Obsolete Gamer

Month: July 2012

The Flash - Sega Master System - Gameplay Screenshot
Sega Master System
Matt McKee

The Flash

The object of the game is to defeat The Trickster, who has somehow become the mayor of Central City. Now, I know his job is tricking people, but am I to believe that he’s smart enough to convince an entire city to vote him into office, then declare Flash a criminal so everyone is against him? Even for an early-90′s comic story, this is ridiculous. The Flash needs to get through various levels of the city to reach/stop Trickster, so there’s a lot of running and jumping. Problem is, while Sonic had this huge, open area….Flash has these little city neighborhoods, and it gets confusing. He really moves too fast to see where you’re going, or sadly, what you’re landing on. Obviously, Trickster’s first order of business was to create huge potholes and spiked-pits throughout…was this the platform on which he ran? Who would have voted for this?

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pitfall-atari-2600
Blog
J.A. Laraque

Mobile Reboot of Pitfall coming soon

It looks as if Activision Leeds is working on a reboot of the Atari 2600 classic Pitfall. In the original game, your goal was to guide Pitfall Harry through a jungle filled with dangerous hazards such as crocodiles, scorpions and even the deadly barrel. “We’ve been working on Pitfall since earlier in the year when we set up and it has been really good to revisit that and bring it to a modern audience,” Martyn Brown director of Activision communications said. Pitfall celebrates its 30th anniversary this year so it makes sense to see a reboot in the works and what better place than a smartphone. A release date has not been established yet, but look for it to be available before the end of the year.

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The Adventures of Bayou Billy-NES-Gameplay-screenshot
NES
Eric Bailey

The Adventures of Bayou Billy

And now we come to the reason why this game earned notoriety and an appearance on Captain N: It was overwhelmingly difficult! Rumor has it that the Japanese release was too easy, so for the international version they gave the enemies triple the life energy and lowered the ammo on shooting levels. Despite having practice modes for each of the three types of Bayou Billy levels, the entire ordeal is still excruciating and nightmarish. Only hardcore gamers should bother seeking this one out for its ardent, horrifying difficultly level. All others can safely stay away, leaving this to score a mild two stars out of five.

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Game Reviews
J.A. Laraque

Raccoon vs Possum

In life, you will run across those that will boldly take from you and no have a care in the world. Fight as you may you soon realize it is hopeless and search elsewhere for scraps. Sadly this is a truthisum even in the animal world as you will see in this video. Take notice of how the Raccoon does not give a care what the opossum thinks.

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Video Game Cakes
Blog
J.A. Laraque

Video Game Cakes

When you are a kid, most of the time when your birthday rolls around you are thinking about the gifts first and maybe the party second. While some people view a card with the right words as a thoughtful gift for us gamers, the best gift might just be the right cake to go along with whatever game or system you happened to buy us. Here are some lucky people who got some awesome video game related cakes for their birthday. By the way, my birthday is February 19th, just saying.

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3-D Bomberman-gameplay screenshot
MSX
Simon Lethbridge

3-D Bomberman

Usually when writing about a game I try to remain impartial and detail the various facts and figures of a game before praising or criticising it accordingly, but this game is different. It is, you see, quite literally the original Bomberman but from a first-person viewpoint. This would be a concerning prospect on a modern consoles but on an MSX? It is, quite frankly, terrifying. The first problem is that all the walls are red with nothing to differentiate ‘soft blocks’, or destroyable parts of the wall. This means there’s lots of identical-looking corridors that you’ll most likely end up walking around aimlessly. If you walk into a dead-end, it’s a good bet that it’s a soft block in your way, so you can try laying a bomb. The viewpoint also makes it difficult to judge distance accurately though, so you’ll have to run far away to be sure of avoiding the blast (which looks like a untuned TV).

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The History of Sonic the Hedgehog
Blog
J.A. Laraque

Pre-Order The History Of Sonic The Hedgehog

The History of Sonic The Hedgehog covers every 2D and 3D Sonic game in detail, ensuring that every generation of ‘Sonic’ fan will find a lot to love! The book also details every spin-off game, every crossover, and even rare cameo appearances by Sonic across the gaming universe! Whether you’re looking for a detailed history, character profiles, promotional art, game packages, or even rare concept art, you’ll find it in The History of Sonic The Hedgehog! The History of Sonic The Hedgehog is the book that fans of this series have been waiting for, and whether you’re an avid gamer, a Sonic comic reader, or just have fond memories of this series, you’ll want a copy on your shelf!

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know your history
Blog
Patrick Scott Patterson

Mythbusting six common video game trivia mistakes

Another very common error, despite being easy to disprove with a quick Google search. I’ve heard people tell me that “Jumpman” was the name for Mario in the original Donkey Kong arcade game, with some going so far as to tell me he wasn’t even named Mario until Donkey Kong Junior or even the original Mario Bros. None of this is quite correct. While it is true that Mario’s working name was Jumpman, and that the instructions on the original arcade version do call him that, the name of Mario came along before Nintendo was even pushing Donkey Kongmachines out the door. The original advertising flyer, released at the time the game was released, refers to the character as Mario numerous times

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nightsintodreams
Blog
J.A. Laraque

Nights: HD Release

Chris Olson, Vice President of Digital Business at SEGA, said in the official announcement: ”The SEGA Saturn offered many unique gaming experiences, and NiGHTS into dreams… stands out as one of the most recognizable titles that found a home on the system. We’ve gotten a lot of requests about this game over the years, and are very happy to be able to give both former Saturn owners and new players a chance to play it in its most beautiful form to date this fall.”

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Links 386 Pro
DOS GamesPC
Dan Epp

Links 386 Pro

But this game had more than just great graphics. The sound quality was outstanding: the whoosh of the club, the smack of the ball, the glorious sound of the ball entering the cup, all this and more enhanced the experience of and the illusion of actually “being there” on the links. Players could mulligan their shots (but it would show up on their scorecard). You could preview the course and analyze the grade of the shot. You could even split the screen to watch the ball coming and going from different angles! So many features added to the enjoyment of the game.

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synthboy
Hardware
J.A. Laraque

Synthboy

Dust off that first gen Gameboy as we have a very cool interface dock that converts the handheld gaming system into a state of the art 8-bit sound machine. There is a growing community of musicians and audio artists that are using these old gaming system sounds. We have used some of the achievements from the 8-bit community and created the SYNTHBOY+. Easy to plug into your mixer or home stereo with all of the various outputs. Midi IN/OUT makes it easy to connect to almost any keyboard. We have a limited number of units available on Kickstarter.com.

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