November 2011 – Page 2 – Obsolete Gamer

The Interview: Dave Gilbert: Wadjet Eye Games

You look at a magnificent skyscraper, and it’s hard to imagine that it was something made by people. And a whole city of those things? It’s kind of overwhelming. As cities grow over the centuries (or millennia, in some cases) they develop a personality and history of their own. But New York is kind of special. It’s so prevalent in media – you see New York in movies, television and books all the time – that it’s touched everyone in the world in some way or another. You could live all your life in some isolated little town, but step into New York and it’s like you’ve been there before. I like being in the center of all of that. It’s a kind of energy that inspires me, and that’s obviously reflected in the games I make.

Game Reviews

Luis Zena

Crash Bandicoot

Crash Bandicoot was sought out to be the mascot of Sony just like Mario was the mascot of Nintendo. It worked for a while, until the games went down hill. The best part is that you don’t have to hear about the crappy Crash games, I’ll talk about the good ones here yay! Crash Bandicoot is what a platformer can be if done correctly. This game involves Crash who is trying to defeat this scientist yada yada yada doesn’t matter, it’s the gameplay that counts most of the time, then again some games need to give you a reason to keep playing them, err RPGs anyone?

PlayStation 3

Lady Death

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception

It shouldn’t be new, especially if you enjoyed the last two games, that Nathan Drake is our modern “Indiana Jones” type except with a realistic attitude and personality. The adventure our heroes progress through can be considered such as well with its historical legends, grave digging, and treasure hunting. “Nate” is only human which makes the story that much more agreeable. Naughty Dog has mastered the way of taking something no one has done research on or never seen and coming up with their own background with backup which is created or not.

Pictures

J.A. Laraque

Pic-O-Funny: Checkmate

I was thinking with the whole Herman Kain sexual thing. The lady was quoted saying he tried to push her head into his crotch and she was like “No, I have a boyfriend.” Does this mean if she didn’t she’d be good to go?

Company Representatives Gamer Profiles

J.A. Laraque

Giuseppe Grassi: Aureus Interactive

Pirate: Guybrush Threepwood? That’s the most ridiculous name I’ve ever heard!
Guybrush: Well, what’s your name?
Pirate: [matter-of-factly] My name is Mancomb Seepgood.

Editorials

Simon Lethbridge

Top Five Amiga Shmups

It’s generally accepted that, outside of the arcades at least, shoot ’em ups have always been the province of consoles. There were a few good examples on the Spectrum, Amstrad, Commodore 64, Atari 400 & 800, etc, and the arrival of the more powerful 16-bit machines should’ve heralded even more, but they never really came, despite the genre’s enduring popularity. Few could argue with either the quantity or quality of offerings on the likes of the NES, PC Engine, or MegaDrive, and I myself, in my days as a die-hard Sega fanboy, used to champion the latter console as Lord of Shmups. Of all the computers, however, it was arguably the Commodore Amiga that fared the best with its shmups with not only some decent arcade conversions but also a good few original games too. In fact, I believe all the games in this Top Five were Amiga exclusives! Here they are:

Classic Windows Games Computer Games

Dan Epp

Star Wars: Dark Forces

The action is in the first-person perspective, and unlike DOOM, you can look up and down for your enemies, all the better to locate and eliminate them. Although later in the game series Kyle hears the call of the Jedi, there’s no lightsaber action in this game. However, there are plenty of other weapons to keep you interested, including the Bryar pistol, the standard stormtrooper E-11 blaster rifle, thermal detonators, the absolutely awesome Stouker concussion rifle, and the Dark Trooper assault cannon (the best way to take those bad boys out).

Blog

J.A. Laraque

Ode to Commando

I always sucked at this game. I could never live longer than a few minutes before being shot or blown up or something. Originally, I never even put the film and the game together, but someone did.

Game Reviews

J.A. Laraque

BABYMETAL (さくら学院重音部)「ド・キ・ド・キ☆モーニング」

This weeks music video is brought to you by the letter M for Metal.

Humor

J.A. Laraque

Classic Videogame Politicians

Mike ran on a platform of cleaning up the streets of Metro City and he meant to do it in the blood of his enemies. I guess when you can body slam all your opponents into the concrete and kick an arrow shooting wheelchair bound man out of a high rise you are bound to win the popular vote. Jesse Ventura said Mike was his “Regan” and followed in his footsteps. Currently there has been some scandal as Mike has been seen hiking the appellation trail and caught at other fighting tournaments instead of governing. Mike tried to appease his constituents by giving them the WWE channel for free, but in the end he had to quit after only two years as governor due to “distractions.”

NES

Eric Bailey

10 Yard Fight

That, really, is most of the game. There are very few actual rules intact: Out of bounds applies, as does the four-downs for ten yards system, and crude extra points are “kicked” by pointing toward the goal posts and hitting A after the snap. There are even interceptions, which can potentially occur very frequently, since there does not seem to be any sort of height dimension; if the defender is in line-of-sight of the flight path of the ball, they might just intercept it. Beyond the excitement of such interceptions, play just continues as expected, the winner being whoever has the most points when time expires.

Editorials

Patrick Scott Patterson

Are video games finally being accepted by the mainstream?

Any longtime gamer knows of that gut wrenching feeling that comes along when a mainstream media or entertainment source does a video game story. From news stories that claim violent video games are kid’s toys to Jay Leno jokes that paint gamers as basement dwellers and virgins, it often seems that the industry stats aren’t known by much of what passes as news and entertainment these days.

Editorials

J.A. Laraque

80s Action Heroes: Return of the Sequel?

Action with comedy is a great combination. Who doesn’t want to see Axel Foley assisting the Beverly Hills police to clean up their zone again? After all, Eddie Murphy is still only 50, so he might have time for another whole trilogy. His character was just too likeable for the LA police to really want him out of their town. His (almost) one man army and unusual methods kept audiences captivated. We’d have him back any day even if he moved to another city!

Editorials

Simon Lethbridge

Top Five MegaDrive Platform Games

I’ve owned and enjoyed dozens of them over the years so picking the best five is no easy task. To make it a little easier I decided to not to include any of the MD’s fantastic arcade conversions such as New Zealand Story, Rainbow Islands, etc, and the (at the time) splendid Sonic series only gets one nomination here too. Naturally, run ‘n’ gunners (Shinobi series, Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts, Gunstar Heroes, etc) aren’t included either, and nor are arcade adventures such as Flashback, Puggsy, etc. These categories are all good enough and numerous enough to receive their own Top Fives at some point. So, with all that in mind, here is my five favourite Mega Drive platformers.

Sega Genesis

Matt McKee

Sonic the Hedgehog

One thing that I always loved about this game was you could take different pathways to reach the end of the level. You can, if you choose, run at lightning speeds to reach the end in record time, or slowly collect all of the rings and power-ups. There are a number of vertical platform levels to explore…or not. It’s up to you. There’s not necessarily a set pattern to learn like other platformers. Everything is always in the same place, but the size of the levels and the ‘openness’ make replay-vale high.

Pictures

J.A. Laraque

Pic-O-Funny: Google in the Middle

I honestly believe this best represents what Google is.

Indie Games

Konstantinos Dimopoulos

VVVVVV

Well, VVVVVV is an indie platform game with C64 style graphics, a proper chiptune soundtrack and a rather unique lack of a traditional jump button. It also is quite brilliant. Actually make that the best platform game released since Manic Miner, meaning that I actually do consider it a way better game than any Mario offering you’d care to mention, all Sonic the Hedgehogs ever, Castlevania and, indeed, Jet Set Willy. It’s that good, it is.