| September 26, 2008... You
Take My Self-Control |
I'm
feeling especially accomplished today, thanks to a
project I finished last night. There's never been a
suitable controller for the Virtual Console games on the Wii,
so I set out to change that by bringing the ultimate
controller to Nintendo's latest game system. I took a
spare Saturn joypad, opened it, and removed some of the
components, including the cable and the logic chip set in the
center of the pad's printed circuit board. Next, I
connected a series of tiny wires to the traces where the chip
had rested, and soldered the other ends of the wires to a
connector. After some invasive surgery on a cheap
GameCube controller, I was left with this...
It doesn't look pretty,
but let me tell you, it works! I've given this a test
run on a GameCube, and every button but the L and R triggers
(which I haven't wired up on the GameCube controller yet) work
perfectly. That's a very good thing, but what's even
better is that I can take this controller and adapt it for use
with practically any other game console.in existence.
Can you imagine Super NES games with Saturn-quality
control? Or, dare I make the suggestion, 3DO games that
are actually playable? I can now, and I vow to make that
dream a reality!
In less
self-congratulatory news, I bought the Wii version of Mega Man
9 on Monday, and it's been kicking my sorry butt for the rest
of the week. I'm planning a video review of this game
for next Monday, but what I'll say right now is that the
outrageous difficuty does detract from what could have been
the all-time best game in the series. As it is, it's
still one of the highlights in the game's history... although
Mega Man and Mega Man 2 will always be my personal favorites,
Mega Man 9 impressed me more than the third game and is loads
better than the fourth and fifth. If you've got some
spare Wii points, do yourself a big favor and spend them
on this release.
Oh yeah, one more thing
before I go. Awesome NES is closing out the Ns with reviews
of the Ninja Gaiden trilogy, as well as Nintendo World
Championships, a triple shot of Super Mario Bros., Rad Racer,
and Tetris that has become a hot commodity among collectors
thanks to its extreme rarity. Only a handful of these
cartridges were made for a contest held by Nintendo nearly
twenty years ago, making them worth thousands of dollars... or
tens of thousands if you can find the coveted gold cartridges
given to finalists!
| September 15, 2008... Crash
of the Titan |
Hey, I'm updating
again! Occasionally, anyway.
So, I just beat
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames over the weekend. People
have been complaining a lot about the bugs in the game, but
the one that really twists my last nerve in a knot is Mercs
2's uncanny knack for crashing just as I complete a side
mission. I could almost forgive this while playing the
previous game, because it was designed for the original Xbox,
and we all know how temperamental the Xbox 360's backward
compatibility can be. However, crashes
in Mercenaries 2 are a lot harder to accept, since
the game was tailor made for the Xbox 360. Maybe I
should forget about all the small fry I missed while playing
through the story mode and just move on to Mass
Effect...
Outside of that, I don't
have too much to discuss. The sequel to Rock Band was
just released. Electronic Arts recently abandoned its repeated
attempts to acquire its competitor Take-Two by force.
After months of being bested by the PSP, the DS Lite has
finally risen to the top of the Japanese sales charts.
And there's a new installment of Awesome
NES,
featuring such titles as NightShade and NES Open Tournament
Golf. I guess that's it! I'll talk to you
later.
| September 5, 2008...
Slightly Less Cranky Than
Earlier |
I don't really have much
to say at the moment (and anything I did say would be
a lot of emotionally charged, intensely personal drivel
that would be best reserved for a LiveJournal post), but I do
feel an obligation to update this site. So here you go,
folks... have some Nintendo DS
Reviews,
an update to Awesome NES, and a handful of videos. I may have some commentary
on the latest Xbox 360 and Xbox Live Arcade games at a later
date, but right now, this is as much as I can give
you.
| August 20, 2008... I
Get So Emotional,
Baby |
I need time away from the
site. At the moment, I need time away from
everything.
| August 10, 2008... Oh
Mickey, You're Not
Fine |
Mickey Mouse takes center
stage in this installment of Awesome
NES, with
reviews of Mickey Mousecapades as well as two Disney-licensed
educational titles. The rodent mascot didn't shine until
his first appearance on the Sega Genesis, but if you want to
see what he was up to before he hit his stride, now's your
chance!
These updates are getting
shorter and shorter, aren't they? It's almost like I've
stopped caring...
| August 5, 2008... A Day
on the Lynx |
I guess it's time for me
to update that pain in the ass site again... wait, is this
thing on? I mean, welcome back to The Gameroom
Blitz, everyone! This time, we've got the expected
Awesome
NES
update along with a brand new video. I'm putting the
variety show format on hold until I've got enough RAM in
my system to handle a more advanced video editing utility than
Windows Movie Maker. However, fans of classic
gaming should be pretty happy with the Atari Lynx
retrospective that I'm offering instead.
Nothing else to report,
folks. I'll see you later.
| July 28, 2008... Enjoy
the Silence |
Sorry for the lack of
updates, folks. Right now, I just don't have anything to
say. However, there's a new Awesome
NES
update that may be of interest to you... it features the first
four titles in the Mega Man series, as well as a handful of
other games that are memorable for all the wrong
reasons.
| July 19,
2008... Squeeze the
Trigger |
Do you like long-time
Gameroom Blitz contributor John Roche? Well, have a look
at the site's latest feature, The Roche
Gallery! It's a series of reviews that trims the
fat of ordinary video game criticism, leaving you with lean
summaries of recent releases along with
a simple binary rating. Right now, there are just
three reviews in the gallery, but knowing John, he'll be
adding to the list shortly.
Also, Awesome
NES has
finally cracked the Ms with reviews of M.C. Kids (an exercise
in cross promotion that oddly has nothing to do with MC
Sporting Goods), Mach Rider, and that classic financial
management simulation, M.U.L.E. You're not going to find
a lot of games like this one on the NES, and you'll be looking
a long, long time before you find one with an iron-plated
donkey in it!
All right, now to more
important matters. I like to think of myself as a video
game historian, but even I have large gaps in my
knowledge of the industry, thanks to personal tastes and a
stubborn refusal to purchase some consoles. Both factors
contributed to my missing Chrono Trigger when it was first
released on the Super NES in 1995. I disliked that
system more than was probably healthy, and I had a similar
contempt for RPGs. They've never been my favorite genre,
but thirteen years ago, when I was younger and even less
patient than I am today, I would have rather swallowed a
grenade than spent countless bleary-eyed hours leveling up a
party of pixelized pipsqueaks.
That was then. The
bitter battle between the Genesis and Super NES is long over,
and classics like Grandia, Suikoden, and Panzer Dragoon Saga
have made me more open to games that are heavy
on exploration and light on action. With my biases
behind me and a modded Wii just itching to play Super NES
games sitting in front of me, I felt that it was the right
time to try Chrono Trigger and see what I've been
missing.
It turns out that it was a
lot! RPGs are definitely not my area of expertise, but
after sinking eighteen hours into the game, I can understand
why gamers speak so highly of Chrono Trigger. The time
hopping storyline is ingenious and has a profound impact on
the gameplay... after you've finished a few missions, you're
sent to a hub where you can select any time period you like,
with any combination of the party members you've
recruited. It doesn't offer as much freedom as, say,
Oblivion, but it was nevertheless a step in the right
direction for console RPGs, which had been stiflingly linear
before Chrono Trigger's release.
Also, I'm a sucker for a
realtime combat system, and Chrono Trigger comes pretty darned
close to offering one. The combat strikes me as an
ancestor of Grandia's outstanding battles... the
characters aren't racheted into place, and you've got to
factor their onscreen positions into your strategy. For
instance, Chrono's Slash works especially well against a
cluster of tightly packed enemies, while Lucca's Flame Toss
can turn a row of foes into charcoal. The battles aren't
as satisfying or as strategically deep as the ones in Grandia,
but you certainly can see the influence that Chrono Trigger
had on that series.
I don't think you need me
to recommend Chrono Trigger, as thousands of gamers have
already beaten me to the punch. However, this is
the first RPG in a long, long time that I've thought about
playing to completion... and it says a lot about the quality
of a game when even players who shouldn't like it
will gladly spend forty hours to finish it.
| July 14, 2008... Wait,
They're Still Doing That E3
Thing? |
Well, E3 is here
again. Here are some of the more interesting things that
have happened at this year's event:
* Galaga Legions was
announced as an Xbox Live exclusive. Namco is calling
this "the first true sequel to Galaga in twenty years,"
although judging from the early footage, I doubt that it
deserves its place in that lineage. It seems
like the developers went way overboard with the huge swarms of
enemies and massive firepower... the original Galaga was much
more subtle than this! However, I was wrong about Space
Invaders Extreme, and I could be wrong about this. Only
time will tell.
* Sony CEO Howard Stringer
(not to be confused with exploitative talk show host Jerry
Springer) has been talking smack about the Nintendo Wii,
calling it an "expensive niche game device" rather than
acknowledging it as a competitor to the Playstation 3.
You might not be winning the console wars, Howie, but at least
you're tops at being a sore loser!
* Speaking of the Wii,
there's a new device on the horizon that will make the
system's motion sensitive controller more accurate. The
peripheral connects to the bottom of the Wiimote and,
according to the Wii Fanboy web site, "allows for more
comprehensive tracking of a player's arm position and
orientation." Will it work with ordinary Wii titles, or
just specially designed ones? Inquiring minds want to
know!
* Rumors persist that
there will be a new Nintendo DS, without a Game Boy Advance
cartridge slot. Why would anyone buy a Nintendo DS with
limited functionality? The fact that it costs a lot less
than the original or Lite models may have something to do with
it. IGN says a hundred dollars less, but the idea of a
thirty dollar DS seems pretty far-fetched.
* Those Xbox 360 avatars
shown on Joystiq were the real deal, and there's every
indication that the Xbox 360 dashboard will receive a complete
overhaul by the end of the year. I've got mixed feelings
about this... after all, if it's not broke, why fix it?
However, if Microsoft insists on making changes to the Xbox
360 experience, there's not a whole lot gamers can do to stop
them.
* There's a new
installment of Awesome NES! Wait, that doesn't have
anything to do with E3!
| July 8, 2007... My Big
Fat Geek Wedding (also, Wii hacking
fun) |
I'm back! I was
really dreading the occasion at first, but now that it's all
over, I must admit that I had a lot of fun at my brother's
wedding. It gave me a golden opportunity to get
reacquainted with friends and family members I
hadn't seen in nearly a decade. Also, the ceremony was
refreshingly original; a far cry from the stuffy
traditional weddings you often see on television.
Finally, the reception was stocked with a wide assortment
of excellent food and drink, including more beer and sangria
than I, uh, probably should have consumed. Damn you
and your frothy, fruity flavor, Shock Top Belgian White
ale!
Oh yeah, this is a video
game web site, not my LiveJournal. In that case, how's
this do you? Lately, I've been spending a lot of time
getting my retro on with the Wii. It's all thanks
to the recent WAD Injector (tee hee) program that lets
you insert your own games into Virtual Console channels.
Sure, there are homebrew emulators available for the system
too, but they don't display games in 480p, which is pretty
important if you're playing them on a high-definition
television set.
The WAD Injector not only
lets you play your favorite NES, Genesis, and Super NES games
at the Wii's best available resolution, but gives you instant
access to them. There's no need to wade through a lot of
confusing options... you just point the Wiimote at the
appropriate channel, press the A button, and you're ready to
roll. The channels don't accurately reflect the games
they play, instead displaying the games that used to
be inside them, but it's a small inconvenience that's easily
ignored.
The lone drawback of
the WAD Injector (aside from shaky compatibility and legal
issues) is that the save states in Virtual Console
channels aren't nearly as convenient as those in homebrew
emulators. The Wii does save your position in games when
you quit them, but you can't use save states
to power your way through difficult titles like
Bionic Commando.
This could be a damning
flaw or a blessing in disguise, depending on your
outlook. Without convenient save states, it'll take you
a whole lot longer to finish games. At the same time,
your accomplishments seem more significant without this
crutch. It took me hours and hours to beat Bionic
Commando, but once I finally blew away Hitl-er, Master D and
escaped with Super Joe, I felt like I earned that
victory.
All right, that ought to
do it. Enjoy the latest Awesome
NES,
folks. This time, the focus is on Legend of Zelda...
along with a bunch of other games that probably don't matter
as much to you.
| July 2, 2008... I
Always Cry at Weddings (and while watching bad
Flash toons) |
I'll
be attending my brother's wedding in a couple of days and will
be out of the house for a while, so I guess I'd better leave
you something to read while I'm gone. Fortunately,
contributor John Roche has come to the rescue with a review of
Total Drama
Island,
which I gather is some kind of really horrible animated
reality show. A word to Hollywood... the terms
"animated" and "reality" are exclusive terms. Come to
think of it, the words "reality" and "television"
don't even belong in the same sentence.
Also up for grabs is an
Awesome
NES
update, the first in a week. This one is built to last,
with reviews of The Last Action Hero, The Last Ninja, and The
Last Starfighter. Then there's the summary of
the extra, extra, extra long adventure game
Legacy of the Wizard, and a dated reference to night club
fires in the Legend of the Ghost Lion review.
Finally, there's the
latest video. Would you
believe it took me three days to finish this? Not just
three days, but nearly three solid days of work.
Hopefully it will have been worth all the effort, but I have a
funny feeling that it's going to be ignored in favor of
some dumbass screamer shouting about how much some game
sucks. Oh well, that's YouTube for
you...