Petra they need to intervene. Not too sure on the time scale here to be able to get to the Starbase and inform all the other California-class ships, wherever they may be, to rendezvous, a bit farfetched, but I didn't care - sometimes you need to bend story logic for a good story, as long as you don't break it, or bend too much or too often. Saying that, I did feel niggly about the Phaser fire in warp - it may have been done in old Trek, probably was, in fact (unless I'm thinking of travel in transwarp tunnels), but I'm not sure it makes sense since you're travelling faster than light and Phasers are light... But the big no-no was after the Cerritos ejected its Warp Core (pleasing Shaxs as a dream come true in the same way as if Picard had turned around to Worf and finally said, 'yes, just destroy the vessel this time'!), and it seems to plunge sideways, spinning out of warp when surely it should have come to a dead stop (faster than light: no left or right), an annoyance about warp that often comes up in modern Trek!

In the same vein, how can Mariner tap into the comms and know what her Mother's saying, since she cuts in and tells the crew to belay that order (more insubordination with a good reason again!), it was dramatically right, but didn't make sense to me technologically - she'd have had to be listening in and the Cerritos would have detected that. It's not really relevant, it doesn't take away from the moment, and it is such a terrific ending with all those Calis, the AI confused. I almost wish all the other Texas ships had shown up to back up the Aledo and we'd had a massive battle, but I appreciated the purity of how it was done as shown - as good as Shaxs' suggestion was, they only have one Warp Core and I'm surprise no one pointed out the tactical issue of being a sitting duck if it missed, but it was all last-ditch desperation, they had to do something. Enjoyable to hear the crew chipping in with suggestions, not like modern Pike on the Enterprise where he seems a bit wishy-washy, but in the way Captains sometimes would demand options: others were Migleemo's suggestion to contact the Titan (presumably so it could swoop in and save the day in a recreation of Season 1's finale), Barnes wanting to modify the Deflector Dish as a weapon, the Captain herself wondering if she could trap the AI in a logic spiral (Kirk-style, though they resisted the urge to say his name), but Rutherford had already safeguarded against paradoxes as if in response to the many Trek stories along those lines.

Something else that is successful is the series' own lore being used to great effect - we've built up a good recurring cast that are memorable enough to be remembered (like Barnes), or can remind us of past moments, such as the all-Bolian ship Captained by former Cerritos crewmember Vendome ('Temporal Edict'), Captain Ramsey ('Much Ado About Boimler'), Tellarite Captain Durango ('Moist Vessel' - possibly the actor of the same name who was in 'DS9'), or the weird, alternate Cerritos Cali crew of the Alhambra (so similar, yet just different - I'd like to see more of them!). Rutherford's past is key to the story and we get to see Buenamigo as a younger man from his memory banks, wearing 'TNG'-era uniform and badge - even Freeman's insistence that he's not one of those bad-faith Admirals that may have been in the majority over the years (we learn in this case Buenamigo wanted to make a name for himself since there's so much competitiveness - he succeeded, but not in the way he planned!), about as close as Trek was likely to come to using the term 'Badmiral' that's been doing the rounds in fan circles for years. There are tiny tidbits for other character histories, too, with Mariner saying Petra served on the USS Victory, T'Ana bemoaning she didn't spend seven years on an Oberth-class for this (hmm, seven years, is that a reference to the length of a TV series of old?), and it was nice to see her and Migleemo interact, however briefly, though I felt they missed a trick as there should be more to play than usual since she's a cat and he's a bird... And finally we get T'Lyn ('wej Duj'), joining the crew, in what sounded like a role designed to assist Tendi in science training, though surely there'd already be suitable mentors aboard?

Then again, it is the Cerritos so maybe they don't have the cream of Starfleet and a Vulcan scientist is always good, and who cares, we get T'Lyn, the best Vulcan in modern Trek, so I'm not complaining! Loved the mention of DS9, which was apparently another example of Buenamigo's interventions in preparation for his new ships taking over, as he thought their negotiations would fail, and it's a nice memory jog back to a highlight of the season. But more importantly they got the tone of 'DS9' right with this: a strong season-ender that does all it needs to. The series may not yet have given me a 'classic' that stands with the best of old Trek, but it undoubtedly got the closest of the crop. Buenamigo uses the old 'good of the many' Vulcan bit to justify forcing through his Texas-class fleet as it will keep countless people out of danger, but he's entirely missed the point: as Kirk said, risk is their business, you can't avoid it, it's an ingredient of Starfleet life, and this episode showed our Starfleet heroes and sub-heroes demonstrating what it means to go up against the odds, use teamwork and expertise and training, with a healthy dose of courage, to overcome, and that's exactly what we need from Trek. Season 3 may not have quite lived up to 2 (although 4 would make it look better in retrospect...), but it had enough of the magic to make it a worthwhile addition to the canon and continued 'LD' as a series I would want to keep watching, and not out of habit/duty/chore, but enjoyment, and I have enjoyed going back over them for the purposes of review, still hoping Season 5 will live up to the best the series had achieved.

***

Trusted Sources

 DVD, Lower Decks S3 (Trusted Sources)

The early part of the episode is functional, adequate, mildly amusing - all the usual things you hope to expect in the better parts of the series, but it really takes off when the Breen are introduced! Talk about making a race look dangerous! So often the Cerritos has had to deal with unimpressive adversaries like the Pakleds, showing how weak the ship is or inexperienced the crew, relatively speaking, so we rarely see them face off against a threat that would test even the great hero crews of old Trek, but not this time - the battle sequences are probably the best modern Trek has ever done, as short as they were: the Captain and some of her crew beam down to planet Brekka expecting some mild diplomatic difficulties at worst and come face to gleaming green visor with the fearsome and still mysterious (no, I haven't yet seen 'DSC' Season 5...), race that began as an occasional mention dating all the way back to 'TNG,' eventually being seen on 'DS9' a couple of times, then rising out of the blue to be a key ally against the Federation in the Dominion War. The first thing we see them do is vaporise a Brekkan before the Away Team has to skedaddle back to the ship. That was terrific enough, but then we get an attack by three Breen warships on the little Cerritos, and I felt a little thrill of excitement running down my back when one of the famous asymmetrical ships takes a banking turn past the camera! This is the kind of Trek that you only see on this series, the kind that harks back to when makers of Trek understood the superior aesthetics of ships in space, and all it took was three seasons of an animated comedy to get us there!

That's not quite true, as far back as the Titan swooping in to save the day in the Season 1 finale I've recognised the makers of 'LD' have known what makes the visuals appealing in Trek, but even so, it is much more of a 'TNG' clone than a 'DS9' one (even though we get two mentions of Quark in this episode!), and the situation of being this secondary vessel rather than one in the main fleet (as silly as that still seems), necessitates them facing only the occasional single enemy. The Breen just look deadly, and if there was a way to bring back a race that we've heard hide nor hair of (if they even have hides or hair - so much remains unknown about them), and make them a genuine threat to the extent you feel like you're watching a serious live action episode, then this is the way to do it and I applaud the writing, directing and design that pulled it off, even while lamenting that live action Trek never gets to this state of heightened alert and real feeling of peril for the characters. Once again, 'LD' has done it: creating what I would call proper Trek, and even when they throw in a characteristic gag, such as Migleemo's 'Meema,' or Mother, on the big screen when Freeman strides onto the Bridge to take command in this life and death situation, the joke exists, and it is funny, but they breeze right over it like it's not even there, there's a sense of intense seriousness that overrides any possible silliness, and it's so rare to have that thrill of danger in modern Trek when most of the time nothing means anything, even, perhaps especially, in this series.

It remains a comedy, it's just that they squeeze all that into the first half where we have what appears to be the A-plot of a Federation News Network (I still want to know what happened to the Federation News Service which always sounded so much more like something the Federation would have, a service, rather than a TV station, or whatever, which just makes it yet another thing like our time), representative experiencing what it's like to work aboard a California-class ship during an important new initiative: Project Swing-by. Captain Freeman's proposal of revisiting planets not recently contacted has finally been accepted, even though I'm not sure it's really any different to the supposed mission statement of that class of ship, which is second contact and clean-up operations after the 'big boys' have gone their way. But it's nice that this Captain is getting some sway since she can often come across as a bit of a joke, much like the rest of her crew (in fact, the bit where the FNN reporter suggests the crew is 'chaotic, irresponsible, silly' could just as well be describing the series itself), although watching it with the perspective of what comes next means it was all a ploy to use her by the evil forces in control, to manufacture an excuse to show the new Texas-class in operation (is there a bit of overt political nudging going on here: the California liberality are the good guys, the big, bad Texas is the brash danger to the organisation...?).

It's not simply the terrific resurgence of a long-dormant foe (at least in Trek production - we don't know what happened with them after the war in-universe), especially as that didn't end up going anywhere, sadly (I'd have loved them to be the main opponent of the series, or even more if they'd been involved in 'Picard,' though no doubt other writers would have messed them up - again I have yet to see the 32nd Century version of them in 'DSC'...), but the B-plot (if you can call it that), of Mariner being transferred to the ill-reputed Starbase 80, all over a misunderstanding - it's actually a valuable lesson in the importance of keeping your nose clean and garnering a positive reputation because that's really what sunk her in both the eyes of her Mother and the crew, in this case unfairly. But she's always been so individualistic to the point of bordering on insubordination, that it doesn't take any more than the merest innuendo for everyone to instantly jump to the conclusion Mariner's responsible for the bad report made by FNN. On this occasion it very much wasn't her fault, but she dug her own grave with every shovelful of bad behaviour or pleasure in subverting her position or those in authority that although she doesn't deserve it in this instance, she does deserve it for past misdemeanours, both seen and unseen.

I'm not sure what this Victoria Nuzé (newsy?), is if she's apparently never even seen a Warp Core before (unless she was merely being polite when Freeman suggested it, but she certainly sounded genuinely excited), as you'd think reporters of the 24th Century would be fully up to date with Starfleet ships and such. I know they may not play as much of a part in civilian life since all we see are the Starfleet-based lives of characters (I've read ideas from people online that they should do a series based around civilians in the Federation, or even out of it, but what would be the point, it would be boring, people going about their daily lives rather than having adventure on the frontiers!), Trek being heavily biased towards active service, but surely even the most inexperienced citizen would be well in the know on starships and technology! While I'm being nit-picky I also don't believe they'd have little lapel mics for interviews like now - the floating camera would have directional sound receivers that would perfectly pick up any and all sounds and be able to isolate them, too. That's one big problem in the modern era: where old Trek tended to avoid going into too much detail on many things, partly to leave some mystery, partly so they weren't tied down narratively (because they used to keep to what they revealed!), they seem desperate to show as much as possible, which then doesn't make a lot of sense because they haven't taken the time to think through where technology would be in a given instance. So you have uninspired junk like Picard watching the news on a flat holo-screen hovering in the air (it's transparent so we can see it's not physical, but who'd want to watch like that!), and in this case, wired lapel mics.

Credit to Ransom, though, he recapped the events of the Season 1 'TNG' episode this story was following up on, very well (and Freeman's outraged response of it now being their job to check in on an entire planet Picard left cold turkey was quite realistic, but very true to the series that they'd choose to catch up with such obscure races!). The way they tell the story visually on a PADD with icons and simple graphics, a commentary by the First Officer, made me wish they could do recap edits of other famous Trek episodes, just to see how they'd tell them! That wasn't exactly a joke as such, but it was quite fun to see, and that's another part of the episode that worked: it had drama and humour, and the latter didn't overshadow the former. It was also a deal cleaner than most episodes, perhaps the Cerritos crew were holding back a bit because they had this special guest aboard and had to be on their best behaviour giving her the best impression of the ship and its crew, which I liked. It shows they don't need to be dropping in bleeped-out swearing every few minutes (perhaps one reason Dr. T'Ana wasn't as much in evidence!). I'm not saying there wasn't any, because there was, but as a whole the place seemed a better version of itself that I wish was the norm! It also makes Mariner look much worse when she's wandering around covered in blueberry juice and getting it everywhere, oblivious to her childish attitude and unprofessional demeanour. It is easy to forget that that isn't, and shouldn't be, the norm in Trek, even though you come to enjoy these characters (certainly much more than any of the live action ones of recent years, bar the 'TNG' crew).

The episode is chock full of Trekferences, but in a refreshing turn of events, they're mainly to Cerritos turns of event! We get Mariner wondering if the way the crew are talking about her is some 'Frame of Mind' thing (which is one of those that doesn't make sense since she's referencing an episode title, though I suppose you could spin it that she's talking about what happened as being in Riker's frame of mind or the name of the play he was performing at the time, but is a little too on the nose in such a relatively serious episode), or Admiral Les Buenamigo (less good friend), telling Freeman to make the Ornarans show her their government in case they're secretly run by children (as in 'Miri'?), or someone pretending to be the devil (got to be 'Devil's Due'). There's Freeman's own suggestion for showing the usefulness of Project Swing-by by returning to Beta III where the inhabitants have probably fallen for Landru again (as we saw in 'No Small Parts' - a good joke here, but I never liked that the just ending of 'The Return of The Archons' was undone by this series). And can't forget the conspiracy theory guy - even he turns on Mariner's apparent betrayal of the ship though he thinks it's all part of some Temporal Cold War 'shenanigans'! Oh, and the interface of the USS Aledo, the first fully-automated starship, looks very much like the M5 graphics (coloured lines on a black rectangle), from 'The Ultimate Computer,' subtly hinting at the danger therein. Even 'Enterprise' gets its call-out (other than the Temporal Cold War), with a Pyrithian bat causing trouble for the crew of Starbase 80, which is so out of it they wear 'TNG'-era combadges...

All that's without me even going into the fact this is all based around following up on 'Symbiosis,' dating the episode firmly as 2380 or '81 (depending on if the episode fell in 2364 or '65) since it's set seventeen years after Picard made first contact! I've always rather liked that episode, not just for reuniting the two sons (possibly...), of 'Star Trek II' where the actors that played David Marcus and Joachim were oddly both cast, but also because it was one of those tough calls Picard made and it's interesting to see the ramifications. At least they didn't undo any good from it as they did with 'Archons,' as while we never found out what happened to the Brekkans, or why the Breen were there killing them, there didn't seem to be any connection with the Picard mission. But I did say that the Trekferences were mainly about the Cerritos and while that may not be true after all, having just written about all the non-'LD' connections, we get a whole spiel from the reporter about events that had happened on the series: Ransom turning into a giant head ('Strange Energy'), Freeman's spa trip and meltdown earlier this season ('Room For Growth'), the incident of transporting a Doopler into the exclusive Starfleet party they couldn't get into ('An Embarrassment of Dooplers'), the time the Pandronian instructor came aboard ('I, Excretus'), the episode where Head of Security Lieutenant Kayshon (though he isn't head since Shaxs returned), was turned into a puppet - love the way he says the crew didn't hold it against him! ('Kayshon, His Eyes Open'), the time spear-wielding aliens took over the ship (I vaguely remember it, but couldn't recall the episode), Quark being kidnapped ('Hear All, Trust Nothing'), and the trouble with the Exocomp ('No Small Parts').

Tantalisingly, Victoria mentions she's seen a lot about Q as the scene fades out so are we supposed to take it that his one visit in 'Veritas' wasn't an isolated incident? We know he does take a liking to bothering specific people so maybe all starship Captains have to go through it from time to time? Makes me wonder what other mischief he got up to and wish we'd had a proper Q episode since early on when 'name' characters appeared they tended to be mere cameos, and I think Q would fit in quite well with this crew. Just another couple of little questions: would it really be that quick to transfer someone, since the journey between neighbouring planets Ornara and Brekka can't be very long, yet the denizens of Starbase 80, implied to be slackers, have no trouble getting a shuttle to the Cerritos and doing it exceedingly efficiently! Are they actually just victims of a bad name and, like Mariner in this episode, it's not actually justified and in reality, while being poor at hygiene and public relations, perhaps they are geniuses? No, probably not, and I'm not sure we really want to be portraying any branch of Starfleet as losers without a clue, that really doesn't play well into the positive attitude of Trek, although it's far from the first time 'LD' has joined the modern bandwagon of going from not only making the 'heroes' of Trek imperfect, but even downright failures (see Raffi, for example), who can't excel even with the advantages of no want or trouble in their lives! Not the best message.

My other note was on the archeologist/thief, Petra Aberdeen's ship, which Mariner goes off in to a new life, apparently, unable to accept the unfairness of dismissal from both ship and Mother - it appears to have only one Warp Nacelle, so how could it create a warp field! I know, it's not the most important thing to focus on at the end of such an eventful episode, but I couldn't help noticing. I've been generally less impressed by this season than I thought I'd been on first viewing, but looking back I actually was quite harsh and I've enjoyed most episodes more than I did before, perhaps because I found Season 4 a bit underwhelming after the previous highs, perhaps because I'm watching with a more analytical eye, perhaps I'm simply more used to it all now. In this episode's case I wasn't as sold on it then (partly worried they'd undermine 'Symbiosis,' but also didn't realise the Texas-class was meant to be something negative as we'd heard in the past how Starfleet could send out un-crewed vessels, but preferred to send people, and also how the Breen have a powerful weapon so how could they develop a new one when the original was beaten...), despite my memory being that the one with the Breen was a highlight of the season, and I really was impressed by how good the battle with them was (whether it be space shots or Shaxs and others gearing up for zero-g combat in the approaching boarding raid), both in attachment to the moment and characters, and in executing a thrilling climax. Hopefully, the season finale will remain as strong as I remember it, because I do pretty much consider this season the second or third best of current Trek after Season 2, competing with 'Picard' Season 3, even if I was surprised how many lesser episodes there were than in my memory.

***

Crisis Point 2: Paradoxus

 DVD, Lower Decks S3 (Crisis Point 2: Paradoxus)

You could look on this episode as a return to the most egregious emptiness of Season 1's reference-strewn style of poking or pointing at past Trek rather than creating a good story. You could look at it as a rather pointless aside that has no bearing on anything since it mostly takes place in the Holodeck as a sequel to Mariner's 'film' holoprogram in Season 1. Or you can take it for what it is: a fun rip through the Trek film franchise with just enough character depth to justify the amusement because what its really about is exactly the kind of Trek many of us struggle to find in the modern era, either film or TV iterations, a comment on the meaninglessness of so many blockbuster experiences in general, and in Trek in particular, while also showing there's more than one reason for the existence of the medium. They're there to entertain, as Rutherford so entered into, the guy who isn't taking it seriously, he's just going along for the ride, and his flippant attitude, joking, popping out for snacks, eating during important moments - these can all be annoyances for some of us that like to take our films seriously, but also a reminder there's room for all types. Tendi represents the hyper-seriously invested viewer (or participant, since Holodeck 'films' are really closer to computer games than the passive experience of viewing), who gets angry that others aren't taking it in the same spirit, but we find out it's because she aspires to the character she's playing, she wants to be in command, though she's never admitted it out loud before.

These kind of character explorations are exactly the small details that tend to be missing from the blockbuster entertainment the episode affectionately mocks, so it's nice that, despite widening the viewing angle to cinematic proportions, dropping the lighting and including the glow and grain of film stock (which are reportedly coming back into more widespread use), they didn't forget that they're not actually trying to be those kinds of film. But even in Boimler's desire to get away from the bombast and empty set-pieces he'd set up after hearing the news of his Transporter twin, William Boimler's, untimely death at the hands of a freak gas leak (coming back into the Holodeck in the same dazed manner Picard had in 'Generations' when he learned during a fun holo-outing with his crew that his brother and nephew had both burned to death in a fire), the story apes that of the more mystical direction some of the Trek films took, particularly 'The Final Frontier' with its quest for knowledge. The pull of the two sub-genres of what for many years were the odd and even number film styles, when the next film would go in the opposite direction: sedate and metaphysical 'The Motion Picture' to action revenge flick of 'The Wrath of Khan,' back to Vulcan mysticism reuniting Spock's spirit with his body in 'The Search For Spock,' which also successfully combined the action side with a belligerent Klingon seeking his own quest for power, to the fun frolics of 'The Voyage Home' and its time travel, to the ultimate mystic quest, doubling back to political action thriller with 'The Undiscovered Country' to philosophical exploration of death in 'Generations,' and on to Borg time travel battling of 'First Contact,' a quest for the fountain of youth and its consequences in 'Insurrection' and Romulan political battling in 'Nemesis.'

Then it falls down with Trek's descent into big budget mindless action fare with the Kelvin Timeline films, which get plenty of knocks and digs throughout! The first such slight may have been Mariner's dismay at Boimler's choices, saying it doesn't contractually oblige him to make a bad sequel, although that could easily be seen as a general indictment of the trend of cinematic sequels to good originals, even though 'Star Trek Into Darkness' is often regarded (certainly by me), as being the poorest Trek film (while still having to be acknowledged as the most financially successful even to this date, though we've only had one or two since then, if you count 'Section 31,' which I haven't seen and remain completely ambivalent towards...), but if there was any doubt they were piling in on that trilogy (as it remains after almost a decade later!), it can't be made clearer than when Mariner asks if it makes an alternate cinematic timeline running concurrent with their own with different people playing younger versions of themselves. And like a cherry on top, scientist Tendi calls it a bit of a reach, thereby pleasing many a lifetime Trekker! Mariner even calls it fan fiction, which is another criticism that could be levelled at those films, although 'Lower Decks' is hardly pure in its own use of Trekdom (especially early on when they were riding the barrage of Trekferences more than making good Trek).

If you thought it would only be the Kelvin films that were awarded a bashing, or a loving tribute (the latter especially for those old films, I would say), then the episode is full of similarities to many of the first ten films' plots, tropes and stories. Right from the start when we have evil Romulan sisters (the Melponar Triplets, complete with very un-Romulan outfits - more like female Klingon warrior uniforms...), in their Bird-of-Prey pretty much taking out the hero ship (the Cerritos), much like in 'Generations' (except I was mistaken, it wasn't a BOP, it was a Warbird, but I never liked the piddling little updated versions of 'Nemesis' which had little of the sweeping majesty of the original 'TNG' Warbird model, though I like what they did here combining the predatory shoulder pads of 'TNG' with the grey and black-checked uniforms of 'Nemesis'), you can see this is going to be a celebration - then the beauty of the Sovereign-class Wayfarer under Captain Bucephalus Dagger (not Decker as I originally thought - missed a trick there!), swoops in just like the Enterprise-E saving the Defiant in 'First Contact,' and it reminds you of the glory of Trek ship visuals we used to be able to wallow in, so often missing from the recent live action series'. 'LD' has pretty much always done that kind of thing right (the best moment from Season 1 is the Titan charging to the rescue), and it doesn't matter in this case that we shouldn't actually be seeing the ship's external view since that wouldn't actually be created by the computer as there's no way to see it when you're inside!

Mariner can't understand why Boimler's become so disinterested in the plot of his own story, preferring to go off on some personal side quest - I can understand it from both sides, leaving aside the reason he's suffering a real life crisis point (there's an argument to be made that this is the kind of detail it would've been good to go into more for Boimler, but in a short season with sub-thirty minute episodes designed as mostly humorous diversion from 'proper' Trek they weren't going to go much further than what they did here), but if you were the author of a story you want to experience others' enjoyment of it and see how they react to what you came up with (in the same way as showing a film you like to someone who's never seen it provides vicarious pleasure). At the same time he could be feeling dissatisfaction for what he'd created, maybe it wasn't going as well as it could have or he changed his mind and no longer liked the story, in which case I can see why he'd want to go off on a computer-generated adventure where, while it may not be crafted, it's completely unknown (which could be seen as a comment on AI if you were to explore that notion). Mariner has some proprietary feelings, calling it 'her franchise' which he's ruined, until she speaks to Ransom and learns the reason for Boimler's change of heart, losing his duplicate all of a sudden and wondering at his own mortality and purpose. These kinds of questions used to be at the heart of Trek: exploring the human issues that are beyond science to satisfy, while often doing it in the shape of scientific exploration, as Picard came to understand thanks to Q in 'All Good Things...'

Too much of Trek became devoid of meaning. I'm not saying the old Trek manner of pumping out episodes like it was a sausage factory on overdrive always created gold, but while the quantity is so much lower in the 'DSC' and onwards, the quality has also been so much lower as the direction has been more cinematic with many of the same problems as the film series has had. The reason Trek worked on TV so well was the intimacy, the growing friendship between the viewers and the characters on screen whom we'd get to know over so long and through so many adventures, both broad canvas and personal. 'LD' has been the series to most closely resemble what made Trek work, even if it still shares so many flaws of the modern era: the swearing or crudeness, the more violent or gory violence, the casual modern speech that isn't as jarring in an animated comedy, but is still highly evident. These things aren't going to change, but they can detract from enjoyment for me, upsetting what could otherwise have been good, wholesome beats. This episode wasn't too bad in that regard, though the grossness of the cult leader's flabby skin map, or the guy brought into Sickbay suffering burns, or Boimler aggressively and repeatedly punching the leader out, did detract a little.

There's also the danger you can spend so much time noting and mentally listing the many Trekferences, both specific and general, that it distracts from what the story's about. And even now they occasionally do something that doesn't quite come out right: when they go back to the founding of the Federation in 2161 (sadly you can't quite make out the Enterprise NX-01 crew, though I assume they're the blue-uniformed Starfleet personnel in the distance), Tendi says the Romulans are trying to blow up the founders before they found the Federation, but any Trekker is likely to associate 'the founders' with the Changelings from 'DS9,' and since 'Picard' S3 used that species as villains they're even more in mind (granted this series may not have known they would since it was released before). It's not a big thing, it's just one of those little oddities where this series, for all its in-depth Trekferences sometimes gets the cadence a touch wrong as if it wasn't the natural direction. It could be said to be quite subjective, but  it's noticeable when they got other things so right. The time travel idea was an ideal choice for a Big Story in the Holodeck, but they might have made even more of that aspect to the tale than they do: we visit 2161, 1982 (Dr. T'Ana recognises the whiff of late-20th Century Earth, a subtle nod back to Spock's line about the pollution content of the atmosphere being how they work out where they are), and 2341 for The Great Soolian Algae Crisis, an excuse to show off the terrific maroon jackets of the 'TOS' film series.

Even the font used to set scenes is in the distinctive film style of 'Star Trek II' for places like Tatasciore IX (named for Fred Tatasciore who voices Shaxs, and others), or the Third Moon of Shatanari - here we come to another of those bits of lore that keep repeating: yet another attempt to get William Shatner back into Trek! According to the commentary Mike McMahan had hoped to get him for the Sulu role (not playing Sulu, obviously, but it should've been Kirk). Instead they make do with George Takei, and it is a lovely inclusion and means both of the non-Shatner surviving members of 'TOS' made it into modern Trek, with Walter Koenig also doing a voice in the 'Picard' finale, so that's a very pleasing element of completion. Of course I'd have loved if Captain Sulu had been more involved than a mere voiceover scene (I really thought he had a chance of showing up as this incredibly old Captain of the Excelsior in 'Picard' S2, or even 3, as much of a stretch as it would've been, but I'd heard he was in something), same as with Koenig, but you can hear his age even in this little bit. It's a nice moment, but also a cruel, as we're teased with this beautiful Nexus-like ranch (Boimler even asks if this is heaven, the afterlife or the Nexus!), with Kirk's name on the postbox, but he's gone off to adventures new (perhaps to help Picard?). Still, a nice little tribute, though I assume they're saying Sulu's dead if he's appearing in a vision, though it could be taken as Boimler's mind making it all up (the best line in the whole thing is T'Ana's urging the need for water breaks: "Holodecks might be fake, but dehydration is real!").

It is fun how they morph from the ending of 'Star Trek V' (with the Godlike rock monster spouting pat, trite, AI-generated generalities that have none of the personal meaning Boimler craves, like 'the purpose of life is a life of hopes'), to 'The Motion Picture' (Ki-ty-ha turning out to be Kitty Hawk, just like V'Ger), to 'Generations' (a Nexus-like cabin, or maybe even the Nexus cabin). Of all the questions Boimler might have asked he wants to know if Sulu found it weird to use the crystal buttons on the original Enterprise - this could be another jab at the redesigned version that 'Strange New Worlds' created to stomp all over the original (although I think they do have some of those buttons), or it might be wishful thinking on my part, but whenever they hint at the changes or ignore them, such as 'Picard' S3 showing a Constitution-class vessel as it should have been shown, it's always a pleasing reminder of how Trek used to be internally consistent on a regular basis in so many ways, one of the things I always loved it for, but which is just one more to be lost in the modern era. Boimler's films may not have the deeper meaning he yearns for (something of a theme, much like 'Generations' when it was gently suggesting the idea there's more to life beyond watching Trek), but they were fun, and contrary to Mariner's 'uneven slog that totally ignores the successes of the original,' I'd say this was the slightly more enjoyable.

I may have been expecting a lot more 'TNG' film focus, and there was a lot of it (following the villains through a time portal; calling out the wacky concept of going back to assassinate President Kennedy as a little known Trek film idea from the 1970s; the Europa lab with its 'Star Trek II' design, uniforms and a Carol Marcus-alike; even the Romulan shuttle vehicle bashing the walls as it escapes called to mind 'Nemesis'!), but it wasn't exclusively that, either. The most fun Trekference is the equivalent of the Genesis Project film, complete with the side panels to disguise the difficulty in creating the computer graphics in widescreen back then. In this case the graphics are inferior wireframes using the original Enterprise and the D to demonstrate the effects of the Chronogami to warp time. I didn't even question the use of the Enterprises because we're so used to seeing them, though it was unnecessary in story - but then it's all a made-up holoprogram and doesn't require any logic to be accepted, a clever way out of any problem. It's not just the Trek films that are laughed about, general film tropes are also the target, such as minor characters having no name, (eg: Acolyte 2), Tendi doing an impossible backflip over an explosion that calls to mind Trinity in 'The Matrix' (she does have a passing similarity), and to bring it back around to Trek, Mariner scoffing at too many made up words in a row for the scientific explanation, technobabble being something Trek's always been known for! I especially enjoyed the moment she steps over the black border to get out of the Holodeck, a good gag.

Like all good/bad films, it ends with a cliffhanger as we discover William Boimler didn't die after all, he was just snatched by Section 31 aboard a Defiant-class ship. That he asks why they have a black badge to show who they work for is a good question (even though once he puts it on his black uniform it's invisible...), since they made that ludicrous choice in 'DSC' which started the whole ruining of 31 as a concept - while simultaneously enjoying the ridiculousness of it being highlighted, it's also somewhat irritating because it means 'LD' has accepted and reinforced its reality in canon where I'd rather they'd made a joke about them not having a big black badge for him to wear - a subtler way for achieving the same result without messing up the old continuity. I felt much the same about Mariner's mistake about Kirk: when Boimler starts attacking the cult leader she says he could do it the Kirk way, but it's a stereotype that Kirk was always first to his fists, rather he'd have been quick to talk, and in an episode so closely intent on the films, you'd think they'd have realised the Kirk of the films is different to that of 'TOS,' another example of things not quite sitting right for me. I also can't help but feel that, while Takei was a great addition, too often they waste a big name - not James Cromwell, but J.G. Hertzler, for example. He's the first 'TOS' character to be reprised in the new Trek era, (unless you include the Kelvin films, then not since them had we had someone return to their role - a long time since 1996 for his 'Voyager' contribution to the 30th Anniversary which is itself edging closer to thirty years old, so it's impressive they got him!). If the legacy of this episode is to be Takei's final 'appearance' then I'd have liked more of him. Then again, it's not too bad and we should relish even small opportunities which are dwindling year on year, and I'm sure this isn't the last 'Crisis Point' in the saga, though I hope the final part of the trilogy is better.

**

Mario Kart Wii

 Wii, Mario Kart Wii (2008) game

A new 'Mario Kart' is a major event, especially for me who'd only played three versions prior to Wii: the N64 title for many hours of multiplayer, 'Double Dash' on the 'Cube for probably even more hours of multiplayer, and 'Super Circuit' on Game Boy Advance (a lot less). 'MK Wii' should be the greatest 'Mario Kart' yet since it included great tributes to all prior editions (SNES original and DS included), and not only that, it was also by far the most comprehensive game in the series to that point - I've been playing both this and 'Super Mario Galaxy 2' this year and they both appear to have been intended as strong opposition to the idea that the Wii was only for short, simple gaming experiences rather than depth or long-lasting challenges. With all this going for it how could it go wrong? I don't think it does, it probably is the best one-player experience in terms of longevity, but there are things about it that prevent it from reaching the five-star heights of both N64 and 'Cube iterations. The control system is an issue (I know, I know, I always go on about controls in reviews, but it's the extension of one's own body, the interface through which one has effect on the digital world so it needs to be right!), as with many Wii games: any that have 'Cube Controller support I tend to prefer, which says a lot about Remote and Nunchuk control, and this game was no different, to the extent I never once used the wireless method. For me it's just a daft imposition to have to drive so imprecisely - yes, it's more like real driving, but this isn't reality and the combination of analogue stick and digital buttons can't be beaten.

I had some minor prior experience with the game when my cousin brought it round back when the Wii was still new in 2008, and I tried the new control scheme then and was roundly thrashed. Of course it doesn't help if you don't know the track layouts, new weapons, etc, so I can't put my weak performance solely down to controls. I had no interest in trying the Remote method on this play, so it's great to have 'Cube control, and takes me right back to 'Double Dash.' It's not far off as an experience, either, since the graphical style and general ambience of it all owes a lot to that game, which was quite a departure from the much more grounded, 'purist' racing of 'MK64,' which for its sharp precision remains my favourite of those in the series I've played. But in fun terms 'Double Dash' had the edge, providing full four-player value and no stinting on graphics or sound, unlike the technically inferior 'MK64.' Naturally you expect each new console to excel on those fronts as they have the benefit of more powerful hardware, but on the Wii side it wasn't such a big upgrade, almost more of a GameCube+ than a great revolutionary leap forward. 'Double Dash' even had its revolutionary steps by including the capability for a massive sixteen players simultaneously, though very few would ever see such a setup as you needed four 'Cubes, four screens, four copies of the game, and most significantly four Broadband Adaptors and all the cables and Controllers to go with them!

The Wii version had the advantage of being the first dedicated internet console Nintendo produced (even though technically every home console they made had that ability, even the Game Boy had a mobile connector, but this was all in Japan!), and 'MKW' was naturally going to be one of their big online titles, but I'm not reviewing this aspect as I've never used that function either on Wii or 'Cube versions, but it's worth mentioning when we're talking about how much of a revolution we can award to this instalment of the series. Of much more interest to me was the doubling of the Grand Prix tournaments to include sixteen tracks from previous games in the series, a masterstroke on the level that makes you wonder why they never did it before. I suspect part of that was the gradual realisation of nostalgia being a big sell, since Nintendo had been in the games business for over twenty years by the time of the Wii's release - one reason they started selling old console games through their online 'Virtual Console,' or compilations, or re-releases of classics which had been a big part of the GBA's library, but going back further Nintendo had always been well aware of their back catalogue of characters and series' that had gained a great fan following and were happy to exploit that: 'Mario Kart' itself was one of the best examples of this as I think I'm right in saying 'Super Mario Kart' on the SNES, the game that started it all, was the first to incorporate multiple Nintendo mascots into one party-filled game, and there were certainly cameos of various characters throughout their gaming history.

Their gaming history had always been important to Nintendo's success, giving people reason to keep coming back for the next in a game series, and with 'MKW' they were able to expand that by including the highest number of racers on the roster than ever before (I could be wrong, I never played the DS version so I don't know how many characters were featured in that), as well as a larger number in-race, expanding that sense of a large field of competitors begun in 'Double Dash.' I always used to play as Donkey Kong, or DK as it was shortened to on 'MK64,' and didn't change for 'Double Dash,' merely including Diddy Kong as the natural co-driver of that game's unique two-person buddy system. But for 'MKW' I switched allegiance to Diddy since we were back to the traditional one-man karting setup and he had that better control I always search for - while I could no doubt have done well with Donkey, Diddy was much better suited to the tight cornering and very precise manoeuvring of the Time Trials. I also hadn't really been doing the multiplayer much, and if I did it was only with one other person, so gone were the days when I used to barge everyone out the way thanks to Donkey's greater size and top speed.

The artificial intelligence of the CPU racers was much improved, making this the toughest 'MK' so far, even as 'Double Dash' had improved on 'MK64,' so no more cheating by appearing right behind you when you'd left them behind, but equally they were tougher to beat, and added incentive was given by the fact a certain number of them weren't available from the start, requiring unlocking. This was one of the game's best features, its incentive-based gameplay, since the old versions had no more replay value as a single player once the few, if any, characters were unlocked, and the Grand Prix' beaten on 50cc, 100cc, 150cc, and Mirror. I've never been a meticulous time-trialler, since I didn't tend to have competition from anyone in that department and had no interest in honing my times by shaving off milliseconds, it just smacks of pointlessness to me, but in this game the Time Trial became the biggest source of lifespan extension as I strove to beat the unlockable staff ghosts, and then knock another ten or fifteen seconds off in order to beat the expert ghosts! It was a real challenge and one I relished, spending hour after hour, week after week becoming intimately acquainted with every bend and stretch of each and every track, learning and getting to know the finest nuance like you wouldn't normally, largely by following the expert ghosts as they tended to follow the perfect line and route, but sometimes finding a better option myself. The point is, it was such a specific way of interacting with the game I have to say it was the greatest and longest draw, a great pleasure unfolding, especially since beating the Grand Prix' was relatively easy in comparison!

It wasn't always 'easy,' I started out finding the game quite tough, strangely, having not played a new game of this type for so long. Even there you have twice as much to do as had been traditional since the standard four cups, Mushroom, Flower, Star and Special were accompanied by Shell, Banana, Leaf and Lightning. On top of that you can get a rating from a letter (C up to A), to a star (up to three), giving yet more incentive to replay, although after getting at least one star on every GP that was enough for me to feel I'd succeeded. And what a great collection of old tracks they were generous enough to include: four from the N64's sixteen, four from 'Cube, four from DS, two from GBA, and even two right back at the beginning, from the SNES! Sherbet Land N64 was lovely to see again, as was Bowser's Castle N64, bringing back so many happy memories, and it would be churlish of me to wish my favourite Koopa Troopa Beach was also included: you can't have everything! Peach Beach GC and DK Mountain GC were probably my picks from the 'Cube era, and it was nice to see Shy Guy Beach GBA, too, a very low-res track recreated accurately but beautifully for the 'big screen'! Not having played either SNES or DS versions I had no connection to them and would've preferred more N64 or 'Cube tracks instead, but it was a delight to have all these old tracks, partly for the delight of more 'Mario Kart' to play, but also for the huge nostalgia value of including the old with the new, while clearly not overshadowing it since it's four extra competitions to go through. I do wonder if different copies of the game had different tracks from past 'Mario Karts' as I was sure one of the 'Cube tracks, Dino Dino Land was what I'd played on my cousin's Wii, and I can imagine that being an incentive to buy up extra copies of the game, if true. Or maybe I simply imagined it?

In terms of the new tracks I didn't feel as complimentary at first, few standing out and everything more bulky and over the top, a continuation of the 'Double Dash' aesthetic rather than the tighter and sharper design of 'MK64.' But the more I played them the more they grew on me: Dry Dry Ruins and Maple Treeway are the ones to have remained most fondly in my mind, while Koopa Cape reminded me of Grass Valley from 'Snowboard Kids' on N64, thanks to its racing down rivers, while also reminiscent of 'F-Zero' by the pipes you shoot down. If I'm going to be honest about my preferences I'd have to say I miss the character-specific items you could get in 'Double Dash,' but the new ones are generally well judged (except the squid ink weapon, which, like the slapping in 'Perfect Dark,' only affects human players and is a big irritation), the Bullet Bill that whisks you towards the front of the pack, the POW boxes that spin out the race leaders and the Giant Mushroom that makes you, well, giant, are all fine, fun additions. There's also the new tactic of slipstreaming, getting a speed boost by following in an opponent's wake, which may not be original, but adds depth: do you risk a weapon coming back at you to tail close behind? A minor nitpick is you can't sound your horn as in 'Double Dash,' and I miss the poignant end music from 'MK64' and would've loved a final score more akin to that, but having also played a bit of 'Double Dash' last Christmas it showed up some of the more subtle improvements. Of course I loved the little hop, missing after 'MK64,' even if it is barely a half-hop it gets some of that tightness back to the racing control. Plus we're back to being able to hold items behind you, the style of standard single karting after 'Double Dash' forced you to fire it off or keep it in hand. The Corner Turbo is also less intensive to pull off rather than needing to wiggle the stick back and forth (or not as strongly, anyway).

It is disappointing you can't see all your track ratings at a glance and whether you came 1st, 2nd or 3rd in each cup, or that you can't put in your initials on the Time Trials boards, though it makes sense as any serious time-trialler is going to fill up the board since you have to win a track many times to get that perfect run. I'd also point out the replay doesn't show time or speed, which is a missing piece if you want to study a time for improvement, though it is of course more instinctive than anything else. Useful that character and vehicle used is recorded - another great thing about the Time Trial experience, as while you can cut to the chase by just copying whatever equivalent vehicle the expert ghost used, there's great pleasure to be found in testing out the various bikes and karts until you discover the one that works best for you, honed to that specific track. At first I did miss the simplicity of the N64 days where you had three weight classes and the choice of eight characters, there's something to be said for that and its immediacy, but this version was definitely meant for a longer, slower burn and the experimentation required to find the perfect combination of character and vehicle is part of the enjoyment, especially, as I say, when you start doing it for each individual track during Time Trial perfecting (I tackled them pretty much in order, though Ghost Valley 2 I left till just about last as that was the toughest with no room for error). I wondered if there were too many characters to make it less focused. The 'Cube had a lot, but that was two per player. I know this was meant for internet play, but perhaps they should have kept extraneous characters online only, except then they'd have drawn complaints you couldn't use certain characters offline. So in the end it came down to the more choice the better after much play, and obviously good for providing unlockable content.

The ability to play everything solo, be that battle or a DIY Grand Prix, shows Nintendo had clearly listened to any and all criticisms, and the quality of the multiplayer experience must be applauded, too, as you have a most comprehensive set of options to tailor the experience to whatever you want it to be: you want to play just one track? Fine. You want pure racing, no weapons? Fine. You want the All Cups Tour with every track and all the trimmings? Super-fine!! Difficulty of opponents, frequency of pickups, it's nice to have more control. Before getting into it I thought it actually had less choice since there was no option for two-player GP, but the truth is you can create it to your own specifications. Having experienced both Battle and Versus I can appreciate the multiplayer, although in common with 'Double Dash,' and even more so, Battle is just a chaotic free-for-all with little of the tactical possibilities of 'MK64' - grab as much as you can and fire it off as quickly as you can.

Yet this game just gives and gives in spades to the extent I wish I'd experienced it fully back in the day. Because that's the key difference between it and its N64 and GameCube forebears: I don't have the nostalgic connection I had to those games. The Boxing Day tournaments of the 'Mario Kart' Championship with all the cousins and sometimes even aunts and uncles, the early days of the N64 when Saturday nights were filled with races and battles against family members... these experiences can't be bettered because they exist as if in amber, hanging in time, and while it's beautiful that Nintendo acknowledged that wonderful history by so generously including so much of it in this edition, it's not the same, nor should it be. This is a whole new set of tracks ready for another generation to form those precious memories they'll look back on in twenty years... Oh, so that would be about now, then! I wonder if those who played 'MKW' are now looking back in fondness to something I've really only experienced in the last few months? That's the oddity of retrogaming, though, tapping into something Now that had so much impact Then. Usually it's tapping into my own gaming history, but on this occasion it feels like someone else's, and while I think it's terrific, it also feels a lot like just more 'Mario Kart,' and I don't know if they could've done anything to make it more than that - the ultimate quandary in everything from books to film: can you create something new in a series while still staying true to it? With 'MKW' they succeeded, but I need more time with it to really give it full marks. Come back in 2045, maybe...

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