Fred’s 3 Mystery April Games Unboxing
Jam opened his 3 mystery games on Monday and now it’s Fred’s turn to reveal the 3 games he’s forced to cover in April
Retro VGS Interview with Mike Kennedy on Mom’s Minute
As some of you may know, the Gaming History 101 podcast is featured live on Tuesday nights at 7:00 pm Eastern on the All Games Radio Network. Within that network there is an interesting show called Mom’s Minute that features All Games Editor-in-Chief Derrick Hopkins’ mother discussing video games and she recently took an interview with Mike Kennedy regarding his upcoming console. You should listen to the interview itself, but it looks like it will be a retro-based cartridge console in an Atari Jaguar shell with no operating system and purely a modern take on the classic cartridge console. With some clear plans, a shorter window (60-90 days), a good initial price point, and a vision hopefully there’s something to Kennedy’s plans. We highly recommend giving this episode and interview a listen.
Podcast: Code Room X
To wrap up our Resident Evil/Silent Hill series (for a while at least), the GH101 team (with special guest Vos) dive into Silent Hill 4: The Room and Resident Evil: Code Veronica. Oddly enough, while SH4 has often been regarded as not originally part of the franchise, it turns out it was always a Silent Hill game and developed by Team Silent but it is a different experience when compared to the games before it. In contrast, Resident Evil: Code Veronica was originally to be Resident Evil 3 and marks the ultimate form of what originally began with the traditional feel and “tank controls”. Fred, Jam, and Vos break down each game and what makes them significant iterations in each series.
Smash TV Review
Platform: Arcade, microcomputers, NES, Master System, Game Gear, SNES, Genesis/Mega Drive, Xbox/Gamecube/PS2/PSP (part of Midway Treasures)
Released: 1990
Developer: Williams
Publisher: Williams/Midway
Digital Release? Yes, it had a digital release on XBLA (360) but was delisted in Feb. 2010
These days there is a good chance any gamer is familiar with the “twin stick shooter”, a concept where you move with the left stick and shoot with the right. Back in 1982 when fantastic game designer Eugene Jarvis premiered the concept in Robotron: 2084, it was unlike anything we had ever seen. The merits of that game, and what it brought to video games, cannot be denied and if you want an idea of how Robotron played you need look no further than recent neo-retro release Rock Boshers Dx. It wasn’t until almost a decade later, in 1990’s fantastic Smash TV, that Jarvis along with a talented team at Williams created one of the most addicting arcade games from my youth. Set in the year 1999 – oh how we thought so much was going to change with the year 2000 back then – Smash TV has you and potentially one other person shooting it out in a room-to-room TV studio playing the most violent game show of all time (Running Man anyone?). It takes the building blocks of Robotron: 2084 and brings it into the nineties by giving you a second player, having you kill tons of humans instead of rescue them like in Robotron, and of course you’re doing it all for cash prizes to selfishly grow your wealth. I loved it then and I love it now.
Final Fantasy XI Servers Shutting Down, Moving to Mobile
It’s now time to wrap up that epic quest and prepare for the last 11 months of subscription fees you’ll be giving Square for these versions because as of March 2016 the servers are shutting down.
Final Fantasy XI is one of the two examples of Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) iterations to the long running RPG series from Square Enix. It’s a bit more pivotal than it’s younger brother, Final Fantasy XIV (A Realm Reborn) in that it launched as a console MMORPG in a time where games weren’t predominantly online and MMOs were unanimously locked to the PC platform. This console only PS2 and later Xbox 360 game had quite literally hundreds of hours of content, always maintained a monthly service fee, and hopefully someday will be the premise where guests Chip (CaptinChaos) Cell and Eli (Sodoom) join us for an extra credit podcast about their addiction to the game. It should be noted that a PC version of the game does exist, and to my knowledge it will continue, and that it was available approximately six months after the release of the PS2 version in 2002 (just covering my bases).
In an interesting side note, Square Enix also announced that it is working with mobile developer Nexon Korea to port the game to mobile platforms. No information was given on pricing of the base game in addition to pricing of monthly service or if there will even be such a charge. It is slated for a 2016 release in Japan, Korea, Europe, and North America.
Jam’s Three Mystery Game Unboxing
Here at GH101 we have a new experiment: give someone the task to grab us three games on a budget and we have to cover them over the next month. Today is Jam’s unboxing, tomorrow is Fred’s. Over the course of April, both of us are being tasked to cover these games as if they were selected content for the site. This can be podcasts of the series these games are a part of, playthrough footage, articles, or the obvious review approach, are all on the table. Stay tuned and enjoy Jam’s unboxing below.
SimCity Review
Platform: PC (but was ported to almost everything)
Released: 1989
Developer: Maxis
Publisher: Maxis (later part of EA before closing this year)
Digital Release? Yes, far too many to count
With the regretful closing of Maxis this year and the recent discussions of the value of city simulation games, I thought it was appropriate to return to Will Wright’s massively successful city simulation game that started it all. Although this game was not the first of Wright’s, that was a so-so top down shooter called Raid on Bungeling Bay for the Commodore 64 in 1984, this seemingly tame and rote concept came from that initial title when Wright was developing map builders for its levels. From there a few engineering books and some other research led to the genesis of Micropolis, the game about miniature versions of cities and managing the development and monthly activities. The title was supposed to release years earlier on the Commodore 64 by publisher Broderbund, who had handled Bungeling Bay, but they could not see the value in trying to market and sell a game like this – I wouldn’t have either – so it remained unreleased. It wasn’t until the late 80s that Wright had a meeting with Maxis founder Jeff Braun and secured the license for a Macintosh port that eventually released in 1989.
Download Titles Come to Club Nintendo Europe, Finally
Club Nintendo Europe I feel has always been the worst of the three available. Its a mash up of the worst things from the American version and the Japanese version. To this day I have struggled to decided between the catalogue of gimmicky crap like wrapping paper, key rings, or cash in your stars for Wii points. Yes that’s the original Wii not the Wii U or 3DS. But all that has changed and just in the nick of time Nintendo because as we all know Club Nintendo is finally coming to end in all territories. You can now finally exchange those hard earned stars for actual downloadable games on the Wii U and 3DS.
Atari claims Copyright on TxK
Rather than spend time developing new and exciting games Atari has decided to threaten British veteran game developer Jeff Minter with copyright claim. They claim the vita game TxK is too similar to the old school Tempest series and has demanded Minter remove the game for sale. There is no denying that TxK is very much a spiritual successor to the Tempest series. In fact Jess Minter actually developed Tempest 2000 for the Atari Jaguar. Minter has stated that he has been having problems with Atari behind the scenes for several months and even offered to develop a sequel to the Tempest series with the company but they have denied him the luxury. Instead just threatening more legal again to Minter who claims he lacks the funds to take the case to court.
Pixelated Pints: Episode 27 – VR is the Future!
This week Fred and Heffe discuss the glut of VR headsets announced the day after the last show, Steam boxes, companies closing, people leaving, sequels to big games, and then technical issues kill the show early.
Gaming History 101 