Category: Reviews

Monster Carnival Island, Reviews

Monster Carnival’s Place in Island History

HPuterpop

(¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.-> Hi Gs, <-.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯)

The Monster Carnival is coming back to town — but is it as great as we remember it? Did it fulfill our dreams? Follow me on my Monster Carnival Island Review! 😀 Psst! If you are looking for the Monster Carnival Island Guide, it’s out now!

MCI review

First of all, wanna notify all you peezles that I didn’t release Poptropican Portraits last week because of the MCI excitement. I’ll post them sometime this week. c;

The Costumizer is finally operational on all the SUIs! Hallelujah! (Credit to Tech Wizard)

Also, I’m slowly updating the Monster Carnival Files to the current information, so check back to the category daily for more. 🙂 And now back to the scheduled programming. 😛

Story

mci1

The story is continual and develops as you play through it. First, the carnival is coming to town that very day, but it isn’t ready to open! You have to solve multiple problems for the carnies in order to get it into tip top, big top shape. 😛 There are three stages to the environment — daytime, evening, and night. In the evening, you learn that all of the booths are shams, and you have to fool the carnies. And as the plot thickens, and the night grows closer… well, I’m considering that “Spoiler Material”. You can see what happens next in the Spoilers tab of the review.

There is one thing that I really have to mention, and it’s not quite a spoiler. Most everyone, member and non-member, can tell that Ringmaster Raven is the bad guy. 😛 Anyway, he has a lot of potential to be a classic villain, and… they really didn’t do much with him. Sure, he has a sad backstory, and he is pretty evil, but they didn’t expand him enough to be a really great villain. He could have been the best… he still is good, but not as good as he could have been.

Gameplay

mci2

One word: smooth. This island runs so much better than Mocktropica, and other than a couple minor glitches, it was a straight shooter when you’re talking about gameplay.

Although it’s not as gag filled as Mocktropica, there still are little things to giggle at, as well as many subtle messages that we have yet to decipher. Islands have evolved into something new, with a lot more attention to detail — the replayability has gone up tremendously. Running gags are part of the islands, and you will only get the gags if you replay the island. Also, there are so many moments where characters say something like, “After all these years, the carnival is finally coming back to town!”, which are golden. 😛

Some say it was too easy — Monster Carnival was planned to be the fourth island before being deleted, and islands back then were not very hard. They probably made it easy because it was going to be the fourth island — why not make it like was the fourth island? It just makes it feel like you are playing a classic Pop game, which is a great thing. You also need to keep in mind that Poptropica is a kids game. The islands these days have really become rocket scientist studies, and that’s not really a good thing for young kids.

Visuals

mcibanner

I’m talking the backgrounds, the animations, and everything that makes up the island that you can see. This island is one of the best when it comes to visuals. The backgrounds are so detailed, and everything about the environment is perfect. The transformation from day to night is so nicely and subtly done, with little things changing as the sun goes down. You may not catch everything at once, but gradually, the environment seems more and more evil as the day goes on. And that is really amazing. There’s nothing really more to add to it.

There are some islands where they make lots of quality animation (E.G. Ghost Story Island), and this is one of them. Something you may not know about me is that I am a huge animation geek. The animation was very nicely done. I enjoyed it. 🙂

Some people are saying that Poptropica is running out of characters, but this island proves them wrong. The variety of colorful characters and clothes are just overwhelming. In fact, I made a little combination of the best male clothing from the island, that is nearly completely customizable for nonmembers! You can find it in my closet @ “puterpop”. 😉

Soundtrack

mci3

This soundtrack is… well… I would be lying if I said it wasn’t AMAZING, AWESOME, AND APPROPRIATELY CREEPY! The soundtrack is very extensive, and fitting as well. What else can I say? Jeff Heim is a genius. 😛 My favorite track from the island was the Carnival Theme at Dusk. What was yours?

Monster Carnival’s soundtrack is the best one yet. As I said above, it’s very extensive (many different tracks), and it really shows what Jeff Heim can do. I’m excited to hear more of his work! 😀

You can listen to the full soundtrack on our Behind the Scenes page! 😀 A trip there will definitely be worth your while.

Spoilers!

mci4

The reason why I could only tell you half of the story up there is because the rest of it is spoilers. If you don’t want to know, skip this section of the review! 😛

After you solve the last problem for a carnie, all of the carnies disappear mysteriously into the woods. You go and check it out. When you finally find them, they all get hypnotized and turned into monsters by a mysterious cloaked person. When you return to the carnival, everything has been monsterized! From the carnies, to the music, to the scary Ferris Wheel face — and you have to get to the bottom of it! Ringmaster Raven sends you on a quest, and while you are completing it for him, you find multiple old newspapers. Read them below —

If you didn’t gather the story from above, here it is: the carnival had come to town before, this time with a strange attraction — the Bird Boy. He is the only Poptropican to have a nose. When the carnival leaves, Bird Boy is forgotten, and left at the town. No one wants him. Then, a fire burns down an auto repair store, Honest Gabes! The supposed culprit is found– Bird Boy. There is evidence that someone else did it, but the towns people wants him to leave. They drive him out of the village.

Bird Boy, as you may have guessed, is Ringmaster Raven. His plan is to hypnotize the whole town in order to get revenge. And, well, you have to stop him.

Bonus Quest

mci5

This quest is surprising, since all of the islands up until now have released their bonus quests the day that the island is released to all. The story goes like this;

Dr. Dan has gone missing in the woods, and you have to go find him. When you do find him, he runs away. When you finally catch up, he reveals his secret — he’s a monster too! He is scared that the townspeople will drive him away like they did with Ringmaster Raven. In all reality, the townspeople actually want him to stay, as he has been a great help to them — during their illnesses, and supplying many things. Good story, put across nicely.

What I’m really frustrated about is the prize you win after you complete the quest. He gives you the potion that turned him into a monster. When you use it, you turn into a monster! But the annoying part is that the costume is temporary, and it leaves after you go to the next screen. You can’t even save it to your costume closet. I give this bonus quest only 3 stars.

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Weight Lifter Avatar Monster Carnival Island

I still can’t believe that MCI is now on the map… but I give this island only 3 stars out of 5… WHY?

I tried to be optimistic in the review above, but if I’m really honest — this island disappoints me. I liked the island, but… I just have mixed feelings about it. 😦

On one hand, the island has many great things about it — the backgrounds, the story, and the music– but on the other hand, there are many things that are missing.

Ringmaster Raven is not focused on enough, and neither are the monsters. All they do is bat at you when you get close, and you can easily jump over them. It’s like they focused too much on the glamor and special effects to be able to expand the island more in character development, etc.

I enjoyed the island, but it did not meet my expectation. Below is a list of minor things that need to be done to the island that will make it incredibly better:

  • Boss Battle music. They kept the music from the attraction (Mirror Maze) for the battle, and it’s sorta lame.
  • Make the monsters do something. They need to chase you for longer periods of time.
  • Make the Chemical X costume from the Bonus Quest able to be saved to your closet.

That said, what do you think of the island? Tell me in the poll below. 🙂 And Non-members, what do you think about the island after reading my review? Tell me in the comments. 🙂

My Evil Signature (full)

 

Labs (Land), Reviews

The Life of a Lab Tester

HPuterpop

Hi Gs,

Poptropica Houses?  Naw, that’ll neve–

poptropica labs logo

I was using a suggestible wifi hotspot on the parking lot of Pizza Hut today. I had to make my post about Mocktropica for everyone. I went ahead, and just for fun, logged into my Poptropica account. What did I see on the homepage? Something new:

new

Poptropica Labs is a new feature for members that allows them to test new and unreleased to the public features. Believe me, I am super excited to see how this turns out. I’m sure most of Ohio and some of Kentucky heard my girly scream when I saw the promo screen.

The newest test is called “Lands”, and is a sort of island maker with cool new features.

So, let’s see what this island maker can do!

The Lands

Guess what? These labs are in the old format! I’m starting to conclude that Poptropica will never be fully converted into SUI. The main hub of the game will stay the same. Anyway, this was a pretty wild experience! As a beta tester, I couldn’t save my “lands” that I created, but I still had some fun with it.

In a nutshell, this new feature makes Poptropica sorta like Minecraft. It is endless.

The idea is that you can create your own land from scratch. This land can be rainy, volcanoey (is that a word? Google doesn’t think so. 😛 ), crystally, or paradise. You can jump from pregenerated island to pregenerated island, each one different in it’s own way (Note: the blimp goes way too slow on the map…). Generate your own here: http://static.poptropica.com/popups/Demo/landPrototypeMap.swf  

pregenerated

When you find an island that suits you, you can start customizing and developing it. Actually, I think that the term “island” should not be used… instead, just use land. Because running around and jumping on platforms is not an island.

The Pets

pets

Sadly, instead of narfs, Poptropica gives us pet rocks. They have eyes that follow your cursor, sometimes are evil, and did I mention narfs? We need narfs. All these pets do is jump around, run away from you, and act depressed. You hatch these little angels for 10 pop coins each, and they are not worth it. xD

When an angry rock happens to hatch, just blow it up before it chomps on you. Those guys are really annoying. 😛

meany

The Pop Coins

gold

You probably have been questioning my mentioned “pop coins”. Guess what! Mocktropica is turning into a reality! In labs, everything costs money. When you’re all out, blow up stuff and mine for more! Actually, this feature turns out to be a lot of fun! Although it is a little hard to mine with bombs, I still enjoy this feature. Until you run out of land to blow up and the only place left with money is under the thing you are building… >.<

When you see a sparkling in the soil under you, you blow up the land until you reach it to earn money. Sometimes you’ll only get 15 pop coins, sometimes you’ll get hundreds in big bags. And sometimes, just sometimes, a bag of money will fall out of the sky, and you will have to chase it to the end of the screen to get it. I’m not even joking.

goldd

The (Fail) Houses

When you finally get around to making a house after trying out all the new features of rocks that move and blowing stuff up, you are going to fail. Miserably.

Turns out, when your environment is rainy, your house will not block out the rain. I guess I didn’t get the memo while creating my house, because I actually made one that you could go into…

poplabs

So… yeah. You can also do some pretty awesome stuff with the backing of your house:

pict (1)

I put air vents to blow me up the second floor, and mattresses covered the floor when you get there. Don’t ask why that rope is there… Anyway, you can make windows and wood/stone/bamboo backgrounds, etc. I also didn’t get another memo, which was that you can rotate your items with the left and right arrow key. 😛

The Tools

Poptropica

As you can see in the picture above, the tools that you can build with are limited. You can have a rope, a mattress, an air vent, a door, adjust the water level, an egg that hatches a rock, a stupid basketball that gets stuck in places, a bomb, a ground pile, a stone pillar, a crate, a bunch of building supplies, and that’s pretty much it. Not much to play with it you ask me.

The Survey

After you finish your fun, you can take a survey and tell them what you think. I’m not going to give the link to everyone because that would definitely mess them up, but I can and will tell you that according to the survey, they have big ideas for this thing:

survey1

Those are all great ideas! What do you think about those possibilities?

~

I think “Lands” needs a little more work. The pets need toys, the tools need additions, the rain setting needs to be able to be turned off, and the angry pets need to appear more. 😛 Those guys are fun. And sorry if I was a little critical in my review… I was expecting something a little different. 😉

If you want to give the Poptropica Creators some advice about this new feature, you can tell them in the comments and I will put it in the post! 😀

Viewer’s Thoughts

SamWow5 – I wish u can do all 4 sides of the house instead of one…. :/

Smart Leopard – U should be able to completely make a house. Just dreaming here, but what if u could design the outside of a house and Enter it and design the inside with furniture… I guess that’s a bit much 😛

Silver Wolf – I, personally, despise it. It teases me with it’s mocking one-layer. I love building and a variety of other things, but there’s nothing to build if there’s only ONE layer. I want the mattress to go behind the wall sometimes, so it would look as if a door was really opening into a house. I mean, they’re only letting us make it in Poptropica’s style. It would be nice to have another style; we’re all original, and we all have different styles, which can be much different than Poptropica’s. I just…love it and hate it. I love the idea, but hate how little detail they put in it. You can make plenty of things with the few materials they provide; YOU JUST CAN’T MAKE IT WITH ONE LAYER. >.<

Comical Turtle – So cool! I think it’s a really good idea even though it’s not perfect yet…….

renaldiinfernus – Pop coins? Pop Coins? Pop Coins. REALLY?!?! That may be one of the most aweful parts of Mocktropica. DONT LISTEN TO FOCUS TESTER HES A JERK!

—

-HP

Mocktropica Island, Reviews

Mocktropica Bonus Quest Review

HPuterpop

Hi Gs,

The Bonus Quest for Mocktropica, or “Bonus Bots” as everyone has been calling it, was released very recently.  I have played it, and my feelings are mixed.

ahah

The Story

banana

The premise is that one of Poptropica’s best programmers, Mark Hertz, has been lost to the game Mega Fighting Bots.  When I say lost, I mean he has become obsessed with it, and won’t do anything other than it — I discussed the same issue concerning Minecraft in my live stream. 😉 Anyway, not only has he become obsessed, he has morphed into the game, and become evil.  He is the final boss you have to battle.

The picture to the right is an email sent from Mark.  A little easter egg is hidden in the email.  Mark’s outro is “-Sent from my SmartTec Bananaphone“.  Bananaphone is a fun, popular kids song, you should really check it out. 😛

The Gameplay

Well, here’s the deal — all you do in the bonus quest is play Mega Fighting Bots.  There is a cool “real life” Bucket Bot, that is animated, but other than that, that’s all it’s got!  But what do I think of it?  I thought it was actually pretty fun!  You see, when you hack into the game, you get unlimited coins.  That means that you can respawn after the three rounds!  Infinitely!  And, you get to battle different bosses than just Safety Bot.  Also, the bots have commentary!  Little remarks before and after the rounds appear, and most of them are pretty humorous.  Each bot has a different difficulty and style of fighting.  To best these bots, the tips are below. 😉

– Safety Bot

The first bot you are to battle.  Surprisingly, this was the bot that took me the longest to finish.  He is very cautious, and avoid most attacks.  Very annoying.  Here’s a little tip I used to best not only him, but all the bots (click to animate):

other

Wait for him to come around the bend, then attack!  Even more, you can lure him by standing in the corner, and then when he starts to come toward you, go down a square, to where I was in the gif.  (actually, he is the only bot that the tip doesn’t fully work on… >.<)

Repeat this again and again — it really works!  Believe it or not, I didn’t die ONCE in the whole game, and after Safety Bot, I only spent two rounds on all the bots (you have to beat the bots two rounds to win — I only had to go into the final round ONCE)!

 – Ad Bot

Ad Bot is quicker than Safety Bot.  She is also not the smartest in many ways.  If you keep attacking her from a corner, she’ll keep coming back for more.  Although, she can be tricky.  Be sure she is in your target zone before you attack — she changes directions quickly.

mwhaha

 – Shredder Bot

Easily ticked.  Has a bit of a temper.  She hurts… a lot.  Hard to defeat.  She will come at you with different angles.  She has a broader strategy.

mwhahaa

 – Focus Bot

He is very smart.  Out of them all, he’s really easy.  Just use the corner tactic.  He is not hesitant like Safety Bot.  When he comes at a different angle, he will follow through.

mwahahah

– Mega Bot

Surprisingly, this bot was the easiest for me.  He is the lost programmer, Mark Hertz.  Of course, he is the biggest, fastest, strongest, and smartest.  And he is appropriately named. 😉

mwahahahahaha

~

Once you defeat Mega Bot, he will get thrown out of the ring!  You have brought back the lost programmer!

programmer sad

So the question is: was this bonus quest worth the price of Membership?  Is it a bargain?

After you both are transported back home, you get a little present from the now famous Bucket Bot.  It’s a terrific Bucket Bot costume!

yaybucket bot

The fun is the quality here, and I had fun.  I also got a rocking costume.  I rate this bonus quest 3 stars.  Unlike the VHI Bonus Quest, this didn’t have a separate soundtrack.  It did, however, have an awesome real life Bucket Bot, and a new background.  And, you get unlimited coins.  Not that I used any. 😛

Also, there is a little symbolism in the bot’s rank.

The Safety Inspector is on floor 1.  Safety Bot is the first bot you battle.

The Ad Sales Manager is on floor 2.  Ad bot is the second bot you battle.

“Slash” is on floor 3.  Shredder Bot is the third bot you battle.

Then, the whole thing flips around —

The Focus Tester is on the main floor.  Focus Bot is the fourth bot you battle.

And, to make sense of all of this, Mark Hertz is in the basement.  Mega Bot is the final bot you battle.  Well played, Creators. 😉

–HP

Merchandise, Nintendo DS Game, Reviews

Poptropica Adventures for Nintendo DS: HP’s Review

HPuterpop

Hi Gs,

A while back, Poptropica and Ubisoft released a DS game called Poptropica Adventures. I have a feeling this was an experiment, and also a feeling that this is the first and last one. This was one of the first things that started to get Poptropica to what it is today in a drastic way. Not many online games can say, “Yeah, we have our own DS game.” I finally got to play it, and the results are in! Let’s get to it!

Design

The fact of the matter is, Poptropica didn’t make this game. Ubisoft did. And even if they are game designers, it doesn’t mean they are the Creators.

Character Design

My take on it is, it’s adorable, but it’s not quite right.  The placement of the eyes are strange, and their creepy smile gets to me. But I think it’s adorable because I can’t believe Poptropica has come this far. I don’t know why, but these avatars sorta symbolize that.

Material Design

Nothing much to say about this except it’s the same as the islands.  One thing that’s nice, though, is that the background isn’t pixelated like the actual characters.  I’m not a big Nintendo fan, so I don’t know if this is normal, but it’s still pretty cool.

Story

One thing I can say about the story — it’s definitely Nintendo. Even I know enough about it to recognize it. It doesn’t feel like Poptropica, and the quests are very – not simplistic, but not as intense as the online game. Instead of finding the six magical items for Zeus, you deliver packages for Hermes. Instead of an epic battle between you and Zeus, you have a race with him. Then he’s all like, “Boo hoo, you’re faster than me.” I do see an effort made here, though, like they wanted the connect-the-dots sort of game play to be in there, but just to drown it with little quests…

If you’re wanting the stories for each island, here they are –

Museum Island – A museum is in crisis.  You have to travel to three islands to find artifacts and things to put on display while the curator cleans up.

Super Power Island – Someone has stolen Ned’s comic books. You battle different villains, who each give you a comic book if you defeat them.  But none of them are the ones who stole the comic books. You finally figure out who this thief is… Betty Jetty, after finding pieces of a picture of the thief that were torn up (but by who?).

Mythology Island – Hermes (Zeus’s son) has lost his flying hat. He is the postman of the mythology world, so you get sent to deliver packages to Hades, Poseidon, and lastly Artemis — but she can’t take the package until she can catch and give a deer back to its owner. When you catch it, you will obtain Hermes’s hat, which you bring back to Hermes.  Then Zeus will show up, and you will race him, and that’s the end.

Astro-Knights Island – The king has been acting strange ever since a strange visitor from the sky visited. You are sent on a mission to find out why. He turns out to be a robot droid, and you have to rescue the real king from Binary Bard (who is totally cute in this version!). You defeat him by, you guessed it, racing him, then leave the king there, because he won’t go back… then you have to deal with the robot king that does a little dance when you talk to him… yup.

Controls

The controls are surprisingly similar to the online game. They are exactly like they should be for a Poptropica arcade game. They use the control pad (obviously), and the character bounces around perfectly!

Soundtrack

This was the first time that Poptropica ever had sound affiliated with it, not counting trailers! I think it may have sparked some ideas leading up to present day, but what about the soundtrack itself? The word that describes it best is “lonely”. I don’t know why, but it just feels lonely. They are good soundtracks, but 1) they get annoying after a while, and 2) there are not many.  They are awkward, but they seem to fit in a sad way… but let’s just say that Jeff Heim does a better job.

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So there you have it! Is it worth getting?  It depends on who you are. If you are a die-hard Poptropica fan, then yeah, you’ll enjoy it. If you are not… I advise getting something else. I finished it in two days. Did I enjoy it? Slightly. What do you think?

-HP