Category: Retro Gaming

I sing in this video

Yes, that’s right. There is an audio recording of me singing in the video embedded below. You’ve been warned. Twice.

It’s been a long time since I’ve uploaded an FFV: The Ancient Cave video, and in that time I’ve pretty much forgotten what little I knew about the game. That leads to me almost being wiped on the first floor. I don’t know how long I’m going to continue banging my head against this one, but I’m not going to give up so easily!

In reality though, I mostly just recorded this because I felt like I should at least try to tie up some loose ends before I start up a new long-running series. I’ve been bitten by the Minecraft bug, and I feel like I should be documenting my attempts to defeat the Enderdragon on hardcore mode. So that’s going to happen eventually, but there’s going to be some more FFVAC before that comes around. Maybe even a little something else…

TE’s Top 12 Video Games of 2012

Another year has come and gone, and a big ol’ stack of videogames with it. I made a point in April to keep a list of every game I played throughout the year, and by the time July or so rolled around, I had decided to make up this list of the Top 12 Games of 2012. There are a few rules I decided to put in place for this list, though I ended up breaking them. Heck, there somehow managed to be 14 games in my top 12. Obviously the rules are more like suggestions.

Going in, I had decided that the games which would populate this list would have to be games that I started and finished in the year 2012. They would also have to be games that I’d never played previously. While most of the list fits this rule easily because they were released in 2012, I did make a couple exceptions. Technically there is one game that I did not beat on the list. However, I am right at the end of it, and I haven’t pulled the trigger on the ending sequence because there is more that I want to accomplish and I’ve heard whispers that ending the game ends the game for reals. Justified. The other exception is a pretty major one: a collection. I couldn’t help but add it because 2012 is the Year of the Video Game Collection and it’s by and large the best one I’ve seen so far. Also I did play through two of the games included on it this year. Good enough.

I think that earlier on in the selection process I had another stipulation on what could qualify, but I’m pretty sure that I broke it so many times that I can’t even remember what it was. Probably would have cut down the eligible games to under a dozen anyway. That said, let’s take a quick peek at the honorable mentions. These are games that either didn’t quite make the cut, or games that I really liked but didn’t even come close to finishing. They all deserve to have words written about them, but this is neither the time nor place. So let us look at their boxarts and dream about what could have been.

Now that we’ve got those losers out of the way, you can go ahead and check out what games earned the most of my affection and/or time last year. The list is exactly as Nintendo-centric as you might expect, but there are a couple games on here that will probably come as surprises. I’ll warn you now though, the total word count goes ever so slightly over 10,000 words, so if you’re in, be ready for the long haul. Maybe go get yourself a sandwich or a drink before you get started.

Continue reading TE’s Top 12 Video Games of 2012

The unpossible adventure

So despite taking myself out of the game for a while there, and having two unfinished series, I’ve started a new Let’s Play. This one stars Mickey Mouse and is about learning the alphabet.

Currently only the first video is up. I’m not sure what the update schedule is going to be like for this one. One a week seems like a little too long to drag this on for. Maybe one every couple of days.

100% completion

I bought the final issue of Nintendo Power this week, and began flipping through it an hour ago. You know how they say that when you die, your whole life flashes before your eyes? Well, I had a feeling that I can only describe like that: going through the pages, looking at the features on the history of Nintendo Power, scanning the included poster that features the cover of every issue, it was like looking back through a summary of my entire life. It was beautiful and chilling at the same time.

Is it sad that I can trace my life through a series of 285 magazines? I haven’t even read them all, but you could pick almost any point in my life and I could tell you what I was reading about in Nintendo Power at that time, within roughly two months. I haven’t been a subscriber for a few years now, but I always made a point to pick up an issue every few months for the sake of tradition, if nothing else. the worst part of it all is that a couple years ago I actually offloaded my entire NP collection, and now that the nostalgia bug is biting, it’s killing me that I don’t have them to go back to and reminisce with. I’d kill for a complete set, but to be perfectly honest, I don’t think it would be the same if it wasn’t my collection. Sure, pretty much every issue I had before volume 92 (Yes, I know that specifically. It’s the Shadows of the Empire issue. I got the Dash Rendar cover.) was in tatters, but I guess that’s part of what made them so special to me, weird as it may be. All the articles would be the same, but it just wouldn’t be the same. You know what I mean?

And now that I’m thinking about it, I actually have Amazon open in another tab, seeing how much people are charging for their old issues. As long as you’re not looking for mint copies, the average asking price seems to be around $3, which would cost me roughly… $855. Before Shipping. Yeah, I need to get away from Amazon. Now. Not to mention the time it would take to order each one individually… Also issue #1 doesn’t go for any less than $200. Drat. I certainly don’t have that kind of cash.

Anyway, reading this magazine has simultaneously made me sad and filled me with warm fuzzies. I kind of hate nostalgia because it affects me so strongly. I’m going to be mopey about the loss of Nintendo Power for weeks now. The worst part is that recent Nintendo Power hasn’t really been the Nintendo Power that I grew up with. It’s a completely different magazine than it was even midway through its run, but I still loved it dearly. Checking the mail every single day when a new month rolled around. Absorbing each and every word printed between the covers -twice- the day it finally arrived. Reading that three-part Secret of Mana feature over and over and over again. Poring over the maps and strategies so that I knew games inside and out before even playing them. There are a handful of games to this day that I’ve never played but vividly remember because I soaked in so much information about them via the pages of Nintendo Power. It was a huge part of my childhood life, but I suppose all good things have to come to an end eventually.

I’m just glad that they did up one final Nester comic for the last issue. It’s the best sendoff the magazine could have hoped for.

I’ve got a friend, her name is Boxcar

Guys, Wii U. Oh man, Wii U.

For a thing I wasn’t entirely sold on before launch, it has very handily dominated the last week-plus of my life. And I’m okay with that, because man is it ever fun. I’m not even talking about the games there! The system is just fun to play with. It’s a little on the slow side; everything takes a good five to ten seconds to load, but I don’t find it nearly as annoying as some. Just sitting on the main menu, with all the Miis milling about, it’s kinda hypnotizing. And then the Miiverse posts start popping up.

Miiverse is… What’s the best way to describe it? I finally get how people can get addicted to Twitter. It’s like Nintentwitter: made up of tens of thousands of Nintendo Power envelope artist wannabes and infinitely easier to parse than actual Twitter. It’s plenty of fun to sift through Miiverse posts to look at the funny screenshots and beautiful drawings that people have posted to it, and it’s very fulfilling to help people out who have posted about how they’re stuck somewhere in a game. Currently only Nintendo Land and New Super Mario Bros U are completely integrated, but once more developers make their games with it in mind, I think that Miiverse is going to be a real game-changer. I’ve been on Facebook for years now, but have never enjoyed the experience as much as I have with the last week with Miiverse.

Also of note is that the Wii U internet browser is excellent. Nothing beats an actual computer for surfing the webs, but as far as game console/handhelds go, the Wii U’s internets browser is leaps and bounds beyond the rest. The YouTube app that comes installed on the system is nowhere near as good as simply using the browser for your YouTubing. This comes as a great relief to me, as my TV’s YouTube app is garbage, and only really usable when linked up with my iPhone. Now I just boot up the Wii U and I’ve got a perfect YouTube experience on my gigantic television. There are fewer things that could make me happier.

Where the games are concerned… Mario U is pretty damn great. People have been referring to it as New Super Mario World, but it’s not quite that good. If you’re in it for the single-player experience, Super Mario World or even Super Talking Time Bros 2 will leave you more fulfilled. Fortunately, Mario U features a multiplayer experience that is almost completely unique and an absolute blast. Yes, it’s essentially the same as New Super Mario Bros Wii, but it’s bigger, better, and in glorious HD.

I haven’t given Darksiders 2 a spin yet, because I intend to complete ZombiU first. ZombiU is an intricate game that deserves a whole post to itself, so that’s what I’m going to do somewhere down the line.

Nintendo Land may be is the best pack-in game ever. In a completely unexpected twist, it’s the game I’ve spent the most time with by far. It’s not at all the tired mini-game collection I assumed it would be. It’s an essential party game for Nintendo fans, and has an impressively robust single-player experience tucked away in there to boot. It’s already provided two weekends of riotous three-player fun, and I look forward to spending much more time in Nintendo Land, the new Funnest Place on Earth. Full review to follow on this one, because there’s so much there!

I only got to play a little bit of Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed, but my brother stands firm that it’s better than Mario Kart. Not as strong a statement as it might have been years ago, because Mario Kart is starting to get a little long in the tooth, but a pretty clear indication of quality no less. I liked what I saw, and the inclusion of Wreck-It Ralph as a playable character is simultaneously pleasing and perplexing. Ralph is the only element of his movie in the game, despite the fact that he never really drove in the movie. Oh well. It seems like a solid game, and an excellent candidate for an Xmas gift.

For some reason that I cannot explain, Little Inferno has wiggled its way into my head and won’t get out. I don’t think it’d be something I would get a lot of use out of, and the $15 price tag is awfully steep for a creepy fireplace simulator. Oh well. I’m sure I’ll get over it eventually. As soon as a more enticing eShop game comes along, I think. Hopefully there’s some new software available this Thursday. It was nice that Wii U launched with a shop at all, but it’s nowhere as great as the bounty of Virtual Console games that OG Wii had available on launch day.

I guess that’s all for today. I really think I’d get more enjoyment from actually playing with my new toy than writing about it, so I’mma go do that now. Ciao.

Morphinology

My YouTube channel hit 10,000 video views last weekend, and while that may seem pretty paltry when compared to single videos that have millions of views apiece, it’s approximately 9,999 more than I ever expected to have when I created my channel. As a show of appreciation, I uploaded a complete Let’s Play series throughout the week: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers for the SNES. Watch the whole thing below.

The whole set clocks in at just over an hour, and even less if you skip video 5 (It ends in a Game Over, and episode 6 is the same level done successfully). There are plenty of worse ways to waste an hour. Why not buff up my view counter a little more? Come on, help a brother out. And throw around some upwards-thumbs while you’re at it. Pweease?

That said, I have no idea what I’m going to do for the next threshold. Or even what that’ll be. I was thinking 20K at first, but 25,000 seems like more of a milestone. Not that I should be thinking that far ahead; that many views is a long, long way off unless I hit another goldmine like Super Talking Time Bros 2.

Ryan talks about Rayman

Video game characters come in all shapes and sizes. Some are big, some are small. Some are fun, slightly overweight plumbers, and others are cold, angsty teenage warriors. Many of them have not only their own series of games, but spinoffs and huge merchandise lines too. Of course, for every successful character, there are at least a handful that don’t have the chops to make it. Sitting almost squarely in the middle of that range is a plucky little hero who has no arms or legs, but a ton of heart.

No, not Plok. Why would I write an article about Plok?

I’m talking about Rayman, of course. That little guy created by Ubisoft way way back in 1995. It’s kinda sad that I can call 1995 “way, way back” without meaning it as a joke. The point here, is that I didn’t play Rayman for years. Hey, can you blame me? I didn’t have a Playstation yet, and I wasn’t big on PC gaming outside SimCity 2000 and Duke Nukem 3D. Given the chance, I probably would have played the game too, since it was an action platformer and I was still pretty hesitant to leave that genre’s warm embrace.

I think the real thing that kept me from Rayman was that none of my friends were interested in his game. Since he wasn’t on a Nintendo platform for four years, Nintendo Power, still my number one video game news source at that point, understandably didn’t have any coverage of the game. The internet was still pretty new in my household around that time too, also it was dial-up. I mostly used it to find breeding charts for Dragon Quest Monsters and to engage in some Yahoo chat. So really, I’m not entirely sure if Rayman was popular at all in his first few years. All I can tell you is that I’d certainly never heard of ‘im.

Continue reading Ryan talks about Rayman

Another one in the can

 

I thought had posted a link to this when I started it, but I guess not? I barely looked. I just did a blog search for “kirby” and nothing came up. Anyway, here’s an embedded thingy for you to watch Let’s Play Kirby’s Adventure. The series is complete, and I embedded the playlist, so you can just press play and watch beginning to end.

The whole series is about two and a half hours long. So a little less than the current average Hollywood blockbuster? It’s probably best to watch them all at once too, because I did it in two recording sessions, then just split them up between worlds. You’ll notice that I did not consider that plan as I was recording, and usually talked over the transition from boss to world intro, where the videos are cut.

This also marks the first series in which I intentionally cut out footage. There’s a section in episode seven that got me really riled up, and I ended up having to remove some of the video because I was getting embarrassingly frustrated and let slip more than a few naughty words. I like the idea of keeping all the video for a more complete experience, but sometimes you have to make an edit for the betterment of everyone. It’s not like you miss anything good either. It’s just ten minutes of me swearing and failing.

Genre mashup

A few creative-types at Talking Time have gone and decided that it’s time to forge an expansion pack for Super Talking Time Bros 2. Because I’m always happy to be a part of awesome things, as soon as I was able I went about painstakingly crafting a new stage for the “Super Squad Goes to SPACE” expansion.

Because I have no good original ideas however, I decided just to take another game and stick it into Mario.

I’m not the only one who did that! But so far I think I’m the only one who’s stuck Mario in a falling-block puzzle game. Of course, this is just the beginning of the stage. It gets a lot more complex once you leave the Tetris tube, and while I kind of hated it when I first completed it, it’s really grown on me and I’m pretty darn proud of it now!

If you want to check in on development and play-test some stages before the game is finished, come on over to the STTB2 thread. Sign up and give your feedback! The more people testing and helping to smooth these stages out, the better the end game will be! STTB2 was incredibly well-received, so the bar is set fairly high here. Otherwise, here are some more links.

Download STTB 1+2

STTB2 expansion wiki

Some jerk Let’s Playing STTB2

Nostalgia trippin’

Hey, so does it mean you’re old when just the air can cause waves of nostalgia to wash over you? Because I’m totally getting that right now. It’s been a beautiful fall day, and the first real one as far as I’m concerned, because it’s just got that feeling to it. I love this weather, and it brings back memories of everything I’ve ever associated it with. I have no way to properly convey these feelings in words, but I can feel them in my heart and I need to get them out somehow, so I kept a running list of every memory that came back to me today because of the cool autumn air. Here’s what I got:

  • Trick-or-treating in general
  • Beating Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes for Nintendo 64 one Halloween night
  • Playing Silent Hill for the first time
  • Daily visits to the Heath Sciences Center
  • Watching Criminal Minds on Stephanie’s laptop in my car
  • Guitar Hero 5
  • Visiting a small corner store downtown that smelled like curry, and buying Pepsis at said store which also smelled of curry
  • Treehouse of Horror
  • YTV’s Dark Night specials
  • McDonald’s Halloween McNugget toys
  • Driving around with the family to look at Halloween houses
  • That old McDonald’s Halloween cassette tape. “Spooky Sounds” or something of the like?
  • Pokémon Silver Version
  • The beginning of Christmas madness at Toys ‘R’ Us
  • Donkey Konga
  • Traipsing through yards covered in crunchy, fallen leaves
  • Finally earning my driver’s license
  • Purchasing my first car (I still love you, Spirit)
  • The beginning of hockey season, and all those dreadful practise sessions
  • Carving jack-o-lanterns
  • The last family trip to Fargo
  • Chasing a bunch of egg-chucking hooligans down the street while dressed as the red Angry Bird
  • Playing Rock Band 2 at a Halloween party, and my sister-in-law commenting at how intense I looked while I was playing
  • Creating the alias “Tito Sanchez” for reasons I cannot recall
  • Going to a corn maze and haunted house with a group of friends, and being thought of as a goofball (not in a good way) by the females of the bunch.
  • Playing Magical Starsign in the upstairs storeroom of Toys ‘R’ Us instead of working
  • My brother’s friend Brent dressing as a woman for Halloween, and being called “Brenta” for many years afterwards
  • Not giving out free cookies to trick-or-treaters at Tim Hortons
  • Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, for some reason. I don’t know why, because I never played that at Halloween time
  • Pillsbury cookie rolls, with pumpkins coloured into them!
  • Enjoying those cold, foggy mornings where nobody’s around and silence abounds
  • The many times I said I’d participate in (or at least check out) a zombie walk, but never did
  • Pumpkin pie
  • The Nightmare Before Christmas
  • Specifically, “This is Halloween”