Category: Retro Gaming

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: May 2014

May came in like a lion and… well, it was pretty heavy on games I wanted to play throughout. A stark contrast to an April that saw almost no new games and gave me ample time to work on my enormous backlog. Luckily, most of May’s releases were cheap Virtual Console Mega Man games, so I didn’t have to choose between video games or paying the bills.

But yeah, May 1st saw one of the best eShop updates in a long time, and then the new Kirby and Mario Golf came out on the second. Also there was that massive Humble Store spring sale. Needless to say, I’ve been keeping very busy, which is great because the wait for Smash Bros would be killing me if my 3DS (and PC, I guess) weren’t so jam packed with games I want to play.

~ Now Playing ~

Mario Golf: World Tour (3DS) – I never got into Mario Golf on N64, but I played the stuffing out of the GameCube entry. I waited very impatiently through several delays for this one, and it was so worth it. The Castle Club “story” mode is a bit confusing and overcomplicated, but a free play mode exists, so ignoring that business is pretty easy.

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Year of N64 – May: Quest 64

Here’s the thing. I didn’t read much in the way of games journalism back in 1998. I read Nintendo Power. Sometimes I may have seen an article or preview in a friend’s EGM or something, but the internet was still new to me. All I knew is was a place where you could find cheats and FAQs for video games, outrageous Flash cartoons on Newgrounds, and pictures of naked ladies. I didn’t really know about message boards. I didn’t read online reviews.

I know Quest 64 has a bad reputation, and I’ve read bits and pieces about it over the years. But really, the most I can tell you about why people dislike it is simply speculation, because I wasn’t there when it happened, and I might be the only person in the world who has written a retrospecitve on friggin’ Quest 64.

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An errant wrench

The Year of Nintendo 64 is going well, and I’m staying rather interested in it, much to my surprise. So far, I’ve finished at least one N64 game a month, with good times and bad times along the way. It’s been fun, and also a learning experience.

Recently, I learned a very troubling thing.

I booted up Quest 64, my chosen game for May, and was surprised to see a notice immediately pop up that informed me that I’d need a controller pak (N64’s equivalent to a memory card) to save my game. No problem, I had a few of those back in the day. At least one had to be kicking around in my big gaming chest.

I found a controller pak, conveniently inserted into another controller, so I yanked it out and slapped it into the controller I was using. Another notice came on-screen, telling me that the data was corrupt and that I’d need to initialize the card before I could use it. Whatever. I don’t recall ever owning a game that saved to the controller pak, so all I’d be losing was corrupt data from rented games.

I formatted the card and started up the game. After about half an hour, it dawned on me that I should probably save and reset the game before I got too far, to see if the controller pak was still capable of saving data. I saved, reset, and loaded my game without fault. Good, so the formatting worked. I played for another couple hours and made substantial progress, getting at least a third of the way through the game.

I decided to play a little more a couple nights later, and was devastated (but not totally surprised) when the “Your data is corrupt. Please initialize the controller pak.” screen came up. All that time wasted. A quick search in the back of my third N64 controller came up empty. I haven’t done a thorough search for another pak yet, but I fear that the dead one might be the only one I own.

If I don’t possess a working controller pak, I’m still split on whether I want to go out and try to purchase one, or if it’s a better idea to just try to power through the game in a single sitting. Like I said, I made it pretty far in only a couple hours, and I think I could manage it. I’m not necessarily looking forward to such an endeavour, but I like Quest 64 enough that I don’t want to write it off, either.

The good news is that Quest 64 is (apparently) one of only two games that save to the controller pak exclusively, and I don’t own the other one, so this won’t shouldn’t be an issue in the future. I’ve got my fingers crossed. This has been quite the unexpected wrinkle in my grand scheme.

Year of N64 – April: Star Wars: Rogue Squadron

I have two vivid memories in relation to Star Wars: Rogue Squadron.

The first is the Easter that came after I got the game. I don’t remember the circumstances under which I received the game proper (it was likely a Christmas gift), but I do remember that on that Easter, I got the Official Nintendo Player’s Guide for it as a gift. We also went to the Royal Fork Buffet for Easter dinner that year, and I brought the guide along with me so that I could study the game and how to earn the gold medals and unlockable ships. It was also the last time I can recall enjoying the Royal Fork Buffet. Maybe the food there used to be better, maybe I just didn’t know better becaue I was a child. We may never know the truth. Also we got the PC versions of Rayman and Earthworm Jim, but I was much less interested in those.

I want to say I chose to play Rogue Squadron in April because it and Easter have a permanent link in my mind, but really I’m not that clever. It’s April’s game of the month because that’s just how things rolled out. Pure coincidence.

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The Easter Candy Parade 2014

Let’s not shilly-shally around today. I like doing three-paragraph intros to my articles, but this one is the shallowest, most originality-free thing I’ve written in forever, so it doesn’t deserve an intro like that. Today, we’re talking about Easter.

Specifically, the absolute truckload of Easter-type goodies that my parents and in-laws gave us. Being creaky, old, mortgage-paying adults, we’re not really the kind of people you’d think would get so many Easter goodies, but our parents spoil the crap out of us and I’m thankful for that every day. Hooray!

You know, now that I think of it, I’m pretty sure that the last two Easters, when I’ve been moved out of my parents’ house, have been the most lucrative Easters since I turned 18. I can’t recall the Easters between then and marriage at all, so they must have been pretty tame.

See? Two bags full of chocolate and candy. We (and by “we” I mean “I” because I’m a big fatty) don’t need this many sweets at all, but we certainly won’t turn away a bunch of free candy. That would be stupid. If properly rationed, this could last us halfway through summer. It likely won’t, but it could.

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Phlegm and stuff

I’ve been suffering from a rather debilitating bout with a common cold for almost a week now. It’s been nothing but snot and stuffiness for me lately, and also it’s a Man Cold so it’s much worse than a cold really should be.

The “upside” to this whole business is that I took Monday and Tuesday afternoon off work to recover. I don’t like taking sick days, and I always feel guilty about them, but they do have a sort of weird appeal to them. Maybe it’s because of all the fake sick days I took in school (which I don’t feel bad about in the least), but a sick day to me is a day where I can do anything at all and not feel like I’ve frittered away a day off.

I know that maybe that’s hard to understand, but I can’t really explain it any clearer. It’s weird, and I’m weird. We all know this, so let’s just move on.

While I was feeling like a horrible pile of yuck, Monday was a pretty great day. I slept in, watched cartoons with breakfast, and drank litres upon litres of hot lemon tea. I also watched a couple movies, which is not something that I’d ever currently do with my free time. At least, not without a handheld video game dividing my attention.

In an effort to pare down my Netflix queue a little, the first movie I watched was Devil’s Pass. Unlike video games, I don’t usually read movie reviews before I watch them. If I had, I might have assumed that Devil’s Pass was garbage and skipped it. I thought it was alright, though. It’s a found footage movie, which is already something I’m not a fan of, but I’ve seen a lot worse than this one. The movie’s plot boils down to a group of stupid college kids who go out on an expedition into some Russian mountain range, where nine hikers mysteriously died in the 50s. The fun part is that the movie’s lore actually happened. Read up on it here. I love when I get a fun little history lesson mixed into my movies, so I found that part of the flick really appealing.

The less fun part is pretty much the rest of the movie. The kids are dumb (obvi), the actors aren’t great, the special effects are amateurish, and the whole found footage business is handled as stupidly as usual. Also the story ends up being really awful and totally winds in on itself in a way that makes the idea that anyone actually found the footage literally impossible. Huge plot hole there. So huge that I have no idea how it wasn’t addressed at all.

Also, since you don’t how who/what the antagonist is until the last 15 minutes, you’re constantly wondering just how supernatural it’s going to end up being. At one point in the film, a couple of bodies scurry past in the background while the characters ramble on, and I thought that it was a dead giveaway that the bad guys would be abominable snowmen. This was not the case. So if you’ve been eyeing up Devil’s Pass on Netflix or whatever and hoping that it’s a movie with yetis in it, it’s not. That was probably my biggest disappointment.

The other movie I watched was Guillermo del Toro’s classic monster movie, Mimic. I’d never seen it before, but the promise of a movie about giant man-eating bugs was more than enough to interest me. The fact that it’s a movie about giant man-eating bugs that has no reservations about murdering children on-screen? Well that’s something that I just have to watch.

Mimic was awesome, and that’s coming from someone who only half-watched it because for the first half of the movie I was engaged in a Google search for pictures of Gemma Atkinson‘s boobs (she was in Devil’s Pass).

Anyway, it was a pretty typical monster-slasher, but that’s exactly the kind of movie I love to watch, so how could I complain? It had a pretty lead, really cool bug monsters, and a sassy black cop. What else do people even want from a movie? No, I’m serious. I don’t understand why you’d want to watch anything that doesn’t have at least one of those elements. Or Muppets.

Tuesday afternoon, on the other hand, was a huge bust. I basically just went home early and slept the rest of the day’s working hours away. I might have felt at my worst that day, since I got up and tried to soldier my way through a work day instead of just getting the rest I needed. The good news is that all the extra rest I got that afternoon seems to have worked a small miracle and I’m feeling so much better than I did yesterday. Still like crap, but functional crap, at least.

Or maybe it’s because I started shotgunning Buckely’s that night. I guess that could have made a difference too.

Also I played a lot of Doom on my Xbox over the last few days. It’s… Just as great as I remember it being. Modern FPS games really are just crap when you put them side-to-side with the classics.

For you, it’s really just “Watch Gallery”

I uploaded this video of me rambling on while playing the modern version of Octopus on Game & Watch Gallery what seems like ages ago, and I’ve had it as my unsubscribed user trailer on my YouTube channel for just as long. So maybe you’ve seen it already. I don’t know. But I have to post it anyway.

Why? Well, because I haven’t made a bloggety thing about it yet. Duh.

Also because I uploaded the video showcasing the rest of Game & Watch Gallery yesterday (horning its way in-between Kirby Super Star episodes, which resume today), and I feel like it would be wrong to blog about part two if I’d never mentioned the first one.

Anyway, enough of my stupid typing. Here’s some of my stupid talking!

Haven’t done this in a while

I started a new video LP series yesterday. It’s a game very near and dear to my heart, and I’ll be unlocking a new episode each day until it’s done. Enjoy.

Oh and also I made up a fun thumbnail for each episode, which is a thing I’m going to be doing for all of my videos from now on. It gives the illusion of a professional production, until you actually start watching the video and realize that it’s the same amateurish crap it’s always been. Hooray for deception!

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: March 2014

I’d just like to point out that in no part of this post am I trying to fool you. Yeah, there are some really weird entries in here this month, but none of them are jokes. I legitimately spent some time trying to figure out the appeal of Freakyforms.

Note that the Now Playing list is shorter than usual. I’m proud of this, because it means that I’m focusing on completing games, rather than having a dozen on the go at once like a spaz.

~ Now Playing ~

Zelda: Oracle of Ages (GBC) – It’s weird, because I claim Link’s Awakening to be my favourite Zelda, but I just can’t get into this one. I think it probably has less to do with the obtuse puzzles than the fact that it takes damn near forever to navigate the two world maps. Five dungeons down, three to go.

Yoshi’s New Island (3DS) – I’m only just starting World 3, but here’s what I can tell you so far: It’s almost as good as the original game, just with different graphics and worse music. So basically, yes, you want to play this, but do it with the volume off.

Freakyforms: Your Creations, Alive! (3DS) – I bought this thing years ago and have barely touched it, picking it up recently only as something to do while on the can. It’s a lot like Drawn To Life in that it’s fun to turn everything into penises, but not actually very fun to play. Once you get your penis fix, it’s basically just collecting a zillion doodads that give you more customization options. I don’t know if I’ll bother seeing it through to the end, or if there even is an end.

Blowfish Meets Meteor (iOS) – I’ve trained myself to ignore my phone as a gaming device, but every few days I remember that this game is actually really good and pick it up for a few levels. Those cute little mermaids aren’t going to save themselves, you know! I’ve progressed to World 5 at this point, and I have no idea how much longer it goes on.

Donkey Kong Country 2 (SNES) – I’ve beaten the other two DKC games multiple times each, but for some reason I never really got into this one. I want to finally scratch it off my list, but I don’t know if I can be bothered to complete it to the full 102%.

Snapdots (DSi) – This is where I’m getting my “a little like picross but not really” fix for now. All I have to say at the moment is that the difficulty is really uneven. The stupid-easy and retarded-hard puzzles are all intermixed seemingly at random. Fun, and most of the time makes you actually think.

~ Game Over ~

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (360) – I am terribly fond of this one, and like the two other FFXIIIs that came before it, it’s pretty much dominated my gaming time. I even wrote a whole thing about it, I like it so much. So read that for thoughts more in-depth than “I think it’s neat.” I finished the game, and I’m playing through again on new game+, just destroying everything in my way.

Pokémon Battle Trozei (3DS) – It’s a Pokémon block-matching game. If you want to know more, check back in on Sunday when my full review goes live. I’ve “cleared the game” but still have roughly half the Pokémon list to fill in.

Jet Force Gemini (N64) – Hey, come on. You should know by now that I’ve been writing big spiels about any N64 games I play this year. Get with the program. TLDR: It’s was pretty alright until the end, when it turned into poop from a butt.

Soul of Darkness (DSi) – A crappy-looking Castlevania wannabe. It’s actually a decent effort, but there’s still no reason that you should play it over an actual Castlevania game. The one fun thing about it is that like all of Gameloft’s DSi games, it uses the camera to replace art assets with photos you take. This game in particular lets you replace the three main characters’ faces with whatever you choose.

Tappingo (3DS) – A puzzle game that people keep comparing to picross, but really it isn’t all that much like picross. You assemble a picture with a group of square tiles, and that’s about all they have in common. Tappingo is significantly easier than picross, and is definitely more of a thing you zone out with while you’re listening to the TV in the background. Not something you play for a deep intellectual challenge. It was brief, but fun.

Jett Rocket II: The Wrath of Taikai (3DS) – The sequel to a goofy 2010 WiiWare platformer that I inexplicably loved. More than half of the levels are side-scrolling now, and the overall game isn’t quite as enjoyable as the first one, but it’s still good enough that I’m looking forward to the third game that the ending teases. Also the collectable solar cells are just money now, so that’s nice.

Pokémon Y (3DS) – I think I counted this in Game Over before, but this time it’s really game over. The Pokédex is complete. 718/718. This is where I would drop the mic if I were inclined to do a thing like that.

Altered Beast (PC) – I got the recent SEGA Humble Bundle, and it came with a collection of ten Genesis/Mega Drive games. This is the first of those. It’s kinda butt, and I’m not even ashamed to say that I had to give myself infinite lives to beat it. Whatever, it’s an old-school brawler; it’s not supposed to be beaten.

~ Reruns ~

Donkey Kong Country (SNES) – Picked it up on a whim and nearly finished it in one sitting. Or so I thought. Turns out that I had forgotten that the last world is a thing that exists, so I wasn’t actually that close after all. One thing I noted is that it’s an awful lot harder than I remember.

3D Classics: Kid Icarus (3DS) – It doesn’t get a lot of respect, but I love Kid Icarus to pieces. It’s challenging, but not actually as hard as you may have heard. Or maybe it’s just because I’ve played it enough times over the past couple years to get really good at it. It just makes me sad that the 3D Classics version doesn’t have a new game+ mode like the NES original, because…

3D Classics: Kid Icarus (3DS) – I had so much fun the first time that I played it over again. This is the first time this kind of thing has happened, so I wasn’t sure how to deal with it. And thus, I listed it twice.

Super Mario Bros 2 (NES) – I bought the Virtual Console version of this on 3DS on a whim, and plowed through it in one go. Using all the shortcuts, of course. I’m a little shocked at how much harder it is than I was expecting. I had a lot of trouble making through the final stage. I suppose there’s a reason that I was never able to finish it as a wee one.