Posted on January 21, 2013
My Top 100: #31 – Wrecking Crew
1985 – Nintendo (NES, Virtual Console, 3DS)
I consider this to be one of my favourite games of all time, yet somehow, I’m still learning things about it. Sure, I’m still learning little tidbits about the Super Mario Bros. games, but Wrecking Crew was a pretty early title in the NES’ lifespan. It was one of the “black box” games, so that should tell you right away how simplistic the game is.
Mario has taken a break from his career as a carpenter (Donkey Kong) and a plumber (Mario Bros.) to take on the daunting task of being a demolition expert. Not only does he have to carry a massive hammer up and down ladders, destroy brick walls and avoid walking wrenches and fireballs (as well as purple jelly bean guys), but his arch nemesis Spike is also out to make life incredibly difficult for him.
The Health and Wellness department of the company he works for has evidently made the use of steel-toed shoes mandatory, so Mario is unable to jump. He’s also not able to attack enemies directly, instead using crumbling debris as his only defense against Spike and other foes. Because of this, using strategy to avoid possible traps is key.
For all its action and frantic pace, Wrecking Crew is essentially a dolled-up puzzle game that forces you to strategize on every single level. It can get awfully challenging at times, but that’s the beauty of it! Besides, you can pick which “Phase” to start from at the title screen. If you’re feeling creative, you can also make your own levels!
Programmable Series, FTW!
The game can get kinda hairy at times. Enemies are coming at you from all angles, and each different kind has a distinct behaviour you can sometimes use to your advantage. If the purple jelly bean fellas are coming at you, stand behind a ladder, and they’ll climb it instead of walking towards you! If the wrench guys are nearby, try to confuse them with an erratic path. If Spike is being a pain in the arse, try to knock him down between two barrels!
With all that in mind, my goal was to just finish the levels. No fancy stuff, just make it to the end of the game.
During gameplay, a snowman or statue of some kind would pop up from one of the pedestals usually reserved for holding bombs. I thought this was a completely random occurrence, and it was quite fun whenever it happened. Whoo, bonus points!
Of course, like any other video game, it’s not random at all. If you demolish walls in some levels in a certain order, you can get various bonuses, including a more powerful “golden hammer”. I was not aware of this until recently, when the title of an MP3 I was listening to tipped me off. I looked it up, and there it was in all its golden glory. If you’re precise enough, you can even directly attack enemies with it. Awesome!
Yet another reason to create www.wreckingcrewisbetterthanthis.com…
Not actually a “jelly bean guy” at all… he’s actually Eggplant Man, which helps prove my point about eggplant being awful.
Posted on January 17, 2013
My Top 100: #32 – Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
2001 – Konami (PlayStation 2, Xbox, PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation Vita)
I look back on the last generation of consoles quite fondly. Between 2000 and 2005, the PlayStation 2, GameCube and Xbox were cranking out next-gen gold left and right. Huge franchises came back with a bang (like Medal of Honor and Grand Theft Auto) and newcomers asserted themselves as series that would be sticking around for a while (like Halo and Call of Duty).
At E3 in 2001, both Nintendo and Microsoft had upcoming console releases to generate buzz and excitement. Sony’s PlayStation 2 had been out for several months at that point, but was still able to get people talking with a few great-looking games.
The biggest name at their presentation was an old standby, a gruff veteran of gaming whose last game had us all doing everything but “feel asleep”… of course, I’m talking about Solid Snake.
When previews for Metal Gear Solid 2 were shown, people couldn’t tell if they were watching gameplay or pre-rendered cutscenes. Konami was *saying* it was gameplay, but there was no way that was possible… those clips of Snake running through the halls of a sinking tanker ship looked just a bit too good to be true.
It was a game everyone was talking about, and was hyped as the PS2’s second killer app behind Gran Turismo 3. I set out to play the original for PS1 to see what the fuss was about, and I enjoyed the heck out of it. When November rolled around, I’d be able to see for myself just how good the sequel looked.
The first part of the game had me picking my jaw up off the floor. The wind and rain effects looked amazing, and it really did feel like I was playing an interactive movie. Being able to switch to a first person view for firing your weapon was awesome, and the mission itself was quite fun as well. The prologue mission ended with a bang, and I prepared for more crazy action in part two… wait.
What’s wrong with Snake’s voice? I know he’s wearing a scuba mask, but he sounds different.
Today, we all know about the ol’ Raiden switcheroo the game pulled on us. At the time, I was thinking I’d end up playing as Snake (or Pliskin) again somewhere down the road. That didn’t happen, but that was fine. No big deal, I guess!
Except this… I could have done without this.
Whenever I think of this game, two things stand out the most.
I got it for Christmas in ’01, but decided to tackle Grand Theft Auto III first. The following summer, I was in my bedroom one morning, playing MGS2. I had made it all the way to the battle with Fortune when a knock came at the door. Since we lived out of town, a knock on the door usually meant that it was a neighbor looking for this or asking for that. Trips to Beaverdam for casual visits were usually big occasions!
I opened the door, and lo and behold, there was my old friend Michael! I’ve mentioned him in prior posts, but he was the friend who lived across the street, and had moved to Ontario with his family about four years earlier. I was quite glad to see him, so I shut the game off and got caught up with him for the next little while. He had to go into New Maryland (about five minutes down the road) to fix something on his truck, so I hopped in and went with him. Josh lived right next door to the garage Mike was going to, so while we waited for his truck to get fixed up, we went over and bugged him for a while.
That day was a bit surreal, just because it was us kids from Howarth Acres, hanging out once again. The old crew was (partially) back together again. Good times!
My other memory goes back a bit later that year.
On one particularly lazy Saturday, I decided that I was going to sit down and take the time to beat MGS2. I had been dragging my feet with the game, since my recent social activities took precedence over my video gaming. This day, however, I’d get comfy and beat the last chunk of the game.
It was a bigger chunk than I had previously thought, though… those cutscenes, as interesting and hilariously convoluted as they got, dragged on for much longer than I anticipated. By the time the story got all Matrix-ey, Arsenal Gear crashed into New York City and Solidus “Mr. President” Snake bit the bullet, it was almost 1am! I had been going at it for a good while, and was so glued to the TV that I didn’t even realize the sun had gone down, much less that it was well into Sunday.
I turned off the PS2, and remembered that there was a CART race from Australia that was about to start. Perfect timing! I flipped it over to TSN, and the pace car had JUST pulled off. They were going green!
Here’s what happened next…
That was crazy! All the drivers involved ended up being just fine, but I was glued to the TV for another little while because of it. At some point between this wreck and the end of Saturday Night Live, I started snoring away… I guess I did “feel asleep”, after all.
Here’s a better view of the wreck! Insane!
Posted on January 16, 2013
My Top 100: #33 – Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire
1996 – LucasArts (Nintendo 64, PC)
The Star Wars Expanded Universe, which is comprised of novels, TV shows and comic books, contains characters and situations that are tailor-made for video games. Most of the time, however, the games based on the sci-fi franchise are entirely new stories, and insert themselves into canon in various ways. The Force Unleashed and Knights of the Old Republic are prime examples of this – both were fantastic games, but were somewhat awkwardly worked into a pre-existing storyline that had been established in another medium.
In the mid-90’s, the folks at LucasFilm had the idea of crafting a multi-platform storytelling machine that would explore a rarely talked-about chapter in the saga. They wanted to see how many units they could move, and how many toys, trading cards and role playing material they could sell, if they released everything BUT a new movie.
This all new chapter, placed between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, would be told through a graphic novel, video game, and a paperback novel by Steve Perry (NOT the ex-Journey singer). On top of that, Joel McNeely (one of John Williams’ protegés) would write an entirely new orchestral score to complement the visual material, and was to be featured in the video game.
Indeed, Shadows of the Empire was definitely something worth getting excited about. Maybe it was time for me to actually get excited about reading a book! None of this “book report” stuff… just reading, only for the sheer enjoyment of reading. What a crazy concept that was to me, at the time.
I’m not even sure if there are any video retailers that do console rentals these days, but I do remember doing that a few times with both the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation. Renting a game was great fun, but when you were treated to renting a console, your weekends usually consisted of doing nothing but playing games. Those are definitely times I look back on quite fondly.
The second time I rented a Nintendo 64 was right before Christmas break in ’96, a couple months after it was released. I had my choice of two games to rent with it, so I chose Super Mario 64 and Shadows of the Empire. As I walked out of Blockbuster Video with that “console briefcase” in hand, I had to temper my excitement. We had an extra stop to make – at the liquor store – and then we could go home.
I didn’t want to go into the store once we got there; I just wanted to stay in the car and read the instruction manuals! The liquor store was for adults anyway. Nothing for me to see in there!
As I was reading up on SotE enemies, I noticed there’s a car parked next to us. In the back seat were two girls (around my age, probably), and out of the corner of my eye, I could see them both staring at me, making faces, acting ridiculous. I was too focused on my reading to pay them any attention, but at one point, I could tell the car was bouncing up and down from them acting like such idiots.
Finally, I did one of those slow head turns, and gave them the most annoyed glare I could give them. They quickly stopped and acted like they hadn’t been doing anything, but of course, they went right back at it when I turned back to my manual.
Some people’s kids!
When my mom finally came back, she said “Those girls in the car next to us are quite hyper, aren’t they”. I just said “I didn’t notice”, and kept on reading.
I actually started working at that same store six years later, and every time I’d look out at the parking lot, I couldn’t help but think of those annoying girls in the car next to me that day.
Another memory about the game was finding out about the PC version, which was demo’ed at Computer Village, the PC retailer in the mini-mart next to our school. After lunch at Subway or Pizza Twice, we had time to kill, and usually ended up there. So, whenever they had the store’s demo PC set up with Shadows of the Empire (complete with CG cutscenes), I made sure to make the most of my lunch break on those days.
About the game, I was so amazed by the fact that I was IN Star Wars that it quickly became one of my favourites. By that, I mean that I’d explore Hoth’s Echo Base and other levels, imagining that this is how the characters actually saw these locales in the movie… if that makes sense.
Not only that, but we were finally introduced to a visual representation of the Imperial City of Coruscant! Cool! Also, they explained the events that prompted Mon Mothma’s “many Bothans died to bring us this information” line from Return of the Jedi.
Bothans are kinda bastards, anyway.
I really wish there were more Star Wars games based on the novels…
…because it really goes downhill (and gets interesting) after Return of the Jedi.
Posted on January 15, 2013
My Top 100: #34 – Adventure Island II
1991 – Hudson Soft (NES, Game Boy, Nintendo eShop)
With all the Ninja Turtles, Mega Mans, Contras, Zeldas, Marios, Donkey Kongs, Kirbys, and Castlevanias of the NES library, it’s no wonder a few great titles get overlooked when talking about favourites. Whenever I have these conversations, whether it be in person or in an online forum, I’m the only one who ever brings up the Adventure Island series. They were definitely some of the more underrated games on the console, in my opinion.
I’m not sure if it was its beginnings as Sega’s Wonder Boy, or if it was the fact that Hudson Soft didn’t exactly have a gleaming reputation for putting out quality titles (Milon’s Secret Castle, anyone?). Whatever it was, it just seemed like Master Higgins and his dinosaur buddies were never getting the attention they deserved.
The first Adventure Island had some cool platforming, and in the early days of owning an NES, quickly became a fun alternative to Super Mario Bros. It could be unforgivingly difficult at times, but the whole “eating fruit to stay alive” thing was enough to keep me hooked from start to finish.
Avoiding the eggs with eggplant in them was also a must, since they drained your energy. Damn eggplant!
Kid logic. I still hate eggplant, too.
I remember being in Moncton at my kinda-cousins’ place (long story), playing the first AI in their basement one night, finding out that they knew one of the kids I went to school with. This particular student wasn’t exactly a bully, but he and I didn’t see eye to eye. Of course, I had to talk it up.
“Yeah, I know Marc! I punched him! He’s a wimp! I pushed him over, and he fell over like a feather!”
Yeah. No. That never happened. Although, later in life, I DID punch Marc (very weakly) in the face on the playground before running away, knowing he was fully capable of kicking my ass.
Anyhow, the first Adventure Island was one of those early games you could sit down and have a good time with, even though it wasn’t perfect.
The second or third issue of Nintendo Power that I recieved was the one with Metal Storm on the cover, and one of the featured stories was on the upcoming Adventure Island II. This was a big deal to me! I mean, I wasn’t really expecting a sequel to it, much less a sequel that added a whole bunch of new stuff! There would be cooler-looking levels with more variety, an island map, and four different dinosaur sidekicks with different abilities… and that was it. That qualified as “a whole bunch”, back in the day. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it!
That summer, my cousin in Connecticut was getting married. A whole bunch of us Acadian New Brunswickers made the pilgrimage to my Aunt’s in Bristol, including my (actual) cousins. This was about five years before our yearly NASCAR trips, so it really was a treat to be south of the border, seeing things you didn’t normally see, and be with close family and friends on top of that.
We had a few days to kill, so naturally, I wanted to bring my NES along for the trip. I felt like I was breaking some kind of international law when I suggested this to my parents! Apparently, you needed a “green card” for it, and had to show it to the border patrol guards on the way into the U.S., as well as on your way back into Canada.
How’s that for Homeland Security, huh???
As it turned out, it was only a small, green piece of paper that stated that you owned the device before crossing over, just so you didn’t have to pay duty on it on the way back through.
Fair enough!
Anyhow, I can vividly remember going to the Toys R Us (across from West Hartford Mall) with my mom, aunt, and cousin, buying Adventure Island II, then coming back into Bristol for a trip to McDonald’s. I drive by that place today, and I always think back to being in there asking my aunt…
“I’m excited to get back to ‘tante Jeanne’s, you know why???? TO PLAY THE NEW GAME I JUST GOT!!! MMMMMMMMM chicken nuggets……..”
Hasn’t changed much, except maybe the colour. Remember brown and beige McDonaldses? Good times.
Also, it’s still always hazy as hell in Bristol. That hasn’t changed, either.
Posted on January 14, 2013
My Top 100: #35 – Doom
1993 – id Software (PC, Mac, Super NES, 32x, PlayStation, Game Boy Advance, iOS, Jaguar, Saturn, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation 3)
Every time I play games on a new platform, I seem to fall in love with whatever I happen to play first. Besides the obvious pack-in title (like Mario-everything), there was always that one random game that I’d play and enjoy the crap out of, simply because I hadn’t experienced anything like it before. Even if it was terrible, I can still go back and play it for a quick nostalgic trip down memory lane.
For me, the NES had Excitebike and Renegade. On Game Boy, it was Golf and Mega Man in Dr. Wily’s Revenge. When the Super NES came around, I was introduced to Joe & Mac and True Golf Classics: Waialae Country Club… and the list goes on!
Even the first few times I played a Virtual Boy demo, I wanted one pretty badly. Red Alarm may be headache-inducing now, but I’d still do anything to re-live those initial moments of pure bliss!
Y’know, before my eyes started to burn and the headache set in. But before then… BLISS!
So, when the Atari Jaguars and Panasonic 3DO’s of the world began pimping their 3D games and realistic graphics, I started feeling quite jealous. I knew these consoles were way out of our price range, and that it would be a while before I’d get my hands on some of the popular games everyone seemed to be raving about.
Then, on Christmas morning in ’94, my views on gaming took a bit of a jolt. We got our first family computer, a Compaq Presario CDS 520. Right out of the box, it seemed like the possibilities would be limitless. Microsoft’s Encarta ’94 was an entire encyclopedia with colour pictures and videos! ON A DISC! Whoa!! We also had a phone line hooked into the back of the PC, and we could make calls from it if we wanted to! Crazy!
Of course, it also opened the door for me to play a few games I had been wanting to try. My dad bought the Electronic Arts Top Ten Pak, which included a variety games for both he and I to enjoy (Indianapolis 500 was the best, by far). I made my own game choice at our local K-Mart store – a cheap shareware disc containing partial games, one of them being Doom.
Finally, it was mine to enjoy! Of course, it was shareware, so only one of the game’s episodes was available to play. Knee Deep in the Dead had plenty to offer though, so at the time, I pretty much considered it the full game.
It was the first game I played on my PC that didn’t come with it, and it blew my mind. Where Mortal Kombat shocked you with violence alone, Doom offered up the one-two punch of blood and gore mixed with satanic imagery. On top of that, it had music and sound effects that set the mood better than any game I had played up to that point.
Nothing creeped me out more than playing with the lights off, walking around a dimly lit area, and you hear the pig-like snort of a Pink Demon nearby.
It was the simple things about Doom that I enjoyed. While some kids I knew played it and revelled in the amount of gore, or the havoc they could wreak with a BFG (and snickered at what BFG actually stood for), I was thinking of strategies to take on the hordes of baddies in certain rooms. I’d also walk up against every single wall in eachlevel, repeadly tapping the spacebar in the hopes of finding doors to secret areas.
There was a much more intriguing game under the surface, but all people could talk about was the violence. I don’t know how many of the secrets I actually did find, but I played through Knee Deep in the Dead and Commander Keen 4: Goodbye Galaxy enough to wear that poor old 486 out…
A Compaq Presario CDS 520 (not mine) with the spiffy all-in-one look! Classic!
Posted on January 11, 2013
My Top 100: #36 – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time
1991 – Konami (Arcade, Super NES)
I’ve already shared my more vivid memories about this game (two in one post, actually), so let’s just talk about the game for a change.
I’ve mentioned it before, but the music in Turtles in Time is some of the best I’ve ever heard in a game. No matter what console, no matter what epic orchestral soundtracks and big budget composers came after it, TMNT4‘s music has stood the test of time. I can’t imagine it was too difficult to come up with chip tunes to fall under the “radical” or “tubular” moniker, but composer Mutsuhiko Izumi managed to make them all sound like they had a place in the Ninja Turtles universe.
Classic game remakes have been popping up left and right for the past few years, and naturally, Turtles in Time got the treatment with 2009’s Re-Shelled (released on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network). It added a fresh coat of 3D paint, brought back a few of the trademark attacks, and…….. that’s about it.
I’m not sure what’s more disappointing with Re-Shelled – the fact that the stellar soundtrack from the original was completely ignored, or that the supposedly “improved” graphics were severely lacking in the colour department. I know they might have been aiming for something more realistic or gritty, but in a game about mutated turtles who learn Kung Fu from their similarly mutated rat master? Really?
For serious?
Sewer Surfin’ and Prehistoric Turtlesaurus look pretty… bland and foggy.
The only level that actually does look phenomenal is the Skull and Crossbones level on the pirate ship. That’s the only one that truly evokes that sense of nostalgia when playing the game, and if I’m not mistaken, was one of the main reasons they decided to remake the game in the first place!
A missed opportunity, and a darn shame.
That being said, if there was ever a re-release of the arcade original, I’d be all over that. Like white on rice.
…or like green, orange, pink or yellow on rice. Gross.
This looks like something confiscated by the cops. Black market rice?
Posted on January 9, 2013
My Top 100: #37 – Medal of Honor: Frontline
2002 – Electronic Arts (PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, PlayStation 3)
If Call of Duty 2 was the last amazing World War II shooter before the genre got stale, then Medal of Honor: Frontline is the game that started the whole mess to begin with.
Sure, the Medal of Honor franchise had been kicking around since Saving Private Ryan hit theatres, being one of the off-shoots Steven Spielberg contributed his writing to (the incredible Band of Brothers miniseries was the other). Unfortunately, the PlayStation’s blocky resolution and short drawing distance limited your ability to truly feel like you were wandering the streets of Paris, or… wherever else you went in that game. I’m not sure – I don’t think I’ve ever gone beyond the first level.
I do own it, however!
In any case, EA made the leap into the new generation with 2002’s Frontline, forever changing the face of first person shooters in the 21st century.
After a sequence that (almost perfectly) re-creates the first scene of Saving Private Ryan from a first person perspective, Frontline throws you head first into the invasion of Normandy on D-Day. Bullets are whizzing by, shells are going off left and right, and your Captain is yelling orders at you through the haze of battle. As I rushed across the sand to provide covering fire, I felt that strange giddy mix of excitement, fear and anticipation. I wasn’t even actually shooting anyone yet, but I knew I was in for quite a battle.
The rest of the game doesn’t quite match the intensity of the Normandy level, but there’s definitely a wide variety of things to experience. You snipe, you sneak, you go through countryside villages, and have shootouts on submarines and trains… all things that we’ve seen plenty of by now, but was quite mind-blowing at the time.
In one of the villages you walk through, there’s an old lady on her front porch, holding a broom. Instead of sweeping, she just stands there, clutching the broom in fear, trembling. When I first noticed her, I kinda just stood there and watched. It was an emotional side that I had seen in movies before, but never in games.
Well done, EA! It’s too bad the genre had to go so far downhill, so quickly after this.
I played the game for the first time at Abba’s place. After rushing out to grab my own copy, I actually went to my sister’s room to hook up my PS2. She had her TV hooked up to massive speakers, so I figured it would be the best way to experience the audio. Obviously, it wasn’t ideal, so I had to figure out a way to get this setup in my own room.
Thankfully, we had an old amplifier sitting in our basement, collecting dust and not serving any purpose other than an incredibly huge paperweight.
…similar to this…
My parents suggested I hook this thing up to my TV, and use the speakers from the sound system that I normally used for playing music. They weren’t that big, but they could definitely do the trick. I had played lots of Tool and Red Hot Chili Peppers tunes to prove that!
After figuring out the best way to hook it up to the small TV in my bedroom, I gave it a shot. As I turned on the PS2 and the trademark “wwhhhhhheeeerrrrrrr” sound effect came on… it sounded like a bomb had gone off next to my head.
In my infinite wisdom, I hadn’t checked any of the volume knobs on the amp beforehand, and of course, they were all cranked to the highest levels possible. Probably from me playing with the then-unhooked amp as a small child, perhaps. I wouldn’t put it past me. In any case, there was ringing in my ears for a few minutes. After the initial shock wore off (and everyone came to ask what the hell had happened), I settled in to play Frontline.
As the intro rolled along, it became apparent that I had blown something in my speakers. The scream of “THIRTY SECOONNNDSS” sounded like “THCHRRTCHCH CHECHHONNNNSH”.
Unreal. All I wanted was to get some booming stereo sound of my own, and it went to hell in a handbasket because of my Knob Negligence (TM, Andre Suley, 2013). I was beyond pissed off – I wasn’t even able to let go of some of that rage by thrashing out on my bass!
Gah. That was so dumb.
And that’s why Medal of Honor: Frontline is one of my favourite games.
If you saw “PlayStation 3” on the list of consoles it was released for, here’s the why.
And yes, I do own this. Surprise!
Posted on January 8, 2013
My Top 100: #38 – Contra III: The Alien Wars
1992 – Konami (Super NES, Game Boy Advance, Virtual Console)
There was a time that sequels didn’t have to blow your mind to be successful. All they had to do was deliver; just create a game with more of the same, only bigger and better-looking, and call it a day. There were fewer things to screw up, and that was nice – no need to worry about terrible voice acting or potentially awkward motion controls, because they weren’t a thing yet. I miss those days!
Contra III just needed to have the same tight controls, the same hectic action, the same aggravating life-stealing multiplayer as Contra and Super C, and we’d be all set!
Thankfully, Konami didn’t screw around, and gave us exactly what we wanted… and it was amazing.
This game scared the crap out of me, as a kid. From the apocalyptic intro to the creepy cyborg boss at the end of level 3, I actually had nightmares about some of the things I’d see in the game. They weren’t so much nightmares where I’d be chased or threatened by these alien characters, but dreams about the end of the world, and how freaky a place the world would be if this guy ruled what was left of the world.
Hey… Roland Emmerich… where’d you say you got the idea for Independence Day, again?
That, and the whole concept of “outer space” kinda freaked me out. Weird, but let me explain.
My mom worked at a library when I was in school, and still works there, in fact. After class, I’d always go there to kill time before she got off work and made the drive home. Naturally, I started reading random books about this and that, but the books that truly had me hooked were from Isaac Asimov’s “Library of the Universe” series. In it, there was one book for each planet in our solar system, and each had some pretty vivid drawings of what life would be like in the various environments. Very interesting stuff!
When it came time to read the book about Jupiter, there was something about the look of the planet that got to me. I’m not sure if it was the toxic gases it was comprised of, or if it was the giant storm on the surface, staring at me like a massive mole on someone’s upper lip. There was an image comparing the size of Earth to the “Great Red Spot”, which (according to the book) was itself three times bigger than our home planet! My mind was blown… that was spectacular, and scared the crap out of me. For some reason, I started thinking that Earth would miraculously leave orbit, and we’d get sucked into the massive storm on Jupiter.
Yeah. That makes no sense. But to me, as a kid, it made perfect sense. I swore off science fiction (specifically Star Trek: The Next Generation) because the thought of getting sucked into Jupiter just scared the buh-jeezus out of me.
I eventually came around and realized I was being unreasonable, but Contra III was one of my first forays into sci-fi after my so-called “Jupiter phase”.
My motivation? “Don’t let the Jupiter guys win!!!”
OH MY GOD IT’S HAPPENI—-oh… it’s just an image showing the spot is, in fact, NOT three times the size of earth.
Just the same size. Still crazy.
Posted on January 4, 2013
My Top 100: #39 – Metroid Prime
2002 – Nintendo (GameCube, Wii)
Even though Metroid was one of those Nintendo franchises that had been around for a long time, I never really got into any of them.
I thought the first game was kinda cool, although I never really had enough of an attention span at a young age to do some serious exploration, or to even attempt to finish the game. Return of Samus was a game I got after buying into months of hype in Nintendo Power, only to be greeted by bland environments and repetitive gameplay (although I did recently discover that it’s a fairly decent game, after all).
Super Metroid was an absolutely phenomenal game. It got rave reviews, lived up to an incredible amount of hype, and was the pinnacle of the Action\Adventure genre for quite a while. Many people believe it still is! And, with all that praise and excitement, I didn’t play a single minute of it.
In about 2001 or so, I finally downloaded a rom of it to see what I had been missing, and was quite obviously blown away by it. Unfortunately, I had been jaded enough by Metroid II to ignore Super Metroid altogether when it was released, which was a damn shame.
Samus Aran was going to be making the jump to 3D soon, and I wasn’t going to miss out on the action this time around.
*Watching this video instantly made me feel better about my own gaming abilities!*
There was, of course, the little question of actually owning a GameCube. To do that, I’d have to get a job first… damn, this gaming stuff was hard.
I eventually did get a job, and though I fully expected to screw up and get fired within the first few weeks, I managed to stick around. Living at home made it easy to save money, but it also made it easy to spend it. Working at a store adjacent to the mall was dangerous for a guy trying to save a buck or two, especially since it had the best DVD store in town. Remember Music World?? That place was awesome! In any case, I eventually ran out of little things I wanted to buy.
The last three consoles I had gotten were either bought with money earned from a person’s will, or, as was the case with my PlayStation 2, a high school graduation present. I set my sights on the first big purchase with the money I had rightfully earned on my own – a Nintendo GameCube. The Nintendo 64 and PS1 I had were fun, but whenever I played them, they reminded me of the people who died for me to be able to buy them. Kinda strange, but oh well.
On one of my lunch breaks, I went to Zellers to check out some GameCube deals. If I bought the game here, I’d get to choose two games to go along with it. Naturally, I chose Star Wars: Rogue Leader, and Metroid Prime. The rest of my work day was slow as molasses. There was a brand new console in my locker, just sitting there, not being enjoyed. My brain was quite obviously elsewhere for the rest of the shift.
When I finally got home, I was on Cloud Nine. The atmosphere, the music, the lock-on targeting, the fast-paced action, the great puzzles… absolutely everything in Prime had me enthralled from the get-go. There were little things, like how the the world’s wildlife really felt alive, and Samus’ visor reacting to the environments she was in, that really had me feeling like I was truly a part of the experience.
Can’t wait to play through it again to see what I might have missed the first time around!
When it came to buying Prime 3, this was the same price.
It was the last one at the store, and was also out of print at that point. Score!
Posted on December 31, 2012
My Top 100: #40 – Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition
2005 – Capcom (GameCube, PlayStation 2, PC, Wii, Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, iOS)
I’m not sure if I’ve actually touched on this in prior entries, but I can’t stand the zombie genre. I’ve always found movies and TV shows to be cliché, and video games are lumped into that category as well. I hear The Walking Dead is not so much about zombies, as it is about the relationships of the people on the run from them, which I suppose would be interesting… but the idea of a slow-moving living dead thing is not particularly interesting to me.
Resident Evil was a series my friend Abba would rant and rave about. It was the PlayStation’s killer app, or so I kept hearing… but zombies? No thanks.
Now, Doom was a game I enjoyed and played a ton, and I’m currently playing through Doom 3: BFG Edition. The argument could be made that that game has nothing but zombies for enemies. Well, maybe, but I consider them hell-spawned freaks, so it’s different. Technically. Right?
Right.
Resident Evil 4 was released for GameCube some time in ’05 or so, and my good friend Jordan had nothing but great things to say about it. After giving him my monologue about my hatred for zombies, he insisted I should at least give it a shot. I relented, and was definitely intrigued by what I played.
Something didn’t quite sit right with me, though. It was still slow-moving zombies, and the controls felt sluggish as all hell… I felt that it had some potential and that the environment was genuinely creepy, but I wasn’t going to go out of my way to play through the entire game any time soon.
Whenever games make you do stuff like rotate the control stick a certain way, make precisely timed button presses, or tap any given button as fast as possible to make gameplay suddenly more intense, I feel that it’s a bit of a copout. I sometimes get turned off by games that focus on that sort of thing too much. Right in the midst of a tense moment of action, you’re prompted with a mini-game, and it’s kinda cool and all, but… you’re too busy trying not to screw up to enjoy what’s happening on the screen. It takes you “out of the moment”, if that makes sense. RE4 had a few of those moments early on, and as good as the GameCube controller was, it still felt awkward.
Fast forward a few years, and life had changed quite a bit for both Jordan and I. I was no longer living at home, and he wasn’t even living in the same city as I was. Yet here we were, having the same conversation about Resident Evil 4! This time, it was about the recently released Wii version, which threw motion controls into the mix. Instead of making the controls feel gimmicky, Jordan convinced me that this was how the game was meant to be played… and he was absolutely right.
Strangely enough, waving the Wiimote around like a madman during the events mentioned above feels completely natural. Aiming your weapons is as easy as pointing at what you need to shoot, which is a heck of a lot better than trying to be precise with the control stick.
It was technically the same ol’ zombie mumbo-jumbo with the slow-moving hordes of enemies, but the combat felt so satisfying that it didn’t even matter. If you’re a horrible shot (like Harry) and they get too close, give ’em a roundhouse kick to the face!! You’ll probably take out more than one in the process, and if you’ve gotten their health down far enough, you just might make some heads explode.
I can’t really say much more about it than that. It’s still your typical zombie shooter, but it’s all in the way it’s presented; the creepy locales, the intense soundtrack, the nasty-looking parasites that randomly pop out of headless zombies… it all comes together to make this guy doubt what he’s said all along about the predictability of the genre.
After starting to write this post last week, I downloaded this freebie from XBLA… and it’s fantastic.
I really need to re-think this zombie hate of mine.