Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Resident Evil HD Remaster Review
Fred’s Take
After long last it appears that Resident Evil, specifically the Gamecube remake from 2002, is making a widespread appearance on modern consoles complete with increased resolution, performance, and controls. This is significant because the number of people who owned a Gamecube was relatively small and the Wii port had such a limited print run it was a bit difficult to find. Not only that, but at 12 years old, the game itself has plenty of dated setbacks that most gamers I talk to refuse to put up with. Thankfully this new version is digital only (no need to hunt down copies), adapted for today, and relatively inexpensive ($19.99 on all platforms). With all the tweaks made to this game it is so close to being worth the money I can’t see any fan of horror games or the original series not wanting to pick up this new version. Besides, it’s January, what else is coming out?
If you played the original to death – and pretty much anyone who owned the game back in 1996 did as we waited two whole years for the sequel – it’s a pretty rudimentary journey at this point. You know where everything is, you probably know most of the tricks, you don’t need to save often, and your completion time will be somewhere in the 3-6 hour mark. On the other hand, the limited release of this game and the cumbersome systems it can be found on means that you probably aren’t that familiar with it. This is no graphical coat of paint over the original design, it’s a brand new experience. The mansion’s layout has been changed, most of the puzzles are different, there are new enemies, and everything is scattered in completely different places. That doesn’t mean that experts of the original can’t jump in and easily conquer this title from start to finish, but it’s going to take you some time. Even more impressive is the fact that despite me completing the original at least once a year since it released, this version was able to get some tense and great jump scare moments out of me along the way. It’s a new Resident Evil and it’s worth replaying.
Mini Podcast: The Story of Tetris
Tetris has probably one of the most sordid tales about rights management. This so-called “first game from behind the iron curtain” was one of the most popular and addicting games of the late 1980s. Even more interesting is the story about how Nintendo snuck in behind a handful of eager parties who got in at the ground floor and secured sole console rights to one of the most money-producing games of all time.
Now & Then: God of War 1 and 2
God of War feels like a series that just exploded in popularity but has now been lost in the gaming community abyss. Last year the God of War Collection (featuring the first two games in the series) was released to the Playstation Vita to such a poor reception that a lot of friends were generally surprised it was actually released. Then again the same group of friends were gob smacked that Borderlands 2 also came out on the Vita. Now, it could be argued that this lack of enthusiasm may be due to the lack of interest in the Playstation Vita. But forgotten or not, I’ve played through both God of War games so it’s time to see how they hold up today.
I was originally a massive fan of the very first God of War game on PS2. When I was first introduced to the game by a friend I got so into it we played through the entire game together in one single sitting, something that I rarely do with a video game. We spent a lot of the experience just gob smacked by how the PS2 was able to include great graphics and set pieces. Of course a lot of the great visuals are attributed to a fixed camera control and the set pieces being controlled entirely by quick time events (a feature I’m glad has started to disappear in the gaming industry). The game felt like a breath of fresh air. Although the game did not introduce a completely original experience it seemed to take elements that worked with other games like an anti hero storyline, hack and slash gameplay and upgrading your character with orbs. The game was not perfect, even for the time people criticised some of the challenging sections in the game most notably the infamous Hades area where you had to get pass various traps and obstacles. If you were hit just once you died instantly, leading to some massive gamer rage grinding your enjoyable experience to a complete halt. What made God of War stand out at the time was the epic adventure, where you travel into areas no man can supposedly enter (and the game clearly displays this by having dead bodies littered everywhere). You really felt like you were on this impossible quest. Every time you beat a gigantic boss or got pass a deadly trap you really felt a sense of achievement. The bosses were also enormous like the infamous hydra, a fantastic way to open the game and a design feature that seemed to carry over to all future games in the series as well. The game was well received by critics and gamers so it pretty much guaranteed a sequel. The developers seemed confident of this as well as the message “Kratos will return,” appears once the credits have finished at the end of the experience.
Retro Game Night: Crypt Killer and Mad Dog McCree
This week for Retro Game Night we go all light gun shooters (yes, they can be captured and streamed).
First up is arcade 3D shooter Crypt Killer, which was horror themed and moved from arcades to Saturn and the PS1 (Saturn version shown). Sorry about the sound on the game being much louder than my voice, it was live and no one told me.
Next up is the 1990 “classic” Mad Dog McCree, one of the first laserdisc arcade games that was almost perfectly ported to the Nintendo Wii. Here it is in all its glory (and in 720p!)
If you want to check out Retro Game Night, we do it every Friday night at 11:30 pm est on our Twitch channel (twitch.tv/gh101). You can also follow us for random live broadcasts and check that page for our ongoing replay of Resident Evil HD Remaster on the PS3, which comes to the US on January 20.
Podcast: Tabletops and D20s
Oh yeah and it’s Fred’s birthday and listener SieOne was kind enough to send a card.
This week we ring in the new year with guest Gary Butterfield from duckfeed.tv and the Watch Out For Fireballs podcast to discuss video games based on tabletop games. Of course the big one, Dungeons & Dragons, takes up a chunk of the conversation but there are others that make their way in. We also track the history and progression of taking earlier stat-based games and being able to integrate them properly onto the screen.
Syphon Filter – PSone Review
Platform: Playstation
Released: 1999 (worldwide)
Developer: Eidetic
Publisher: 989 Studios
Digital Release? Yes, this is available as a PSOne classic on PSN for $5.99
Price: $2.89 (disc only), $4.95 (complete), and $9.99 (new/sealed) per Price Charting
In the late nineties stealth was becoming a big deal in the game industry, a lot of this was thanks to games like Metal Gear Solid on PSone and Thief on PC. Along comes 989 studios with a little game called Syphon Filter. I knew very little about this game before it was released. In the UK this game received very little coverage in the magazines even though it ended up reviewing quite well. My first experience of the game was actually playing the demo which came free with Official Playstation Magazine. The demo was just of the first level but I found it enjoyable enough to sought the game out on release and I kinda enjoyed the game. It seemed like I was the only one of my circle of friends that knew about this game but that didn’t stop the game receiving two additional sequels on the PSone as well as additional games on the PS2 and PSP. For now lets revisit the original and see how it fairs now.
Secret of Mana Review
Platform: Super NES
Released: 1993 (Japan, US) 1994 (Europe)
Developer: Squaresoft (aka Square)
Publisher: Square
Digital Release? Yes, Secret of Mana is available on the Wii Virtual Console for $8.00 or iOS/Android for $3.99
Price: $45.75 (cart only), $99.99 (complete), and $999.99 (new/sealed) per Price Charting
Please Note: As discussed in both reviews, we played through this game on the Wii Virtual Console and not the SNES.
Jam’s Take
This year I’m finally catching playing games on that much loved system, the Super Nintendo. So far I’ve been very happy with the games I have played. Earlier in the year on GH101 I managed to finally playthrough the fantastic Super Metroid. Its amazing how well these games play today despite never owning a SNES back when I was younger and better looking. For this November/December game club I played through Secret of Mana. This game is uncommon and kind of forgotten in Europe. Released from Squaresoft the game came out very late in the SNES life cycle, so its time to get ready to grind and see how Secret of Mana fairs today. Since I don’t own a SNES I played through Secret of Mana on the Wii virtual console.
Podcast: Secret of Mana Game Club
This week Fred and Jam re-live the adventures of Hero, Girl, and Sprite as they uncover the mana sword and take on a dark empire. Originally developed as the first SNES Playstation CD game, business decisions obviously forced this back onto a cartridge with impressive results. Oh yeah, and we never played it in full until now.
Rock Boshers DX Director’s Cut Review
Jam’s Take
With the ever increasing improvements to video games – top of the range PCs with graphics cards that are able to show realism that get closer and closer to the real thing – as a gamer you really start to question how games could get any better. Then comes along a game called Rock Boshers that shows us that the evolution in gaming of not necessarily going forward, but backwards.
Rock Boshers is very much a love letter to the ZX Spectrum gaming days. The game happily advertises that it pulls from a palette of just 15 colours and even mimics the music the old micro computers from the eighties was capable of. Rock Boshers is not the first game to give love to the old microcomputer, the ZX Spectrum still gets a lot of love to this day with homebrew games being regularly released (Retro Gamer magazine which is a popular read in the UK, discusses popular homebrew released every month). Rock Boshers is one of the few ZX Spectrum inspired games as far as I am aware that has made it to Steam and even the PS4 and PSVita (the latter being the version I’ve reviewed).
Retro Game Night: Die Hard Trilogy and Arcade
This week for Retro Game Night it’s a double header from the greatest Christmas movie of all time: Die Hard. When the PS1 and Saturn launched Fox Interactive released a series of trilogy video games from its properties, one of which was Die Hard Trilogy, combining a 3rd person isometric shooter for the original film, an on-rails Virtua Cop style light gun shooter (controllers work too) for the second film, and somewhat of a Crazy Taxi clone for the third film. We play it here (in HD) to give you a taste of all three.
Then, around the same time Sega decided to release its arcade brawler Die Hard Arcade (which started life as Streets of Rage 4) exclusively on the Saturn. With no other ports (thanks to Sega’s publishing and distribution rights) and a so-so version on MAME, this is truly the only plug-and-play home port of the game. Check it out.
Gaming History 101 