Blog Archives
Crushing Double Dragon
I’m pretty sure everyone has fond memories of Double Dragon, especially the arcade original. Double Dragon is essentially the reason we have the brawler/beat ’em up genre, which next to RPGs, is my favorite type of game. In the arcade, you might not have ever realized how unforgiving the game can be because you can always just keep dumping more quarters into it until you win. The NES versions of I, II, and III give you a good taste of what “Nintendo hard” means. I and II – 3 lives with no continues. And they both have stupid platforming parts. WHY?! Why does a brawler have platforming? If there was at least a singular jump button, maybe I could understand. But you have to press both punch and kick together to jump and it’s just not conducive accurate timing. III gives you 1 life. There have been many times I wasn’t even able to get past stage 1. At least after stage 2, you get additional characters.
Up until these longplays, I had NEVER in my life beaten the original Double Dragon for NES. Would always make it to the 4th mission and those stupid blocks would kill me. Or do enough damage there’s no way I could get past that last set of Abobo’s.
My Retro Game Box
About a month ago I stumbled across something called “My Retro Game Box” on my friend’s Facebook feed. It was another one of those box-a-month subscription programs where they fill a box with random goodies and send it to you, except this one was specifically retro video games. Obviously I was immediately interested. I did some research and found out that it’s a relatively new, small mom & pop operation run out of Scotland. Now my collection has gotten to the point where the games that I am missing are very specific, so I was a little skeptical about signing up for a subscription where I would be sent random games. But I was curious enough to see how it all worked out, so I signed up for 1 month just to check it out.
They’re very friendly and right off the bat they send you a questionnaire asking you to list all the games you have for NES, SNES, Genesis/Mega Drive, N64, Sega Master System, Game Boy, and Game Boy Advance and then even asked what game preferences you had and said they would strive their best not to send you things outside of your personal tastes. One of the things I found most intriguing, is that they give you the option to get PAL or NTSC games. Doubtful it would ever reach me, but I’d love to see Probotector, the PAL version of Contra where everything is a robot, arrive in one of my boxes. They give you the option to do subscriptions by 1 month for £23, 3 months for £65, 6 months £125, and a year for £230. All those prices are in British pounds sterling btw, for those who didn’t understand what they funny symbol was. I was glad they single month purchases for those who wish to remain noncommittal and it allowed me to take just a taste of what they had to offer.
A few days ago, in my mailbox was a unassuming, nondescript, small, rectangular, brown box. And I never would have known it was from a subscription service if it didn’t have a little round sticker on it from, “My Retro Game Box.” To add to the mystery of what games you are randomly sent, they place them in these delightful little striped paper bags.
I ended up getting Wrath of the Black Manta and Defender of the crown, both for the NES and both rather ho-hum games. But I also got Dr. Mario for the Game Boy and it was the PAL version, so I was happy about that. I’d actually rather get PAL games. Feels more exotic.
Overall, I’m pleased with this service. I decided to go for another month more out of curiosity than anything else. There’s something exciting about random video games. With ebay, Craig’s List, Amazon, etc, the thrill of the hunt is gone. I don’t expect to ever get Earthbound, or Chrono Trigger or anything of course, but there’s almost 800 games for the NES alone and I don’t even have half of them. My only complaint with My Retro Game Box would have to be their website. It’s rather bland and unintuitive. I understand that they are just starting out and it’s only like 2 people working on it, so I can look past it.
Gamergate – who cares?
Yeah I know I’m a little late on this. Haven’t really cared to keep up with current events since I’ve been so preoccupied with my newborn.
I only just learned about gamergate a few days ago and all I can say is, holy shit, what’s the fuss about? So some chick allegedly fucked someone to improve her position. Like this has never been done before. And it’s not like good reviews haven’t been bought off in various ways before. Since when is journalism about integrity and ethics? I always assume that any review that comes from a reviewer that isn’t completely independent is a paid for review anyway. Someone wants to fuck their way to the top – who cares? The only thing that makes Zoe Quinn a bad person is that she supposedly cheated on her partner, which should remain out of public scrutiny anyway since that in itself has not a god damn thing to do with video games, so ultimately, who cares?
And as I understand it, this became a whole big male vs female thing. Why? Is there some imagined slight that women feel they need to constantly prove themselves as gamers? Or does this really happen? Are guys really such assholes that they can’t offer some wiggle room to allow the girls a shot at the controller? Video games are neutral gender. That’s something that I’ve always enjoyed about them. Why was there fighting over this bullshit? The only fights with video games that ever really mattered are Nintendo vs Sega and Sony vs Microsoft, and even those are complete bullshit arguments. The point of video games and being a gamer is as follows: HAVE FUN AND ENJOY THE ENTERTAINMENT. That’s it. That’s all video games need to be about, put as succinctly as possible. And if you disagree, then you’re in the wrong medium.
The Throne of Games – Mario Fantasy
As much as I enjoyed the original Final Fantasy, I’m not sure if I have the patience to grind through this hack. Though I would much rather play this than Final Fantasy XV. Anyway, this is the complete original Final Fantasy game, with a new theme. All the art and sprites have been redone and the music remixed to fit everything into the Mushroom Kingdom.
Click on the picture if you want to check out a gameplay video. Send me a message if you’re interested in purchasing a cart.
Sweet Home Japanabama
Made this cart awhile ago but just finished a playthrough. Did not complete it. Got killed pretty horribly. This is pretty much the first survival horror game, or at least the first one that introduced many common elements of the survival horror genre. Resident Evil owes its existence to Sweet Home as it borrows many of the concepts that were originally introduced in 1989.
A noteworthy accomplishment, which is nearly unheard of even to this day, was it’s success as game as it co-launched next to its movie counterpart.
If you are interested in purchasing this cart, send me a message. You can click on the image for more details and check out the gameplay video.
Get equipped with Rockman No Constancy
This was one of the most fun carts to make and play. Usually I find making labels to be somewhat tedious, but I even enjoyed making labels for this, and I think they came out pretty awesome. Hard as dicks though. The game that is…. It’s difficult. Most challenging Mega Man I had ever played. It’s by no means Battle Kid difficulty level, though it might be if you didn’t have a blessed life meter. Excellent song remixes, excellent stage art, excellent game. Even if you are not interested in owning this game in cart format, I’d say go find the ROM and play it on an emulator. It’s a game no fan of Mega Man should miss.
Send me a message if you’re interesting in buying a cart. I also have 2 alternate labels available.
Making Difficult Mode Look Easy – Mega Man 2
Ok, so in all honesty, we actually screwed up a few times pretty bad and this is definitely not the best run I’ve ever done. But at least it was done without using a single continue. I know there’s some clown out there who’s probably done a 100% perfect no hit run on this game on difficult. Fuck them.
Mega Man 2 American Box Art
Ok, so this is totally like over 20 years of relevancy, and I know it’s kind of like an accepted joke, but what’s with the Mega Man American box art? Specifically Mega Man 2. Did the art designer even play the game? Was he denied very important information? Aside from moving far away from the original art design – whatever, I’ll accept that; there are two things done terribly wrong.
1. Dr. Light is hiding behind Crash Man, pointing at Mega Man, as if to say attack. Dr. Light would not be doing this, Dr. Wily should be there instead.
2. Mega Man is using a pistol. When, in the entirety of the game does he fire a pistol? No, Mega Man uses the Mega Buster, an arm cannon that extends from his forearm.
Yeah, this is something I think about regularly, today, it just got to the boiling point I wanted to talk about it….these are the biggest concerns in my life….not my newborn son or paying my mortgage or anything. Cuz, ya know, that’s not important…
On a somewhat related note, why was Clash Man, in the Japanese release renamed Crash Man in the American release? I can’t imagine it’s for any sort of infringement or special interest groups reasons. The only thing I can come up with is that Clash Man pronounced by a Japanese person comes out sounding like Crash Man.
Super Mario Bros. 3 Mix Cart Ready
Super Mario Bros. 3 Mix, a rom hack made by Southbird, completed and available on cart. Max and myself did a complete playthrough of the game to “test it out”, plus it’s just awesome Mario fun. There’s a lot to do in this game. It has so much more than the original NES could offer, including game saves, alternate stage exits, unlockable stages, etc. If anyone’s interested, I could make this one for $40. I also have an alternate label available.
gameblorg 