Posted on February 8, 2013
My Top 100: #21 – Super Mario Galaxy
2007 – Wii (Nintendo)
It’s fairly difficult to come up with an interesting “retro” story when a game is a bit newer, but I’ll give it a shot anyway.
When the Nintendo Revolution was re-branded as the Wii at E3 in 2006, it left a lot of us scratching our heads. We were still wrapping our minds around the idea of a remote control “baton”, but trying not to make childish jokes about the male anatomy became the new challenge.
Along with the name change, Nintendo showed new footage of titles we were expecting, and some we were not. Wii Sports, Excite Truck, Wario Ware and Metroid Prime 3 were definitely going to make the most of the new control scheme, and I was quite intrigued by all of them. Red Steel looked incredible, as well!
The Mario game shown in the console’s demo video looked cool, but it seemed like you could get pretty dizzy going around those little planets. I wasn’t convinced the game would be anything spectacular, especially since Sunshine had been slightly disappointing.
Thankfully, I was proven wrong.
This game is the ultimate realization of the dream Shigeru Miyamoto had when making Super Mario 64. There are no F.L.U.D.D.-like gimmicks; just fantastic platforming with such a wide variety of gameplay elements that it’ll rock your socks off.
For example, you had to re-think the whole concept of “walking off the edge”. What was a death trap in prior games was now an invitation for you to take a chance, and to see if you could explore the underside of the world you were on. It was always an interesting feeling during those brief moments where you weren’t completely sure if you were going to plummet to your death, or have the camera flip upside-down with you as gravity kept you planted on the surface.
Wall jumps, double and triple-jumps and long jumps were all back. With a quick shake of the Wii Remote, Mario could spin in mid-air and extend his hangtime for just a smidge longer. This new move really helped your ability to tackle some of the challenges the game threw at you – and there were many, as evidenced by the video below!
Although Galaxy didn’t quite have the impact other games in the series had, it’s still one of the best platformers I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing through more than once.
As I mentioned in the Wind Waker post, Nita and I jumped at the opportunity to live in a great apartment in the heart of the downtown area.
For a hundred years, the Hartt Boot and Shoe Factory cranked out more than 2,000 pairs of footwear a day. They even manufactured boots for the military during both World Wars, as well as the boots worn by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which my father was a member of. Unfortunately, the factory shut its doors in 1999, exactly 100 years after the first shoe had been made. The building went up for sale shortly after, and though it took a few years for plans to come together, the Shoe Factory was eventually renovated into an apartment complex.
Nita’s living situation just so happened to be at a crossroad, what with roommates moving out and leases being at their end. I thought it would be the cute, spontaneous and heroic thing to do to bail this wonderful person out of the pickle she was in. I wasn’t sure if I’d be moving into the apartment she was already living in, or what the deal would be.
As it turned out, a friend of hers (who was a realtor) told us about a vacancy in the old Hartt Shoe Factory building. That same night, we checked it out, and immediately fell in love with the place. It had high ceilings, huge windows, a patio door – I mean, there was no actual patio, and there was a railing so you wouldn’t fall down, but still! Patio doors, man!
What better way to get a fresh start than in awesome old building like this one!
Unfortunately, our stay at this apartment only lasted one year. I was still learning about how to live out on my own, and was bouncing around a few different jobs at the time. We were both stressed out throughout the time we lived there, and though I still felt we had a rock-solid relationship, I don’t think either of us were ever really happy with that living situation. For some reason, it just never felt like home, and by the time Christmas of ’07 came around, we had started looking at other places to live.
Looking back, I have absolutely no regrets about moving into that place. It was a tumultuous learning experience, but a learning experience nonetheless.
Strangely enough, it was when we knew our days at the Shoe Factory were numbered that the place started feeling more cozy. We moved the stuff in our bedroom around, put up some different posters, bought a few colourful lamps, and it really spruced the place up! I was still glad to be getting out of there, but at least we’d be able to say the last few months were kinda fun.
Super Mario Galaxy was one of the gifts I had recieved that Christmas, and I started playing through it right away. We didn’t have any plans for New Year’s Eve, since I had to work that day anyway. I was just going to drive home, play some Galaxy, and would probably end up hitting the sack before 2008 came around. I was always seemed to be wickedly tired those days…
Anyhow, there was a massive snow storm that day. I called my mom at the library, and told her she probably shouldn’t be driving too far that night. I suggested she should drive down the hill to our place and stay the night, which she ended up doing.
That night, it was Anita, Mom and myself, and we were all drinking wine or Guinness while I played Super Mario Galaxy. It kinda reminded me of the old days in my grandmother’s bedroom, having a video game party with candy and snacks. Instead of candy and snacks, it was liquor, and instead of just my mom, it was also woman I was thinking would probably become my wife.
Much like those days at my grandmother’s, however, we were all in bed by 10:00pm. Happy New Year!
Taken from our bedroom, New Year’s Day 2008.
It was a big one!
Posted on February 7, 2013
My Top 100: #22 – GoldenEye 007
1997 – Rare (Nintendo 64)
GameTrailers staff would be pissed if they saw this list! GoldenEye 007 on a countdown, and it’s not number one??? BLASPHEMY!!!
All kidding aside, there’s a reason this game is number one on three different GT countdown videos. It is indeed the best movie-based game I’ve ever played, the first multiplayer game I ever truly enjoyed, and it is definitely one of the best first person shooters of all time. A few great ones have come along and re-invented the genre since its release in 1997, but GoldenEye has aged quite nicely. You can still pick it up and play today, and have just as much fun as you did when it first came out!
Before GoldenEye, FPS games were all more-or-less simple Doom-clones. That makes sense, since pretty much every franchise was trying to get in on it, and those games just seemed to be the way of the future. Star Wars, Duke Nukem, and even id Software themselves were milking the first person genre for all it was worth. Even Chex Cereal also had a DOS-based FPS, included in specially-marked boxes of the product.
So, technically, nobody was… milking it… more than they were.
Hah.
Anyhow, the sense of immersion we got when playing GoldenEye was unlike anything we had experienced up until that point. If you had seen the movie, you could often identify some of those sets in the game. They had evidently taken a lot of time in getting the level layouts just right, and it really helped get you into playing the character.
The shooting mechanic was also completely different than anything I had ever seen. Whether you shot a guard in the head, in the torso, in the leg, or in the arm, you actually felt like you were connecting with the hits. You weren’t just facing an enemy sprite that had four or five frames of movement, aiming in their general direction and pulling the trigger, hoping your shots were actually having an effect… no, no. Bullets were now a tangible thing; making holes in the wall when you missed, leaving blood-stained clothing wherever you connected, while crates and barrels would warp slightly with every bullet.
While a lot of the things in GoldenEye were “in-your-face awesome”, it was the subtle things that truly made it great.
ALSO, YOU CAN GET TO THAT ISLAND IN THE DISTANCE IN THE DAM LEVEL!!!!
Well, you have to use major game-altering cheats, and there’s nothing to really look at once you get to it… but that didn’t stop us from trying to get there.
Another thing that rocked about GoldenEye was the Cheat Mode. Completing levels in a certain amount of time would grant various gameplay modifiers, the majority of which would give you weapons for levels that normally didn’t carry them, or help the player make it through a level in some other fashion. Things like DK Mode and Paintball Mode were thrown in for the fun of it, and were always worth a laugh or two.
Unfortunately, you couldn’t use a cheat to get a cheat. That was fair, but I didn’t find myself that great at playing the game. Getting the Infinite Ammo (Control Room on Secret Agent in 10:00) and Invisibility cheats (Archives on 00 Agent in 1:20) were difficult to get, but I had lucked out and managed to get them without too much pain and personal torment.
The one I really wanted to unlock, just so that I could explore each level without too much trouble, was the Invincibility cheat. For that, I’d have to beat the Facility level on 00 Agent difficulty in under two minutes and five seconds… that was insane! Not only would I have to run around like a mad man, but I had to depend on that damn Dr. Doak to be in the right spot when I went to find him. Of course, he never was, and whenever I happened to get that far into the level only to fail due to a technicality, I’d turn the console off in frustration.
One day, my mom went to her friend’s place. She had a computer that was hooked up to the Internet, so naturally, I wanted to tag along. I still had that old computer at home, and I didn’t think I’d be getting the Internet for myself for quite some time. I wanted to browse, and see what was going on in the world.
Among the things I did a Yahoo search for was “how to get the invincibility cheat in GoldenEye“. There were a few results with some pretty good tips, but one of the pages actually had a video showing you how to do it! That was unheard of! A video from the Internet? That’s just wild…
I clicked on it, and hoped there wouldn’t be a phone call to disrupt the half-hour of downloading time.
Finally, it opened, and though the screen was only about two inches wide and blurry as hell, I was fascinated. The guy who recorded himself playing was flying through hallways, ignoring the gunfire, and talking to Dr. Doak and Alec so quickly that I could barely register what was going on! I mean, I had an idea of what I had to do, now, but pulling it off would be another thing altogether.
And just how did he make this video? With his VCR? The simple idea of a video on the Internet melted my brain, just a little bit.
Now that I had an idea of how to get that holy grail of GoldenEye cheats, I wanted to see what other websites had videos. I went to NASCAR.com next, and found a treasure trove of racing clips there.
I really wanted to get hooked up to this Internet thing… imagine a website dedicated to all kinds of video game and racing clips. That’d be cool, huh?? It’s a nice thought, but it’ll never happen
Jeff Gordon’s 24 makes a great pass for the lead at the 1998 Coke 600.
The first racing video I ever downloaded!
Posted on February 6, 2013
My Top 100: #23 – Mega Man X
1993 – Capcom (Super NES, PC, GameCube, PlayStation 2, Virtual Console)
Mega Man X was one of those games that felt completely different from its predecessors. However, it didn’t re-invent the formula to the point where it no longer felt like the games we had known and loved for years. It still felt like you were playing a Mega Man game, but, much like the kids who had known the Blue Bomber so well, the franchise had grown up.
Gone were the silly and repetitive Wily plots, friendly companions like Rush and Fliptop, and the awkward Man-monikers that creators had really started losing ideas for. Instead, we got a villain that was actually taller and more intimidating than the main character, a deeper story about a robot who questioned the very reason for his existence, a robot dude in red with long hair and a laser sword, and… what the hell is a Boomer Kuwanger?
Indeed, it was quite different, but it all felt so familiar and awesome at the same time.
The levels in prior Mega Man games sometimes had branching paths, but X took that to a whole other level. Sub Tanks, Heart Containers and suit upgrades were a must if you wanted a serious chance at beating Sigma, and the game really made you work for it by putting them in hard-to-reach places.
Though it only happened for one level, I really liked how the consequences of defeating one Robot Master – er, I mean, Maverick Hunter – affected another stage. Sure, you can probably defeat Chill Penguin much easier if you have Flame Mammoth’s flamethrower weapon… at the same time, Flame Mammoth’s level is much less stressful (and easier to explore) once Chill Penguin has been dealt with. It’s like day and night, and it’s really quite neat.
In the end, Mega Man X was one of the last Mega Man games to truly get me excited to play it. X2 and X3 were fun, but just didn’t live up to expectations set forth by the first game.
This memory ties in closely with another game that I have yet to talk about, but I will share the second half of it when I talk about that particular game on my countdown.
New Brunswick winters are kinda long, and we always experience a wide variety of weather. Rain, ice pellets, freezing rain, freezing fog, snow, or a mix of all the above makes it difficult to plan social outings. If you’re headed out into town on a night where the roads are sure to be quite slippery, you had better plan ahead!
On one particular Saturday night in February, my mom was invited to our friends’ place for supper. I was tagging along, and I knew the weather was supposed to be bad later that evening. I also knew that, if it stayed cold, I was going to have a rough time getting to my friend’s birthday party the next day. After getting wind of what was being planned for the party, there was no way I was going to miss it!
I brought my Super NES along with a few games, most notably Mega Man X. I had rented it the day before, and we had to return it on Sunday anyway – why not just bring it back to Blockbuster before or after Ryan’s birthday party? It just made sense.
That night, I pretty much just stayed downstairs and played some games. I kept looking outside, hoping to see the weather turn bad. I liked sleepovers, and I really wanted to get to this party the next day, so I was really hoping for some crappy weather.
I eventually came upstairs to try and get a good look at what the weather was like. I saw a downpour of (what I thought was) rain in the streetlight in the distance, but from the pinging sound coming from the windows, I knew it was ice pellets. That was it! That was all the convincing I needed. I hurried upstairs, put on my Toronto Blue Jays pyjamas and got ready for a night in. I didn’t ask my mom if we were staying, I just assumed we were.
When I came back downstairs, though, all the grown-ups did was laugh and call me cute! I was crushed! I mean, c’mon, have you even LOOKED outside? It’s terrible! We’re not going anywhere, and we’re sleeping here tonight. End of story.
My mom was trying to explain that we couldn’t just invite ourselves over for a sleepover, and that we’d have to make every effort we could to get home that night. I pleaded my case, and thankfully, the couple that owned the house said it really was no problem to stay over. We ended up staying the night, and going to the epic birthday party the next day was no trouble at all!
I kinda feel bad when I think about it. I cornered my mother into making a decision she wasn’t comfortable with, even though the weather was probably fine to drive in that night.
You live, you learn!
Maverick Hunter X – the Mega Man X remake for the PSP… one of two reasons (the other being
Mega Man: Powered Up) I regret not buying a PSP!
Posted on February 4, 2013
My Top 100: #24 – Operation C
1991 – Ultra (Game Boy)
This is the greatest Contra game ever made, and you’ve probably never played it before… but that’s okay. I forgive you!
Although it was released almost a year after Super C, I considered it a port of the NES title. Why not? They did that sort of thing from time to time, and even the name was quite similar. From the screenshots I had seen in EGM, the game even had Super C‘s fancy-looking top-down perspective levels.
When I eventually picked the game up at Toys R Us in Bangor, I realized that it was much more than just a port. The levels do share a few similarities, and the music is often the same as its NES counterpart, just “Game Boy-ified”. Other than that, though, Operation C was an entirely new game; new bosses, new areas, completely new plot – although, really, it was still Contra, so the story wasn’t drastically different or anything.
Best of all, all the weapon power-ups were back with a vengeance! I hadn’t played much of Super C yet, but when I had, I didn’t notice if this was the case or not… but, in Operation C, when you pick up a Spread weapon once, it shoots three streams of fireballs; pick up a second Spread weapon, and it fires six streams. I’m still not sure if that’s how it worked in Super C, but I definitely liked how it added an extra layer of difficulty on the Game Boy version.
Finally, this was the first game for the Homing weapon add-on. It didn’t matter which way you were aiming, or if you were frantically jumping away from enemies and projectiles. If you held B for an entire level and avoided getting hit (which still wasn’t easy to do), your Homing weapon would just do all the work for you! Granted, it wasn’t quite as powerful as the others, but hot damn, it was fun to use!
When I buy a new console, there’s always a period of time shortly after getting it that I wonder; “Did I make a right decision in buying it? Are there going to be enough games for me to justify buying this expensive piece of equipment? I kinda like it now, but will I really like it later?”
That’s a bit how I felt after getting the Game Boy. I hadn’t asked for it, but I got it for Christmas in 1990. I was quite surprised and over-joyed to find it under our tree that year (a moment we thankfully caught on home video), but I wasn’t sure what games coming out for it would be up my alley. Sure, I had Super Mario Land and Tetris to hold me over, but for how long? I started to worry that this great toy they surprised me with would go unused and neglected, like so many other toys I had gotten over the years.
When I found out about Operation C, all was forgotten. This Game Boy and I would be getting along just fine.
It’s funny, I still get that strange feeling in the pit of my stomach when I buy a new console. When I bought an Xbox 360 at launch, there weren’t that many games that did anything for me. With the PlayStation 3, I hadn’t even owned it for a week before I got the dreaded “Yellow Light of Death”. Thankfully, the retailer was very good about it, and I got both a replacement PS3 and a new copy of the game that was stuck in it. Still, both new consoles had me wondering; “Did I buy this too soon? Did I just waste a ton of money that could have been better spent on groceries?” Thankfully, I was eventually able to feel satisfaction these big buys.
I just bought a WiiU, and since the titles are slow as molasses in coming out, I’m really looking forward to a time where I can say; “Phew, I’m glad I bought this thing.”
I really wanted to do this whenever I got my WiiU; I’ve gotten my money’s worth, already!
Posted on February 1, 2013
My Top 100: #25 – Syphon Filter
1999 – 989 Studios (PlayStation, PlayStation Network)
At a time when the Nintendo 64 seemed content with releasing lots of colourful platformers (that were mostly still awesome, by the way), Sony’s PlayStation was targeting older gamers with lots of action games. Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid, Dino Crisis, Silent Hill, along with a couple Grand Theft Auto games, helped pad their reputation for delivering solid mature titles. Not that the N64 didn’t have a few good action games here and there – it just wasn’t their bread and butter!
Though Syphon Filter got lots of press in EGM and great reviews across the board, it doesn’t come up very often in “oh man that game was awesome” conversations – unless I’m among those in the conversation, of course. By today’s standards, it was a run-of-the-mill third person shooter with lock-on targeting and plenty of weapons and gadgets. Some levels required stealth, while others depended on shooting and sniping skills.
The plot had government conspiracies, double-crossing federal agents, a deadly virus, rockets being launched by those pesky communists, along with other spy movie clichés… and it was all up to you as Gabe Logan to stop it! Because it was all over the board, the game had you travelling from New York City to Kazakhstan, as well as a few places in between.
I’m not sure how to put this into words, exactly. The architecture of some of the buildings is quite unique, and you truly feel like you’re in Europe somewhere. One of the last levels has you running from rooftop to rooftop, through an old church, down into a maze of catacombs… it’s old, it has character, and it looked fantastic for back in the day!
This game reminds me of the house my sister used to live in Moncton. It was the first time I had ever been in a duplex, and it was quite snazzy compared to the places she had lived in beforehand. Not that they were all bad before that, just not brand spankin’ new like this place. It really did feel quite cozy whenever we went for a visit.
The fall of ’99 was the first year they lived there, and it was quite chilly on the weekend we went. I wasn’t really planning on going anywhere with anybody, so I brought my PS1 along for the trip. The TV in the room I stayed in was older than I was, but that didn’t matter. I had an RF switch for my PlayStation, and I was going to beat that damn catacombs level (the one mentioned above) before my weekend was over!
The idea was to trail a scientist until the end of a complicated set of halls and stairways, all without being detected by wandering guards in the area. Not only that, but you could easily get lost if you strayed too far from the guy you’re supposed to follow…
Anyway, one night during that trip, I had followed him further than I ever had before. My palms were sweaty as I rounded every corner, and I had to pee like crazy – there was no way I could pause the game now, I was so close to the end… finally, I did it! I passed through the doors at the end of the level and watched a cutscene that changed the course of the story – DUN-DUN-DUNNNNNN… your partner isn’t actually dead! Crazy.
So, I had to pee like crazy at that point. As I zoomed to the bathroom, I passed the room my mom was staying in. She was in the dark with a little light clipped to the top of the book she was reading, and there was a strong burning smell coming from the room. It was cold, and I had experienced the smell that came with turning on a heater for the first time in the fall, so I didn’t think much of it.
By the time I came out of the bathroom, my sister’s boyfriend had come upstairs to see where the smell was coming from. As he flipped on the bedroom light, my mom was in the midst of a smoky haze, and had been completely oblivious to it! Through fits of uncontrollable laughter, we were opening windows, fanning towels, pillows, or whatever we could wave around to get the smell out of the room.
As it turned out, it wasn’t just the first time they had turned on the heat that spring; it was the first time the heat had ever been turned on in that room, period, and whatever building material dust was on the heater was the culprit. We weren’t necessarily in danger of burning the house down, but it was a moment that was definitely somewhere between hilarious and scary… moreso the former than the latter, though.
Using the taser in this game never gets old!
Posted on January 28, 2013
My Top 100: #26 – NHL ’94
1993 – EA Sports (Super NES, Genesis, Sega CD)
There were some Christmas mornings where I got more than I expected. On one hand, it was fantastic. On the other, I knew I was getting spoiled more than I probably deserved, which always left me feeling kinda guilty.
Off the top of my head, I don’t quite remember what I got for Christmas in ’93, but I do know that I recieved a game in there, somewhere. Perhaps even more than one… not sure, though. In any case, Michael and Brian across the street got NHL Stanley Cup that year, which I was quite jealous of. I got to play it a few times, and enjoyed the “3D” aspect of it. It really was quite impressive compared to the simple top-down view of NHLPA Hockey ’93, which I had played about a year before.
As we were leaving for Baie-Sainte-Anne to see the family (as we always did the day after Christmas), I convinced my folks that a pit stop at Blockbuster Video was necessary. I wanted to play NHL Stanley Cup, and show it off to my dad and cousins in the Baie!
Screw those other games I got; I wanted to rent something else!
Just thinking about that kinda makes me feel bad. I probably wouldn’t feel that great if I got my niece something, and she deemed it “not good enough”. But, because I was spoiled, I got my wish, and we stopped at Blockbuster.
We got there, and go figure… NHL Stanley Cup was out. My dad suggested NHL ’94 as an alternate choice, even though I wasn’t particularly keen on it. It seemed okay, I guess, but Stanley Cup was REALLY cool to show off. This was just a slight re-tooling of the NHLPA game I had already played, and felt like it wasn’t really worth renting.
Some guy behind the counter started talking about how ‘94 was actually a vastly superior game, and before I knew it, we were walking out with it. Fine, I guess. I’d play it, but I’d mostly just stick to the games I actually got as gifts. That was probably the right thing to do, anyway.
As it turned out, NHL ’94 truly was the better game of the two. Where Stanley Cup felt like a free-for-all, ‘94 really allowed you to adopt whatever strategy you wanted, and it flowed a heck of a lot smoother… Mode 7 graphics were cool and all, but when the puck would change hands repeatedly and the camera would rotate back and forth a few times, it made me somewhat dizzy.
Speaking of smoothness, the graphics and animation actually run much smoother on the Sega Genesis version. I’ve had the opportunity to play it, and it just doesn’t feel the same as the Super NES one. It almost played too good! I liked how the Super NES version made it feel like every player was “heavy”, and harder to control in close-quarters action with opposing players. It felt more real, somehow.
I also really liked how every player had attributes that made them all unique, and could all be used to your advantage somehow. Some were fast, but couldn’t shoot very well. Some were slow, but could land hard-hitting checks. Some might lose the puck quite easily, but made up for it with hard slapshots. It also didn’t matter what team you chose, since even the most seasoned player could take down the super-stacked Pittsburgh Penguins with the lowly Ottawa Senators (sorry Greg, haha).
It didn’t take long before we owned the game, because my dad liked it enough to buy it for himself. I could hear him in the next room, playing it with family friends I didn’t normally associate with playing games. One time, he even excitedly called me out of bed to show me the penalty shot he had just scored on. It actually was kinda cool, since it wasn’t often you could score by pressing the X button (the one that flipped the puck up into the air, ever so gently).
During the Detroit Red Wings 1995 run to the Cup Finals, I would play a game against whatever opponent the Wings were playing that night. It was all superstition, but I truly believed I was the one willing them towards the Stanley Cup, and that I had to keep up my end of the bargain in order for them to win it all!
What happened that year? They got to the Finals!
Did they win the Cup? Well, no. They kinda got swept. The New Jersey Devils beat them 4-0 on the way to their first Cup in franchise history… bastards.
They did win eventually it all though, back-to-back, in 1997 and 1998. Whenever I play the game now, I still have that weird superstition in the back of my mind. If I play as the Wings against the Chicago Blackhawks, chances are pretty good that they’ll win tonight, right??
(Answer: No, they lost to the ‘Hawks in overtime last night.)
The glory days. *sigh*
Posted on January 25, 2013
My Top 100: #27 – Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa
1988 – Konami (Famicom Disk System, Famicom, Virtual Console)
Of all the people that read this blog on a regular basis, only one of them truly knows what the hell this game is doing on my countdown.
Somehow, the smallest and most out-of-the-way corner stores always had the widest variety of games available for rent. There were big video store chains in Fredericton, like Major Video and Blockbuster Video, as well as grocery and convenience stores that carried a decent collection. However, it was the tucked-away Video King downtown that had some of the rarer games available, as did the little Scholten’s Esso… or Ultramar… or Shell… or Petro-Canada… depending on the year, it was always different.
Rural New Brunswick seemed to be the best spot to find video game oddities. In Baie-Sainte-Anne, which today boasts a population of about 1,600 people (but was much less than that 20 years ago), there was always a handful of places to choose from if I wanted to rent a game. But there was one store, tucked away in the back woods on a narrow chipsealed road, that I preferred more than any other.
Le Day-and-Night Variété! I loved the name of it!
Forget going to Blockbuster and having someone beat you to the game you wanted. Nope. Not here. The Baie area was so small that chances were pretty good you’d be walking out of the Variété with a great game! They also had much rarer games, including ones from Japan. They weren’t always fun, but they often looked strange judging from the cover, and were always worth a shot.
I’ve spoken to other gamers who grew up in smaller towns and outskirts, and they too had played some rare games when they were younger. 31-in-1 was a compilation cart that was fairly common around the Maritimes (apparently), as were 52-in-1 and 101-in-1. There was one that I kept going back to, though, but not just because I was getting the most games for my mom’s buck.
It was because Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa was an incredibly fun game that kept me occupied for the duration of our trips.
The Bio Miracle name, I actually didn’t know about until about seven or eight years ago. Variété’s staff had apparently had enough of people not knowing enough about the game to rent it, so they wrote “MARIO BABY” with a big black marker on the side of it. Until my friend Jordan mentioned a game he rented once that also had “MARIO BABY” written on it, I had no clue that it went by an entirely different name!
The game itself is one part Super Mario Bros., one part Bubble Bobble, and one part Kickle Cubicle. Upa, the main character, uses his magic rattle to kill enemies in a particularly gruesome fashion; when struck with this seemingly harmless toy, foes expand like balloons and start floating away. You can then jump on them and use them as an elevator to higher platforms, or use them offensively by nudging them into the opposite direction. When you do that, they’re sent flying out of harm’s way, possibly taking a few other enemies with them.
Sounds like a painful way to go!
The music, the controls, the variety… it was all so much fun! It was released for the Wii’s Virtual Console in 2008, so I was finally able to own “MARIO BABY” for myself.
Ribbon not included, unfortunately.
It’s still called the Day and Night, by the looks of it!
And it’s still tiny!
Posted on January 24, 2013
My Top 100: #28 – Super Return of the Jedi
1994 – THQ (Super NES, Game Boy, Game Gear, Virtual Console)
For most of us hardcore Star Wars fanatics, it’s quite easy to remember just what it was that made us fall in love with that galaxy far, far away. For me, it was Super Return of the Jedi.
Whenever people ask the question of “what’s your favourite Star Wars movie”, I’m always quick to answer Episode VI. For some reason, that never goes over very well! I’m not sure why, either. I mean, sure, the Empire’s ground forces were taken out by a bunch of teddy bears… keep in mind, however, that the kind of music played in A New Hope‘s Cantina scene is called “jizz”.
Try not to take your Star Wars too seriously, folks. I love it too, but they’re just movies, meant to entertain.
Anyway, Return of the Jedi just wraps all the storylines up into a nice little package, and ends it in a way that always gives me goosebumps whenever I watch it. The Emperor is creepy as hell and played to perfection by Ian McDiarmid. The emotionally charged duel between Luke and Darth Vader is more interesting than the one in Empire, just because Vader’s not just “some bad guy” throughout most of the fight – Luke KNOWS he’s his father this time around, and comes dangerously close to falling to the dark side.
John Williams’ score for Jedi is easily the best of all six movies. From the Battle of Endor music (“Into the Trap” is possibly my favourite music of the entire saga) to the low, haunting Emperor theme, I friggin’ love it. Even the Special Edition’s ending music gives me chills, just listening to it!
In the end, though, the reason I like RotJ the most is simply because Super Return of the Jedi was the game that made me say “I’m over my paranoia about space and Jupiter now, so I should probably watch those movies!”
1996 was a pretty eventful year, when I think about it!
I experienced my first ever NASCAR race, which was obviously a big deal, and stuck with me. At the end of grade 7, I was in a school play as an important character with actual lines, and stuff. That was fun, since we went on a road trip and played at different schools around the province. That September, the Nintendo 64 was released… I was *slightly* pumped about that.
On the flip side, there was talk about having my grandmother move into an apartment\nursing home just down the street from the family house in Baie-Sainte-Anne. Not only that, but they were thinking of selling the house, which had been in our family since the early 1900’s. None of that really sat well with me, but it was just a sign of the times. It seems that everyone has to go through that sort of thing, eventually.
On one summer trip to the Baie, I had brought my Super NES as usual. I had also borrowed my friend Abba’s copy of Super Return of the Jedi, even though I knew next to nothing about Star Wars. I had played a bit of it at his place, however, and knew that it was a solid action platformer with cool “3D’ flying levels.
It was an abnormally quiet day in the house, since my mom and grandmother had walked down the little path over to my great aunt’s mini-home, located on the same piece of land. They would talk about this and that, have lobster, do whatever old people liked to do. They were probably playing crib and joking around, like they did so often!
I was playing Super RotJ for the better part of the afternoon when I decided that I really wanted to see what those Star Wars movies were all about. I thought it was just a bunch of unknown actors in there, but was that Harrison Ford that I could choose to play as? I couldn’t be sure, just because he was all 16-bittey, and stuff.
On the drive home the night after, I remember asking my mom a ton of questions about it. Who else was in it? What years were they released? Was Star Wars the one with the “I am your father” quote? Because that’s all I pretty much knew. She told me what she could, of course, but her knowledge was pretty much limited to who the main actors were, and how Mark Hamill’s face got somewhat mangled in a car accident between movies.
Now THAT I had to see for myself.
We got back into Fredericton, stopped at Blockbuster Video, and rented A New Hope on VHS. After I watched that, I couldn’t wait to see how the rest of them panned out.
“Dude, didn’t Obi-Wan just lie to Luke about his father??? Or… was that famous Vader line just a lie???”
Luckily, I didn’t have to wait long to find out. Our neighbor got wind that I had discovered the awesomeness that was Star Wars, and lent me Episodes V and VI to watch that weekend.
The rest, as they say, is history!
Aw, man. Beautiful. Not my image, by the way.
Posted on January 23, 2013
My Top 100: #29 – Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec
2001 – Sony Computer Entertainment (PlayStation 2)
I’ve already mentioned why I haven’t included many racing games on my countdown, even though I like racing more than any stick and ball sport. I’m obsessed with it, in fact, so that might explain why I’m so nitpicky when it comes to the games. If it’s a simulator, I’m not going to put it in a list of “games”!
The Gran Turismo series falls right in the middle, though. They aren’t casual “pick up and play” racing games, but at the same time, I wouldn’t go so far as to call them simulators. You can tinker with just about everything under the hood, accumulate cash and further your in-game career… on the other hand, the minute you hit the track, you can either choose to race like a pro (precisely hitting apexes, drifting and using pit strategy) or race like an idiot (walls can be your friend)!
The visuals for Gran Turismo 3 were looking incredible long before the PlayStation 2 was even released. It was “just a tech demo” shown somewhere in 2000, so nobody really knew what the end product would end up looking like. Still, it was enough to generate quite a bit of hype for its 2001 release.
I picked it up in August of ’01, and thankfully, it was the same racing that I fell in love with during that summer of ’98. Just much nicer-looking!
We’re coming up on 12 years since it’s been released, and I’ve been picking away at it ever since, trying to achieve 100% completion; getting gold on all license challenges, winning every race and every championship (including endurance races), getting every car in the game into my garage… absolutely everything.
Granted, I’ve only been playing it here and there whenever the mood strikes me. Some of the longer races aren’t as easy to put time aside for, but one day, I’ll get them all done. Whenever that happens, it will be fantastic.
I bought GT3 on our NASCAR trip in ’01, which went on a bit longer than it usually did. After race weekend, we traveled to Castleton, NY, to visit good friends we had made on our many trips to Pennsylvania. We had met them at the hotel bar a few years earlier, and since they also made the yearly pilgrimage to Pocono Raceway, we just happened to hit it off quite nicely. They invited us to stay at their home in Castleton, and they had a big barbecue with the whole crew to celebrate. Good times!
When we finally got back to Canada, I was greeted with a letter from Saint Thomas University. Not only had my application been successful (whaaaaatttt), but the letter had a list of all the classes I was enrolled in! Whoo!
I celebrated by playing quite a bit of GT3 that night we got home. For some odd reason, even though I had owned my PS2 since January of that year, I didn’t have a memory card. The next day, I picked one up, and REALLY gave the game a workout.
That night, though, the mood in the house got tense. I had an old friend coming to town that I hadn’t seen in about 6-7 years. The last time we had hung out, we were in Grade 4 or 5, and though we were definitely friends back in the day, I wasn’t quite sure what he’d been up to. My parents had heard things through “the grapevine” (which was, apparently, the precursor to Facebook), and they weren’t particularly keen on letting this guy camp out in our back yard.
I remember being absolutely livid! I couldn’t understand why they couldn’t just let him pitch a tent in our back yard for a few days. I didn’t care what they had heard, or who he hung out with (“Big deal, so that guy smokes cigarettes, that’s all he smokes!”), and I went to bed quite angry that night. He ended up staying at my friend (let’s call him) H’s place instead.
After the old friend left town, H was livid. As it turned out, my parents had every right to be suspicious; this guy figured it was a good idea to bring a particularly strong-smelling unnamed substance into H’s house! Whatever people do with that sort of thing is their own business, and though I was young and curious, I had never tried drugs of any kind… but to bring it into my home, where my parents and sister live? C’mon, man.
Moral of the story, your parents usually know what they’re talking about.
My STU Orientation Week mug. Aahhhh, memories!
Posted on January 22, 2013
My Top 100: #30 – The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
2003 – Nintendo (GameCube)
There was a lot of negative buzz at E3 in 2001 when Nintendo revealed how the new Zelda game would look. “Why do they have to use cel-shading? Why can’t we have a realistic-looking Zelda game? Link looks like a little kid! Why can’t Nintendo just give us what we want??? This game is going to be baaaaaad…..”
I’ll admit – the cartoonish look was a bit of a shock to me, as well. Really though, I think I’ve had reservations about every new Zelda announcement since Ocarina of Time. There’s a different hook with every game in the series, and you either like it or you don’t. Plain and simple.
I happen to be pretty damn easy to please, and I’ve enjoyed every Zelda game I’ve ever played. Even Majora’s Mask, to a certain extent!
In the end, Wind Waker was perfectly fine the way it was. The cel-shading actually helped Link show more expression than he ever has (even in games since), and the colourful visuals were so vibrant and fun to look at. Much was made about the Great Sea, where Link travels from island to island on his trusty boat\sidekick\King of Hyrule, the King of Red Lions. People groaned a bit about having to travel so far between islands, but I saw it as an opportunity to explore even more.
Besides, once you receive the titular Wind Waker and gain the ability to warp, it’s much easier to get around.
Another thing I enjoyed was how Irish the game felt. The music had a definite celtic influence, what with all the fiddles and harps that are heard throughout the game. The way Link is dressed has always reminded me of a leprechaun… the friendly cereal kind, not the nasty-looking leprechauns from the horror movie. The vivid green of his tunic in this one just reinforces that, for me.
Finally, I always associated sea travel with Ireland, not only because it was where the Titanic was built, but because of another ocean liner that sank – the Empress of Ireland, which was actually built in Scotland.
Sinking boats and massive loss of life = Ireland \ The Wind Waker!
(Not really.)
In 2005 or so, EGM had an issue with a handful of cutouts that could serve as alternate box art, if you wanted it. One of the cutouts was an awesome-looking alternate cover for The Wind Waker, so I felt the need to swap mine out. In typical Andre fashion, though, I THREW THE ORIGINAL SLEEVE OUT.
Man, am I ever a genius. Even though I enjoy the EGM box art more than the original, I really regret throwing it out. Why would I do such a thing? It’s not like I couldn’t tuck it in behind the new sleeve. Oooohhhh friggin’ well.
Had to take my own picture because I can’t find one online. I might not have the original, but at least this one is rare!
The first time I actually attempted to play The Wind Waker all the way through was quite a while after it came out. I had owned a GameCube for a few years, and had just recently purchased a Wii with Twilight Princess. Of course, if I was ever going to play through TP, I was going to have to beat WW first!
At the time, I had been dating a girl for about six months. Not long after Christmas, an opportunity to move into an amazing apartment downtown had presented itself, and I was on the verge of moving in with her. There was a strange mix of apprehension, excitement, guilt, and overwhelming joy to be moving away from home, but I knew it had to be done eventually. I sure as hell wasn’t going to be living with my mom forever!
No offense, Mom!
Whenever I think of playing through those last few levels leading up to the final showdown against Ganondorf, I get a weird nostalgic knot in my stomach. It was snowing lightly outside, and as I’ve mentioned before, that’s my favourite time to relax and play games. As the I neared the end of the game (you always *know* when the end is near in a Zelda game), I felt like I was not only about to beat a game, but move onto another chapter of my life. This was the last game I was going to play through, from start to finish, in the bedroom that I grew up in.
Later that night, I had to go out and shovel our driveway. The next day, I was borrowing a truck from a friend, and moving all my junk into my new living quarters with my future wife!
My wife encourages this sort of thing… so she’s kinda perfect for me.