December 2012 – Page 2 – Obsolete Gamer

Final Fantasy Chronicles

The graphics are 16-bit era memorable. Final Fantasy IV has beautiful dungeons and a world map with towns that are very recognizable. As usual, Final Fantasy IV has some of the towns with their shops and villager’s homes. As for Chrono Trigger, it was and probably still stands as one of the most beautiful games ever created in the SNES era. The game is just so atmospheric that you’ll feel as you are part of the story. Moving from time period to time period really drives you different atmospheres and with the help of the beautiful soundtrack, you’ll know exactly where you are.

Blog

J.A. Laraque

Street Fighter X Mega Man Crossover

Since DC faced Marvel comics I have been a fan of epic crossovers and to celebrate 25 years of Street Fighter and Mega Man, (has it been that long?), Capcom is releasing an awesome 8-bit crossover for free on December 17. Just in time for the Holidays you will be able to challenge some of the top Street Fighter characters including Blanka, Ryu, Chun Li,and, Dhalsim with the blue bomber himself.

Editorials

J.A. Laraque

The Death of G4

Now G4 television will be replaced with Esquire television named after the magazine. Along with the name change the channel will see a change in focus from games and technology for gamers to; an “untapped metrosexual viewership,” that will be “more in line with the modern male.” The casualties are already coming in with the announcement of the cancellation of shows like X-Play and Attack of the Show.

Obsolete meets Obscure

J.A. Laraque

Major Lazer Pon De Floor

No video other than the Ghana movies will make you this braindead. Forget LSD, who knew that Eric Wareheim could

Editorials

J.A. Laraque

Subscription fee for Call of Duty Multiplayer?

“I know the game sells billions of dollars. Activision did a bad thing with Call of Duty from a profit perspective,” Pachter said. “They trained gamers that you can buy a game and play it all year, ten hours a week, forever, and you never have to pay again. You just wait for the next Call of Duty. I promise you there are plenty of people, numbering in the millions, who play one game, which is Call of Duty, and they never stop.”

Blog

J.A. Laraque

Bundle In A Box: Eclectic Delights

Having obsessively researched the wild and wonderful world of indie gaming, Bundle In A Box returns and is proud to present the Eclectic Delights bundle. It’s a fine assortment of 9 delightful, quite frankly excellent and truly indie offerings everyone can enjoy for the most reasonable price of “pay-what-you-want”!

Blog

J.A. Laraque

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

After a long hiatus the Obsolete Gamer show is back and better than ever. In this week’s episode we welcome gamer extraordinaire Fatal1ty to the show where we talk about his life as a professional gamer and the challenges of being one of the best. We also talked with indie game developer Mike Oliphant creator of the mobile game Kung Fu Fight and his experiences of being an indie game developer especially in the mobile gaming market. Finally the panel discusses what we have gained and what we have lost in the advancement of video games.

Hardware

Honorabili

Creative Zen Style M300 MP3 Player Review

– One of the first things one can notice about the Zen is its small size. Think of it like a fatter but shorter iPod.
– It is very light and you can hardly notice you are carrying it.
– No software installation required. You can add songs to it in their properly named folders almost as easy as if it were a digital camera.
– Amazing battery life! Up to 20 hours worth of life.
– Cheaper than some Apple products, with almost the same quality of construction. Amazing value!

Blog

J.A. Laraque

Video of the Day: God Hand: Press O to Spank

This video should go under the weird game files, but honestly God Hand itself was a pretty normal if not comical action game developed by Clover Studio and released by Capcom for the PlayStation 2. The game is a beat em up where you play a martial artist that uses the legendary God Hands that can save the world from Demons. In the game you can create long and unique combo attacks kind of like what was used in Killer Instinct. However, what makes this the video of the day is the spanking finishing move that you can only use against female enemies.

DOS Games PC

Konstantinos Dimopoulos

The Adventures of Willy Beamish

I remember its fantastic Dragon’s Lair-esque graphics; they were the first of their sort in a point-and-click adventure. I remember the stunning animations and (low-res, I’m afraid) cartoon quality cut-scenes. I remember the way it showcased the capabilities of my very first PC soundcard. I remember how the story of a nine year old boy trying to competitively play video games while avoiding parental troubles and getting the girl, somehow turned into a ghost infested attempt at foiling an evil corporation. I remember getting sent off to military school and dying a dozen lushly animated deaths. I remember cajoling my in-game parents and entering my frog into competitions. I remember exploring the sanitised darkness of 90s American suburbia and being both shocked and delighted. I remember enjoying the subtle humour. I remember getting hopelessly stuck, but, above all, I warmly remember loving it.

Hardware

Kimimi

The NEC PC-FX Review

This doesn’t mean the PC-FX is lacking in quality affordable titles however, just that such games are difficult to play without some understanding of written Japanese. The system has many remakes of classic titles – ‘Farland Story FX’, ‘Der Langrisser FX’, ‘Power Dolls FX’ (the suffix wasn’t actually used as much as I’m making it out to be), original exclusives like ‘Last Imperial Prince’, ‘Miraculum’ and ‘Kokuu Hyouryo Nirgends’ and even games that ended up finding some success elsewhere – ‘Wakusei Kougekitai Little Cats’, ‘Boundary Gate: Daughter of Kingdom’ and ‘Angelique Special’ all ended up with Saturn or Playstation ports at a later date.

Blog

J.A. Laraque

Video of the Day: Far Cry 3 in Real Life

We love fan made videos and this is a good one. It asks the question, what would Far Cry 3 look like if it were real. This video is really well done and a must see for all FPS fans.

Commodore 64

Simon Lethbridge

Paradroid

I’ve always assumed that this is a rather complicated and puzzley game but the first few minutes I played it were spent moving my amusing-looking droid around shooting all the others I encountered. I suspect it gets more involved than this, however, and that indeed proves to be the case, but not by as much as I thought. As mentioned, the object of the game is to take out all the other droids on each deck of the ship. The humorous droid I spoke of is the very weak one you start off with and a device known as the ‘Influence Device’ allows you to exert control over it. You can move it around the spaceship in the eight basic joystick directions and it can fire an energy weapon in its direction of travel. The decks of the ship vary in size and all but the smallest are divided into numerous rooms. Droids occupy these rooms but you won’t know how many there are until you enter.

NES

Eric Bailey

Wayne’s World

In typical THQ fashion, the level design is less than extraordinary. On the first level, for example, Garth literally just has to walk to the right while firing his gun in order to reach the finish, despite the fact that there is an upper level of bounceable drums to travel across if he wished to. Other stages feature precision-jumping parts, annoying fly-over type enemies who bomb the character, and occasional items dropped to replenish the health bar. This is a bare-bones, minimalist, very basic platformer effort, and tellingly behind the times for a 1993 release. There are also amusing screens between the levels where Wayne and Garth engage in witty banter.