-
Posts
544 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
2
Content Type
Profiles
Gallery
Downloads
Blogs
Master Index
Video Game Magazines
Video Games
Publications
Strategy Guides
Forums
Store
Everything posted by Count_Zero
-
Get "Dear Zachary" at Amazon.com There are 4 kinds of documentary that I like. There are nature documentaries, particularly of the bent of PBS’s Nature, and David Attenborough’s wildlife programs, as well as the work of the National Geographic Society. There are Historical documentaries, particularly stuff like the American Experience, as well as stuff like the Connections series and some documentaries like One Day in September. There are Journalistic documentaries, such as the material from PBS’s Frontline series, and some of the films that are part of the POV series. Then, finally, there are documentaries that I would describe as Gonzo Journalism. Dear Zachary is one those documentaries. First, I need to clarify something. Michael Moore’s documentaries aren’t Gonzo Journalism. Morgan Spurlock’s documentaries aren’t Gonzo Journalism. Also, you don’t need to be on drugs to make a documentary that is Gonzo Journalism. Ultimately, Gonzo Journalism, as it was when Hunter S. Thompson came up with it, is the idea that someone covering an event, or witnessing an event, cannot not become a part of the event. Thus, rather then attempt to hang on to some form of clinical detachment, you should become a participant in events. The classic example from Thompson’s work isn’t Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but rather Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail. Dear Zachary is Gonzo Journalism at its most sober and most serious. The impetus behind the film, at the very beginning, is probably very similar to the impetus that I had when I wrote my blog post about Beau Jacobson, after I learned of his death. However, there were two differences, between the two, at the outset. First, I’m a blogger, who is working to get into IT (and wouldn’t mind getting into Journalism), while the director of Dear Zachary was a documentary filmmaker, one who had been working in the field for quite some time. The second is that Beau’s death was an accident, while the death of director Kurt Kuenne’s friend Andrew Bagby was an act of pre-meditated murder. So, Kurt’s plan was simple, to meet with some of the people whose lives Andrew had touched, and record remembrances about him. Then a revelation came that changed the plan. Andrew’s murderer, an psychotic ex-girlfriend (this was confirmed by prior psychiatric treatment) was pregnant with Andrew’s son, she gave birth to and named Zachary. So, Kurt changed the tack of his documentary, turning the film into a sort of film scrapbook to tell Zachary who his father was, and why people cared so much about him. However, this is a documentary with a twist. While this film is 2 years old, I would be remiss as a critic if I stated this twist, at least not without a giant chunk of spoiler space, so I won’t. The documentary is a Gonzo Documentary mainly because of how it handles it’s narrative. The film puts itself squarely in Kurt’s head, and he tells us regularly what he thinks about things. That said, this he doesn’t editorialize at length in this for much of it, letting Andrew’s friends and family express their opinions for them. That said, this is a very personal piece. Kurt narrates the documentary, and scores it. Clips from short films he made with Andrew when they were younger are included in the documentary, and Kurt’s voice audibly breaks up when he reads from Andrew’s coroner’s report. Kurt goes at great detail about the circumstances leading up to Andrew’s death, as well as the events that follow–Andrew’s ex-girlfriend’s flight to Canada after she was released on bail, the discovery that she was pregnant with Zachary, and then after Zachary’s birth the custody battle between Andrew’s ex-girlfriend and Andrew’s parents for custody of Zachary. However, and this is perhaps my sole complaint, from a narrative standpoint, and only from that standpoint. The twist is heavily telegraphed. Well, not so much the twist itself, but the fact that a twist is coming. When you’re looking to tell your best friend’s son about the father he’ll never know, you don’t go at length over the custody battle between the psycho mother you hope he’ll never know and the people you hope he’ll know as his parents (as opposed to going through the foster system). If your goal is educating a son about his father, you make a biography. You take him through his father’s childhood years, through school (including college) and his professional life until he died. That’s how you want to do it, whether the father was murdered, killed in the line of duty while serving his country, or succumbed to cancer. While the approach Kurt takes helps to build up a sense of dread in the viewer about the twist, that wouldn’t do much good to your stated target audience of one. Thus, when the film changes the direction it’s going, stops addressing Zachary and begins addressing us, the viewer, it shocks us, and perhaps strikes us numb, but we can’t really say we didn’t know that something was coming. We can’t say we didn’t hear the footsteps coming up behind us. We just didn’t know what was coming would be so bad. All that said, this is a masterwork documentary, and it is a crime against film that it was not nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. This film is the Platonic Form of the Gonzo Documentary, one that puts its audience through the wringer, in a fashion that is emotionally honest and legitimate, and leaves them motivated to do what they can to make sure that no one has to suffer like the Bagbys did ever again. Filed under: film, Reviews Tagged: Documentary, film, review Source
-
Get Xardion from eBay So, for this week’s Quality Control pick, I chose a mecha action game that had caught my eye earlier in my magazine recaps. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get past the second level, even with the use of save states. This isn’t due to difficulty, precisely, as much as it related to an obstacle in the level that I was supposed to destroy to progress, but the obstacle wouldn’t be destroyed, no matter how much I hit it. So, I really wasn’t able to progress enough in the game to give my opinion of it. Some other people were able to get past this, though, so I know it can be done. That said, because of my lack of progress, I’m going to withhold judgment on this game for now. What I will do is give my concerns about what I’ve played so far. The game has 3 mechs you can play as. One is a Gundam style humanoid mech, one is more insectoid, and another is shaped like a panther. The panther has machine guns in the shoulders, and the insect has a short-ranged sonic wave attack it can do by whipping its antenna. Of those three types of unit you can pilot, only the humanoid one can attack in a different direction – it can attack straight up. However, the other ones have the advantages that they’re lower to the ground. Frankly, though, it doesn’t really matter. There is no way to switch robots on the fly – you have to go to the sub-screen (accessed by pressing “Select) to switch mechs, so if an enemy comes on screen that you can’t hit with your current design, it takes quite some time to actually switch, which in turn slows down the pace of the game. The shots for most of the weapons are hard to see on the screen. Special attacks have a range that’s so close that they’re practically useless. Maybe if I had been able to make it further, I would have had more fun with it. However, I didn’t have fun with this game, so I’m not going to try to get further. However, I was able to find a Let’s Play for Xardion which I’m going to embed so you can watch someone else play it, and they may be able to get past the section I got stuck on. Enjoy! Filed under: Quality Control, Reviews, Video games Tagged: Nintendo Power, Quality Control, SNES, Video games Source
-
So, Carl Macek, the guy who helped found Streamline Pictures, and who took Super Dimensional Fortress Macross, Super Dimensional Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeda and wrapped it all up into a big package called Robotech, is dead. So, I kinda got to thinking about how he effected the video game industry, by popularizing anime in the US. First things first. Before anime got started getting mainstream visibility in the US, Video Game Publishers here weren't willing to take a chance on an anime art style either in their games or on their box art. Just take a look at all the Sega games which had an anime art style on their boxes in Japan, that got changed to more traditional western fantasy art in the US. The Shining Force series for example, as well as the core Phantasy Star series, or even the US Box art for Breath of Fire and Valis. Anime becoming popular allowed video games to retain a more anime inspired art style. This is particularly notable with changes in the box art for the Street Fighter II series, and the Street Fighter Alpha/Zero series. Additionally, because Macek was able to expose new audiences to anime in a less altered form than Speed Racer or Star Blazers (which had some significant edits), and help lay the ground work for anime to grow in popularity, then we were able to get games that were more directly related to anime, such as the Ranma 1/2 games, Earnest Evans, and even the Valis series (though, as I mentioned in the prior paragraph, the box art was altered to a more "Western" style). Certainly, if Anime hadn't gotten popular, the Shin Megami Tensei series (particularly the Persona games) would have never officially come to the United States. What do you think? Am I over-stating his influence, or do I have it more or less correct?
-
We come now to issue #36 of Nintendo Power for March of 1992. While the cover shows that we have coverage in this issue of Contra III, the game that makes the cover is Darkwing Duck. As much as I like Darkwing Duck (in my opinion it was one of the best early 90s Disney animated TV series), I really think that Contra III would have been a better choice. For this issue’s letters column, the call is for letters asking which Nintendo character you would would want to be.</p> Darkwing Duck Guide We get a rundown of the game’s plot – Darkwing must defeat each of the officers of the criminal organization F.O.W.L., at the behest of the top secret police organization S.H.U.S.H. We get a list of the power-ups and what they do, as well as maps of all the levels in the game except for the final battle, and notes for beating each of the bosses. Hanna Barbara’s Wacky Races Guide Despite the title, this is not a racing game, which kind of takes some of the fun out of it, actually. Wacky Races would make for a perfect cart racer. This, however, is an platformer, where you play as Muttley, attempting to collect parts to repair Dastardly’s plane. We don’t get maps of the game’s levels, but we do get notes on each of the bosses. Robocop 3 Guide Frank Miller’s take on RoboCop is getting a game. To be frank, they haven’t done a single Robocop game that wasn’t bad. Usually, to add difficulty, they heavily tone down Robocop’s impressive ability to soak-up damage in the films. Additionally, in this game you don’t regenerate all your health between levels. Instead, you collect repair items during levels, and use them in between levels to repair the damage you get. However, if you don’t collect enough repair items between levels and take too much damage, you could end up getting stuck in a death spiral. On the bright side, you can jump now, but jumping requires the use of your jump jets, which have limited fuel, so you have to collect fuel power-ups as well. Come to think about it, you if you miss any power-ups in this game, you’re screwed. We get maps of levels 1 through 4. Legend of Zelda – A Link To The Past Comic Last issue, Link got the Master Sword. This issue, Aghanim is about to complete the ritual that will open the portal into the Dark World. However, in a daring scheme, Link and his friends build a hot air balloon, and Link uses that to sneak over the wall. However, unfortunately he’s unable to stop the ritual, and is whisked into the Dark World. Batman: Return of the Joker Guide Well, the last Batman game did pretty well, good enough to merit a sequel. However, we haven’t gotten a new movie yet, they came up with a new plot. This is the Game Boy release of the game. The Game Boy version now has a wall jump, in addition to being able to swing on the bat line. We also get a run-down on the power ups, and a note that you can take the first 3 stages in any order, and apparently the 3rd level is the easiest. Really? Normally the levels increase in difficulty in a linear fashion. We get maps of the various stages in the game, as well as strategies for the bosses. Surprisingly, very few of them are from Batman’s rogues gallery. It’s not like they didn’t have one around this time. Anyway, we get maps of levels 1Â through 3, and we’re on our own for #4, the final stage in the game. Funpack 4-in-1 Preview & WorkBoy Preview You can’t really do a strategy guide for this. The Funpack is chess, checkers, Backgammon and Othello. WorkBoy is a productivity suite that turns your Game Boy into a PDA. However, I suspect their currency conversion information is extremely out-dated. Nintendo Power Awards for 1991 Two Issues ago they gave the nominees, and now they’ve counted and tabulated the votes, and it’s time to give out the winners. Graphics & Sound NES:Winner: Battletoads My Pick: Ninja Gaiden III Analysis: Considering the fast scrolling and other quick graphical processing tricks with Battletoads, I’m not too surprised with this one. [*]Game Boy: Winner & My Pick: Metroid II[*]SNES” Winner: Super Mario World My Pick: Super Castlevania IV Analysis: I’m guessing Mario won this one on popularity. Super Castlevania IV had more overt graphical tricks to it, like several rotating stages. [*]Theme & Fun NES:Winner & My Pick: Battletoads[*]Game Boy: Winner: Mega Man My Pick: Final Fantasy Adventure Analysis: I’ll be frank, Mega Man has a big fan base behind him at this time, bigger than Final Fantasy does. Final Fantasy didn’t really get the giant fan base behind it until Final Fantasy VI/III and VII came out, frankly. [*]SNES: Winner & My Pick: Super Mario World [*]Best Challenge NES:Winner: Ninja Gaiden III My Pick: Battletoads Analysis: Huh. Come to think about it, I’m not too surprised by this. The category is “Best Challenge” not “Most Challenging”. [*]Game Boy: Winner & My Pick: Metroid II[*]SNES: Winner & My Pick: Super Ghouls & Ghosts. [*]Best Play Control NES:Winner: Battletoads My Pick: MetalStorm Analysis: While the brawling segments of Battletoads did okay, I feel that the other segments didn’t do as well. However, Battletoads sold better. [*]Game Boy Winner: Metroid II My Pick: R-Type Analysis: I honestly don’t know what I was thinking now. R-Type is generally good, but the Metroid games also generally have solid controls. [*]SNES: Winner & My Pick: Super Mario World [*]Best Multi-player Similtaneous: Winner: Battletoads (NES) I didn’t have a pick in this category. [*]Best Overall Villain: Winner: Bowser (Super Mario World) My Pick: Dr. Wily Analysis: I stand by my choice. Wily actually makes plans. Bowser’s a one-trick pony. [*]Most Innovative Game: Winner & My Pick: Final Fantasy II[*]Overall Best Games NES:Winner: Battletoads My Pick: Tecmo Super Bowl Analysis: I stand behind my choice, I played both games as kids, and found Tecmo Super Bowl more fun than Battletoads. [*]Game Boy: Winner & My Pick: Metroid II[*]SNES: Winner & My Pick: Super Mario World My Final Analysis: To be honest, I can’t say I’m surprised that Super Mario World swept every category it was nominated for. However, I still think all my decisions were good ones… except for Battletoads for best challenge. Ninja Gaiden was actually beatable. Battletoads was not (at least, not without cheats). Super Mario Adventures Comic The Princess escapes just in time for Mario to break into Koopa’s castle on a Bullet Bill. Mario is captured and held hostage by Bowser in exchange for the Princess. Thinking quickly, Luigi disguises himself as the Princess and plans to trick Bowser. Xardion Guide This is the extremely Xtreme 90s looking mecha action game that I saw a while back in EGM. I’m going to make this my Quality Control pick, I think. We get some notes on the 4 different types of robots you can pilot, the power-ups you can collect, and some level notes. We don’t have maps, but we do have some highlights. Since the game has a leveling up system, we also get some notes on places to grind for XP. Super Hudson’s Adventure Island Guide Master Higgins is back. We get maps for acts one, two and three, as well as your standard power-up notes, not that there’s much in terms of power ups (they’re all good except for the Eggplant–do not take the eggplant). Contra III Guide I’m still surprised that this isn’t on the cover. We get maps of Acts One, Two (the first top-down Mode 7 maze stage), Three (which introduces the hanging mechanic), Four (a driving stage that ends with you leaping from bomb to bomb while shooting at the boss) and Five (another Mode 7 maze stage). Head-to-Head: Super Soccer and Super Soccer Champ We get another head-to-head of two competing soccer games. Super Soccer is a first-party game and Super Soccer Champ is from Taito. The coverage for both games is generally favorable, but I feel like I got more information about Super Soccer. Behind the Scenes at Sculptured Software They haven’t really done a behind the scenes piece at a developer for some time. They did one for R&D 1 towards the launch of the SNES, and an earlier one at Rare. Sculptured Software became known as Acclaim Studios Salt Lake City after they were bought out by Acclaim, which lead to their getting shuttered when Acclaim went under. Nester’s Adventures Link and Nester are attempting to catch the Bee in the Ice Cave with their nets. Apparently Link didn’t check on Howard’s reference. Now Playing George & Rob liked Darkwing Duck, but well, it’s a Disney game from Capcom, of course it’s gonna be good. They also liked the puzzle platformer Nail & Scale. They also think Raiden Trad isn’t quite so hot compared to Super R-Type & UN Squadron, though they don’t think it’s bad. They just think there’s much better stuff out there. I’ve played the arcade version of Raiden II and enjoyed it. I haven’t played Raiden Trad. George & Rob also prefer Super Soccer over Super Soccer Champ. Without getting scores from other magazines, my first suggestion would be that there’s bias on the magazine being a house organ. However, I’m willing to cut them some slack on this. We get a run-down of upcoming golf titles which I’m just going to skip. Top 20 After Metroid II took the top spot for the Game Boy last week, this issue Mario once again regains his firm grip on the top spots for the NES, SNES and Game Boy, with following behind in #2 is (respectively), The Legend of Zelda, F-Zero, and Super Mario Land. Celebrity Player Profile This issue they’re interviewing Melissa Joan Hart of Clarissa Explains It All on Nickelodeon. After that show, she went on to be in the live-action Sabrina the Teenage Witch series in the title role (among guest starring appearances on other shows, including Law & Order: SVU). Pak Watch Of note among upcoming titles is DragonStrike from SSI (a dogfighting game, but with dragons, in the DragonLance universe). We have a couple of Summer Olympic Games from Capcom with Gold Medal Challenge 1992, and Konami with a Game Boy version of Track & Field. Also, in the Japan Watch section, we have notes about Dragon Quest V getting delayed, and Square releasing Romancing Saga. My Quality Control pick for this issue is going to be Xardion. Filed under: Video games, Where I Read Tagged: Nintendo Power, video game magazines, Video games, Where I Read Source
-
Where I Read ? Electronic Gaming Monthly #97
Count_Zero posted a blog entry in Dreams of the Red King
This week’s issue of EGM skips several more issues ahead due to another gap to issue #97 for August of 1997, and takes us to another Star Wars cover, for Star Wars: Masters of Teras Kasi, the first Star Wars fighting game and the last Star Wars fighting game until the Clone Wars fighting game for the Wii. For the editorial column of this issue, we get an piece from Ed Semrad looking back at the history of EGM as the magazine approaches it’s 100th issue.</p>No, I don’t have their 100th issue right now, so I’m going to have to skip it. Yeah, I feel bad about it to, and trust me, as gaps are filled, I will go back and do write-ups to address the missing issues of the magazine. Anyway, the magazine is evolving, and while Steve Harris is no longer with it, and Ed Semrad is only on board as their Chief Correspondent, and there’s still the matter of being hitched to the potentially debt-ridden mess that is Ziff Davis (I don’t know if it was as debt ridden then as it was at the end of the first generation of EGM). That said, Ziff Davis still has ZDTV at this time. That has to account for something right? No, it doesn’t. Thought it would be absolutely awesome if Ziff Davis had still had ZDTV around the time they launched the 1up Brand, and the 1up Show could have been an actual TV program. Ah well, such is life. Press Start Some bad news for Sega: the planned merger between Sega and Bandai has fallen through. I kind of wonder whether the Dreamcast would have survived with Bandai’s support. I’m not sure that it would – keep in mind that at this time Namco and Bandai hadn’t merged yet. According to the article, murmurs of discontent among the rank and file scuttled the merger. Sega’s also announced a price-cut for the Sega Saturn to bring it down to $149 in 1997 dollars. Square Enix has also announced their survival horror game Parasite Eve. Additionally, the DVD format is building up some steam, with the impending release of Ghost in the Shell from Manga Video in the US. The N64DD is delayed again. Shiny Entertainment is working on a 3D take on Earthworm Jim for the series 3rd installment. Speaking of sequels, Tobal No. 1 isn’t getting one, at least not in the US anyway. Japan is getting the sequel, with all 200 characters. It’s just not coming to the US. Gaming Gossip Rumors are beginning to spread about Sega’s next console. It’s big, it’s bad, it’s code named Dural, and I’m pretty sure that it becomes the Dreamcast. Anyway, they have everything lined up for it except for the graphics processor. They’ve got two major candidates for this, and they can’t make up their mind. Also, Tommy Tallerico is working on a game. Previews Of note in the previews this issue is the first Mortal Kombat Mythologies game, featuring Sub-Zero. We also get some screen shots of the Saturn version of Resident Evil. We’re also getting a video game based on Dragonball GT, which considering GT’s reputation, I will not only pass this game by, but I’ll give it a wide berth so it doesn’t contaminate me. There’s also a game based on the comic book Youngblood. If that name isn’t familiar, that’s because the comic was done for Image by Rob Leifeld (ugh) as part of his Awesome Universe. No, really, that’s the name. The series was meant to be a sort of alternate version of the Teen Titans, based on the ideas for the Titans that Leifeld wanted to do when he was at DC but couldn’t for various reasons. The series was generally on par with Leifeld’s usual fare that he wrote and drew until 1998, at which point he managed to rope Alan Moore (of all people) into taking on writing duties. After Moore came on board, the series lasted 2 issues and then ended. Yeah. Anyway, there’s a Reboot game set to come out. The survival horror game Clock Tower is also set to come out, along with a Transformers: Beast Wars game, and an adaptation of the first Fighting Fantasy game-book Deathtrap Dungeon (which we got an ad for earlier in the issue). There’s also a Ghost in the Shell game coming out, but it really doesn’t have much to do with the movie to be honest – especially considering that you’re controlling the Tachikomas, which don’t appear in the film. Review Crew The Crew is still Shawn, Dan, Crispin & Sushi. The format has changed though. The order in which people go varies, with the guy on top getting the most space to write, then the ones below him getting a little less space. Air Combat 2 (Namco, PlayStation): This would be otherwise known as Ace Combat 2. Crispin drops a box quote by saying the graphics are “are the best of any flight game ever.” In particular he really like the game’s ranking system, which provides for some multiple paths in the game, and he gives it a 9. Shawn & Sushi give the game 8s, with Shawn liking the game’s arcade style, while while the game appeals to Sushi’s picky tastes. Dan gives the game an 8.5, because of the variety of the planes and mission types, as well as the skill required for some of the missions (particularly with enemies actually trying not to get hit by you). Overall: 33.5/40 it wins the Editor’s Choice Silver Award and is Game of the Month. Shining in the Holy Dark (Sega, Saturn): We’ve got a new Shining game, with polygonal graphics even. Now we start getting our first appearances of semi-super-deformed anime style characters in polygonal graphics. I’m going to be honest. I don’t like anime style characters in polygonal graphics. They just don’t work for me. Anyway, this Saturn RPG is a dungeon crawler like the first Shining game (Shining in the Darkness) except with the inclusion of an auto-map. It runs into some problems, in particular with slowdown in the canned attack animations in combat, which isn’t necessarily cool. The difficulty curve also gets a little high, but everyone’s big complaint is with the attack animations. Shawn gives it a 6.5, Crispin & Sushi give it 8s, and Dan gives it an 8.5. Overall: 31/40. Machine Hunter (MGM Interactive, PlayStation): This is, essentially, a twin stick shooter, which starts out as a single-stick shooter, but becomes twin stick after you get your power armor. Sushi gives the game an 8, Shawn & Crispin give the game 6.5s, and Dan gives it a 7.5. Overall: 28.5/40. Lethal Enforcers 1 & 2 (Konami, PlayStation): It’s an anthology of both Lethal Enforcers games, ported to the PlayStation. The crew feels that the Lethal Enforcer games haven’t aged well, and I agree with them, especially since Virtua Cop 1 & 2 already kicked their butts. Dan gave it a 5, Shawn gave it a 3.5, Crispin gave it a 4.5, and Sushi gave it a 6.5. Overall: 19.5/40. Xevious 3D (Namco, PlayStation): Now we have a polygonal version of Xevious, and it is completely different from Xevious: Resurrection. Everyone says it’s a solid, fun shooter, with Shawn & Sushi giving it a 7 and a 7.5 (respectively). Dan and Crispin aren’t too impressed though, and Dan gives it a 5.5 and Crispin gives it a 6.5. Overall: 26.5/40. Raystorm (Spaz Games, PlayStation): Another polygonal shump. The descriptions of the game give me the impression that it’s a bit of a proto-bullet hell game, due to the massive number of enemies on the screen. However, the response is favorable, with everyone having fun with it, with everyone particularly liking the game’s use of lock-on attacks. Anyway, Dan gives it an 8.5, Shawn gives it a 7.5, Crispin gives it a 9, and Sushi gives it an 8. Overall: 33/40 and it gets a Editor’s Choice Silver Award. Poy Poy (Konami, PlayStation): This is multi-player action game, where you pick up items in the environment and throw them at other people. It’s kind of like Smash Bros without all the recognizable Nintendo characters, and in a more 3D arena. Dan doesn’t think it holds up next to Super Bomberman and Mario Kart and gives it a 7.5, but the rest of the crew loved it and Sushi gave it an 8.5, an 8 from Crispin, and a 9 from Shawn. Overall: 33/40. Features We have an article about how arcade hardware and other gaming technology (both on the software and hardware front) can be used by, well, the Military-Industrial complex. Basically, this focuses on game technology being used to design combat flight simulators. Pay close attention to the textures by his hand By the way, we’ve got an ad here which makes me want to take a little aside to talk about a gaming buzzword which will be coming up soon as we cover video games. The term is “texture mapping”. Take a look at this ad here is for Codename Tenka. Click on the image that I’ve posted next to this paragraph, and view it full size. Depending on your browser you may have to click on it. But, anyway, look at it full size, and pay attention the gun. Now, you can clearly see the pixelation on the gun. There’s no fine detail there, and it’s noticeable when you just look at it. Now, let’s look at the ad again at GiantBomb.com. Don’t zoom in on it, just look at it. Here it looks a little better. Why is that? Well, the gun is a polygonal shape. in the game. There are a whole bunch of little polygons on there that make up each little bit of the gun. On their own, these don’t mean anything, as all you’ve got is a bunch of shapes. You can kind of get that you’re looking at a gun, but for it to make for an enjoyable game, you need to take things one step further and put something in those polygons. These are picture files called “texture” maps. They’re basically pixels patterned to give the impression that something isn’t totally smooth, that it has a bit of texture to it. However, the pixel density (the number of pixels on the texture map) determines how detailed it is. The texture map for the gun, particularly by the guy’s hand, has low pixel density. Anyway, moving on with the feature articles. Next up is the featured coverage on Masters of Teras Kasi. We don’t get much in terms of character bios, or move lists, but we do get some notes about what they’re shooting for the game. They’re trying to get a Virtua Fighter style control scheme where the face buttons relate to hands and feet. They’re also trying to go with very detailed character models, with 1,200 polygons per character, which is twice as many as the Dynasty Warriors fighting game. There’s also a look at some of Psygnosis’ upcoming titles, including G-Police, the space shooter Colony Wars. We also get a look at one of the first polygonal characters to be sexualized, as opposed to sprite based characters (which had been done earlier with Mai Shiranui, who took Chun-Li’s leggyness up a notch with her Gainaxing. Lara doesn’t get a Gainax bounce until fairly recently though. We also get mention for the first time of the infamous nude raider “patch” for the PC version, including a pointer to nuderaider.com, which is no more. We also get notes on 1997’s E3. One of the little side stories in this article is one about E3’s attempts to expand overseas, in particular in Asia. They apparently attempted to do an E3 in Tokyo, but the Japanese equivalent of the ESA essentially told them to go elsewhere. Now, to be fair, at this time Tokyo Game Show was on it’s second year and was still getting established, while E3 had been around a year longer. Additionally, while the US gaming market was substantial, it wasn’t still as big then as it is now – Japanese game publishers would publish for the systems that were doing well in Japan over systems that were doing well in the US, and would consequently port those games to the same system in the US (if we got a port). Whereas now, the US game market is big enough that we actually got a port of Final Fantasy XIII for the Xbox 360, a system that is currently #3 in Japan, close to where, basically, the TurboGrafx-16 was in the US during the 16-bit generation. Next Wave Capcom is collecting it’s Dungeons & Dragons themed fantasy brawlers on the Saturn. Unfortunately, we don’t get this compilation volume in the US or in Europe, much to my disappointment. So, if you want this, you have to import it. While the Saturn was region locked, you can hack the Saturn by changing a Jumper or using one of the 4-in-1 memory cards that were made for the system. Sega has Sky Target, an After Burner style flight sim. Neversoft is making itself known with the tongue-in-cheek sci-fi action game MDK. We also get some information on the changes being made for the US release of Resident Evil: Director’s Cut, including a new intro, added blood, and more zombies (including ones of the first STARS team that was sent in). The PlayStation is also getting a collectors edition of Street Fighter II, containing two of the game’s iterations. Or now you could get Super Street Fighter Turbo HD Remix from XBLA or PSN and call it good. Or you could get the Street Fighter Anniversary Collection and get Street Fighter III as well. We also get information on the action game One, and the mascot platformer Jersey Devil. There’s also a contest where you could win a Dead or Alive Arcade machine which is over, but fortunately Dead or Alive 1 & 2 Collections for the Xbox are probably going pretty cheap now that Classic Xbox Live is coming to an end as I write this (when this goes up Classic Xbox Live will be gone, and with it your DLC for Knights of the Old Republic). Letters We get a letter from a reader revealing that the whole Rent-To-Own business model is an absolute scam. Our letter of the month also heavily lauds the N64DD as Nintendo finally taking a step away from the proprietary media model for game distribution. Well… almost, the N64DD (as I’ve mentioned) never materializes in the US. Another letter complains that the blood, strippers and bathroom humor will be (*ahem*) stripped from the console port of Duke Nukem 3D. Well, fear not, they will not be removed from the game, and Duke will be seen as he was meant to see. They also won’t be removed from Duke Nukem Forever. That wraps up the recap for this issue. Tomorrow I’ll have a recap for another issue of Nintendo Power. Filed under: Video games, Where I Read Tagged: EGM, video game magazines, Video games, Where I Read Source -
Get Season 3 of Bones from Amazon.com Crime Dramas tend to be serialized, unless they’re not. Yes, that sounds incredibly silly, but it’s generally true. The majority of crime dramas, whether of the soap opera variety or the serialized drama take the Dragnet/Law & Order tack of one case per episode, and it’s wrapped up at the end. Starting in the late 90s we finally started seeing much more serialized procedurals which would stretch a case out over several episodes, to a whole season, to even multiple seasons – with the most notable example of this being Homicide: Life on the Street. Why am I bringing thus up with a Forensic Detective series that I’ve already reviewed the first two seasons of? Well, that’s because the first two seasons stayed in the standard episodic vein. This season, however, shifts gear to our first serial storyline. Specifically, the case of the cannibal, secret-society hating serial killer the Gormogon. This review will contain some spoilers. This is your warning. While the last seasons of Bones had something of a series of plot arcs, they were very limited. The romance of Hodges and Angela was pretty much limited to B-Plots, as was the hunt for Angela’s long-lost ex-husband. While the hunt for Bones own father, and several murders he committed defending Bones and her brother did find their way into the A-Plots, they took up less than a handful of episodes. This season’s plot arc, on the other hand, set a mood that was felt throughout the whole season. That said, I’m not sure what I feel about this plot arc. On the one hand, I found myself riveted by every episode that featured the Gormogon killer. The cases were very suspenseful, and the inclusion of the Gormogon’s vault of various ancient treasures–which was wisely saved only for episodes involving Gormogon–also helped give those episodes a unique visual feel. However, the arc concept just didn’t feel right. While it’s entirely conceivable for a forensic anthropologist to be involved in hunting down a serial killer (and that was even the plot for the first Temperance Brennan novel), something this current feels out of place. Additionally, I didn’t like the big reveal about Zach. It was sudden and abrupt, and felt almost Russo-riffic. A well executed twist teases that it’s coming. It might not be obvious the first time, but by the second time you can see the clues almost a mile away. The classic example of this being in The Sixth Sense, with the use of the color red as a hint that Bruce Willis’s character was a ghost. Here, we have nothing to really give the hint that something isn’t right about Zach. So, when the reveal comes, it’s abrupt and out of nowhere, with nothing to let you know that it might be coming, either on the initial viewing or on repeat viewings. That’s actually not good writing. That’s cheating. The writing after the reveal is well handled, but I still feel that everything leading up to the reveal could have been done considerably better. However, Bones is still a good show. While I’m torn about the Gormogon arc, there are enough good episodes and enough good acting performances to save this season from mediocrity. I definitely give this season a recommendation. Filed under: Reviews, Television Tagged: DVD, review, TV Source
-
Quality Control ? Town & Country 2: Thrilla?s Surfari
Count_Zero posted a blog entry in Dreams of the Red King
Get Thrilla's Surfari from eBay There are certain games which lend themselves very well to speed runs, and videos thereof. For some of them, it’s because the game’s a non-linear game like Metroid, where the player has multiple ways in which they can jump ahead of the path and find various hidden items in the game. For other games, because of their visual style and speed of the game, they just fit in perfectly with this type of video–the classic example being Sonic the Hedgehog. When I saw the maps of Town & Country 2: Thrilla’s Surfari, this seemed like a perfect fit for the latter category, which is why I picked it. Maybe I should have picked something else. The Premise You play as the mascot for the Town & Country Surf Shop, Thrilla the Gorilla, as you skateboard and surf through various jungle environments. The Good If you manage to get up to speed, and if you’ve got the course memorized, and if you hit everything just right, this could look really cool. As you may notice, that’s a lot of ifs. The Bad The health power-ups in the game are pretty well hidden, which is a problem because you’ve only got 3 spots on your health bar, which leads into. The Ugly Here comes the problems. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it in the future, and I’ll say it again right now – trial and error gameplay is not good game design. It makes the game artificially difficult by requiring you to memorize each level. The “difficulty” for this game depends on the use of trial and error. If you don’t memorize the stage, you’ll never beat the game. Period. The Verdict This is a terrible, terrible game. If you really, really want to buy this game and try to beat it, feel free. However, I don’t recommend playing this game for any reason. Also, to give you an idea about what the game looks like, I’m going to embed a you-tube video of some gameplay footage so you can see what it looks like. Filed under: Quality Control, Video games Tagged: NES, Nintendo Power, Quality Control, Video games Source -
We’re moving on to Nintendo Power issue #35 for April of 1992. Our cover story is WWF Super Wrestlemania, and for those not keeping track, Hulkamania is still running wild in the WWF, and will continue to do so for at least another year or so, before jumping ship to WCW. Our letters column asks, “What would you do for an SNES?” There responses err on the side of the insanely absurd. Captain America & The Avengers Guide So, Iron Man & The Vision have been kidnapped by the Red Skull, and only Hawkeye and Cap can save them. The game is kind of non-linear and has a sort of EXP system. In levels you can collect power stones that you can use to power up your character. You can also go back to the same area over and over again to collect more power stones. Thus you can grind for EXP. Anyway, we get maps of the Tampa level which almost looks more like the Everglades, except for the whole “waterfall” thing in each stage–which anyone who’s seen Florida knows is out-of-place, due to the fact that Florida’s competing with Kansas for the title of Flattest State. Next is Miami (a more urban environment), the District of Colombia (an entirely indoor stage), Montgomery AL (also all indoors), Mississippi (a swamp stage that’s almost identical to the Tampa stage), New Orleans (an urban stage that’s almost identical to the Miami stage), Charlston, Pittsburgh, Richmond, Philiadelphia & New York. Of all those stages, the only ones that aren’t a variation of a stage that came before it are Philadelphia (a building under construction) and New York which has the New York skyline in the background). T&C II: Thrilla’s Safari Guide A surf company is making a skateboarding game. Yeah, it makes no sense to me. Anyway, we get a map of the first level, as well as the first chunk of the 2nd level of the game. We also get notes for levels 3, 4, and 5. Yoshi Guide This is a falling blocks puzzle game. The idea is that you trap monsters together between the top and bottom halves of Yoshi’s egg. When the halves line up, then all the monsters in between are eliminated, and the more monsters in between, the more points you get. However, if the blocks reach the top of the screen, you lose. Standard risk management stuff. Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past Comic Link defeats the monster from last issue and ends up learning about the Dark World. I really like this comic, and if they put out a trade paperback or other collected volume of the comic, I’d pick it up. Anyway, now he finally gets the Master Sword. Star Trek Guide So, Starfleet built a special weapon to defeat the Doomsday Machine (even though it was defeated the first time the super-weapon appeared). However, the Klingons captured it and dismantled it, taking the pieces to different parts of the Empire so (sigh) the Enterprise must retrieve the chunks. The game has horizontal shump stages, while you’re traveling to whatever planet you need to get to to get the chunk of McGuffin, then top-down adventure/action stages when you’re looking for the chunks on the planet’s surface. I’m not impressed with this and I’m passing. Comparison – Turn & Burn and Top Gun This is basically a compare & contrast for two Game Boy combat flight sims. Ultra Golf Guide The Game Boy has gotten a golf game, and it’s even got a battery backup, so you don’t have to beat 18 holes in one commute. Boggle Deluxe & Missile Command Guides One puzzle game and one arcade port get brief, one-page strategy guides. Super Mario Adventures Comic Princess Peach attempts to escape the Koopa Kids, while Mario and Luigi look on, helpless. Technology Update – The Super NES CD-ROM This is quite possibly the biggest article about a piece of (ultimately) vaporware, I’ve ever seen. The Addams Family Guide A new Addams Family movie means a new Addams Family video game. We get information about where to start in the hub area, and what overall paths to take, since the game is kind of non-linear. We get specific paths for rescuing Granny, Morticia, Pugsley, and Wednesday. Super Wrestlemania Guide We’ve got our first 16-bit wrestling game. We get the match types (singles, Tag Team, and the Survivor Series), as well as strategies for each wrestler in the game, provided by the actual wrestlers… which means they’re highly questionable. Super Smash TV Guide Big Money, Big Prizes! Basically, they’ve adapted the twin-stick controls to the D-Pad & face buttons. We get notes for the first 3 levels in the game. Nester’s Adventures Probably for the first time in the series history, they’re giving advice for a game that’s already in this issue. In this case, they’re pointing out the shortcut in the Kitchen in The Addams Family. Now Playing First up for review this issue is Pool of Radiance. This is one of the first PC RPGs I ever played, after Gateway to Aphasi. However, the didn’t get very far in it, and what they saw didn’t impress them. That said, I got a little further, so I was a little more impressed, particularly with actual plot points involving NPCs, such as the treason of Cadorna on the city council of Phlan. They liked the Captain America game, as well as Koei’s fantasy strategy game Gemfire. What they’re not impressed with, though, is the NES and Game Boy adaptations of the film Hook. They also like the racing game Race America which has semi-realistic gear shifting… I wouldn’t call that a feature that I’d put on the box. They’re kind of ambivalent about the Toxic Crusaders game. They thought the Wacky Races game had some character to it, and the Missile Command port was pretty decent. They thought the port of Smash TV was solid, though they were split on Addams Family, and didn’t like Prophecy: The Viking Child at all. Top 20 For the Top 20 this week, Mario holds the top spot on the NES and SNES, but Samus Aran has finally gotten the top spot on the Game Boy. Celebrity Player Profile Now we have a player profile for someone who is fairly A-List… okay, B-List… well, he’s in a movie instead of a blink-and-you-miss-it sitcom. Specifically, it’s Eddie Furlong, who plays Young John Connor in Terminator 2: Judgement Day. He’s apparently been a video gamer for quite some time, and his career when this article came out was picking up, with an upcoming role in a Jeff Bridges film. He later went on to be in American History X, and has done various other film roles since then, and is still active–he’s apparently going to be in the upcoming Green Hornet film as Tupper (whoever that is). Pak Watch First up is a biggie, Street Fighter II. That’ll sell some arcade sticks. Konami has TMNT IV: Turtles in Time, Kemco has Top Gear, American Sammy is working on a port of Might & Magic, Ocean has Robocop 3, and Sunsoft is porting Batman: Return to the Joker to the Game Boy. For my Quality Control pick for this issue, I’m going to pick Thrilla’s Safari. It looks like a fun little twist on the downhill racing genre. Filed under: Video games, Where I Read Tagged: Nintendo Power, video game magazines, Video games, Where I Read Source
-
Where I Read ? Electronic Gaming Monthly #90
Count_Zero posted a blog entry in Dreams of the Red King
So, this week we have another gap in my EGM archive, carrying us from #84 last week all the way to issue #90, for January of 1997. Our cover story for this issue is the upcoming home console release of Mechwarrior 2. We also get an ad for the home console release of Tekken 2 for the Playstation. Our editorial column for this issue is from Joe Funk, about the Battle of Hoth level in Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire for the N64. I cannot argue with that. I can try, but there wouldn’t be any point. Press Start Sony has given gamers their first look at the PlayStation Dual-Shock controller, their response to the single-analog stick on the Nintendo 64 controller. Frankly, I liked the design of the Dual Shock over the design for the N64 controller. However, I feel that the stick positioning on the later Xbox controller was superior, with the Xbox 360 being on top of the game in terms of controller design. That said, I have not had an opportunity to use the Wii yet, so I can’t compare the Wiimote and Nunchuck with the Xbox 360 controller at this time. Sony’s also putting out a new design for the PlayStation that uses the unified proprietary graphics connector that Sony has continued to use to this day. Additionally, the M2 system that 3DO had designed and sold to Matsushita is doing poorly. Several major developers and publishers (including Take 2 Interactive and Interplay) have canceled their games for the system and moved them to other hardware (including the N64). The console war is beginning to narrow down to 3 major systems. Apparently the N64 accounted for 51% of all hardware sales after the system’s launch. InterAct has a 3rd party arcade stick for the N64. Gaming Gossip Williams has become Midway Home Entertainment, and they are working on ports of Quake for the N64 and the PlayStation. Midway’s also apparently working on a 3D version of Joust (which never hits stores). San Francisco Rush is also getting ported to the N64. DVDs are slowly getting more buzz behind them. Sega’s even started marketing Virtua Fighter 3 to arcade owners using DVDs. Also, Zelda 64, Mario Kart 64, Star Fox 64, Yoshi’s Island 64, and F-Zero 64 have been delayed. Previews BMG Interactive is working on a 3rd person platformer, where you control an arachnid, that is appropriately titled Spider. We also get some coverage of the PlayStation port of Command & Conquer. The preview coverage definitely ends up over-stating things. In particular, it says that the PlayStation version of Command & Conquer is superior to the PC version, which is something which modern video game journalists agree is not the case. We also get a peek at OddWorld: Abe’s Oddyssey, which the magazine mis-titles as Oddworld Inhabitants (which is the name of the developer). The PlayStation is also possibly getting the bloody, gory racing game Carmageddon. We also get a first look at Ubisoft’s platformer Hed. As this is a working title, I did some checking to see what it turned into, but unfortunately I can’t find anything about it. If you have any information about what the game became (if it wasn’t canceled) please let me know. Anyway, we get a look at the first Dynasty Warriors game, which is completely different from the Dynasty Warriors series as we know it, because it’s a fighting game. No button-mashing through hordes of nameless enemies. Just one-on-one combat. There’s also a preview of WCW vs. The World, probably one of the first wrestling games to take the button+direction take for control, which would be later taken by most of the WWF games (particularly those made by Yukes). Review Crew The Crew this issue is still Shawn Smith, Dan “Shoe” Hsu, Crispin Boyer, and Sushi X Dragon Force (Working Designs, Saturn): This is a real-time strategy RPG with a kind of Nobunaga’s Ambition-esque epic scope. Shawn and Shoe give the game 9.5s, with Shoe mentioning that were it not for some interface problems, the game would have gotten a perfect 10. Crispin gives the game a 9, and Sushi gives it an 8 (as he didn’t enjoy the administrative sections of the game). Overall: The game gets 36/40, receives the Editor’s Choice Gold Award and Game Of The Month. Sonic 3D Blast (Sega, Saturn): This, is in my opinion, where the Sonic franchise really started dramatically going downhill. The scores kind of reflect this. Shoe gives it a 7.5, saying it’s a good port of the Genesis game, but not enough to make it worth re-buying, and even if you hadn’t played it before, it still has some noticible control problems if you’re using the D-Pad. Crispin gives it a 7, also saying it’s not as good as the 2d Sonic games, though it’s better than most isometric games. Shawn and Sushi give it 6s, basically saying (with a few variations) that while it’s a decent game, it’s not a good Sonic game. Overall: 26.5/40. Bug Too! (Sega, Saturn): A mascot platformer that’s a sequel to the prior Bug game. It’s also done in a 2.5D perspective (though not as well executed as modern 2.5D games). Shawn thinks it’s just an average side-scroller with a 2.5D coat of paint on top (though they call it pseudo-3D) and gives it a 6.5. Shoe gives it an 8.5, considering the game a solid, underrated game. Crispin gives the game a 7.5, finding it a charming side-scroller, and Sushi give the game a 7 for similar reasons. Overall: 29.5/40. Virtual On (Sega, Saturn): The twin-stick arcade mecha fighting game gets a home release on a system with no sticks on the standard controller, one if you buy a special controller. Shawn & Shoe give the game 8s, with Shoe complaining that the homing attacks take the challenge out of the game, and the game is unbalanced, but Shawn didn’t observe those problems. Crispin gives the game a 9. However, Sushi blows the curve by giving the game a 6.5 because the game’s too simple. Guuh. This is the reason fighting games get a reputation for being too complicated, the less complicated but fun fighting games get lower reviews for being less complicated. Overall: 31.5/40. Toshinden Ura (Sega, Saturn): We have another port of Toshinden, and one that doesn’t turn out well. The graphics are blocky, and the movement animations are slow. Because of this, Shawn gives it a 4.5, Shoe and Sushi give the game 5s, and Crispin gives it a 4. Overall: 18.5/40. Virtua Cop 2 (Sega, Saturn): I played the arcade version of this at one of Ground Kontrol’s Free Play Fridays. Shawn, Crispin & Sushi give the game 8s, finding it a good light gun game with limited replay value, at least if you’re playing by yourself. Dan gives it an 8.5 for a similar reason. Overall: 32.5/40 and it receives the Editor’s Choice Silver Award. Batman Forever (Acclaim, Saturn): Basically, this is a licensed side-scrolling fighting game based on the movie. Like most licensed games, this one doesn’t turn out well. Specifically, the complaints are the game is an easy button-mash fest. Shawn gives the game a 5, Dan gives it a 6.5, and Crispin gives it a 4.5, and Sushi gives it a 3. Overall: 19/40. The Adventures of Lomax (Psygnosis, PlayStation): This is another side-scrolling platformer. Shawn & Crispin give the game 7.5s, finding it a solid game, event though it doesn’t have a save option, instead using a password to continue. Shoe gives it an 8 for a similar reason. Sushi gives it a 7, commenting that one attack is basically the only attack you need to win the game (not that it’s a real negative, with Super Mario Brothers you can get through the game by just using the jump attack). Overall: 30/40. Robotron X (Williams, PlayStation): This is a isometric remake of Robotron, the original twin-stick shooter, which is a bit of a problem because the Dual Shock isn’t out yet. Shawn, Dan and Crispin give the game 6.5s, with Shawn finding the game over-complicated, Dan finding the graphics choppy. Sushi gives the game a 5.5, saying that it’s more worth it to get the Williams Classics Collection, which contains the original Robotron game. Overall: 25/40. Suikoden (Konami, PlayStation): Konami’s first big RPG and, for that matter, the first really big RPG for the PlayStation aside from Wild Arms. Shawn and Sushi give the game 8.5s, as it’s a massive, engaging RPG with some great strategy elements, but not enough puzzle solving for Sushi’s taste, and you can’t run. Shoe and Crispin give the game 9s. Overall: 35/40 and it receives the Editor’s Choice Silver Award. Tunnel B1 (Acclaim, PlayStation): Action game where you’re controlling a hovercraft. Shawn and Dan give the game 8.5s, applauding the game’s lighting effects, and action animations. Crispin & Sushi give the game 7s, though they don’t like the game’s low-to-the-ground camera angle. Overall: 31/40. King’s Field 2 (ASCII, PlayStation): First-Person RPG. Shawn & Sushi give the game 6.5s, since at this point the gameplay style is novel, but the graphics are generally pretty poor. Dan and Crispin give the game 7.5s, finding it a unique RPG, though they don’t like the game’s slow pace. Overall: 28/40. Project X2 (Acclaim, PlayStation): Shump. Shawn and Dan consider it an uninspired shump, but still somewhat enjoyable and give it 5.5s. Crispin and Sushi give it 6s for similar reasons. Overall: 23/40. Tempest X (Interplay, PlayStation): It’s Tempest. Shawn’s the only one who really liked it, and he gives it a 7. Everyone else finds that Tempest isn’t as fun in a non-arcade form, and they only differ in terms of their scores – Dan gives it a 4, Crispin gives it a 6, and Sushi gives it a 5. Overall: 22/40. Tobal No. 1 (Sony, PlayStation): This is Squaresoft’s first major fighting game, and is bundled with a demo for Final Fantasy VII. Shawn, Dan and Crispin give the game 8.5s. They like the game’s animations and attention to detail, though it doesn’t compare to Tekken 2 in their eyes. Sushi gives the game an 8, finding the control clunky, particularly with the block controls. Overall: 33.5/40 and it receives the Editor’s Choice Silver Award. Twisted Metal 2 (Sony, PlayStation): The iconic car combat game gets a second installment. Shawn and Sushi give the game 8s, with Shawn applauding the game’s slightly more involved story (as for starters, the game has it’s proper ending cutscenes. Dan and Crispin give the game 8.5s for similar reasons. All four would like improved graphics for the third game in the series. Overall: 33/40 and it receives the Editor’s Choice Silver Award. Dragonheart (Acclaim, PlayStation): Licensed action game based on the movie. Like the movie, it’s not very good. Shawn & Dan give the game 4.5s, saying that the game looks unfinished, like they were working to make stellar graphics and environments, and then stopped when the movie didn’t do well (a lesson which I presume that Starbreeze Studios kept to heart – even though Chronicles of Riddick did poorly, they continued to work hard to make the game look and play incredibly well), and by stopped, I mean “they didn’t finish working on the controls. Dan and Crispin also agree that the game looks good but plays terribly – Dan gives it a 4, Crispin gives it a 5. Overall: 18/40. Samurai Shodown 4 (Crystal Dynamics, Neo-Geo): That publisher can’t be right. My research said that it was published by SNK (being that it is an SNK series). I’m going to assume it’s an error on their part. Anyway, the game gets solid 8s across the board – finding it one of the best weapon-based fighters on the Neo Geo system. Overall: 32/40 and it recieves the Editor’s Choice Silver Award. Street Fighter Alpha 2 (Nintendo, SNES): Now this one isn’t a misprint, Capcom had to turn to Nintendo to port Alpha 2 to the SNES. However, Nintendo wasn’t able to cut it, with the final product having choppy animation and tinny sound. Shawn gives it a 4.5, Dan gives it a 4, Crispin gives it a 6, and Sushi gives it a 6.5. Overall: 21/40. Maui Mallard (Nintendo, SNES): Okay, you know all the Disney licensed games which, while good, turned characters like Mickey Mouse into absolute badasses. This game does that for, of all characters, Donald Duck. It turns him into a martial arts master. That said, they think it’s executed well, with Shawn, Dan, and Sushi giving the game 8s, and Crispin gives it an 8.5s, with the main complaints being some cheap jumps. Overall: 32.5/40 and it receives the Editor’s Choice Silver Award. Features We’re starting off with the feature article on Mechwarrior 2. We get profiles of most of the mechs you can pilot in the game. We also get an article on upcoming PlayStation titles, including Ranma 1/2 Battle Renaissance, the only 3D Ranma 1/2 game (which doesn’t get a US release, unfortunately). We also see Toshinden 3, Castlevania: Dracula X2 (which is released as Symphony of the Night). Namco is putting out Time Crisis, Ace Combat 2, and another Namco Museum game. There’s also the weapon-based fighter Soul Blade, which later leads into the Soul Calibur series. At the Shoshinkai conference, Nintendo showed off some of their upcoming titles, including Starfox 64, Goldeneye 007, and the upcoming rumble pack. We also get a look at Mario Kart 64. Also, a few weeks ago, Seth asked me to post an ad for an issue of Chips & Bits. We happen to have one this issue, so I’m going to post that ad here. Let it not be said that I don’t listen to my readers. Anyway, we also get a single screenshot of Mother 3 for the N64, as well as a mention of Super Robot Taisen game for the N64. Since the retro gaming revival has begun, we get our first article on the topic. This article focuses on compilation games, both ones released in the US and ones that weren’t. Most of this is pretty out of date though, as many of these games have been collected in more recent compilations. Oh, another notable ad we get this issue is for Atlus’ Shin Megami Tensei: Persona, which has since been re-translated and re-released on the PSP. Moving on, we get a preview of Shiny Entertainment’s action game MDK. There are also comparisons between the PlayStation and N64 versions of Mortal Kombat Trilogy. and the Crew picks the version they like more (with the PlayStation version winning 3 to 1. Next Wave As before, I’m covering games that aren’t already getting reviewed. Sega has the action RPG Dark Savior coming up. There’s also a look at the side-scrolling action game SCUD: The Disposible Assassin. There’s also the isometric platformer Cool Spot: Spot Goes to Hollywood. Koei’s also branching into real-time strategy with the post-apocalyptic airship strategy game Heir of Zendor. The PlayStation is getting the action game Psychic Force, which looks like it uses its anime style well. SSI has the strategy game Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat. We also get a look at the upcoming RPGs Persona from Atlus, and Final Fantasy VII from Square. There’s also notes on the new Diskworld game, which once again features Rincewind. SSI’s Allied General is getting a port to the PlayStation. Since the game’s a turn based strategy game, instead of a real-time strategy game, it might work out well. THQ has the mixed martial arts game K-1 Kickboxing. Letters We get a very interesting letter from an independent game retailer in Canada complaining about how Nintendo handled the N64 launch. In short, independent stores like his were not only shorted stock, but they also received their systems late. On the other hand, big-box retailers retailers like Toys ‘R Us not only got all their orders, but they got their orders on time. This put them at a major competitive disadvantage. Sony, on the other hand, didn’t dick them over. This leads to the implied threat that if Nintendo keeps this up, they’d stop stocking Nintendo systems entirely. While, frankly, I doubt that this threat would have as much weight as he’d like, all things considered, dumping Nintendo in favor of Sony couldn’t be considered backing the wrong horse. We also get a letter that speaks to my heart over the Console PC Holy Wars, a letter that asks “Can’t we all just get along”. That’s a sentiment that I agree with, as opposed to magazines like PC Gamer which, rather than simply ignoring the Holy Wars, have sought to perpetuate the Holy Wars… which is also why I don’t read PC Gamer anymore, nor do I listen to their podcasts. Anyway, we that leads to your standard “OMG UR BIASSED” letter, which gets a bigger response than it really deserves (which contains your usual statements of principles, that sort of thing). While it’s nice to grand-stand and state the journalistic principles, I’ve always felt that you get a better impact when you do that after, say, Capcom blacklists you for not gratifying them over the repeated Street Fighter II re-hashes, as opposed to some whiny fanboy. Anyway, we get a letter from Singapore defending game piracy. We get another letter from someone telling the EGM to get a life and stop writing a magazine about video games (really?). We also get a letter about what to do for issue #100, and another letter about whether video games have brand recognition (indeed they did then, and do now. Heck, that’s the root of the current mess between the former heads of Infinity Ward and the heads of Activision). Filed under: Video games, Where I Read Tagged: EGM, video game magazines, Video games, Where I Read Source -
Get "The Call of Cthulhu" at Amazon.com When I entered Middle School, I started reading the works of HP Lovecraft. If you’re a fan of Horror, especially horror in the vein of the fantastic, you probably know some of Lovecraft’s works, without actually reading them. Lovecraft has inspired many a horror writer and director, from John Carpenter (“In the Mouth of Madness”) to Steven King (“The Mist”). However, while homages to his work have been made off and on over time, direct adaptations of his work have generally sucked, and sucked hard. I’ll be frank – Lovecraft’s work doesn’t lend itself to adaptation very well. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, Lovecraft’s horror was derived from the idea that the human brain was incapable of realizing how insignificant humanity is in the vastness of space, and if we ever realized it, our minds would shatter – and they’d be even further destroyed if there were older, more powerful races than us, that thought in ways that we couldn’t possibly imagine. Now, putting aside the fact that humanity has recognized just how small we are in the universe, and not only has survived without mass hysteria, but had a response that could best be described as “apathy”, this type of horror just doesn’t film well. Far more often, Lovecraft had to try to convey this by having the cosmic terrors be something that words couldn’t describe, which is a bit of a cheat – though one that ages better. Still, this is something that doesn’t necessarily film as well either – and it’s something that, frankly, most directors haven’t tried to do. Instead most directors have tried to go to the personal horror route. Perhaps the most adapted of all of Lovecraft’s stories is The Shadow Over Innsmouth, in which a reporter goes to the city of Innsmouth in New England to investigate, and discovers a great horror within the city. The barely escapes from the inhabitants, who have become less human and more something else. In his investigations from outside the city, he discovers a terrible shock to his identity, that he too carries some of the inhuman heritage of the residents of Innsmouth and returns. The idea with this adaptation is that the audience would be able to emphasize with this struggle over identity. This is not, however, Lovecraft’s most famous story, and the one which named his mythos. The work that named his Cthulhu Mythos, and inspired the Role-Playing Game of the same name, is “The Call of Cthulhu”. Until the film I’m reviewing now, that story was never adapted. Near as I can tell, it’s due to needs of design, and the structure of the story’s narrative. The film essentially consists of several stories, within a story, within a story. The narrator of the story is visiting his friend, Francis Wayland Thurston, at an insane asylum, presumably the Asylum in Arkham, Mass. Thurston thinks he is about to die and wants the narrator (a character added for the film), to destroy some documents in his possession. These documents relate to the investigation of the Cthulhu cult. Some of these documents were collected by Thurston’s great-uncle, some by Thurston himself. All of these stories connect to a climactic account of the brief rising of sunken R’yleth and its sinking once again, after terrorizing the crew the Emma, now commanding the Alert, a derelict they’d boarded after their own ship was badly damaged in a storm, and with the Alert being in better condition. The film adaptation, done by the HP Lovecraft Historical Society (or HPLHS for short), basically dodges all the problems that would come with adapting this film using modern technology, by shooting it as a silent movie instead. The film is shot in black and white, with some added film grain to give the implication that the film stock had been sitting in a vault for 80 years. There is a score to the film, but no other sound. There is no spoken dialog, with insert cards conveying the dialog from the film. Any special effects are done in miniature, with a few done with stop-motion photography. It works. It works splendidly. Because the film uses the style of a silent film and the trappings of a silent film, it becomes easier to suspend disbelief over any effects shortcomings in the film. We, the audience, don’t have to make a big deal about how Cthulhu is obviously a stop-motion puppet – it’s done in the style of film in the 1920s, of course it’s a puppet. This, in turn, allows the film to do its work. By the conclusion of the film, and the sequences surrounding the crew of the Alert, I actually found the film provoking a feeling of dread – the good kind, the kind a horror filmmaker wants. During this segment, people in the room watching it with me were silent. They laughed at some earlier segments of the film, scenes that were meant to have some camp to them, but here they were silent, and watching with intent. This segment in particular even gave my mother nightmares. This is an excellent horror film, and a fitting tribute to the works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. I give this movie a wholehearted recommendation. Filed under: film, Reviews Tagged: Cthulhu Mythos, DVD, film, review Source
-
So, this week I reached issue #33 of Nintendo Power in the course of my recaps (part of Nintendo Power’s 4th year), so I decided to take a look at what Nintendo Power has become today, and see how it’s changed over the years. For the issues of Nintendo Power I’ve covered thus far, the magazine is, essentially, advertising for Nintendo, but very good advertising. Rather then simply spouting marketing ad copy at the gamers (who were generally children–though the letters column has shown some adults as well), the magazine takes a different tack. Since video games are a visual medium, the magazine is a visual guide. Each featured game gets a strategy guide, often with fairly comprehensive level maps (which were no doubt expensive to make at the time), advice for beating the bosses and information on the power-ups and so on. The idea behind this, ultimately, is that you get a certain degree of familiarity with the game before you get it, and once you’ve gotten it, you have the guide to fall back on in case you get stuck and are frustrated. Additionally, because there are no other ads in the body of the magazine (though there are occasional ads on the inside cover for other Nintendo Power products or other Nintendo products), you don’t necessarily know that you’re being advertised to. It works incredibly well. When I was a kid, an issue of Nintendo Power sold me on Vice: Project Doom, and kept me sold on it until adulthood, when I finally played it as a ROM. However, as a minus, the magazine, until very recently (in the Where I Read), didn’t give any true reviews on anything. The scores the magazine gave were mostly useless, as they didn’t explain why the game received those scores. For the last few issues we’ve finally gotten more serious reviews that are willing to say bad things about games, even games that received a guide in the magazine, like Terminator 2. Modern issues of Nintendo Power are as different from the classic issues as night and day. First, there are ads. All the ads are for games on Nintendo systems and for services like GameFly, but they’re ads. Additionally, there are considerably more reviews here, of games on the WiiWare and DSiWare services and full scale games, and they are more willing to say bad things about games for their systems (particularly on WiiWare and DSiWare). However, as the internet has made it easier to get help for games through sites like GameFAQs, the massive strategy guides of Nintendo Power’s past are gone. Instead, they’ve been replaced with fairly in-depth previews of upcoming titles (but ones that aren’t necessarily very close to release). The magazine has gone from a magazine aimed heavily to kids, to a magazine which is the stalwart bastion of the Hardcore Gamer who is a Nintendo fan. It helps that Nintendo Power has obtained some of it’s independence from Nintendo of America, allowing it to express opinions that are different from the proverbial Party Line. So, do I think the changes are for the better? Yes. Frankly, most modern games don’t need the same type of strategy guides older games did. Now, I’d prefer some that some of the previews were replaced with post-mortems for games that had already been released, but I’m fine with what we’ve gotten. I wouldn’t mind if they brought Counselor’s Corner back though. Filed under: Video games, Where I Read Tagged: Nintendo Power, video game magazines, Video games Source
-
Quality Control: The Empire Strikes Back (NES)
Count_Zero posted a blog entry in Dreams of the Red King
Get The Empire Strikes Back for the NES from eBay I previously reviewed the JVC Star Wars game that was made for the NES before the SNES came out. It wasn’t a good game. I’ll be honest–it was a very bad game. The shooting controls were bad, and some of the enemies were cheap as hell. However, now we have a game based on the second installment of the trilogy, and now I’m going to see what improvements they’ve made from the prior installment of the series. Now, I wasn’t able to beat the game, but I made it through far enough to get a fair cop about what the game would be like. The Premise If you don’t know the premise to The Empire Strikes back, go to your local library, video store, to Netflix, or even to YouTube. I’ll wait. You’re back? Good. Okay, the game follows that plot, though it focuses entirely on Luke and pads things out a bit, but not by too much. The Good We don’t get any enemies which are as on-nigh impossible to beat as the Bounty Hunters were in part 2, at least in the portion I made it through thus far. Additionally, they’ve re-balanced weapon damage some, where most regular enemies go down with one shot from a blaster, a few tougher enemies (like mini-probe droids) take multiple shots, and for bosses they’re essentially a pew-pew gun. However, Light-Sabers can take down the tougher enemies in a couple hits, and they’re more productive for bosses. Additionally, you can now shoot your blaster in 6 directions, like Contra, and you don’t have to hold the D-Pad (or an analog stick) in a particular direction to continue firing in that direction. Once you set your blaster to shoot to the lower right, upper right, straight up, or whatever, it keeps firing in that direction until you hit the D-Pad, this makes it easier to position yourself in a location where a tougher enemy (or a boss) can’t hit you, and you can keep firing until the enemy drops dead. The game also includes a super jump, which you can trigger by holding down on the D-Pad until you flash, and then you can jump to greater heights. Additionally, the game has force powers, such as force jump and force run that let you do the hither jump without having to hold Down first, or move faster, while using up some of your force bar. The game also includes power-ups that lets you use your force bar to pump up your lightsaber or blaster’s damage, and you even have a power that lets you deflect blaster bolts, an ability that, at this point in the series, had only been used in the training scene on the Falcon in the first movie and hadn’t been used in combat, which was a nice touch. The Bad Enemies have an unlimited re-spawn. Since the levels in the game are very expansive, the endless stream of enemies can make exploration hazardous. Additionally, the game doesn’t have a “tutorial” as it were. Yes, formalized tutorials were a feature of more modern PC and console games, but games like Mario and even Zelda gave the player a “tutorial” of sorts by requiring the player to do simpler tasks at first, and then requiring quicker reflexes or more complicated techniques later on in the game, after the player had learned the ropes earlier on. However, Empire Strikes Back throws you in feet first and hopes you can float. The Ugly The game handles resource management poorly. In the platforming stages you have to manage your force points. You have a limited number of force points in each stage. They don’t regenerate during the stage. While there are power-up items in each stage that can replenish force points, enemies don’t drop items that replenish force points the way they drop healing items. So, once you’re out during a boss fight (since you can’t retreat during a boss fight) you’re out. This issue, frankly, caused me the problems that kept me from continuing Similarly, in the obligatory Battle of Hoth stage, they limit the number of Tow Cables you have to five. They put you up against 10 AT-AT walkers. You can’t re-stock on Tow Cables. Now, when you’re on foot, you can insta-kill a walker by running up to it and doing the climb-up-a-rope-and-toss-a-grenade-inside thing that Luke does in the movie. It’s done pretty easily, it looks kinda cool, but there’s a catch. While you’re on foot you’re swarmed with snow troopers. However, unlike the snow troopers from earlier you can’t kill them in one shot with your blaster. Additionally, you can’t jump over them. Hitting the jump button sends you into the background briefly, and doesn’t move you forward. Also, you have to be perfectly lined up with the AT-AT to do the ground attack. While when you’re in a snow-speeder you do have blaster cannons, they’re entirely useless against the AT-ATs. I was able to get through the stage, but doing so was pretty annoying. The Verdict This game has improved a lot from the first game in the series, and fixed some of the specific problems I cited with the first game, including the targeting problems. However, the game isn’t without it’s faults that prevent it from going from just a decent game to a great game. Hopefully, the 16-bit version of this game will have the necessary improvements. Filed under: Quality Control, Video games Tagged: NES, Nintendo Power, video game magazines, Video games Source -
On to issue 34 of Nintendo Power. Our cover story is, well, a game that they’ve been covering off and on for several issues now. The game is Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and since it’s probably one of the most highly regarded Zelda games up until either Ocarina of Time or Majora’s Mask (depending on who you ask). I frankly think it’s a step down from last issue’s rather impressive TMNT cover art. The letters being printed this issue relate to the question, “Tell me what you want, what you really really want.” Well, they’ll tell you what they want, what they really really want. Yes, that’s right. I just referenced the Spice Girls. Anyway, kids being rather selfish beings, they want lots of games or candy or cash, all that sort of thing. However, one reader can be trusted to be inventive – he wants Nintendo Power boxer shorts, he even came up with a design, which he sent with the letter. Empire Strikes Back Guide Now, as you may recall from several issues back, I wasn’t impressed with the NES Star Wars game. Well, now we have Empire Strikes Back, and it includes force powers, and it’s also not going to end up as my Quality Control pick. I’ll tell you what, when we get to the 16-bit Star Wars games, I’ll give those a try. Anyway, we get a run down of the force powers, and some level maps, starting off with the Wampa cave, and then the following Ice Cave, where you face the probe droid. After that, we get a Battle of Hoth level (not the first, the first was in the Atari 2600 Empire Strikes Back arcade game). Being that this is an 8-bit system without Mode 7 graphics, the level kind of controls like Jungle Strike, except you only have two buttons on your controller, instead of the Genesis’ 3 (or 6) buttons. We then get a map of the Echo Base level (which has you trying to escape the Imperials), before giving a few notes on the Dagobah, and Cloud City levels. Terminator 2: Judgement Day Guide The Terminator series is getting it’s second bad video game. We get notes on the moves in the game, as well as a heads up that in the game there’s only one life and no continues We get maps of the first few stages (the truck stop at the start of the movie) the driving stage where you rescue John Connor. We also get a note here that after stage 2 (which is also where the game’s only continue is), you can only kneecap enemies, which you do by crouching. We also get a map of the hospital along with notes that the elevator rescue card that you need to progress is located randomly. Did I mention that if you die once it’s game over and there are no continues unless you got the one from level 2, that’s hidden. I can tell right now, that’s bad game design. Anyway, we also get a map of the Cyberdyne building (which looks incredibly generic), and the the foundary, which is the last part of the game. At least they don’t have you play the driving sequence with the SWAT truck vs the Helicopter, followed by the taco truck vs. the truck full of liquid Nitrogen. Nightshade Guide This is a semi-super-hero adventure game, but with a new IP. The title super-hero in this game wears an over-coat and hat like Darkman, but he’s got a bit of the Denny O’Neil The Question vibe. However, as this is an adventure game, some of the segments are action segments, and some are more investigative segments. Anyway, we get a map of some of the early areas of the game, as well as a map of the game’s city, along with a few puzzle hints. MC Kids Guide McDonalds has an advergame! We get maps of the first 6 stages. Legend of Zelda – A Link To The Past Comic This time we go to Ganon who is chewing out his minions for not defeating Link last issue. Meanwhile, Ganon’s forces are attempting to destroy the library of the village of Kakariko, where the Book of Mudora is kept. The book is also the next item Link needs to complete his quest. Bravely, Link rushes into the blaze, saving the book and the Librarian. Link is also given a glider which will help him on his way. The glider journeys to some desert ruins, where he gets the Pendant of Power. Yes, they drop a Nintendo Power reference here (as in “Now You’re Playing with the Pendant of Power”). Anyway, as this installment of the comic ends, Link finds himself facing a Lanmola, a giant monstrous centipede. Mega Man II (Game Boy) Guide This is a little different from the NES version of Mega Man II. For starters, the Robot Masters are different. This also introduces Quint, the game’s Mega Man Killer. Considering that each of the Mega Man Killers is named after a musical genre–the others being Enker (Enka), Punk, and Ballade (Ballad)–I don’t know what genre he’s supposed to be. We get maps of the stages for the first four Robot Masters: Clash Man, Metal Man, Wood Man, and Air Man. There are also a few notes for beating the last 4 Robot Masters: Needle Man, Magnet Man, Hard Man, and Top Man. Tiny Toon Adventures Guide They’re Tiny, they’re toony, they’ve already been on the NES, so now they’re taking it on the road. We get maps for the first 3 levels of the game as well as a few notes for level 4. High Stakes Guide This is, frankly, a casino game. Short of giving you advice on counting cards in Blackjack (which wouldn’t be much good in a computer game anyway, come to think about it), there isn’t much good this guide can really do for you, aside from selling you on the game. Super Mario Adventures Comic Last issue they introduced Yoshi. This issue, with much fear and trepidation, Mario and Luigi get to know Yoshi and visit Yoshi’s village. Meanwhile, Princess Peach and her bodyguards are being attacked by Spinies. Lemmings Guide I will be frank, there are some puzzle games where I’ve found that picture guides are more useful than descriptive guides. I could see Lemmings being one of those games. We get notes on getting the most of each of the types of Lemmings, as well as notes on beating some of the levels. Joe & Mac Guide Let me check when Bonk came out. Okay, so the first 3 Bonk games came out before this. My guess then is this is the point where Caveman based platformers became a genre. We get maps of every stage in the game (and notes on some, but not all, of the boss fights). Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past Guide We’d gotten a shorter Link to the Past guide a few issues ago, which focused on the very start of the game. This one’s a bit more expansive. How more expansive? Well, we get a complete overworld map of the Light World, and notes on getting through most of the major areas in the Light World, as well as some notes on the Dark World as well. The map of the Light World Nominees for the 1991 Nintendo Power Awards We’ve got the official ballot for the Power Awards. I’m going to post an image of the ballot, and then give who I’d vote for in each category. Here is your ballot. Graphics & Sound NES: Ninja Gaiden III Game Boy: Metroid II SNES: Super Castlevania IV [*]Theme & Fun NES: Battletoads (Because, ultimately, you want to keep slamming your head against the thrice accursed wall for a reason) Game Boy: Final Fantasy Adventure SNES: Super Mario World [*]Challenge NES: Battletoads Game Boy: Metroid II SNES: Super Ghouls & Ghosts [*]Play Control NES: Metal Storm Game Boy: R-Type SNES: Super Mario World [*](Skipping the Multi-Player)[*]Best Villain: Dr. Wily (why is Dracula not on here)[*]Most Innovative Game: Final Fantasy II (most innovative story for a US released console game for the time)[*]Best Overall NES: Tecmo Super Bowl Game Boy: Metroid II SNES: Super Mario World Nester’s Adventures This issue Nester is playing Rampart. For some bizarre reason they’re in the Napoleonic era, with Nester facing Napoleon, instead of, say, the medieval era, with Nester facing barbarian hordes or something. Now Playing I’m only going to be giving notes for the games that catch my attention. We start off the article with the Fire-fighting game Blazebusters for the NES, which is a bit like breakout, except you’ve got a blanket and you’re trying to catch people leaping from a burning building. They like it though they don’t have a lot to say about it. Next up is Godzilla 2, which has become more of a strategy game, and one that’s sort of like a Tower Defense Game, except instead of fending off hordes of enemies, it’s just one enemy, and the one enemy is Godzilla, Ghidora, or Mothra. George likes the more strategic take, while Rob likes something more action packed. Both guys thought Square Deal was a decent puzzle game, they thought Terminator II was poorly designed. They thought Wizardry II was only for the hardcore. There’s a Star Trek game with on the ground adventure segments followed by shump stages. They think it’s okay, though as a Star Trek fan, I’ll probably pass. Top 20 Mario is still on top of the charts on all 3 lists, with BattleToads right behind on the NES, F-Zero right behind on the SNES, and Metroid II right behind on the Game Boy. Celebrity Player Profiles This issue it’s Coren Nemec of Fox’s sitcom “Parker Lewis Can’t Lose”, since this, Coren has had a recurring role on Stargate SG-1 as something of a semi-replacement for Daniel Jackson, which meant he went over like a lead balloon. Other than that he’s had a few guest starring roles and similar sorts of work since then. Pak Watch This issue the notable upcoming titles are Super Wrestlemania, Test Drive II: The Duel, and various stuff from CES. My quality control pick for this issue is going to be, against my better judgement, Empire Strikes Back. While I wasn’t too impressed with the first game, hopefully the second game changes things up that I don’t want to throw my controller across the room. Filed under: Video games, Where I Read Tagged: Nintendo Power, video game magazines, Video games, Where I Read Source
-
Where I Read ? Electronic Gaming Monthly #84
Count_Zero posted a blog entry in Dreams of the Red King
Moving right along with the EGM recaps, we come to issue 84 for July of 1996. Our cover story for this issue is a series of Star Wars previews. To be specific, among other things, the big Star Wars mega-event Shadows of the Empire is coming out, in comic, novel and now video game form. Our Editorial from Ed Semrad talks about this year’s E3, which is also the second E3. Already it’s gotten really big really quick. On a bigger note, the Sendai Publication era of EGM is over. Ziff Davis has bought out Sendai Publications. I don’t want to be all cynical and grim and say that this was the beginning of the end for EGM or anything. However, the reason 1up was sold and EGM was closed, was because of the massive debts that Ziff Davis had incurred and poorly managed. Former EGM staffers like Dan “Shoe” Hsu have gone on record on podcasts about this. Unless Sendai Publications had the same debt problems (or worse), Ziff Davis hadn’t bought Sendai, EGM wouldn’t have ceased operations a year or so ago. That said, I am pleased as punch that it’s back, and that Steve Harris is back at the helm (though I should note that Steve Harris is still on the masthead as the Publisher for EGM on this issue). Anyway, with this issue, the roster of EGM that would later carry on to 1up continues to grow–Crispin Boyer is now on-board as an Associate Editor. I have no idea what he’s up to now. He left Ziff Davis in 2008, before the Great Purge. Press Start E3 1996 basically threw the price wars between Sega and Sony into sharp relief. Sega slashed the price for the Saturn in the US to $249 earlier in the year in an immediate price cut, and at E3 Sony did one of their own, slashing the price of the PlayStation to $199. Meanwhile, people finally got to take a look at the Nintendo 64, and they’re not too impressed with it from a hardware standpoint. From a software library standpoint, the system’s killer apps at this point are Shadows of the Empire and Super Mario 64. All that said, this is still just a hands-on demonstration of the system at E3. The N64 still isn’t in stores yet and reviewers haven’t gotten their debug units (to my knowledge). Also, Nintendo is announcing the Game Boy Pocket. It is what it says it is, a Game Boy that can fit in your pocket. Smaller, thinner, and with a better screen resolution. The Game Boy Color comes shortly later. Meanwhile, 3DO finally made a profit. No, really, it had never, ever, in the company’s history, made a profit, and it only made a profit this time because they licensed some of the technology behind the system to other companies. The system itself is not able to stand on its own. Going back to the Saturn, it’s getting a modem. My concern about the design is that the modem goes into the system’s console cartridge slot (the system has a cartridge slot and a CD-ROM Drive). Basically, this means that if you’re doing a game that’s designed for online multi-player, you can’t do it as a cartridge game. Review Crew This issue the Review Crew has been dramatically changed from last issue, to a form more familiar to EGM readers who came aboard more recently. The crew this issue is Shawn Smith, Dan “Shoe” Hsu, Crispin Boyer, and Sushi-X. Fade to Black (Electronic Arts, PlayStation): Flashback has gotten a narrative sequel, one that changes the game-play style to a side-scrolling action game to a 3rd person action game. The game has excellent animations, like the earlier 2 games in the series. Also, like the earlier 2 games, this one controls well, at least by 1996 standards. The game gets an 8.5 from Shawn and a 7.5 from Shoe. Crispin gives the game an 8, and he also mentions that a lot of the traps tend to be instagibs. Sushi also gives the game an 8. Overall: 32/40, and it receives the Editor’s Choice Gold Award and is Game of the Month. Arcade Classics (Sega of America, Sega Genesis): This is a collection of various other arcade classics from developers other than Sega. Stuff like Pong, Centipede and Missile Command and that’s it. The problem is that all the ports are bad. Shawn, Shoe and Christian give the game 4s, citing bad graphics on the ports, limited selection (compared to the other retro arcade collections, and the controls aren’t very good as well. It doesn’t help that 2 out of 3 of these games used track balls in the arcade, and the 3rd used a paddle controller. Sushi feels that these games should never have been re-released at all and gives it a 3.5. Overall: 15.5/40. Shining Wisdom (Working Designs, Sega Saturn): We have a new game in the Shining series, and it’s not being published by Sega. The problem is that it’s semi-generic. Shawn doesn’t like RPGs very much, but he doesn’t like the fact that this RPG rips on another RPG and gives it a 5.5. Crispin also gives it a 5.5, finding that the game doesn’t really cut it, particularly considering the poor music, and ultra-linear plot. Shoe finds it very generic and without much character, and gives it a 5. Sushi has the highest score with a 6, saying that if the game had come out a year or two prior, on a cartridge, it would have been much more highly regarded, but now it’s just behind the times. Overall: 22/40. Shellshock (U.S. Gold, Saturn): This looks like a Tank simulator. Shawn & Dan give it 5s, with the main criticisms being with the pacing of the game, and the game tries to have some sort of bizarre hip-hop gangsta attitude. Crispin gives it a 6, adding to Dan’s criticisms the fact that the game’s levels are far too small, making it easy to accidentally stray from the level’s boundaries, causing an unintended Game Over. Sushi gives it a 4.5, finding the gangsta attitude grating and the game-play repetitive, though he does applaud the fact that U.S. Gold is willing to take risks with new game types. Overall: 20.5/40. Wipeout (Sega of America, Saturn): Port of Psygnosis’s high-speeds sci-fi racing game. Shawn gives the game a 7, lauding the weapons and the speed of the racing. Shoe considers the controls way too floaty, enough that it’s a deal-breaker, and gives it a 5.5. Crispin and Sushi give the game 8s, considering it an excellent successor to F-Zero. Overall: 28.5/40 Golden Axe: The Duel (Sega, Saturn): Considering the failure of the brawler genre from around this time, I can kind of understand why they decided to make the next game in the Golden Axe series a fighting game, but that doesn’t mean that it’s a good move. Shawn, Dan and Sushi give the game 6s, and the three agree that the game is fairly generic and uninspired. Crispin gives it a 6.5 for the same reasons. Overall: 24.5/40. Alone in the Dark (THQ, Saturn): The first Survival Horror game finally comes to the Saturn… after Resident Evil came out on the PlayStation. Shawn & Sushi give the game 5s, citing the fact that while Resident Evil included a certain degree of auto-targeting (if you were facing in the right direction) this doesn’t. Plus there’s a lack of clarity in some scenes. Crispin gives it a 4, because of the poor (even for the time) graphics and worse control, and he doesn’t like the fixed camera angles. Dan gives it a 3 for the same reasons that Crispin gave it a 4. Overall: 17/40. Top Gun: Fire At Will (Spectrum Holobyte, PlayStation): Combat flight sim. Shawn, Crispin and Sushi give it 6s, saying that the story is better then Air (Ace) Combat’s story, but the missions are somewhat repetitive. Dan also gives it a 5 because of the repetitive missions. Overall: 23/40. Horned Owl (SCEA, PlayStation): This is a light-gun game. Or rather, since the PlayStation doesn’t have a light gun yet, it’s a shooter you play with the directional pad (D-pad). Ugh. I wouldn’t mind playing this with a light gun. I wouldn’t mind playing this with a mouse. I wouldn’t mind playing this with an analog stick. I’ll pass on playing this with a D-pad. Shawn gives it a 6.5, saying that while you’re playing this with the D-pad, the game still controls pretty well anyway, though it’s unfortunately too easy. The difficulty also leads to Dan giving it a 6 and, for that matter, Crispin giving it a 7. My mistake, Sushi is able to play the game with a Light Gun, and says it’s even more fun with the light gun, and gives it a 7.5. Overall: 27/40. Metal Slug (SNK, Neo-Geo): SNK’s longest lasting run-and-gun shooter series has begun. Shawn & Sushi give it 7s, but they disagree with why, sort of. Both think that the unlimited continues that all Neo-Geo games have slows the amount of time it takes to beat the game, and they also agree that it reduces the replay value. However, Shawn feels that it has no replay value at all. Shawn feels that there is some replay value, but not much. Dan and Crispin give it 7.5s, applauding the game’s character (as opposed to the characters in the game, though they tie togeather). Overall: 29/40. Kirby’s Blockball (Nintendo, Game Boy): This is basically an adaptation of Arkanoid with a Kirby theme. Shawn gives it an 8, lauding how the game puts a new spin the Arkanoid formula, and also appreciating the game’s save feature. Dan gives it an 8.5 for a similar reason, though he’d rather that the game’s ball physics were better. Crispin and Sushi give the game 7.5s, finding the game too easy (and Sushi has some problems with the controls). Overall: 31.5/40 Gaming Gossip Namco is working on Tekken 3. Q-Mann is predicting late 1997 or early 1998 for the release of Mortal Kombat 4 in arcades, which is a pretty good guess, Wikipedia says the game is released on October 17th in arcades. Sony has killed Vic Tokai’s entire lineup for the PlayStation, as well as Tecmo’s lineup. Capcom is also giving Sony an ultimatum – give us more latitude in making our next Mega Man game, or we jump ship and take all our IPs elsewhere, like the Saturn. Considering how console history turned out, I’d say Sony let Capcom have their way. Rare is working on Donkey Kong 64. Speaking of the N64, Nintendo is considering dropping the N64 to the $200 price point, with a $250 SKU with a Mario 64 pack in. Finally, Sony’s working on a modem for the PlayStation (which doesn’t amount to anything). Feature Articles We start out with our run down of all the upcoming Star Wars games. We get some coverage of Shadows of the Empire and Rebel Assault 2, as well as Dark Forces, with the first and the last game getting the most coverage. I’m surprised they don’t mention the Live Action video cut-scenes for Rebel Assault 2, especially considering that the game had the first new life-action footage shot for any official (as opposed to fan-made) Star Wars related project after the release of Return of the Jedi. We also get a look at the newer, “ultra-realistic” (uh-huh) fighting game Kumite: The Fighter’s Edge, which is also vaporware. Considering how much they’re hyping it over not only Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter, but Tekken and Virtua Fighter as well, they set themselves a very high bar to beat. We continue with the more direct E3 coverage. The notable games getting some coverage include Killer Instinct 64 (the system’s first fighting game listed), Mario Kart 64 (the system’s first racing game), Blast Corps (a game which requires that you destroy everything in the way of a rampaging vehicle), Starfox 64, Cruisin’ USA (yeah, it’s a racing game too, but Mario Kart is a lap-based racing game, while Crusin’ is more point-to-point). There’s also in the FPS front Turok: Dinosaur Hunter and Doom 64. Williams is publishing War Gods and Mortal Kombat Trilogy. There’s also a Robotech game which I think becomes vaporware. For the SNES we have another Donkey Kong Country game. The PlayStation is getting a Batman Forever fighting game, or maybe it’s a brawler–the screen shot makes it look like a fighting game. Psygnosis is working on a City of Lost Children licensed game. I have to admit that’s probably one of the movies that I can’t imagine getting a licensed game. The PlayStation is also getting ports of Final Doom and Duke Nukem 3D, as well as Quake. Crystal Dynamics is working on a Ghost Rider licensed game (which I think becomes vaporware). Sony Interactive is putting out Twisted Metal 2, and Williams is also putting out Mortal Kombat Trilogy on the PlayStation as well. Mindscape is working on a game based on Marvel’s cyberpunk-ish Marvel 2099 universe. On the Adventure game front, we’re getting a second Diskworld game. Square is branching out into fighting games with Tobal No. 1, and Konami’s getting into RPGs with Suikoden. Frank Miller’s comic through Dark Horse Hard Boiled is getting adapted to a video game. Command & Conquer is getting ported from the PC to the PlayStation. There’s a licensed game based on the second The Crow movie. Policenauts is set to get a US release on the Saturn, but it doesn’t pan out. Koei’s porting PTO 2 and Aerobiz 2000 to the Saturn. Tecmo’s also putting the first Dead or Alive game out on the Saturn. Next Wave We’re starting off with Kirby’s Super Star for the SNES, which is 8 different games in one. Or, to be more accurate, it’s 8 different Kirby stories in one game, each with a limited number of levels, with some having different game mechanics. The Genesis is getting Bugs Bunny in Double Trouble, which adapts several Bugs Bunny cartoons to video game levels (including Duck, Rabbit, Duck — the “Rabbit Season! Duck Season!” cartoon), which requires the player to beat the level in a similar way to the way Bugs triumphed in the cartoon. There also is some coverage of Arcade Classics for the Genesis–coverage that looks much more favorable then the final Review Crew scores were. Anyway, moving on to stuff that wasn’t in the Review Crew section, Virgin Interactive is working on Hyper 3D Pinball for the Saturn, which has at least 4 tables, going by the pictures, though they don’t give a precise number. Virgin’s also working on the Smash TV-style shooter Grid Runner for the PlayStation. We also get a proper preview of Iron Man/XO-Manowar in Heavy Metal for the PlayStation, which is a crossover game with the indy comic Power Suited hero and the Marvel Comics Power Suited hero. Letters We start off this issue with another political controversy over video games. Specifically, this is related to Primal Rage. You see, one of the characters has a finisher where he urinates over his opponent. It’s bathroom humor and I’m not a big fan of that sort of thing. So, a mother saw this finisher, was upset about this (not that I avoided the obvious joke), and passed around a petition (signed by, among others, Bob Dole) demanding that the game be pulled off store shelves. Best Buy (the retailer who the mother got the game from for her son) complied, and the game was re-submitted to the ESRB for re-rating. The game had previously received a teen rating, and still received a Teen Rating. However, Best Buy still kept the Genesis copy off shelves, because that’s the copy the mother was most upset about, even though the finisher is in all the other versions of the game as well. Tempest in a teapot. We also get a brief discussion of texture mapped polygons, and how they’re used for providing realistic graphics (and still are). We also get a letter from a spelling Nazi taking them to task for misspelling Sakura’s name in their coverage of Street Fighter Alpha 2. Of course, any Grammar Flame would not be complete without a spelling or grammar error, and this one the world misspell misspelled. Also, the version of X-Perts that EGM reviewed last issue was incomplete. They will re-review the game when they get a finished version. Filed under: Video games, Where I Read Tagged: EGM, video game magazines, Video games, Where I Read Source -
Get Peter Gunn from Amazon.com If you’re reading this, and live in the United States, you know what the Peter Gunn theme is. You’ve heard it played by your High School Band (or played it yourself), you’ve heard it while playing Spy Hunter, or in a few movies. If say you haven’t heard the Peter Gunn theme before, then you’re probably lying. However, if you said you hadn’t watched Peter Gunn, I’d probably believe you. For a TV series with one of the memorable themes in the history of television, it’s surprisingly not well known outside of the Baby Boomer generation. My decision to watch this series comes from my appreciation of hard-boiled detective stories. I got hooked on the genre when I was a kid, through the “Tracer Bullet” persona that Calvin would occasionally take on in Calvin and Hobbes strips. Those strips would later lead me to the works of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, and other works of the hard-boiled detective genre (along with works which were a pastiche of the genre, like the Max Payne video games, and like Frank Miller’s Sin City). However, while the hard boiled detective often could be found on the printed page, I couldn’t find him often, necessarily, on the screen, big or otherwise. The film adaptations and homages were there – Blade Runner, Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, Chinatown, not to mention TV series like the anime Cowboy Bebop, but considering the prolific amount of work in writing in this genre, the dearth seemed surprising. Then I found out that Peter Gunn, the series that birthed the classic piece of music, was out on DVD. I knew the music pretty well. My parents owned the soundtrack record on vinyl, and it was one of the record I listened to heavily when I was a kid, along with Led Zeppelin IV, Horslips’ Man Who Built America and Book of Invasions, the Star Wars soundtrack, and The Moody Blues’ Days of Future’s Past. However, I knew nothing of the TV series. I came in with a blank slate. All I knew was that the music was good. In short, this series impressed me immensely. I’d grown accustomed to episodic programming with classic television, and this was no exception. However, the writing of the series was very impressive, and the way the stories on the show were told felt like they would have fit in the present day just as well as in the past. The show follows Peter Gunn, a private investigator in an un-named city, which has elements of Chicago, as well as a bit of Los Angeles and New York. Rather than waiting around in an office for his cases like Spade & Marlowe, Gunn operates out of Mother’s, a jazz club near the waterfront, run by the woman whose name is on the joint. The structure of each episode basically goes like this – a crime happens, usually a murder. Someone connected to the victim (or the current suspect), hires Gunn to find out who (really) did it. Gunn investigates, and he’s informed when he’s on the right track by some goons who work for the perpetrator who beat Gunn up in a vain attempt to persuade him to take up a hobby, like knitting. Gunn continues down the line of inquiry that he was warned off from, and catches the criminal. Now, that all sounds pretty standard, but it’s how the story is executed that makes it great. First, this is a TV series of the 50s, and Gunn is a modern, hip person of that era. He doesn’t just operate out of Mother’s because he gets inexpensive drinks and the proprietor is a good source of information, he operates out of Mother’s because he listens to Jazz and his girlfriend sings there. Further, the character gets along well with musicians and beatniks. As a part of this, Jazz music is featured prominently in many episodes, being performed live, and often Jazz musicians are suspects, and informants. We also get some occasional Beat Poetry as well (nothing at the level of Howl of course, but some counter-cultural stuff nonetheless). Gunn regularly interacts with minorities as well. Aside from ethnic minorities like Hispanics, Italian-Americans, Eastern Europeans, and Asians, there is also a particularly memorable one of Gunn’s informants, who had a recurring role, who is a Little Person who is also a pool shark. The role is particularly notable because the person’s stature has nothing to do with the script. The role could have just as easily been performed by an person of normal stature, which leads me to believe that it was the performance of the actor that made the role, instead of the necessities of the script. The dialog in the script themselves is quick and snappy, with some of the witticisms that currently makes Joss Whedon’s work appeal to some people, but before Joss was ever born. It helps that the cast develops a lot of chemistry very quickly, particularly with the character of Gunn and his friend and contact on the police force, Lieutenant Jacobi. Also, the ways the cases are laid out is also solid and consistent, with the writers never cheating about the outcome (at least, not that I noticed). This series is, frankly, one of the best detective series in the history of television, and especially one of the best hard boiled detective series. You owe it to yourself to watch this show. Filed under: Television Tagged: DVD, review, TV Source
-
Quality Control ? Legend of the Mystical Ninja
Count_Zero posted a blog entry in Dreams of the Red King
Buy this from eBay The Legend of the Mystical Ninja series is a game series I’ve heard a fair amount about in the past. I’ve heard that it’s a good game series, and I’ve heard it’s got a tongue in cheek atmosphere. Despite all this, I’ve never taken the time to try any of the games in the series. Maybe it’s because many of the more lighthearted 16-bit games I’ve played haven’t been that good. Maybe it’s because of a certain degree of cognitive dissonance – for me the definitive ninja game series is the Ninja Gaiden series, and that definitely takes itself seriously. So, this last issue of Nintendo Power finally got me to knuckle down and try out the first Legend of the Mystical Ninja game. The Premise You are Master Ninja thief Goemon (Kid Yang in the English version – I’m not sure why). After Princess Yuki is kidnapped by the mysterious Otafu army, Goemon and his perverted companion Ebisumaru set out to rescue her. How do I know Ebisumaru is a pervert? Well, he’s got a bandanna tied around his head the same way Happosai does when he’s going on a panty raid, so I figure it’s safe to assume that that particular bit of character design is visual shorthand for “pervert”. The Good So, one of my favorite NES games is River City Ransom. Part of this is because the game is an excellent combination of your Double Dragon-style side-scrolling beat-em-up and your semi-non-linear RPG. While Legend of the Mystical Ninja has a more linear structure to it, it does bring some of the RPG upgrade structure to the table. The Bad No save system, instead you have to write down a password made up of not only letters & numbers, but also some punctuation marks and symbols. Look, just because there are hearts in the ASCII character list doesn’t mean you have to use them. Look, I do understand why you didn’t include a battery save option (cost), but there has to be a better way. The Ugly The password system in and of itself isn’t ugly – it’s just an annoyance, which is why it’s under “The Bad”. What is ugly though, is how you get your password – you have to go to a specific building in each level to get your password. The building isn’t labeled. It also isn’t at the beginning of the level – you have to look for it. If you can’t find it and aren’t playing on an emulator with save states, then you’re in trouble. Additionally, each level has a time limit. It’s a generous one, 999 seconds, but as near as I can tell, the only reason it’s there is to keep you from just grinding repeatedly for cash until you hit the max. That’s not particularly a good enough reason. It’s better to take the River City Ransom route and not give a time limit at all. The Verdict I really had fun playing this game. While I said at the beginning that I’d heard a lot of good things about this game series, basically where I heard all this was from retro gaming sites and retro gaming magazines. Most people I’ve run into in the “real world” haven’t heard of it, or aren’t big “fans” of the series – not the same way River City Ransom has built up a following. I’d definitely recommend this game, especially for someone who liked River City Ransom, but thought it needed more direction. 9 out of 10. Filed under: Quality Control, Video games Tagged: Nintendo Power, Quality Control, SNES, Video games Source -
Moving on to the Nintendo Power Recaps, we come to issue #33 for February of 1992. Our cover story for this issue is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project. The art is definitely continuing the improvement in the cover art that started last issue. Our letters column features of people with their copies of Nintendo Power while on vacation across the world and by across the world I mean, across the continental US and in Indonesia. What, you couldn’t manage pictures from Canada or Mexico? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III Guide The turtles are getting their third game, something similar to the Arcade game, but with a few differences. We get a run-down of the Turtles and their special moves. We get maps of all 6 stages, which will take you to the fight with Shredder. That one you’ll have to handle on your own. This is, currently, the only Turtles game I haven’t played yet. This makes a good qualifier for a Quality Control pick. G.I. Joe: The Atlantis Factor Guide Capcom’s now getting their crack at a G.I. Joe game, one that takes a few cues from Bionic Commando. We get advice on the fastest route to beat the game, as well as the best route to beat the game. We get maps of Routes 1-4, and areas A, B, and C. Rampart Guide We get a guide for the first Tower Defense Game, one that doesn’t get nearly enough credit, in my opinion. We get a few strategies for success in the game. Since it’s not like you can do level maps for this game. Bart vs. The World Guide The guide starts off with notes on the items you can collect, and gives some notes on some of the areas you travel to, but no level maps – specifically the first 3 areas. The Legend of Zelda – A Link To The Past Comic So, in our second installment, Link is on the run from the forces of Ganon, and looking for the Seven Sages who in turn will hopefully tell him the location of the Master Sword. This comic also has the best depiction of the Master Sword that I’ve seen to date. That is the modern date. Anyway, Link finds one of the sages, who tells him that, essentially, he needs to collect the three pieces of the Triforce (well, they don’t call it the Triforce, but it’s close enough for government work) in order to unlock the power of the Master Sword. Link is given the Amulet of Courage, which will guide him to the pieces of the Triforce, and also gives him great strength. He’s also told that the pieces of the Tri-Force will each grand him additional powers that will help him defeat Ganon and save both the Princess and Hyrule. With his new powers and an idea of what his next move is going to be. Link sets out to continue his battle against Ganon. Gradius: The Interstellar Assault Guide Speaking of good art, the first page of this section has the best depiction of the Vic Viper I’ve ever seen. Anyway, this is the second Gradius game for the Game Boy. We get notes on the various weapons you can unlock in the game, as well as detailed maps, with notes, on 5 of the stages. As a shump fan, this one’s also tempting me to pick it for my Quality Control column. Super Hunchback Guide I have no idea what this game is about. From what I can tell, it’s a platformer, and that’s about it. We get maps of the first 3 stages of the game, as well as notes on collectibles. Terminator 2: Judgement Day Guide The blockbuster film is getting a licenced Game Boy Game from LJN. We get notes on the first four stages of the game, but not the 5th and final stage – which is fine because it’s not a good game anyway. Game Boy Arcade Classics We have notes about the Game Boy ports of Q*Bert and Asteroids. Not much else to say – they’re Q*Bert and Asteroids, except monochrome. Super Mario Adventures Comic So, last issue Bowser revealed himself as the root cause of all of the Mushroom Kingdom’s troubles (what else is new). In this chapter, the Koopa Kids emerge, and Bowser (*sigh*) raps. Anyway, Bowser turns much of the people of the Mushroom Kingdom to stone (including Mario), and tells Peach that if she doesn’t agree to marry him, he’ll never turn them back. He leaves, and Peach follows, intending to force him to turn the people of the Mushroom Kingdom back. Luigi manages to get Mario turned back thanks to a member of the Mushroom court who wasn’t transformed who knew a obscure massage/pressure point technique. Mario and Luigi then leap into the pipe that Peach went down, and find themselves in another world–and they find Yoshi. </p>Behold the anatomically correct tanooki! Legend of the Mystical Ninja Guide We’re now in the Super Nintendo section of the magazine, and we have a guide for the first Legend of the Mystical Ninja game. We also get an anatomically correct picture of a Tanooki. No, really. Anyway, As a quick note, apparently our hero, Goemon, got renamed to Kid Yang for the US release. I’m not sure why. Anyway, we get a map of the first zone, as well as notes on the next four zones. Again, this game is another serious contender for Quality Control, as I’ve heard good things about the Legend of the Mystical Ninja series. We also get some very nice village maps. Ys III: Wanderer from Ys Guide I think this is the first case where we’ve had an Nintendo system get a sequel to a game that didn’t appear on a Nintendo System. Not only that, but it’s even getting a guide in a Nintendo Power. So, we get some maps and notes on what level you need to be at to get through what areas of the game. This doesn’t give you precise maps though. Also, the Ys series is more RPG than platformer (though the format of this one is one of a platformer), so the best you can get is the recommended order of places to go. Super Scope 6 Guide The SNES now finally has a light gun, and it comes with bundled games, and we’ve got a guide for those games. Yay! What’s this, it’s just a collection of mini-games? Boo! Nester’s Adventures This issue, Nester is teaming up with Simon Belmont in Super Castlevania IV. The strip includes a good one-shot joke in the first panel, with the gates of Dracula’s castle reading “Beware of Everything”. It’s funny because it’s true. Now Playing Well, they brought George & Rob back. So, either the 3rd party publishers haven’t had a chance to react or they haven’t pissed them off enough yet. They liked Bart Vs. The World and TMNT III, though they feel that Shredder & Co have become rather tired as villains. Unfortunately, Konami’s limited to the same group of villains that the then-current animated series had. There’s also a review of the fishing game The Blue Marlin which is fairly unfavorable. They also played Cyberball, which is a port of an arcade football game with a futuristic theme which . King’s Quest V was ported to the NES, and while they liked the writing and the puzzle design (who likes Roberta Williams puzzle design?) but the controls for movement are apparently poor. They thought Bucky O’Haire was good for a kids game – and that Blaster Master Boy was a good adaptation of the NES version of Blaster Master to the NES. There’s also a Game Boy Darkman game, which is more of a brawler than the action-platformer the NES version was (which may be for the best). They’re going to hold off on reviews of SNES games though until next issue. Top 20 This issue the Mario Bros are sweeping all three Nintendo systems, NES, Game Boy and SNES. Celebrity Profiles Our profiles this issue are of Darius McCrary and Kellie Williams of Family Matters. I remember the show, I don’t remember the actors. Williams has done various small sitcom projects since Family Matters, Darius is currently on Young and the Restless. As far as mention of video games go, they basically just talk about their favorite games to play when they’re not on set, which is stuff like Super Off Road and that sort of thing. Pak Watch This issue’s first title is a semi-doozy, Contra III. I hope you all know what Contra is. EA is also launching their EA Sports Network concept – which is essentially the umbrella label for their sports games. Finally, we have our preview of next issue, which features more coverage of Link to The Past. We also have coverage of the NES versions of Terminator II and The Empire Strikes Back. The Game Boy is also getting Mega Man II. As for my pick for this issue, I’m going with Legend of the Mystical Ninja. I figured I’d probably want to hold off from another Game Boy game, and while I do want to play Ys III, I want to play Ys I & 2 first, as there is some continuity there. Filed under: Video games, Where I Read Tagged: Nintendo Power, video game magazines, Video games, Where I Read Source
-
Where I Read ? Electronic Gaming Monthly #83
Count_Zero posted a blog entry in Dreams of the Red King
So, when I was recapping the last issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, I didn’t cover the issue’s editorial. That’s because it didn’t have one that I could find. However, we’re now on issue #83 for June of 1996 and we have an editorial column this issue. First, I do need to mention that this issue’s cover features Sonic The Hedgehog and the new wave of 3D platforming games. Anyway, the editorial column for this issue, unfortunately, steps into the territory of describing the stuff that’s in the table of contents, which is a little disappointing considering that EGM has had some of the best editorials in the history of video game magazines. Also, while I’m not a typography geek, I really don’t like the typeface they use to for the table of contents. If someone knows the name of that type face it would be nice to know so I don’t use it in the future. Press Start Sega has unveiled the Saturn 2.0 – which can best be described as a slightly cheaper version of the Saturn. We get some discussion of the changes for the system, both from the innards (including a smaller physical motherboard, and moves the I/O board onto the motherboard instead of having it on a separate board like the original, replacing some metal parts with plastic parts), as well as making the unit physically smaller. However, they dumped the CD-ROM access LED, which is in my opinion a bad move, the access LED is helpful for telling when your system locked up because of a buggy game. Also, the system is going for $199. This is opposed to the N64 which is going for $250. Let’s make this clear: the Sega Saturn, which we know through 20/20 hindsight failed, is running for less than the N64 and has a bigger software library. This says rather impressive things about the loyalty of Nintendo’s fan base. We also get a comparison of the US and Japanese Sega Saturn Controllers. In short, the Japanese Saturn controller kicks the US controller’s butt. We even have reviews – which (by the way) is the first time Dan “Shoe” Hsu gets his name on an article in EGM. By means of explanation, at this point in EGM’s history, articles didn’t have bylines, so there’s no way to tell who wrote what, outside of the Review Crew segment and stuff like this. Nintendo’s also working on a 32-bit color portable code-named “Project Atlantis”, a project which (according to an article by Jeremy Parish for 1up’s Retronauts blog) laid the groundwork for the later Game Boy Advance. Also, the Saturn port of King of Fighters ‘94 is set to use both the system’s CD-ROM drive and a cartridge for optimal performance… which is also why the Saturn didn’t do as well as the N64 or the PlayStation – the PlayStation had enough memory built in that it didn’t need a cartridge slot, and the N64 had minimal loading times for all it’s fighting games. Review Crew As before the crew is Andrew Baran, Mark Lefebvre, Mike Desmond and The Man, The Myth, The Legend, Sushi X. Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (Midway, Saturn): The agreement is that it’s a good port of the arcade version but with the same problem that all the other ports of the game have – loading times–especially when it comes to Shang Tsung’s transformation ability. Andrew and Sushi give the game 9s, Mike gives the game a 8.5, and Mark gives it an 8. Overall: 34.5/40 and it receives the Editor’s Choice Gold Award and Game Of The Month. X-Perts (Sega of America, Genesis): It’s a side-scrolling action game, and a bland one. By bland I mean in the sense that I suspect the Developer said “Oh Jesus God we haven’t finished the Saturn engine, churn out another Genesis game to buy us time while we try to finish this, and to save money use an existing IP.” My basis on this is the fact that the game is set in the Eternal Champions universe, a universe which barely merited one sequel in the same genre but is now getting a spin-off in a separate genre with a character who I can’t be arsed to remember the name of. However, that’s just the whipped “cream” and cherry on top of the fecal matter sundae. The fact that the animations are terrible, the enemies are generic (as are the missions) makes a game that is undoubtedly mediocre. Andrew and Mike give the game 5.5s, Sushi gives it a 5, and Mark gives it a 4.5 Overall: 20.5/40. Williams Arcade Classics (Williams, PlayStation): Our second series of retro arcade classics. Everything old is new again. Being that the first release of MAME came out in 1997, the year after we got the Namco and Williams arcade collections, I kind of wonder if these collections lead to the start of the retro revival that brought us MAME, and maybe some other emulation programs. Unfortunately, due to the de-facto illegality of emulation software, I doubt that we’ll get the episode of Retronauts on emulation that would get us the proof on this. Andrew and Sushi give the game 8.5s, Mike gives it a 7, and Mark gives it a 7.5. Overall: 31.5/40. Battle Arena Toshinden 2 (Playmates, PlayStation): Ah, the days when Playmates wasn’t just an action-figure manufacturer, it was a video game publisher as well. Anyway, the Toshinden games strike a balance between the flashy over-the-top Street Fighter style action, and the more grounded and semi-realistic Virtua Fighter and Tekken games. Mark, Mike and Sushi give the game 8s, while Andrew gives it an 8.5. Overall: 32.5/40 and it receives the Editor’s Choice Gold Award. PO’d (Accolade, PlayStation): This is a first person shooter that’s been heavily advertised in EGM for the past few issues, but I’ve been ignoring it because it sounds terrible. Well, it’s just average. Part of this is because, well, they call this a Doom Clone instead of just a FPS, and to be honest, I think I’ve finally figured out what makes a FPS a Doom Clone and when it’s just a FPS. It’s the story. In a Doom clone there story is, essentially, “There are monsters, kill them and get to the exit.” Nothing more. However, when the FPS genre starts maturing, we start getting story to string the missions togeather, with games like Star Wars: Dark Forces. However, from a story standpoint, this is no Dark Forces. That said, Mike liked it and gave it a 7. Andrew gives it a 6.5, Mark gives it a 5, and Sushi gives it a 6. Overall: 24.5/40. Blazing Dragons (Crystal Dynamics, PlayStation): A fantasy point & click adventure game. Andrew isn’t normally a fan of this genre, because of all the other games in this genre require “pixel bitching” as a way to solve puzzles, as well as the kind of obscure “logic” that’s required to solve some puzzles. He had fun with this game though, and the rest of the Crew thought it was one of the best P&C Adventure Games on the PlayStation. Andrew gives it a 7.5, Mark & Mike give it 8s, and Sushi gives it a 8.5. Overall: 32/40 and it receives an Editor’s Choice Gold Award. Guardian Heroes (Sega of America, Saturn): This may be the side-scrolling beat-em-up’s last hurrah. It has multiple paths you can take, multiple characters you can play as, flashy magic effects and the ability to juggle enemies. It even has a system that lets you level up. Is it any surprise that it was developed by Treasure? The biggest complaints are that that some levels seem short, and that the versus mode can be unbalanced, depending on which character you’re fighting as. Andrew & Sushi give it 8.5s, Mark gives it a 7.5 and Mike give it an 8. Overall: 32.5/40 and it receives an Editor’s Choice Gold Award. Congo (Sega of America, Saturn): This is probably one of the worst titles for the Saturn. It’s a licenced game based on the film, the environments seem to blur together, you die easily, and the frame-rate is low. The only favorable reviews from the Crew (by which I mean with scores that broke 6) fall back on the “If you liked the movie…” schtick, which I’ve already mentioned is bad writing. Andrew and Sushi give it 6s, Mark gives it a 4, and Mike gives it a 4.5. Overall: 20.5/40 Toshinden Remix (Sega of America, Saturn): This is a port of Battle Arena Toshinden I. Andrew thinks it’s an excellent port, but he’s the only one. The voices were re-dubbed for the worse, the controls were redone for the worse, and everything else in the game was left unchanged – which adds up to a worse game. Andrew gives it a 7.5, Mark gives it a 3.5, Mike gives it a 4.5, and Sushi gives it a 5.5. Overall: 21/40. Art of Fighting 3 (SNK, Neo-Geo): So, the main complaint with this particular installment in this series is that the animations are a little choppy, and that the desperation moves are over powered. What are the desperation moves you say? I’m glad you asked. It’s a really powerful move that you can pull off when you’re at 25% health, which can knock down your opponent’s health by 50%, and is unblockable. They think it’s unbalanced. I think it’s the grand equalizer, because while you can’t block it, depending on the move and animation you may be able to avoid it. When you hit a point where you’re able to use a desperation move in a game like this, it’s either going to end the game because both players are even in terms of skill, or it will even up the health bars because the winning player is curb-stomping the other. Mind you, if the winner is then reduced to 25%, then the other scenario comes in, but we’ll leave that aside. Ultimately though, the Crew isn’t impressed. Andrew gives the game a 5.5, Mark & Sushi give the game 5s, and Mike gives it a 4.5. Overall: 20/40. Baku Baku Animal (Sega of America, Game Gear): This is basically a block matching except instead of blocks they’re fruit. However, it got good reviews. Andrew and Mark give it 7s, Mike gives it a 7.5, and Sushi gives it an 8. Overall: 29.5/40. Gaming Gossip Another issue, another bunch of gaming gossip. The N64DD has now gotten it’s official name. Acclaim has dumped their 16-bit cartridge business, and ate $50 million over this. That is not small potatoes. EA is also still supporting the SNES and Genesis with versions of Madden. Also, the next Mortal Kombat game (MK4 for you playing the home game) isn’t going to use digitized actors. Crystal Dynamix got the rights to make a couple Marvel Comics games. We also get a big two-page ad for Nuke.com, which is rather impressive except that I forgot that we’re right in the middle of the .com bubble. Feature Articles We get a look at our upcoming major 3D action games, starting off with a preview of Super Mario 64. There’s also a look at Crash Bandicoot, the first 3D platformer for the PlayStation from Naughty Dog, who has left platformers behind in favor of work on the (in my opinion) far superior Uncharted series. Meanwhile Accolade is working on Bubsy 3D. Crystal Dynamics also has Pandemonium. Sega’s also got NiGHTs into Dreams and Sonic 3D (which later becomes the not-very-good Sonic 3D Blast). There’s also a look at the titles on display at ECTS, or the European Computer Trade Show. There is one notable title that goes get mentioned here, but if you blink you miss it – a title called Grand Theft Auto, with no developer or publisher listed. The Japanese PlayStation lineup has a few more notable titles to it, including from Capcom Resident Evil II, Mega Man X3 and Marvel Super Heroes. There’s also a 3D Ranma 1/2 game set to come out for the PlayStation, but I don’t believe it gets a US port. We also get a 2-page ad for the Saturn which is, to my knowledge, their first attempt to overtly use sex to sell a console system instead of using gross out humor or regular innuendo. Sex sells, whodathunkit? Next Wave Things are not quite dead on the 16-bit front. The SNES is getting a sequel to Lufia, subtitled “Rise of the Sinestrals” (as this is actually, secretly, a prequel to the first game). We also get more information on The X-Perts, including a valuable piece of information about the game that didn’t make it into the review–you can’t really pause the game. You can go to a sub-screen, but the action continues in real-time. There is an option to “Suspend Mission” but you’re limited in the number of times you can do it. It’s a gutsy game design decision, but I can’t totally agree with it. There’s also a look at the Saturn port of Primal Rage. The PlayStation is getting the fantasy brawler Skeleton Warriors which is no relation to the animated series. JVC has a flight-sim fighting game in Mission: Deadly Skies. By “flight-sim fighting game” I mean a combat flight-sim which consists of 1-on-1 aerial dogfights with each fighter having a life-bar. There’s also a preview of Tekken 2 and notes on it’s newly included practice mode (apparently a first for fighting games). Konami has Project Overkill, an isometric action game. One of the features doesn’t look that good in my opinion though–your health bar carries over between levels and doesn’t re-fill. Additionally, once your four lives have expired you have to start the game over from the beginning. There’s also plans for a Aeon Flux game, Marvel Super Heroes and Breath of Fire III from Capcom. The Game Boy is getting a port of Worms. Not unsurprisingly, Myst is getting ported to the PlayStation (it’s getting about as heavily ported as 7th Guest was.) Oh, and Duke Nukem 3D is getting a port as well. You know, I never played Duke Nukem 3D past the first level before. Id’s fantasy action game Hexen is getting ported as well. Star Control is getting a PlayStation and Saturn port as well. We also get a brief bit of coverage of a planned game based on White Wolf’s Werewolf: The Apocalypse. However, the only old World of Darkness games that get video game adaptations (that actually get published) are Vampire & Werewolf. There’s also coverage of a PlayStation Contra game and VectorMan 2. We also get some screens shots and descriptions of PilotWings 64, Rebel Assault 2, the Console version of Dark Forces, a home port of Virtual On for the Saturn, though I can’t imagine how well it would work on a system with no analog sticks. We also get our first screen shot of Grand Theft Auto which represents the game a little bit, considering that it shows that the game’s got a 3D camera angle. It actually reminded me a bit of Grand Theft Auto 3 actually. The PlayStation and Saturn are also getting ports of the Light Gun game Area 51. There’s also a look at Street Fighter Alpha 2. Damn kids, git offa mah lawn! Letters First up is a letter advising people not to get rid of their older systems for the latest and greatest games – something that the growing retro gaming movement (as of 1996 and 1997) would take in mind – and those gamers who didn’t have their systems any longer would take up emulation software. We also have a letter bemoaning the lack of reviews of 16-bit games – well, considering the slowing release of 16-bit games. There’s also a complaint about all these games with those damn cutesy characters aimed at those damn kids who won’t get offa mah lawn! I think that’s a first. The editor’s justly rip the writer a new one. I’ll just post the page so you can read the response for yourself. We also get a letter full of snark at 3DO about their failing console. Filed under: Video games, Where I Read Tagged: EGM, video game magazines, Video games, Where I Read Source -
Get US Marshals from Amazon.com A while back I watched The Fugitive… and apparently it slipped my mind to review it. Either that, or I reviewed it somewhere else and can’t find it anymore. So, in short, I enjoyed the movie, and decided that (eventually), I would watch the film’s spiritual sequel – US Marshals. This review is going to get into some spoilers, but I’m keeping them below the cut. However, you are warned. The film follows Deputy US Marshal Sam Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones) and his team of officers, who previously hunted Dr. Richard Kimble in The Fugitive. In this film, Gerard is on a convict transfer plane carrying (among others) a recently apprehended fugitive by the name of Mark Roberts (Wesley Snipes). The plane crashes when another inmate on the plane attempts to kill Roberts with a “Zip Gun” (a single shot short-barreled pistol disguised as a ballpoint pen) that was planted on the plane. The assassination attempt not only fails, but leads to the explosive decompression of the plane, and the assassin’s ejection from the plane due to the decompression. After the crash, Roberts escapes, in the hopes of getting the information he needs to clear his name. After the crash (and after Gerard has called his team to help him catch Roberts), Gerard and company learn that Roberts is believed to be the killer of two DSS (Diplomatic Security Service) agents, and gets DSS Agent John Royce (Robert Downey Jr.) attached to his team. Thus the manhunt begins. Director Stuart Baird takes great pains to keep the film consistent with the previous film in the series. All of the actors who played members of Gerard’s team in The Fugitive–including Joe Pantoliono–reprise their roles in this film. They re-use physical locations from The Fugitive when they re-use script locations (like the Chicago US Marshal’s Office), whenever possible, and so-on. It’s a lot of little Hidden Highlights that really help make the two films feel like a cohesive whole, even though there are 4 years between the films. However, if you haven’t seen The Fugitive, the film stands perfectly well on its own, something which a lot of sequels don’t necessarily do. The acting is also rock solid. Tommy Lee Jones puts in an excellent performance, as does Downey Jr. However, I’d say the best performance of the film goes to Snipes. Snipes has gotten a reputation, especially considering some of the other action movies he’s done through the mid-to-late 90s (such as Blade – which was released the same year ) for playing lots of snarling badasses, who-may-or-may-not also be martial artists. Here, while his character is an government agent who was thrown out into the cold, and who is a good shot and good in combat, he’s the opposite of the bad-ass he’s been typecast as – and Snipes is able to pull this role off. Frankly, that’s probably one of the most important acting points in this film since, like Kimble in The Fugitive, Roberts is working to clear his name, and his hunt for the truth is an important part of the film’s plot. If we can’t emphasize with Roberts, then we want Gerard to catch him more than we want Roberts to get the proof–or at the very least, we stop caring about the proof, and start caring more about the cat and mouse (and we start rooting for the cat). Now, the film does have its faults. The film does a great job keeping its suspense thriller pace when Gerard is hunting down Roberts through the back woods of Missouri and the streets of New York. However, the film has some big plot holes when it comes to the character of Royce. This is where the spoilers come in – so stop skip this section if you want to avoid said spoilers. The problems up when you consider that Royce is the mole in the DSS. On the one hand, Royce has access to these major secrets that he’s giving to the Chinese. He’s also high enough that he can quietly frame Roberts as the person selling secrets, without Roberts (or anyone else) being the wiser. That in and of itself isn’t so bad. However, he’s also in a position where having him taking part in the manhunt as a subordinate to Gerard isn’t out-of-place. I know that you have to account for a certain degree of suspension of disbelief, but this is probably one of the easiest things in the film to fix. You change it so that Royce is in on the plot, and the Director of the Diplomatic Security Service, Bertram Lamb (who assigns Royce to be with Gerard) is either the real mole and either give him a lower rank in the DSS (so it doesn’t look so bad), or leave him as the Director so it makes the conspiracy look more far reaching. It’s an easy fix, that requires, at the most, the addition of a few lines of dialog in various earlier scenes in the film, and one scene towards the end of the film. However, this is a big nitpick – one that stuck out to me, but a nitpick nonetheless. Ultimately, this is an enjoyable thriller. It’s not even a dumb thriller. It’s not totally smart either, but it’s internally consistent, it doesn’t cheat, and the plot hole over how much clout Royce has in the DSS is the only plot hole I spotted. I’m going to recommend this movie, even if you haven’t watched The Fugitive. I’m not going to say it’s the best movie released that year (especially since Saving Private Ryan was released that year) but I would put it in my Top 5 films of 1998. Filed under: film, Reviews Tagged: DVD, film, review Source
-
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll probably have figured out that I like racing games. They’re one of my favorite genres of video games, alongside RPGs, wrestling games, shumps, and shooters. For those counting – that’s my top 5 right there. So, after having refrained from picking other racing games (including F-Zero) for my Quality Control picks, I decided to pick a racing game. The game in this case is Super Off Road. The Premise Drive a race car around a track, be in the top 3 to advance to the next track. In between races you can upgrade your car’s top speed, acceleration, shocks, tires, and top speed, as well as buying Nitro boosts, all using the prize money you earn from winning races The Good For a game with basically a top-down omnipotent camera angle (you can see the entire track and everyone on it), the controls are positively solid. Additionally, this is one of the racing games where flipping the track fundamentally changes how you approach the track much more significantly then more traditional racing games – because of this camera angle. The Bad The movable obstacles which they put on the tracks (hay bales) seem to slow things up a bit too much. Also, there’s little rhyme or reason to when power-ups are placed on the track. Once they’re placed there’s some logic to their location – but God knows when they’ll start appearing. Additionally, aside from a little up-resolution, I can’t really see anything in this game that would distinguish this from the NES Off-Road racing game. The Ugly Right off, this is going to be the longest chunk of this review. First, the game give no visual cues to which truck is yours, except for your steering. Which means that your first race in this game – and possibly your first several races, will be spent figuring out which car is yours. Second, when cars bump (and they do bump) they have a big effect on the cars course. How big? Well, there were several occasions where the initial jostle coming off the starting line had me turned entirely around. Similarly, taking a turn too sharp can also lead to needing to have the car do a 360. Considering that an entire race can take less than a minute, that makes a big difference. Third, you only get one continue, which allows you to advance to the next track. Once you use that continue, it’s game over – requiring you to start the entire career mode over from the beginning, and being that there are 16 tracks, that can be a heck of a set back. This is aggravated by the fact that when you continue, you lose all your previously purchased upgrades. As I’ve said before, there’s no good reason to limit continues. Ever. If you still want to add the sense of difficulty, then set it that when you continue you re-run the last race, and you keep all your prior upgrades. I understand that that wasn’t the way things were done on the arcade version – but I’m going to tell you a little secret. Arcade machines are designed to rob you blind. They want you to keep pumping quarters into them until you are flat broke. However, the arcade machines are able to do better graphics then home machines (during this period), because the developers weren’t limited to the hardware restrictions of the NES or SNES or other home console systems. They could design hardware that would fit the needs of the game, instead of vice versa. So, arcade quality graphics is a good thing. Arcade quality difficulty on the other hand, is not necessarily as good. The Verdict This is not a good game. It’s not the steaming pile of filth that NARC was, but it’s not exactly quality either. If I were you, and I had a PS3 (like I do), I’d get Motorstorm instead. If you have 360, then get DiRT 2. Filed under: Quality Control, Video games Tagged: Nintendo Power, Quality Control, Video games Source
-
On to Nintendo Power’s 5th anniversary. As a reminder, this is not the fifth year Nintendo published a magazine. Prior to this they had the Nintendo Fun Club newsletter – which I will get to in due time. Our cover game is Super Castlevania IV for the SNES, which is, I believe, the first time a third party SNES game has made the cover of Nintendo Power. With the magazine’s 5th year, we’re now also getting a new comic strip, adapting the Legend of Zelda. They’re also bundling one of four strategy guide with your subscription. Hmm… I may review those. So, on to issue #32 for January of 1992. Player’s Pulse This issue they’re asking for photographs of your NES game related sculptures. Probably the best one in my opinion is a sculpture of Mega Man, with another of the slimes (hand painted, by the way) from Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest being a close second. Mega Man IV Guide As I’ve mocked before, we have our fourth Mega Man game, with a Soviet villain, despite the fact that we’re in the age of glasnost, and with the fall of the Soviet Union being right around the corner. Of course, Dr. Wily is still behind the whole thing, but you have to wonder about who had the bright idea of having the bad guy be a Soviet. We get maps for the stages for Ring Man, Dive Man, Toad Man, Skull Man, Dust Man, Drill Man, Pharaoh Man, and finally facing Dr. Cossack. What we don’t get is the recommended order for them, and the recommended weapon to use against each. Now, I don’t know if, once you’ve beaten Dr. Cossack, if you go straight to Dr. Wily’s castle, or if you have to fight more Robot Masters. I don’t think so, the levels for the other robot masters look the right length – if you had to fight 8 more Robot Masters, then the levels for each Robot Master would be noticeably shorter. Monster in my Pocket Guide That is possibly the most Freudian title for anything that I’ve seen in my life. The fact that it was meant as the name for a line of very small monster toys actually makes it worse. We get maps of some of the levels in the game, and notes on moves, but no power-up notes (if there are power-ups at all) in this game. We also get a few notes on bosses – but we just don’t get a lot of information on this game. Tecmo Super Bowl Guide Tecmo Bowl has gotten a sequel, yay! Anyway, this version of the game has a full 28-team NFL (well, that’s a full league for 1992 anyway). The “guide” follows the 49ers to their win at the Super Bowl. Being that Nintendo of America is based out of Seattle, you’d think they’d use the Seahawks. Legend of Zelda – A Link To The Past Comic We get the first installment of their comic based on the not-yet released Legend of Zelda game. The art is by Shotaro Ishinomori, creator of 8 Man, Kamen Rider, Android Kikaider, and Cyborg 009. It looks really good, though the design for Link reminds me of Gitaro. Also, Ganon/Ganondorf is known as Agahnim, which gives him more of a mysterious middle-eastern sorcerer feel. Anyway, Link is telepathically called by Zelda to rescue her from Ganon. Link runs to the castle, dodges some guards, and sees Ganon kill his uncle. Link takes up his uncle’s sword and shield, rescues Zelda, and escapes. Zelda tells him that he must get keep Ganon from opening the seal of the seven sages. Ganon then enters, kidnaps Zelda again, and destroys Link’s Sword. Before she is whisked away, Zelda tells Link that he must get the legendary Master Sword to triumph. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 – Back From The Sewers Guide This is a sequel to the last Game Boy TMNT game. There aren’t any gameplay changes from the last game in the series. There isn’t much more in terms of level design either – just go right and hit everything in your way, with no obstacles to worry about (as opposed to Double Dragon, or even Streets of Rage), with the sole exception of level 5, which is the last level they map. Beetlejuice Guide This is not based on the Tim Burton film, starring Michael Keaton. Well, not directly. It’s based on the animated series based on the film. We get maps of each of the “hub stages” and what needs to be done to clear each of the rooms you’ll need to go through. Prince of Persia Guide The original “Arabian Nights” themed swashbuckler has been ported to the Game Boy. I wonder if it managed to keep it’s fluid animation. We get maps of the first four stages in the game. Super Mario Adventures Comic So, we have a Mario Bros. comic, from Charlie Nozawa on the art and Kentaro Takekuma on writing duties. Takekuma did Even A Monkey Can Draw Manga and Nozawa basically just did this series. Anyway, Mario and Luigi are hired to deal with a plumbing problem in the castle’s basement – basically a rat’s nest of pipes. However, unfortunately for them, a large number of green Koopa pipes start springing up. The story’s pretty cute I got a chuckle out of it, which is about as much as you can ask for. Super Castlevania IV Guide Finally we get a 16-bit Castlevania game. Not only does it take advantage of the SNES’s graphical abilities for Mode 7 in, say, the Revolving Tower stage, but it also includes the ability to jump on and off of stairs, as well as the Eight Way Whip. We get maps of stages 1 through 3. Legend of Zelda – A Link To The Past Guide Okay, maybe I was a little ahead of myself when I said that the game wasn’t out yet. Anyhoo, we’ve got a partial guide for the game. We get notes on all the new things you can do here, and a few basic story notes, but nothing particularly helpful. This is really less of a guide and more of a preview. True Golf Classics – Waialae Country Club Guide Ah, the days of the early 90s, when a golf game would have all the holes for one specific golf course. We get notes for all the holes on the course, though not detailed maps for all the holes. Super Off Road Guide Another console generation, another racing game. This one’s guide actually recommends that you cheat in the guide – saying that if you plug in the second controller and hit start on it, but let it be idle, you’ll always be able to advance to the next race. We have advice on the power-ups. We get maps of the first 16 tracks in the game. Nester’s Adventures We get advice on beating the Pharaoh Boss in Actraiser, which was very nearly my Quality Control game for last week. Now Playing This issue they have changed the format of this column entirely. Previously, this column was basically the Also-Rans for the month, the games which were releasing that month that weren’t big enough to merit a strategy guide. Here, instead, we have some Nintendo Game Counselors (George & Rob) discussing the new-releases in a very stream-of-consciousness fashion. I’m going to say right now – as someone who hasn’t read Nintendo Power recently, but who does listen to a lot of video game podcasts, if they were to do a podcast in this format, I’d definitely listen to it. That said, as before, I’m going to stick with the games that catch my interest. Anyway, they were very impressed with Mega Man IV, though they weren’t too fond of Blues Brothers, as the camera was locked on one character (Jake) so if Ellwood went too far ahead or fell behind he’d get stuck – plus the story is entirely nonexistent. By the way, that’s a refreshing change – Nintendo Power is now unafraid to say negative things about Nintendo games. They also mention their displeasure with F-15 Strike Eagle. Now, they did like Hammerin’ Harry. The game seems familiar, and reminds me of a more recent PSP game, Hammerin’ Hero which was released by Atlus. (*Does some research*) That explains it – they are related. Hammerin’ Hero is the 7th game in the series. George & Rob were a little more split on L’Empereur, Koei’s first strategy game outside of the realms of feudal Japan & China. George wasn’t too much of a fan of this game, but he also doesn’t like this genre too much. Rob on the other hand enjoyed the game. The last review of note is Pit Fighter, which they hated. We do get a disclaimer at the end though, saying that George & Rob’s opinions don’t represent those of Nintendo Power & Nintendo of America. In other words, they’re not standing behind them, and if they say stuff that annoys a 3rd party, they’ll lose their feature. Top 20/60 I’ve got the slash there, because starting with this issue we have 3 Top 20s – one for the NES, one for the SNES, and one for the Game Boy for a total of 60. Player Profile This issue they’re profiling Bill Laimbeer, who is lending his likeness to the upcoming Bill Laimbeer’s Combat Basketball, and is even appearing in a commercial for the game, wearing an appropriately Sci-Fi outfit. This is actually the second time he’s done acting or done anything genre-related. Specifically, when he was 17, he was on Land of the Lost as a Sleestack. Pak Watch The titles of note in this column this issue are the semi-sequel to Contra, titled Contra Force (the next numbered installment, Contra IV, for the SNES had already been announced). Asmik has a new mecha shooter in Xardion. FCI’s also planning on porting Ultima VI. That wraps up this issue of Nintendo Power. For my Quality Control pick for this issue, I’m going with Super Off Road, mainly because I haven’t really covered any racing games on previous issues of Nintendo Power. Filed under: Video games, Where I Read Tagged: Nintendo Power, video game magazines, Video games, Where I Read Source
-
Where I Read ? Electronic Gaming Monthly #82
Count_Zero posted a blog entry in Dreams of the Red King
Finally, after a stretch of hopping, skipping, and jumping across gaps in the archives, we now have contiguous issues. So, this week’s issue is #82 for May, 1996, and our cover story is Virtua Fighter 3, with notes on a preview of the “Saturn 2.0″ – which I suspect becomes Sega’s last console, the Dreamcast. Also, a little notable first for this issue is the debut of Dan “Shoe” Hsu as an assistant editor. We even have his baby picture (as we get a semi-collage of the editorial staff’s baby pictures). Press Start Well, the Nintendo 64 has been delayed again, to June 23rd for Japan. Apparently it’s still on schedule (at the time this issue was printed) for September 30th. Additionally, Matsushita’s M2 system – the successor to the 3DO, has also been delayed – the system itself became vaporware because the 3DO was considered a commercial failure. To be honest, I can’t really dispute that claim. Anyway, Panasonic/Matsushita’s plan is to include DVD technology so they can grab the early adopters for that format as DVD becomes the successor to VHS. That’s a good plan, and it does work – but unfortunately not for Panasonic as the system is not released. It is successful for Sony and the PlayStation 2. I wonder – if the M2 had made it out and it had managed to get a good selection of 3rd party publishers working on games for it, would the system have succeeded, because of the inclusion of DVD. While the inclusion of Blu-Ray technology in the PS3 didn’t get the system on top of the console market, it did get a lot of people to buy it who wouldn’t have gotten the system otherwise – especially considering the various changes to the Blu-Ray technology as the system was released. We also get a breakdown explaining why a game costs as much as it does, and breaking down the costs. Mind you, the costs for making CD games are in 1996 dollars, when they were a little more expensive to make. That said, it’s interesting to see that while publishers make a larger profit for CD-ROM games, due to the decreased manufacturing cost compared to cartridge based games, the developers see not a dime more. I’d say the developers got screwed. Review Crew Just like last issue, our review crew is Andrew Baran, Mark Lefebvre, Mike Desmond, and Sushi-X. Resident Evil (Capcom, PlayStation): You all know what Resident Evil is, right? Good. Survival horror, zombies, tank controls, very limited ammo economy, bizarre puzzles. It’s all here. We get a lot of justified comparisons with the original Alone in the Dark. There is no mention of the game’s terrible voice acting (some of the worst voice acting in the entire history of the PlayStation. We do get some complaints about how sluggish the tank controls are, particularly regarding how sluggish turning is, particularly with the inability to quickly turn to face enemies behind you. Andy gives it an 8, Mark gives it a 9.5, and Mike & Sushi give it 9s. Overall: 35.5/40, is the Game of the Month, and receives a Editor’s Choice Gold Award. Mario RPG (Square, SNES): Square’s last hurrah on the SNES, and on Nintendo Systems in general until the release of the Crystal Chronicle games on the GameCube. However, unfortunately, the Crew gives Nintendo all of the credit, even for stuff that clearly would have been done by the developer, like sound design. I’m actually really disappointed by the review crew here. Modern game journalists are willing to give the developers the credit that they’re due. Here though, the contributions of the developer are practically an afterthought. The game is lauded as an imaginative RPG that manages to get a decent story out of the Mario franchise, though it does have a “childish” tone. Andy gives it an 9.5, Mark gives it a 9, Mike gives it an 8.5, and Sushi gives it an 8. Overall: 35/40 and receives a Editor’s Choice Gold Award. Marsupilami (Sega, Genesis): This is a licensed platformer based on the Disney animated series (which is in turn based on a French comic book) that I’d actually totally forgotten about until I started writing this. The problem is that, if you’ve followed this blog for a while, you’ll remember that the 16-bit console generation had massive numbers of such platformers – even more than the modern console generation has cover-based third-person shooters. Additionally, the graphics are sub-par which is unfortunate for a game at the end of a console generation, as by this point people working on the system should have built up some familiarity with the system, and developed engines that can get the most graphically out of the system. Andrew gives a 6, Mark a 5.5, Mike a 6.5, and Sushi a 7. Overall: 25/40. Iron Storm (Working Designs, Saturn): This one is a World War II hex-based strategy game along the lines of Military Madness from Hudson but, like the later Advance Wars games you get an animated sequence whenever units engage in combat. However, the game is rather difficult, which isn’t surprising since the Military Madness games were pretty tough also. Andrew gives a 9, Mark and Mike give 7.5s, and Sushi gives an 8. Overall: 32/40 and receives an Editor’s Choice Gold Award. Night Warriors (Capcom, Saturn): So, this is a sequel to Capcom’s semi-Gothic horror fighting game Darkstalkers. We have a general consensus on the game. Specifically, they consider it a solid arcade port, but it does have some response problems with the controls–especially when it comes to stringing combos. Andrew gives a 7.5, Mark and Sushi give 8s, and Mike gives a 7.5. Overall: 30.5/40. As an aside, if they ever make another strictly Darkstalkers game, I hope they make Dante a guest character. Panzer Dragoon II Zwei (Sega, Saturn): Another rail-based shooter with the main character mounted on a dragon. While the game is improved from the last game in the series, Andrew didn’t complete the game due to losing interest. That’s kind of unfortunate, as the rest of the crew was able to beat the game rather quickly though they weren’t able to get any replay value out of the game to speak of. Andrew and Sushi give the game 8s, Mark and Mike give it 8.5s. Overall: 33/40 and receives an Editor’s Choice Gold Award. Worms (Ocean, Saturn): For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, this is a game where two teams of Worms use basic physics and adjustment for wind movement to blow each other up on a 2 dimensional plane. It’s also slightly more addictive than Civ, provided you’ve got someone you can play with – because the AI is a pain in the ass, which is their main complaint with the game. Andrew and Mike give it 9s, Mark gives it an 8.5 and Sushi gives it an 8. Overall: 34.5/40 and the game gets an Editor’s Choice Gold Award. Magic Carpet (Electronic Arts, PlayStation): Peter Molineux’s first game outside of the God Game genre hits home consoles at last. That said, well, Molineux’s habit of his reach exceeding his grasp is very much in evident here – the plan for the game is clearly meant to be basically an ambitious real-time strategy game, very similar in some ways with a later game from another developer – Sacrifice. Anyway, Andrew isn’t too impressed with the game, and gives it a 6. Mark gives it an 8, and Mike & Sushi give the game 7s. Overall: 28/40. Namco Arcade Classics (Namco, PlayStation): Here is the point where Namco really came to realize that they had a gigantic cash cow they were sitting on called their back catalog of titles, and started milking it, and doing a decent job of it too. Andrew gives it an 8.5, and the rest of the Crew gives it 8s. Overall: 32.5/40 and receives the Editor’s Choice Gold Award. Lucienne’s Quest (Panasonic, 3DO): The 3DO, as it reaches the end of its life is finally getting an RPG, and one developed by a company with a decent pedigree (the makers of the Princess Maker series). Unfortunately, both the Genesis and SNES already have much better RPGs, and the PlayStation will be getting better RPGs soon as well. Hell, the PC is getting Diablo later that year. So, while Panasonic is making a good effort, it’s ultimately too little, too late for the 3DO. Andrew gives the game a 5, Mike and Mark give it 6.5s, and Sushi gives the game a 7. Overall: 25/40. Arena (Sega of America, Game Gear): It’s an isometric run-and-gun shooter, and one that executes pretty well, except for a few problems – the Game Gear has a small screen that doesn’t work well for shooters, the Game Gear’s speakers are terrible. Andrew gives the game an 8.5, Mark & Sushi give the game 8s, and Mike gives it a 7.5. Overall: 32/40 and the game gets an Editor’s Choice Gold Award. Gaming Gossip Both Sega and Sony are considering price cuts for their systems in an attempt to steal the Nintendo 64’s thunder. That said, apparently rumor also has it that the chip shortage that Nintendo’s been contending with may push back the US release for the N64 to Thanksgiving – Black Friday. All things considered, that’s not a bad time for a launch, though if Sega and Sony drop their prices around the same time, that could make things very tricky for Nintendo. Fortunately (I guess), they do meet their September release date in the US. Apparently Sony’s PlayStation 2 is set to come out in 1997. Well.. they’re off by 3 years – which is fine, because that would be an insanely short Console Life Cycle. As it is, I’m glad these rumors didn’t do as much damage as they could have – these could have done as much damage as Commodore’s marketing die to their systems (as in Sales: “If you thought this system is good, just wait until you see the next model.” Engineering: “Excuse us for a moment. *stabs Sales to death with a ballpoint pen and dumps him in a supply closet*). Also, apparently, Killer Instinct 2 isn’t coming to the N64. This isn’t entirely true, it’s ported to the N64 as Killer Instinct Gold. We also our first hints about the Mortal Kombat: Annihilation film, as well as the upcoming Star Wars fighting game, Masters of Teras Kasi. Feature Articles We have a look back at the history of EGM, from the first issue to the present day. I don’t really need to go too in depth here, because if you’ve been following this series of posts, you’ll probably know a lot that they already covered in EGM. Anyway, we also get a rather sleazy ad for Iron Man/X-O Manowar made to look like it’s an article in the magazine. The only distinguishing it from the articles is the fact that it’s white-text-on-black, and the word “Advertisement” in small print. Not cool. You’d think that EGM’s staff could have said “No, we can’t run this ad, unless you make it more clear that it’s an ad. This isn't an article, it's an ad. We also have our preview of Virtua Fighter 3. It’s not as good looking as current gen games in the series (obviously), but it’s not terrible looking either. It’s almost the peak for the Virtua Fighter series in its console generation–except for the fact that Virtua Fighter 3 was released for the Dreamcast, which was the same console generation as the PlayStation 2, which in turn got the even better looking Virtua Fighter 4. We also get a look some of the games from the Arcadia trade show, from Midway’s War Gods, to Namco’s Xevious 3D/G, to Tecmo’s Dead or Alive. While the is not Itagaki’s first game with Tecmo (that would be 1994’s Tecmo Super Bowl II), it’s the start of the franchise that would give Itagaki his greatest fame. Namco also has their weapon-based fighter Soul Edge, which would develop into the Soul Calibur series. I don't think Cloud ever looked this cheerful in game We also get our first look at Final Fantasy VII. Apparently development in Japan and localization & translation for the US release is going on simultaneously. On the one hand, this does allow for a release here shortly after the game is released in Japan. However, such a tight time frame doesn’t lead to a great translation – which lead to a translation which I wouldn’t describe as optimal. We also get our first look at Cloud Strife, riding a Chocobo, and smiling–something which the character is definitely not known for doing. We also learn that at this point in the development cycle, Square’s plans were to have the exploration be in the first person, with visible enemies populating the terrain. This is definitely not what happens in the final version of the game. Similarly, they were hoping for 10 party members in combat at once, instead of the then traditional 3 or 4. Konami has the game Project Overkill, which a looks like Syndicate. For that matter, the tone of the game is a lot like Syndicate, in that it’s a sci-fi game where you’re doing a corporation’s dirty work. The difference is here, instead of trying to defeat other corporations, you’re trying expedite their work while they try to colonize an alien planet, by displacing the locals. To be blunt, I’m not sure what to think about this game. With a mature audience, I’d hope that the player would get that they’re not playing the good guy, and that the game’s meant to have a Colonialism=Bad message. The problem is, if you’ve read Lies My Teacher Told Me, you’ll know that the standard middle-and-high-school education on colonialism can best be described as pathetic – and such pathetic coverage is nothing new. This means there’s a large chunk of your audience which may horrifically miss the point. Next Wave The Saturn is getting Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. For those unfamiliar with the difference between this version of Mortal Kombat 3 and the original version, this version re-balances the characters and adds some new animations, as well as having a few new characters, along with upping the difficulty of the game. We also get a more in-depth preview of Iron Storm – which was reviewed earlier in the issue. I’m also going to take a moment to notice something I didn’t spend too much time on for issue #81: the previews are a lot more talky. They’re less about the pictures, and more about telling you about the game. This is, in my opinion, what makes magazines so great after the rise of the Internet – you can spend more space talking about the game (both before and after release), and less space with screen shots which you can just put up on your web page. This also allows you to mention stuff that didn’t necessarily make it in the review. For example, Iron Storm requires the player to make sure his units are kept re-supplied and that they are reinforced when they run into trouble. Also, Panzer Dragoon II Zwei adds, along with multiple paths you can take in the game, some what is essentially a super gauge. The Saturn is also set to get Shining Wisdom, an action RPG in the style of The Secret of Mana, but in the Shining Force universe. We also get an ad hyping their coverage on Nuke.com of E3. Unfortunately, due to the gap in my archive, I don’t have EGM’s coverage of the first E3, but that’s something I’m hoping to cover in the future. There’s also a look at Die Hard Trilogy Arcade for the PlayStation. Basically, this is a collection of 3 different game types – which don’t necessarily look very good – each based on a segment of a different Die Hard film. One has you rescuing hostages in Nakatomi Plaza. One has you taking out the terrorists in the airport from Die Hard II in a Virtua Cop camera angle, and the third has you driving around New York trying to reach various points to defuse bombs ala Die Hard III. It bears mentioning that for each of these games, they did not design skyboxes – so if you’re outside the sky is always black. For those who are unfamiliar, a skybox is, basically, a part of your environment that represents the sky. To best explain it, imagine your dinner table. The table represents the level design. Everywhere your player can go is on that table. The walls of the room around the table are the skybox. A character sitting or standing on the table can see the walls, ceiling, and so on, but they can’t touch them. The same thing applies to the skybox. You can’t touch the sky or the horizon, but you can see them. Anyway, Mindscape has the alien-blasting third-person shooter Steel Harbinger. Williams has also kind of figured out that Namco’s got a really good idea with their Museum collection and is putting out the Williams Arcade Collection, which includes Defender 1 & 2, Sinistar and Robotron 2084. Being that Robotron is a twin-stick shooter, I wonder how it’s going to turn out in the days before controllers that had dual-analog sticks. Protos Domark is working on a driving action game (ala Spy Hunter) titled Crime Wave. Acclaim is working on Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, which is at this point a 3rd-person action game. We also get a look at Tomb Raider, which is currently titled Tomb Raiders and is set to be published by US Gold instead of Eidos. Letters We get a letter complaining about the V-Chip, complaining that it’s essentially Big Brother intruding into your home. I disagree. Frankly, every TV that’s been released since 1998 has a V-Chip built in. Every DVD player, Blu-Ray Player, and so on has a function that lets you limit what movies you can watch by rating. Now, who actually uses it? Anyway, we also get complaints, in the same letter, about the Telecommunications act (or rather, the Communications Decency Act). Frankly, the parts that the writer were concerned about didn’t survive Supreme Court challenges, as did the bill’s successor, the Child Online Protection Act (COPA). The third attempt, the Children’s Internet Protection Act, survived, but only because (I suspect) that it was so narrowly focused that most common citizens wouldn’t be effected unless they used computers in libraries. We also get questions about the Doom licenced novels (they’re bad), and the exclusivity of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 for the Saturn. There were also some complaints about the reviews of Kings’ Field for the PlayStation from other magazines. Specifically, they referred to it as “Doom Clone” because it had a first person perspective. Apparently the game journalists making these comparisons had never played Wizardry, which is unfortunate. Filed under: Video games, Where I Read Tagged: EGM, video game magazines, Video games, Where I Read Source -
Sorry about the rapidly changing themes recently. Essentially, I’ve been going through the themes to find one that I really like. This is the closest I’ve found to one that I do like – one that works with the screen width in a way that I like, and with a header I like. Now, if only I could find a way to change the graphic to a fountain pen instead of a ballpoint pin. Filed under: Uncategorized Source
-
Get Ultimate Six from Amazon.com I’ve been catching up on my Ultimate Spider-Man, for reasons various and sundry. The volumes that haven’t been reviewed at Bureau42, I’ve reviewed here. However, this storyline – the introduction of the Ultimate Universe’s version of the Sinister Six, has been reviewed there. Thus, I’m taking my review of this storyline to my blog here, so I can kind of review it in my own little way, with a bit of an aside about the state of your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. This review contains some spoilers. First off, I enjoy the Ultimate Spider-Man part of the Ultimate Universe, but it’s the only part of the Ultimate Universe that I like. Mark Millar’s work rubs me wrong in almost every respect. Ultimate X-Men turned me off the moment they decided that Ultimate Cable was future Wolverine (as if Wolverine wasn’t over-used enough). However, Ultimate Spider-Man has managed to balance Peter Parker’s angst with the more light-hearted face that Peter puts forward as Spider-Man in a way that the comics in the main Marvel U haven’t, for reasons that I can best tell are related to Editorial fiat. For instance, I like Peter being in a steady romance, say with Mary Jane. Editorial doesn’t. I liked it when Peter was a science teacher in High School. Editorial didn’t. I like it when Peter has moments of happyness in his own life, and when he has a steady anchor to come back to. To be absolutely honest, if they’d kept Peter’s marriage with Mary Jane, I wouldn’t have been upset about Aunt May’s death. I can understand why they did One More Day/Brand New Day. Civil War stuck them into a corner thanks to Peter revealing that he was Spider-Man while he was Pro-Reg, and then going to the Anti-Reg side. Nonetheless, I don’t have to like the fact that they did it in the first place. So, putting that aside, Ultimate Six is a good story. It is not, however, a good Spider-Man story. The series is based around, as I mentioned earlier, the Ultimate Universes’ version of long time Spider-Man enemy team, the “Sinister Six”, with a tweaked lineup for the Ultimate Universe – specifically, Doctor Octopus (Otto Octavius), The Green Goblin (Norman Osbourne), The Sandman (Flint Marco), Kraven the Hunter and Electro (Max Dillon). Each villain has been previously beaten by Spidey and imprisoned in SHIELD’s version of a Super-Max for Super-Villains (Omega-Max?). If you’ll notice, that’s just five. Well, as is to be expected when the series starts off like this, there is a break-out by the villains. Their goal – destroy Nick Fury, and to force Spider-Man, who Norman calls “his son”, to join them. The ultimate problem (no pun intended) is that Spider-Man really didn’t need to be a part of this story. Seriously. Yes, there are segments which have Spider-Man (and Mary Jane, and Aunt May) in them, but does Spidey have any actual agency in this story? No. Who takes down the Six (well, Five)? The Ultimates. Who does all the fighting against the Five? The Ultimates. Does Spider-Man do anything for most of this except get exposited to or watch events happen? No. That said, this will have some impact on the future of the Ultimate Spider-Man series (such as Harry Osborne watching his father be defeated by Iron Man), but frankly, there isn’t a lot of Spider-Man in this series that couldn’t be cut out entirely without changing anything, except maybe making this a issue or so shorter. If you’re getting into Ultimate Spider-Man through TPBs of back issues, then I can reccomend getting it, but this is not the Ultimate Spider-Man series finest hour. Filed under: comics, Reviews Tagged: comics, Marvel Comics, Reviews, Ultimate Universe Source
-
Ninja Gaiden is one of those series that hold a special place in my heart. It’s a game series, like Castlevania, that is known for it’s steep learning curve, that I can’t beat without using save states, and that I love anyway. Ninja Gaiden Shadow, isn’t exactly in that series. It was originally released in Japan as a port of the NES game Shadow of the Ninja, but Tecmo liked it so much, they bough the game. Well, now it’s time to find out if it was worth their money, and yours. The Premise Ryu Hayabusa is a young man. His father is still alive and is still in possession of the Dragon Sword. As Ryu trains in New York, he learns of a sinister plot by Emperor Garuda to take over the city for his lord, Jaquio. Ryu goes forth to save the city and the world. The Good This has some excellent boss fights. Yes, they’re all find-the-pattern-and-exploit it variety – but that’s absolutely fine. That means that you can theoretically beat the boss without getting hit, which means if only have one or two hits left on your life bar when you reach the boss, you still have a chance of beating the boss. This is significantly better than some other games where the boss semi-regularly gets cheap hits on you that you can’t really avoid. To be honest, if you can’t beat a boss without a full life bar going in – and there’s a possibility that you won’t have that life-bar, then that’s bad game design. This game doesn’t fall into that trap. That is good game design. Additionally, the extra lives in this game aren’t too hard to get to. If you’ve played any Mega Man game, you know that to get most of the one-ups in these games (aside from the semi-randomly dropped ones) you often had to go through a series of precise jumps, based on rote memorization, using an item from a Robot Master that, if you’re using the recommended order, you would have beaten later in the sequence, all while scratching your nose with your foot. Oh, and did I mention that if you mess up once you die. Yeah, that’s bad game design. Ninja Gaiden Shadow doesn’t do that. Here the 1-ups are accessible through a moderately difficult series of jumps that, if you mess them up, you can try them again. That is good game design. The Bad There are problems with enemies taking pot shots at the player when the enemies are off screen. Fortunately the bullets are easy to dodge, but it’s still a nuisance. They also fall back on the crutch of having part of a level be in a really dark area – in that you can’t see platforms, aside from a occasional flashes of light – but that only lasts for a small chunk of a level. The Ugly Several things – aside from the Fire Wheel there are no ranged attacks the player can make. Further, with a few exceptions many of the obstacles that can attack you in the levels can’t be destroyed. Plus, your character’s range for his melee attacks aren’t great. This does lead to a few cheap hits. They’re not common, but they’re there. The Verdict Frankly, this is the best game in the Ninja Gaiden series that I’ve played. Period. I give this my full recommendation. Rating: 10 out of 10. Note – yeah, my last few reviews didn’t have scores. Old habits die hard. I’ll see if I’m able to shake that habit and consistently assign scores. Filed under: Quality Control, Video games Tagged: Game Boy, Nintendo Power, Quality Control, Video games Source