January 2013 – Obsolete Gamer

Pitstop II

You also have to be careful how you drive as not only can you run out of fuel but you can also wear out your tyres too. Driving too fast around corners too often, for example, will soon see your car squeal off to the side like a burst balloon and stop dead. This, as well as the fuel situation, can be overcome by making one of the titular pit-stops. These can take some time but are unfortunately necessary if you want to make it to the end of a race in anything resembling a decent position.

Mobile Games

Patrick Scott Patterson

Twonky Beam app review

The video quality of the beamed content was just as good as the content appears within the websites themselves. While using the app only a little buffering was apparent early on in some higher quality videos, but at a level far less than often encountered when playing content straight from the built-in XBox 360 applications. Each HD video used to test the application, once streaming on the television, was indistinguishable from broadcast quality programming.

Hardware

David William

Quick Shot Controller for Sega Genesis Review

So! I received a Quick Shot controller in the mail and gave it a try. I was skeptic at first but I gotta say, all my problems disappeared! The Quick Shot control pad is so awesome! Super accurate and great control. It feels spot on and I’m so glad I found it. The cord is nice too because it’s not so damn thick, easy to roll up.

Game Boy Handheld Games

Simon Reed

Kirby Tilt and Tumble

A s for the game, it’s well suited to the Gameboy and really did deserve to reach a worldwide audience. It has small, manageable maze levels that are suited to quick bursts of play, and is simple enough to be grasped by most players. Stabs of annoyance can occasionally be inflicted through the game’s controls, such as having to flick your gameboy to jump, which temporarily snatches any view you may of the actual screen. Fortunately, foibles such as these aren’t enough to boil over into out and out frustration.

Blog

J.A. Laraque

Growing up in Arcades

This week on the Obsolete Gamer show we reminisce about arcade rooms and the various arcade games and establishments we visited in our youth. Check out the various questions we asked fans on our Fan Book fan page and look for our game where we send in pictures of arcade games where ever we find them.

Indie Games

Konstantinos Dimopoulos

At A Distance

At A Distance, you see, is a psychedelic two-player puzzle game that’s been designed to be played on two computers running side by side. It is a game sporting unique visuals, an amazing atmosphere, fantastic mechanics and an uncanny ability to feel like a collaborative board game that has somehow made it inside a computer. It is thus an original and very much indie offering in which the right player will be looking at something like this:

PlayStation

Luis Zena

Ehrgeiz

The graphics are very good and sharp. The game does deliver some of the best graphics for its day. Squaresoft did a good job making the characters look how they are supposed to. Just think about this, remember how the Final Fantasy VII characters looked in the game? Well, look at them in this game and tell me they don’t look better. Tifa’s boobs are yummier than ever!

NES

Eric Bailey

Barbie

Each “level” of this “game” is actually a dream that Barbie is having, which is a convenient cop-out way to explain the ridiculous elements in each stage. Nonetheless, Barbie is armed to confront her adversaries with projectiles that never seem to hit anything, despite their somewhat potentially interesting mechanic of traveling a certain distance dependent on how long the player holds the B button. It is a shame that the potential of this degree is play control is wasted on such garbage of a video game.

Arcade Games

ausretrogamer

Robotron:2084

With the plot set, the next thing to get your head around playing this game is the dual-joystick control system. The left-hand joystick provides maneuverability (usual eight directions) to evade the robots and also rescue the humans. The right-hand joystick is used to fire the laser gun (also in eight directions) to disintegrate the robots in each wave (level). Once you get the hang of the control system, you will be blasting Grunts, Tanks, Brains and rescuing the hapless humans in no time.

Neo Geo

Kjre Jenkins

Metal Slug 3

The third mission begins in a janky underwater area and the entire stage exemplifies the initial slow pace of MS3 in comparison to other titles in the series. The third mission’s boss is very easy and very generic, which does nothing to prepare you for the little stage of horrors that is the fourth mission. Our zombie friends are back, newly equipped with their own blood-vomit attack, along with Audrey-esque cannibalistic plants. This stage is hard, bloody, and will leave you begging for more.

Xbox 360

Eric Hollis

Skylanders: Giants

Each Skylander represents one of eight different “elements” like fire, wind, technology, or undead. The levels are divided with multiple gates and hidden areas that can only be accessed by certain elements, meaning in order to fully unlock everything the game has to offer you must own at least one character from every element. If you are defeated, the only way to continue the level is by swapping out figures on the fly, making the game near impossible with only the starter set, but very manageable with a stable of Skylanders figures at your disposal.

Hardware

Dan Epp

The Game Genie

Many gamers found this helpful, and different Game Genies were produced for a variety of game consoles, including the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), the Nintendo GameBoy, the Super Nintendo, the Sega Genesis, and the Sega Game Gear. Two different companies distributed the Game Genie over the years it was being manufactured: Galoob and Camerica, one of which (Galoob) was actually sued by Nintendo in an effort to prevent the Game Genie from being sold. Fortunately for many gamers, Nintendo lost their legal battle and had to pay Galoob for damages.

Editorials

Patrick Scott Patterson

Violent video game debate goes back decades

“You cannot tell me that a kid sitting in a basement for hours playing Call of Duty and killing people over and over and over again does not desensitize that child to the real life effects of violence,” Christie said. The topic of video game violence has been going on almost since the day the general public first became aware of video games. In 1976, Exidy’s Death Race became the first video game to spark such discussion. A game which challenged players to run over stick figures with cars,Death Race made national news headlines on shows such as 60 Minutes and created such an outcry that many video arcades removed the game.

Game Boy Handheld Games

Simon Reed

Gex: Enter The Gecko (GBC)

Most noticeable is that the game uses ‘B’ to progress through menus and jump, which goes against the unwritten rule that ‘A’ is the main button. The fact that this is one of the most noticeable elements of the game does not bode well. Actually, the controls are generally rubbish (walk more than a few consecutive steps and the green one breaks into a run) and level design is of a labyrinth rather than linear nature, which helps brew up a sense of confusion after playing only for a few minutes. A lack of map doesn’t help either.

Pop Culture

David William

Games & Candy 3

Found some neat arcade/video game toys and candy at a candy store the other day.

Commodore Amiga

Simon Lethbridge

Happy Monster

Actually, now that I think about it, this must be how Mr. Neelsen was able to fund his F-Zero exploits. Oh well, he’s no worse than Zoda I suppose. Whether the F-Zero tournaments are tainted or not, our hero is gifted with only the basic platforming actions here. He can drop down through platforms, and he can fall an unlimited distance without harm, but contact from any monsters causes instant death. By means of offensive abilities, he can shoot fireballs from his torso to take out the monsters, of which there are several colours which determines their speed and how many hits they take to defeat, but he can only jump a short height.

Pop Culture

J.A. Laraque

The Healthy Gamer

This week on the Obsolete Gamer show we had the chance to speak with Dr. Jean-Philippe Chaput on his research study on video game playing and the increase in food intake. We discussed the effects of video games on the body and how it can result in weight gain due to overeating and how even motion games like the Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect may not be the answer. There has been many articles on gamers health including the effects it can have on your life. However many focus only on the negative effects and not so much on how to game and still remain healthy and safe. On the panel we discussed various ways to be a healthy gamer as well as the negative effects of playing video games for to long.