So many games to play, so little time to play them all…

When am I going to find time to play all of these video games?! The older I get, the less free time I have, and the less time I have to play video games. And ironically as I’m older now, the more money I have to spend on video games I don’t have time to play.

One of reasons for me wanting a PS2 was to play all of the Square RPGs I had been missing out on since the Playstation. I snatched up FF Chronicles and Anthologies as soon as I saw them at Best Buy, but never really got around playing them other than starting FFVI and its long load times, and enjoying about 1/3 of FFIV. I had a great time playing FFX, but have not yet finished it. I’m at what I think is the end of the game, but there are many sidequests I believe I’ve missed, and I just never got around to beating it. I’ve also got Earthboundfor the SNES to replay after all these years, and Skies of Arcadia Legends that I should get back to. Lately I just haven’t felt like playing RPGs, and have been leaning more towards action based games.

Never finished ICO after playing halfway through. Mobile Suit Gundam: Federation vs. Zeon’s campaign mode goes unfinished because I felt I was spoiling the end to the anime series for myself (which I’ve never seen because Cartoon Network never finished its run). Metroid 2 I just have not been able to enjoy anymore. I’ve beaten Mega Man 1 and 2 from the Mega Man Anniversary Collection, and I’m looking foward to playing through Mega Man 3. River City Ransom EX I play now and then, but I’ve been unable to finish it because it has to be played through in one sitting/leaving the machine on. I got F-Zero GX weeks ago with MMAC because I had wanted to play the sequel to the N64 game and it was $15, and I’m just now playing it because my interest has been sparked. So I’ve been playing F-Zero GX and 1080 Avalanche, which I’ve unlocked most of the stuff.

As for games coming out to add to my insanity, I sorta want to get the Famicom Mini versions of SMB 2 and Zelda 2: Rinku No Bouken. Pikmin 2 is coming out sometime very soon. My nostalgia for Donkey Kong ’94 interests me in getting Mario vs. Donkey Kong eventually. It’s been a long time since I’ve played Street Fighter II, so I’d like to get the SF Anniversary Collection for PS2. My Japanese Legend of Zelda Collection has arrived, and I’m thinking about getting Nintendo Puzzle Collection to go with the Freeloader I’ll need. It’d be nice to have a version of Dr. Mario and Panel De Pon(Tetris Attack) to play.
And that’s all besides older games I missed out on like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night! There are just so many great video games out there to play, new and old. Time to stop slacking off and wasting money, and starting playing, and finishing, video games!

Awesome Majora’s Mask Music video at Zelda Power

Awesome Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask music video at Zelda Power to the music of “A View to a Kill” from the James Bond film. The scenes are synched to the music and lyrics so well. It’s got the different forms of Link playing the instruments to the beat of the music like the drums of Goron Link and horns of Deku Link. I was laughing when the song went to “dance into the fire” because of the scenes that went with it with characters dancing, the whole thing was synched and done so well. Not to mention “A View to a Kill” is a great song.

[edit May 2010 Youtube link to the Majora's Mask music video]
Video game music videos don’t seem that abundant, but I know of a couple of sites that have some. My tastes naturally gravitate towards console games, and certain games at that, so it may be that there’s not a lot of console video game music videos out there where I do notice a lot of PC game videos.
Six Sided Video contains a few music videos by the webmaster. “Zelda 64 ver 2.0″, Ocarina of Time footage to the theme of Escaflowne, and “Got Melee?”, an excellent Super Smash Bros. Melee video making use of the game’s camera mode to Green Day’s “Bastket Case”, are my favorites.

8bm Studios recently updated with a destructive Blast Corps video that makes me want to play the game again, and the site has my personal favorite, “A New Hero” with footage from Zelda: The Wind Waker to “Wonder Boy” by Tenacious D.

Game Trailers hosts a number of fan created videos, “United” about allies in Final Fantasy XI I thought was good.

Video game music videos are a great way to pay tribute to a game, and its something I think about doing, but I lack good software for it, as well as the time and skill. I’d love to do a Zelda 2 video, or a Zelda series video to Virt’s “Blood of Ganon”. I can picture all of the video that would go to the different themes in my head, like showing all of the boss battles with Ganon at the beginning, giving the King of Hyrule from TWW props during the Hyrule Castle theme, and break out with a bunch of quick Zelda 2 clips during the battle/cave theme at the end  I think music such as from the Minibosses put together with actual footage from the game of the song they’re playing would be cool.

1080 Avalanche

Over the course of my vacation in Ocean City last week, I played a lot of 1080: Avalanche. I’m not a big fan of extreme sports games like this, but I really liked the original 1080 Snowboarding for the N64, so I had been wanting to play NST’s sequel. When the reviews for Avalanche came out, I remember reading that it didn’t measure up to the competition, and I kept this in mind when I first played it. I haven’t played any other snowboarding games like SSX3 to compare to, but you know, after playing through most of Avalanche, for what it is, I found it fairly good, and it satisfies me for a snowboarding game.

1080: Avalanche plays much like the original, with the standard match race mode where you race against a computer opponent down slopes on various difficulties, a gate challenge, trick attack, and time trial modes. Controlwise, you still use the control stick to control and turn the board, L (Z on the N64) lets you land safely by pressing it right before hiting the ground, and holding down L makes your character crouch to move faster while decreasing your ability to make sharp turns, perhaps moreso than the original 1080. A new addtion is a recovery system where if your character is about to wipeout from a bad landing or collision, the game gives you a chance to recover by rotating the control stick quickly while your character is put into slowmotion with a “Ooohhhh nooooooo!”.

 

Other additions include an improved trick system, and a power bar that fills up with each trick you do. So the more tricks you successfully pull off during a race, the faster you’ll be able to go, you’re character eventually being covered in ice with the power to slam into your opponent and knock them down should youget close enough. This condition will protect you from wiping out on painful collisions at the cost of emptying your power meter. The tricks in this game are much easier to pull of than in the original. Where in the original I remember there was many different button presses to rotate the character to get spins 540 degrees and higher involving the B button, where in Avalanche, all you have to do is hold R and rotate the control stick to continue the character’s rotation, even pulling off a quick back or front flip by moving the control stick up and down. Tricks can also be combined, such as doing a grab with B, X, or Y while in a spin. On certain parts of the courses, there are rails that you can ride on by holding L, and to stay on them you have to move the control stick to keep your character balanced.

  

The time trial and gate challenge modes play a more important role this time, requiring you to play through the courses to do some coin collecting in time trial and and earn trophies with high scores in gate challenge in order to unlock additional boards for the characters and secret boards, such as the NES controller. Other unlockables include secret characters in the vein of the original’s pandaman and a second costume for each of the five characters. Although tedious, playing through gate and time trials will help spot out and learn the various paths and shortcuts as you look for the coins and gates.

A first for Nintendo, they acquired licensed music for Avalanche from bands such as Cauterize who provide the title theme for the game. I don’t listen to much music outside of “game music”, but the addition of liscensed music with lyrics added to the personality of the game and racing down the courses. “Choke” is the theme to 1080 Avalanche. The song used for the ending theme really added to the mood of conquering the avalanche and watching your replay. I also liked “Don’t Stop Now” by Squidd (was this done in-house?) because of its mellow feeling that’s relaxing to listen to while going down the course.



Going with the whole Avalanche theme in the title, there are small events in some courses that provide obstacles such as falling boulders, collapsing bridges, and snowmobiles that impede your way. As the title suggests, the last great obstacle of the game is an Avalanche itself, pitting you in a frenzy to get down the mountain as a tide of snow comes tumbling down behind you with rumbling sound effects blarring. A danger meter on the screen alerts you to how close you are to wiping out and loosing, being safer of course ahead of the tumbling snow. The courses in the sequel are much bigger and wider than the original, with several shortcuts and paths to take along the way. The last stage of the original 1080 was a huge slope with so many ways to get down the mountain, and one of the courses in Avalanche builds off of the original course’s design to be much larger and extravagant with long thin paths that over shadow the ground below that you may fall upon to continue your descent.

 

Like the original 1080 though, I’m kinda disappointed that there are only 6 tracks, and that they didn’t do at least one more. The avalanche effects on the one stage are really good but I wonder if they could have gone further and used this theme for a few other stages? I just like having lots of stages to play through, but I guess its quality over quantity that counts.



A personal gripe of mine to the character roster, where is Kensuke Kimachi, my character of choice from 1080 Snowboarding? Did he get so absorbed with the Nintendo Gamecube and playing video games that he’d rather be playing 1080 Avalanche than be in it? Kensuke Kimachi, will you ever snowboard again?
1080 Avalanche may not be the premiere snowboarding game, but I’ve enjoyed it so far, and find it relaxing to play at times. I don’t know how much further Avalanche could go besides the mentioned short amount of stages, but I feel that it’s about as a good as the original. I really enjoy how the game controls, the emphasis on racing as opposed to tricks, and the neat stuff you can do like jumping over a large rock or leaping over the side of a cliff to take a shorter path down the mountain. Now all I have left to do is unlock the rest of the character’s second costumes and get the rest of the secret characters. I wonder if LAN play is any fun?
For info behind the development of the game, 1up.com has an interview with the staff of NST.

River City Ransom EX – “BARF!”

 

River City Ransom was a game I missed out on during the age of the NES, so with the following the game has among gamers, I thought I should experience it with the GBA release of River City Ransom EX. The closest game I can liken it to in my experience is Double Dragon. Like Double Dragon, its a side scrolling beatem-up where you punch and kick your way through groups of enemies while picking up weapons along the way. But where Double Dragon was staged based, River City Ransom lets the player roam from area to area, fighting a fresh gang each time an area is entered. The main goal is to enter River City High, which is closed until all of the gang leader bosses are defeated, and is where the girlfirend of Alex’s rival, Ryan, is being held by River City’s new boss, Slick. The bosses are found in certain areas, but to get them to appear you have to clear an area of enemies, while also fighting them in a certain order. Most of the bosses that you defeat will come back if you clear the area again, itching for another fight and giving you a chance to get higer funding for raising your character’s stats.

 

The weapons you can pick up may include tires, cones, sticks, chains, ladders, and even trash cans. Weapons can be discarded by using B to throw it at an enemy although it will bounce off and inflict minor damage should your character be too close. It’s possible to prevent this by punching or kicking the object before it hits, which can also be done to block hits from enemies. Sometimes when the trash can is thrown at enemies, it’ll get stuck on their head, preventing them from attacking, and the same goes for the player. You’ll have to run around with a trash can on your head unless you ram into the side of the screen to knock it off.

 

The original NES version apparently had a 2player mode, but this GBA version’s only game link function is to trade stats/characters. If they were going to go through trouble of including a trading function, why only tease us, and exclude a 2 player mode? You can however have the second character, Ryan, be controlled by the computer, and as a single player game, it makes it less lonely to fight the groups with the CPU player at least. The CPU usually does a good job of taking care of itself and gives you some breathing room, although its occasionally annoying when your “buddy” throws his weapon right at you.

 

One of the notable aspects of the game is the text displayed that the enemies give off when defeated, usually to do with the theme of the gang, as well as the bosses who will curse you for hitting them while doing their introduction speech, which adds a lot of personality to the game. I noticed the Gamer’s say “Who are you?”, probably referencing Nintendo’s current ad campaign. This adds to the already comical nature of the gamewith its cartoonish graphics and silly nature of fighting groups of school gangs and the expressions they give when hit or thrown.

 

You’ve got to play and play to get any kind of money in the game, and if you die, while returning the last town you were in, you loose half of what you earned. Making mistakes like jumping in a pit because you misjudged a jump in a fight and dieing makes me want to pull my hair out at my carelessness. Beyond the simple kick, punch, and jumping + kicking/punch, you can buy techiques at the local stores. The latest technique I obtained is the “Killer Kick”, which is used by double tapping forward to run while holding B and then pressing A, launching Alex into a jump kick that propels him halfway across the area and knocks down any thugs that should get in the way. It was so fast and effective in how much ground Alex covered and the look of him slamming into enemies that it had me laughing out loud. One of the coolest things to do is to knock an enemy down, and then pick them up and plow through the other enemies using that punk as a
weapon. Fighting all of the gangs requires nurishment, so eating or using various items at stores, including a fast food resturants, will increase your stats to make your character more stronger and deal more damage to enemies. The top bar on the screen represents your life, while the bottom represents your willpower, the higher your willpower, the more damage you’ll deal.

 

If the fact that this was originally an NES game and its gameplay doesn’t make it feel like an old NES game, then its lack of a save feature and even a sleep mode will, because there is none. To get through this GBA game, you’ll have to either play for hours or leave your GBA (or GC GB Player) on for a long time just like the good ole days. Thankfully you can save your character data, so each time you play, you can get your character stronger and stronger, and amass more money and get through parts you’ve played quicker. It’s nice that the story progresses a little with certain character’s speech, but its ashame you have to sit through Roxy’s “long” speech about being on your side every time you start the game again.

 

The stats on the left are the default stats the game starts with, and on the right are my current stats from when this screen was taken. If that giant number is the time spent playing/leaving the GB running then I’ve spent about… 23 days playing this game/leaving it on…?! After about a month of playing, I almost got to the end after I entered River City High and took out the Dragon Twins after 4 or so previous rematches. The last battle with Slick took place on the roof of the school with several weapons on the ground that I thought nothing of but as weapons to use in the fight. So I was in for a shock when Slick’s crazy telekinesis powers are revealed and the ladders and other weapons are flying all around the place attacking me! So close to saving Cyndi.



River City Ransom is just plain fun. Beating up high school gangs in an all out brawl never gets old, and neither does the main theme music of the game, keeping an upbeat tone throughout the game. RCREX is a fun game to pick up and play again and again because of its great action beatem-up gameplay and I recommend checking it out.

For more info on RCR, check out 1up.com’s review of the original game, and for a great rendition of the RCR main theme check out Magfest 2.0′s concert music by The Smash Bros. on their site.

Mega Man 2, Minibosses style

I’ve been playing Mega Man Anniversary Collection for about a week and I’ve been trying to get a post about it done but its taking sometime. To tide things over until then, here’s a video of Mega Man 2′s Bubble Man stage with music by The Minibosses.

Hyrulean Adventure linked to the Past

 

“I wouldn’t necessarily say that they intentionally tried to mimic specific events from the past game, but the fact of the matter is the Four Swords team does include members of the original LttP team, so obviously that may have had some affect of it. Also, the director of Four Swords is a huge fan of LttP and the old 2-D style games.”
- Eiji Aonuma, Producer of The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures, GDC
2004

The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures is filled with nostalgic bits of past Zelda games, especially the SNES version, Zelda: A Link to the Past which this game is largely based on. For those that have played A Link to the Past, a few locations in the game will be familar.

 

Situated appropriately in the Eastern part of Hyrule, the Eastern Palace makes a return. Gone is the maze of stairs and high terrain containing Armos, and instead replaced with a forest. What remains of the Eastern Palace’s original design seems to be falling into ruin, with the last stone paving remaining crumbling away and giving way to grass, almost as if to suggest this place has become quite old since the last time it was seen. Another detail recreated, the two pillars from the entrance to the Eastern area from A Link to the Past are shown on the Hyrulean Adventure map. The first room of the Eastern Palace was also recreated with the the room forking into three places. The dungeon inside builds off of the original for a theme containing familar Stalfos enemies and moving cannon balls. This marks the third game the Eastern Palace has been in (can you name the second?).

 
 
 

In the Desert of Doubt, The Desert Palace also returns in its appropriate place on the map with the three lanmola head design. Eyegores and Beamos make things difficult again.



Although the actual pyramid in the stage looks a bit different, if you look closely at the pyramid on the map, it looks a bit similar to the Great Pyramid from A Link to the Past’s Dark World. The vertical lines on the pyramid are exactly where the steps should be on the Great pyramid. The black hole on the left fits the spot of the Great Fairy room, and the one on the right could fit the new Four Sword dungeon entrance from the GBA version.

 

These aren’t really similar symbols, but this new desert symbol reminded me of the giant octorok symbol from A Link to the Past that was also in the desert.

 

In the first Death Mountain stage you eventually come to an area called “Hebra Hill”, which is a throwback to the Lost Hills from the original Legend of Zelda that lead to Level 5. The same strategy works again here, just keep going up. I suppose putting this screen here would make sense considering this is Death Mountain.

 

Not sure if this is suppose to be the exact same place, but the exterior designs are very similar. Both the Tower of Flames and Mountain Tower are large towers on Death Mountain with pillars at each level of the building which is made of red brick.

 

Just a nice similarity, in Hyrulean Adventure you come across a sign asking the enemies to look out for Link, Link, Link, and Link, using a pic of Link’s head like the wanted sign in ALttP.

 

The Lost Woods and Kakariko Village areas of Hyrulean Adventure look as though they’ve fallen into ruin to look like their ALttP Dark World counterparts. On the Hyrulean Adventure map, Kakariko Village is North of The Lost Woods, where in A Link to the Past, Kakariko was to the South. If you take a look at the map on Zelda.com’s website, you can see that the map in the game has changed slightly since the art was done, originally putting Kakariko South and near a coast.

GBA SP impressions, Zelda and Metroid

  

The best thing about the GBA SP is the front light. To enjoy playing anything on the original GBA, I had to play under a lampshade with the shade turned up, and if I wasn’t properly positioned, the light wouldn’t be focused right, and end up causing a glare on parts of the screen. Somehow I managed to get through both Zelda Oracle games, most of Castlevania: CoTM, Zelda: ALttP, and Metroid Fusion on the handheld. When I got the GB Player addon for the Gamecube, it was very enjoyable to play GBA games and see everything on my vibrant TV. The front light can be switched off, though aside from saving the battery while the GBA is on and not in use, there’s no reason to play without the light.

I like how the SP has a compact design, the handheld folds open to show the screen and protect it while not in use, so putting it in your pocket won’t damage the screen. The feel of the buttons is more clicky than the pushy feeling of the original GBA, including the d-pad which I didn’t care for at first, but it works. L and R are positioned on the top of the square design and actually feel easier to use than the original GBA’s layout.
No more worrying about buying new batteries, it uses a rechargable lithium battery thats suppose to provide about 10 hours of play with the light on, and supposedly only takes 3 hours to fully recharge. The AC adapter that plugs directly into the GBA like a rechargeable cell phone is also compact, the electrical plug folds into the plastic unit so you won’t have the two metal prongs sticking out when storing it. With the addition of the recharge port is the loss of the headphone jack, an adapter that plugs into the recharge port has to be bought seperately.

I’ve had a slight interest in getting a SP, but already having a GBA that I hardly use and a GB Player it hadn’t been worth it for me. I originally got my GBA the day it launched to play Zelda: Oracle of Seasons for the GBC, since I had skipped on the GBC’s generation, and the GB Player kinda made my GBA obsolute since I didn’t travel much. But Nintendo’s push of the nostalgic Classic NES design finally enticed me to pick it up, plus Four Swords Adventures needed GBAs. The design on the controller area looks just like an NES controller, and the outside of the unit even has a simple line design to represent the textured top of the NES.
A picture of every angle you could ever want of the Classic NES GBA SP here.

After buying my SP and eyeing the shelf full of NES Classic games, the sales clerk suggested I get a game to go along with my NES themed GBA, and game I did get. Gotta have The Legend of Zelda. The only other NES Classic GBA game I’d really consider getting is Super Mario Bros., if only because the Game Boy Color version of it tends to be frustrating and unenjoyable because of the cropped screen.

I’ve played through the first quest of Zelda so far, and the game looks and feels the same as the NES version. Because of the GBA’s resolution of 240×160 compared to the NES’ of 256×224, NES games have to be squished to fit the screen, but it doesn’t effect Zelda noticably at all. They managed to keep it close to the look of the original by squishing the background graphics, while keeping the sprites the same size, probably possible because of the top-down style of the game. The title screen music theme sounds slightly different than it did on the NES, but its only a minor instrument variation. All of the sound effects sound the same, including Link’s sword beam, where in the Gamecube version, it sounded a bit muffled. The only thing I think they didn’t need to change, as silly as it sounds, is the intro text. Sure its more coherent now and “Ganon” is spelled correctly, but it just feels kinda needless considering it made enough sense and that English text was originally from the Japanese version.

No special gold treatment for the cartridge this time. To go along with the original NES boxart style games like Super Mario Bros. they used for this GBA series, they gave the box art a black background, and made the shield art gold. Although the manual is printed mainly in black and white, it was nice to see it reproduce some bits from the original Legend of Zelda manual such as the tip story with artwork scenes and enemy and item lists.

Its been very enjoyable to play a bit of Zelda on my GBA each night. I know about most everything in the first quest of the game, except for that one heart container that always alludes me, and this game never gets old, even after 18 years or so. I still die about 10 times by the end, but I’ll get 0 on the counter someday!
With the GBA SP’s design and good lighting solution, its a great little system that can just be picked up at anytime, anywhere, to easily playing video games. This is of course what Game Boy has always been about, but for the first time since the original Game Boy, its fun for me.

Nintendo.com is running a survey to get some ideas for possible games for the next series of NES Classic games. Bring on Contra, Adventures of Lolo, and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, please!

Most of my intial time on my GBA SP was spent playing Metroid Zero Mission again on hard, this time with a slightly lower item percentage of 14%… and I’m having a bit of trouble in Tourain with getting by the Metroids. I skipped the high jump boots this time, and with that the super missile in Brinstar. Last time I noticed I usually got more regular missile refills than super missiles so I opted for another missile tank. Too bad Metroids take 5 missiles when I’ve only got 4 at a time! There’s like 1/3 more Metroids in each room on hard, and they don’t stay frozen for long. Once they latch onto you, they just don’t want to let go. Compared to playing it on my Gamecube, the LCD screen of the GBA makes the graphics nice and sharp, and the GBA’s digital pad makes Samus’ movement feel more quick, but I feel that I better control using the GC controller. L and R on the SP are easy to press, so much so on the small handheld that my right finger would sometimes unintentionally press R and I’d waste my missiles. I should be able to do OK once I get past the Metroid rooms. Zero Mission’s Metroids, especially on hard, really puts Super Metroid’s to shame. Since I had played the majority of Zero Mission on my bright TV, I was used to seeing the Metroids zoom in as they appeared. Playing it on the SP was a bit darker, so in some cases I wouldn’t see the Metroids until they had come close, and I’d be standing right where they entered. Maybe the game was meant to be played in a darker tone to get this effect?

Metroid.jp has updated with some nice concept art for Kraid, Ridley, Chozos, and Samus Aran.
If you live in Maryland, Virginia, or Washington D.C. and are interested in getting into the game industry, The Game Intiative is having its “How to Break into the Game Industry” conference next Saturday. Sounds like fun.

The Minibosses finally update the music of their site with the addition of a live version of Ninja Gaiden and it is good.