The Old Bits

I told you I'd be back...

2011-05-14T21:23:00.001-07:00

... and with one totally over-used Terminator reference, I can happily say that I have returned to the Old Bits to blog to the masses about general gaming goodness. I've had a busy past year, and I now feel like I finally have the time to post about gaming at least once a week. I've played some interesting stuff recently, and I can't wait to share my thoughts about it.

For starters, today I downloaded a title on XBLA called Nin2-Jump (pronounced "Nin Nin Jump"). It's a platformer that was developed by Cave, who are mainly known for their bullet hell shooters. I love most everything that Cave puts out, and Nin2-Jump is no exception.

This game puts you in the role of Nin-ja who must traverse five worlds, with ten levels in each of them, to save princess Sakura from the stereotypical bad guy who kidnapped her. Yeah, it's light on the story, but so what? The atmosphere more than makes up for it. The game is presented as a shadow puppet show, complete with a silhouette of a MST3K (that's Mystery Science Theater 3000 for you lame-os out there) style audience. The graphics are simple yet beautiful, and the music, while repetitive, fits the game perfectly.

The gameplay in Nin2-Jump is a bit reminiscent of N+ or Super Meat Boy. Each level can be completed within a few minutes each, with emphasis on speed-running, and in order to complete a level, you must collect a set amount of ninja scrolls to open up the exit. The game scores you based on your performance at the end of each stage with an S, A, B, C, or D ranking, in typical Cave fashion. The first couple of worlds consist of just platforming with a few hazards thrown in for good measure, but as the game goes on, it begins to throw enemies at you as well. By the games end, you will be tasked with some pretty intense platforming, seemingly unfair obstacles, and relentlessly spawning enemies.

In order to fight back against these enemies, you can hit the right bumper to activate your ninja power. When activated, Nin-ja essentially has the star power-up from the Super Mario games. He is immune to damage from enemies, but can still take it from spikes and other traps. His ninja power rapidly decreases while it is active, as shown in a bar on the upper right side of the screen, and can be restored by picking up new ninja scrolls. Thankfully, it regenerates itself for some strange reason in the final world.

There are boss battles at the end of each world, and they are very fun ordeals. One boss is a ninja who has a volcano for a head... tell me that's not the best thing you've ever heard. Every boss is in Nin2-Jump is huge and intimidating, and its actually fun trying to figure out their patterns. Surprisingly, and disappointingly, I actually found the bosses to be easier as the game went on though, as a result of Nin-ja gaining the ability to attack mid-way through the game.

The game has a story mode and a score attack mode, both of which offer endless re-playability. There are hidden Cave logo items in each stage that offer an achievement if you can find them all, which helps to add to the replay value as well. I know I'll personally be coming back to Nin2-Jump again and again. The game only costs 400 MS points (that's a measly $5), and until the end of June all of the proceeds from the game will go Japan's disaster relief fund. That alone makes buying this game worth it, but Nin2-Jump is an amazing platformer as well. GET IT!

Sega SC3000H - System Review

2010-12-07T15:42:00.000-08:00

Sonic 4: Episode 1 - Review

2010-12-07T15:24:00.000-08:00

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater - Review

2010-10-21T19:14:00.000-07:00

The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition - Review

2010-09-26T03:46:00.000-07:00

Growing up everyone has that game that just sticks, the game they play on a regular basis, despite it not even being a challenge to them anymore. For me that game was The Secret of Monkey Island and its Sequel, LeChucks revenge, both were revamped recently and I thought it was my duty as not only a Monkey Island fan but as a adventure game fan in general to play the upgraded installations of two of the best gaming memories I have.

While the Monkey Island franchise is far from dead, with the arrival of the Tales of Monkey Island episodes, Guybrush has never been in better form, I have to admit I was worried with what they would do to my old pixelated pirate wannabe. I thought I would split this up into two parts, the first for The Secret of Monkey Island, and the second for LeChucks revenge.

Side by Side

So the two biggest things to get excited about are the fact the game has a full voice cast, including Dominic Armato, who has now had his voice in every installment in the Monkey Island series. As always he does a stand out job, all the other roles are voiced fairly well, I am a bit biased towards some of the voices, but I think it is more to do with the fact that I had my own voices in my mind for years bout how each character should sound, when its the complete opposite, you cant help but feel let down, despite the fact you know no one is to blame.

Familiar faces have had a lift.

The second 'big thing' is the graphics have been completely overhauled in brand spanking new HD (my, oh my, how that word sells today), while for there era the graphics of the original looked great, they look extremely pixelated and muddy by today's standards. Some of the characters looked a bit odd compared to there original versions. The biggest problem I have with these 'enhancements' to the graphics is that Guybrush looks nothing like he does in the later games, From Cure of Monkey Island onwards he has had a look that they stuck to, I know his meant to be a younger version, but he looks like a slightly retarded brat with a crew cut, instead of the dopey and lovable (I said it!) face he sports in later games, I was instantly let down by this aspect. One feature I did like is the option to switch in and out of 'classic mode' on the fly, meaning if you are playing the game and want to see what the original looked like in that scene you can at the press of a button, great addition!

Same old Monkey Island Charm

Now everyone who played adventure games in the 90's loved the SCUMM engine, and its interface was used in countless games, for the remake I wasn't expecting them to use SCUMM interface for the remake as it feels very outdated, however they did the opposite of what I thought they would do and included a 'right click to change action' interface that was seen in there competitor (Sierra) games during there peak of success, why they did this is utterly beyond me and I really didn't like it, at times it is really annoying to have to scroll through the options to get to what you want, I feel that it should have sported a similar interface to The Curse of Monkey Island, it might sound petty, but it took away from the game quite a bit.

After I got over the small issues with the graphics and the engine, at its core its the same game I know and love and was well worth another play through, if you are a fan, I highly recommend it, if you have never played it, you missed out and should get your hands on it, I love Monkey Island and am glad that not only it is making a comeback, but the genre in general.

Christmas NiGHTS - Video Review

2010-09-22T04:22:00.000-07:00

A two level demo of NiGHTS into Dreams for the Sega Saturn, Christmas NiGHTS is often overlooked due to its 'demo' status, watch on to find out why this is a must own for all Saturn owners.

Altered Beast - Video Review

2010-08-26T17:45:00.000-07:00

The much loved pack-in title for the Sega Megadrive (Genesis), is the game able to rise from its grave or is it better left dead.

Heaps of reviews, change in navigation and some news!

2010-08-23T20:28:00.000-07:00

While the blog has not been getting all that much love lately, that is soon to change.

First off the bat I have posted some archived reviews I wrote quite awhile ago, these include, Super Mario Bros, Hook, Kung Fu and many more. From now on all reviews will be completly new and in a differant format than past reviews, ie no more scoring system. It will just be me, and jfe2 when he returns, talking about how we felt about games in a much less formal layout.

All of these reviews can be found in the new and revamped reviews section which makes navigating much easier, the same has been done for the video's section all of which is in a new navigation bar just below the banner!

Also a new video review of Altered Beast on the Sega Megadrive / Genesis will be out shortly.

Cheers.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

2010-08-23T20:22:00.000-07:00

Im not going to even explain the history of Harry Potter, we all know where it came from and the media darling that it is today. As is the case with pretty much any worth while movie (and many not so worth while) a game is not far behind to cash in. Usually these games are just horrible, and EA has a long list of horrible movie tie-ins. So does the latest Harry Potter game installment follow this trend? Lets find out.

Gameplay (7 out of 10)
Now to be honest, I hate all the Harry Potter games, they are just boring and make you want to fall asleep with there cliche's left right and center and boring game engines.

EA has finally done something right, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is a worthwhile game, never thought I would say it about a Harry Potter game, but they have completely revamped the way the games engine is set out. The easiest way to describe it is like the. Grand Theft Auto : Hogwarts. You follow a similar style of mission progression as the GTA games, look on your map, find somebody, get a mission and off you go. I didn't think it would work, but they have mixed it up enough to feel original and not a GTA rip off. It is so free roaming its not funny, you are literally discovering new things every time you walk through a hallway (and believe me there are a lot of hallways).

I wont go into the story line, as I'm sure most of you know it, but if you don't, pick up the book or watch the movie because you wont find out about it here. I will go into the what I will call 'Wii-Wand' the wiimote as the wand adds an awesome feeling to play, and works fairly well, there are a set of 6 (if I remember correctly) hand patterns (which are just pulling back, circle motion, etc) that do either 6 combat spells (if you in combat) or 6 non-combat spells (For exploring the castle, etc). I do have one problem and its always with the same spell (Forgot its name but its the Fire spell) it at times can take as long as 5 or 6 shots at the spell to cast (it involves waving the wand left and right with lamps, etc selected) and can get frustrating, but other than that, the wii-mote to wand is awesome.

Sound (9.5 out of 10)
The sound in this game is something that is just amazing, they have got many of the actors from the movies to do the voice acting, which is awesome as it makes it feel a lot more universal. The music has both tunes from the music and its own music which are really amazing and breathtaking to be created for a video game (Think Lord of The Rings / Harry Potter style tunes that are created for a game). Every character, no matter how small seems to have a voice of there own. The environmental sounds are great as well, walking past portraits hanging on the walls you can hear them having conversations. The same goes with students, before you know it you will be up to date with all the Hogwarts gossip. Really top notch sound here, no complaints from me at all.

Graphics (7 out of 10)
The only downfall in this game is of course its graphics, its character models are fairly basic and there are more jaggies than you could pock a stick at. Then why did I score it so high your asking? Because theres more to graphics than poly counts and AA levels. The lighting used in this game is great, when you walk through a hallway with light shining in through the windows, it just looks beautiful, the entire castle looks beautiful, I will go on with that now.

The castle, first and foremost, is HUGE, its just massive. If your not following the footsteps of your map you will find yourself getting lost quite often. There are no, I repeat, no loading screens at all. When you walk though a door the hallway behind you fades away and you walk around the castle without single load, it really is great. The entire game looks like a piece of art, it is just beautiful to look at, despite it high amount of jaggies ,etc

The games cut scenes use the next gen versions engine with pre-rendered scenes (If you have played Call Of Duty 3 you know what im talking about)

There is one thing I disliked a bit, was the stiff animation in Harry's walk, its the character we are going to see walking in front of our camera for the entire game, he really should be animated nicely, but he just looks a bit stiff and when your on a long walk it can really annoy you.

Replay Value (7 out of 10)
When you finish the game you are greeted with 'The Never ending Day' in which you can walk around the castle and finish any of the side missions you didn't finish while playing the game through as well as unlocking Videos (Which have interviews with the cast and game crew of the game and movies) and trophy's in the room of rewards, so once its finished, there is still quite a bit to do. There are also a few mini-games through out the game such as its own version of marbles, snap, memory and a few others, though you wont play those for long other than to get another trophy in your rewards room. So theres no brick wall on gameplay one you have finished the main story.

Overall (7.625 out of 10)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was a curve ball I never expected to play, I purchased it for my 12 year old sister, after watching her play for awhile I tried it out and was surprised, it is a solid game and to get this form a movie tie in, one that has a horrible game past as Harry Potter, and its from EA. I found it amazing the game turned out the way it did. Im no massive fan, I have read the books and watch the movies when they come to dvd, thats about it. If you have been looking for a Harry Potter game but the past releases have turned you off (as they did to me), this is the title for you. Even if you just like a good adventure, I would recommend this game. If you can look past the shotty models and the problems with the spells every now and again it is a fairly amusing game. Surprisingly (Didn't think it would happen when I first heard of another Harry Potter game) this gets the thumbs up from me.

Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon

2010-08-23T20:19:00.000-07:00

Final Fantasy, a name that holds perhaps more responsibility for quality then any other franchise, It helped secure the PS2's place as the dominant console of its generation, and before that helped RPG fans find there new home on Nintendo consoles. Since the main series departure from Nintendo consoles Final Fantasy titles spin off titles have been average at best. Is the latest Wii exclusive any different? Lets find out!

Gameplay (5.5 out of 10)
What is an RPG without its gameplay elements? Well its nothing, Chocobo's Dungeon takes what was there in the past Chocobo titles (On the PS1 and NDS) and builds upon them, its overtly dumbed down so that if this is your first RPG ever you wont have a problem with leveling up and equipping items, it may not be enough for hard RPG fans, but there is enough in your hands that you should be able to enjoy it. Pick items up by stepping over them and equipped them (Three equip spaces ,one for ATK, DEF and other special items) via the menu system, basic stuff.When it comes to leveling up the player has utterly nothing to do with it, you fight, get EXP points, level up, rinse and repeat.

The battle engine is again fairly basic, you walk around randomly generated dungeons (In the same fashion you have in past Chocobo games) while trying to get to the level floor with a wide arrange of enemy's in your way, you attack by facing an enemy and pressing attack, very basic but some
strategy does come into play, like when your out numbered and you walk down a thing hall so that you can fight enemy's one on one. The only thing that brings the battle system back from being overtly basic to the point its boring is the fact you have special moves, more of which you learn along the way and the ability you use items (Which is expected as its an RPG). The battle system is basic, but it gets the job done.

The story is actually quite a lot better then I thought it would be and surprised me quite a bit. To paint a basic picture while Cid is trying to get a gem in a sand castle him and his partner chocobo (named...you guessed it Chocobo, what a great writing team over at Square Enix) who you control
are sucked into a vortex and end up in a far away land where people hear a bell that rings, and there memories are lost. Cid falls victim to said bell, a girl comes and says she will try to help you, then a baby is randomly born from a egg, the baby has the ability to go into peoples minds and open a portal to it so that we, Chocobo, can enter peoples minds (AKA Randomly generated dungeons mentioned before) get the memories back and go on with the story.... Amazing stuff, maybe not, but its better then Squares last outing on the Wii, That abortion of a Dragons Quest game.

Sound (9.5 out of 10)
The sound in Chocobo's Dungeon is really awesome, we have a remix of past Final Fantasy tracks that have been beefed up, slowed down and some that sound nothing like the originals but still rock, the music, as it is in most Square Enix titles is well above par. Now before I popped the game into the Wii there was one thing I was not sure about, would it have full speech? Dragon Quest had speech, but it was utterly horrible and only really during cut scenes, Chocobo's Dungeon has speech for pretty much all important parts of the game with some of the less important town folks and so on appearing in text (Much like was done in FFXII). Overall the sound is on par with a 'real' Final Fantasy, compared to there last outing on the Wii, sound has taken a massive leap forward.

Graphics (6 of 10)
Now this bugs me to tears, why does every developer decide the Wii has to have some cartoony look to it other then going for realistic due to the systems power, Im sick of the bull**** japanese cartoony looking graphics that keep getting shoveled onto the Wii, they could have easily made the game look like Final Fantasy X, but they didnt! That being said, the graphics do suite the game (I know you love how much I contradict myself, well I do too) they do them well, but there is nothing overtly special about them, look at the screenshots, I don't have much else to say about them really.

Replay Value (6 out of 10)
Now some people will say, random dungeons, sounds like an RPG I can play again once I have finished it, but the question that needs to be asked is, why would you really want to play it through again, the dungeons and battle system are not fun enough to really deserve a replay, the story while better than I expected and presented better than I expected hardly deserves a retelling. Im giving it a 6 just for the random dungeons and if you wanted to play it through again it would be differant, but the whole game is made of random dungeons, so it wouldnt feel that fresh or new.

Overall (6.75 out of 10)
While Chocobo's Dungeon is slightly lackluster for a game bearing the Final Fantasy name, can we expect anything more? Not really. The game is a step in the right direction for the Chocobo series, and the Wii is so deprived of RPG titles that Wii owners like myself owe it to themselves to pick up anything they can get. If you like RPG's pick it up when you find it for a cheap price, I got it for again $40 USD when my uncle posted it over to me, not really worth the 40 bucks, but it was worth a play through. Find it cheap and give it a play. It doesn't hold up to a numbered Final Fantasy game, but as far as spin offs go, its a pretty decent little game.

Quantom of Solace

2010-08-23T20:15:00.000-07:00

Golden....Goldeneye? (That is meant to be said in a James...James Bond kind of way) That's the question on everyone's lips as they go into yet another James Bond game. No matter what changes, what is added, what is removed, how well it looks. No one really cares about any of that stuff when it comes to what they want in a James Bond game, there is only one question everyone wants to know and that is. "Is it as good as Goldeneye?" One of the hardest things the James Bond franchise has in its way is its own past, Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64 is often regarded as the great Console FPS of all time. From its deep single player campaign following the movies story closely to the utter mayhem that was its multiplayer mode. The game was close to perfect. So how does Quantum of Solace stack up against a game that was pure gold? Lets find out.

Gameplay (8 out of 10)
I will start with the thing that breaks many games on the Wii, how well the controls are integrated. Quantum of Solace is one of the most solid FPS efforts we have seen on the Wii,the controls are responsive and they bring in some welcome additions to the regular Wii FPS experience. The most important of which is the lock-on system. You hold down Z which willlock the enemy in the center of your screen and you blow them to high hell. They have done the correct thing by not overtly using the nunchuck for commands, a simple upward motion will allow you to reload your weapon. Another welcome feature is that you can hide behind low walls and doorways from which the angle becomes over the shoulder, much like Gears of War. Overall the controls are down pat and very tight, some of the best we have seen on a Wii shooter. The enemy's AI is not too bad either, they hide when they can and don't just stand still shooting like many other Wii shooters seem to.

Now the story I wont go into too much detail on, but it follows the plot of the movie obviously recreating many scenes from the movie, how well it follows the story I cant say as I have no seen the movie as of yet as it does not come out for a couple of weeks still. For those wondering about the health system, it works on a regeneration system (Get down to 2% health, go hide for a moment while it regenerates back to 100%).

The game has a bit of Multiplayer offerings with both split screen and online gameplay, I wont go into too much detail about that now, you can read more about it the replay value section.

Sound (8.5 out of 10)
The music is what you expect from a James Bond game, the classic Bond themes with a few newer and upbeat versions, but in the long run you have heard the tunes in the game a thousand times and you wouldn't be too amazed by any of it, but it does a very solid job. The sound effects of the guns and the bullets is on the dot with all of them sounding very clear and how they should sound.

Now the main reason I gave the sound such a respectable rating is that the voice acting (Daniel Craig provides the voice of Bond) is very well done, I am very glad they got Craig for the voice of Bond, there is nothing worse then when they use some 2bit voice actor and it completely destroys the feel of the game.

Graphics (7 of 10)
Now a lot of people were talking about Quantum of Solace's graphics on the Wii being the best so far, I have to disagree, while you can have a lot of action on screen and fairly decent textures for a Wii game, it is nothing special (We saw many better titles on the original Xbox) it is very on par with what you would expect on a ps2 with a large amount of jaggies on screen. The character animation while not the best does a fairly decent job. The models on enemy's is fairly average with nothing to really wow anyone. Bond's model (With Daniel Craigs likeness) is fairly detailed and without a doubt the best looking model in the game. There are some parts of the game where the graphics are on par with N64, the water for example (Pictured below) is utterly horrible. It really doesn't feel like the Wii hardware is getting much of a workout with this title. Overall the easiest way of saying it is that the graphics do there job, there not ugly but there not as good as they could have been.

The game runs smooth without many notible slow downs which is a plus.

Replay Value (6 out of 10)
The big hitter that made Goldeneye so appealing to everyone was without a doubt its multiplayer appeal, Quantum of Solace while offering 4 player split screen action seems like it would be amazing falls somewhat short, I invited a friend of mine over last night and got my dad involved and the main problem we found is that once you are given your peice of screen using the Wii-Motes is not as easy (Or as fun) when you had a screen to yourself. Quite often my friend would turn too hard left and the character would just spin on the spot, this is on a 50inch TV, I know a lot of people use smaller TV sets which would make this problem even bigger. It does a solid job of offering split screen gameplay, but there is nothing overtly special about it. You might have a few games here and there with your friends but after awhile I can see this one gathering dust.

The online multiplayer is by far worse, it has the normal draw backs of a Wii game in terms of online interactivity in that, well there is none. No one I know owns this game so I couldnt play against friends, I sat there for 10 minutes while it scanned for players, when I finally got into a game I felt like I was just playing against bots, with 0 way of communicating with people this game gets boring and fast. It does have a online rank system (Stolen straight from Mario Kart Wii) but it does little to add any reason to play online (Unless you want to play against friends which is the only reason anyone would every want to play online with Wii anyway).

Overall (7.375 out of 10)
Overall Quantum of Solace is a fairly solid shooter to add to your Wii Library, the Online aspect of it is useless, the Split Screen is worth a few games but wont pull you in like Goldeneye did so many years ago. The graphics may not be the best but they get the job done. It has very solid controls. I would recommend picking it up for its single player aspect if you want a good FPS fro your Wii, if not give this one a miss. They had the chance to make a killer game instead we gota game with a good single player mode, an average multiplayer mode and a utter **** online mode.

Hook

2010-08-23T20:12:00.000-07:00

If you were growing up in the 90's the chances are you saw Hook, the tale of a grown up Peter Pan returning to Neverland to face off once more with Hook. It was a great movie, one many of us link to our childhood. Now with any decent movie a licensed game was created in its image. Hook on the NES is one of those titles which is known for being really crap, give it a search on youtube and you will see what I mean. Now I did what I'm sure 90% of those reviewers didn't. I bought the game for my NES, I downloaded the manual for the game, and I read it. So many of those reviewers were complaining about not knowing what this or that does. Well I know what they do, does it make the game any more enjoyable? Is this a game that will never grow old or does it now have droopy hairy balls? Read on to find out.

Gameplay (4.5 out of 10)
The gameplay is a basic platformer with the extremely boring 'collect to finish' rule, you have to collect a certain amount of items per level in order to be able to finish. Different levels have different items that you must collect from cupcakes to pearls, it all really has nothing to do with the movie, kind of annoying but oh well.

The controls are the main problem with the game you jump really high, which is kind of acceptable because after all your meant to be peter pan, but the most annoying aspect is without a doubt your main attack, which is a tiny little sword, its really 50/50 as to if you will hit your enemy first or if they will get you first, it is without a doubt the dumbest ***** I have ever seen in a game and a massive flaw which wrecks the experience, the game could have been so much better if they made your 'sword' (More like a butter knife, not even a good butter knife) just a few pixels longer. The one slight saving grace is that you can use tinker bell as a weapon by collecting thimbles as ammo, yea that's right the little **** wont follow you if you don't have any thimbles, what a *****!

Now its a Peter Pan game so you would guess you can fly through out the level, well your wrong! There are level dedicated to flying, which get boring really fast as you try to dodge TNT and lighting clouds all the while collecting marbles, but while ingame the only form of flying is by collecting marbles which then enable you to 'bounce' off the various sections of fairy dust. The biggest problem with this is that if you run out of fairy dust but missed something on the other side of the fairy dust, or the exit is at the other side, your screwed, you need to commit suicide.

There are some interesting gameplay aspects in the game, such as the underwater levels where you need to swim around with a health bar that gets lower and lower until you can find a air pocket. There are also some light puzzle aspects to the game as it goes on such as having to collect fire then moving a barrel of gunpowder to the right spot then having to jump on the gunpowder to be blasted up.

The last thing I will talk about is the enemy's so many of them are just random, there's a guru who floats around, there's a fire breathing dragon and heaps of other random stuff that you just have to ask yourself if they even watched the movie before making the game. The boss fight with Rufio is the biggest homoerotic scene I have ever seen in a video game its the first one to take the other ones shirt off, oh yea! Remember in the movie when Robin Williams had a knife on Rufio and made him take his shirt off? Yeah that was a hot scene.

Graphics (6.5 out of 10)
The backgrounds look really decent for a NES game, as do the enemy's and everything is quite large in size which is a nice change. You can always tell what things are meant to be. The biggest graphical flaw is in Peter himself, the character we see for the entire game is the ugliest thing on screen. He looks more like Link than Peter Pan, if Link was and Albino, for some stupid reason his skin is completely white. I don't know why they decided to do this, the pirates and other the guru's have the normal tan coloured skin, but for whatever reason Peter Pan is now whiter than Micheal Jackson, Yea you knew a Jacko reference was coming. The characters sprite actually reminds me of Jackson from the South Park episode 'The Jeffersons'.

The graphics bar Peter are really top notch for a NES game, the score would have been higher but Peter really makes the rest of the screen look like garbage, which is a shame, yet again the developers had the ability to make it a worth while platformer, but it doesn't just play average it looks average because of something that could have been fixed in a matter of minutes.

Sound (3.5 out of 10)
The background music is something that really ****s me up the wall, its all high pitched and just really annoying. In the movie Hook there is a beautiful arrange of original music, why on gods green earth couldn't they make some 8-bit versions of that, it would have been awesome. But no we are stuck with this annoying repetitive music. I don't even want to go any more
into it.

Replay Value (4 out of 10)
Once you finish this game (if you don't get bored by the fact the level design and game mechanics start to feel very repetitive) I highly doubt you will want to pick it up and play again, you can finish the game in one sitting, which of course you have to because there no save feature, however when a game has a map system somewhat similar to the later Mario games, why it doesn't support saving system of some sort is beyond me, the game would be so much better if you could save, no one feels like going through all that item collecting bull**** again, but if you want to finish the game and run out
of continues, then that's just what you get to do, start the whole thing off again.

Overall (4.625 out of 10)
The game is nothing amazing, actually I would say its below average. It had the chance to be a somewhat enjoyable game, but a bunch of little things in the gameplay mechanics really messed up the game. It has close to nothing to do with the movie which is a massive let down as it was a really great movie, I watched it again the day before I played Hook again for this review and I still thing its a class movie. All in all its better than most reviewers give credit for, however that's not really saying too much, its still pretty ****ty.

A fairly poor NES platformer, only worth picking up if you find it for under $2 and want to add to your NES collection.

Super Mario Bros.

2010-08-23T20:08:00.000-07:00

Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!
How many times did that give you the sh**'s growing up? If the answer is none then you are total wanker and don't read this or any other of my reviews.

Super Mario Bros. on the NES, I don't know any gamer who has not played this game. It is pretty much the most iconic game in Nintendo's long history. No other game has had more of a impact on the world than this game, it pulled the video game industry out of the depression it was in. For over 20 years it was the highest selling video game of all time, only topped by Nintendo's console bundled, Wii sports. Its a hard game to review, without a doubt the hardest I have had to do so far. How do you review a game that almost every gamer has played and has loved for so many years? Well you can't really, but I made a deal with myself that I would review every retro cart I got my hands on, and this little number is next! So without further f***ing around here it is!

Gameplay (9 out of 10)
Hmm how to start this... Its a platformer. From the day of it was released, it was the benchmark from which every single side scroller was compared to. You take control of Mario or his pallete swap of a brother Luigi, in there quest to save the princess from the evil giant turtle like Bowser. While saving a princess is nothing original, for the type of game it was the story didnt matter in the slightest. Set in the Mushroom Kingdom, Super Mario Bros. has a wide array of original and challenging enemy's. From Goomba's to Koopa's they all haveone great thing in common, just a bounce on the head to kill them.

The game features powerups in the form of mushrooms and flowers. You start as small Mario, collect a mushroom you power up to big Mario, now with the ability to smash blocks and from there collect a flower and you transform into Super Mario with the ability to shoot fireballs at your enemy's. While the range of powerups is nothing compared to the later games, its hard to criticize a game when it is only bettered by its sequels, which of course had not been created yet.

I think the thing that makes the game so great even by todays standards is the fact that its gameplay mechanics are spot on. The controls are super responsive, you press jump and Mario says how high! (Variable jumping joke if you missed it!) you tap right just a tiny bit, Mario moves right just a tiny bit. While the game has its fair share of bugs (Many of which are quite famous, world -1 anybody?) they are not enough to take away from the raw gameplay.

One point I found a lot of my friends complain about when they would come over to my house and fire up my NES in recent days is the fact that when you die, you have to start again, the amount of people who didn't know the A+START combo on the start screen to continue at the start of the world you were just at amazed me. That was always well known in my household.

Graphics (8.5 out of 10)
What a world Nintendo created with The Mushroom Kingdom, the detail shown with the backgrounds and tile sets is amazing compared to 99% of the games on the market at the time. While the graphics are great and everything is bright and colourful. I feel that compared to many other NES titles the games graphics most defiantly feel blocky at times in particular Mario's sprites, which is a bit of an eye sore today, but for such an early NES game it looks amazing and nothing can ever take away the look of how they all blend perfectly with one another.

I think one of the biggest pro's the game had going for it was how smoothly the screen scrolled, so many games of the era had single screens, but if they did have scrolling screens in the same way that Super Mario Bros. did it just was no where near as smooth, for years after its release games were still not getting the same smoothness that it achieved, it may sound pretty stupid by today's standards, but for such an important aspect of the game, to nail it perfectly it makes the entire game look better and not a slow down to be seen.

Sound (10 out of 10)
Who's entire childhood doesn't light up in front of them when they hear the sound of Mario getting a coin? While the sounds pumped out of the old 8 bit box are hardly anything amazing compared to today's standards they all do there job and do it so well. They are all so original and just scream MARIO! If I put a random soundboard in front of a gamer and played through every sound in the game 99/100 would get a perfect score when saying where in the game the sound came from. Utter addiction !!!

Featuring some of the most recognizable tunes every created in a video game, Kōji Kondō has created a beautiful collection of very memorable tunes that after a few games you will find yourself humming or whistling for a few days later. Another great feature with the music is that as you run out of time the tempo of the music picks up, it really creates a sense of urgency.

The music is perfect, I don't need to really go into it any more.

Replay Value (8.5 out of 10)
The game is loaded with secrets, from hidden 1-up mushrooms to Warp Zones which transport you to different worlds while skipping the ones before it. The game has enough secrets to keep you coming back for more even after 20 years of playing you are guaranteed that no two games of the game will be the same. Its always fun to watch a friend play Mario and do a secret you never knew existed. Years and years after I first played this game, I still find myself firing it up from time to time.

It also scores point on the Replay Value table by the fact it supports two players, while both players don't play at the same time like Double Dragon and such, it is still always fun to have your friends come over and fire up the NES to put to the test some of your friends "I was the best at that game" claims.

Overall (9 out of 10)
Overall the game is a classic to put it simply, from the moment of its launch it changed the face of gaming and turned Nintendo in to The Big N, they took hold of the video game world and didn't let go until Sony forced them to. The game may not be as amazing today as it was back in the 80's but for myself and millions of others, it will always have a special place in our heart.

With sleek graphics, smooth gameplay that was so finely tuned it still holds up today and music that could make Mozart cry. Super Mario Bros. is without a doubt a must have for anyone.

You must own this game in some way, shape or form.

Kung Fu

2010-08-23T20:05:00.000-07:00

Before Streets Of Rage. Before River City Ransom. Even before Double Dragon one game was released that put Beat em ups on the map in a big way. That game was Kung Fu for the NES, a port of the arcade hit Kung Fu Master which we wont reference from here on out as the review is on Kung Fu, not Kung Fu Master. Anyway the main object of Kung Fu, like every other beat em up you have ever played is to beat the utter **** out of everything that comes onto your screen. So how do the **** get kicked more than 20 years after the games release? Read on to find out.

Gameplay (7 out of 10)
To start off Kung Fu is a movie tie in to Wheels on Meals staring Jackie Chan, In stereotypical fashion the movie involves Chan's character Thomas saving the Damsel in distress, named Sylvia. I wont go into too much detail about the movies plot as it doesn't really effect the game, however if your really interested just go see it.

Anyway, you play as a Thomas(Chan) who must save the damsel in distress (Sylvia)You do this by making it from the start of a level to the end of a level by walking from one side to the other in a traditional side scroller style.Sounds simple enough? Well it is, other than the fact there is a whole range of enemy's just waiting to belt the crap out of you. From those who just run and hug you to death (Yea I know, What the hell is that all about!) until you can shake them off, knife throwing enemy's who you have to watch to decide weather you need to duck or jump to dodge getting sliced open, snakes, dragons that breath fire, front flipping midgets and more. But the most challenging thing is that every level has its own unique boss. For an early Beat Em Up Kung Fu had a great range of enemy's.

The controls while basic are everything you could ask for in a NES game. Up/Down/Left/Right to move left,right and to jump and crouch. B to Kick and A to punch. You can (And need to for certain enemy's) do fly kicks/punches and duck while kicking and punching. The thing that makes the controls so great is that Kung Fu is not a button masher, if your hoping you will fire your NES up and click A and B as fast as you can your not going to get very far. You need to time every attack, remember how to attack every enemy and so on. That being said one of the games biggest downfalls is that is it a fairly hard game, not that hard that it will turn you off if your a beat em up fan, if anything it will make you play more and get better but I imagine those with a short gaming attention span will be turned off by the fact the game is hard if your not willing to learn how to fight each enemy.

Sound (6 out of 10)
Now the sound is pretty solid but nothing great (I am of course comparing it to other games in the NES library) While the level intro tune in unforgettable and the sound effects for kicking, etc are great the game feels very quite at times (as there is no background music playing). It doesn't really hurt the experience but it does make it feel a lot slower than it should at times. Overall though the sound is a solid effort.

Graphics (6.5 of 10)
Again the graphics are solid for its release date but there nothing really that special by comparison of other NES titles, what they do right however is the fact the characters are quite large on screen when compared to many other future beat em ups like Double Dragon, you can always clearly see what the characters are doing and the animation is fairly solid for the time. There is nothing really that special that stands out but the game is still very playable by today's standards and a lot of that is because the graphics while basic mean that they don't look as dated as many other NES titles.

Replay Value (8 out of 10)
Because of how hard the game is you will more than likely be playing it quite often, it has the tendency to leave you with close to no health by the time you reach the levels boss meaning you die, but being so close you can help but want to do it all again. The game also features a MODE B which is the same game only harder. It also has 2 player in both MODE A and MODE B so if you can find a friend who has an eye for either beat em ups or just retro games in general you can get them in on it, that being said the Multiplayer is just 'take in turns' gameplay where you compete for the high score (much like the original Super Mario Bros.)

Overall (6.95 out of 10)
Kung Fu is one of the Granddaddy's of the beat em up genre. Its an early example of why so many of us love these types of games. Its a solid beat em up and solid example of a game based on a movie done right.

Its a worthy addition to any Retro gamers (Or Beat Em Up lovers) NES library.

Go Go Ackman - Video Review

2010-08-22T16:08:00.000-07:00

This time I take a look at the Super Famicom only release of Go Go Ackman, which is based on the Manga of the same name.

Adventures of Lolo 3 - Video Review

2010-07-30T16:01:00.000-07:00

The Godfather : Blackhand Edition

2010-07-28T16:56:00.000-07:00

I don't think a movie, in the history of film has ever made quite the impact that The Godfather did. It is not only the perfect gangster movie of all time, it is a perfect movie in itself. Countless Top 100's have it as its number one, and I have to agree. From my first sitting of this movie I have always had a weird since of pride about my Sicilian heritage. So the movie is perfect, but is the game, that follows a original story line set in the Godfather world perfect? Lets find out.

Gameplay (7 out of 10)
The first thing that hit my mind, the hand to hand fighting system in this, I really think was pulled off well, its responsive and at times pretty fun, Its actually more in depth that Wii sports' boxing. Now the use of guns works great with the Wii-Mote, however its not as polished off as with some later games that have been released, but it does the job none the less.

The game sports some original ways to use the controller, example to open a door you tilt the wii-mote like opening a door, but for the most part these actions feel fairly forced and they are not really needed.

Cap'n a fool....had to do it

The way the story is told is fairly good, the cutscenes look pretty good as there main focus is the character models, which as I mention in the graphics section, are fairly nice. The game really does feel like a enhanced version of Mafia (Enhanced in terms of the wii). It doesn't really pull you into the time as much as you would like, but the music aids in that.

The game kind of reminds me of the Scarface game, the game had the potential to be awesome but it fell short, the missions just drag on and many feel like 'Point A to B for no reason then kill person, drive back to point A' and after awhile it becomes fairly boring. The missions that do revolve around the story though are fairly nice and makes doing the boring ones worth while just to know what happens next.

Sound (8 out of 10)
The sound is really well done in The Godfather, beautiful background music that really makes the atmosphere of the game pull you into the time frame. The voice acting is some of the best I have seen in a sandbox style game, though sometimes the cliche italian voice is a little over used but other than that the voice acting is right on the money.

Graphics (6.5 of 10)
I was expecting some horrible graphics to be honest, and what I was greeted with was not that bad at all. The character models displayed are fairly detailed, there faces are unique and hold quite a bit of detail. The textures are not the greatest and they do looked washed out at times but for the dark moo of the game they fit fairly well. The only real downside to the graphics are there are quite a few jaggies in the game, but if your a Wii owner you are more than use to this by now. The textures used on buildings could also be a bit cleaner but overall this is one of the better looking Wii games, despite it being released as a launch title, though we all know the Wii can pump out much better graphics than this. Another problem I noticed as time went on is every now and again the FPS drops by quite a lot, if this happens in a gun fight, its makes the controls jump around a fair bit, this has only happened twice in about 2 hours, but none the less it does leave an annoying impression.

Face!

Replay Value (6 out of 10)
No multiplayer, as its a sandbox game and once you finish it I highly doubt you will be screaming for more.

Overall (6.875 out of 10)
The Godfather movie, was perfect. The game falls several feet short, to its many graphical downsides and lackluster excitement factor it does get a bit dull at times. If your a Godfather fan, I would suggest you pick it up just to enjoy some more of the Corleone family goodness. If you own a Wii and are a fan of the GTA series I would pick it up as there are not many mature games on the Wii and as a GTA clone, it goes all right.

But as for the rest of you, I wouldn't suggest picking it up. Other than the hand to hand combat system, this game really doesnt have anything memorable about it. If you have played Mafia, you may feel your in a rerun at times.

As a fan of the movies (and I mean they are up there in my top 3 movies with Dog Day Afternoon and Donnie Darko) I have to say this game was a bit of a lit down, it would of been better IMO if you controlled one of the Corleone's.

Mario Strikers Charged

2010-07-25T00:19:00.000-07:00

When Super Mario Strikers came out on the Gamecube in 05/06 it was hardly a 'must own' title with many people either not buying or not even knowing it was out. It was a plan arcade style soccer game with the normal Mario world twists such as using powerups ,etc. Wifi is something that every Wii user has been waiting for since they unrapped there little white box. This year, PAL zones first game to make use of the system Wifi capability's, falls somewhat short in both single and online play. Read on to find out why.

Gameplay (Score 6 of 10)

Well I don't really know what to say about the game play, its a simple 4 a side soccer team with one of the Mario world stars as captain. There are power ups such as shells, hammers,etc. And every character has there own unique special attack and special defense move, but in reality thats where the games depth ends. Once you have played through your first match, you will feel like you are watching a video on repeat. With a wide range of levels I expected they would hold my interest for slightly longer however it was not the case, its pretty much a simple swap of the background and course and a change of the levels hazard and you have a new level. The game just lacks the depth of some form of leveling system, you end up playing the same levels multiple times over to win a new trophy for your cabinet, when it comes to rewards I find trophies to be somewhat lackluster. There are some new additions to the game which make it a big up from the GC original such as super shots and the new and improved control of the goalie where you control the goalies hand as balls fly towards you. As for the super shots once you have them mastered and figure out all you have to do is shoot a shell then a super shot form anywhere and your pretty much guaranteed a goal the game becomes somewhat boring. Well with such a average single player experience I was expecting the online to make up for it, it seems the Wii's first online title is a fairly big let down, even by Nintendo's standards of poor online interactivity. There are also single player challenges that place you in situations where you are a man down or two goals down and you must try to win the game, honestly I found this to be the most entertaining point in the entire game.

Up, Up and Average!

Sound (Score 8 of 10)

Good sounds that suit the game well, lots of Mario sounds of yesteryear, really not much to be said about it.

Graphics (Score 6 of 10)

Now some people might say I have been harsh only giving a 6 out of 10 for graphics. While they do what they are there for, its graphics we could have expected on the GC. Theres only so many times we can see Mario and his friends on new systems looking slightly 1 up'ed from there last gen counter parts. Graphically its nothing special, in fact if you put the game side by side with its Gamecube counter part I am sure you couldnt tell the difference, but does it job.

Replay Value (Score 6 of 10)

First the single player, with the amount of trophies and challenges you can do the game should keep you playing for awhile, that is of course if you can stomach playing it that long without being bored to tears. Now onto the online play, the thing many people bought the game for. Well in 1 word. Disappointment. Being on a Nintendo console no one expected voice chat or even talking via a on screen keyboard, but this game has no interaction at all. You can either play with your friends, or a random stranger (Who you can't talk to or play again or add as a friend), the only community feeling it has is where you score points and go on a scoreboard. The online in reality feels like you are just playing a harder version of the CPU, I really hope future Wifi titles are not this much of a let down.

Overall (Score 6.5 of 10)

While it is a step up from the Gamecube outing Mario and his friends still deliver one of the least entertaining ways to play soccer, with the single player portion of the game feeling like a broken record repeating itself and the online play feeling barely online I would suggest you not to waste your hard earnt dollars on this unless you either are a soccer fan or just want to play your Wii online. Perhaps after some price drops and you find it in your local targets bargain bin would I suggest this.

Ganbare Goemon 2 - Video Review

2010-07-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

The first Ganbare Goemon game was released in English speaking countries as The Legend of the Mystical Ninja, its sequal Ganbare Goemon 2 was never released outside of Japan.

Skate It

2010-07-18T16:37:00.000-07:00

All right lets jump (or Olie, haha four words in and I have a bad joke, new record!) right into this, skateboarding games did, for a long time suck ass, with the exception of 720 on the NES there wasn’t much to keep our videogame skating needs at bay, that was until of course until the release of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, the game was a complete revolution in gaming, something brand new and fresh that skaters and those who had never picked a board up in there life got behind and said, damm this game is awesome. But after 9 years of annual installments the franchise was starting to feel stale and bloated with features that no one really cared about, that took away from the core gameplay. It seemed that with each new installment that came after about Pro Skater 3 the series felt like it was taking backwards steps in terms of the enjoyment gamers got out of there skating sessions.

Skate brought something new to the world of skating games in much the same way the Tony Hawk series did. By reinventing the control scheme, the game flowed much more smoothly and more importantly gave the user the feeling of freedom that comes with skating. The game never saw a release on the Wii but a spin off title, Skate It was released, can the little white box actually have a good skating game? Let’s find out.

Gameplay (8.5 out of 10)

Kick it off with the controls, there are 3 control scheme to the game, which is awesome you can pick the one that best suites you right. There is Wii Remote, my least favourite, its really too much on the one controller. Its nice the option is there but steering, spinning and doing tricks with the one hand is a bit much. Then we have Wii Remote + Nunchuck, this is the one that I used to playthe game through, you could actually skate in the direction you wanted to (twisting the Wii Remote by itself to turn is never that accurate and hurts your wrist after awhile) and the general ability to control what you want to do is a lot easier than the other two, when I talk about controls inthe game this is the scheme I am talking about as in my head its the 'default' way to play skate it. The third and last is with the Wii Balance board, its a great idea in theory but its a pain in the ass at times. You do tricks in the way you would expect to, to ollie you lean hard on the tail, nollie hard on the nose, kickflip you put weight on you right side (if you skate Goofy), etc. I found it pretty hard to just skate around on the board, and I don’t think its because I am a complete retard because I have Shaun White snowboarding and I have almost finished that game with its Wii Balance board scheme. I just constantly found myself banging into walls and objects ingame, and it got to the point that halfway through the first level I just put it away and restarted the game with the Wii Remote + Nunchuck scheme, maybe some people enjoy the board more, but for it I found it a pain in the ass.

Doing big air feels pretty good with the Wii controls.

Now to quickly talk about the actual controls rather than the different schemes, basically to olie you whip the Wii-Remote up, every flip trick then comes from doing a certain motion with the Wii-Remote before doing the Olie, such as, making a U shape, then doing a olie will perform a pop shuvit. Grabs are as simple as using hte B button and a direction, and grind happen when you land on a rail with the Wii-Remote pointed in the grind you wish to grind, hold the Wii-Remote with the nose down, you do a nose grind. Pretty simple and it is leaps and bounds better than the slapped on controls we saw in Tony Hawk Proving Ground on the Wii, in which they mapped the regular 4 buttons used in the THPS series to different buttons on the Wii-Remote and made a shitty game, pretty much unplayable, as far as controls go, Skate It gets it right minus the frustration when you sometimes pop tricks you didn't want to.

Now that the boring stuff is out of the way we can talk about the game itself, at first, being a big THPS fan (I Have completed all Console releases to date and 100%'ed the first 4) and a skater myself I was looking forward to this game hitting the Wii. Once I got the controls down (which actually takes awhile)the game just flowed. Doing lines of tricks rolled and just like in real skating you felt really frustrated at time trying to do lines, but it was a good frustration. The game is full of the usual challenges, such as 'manual from a to b', 'kickflip the 5 set' and so on, each challenge has a easy and hard option such as, the easy version may allow you to just kickflip over a gap, while the harder version is to do a kickflip and a grab, its nothing new to THPS fans, but its a nice feature. While much of the core gameplay is similar to past Tony Hawk outings the controls set it apart, Its no longer a fast paced arcade style game. The game is much more realistic and strategic. Leaps and bounds not only over Tony Hawk Proving Ground on the wii and the Tony Hawk series in general. My only complaint is I felt the game was far too short, but I will get into more detail with that later.

I’m not going to talk about the multiplayer aspect of the title at all as I didn’t / don’t really have the urge to play with the game with other people, want to know about it, read it elsewhere, IGN is a good start.

Graphics (7 out of 10)

It seems that when it comes to the Wii developers have decided since it cant look as realistic as other consoles, trying to make anything look realistic is a waste of time and we are left with cartoon style graphics, while it was great at first it is starting to become a pain in the ass now, being straighter than a arrow I don’t enjoy the pain. Its not to say they don't look good but I would have prefer something that looked similar to the Tony Hawk games on the last gen consoles, its just a personal preference but what we got was graphics that while not jaggard like many Wii titles are very bland and simple with a ‘bloomish’ effect. It does the job but we all know the Wii is capable of better graphics than these crayon drawings we keep getting.

You better hope you don't stack, or your gonna crack the shits HARD!

One of the most annoying things graphically, I don't know if you disable it, I know I couldn’t! Is the stupid ass 'Hall of Meat' cutscenes every time you bail, while its a 'ok' concept of gameplay to break bones on stacks, making me have to watch a 5-10 second scene every time I bail becomes so annoying I often turned my Wii off when I bailed. It wasn’t needed, its retarded. When your trying to do a challenge it is a pain in the ass that it takes no less than a minute to have 6 tries because you are forced to watch this stupid screen that serves as nothing, even if you don’t break a bone you still have to watch the stupid thing. Its retarded, its useless. I have no idea how a tester missed the annoying factor on it. Get rid of it, its bloody stupid.

Sound (8 out of 10)

You usually assortment of rock, punk and a few hip hop songs you would expect from a skating game, while not on par with the soundtracks of the earlier Tony Hawk titles, it is far better than the more recent installments. The only thing that annoyed me about the music is that there is not a lot of different tracks, something near 20 if I remember correctly, but there are 3 or 4 songs that you can only listen to in free skate, this blows my mind. If you are going to have a modest selection of songs, at least let us listen to them all while we play the main game, stupid and unexplainable choice.

The sound effects are pretty standard, nothing really stands out, what you expect, skate over gravel, its sounds like it, skate over metal and so on. Solid effort.

Replay Value (7 out of 10)

It is kind of hard to comment on the replay value, a lot of the main replay value would come from playing the game through again completing challenges you only completed on easy, on hard. However since I did them all the first time around I found the only 'real' replay value was the 'Hall Of Meat' challenges, such as 'break 10 bones' in a stage. Ok, so they took one of the most annoying parts of the game and tried to add to the length of the game by making it challenges, I think I would break my Wii if I tried to do all these stupid ass challenges, so they don't even really add to the 'replay value' to me. There is also the Milestone challenges which are all like "Manual for 80 years", none of them are an actual challenge it is just if you can be bothered doing the same thing for long periods of time, no idea what happens if you complete them all because this gamer could not be assed to waste my time.

As for the main reason to come back and pick up the controller again in the Tony Hawk series, Unlockables, I have no idea what the unlockables are, I finished the game and don't recall unlocking a anything, no new levels, no new skaters, no skate videos. Skate Videos, if I am wrong and there is a way to unlock them, please someone tell me, it is one of the only reason I ever played the THPS series to much, to unlock those awesome videos, but nothing. SUCKS!

Overall (7.625 out of 10)

While its a good game, other than its control scheme which turns the genre on its ass it has nothing we have no seen before, but so strong is its control scheme that you feel like you are playing a completely new genre of game and not just a rehash of the Tony Hawk series, which is a great thing. Solid effort in the audio department, if it wasn’t for the 'Hall Of Meat' screens the game would have flowed much smoother, but even so it was enjoyable to play through.

Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition

2010-07-13T17:14:00.000-07:00

When Resident Evil 4 was released on the Nintendo Gamecube in early 2005 it made many heads turn, an awesome game that was as graphically violent as it was addictive and it really brought the Resident Evil series back on track and back on top.In late 05 it hit the Playstation 2, with some downgrades such as pre-rendered cut-scenes, downgraded lighting effect (something that played an important part to the feel of the GC version) and downgraded water effects. So how does Resident Evil 4 hold out on Nintendo's new little white box? Does it still have the hard hitting effect it did 2 years ago?
Read on to find out.

Gameplay (Score - 9 / 10)
While nothing has changed in terms of level design, puzzles and enemy's, the overall feel of the game has changed to the point where you can really play this one through again just for the fun you have with beheading enemy's with your wii-mote, and yes despite all those romours of a censored version RE4 comes to us in all its gory glory. As little has changed from the previous installments I will move onto what makes the Wii port what it is, the controls.

The controls are crisp and precise, without a doubt one of the best use of the Wii-Mote we have seen in terms of how well it was implemented, no annoying accidental flics of your wrist and your character spins 180, no accidental reloads. The only downfall I see in the controls is that unlike many games before it on the Wii you no longer control the direction your character is looking via the wii-mote, it is still dont through the analog stick via the nunchuck, you simply aim with the wii mote once you have your weapon drawn. Thats not to say this did not work out well, after a good 10 or 15 minutes in it will feel second nature to you and you will be aiming at enemys heads before even having you weapon drawn. One thing that this really has over the Gamecube and PS2 versions is the button mashing (seen in the running from boulders scenes / to get enemy's off you) has now been swapped over for a simple back and forth motion on your controller, its feels much more natural and before you know it once a enemy has latched onto you you will find yourself frantically swinging the controller left and right. Another natural feeling motion is when you slice horizontally with the wii-mote Leon will slash with his knife, this I must say is something I am really happy with, I use the dagger a lot more now than I did in its counterparts.

Sound (Score - 9 / 10)
The sound, like in the other versions of RE4, is pretty much perfect, it sets the mood and scares you even if theres no action happening on screen, the only The only annoyance I had with the sound is lack of Sorround sound support (which is due to Nintendo, not RE4) but Pro Logic II more than makes up for this loss.

Graphics (Score - 8 / 10)
The graphics are pretty much what you find in the Gamecube version, I have not been able to find any differences that are noticeable in terms of increased texture size or AA levels. It still is a beautiful game to look at with its lighting effects (That were absent in the PS2 version) which still drop jaws to this day, but it doesnt have the same impact that it did 2 years ago. It now has true widescreen support as well as running through 480p. Playing at 480p really gives you an advantage in this game as you can see much further much clearer as well as making the colours all that much more natural and thus scarier. The funny thing about this is that it currently is one of the Wii's most graphically impressive games, and it was created for the last generation Nintendo Console.

Replay Value (Score - 7 / 10)
With no Online/hot seat multiplayer (For obvious reasons) and the fact many people have all ready sat through this title once the replay value is a little short. It does however have all of the extra content that the PS2 port held so that should keep you busy for awhile.

Overall (Score - 8.25 / 10)
Overall this is a well rounded game that shows what Wii owners should expect graphically from games at a minimum. The game plays well as is well worth another play through if you have finished it before. If you have never played Resident Evil 4 before then you are in for one massive treat as this is without a doubt the cream of the crop in terms of the best version to play through. The Wii-Mote is used to its fullest with its dead on accuracy. I highly recommend every Wii owner to get there hands on this. You wont be disappointed. Another thing I would like to point at this game retails a lot cheaper than normal new release Wii games.

Please note: This review was written close to the launch of the game.

First video review, coming soon!

2010-07-06T02:43:00.000-07:00

So I have finally got myself a capture card and plan to start rolling out some video reviews shortly. The first game I have decided to review is the Japanese exclusive for the Super Famicom, Ganbare Goemon 2 which is the sequel to Ganbare Goemon, known as The Legend of the Mystical Ninja in English speaking countries.

I picked both Ganbare Goemon 1 & 2 up for the great price of $8, I had never played either, number 1 is now available via the Virtual Console so I thought why not let people know how number 2 is.

Look for the video soon.

Sega Saturn Swap Trick - Model 2 (Reset Method)

2010-07-01T19:52:00.001-07:00

Here is a small video of the less popular Reset Method of the Saturn Swap Trick, the advantage of this method over the regular non reset method are;

. Much higher success rate (More games work)
. Much looser timing required (Less damage to drive motor as you can take your time)
. Only 1 original game is needed (No need to try 10 originals to get your backup working)

I highly suggest this method over the more common method, sorry this video took so long to get up, it was meant to follow right after the original, but I have only just got around to it.

Enjoy & Stay Retro.

Officially Licensed PS2 Motion Controller - Review

2010-06-05T14:19:00.000-07:00

Here is a quick video review of the Playstation 2 motion controller.

Comments and feedback always welcome.

Saturn Swap Trick - Model 2

2010-06-03T15:03:00.000-07:00

A lot of people seem to have trouble using the swap trick on model 2 a Saturn. Here is a little video I put together I hope it is helpful.

Hopefully more video content / reviews will be on there way.

Little Red Bastard

2010-05-23T15:11:00.000-07:00

Christmas of 1991 was one hell of a Christmas for me. When I was 6 years old, my parents did me a solid and bought me the raddest system on the face of the planet, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The "SNES", if you're nasty. If I'm remembering correctly, Super Mario World was a pack-in game, because I know that I played it all morning that day before leaving to meet up with my extended family for the holiday. I was pretty upset that I had to leave my shiny new console behind, but all of that sorrow and despair flew out the window when I opened up a gift from my aunt. She had bought me a game for my SNES. A game that terrified me the moment I laid eyes on it. A game known simply as "Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts".

Apparently my aunt was torn between buying me that or Final Fight, and I guess the image of a knight fighting zombies was a bit more appropriate for my young impressionable eyes than a picture Mayor Mike Haggar mean-mugging some random thug. The box art for SG'nG scared the crap out of me. I mean, I was 6 years old, and I was afraid of pretty much everything at the time. I didn't let anyone know about my fear of this new game because, well, it was a new game. I couldn't risk having it taken away by my parents, as I had been playing a hand-me-down Intellivision up until that point in time, and my young gamer mind needed to be fed new, cutting edge technology. I was sick of sucking it up at "Burger Time". I needed to suck at a new game. And boy, was this ever the game to satisfy my needs.

We got a chance to play my new game the day after Christmas, and although I was excited to play something new, I was also incredibly nervous. I imagined some horrible ghoul jumping through the television once we powered on the console. My dad popped the game into the SNES and I promptly ran out of the room. The opening cinematic scared me half to death, and the accompanying music makes my heart drop to this day. The terror that this game evoked in me actually contributed to me not really wanting to play it. As a result, I spent the next few months watching my dad play.

Anyone who has ever played SG'nG knows how hard it is. This game is not just difficult, but it will actually rip out your heart and stomp it into the ground if you aren't careful. It is soul crushingly hard. I heard more curse words in the few months it took for my dad to beat this game than I have for the rest of my life up until now. Not only does the game throw a ton of enemies at you, but the fact that you can't change direction mid-jump results in a lot of "oh crap" moments where you can see your death coming but can't actually do anything about it.

The hardest enemy in this game isn't even a boss, in my opinion, and I'm sure many others would agree with me. The hardest enemy in SG'nG is a little red bastard known as Red Arremer, or "SONOFABITCH" as my dad liked to call him. This little demon would fly in at a set point in a level, and fly around erratically, with no apparent pattern. Any time you tried to move forward for an attack, he would fly away and then swoop down for the kill as you were stuck in the middle of a jump. Red Arremer was no joke.

I've since played through SG'nG, although it took me about ten years to build up the courage to try it on my own. The game was as hard as I remembered, but the memories that it brought back gave me the will to play through to the end.

Pandora's Box

2010-05-09T09:46:00.000-07:00

First off, let me just say thanks to emwearz for having me on as a part of The Old Bits! Now, commence the blogging!

While shopping for Mother's Day gifts at the mall last night I made the obligatory trip into one of the two Gamestops that are located within. That's not a typo, there are actually two Gamestops in my local mall. There are also two more separate Gamestops right across the street in two separate mini-malls, which are right next to each other. Mind boggling, no?

So I went into one of the Gamestops and fruitlessly searched for some kind of lost treasure that hadn't been snatched up off the shelves yet, when suddenly something caught my eye. Something big, and beautiful, and expensive as hell. I am referring to this.

As you can tell from the picture, I did end up buying this beautiful box. It set me back a whopping $149.99, which admittedly may seem insane to some. That's the thing though, before I even knew the price, or what was inside, I felt compelled to buy it immediately. The box is just so pretty! Luckily for me, what was inside the box is all kinds of awesome.

Ladies and gents, I present to you the Madcatz Super Street Fighter IV Arcade FightStick Tournament Edition S, of the white variety. Hang on, I may need time to recover from carpal tunnel syndrome after typing out that name...

Now I'm not the best Street Fighter player in the world, but I grew up loving the games. I had every incarnation of Street Fighter II on the SNES, and any time I saw an arcade cabinet with Street Fighter on the marquee, I had to drop everything to play it. Currently, Street Fighter IV and Super Street Fighter IV on the Xbox 360 are both great games that I love to play, but I've never really felt comfortable with the 360 controller. It's functional, but I can't recall how many times I've tried to do Ryu's Ultra Combo, only to accidentally throw a shoryuken instead. After testing this bad boy out for a bit, I think its safe to say that the days of unwanted shoryukens are long gone for me.

I haven't had much time to play with it yet, but once I do I'll try to get a short review up for those who may be interested. It should be particularly awesome for retro-style XBLA games and some of the Game Room stuff!

Stay Retro!

Super Street Fighter IV - Review

2010-05-03T16:59:00.000-07:00

While adding a new feature or two, slapping on a few fresh, or ever old faces and releasing it as a new installment is something that Street Fighter fans are very use to. Most had hoped that Capcom was over these addiction, it seems it really is a creature of habit. With the announcement of Super Street Fighter IV, just a year after the release of the original many were skeptical as to if this latest installment could have worked as DLC. Is it worth paying for more of the same, lets have a look at the up's and down's of Super Street Fighter IV.

The Up’s

The Down’s

8 returning and 2 new characters to boost the playable roster up to 35.
Each character now has 2 Ultra combo's, rather than 1 from the first game.
There has been character balancing, no more Sagat wars.
Smashing cars and barrels mini games from SFII have been added.
Indestructible, the 'theme' from SFIV is gone, thank god for that.

The new announcer sounds utterly horrid compared to announcer for SFIV.
There has been no major changes to game play, no 'real' new features have been added, it is much more of the same.
The exclusive content that was promised to SFIV owners is two 'colors'.
T-Hawk seems unbalanced at a first glance.
The time trial and survival modes have been removed, which was a big part of the offline experience.

While for Street Fighter fans, it is always nice to have updates, even if it sets us back quite a bit of money, unless you are a fan of fighters, you could easily skip this installment.

JFE2 Says

“I haven't had too much time to play around with SSFIV just yet, but the time that I have spent with it has been nothing short of spectacular. The opening movie alone made me unashamedly giddy like a school girl! Seriously, I could watch that on a loop for the rest of my life and it would never lose its sense of awesomeness.

The gameplay itself has been tweaked ever so slightly, but all for the better. I messed around with Ryu a bit and found his new Ultra to be particularly nice looking. I have yet to really test out the practicality of it, but you can't deny how absolutely epic that shoryuken looks.

I tried playing as Guy for a bit, and he seems to play a lot like his SF Alpha incarnation, which I liked quite a bit. The other new characters all seem interesting enough for me to at least try and mess around with. Juri in particular looks like she would be fun to play as.

Expect some more fleshed out thoughts when I get some more time with the game!”

Stay Retro.

The Old News

2010-05-03T02:18:00.000-07:00

Just to let everyone know we are still alive and on the verge of becoming much more regular with updates. Just to recap on what is happening, JFE2, of The Joy of Gaming has joined on with The Old Bits and will be writing articles / reviews in the future.

Also have a new section starting very soon titled "Up's & Down's" which will consist of short, point form, reviews of games based on there Pro's and Con's, or Up's & Down's.

And finally myself, and hopefully JFE2 will be getting hold of video capture devices so that in the future all screen shots, videos and other media will all be original content.

Stay Retro,
Stay Tuned!

Rocky VII - Activision

2010-04-17T14:33:00.000-07:00

So hot topic on the net is the long and bloated story of Activision being a bunch of wankers and many key members of Infinity Ward (Creators of the Call Of Duty series) walking from the company, some people seem slightly confused over what is happening so I thought I would sum it up in my own, short words.

Infinity Ward's contract with Activision runs out soon
Activision want them to make another Modern Warfare title before it does
Activision have hardly paid Infinity Ward anything for MW2
Infinity Ward are walking

So there are two things to keep in mind with this, one is that without the big guns that are walking from Infinity Ward, Modern Warfare 3 will most likely seriously suck, not to mention, completely and utterly filled to the tip with bugs, not only because they will have a less experienced staff working on the title, but because they have barely any time to develop it before the contract runs out.

This is pretty much what a swastika looks like today.

Basic point Modern Warfare 3 is going to suck, Activisions fault.

Considering how Infinity Ward was formed out of the ashes of 2015, who developed Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, the circle is finally complete with yet another publisher crushing the hopes and dreams of a decent sequal.

In fashion terms, Activision is the new EA.

Stay Retro.

Setups, Puppies and bit of Sega History

2010-04-09T00:18:00.000-07:00

Have not been able to post any new content lately as I have recently purchased a puppy, as everyone who has ever looked after one knows they are a 24/7 job, so I thought I would quickly post up a photo of my current gaming setup and talk about a fairly rare console I own called the Sega SC3000H

So to start off with these are my consoles that are all hooked up, with the exception of the Playstation as I don't have a AV cable for it, however my Playstation gaming is done on my Playstation 2 at any rate.

A little Big Ban is always good.

So from top to bottom starting from the left we have Sega Dreamcast, (DVD Player/Digi Box), Xbox 360, Wii, NES, Playstation 2, Xbox, Snes, N64, Sega Saturn (Japanese), Playstation, Sega Megadrive. I have most of what I am after in terms of consoles, I wont lie I would love to get my hands on a Neo Geo, Master System and a few others but at the moment everything I wanted, and quite a few more, I have. I do plan on getting a Gamecube, even though I use my Wii via Component cables, if only to use it for the Gameboy Player. I also have a boxed Sega SC3000H, which not a lot of people know about, it is basicly a Sega Mark I with a built in keyboard that could also have bunch of add-ons such as a tape player, etc.

Sega History, right here.

I dont have any Mark I controllers or Mark I carts for it, I have tested it out with the Basic cart that is pictured, so I know it works, it might just take awhile for me to come across a controller and game for it, but one day.

Scrap Yard Mame Project: Entry #1

2010-03-22T18:36:00.000-07:00

For a long time I have wanted an Arcade Cabinet, but not only are they too expensive, they take up more room than I have free, after looking into mini arcade cabinets the price factor was still fairly high with people reporting prices of $500 - $900+, so an idea hit me, why not try to build one with nothing but recycled parts, as so I have set up a small challenge as my next project, a "Scrap Yard Mame Cabinet", it will most likely take awhile to complete as I have no idea when I will find resources, but these are the rules I have set myself.

My Pixel art is awesome! Roughest mockup, EVER.

Scrap Yard Mame Cabinet Challenge Rules
. All construction material must be found in the wild
If you hunt around on hard rubbish collection days there is a massive amount of wood out there for the takings, not to mention half finished tins of paint and other things that can be recycled for use on the cab.

.Electrical components must be found in the wild / free
Again there are heaps of old computers that people put in there hard rubbish for collection that can be reused for the guts of your arcade cab, you don't need much power for a mame computer, so be on the lookout. People through out CRT screens all the time!

.Things that can be purchased
While most of the things people can pay up to $500+ for in a mame arcade cab can be found in the wild at the nice price of $0, some things such as the buttons and joystick generally can not so for that purpose the following items cam be purchased.

. Arcade controls
. Screws, glue, other construction needs
. Perspex for the screen, though if free options are available, I will use them
. Items for finishing touches (While the cab may be completed I may wish to buy some decals, etc to give it that 'arcade' feel

At the moment I have an AMD 64 rig with 1.5gb of mismatched DDR ram which I have got from random computers being thrown away as hard rubbish and at TAFE as well as a 7600GT is from a random old rig, I don't remember ow I came into its possession, but it didn't cost me a penny. I do not have a case, but this is fine for what I am after as it will be smaller and have better air flow. I also have a 40GB SATA drive that was being thrown out (It was in an unopened static bag) in someones hard rubbish, I am yet to test the set up, as I don't have a power button, but I will bridge the connection and test everything sometime soon.

So far I have collected most of the 'guts' for my cab.

Keep an eye out for updates on the project, but keep in mind it will take quite a long time to not only build and put together, but to gather resources, so lets find out just how cheaply someone can make a Table Top Arcade Cabinet.

Stay Retro!

The Hunt For Red Ram-Tober...

2010-03-17T18:30:00.000-07:00

So I didn't quite pull off the title like I thought I would, but oh well!

So after a few months of solid searching I finally found a Nintendo 64 Expansion Pak at a decent price, while I have seen them floating around eBay for $20-$30aud I wasn't that desperate for one as I only owned two games that used it (And only 1 that required it) but none the less it has been on my list and I finally found one for the lovely price of $13, which is cheaper than I had seen 3rd party ones go for, and I have heard reports of those damaging N64's so I decided to stay away.

Finally a bit more 'umph' under that hood.

I wont give a review or anything like that but just wanted to give my thoughts on it, take in to account I only own two games that use it, which are Star Wars Pod Racer and Perfect Dark. Pod Racer lets you up the Res of the game, and I have to say it makes a massive difference, once you play on Hi-Res for a few minutes, switch it back and the screen suddenly looks overtly blurry, it still has short comings compared to the Dreamcast version, such as lack of Music, but this differently brings them much closer in terms of graphics. Perfect Dark needs to Pak to play the single player campaign, when you switch from lo-Res to hi-Res the difference again is pretty massive. If you own any games that can use the Expansion Pak (Or if you wish to get the select few games that require it) then I highly suggest picking one up, if you can find one at a decent price. If I ever get my hands on a capture card I will upload some comparisons, as taking photo's of the TV doesn't do it justice.

To be able to play Zelda MM / DK64 / P-Dark, its worth it alone, there are just some bonuses in a handful of other games which you might own which will have a small but worthwhile face lift.

PS: I was shocked at the amount of videos I had seen showing people how to remove the jumper pak without the key that was originally supplied with the Expansion Pak, use the lid off the casing, it took 10 seconds.

Stay Retro.

Sticky Situations

2010-03-11T00:12:00.001-08:00

Haha, Sorry for the lame title, but I had to do it!

Anyway, today while I was in a Cash Converters (Which is a Pawn Broker chain), on my normal hunt for a retro piece of gold two things happened.

I saw a boxed Game & Watch of Donkey Kong.
I saw there was a security sticker, the type that destroys everything it touches, right there on the box.

So I went from being very excited (that would have to be the coolest thing I had ever seen at a Cash Converters, and if it was not so pricey I would have added it to my collection.) to being pissed off at the fact that they had wrecked such a awesome piece of history by plastering sticker that would utterly destroy the reason they were selling it for so much.

A classic being destroyed.

Looking for the answer I knew I would get I asked the lady who worked in the store why it was so expensive, she replied because it was a rare collectors item and made rarer because it had the box, I then asked her why the sticker was on the box if it was part of the reason it was so expensive and she replied for secuirty / insurance reasons. At this point I asked to look at the Gameboy games they had on display and purchased The Castlevania Adventure for the Gameboy, but I will come back to that in a moment. What really bugged me about this answer was that not only would the sticker wreck the box, the reason is was so pricey, but the reason given, secuirty, was made redundant by the fact it was placed it a locked glass display case!

With the Donkey Kong thing out of my system, I got home, ready to play some Castlevania Adventure on my Super Gameboy, so I removed (read: Fail) the sticker from the back and this happened.

I have seen this too many times!

I swear I did'nt even try to do this, it happened when I peeled back one carner and pulled, it was'nt even until after this happened that I thought of blogging this. I know what your thinking cant you just pick the reast off with your nail, well I did that and it looked like this.

What a mess, sticky!

I could'nt get any more off with my nails, so I had to get out a cloth and some rubbing alcohol and rub the rest off, in the end I got it looking pretty good and you could'nt really notice that the sticker was there, but I mean why for the love of god do they need to put these kind of stickers on things when they are in a locked display case, its one thing to clean up a cart, but it is another thing when you put it on the box! A piece of cardboard! It blows my mind, cant they stick it on the inside of the box. There have been times when I have gone in, seen a game, seen the sticker across the label of the cart and not purchased the game. If you jack the price on something because it is a 'collectors item' treat it like one!

Did I really need to go through all that effort?

Anyway, after all of that effort to clean the game, I am off to play some Castlevania Adventure, I have the Wii 'Rebirth' so it will be interesting to see how they compare.

Stay Retro.

Super Famicom Bootlegs

2010-03-09T20:13:00.000-08:00

So I bought a copy of Super Mario Collection for the Super Famicom, known as Super Mario All Stars to the English speaking world from eBay for the great price of $6. Well of course it was too good to be true because when I unwrapped my shinny new game it was a Bootleg. I thought I would post some pictures and point out some of the tells of bootleg games.

So in these photos you can see a bootleg of Super Mario Collection side by side with a real version of Super Street Fighter II Turbo for the Super Famicom.

Notice how the bootleg is a slightly different color, this can be hard to notice if it is not placed next to a real cart.

It can be pretty hard to tell from the front of the cart, while some have low quality labels which is a dead give away, this bootleg is pretty hard to spot from the front on, especially because the screws used are gamebit, the same type Nintendo use, most times you find bootlegs the use Phillips head or other common screws. So lets flip it over and have a look at the back of the cart.

There are so many giveaways that the cart on the left is a bootleg.

So lets kick off with the most obvious things wrong with the cart, first of all there is no Nintendo stamp. On a real Super Famicom cart there should be a stamp on the top end of the cart that reads NINTENDO, Super Famicom, Cassette, Model No, etc. On the bootleg this is missing as well as the warning being stamped rather than the sticker that is on regular carts. Also the 'holes' oposite the screws look differant.

Bootleg on the left, real cart on the right.

Another giveaway on this cart is the grooves on the left and ride hand side of the carts, all my real carts have five, but the bootleg has six.

Again, this can be hard to notice if your not looking for it.

The bootleg itself works perfectly, it even saves, which as far as bootlegs go is pretty hit or miss.

Just a small add-on, here are front and back images of what the real version of Super Mario Collection looks like, thanks to reagan of Racketboy for the images.

Hope you enjoyed reading,
Stay Retro.