CardinalXimenez

There´s already a UK magazine devoted to multiplatform retro games called Retro Gamer Magazine, http://www.retrogamer.net/, I´ve bought a couple of issues and they have some pretty good articles detailing the development of classic titles like Super Metroid and the birth (and sometimes death) of classic developers like Electronic Arts, since the magazine has been around for years now there´s clearly a market for it, I´m thinking of getting a subscription myself.

You yanks may know this game series as Contra, but in Europe, the games were considered too violent, so the main characters got replaced by robots, and the games were renamed to Probotector. The cover for the first game struck a chord with my love of Transformers-style mechas. I still remember the first time I viewed the cover for the Super NES sequel, it was a full page ad in a British Nintendo mag, and I´ve wanted ever since to have that cover as a poster, its a case of part nostalgia and part love of TF-style mechas. While looking for the Probotector covers, I also came across this old Contra ad, I couldn´t help but laugh at the 80esness of it, and wonder just when did videogame companies start using sex to promote their games? Another early example, and a lovely cover in itself, is this cover for the Commodore 64 version of the old platformer Athena, which has to be one of the first games to have had a female lead. When it comes to sheer "wow" factor, this NES cover never fails to thrill me: I can probably think of more covers, but these will do for now.

Looking over the search results for my daily eBay saved search of retro games made me swoon over seeing some of my favorite game covers, so I thought I´d share some of them with you, and ask you what are your favorite game covers of yesterday and today? For me, it´s a matter of art, or the mood of the cover, or its nostalgic value. Let´s start with a series of covers that are an inseparable part of my childhood and life as a gamer: As a child, part of the fascination with videogames was their promise of new and exciting worlds to explore, videogames were like a doorway into another dimension, and the cover for the first Super Mario Bros was the essence of that, with the image of Mario and cast in the Mushroom Kingdom. The next three SMB games also have some of my favorite covers, but for nostalgic reasons.

Or rather, her live action counterpart from MK3, Kerri Hoskins, does... www.gametrailers.com/side-mission/34037/mortal-kombat-model-kerri-branson-sonya-is-gearing-up-for-another-fight-this-time-in-politics Wonder if she´ll use her share in the victory over Shao Khan in her campaign video?

Oh, I know how you´re going to get yourself a Wii U... Well, except Sarah wouldn´t just leave the girl there.

I´d love to read that "making of SMB3" feature, is it available online anywhere?

If you´re curious about what LGBT representation in videogames has been like the past three decades, Gamingbus has an exhaustive series of articles covering the various decades. She misses a few though, she lists Hana and Rain from "Fear Effect" as hinted at, but I thought their banter, not to mention the manual saying Hana´s "desired by many, but belonging only to one" made it perfectly clear they were a couple, and I also know that one of the female characters in "Jericho" is a lesbian, but she doesn´t get mentioned in the articles mention of that game. Either way, here´re the links: The 80´es: http://www.gamingbus.com/2012/06/05/glbt-history-video-games-1980s/ The 90´es: http://www.gamingbus.com/2012/06/12/glbt-history-video-games-1990s/ The 2000s (part one): http://www.gamingbus.com/2012/06/19/glbt-history-in-video-games-2000s/ The 2000s (part two): http://www.gamingbus.com/2012/06/21/glbt-history-in-video-games-2000s-part-two/ The present day and beyond: http://www.gamingbus.com/2012/06/26/glbt-history-video-games-present-day/

...or what the original Star Wars movies could´ve been if "Revenge of the Sith" had ended slightly differently...

I´m a sucker for trailers that use liveaction footage of their main characters, if nothing else because it lets you see your favorite characters faithfully recreated in the flesh, something most movie adaptations fail to accomplish, and it doesn´t hurt if those characters featured are of the female variety.

After a massive outcry in response to Mass Effect 3s ending(s), Bioware has announced they´re looking into releasing new content in response to the protests, whether that means changing the ending or simply clarifying it is unknown, I´m hoping for a change myself, or at least an ending that acknowledges your romance with Liara, since it´s been an (optional) subplot for the entire trilogy. And could you make Ashley and Miranda romanceable for FemShep while you´re at it?

It´s only about six months ago that this was announced, but I only just found out about it, so for anyone else who didn´t know about it: http://www.giantbomb.com/news/replay-games-acquires-leisure-suit-larry-remakes-n-sequels-en-route/3731/ In short, Replay Games has acquired the LSL franchise, and is bringing back series creator Al Lowe and other members of the old Sierra Online crew, to work on a HD remake of the first Larry game, and possibly the rest of the original series, as well as making new Larry sequels in the future. This was great news for me, three things I miss are the point-and-click adventure games of yore (the Monkey Island re-release has been a pleasant nostalgia trip for me), the cartoony animated art style of the classic adventure games as opposed to the 3D graphics of modern adventure games, and of course the original Larry, and this HD remake seems to combine all three, if the image in the article is an actual screenshot at least.

I feel like adding some more titles to my NES and Super NES collections, anybody got some recommendations? Write a little about your suggested games, so I can make up my mind.

They fight hard and party harder.

As a side benefit to A, I assume you´d also serve as masseuse to the female autobots. As for me, considering my gear of heights, I´d have to go with a ground vehicle, so it´d be a car, preferably a sports car like a Lamborghini or a Ferrari, and I´d side with the Autobots, I have no desire to be a badguy. Alternately, I´d go for being a vibrator like in the Transhomers episode of Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt, and Vibrator is itself a Transformersesque name, and then I´d side with the Pantybots, who wouldn´t want to work for the hot nympho who (literally) screws with her soldiers?