In Defense: DuckTales Remastered

When you think of current video games that are based upon things such as movie and cartoon franchises, your stomach tends to turn and get upset. Well, mine does anyway. Generally speaking, such games receive extremely low review scores and are panned by gamers, with only a few that manage to reach decent recognition and actually deserve that praise. Perhaps the last really great example was Spider-Man 2, which was released around the same time as the film. I had a lot of fun with that one, and I don't think I know anyone who looks back on it and thinks, "What a piece of fuckin' shit."

(The Thing was pretty damn good too...but moving onward...)

World 10: Classic Mega Man Stage Music (Part 5)

Here we are, at the final portion of this World Ten list which brings everything to a close with some sweet tracks from Mega Man 9 and 10. Let's finish this off!

World 10: Classic Mega Man Stage Music (Part 3)

This particular entry highlighting stage music in the classic Mega Man is going to be rather tricky. This isn't because Mega Man 5 and 6 are so full of great music that it's difficult to choose just one, mind you...but rather, their soundtracks actually pale in comparison to those of the previous four games. I'll do my damnedest, though!

Item Acquired: 7 NES games!

I got lucky last week. I happened to go to ye olde Entertainment Overload on Tuesday to check out what sorts of classic titles they had in stock, and it just so happened that I arrived on a day where they received a massive shipment of NES games! What a fuckin' score! I managed to expand my NES library by 7 games, some of which you'll recognize and others you may not. Onwards to the round-up!

Chiptunes: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

Figured I'd start a new feature! I have a couple of reasons for this:

a) It will keep me blogging, even in small amounts when I'm very busy or stressed (i.e. now).

b) I absolutely love video game music, and Chiptunes will let me share cool tracks that've been stuck in my head lately. Hopefully these tunes will find a warm place within your skulls as well!

Here's a cool melody that I've been humming for the last week and a half. Mad Forest, from Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (NES).

Enjoy the tune, and keep gaming!

Item Acquired: 7 NES games!

I've been extremely busy lately, and that's probably not going to change anytime too soon...so for now, the most I can update you guys with is a list of classic NES games I've recently tracked down and purchased and some quick descriptions of them:

In Retrospect: The Battle of Olympus

Of the classic NES games that I never had but absolutely loved, The Battle of Olympus really stands out to me. When I was younger, one of my friends owned this hidden gem. We started it a few times, but he was one of those people who got frustrated at video games and would start screaming and throwing stuff around to the point where it was actually frightening, or would turn a game off as soon as he started to lose, so we never managed to get far. Later on in life though, he managed to mellow out a little bit and we finally got through the game together. After that, I borrowed it from him and played through it a few more times, absolutely loving everything about the game. I've always been awed by the structures and ruins of ancient Greece, the various (awesome) mythical beasts of Greek legend, and the heroes that arose to smash them into dust.

So for a person like myself, what isn't there to like about The Battle of Olympus? Judging a book by the cover (or a cartridge by its artwork) yielded nothing to dislike about this game whatsoever. There were Greek statues and columns surrounded by badass-looking serpents! If that's not an instant win, I don't know what is! Luckily, like the cover art, the guts of this game also happen to be fantastic.

Item Acquired: Lots of awesome stuff!

It's been a couple of weeks since I've posted anything substantial...and today, that won't change. However, here's a quick rundown on what I've gotten my hands on lately!

Item Acquired: 4 NES games!

Over the last couple of weeks, I've managed to get my hands on 4 new games for the NES collection! I managed to snag three of them from a vendor at a (relatively) local farmer's market when I was visiting some friends, while I snagged the final one just today. Let's take a look, shall we?

Experience Points: More Xenoblade, Illusion of Gaia, Lollipop Chainsaw, and various new NES games!

You'd think after all these Experience Points I'd have leveled up by now. HAW HAW HAW...lame. Allow me to get on with the show!

A Fixer-Upper

A couple of days ago, I swung by a local video game store to check out their selection. Since I just moved to a new town/apartment, I've been trying to at least get out and explore and see what the heck is around me...video game outlets included. I had checked this particular store out the week prior and saw that they had NES games, but their selection was limited at the time. This Friday however, I went back and had another look (since I wanted to pre-order a game and also look for my own copy of Shadows of the Damned) and to my happiness, I found two games that I was really interested in grabbing: Double Dragon and A Boy and His Blob.

In Retrospect: Bionic Commando

Recently I've really been stuck in some kind of rut when it comes to video games, in that I've really been going nuts playing Bionic Commando (and its remake for the XBLA, Bionic Commando: Rearmed). I remember playing this game when I was a kid...my next door neighbour had it, and I never really got around to playing it until we traded games at one point. He had some good games, but also some terrible ones, so I never really knew what to expect when it came to borrowing a cartridge from him...particularly one that we hadn't even checked out yet. However, it turned out that this game trade was certainly one of the good ones, because Bionic Commando had me hooked very, very quickly.

In Retrospect: StarTropics

*SPOILER ALERT*

Here's a game that really should have a lot more recognition than it does, because quite frankly, it's an under-appreciated gem in the NES library that always seems to be forgotten. I'm talking about StarTropics, a game released by Nintendo in 1990. I know very few people who've played through this damn game, which is a shame because I think it's gotta be one of the strongest and most well made franchises that ever came out of Nintendo's design teams. It has no representation in games that mix elements from numerous N-franchises, such as the Smash Bros. series, and it seems as if the big N has forgotten about it completely...but it seems to me that people who've played it love it, so I often wonder why it's been swept under the rug.

In Comparison: Megaman 9 and Megaman 10

Alright, so a game came out on Monday that I've been waiting for ever since the last entry in the series. Megaman 10 was released on WiiWare, and I downloaded it as soon as I possibly could get my grubby little hands on it and managed to finish it that very same day. Clearly this fits in the whole retro revival theme that this blog's supposed to be about...plus it's fucking Megaman, so how could I even possibly resist writing about it! Rather than just cover MM10, however, I'm also going to go into Megaman 9 and compare the two. Although they are both Megaman games right down to their cores, they are clearly inspired by different entries in the series, which makes the dynamics of both games differ radically.

In Defense: Blaster Master Overdrive

Alright, so let's kick this whole thing off with an insanely unexpected and spontaneous throwback to a spectacular NES game called Blaster Master, made by a company called Sunsoft. These guys were one of the pinnacle game-creating companies in the NES era (don't even get me started on Journey to Silius...*drool*), and Blaster Master was perhaps the perfect example as to why. Before I explain anything about BM: Overdrive, though...I'll dive a bit into the history of the original.

The story of the game is simple. You play as a dude named Jason who has a pet frog named Fred. This frog gets out of its cage and hops into Jason's backyard where he consumes radioactive material. Seems to me like Jason has a metric pisston of explaining to do as to how THAT came into his possession, but whatever, we'll roll with it. The frog then jumps in a hole...a really deep, abyssal hole...in Jason's backyard. Now, since Jason is a completely sensible individual, he of course jumps into the hole in pursuit of his frog, since clearly these organisms do not occur very frequently in pet stores or in the wild, and he certainly couldn't have just walked to the store or some nearby swamp and gotten another damn frog. This is where it gets good though. Jason finds a tank in this hole called SOPHIA the 3rd...a fully functional battle tank with means to fire, jump, hover, submerge, climb walls and ceilings, and in general just kick a lot of ass. This is the main reason why I jump into holes when I see them, cause I've learned from these games that there may in fact be a tank at the bottom of them. He also finds a suit which fits him perfectly (of course), so he puts the fucker on, gets in the fuckin' tank, and shoots off into the cavernous distance to find his pet frog.

His pet frog. Fred.