Category: Retro Gaming

Baby BANG! BANG! BANG!

Here’s an interesting one. I don’t know if you’ve ever played Akumajou Special: Boku Dracula-kun (roughly translated as Kid Dracula), but there’s something odd about Dracula-kun. See, the thing is that he looks alarmingly similar to the comic representation of myself. I’m sure you’ve seen the Ryan character a million times by now, but just take a look at lil’ Dracky-Kun!

The similarity is undeniable! I was so shocked by this revelation that I even wrote and drew a comic about it. Not great comic by any standards, but it gets the point out there.

So obviously if there’s any plagiarist here, it’s me, because the original Kid Dracula was released on the NES Famicom waaaay back in 1991. But even then it was only ever released in Japan. I did read the article in Nintendo Power about the Game Boy version like a million times though, so maybe it just kind of burned the character into my mind. Who knows? As a character whose appearance has changed quite a lot over time, I obviously never planned Ryan to look like that, but the powers that be had other plans, I guess. Thing is, I would have lived my entire life without noticing if it weren’t for the magic of ROMs. To celebrate, let’s all go play some ROMs. Particularly Kid Dracula!

This song’s about anal

I got a frightening E-mail the other day, letting me know that Pandora would no longer be providing its service to Canadian interwebbers. I thought it was just a really bad joke, but it turns out it’s true. This makes sadness. I’m sure there’s some crazy garbage I could shove into one of my web browsers that would keep the site from detecting my location, but then I remembered that I have well over 25 gigabytes of music on my hard drive, and my CD count is coming around to about 200. So yeah. I’ll miss the occasional new bands that I like (gotta thank Pandora for Gary Hoey and The Pink Spiders), but overall, I guess sticking iTunes on random play is more than good enough to fill the void.

I knew he’d mention them eventually, but I beat Matt to the Shrek Snickerses by one day! So check that out to see what someone who knows how to work a camera thinks of them.

All the old people on the internet have really been abuzz this week. Why? Apparently everyone in the world already knew that ActRaiser is an awesome game, and they’re just delighted that it’s shown up on the Virtual Console. Me? I tried the ROM once, died and gave up. Turns out I missed out on a wicked game.So I plunked down the 800 or whatever Wii Points it cost, and I’ve got to say it’s my best purchase yet. Tecmo Bowl notwithstanding, in three days, it’s already the Virtual Console game I’ve spent the most time with, and considering I’ve got Super Mario 64, StarFox 64, and A Link to The Past on there, that’s really saying something. But yeah, ActRaiser is an Enix game, so of course it’s awesome. I’m hoping for maybe some Wonder Project J in the future… or even better – a new Wonder Project specifically for Wii! But God forbid Square-Enix makes a sequel to a totally original game when they can keep inundating the industry with more and more Final Fantasy garbage (and occasional Dragon Quest goodness).

Who’ll be the lonely one

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.

All I need

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.

  • Metal Gear Solid
    I didn’t count it because I never played it on the PSX. I played the ever-so-slightly superior PC version, which came with the VR Missions at bargain bin pricing
  • Final Fantasy Tactics
    No real argument. I love strategy games like this. Translation is absolute shit though. We’re talking Capcom-level translation here.
  • Crono Cross
    It was on my list. One of the few 32-bit era Squaresoft RPGs that I like.
  • Resident Evil
    I never played the original, so it didn’t make my list. It’s a good game, but the DS port and GC remake far outclass the original.
  • Resident Evil 2
    I said ported games don’t count, and this was on the N64, though the video was grainy as Hell. So if you count this, it’s on the N64 list as well.
  • Resident Evil 3
    Who could object?
  • Final Fantasy 7, 8, and 9
    Sure, they’re great for retards, but for people with good taste? Not so much. The only reason I listed 9 is because I liked the weapon/ability system and Chocobo’s treasure hunting.
  • Vagrant Story
    Never played it, but it’s a Squaresoft RPG, so I have very strong doubts about it.
  • Legend of Dragoon
    That one’s just outright crappy. And a chick game.
  • Silent Hill
    I feel bad that I forgot this one. I love Silent Hill with all my heart.
  • Harvest Moon: Back to Nature
    This is a very weaksauce effort as far as Harvest Moons go. 64 was a hojillion times better, and didn’t feature horrible time-devouring map design.
  • Tekken 3
    With the exceptions of Super Smash Bros/Melee and Soul Calibur 2, good 3D fighting games do not exist. It’s all about the sprites.
  • GTA/2
    While I do prefer the originals (and 3 to some extent) to the slop that are Vice City and San Andreas, I still don’t think the series deserves nearly as much praise as it gets.
  • Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater/2
    The music may have been cut short, but both THPS games were on the N64 as well, and just as playable. So chalk up two more points for the N64 as well if you’re going to include these ones.
  • Crash Bandicoot series
    The only Crash game I could really get behind was Crash Team Racing. The platformers’ appeal wore of after level 2.
  • Some Spyro games
    You’re kidding, right? Spyro sucked balls.

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.

Don’t you ever leave

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.

  • Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (Acclaim ’97)
  • Turok 2: Seeds of Evil (Acclaim ’98)
  • Snowboard kids (Atlus ’97)
  • Duke Nukem: Zero Hour (Eurocom ’99)
  • Super Smash Bros (HAL ’99)
  • Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (HAL ’00)
  • Mario Party (Hudson ’99)
  • Paper Mario (Intelligent Systems ’01)
  • Star Wars: Rogue Squadron (LucasArts ’98)
  • Star Wars: Episode 1 Racer (LucasArts ’99)
  • Cruis’n USA (Midway ’96)
  • Cruis’n World (Midway ’98)
  • Harvest Moon 64 (Natsume ’99)
  • Super Mario 64 (Nintendo ’96)
  • Mario Kart 64 (Nintendo ’97)
  • Star Fox 64 (Nintendo ’97)
  • 1080 Snowboarding (Nintendo ’98)
  • F-Zero X (Nintendo ’98)
  • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Nintendo ’98)
  • The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (Nintendo ’00)
  • Beetle Adventure Racing (Paradigm ’99)
  • Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber (Quest ’00)
  • Blast Corps (Rare ’98)
  • Goldeneye 007 (Rare ’98)
  • Banjo-Kazooie (Rare ’98)
  • Jet Force Gemini (Rare ’99)
  • Donkey Kong 64 (Rare ’99)
  • Perfect Dark (Rare ’00)
  • Banjo-Tooie (Rare ’00)
  • Conker’s Bad Fur Day (Rare ’01)
  • Space Station Silicon Valley (Rockstar ’98)
  • Mischief Makers (Treasure ’97)
  • Winback: Covert Operations (W-Force ’99)

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.

  • MegaMan Legends 2
  • Final Fantasy 9
  • Parasite Eve
  • Parasite Eve 2
  • Crono Cross
  • Final Fantasy Tactics
  • Resident Evil 3

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.

Get up and go

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.

I thought I had you

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.

I’m always late

Continuing September’s StarFox mania, I finally got around to finding a working ROM of the StarFox 2 beta, patching it, and playing it. You know, because everyone keeps saying that they pretty much based StarFox Command on it. So that’s totally true. Except for Command has so much more to it. Mini-review below.

The first thing you’re going to notice about StarFox 2 is that you move around the galaxy map freely, and not as you complete levels. You’ll also notice enemies flitting about. Since your job is to protect Corneria and blow up Andross’ base, and they’re on opposite ends of the galaxy, things are going to get a little frantic. So you fly around, and when you come in contact with an enemy fighter, battleship, or occupied planet, you’ll go into battle mode. Which, basically means not the map.

The problem here is that the SNES’ 3D powers are kinda weak and flying around full 3D space is very disorienting. Once you get used to it though, it’s kinda fun. Planets and battleships are less of a problem, obviously. The main objective of said battle mode is to shoot down whatever it is you came in contact with, or destroy the enemy bunker, if you’re on a planet. Bosses will (seemingly) randomly show up on the map screen to challenge, and they’re really just an extended version of the basic enemy fighter battles; bigger weapons and longer lifebars.

One of the really cool things about StarFox 2 is that on planets, you can transform your arwing into a bipedal robot. It’s a little easier to control and aim with, and makes the fighter mode seem dull. There are also three different arwing models to choose from, each with it’s own strenghts, weaknesses, and special weapons, which means your game can be easier or harder depending on your craft.

The downside to the game is that there’s only the one “mission” to play. It gets really exciting/challenging on Expert mode, but after playing so much of Command, it seems a little lacking. Compared to the original StarFox, however, it seems to be on par. They also give you your mission stats and ranking when you finish the game, and the game even keeps track of your records. Really, it’s a shame that StarFox 2 was never (officially) released, because it’s an exceptionally neat game, and I think I might have spent even more hours on this one than I did on the original if I’d had access to it as a kid. I’d say Nintendo should refine it and release it on the Wii’s Virtual Console, but really, they’ve already done it with Command.

Never turn your back on it

Yep. I know I didn’t post an article last week. And so the streak ends. It was a good run though. Anyhow, I’ve been at the cottage for the last four days, and damn did I get a lot accomplished. Most importantly, I learned to bake pie. This is probably going to end up a bad thing though, because now I can create pie whenever I want, and it’ll likely be my downfall. Secondly, I finished Kingdom Hearts 2 with a 100% completion rate. It was a bitch, but I did it. I’m proud of myself. And the game was pretty awesome too. A little easy due to Forms being totally broken, but fun no less. So now, links!

The Top Ten Unmanliest Superheroes

Your Band Name Sucks: 50 of the Inexcusably Worst

The truthiness about bears

My new favourite video ever (NSFW)

This is a little entertaining. Kinda.

IGN Wii’s Retro Remix takes a look at Earthbound

TE is on… Super Smash TV!

[Editor’s Note: This was riginally written as a guest article. I changed some obvious phrases, but it something doens’t make sense, just keep that in mind]

Now it’s a bit odd, but I decided that I m posting an article here when it was intended to be a guest article for another site. Weird, no? Well that’s the way it’s going to be, and you’re going to have to deal with it. I ran out of time, and it’s the only backup I had left. Sure this contains very little of the brilliance of my regular articles, but it shall be something to read nonetheless. The pictures are as well low-budget, as I don’t want to take the time to take screenshots if I’m not even doing this seriously, so I just stole them from a Google image search.

This review is obviously (as long as you took the time to read the link and the title) about the game Super Smash TV. It’s a game that I really enjoy, and was playing a lot for a while back in October. The game is very simplistic, as it is derived from an arcade game of a similar name. While the arcade version might have a few extra scenes and (slightly) better looking models (I think, I only glanced at one screenshot. In the console version, they look like ugly men.), there probably isn’t a whole lot of difference between the two.

The game is basically you and possibly a friend running around a maze, killing hordes of enemies and picking up a bunch of prizes along the way. It’s set up as some sort of futuristic game show, and I think it’s pretty accurate, as with the current trend of violence-loving and reality TV, a real life Smash TV might not be far off. But that sad, sad fact aside, the game is pretty fun. It’s also pretty hard, and I can’t get too far without cheating. There are tons of enemies, way more than in any Gauntlet game, even. And the bosses have tons of life and really enjoy killing you.

Even though it’s almost always the same thing over and over, I find that the game doesn’t get too boring after playing it a lot. The only real different rooms are the cash rooms and bosses. The only annoying part of the game is at the end of a level, when your points are tallied up. It’s fine if you do badly, but if you get a lot of stuff, it can take a long time to add up all your points. And the worst part is that you can’t skip it, you have to sit for 1 to 3 minutes waiting for the points to count up.

Now like I said, you basically just go around shooting stuff. Enemies constantly flood out of each side of the room, and you just can’t stop them. Fortunately, there are a whole bunch of power-ups to help take the gaggles of goons out. A bunch of weapons are at your disposal, like machine guns, rocket launchers, and spread shots. Then there are other things like the speed-up, invincibility, and a shield. The only thing is that the rooms last a long time, and the power-up don’t last nearly long enough to be of maximum use. But they do appear quite often, so it sort of balances out.

The bosses, on the other hand, are incredibly hard to beat if you’re not cheating. They’re pretty big, have a lot of weapons, and are slightly faster than yourself. Not only that, but they take forever to kill, and most of the time, your forced to use special weapons because normal guns don’t work at all. So not only are they very hard to not get killed by, but they take forever to beat, too. If there is an upside, it’s that the third one (I think) looks just like the announcer guy, and I thought that was pretty funny.

Now that I’m done with the summary, here’s my point tally.

Graphics:
They look fine for the SNES, and I think they’re mostly the same as the arcade version. The only real downside is that the game show babes are beastly. The greatest thing is that there can be about 40 things moving on the screen at the same time with no slowdown whatsoever. Or at least none that I can recall. 8

Sound & music
I can’t really remember there being any music. I guess it was all drowned out by the shooting and the dying. There are a few voice samples for the announcer, and they’re pretty good compared to most voice samples in game of that time. And by that, I mean that you can tell what he’s saying. 6

Controls
This is where the game really shines. You control your guy with the d-pad, and which way he shoots with the face buttons, so you can move and shoot in different directions. If you’re playing the ROM and have a dual-analog gamepad, try setting movement to one stick and shooting to the other. I couldn’t get it to work, but I imagine it would work very nicely. 10

Fun
It’s good fun, and is just as good with two players. It can really get competitive if you’re both obsessed with getting all the loot, so it really adds to the fun of the game. It loses a few points because the bosses take way too long to kill and the game is just too damn hard to get very far. 8

Overall
I enjoy the game, but not in extended periods of time. I might beat a few rooms one day, save state, play a few rooms the next day, and so on. The lack of notable/memorable music is a real downer for me, but that just means I can turn off the sound and pop in one of my CDs without feeling cheated out of awesome music. It’s games like this that are the foundation of what an arcade should be. We need less of those damned shooting and fighting games and more of the old-school adventureish games like this or that Ninja Turtles arcade game. Overall, I’ll give it a 7.

So that’s about it. I do feel a little low for posting this on my site, it’s not exactly up to my general standards. But what can I say, it took me about an hour to write, including the time it took me to figure out what I’d write about, get the pictures, and write the thing. So I guess the last little note I should tack on here is that if you’ve got a friends nearby and a couple of PC gamepads, go download this ROM now, or buy one of the many classic arcade compilations that have this game on it. It’s a game worth trying out, and as I’ve said for many a game before this, it’s great for killing time.