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mariobro

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Everything posted by mariobro

  1. There were some buying guides aimed towards parents, with honest reviews of games, telling adults if a game was worth buying. Those were pretty useful, but I rarely see them nowadays.
  2. I like it when games force a paradigm shift on me, this happens almost exclusively with Japanese games, for some reason. Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox was punishing, but the game is trying to teach you the "right" way to play it, and once you discover the nuances and subtlety of the gameplay, you're hooked. Resident Evil did that too in the late 90s; I hated it at first, then realized it was kind of a point-and-click adventure gone 3D, with added action. Super Mario 3 seemed impossible at first, finding out the secret items, and gaining extra lives makes the game seem manageable; you learn to go with the flow, letting the game teach you. I've always been amazed at such great game design. I still consider 2004 Ninja Gaiden a very underrated work of art. It's amazing. The quirky Tomonobu Itagaki deserves a lot more respect.
  3. I'm still waiting for a sequel that resolves the cliffhanger at the end of Resident Evil: Code Veronica, but we never got a proper continuation of the storyline; the gameplay and story just changed to almost pure action.
  4. To this day, I still marvel at the backlash Hootie got in the mid 90s. They went almost instantly from superstar chart-topper to hated outcasts, I've never seen that happen so fast, not even with annoying one hit wonders. By 1997, no one admitted to having bought their albums. There's not even enough demand for a nostalgia tour. It's so weird.
  5. Tough choice, I'm gonna go with Vanilla Ice, because I have to admit to owning his debut album "To The Extreme", and actually knowing the whole lyrics to Ice Ice Baby... Now the healing can begin... But seriously, that song was a humongous hit back then, it was everywhere during that summer, and it's incredibly catchy. The lyrics are quite clever for a 1990 rap song, and it even has a sort of gangsta rap bassline. Vanilla raps about " packin'a nine" and "dope fiends full of eight balls" who are "acting ill". This was before gangsta rap had any mainstream exposure, MC Hammer and the Fresh Prince were the rap chart toppers, with dance rap with silly lyrics. Vanilla was a better rapper than most people give him credit for. My guess is: Nickelback... The Hootie of the new millennium.
  6. The magazine Videogames & Computer Entertainment was one of the few that championed the Turbografx, and gave it extensive coverage. This was because they had an advertising deal with NEC. They even have Legendary Axe and Ys II Game Of The Year awards.I also think that VG&CE's publisher, the infamous Larry Flint, had a soft spot for the underdog.The magazine had a slight anti-Nintendo bias.
  7. I was a heavy smoker (2 packs a day) for about 15 years, but I was always disturbed by the Joe Camel campaign. Sure, I loved it as a kid, but I think that was the intent, to appeal to kids before they could even buy cigarettes.I saw high school kids wearing Joe Camel T shirts. A while ago, I read a report that confirmed the rumors that tobacco companies targeted kids. It showed some internal documents from Reynolds Tobacco.It was called a "Get 'Em While They're Young" strategy. It was disturbing, and was one of the reasons I decided to quit.
  8. I just finished Castlevania 3 for the NES. Man, that game is murder. 25 years ago, it took me months to beat it. I still remembered the enemy patterns from playing it so much. Great game. Next up is Super Metroid. I never finished it when it came out, so it'll be a good challenge.
  9. I also think that the internet helped kill interest in multimedia and CD-ROMs. Before access to the web was widespread, CDs provided a wealth of information in a small package.You could fit a whole encyclopedia on two discs. But once the internet became accessible, multimedia discs lost much of their appeal. At least that's my theory.
  10. Around 1994, GamePro improved quite a lot. Better quality in binding, paper, and content. Andy Eddy of VG&CE joined it around that time. The childish overtones were almost gone, and in-depth features were added. I especially enjoyed one on Donkey Kong Country, and another one on Acclaim's then state-of-the-art motion capture technology. Overall, they were trying to be more serious. I hated the early 90s comic book filler, I actually liked their reviews.
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