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N64.
For a few years now I have been wanting to start a complete N64 collection. I already have ruffly about 90 games out of the 296 American released titles. However as of recently I aquired a box of 53 Super nintendo games all in there original boxes with manual. It was at that moment I realized, not only do I want a complete N64 collection but I want a complete collection boxed. This is the hard part thoe, I have about 90 games but only 12 boxed as of right now. I have about 25 on order and I am going to keep at it for about the next year or 2.
Most titles are pretty reasonable but there are a few that are going to cost me a pretty penny with the worse one being clayfighters 63 1/2 sculptor's cut currently going for $1600 as of today with the box and manual. This is not going to be easy but it should be fun. I have tried to talk to co workers and other friends about this epic task. But not to many people understand the mindset and dedication of a collector. Nor do they care.
Hopefully the few that read this shall understand  If anyone on the site has some extra boxed games or N64 boxes and manuals up for sale or trade please message me and keep me in the loop. Thanks everyone.
If everything has gone to plan. Below is the sad 12 lonely Games boxed I currently own at my house.
Episode 12 discussion thread: http://www.rfgeneration.c...rum/index.php?topic=11496
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With RFGeneration's 2013 successful donation drive being done and over, this episode is dedicated to the generous donors that helped keep the site afloat. The small scores section will be dominated by the finds from our benevolent donors that gave through the end of the drive (Feb. 1). Feeling left out this time around? Too bad you should have given us money!!!
In addition to the sites donation drive us podcasters held a little auction to raise some extra RFGen fundage for a guest spot on the show. Our lucky (that's debatable) winner was Nupoile!! His fearless and charitable spirit saw him talking with the 3 of us about what drives him to collect, how he goes about it, and why the Odyssey 2 is so amazing.
Thanks so much to everyone who chipped in in any way (not just financially) to keep improving the best gaming database on the net. This year's donation drive was successful because of the amazing community that supports RFGeneration and keeps it growing and thriving. I know were not alone in looking forward to many more years to come of sharing our fascinating hobby through the medium of RFGeneration!!
Sites mentioned in the show:
Arcade Gear: http://www.arcade-gear.com/
Music: The Guardian Legend (NES)
2:04 Intro
8:18 Small Scores
4:02:03 Interview with Nupoile
5:27:09 Outro
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When it comes to retro arcade sticks there are a few which everybody knows about, the NES Advantage, Super Advantage, Sega's Genesis Stick & Saturn Stick, and then the Capcom Fighter Power Stick. But, it has been 20 years since this bulky controller has released so does it hold up?
You'll just have to stay tuned and find out!
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The RPG (Role Playing Game) is one of the many genres of games out there, and it is, without a doubt, my favorite genre. From the Epic Gameplay to the Intriguing Stories, these are my favorite ones. Here we go!
King's Field
King's Field is a First Person RPG for the PS1. Perhaps it is best known as the First (Second in Japan) Predecessor to the immensely popular PC/PS3/360 RPG Dark Souls. However, this game plays much differently from Dark Souls. As I mentioned before, it's a First Person RPG, and while it isn't the prettiest thing in existence, it's Gameplay is solid.
Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time
Ah, Final Fantasy. Once the most popular RPG Series EVER, it fell off it's throne a while back, and has been going downhill ever since. That doesn't mean they're all bad though. Echoes of Time is one such example. While not the most well known in the once beloved series, it's still quite the fun Action-RPG. You create an Avatar to use, and you can customize they're skills in pretty much any way that you want. Although it's unusual for Final Fantasy to do something like that, it was a welcome change.
Fire Emblem Awakening
Fire Emblem Awakening is the latest title in--What? You say you've read this already? Oh. Alrighty, I'll keep it short then. Fire Emblem + Avatar Creation + Epic Story + Amazing Gameplay = WIN! Even though it can't top a certain game on this list (You'll see it soon), it's still amazing.
Makai Toushi Saga
Now we're talking! Makai Toushi Saga is a remake of Final Fantasy Legend for the Game Boy, one of my favorite Game Boy Games ever, and an epic RPG in it's own right. Recently Fan-Translated, Makai Toushi Saga is about an Adventurer who decides to climb a Tower to Heaven, to find out exactly what's up there, as all before the Adventurer have failed. Epic Story, refreshing Gameplay, and more, this game is one you MUST try.
Chrono Cross
Chrono Cross is the most EPIC. RPG. EVER. Period. With an emotional story, unique (but brilliant RPG Gameplay), amazing Characters, and more, no RPG can top this one, not even the mighty Final Fantasy VII. In fact, dare to compare:
GameSpot's Score of FF7: 9.5
GameSpot's Score of CC: 10
But don't they're word for it, take mine. As a person who has experienced this game many times over, I never get tired of it. It is, and always will be, my favorite RPG ever. Not only that, it's my favorite game in general. Sure, you can argue that it was confusing, but it's not if you play Chrono Trigger and Radical Dreamers (Japan Only, Fan Translation available). So what are you waiting for? Go play it!
Before I begin, I'll have to ask you all to forgive my weird Blog Title, and blame Crabmaster2000. He comes up with the best ideas, using the games you've played to make a Blog Title. No copyright infringement intended. I just enjoy his awesome idea. Anyway...
Fire Emblem Awakening is the latest title in the Fire Emblem Series of Strategy-RPGs. Sporting an Avatar (Custom Character) Creation feature (This is actually the 2nd time the series has done this), 3D Visuals, and fun gameplay, all of these features combine perfectly to make one hell of a fun game. I haven't had this much fun with an SRPG in years, and I highly recommend it. It also manages to suck you in. Before I knew it, 2 Hours had passed from when I started playing it.
Foto Showdown DSi puts a new twist on the Pokemon Formula by using Photos. How? Well, you snap a picture with your DSi Camera, and a Monster will be made from it. You then use that Monster to battle with other Monsters in a tournament. It's pretty much a direct copy of Pokemon, but with Photos. It's actually pretty fun though.
Here's one I'm sure you all know very well by now. Fallout New Vegas is like a cross between an FPS and an RPG. It revolves around a Courier and a special Casino Chip that is stolen from them. Said Chip is the key to determining who will rule New Vegas in a Post-Apocalyptic Nevada. Crazy as it all may seem, it really is a fun game, and I'm really enjoying it.
Well, that's all for now. Check back later for more entries.
With NES Open Tournament Golf finished so that its not eating up a ton of my playing time I'm moving along at a much more comfortable pace now. 9 Games downed since last update!!
Went on a Black Box binge which started with some Donkey Kong 3. I had never played this before and expected it to be much like the original...... WOW was that not the right assumption. I really liked it, but the game was extremely odd. Puffing air at DK's ass until he knocks a beehive onto his own head....... how did that ever get made? Anyway like many early games and arcade ports there were only a few levels to loop so it was a quick victory.
After DK I decided to take it to the streets with some Urban Champion. Since the game goes on forever and winning one match and calling it a day felt pretty lame I decided to keep playing until I was awarded a trophy for my victory icon. Still not overly hard, but at least I had to play it for more than 1-2 minutes.
One of my favorite Black Box titles that I have not played in far too long was Balloon Fight. I like it mainly for the Balloon Trip mode. The regular mode is fine too, feels like a better version of joust. But I really enjoy the Balloon Trip a lot. You get ranked in Balloon Trip mode so my goal was to get the 1st place ranking.
Last for my Black Box triumphs this update was Pinball. This was the game I spent the most time on also. Pinball doesn't have an ending, highscore or levels. So I decided my goal should be to get the flippers to disappear (100,000 points), then reappear (150,000 points) and save the lady in the bonus scene at least once. Felt like an appropriate goal to call it done. Took me a while to figure out how to build a decent score, but much like when I played High Speed it got quite enjoyable once I figured out how the table played. Not as bad as I first assumed.
Next game is one I was lucky enough to pick up while down south visiting the flea market with Shadow, Qix. It took me far to long to finally plug it into my NES. It is a really addicting little puzzler. I dunno if its just me, but I found it pretty challenging and also a ton of fun. You run a line across a big rectangular area trying to create shapes in it without hitting enemies. The goal is to fill a certain percentage of the level with your shapes. Sounds lame, but so do most puzzle games when you say it out loud. This is one I'll definitely revisit later on.
Still looking slate my insatiable hunger for game shows I dusted off my copy of Hollywood Squares and won myself a car! The questions are fairly easy and after only a couple playthroughs you'll probably notice a lot of them being recycled, but the humor is actually pretty funny most of the time. Definitely more fun with a friend than against the computer though.
Looking for something a little more action packed I decided to revisit a game I havn't played in a few years, Twin Cobra. It doesn't get talked about much when people discuss scrolling shooters on the NES, but I think its great. The powerup system is very basic (I actually like that) and the controls are very tight. They recycle a few bosses, but for the most part they are varied and interesting. I think its a great shooter definitely worth checking out.
Oddly enough I actually owned, played, and beat Flintstones Surprise at Dinosaur Peak long before I did any of those with Flintstones Rescue of Dino & Hoppy. It was about time I fixed that. This game reminded me a lot of the Jetsons. It seemingly does a lot of things I like, but for some reason it just doesn't feel that much fun. I think with a new fighting mechanic it might flow a lot better. Kind of a "meh" game for me.
And to finish the night off this evening I popped in yet another scrolling shooter with Tiger-Heli. Unlike Twin Cobra its pretty obvious why this one doesn't get mentioned much. Its not terrible, its just incredibly bland. It doesn't have much personality to it at all. And it feels very slow. Luckily there are only 4 short levels and then it starts looping stages.
2013 NES List
61 Games Beaten Over 44 Days
Sesame Street Countdown
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters
Shooting Range
Space Shuttle Project
Double Dare
Win, Lose or Draw
Othello
Whomp Em
Dragon Fighter
Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle
Family Feud
Tale Spin
Platoon
Gotcha!
Gun Smoke
Kiwi Kraze
10 Yard Fight
Tom & Jerry
Wrecking Crew
Hatris
Time Lord
Orb 3D
Wheel of Fortune Jr
Wheel of Fortune Family Edition
Captain America and the Avengers
Wheel of Fortune
Wheel of Fortune Featuring Vanna White
The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle
Bo Jackson Baseball
Jeopardy! Jr
Jeopardy!
Jeopardy! 25th Anniversary
Cowboy Kid
Crash n The Boys: Street Challenge
Galaga
Color A Dinosaur
Millipede
Popeye
Sesame Street 123
Sesame Street ABC
Sesame Street Hide & Speak
Soccer
Classic Concentration
Fisher Price I Can Remember
Fisher Price Perfect Fit
Mickey's Safari in Letterland
Mickey's Adventure in Numberland
NES Open Golf
Pictionary
Chessmaster
Anticipation
DK Jr Math
Donkey Kong 3
Urban Champion
Balloon Fight
Pinball
Qix
Hollywood Squares
Twin Cobra
Flintstones Rescue of Dino & Hoppy
Tiger-Heli
Future Plans - Might try another sports compilation like Winter Games or Track & Field II.
Last week David Cage, CEO of Quantic Dream, delivered his keynote speech at D.I.C.E. Summit held by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Science and what he had to say did not please many gamers. This conference is intended for the video games industry but consumers have a big role in what the developers create.
The entire speech can be found here:
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Cage strongly asserts that the video games industry is suffering from what he calls the "Peter Pan Syndrome." He claims that video games have not change much, if at all, in their 40 year history. Yes, there have been technological advances and graphical improvements, but the core of today's games haven't changed. I couldn't agree more and I feel the genre suffering from this problem the most is the RPG.
This is a concern of mine because RPGs have strayed very little from the "save the world" paradigm. On the other hand the games can very little substance, like the Fable series. This genre is a very adaptable one that can easily handle mature themes.
Themes that are more mature are found in Role Playing games, but they are always hidden in the subtext of the narrative. I could extrapolate that Final Fantasy XIII dealt with prejudice and societal perception of the "other," but I had to look beyond the facade of the game to glean these issues. I wished that this was the focal point of the story, seeing how the cast would cope with and overcome being labelled as corrupted outsiders.
It seems that RPGs are used as a means of doing and seeing things can exist beyond our reality. Slaying dragons is fun, but it needs to have meaning. There is nothing wrong with a fantastical game with magic and monsters. They can be very enjoyable providing an escape from our real life problems and worries. However, as a gamer I want to see what happens if RPGs used these authentic issues as primary themes.
I am currently playing through the Level-5 and Studio Ghibli collaboration Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. The bright and beautiful colours of this lighthearted game disguise the more serious issue which lies at the core. Ni no Kuni is about loss - how the loss of a young boy's mother can completely disrupt his world. The fantasy setting of the surreal parallel world is used as a narrative device to portray the difficulties Oliver experiences while dealing with the death of his mother. It does not take a stretch of the imagine to consider that losing a dearly loved family member would turn one's world completely upside down. This is also what makes the game great. The theme has meaning and is relatable; it is accessible to anyone even those who have little to no interest in video games.
Accessibility is another area RPGs falter. More often than not these games will not interest someone who does not play games. The stories could be deemed too strange, the characters might be to silly looking. How about a Role Playing game with realistic humans set in a world within the confines of our reality trying to overcome something that is relevant to our modern world. An example could be a man or woman living in persecution for his or her beliefs and how this person copes in a society in which they are not welcome.
I hope to see more mature, more relevant RPGs in the upcoming generation of consoles. This genre is certainly able to tackle more than it is given credit for.
Besides video games, my biggest passion in life has always been drawing. Ever since I was old enough to hold a pencil, I was drawing Metroids, Sonic, and Battletoads. In elementary school my homework was riddled with sketches of Sub-Zero ripping Scorpion's head off.
When I wasn't drawing my favorite video game characters I was drawing pictures of my friends as super heroes. In middle school I began playing around with my own comic book with said super heroes (which is terrible) but I was in love with it, and at that point I knew what I wanted to do with my life. My old man, being the supportive father he is, came up to me one day and said to me "You should probably give that up. There's a lot of talented artists out there and I don't think you can make it. You should focus on getting a career installing home water heaters or something." Thanks, pop. So I gave up. If my own dad said I wasn't good enough to make something of myself, then I probably should quit and find something else to do. The problem is, I never did find something else. So now, almost 15 years later, I'm pulling my hair out at this 9 to 5.
Until now. At least a little bit.
I went to the Seattle Retro Gaming Expo last June. One of the vendors there was selling pixel art made from perler beads. He had these beautifully framed pieces of art, character sprites and scenes from classic video games.
If you don't know what perler beads are, they're little plastic rings that you align on a peg board and melt with an iron, and the product looks like sprite characters from the classic/8/16-bit era.
I know it's not exactly a new concept to most people in the retro community who has ever been to an expo, but I only started seriously collecting a month prior to this and it was the first expo i've ever been to so it was brand new to me. And I loved it. Now I had a mission. So that night when I got home I began working on my own stuff. Of course, I started with a simple Mega Man which takes about 45 minutes total, but I felt ambitious right away and made this triumphant beast
In all, about 15,000 beads. I spent more than a month and easily over 40 hours working on it. I was going to send it to someone who owns a store in Jacksonville, FL with a business card attached to it. What better way to get your name out there than to have a huge piece of video game art hanging up in a retro game store? However, I was afraid the glass in the frame would break during the trip across country, so I never ended up sending it out. I was pretty bummed, I wanted people to enjoy looking at it as much as I enjoyed making it.
However that didn't stop me. Shortly after, I opened my own Etsy store. Baby steps.
And as luck would have it, I had a 1-Up. KWVintage games, a retro game store in Canada and a member here at RFgen, got ahold of me to buy a game lot. I asked him simply if he was interested in a smaller, shippable picture, and he responded with "Actually, I love pixel art. Are you interested in a consignment deal?"
And just like that, I was on the verge of something. For the past two months I've been supplying KWVintage with smaller pieces of pixel art. Refrigerator magnets mainly, I'm still getting my feet wet. Sales are slow because the shipping time/distance, but it's still very encouraging to see them sell when they get to the store.
Here are a few of the sprites I send to him.
Then this happens. John Hancock, the man running the Cowlitz Gamers for Kids Expo in April, tells me that vendor tables were free. FREE!!!! All they expected was a percentage donation from the sales at the expo to their charity. Unfortunately, I'm not quite prepared yet. Crummy. Next year......
But now I have the itch. I've tried to reach out to a few other store owners, and surprisingly, I got yet another consignment deal! This store is called Pink Gorilla, and they have a few stores in the Seattle area. So within a matter of a few months, I'm an art vendor for multiple stores. How did that happen?
I'm not sure where it will go from here, but I'm having fun doing it. I may not be counting fat stacks as an artist for DC Comics, but I'm happy doing what I love.
The title of this blog is particularly fitting as I recently registered myself for Kindergarten. Apparently the spot for my child's name wasn't clearly labelled enough for me and I mistakenly entered my own. Oh well, at least I'll be prepared after these last few batches of games!!
What better to follow up Sesame Street games than with some Fisher Price!! I don't like to brag or anything, but my matching and remembering skills were a bit too much for poor Electro to handle. I played Perfect Fit a few years ago with my son and I think it helped him get comfortable with the D-Pad.
Padding my list further I popped in both of the Mickey Mouse educational games, Numberland and Letterland. The both actually surprised me a bit in that they were actually games  Letterland in particular had some platforming and exploring elements to it. They were probably the least effective in terms of actually teaching anything to the player, but they were the most fun to play of the educational games I've come across so far.
While I've been knocking off a few easy titles a night for a quite a while I've also been sinking a LOT of time into NES Open Tournament Golf over the last week or two. The goal is to get your prize winnings to at least $1,000,000. The unfortunate part is that that amounts of money you win for most things are pretty low so it takes quite a while. You can increase your rank, but while doing that you gain $0. Regardless I spent the first couple nights increasing my rank to pro so that it would increase my tournament prize money. Then it was just a matter of getting decent enough to place high in the tournaments. I started to be able to win a tournament every time or two until I reached $500,000. At that point the competition started going from -3 to -6 under par for a round to -9 to -11. I started placing around 15th and worse from my consistant top 3 victories. The easiest source of income at this point seemed to be by playing 1 hole at a time bets. First hole was worth $2500 then $3500 then $5000. I basically just started practicing those first three holes and got decent enough at them to walk away with some prize money in most situations. Eventually my persistence paid off and I got my $1,000,000.
After a few nights of golf and a couple more of Super Mario Bros 3 for a high score competition at nintendoage I just wanted some more quick easy games. So I dug into my game show vault and pulled out Pictionary and Anticipation. Both follow the same premise of guessing pictures. In Pictionary you have to play a little mini-game which depending on how you do will unlock a certain percentage of the picture you need to guess. Some of the mini-games are decent while others are pretty boring. Its a pretty short game with just 1 player as it was obviously meant for more. Ancitipation requires you to guess the picture as its being drawn before your opponents do. If you guess a correct picture in each of the 4 categories you are raised to the next level. After solving 12 different categories and moving past the 3rd level of the game you are declared the winner.
I was hoping that Chessmaster might be a great follow up to my ever popular Othello video, but unfortunately you get the option to rush the computer opponent if you choose so it doesn't quite have the same appeal  . By forcing the computer to make moves in a timely fashion its not nearly as challenging either.
Lastly I busted out some more learning and tried my hand at DK Jr Math. Much like Pictionary this game is meant to be played with a friend. So it was pretty easy to stomp my inactive opponent and prove my superior mathematic skills!!
2013 NES List
Sesame Street Countdown
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters
Shooting Range
Space Shuttle Project
Double Dare
Win, Lose or Draw
Othello
Whomp Em
Dragon Fighter
Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle
Family Feud
Tale Spin
Platoon
Gotcha!
Gun Smoke
Kiwi Kraze
10 Yard Fight
Tom & Jerry
Wrecking Crew
Hatris
Time Lord
Orb 3D
Wheel of Fortune Jr
Wheel of Fortune Family Edition
Captain America and the Avengers
Wheel of Fortune
Wheel of Fortune Featuring Vanna White
The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle
Bo Jackson Baseball
Jeopardy! Jr
Jeopardy!
Jeopardy! 25th Anniversary
Cowboy Kid
Crash n The Boys: Street Challenge
Galaga
Color A Dinosaur
Millipede
Popeye
Sesame Street 123
Sesame Street ABC
Sesame Street Hide & Speak
Soccer
Classic Concentration
Fisher Price I Can Remember
Fisher Price Perfect Fit
Mickey's Safari in Letterland
Mickey's Adventure in Numberland
NES Open Golf
Pictionary
Chessmaster
Anticipation
DK Jr Math
52 Games Beaten Over 40 Days
Got myself a nice little cushion to fall back on now which is pretty nice especially considering how much time I sunk into NES Open Tournament Golf. Now I'll be a bit more comfortable playing a few of the more interesting titles on my list. Plus I'm running out of Edutainment options 
Future Plans - It would be nice to give myself an even further boost ahead of my goal if possible so I think I might do a little Black Box spree tomorrow and check out stuff like Balloon Fight, Donkey Kong 3, Urban Champion and Pinball.
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The series returns with a nice look at one of the many ignored movie licensed games of the 16 bit era. Stargate was made by Acclaim and released for the SNES and Sega Genesis/Mega Drive in 1995, but not all was well in this land of milk and honey.
What happens when your low class nametag goes away and you can't use it anymore? Well it looks like you just have to use your own name and hope nobody notices and ignores such MEDIOCRITIES!
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If you got the title reference then you know your in for a treat this time around!!
After having several pretty slow days I decided it was time to pull out the big guns and knock out several relatively easy victories in order to pad my numbers. For starters I choose a few old arcade ports that that all had pretty low high scores or levels to loop.
Galaga was the first one. Pretty solid port it seemed. Game controlled well and played much like you'd expect it to. Not much to say, its Galaga!
The next old arcade port was Millipede. This one I've never actually played in the arcade so I'm not sure how good of a port it is. Definitely not as much fun as Galaga, but it was interesting for a very short while. Had two difficulty modes so I played to a high score on each.
Last of my arcade port trifecta was Popeye. This one was definitely my favorite of the three. Played great, looked great, had a few different levels each with a slighly different goal and every level had a gradually increasing difficulty. Pretty solid for a Black Box title. Definitely check it out if you're a sucker for high score type games.
After playing these classic Arcade titles I was feeling a bit old. So I decided to play a few games that would make me feel young again! Like Color A Dinosaur!! I colored the crap out of each and every Dinosaur in the game. I want to say it does what its supposed to, but it doesn't even do that well. The color palette you get to choose from is pretty sad and limited. Not a great title even for its intended purposes me thinks.
Followed that up by brushing up on my math skills with some Sesame Street 123. Ernie and Grover helped me prep for my upcoming rematch with long division when I try to take on DK Jr and his damn math again!
To keep up with my studies I also played some Sesame Street ABC. I don't know what giving Ernie a bath has to do with the Alphabet, but its pretty fun for a bit. I actually used to play it at my neighbours house as a kid so it was kind of neat to re-experience it again.
Before doing something a bit more grown up I snuck in the final Sesame Street game and played some Hide & Speak. The digitized voice work in the game is pretty awesome!!
Needing something a bit more manly after that trip down my 5 year old self's memory lane I plugged in some organized sports, Soccer!! Like most of the black box sports games its fairly basic and the only real goal is to win a match. Not to hard, but it did control a bit better than some of the other BB sports titles like Volleyball, Baseball or 10 Yard Fight. Not great, but better then some of its brethren.
Lastly I just couldnt stay away from the game shows for too long and had to get my fix with some Classic Concentration. I have extremely vague memories of seeing this show on TV........I think. I'm kind of a sucker for game shows so I though it was pretty fun. Probably pretty decent with a friend to play against.
2013 NES List
43 Games Beaten Over 37 Days
Sesame Street Countdown
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters
Shooting Range
Space Shuttle Project
Double Dare
Win, Lose or Draw
Othello
Whomp Em
Dragon Fighter
Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle
Family Feud
Tale Spin
Platoon
Gotcha!
Gun Smoke
Kiwi Kraze
10 Yard Fight
Tom & Jerry
Wrecking Crew
Hatris
Time Lord
Orb 3D
Wheel of Fortune Jr
Wheel of Fortune Family Edition
Captain America and the Avengers
Wheel of Fortune
Wheel of Fortune Featuring Vanna White
The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle
Bo Jackson Baseball
Jeopardy! Jr
Jeopardy!]/URL]
[URL=http://youtu.be/YfR-hBRN6pQ]Jeopardy! 25th Anniversary
Cowboy Kid
Crash n The Boys: Street Challenge
Galaga
Color A Dinosaur
Millipede
Popeye
Sesame Street 123
Sesame Street ABC
Sesame Street Hide & Speak
Soccer
Classic Concentration
So far I'm 6 games ahead of schedule.
Future Plans - Slowly plugging away at NES Open Golf. Stalled on The Black Bass for the time being. Gonna slam out several more early childhood games to pad my numbers further too!
Before I begin I want to thank Slackur for always providing insightful and though-provoking comments to my blog articles. His comment about friends playing F-Zero in a way that defies the conventional approach to the game got me thinking about how I consume and experience my video games. I came to the conclusion that a person can either actively or passively receive their gaming content. My goal here is to start a discussion about how we as gamers and collectors absorb the content of our favourite medium.
This is not so much an analysis of RPGs themselves, but the way in which I consume them. I would describe myself as a passive gamer in that I stay within the confines of the world and conventions of the games I play. I allow myself to be sucked into the mythology the game presents and let the game reveal its secrets to me. I would compare this to be told an intriguing campfire story that has the audience eagerly waiting to learn the conclusion of the plot. I play games the same way many people watch movies. I search out the narrative techniques utilized by the story, and take the hint when an event is foreshadowed. I still explore all the nooks and crannies of the game environments and think outside the box when it's required of me, but that is where my immersion ends because I play the game the way it was meant to be played.
The other camp of gamers, those actively consuming their games, seem to take a completely different approach to the content of video games. Simply put, these people play games the way they weren't meant to. They might try to cause the game to glitch or create their own little game. Returning to Slackur's comment, he recalled friends who would align their vehicles perpendicular to the direction of the track in front of a ramp and wait for another racer to collide into them pushing them up and off the ramp. They would then accelerate off the screen. What a perfect way to play a game in a completely new and inventive way. Active gamers take the game and turn it into something totally their own.
For further reading have a look at these articles that I found interesting.
Are games becoming more like TV entertainment?
Passive/active gameplay as design mechanics
I want to know how the RF Generation community receive their gaming content. Do you play the game in the manner you're told to, or do you break the rules and reinvent the game?
There was a time when I thought that the shoot-em-up was the dullest video game genre out there. I'm serious. I'm not afraid to admit my ignorance. It's totally true. But there was a chain of events that led me to discover three very important games (at least to my own gamer development). Games that caused me to fall deeply in love with the genre. Not surprisingly all three games were very different from each other -- but those differences caused me to realize that shmups were not the boring "everything is just Space Invaders with different sprites" that I had originally thought.
The first game that led me to this conclusion was Galaga and I was introduced to it as part of Racketboy.com's Together Retro game club back in early 2009. I remember dreading the thought of playing such a game for a full month, but then getting completely sucked into it for 30 days. To this day I consider Galaga one of my favorite games of all time. It's the one game that I seek out the second I find myself inside an arcade. I love the rare chance to get to play this masterpiece on original hardware. And I've since purchased way more Namco Museum collections than I care to admit.
The second game was Chaos Field -- introduced to me here on RFGeneration all those years back when Crabmaster2000 was still doing his "Unloved" series of blog posts. I remember him comparing it to Shadow of the Colossus in space -- a description so odd that I had to look into it. And really the game is odd, or rather unique in that it's basically just a boss rush with stunning music, incredible visuals and a solid dual-field mechanic that is addictive as all get-out.
But the third game I discovered totally on my own.
 
Shikigami No Shiro II (or Castle of Shikigami II as it's known in America) is a truly unique shmup. Rather than space ships you've got tiny little flying characters, all animated so impressively. The characters are definitely something that the developers Alfa Systems obviously cared a great deal about. Unlike most shmups which offer you three or so ships to choose from, Shikigami II gives you eight. And each character has an insane storyline to play through. Of course if you're playing the DC port it won't matter if you're an English speaker. But the translation (available on the PS2 port) proves that the story is so bat-poop insane that it doesn't even matter if you're following it or not. In fact, you have the option to turn off the dialogue which is often helpful as it can actually interrupt the flow of things.
What really matters is the game. And the game is just incredible to look at. Though the sprites are tiny they are well detailed. And the Dreamcast version does in fact offer a tate mode for those of you (like me) who are deranged enough to have monitors that you can rotate. And trust me it's totally worth it. This game looks incredible in its original vertical display mode. And audio-wise the game offers up one of my absolute favorite shmup soundtracks of all time.
 
The gameplay is incredible though, and that's why you're really reading this. You've got this tiny little character with an even tinier hit box. Each character (remember there's a lot of them) plays completely differently -- with different "Shikigami Attacks." Believe me when I say that each character can feel like you're playing completely different games. It's a very deep system. But what's even more intense is that you get far more points if you kill an enemy when grazing bullets. This alone adds an insanity to the game that is riveting. It's a truly unreal risk vs. rewards system where you must put yourself in constant danger in order to score higher. And this system alone means that once again, playing the game for score or playing the game for survival are two totally different games.
Though Shikigami No Shiro II is not the true bullet-hell that games (such as releases by Cave) would be later, they are also not quite as borderline old-school as say Psikyo's (Gunbird, etc.) would be. In this sense it's a similar bridge-game from old school and bullet hell though leaning far more toward the latter -- and of course you've got the crazy grazing dynamic to consider. This game is intense, and incredible and highly, highly recommended.
So post-holidays meant I had a bit of mad-money to blow. And I had no problem finding a whole lot of awesome Sega stuff to buy with it. Let's take a look...
Some Sega CD games. I'm especially happy to have a copy of Fatal Fury Special.
I found this boxed Lethal Enforcers gun for $10 locally... except look! The box actually has two of them!
A few games for my US Saturn library. Puzzle Fighter FTW!
These Saturn promos were from my RFGen Secret Santa, Tynstar. I've always wanted that Virtua Feeling sampler.
JJGames had an after-Christmas sale, so I nabbed a bunch of US Dreamcast games on the cheap.
A couple of indie games from Goat Store. The Irides is the limited edition which came with that coin and a nice poster (not pictured).
A couple of Dreamcast Japanese imports, also from Goat Store. They were dirt cheap so I couldn't pass them up. July was a Japanese launch title.
Fellow RFGenner dsheinem sold me these -- the one in the sleeve is the less common Version 2.62 Web Browser.
Planet Ring was a PAL exclusive, and the box set comes with a microphone. There's been rumors of this game getting a private server, so I'm all set if it does. This was also snatched from Goat Store at the very reasonable price of $14.
This fight pad is not so good, though I guess some folks like the programmable buttons. However, it was only $3 and I already had the box to complete it. Also from Goat Store.
Another boxed VMU, along with a sealed US one. The sealed one came from JJGames, and the blue one I found locally. It's so hard to pass up boxed DC stuff if I see it in my travels.
A boxed US keyboard! I had a loose one, but I really wanted a boxed one to match my Japanese one. The box isn't in the best shape, but again I found it locally at a good price so couldn't leave it behind.
And finally a boxed US controller to match my PAL one. This was also from dsheinem.
Over this last week I had a few unexpected set backs one of which was work related (where I play most of my games). My boss occasionally goes off the deep end, and, oh boy, did she go off the deep end this week. Seems like things have settled back to normal now and I'm back to it. To make up for some lost time I tackled several more of the game show type games for a few relatively easy victories.
Last time I gave you guys a healthy dose of Wheel of Fortune. This week I'm back with an equal serving of the Wheel joined by several pieces of Jeopdary! for dessert. The plain old Wheel of Fortune plays nearly identical to the two that I played through during last weeks update. The Featuring Vanna White version plays a lot different though. It has a much stronger focus on graphics and being bright and colorful in comparison. Much like Super Jeopardy is when compared to all 3 other versions. Other than the graphical differences and a slightly modified wheel to spin its your basic Wheel of Fortune. Here are the end screens for both of them (where I won myself a brand new kitchen!!):
Instead of jumping right into Jeopardy I thought I'd take a quick break and explore a couple other games. The first of which was The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle. I'm not a huge Rocky & Bullwinkle fan, but I did grow up watching old reruns of the show and had pretty fond memories of the series. This game doesn't do ANY justice to the source material. I fee like I'm fairly generous when playing most of these games. After 250+ there is only an extremely small handful of games that I'd genuinely say I thought were absolutely terrible. Rocky & Bullwinkle is unfortunately one of those games. From the controls, to level design, to visuals, to enemies to the music it was just bad all around. The only thing that I can say positive about it is that it was quite short. I'm thankful for that!
If you followed me at all last year you'll know I played through several long baseball seasons that only Wildbil52 was brave enough to watch Well I started my baseball season early this year, but fortunately it was only about 2 hours long instead of 10+ times that. Gave Bo Jackson Baseball a go. I'd like to play some of the other ones again for comparison, but it seems like one of the best I've come across yet. Everything is pretty basic, but it all works very well. Its got the tightest controls and that alone is a good enough reason to rank it high on the baseball list.
The next 3 were the rest of the Jeopardy games on the system. I'm going to lump them all together since they were so similar. The regular and 25th Anniversary games were basically identical. Different titles screen and I'm sure different categories, but otherwise you were playing the same game. Jr had questions that were obviously for a younger audience at least which helps distinguish it from the others. Not much else to say. Its Jeopardy so if you like that sort of thing (I do) then you'll probably get some enjoyment out of them.
One of the newest games in my collection is Cowboy Kid, which I picked up earlier in the month. All I knew about it going in was that it was supposedly a fairly unique game. At first it seemed like the gameplay was going to be quite similar to Time Lord. After a bit of exploring it (thankfully) turned out to be quite a bit more enjoyable. There are 6 different outlaws for you to capture in the order of your choosing. Each outlaw is in a different town or settlement. Your job is to explore each area, collecting money and finding items and equipment as you go, and apprehend each of them. Most of the levels involve a bit of exploring and sometimes even puzzle solving. One of the stages it even a scrolling shmup type level. When I played the first mission it seemed like the game was gonna be pretty tough with just a little knife at my disposal. After playing a few more I was able to equip a hand gun and rifle which made the game a lot more enjoyable though. After capturing the first 6 outlaws you are presented with a final outlaw to capture being getting the ending. Pretty neat game overall.
Last up for this update is probably also my favorite, Crash n the Boys: Street Challenge. Its one of those Olympic types games in which you compete in several events trying to get first place overall. There are only 5 events, but all of them control really well and are pretty enjoyable for the most part. In between matches you can also use the medals you've earned during your events to purchase stat boosts or special items ala River City Ransom. Pulling someone under water and beating them until they've drowned is surprisingly awesome! Pretty cool game and one that I've had the pleasure of playing multiplayer in the past. Its a whole lot of fun with a few friends.
2013 NES List
34 Games Beaten over 30 Days
Sesame Street Countdown
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters
Shooting Range
Space Shuttle Project
Double Dare
Win, Lose or Draw
Othello
Whomp Em
Dragon Fighter
Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle
Family Feud
Tale Spin
Platoon
Gotcha!
Gun Smoke
Kiwi Kraze
10 Yard Fight
Tom & Jerry
Wrecking Crew
Hatris
Time Lord
Orb 3D
Wheel of Fortune Jr
Wheel of Fortune Family Edition
Captain America and the Avengers
Wheel of Fortune
Wheel of Fortune Featuring Vanna White
The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle
Bo Jackson Baseball
Jeopardy! Jr
Jeopardy!]/URL]
[URL=http://youtu.be/YfR-hBRN6pQ]Jeopardy! 25th Anniversary
Cowboy Kid
Crash n The Boys: Street Challenge
Future Plans - Been putting some time into NES Open Golf and The Black Bass. I'm stalled out on Black Bass at the moment. I've gotten to the final lake/tournament and I don't much too much trouble catching the fish. I just can't seem to get the damn things to appear most of the time. NES Open Golf is just gonna be a matter of time since I have to figure out how to rank up and rank in some decent $$$ to get to $1,000,000.
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