5/29/08

There's only one game featured on Awesome NES today, but boy is it a doozy.  You remember Hydlide, right?  Yeah, I tried to blot it out of my mind, too.  However, as much as I'd like to deny its existence, I'm obligated to relive that trauma for the sake of the list.  Don't say I never did anything for you!

I've also uploaded the second half of the Super Stupid Fighting Game Crossovers feature.  I'm pretty proud of it, but I have a funny feeling that future videos will be even better.  See, I'd purchased a copy of Ulead's VideoStudio several months ago, but could never get it to work.  However, after being frustrated with Wimpos Movie Maker's limited features and constant crashing, I gave the disc another shot.  I shut down the antivirus software and shut off the wireless adapter prior to the installation, and that made all the difference... the annoying codec errors that once barred my path vanished, allowing me to experience a world of editing features I once had to do without.  You mean I can combine videos without having to awkwardly splice them together?  And I can drop titles anywhere, even at the top of the screen?  Oh, VideoStudio, where have you been all my life?

5/22/08

First things first.  Like clockwork, the Awesome NES section of the site has been updated.  This week's victims include Heavy Barrel, Heavy Shreddin', and Hatris, the puzzle game that's guaranteed to make your eyelids heavy.  You may also be interested to know that the first half of the Fighter's Misery video special Super Stupid Fighting Game Crossovers is available on YouTube, with a higher quality version soon to be uploaded to Revver.  I've always loved bagging on crummy fighting games, but it's even more fun to serve up that snark in a video!

Now onto the news... and there's a lot of it to report!  First up, every fighting game manufacturer has gone crossover crazy!  Not long after Midway confirmed a Mortal Kombat game starring the cast of the DC Comics Universe, Capcom announced its own team-up with Japanese animation giant Tatsunoko.  If you're not familiar with these guys, well... neither was I.  However, a little research reveals that they were responsible for many of the shows that were the foundation for modern Japanese cartoons.  Only four characters have been confirmed so far, but the stars of Speed Racer, Samurai Pizza Cats, and Neon Genesis Evangelion could all find their way into the cast.  Tatsunoko also worked on Superbook, but I think we can count out the possibility of beating the tar out of bible thumpin' wind-up robots...

Also, Joystiq reports that anti-fun activist Jack Thompson was found guilty of twenty-seven counts of abusing his position as a lawyer.  Unsurprisingly, nearly all of these were related to his ongoing crusade against video games.  There's no news yet on how he'll be punished, but considering all the headaches he's been giving the Florida Bar Association over the last three years, it's likely that it will go well beyond the scolding and minimal fines he's received in the past.

What else we got?  Well, Madden's taking a step back to the past with a holographic image mode that looks like Tron, or more accurately, those cheesy intros they used to show at the start of televised football games in the early 1980s.  If you like your sports stars glowing and featureless, it might be worth a look.  There's also an Oddworld game planned for the next decade, with technology that will make its creepy yet strangely endearing characters look more realistic... or should I say more surrealistic?  An increasingly fastidious Microsoft plans to unrelease any Xbox Live games which haven't been bringing home the bacon and winning over the critics, while Nintendo seems intent on releasing anything on the WiiWare service, reviewers be damned.

So in other words, it's been a weird week.

5/19/08

I was indifferent about them in the past, but these days, I've grown to appreciate the accessibility and the visceral satisfaction of light gun games.  There's no level building, no cryptic puzzles, and no emphasis on a storyline that was probably more interesting to the developers than the player.  You just point, shoot, and watch your onscreen target burst into a million pieces.  Sometimes you have to hold your fire when friendly characters appear, but that's as complicated as these games get... and I prefer them that way.

With this in mind, it probably won't be a surprise that I enjoyed Link's Crossbow Training.  This game, offered as a bonus with Nintendo's space-age redesign of the Zapper, was actually more entertaining to me than the official Zelda that launched with the Wii back in 2006.  All the fat and even most of the meat has been trimmed away from Twlight Princess, leaving behind an handful of challenges that test your speed and accuracy with the Zapper (or even better, Nyko's smaller, more realistic, and easier to assemble Perfect Shot). 

Each stage is split into three sections, with a different setting and goal for each one.  Sometimes, you'll be frozen in place as you blast targets, and other times, you'll lead Link on a hunt for goblin barbarians or even-creepier-than-usual spiders.  Whatever the scenario, the objective remains the same... hit onscreen targets while keeping friendly fire to a minimum.  Oh, and there's one other thing: you can't miss.  Individual targets have a low base value, but a bonus multiplier builds with each successful hit.  That multiplier drops back to one if you miss, forcing you to hit targets cleanly and consistently if you hope to earn medals and unlock new stages.

And that's really all there is to it.  Like most Wii games, Link's Crossbow Training is a brief and simple diversion, but as a child of the 1980s, I don't see a problem with that.  When I was growing up, every game was like that, and it certainly didn't hurt their appeal.  If anything, those titles from days past were more entertaining because you could get your fill in ten minutes, pull yourself away from the table, and come back to them later with your hunger renewed. 

Today's games have turned into that famous scene from Monty Python and the Meaning of Life.  You get your fill an hour after you start playing, but there's so much left on your plate that you can't stop until long after your taste buds have deadened and your engorged belly has spilled over the table.  Then the snooty waiter comes by with the after dinner mint and it's game over!

All right, enough Luddistic babble from me.  Before I go, have an Awesome NES update!  In fact, have two!  We're reviewing everything from classic shooters like Gradius and The Guardian Legend to oddities like the R.O.B.-powered Gyromite and Gumshoe, the side-scrolling platformer that you control with a light gun.  If you're having trouble imagining such a game, just pretend that Mario was replaced with Ringo Starr, and that you had to shoot him to make him do anything.  That should put you on the right track.

5/13/08

The animation section was long overdue for some new content, as well as a new layout.  Fortunately, I've rectified both issues, and went one step further by adding commentary to some of the older reviews.  If you love cartoons, and I suspect that you do, I highly recommend you give the page a peek.

All right, that's enough outta me.  Before I go, have an Awesome NES update!  This time, the two Ghostbusters games are the topic of discussion, along with Ghengis Khan, Ghosts 'n Goblins, and the frankly puzzling Gilligan's Island.  Who the heck thought this would be a great subject for a video game, anyway?  It wasn't even a good television show!  The biggest laugh I got from this stupid sitcom was when half its cast was arrested for smoking dope.

5/09/08

Yikes!  I completely forgot to update Awesome NES yesterday.  Oh well, better late than never, right?  This time, we're marching into battle with G.I. Joe and its sequel, then taking to the skies with the arcade classic Galaga and the less famous but still reasonably entertaining Galaxy 5000.

5/04/08