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Not too long ago I blogged about enjoying Fighting Vipers. As such I jumped at the opportunity, when I had the chance to acquire its spin-off sequel. Fighters Megamix is a mash-up of both Fighting Vipers and Virtua Fighter 2. At least that's what I thought it was. But apparently it's a whole lot more.
Let's start from the beginning. Fighting Vipers and Virtua Fighter 2 are both pretty similar games. At least as far as a game engine and appearance goes. So of course this makes for a pretty easy combo deal. You take your eleven Fighting Vipers characters and eleven Virtua Fighter 2 characters, put em together and call it a day. Sure there's some differences as far as physics go between the two games -- but you can even pick which physics engine you want to go with. And each game uses a similar three-button layout, so it's not like you have to learn one fighting style if you're only familiar with the other.
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So when I first started playing Megamix, I really felt a bit underwhelmed. It just felt to me like Fighting Vipers with double the roster. Not that that's a bad thing of course. But it didn't feel like this amazing new game either. But I was in for a bit of a surprise still.
The single-player mode of Megamix is broken down into various courses. The courses are vaguely themed -- such as playing only Vipers or only females. In each course you'll be fighting through six fighters and then unlocking a hidden boss. This is where things start to get awesome. You see once a hidden boss is unlocked and beaten, they are then also added to the roster. When all is said and done you've got over thirty characters to choose from which is a huge jump from the original Fighting Vipers.
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It's not just the fact that there are so many unlockable characters that's impressive here though. It's the sheer over-the-top fan service of them that's mind-blowing. You'll get an alternate version of Fighting Vipers' Candy, the Virtua Fighter Kids' version of Akira, along with cameos from Virtua Cop 2, Sonic The Fighters and even Daytona USA. Yes. You read that correctly. You see by the time you make it through the ninth course you'll fight the final boss of the game -- the Hornet car from Daytona USA. This is exactly the kind of insanely ridiculousness that earned Sega so many die hard fans.
My only real complaint about Fighters Megamix is a small one. There is a bit of slowdown that wasn't present in Fighting Vipers. However this only seems to occur on a few particular stages, so it's not a game-breaking deal. But when you take into consideration all the excellent unlockables plus the fact that each of the nine courses save your completion time, there is a huge amount of replayability here. Definitely a highly recommended 3D fighter for the Saturn.
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What just happened? That's pretty much how most rounds of Mars Matrix left me feeling.
The Racketboy forums have a Shmup Of The Month Club which I've participated in over the last year. It's generally a great way to expose yourself to new shmups which you may have been putting off for one reason or another. Perhaps more importantly, it's justification -- that is it gives you an excuse to buy some expensive shmup that you might have avoided otherwise. While I've been into collecting Sega stuff for a good part of the year now, certainly my Dreamcast collection has been my highest priority focus. So I was pleased as punch to have a specific reason why I should pick up a Dreamcast exclusive (outside the arcade) shmup.
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Mars Matrix is an odd one. Published my Capcom -- who showed the shmup community tons of support on the Dreamcast -- it is presented in a horizontal screen mode, much like the Giga Wing games. This means that it looks pretty fantastic on a widescreen monitor. I actually have a monitor that can rotate, but it's nice to have shmups that are meant to be played on a default monitor.
However the resolution isn't the oddest thing about Mars Matrix -- it's the default controls. You see the game is meant to be played with a single button. Or rather two. But only one button actually shoots and the second will switch shots. It's very confusing to me and I can honestly say that I'd have no chance playing this game if I encountered it in the arcade. Luckily the Dreamcast port offers full customization of controls, so I could set each attack to a separate button.
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But none of this really matters because I had immense trouble wrapping my head around the game mechanics. So much of Mars Matrix revolves around using a shield to absorb and deflect bullets. The problem is the shield needs to recharge and I just was never able to understand how to properly manage this. Ultimately my high score was about 700 Million which is pitiful compared to some of the scores posted in that thread which were in the Tens of Billions! While I can say that Mars Matrix is an impressive and interesting game, it's just not one that I'm any good at. So I can find it fun in small bursts -- and probably more fun to try to play for survival. But playing for score is pretty out of the question for me unfortunately.
Another month and more additions!
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A couple Sega CD games... I've wanted to play Eternal Champions since it was released on the Genesis, so it was awesome to score the expanded SCD edition. Trivial Pursuit I'm pretty excited about. I love the board game. I'm a trivia fan. That one was a toss-in as part of trade with WildBil.
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And holy crap! A friend of mine hooked me up with the SCD backup cart at an outstanding price! This is from the same dude I got Eternal Champs from.
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Saturn games! All of these acquired via trade on this very site. Some notable stuff like Duke 3D, Fighters Megamix, Bubble Bobble and... a shmup! Galactic Attack!
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And a new Saturn. My Model 2 late October, so a friend of mine came through and sent me a Model 1 for $10 plus shipping. Unreal. I put a new battery in it and it's in even better shape than my first system.
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Dreamcast commons I got either via trade or a few for peanuts at my local retro shop.
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GrayGhost81 managed to find me both DC Generator discs!
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My same buddy who hooked me up with the Saturn also sent me Street Fighter Alpha 3 as part of a trade we're working on.
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And finally a blue VMU for which I already had a cap for.
All in all, a pretty solid month of collecting!
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Ah, basketball: The one sport I actually care about in real life. Even in my earliest video game-playing years I was a fan of basketball games. Be it Double Dribble or NBA Jam, I always seemed to have at least one go-to basketball game per system. When I started getting into really collecting games five or so years back, I realized I needed a way to limit which basketball games I'd pick up since sports games are so cheap and abundant for yesteryear's hardware. So the obvious thing was this: if there's a Celtics uniform on the cover, I'll buy it. And this led me adding NBA 2K9 to my Christmas list after the C's won the 2008 Championship, landing Kevin Garnett on the cover. Really at the time I could differentiate between any of the modern NBA series, but that all changed with NBA 2k9. My wife got me the game for PS2 and it pretty much blew my mind just how far basketball games had come. There was so much realism, so much control. It felt like I was a coach watching and directing my team rather than just playing a game.
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By the time NBA 2K12 was released with Larry Bird as one of the three cover players, I had a PS3 to play it on. And though there were tweaks to the 2K9 formula (and of course now I was playing it in HD) really the game had been perfected already. But certainly it should be no surprise that a game series could refine itself so much over a dozen iterations.
I picked up NBA 2K for around two dollars while eagerly collecting Dreamcast games a few months back. This was the first game in the series -- and one born out of necessity. When the Dreamcast launched EA wanted nothing to do with Sega or their new console. Of course this hurt far more on the football front, as it meant Madden would not be the DC. But this was really a blessing in disguise as Sega launched their Sega Sports line of games and starting supplying gamers with the top-notch 2K franchises.
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What I find so impressive is that NBA 2K -- the first game in the series -- is completely solid. This new NBA game, built from the ground up, is already near-perfect. And certainly at the time it would have blown its competition out of the water. Even now that I own newer, revised editions of the 2K series, I can have so much fun playing the original and really not feel that I'm stuck with an inferior version. That's saying a lot for a two dollar sports game that's over a decade old.
So much about 2K was brilliant right out of the gate. The visual presentation is that of watching a game on ESPN. The players move realistically, even when the ball isn't in play. The commentators make sense (even if they will get a bit repetitive). The sound is there. The AI is (mostly) believable. Your players have their legit strengths based on their real life counterparts. It's all just so amazing how much effort Sega Sports put into making this a basketball game that felt like basketball rather than just another basketball video game.
Ultimately any of my complaints are nit-picky. Shooting free throws in this game can be a total drag if you're not using a player who's great at them. In order to shoot a free throw you have to apply just the right amount of pressure to the left and right triggers which can be really difficult, especially if beer is involved. Also later iterations of the series let you choose between a horizontal or vertical view of the court. Unless this option is buried in a menu I haven't found yet, it seems that only a vertical view is offered in this initial game which is not my preferred perspective. Again, these are tiny flaws in my book. Far from game-breaking. In fact if this was the only basketball game I owned, I'd still be more than happy to march my team through a full season.
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I don't play a lot of racing games, but I often feel like I should. I'm a big fan of arcade style games -- ones you can pick up and play for short bursts and just have a blast without investing too much time into anything. But in general, racers are a genre I've just only dipped my toe into the pool of over the years. Oh sure I've got my staples. Super Mario Kart and Double Dash are two that I've always loved and played extensively. And just recently I've found that Sega All-Star Racing has even perhaps surpassed the Mario Kart series. OutRun is another game I'm a big fan of, though it's not quite a racing game as much as a driving game. Right? But the point is, my scope is pretty narrow on racers.
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Sega Rally Championship is actually a game I remember playing in an arcade a few years ago at an arcade for a birthday party. Of course that was sitting in a huge cabinet behind an actual wheel. And it was a lot of fun. I actually couldn't even remember the name of the game until I popped this Saturn disc in and realized I had played it before. I actually acquired this game as part of a bigger Saturn lot recently, and figured I wasn't even familiar with it. Certainly it doesn't seem to get the same nostalgic high praise as Daytona USA does to this day.
But Sega Rally is definitely quite a bit of fun. The physics took me a little while to get used to, and I spent a lot of time watching my car fishtail all over the place. Luckily the Saturn controller is well-suited for the game and feels quite comfortable. Although I have to wonder how well a proper racing wheel would perform on the console version.
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The sense of speed in Sega Rally is impressive. The rush of the arcade experience totally made it into the home version. In fact the announcer loudly warning you about approaching turns sounds completely like being in an arcade. And there are some nice additions to the console port as well. For instance the Time Attack Ghost Mode, or the ability to customize your car which helps make the limited car selection not as obvious. There are only three courses (Desert, Forest and Mountain) but that's to be expected of a racing game of its time. The split-screen 2-Player mode is also a great addition. And speaking of co-op, if you're lucky enough to track down an elusive NetLink re-release, you can actually still play this game online via the NetLink modem adapter.
All in all I think that Sega Rally Championship is a solid game. I'm not ready to make this one a new racing staple, but it has gotten me interested in checking out its sequel and just exploring other racers of the era in hopes of finding another to suck up way too much of my time.
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What a pleasant surprise this was!
I've dabbled a bit with the Virtua Fighter series in the past, but never gotten too into it. Though I've always kind of understood why it was such an impressive game for its time, it also feels too real if that makes sense. For whatever reason that hasn't really clicked with me. At least not yet. When I got Fighting Vipers recently as part of a big lot of Saturn games, I figured it would be quite similar. I was under the impression that it was a spin-off of the VF series -- which it turns out isn't entirely correct, but that's beside the point. And in fact Fighting Vipers totally surprised me within moments of firing it up.
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Having no familiarity with any of the characters, I selected Candy. Later my research would tell me that Candy (or Honey in Japan) is actually a bit of a Fighting Vipers fan-favorite and co-splay mainstay to this day. Who knew? Whenever I'm not familiar with a fighting game roster I usually go for whoever looks to be the smallest female character, as they tend to be among the fastest which is how I like to move.
Well it turned out Candy worked just fine for me. Surprisingly I was able to beat the game on a single credit on my first try. Which is not to say it's an overly easy game, but certainly the default difficulty is meant as a starting place for newcomers to get used to the game. The controls are straight out of Virtua Fighter -- utilizing the three-button setup of block, punch and kick. Thus far, I have not mastered using the block well enough. Though this simplified control scheme might seem too basic, it actually offers up a very deep fighting game with an amazingly long list of moves. Indeed there are literally hundreds of moves available to the player with all of them listed in the instruction manual. This is awesome considering publishers today milk every cent out of gamers by offering a game with a tiny manual and the option of a $20 strategy guide for learning moves.
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Graphically the game looks alright. Certainly it's at least on par with the blocky 3D rendered fighters of the time. The music however is fantastic, leaning toward the sort of hard rock soundtrack that later games like Guilty Gear or BlazBlue would perfect. But what really makes Fighting Vipers an excellent game is the over-the-topness of it all. Where Virtua Fighter attempted to aim for realism, Fighting Vipers smashes any bit of reality. Mists of blood rain out of your opponent, their armor shatters off of them (which opens them up to being vulnerable to taking more damage per hit), and single attacks can send enemies flying many feet... sometimes through walls.
Even if the Arcade Mode is short, it is ridiculously fun. And the Saturn disc also includes two variations in Arrange Mode and Hyper Mode so that you won't get too bored too quickly. And I've enjoyed this game enough to research the series further. In fact I've already got a copy of Fighters Megamix pending via trade right now, which combines the Fighting Vipers and Virtua Fighter games into one big glorious mess. Until I play that one, I'll highly recommend fighting fans pick this one up.
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Don't you love it when a game finally wins you over? You know what I mean, right? There's games out there that everyone seems to consider a classic and you don't get it. You try and try but just don't see what's so great about it. And then suddenly, maybe without even realizing it you just completely adore the game? Well, let me tell you a bit about Marvel Vs. Capcom 2.
If you've followed this blog at all in the past then you definitely know that I've always used Street Fighter II (well Turbo or Hyper or IIX or whatever you want to call it) as the high water mark by which I compare all 2D fighting games. And while everyone seemed to rave about MVC2, I never really spent any serious time with it until it got an HD re-release on PSN. I had actually just picked it up for around $30 on PS2 but hadn't had a chance to play it when I received a PSN giftcard and figured that the online-enabled PSN port would be the better way to experience the game. So I sold the PS2 copy and downloaded away. And of course these sprites looked great beaming through an HDMI cable, projected on an LCD monitor in hi-def wide screen. But the game... it just seemed so boring to me. It had this huge roster of awesome characters, but I could barely force myself to enjoy an entire 3-on-3 fight, nevermind the entire Arcade Mode.
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And so I assumed I really didn't like Marvel Vs. Capcom 2. Although it was widely considered the fan-favorite, I seemed to get far more enjoyment out of the third installment, and eventually the first. I tried to figure out what was wrong with it -- the music? The four-button simplicity? The sprites that probably should have been redrawn? Sure these were all marginal complaints, but they shouldn't equate to a ruined game by any means.
Recently I got a day off from work due to Hurricane Sandy and decided for some strange reason that MVC2 would be the game to pop in for the afternoon. I'm actually quite terrible at playing fighting games with arcade sticks, but since I don't have a legit Dreamcast fightpad I decided to fire it up with my Agetec to try to learn how to fight with a stick to get a sort of arcade realism going on. At first I had so much trouble pulling off simple moves. The classic Capcom Ryu projectile movement of down to forward + punch for instance often saw me jumping around like a flailing lunatic. But after about an hour I was starting to feel a bit more comfortable.
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But maybe weirder is that after that hour I was also having a ton of fun. But the real difference to me was replayability. In the PSN version I was used to having all 58 characters accessible from the get-go. This was perhaps overwhelming to the point of boredom if that makes sense (see: Devo's "Freedom of Choice"). However playing the Dreamcast port meant that two of my go-to fighters (Morrigan and Chun-Li) weren't even available. So instead I had to play with Wolverine (who is a favorite), Ryu (who is an "okay, I like him") and a wild-card. And then I slowly started unlocking characters.
After a couple of days playing sporadically I had unlocked a handful of new folks, among them an alternate Wolverine and my beloved Morrigan. And yet nothing makes me want to slow down my progress. No, instead I'm loving mixing up my trio and unlocking more of the roster in a "gotta catch em all" style mania. Hell, I still don't have Chun-Li or Cammy or Akuma or Felicia or Mega Man or... well you get the idea. So yeah. It turns out I kind of love Marvel Vs. Capcom -- when it's done right, like on the Dreamcast.
So this past month I decided to broaden my collecting goals. Rather than focus exclusively on Dreamcast, I started picking up Sega CD and Saturn stuff as well. I find this adds an even greater selection of interesting games to my library, as the whole early optical media days presents amazing variety from killer 2D games, awkward 3D games and even impressive arcade ports. What's crazy is that this month turned out to be perhaps the most I've added to my collection in a single month this year. Let's take a look, shall we?
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First off, I picked up an X'Eye via trade with our very own Duke.Togo. This is actually my household's second X'Eye, though the first is my wife's and resides in our living room. I wanted this one for my main gaming setup. I love the X'Eye. Sure, the CDX is a bit sleeker, but it's also more expensive. Plus the X'Eye is a karaoke machine. Eat your heart out, CDX! Oh and I nabbed that 6-button controller elsewhere.
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Some common additions to my US Sega CD library, but good stuff no doubt. Sonic CD is definitely an all-time favorite SCD game, and I was really excited to find Mickey Mania as Mickey's Genesis platformer games were great. Most of these were trades or cheap local pick-ups.
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A few pack-in games... the more common edition of Sewer Shark along with the X'Eye pack-ins of Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia and a karaoke sampler.
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And finally I've got a copy of Night Trap! It's the blue cardboard re-release version, and in great condition.
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Now a pretty big haul of US Saturn games. Mostly commons, but some good stuff in there like D and Fighting Vipers. That 3-Pack is cool as well and came with a really awesome Saturn poster. Most of the Saturn games came from a cheap-o eBay lot.
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Oh... and Shining Wisdom!
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Not to mention the Nights boxset, which netted me an extra 3D controller. Got this and Shining Wisdom via trade with Ghost Soldier here.
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Also managed to grab a copy of Dead Or Alive, which was only released in Japan. This was nabbed off eBay for cheap.
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I picked up the Saturn Stunner lightgun for just $7 at my local retro shop. And got that Sega 3 button controller as part of trade with barracuda.
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Needed a Saturn arcade stick, so grabbed this boxed Virtua Stick off eBay for $20 shipped. It's certainly nothing amazing, but it'll work for the price. Plus it's cool to have an official Sega stick.
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And of course some Dreamcast US games. Definitely some good stuff in there. Most of these were trades or acquired through friends.
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Plus a few stand-outs: Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and Marvel Vs Capcom 2 were both from a friend of mine, while the Dream Passport 3 I picked up locally. Dream Passport 3 was a Japanese web browser, but what made it interesting was it had Genesis and Turbo Grafx-16 emulators built in so you could download ROM's off of the Japanese Sega service. Think of it as an early precursor to PSN, XBLA or Virtual Console.
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Another trade netted me the Seaman box set, complete with microphone!
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And a good friend of mine gave me a great deal on the Dreamcast Agetec stick, which is easily one of my favorite arcade sticks of all time.
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That same friend also found me a Japanese Dreamcast keyboard in Typing of the Dead box! He managed to nab it off eBay for super cheap and passed the savings right on to me.
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I also picked up one of those Dreamcast SD card readers off eBay, though I haven't had a chance to try it yet. And GreyGhost81 here hooked me up with a free box for a VMU.
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Locally I managed to nab five issues of Sega Visions magazine. They're all in great condition.
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But probably the coolest swag I've found lately is this "Sega Swirl" t-shirt!
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I was twelve years old when Mortal Kombat was ported to home consoles one fateful Mortal Monday. Twelve was the perfect age to get sucked into the hype that MK had created. In fact I was even a bit of a classroom celebrity -- the kid who owned a Genesis game rated MA-13! Indeed Mortal Kombat was one of those huge games that caused you to suddenly have a lot of friends. Friends who wanted to come over after school and see some of these much talked-about Fatalities. And let me tell you, many afternoons were spent just like that.
However when the sequel was released a year later it all but made the original obsolete. Mortal Kombat II was an improvement in every way. It looked far better graphically, had a much bigger roster and many more moves and Fatalities. Indeed the second game would remain my favorite of the series, probably even to this day.
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Over the past few years I've encountered ports of the original game a couple times. Probably most substantial were the PS2 (via Mortal Kombat Deception's Premium Pack) and
PSN (via the Arcade Kollection) ports. These were both intended to be arcade-perfect versions of Mortal Kombat. And playing them seemed to only reinforce the idea that the original MK was really not a very great game. Perhaps it was all the blood and guts that made it fun at the time? But it seemed to me that it was really a clunky mess.
But recently I happened upon the Sega CD version and felt a compulsion to add it to my collection post-haste. The odd thing; I've sunk hours into this game in the past couple weeks. Maybe it's just the arcade version that I hate? The arcade's AI could certainly be a big part of it. Or maybe it's just that playing Mortal Kombat with a Genesis controller just feels right? Whatever it is, I'm actually having a surprisingly good time re-living the excitement, blood and guts of those elementary school days.
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The Sega CD version is basically just the Genesis port with a few differences. First I'll start by saying that yes, load-times are present due to the optical media. You will have short waits between rounds but this is only really bothersome when you are greeted with loading between enemies in the endurance rounds. Personally, I'm not one to find loading all that big an issue, so let's move on to the improvements. When first load the game up you'll get a nice blast of nostalgia in the form of the original Mortal Kombat TV commercial. Remember flocks of kids running down city streets screaming the title of the game? In fact as a bit of an awesome easter egg, if you throw the game in your CD player Track 17 is actually one of the techno tracks by The Immortals. But perhaps thee reason to own the Sega CD port is that entering a "blood code" is no longer necessary. Yup, this version is rated MA-17 and has all the gore unlocked from the get-go.
It's funny how your opinion of a game can change over time -- and sometimes it even changes back. Mortal Kombat is really good example of this, and I'm glad I stumbled upon it once again and found myself having so much fun with the smaller roster and more limited move-set.
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Y'know it's kind of funny. I'm a huge horror movie fan, but I don't play nearly as many horror games as you might expect. I mean, I certainly lean towards macabre games in general -- say my love of Darkstalkers for instance. But when it comes to survival horror, it seems I end up collecting these kinds of games more than actually playing them. A lot of that might just come down to lifestyle. The truth is I often gravitate more toward shorter games or arcade style games over long affairs. But it being October and all I figured I'd continue to dig through my collection looking for anything horror-themed that I may finally spend some quality time with.
When it comes to survival horror, there's obviously the staples -- the Resident Evils and Silent Hills -- that I'm certainly familiar with. I'm also a pretty big fan of the Clock Tower series. But sometimes it's really fun to look into more overlooked titles. Blue Stinger was a one-off game published rather early in the Dreamcast's lifespan where it remained an exclusive.
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The game opens with an impressive ten minute CGI intro with some gorgeous animations and horrible voice acting. Oddly the bad acting made it even better for me, as it really felt like I was watching a b-movie. Next thing I know I'm wandering around Dinosaur Island which has just been hit by a meteorite. "Dinosaur Island"? Hilarious. And within minutes I'm seeing a flying naked ghostly woman and dudes with big insect-arms growing out of their bodies coming after me. In short, the visuals are ridiculous in a really bad horror flick kind of way -- something I can totally appreciate.
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Game-play wise Blue Stinger has its ups and downs. The controls are (thank goodness) not tank-controls. This is pretty refreshing for a survival horror game. It's probably a bit easier than most games of the genre seeing as how most progression is made by simply locating a key-card to access the next area. Not to mention the fact that there are vending machines in most areas that provide you with healing items and ammo. Thankfully saving your game only requires finding certain save spots as well. Sure all of this makes the experience a little less grueling, but in a sense that makes Blue Stinger a more campy fun horror game which is maybe an alternative to more well known series.
I was initially surprised that the game didn't spawn any sequels, though some research led me to discover that the developers had instead gone on to make Illbleed on the Dreamcast, which appears to be even more over-the-top and a bit of a cult-classic that I still need to hunt down.
EDIT: shout-out to my buddy GrayGhost81 who sent me this game for free!
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So here's the thing. I knew very little about D. I knew it was a survival horror game with a cool cover, and not a whole lot more. Yesterday I received it in a trade from fellow RFGenner Barracuda and figured I'd throw it in to make sure it worked. I fired up the Saturn, and opened the manual to see how it worked. "Due to its story, this game has a two hour time limit," I read. "In keeping with the time limit, this game does not contain a pause feature." ...Interesting.
And what began with me testing the game out, turned into me being totally sucked in. Two hours (or a little less really) later, the game had reached its conclusion. I suppose that if I had bought this game when it was first released, then I may have been upset. I mean, two hours? A game that has a linear story, and puzzles I had solved the first time. Surely there'd be little re-playability. I would have maybe felt that I had spent $50 on a game that had run its course in one sitting. Right?
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But who knows how I would have really felt then? All I can tell you is how I feel now. I feel thrilled to have played this game. I feel thrilled that I've discovered this series. There are some games out there that go so far beyond being just a fun game -- they are experiences to be had. Special games that you hold close to you forever and are willing to play again and again because of how they affected you. Games like Shadow of the Colossus or Heavy Rain come to mind. These are games not so far removed from an engrossing cinematic experience. Like a favorite movie that you can watch over and over again finding new tiny nuances to latch onto with each new viewing.
D starts off with an amazing cinematic cut scene that puts you in a deserted hospital -- the scene of gruesome murders committed by your father, a doctor. Suddenly the hospital turns into a big abandoned castle-esque mansion. It soon becomes clear that reality isn't part of this story. Instead, it is a story mostly told through mood somewhat akin to a David Lynch film.
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The controls may take a few moments to get used to. The point-of-view is first person most of the time, though interactions with the environment take place in the third person. Much of the game consists of solving various puzzles in order to access new areas, somewhat reminiscent of Myst. However the gruesome flashbacks and other bits of disturbing imagery are all far removed from the somewhat relaxing tone of a game like Myst. Indeed this is a creepy game. One where although very little happens you can't help but feel a certain sense of dread (and perhaps urgency from the imposed two hour limit).
Though actual bits of story are told through some rather laughable voice acting, it is nonetheless an incredible experience. One that I won't spoil for you. None of the puzzles are brutally hard. In fact your biggest downfall may well be over-thinking some of them. But at just two hours there's really no excuse for you to not experience this game. After beating it myself I started doing some research and it turns out I got the "bad" ending. Luckily enough D was so compelling to me that I have no problem with the idea of playing through it again just to see the "good" ending. If you are a fan of the macabre, or just fascinatingly unique games in general, I highly urge you to seek out D.
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I've always had a bit of a soft spot for the Sega CD. Perhaps because I was one of the kids that bought into the hype and begged my parents for the pricy add-on that Christmas season. And although its library is riddled with some pretty awkward and crappy games, they are often also quite interesting. Case in point, Bram Stoker's Dracula -- an attempt at combining classic side-scrolling action with the digitized actor craze of the Mortal Kombat days as well as the Full Motion Video craze that the Sega CD brought with it.
Certainly you're all aware of the film from which this game was adapted. Bram Stoker's Dracula was huge in 1992 -- directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring the likes of Gary Oldman, Keanu Reeves, Anthony Hopkins and Wynona Rider. The film went on to win three Academy Awards. But why should we care about any of that here? Well because whereas earlier games licensed from film properties simply took characters from the movie, made some sprites that looked like them and asked you to platform around collecting stuff, Sony Imagesoft actually used clips of the film and digitized actors. (See if you can guess which of these pictures below is the film and which is the game!)
[img width=401 height=320]http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5rfXLvTJP1k/Tw5ENKlpkRI/AAAAAAAACZU/G4mqjAtI0Yg/s1600/oldman+dracula.jpg[/img] [img width=640 height=480]http://img.gamefaqs.net/screens/2/7/d/gfs_56503_2_29.jpg[/img]
Now here's the thing -- Dracula isn't completely terrible. But it is bad.
First let's take a look at what this game did well. The first thing that jumped out to me was the music. Thanks of course to the CD-ROM format, we're blessed with wonderful gothic chamber music throughout the game. It's really a fantastically fitting soundtrack that couldn't have been replicated via chiptunes. There's also some very cool 3D scrolling effects where you change direction of the path you're taking, all the while continuing on a 2D plane. It's a bit hard to describe, but looks impressive when you experience it unexpectedly in the game.
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However if there's one major downfall of Dracula, it would be that Sony was just a bit too ambitious with this project. Really they had some great ideas, and were perhaps really onto something which is great when talking about a licensed property. They were smart enough to at least attempt to emulate another great vampire-killer game (that was no doubt inspired by the Dracula story itself), Castlevania. But the problem here is that Castlevania and all its primitive sprites controlled so much better than this. Indeed the digitized actor here moves incredibly slow. And his jumping, punching and kicking are also slow and clunky, which seems pretty unfair when enemies are moving quickly and swarming at you from all directions on the screen. Sadly though you'll be inclined to want the game to better than it is and see it to the end, you'll often find yourself frustratingly losing all your fifteen lives before the second level is even over.
With that said, I'd recommend Bram Stoker's Dracula to fans of the macabre who must horde such games, or those curious about the Sega CD format's growing pains. But beyond that this is probably one best left overlooked.
Well September isn't quite over yet, but I won't be getting any other Dreamcast items in the next few days. So let's take a look at what I did manage to acquire this month, shall we?
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First up is the additions to my US licensed library. Nine new games isn't too shabby. In fact it would have been ten, but the copy of Dave Mira I got turned out to have a defective disc, so I'm not counting that as an addition. (With that said, somebody please send me a disc-only Dave Mira!) Half of these were picked up locally, and half bought online. The real standout for me this month is Marvel Vs. Capcom. I'm really glad to have added that one to my collection.
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Next is a couple of loose accessories -- an official keyboard and Jumpack. Both I got from eStarland, and in the past any accessories I ordered listed as being 'Used - Complete' came boxed, but sadly these two arrived loose. To be honest, I wouldn't have bought the keyboard had I known it was loose. (So again, someone please send me a keyboard box!)
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Next is a couple of really nice boxed accessories -- an official mouse and PAL ("blue swirl") controller. The mouse I got online, while the controller I was thrilled to find locally. Both of them are super-minty inside -- both were still wrapped in plastic and looking untouched.
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The guide for Slave Zero was another local find. Note the small rip in the lower right of the cover. But I couldn't let pass it up collecting dust in a shop for how-many-more-years. Seeing as how I already owned the game, it was nice to add this to my collection.
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And finally one of my favorite additions of the month -- a Jet Grind Radio t-shirt. Admittedly it's not an officially licensed product, but for a Cafe Press item I'd say it looks damn good. You can't tell from the picture I took, but the colors are legit.
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Why didn't anyone tell me?
I tend to think I appreciate sports games a bit more than the typical retro-gamer, but I'm far from a sports fan. I can always find interesting aspects when looking at series of sports games and how they've progressed over the years. But ultimately, the bulk of my sports gaming is spent on the only sport I actually care about in real life: basketball. So trust me when I say that I had no real belief that I was going to find much more than twenty minutes of enjoyment with Virtua Tennis. But oh friends, how wrong I was.
I'm trying to really think about any experience I've had with tennis games in the past. I know I found Mario Tennis on Game Boy Color at least slightly amusing. And of course a few drunken rounds of Wii Tennis with the wife can be fun from time to time. But really beyond that, I can't really say I've ever found a tennis game to be any more grabbing than a few minutes with Pong.
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But Virtua Tennis is just this unbelievable blend of realism and arcade simplicity. Because it's controls consist of only two buttons it has this incredible pick-up-and-play quality to it. And yet there's so much detail to the presentation -- from the way the players move to the feel of the courts. And though it's easy to learn, it's far from easy to win. I found myself cursing the AI many times, but it always felt like "okay, one more game!" rather than "y'know what? Fuck this game!" That right there is a clear indication of a great arcade game. It's one that will get you to keep pumping quarters in -- happily.
Outside of the Arcade Mode is a great training route called World Circuit Mode. This offers a sort of sim where you must compete in various matches and mini games (aiming at huge bowling pins or spiking the ball at boxes) in an attempt to raise money and improve your stats and recruit a doubles partner to proceed further in the circuit. It's actually a really great game in itself that really teaches you many strategies that will apply to the main game.
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Ultimately what I think has shocked me so much about Virtua Tennis is that I've been able to spend hours on it and never getting bored. A tennis game you guys... a tennis game is actually addicting. I already can't wait to check out the sequel although I'm far from done enjoying this original installment. So recommended!
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Street Fighter II.
...and now that I have your attention, I'll tell you a bit about my love of 2D fighting games. You see it all really began with Street Fighter II. Sure I played other fighters back then -- your Fatal Furies or Mortal Kombats -- but Street Fighter II would remain the standard for me. It's one of those games that I've bought over and over again in many different forms. Over the years I've owned multiple versions of SFII on SNES along with ports to Game Boy Advance, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, XBox 360 and so on. And while in many ways I feel that Street Fighter III (and perhaps even IV) are ultimately better games, it all comes back to II as the one I have the fondest connection with. So while I was away for gaming for much of what Capcom delivered post-SFII, it was with great enthusiasm that I went back discovering many of these amazing games I had missed once I fell back in love with IV.
Some of you may know about my love for the Darkstalkers series, which of course was Capcom's "macabre Street Fighter" game. Once I had discovered the series, the doors opened up to me to start investigating the various Capcom Vs. games which included Street Fighter and Darkstalkers characters in the roster amongst other Capcom notables. Though I dabbled a bit with Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, it was really the third game in the series that got me excited as a current-gen fighting game. But this past week I've been spending some time with the first Marvel Vs. Capcom on Dreamcast. Of course the roster is smaller, the visuals aren't high-def and there's no online play. But the truth is, I'm probably enjoying it even more than MVC3.
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Upon booting the game up I was greeted to some excellent music, which got me excited as I perused the roster. My first impression was how small the roster was compared to the third game in the series, or even other Capcom Vs. titles I've played. But when I looked closer, it seemed like that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. See a lot of the characters chosen are ones I'm fond of -- Morrigan, Chun-Li, Wolverine to name a few. I'm still on the look-out for a legit Dreamcast fight pad, but I do have a Total Control adapter so for now I'm using my Nubytech Street Fighter II anniversary pad released for PS2. With no tweaking to controls whatsoever in the options menu, this sets the six face buttons to classic Capcom style light-medium-strong attacks. Perfect!
I jumped right in using Morrigan and Chun-Li as my tagteam, who I've used as a team in other Vs. games many times before. Right away I was impressed with how visually stunning the sprite-work looked on the Dreamcast hardware. I've never played this game on the original arcade cabinet, so I can't speak much for how "100% arcade perfect" the game is as claimed on the back artwork. But I will say that everything is smooth and fast.
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Once I started playing for a while, there was one thing that caught me off guard: this game is hard. Or maybe I'm just rusty? Captain Commando and Mega Man both seem pretty ruthless in this game. Notice I said "ruthless" rather than "cheap." That's because as brutal as they and some of the other characters' AI can be, it always seems fair. If you put the time in to get good at Marvel Vs. Capcom, you will get good at it. Luckily the Dreamcast manual (remember those?) has pretty thorough move-lists. And before I knew it I was pulling off screen-filling specials that made me feel like a force to be reckoned with. That said, I'm still not able to beat the game on "a dollar's worth" of credits yet. But that's fine because much like the younger version of me playing Street Fighter II, this is the kind of fighter that you can sit and play for hours and have a great time doing so.
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