While I’m yapping about browser games, you should definitely give Warbears a shot. It’s wicked sweet too, but requires more thinking and planning than decisive action. And it’s real hard. I maybe should have mentioned that. I spent an entire night once trying to figure out the first mission. I probably couldn’t even do it again in a single try. Man, games with cuddly little animals sure are great.
April’s Band of the Month is quite likely one of the greatest bands ever, the oh-so-kickass Deep Purple. “Highway Star” and “Space Truckin'” are two of my most favourite songs ever, and all of the sane rock community will tell you that Deep Purple rocks. Kind of like how all punkers can agree on Bad Religion. In any case, the band really doesn’t need me to speak for them. “Smoke on the Water”, anyone? Yeah. Totally.
Anyway, I never really used to listen to them, but one day a few years ago, my buddy Tyler sent me the song “Lazy” and I was hooked. Then I heard “Highway Star” for the first time and I was fanatical. Really the best part of all is that “Hush” is on the Xbox360 version of Guitar Hero 2, and I totally didn’t realize it until I stared playing the song. It was a moment to remember, that’s for sure.
I think one of the things that really gets me about the band is that a lot of their songs are really great driving songs, and there’s nothing I like better than a good soundtrack to accompany my adventures on the road. Edwin, Steve and I are planning a road trip, and I can just say that they’d better like Deep Purple, because you can bet that’s pretty much all I’ll be playing while I’m driving. That and maybe Lostprophets, possibly some Damone to round out the playlist. They’re next month’s BotM by the way, just to spoil the surprise! I know everyone looks so forward to this feature!
There have been a lot of little thoughts bouncing around inside my skull lately, and I’ll probably end up getting around to blogging about most of them sometime soon. So the blog will probably continue to be active for a while to come. But maybe not. You see, today was a very good day to have Wii Points, as two really awesome games have landed, and I may very well be absorbed in those for a while.
I’ve been waiting for it since the day I got my Wii, and finally finally StarFox 64 is available on the Virtual Console. It’s like the second best StarFox game ever (I like Command only slightly more), and goddamn I loves loves loves StarFox. Pretty much anyone who knows me can attest to that. The real challenge here will be tricking people into playing multiplayer with me. Though really, I’m not that great at StarFox where playing against me isn’t worth the trouble. Also the NES classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles showed up as a complete surprise to me. I must have logged a hojillion hours into that game in my youth and never gotten past that one really hard jump in level three. I downloaded it mostly out of nostalgia but also because I’ve made a promise to myself to finally beat it. That may, of course, be easier said than done, because the game is really flippin’ hard. April’s continued support means nothing!
To make matters worse, Guitar Hero 2 for the 360 lands in two days, and while I may have been able to resist the call otherwise, I cannot just turn away from the chance to play “Rock And Roll Hoochie Koo”. Oh yeah, I guess I forgot to mention that me and the tall one bought an Xbox 360 last Monday. I’ve pretty much been playing Dead Rising, Gears of War and Hexic all week, but failed to even mention them even once. Oops. Making my bank account even less happy with me, Super Paper Mario is a requisite purchase for anyone with a Wii and common sense, and that happens on the 9th, or so my sticky note of important releases tells me. Thank God I still have a small wad of tax return money, or else there’s no way in Hell that even I could justify spending so much in such a small period of time. And I pretty much hate money, so that says a lot.
While it’s been fun arguing over consoles that have been obsolete for like ten years now (maybe next time we’ll go over which version of the Atari was the best), everything’s gotta come to a close eventually. Of course, like 97% of arguments, it was completely irrelevant because every point hinged entirely on opinion, and for the sake of this particular disagreement, opinions cannot be wrong, they can only conflict.
One little note before I go though, is something that always gets on my nerves. Just because a game has an E rating and blood isn’t a consequence of every possible action, doesn’t mean it’s for children. If it’s got Teletubbies on the cover, yeah, maybe it is, but for the most part, that E is an accurate representation that everyone should be able to enjoy the game. If you think you can’t enjoy a game because it’s colourful and not overly violent, then you have some growing up to do. Taking a perfectly random example, Kingdom Hearts was not only rated E and stuffed with cute and colourful characters, but it also carried nearly every Disney licence seen in the past 70-odd years. Yet if you actually play the game rather than blowing it off at the sight of Mickey Mouse, you’ll see that it would take someone who’s at the very least around fifteen years old to truly appreciate the game. Its sequel was even deeper, and most of the things that make it a truly fantastic game would be completely lost on children.
I don’t like to get riled up about silly things, but when people will deny the worth of something because it doesn’t feature anything that might spark some kind of controversy, it drives me bananas. In that way, I envy non-Americanized culture because they can appreciate things that aren’t drenched in violence. Don’t get me wrong, though. I loves me some violence (especially when zombies are involved), I just don’t believe it’s a requisite for quality.
The one thing I hate about myself is that when I’m arguing in text, I tend to start off well, but get far too wrapped up by the end. Because of that, my language tends to get much more harsh and insulting than it needs be or, more importantly, than I intended it to be. So anyone who’s reading this little N64 debate from the outside, just know that Mike and I are just messing around. At least I am.
So anyway, time to dissect Mike’s happy little PSX list.
You know, based on the data collected in this little spat, I think I’ve pinpointed the exact reason me and Mike disagree so much. I think it might have something to do with brand loyalty (that one’s me, just so you know) and Sony’s brainwashing propaganda, but there seems to be a distinct game choice difference here. I like adventure games and spit upon most RPGs, while Mike would rather navigate menus than worlds. The one thing everyone can agree on though? Violence. Hooray violence! Bringing gamers together since probably like forever or something.
Because dropping the gloves with your buddies is fun now and then, especially when it’s arguing about video games over the internet like complete goofballs, I decided to find an official list of Nintendo 64 games that rock (also I have a lot of spare time). It doesn’t take rocket appliances to see that the N64 was a great console, so find one I did, and from the person with the best knowledge in the world about this kind of thing to boot (me). So without further ado, let’s get down to business. I even ordered the list alphabetically by developer and release order (again, lots of spare time). Multiplatform (between N64/PSX) games aren’t considered.
In the interest of fairness, here’s a list of Playstation games that were good enough for me to have spent more than an hour total playing (without regret). Though these are organized in no way. As with the above list, mulitplatform games don’t count.
I think that should be evidence enough for anyone. And if not, then how can you explain why three of the top rated games ever (Numbers one, five, and six) are from the N64? Only one is from the Playstation, and it’s lame-tastic Tekken. In conclusion, saying the N64 was only good for a couple shooters and wrestling games is like saying the Eagles are only good for “Hotel California”, a statement which shows an astronomic amount of ignorance.
I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention or anything, but the TMNT games were released a few days ago. While eight different platforms were graced with the newest Turtles game and I own seven of them (all eight soon enough), I only picked up the Wii and DS versions. To secure my title as a true TMNT fanboy, I probably should have gotten all of them, but I don’t hate money that much. Anyway, short reviews…
The Wii version, which is probably identical to the PS2, PSP, 360, GC, and PC verions of the game, is pretty kickass. Ubisoft stole the rights to the game from Konami, and that alone fills me with hope (though to their credit, I did enjoy all the Konami produced Turtles games). Thankfully, Ubisoft took what they knew best and applied it directly to the TMNT video game. The game plays like a faster brother of the recent Prince of Persia games, which means it’s essentially sweet acrobatics interspersed with some fighting here and there. The game mostly takes place on rooftops and in alleyways and sewers, as the Turtles aren’t exactly the most welcome creatures in New York. Jumping around the city and running up and along walls feels great, and as a PoP vet, I caught on really quickly and kicked ass right from the start. Fighting is pretty simple and doesn’t occur overly often, which is okay, because just jamming around town is more than enough fun on its own. What I really like about the game are the levels where you can hotswap between all four brothers. Each turtle has his own acrobatic move, and swapping turtles on the fly to get past stuff feels awesome and has the potential to impress viewers. Team moves are also really neat, while kind of limited. Also, the game is a bit easy, because you just can’t die. The only real challenge is getting good ranks at the end of each level, which can be rough.
The DS version is the same, but completely different. It’s again all about jumping around wherever in the city, but rather than the regular one button jump and control pad to move around, you’ve got set jump points. See, you get a little free movement on wide rooftops or bridge beams or whatever, but most of the time, the jumps are semi-automatic. Your top three face buttons each make you jump in different directions, (Y is left, X is straight, A is right), and your job is to see where the next target markers are and hit the right button at the right time. It’s not a really difficult game, but learning to time jumps together and speed through levels without missing a step is entertaining enough in itself. There’s some fighting in this one too, but I won’t mince words: it’s crap. Luckily it doesn’t happen very often. Boss fights are terrible too, as you can just pin the boss against a wall and wail on it, and you’ve essentially won. While I do enjoy both games (particularly the Wii version), I think it’s safe to assume that they’re going to get bashed by critics. Some bullshit about “not being enough of a game” or some kind of crap like that. And you know, maybe they’re right, but this is essentially what I’m looking for in a game. The DS game is a completely original concept, and the Wii version is quite swanky with just enough challenge so that I have to try, but won’t get frustrated with it (ahem Sonic).
In the end though, neither game even compares to HOW AWESOME THE MOVIE WAS! HOLY CRAP! Yeah caps whatever. I’m just really excited. TMNT was everything I was hoping for and more. The human characters look a little wierd, as apparently in CG land, for every fat guy there are 700 anorexic people, but that’s a minor complaint. The one real complaint I have was that Karai and her foot ninja were not nearly central enough to the story. But that’s apparently not going to be a problem in the sequel, which they did not just leave a door open for, but rather explicitly hinted at. With new VAs for every character, Karai actually had a real asian accent, as opposed to the shitty fake one they gave her in the cartoon. Also awesome was that Patrck Stewart was in it. And Splinter’s trophy case at the end, that was a totally sweet nod to fans of the show. I could really go on forever, but you know, I think saying that it’s fickin’ awesome is enough. I was ready to go see it again right after I left the theater, but decided that I’d rather not, since I had run out of gift cards, and I just wasn’t ready to spend fourteen actual dollars.
I logged onto the Wii shop channel this morning in hopes that maybe Nintendo uploaded the weekly bunch of VC games early. That’s really the highlight of my Mondays, so I was really hoping to get some classic goodness before I had to head off to work. When I got into the shop though, something was decidedly wrong.
Why haven’t I posted anything in the last week? I dunno. I guess nothing’s really happened lately that I care to mention. Also, I’ve been working hard on leading Denver to the Super Bowl in Tecmo Bowl, which I downloaded to my Wii on Moday. I’m a few games into the season, and quite frankly, I forgot how cheap NES games could be. Passing success starts at about 40% and gets worse as you go on, and the opposing players don’t get smarter, they just get faster while your guys get slower. Frankly, I don’t think the Broncos will make it this year. At least two player is still a blast eighteen years later.
Um, yeah. So I guess I did have a little something to say. Oh well. I’ll make some sort of post later this week, but probably not until Thursday at the earliest. I’ve got a tall comic order to fill this week.
So I spent the better part of yesterday playing a couple Nintendo 64 games. Why? mostly because I felt like reminiscing and enjoying some really great titles (despite what some may want you to believe, the 64 had a ton of killer games). Also, my friends and I were chatting briefly about Kirby 64, and the topic of how round things shouldn’t be made of polygons (or some such thing) came up. That note made me curious about how well exactly they made that work back in the day. The answer, I’ll get to in a sec. That’s actually one of the main reasons I’m making this post.
Now, I was mostly playing games that came out near the end of the 64’s lifespan, and I’ve got to say that the graphics are startlingly adequate. Sure, there have been huge leaps in graphical quality in the last two generations, but were they really that necessary? Just take a look at two choice titles: Pokémon Stadium 2 and Kirby 64. If you boot up either of those games, you’ll probably be surprised at how nice they look. Pokémon Stadium 2 in particular has some very impressive character models, which look like they could have come out of a lower-end GC game. And the Kirby issue? Quite frankly, Kirby is impressively round, considering he’s made out of decidedly not-round polygons. I’m pretty sure most of the round enemies are just made of rotating 2D circles (I forget what that’s called, or if it even has a name), but Kirby is the real deal, and he looks (and moves) great.
Given, both of those games are pretty easy on the system otherwise, so I suppose grahpic quality could possibly have been optimized because of that. But then again, Conker’s Bad Fur Day and Donkey Kong 64 both had huge environments and a lot going on, as well as fantastic (for the hardware) visuals, so I guess that’s a bit of a moot point.
I’m not sure where I was going to go with this, but it seems like I’m trying to say something along the lines of how I was more than satisfied with where graphics were at around seven years ago. Yeah, smoother textures and higher poly counts are nice and all, but we haven’t seen a single Kirby game since the 64 era where you can mix powers, so what’s up with that? Oh man, and if you could mix powers and have more than one attack per power? That would kick so much ass that my head hurts thinking about it. Come on Nintendo, I know you’re cooking up a Kirby game for the Wii. Indulge me! Or at least release Kirby 64 on the Virtual Console so I don’t have to play it on these shitty, shitty emulators… Also, classic Game Boy games would be nice too.
Oh right, and jus’ta let ya’ll know, Wario: Master of Disguise? Not so great. Parish was a little harder on it than I would say needed be, but it most certainly does not live up to the majesty that is Wario Land 2 (best classic GB game EVAR), or even WL3 for that matter, which I found was the weakest of the series.
This post took me exactly half an hour to write.
