Bowser’s Weekend With The Kids
Our video of the day comes from Dorkly and showcases browsers weekend with the kids and the trouble that can arise during his princess kidnapping and war with Mario.
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Month: June 2012
Super Mario Land
The gameplay is quite good. Just think of Super Mario in a portable handheld and that should say enough. You jump, you get power ups and of course you stomp on bad guys. It’s sort of odd that when you jump on a koopa he turns into a bomb….totally odd indeed! Also, what’s with the flower power giving you one ball of fire that bounces all over the screen. I’m guessing they did it on purpose to help keep the gameplay from slowing down. Oh well, good nonetheless. With only four worlds the game is quite fun to come back to. There are secrets hidden everywhere so you can always accomplish your goals in different ways. The game itself is fun overall! A 2 player race mode would’ve made it supreme and increased its replay value in masses!
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TGI Trading Card Profiles: Brian Cady
Brian Cady enjoys maintaining and restoring classic pinball and arcade games as much as he enjoys playing them. He was inducted into the International Video Game Hall of Fame as part of the inaugural 2010 group, is the Vice President of the non-profit organization that produces the Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show and is the Senior Twin Galaxies Referee for pinball. Brian has worked in the IT field for over 15 years and held leadership positions at IBM, Washington Mutual and Microsoft. He also enjoys photography and writing and has had numerous articles published including several in the Pin-Game Journal. Brian lives in Bonney Lake, Washington with his wife Shirley (who has the world record on Sky-Line) and three children.
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Jetpac
Developed by Tim and Chris Stamper, the founders of Ultimate, Jetpac is a simple game as you might expect, and it stars Jetman. It’s your job to guide him around the single-screen stages to reassemble his rocket and then refuel it by collecting the fuel pods that fall onto the screen one by one. On most stages after this he’ll just need to refuel it but every now and then there will be a new rocket to reassemble and he’ll have to repeat the whole process from scratch. Jetman can fly using the titular device for indefinite periods and is also armed with a laser to take out the endless swarms of aliens that drift across the screen attempting to stop him from half-inching their resources (such as precious metals and gems), which also drop onto the screen periodically and can be collected for bonus points.
Read MoreGuild Wars 2 Release Date: August 28, 2012
Building on sales of more than seven million units of the original game, Guild Wars 2 redefines massively multiplayer online roleplaying games with visceral, action-oriented combat; a gorgeous, living world full of constantly evolving dynamic events; customizable personal storylines that are unique to each player; intense Player vs. Player combat between small teams or massive armies; and most importantly, a shared online world where players work together as allies instead of as rivals — all with no monthly subscription fee.
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Atari’s Greatest Hits: Free Games for Mobile Devices
Relive the Golden Age of Gaming with a collection of the most popular retro games from the 70s and 80s. This extensive catalog pays homage to each of the originals, with controls designed to mimic what Atari fans remember from 30 years ago! For those who love the classic gaming experience, this handheld breakthrough is sure to guarantee hours of fun.
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TGI Trading Card Profiles: Eric R. Cummings
It’s an NES RPG by Capcom based on events that took place in Second Century China that first puts you in the shoes of Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei (The same guys from the ROTK and Dynasty Warriors series by Koei) to quell the Yellow Turban Rebellion. At first it seems like a Dragon Warrior clone in which your party moves at a high speed but upon further inspection, it’s a cool history lesson wrapped in the guise of an entertaining video game. Battles are fought in two ways, turn based and strategic with weapons and magic or a quick fight option where everyone fights at a high speed until stopped or one party is wiped out. The coolest thing about the game is the ability to recruit hundreds of defeated opponents to add to your stable of generals and incorporate them into your 5 man (7 man total, 2 in reserve) battle party.
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Bomb Jack
It’s not all easy going for Jack, he has to avoid various monsters and aliens that chase him around the screen. However, if you collect the powerball when it appears, it freezes the baddies for a short period of time, during which, you can kill them simply by touching them. There are other items to be picked up that give you additional bonus points or extra credits. The game starts to repeat after Level 18. However, you will be too busy darting around the screen, collecting bombs to notice. Bomb Jack is one of those old games that invoke memories of playing it at the corner shop or fish’n chips store across your school. I know, it does for me. Most of my pocket money went into playing this game. It kept me out of trouble, which is always a good thing.
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First Steps: The Secret World
Once you are in combat, I will say it reminded me of Left for Dead in a good way. You start off with a shotgun and two basic attacks and get used to aiming and moving while firing. The combat felt fluid and was not boring nor easy which again, is a good thing. Very soon, you get two more powers, one that slows your enemies and a powerful attack you use on the bigger enemies. Right before the big battle you get a heal spell that you will take use off right away. This tells me the idea is to allow you to stand alone and not depend on the holy trinity of Tank, Healer, DPS.
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Arcade classic Donkey Kong Junior is turning 30
According to trademark filings, Donkey Kong Junior first appeared publically on June 30, 1982. The suffix in the title was spelled as “Jr.” in Japan but “Junior” in North America. Later home releases moved toward the shorter version, appearing as “Donkey Kong Jr.” Despite the original longer version of the name the shorter suffix is the most common spelling of the game title worldwide. “I remember Donkey Kong Junior getting a lot of attention in the arcades,” said Mark Kiehl, the all-time high score champion on the arcade classic. “People were excited about a sequel to Donkey Kong.”
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TGI Trading Card Profiles: Rudy J. Ferretti
This game was the ONLY reason I rushed home from school each day to play the NES, I was intrigued by the colors, the originality and the secrets. I loved the idea of being a Vampire Hunter locked inside a castle and no way to turn back, scoring points and learning how to defeat and master the game and the enemies and bosses. The music was so advanced for it’s time and I could remember playing it in my head and talking about it at recess at school, and the problems we had with certain enemies and bosses in the game, and although there were games similar to this game out there, NOTHING compares to the game and the series in itself, and everyone one of them were unique in their own way, I will and have always been a fan dark/evil games and movies but, this game and series is prob the biggest reason why I started playing the NES…
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Hero’s Quest
You could play Hero Quest either as a Fighter, Magic-User, or Thief. The game’s puzzles were designed so that they could be solved in different ways by the different character classes, and you could improve your character’s skills and inventory as you played the game. It played as an adventure game, where your character completed quests and solved puzzles, moving the storyline to its epic finish. By today’s PC game standards, the graphics and sound are rudimentary at best, with your hero looking a bit like a stick figure jerkily moving about the screen. But a good retro gamer never judges an old game by today’s standards! The storyline is strong, and can still be fun to play today.
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TGI Trading Card Profiles: Patrick Scott Patterson
Patrick Scott Patterson – After more than 30 years of playing video games, The OriginalPSP has moved into recording gaming history and helping push gaming culture and the people in it into pop culture where he can. Scott competed in numerous gaming contests in the 1990s and stays active today with several world records on both classic and modern gaming platforms.
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The Effect of Diablo 3: Real Money Auction House
The problem I see with the money auction house is people get the fever as soon as they make even a few bucks off the game and so they want to keep working on the inferno level at all times. Obviously, the game is based on progression and nobody wants to go backwards. In this case, helping a friend can cost you money because you could be getting loot or reaching a higher act, which leads to more loot.
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Wolverine
The problem with the NES iteration of Wolverine is that the concept itself, of taking a popular license character and producing a below-average game with him or her as the starring vehicle, was not original at all. However, the parts of this game that are “innovative” are dreadful aspects, like having Wolverine’s claws damage him as they are used. This video game actually would have been much better had it been a little simpler: Have Wolverine’s claws out at all times without being self-damaging, fix the hit-detection oddities, and voila, a decent platformer. Instead, we have a very “meh” game that could be worth some replay value as a very challenging action title, but still only merits one and a half stars out of five.
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Oil’s Well
I thought I’d let you know just what a visually stunning, additively fun and mostly forgotten little gem this 1990 Sierra production is. Well, it is, and its VGA version for our ageing DOS boxes is most probably the best arcade/puzzler this developer ever came up with, though admittedly they did have to remake its earlier 1983 version. Oh, and it would be fair to call this one abandonware. Have a play/look.
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Fans, Get Ready for Spec Ops: The Line
The first two games released in the 90s, Spec Ops: Rangers Lead the Way and Spec Ops: Ranger Team Bravo, were well-received and won plenty of fans. The latest version has voice work by Nolan North who has featured as many different characters over the years including Dead Pool in Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Nathan Drake in Uncharted and Desmond in the Assassin’s Creed series. He is a charismatic voice actor who lends a lot of believability to the character of Captain Martin Walker.
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