| March 30, 2008... Winds of
Change (plus, Xbox Live no longer as
lively) |
This is a test of the emergency broadcast system.
This is only a test.
Don't worry, I've still got an Awesome NES update planned
for today. Right now, though, I'm more
interested in updating the layout of the site. All
the Nintendo pages have been switched to the new two column
format, with tech specs and brief histories of each system on
the left and the actual reviews on the right.
There's one other relatively minor formatting change.
See those blue dots at the top of some reviews?
These indicate that the reviewed game can be downloaded from
Nintendo's Virtual Console service. Similar
icons will be added to games available on Xbox Live
Arcade and possibly PSN in the future.
All right, without further ado, here are the freshly
formatted pages! If there are any problems with them,
like broken links and such, be sure to let me know!
Nintendo NES
Super
Nintendo
Nintendo 64
GameCube
Nintendo
DS
And now, the moment you've all been waiting
for... the Awesome NES update has gone
live! This time, we're breaking out the big guns
with Contra and its dubious spin-off Contra Force.
We've also got the Goemon-esque Cowboy Kid and Crash 'n the
Boys: Street Challenge for your viewing pleasure... as well
as Conan: The Mysteries of Time for all you closet
masochists out there. The real mystery is how this piece
of crap wound up on the NES in the first place!
There's one other thing worth mentioning
before I go... Microsoft has turned into a bunch of
buttholes. If you were thinking about getting
Dodonpachi: Dai Oh Jou for your Xbox 360, you'd better think
again, because it ain't happenin'. Microsoft has
decided that there were too many "faithful arcade
ports" on the Xbox Live Arcade service, and is shutting off the
tap for thisty shooter fans.
Thanks, guys! So it's just going to be boring,
fundamentally flawed casual games like TiQal from now on,
huh? All righty then. Now I remember why I bought
that Wii...
| March 27, 2008... Blood in
the Sand, Head in my
Hands |
ANOTHER 50 Cent
game? Wasn't the first one more than
enough? At least this new title, Blood in the Sand,
takes place in the Middle East, so we might see some yellows
in addition to the drab browns and greys of the original.
Oh yeah, there's a new Awesome NES update in
addition to the one I posted (but didn't announce) last
Sunday. This time, the sensational Cobra Triangle takes
the spotlight, along with Codename: Viper (a blatant
rip-off that's actually BETTER than the real thing?
Inconceivable!) and the considerably less exciting Color A
Dinosaur. Thanks for that one, Tommy...
All right, I've got to start working on the site's layout
again. I didn't realize that so many of the pages on the
Blitz still used the crusty old design from 2005!
Arrgh, I'm so lazy!
| March 20, 2008... Hit the
Road, Jack |
It may be March, but with all the good news we've been
getting lately, it's beginning to look a lot like
Christmas! Let's take a look at the week's past
events...
* After two decades of ineffectual slaps on the wrist, the
Florida Bar Association has finally, mercifully dropped the
hammer on anti-fun lawyer Jack Thompson. The
organization has determined that Thompson has failed to
justify his frequent legal filings, and has taken
away his right to file more without a signature from another
(presumably more competant) lawyer. It's the next
best thing to a disbarment, which could also happen
in the bar trial that will determine Thompson's fate as a
lawyer.
* A half-dozen fantastic Nintendo DS games have been
released in Japan, with a majority of these titles coming to
the United States later this year. In addition to
remakes of the first two Ys games, there's a sequel to the
quirky Dreamcast shooter Bangai-O, a spinoff of that beautiful
but brutally difficult Xbox classic Ninja Gaiden, and a new
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles without all that poison
fog. Goodbye urn, hello unrestricted exploration!
Finally, there's Super Dodgeball Brawlers, which takes the
hard-hitting sports game and injects features from another NES
favorite, River City Ransom. Talk about your two
great tastes that taste great together!
* Finally, there's another Awesome NES update!
Actually, it's been up since yesterday, but for those of you
who missed it, we're taking a crack at the Castlevania series
along with a lot of other games with the word "Castle" in
their names.
| March 16, 2008... More
Awesome NES, Whether You Like It or
Not! |
The latest Awesome NES is ready, if
you're so inclined to read it. We're covering the
Cs now, starting with reviews of Cabal and a number
of games with the word "Captain" in the title.
Rounding things out are a few casino simulations, including
Caesar's Palace and Sofel's Casino Kid series.
I need to branch out from these Awesome NES updates...
maybe review a few Nintendo DS games for a change. I
suppose I could also detail my misadventures with Wii
homebrew, but I might wait until they iron out all the kinks
in the Twilight Princess exploit. There's news that the
developers responsible for the exploit are working
on a channel accessible from the Wii's main menu. This
would grant gamers instant access to their favorite homebrew
applications, but only time will tell how well this will work,
if at all.
| March 13, 2008... Big-buh
Bills-buh Bar-buh-cue-buh |
It's that time again, folks! In this installment
of Awesome NES, we're closing
out the Bs with reviews of arcade hits like Bubble Bobble,
Burgertime, and Bump 'n Jump.
| March 9, 2008... Will Blog
for Food |
This Awesome NES update is
the bomb... and the sequel to the bomb! Yep, we're
covering Bomberman, its greatly improved sequel, and a bunch
of other games that aren't Bomberman.
Also, I've applied for jobs with several blogs, ranging
from DS Fanboy to Kotaku. Wish me luck, folks... I could
really use the work!
| March 7, 2008... Spin Trek,
Deep Spin Nine |
Oh crap! I was so busy working on my spinner that I
completely forgot to upload the latest installment of Awesome
NES! My apologies, folks.
There are a lot of classics in this update, ranging from the
innovative action/adventure title Blaster Master to the
soon-to-be-remade Bionic Commando. And for all you
sports fans out there, your Stanley Cup floweth over with
Blades of Steel and the surprisingly good Bo Jackson
Baseball. Who knew he knew video games?
All right, back to this spinner. I'm trying to add a
joystick to the housing and wire up a few more
buttons... that way, I can play games like Special Criminal
Investigation and Tron without having to reach for the
keyboard. Wish me luck!
| March 4, 2008... Spin Trek,
the Next
Generation |
I may have been a little hasty in my judgment of that
spinner. After tweaking it a bit, I gave it one more
test... then spent hours playing everything from Typhoon 2001
to Tac/Scan. I still wish it were USB compatible, but
what the heck... I'll bring my old PS/2 compatible desktop out
of hibernation if it means I can play a few arcade-perfect
games of Major Havoc.
| March 2, 2008... Spin
Trek |
Not much to report at the moment, aside from a fresh update
to Awesome
NES. This time, it's a grab bag of
random titles, ranging from two games starring
those slippery superheroes the Battletoads to a video
game adaptation of the film Beetlejuice. Tim Burton's
macabre masterpiece isn't done justice on the NES, but that's
not much of a surprise considering that it was an LJN
release. What is kind of shocking is that
half the games on this page were developed by Rare.
Damn, those guys were prolific in the 1980's! These
days, you're lucky to get more than one game a year out of
them.
Before I go, I've got some advice for all you old-school
gamers out there. If you're thinking of building a
spinner for your home computer to get the most possible
enjoyment out of Arkanoid, Space Duel, and Tempest (or even
better, Typhoon
2001!), save yourself the headaches and
just get one of these. I tried going
the homemade route and got nothing but frustration out of
the deal. The cruelest irony of all is that I spent
enough money on parts for my own crappy spinner to buy one
from EZ Arcade Solutions! Blast, foiled
again!
| February 28, 2008... It Was a
Teeny Weenie Yellow Polka Dot
Tumiki |
There's a lot of juicy news to report in
this update. First, Majesco has revealed that its
upcoming Wii translation of Tumiki Fighters will include
not only the original game, but three others by prolific
freeware developer Kenta Cho. Before you say something
annoying like "But if they're free, why buy them?",
there's more to this story. Blast
Works will also let you create your
own characters and stages, and on top of all that, the
graphics are signficantly improved over its rather simplistic
PC counterpart. Throw in the option to send stages to
your friends over the Internet and the ability to store
power-ups inside your ship for safe keeping, and you've got a
game that makes it easy to forget all the crap that's being
released for the Nintendo Wii. You know, crap like
this.
Two games that Majesco WON'T be publishing in
the United States are Space Invaders Extreme and Arkanoid
DS. Taito's parent company, Square-Enix, will be
bringing these classic
remakes to our shores instead.
This may leave you worried about the price of these two
titles, but fear not... they'll still cost $19.99 each when
they're brought to America later this year. Will we get
the optional dial controller as well? I'm not betting on
it, but it'd be a sweet bonus!
The news isn't all good for Nintendo,
though. For instance, the upcoming Wii version of
Super Mario Kart has a rather detached online
mode. There's no voice chat, no
text chat of any real consequence (unless you
consider canned catchphrases stimulating conversation), and no
way to interact with other players unless they're in the same
room as you. I don't like making accusations of Nintendo
games being too "kiddie," but in this case, they really ought
to think about taking off the training wheels and letting
players get the full online experience. You shouldn't
have to set up a friggin' conference call to play this
game with your out-of-state friends!
Then there's talk of motion
control being taken to the next
level on the Playstation 3. Someone experimented
with head tracking on the Nintendo Wii, but the
PS3 takes the silly headgear out of the question,
replacing it with a camera that tracks the motion
of the player's eyes. That could be a real
problem for Nintendo... if the Playstation 3 drops $200 in
price, anyway.
Finally, there's an Awesome
NES update waiting for you. This
time, the batboys of Bases Loaded are teaming up with the
batmen of, er, Batman. Now that's why I call a dynamic
duo!
| February 24, 2008... Spin the
Black Circle |
We're taking you out to the ballgame in this
installment of Awesome NES... everything from
the futuriffic Base Wars to the first Bases Loaded are
covered on this page. Don't worry, non-sports fans...
we've got you covered as well, with reviews of Barker Bill's
Trick Shooting and The Bard's Tale.
Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to figure
out a way to turn these old hard drive parts and this PowerAde
cap into a proper arcade
spinner. I just can't play
Tempest without one!
| February 21, 2008... Giving You
the (Monkey)
Business |
Time for an Awesome
NES update! We're moving
onto the Bs, starting with Back to the Future and ending
with... uh... Barbie? It's a good thing we're also
reviewing the exceptional Bad News Baseball to bring up
the average!
With that out of the way, it's time to play
Now... or Then! It's a little like the Price is Right
version of the game, except the cranky fat guy doesn't wear
glasses or make wisecracks about the sponsors.
Anyway, we're going to look at two different games... the
first is still in development but already very promising,
while the second was released over a decade ago, but is still
as addictive as it was in the 1990's.
NOW: Between its admission of
sucking the creativity out of its subsidiaries and making
titles like Boom Blox and the tentatively titled Monkey
Business, Electronic Arts seems intent
on shaking its reputation as the world's most evil game
developer. We're all familiar with the
Spielburg-produced Boom Blox, but what about
Monkey Business? Well, from what I've seen so
far, this DS game is the perfect hybrid of 1960's
aesthetics, 1980's gaming conventions, and 21st century
technology. As the intrepid British explorer Professor
Hatsby, you'll trek through the heart of Africa, bounding over
craggy cliffs straight out of an episode of George of the
Jungle and matching wits with everything from abstractly drawn
monkeys to brawny opera singers.
Sometimes you'll need an added boost to get
you through the game's most punishing trials, and that's when
the sliding puzzle on the bottom screen comes in handy.
You can triple the professor's strength by switching to the
puzzle mode, making a few quick matches, then switching back
to the main game before time runs out. A video on the DS
Fanboy web site illustrates that the puzzle mode can be used
to give ordinary bombs a nuclear-powered punch, but only EA
knows what else it will bring to the gameplay. However,
there's no mystery at all about the quality of the Henry
Mancini-inspired soundtrack and the expressive animation...
it's almost like playing an episode of the Pink Panther
cartoon!
THEN: Gamers running the Macintosh
operating system don't get a lot of breaks, but they did have
one advantage over their PC owning friends back in the
early 1990's... Ambrosia Software's Maelstrom. Released in 1992, Maelstrom borrows heavily
from the Atari classic Asteroids, while adding all the
luxuries people had come to expect from the Nintendo
age. First aid capsules, allies in need of rescue, and
point multipliers join the aimlessly floating chunks of rock
and give the player added incentive to fight to the next
stage. Maelstrom is also pretty cutting-edge for its
time, with simple yet attractive computer rendered graphics
and soundbites culled from old Ren and Stimpy
episodes. Remember, this was back in the multimedia age,
when it was fashionable to cram games full of digitized voices
even if it didn't make much sense for them to be in
there!
Fifteen years later, Maelstrom is now
available on Windows and Linux, with most of the charm still
intact. Sure, the game looks almost as plain now as the
original Asteroids did back in 1992, but it's nevertheless
very playable, with customizable controls and a shield
button that saves your bacon when the screen is thick with
meteor fragments. There are a few features the game
could have done without, like the black holes that suck with
the force of ten thousand Deal or No Deal episodes, but
overall it's one of the best games of Asteroids I've ever
played, ranking right up there with Owen Thomas' Astro Fire
trilogy.
| February 17, 2008... Super Sessler
Fighter II Turbo |
It's funny how Street Fighter IV gets less and
less exciting each time Capcom adds a new character to its
roster. First, they gave us the Baroness from
the G.I. Joe cartoon, and now we've got this
guy...
Unless all his opponents are parasitic Florida
lawyers, this dude is totally screwed.
The King of Fighters is also being pulled out
of the mothballs, with more lively character artwork than in
previous installments of the long-running series. Hair
flows like water, clothing ripples with every leap, and
there's a sense of exaggeration in the animation that was
largely missing from the last game. There's a YouTube
video that makes the differences between King of Fighters
XII and its predecessor more clear... just click on
this link, then fast-forward to 1:11 for the good
stuff.
There's just one more thing I wanted to give
you before I go... oh yeah, the latest page
of Awesome NES! We're
finishing up the As with Athletic World and Attack of the
Killer Tomatoes. We'll be tackling the Bs shortly, so
keep watching!
| February 13, 2008... Demo May
Cry |
I've got a lot to do at college today, so I'm
going to give you the latest Awesome NES update
early. This time, the spandex-clad superstars of
American Gladiators are taking on the belligerant b-ballers of
Arch Rivals. We'll also take a step back in
time to ancient Greece and check out the mediocre
side-scrolling action games Astyanax and Athena. As the
great Archimedes might say, "They Reek-A!"
So, how's about that Devil May Cry 4? I
played the demo on Xbox Live Arcade this morning, and was
really impressed with the graphics. It's hard not to be
after you've seen the exquisitely detailed buildings towering
over you and the massive bosses tearing through
ramshackle villages in the hopes of crushing you under their
flaming heels. However, the rest of the game doesn't
seem to have evolved along with the visuals. The camera
angles are still distressingly schizophrenic; an unwelcome
throwback to the early days of Resident Evil. Also, the
control is a little clumsy thanks to the right shoulder
button, which you're frequently forced to press along with the
controller's face buttons to perform some attacks.
I can't complain too much... at least this
feels like a Devil May Cry game, instead
of the closed-quarters clusterfuck that was Devil May Cry
3. However, I can't help but think that the Xbox 360
would be better served with a sequel to Legacy of Kain:
Defiance, the overlooked action/adventure game that does
everything Devil May Cry did, but with more class.
| February 10, 2008... The Dawn of
Awesome NES |
Hey, check it out! After years
of hard work and frustrating dead ends, I'm
publishing that NES book after all. I'm making one tiny
change, though... it's no longer a book, but a section of this
web site. I'll be uploading pages of Awesome
NES on a bi-weekly basis, and you can
access the first two by clicking on the logo shown
above. Enjoy!
| February 4, 2008...
EEE-discovery (plus a brief Wii controller
review) |
I tell 'ya, I'm really starting to warm
up to this EEE. Games aren't always easy to get running
on this system, but when they finally do, it's a beautiful
thing. I just tried a German remake of Tempest 2000
that's as impressive now as the original game was in
1994. It makes me feel even more foolish for buying
Space Giraffe when I could have had this for free! The
Linux conversion of Cave Story is also pretty solid... it's no
better than the Windows version and maybe even a little worse
thanks to the distorted sound, but it just feels right on
a computer as small as the EEE.
I've even
got a few more emulators running on the machine,
including Yabause, XMESS, and Mednafen. As expected,
Yabause was slower than slow, but XMESS does justice to my
favorite systems from the late 70's and early 80's,
and Mednafen handles the later 8-bit consoles pretty
well, going so far as to let you run Supergrafx and TurboDuo
titles in addition to the standard Turbografx-16
HuCards. I do wish the emulators were more
user-friendly... in fact, the Linux experience as a whole
could stand to be a lot less obstinate. Frustration
aside, I've got the EEE running the software I want to use, so
I can't complain too much.
With that bit of
self-indulgence out of the way, let's take a look at some of
the latest news from the video game industry:
* Guillemot's
Thrustmaster T-Wireless controller is finally starting to find
its way to retailers throughout the United States. I
bought this Wii controller last week from Amazon.com and
find myself torn between its incredibly awesome features and
its incredibly questionable design. First, the good
news... the wireless performance is nearly flawless, as
good as the Wavebird's but without the immense size or
the funky button shapes. There's also a mapping
function which addresses the lack of controller customization
options in many Virtual Console titles. Hate the control
setup in Sin and Punishment? In less than a minute, you
can assign character movement to the left stick and aiming to
the right, making the game infinitely more enjoyable.
Now comes the bad
news. There's a battery pack on the back that makes
holding the controller uncomfortable, and the D-pad is lousy,
with each direction joined together by ugly contoured
plastic. Ooh, so close! The T-Wireless is still
worth the modest price- I can't play Sin and Punishment or
King of Fighters '94 without it!- but I'm hoping another
company will come along to perfect its promising design
in the near future. Could you imagine a Sega Saturn pad
with wireless connectivity and button mapping? I could,
and it shifts my saliva glands into overdrive just thinking
about it.
* Nintendo recently
patented a bunch of Wiimote peripherals that nobody in their
right minds would use. Some of the most memorable
(but not in a good way) concepts include a
skateboard with a Wiimote slot in the rear wheel axle, a
headset with safety goggles, and a teddy bear.
You don't want to know where you're supposed to insert the
Wiimote in that last one...
* World-famous
console modder Ben Heckendorn has taken an Xbox 360 and turned
it into a camo-painted, battle-ready laptop. What's most
impressive about this project is the slimline design,
making me wonder when Microsoft is going to shrink the size of
its official Xbox 360 systems. Surely the success of the
Wii has taught you guys by now that when it comes to
game systems, thin is in!
* A sealed copy of
Chrono Trigger, the beloved role-playing game for the Super
NES, was sold on eBay for over twelve hundred dollars!
Yowza, that's too rich for my blood! I have this game on
one of those Final Fantasy collections for the original
Playstation, but still haven't gotten around to actually
playing it. I guess I just don't have the patience for
story-driven turn-based RPGs in my old age.
That's about it
from me. I'll be back... uh, probably not soon,
but the next time I feel like posting. Maybe
someday I'll even upload a new
video!
| January 31, 2008... Don't Know
Much About Geometry
(Wars) |
Reviewers have been
comparing Geometry Wars Galaxies to rich, decadent
chocolate... absolutely scrumptious at first, but less and
less divine with each subsequent bite. I would take that
analogy even further and compare the game to that episode
of The Twilight Zone where the gambler is trapped in
a cruelly ironic reality where every pull of the slot
machine handle results in a jackpot. Then he sees a
gremlin on the wing of a plane, turns into Adolph Hitler,
and discovers that his wife is a giant bug.
Wait, maybe that was that an episode of
Futurama...
Anyway, my point is
that the developers have taken a game that's meant to be
enjoyed in ten minute spurts and turned it into twenty
straight hours of monotony. There are countless stages
in the game, but each one has as much impact on
the gameplay as the 128 variations in an Atari
2600 release from the late 1970's. Sure, the stage
layout changes a bit, and there are a few new enemies
here and there, but it's still Geometry Wars, which means
driving back a swarm of progressively annoying enemies until
their backstabbing goodness exhausts your supply of
lives.
The introduction of
geoms, medals, and a level up system for your AI
droid needlessly draws out the game and burdens the
player with a grim sense of obligation. Practically
everything in the game must be purchased with the floating
currency gathered in each stage, you'll have to rack up a
score that rivals the national debt to earn the gold medals,
and it takes hours of grinding to graduate your
computer-controlled partners from "pathetic" to "borderline
helpful." This all adds up to a massive time investment
without an adequate payoff... or in keeping with the theme of
the aforementioned Twilight Zone episode, an inexhaustible
payoff that's ultimately not worth much.
| January 24, 2008... Emulate EEE,
Animate EEE |
After hours of work, I've finally
cracked the (Linux) shell of the Asus EEE and snuck a few
emulators past its iron defenses. Here's the score so
far...
|
EMULATOR |
WORKS? |
FRONTEND? |
NOTES |
|
Atari800 |
Yes |
Yes! |
Needs BIOS; not sure where
to put it |
|
DGen |
Yes |
No |
Runs quickly but
window is very small |
|
FCE
Ultra |
Yes |
No |
Runs
wonderfully; optional frontend won't
work |
|
Generator |
Yes |
Yes! |
Runs quickly, lots
of options, lower compatibility |
|
GNGeo |
No |
...? |
XGnGeo installs;
the emulator itself is missing |
|
GnuBoy |
No |
...? |
Blanks screen and
crashes spectacularly |
|
GSNES9x |
Yes |
Optional |
SNES9x port.
The frontend comes separately |
|
Mednefen |
Yes |
No |
Multi-system
emulator. Needs frontend badly! |
|
PCSX |
Yes |
Yes! |
Almost as slow as
VBA, but it certainly works |
|
Stella |
Yes |
Yes! |
Light version of
the Win emulator. Works well |
|
VB
Advance |
Yes |
No |
The slowest slow
that ever slowed a slow |
|
XMAME |
Yes |
No |
Plays tons of
stuff, all at a reasonable speed |
|
XMESS |
No |
...? |
Plays the waiting
game, then just stops |
|
XVIC |
No |
...? |
Spins its wheels
for a while before stopping |
|
Yabause |
No |
...? |
Autopackage
installs but program vanishes |
|
ZSNES |
Yes |
Yes! |
Looks just like
the Win version, but poor
sound |
There were a few
emulators that I couldn't get on their feet. Some won't
be missed all that much, and others were just asking too much
of the system. If my home laptop can't run this Saturn
emulator at full speed, the chances of a runt like the EEE
running it at all were slim to none! However,
it's much harder to accept the loss of XMESS, as it can run
software for dozens of computers and game systems. With
any luck, a little tweaking will be just the jolt of
electricity it needs to bring it to life. In the
meantime, I'll have to settle for Mednafen, which emulates a
handful of the more popular consoles with varying degrees
of success. NES games fill the screen and sound just
like the real thing, but Turbografx titles are blurry (hey,
just like on the Wii!) and spill outside the system's
display.
I really can't complain,
though, as I've got all the major food groups of
emulation covered. Stella and FCE Ultra let me
recapture my childhood, and I can fondly look back on my teen
years with Generator and GSnes9X. Plus, there's MAME,
which runs everything from Asteroids to The King of Fighters
'99 with ease. That's in sharp contrast to my last
handheld computer, a MobilePro 770, which ran exactly one
emulator and did it with all the speed of a comatose
slug.
I guess the bottom line is
that I'm a lot happier with the Asus EEE now that I've got it
running games that have nothing to do with penguins. For
what it's worth, it handles the more important stuff pretty
well too... pre-installed programs like OpenOffice, Pidgen,
and Firefox all run as quickly as they do on my Windows
machines at home, and without the aggravation of occasional
crashes. I have a funny feeling that once I get the hang
of installing third party programs and learn a little
more about the underlying operating system, I'll be quite
satisfied with my investment.
| January 19, 2008... Adventures
with Manboobs the
Penguin |
I had my first taste of Linux this
weekend, and let me tell you, this stuff bites back!
There's nothing this operating system can't overcomplicate,
which I quickly discovered when I tried to install emulators
on my new Asus EEE. On Windows, you'd just download a
file, unzip it into a folder, add the BIOS, and click the
program icon to start the festivities, but nothing is ever
that easy in Linux!
After switching on the EEE's hidden
advanced mode, I tried to download software using a
peculiar command line program called Aptitude. Wait,
this is the 21st century, right? When that
didn't work, I switched to a more user-friendly, but
still unfamiliar utility called the Synaptic Response
Tool. The concept behind this one is actually pretty
cool... instead of hunting down files on the Internet, it
offers a vast library of them, arranged by category.
Once you find the software you need, you just click the box
next to it and click install. Then wonder where the hell
the programs you installed went.
Like I said, nothing is
ever that easy with Linux. It turns out that the
programs I installed vanished into a USR folder,
scattered throughout a handful of subfolders.
Stella and Atari 800 went in with the rest of the binaries,
while the others were unceremoniously dumped
into the games folder along with The
Adventures of Manboobs the Penguin, or whatever they call that racing
game that was included with the system.
Oh, but I haven't even gotten to
the best part! After assigning the programs to the
launch button (a task even Hercules would fear), I
discovered that the lion's share of the emulators I downloaded
had no front ends. This makes playing NES games an
agonizing carrot and stick experience. They look
stunning on the EEE's seven inch display, but trying to get
them started is often more of a challenge than the games
themselves. What's the deal, guys? This isn't
1996. An emulator without a user interface is like
a slingshot without a rubber band... in other words,
practically useless.
Anyway, there's some new
stuff on the site, including the second half of the Saturn
Winter Special and some Atari 5200
game reviews. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to
scream at my EEE for the next three hours.
| January 14, 2008... Turning
Point |
People have been incredibly
enthusiastic about the past year, claiming that there's never
been a better time to be a fan of video games. After thinking about
it for a while, I'd have to agree. Not since the salad
days of the Saturn and Dreamcast have I enjoyed the hobby this
much, and it's been that way for nearly three years. However, the three years that
came before it weren't nearly as pleasant,
representing a low point for the
industry.
It all started at the tail end of
2001. Sega dropped support for the Dreamcast, and the
video game industry became the exclusive domain of the
Playstation 2. Microsoft and Nintendo offered consoles
of their own, but they lagged well behind the leader of the
pack in market penetration, and weren't markedly different
from the system they hoped to dethrone.
Sure, the Xbox had Halo, and
the GameCube rose from its mediocrity on rare occasions with
exclusives like Zelda: Wind Waker. Past these anomalies,
the systems were carbon copies of the Playstation 2, offering
the same software and roughly the same gaming experience. It's no wonder the two
consoles didn't sell particularly well... if you already owned
a Playstation 2, purchasing a GameCube or Xbox was redundant
at best and a waste of money at
worst.
The software available for
all three consoles made gaming in the first half of the decade
all the more monotonous.
Sony narrowed its focus to a small group of "hardcore"
gamers, with its competitors and third parties quickly
following suit.
The few companies who refused to obey the
status quo were pushed to the back of the bus as niche
developers, and in the case of Working Designs, driven out of
business.
The end result of this
cynical market saturation could be seen on store shelves and
in rental stores.
What was once a multicolored patchwork of the
industry's most creative ideas quickly became an oppressive
wall of Grand Theft Auto, Madden, and Unreal Tournament. Finding something,
anything, that distanced itself from the crowd was as
refreshing- yet also as unlikely- as discovering an oasis in
the middle of a parched
desert.
For years, that wall held
fast. Then, as
suddenly as it was built, the structure collapsed, reduced to
a pile of drab grey and brown rubble. What happened to bring
this awful chapter of gaming history to an end? Competition
happened.
Innovation happened. Disruption
happened.
The rebellion began on shaky
feet at first, with the release of the Nintendo DS in late
2004. People
weren't sure what to make of this oddball handheld, but
were sure that it would be utterly crushed by Sony's
more powerful PSP.
Months later, Majesco Entertainment and Double Fine
took a chance of their own with Psychonauts, an old-fashioned
platformer with a playful sense of humor far removed from the
angry satire of Grand Theft
Auto.
Psychonauts didn't sell well,
and at first, the Nintendo DS looked like it was headed for
the same fate.
However, Japanese developers liked what they saw
and risked it all on the quirky unit, creating games that
took full advantage of its touchscreen and other defining
features. The
fruits of their labor were original titles like Trauma Center
and Brain Age that left the PSP's retread offerings (sequels
to the ten year old Wipeout and Twisted Metal) feeling stale
by comparison.
Then along came the Xbox
360. Microsoft
rushed to bring the system to market, ignoring the lessons of
the 3DO and Saturn.
However, the risky move that put Panasonic and Sega in
a world of hurt paid off for the software manufacturer. Microsoft had a year
to build a strong foundation of games and improve the system's
media playback, leaving its two competitors at a distinct
disadvantage.
Sony expected total domination of
the console market with the Playstation 3 in late 2006... only
to watch in stunned surprise as the Xbox 360 held
its ground and the Wii surged past them both. The Wii took an
entirely different path from its rivals, sacrificing
performance for motion-sensitive controls that drew players of
all ages into the action. The Playstation 3, on
the other hand, had a huge price tag and few games that
justified it, along with a manufacturer who refused to
acknowledge its shortcomings.
With Sony's stranglehold of
the video game industry broken and developers awakened to new
audiences, games became more diverse and enjoyable than
ever. Old school
fans long denied their fix were given all the retro releases
they could handle on the Xbox Live Arcade service. The first
family-friendly console in nearly a decade was opening doors
that were once shut to young players and their parents. And even the well-worn
genres of games were given a boost in creativity, as Portal
and Crackdown both
demonstrate.
For the first time since the
battle between the Sega Genesis and Super NES in 1992, the
video game industry is split between console
manufacturers.
Nintendo has this console generation all locked up with
the Wii, and its DS is still selling strong in the East and
West. Microsoft
holds second place with the Xbox 360, and is building brand
loyalty with an excellent online service. Finally, Sony is still
making millions from its economically priced Playstation 2,
and gaining ground in the handheld market with
the PSP. All
three companies are fighting hard to keep their share of the
market, but in a console war where every contestant is evenly
matched, it's the fans that ultimately emerge
victorious.
It's why I'm mystified by the
suggestion from God of War lead designer David Jaffe that
there should be an industry standard, with every
developer throwing their weight behind a single console.
We tried that before, Dave. It was called the
Playstation 2, and one look at the games available in 2003
should tell you that it didn't
work.
| January 9, 2008... Omega Five: Not
Just An Essential Fatty
Acid |
Try new and improved
Update-a-trin, now with 80% more brief game reviews and 30%
less obnoxious bitching!*
* Side effects may
include irritation, itchy scalp, explosive constipation,
and a sudden loss of funds to games you only recently realized
you wanted. Results may vary.
Not scientifically proven by the FDA to prevent or
cure any disease.
PORTAL (XBOX
360)
All right, Valve. I bought The Orange
Box. Now will you
PLEASE show me some mercy and stop with the obnoxious Internet
memes? I'm so
sick of fabricated pastries that I may never not have dessert
again. Anyway, I
spent thirty minutes with Portal this morning, just to
discover what got everyone talking (or just mindlessly
parroting lines from the game) in 2007.
The first thing I'll
say is that Portal is an extremely disorienting experience at
first. You'll
often see mirror images of your alter ego, which can stretch
out to infinity if you stick your head through the right
portal. The game
toys with your already blown mind by offering advice that may
not actually be of much use. Thanks to the constant mental
abuse of GlaDOS (no, not the scented candle from S.C. Johnson
Wax; the creepy computer in the game), Portal seems
less like a puzzle game and more like a psychological
experiment, with you as an unwitting test
subject.
Don't let the sadist with the
Steven Hawking accent distract you, though... the only mind
game you need to concern yourself with is finding your way to
the exit in each room.
Like any good puzzler, Portal starts out simple but
sets more weight on your shoulders as you progress,
introducing elements like floating platforms, deadly water,
and attack drones in each new room. Did I mention that the
portal generator was the only "weapon" at your disposal? You'd better make the
most of it!
OMEGA FIVE (XBOX
360)
If Portal's pacifism
has got you feeling a little gun-deprived, Omega Five's
got the cure.
This flashy shooter combines elements of R-Type and
Forgotten Worlds for double the intensity. The R-Type influence
is especially apparent while playing as Ruby... her orbital
satellite can be launched at enemies, briefly sacrificing
wide-range firepower for intense damage to a single foe. The alternate
character, Tempest, uses a more defensive approach, catching
bullets in a hyperspace field that renders them harmless while
hosing down his adversaries with sprays of acid, napalm, or
molten metal. Oh
solder, is there anything you CAN'T
do?
The graphics in Omega Five
are sensational, bearing a faint resemblance to R-Type Final
but cranking up the resolution and detail to next-gen
levels. Massive
worms wind themselves around the screen in an effort to crush
you, and bulbous organs weave themselves together into a
grotesque, pulsating mass. The use of neon colors
and shiny metallic surfaces makes the game even more fetching,
and is a welcome act of rebellion against the current industry
trend of drab browns and greys. The sound doesn't
carry nearly as much impact, with the piercing scream of your
hero breaking up a forgettable assortment of muffled
explosions and futuristic techno tracks. Fortunately, you'll be
too busy weaving through waves of bullets and blowing up
massive enemies to notice.
Then there's the gameplay. I never got a feel for
Tempest's hyperspace field, and his liquid weapons all seem
pretty toothless. You can focus the spray of the acid
gun to intensify its effect, but even at maximum strength, the
chemicals just drip harmlessly from the bodies of the
later bosses.
C'mon, this is acid, not Johnson's Extra Gentle Baby
Shampoo! Despite
her petite size, Ruby packs a much bigger punch, with a
screen-choking vulcan cannon and a satellite that brings down
even the most stubborn opponents. On top of all that,
she just looks more attractive... I still haven't
figured out what Tempest is supposed to be, but I sure as hell
don't want to be it!
YAKUZA (PLAYSTATION
2)
You know what I hate? That's
right, a whole lot of things. However, games that focus
on a storyline at the cost of practically everything else is
way on the top of my list of grievances. With that
in mind, it's not too surprising that I'd be disappointed with
Yakuza, which isn't so much a video game as it is a
feature-length motion picture with little bits of game
sprinkled on top. In the grand tradition of Final
Fantasy VII and other self-proclaimed masterpieces, you get
two minutes of cut scene and a half minute of access time for
every minute you actually fight.
That's great if you came for the
life story of hired goon turned one-man prison riot turned
ex-con Kazuma. That story is fairly compelling, with a
insider's view of the Japanese mafia written by a famous crime
author from the Far East. The dark underbelly
of Tokyo just seems more thrilling and exotic than the back
alleys of Brooklyn, especially after six seasons of The
Sopranos! Unfortunately, the dialog hit a few snags on
its way to the United States. The writing is stilted and
awkward, an earmark of hasty English localizations, and the
voice actors deliver their lines with all the passion of
Al Gore after an evening of Ny-Quil
shooters.
However, those flaws are pretty
minor compared to what little action the game
offers. The fighting in Yakuza is simplistic, with a
whole lot of button mashing and not a lot of technique.
You do earn new attacks as you progress, but you'll have to
sit through unskippable full-motion video sequences
before you can get the goods. Instead of spending all
that time twiddling your thumbs, I'd recommend that you put
them to work on a few rounds of Urban Reign. Sure, the
storyline in that game is completely brain dead, but if you
wanted an engrossing plot, you should be watching a movie
instead of playing a game pretending to be
one.
| January 4, 2008... Putting the
Smackdown On
Crackdown |
Sure hate to start the new year
with one of these, but I've just got to say it.
The ending for Crackdown not only sucks, but it leaves me
with a not-so-fresh feeling that makes me want to unspend all
the time I invested in it. What the hell, Realtime
Worlds? It's not cool to make me feel like a chump
after waging a day-long war against the forces of what I
thought was evil.
This would hardly be the first
crappy ending I've seen in a video game, but at least Karnov's
conclusion on the NES was a crime of omission, rather than an
outright slap in the face. With "CONGRATULATION," you
can at least fill in the blanks to your liking. Let's
see... the fat Russian circus performer is financially secure
and can retire until 1993, when he's thrown back into the
spotlight with a fighting
game that was
every bit as dumb as his debut. Hey, works for me!
However, Crackdown not only takes
away any sense of accomplishment you may have felt after
defeating the final boss, but punishes you for your
efforts. Yeah, screw you too, Voice of the Agency!
After listening to hours of your nagging and insults,
delivered in an accent only Optimus Prime could love, my
reward is a bullet in the brain? I'm telling you,
Realtime Worlds, if you're even thinking of
making a sequel, you had damn well better rebuild the
bridges you burned in the first Crackdown. I'm not
paying sixty dollars for another helping of backstabbin'
goodness. |
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