World Ten: Methods of Flight

I'm sitting here at Pearson International Airport, just about to head out to Regina from Toronto as YYZ by Rush constantly plays through my head. I've got about 40 minutes to kill before my flight, and then even more time to write stuff up while I'm on the plane, so I figured I'd write up a post. Inspired (or something) by the surroundings, I thought it would be a nifty World Ten entry to go through my personal ten favourite methods of flight from classic video games.

Obviously there are many. Ships in shoot 'em ups, power ups in adventure games, various other weird shit...and I can already think of a handful to list off. So without holding this up any further, I'm gonna dive right in:

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.

World Ten: Music Tracks

I figured that I'd write up another top 10 article regarding the pieces of music from classic gaming that get stuck in my head the absolute most. Only single songs, mind you...but later on I plan on throwing together another top 10 list of the best entire soundtracks. Not too soon or anything though, so don't hold your breath. Hopefully I can pull out a few surprises for you, rather than mostly traditional ones!

Geez, I'm listening to a bunch of music at the moment but obviously it'll make it a bit fuckin' difficult to think of other tunes at the same time.

Also these top 10 lists just really make life difficult for me. There're so many wicked songs in games that I absolutely love and it's damn tough to pick just TEN of them, but that's my own punishment that I will JUST HAVE TO ENDURE! I'm not gonna order these things, because I just can't bring myself to do it. I'll also try to link you guys to a sample of each entry, whenever I can manage to do so. So without further adieu:

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 Defense: Cave Story

Here's a game I've wanted to write about for a while, but I figured that I may as well wait until it was finally released on the Virtual Console of the Wii on March 22nd. This game was announced for the WiiWare service quite a while ago, and fans such as myself have been itching for it to finally come out on the system. This was easily a day 1 (actually, hour 1) purchase for me, as it hearkens back to the 16 bit era in colour and art, and takes pages out of the books of a few amazing classic games and amalgamates them into an amazing composition.

First, some history. Cave Story has actually been available for about 6 years now because, if I'm not mistaken, it was released as a freeware game downloadable from the Internet in the year of 2004. This game was created by exactly one guy, who goes by the name of Pixel to his fans, and it took him about 5 years to complete it...but Pixel made everything for it. He programmed it, created the art and sound effects, and wrote the story all by himself. This in itself is quite a feat, and shows that this guy likes games for the sake of games. It's not like he was expecting payment for his creation...he just wanted people to download it and enjoy it, and to experience video game design for himself. I don't expect that he figured it would ever become as popular of a cult hit as it did, but I'm damn glad it got the recognition it deserves because it's actually one of the best sidescrollers I've every played, period.

World Ten: Top 10 weapons

Be aware that this list may contain mad ****SPOILERS****

My first top ten list is going to be a short list of the weapons that I still think of to this day. Basically, means of killing enemies that have made an impact on me, causing me to reflect and think "Okay, yeah, that was awesome." Sure, there are a ton of these lists floating around, and I'm sure that you're likely able to predict a few of them right off the bat...but I'm hoping there'll be a few surprises in here. Just bear in mind that this is my personal opinion, of course, and the selections I choose may not be as obvious as one might think.

The biggest problem is figuring out what order to put the damn things in, as a number one weapon of all time is extremely hard for a gamer who started back in the 80s to decide upon. A game with weapons is, in my opinion, defined by that weapon set, since they're clearly the tools that you're going to be using the most to get out of sticky situations. The right tool needs to be chosen properly...but then at the same time, maybe a game player establishes a soft spot for a weapon that's not entirely convenient but tries to make the best use of it. This is one of the tough parts of weapon selection...finding that balance between what's useful, and what you just plain enjoy using. For example, I don't want to go through a modern shooter using 76 different kinds of machine gun with different fire rates and recoil...that just becomes boring for me, but I know that certain gamers prefer to pick the most efficient weapons. Personally though, I tend to use the oddball ones just because they're fun...even though I might send myself to the grave with them more often than I likely should.

Anyway, on to the list.

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.

Intro post

So I finally gave in and decided to start a blog so I can shoot my mouth off and e-publish my opinions about something, and what better subject to cover than the one that I happen to have the most expertise in. That's right, I'm talking about vidja games, and not necessarily the new ones (although I do, in fact, play many of them).

However, my whole reasoning behind making this damn thing is not just video games in general...but rather the fact that it's not the new-fangled, state of the art, jaw dropping movie-quality games that I keep crawling back to on hands and knees to play over and over again. It's the classic ones...the simple ones...the punishing and excruciating ones.

Games have changed 'cause they're not a niche market anymore...they're big business, tried, tested and true. And I don't like it all that much, with some exceptions. However, as of late there's been a tendency towards taking the classic games that people like me appreciate so much for their timelessness, throw on a new coat of paint (or not, in some cases), and release them with the same gameplay that had me hooked since I was 4. Of course, a lot of gamers out there don't get it.

"Why does Mega Man 9 look like shit?"

"Why can't you double jump in this game?"

Christ.

That's all I have to say for now, actually. But this is gonna be a blog dedicated to the classics and retro revivals that all seem to be overshadowed. Reviews, lists, and other various articles will be written here. I can already think of a few things that I want to write about, but who knows what'll come up.

First official post to come soon.

- Adam