Retro Gaming – Page 19

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The very first thing that the wife and I did after we’d tallied up our wedding presentation was to go out and purchase a massive new television. That was two and a half years ago, and it’s served me well over time.

The TV has one little issue though: it doesn’t play entirely nice with old video game consoles. They will hook up and display and everything, but they suffer for a noticeable input lag. This quirk is common to all HDTVs as far as I’m aware, so why is it worth talking about? Because my TV has a “game” setting that works really well for eliminating that lag, but it has a major flaw when used on an input that’s coming through normal composite cables, the very kind that an N64 or PS1 would use.

Everything seems fine at first when you set the input’s video setting to “game.” It’s displaying properly, the sound is coming out fine, and the input lag is gone. But then, suddenly, a massive wave of rainbow-coloured noise washed over the screen. It only lasts a second, but it happens every 15-20 seconds, so it’s a little annoying. It’s also much more distracting than it sounds.

Up until last month, I lived perfectly fine with the input lag. Oh, sure, it’s a little annoying, but most of the time it’s not a huge deal. It’s not like I play any rhythm or otherwise timing-sensitive games on my N64. But then Donkey Kong 64 happened along. Several of its mini-games and challenges flummoxed me hard. They were seemingly impossible to beat, the most maddeningly frustrating gaming experiences that I’d had in ages.

Yet I didn’t recall the game being so overly difficult. What happened? Input lag. You might call me crazy, but when I started switching the video mode from “normal” to “game” every time a mini-game popped up, DK64 became a much smoother, more bearable experience. Even the stupid Beaver Bother mini-game, a mini-game which I truly believe was forged in the depths of Hell, went from impossibly hard to a mild annoyance. My aggravation subsided, and I was free to finish the game.

If you’d told me a couple months ago that input lag could have such a profound effect on a single-player 3D platformer, I would have called you nuts. The fact of the matter is that it completely changed my Donkey Kong 64 experience. When your controls are slowed by even half a second, it makes so many elements of the game so much more difficult than they actually are. Having to deal with the stupid noise wipe was nothing at all compared to the trouble caused by the lag. Funny thing is, I haven’t come across any other games that it hampers quite so badly. Um Jammer Lammy and Jet Force Gemini are just as difficult with or without any lag, and pretty much every other game has worked just fine.

The moral of today’s story? I guess it’s that I need to pick up an old standard definition TV to play my really old video games on. And then find somewhere to put that TV, since there really isn’t a big enough spot anywhere in my home to accommodate yet another gaming setup.

Oh, or I could just never play Donkey Kong 64 again. That’s probably the right thing to do. Because really, eff that mess.

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: September 2014

Hey, it’s the best month of the year! And a month where I decided that it was time to focus on a select few games instead of trying to play everything under the sun. These Monthend posts really shouldn’t go over 1,000 words.

Anyway, final vacation week of the year, and I… spent most of if watching TV and sleeping in instead of playing games or doing something productive. Oh well!

Oh, and I guess this marks the first year anniversary of this Monthend feature. I figured I would’ve flaked on it long ago.

~ Now Playing ~

Super Smash Bros for 3DS Demo (3DS) – Okay, so it’s weird to be counting a demo here, but how many demos have you played for over 6 hours? Yeah. Besides, I got the special version without a usage limit (the regular version can only be launched 30 times), so I need to tout that as much as I can.

Gauntlet (PC) – The only PC game that I’ve ever pre-ordered. I played Legends and Dark Legacy so much back in the day that I was thrilled to hear that a new game was on the way. The final product is really good; pure Gauntlet. The only problem is that the mouse/keyboard control scheme feels weird and it doesn’t support either of my usual PC controllers. I’ve cleared the first world so far.

Hyrule Warriors (WiiU) – I have never played a Warriors game before, so while this game is dressing up a stale series in fanservice to many, it’s a completely new experience for me. And it’s soooo much fun. It shouldn’t be, but it is. I’ve finished Legend Mode, but that’s really just scratching the surface of this game’s content.

Fire Emblem: Awakening (3DS) – I have a very hard time playing any tactical RPG that isn’t Final Fantasy Tactics, so I’ve never been too interested in Fire Emblem. Picked this one up because it was on sale, and I’m loving it. Possibly because I’m playing on normal difficulty and casual mode, so I don’t have to deal with Fire Emblem’s traditionally crushing difficulty and perma-death. It’s breezy and fun, but I still have to consider my moves carefully. Hooray! I’m on Chapter 18 or so.

The Last of Us (PS3) – I’m one of the few who didn’t love this game. I don’t often agree with Chris Kohler these days, but he’s absolutely right when he suggested that it would be better without guns. I like the game in general, but I absolutely hate it when it forces you into combat. Because the combat is terrible. It might have the most satisfying stealth gameplay I’ve ever experienced, but it usually forgoes the stealth in favour of gunplay. Boo.

~ Game Over ~

Donkey Kong 64 (N64) – I loved DK64 for many years, but playing it again was sort of an eye-opener, as at the outset, I felt like I was having quite a bit of fun with it. Then things took a horrible turn. Read this for more details.

Hammerwatch (PC) – I got confused and thought that Gauntlet game came out on the 3rd, but actually it was the 23rd. Luckily, Hammerwatch came along in a Humble Bundle and slaked my thirst for a dungeon-crawling hack-em-up. Essentially it’s you (and up to three friends) in a massive series of mazes against millions of squishy monsters. Plenty of secrets to discover and winks at classic PC games made this one really stand out. I look forward to playing it again -and more thoroughly- to get the good ending.

Tappingo 2 (3DS) – Hey it’s the sequel to that puzzle game that wasn’t super but was somehow very engrossing anyway. So I played this. Solved some puzzles. It was pretty much the exact same as the first one, and that’s probably the only trait it shares with picross.

Metal Gear (MSX) – So here’s an odd one. I’ve never played an MSX game before. Turns out that Metal Gear is pretty great. Aside from a lot of totally unintuitive tricks and traps, anyway. But the overall feel I got from the game was good, so I hopped into Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake immediately after finishing it.

Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (MSX) – It’s even better than the first! Who would have thought! Literally the only things I didn’t like about it are the enormous amount of backtracking and the stupid, stupid swamp. If you’ve played the game, you know what I’m talking about.

Saints Row the Third (PC) – Despite almost burning out by ignoring the story and just goofing of and playing with all the random distractions, I powered through to the end. With 100% even, because I loved it. Really wish that I was capable to keeping an aircraft intact for more than about a minute, though. Flying is really fun, but I am not good at it.

Demon King Box (3DS) – Finished it off, and was a bit shocked when I did, because the ending just comes out of nowhere. Possibly because the translation is awful and none of the dialogue makes a lick of sense. There are a bunch of tough post-game stages to play, but I don’t know if I like the game that much.

Life Force (NES) – Bought this VC game on a whim, because I thought I heard that it’s a little easier than most other space shooters. That’s not exactly true. I couldn’t even pass the first stage after playing for fifteen minutes. So I save-stated my way to the end. Good enough.

Super Smash Bros Brawl (Wii) – I spent a ton of time with Brawl in anticipation of Smash on 3DS. Partly to get myself psyched up, and partly to try to complete all of the challenges I left unfinished. I didn’t clear out everything, but I’m pretty close. I’ve just accepted the fact that I’ll never beat Boss Battles on the Very Hard or Insane difficulties.

~ Re-runs ~

Picross e2 (3DS) – Oh look, Ryan was playing Picross. What a surprise.

Year of N64 – September – Donkey Kong 64

I have played Donkey Kong 64 to 101% completion at least twice in my lifetime. Possibly even three times, but I can only clearly remember the two. I have fond memories of the game, recalling only a single instance -a mini-game, at that- that caused me fits of frustration. However, in 2014, Donkey Kong 64 seems like nothing but an exercise in frustration.

I’m getting a little ahead of myself there, though. If you’re not familiar with it, Donkey Kong 64 is a 3D platformer developed by Rare. Playing it again, I couldn’t help but feel like it’s more a sequel to Banjo-Kazooie than any previous Donkey Kong game. The mechanics are the same, the games feel the same, even the music is incredibly similar. Both games are packed to the gills with collectible doo-dads.

The big difference, and what works in Banjo-Kazooie’s favour, is that BK only has one playable character. Well, two, but they’re eternally bonded together (at least until the sequel). Donkey Kong 64 has five playable characters, and as such, you need to scour each stage (and the hub!) five times to collect each one’s differently-coloured set of items. Yes, each Kong has a unique set of skills, but Banjo and Kazooie had just as many skills crammed into one character. It feels like having multiple characters is just a smokescreen, making it seem like there’s more to the game than there actually is.

The character-switching isn’t a major gripe though. There are much more pressing and infuriating matters at hand here. Firstly, Donkey Kong 64 has what must be the most openly antagonistic camera in all of video games. It’s not the worst in outdoor environments, but indoors, it basically refuses to ever be in the right place because it cannot deal with walls. It does not pan freely, but rather it always moves in chunks, and is never, ever right behind the player. This makes precision platforming much harder than it needs to be, especially with the somewhat loose controls. Even worse, is that the camera does not stay fixed at the angle you choose, and will start floating all over as soon as you start moving. I’m sure it’s intentionally trying to make me miss jumps.

Camera management woes aside, the game was pretty smooth out of the gate. Everything was going well for the first two worlds. I was collecting bananas, learning new abilities, rescuing fellow Kongs, trampling bosses. It was all well and good. Then came world three. In this world, you’re given the opportunity to play the original Donkey Kong arcade game. In fact, you have to beat it to win a golden banana. This was a pain in the butt, as you only get one life, and when you lose it, you get booted all the way out of the game. If it even just sent you back to the title screen, it wouldn’t have been so bad, but each time you die, it’s a good thirty seconds until you start your next run.

Donkey Kong isn’t terribly difficult for an arcade game. I managed to win after about half an hour. But then you have to play it again. With increased difficulty (more fireballs, DK throws barrels at different angles, etc). This is where it becomes a truly massive pain, as round two seems to be simply to win a unique kajigger. It’s not until the very end of the game, though, that you’re informed that you need this kajigger to fight the final boss. Thanks, Rare. You’re kind of a dick.

Not all the collectibles are quite so bad, though. Each stage has a whopping 500 small bananas to collect, 100 for each Kong. Luckily, you’re awarded a banana medal for collecting only 75 of each colour, and only the medals count towards your game clear percentage, so you don’t have to go out of your mind tracking down each and every one. Of course, if you’re not playing to 101%, it’s not an issue anyway. Also, collecting 15 banana medals unlocks Rare’s classic arcade game, Jetpac, which is a bit more fun than Donkey Kong. You have to win another unique thingamajig from Jetpac. It’s not easy, but it’s much less of a hassle to earn that one.

There are 25 golden bananas (the game’s main collectible) in each stage, 5 to be found by each Kong. Most of the golden bananas are earned by completing a challenge or making use of a Kong’s skill. Sometimes, though, you’ll also have to win a mini-game to get your banana. Some are just boring and simple, like one where you have to win a slot machine several times or collect a handful of coins in a small maze. Some are actually pretty fun, like the one where you have to pilot a minecart around a track while avoiding other, more explosive minecarts. And then there’s Beaver Bother.

Beaver Bother is a mini-game in which you play as a Klaptrap tasked with herding a number of Gnawtys into a hole. Sounds simple. You run around and bark at the beavers, and they fall in. Or, that’s how it’s supposed to work. In reality, the beavers are way smarter than they should be, and are able to consistently run up against the edge of the hole and not fall in, as if there’s an invisible railing around it. Sometimes they do fall in, though. I don’t know what triggers it. The game seems to run entirely on luck, and it took me forever to win each of the four instances of this stupid game. There’s another one, Big Bug Bash, where you’re a flyswatter and you… swat flies. It’s a little tedious too, but that’s just because the flies are quick and unpredictable, not because the game seems fundamentally broken.

It should be noted that the first time you play Beaver Bother is in world three.

Also, for whatever reason, my game did not save properly after I completed world three, resulting in me losing a couple hours of progress. I was almost ready to throw in the towel after that. I’m sure it’s not the game’s fault or anything, but it sure didn’t ameliorate my already soured opinion of it.

I need to stop to say a nice thing about the game here. And that’s that I love the music. It takes a few cues from some more iconic Donkey Kong Country tracks, but then just spins off and ends up sounding mostly like Banjo-Kazooie. Which is just fine, because Banjo-Kazooie has a terrific soundtrack. I always enjoy Grant Kirkhope’s work.

Despite all the things that tried to hard to frustrate me to the point of quitting, I powered through and completed Donkey Kong 64 yet again. Like, to 101%. I know, I’m a little crazy. The pain was softened by a cheat for unlimited resources like ammo banana coins, and crystal coconuts (which power special abilities). This cheat had been unlocked by a previous save file, and I had no qualms with using it to make my life a little easier this time around. Of course, it didn’t help me with the more frustrating parts of the game, but at least I never had to worry about running out of thingamabobs.

The final verdict is that no, Donkey Kong 64 is not a good game in 2014. I could have defended it in 1999, when most other games were even worse, but it hasn’t got a leg to stand on any longer. I would really like to see a modernized remake that fixes the camera and controls, redoes or replaces the mini-games, and otherwise sands down the other rough edges. Because this is a game I’d like to be able to like. The fact of the matter is that you’re much better off playing the Banjo-Kazooie port on XBLA if you’re jonesing for some Rare-style 3D platforming.

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: August 2014

Hey so summertime is drawing to a close, not that that means anything for adults. I guess if you’re a teacher, it’s good times, but for the rest of us it just means that you’re covered in sweat after your commutes to and from work. Hooray.

I had another vacation week in August, so I put it to good use and cleared off a few half-finished games from my backlog. But then I started up a whole new series of games, so it’s all been moot. It’s not like I had anything else worth doing. I got my yard work done too, at least.

~ Now Playing~

Saints Row: The Third (PC) – I don’t know what to say about this yet. I’ve only completed the intro missions, and I’ve mostly been driving around the city at random, collecting stuff and doing assassination missions. I’ve done a few story missions, and unlocked a sweet penthouse base. Also an unlimited supply of fighter planes!? This is absolutely the most fun I’ve had with an open-world game of this style. But somehow it’s missing fast travel. Lame. I hate having to hoof it all the way back to base when my aircraft inevitably explodes.

Continue reading Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: August 2014

Year of N64 – August – Bomberman 64

Bomberman 64 took me the entire month to finish, despite the fact that the game clock only reads about two hours of playtime. I can’t explain this phenomenon in any other way than a simple “I had no desire to play it.”

Where did that lack of interest come from? It could be because I had filled my plate well over its edges in August, and simply was so busy with other, more relevant video games that I couldn’t be bothered to make time for Bomberman. Or it could just have something to do with Bomberman 64 not being all that fun. Spoiler: It’s both of those reasons.

I used to love Bomberman. Like, you have no idea. I bought Bomberman Generations for a whopping $100 when it first came out (though I can’t tell you why it was so ridiculously overpriced). I couldn’t help it, I was a stupid teenager at the time. As time moves on though, I find myself less and less enchanted with the franchise. Playing the classic multiplayer mode is still probably the most fun you can have with video games, but single-player Bomberman doesn’t really interest me at all any more.

So it really doesn’t help that Bomberman 64 is fairly lackluster. First of all, it’s a short game. A really, really short game. There are five worlds, and each world is made up of four stages. Two of those stages are action/puzzle levels, where you explore, blow stuff up, and make your way to the exit. The other two stages are a duel with an evil bomber-person, and the world boss. so really you’re only looking at ten stages total. Well, twelve, but more on that later.

The action stages are fairly fun. For the most part, they put you in a big open level, and then leave you to your business of finding the exit. They all have some sort of puzzle element, like chasing down an enemy who has stolen the exit (???) or closing a series of dams so that you can traverse previously waterlogged areas. Not all of them are very inspired though. One level simply has three levers right next to the exit that you have to trigger by throwing bombs at them.

Throwing bombs is a big deal though, and ends up being one of the major gimmicks of Bomberman 64’s gameplay. In the 2D games, Bomberman needs a special item to pick up and throw bombs, but here it’s an innate ability. Not only can you pick up and toss bombs, but you can also pump them up to make big bombs, which are necessary in pretty much every stage, as they can destroy things that normal bombs can’t (usually scenery). You’ve also got to be good at throwing bombs to injure most of the bosses, but it’s a little more annoying there. See, you don’t just press a button after laying a bomb to pick it up. You need to step away, turn around, and then pick it up. Bomberman can be a little finnicky about this. If you get too close, he’ll just kick it, and if you’re on uneven ground, there’s a very good chance that he just won’t do anything. In a regular stage, it’s not a dealbreaker, but during hectic boss fights, it can be a real pain in the patoot.

Bomber duels are still the most annoying part of the game though. Imagine if you will, a one-on-one Bomberman game against an AI player in a wide open arena. They’re faster than you, and they can use a special projectile attack in addition to their bombs. It’s not a good time. Fortunately, the evil bombers in this one are a little stupider than in later games. On more than one occasion I witnessed an enemy bomber try to walk through a bomb, and simply keep rubbing up against it until it blew up. The actual bosses are somewhat less difficult, as they’re big monsters with defined attack patterns, and at least one is susceptible to a one-hit kill. That or the game glitched in my favour. That’s not to say that they’re easy, but they’re less frustrating than the bombers.

The game pads itself out a little by offering a small selection of collectibles for you to find. First are the costume pieces, which I’ll talk about in a bit. Then there are the Gold Cards. There are five of these in each stage. They show up in later Bomberman games as well (as “Lightning Cards”), and have been a source of many a headache for me. Some of them are just tucked away in corners, one is a reward for beating a stage under a certain time. I assume that some are earned by completing a special requirement and possibly for killing so many foes in a stage, but I mostly just ignored them so I can’t say that for sure The problem with that is that the real final world unlocks after you earn all 100 Gold Cards. I decided that it wasn’t really worth the time or effort.

The multiplayer in Bomberman 64 is exactly what you’d expect, and I don’t feel that I have to really say anything about it. Who isn’t familiar with multiplayer Bomberman? The one note that I need to make is that the costume parts that you collect in the single-player mode and use to dress up your Bomberman are only usable in multiplayer. It’s kind of silly that you can’t use your custom Bomberman in the story mode, but what can you do?

It’s important to note that Bomberman 64 was the very first 3D Bomberman, so that goes a way in explaining why the game is rough around the edges. The later games did get better, so the issues with Bomberman 64 are definitely more growing pains than anything else. And it’s not like there’s even anything explicity wrong with the game; it just doesn’t do anything overly interesting with that extra dimension. f you’ve got to play a Nintendo 64 Bomberman, play Bomberman 64: The Second Attack. It’s a little more meaty, and has a cooperative story mode. I probably should have played that instead, now that I think about it…

Year of N64 Bonus Round Q2 – Pokémon Snap

It might surprise you to learn that I wasn’t overly kind to Pokémon Snap back in its day. I played the game obsessively to completion, and then dumped all over it for being too short and too easy if anyone asked. Of course, this was my professional Stupid Teenage Gamer opinion, trotted out mostly to save face in a harsh middle school world. Deep down inside, I knew that Pokémon Snap was something special. Something magical.

Pokémon Snap is a short game. There are six courses, which take around 5-8 minutes to traverse, and one shorter special course to cap it off. I dragged my wife along for the ride this time, and while the five hours it took us to clear the game 100% seemed like a leisurely afternoon gaming session to me, she was chomping at the bit to get moving onto something else at around the three-and-a-half hour mark. She did stick it out to the end for me, and the experience was all the more special to me for it. That’s why I love her!

So! Pokémon Snap. What is it? It’s a photography game, which is an unusual kind of game to make, but that’s kind of what Nintendo is all about. You choose a course (unless you’re just starting out) and then you’re plopped into a weird vehicle which guides you along the stage. Pokémon litter the environments, and your job is to take the best darn picture you can of each and every one of ’em.

What makes this more interesting is the way that you can interact with the pokémon. At first, you can’t do anything but take pictures, and you’re at the whims of the game to find opportunities for good shots. As you progress though, you’ll be given a few different items. Apples will draw the attention of pokémon, who will gravitate over to any apples thrown in their vicinity. Usually they’ll just eat the apple, but some pokémon may do a little happy dance afterward, or perhaps even fight over the foodstuffs. You can even throw apples right at pokémon to bonk them and provoke different reactions.

Pester balls are basically the opposite of apples. You toss one at a pokémon and it’ll run away or get angry at you. They probably do other things too, but I can’t be bothered to remember what. The poké flute is exactly what it sounds like, and when you play a tune on it, nearby pokémon will start dancing. As a reference to Pokémon Red and Blue, it also wakes up sleeping pokémon. The poké flute plays several different tunes, but I never experimented with them to see if they got different results.

Stages are all preset, and your movement through them is automatic. If you don’t throw anything at them, pokémon will always play out the same actions every time you visit a stage. The final item, the motor, increases the speed of your vehicle so that maybe you can see what pokémon are doing before you’re supposed to arrive at their point. It’s not overly useful, but it’s nice if you’re returning to a stage for a single pokémon and just want to zip past the rest.

Only 63 of the 151 original pokémon are featured in the game, and not all of them are just sitting around waiting to get their pictures taken. You’ll have to take full advantage of all the tools at your disposal if you want to snap ’em all. Some are easy enough to coax out of hiding, but some of the methods for making certain pokémon appear are totally inscrutable without a guide. You’ll probably make Starmie appear eventually if you keep playing the Valley course, but you’ll never guess what it was that triggered it.

It’s not a particularly beefy game, but what is there is really worth playing. It won’t take you too long to get to the end, but you’ll need to be clever and resourceful if you want to complete the pokémon report. Of course, hours upon hours can be added on if you enjoy trying to take the highest scoring pictures of every monster. Pokémon Snap is a great game, and the perfect way to spend a lazy weekend afternoon.

(If you’re interested, I wrote a thing about the Virtual Console release of Pokémon Snap a few years ago.)

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: July 2014

I touched on it briefly last month, but as you’ll see if you keep reading, I’m really getting into the swing of my personal Steam Train. It’s time to start actually playing some of the 150+ games registered on my Steam account! Also I had a week of vacation early in the month, so I had a lot of extra time for gaming this month and this may be the longest MVGW to date.

I would like to direct your attention to the banner below, which was uploaded and visible when this post went live, as opposed to a few days later. Maybe I’m actually starting to clean up my act here?

~ Now Playing ~

Tokyo Jungle (PS3) – One of the two PS3-exclusive games that I have any interest in, I’d say that Tokyo Jungle is worth owning the console for. For me, at least. It gets awfully repetitive, but there is enough randomization and a huge roster of animals (50ish, then even more as DLC), so it’s stayed fresh enough for me to pour a good number of hours into it. I’ve still only started unlocking the cooler animals though, so there’s lots and lots of game left for me to experience.

Toki Tori 2+ (PC) – Working to scratch more games off my PC to-do list, I booted up Toki Tori 2+, and it’s quite a unique game! It’s a puzzle platformer, but every puzzle has to be solved with a only two actions and the way those actions affect the environment and other animals. It’s pretty fun, and some of the puzzles are downright devious. I’ve gotten myself stuck though, and I think that I might like this game enough that I’m not willing to consult a FAQ just so that I can move on. I feel like this one is worth solving on my own. But nuts to gathering all the collectibles. That’s a fool’s errand if I’ve ever seen one.

Continue reading Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: July 2014

Year of N64 – July – Gauntlet Legends

Unlike the last few Year of N64 games, Gauntlet Legends is one that I spent a ton of time with back in my youth. Or, at least I think that I did. Having played it through again, I’m not sure if it is quite as much of a timesink as I remembered it being.

Gauntlet Legends is essentially a reboot of the Gauntlet franchise long before reboots were a thing. The previous game, Gauntlet III: The Final Quest, came out in 1991, and Legends hit the arcades in 1998. The N64 port didn’t show up until the next year. I’ve only ever dabbled in “classic” Gauntlet games, so I don’t know how much Legends changes the formula, but it brought the franchise into the world of polygons, so that’s a big enough leap for me.

If you’ve never played Gauntlet anything, you’re missing out on a fairly entertaining multiplayer arcade experience. The game has you set up a character from a small roster of classes, then sends you on your way through a couple dozen stages, where you will collect cash and slaughter countless numbers of monsters. The goal of the game is more or less to survive and make your way to the end of each stage, but Gauntlet offers a little more than that.

Enter the “dreaded” RPG elements. You choose your character class, give them a name, and then they gain experience and level up as you play. Level ups increase your stats, and when you hit certain milestones, your character will gain special upgrades, like fancier weapons and a familiar that tags along and adds to your firepower. Each player also has their own inventory for stockpiling items, and can spend their accumulated gold on either items or stat boosts. Items can be useful, but I found that their true value was just selling them at the store so that I could buy the stat boosts instead.

The stages come in four colourful flavours: the mountain, the castle, the town, and the ice domain. Defeating the bosses of each world will unlock a pseudo-final stage in the cathedral, and when you beat that, you unlock the battlefield world. Finally, you will descend into the very depths of the underworld for the final showdown.

So there’s a fairly good variety of levels on display here. Even stages within the same world vary greatly, rather than simply having one default look and a handful of different layouts for example, the mountain world has you start at the lush base of the mountain, then as you ascend, it becomes more barren and rocky. Eventually you find your way inside and have to work your way through a cave, culminating in a stage that takes place on a set of rocky platforms and catwalks suspended above a massive pool of lava.

The stage layouts are usually fairly good too. Almost all of them have twists and turns everywhere, but the critical path is usually not too difficult to follow. It wasn’t until the ice world that the levels started to get annoyingly complex and I found myself wishing that they were about half as long. Most of the stages are huge, and the amount of enemies that populate them is staggering; it’s a wonder that this game didn’t cause the Nintendo 64 to simply melt down. As it is though, there’s not even very much lag considering how many moving objects can end up on screen at once.

While most of the items you find during your adventure are power-ups of varying effectiveness, there are three important collectibles that you need to keep your eyes open for. There are plenty of hints to their locations, but actually sussing them out can sometimes be a hassle. Obelisks are scattered around the first three worlds, and you need to find all of them in one world to unlock the next. There are a total of thirteen Rune Stones to find, and without them all, you can’t enter the final showdown.

Lastly are the boss weapons, one in each of the four main worlds. These are not strictly necessary to complete the game, but they give you a slight advantage in the boss fights. And if you’re playing solo (as I did), you need all the advantages you can find. The bosses are brutal, and when they’re focusing all of their attacks on you, the fights generally just boil down to whose HP depletes first. They aren’t fun, and a solo player will have to grind his or her butt off before they even stand a chance against a boss. This stands in stark contrast to the regular stages, where you’ll generally never have to grind levels to progress.

The final boss, however, is a bit of an exception. You have to fight him twice, and the first time, he is just as bad as the rest. It’s a very difficult fight, but he drops four superweapons when he’s defeated. If you keep one of those weapons until your second fight with him, using it will make the final battle exceedingly easy. If you don’t, it’s basically impossible to win alone. I wanted to do it the normal way at first, so I leveled up to 90 and maxed out my defense stat through the shop. Still I died. So I used the cheap way, because nuts to that.

I should mention that grinding up to level 90 did not take very long. I burned through this game in a week, and it didn’t really seem to overstay its welcome. I remember having maxed out several characters back in the day, and I suppose that it would have been much less tedious because I was actually able to play with other people. I wanted to do this playthrough with my wife, but the fact of the matter is that the control sticks on my spare N64 controllers are almost completely limp, and I really didn’t care enough to buy a new one or attempt a repair.

So there you have it. It’s not a very deep experience, but I still have a pretty strong appreciation for Gauntlet Legends. So much so, that I kind of want to track down a copy of the incredibly buggy sequel (expansion?), Gauntlet: Dark Legacy, to give that a quick playthough. I also sort of want to try out the oft-maligned Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows, but it seems to be so different that it might not be worth the investment. Anyway, Gauntlet Legends was a bunch of fun while it lasted, and I can only imagine that it would go down even smoother with a friend or three to share it with.

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: June 2014

June, much like May, was a month where I played far too many games, and as such, ended up with a lot of half-finished stuff on my plate. Most of the games that I did finish were either short new games or short replays. My goal for the year was to clear out some of my backlog, not to clog it up even more.

Doesn’t help that I’ve got a few drawn-out and/or notoriously difficult games on the go here. I really need to remember in the future to only be playing one RPG at a time.

~ Now Playing ~

Mario Kart 8 (WiiU) – I wanted to skip this one, as I felt that I was done with Mario Kart. But it’s like, the one game that the wife wanted, so we got it. And then I ended up loving it. Stupid Mario Kart, being so fun.

Shovel Knight (WiiU) – Sweet Jesus God, I had no idea how amazing this game was going to be. I mean, I pledged towards the Kickstarter campaign, so I had faith in it, but it’s even better than I could have ever hoped. I did beat it already, but I’m playing again in New Game+, and probably another couple times for some cheevos. I really love this game.

Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep (PSP) – I always wonder, when a movie or game or TV series starts to expand, if the writers had the whole plot laid out from the very beginning, or if they’re just flying by the seat of their pants the whole time. The Kingdom Hearts series, I’m convinced, falls into the latter category. When even the prequel -which should probably be the one with the simplest plot- is a big confusing mess, you get the feeling that they’re likely just using a plot dartboard. At least they’re pretty fun to play, and I especially like the skill system in this one. I’ve finished one and a half of the three story paths.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (NES) – Sometimes, you’ve just gotta go back and finish a game that you’ve never beaten without rampant cheating. If you think save states are cheating, then yes, I’m still going through the game dishonestly, but at least I’m not an invincible god with unlimited magic and moon jumps. Also, I really wish Zelda II were a better game.

Chrono Trigger (DS) – One of my goals for the year is to earn all 13 endings in Chrono Trigger. So far I’ve gotten three. The second playthrough is going pretty quickly though. If I wasn’t spreading my gaming time around so liberally, I’d probably be finished this little endeavour by this point.

Costume Quest (PC) – One of my other goals is to start playing through the hundreds of games I’ve bought in Humble Bundles and Steam sales over the last couple years (all aboard the Steam Train~), and Costume Quest fits nicely into the center of the “short” and “runs on my PC” venn diagram. Too bad it’s not very fun.

Rage of the Gladiator (3DS) – Still picking away at this one, but the hardest difficulty (which awards the true ending) is, well, hard. Suddenly the enemies who were total jokes before can kill me before I get one hit in. Wonderful.

Super Smash Bros Brawl (Wii) – Didn’t really have a goal here, just spent a whole afternoon playing Smash Bros to see if I could still spend a whole afternoon playing Smash Bros. Completed the boss rush with a few guys, and failed to win All-Star mode with Link nearly a dozen times. I think I may suck at Smash.

Papers, Please (PC) – Started this up on a whim and got hooked right away. Played for about two hours, and had I not been dragged away and imprisoned for doing my job too well (ending #3), I probably could have kept going on through the night. I’m definitely going to keep playing for more endings.

Donkey Kong Country 2 (SNES) – I played the crap out of DKCs 1 and 3 back when they were current, but never really got into 2. Can’t say why for sure, I suppose it came out at a time when there were more attractive games to rent? Anyway, the end is nigh for this one, and it has been a brutal trip. I want to go for the best ending, but will I have the drive to find all of those dastardly DK Coins?

Golden Sun (GBA) – You know, if I played this more than once every few weekends, I’d probably be done by now. I don’t know how I feel about it. It’s got the nice nostalgia value, and I likethe puzzles, but the battles are awfully tedious. And the dialogue! Oh my goodness, shut up!

Final Fantasy IV DS (DS) – I think that this game is only taking so long to beat because I’m afraid of how hard the final boss will be. So afraid, in fact, that I even took the time to fight all the optional bosses before I tackled the final dungeon. It’s… really hard to get through the final dungeon too, when even the more common random battles can wipe your party in a matter of seconds.

~ Game Over ~

Ittle Dew (Wii U) – At first it looks a lot like somebody made a Legend of Zelda game that looks like Scott Pilgrim, and that is actually fairly accurate. Only the gameplay leans very, very heavily on block-pushing puzzles. Sometimes there are also block-teleporting puzzles. Or a mix of the two! And then some really misplaced boss fights. Ah well, it was good fun.

Abyss (Wii U) – A game about navigating mazes while trying to control your little eyeball-squid-monster’s propulsion. I thought it was a completely different kind of game before I bought it, but I ended up liking it anyway, so that’s $2 well spent. Hooray!

Mega Man Xtreme 2 (GBC) – Technically, I guess it’s better than the first one, but it’s just didn’t grab me the way I thought it would. Then again, I think the only reason I was so excited to play Xtreme 1 was because of nostalgia. Xtreme 2 has no such advantage.

Doom 64 (N64) – As much as I love Doom, this game is just so different from what Doom was before that I couldn’t really get into it. Still way better than Doom 3, though.

~ Re-Runs ~

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (360) – It’s not the worst brawler, but it’s pretty darn bad. I played through the game in Time Attack mode to round up the last few achievements. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to burn through the game the second time around.

Klonoa: Empire of Dreams (GBA) – I know that I did rent this game when it first came out, and that I spent a lot of time playing it in class, but I can’t recall for the life of me if I beat it or not. It was highly unusual for Young Ryan to leave a game unfinished though, so we’ll call my playthough of it on the Wii U Virtaul console a re-run.

Super Mario Bros (NES) – I beat 8-3 in a single life, without taking a hit! It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever done!

I Love Katamari (iOS) – Occasionally, to kill time, I attempt to play video games on my phone. Most of those games end up being terrible, and this one is just barely an exception. I’m not saying it’s good, but I’ve seen tilt-control games go horribly awry, and I Love Katamari at least works. Still, it’s a shabby cash-in that only wishes it could be as engaging as its big brothers. Anyway, I just poked around on this one for a bit to complete the item collection and get the final cheevo.

Year of N64 – June – DOOM 64

My frame of reference for the DOOM series (I’m just going to capitalize the D from now on) exists in a time somewhere between 1994 and 2000. Doom II was one of the few full-version computer games we had back then that I was keenly interested in, and I played it was the only one. Of course, at some point, my taste for Doom and similar games (Wolfenstein, Duke Nukem 3D, etc) waned and I moved on to newer, fancier computer games.

Doom 64 doesn’t have the greatest reputation. It’s not particularly hated or anything, but the internet’s collective opinion is that the original games are better. In the interest of finding out for sure, I made sure to play through the entirety of the Xbox port of Doom so that I could have more than faded memories to make a comparison to.

The original Doom is fantastic. It’s a simplistic game that doesn’t even let you look along the vertical axis, but it felt much more satisfying to play than most modern first-person shooters. The first two chapters are breezy fun, the third dials it up to push your abilities, and the fourth (an add-on scenario) is simply there to beat you into the ground. What’s most remarkable is that Doom feels really great to play with a controller, as opposed to the keyboard controls (sans-mouse) that I was shackled to in my youth.

Having completed the entirety of Doom for the very first time, and having enjoyed roughly 95% of it (there are some really cheap traps later on), I was riding high and expecting Doom 64 to be a similar experience.

But then it turns out that Doom 64 is poop from a butt.

My very first mistake was playing on a difficulty level that was too much for me. I had chosen “Hurt Me Plenty” on Doom, which is the default setting and equates to what the “Normal” setting would be in other games. Doom 64 phrases it differently, where the equivalent is “I Own Doom.” Sure, it’s the default difficulty, and also a statement of fact. Why would I choose any other setting?

Assuming that it is, in fact, the average difficulty setting, Doom 64 is a brutal game. I was killed twice before I was able to finish the first stage. Secret doors containing monsters open silently behind you. The Average Joe Zombie has a very accurate shot. Rooms are filled with up to eight monsters.

None of this is helped by that fact that playing similar games on an Xbox 360 controller and then an N64 controller is like going from a fork to chopsticks. I figured that all my N64 playing over the last few months would have eased me into the controller, but it turned out to be a massive source of woes for me. I blame it entirely no having used the vastly superior 360 controller immediately beforehand, and it really shows how difficult it can be to adapt to different controllers.

I need to make it very clear though, that Doom 64 lets you customize your controls any damn way you like. Every function is remappable, and you can make changes to your control scheme at any point. It’s a really handy feature, as the default control setup is kinda weird. The only downside is that custom setups aren’t saved, and you have to remap all your buttons each time you power on.

The next big gripe about Doom 64 is the general atmosphere. the graphics, for one, are much darker and more bland than in the PC games. This is to accommodate a generally more horror-focused aesthetic. Doom has always been “scary” in that it incorporates monsters and gore, but the first two PC games were more about stright-up action than trying to frighten you. Doom 64 has this all backwards. The PC games have interesting, colourful visuals, while Doom 64 is awash in browns and grays.

I do appreciate that the team tried to make the graphics more detailed (which they are!), but they killed a lot of the character in the sprites by removing most of their colours.

The sound design has also gone entirely to pot. Doom’s characteristic heavy metal MIDIs have been replaced with subdues, spooky ambiance tracks. This is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. More importantly though, the monsters barely make any sounds unless they’re attacking you. Being able to hear monsters lurking about was a very important part of Doom; you would usually know when a monster was lurking about by the hisses and growls echoing through the halls. Now, pretty much every encounter is a surprise, and monsters will be able to sneak up behind you with no problem at all.

So after having painfully made my way through one and a half stages, I quit, took a week-long breather, and started up again on the next rung down the difficulty ladder, “Bring It On!”

Let me also take an aside here to mention that Doom 64 does not save your game. It uses passwords, which is kinda bonkers. The nice thing is that the passwords save your state (health, armor, guns/ammo) as well as which level you’re on, which is nice. If they only saved your level, it would be a massive pain in the hiney to tackle later levels with only a pistol. No saving is still a big pain though, as mid-stage saves saved me a lot of time when going through the original game. Having to restart a level from the beginning after each death is a little disheartening. I hate sounding like a spoiled brat, but that’s what I am.

Not everything about Doom 64 is bad, though. I really like a lot of the level designs, they feel a lot bigger and more ambitious than in the older games. I suppose that stands to reason though. It’s not like a lot of games get smaller and humbler with each sequel. It’s really just too bad that the designers didn’t seem to have many good ideas for traps. It seems like they decided early on that having enemies appear out of thin air behind you was going to be their bread and butter. Still, the actual architecture of the stages is usually impressive, and I enjoyed navigating and solving them.

Doom 64 features the usual Doom weaponry, including Doom II’s super (double-barreled) shotgun and the totally sweet double chainsaw. It also has a new weapon that’s unique to only this game: the Unmaker. It’s an alien-tech laser gun, which doesn’t seem all that impressive at first. However, if you take the trouble to find the secret stages, each one contains a collectible artifact that adds to the Unmaker’s power. The first one speeds up its fire rate, and the second and third give it double and triple beams respectively. Even if you only find the one artifact, the sped-up Unmaker is a pretty awesome gun, burning through even Barons of Hell like a hot knife through butter. It’s pretty great.

The monsters in Doom 64 may at fist appear to be new, but really, they’re mostly your old favourites with fancy makeovers. Some are pretty familiar, like the standard zombies and the pinkies, but you probably won’t recognize Doom 64’s imp as an imp until you’re already choking down fireballs. Cacodemons and pain elementals have likewise gotten new sprites that barely resemble their older incarnations. The one new monster is barely new at all. Nightmare imps are just translucent blue imps, with purple fireballs that fly quite a bit faster than the standard imp’s. Doom 64 does have a unique final boss, the Mother Demon. She’s ugly and can tear you apart in record time (that also works the other way around with a powered-up Unmaker), but she looks pretty dumb. Kinda like a big, fleshy bug, if you ask me.

In the end, Doom 64 is caught in a weird place. On one hand, I really like a lot of the levels. On the other hand, pretty much everything else is different in a bad way. It’s reminiscent of Doom, but it doesn’t really feel like Doom, if that makes any sense at all. There really isn’t any reason to play Doom 64. Regardless of whether you’re looking to play a Doom game or an N64 shooter, there are a handful of better choices out there. Even if you’re intent on playing through the entire Doom canon, you might be better off trying one of the fan-made PC ports. Poor Doom 64 just isn’t quite the game it should be.