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Where I Read: Nintendo Power #51

We have another recap of an issue in Nintendo Power, just in time for a significant, coinciding event in the modern video game industry.

The issue is Nintendo Power #51, for August of 1993. Our cover game for this issue is Street Fighter II Turbo, which introduces the ability to have same character matches in the game, as well as the ability to play as the bosses, coinciding nicely with the release of Capcom’s latest fighting game to include Street Fighter characters – Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

In the letters column for this issue we have a letter from a 47 year-old chuck driver, looking for assistance with Blaster Master, and who has also been having problems with Final Fantasy Legend for the Game Boy. According to the writer, he got so frustrated with the game, that he nearly ran over his Game Boy with his big-rig until another driver stopped him (I presume this was at a truck stop). The writer discovered that the other driver had been stuck in the same spot in the game he was, and he got some instructions about how to get past that part of the game. I have to admit that I never thought of big-rig drivers as hardcore portable gamers before, but now that I’ve been exposed to the concept, I’m not too surprised. I wonder if the portable game systems are still popular with long-haul truckers today, and if so, I wonder what systems are popular? Continue reading →

Quality Control – Mighty Final Fight

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On multiple occasions, I’ve heard the expression mentioned that restrictions breed creativity. Sometimes that doesn’t hold true. My last Quality Control pick, Raging Fighter, was a great example of this. The game was a fighting game that just didn’t hold up well on what was essentially a 4-bit hand-held system. Such is the opposite with this Quality Control pick, Mighty Final Fight, from Capcom for the NES. Capcom was basically given the task of porting the SNES (and arcade) classic brawler Final Fight to an 8-bit platform. I would say that they succeeded admirably.

Now, to be fair, Final Fight wasn’t a particularly complex brawler – and the brawler genre in general doesn’t have as much complexity to it as fighting games do. That said, Capcom handled the port very well. As the game couldn’t support the same size of sprites that the original game used, characters are instead depicted in a “Super Deformed” style. To tie in with the change in art style, the story has been altered to something more comedic. This in turn really helps to differentiate this version of the game from the original and give it a sense of identity.

Similarly to the original game, Mayor Mike Haggar‘s daughter, Jessica has been kidnapped by the sinister leader of the Mad Gear Gang, who has gone absolutely gaga for her. Haggar, Jessica’s beau, Cody, and Cody’s friend and training partner, Guy (yes, Guy is in this game), must fight through all the members of the Mad Gear Gang before the wedding ceremony. The game only has a single player mode, instead of an alternating two-player mode like in Double Dragon. However, similarly to Double Dragon, only two enemies can be depicted on-screen at any one time, making crowd control a little simpler.

The game also borrows the sort of “leveling” system used by Double Dragon, among other similar games, of gaining experience points by defeating enemies, which in turn, in theory, unlocks additional moves. I say in theory because, really, you can only unlock one move, and that’s at level 4. Each fighter has a special move that can be unlocked, and is performed by hitting the attack button and a direction on the D-Pad. This move gets you a little extra XP if you defeat an enemy with it. However, by this point you really don’t need to level up any further and the move itself does less damage on average than your regular combo, and you gain no other benefits, like life bar increases or anything else). Power-ups are also moderately scarce, as are weapons (there’s one dropped weapon in the whole game, at the obligatory Elevator level).

All in all, this is a decent classic style brawler, and I would say that I like it better than the original Final Fight, blasphemy though that may be. I would recommend picking it up, if you can find a copy, either as the NES cart or in the GBA collection “Capcom Classics Mini-Mix”.

Quality Control – Casino Kid 2

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Normally, for my Quality Control picks, I don’t like to pick sequels to stuff I haven’t played. For Casino Kid 2, I decided to make an exception, as from a storyline standpoint, I’m not missing anything. Plus, as I’ve been playing a few Texas Hold ‘Em Poker games, recently, so I’d like to see what a NES gambling game is like.

The Premise:

Casino Kid, the protagonist of the last game, has beaten all the best gamblers in the United States. However, the world remains. Now he must travel the globe, beating some of the best gamblers on Earth at the Roulette wheel, at Blackjack, and at Poker, before facing the King of Gambling at all three games. Continue reading →

Quality Control – Town & Country 2: Thrilla’s Surfari

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There are certain games which lend themselves very well to speed runs, and videos thereof. For some of them, it’s because the game’s a non-linear game like Metroid, where the player has multiple ways in which they can jump ahead of the path and find various hidden items in the game. For other games, because of their visual style and speed of the game, they just fit in perfectly with this type of video–the classic example being Sonic the Hedgehog. When I saw the maps of Town & Country 2: Thrilla’s Surfari, this seemed like a perfect fit for the latter category, which is why I picked it.

Maybe I should have picked something else. Continue reading →

Quality Control: The Empire Strikes Back (NES)

Box Art for Star Wrars: The Empire Strikes Back for the NES

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I previously reviewed the JVC Star Wars game that was made for the NES before the SNES came out. It wasn’t a good game. I’ll be honest–it was a very bad game. The shooting controls were bad, and some of the enemies were cheap as hell. However, now we have a game based on the second installment of the trilogy, and now I’m going to see what improvements they’ve made from the prior installment of the series. Now, I wasn’t able to beat the game, but I made it through far enough to get a fair cop about what the game would be like.

The Premise

If you don’t know the premise to The Empire Strikes back, go to your local library, video store, to Netflix, or even to YouTube. I’ll wait.

You’re back? Good. Okay, the game follows that plot, though it focuses entirely on Luke and pads things out a bit, but not by too much.

The Good

We don’t get any enemies which are as on-nigh impossible to beat as the Bounty Hunters were in part 2, at least in the portion I made it through thus far. Additionally, they’ve re-balanced weapon damage some, where most regular enemies go down with one shot from a blaster, a few tougher enemies (like mini-probe droids) take multiple shots, and for bosses they’re essentially a pew-pew gun. However, Light-Sabers can take down the tougher enemies in a couple hits, and they’re more productive for bosses. Continue reading →

Quality Control – Star Wars (NES)

Well, I tried to beat this game. I couldn’t. This game is very hard. That said, I made it through Tatooine, with the help of the map in Nintendo Power, and I made it through the asteroid sequence through what I guess is dumb luck. However, after arriving on the Death Star, I ran into a brick wall. Well, not literally, but figuratively. I couldn’t find where to go next. That said, I do feel that I experienced most of the pieces of the game experience, at least enough so that I feel comfortable rating the game. So, let’s get started

The Premise:

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away… oh you know the whole plot already. Seriously, the game sticks fairly close to the basic plot points, though it embellishes on them to bring the game to a length that would be acceptable for a commercial release. Continue reading →

Quality Control – Darkman (NES)

Darkman is, by far, my favorite Sam Raimi film. I like it more than his Spider-Man films. I like it more than Army of Darkness. In my mind it is one of the best masked avenger films, and one of the best superhero films. Everything about it is excellent, from the direction, to Liam Neeson’s performance. It’s just excellent. So, when I found out about this game in Nintendo Power, I wanted to give it a try. Yes, it’s a movie licenced game from Ocean, but it can’t be all bad, can it?

The Premise:

Peyton Westlake is a scientist working on a synthetic skin formula for burn victims. When Robert Durant, crime boss, burns down his lab and leaves him for dead, horrifically burned and scarred, Westlake swears vengeance, and takes his imperfect formula (which only lasts for 99 minutes when exposed to direct sunlight), and uses it to take apart Durant’s gang, piece by piece. Continue reading →

Quality Control – Over Horizon

The US box art for Over Horizon.

This week, I’m taking a break from doing the featured games from this issue of Nintendo Power, to go with one of the Also Rans – a game that was featured in the “Now Playing” column, but didn’t get a full strategy guide. Specifically, I’m picking Over Horizon, a shump from Hot-B.

The Premise:

The game’s story is… nonexistent. You’re flying a star fighter and have to defeat a force of invading aliens. That said, the game does have as one of its features the ability to customize your weapons with traits from other weapon power-ups you encounter through the various levels.

The Good:

Finally, we have a shump which has enemies come in from behind, that also lets you shoot backwards without having to do any fancy shenanigans with your controller.

The Bad:

In order to view your score or see how many extra lives you have remaining, you have to pause the game. This is what HUDs are for class. Game Design 101 – remember?

The Ugly:

I couldn’t get past the first level. This isn’t because I suck at shumps (though I’m not great). This is because halfway through the level we have these vine like critters blocking your path through the level that I can’t get through. If I fly into them, I die. If I shoot them, nothing happens. In theory, I could die, and use my temporary invulnerabilty to get through it (which I did a couple of times) – but unless you have unlimited lives, I shouldn’t have to do that. And even if I do have unlimited lives, that’s bad game design. Again, Game Design 101 people.

The Verdict:

This game deserved to be among the Also Rans – I have to give them credit for that. Don’t play this game.

Quality Control: The Lone Ranger

So, in honor of Howard Phillips last issue of Nintendo Power, I’m reviewing the game for the last installment of Howard & Nester – The Lone Ranger from Konami.

The Premise:

You play as the Lone Ranger, the last of a group of Texas Rangers whose posse was murdered by Butch Cavandish, the notorious outlaw. You, along with your side kick, Tonto, go forth to avenge their deaths, and rescue the president, who Cavandish has kidnapped! Continue reading →

Quality Control – Metal Storm

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Well, I’m going to go back to the text reviews for the time being, as the audio reviews don’t carry over well to Facebook (as my reviews are also syndicated there. Plus, frankly, I’m just not getting a lot of listeners for them. If you do want the audio reviews back, please let me know, and I’ll start doing them again in the future.

Anyway, my game for review this week is the mecha action game Metal Storm for the NES, from Irem (the people who brought you R-Type). Let’s see how it turns out.

The Premise: An alien intelligence has taken over the research station on Titan. You, in the M-308 Gunner Mobile Suit must infiltrate the facility, get through its defenses, and destroy the base before it can destroy Earth! Continue reading →

Quality Control: Quantum Fighter Kabuki

Hello, everyone, it’s time for another audio review, this time of Quantum Fighter Kabuki for the NES. Unfortunately, this game isn’t out on the Virtual Console yet, nor has it been remade for another platform, so we’ll have to go with a eBay link if you want to get the game this time.

Get the game at eBay.com

Quality Control – Deja Vu

Well, my review is done for Deja Vu for the NES. How good (or bad) of an adventure game is it? Well, you’ll have to listen to the review to find out.

The game was originally released for the Macintosh, but the version I’m reviewing is the NES version, which is only available on eBay. There was also a port of the first and second game in the series for the Game Boy Color, but if you thought the game was pixel bitching bad before, it’ll be even worse on the GBC’s small screen, so I just reccomend you skip that version of the game entirely.

Where I Read – Nintendo Power #19 (Guide #4)

We have now come to the final Nintendo Power strategy guide, published in December of 1990. It weighs in at a slim 77 pages, and is covering games that support multi-tap. Well, there’s not a lot of ground to cover, so we might as well get started. Though I have to admit, for the last guide issue, the cover art… isn’t very good. I’m not sure though what they could do to replace it.

Your Friend the Multi-Tap: We get a run down of the wireless NES Satellite and the wired Four Score, as well as some discussion of multi-tap ethics, and things that can be done to make things run smoothly, such as color coding the player inputs and the controllers (red controller is always P1, etc.) Very useful stuff instead of having to pause the game and having to follow the cable to the system, at least until the PS3 and X-Box 360, where they were kind enough to give you a visual aid on your controller. Anyway, this is really useful device, some of which is obvious enough to have occured to someone else, but not to me.

NES Play Action Football: As I’ve mentioned previously, I’ve played the crap out of this game as a kid. However, I never owned a multi-tap so I couldn’t play it 4 player. For that matter, I never played it 2-player either. We get a run-down of the various teams and their playbooks, as well as some notes on the various types of plays and advice for succeeding with each team. Continue reading →

Reviews, Video games

Quality Control – Final Fantasy I

Buy Final Fantasy: Dawn of Souls from Amazon.com

Well, I have finally beaten Final Fantasy I, the Game Boy Advance version, just in time for yesterday’s recap of Nintendo Power’s Final Fantasy I Strategy Guide. I also got my review done, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to get any video recorded of the Game Boy Version, which is the version of the game I used. However, I was able to get the audio recorded, and thanks to WordPress.com’s ability to embed audio from SoundCloud.com, I was able to upload it there and embed it here, so you don’t need to muck around in Megaupload.

So, with that, I hope you enjoy the review.

Before the review, here are a few more links for other versions of Final Fantasy I for you:

Final Fantasy Origins for the PS1 (from Amazon.com and eBay)
Final Fantasy I for the PSP (from Amazon.com)
Final Fantasy for the NES (from eBay)
Final Fantasy: Dawn of Souls on eBay

If you do want to download it from Megaupload, you can do so here.

Where I Read – Nintendo Power #17 (Guide #3)

We’re now moving on to another Nintendo Power Guide, which is issue #17 overall, and their 3rd guide. – this one for one heck of an epic game – Final Fantasy, which, while all the later incarnations of the system will be (to varying values of fantasy) Fantasy games, this game will certainly not be the final game in the series.

This guide is organized incredibly well. Aside with the strategy guide organized by unofficial “acts” of the game, we also have an overworld map with notes indicating what chapters and page numbers in the guide are related to what areas. This is fantastic, and more RPG strategy guides need to organize themselves in this fashion. It’s a small thing to do, but it’s incredibly helpful. We also get some helpful “how to use this strategy guide notes” which are nice, since this is, basically the first RPG strategy guide. There is no GameFAQs, though in theory you could write a FAQ and put it up on a BBS, but considering the size of most FAQs for RPGs (which be a little more useful than a FAQ for Mario Brothers, since you didn’t have gifs and jpgs), it would take a long time to upload on your dialup modem. Continue reading →

Where I Read – Nintendo Power #15 (Guide #2)

Next up is our second Nintendo Power Strategy Guide, for Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos. Unfortunately… Nintendo Power’s apparent weakness when it comes to cover art is the Ninja Gaiden games, because this one doesn’t look so hot. The photographed guy-in-black-pajamas is back, and the background doesn’t have any perspective to it at all. Look, guys, most of your cover art is great – but there’s some stuff where the photographed cover art doesn’t work that well – and this is one of those cases. Here I’d reccomend, basically, skipping doing the photographed cover art, and let one of your interior artists get a shot at the limelight.

We start off the issue proper with a semi-recap collage thing covering the last game. We also get a two page comic strip which, probably, recaps some of the content from the first cutsecene in a comic strip form… and at the very least they have the same letterer as Howard & Nester. Next up is a quick little dramatis personae, though the full sized art they have of Ryu is waaayyyy too western looking – it’s the chin, and something in general about the face structure. Everyone else looks okay though. We also get a list of the many generic monsters we’ll run into in the game, and the slightly less common power ups that will aid us along our way – including the new power of the Ninja Double/Shadow Clone, which is one of the most useful new powers in the game. Continue reading →

Where I Read – Nintendo Power #13 (Strategy Guide #1)

This week, as the next issue of Nintendo Power I’m covering is a strategy guide, I’m going to do a review of the guide and then a review for that game. Now, I’m not going to necessarily do full playthroughs of all these games, particularly since some of these are RPGs (and thus entail grinding), or are just really long. I’ll do what I can, though. Usually these games are classics as well, so the reviews will more be my impressions about the game and general remberances. Due to length issues, I probably won’t have YouTube videos for these reviews, as I suspect my coverage will be longer than YouTube’s 10 minute time limit. We’ll see.

Well, the guide itself is shorter than we normally consider strategy guides to be – only 85 pages long. However, considering the length of the game and the size of the levels, this isn’t too unreasonable. The guide starts off with techniques first, before moving on to the level maps. We get information on Mario’s various moves & power-ups. The guide poo-poos the over-world items of the Anchor (which makes the Koopa’s airship stand still) & Music Box (which makes the Hammer Brothers stand still) though, which I disagree with. I’d spent a few occasions desperately chasing down the Koopa airship after having beaten all the levels, unable to catch the bloody thing. Similarly, I’ve had a few occasions where I really didn’t want to fight the Hammer Brothers, and found the Music Box very useful at avoiding them (or getting them to hold still so I could catch them if I wanted to take them on.) Continue reading →

Quality Control Review – Code Name Viper

Well, I reviewed Code Name: Viper, and the video recording worked this time, so I was able to upload the video onto YouTube. I’ll have the embedded video below the cut and I’ll also have a download link for those who want to download a higher quality version of the file from Megaupload.

Continue reading →

Quality Control – Wrath of the Black Manta (NES)

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Well, for my latest Quality Control column, my original intent was to do another video review with commentary. Unfortunately, I ran into the problem. When I did my review playthrough, and started recording, the game started freezing every time I was recording. This is important because I was playing the game differently this time than in my original play through (for example, I was trying to get the note on the first section of the level). Anyway, I don’t think this is a problem with the Rom, or with the software I’m using to record. I think it’s a problem with the game. A really big problem.

So, suffice it to say, you really shouldn’t play this game. Now, for the sake of completeness, and not wanting all my prior play-through and my audio recording I did to go to waste, I’m going to just put up the MP3 of my recording instead on Megaupload and call it good. Keep in mind I started recording the audio before I started doing the video recording of my play-through, but I still stand by my remarks.

Megaupload Link.

So, let me know what you think. If you prefer the audio format to the YouTube video, let me know in the comments. Similarly, if you’d be interested in me turning this into an out-and-out podcast, let me know as well (and maybe buy some stuff so I can afford to get the hosting a podcast would require – and a mike that doesn’t suck.)