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Entries in video games (16)

Thursday
Jul212016

NES Classic Edition and My SNES Classic Picks

Much to the surprise of myself and many others, Nintendo recently announced a new product aimed at capitalizing on the nostalgia of its ‘classic’ titles of yore. The “NES Classic Edition” is a tiny NES console that comes equipped with 30 games ready to play out of the box, and modern HD sensibilities to boot. This in itself is not a new idea, Colleco and Atari have been selling similar items at drug and grocery stores for years, but I was still caught off-guard upon hearing this announcement. Nintendo has been taking advantage of their massive back catalog of well-loved titles via the Nintendo eShop and virtual console for years as well, but considering their nature and history of conservative brand protection, new hardware for retro games was not the direction I thought the company was moving towards, even with the recent heightened popularity of all things 80s and 90s.

The response of the masses seems positive, and I think Nintendo’s broad appeal shines even brighter when the focus is put on the games that many young adults grew up with. I have interacted with several people who do not traditionally purchase many video games, but are ecstatic to have a quick and easy way to play their childhood favorites, and even introduce some of those classics to children of their own. I don't need to repeat all the news stories and coverage, so if you want to check out some more information about specifics or see the list of included games you can check out Nintendo’s announcement here! 

Outside of all that excitement, what really got my mind racing was the idea that they could do this same product, but for my childhood favorite console: The Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Nintendo already has the emulation system and hardware figured out, especially now with the new 3DS sporting a brand new SNES eShop, and if the NES Classic is successful, I imagine a SNES Classic Edition is not far to follow. So with that, I bring you my personal list of what I think would make for a great SNES Classic console, following in the footsteps of some of the NES game choices, popular titles, and games I remember fondly as a young person. (Many of which I often still play today!)

My SNES Classic Edition 30:

 

  • ActRaiser
  • Chrono Trigger
  • Contra III: The Alien Wars
  • Donkey Kong Country
  • Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest
  • Earthworm Jim
  • Earthbound
  • Final Fantasy III
  • Final Fight
  • F-Zero
  • Killer Instinct
  • Kirby’s Dreamland 3
  • Kirby Superstar
  • Mega Man X
  • Mortal Kombat II
  • NBA Jam
  • Secret of Mana
  • Street Fighter 2: Turbo
  • Sunset Riders
  • Super Castlevania IV
  • Super Mario Kart
  • Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
  • Super Mario World
  • Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island
  • Super Metroid
  • Super Punch-Out!
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time
  • Tetris Attack
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
  • Zombies Ate My Neighbors

 

There are a few caveats here I wanted to mention as well. I know there are probably some great games that people love not listed here, but I wanted to mention a few things about my decision making process before the internet explodes with comments. I used the 30 games from the NES list as a guide, trying to focus more on Nintendo first-party games and exclusive franchises, and trying to balance genre’s well. There are some notable exclusions here like Star Fox and Pilotwings that use enhanced 3D chips that have been problematic to emulate. Some listed games DO contain them, but are already available on the existing eShop. I think I landed on a pretty solid list nonetheless. (People who love DKC 3 fight me)

What do you guys think? Any games you can’t live without that didn't make the list? Too many RPGs? Not your favorite MK Game? Shout out in the comments!

 

 

Tuesday
Oct092012

Go Play Torchlight II

Needless to say, it's been a great fall when it comes to video games. We are only a couple of weeks into October and there are already countless great titles and game of the year contenders in the little bit of the fall to holidays release window. September brought FTL, The newest World of Warcraft Expansion, and Borderlands 2. Looking ahead to October we have Dishonored, and  a new XCOM and by Christmas we will have a new Halo, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty AND even a new Nintendo console with a whole launch line-up of its own. That being said, there was an awesome and hopefully not overlooked little game that came out just a few weeks ago that you might have heard of called Torchlight 2. And I want to tell you about it, why its awesome, not perfect, but still one of the best $20 I've spent on a game in many moons.

Torchlight 2 is the most recent title from Runic Games, the game company that essentially was at one time Blizzard North, that follows in the footsteps of Diablo II and Torchlight in it's click-fest loot-driven combat. I know what you're thinking "but wait, didn't you write a whole post about how much you didn't like Diablo III, why do you like this game so much?" And honestly I can pinpoint one concrete reason as to why I like it so much, but its game experience as a whole just seems more like a Diablo game than Diablo III. This is likely driven by the fact that a large portion of Diablo II's development team. But despite being the same basic equation, the combination of similarities and unique innovation really shines through as  a unique and fun game.

As mentioned, this game follows the proven equation of click monsters, cast cool spells, level up, get loot, rinse and repeat. On its most basic functional level, it's the same as it always was. It's not anything new and special in that area, but honestly I have trouble knocking it for that since it functions so well. As your character progresses in level, you learn and improve your abilities and increase statistics through points. This is something reminiscent of the original Diablo formula, but has been moved away from in the most recent title in that series that has instead removed skill ranks and statistic scores in favor of new abilities and modifications more frequently. In that sense, going back to some of the original ideas, while also adding some new mechanics makes for a really great gameplay experience from the RPG standpoint. You don't get new abilities frequently, but the abilities are interesting, powerful and there are extra incentives for putting many ranks into one ability. Also, this iteration has included a separate category of passive abilities that can fundamentally change how you play your character.

While passive abilities are nothing new to this genre, they are extremely well implemented. You can choose not to put any points into the if you don't want to, or you can choose to do the total opposite and rely on them heavily for a totally different experience from the same character even when using the same abilities. This adds much needed variety for a set of characters that only have about 21 active abilities each and often they add something completely different and unique in comparison. As an example, the Outlander class is one that primarily uses ranged weapons and has a lot of abilities revolving around powerful shots, throwing knives and poison. That being said, one of the passive abilities causes your shots to have a chance to summon bats that fight by your side, which in tandem with some higher level abilities can allow you to change from a powerful shooting class, to one that uses swarms of shadowy followers to do your dirty work in just a few levels.

The classes themselves are a variety of fantasy archetypes with a few interesting combos thrown into the mix. Two of the classes, the Berserker and the Embermage, are essentially  re-imagining of two of the original Torchlight classes, but with new skill trees to keep things interesting and to allow multiple play styles with the same character.  The other two classes also take some influences from Torchlight but serve more new roles comparatively. I have already mentioned the gun-toting Outlander who is somewhat akin to aspects of both Torchlight's Alchemist and Ranger classes, but the last class is by far my favorite: the Engineer. The Engineer is a heavy weapons, heavy armor kind of class that relies on massive fiery hammers to split the earth in twain, powerful cannons to blow-apart monsters and helpful constructs heal and assist the party. It has some aspects of the Alchemist in its tree full of steam punk  robotics, but its emphasis on powerful defenses and heavy melee weapons with a fiery conclusion just, for my money, made the combat and gameplay more fun than even the long-anticipated Diablo III.

The combat, like every aspect of this game, is fast-paced and fun. You move at a quick but not neck-breaking speed, and the speed of enemies and abilities is subsequently fast. Even the leveling and missions are quick, and it creates an environment of frequent rewards that really makes you want to keep playing. If you are playing with a cooperative group, something that I STRONGLY suggest, the game can move even faster if you get a good group rhythm of destruction rolling through a ridden with the stench of evil. You will level up and gain fame faster than you can keep track of, and despite battles being over quickly and players feeling very strong, the combat never feels cheap, easy, or boring. That being said, not everything about the fast pace is a good thing.

The story and quests really throw a wrench in the pace of the game at times. The story is a pretty simple premise based around one of the characters for the first game becoming a villain and you spending your time chasing them through the world. There is probably more to it, and each act has its own missions to progress personal stories, but despite putting many hours into iti don't know much else. With the speed of the game as it is, especially if you are playing multiplayer, the mediocre story that's in the game borders on being a hindrance. The mission text is read to you in poorly voice acted snippets that if you accept the quest, completely stop. And the same goes when you finish a quest and accept a reward. I was honestly interested in hearing more, but I want to be able to hear it without having to stand and stare at a box of text and quest rewards I couldn't get yet. I generally enjoy a good story-driven game, and I was disappointed to have mechanics and pacing that inhibited consuming the story. A simple fix like allowing voice overs to continue after a quest is accepted or completed would really allow for players of all kinds to get what they want: if you are in a hurry you can cancel or ignore it, otherwise you can listen while you play with your new gear, go shopping or keep on fighting the good fight.

The story's uninteresting plot, nameless characters and downright unnecessary interactions, while seemingly tacked on, does to take away from the experience quite as much as I imagined. Normally when I'm 10-12 hours into a game and I realize that I don't know what's going on in the story I am typically either really disappointed, or just really happy that I've had so much fun without it. This game was some strange middle ground where I was happy how much fun I was having, but disappointed about how much I knew I was missing due to the pace encouraging running through the game at 100 miles per hour. While it did not do justice to the story, the pace did however mesh well with the bold and bright aesthetic of the world.

Torchlight 2 took the clean but cartoony visuals of the first game and ran wild to create the beautiful open world that the first game's dungeon delving predecessor seriously lacked. The overall look of the game just comes out really well, and the cartoon asthetic meshes will with the fast-paced combat and whimiscal general feel of the game.  This game has really hit the sweet spot graphically where its just simple and clean enough to run on any machine looking good, while still holding up graphically to both its predecessors and the current gen. What this game lacks in "Cutting-Edge Graphics" it makes up for in smooth animations, beautiful environments and powerful spell effects. The animation and effects around the spells are some of the best and worst things about this engine, and despite being extremely well done are amongst the only things I had a complaint about graphically. When things get really hectic, which by Act 3 is almost all the time, there are so many spells effects on the screen it becomes very hard to follow. When you have your own spells going off, pets running around, traps, and enemy spells it is not easy to follow everything that is going on, and the handful of deaths I have had so far have almost always been from losing track of my character and standing in fire/poison/lazers ect.

I can attest this somewhat to my color blindness on some level. Battling in chaotic spell effects and standing in things I shouldn't be was a constant struggle for my years as a raider in World of Warcraft and the feeling of dying for no reason brought back fond memories of being laughed at by my old guild for this reason exactly. This is typically how things went down in the heat of battle.All good points and bad points aside, at $20 new this game is better quality and more fun than plenty of $60 titles in the recent past (I'm lookin' at you Resident Evil 6). This game, despite its flaws is easily as good as any Triple-A title on the market, and if you are looking to have a good time by yourself or with friends, this game is far and away worth a buy, even with everything coming out this fall. Go buy it, it will be $20 to support indie games, and I promise some serious fun!

Monday
Sep172012

Spread the Love: Game Grumps

If you are one of the three people in the whole world who play games and HAVEN'T heard of this you are seriously missing out. Game Grumps is a comedic youtube video game show that is a collaboration between two of the funniest guys in gaming media: Egoraptor and JonTron. They take some classic gaming favorites, and play them, and talk over it. Super simple, right? but its sooooooo much more. Well the combination of their brilliant comedic minds, their long history of game involvement and hilarious personalities makes for hours of crazy fun.

They play a huge variety of games ranging from NES classics even up to Super Smash Brothers Brawl. The videos are just the right length to watch and be entertained but doesn't require the intellectual commitment of an intense analysis. They release new content daily, and I guarantee non-stop laughs, and some serious nostalgia when they play your favorite classics of yesteryear.

Seriously. Just go. Watch one, watch them all and I guarantee you will not be sad you did. But I'm warning you now, you might get hooked!

**PS: I will have another post coming up about podcasts, reviews, streaming and some more added features that will be coming soon to Color Blind Gamer**

Friday
Sep142012

If You Have Five Friends, Play Artemis.

If you have not yet had the pleasure of hearing about it, Artemis is an amazing multi-user simulation game that allows one to six players to take up the reins of a space-exploration craff adventuring in "The Final Frontier." Now this is all well and good, the idea of space exploration and piloting a star ship is very old, but Artemis really takes the overused game trope and turns it up to 11.

What makes Artemis so awesome is it's multiplayer simuation aspects. It doesn't just have the standard game controls of a stereotypical space shooter, it actually divides up the control responsibilities to different individuals. This allows you to play the game just by yourself, with some aspects computer controlled, but also allows for you to command a space craft Star Trek bridge style. Each individual takes a station on the bridge of the ship: Tactical for weapons, Comms for communication, Science for scanning and analysis, Helm for piloting, Engineering for managing power, and finally Captain to take command of the ship. Each of the positions has a screen and responsibilities unique to them, and the captain has a large view screen that allows for viewing of every other positions screens on command. The captain as a position does not actually interact with any screens, but is more of a meta-position that, in true captain fashion, commands the other positions, gives out orders and makes the life and death decisions involved in space exploration and combat.

I recently had an opportunity to play as several positions, and not only does it offer an extremely unique and interesting gameplay style, it is just flat out fun! The idea of what is essentially entering the bridge of the Enterprise and carrying out missions may sound less than exciting to some, and by no means is the game perfect, but the immersive experience it creates is almost unmatched, especially for a game of humble independent development and quite the low price tag. It is important to note that this game requires several people and several computers to properly get the true Aretmis experience, and a lack of knowledge or networking hardware can also lead to tricky situations. Even despite the requisite network issues and a handful of program crashes, I can honestly say this is one of the most unique multiplayer gaming experiences I've had in quite some time and I urge everyone with the ability to do so to get together some friends and buy a copy here.  I know $40 may seem steep to some of you, especially for an indie title, but keep in mind that there is no DRM and it can be installed to all six of your users for the same copy, thats only a could of bucks each! Grab the game, bust out the old LAN party router, a few friends and a few beers, and I PROMISE you will not be disappointed in player Artemis!

Monday
Sep102012

Color Blind Storytime: Halo 2

Like many eager young men across the US at midnight on November 9th, 2004 I waited in a long line at a mall just to get my hands on Halo 2 the moment it was released. Little did I know that this would turn into the first in a long, downward spiral of first person shooters wherein the coloration and texture hit the sweetspot that allowed for extremely non-colorblind-friendly imagery.

This was really the first time in the "Modern Era" of 3d games that I really noticed a major problem with my color blindness. The leap in the graphics engine from Halo: Combat Evolved to Halo 2 was quite a drastic change despite being on the same console and only a few years apart. The original Halo had, for the time, amazing graphics and beautiful environments, but most of the outdoor parts were high-contrast and featured a bright blue sky, bright green grass and a multitude of differing colors that really made me appreciate the present and future of games, and it wasn't impossible to play! In contrast, Halo 2 started to move more towards the gritty realism with active lighting and glow and my least favorite gaming trend: lots of brown. I mean, and there were A LOT of locations in the game with beautiful visuals, but at the same time it added more and more unfriendly coloration, especially in multiplayer.

This started a famous trend amongst my friends that almost NEVER worked out in my favor. The biggest egregious failure in color blind friendly design had to be the map 'Burial Mounds' and it became the basis for a famous game type that I have decided to call "let's screw Justin." If you aren't familiar with the map, it's a big, washed out brown map full of brown floors and brown walls and brown rocks. So for happy fun time we at one point decided to do green team vs. brown team on this map and it created the perfect storm of colors. The result: essentially everyone was invisible, even at close range. It was like playing with everyone else having Active Camo but me, and it was hilarious... for about 17 seconds. This did not get played all the time, but for the rest of our Halo 2 LAN party career it became a running joke and was frequently suggested as a game type, much to my chagrin. And still to this day, even though we dont all play games like we used to, I can imagine people would not hesitate to suggest it when we bust out an old game. 

I'm really excited to see more an more companies adding color blind modes to help us out, but it is still a problem in the industry as a whole. I plan on telling more of these stories over time, they seem entertaining to me, maybe I can get some laughs and address some issues. Next time: How I spent a decade thinking something was brown, how it turned out to be green, and how it BLEW MY F@#%*& MIND!