Archive for the ‘SNES’ Category
Podcast: Top 10 Super NES Games
After months of people begging us to finally do it, the announcement of the SNES Classic Edition was the final straw. We can’t very well let Nintendo be more punctual than we are. Fred, Jam, and guest Andy get together to debate the top 10 SNES games in a very tough debate of games that takes almost 3 hours. In the end, 10 final contestants are chosen and ranked.
Joust Review
Joust. Yes, that ostrich game you may have read about in the fiction novel Ready Player One by Earnest Cline. Well I’m going to talk about it today because the site needs more arcade love and its about time Joust had a review. Full disclosure, I did review this game across a few emulators including MAME and multiple Midway Collections on Mega Drive (Genesis), PSP, and Xbox. This review will feature some brief discussion on the cabinet itself, which I have been fortunate enough to try at retro gaming conventions.
Released in 1982 by Williams Entertainment, Joust is single screen joystick and one button flapping mash fest. You play a knight riding on the back of the magnificent ostrich. With a lance in hand, your goal is simple: take out every enemy rider on screen. Then you repeat that wave after wave until you run out of lives. The single button on the cabinet is responsible for flapping wings of your feathered beast. You have to rapidly press the button to get your bird off the ground, but once you have the momentum going it becomes quite the skill to take down the other riders. You need to be slightly above the other rider and hit them to take them down. Once they are out of action an egg will drop which you’ll need to collect before it re-hatches a new rider and you have to take them out all over again. It becomes a juggle of priorities, choosing to take out the other riders or collect the eggs. The first wave, titled “Buzzard Blitz,” is fairly easy. Just three opponents spawn to ease you into the game, but like with a lot of these Williams games don’t be disappointed if you do loose all your lives on the first wave. It can take a few attempts to come to grips with the controls and figure out your strategy. By this point – back in the arcade days – you would have sunk a decent chunk of change into the cabinet.
Podcast: E.V.O. Search for Eden Game Club
There’s just not much like the game E.V.O. Search for Eden. On top of its ultra rarity that forces most players to use nefarious means, it is a unique title by any definition for the SNES. Fred and Jam delve into a game that is much more action RPG than the creature creator it’s often associated with.
Retro Game Night 10/07/16 – Laplace No Ma (English Patch) and Shadowhawk (Prototype)
For Fred’s triumphant return to streaming with Retro Game Night with two games you’ve (probably) never played.
First up, in honor of horror and October, is Laplace no Ma (loosely translated to Laplace’s Demon) that is a hybrid survival horror and dungeon crawling RPG. Developed by Group SNE and published by Vic Tokai on the Super Famicom, this is a unique 16-bit follow-up to the concept first started by Sweet Home. Thanks to a fan translation, it is now playable in English.
To wrap up the show, Fred takes a look at the recently unearthed prototype cart of Shadowhawk, based off the Jim Valentino comic of the same name. Originally planned to release on the SNES in the early 90s, this 2D side scrolling platformer was lost to time and lack of a publisher only to be discovered nearly two decades later. You can find this ROM here and it is playable in emulators or on actual hardware via flash cart.
Podcast: Super Power
This week Fred and Jam celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the release of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) in North America. The duo delve into the design, hardware, regional differences, and of course the games that defined a major portion of the 16-bit generation. As the show wraps the new game club title is chosen, what will it be?
Doom Retrospective
As I said in a previous article regarding Wolfenstein 3D, “Wolfenstein 3D did it first and Doom did it best.” The same team, id Software, created both games so it’s less of a competition and more of an evolution. While I agree that all games are a team effort, the technology that runs these games can sometimes be credited to one person. In the case of Doom that one person is none other than John D. Carmack. By this point most of us are aware of John Carmack and what he’s contributed to video games as a whole, but back in 1992 he was the guy creating a new engine for a new game. That engine was called the Doom Engine. Carmack claims the name Doom came from the movie The Color of Money in which Tom Cruise describes a custom pool cue as “doom” when questioned as to what’s in his case. It was created to enhance the first person shooter to include different heights, distances, and even sound effects in stereo for a more realistic type of game. In truth the hardware of the time couldn’t handle rendering a 3D world so the game is actually all on a flat plane in the code, which is why rooms never overlap and you can shoot a guy on a ledge by just aiming at the wall beneath him. I don’t know about the rest of you, but in 1993 I hardly noticed. Doom had positional breathing of mutant men, lighting effects (including dark rooms), a hybrid cyberpunk and distopian Hell setting, and a ton of violence. It was the rock star of the video game world.
Podcast: Old Console, New Hardware (Part 1)
We all love old video games, but the frank reality is that as they age our consoles run solely on obsolete technology. As the basic capabilities of modern hardware increases, so does the ability to mod classic consoles to keep up. In addition, new accessories also come on the scene to serve needs that were either impossible or too expensive in the past. This episode covers the earliest cartridge-based consoles and the many modifications and accessories you can get for them. In part 1 of this two-part series we get a bit technical, but also present the many options you can potentially research.
Clock Tower: The First Fear Game Club
The Clock Tower series has always been a unique horror title since it’s western inception on the original Playstation. There are no weapons, no fighting, and the main mechanic is hiding from a small man swinging around massive shears that will only result in death if your character is found. What many may not know is that the series actually began in Japan only on the SNES (and even had a remake of sorts on the Playstation, again in Japan only). Thanks fan translations, Jam and Fred sit down to discuss this initial outing that we in the West never got and is probably the strongest entry in the franchise.
A Link to the Past Review
With the departure that Zelda II was from the original, Nintendo wasn’t going to take anymore chances as it began to release beloved franchises on its newest console, the Super NES. Of those franchises, The Legend of Zelda was one of the first to be rehashed with A Link to the Past. Instead of trying to create a sequel or something new, Nintendo instead took all the concepts from the original game, added a few enhancements, and made the game that captured so many hearts over again. To be clear, A Link to the Past is not a remake, it’s just the exact formula of the original utilized in the same world with a different map, different set of dungeons, and slightly altered item list. Think if it as a remix to the original rather than a true sequel or remake, but one that marks one of the highest points for both the console and the series itself.
May the Fourth Be With You: Super Empire Strikes Back (SNES)
Here it is, the challenge that spawned from Fred’s mystery game 3-pack in March. It was brutal, it was frustrating, it was on easy…but Fred has beaten Super Empire Strikes Back and what better time to reveal the video but May the Fourth. Enjoy.
Gaming History 101 