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Continue reading Unloved #16: Iggy's Reckin' Balls
So... it's now been over a year since I announced the RF Generation Podcast. That went... nowhere. Again, after chatting in the IRC room again, slackur brought up the question to me about just what happened. I had nothing but excuses. It's been in the back of my mind for a long time, but the excitement that he brought to the discussion reinvigorated my desire to podcast for this site. We are beginning the framework and some initial topics and scripts now, but feel it's time to officially...
REANNOUNCE THE RF GENERATION PODCAST!
To reiterate my previous blog post on this: this podcast is for you, the members. slackur and I will be your co-hosts. We will, eventually, have guests from the community as well.
Starting off, we're looking at bi-weekly episodes, but if it takes off (and we get good at this), we may move to a weekly schedule. slackur is working on some topics for us to start off with, but we're going to have a topic in the forums to take your reactions, your topic suggestions, or any other comments you may have about it.
Hopefully, it's not another year before a topic like this comes up and we hope to hear from you guys soon!
EDIT: Wanted to include a link to the new topic in the forums.
http://www.rfgeneration.c...m/index.php?topic=10730.0
After anxiously waiting for the end of august to get here and my vacation time to kick in, we did our final walk through and i was ready to move right then and there. The excitement is here because i know in 2 years i will be owning this place. Tired and sore from the move, i sit in what is now my media room or mancave as we like to call it. What to do with all this space is the question. I have downsized my collection these past few months because of space and the lack of gaming due to stress and other personal reasons. Now the stress has been lifted and i am ready to get back to what i have always enjoyed. Enough of me rambling......
So i have a nice split level that is finished. The only bad about the room is no AC and the fact i have to go through the laundry just to get to it. The space is great though, i have a big storage room that leads to the back yard that is big enough to hold some arcade cabinets but that will be in the near future. Nothing is unpacked yet so when i get my camera i will snap some pics for you guys. All i need is a theme, like what color combination should i do? Any help would be great from you guys and gals.
I'm a longtime fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series. The comic book and original cartoon was a big deal to me when I was young. I saw the original trilogy in the theaters. Not only did I have all three soundtracks, but I begged my parents to bring me to Pizza Hut so I could get the Coming Out Of Their Shells cassette as well. I had an air-conditioner box filled with the action figures. And luckily for me, there were a lot of video games based on the series. This is the first in a series of posts that will explore some of the titles related to the Game Boy Player Land blog. First up -- we'll take a look at the three Game Boy Advance games.
 
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was released by Konami in 2003. It was intended as a handheld port of the Gamecube game of the same title. Not surprisingly, the Game Boy Advance and the Gamecube games are completely different. While the Gamecube title was 3D, this one would be a sidescroller. It plays rather similar to some of the Game Boy Konami games from the series, though oddly it strays from the formula of the Ninja Turtle beat-em-ups that Konami had perfected in the arcades. However, this isn't to say the game is bad. It's a rather competent game that allows a good amount of playing time seeing as each turtle has his own levels to tackle. Konami being Konami also included several levels of other genres, such as switching to first person to keep things interesting. What's funny is that level-varying concept seems to be borrowed from the Battletoads games, which of course were a bit of a ripoff of the Ninja Turtles to begin with. Ultimately, the game isn't a classic, but it is worth a few bucks for the several hours you could sink it to it.
 
In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Battle Nexus Konami used the same formula as the previous game, though seems to make everything a lot better. It's also a 2D take on the 3D Gamecube game of the same title, it allows each turtle to complete his own missions, and it throws in some other kinds of levels like Shmup-inspired ones to keep things fresh. However, it seems that to some degree this game just pulls everything off slightly better than the first. It's almost ineffable, but it just feels like a better and more perfected game. The controls are comfortable, the graphics and animations are great, and the music is good. Collectors should note that the first two games were reissued together on a single GBA cart as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Double Pack.
 
TMNT was released in 2007 to coincide with the CGI movie of the same title, and it's easily the best of the GBA games. Though it plays the closest to the Konami arcade games, this game was actually published by Ubisoft. Although the Gamecube version is a 3D game similar to the Konami ones, the GBA port is an old school brawler and completely worth checking out. The graphics are fantastic and will appeal to fans of the comic books, and the gameplay is pure classic arcade beatemup. This one is not to be overlooked!
I'm aware that there was a GBA Video release that contained a couple of episodes of the revival cartoon, but I've never bothered to pick this one up. Later posts will focus on the Game Boy and Gamecube Ninja Turtles games. But what did you all think of the Game Boy Advance releases?
Well it has been a few weeks since I have posted, mainly because the past few weeks have been extremely busy and I havent had time to do much flea market / yard sale hunting.
But here we go.
First Haul all comes from Yard Sales last weekend.
Legacy of the Wizard CIB for the NES $2
Thrillville, Bruce Lee, Oddworld Strangers Wrath, and Gun all CIB for the Xbox, $2 each.
NFL Quarterback Club 2000 CIB & Blast Corps & Wave Race 64 for the N64 $1 each.
Fighting Force and Battle Hunter for the PS1 $1 Each.
Wario Land 2 for the GameBoy $.50.
Sega Genesis Games all CIB $2 Each.
Deadly Moves, Super Smash TV, Growl, Cosmic Spacehead, Pac Man 2, Clue, and Judge Dredd.
The next lot was from Craigslist.
Said highest bidder wins, I was the only one to put in an offer.
Got 42 NES Games for $45.
List of Games:
TMNT
Shadowgate
Marble Madness
MLB
Blades of Steel
Zelda
Zelda II
Castlevania
Castlevania 2
Castlevania 3
Batman Joker
WWF Wrestlemania Challenge
WWF Steel Cage Challenge
Double Dribble
Excitebike
Top Gun
Monsters In My Pocket
Operation Wolf
Double Dragon II
Rampage
Caveman Games
Renegade
Ninja Gaiden
Mega Man 2
Mega Man 3
Mega Man 4
Millipede
Tetris
Bartman vs Radioactive Man
Godzilla
Airwolf
Astyanax
Spiderman Sinister Six
WCW Wrestling
Jordan vs Bird
Ski or Die
Karate Champ
Super Tecmo Bowl
Roger Clemens MVP Baseball
Arch Rivals
Pro Wrestling
Next lot was also from Craigs List, from the same person.
I told them $50 for this lot, and was told someone offered higher, so I thought I lost it.
3 Days later I guess the deal fell through, and the $50 was accepted for
25 N64 games CIB, 3 N64 games just cartridge, A N64 with all hookups and 2 controllers.
Games Include:
10 Sports Titles 
WWF Attitude
Star Wars Episode 1 Racer
Star Wars Shadows of the Empire
WCW Mayhem
WWF Warzone
WWF No Mercy
San Francisco Rush
F1 World Grand Prix
Nascar 2000
Nascar 99
Mario Kart 64
Mortal Kombat Sub Zero
Mortal Kombat 4
Cruisin USA
Goldeneye 007
Shadow Man (My Favorite game when I was a bit younger cant wait to beat this again)
WCW NWO World Tour
WCW NWO Revenge
WWF Wrestlemania 2000
Last picture was from a flea market I attended over this weekend, it was off and on rain so not many people there, managed to get a few games.
Marked $2 each, managed to get them all for $5
Destruction Derby 2, R4 both complete, Monopoly & Lethal Weapon
$4 each for The Simpsons Game and Battlefield 2 Xbox 360 both Complete
and $2 for Musashi PS2 Complete
Planning on going to a flea market quick this week before Ozzfest, hopefully I will do a little better than last week.
As my game reviews of Small Worlds and Limbo have shown, I have a strong appreciation for a minimalist approach that focuses on just one or two key concepts, thus reflecting a represented idea's pure form. At first glance, it would seem that the shmup field (shoot-'em-up, space shooter, vertical/horizontal scroller, etc) seems to be one of the few classic genres still so relatively simple in concept and execution that to remove any more staple components would dilute the concept to a dull tedium. The barest form (Space Invaders, Asteroids) can be difficult to return to after introducing in-depth layers (Ikaruga, Cave bullet-hell survival, unique scoring methodology.) The oldest are fun for classic nostalgia and score contests, sure, but even Galaga had to layer a bit more complexity over Galaxian to become an industry stalwart.
Cue Hikoza T. Ohkubo's Warning Forever. A freeware PC shmup from 2003, Warning Forever is a perfect example of a talented 'indie' developer that refined a concept into a simple game with more polish, gameplay, and pure addictive quality than the import-heavy genre had seen in years. And to this day, it remains an incredibly fun testament to stripping down a game concept and just keeping what works.
In Warning Forever, there is only your ship avatar and a never-ending stream of boss ships, one at a time. 180 seconds on the clock. Each boss ship has various destroyable compartments and weapons. A destroyed boss ship core grants the player another 30 seconds added to the timer, and every player ship lost costs 20 seconds. No power-ups, no alternate player ships, and only one vulcan-like cannon on the player ship that can either dumb-fire forward or switch to a swiveling fire arc that moves opposite of the direction the player moves. The goal is as simple as it is intuitive: survive as long as possible.
While the initial setup is not really extraordinary, after destroying a few boss ships something notable occurs. If you blow up the front of the ship, the next one has more armor on the front. Killed by a missile launcher on the last boss? The next one will be bristling with missile pods. As each boss ship is destroyed, an artificial process of natural selection will enable the next to better counter your attack method.
In other words, when this-
Becomes THIS, its YOUR fault.
Soon, players will be targeting specific areas during different fights, knowing how to customize their own battles in reverse. Instead of the player ship advancing and leveling in specified directions, the enemy is growing in power against the player's attack methods. While the game includes a button for slow and precise ship movement for delicate dodging, and the hit box on the player ship constitutes a single pixel, the computer will eventually overcompensate its weakness and conquer you. At least, until next game.
The player has a fire control that allows the angle of attack to sweep across the dark void around the two opposing ships, as well as widen the spread or focus the shots into a targeted area by moving towards or away. Warning Forever removes the level-up weapon structure common in these games and focuses entirely on a player's movement, precision, and tactically surgical strikes. The less-is-more approach drops the over-the-top arcade-frantic nature without loosing any of the intensity.
The vector-like graphics and simplistic, retro style sounds give the game a clean, sharp impression. No frills beyond some humble particle effects, Warning Forever nonetheless shows artistic design in the subtle polish that displays Hikware's commitment to an excellent, complete game belying its quiet origins.
It will also run on any PC computer you can still turn on without waking up a hamster on a treadmill or inserting a floppy disc the size of a pizza. Even if shmups have never interested you, the price of admission alone and the ease of which it can be installed and played on anything smarter than a Ti-99 is reason enough to give it a whirl.
If you are like me, your poor consoles and Starcrafts and Warcrafts and house-on-fire might take a back seat for a few minutes or hours as that familiar warning klaxon starts blaring...
Hey Everyone! I promised a second post and here it is. OUR VERY OWN SPECIAL EDITION COLLECTION in OUR Collection. My brother and I as you know collect odds and ends in our collection. We have a ton of Special Edition games and it keeps growing with release of new games that have Special Editions, like HALO:REACH we already have the Legendary Edition on pre-order, and my brother is also thinking about getting the Limited Edition HALO:REACH XBOX360, we already have the HALO 3 Edition, but why not more huh?!?! Most of the games are pretty recent, the oldest one in the photos is the Collector's Edition of Legend of Zelda: Orcarina of Time on the N64. I bought that game for $10.00 at CD Tradepost a few years back, sells for pretty decent on eBay. The Special Edition Collection is one of our prized aspects in our collection, we have spent a lot of money on these and continue to do so to grow and expand and hopefully someday have the biggest "SPECIAL EDITION" Collection in the hobby. The pictures below will have descriptions on what games are listed in there. SO!! Enjoy and don't drool please, its embarassing.
PICTURE 1: THE VARIOUS
(FROM LEFT TO RIGHT)
1. Records of Agarest War - The Really Naughty Limited Edition (NEW/SEALED)
2. Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon - Raiho Special Edition (NEW/SEALED)
3. Assasin's Creed Limited Edition (Xbox 360)
4. Legend of Zelda: Orcarina of Time Collector's Edition (N64)
5. Batman: Arkham Asylum: Collector's Edition (Xbox360)
6. Guild Wars: Nightfall: Collector's Edition (PC)
7. Fallout 3: AMAZON COLLECTOR'S EDITION (ONLY BOUGHT ON AMAZON) (NEW/SEALED)
8. Grand Theft Auto IV: Special Edition (Xbox 360)
9. Bioshock 2: Special Edition
PICTURE TWO: Playstation 2 Games
1. Mana Khemia 1: Alchemist of Al-Revis: Special Edition
2. Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy: Collector's Edition
3. Sakura Wars: So Long My Love - Collector's Edition
4. Growlanser: Heritate of War - Limited Edition
5. Final Fantasy XII - Collector's Edition
6. The Godfather - Limited Edition
7. Madden 2005 - Collector's Edition
8. Mortal Kombat: Deception - Premium Edition
9. Mortal Kombat: Armageddon - Premium Edition
10. Presona 3: Limited Release Edition (Taken off the shelves after release)
11. Devil May Cry: Trilogy Pack
12. Hitman Trilogy
13. Metal Gear Solid: The Essential Collection
PICTURE THREE: XBOX 360 JUMBOS
1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Prestige Edition
2. Halo 3 - Legendary Edition
3. Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation - Flight Stick Edition
PICTURE FOUR: XBOX 360 & PC Editions
1. World In Conflict - Collector's Edition (PC)
2. Sims 3 - Collector's Edition (PC)
3. Bioshock: Limited Edition (PC)
4. Brother's In Arms: Hell's Highway - Limited Edition (360)
5. Fallout 3: Lunch Box Special Edition (NOT THE AMAZON EDITION) (360)
6. Battlefield: Bad Compnay - Gold Edition (360)
7. Fable 2 - Limited Collector's Edition (360)
8. Soul Calibur IV - Limited Edition (360)
9. Prey - Limited Collector's Edition (360)
10. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - Limited Collector's Edition (360)
11. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Collector's Edition (360)
12. Two Worlds - Collector's Edition
13. Rainbow Six Vegas 2 - Limited Edition
14. Halo Wars - Limited Edition
15. Turning Point: Fall of Liberty - Limited Edition
16. Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe - Collector's Edition
17. Lost Planet: Extreme Condition - Collector's Edition
18. Devil May Cry 4 - Collector's Edition
19. Farcry 2 - Game Stop Pre-Order Edition
20. Red Dead: Redemption - Special Editoin
PICTURE FIVE: Xbox and Various Systems
1. Doom 3 - Collector's Edition (Xbox)
2. Jade Empire - Limited Edition (Xbox)
3. Call of Duty 2: Big Red One - Special Edition (Xbox)
4. Halo 2: Limited Collector's Edition
5. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory - Limited Collector's Edition (GameCube)
6. Resident Evil 4 - Game Stop Exclusive Edition
7. Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition - (Game Cube)
8. Legend of Zelda: Two-Game Bonus Disc - (Game Cube)
9. Metal Gear Solid 4 - Limited Edition (PS3)
10. Spider-Man 3 - Collector's Edition (PS3)
11. Mimana Iyar Chronicles - Special Edition (PSP)
12. Persona - Special Edition (PSP)
13. Lunar: Silver Star Harmony - Premium Edition (PSP)
So there they are, sorry didn't put the picture of the systems on there, the only one we have is Halo 3 at this point. We are working on getting the Splinter Cell Conviction system, Final Fantasy XIII System, and Halo: Reach, and maybe the Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 one. My brother ALMOST won the Simpson's Giveaway Special Edition System. That would of been a great addition to the collection. So hope you all enjoy and I might actually post another blog tonight, maybe tomorrow. Deciding what to do next. Maybe our Rare NES Games.
ENJOY!
Sorry it's been a while since I have posted anything today there will be two different posts.
This blog is about The Game Find that my brother and I had a while back. Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis is a rare game on the PS2 and XBOX unfortunately we only have the PS2 version right now. The game is going for $30 to over $100 on eBay. We found the game at CD Tradepost here in Council Bluffs, for $17.99 a great buy at that time, because the game was going for well over $80.00 at that time. We bought it about a 3 years ago. But two weeks ago we found the Strategy Guide which is also rare and hard to come by at local book store. I will have pictures of both items on this blog so you can enjoy the beauty of both. We bought the guide brand new for $10.00 and is selling new on amazon for $200.00!!! Both are great finds and are great additions to our collection. (For a description of the game use wikipedia or mobygames).
FIRST PICTURE: The Game
SECOND PICTURE: The Guide
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
Incorporating elements of various H. P. Lovecraft tales, especially The Shadow Over Innsmouth and The Shadow Out of Time, this game for Xbox and PC from Headfirst Productions focuses on a town in the thrall of perverse worship to an alien Elder God. While it bears the Call of Cthulhu moniker, the story focuses more on Dagon, the Deep Ones, and the humans who follow them. Numerous other creatures from the Cthulhu mythos also appear.
For those of you unaware, the Cthulhu mythos is a loosely formed mythos surrounding a pantheon of ancient slumbering gods created by author H. P. Lovecraft and linked together and expanded upon by such fans and later writers as August Derleth, Stephen King, and Neal Gaiman. Lovecraft lived and wrote through the 1920s and early 30s publishing short stories and novellas in such magazines as Weird Tales. His stories tended towards archaic language concerning man's place in the universe: the species is unimportant and survives only at the whim of the ancient and slumbering Elder Gods, who would devour the souls of humanity and enslave or unmake the universe if they ever awoke from their slumber. Bizarre and twisted creatures populate his stories, along with colorful descriptions of madness and horror. And Dark Corners of the Earth is no different
In DCotE, you play as Jack Walters, a private detective in the 1920s recently released from Arkham Asylum, where he'd been held for a case of amnesia, multiple personality disorder, and schizophrenia after a police raid he was a part of went haywire and he witnessed events and beings that shattered his mind. To top if all off its hinted that Walters is psychic and unknowingly uses that ability to solve cases. He takes a job searching for a missing grocery store clerk named Brian Burnham. Burnham ran the First National grocery store in Innsmouth, and so off Jack goes to find the lad. That's when everything goes out the window. Innsmouth is not a nice place: the locals are hideous and unfriendly, the innkeeper has a preference towards knives, and there's a weird temple in the center of town. It all goes downhill from there.
Soon after, Jack will find himself racing through the Innsmouth streets, battling his way out of dank sewers, sneaking through harrowing temples, and in a variety of other locations. Fans of the Cthulhu mythos will not be disappointed as bloody cult rituals, abberrant beasts, and twisted gods all find their way into the game. There are also numerous memorable scenes that will have horror fans shaking in their chairs, and the sequences where Jack is being chased are adrenaline-fueled and nothing short of exemplary.
The game is played in a first person perspective and features some gun combat, but it keeps a heavy focus on puzzles. And when there is something to shoot, the player is usually running the opposite direction anyway or trying to sneak past. Firearms aren't used at all throughout large portions of the game. The game also doesn't feature a HUD, instead relying on visual and auditory cues to tell the player how much damage they've taken. DCotE features a cumbersome health system in which specific items are needed to treat specific types of wounds, and wounds can appear on various parts of the body. Break a leg and you'll have to splint it, or else you'll only be able to walk at a crawl. Lacerations will have to be sutured, poison must be medicated, so on and so forth.
Then factor in a sanity system where Jack's vision blacks out and he begins hearing strange voices and other unusual sounds when he sees something that his mind can't handle, and you've got an interesting experience that can also end up a little frustrating. With madness comes changes in control sensitivity, visual distortions and fading colors. If it proves to be more than Jack can take, he goes mad and kills himself.
Gun combat is also more realistic in Dark Corners of the Earth than in most FPS. First, ammunition must be conserved because it's extremely limited as per the norm with survival horror, so even when the player does have a gun, it doesn't mean he can fight. Second, there is no targeting reticle, so players must use the iron sights to see what they're shooting. And no matter what, the gun fires bullets wherever it's pointing. Pull out a gun and fire in the middle of the motion, and the bullet will fly in whichever direction the barrel pointed, even straight up.
While the game was generally favorably received, it is known for being extremely buggy, and some bugs will break the game. My first time playing, I ended up stuck and reverting to a previous save because a switch refused to activate. Other players have reported similar problems at different times, and there are no official patches to fix them. Nor will there ever be an official patch, as Headfirst Productions went defunct less than a year after the title's release. However, unofficial mods have been released for the PC version that help stabilize the game.
Two sequels were planned, but both are now Vaporware.
For those of you interested, here's the intro video:
<![CDATA[<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/6FmJRmNQikE&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/6FmJRmNQikE&rel=0</a>]]>
Although homebrew console games are a phenomenon that have been with gaming for decades, the relatively recent popularity of emulators and the web itself have created a rich environment for an ongoing renaissance in self-made games. Almost every classic game system has enjoyed an assortment of wonderful homebrew games over the past decade, including those that have seen official releases in formats original to the systems that they are created for. Since this blog attempts to chronicle games released both at a system's launch and a system's end (and beyond), these games are a natural fit.
Last Hope is an especially interesting candidate, as it is not only a "last" game for one particular console, but for three. Developed in 2006 by NG:DEV.TEAM for the Neo Geo, Neo Geo CD, and Dreamcast, Last Hope is a horizontal-scrolling shooter that borrows obvious inspiration from games like IREM's R-Type and Aicom's Pulstar. More polished and better produced then a majority of homebrew games, NG.DEV.TEAM's game was generally well-regarded by consumers and reviewers alike. Furthermore, the most common complaints about the game (the difficulty, the tough-to-discern appearance of various objects, etc.) were addressed in an updated 2007 release for the Dreamcast entitled Last Hope: Pink Bulllets.
One of the most impressive feats of this release is that NG:DEV.TEAM made an effort to mimic the standard packaging for each of the ports of the game. This adds to the overall sense of high production quality found in the game itself, and rounds out the full package nicely. Because the AES carts were prohibitively expensive to produce, only 60 were made and sold, for around $700 each. Because of the rarity, prices for the game have gone upwards of $1000+ in the time since. The Neo Geo and Dreamcast versions were available for closer to $30-$50 each, depending on whether the standard or limited edition (with a soundtrack) was purchased. All versions of the game were region free, so they could be played on any system.
Here you can see what each version looked like (sorry for the watermarks, but I don't have my own copies of these.)
 The Neo Geo AES cart, box, and manual  The Neo Geo CD case, disc, and manual  The Dreamcast case, art, and manual
The version I own is the aforementioned Pink Bullets update for the Dreamcast. For this release, NG:DEV.TEAM opted to go with a pink DVD-style case instead of a standard jewelcase. I can't say I am a big fan of the redesigned packaging since I like my Dreamcast games all to look the same on the shelf, but the general quality of the paper, printing, etc. is still high.
 The inside of the Pink Bullets edition of the game
As an "end game," there are several things worth noting about Last Hope:
The old-school look and feel. Since the game was designed for the Neo Geo and then ported to the Dreamcast, the game retains the style and appearance of other shooters from the early 90s. What that means is that the Neo Geo ports are some of the better looking shmups available for the system while the Dreamcast port is one of the least visually impressive shooters available for that console. The game also plays like those other "tactical" shmups that inspired it: it is a tough game that will leave even veteran gamers muttering obscenities at the screen.
The soundtrack. One aspect of the game that received almost universal acclaim was the soundtrack by composer Rafael Dyll. Full of creatively employed, sweeping synthesizers and strings, the game is a joy to listen to. Since the Dreamcast version was published on a CD-ROM instead of a GD-ROM, it can be listened to on a CD player. Dyll has since gone on to produce the excellent soundtracks for both Soldner-X games.
 Dreamcast features are listed on the back of the box
The extra touches for the Dreamcast. Since I only have the Pink Bullets edition, I can't comment on how well the game takes advantage of the tech available on the Neo Geo systems. What I can comment on is the ways in which the game includes features that highlight the strength of the Dreamcast. For one, the game includes VMU support as some graphics are displayed on the screen and scores can be saved. It also supports the use of a VGA box, something that wasn't true for all DC games. Perhaps most importantly, the game provides support for a Dreamcast arcade stick should the player wish to use one. I found that the standard DC controller worked well as you could use the L and R triggers to rotate the pod on the outside of the ship clockwise or counterclockwise, something that feels awkward on an arcade stick but natural on the DC controller.
 The Dreamcast manual
Last Hope is not ever going to be mistaken for one of the greatest shooters ever, but it is one of the best post-system life-cycle shooters I have come across thus far. It seems that NG:DEV.TEAM is dedicated to producing high quality work and the success behind a release like this will help keep the Neo Geo and Dreamcast viable as platforms to receive new games. And while it is technically a homebrew game, it is presented very much like a licensed title. For me, those little touches make a big difference.
The team that created Last Hope have gone on to produce other post-life cycle games (they recently released another AES cart). Here's hoping that we see another Dreamcast port!
I bought an EEE two years ago and have been questioned about it ever since. My original purpose for buying it was two fold: I had just broke the keyboard for my palmpilot and a new one cost the price of the refurbished EEE, and I am a sucker for mobile computing. Several of my friends have just never understood my purchase, since I own several laptops and desktops, and they didnt know what to think when I told them the way I envisioned using it.
For the past five years Ive used a Tapwave Zodiac as my pda. It is a great device with a bit of heft, brilliant screen, and a decent library of games. More importantly it had a fantastic emulation scene. But when the keyboard broke and the EEE was the same price as a new one, well I bit the bullet, but kept the same mentality.
I did not view the EEE as a replacement for my desktops or laptops, but more as a Gameboy for pc gaming. What do I mean by that exactly? Well the Gameboy is usually a generation down in power and has a handful of ports from the previous generation. So a Gameboy for PC gaming would play games from 5-10 years ago as well as some new ones. So when I got it, I threw on XP and a copy of Lucasarts Outlaws and went to town. Sure the 9inch screen is not big enough for some genres, and the GMA 950 really hinders what 3d titles you can play, but there are still quality games out there for you to lose track of time with.
Overtime I had to replace XP with a variant of linux for work it was Ubuntu but is now Mint, and only kept Dosbox and a handful of Scumm games installed on it. Recently my old man decided to pickup an iPad and no longer needs his EEE with a bigger harddrive. So what was the first thing that rolled through my head? Thats right boys and girls, I am getting a new Gameboy (one that wont be converted to work).
A fresh install of an nlited version of XP, updated drivers, and I was set. I threw on Dosbox, Scummvm, a couple console emulators, MAMEUI, and decided to do something wild. I went back to the Goldbox and installed Pool of Radiance on it. I had never played Pool for more than a few minutes, but I had been told more times than I care to think of that I had to play it. Ofcourse it ran fine and ate away the rest of my night.
The linelevel Netbook runs an Intel Atom at 1.6ghz, with a gig of ram, and a GMA 950 gpu. So if you think of it as a good gaming pc from 2000 you will be on point for what games can run on it. Sure you can play some more modern games (you can play a lot of them if you play with tweaks (I got Battlefield 2142 to run on one and Oblivion [via Oldblivion] on another), but that is a lot of work for not much reward.
But if you look back there are hundreds upon hundreds of great PC games just waiting for you to play them on a netbook. To keep things legal, lets go to our good friends in Poland, Good Old Games, and see whats on sale. For those of you who dont know, Good Old Games (GOG) is a website that takes old pc games, strips them of DRM, and sells them for digital download. They have sales every weekend and are just a bunch of great folk. The game selection is growing weekly (today 8/10 they added Raptor Call of Shadows) and I am sure there is a game there that will fit your fancy. From Kings Quest to Unreal Tournament 2004. Ofcourse there are abandonware sites out there if you are into that sort of thing.
Whats the point of all this? Simply, dont dismiss netbooks as puny internet only devices since they cant play relatively modern games well. And sometimes it just takes a different way to look at something to make it all click. Many of my older gaming friends have all gone out to buy netbooks simply to have a portable DOS machine. One surprised the hell out of me and hacked a Zipit2 (Instant Messaging device) and to run DOSbox. Very similar to what this guy did:
http://hunterdavis.com/archives/40
A DOS gaming pc, in your pocket. Oh how I longed for you twenty years ago. Loderunner and Fate of Atlantis in my pocket.
I am still waiting for a cheap enough tablet pc/ipod knock off that I can turn into the ultimate ScummVM device. For now I will sick with my G3 iMac:
It feels good to be back doing one of these after only a week, instead of a month like last time. Now, if I can just keep up the pace for the next couple weeks until school starts back up. Anyway, this week was a little slow for me, especially on Saturday with only one purchase the whole day. Luckily, the flea market on Sunday came through for me with a good purchase.
Continue reading Treasure Hunt Chronicles 2010 - #8
Remember that nyquil fever dream you had that meshing together a bunch of hot girls, samurai, powered-armor, dragons, World War I, sword and gun fights, a bordello, medieval castles, and a lot of mascara? Well, Zach Snyder does. And he made it into a new music video movie:
<![CDATA[<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/17ttgQCgY7w&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/17ttgQCgY7w&rel=0</a>]]>
Now before you gripe about how unrealistic it is that any movie featuring REC7 Barrett M468s, M4 SOPMODs, HK UMP45s and HK MP5s can be set in the 1950s, that little chronology faux pas (and the other tiny anomalies) are explained by implying the surreal events are all in the protagonist 'Baby Doll's head. And she's in an insane asylum to be 'fixed'. (C'mon, even the MP5s didn't show up until the late 60s. Duh.)
Taking a moment to blink after the trailer ended, I was immediately surprised by two thoughts. One, I never like how dark eyeliner makes a person look in real life, yet somehow it can look kinda cool in movies. And two, video games seem to have helped push the boundaries of how we accept the absurd.
As pop culture has become more completely entrenched in newly developed electronic technologies (and vice-versa,) hitching onto this runaway connection is our corporate tolerance for what was previously, well, nonsense. From the Surrealism movement of the 1920s on up to campy anime-inspired Saturday morning cartoons (R.I.P ), the entertainment and introspection of our current day is laced with ideas so strange and bizarre, only Jules Verne could have predicted it.
While our modern culture gates itself with a Renaissance-modeled glorification of reason and intellect, peering through the portcullis reveals a growing acceptance of outlandish and strange media. It has become so widespread, it can take a moment to remember just how patently absurd it is to accept what video games take as commonplace: ducking behind cover in a shootout and regaining lost health, picking up an item that instantly heals you, finding food in random items such as candles, streetlamps, and...garbage cans? How about jumping a height equal to or greater than your character's own height, 'double' jumping, the ability to both see and dodge ballistic weapon-fire, hitting anything while going over fourty or so miles an hour and not destroying either you or your vehicle, or every female video game character not requiring extensive back corrective surgeries?
It goes on so extensively that listing the absurdity in gaming is itself absurd. There is so much we have to just accept and realities to ignore while playing a game, that we can't truly keep track anymore.
(I find it hilarious when I hear comments like, "its so unrealistic that Mario falls into the water and dies in one level, then swims submerged for three minutes in the next level." Really? We're going to discuss physics continuity in a game that allows your avatar to take a person-sized flower and use it to throw fireballs from his hand?)
From storytellers around a campfire, to fantasy and sci-fi books, our fiction media has always been rich with unreal concepts, and movies like the Matrix and the recent critically acclaimed Inception take an approach of layering the absurd with ideas grounded in a definable reality. Even the upcoming Sucker Punch attempts to explain itself with the 'all in her head' setup so that even the biggest nerds won't be put off by the true absurdity just featured in the trailer.
But do we need to justify our love of the absurd? It seems common now that we, a western culture that prides itself in technology and 'forward thinking', need an excuse to rationalize the absurdity in our entertainment. Interestingly, this nowadays onus to explain away absurdity in our entertainment seems divergent, even counter, to the video game mentality of old.
In the beginning of video gaming, there was no real interest in explaining why you were a mechanical fly/spaceship in Yar's Revenge. (They did, in a pack-in comic that is only really desirable to collectors.) Pac-Man only developed a loose and bizarre story for the sake of continued sequels. Monkey steal your girl and wreck a construction zone filled with dangerous chemical barrels and cement pans commonly mistaken as pies? Well, soon-to-be-plumber-boy, you know what to do. Where did the monkey come from? What does he want with the rather unattractive Pauline? Where is the police, Humane Society or PETA in all of this? Who cares!
These simpler gaming days were developed with simpler needs in mind. Space Invaders were just that: bad guys from space literally viewed in black and white. The Cold War mentality in the 70s and 80s, with its clearly defined (in the minds of America and her allies, anyway) construct of 'Good' and 'Evil', helped explain unspoken notions of the developer's intentions. There just wasn't as much of a reason to define why something was good or bad, or even why there was conflict. The most liberal ideas of developers were often shoved under the rug for the sake of levity; Dave Theurer's original intent for Missile Command was to show the unending futility of nuclear warfare, as the game never ends and it is only a matter of time before the game's cities are destroyed. The developer even punctuates the somewhat political nature of the statement by stating 'The End' instead of the classic 'Game Over' upon losing a game. While the original coin-op had no storyline and indeed did not require one, the Atari 2600 VCS port's instructions included a sci-fi explanation of the "peaceful world of Zardon and the invasion of the Krytolians." Keep it light for the kids, even if the adults can chuckle at a "Rush 'N Attack." Wink.
As games matured, sprites and textures replaced the details that imagination wrapped around our digital pictures. While the absurdity was no less surreal, the game's graphics described in specific details what years ago our minds just made up. More and more, some of us wanted to know who was in that other tank or jet in Combat, even if it was just a blurb in the instructions that stated some goofiness about robots and aliens. Sure, plenty of us didn't care (many still don't) but as the violence and dark themes in games became a stalwart of the industry, many gamers (and parents, and politicians) just wanted a little comfort knowing that Shang Tsung was really an evil sorcerer and not some Chinese dude looking for his cancer-stricken son who just happened to walk by a fighting tournament. While many gamers don't need a positive context for their avatar's actions in a game (indeed, playing the bad guy is more popular that ever) the fact that there is even a 'good' and 'bad' side to play as is something that defines our industry as closer to actual role play as opposed to static books or movies. As games reach an ever-widening demographic, the responses to 'realistic' or obtuse morality issues will have to grow with it.
Story explanations helped the industry develop the antagonist/protagonist themes in gaming and gave context to the absurdity onscreen. But often, it is not a game's story that helps us just 'go along with it', but the stories we are familiar with beforehand. For example, the Mushroom Kingdom's likeness to Lewis Carroll's 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' novels probably helped lay the groundwork for gamers accepting the outlandish universe. After all, many of us were perfectly familiar with the day-glow colors, eating to change size, even mushroom architecture, from a cartoon that debuted three and a half decades before. Now we've grown so used to the idea that touching an anthropomorphized star makes us invincible for a few seconds, that new Mario game oddness like flying around in a bee costume seems to make perfect sense.
Which sums up our industry's acceptance of absurdity as a whole. Early works broke ground on all these strange ideas, and later works just expound on it so we no longer question why gaming reality is such an unfathomable thing.
An interesting development over the the last decade has been the goal of introducing less absurdity and more 'realism' in gaming. Getting into this debate is another topic entirely, but it is perhaps peculiar that developments such as morality systems and more graphically displayed violence is considered to add more 'depth' to a video game. Modern Warfare's now infamous airport scene, in which the player (acting as a secret undercover agent) helps gun down dozens of civilians, would not be as unsettling to most of us if the game used a more cartoon-like graphical design, or if the action were turn-based instead of real-time. That the scene is made to play out as 'real' as current technology allows is a trend that will continue, with consequences that both the gaming industry, government, and consumer public will have to face.
In the meantime, we have gamers and critics that complain that Halo is too unrealistic for them, or they are too old for another Mario. Instead of opening up a laundry list of reasons why 'realistic' games really aren't, or that a gamer is never too old for a fun, well designed game, it is perhaps best to accept that everyone has their internal limits on just how much and what type of nonsensical fantasy is too much for them. Arguing over what each of us can tolerate for absurdity is, well, absurd. I'll go see Sucker Punch, my sister will go see the next Twilight movie, and while neither of us will convince each other that the other movie is just too dumb for us, we can agree that we just like what we like.
No matter how absurd it appears to anyone else.
Continue reading Unloved #15: Lost Magic
Recently there's been a lot of internet grumbling about a supposed Pokemon bootleg known as Pokemon Black. In fact, the game has turned into a bit of an urban legend, as nobody seems to actually possess a copy of this cart. Apparently Black is a hack of the original Game Boy's Pokemon Red which features a Pokemon called Ghost. Ghost can only use one attack called Curse. Using Curse instantly kills the opponent, so you naturally breeze through the game. Supposedly at the end of the game you become an old man, your horrible Poke-killing deeds flash before your eyes and then Ghost attacks you -- which invariably ends badly for you.
Many message boards have gone into a frenzy discussing this game, though nobody can seem to prove its existence. However one group of ROM-hackers have decided to try to make the game a reality, though it will be in the form of a patch that can be applied to the GBA's enhanced remake FireRed.
I recently contacted Team Creepy Black to get some details and share them with readers of GBPL. Here's what I found out for you guys:
noiseredux: First of all tell us a bit about yourself.
Kiekos: Well, I'm Kiekoes, but my real name is Bas, I'm 14 and live in Holland.
noiseredux: How and when did you first hear about Pokemon Black?
Kiekos: When the story was posted on GBAtemp.
noiseredux: What made you decide to make your own version of the infamous game?
Kiekos: Well, it's not my own, we we're discussing about the fact; is it possible to make it and then we got a team of developers, a page on GBAtemp and a website.
noiseredux: And how many people are on Team Creepy Black?
Kiekos: There are 13 or 14 people in the team.
noiseredux: How is the project going as far as have you hit any problems or anything like that?
Kiekos: The project is doing very well, we haven't encountered big problems so far.
noiseredux: Do you expect the project to be done this year?
Kiekos: We hope so but we can not guarantee.
noiseredux: How do you plan to distribute the finished product?
Kiekos: There will be a downloadable IPS Patch, users have to find their own copy of the ROM.
noiseredux: What kind of feedback have you gotten so far?
Kiekos: Well, mostly positive, some people are upset about the fact that we're doing FireRed instead of Red, but that's the only thing so far.
noiseredux: Why did you decide to hack FireRed rather than Red?
Kiekos: We chose Fire Red over the original due to the the originals engine limitation.
noiseredux: Have you heard anything either from Nintendo or from anyone claiming to have been behind the original Pokemon Black?
Kiekos: No.
noiseredux: What are the chances you might put together some actual Creepy Black cartridges?
Kiekos: Slim to none.
Now maybe what you all have been more interested in seeing, the first official screens from the project!
 
 
 
If you want to keep up with the progress of Creepy Black, you can check out the website at http://projectcreepyblack.tk/.
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