Saturn Bomberman is an exclusive on the Sega Saturn and one of the system's more rare games. Developed by Hudson Soft, it's a cute and clever puzzle game with some beautiful pixel art that still looks great by today's standards. It hosts a number of different game modes and can be played with a friend (or 9). Here's my review!
Super Mario Land is a launch title for the Nintendo Game Boy, and the first portable entry into the flagship platforming game series. Series creator Shigeru Miyamoto wasn't directly involved with the design, so while the game was relatively faithful to many conventions of the original game, this particular entry took a few liberties with the formula, and created a fun, unique, and rewarding experience, to help sell Nintendo's then-new handheld game console to the Mario faithful. Did they succeed? Watch, and discover for yourself!
I am a child of the 80's/90's and all of the nostalgia that comes with it. The Disney Afternoon was a staple of my childhood and the Capcom developed games were a great way to play in the worlds of DuckTales, Darkwing Duck, Rescue Rangers, and Talespin. Frank Cifaldi and Mike Mika of Digital Eclipse showed their love of these properties when they released the Disney Afternoon Collection on XB1, PC, and PS4. Everybody get ready, it's time for the Disney Afternoon.
So, I had a topic for this post planned out a long time ago. I took the pics and was typing it up, but then it hit me. It's that time of year again. No, not Retro World Expo (well, it's that time of year too, and I'm looking forward to experiencing that for the first time). I'm talking about the annual Extra Life for Kids charity event. It kind of snuck up on me this year.
I decided that since my next piece for the site wasn't going to be due until the day of the event, and since I would need to make that post the first entry in our new community movie discussion, this was the last chance I had to write about this wonderful event and why it's so important to me. I know there are some of us in the RFGen community who participate already, and I've participated myself three times now, but I feel that I'm in a unique position this year to make the most out of the event and help more than I've been able to in the past. And so, much to my editor's chagrin, I'm sure, I decided I'd be remiss if I didn't take the opportunity to share my story.
While I eagerly anticipate the arrival of October because of my trip down south to meet up with several rfgen members to once again attend the seminal Retro World Expo, I'm making sure I've got my wishlist in order and ready to rock. This trip gives me the opportunity to delve into the stock of dozens of stores and vendors that I'd normally never have access to while at home. My hope is to be able to find some of the more challenging games to obtain in different sets. Since completing my licensed NES and Turbografx 16 collections, I've been focusing on completing a few other full libraries. Some easier than others.....
One of the first pieces I wrote for RFGen was a love letter of sorts to movies that have video games as a central theme. The article was pretty well received, so much so that a couple of you were in favor of expanding the idea into a full-fledged movie watching club. I liked the idea, but wanted to focus mainly on pure games writing at the time. Well, here we are a year later; I've established myself on the site and with this great community, and I'm ready to revisit the concept. So it's with no small amount of excitement that I'm announcing the debut of the RFGeneration community movie discussion group (RF Cinema for short).
Despite being a huge fan of JRPGs for most of my life, I had never played a Dragon Quest game until earlier this year, with that game being Dragon Quest V on the DS. While I did enjoy that game, I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would based on all of the praise I had previously heard about it. One thing that I can say about Dragon Quest V though, and I assume is true of every game in the series, is that it has a lot of charm, and that charm left me wanting to play more games in the series. So with the recent release of an enhanced version of Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King for the Nintendo 3DS, the time seemed right to jump into my next game in the series.
As the storage size of digital media has increased, so too has the size of the video games that are played. Game worlds used to be quite tiny, and the length of games came from other areas of difficulty meant to make it hard to explore those worlds. Enemies were difficult and frequent; statistical balance was brutal. It would take players hours to get the right equipment, enough money, and high enough stats to be able to properly progress. Games have been expanded in many ways for decades.
The idea of playing through a game twice or more is quite old by now, with the earliest examples coming from some mid-80s hits and classics such as Ghosts 'n Goblins, The Legend of Zelda, and Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei. The rewards for this choice are varied, the true ending for Ghosts 'n Goblins, or an extra challenge in Zelda and Megami Tensei. It was only later when this idea was not only popularized, but received a name that has stuck with gamers for over two decades and counting now. Chrono Trigger rewarded players for multiple trips through its world by offering a variety of different endings that could be achieved by beating the final boss in any number of different ways and almost anywhere during the story.
I couldn't resist pre-ordering this one to grab the limited edition and it finally came in the mail to today. The artwork is absolutely gorgeous with a wonderful matte finish.
Most people do not think of the NES when they think of pinball. They would be very right to forget the small library of sub par pinball games on the otherwise heralded system...but SOMEONE has to play'em right? While it only has a few titles, the NES is certainly one of the places you could play.
Image of Ace Combat: Infinity courtesy of Playstation
Since I played Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Legacy on the 3DS last month, I had been craving more dogfighting, dive-bombing airplane action. I didn't realize how addictive the gameplay was until I was done with the game, when it dawned on me how much it left me wanting more. There's something about controlling a fighter plane, and methodically locking onto enemies and taking them out, one by one that is very satisfying.
Now that I'm forty, and being that it is the dog days of summer, it's about time I managed to accomplish something. I'm sure I did something this year, but my summer list seems a little heavy. Hmm. Still haven't fixed the fence. And all those branches in my backyard... are still attached to that bush for some reason. Well, I've managed to grow up some, I guess. Maybe. Gosh, this is really depressing.
Well, I did manage to do something this year; a certain thing that has dogged my steps for half my life now; a game I had a beef with from way back in 1997. But I was ready and attacked it full force, summons and limit breaks a blazin', and after quite a few gaming sessions I finally finished Final Fantasy VII.
[img width=360 height=490]http://media.nintendo.com/nintendo/bin/H046_DMqLS1vDuBChewr5h01OfubAvyW/pIvIRVTIZdQxUCEFwmP6irIPSANuTMMa.jpg[/img] Pic from Nintendo.com and my 9 Year-Old's-imagination
Some creative mash-ups end up working so well they seem obvious in hindsight. And then there are those that still don't make sense afterward, even if the end result is far greater than the some of the respective parts. I don't know what is the bigger surprise, that Mario Plus Rabbids: Kingdom Battle even exists, or that it is easily among my favorite games this year.
Today I'm reviewing one of the best point and click adventure games ever - The Secret of Monkey Island. It combines great music and visuals with laugh out loud humour. It also represents a departure from adventure games of its time by being much less punishing towards its players. I'll be mainly talking about the original but I'll also touch on the Special Edition released in 2009 and how it compares.
We are a community of collectors, gamers and the likes, and some of us enjoy to let the world know what is on our mind. For those members, we have the community blogs, a place where they can publish their thoughts and feelings regarding life, universe, and everything. Some of those members might even choose to write about gaming and collecting! Whatever they write about, you can find it on their blog. You can either see the latest community blog entries in the feed you see to the left, or you can browse for your favorite blog using the menu above. Interested in having your own blog hosted on RF Generation? It's rather simple, first be a registered member, and then click the "My Blog" link that you see in the navigation above. Following those two steps will certainly get you on your way to blogging.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy our entries, rantings, and completely unrelated series of thoughts. We write for you to read, so we certainly hope that you enjoy our material.
