snes – Page 2 – Obsolete Gamer

Super Bomberman 4

Each Bomberman game has little things which differentiate it from the one previous. Bomberman 3 was quite innovative in that it had the Louies (Rooies), who were kangaroo type characters that you could ride. When blown up, some of the blocks in the level would reveal an egg you could collect. It would hatch into a Louie & you could ride it. Each Louie has its own special ability. Yes, it’s Bomberman’s version of Yoshi, but we won’t dwell on that as the Louies aren’t in this game. They do come back in Bomberman 5 however.

SNES

Lewis Packwood

U.N. Squadron

Looking back at this game, it’s clear just how much gaming has moved on in the last twenty years, and I even remember thinking at the time that shoot ‘em ups were ‘a bit old-fashioned’. The entire genre is based around repetitiveness, and any attempt at complexity rarely extends beyond choosing which special weapons to equip. Having said that, it’s hard to beat shmups for a pure adrenaline rush, and now that I have less and less time to play games, a quick five-minute blast on a traditional side scroller like this has more and more appeal. U.N. Squadron was certainly one of the better genre efforts, and it’s surely overdue for a revival.

Blog

J.A. Laraque

Classic Gaming at E3 2013

Classic gaming is alive and well at E3 2013. For the last few E3’s there has been a great section reserved for retro gaming. Each year it has grown and this year it was better than ever!

Sega Genesis

Simon Lethbridge

Micro Machines

Unfortunately, this is where the problems start, at least as far as I’m concerned. The single player Challenge mode features a series of twenty four races which includes several courses based on each house location with corresponding vehicle type used. Races are against three CPU vehicles with very simple rules – complete the required number of laps and finish in the highest position possible. If you finish in the top two, you can move on to the next race. If not, you’ll lose a life. All the other play modes feature one-on-one races, whether that’s human vs the computer or another human.

Company Representatives Gamer Profiles

J.A. Laraque

Eva Tran: Spacetime Studios

I really got into the art style and the accessible, modern setting of Earthbound. You hung out with jazz musicians, took the bus and had to call mom when you got homesick. It was a funny, well paced little RPG and it ages pretty well.

SNES

Luis Zena

Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose

The game showcases the usual Konami bad ass options as you’ll only get the true ending by beating the game in hard. Konami used to do this to all of their hit games back in the day to make sure you lived up to their expectations. This game can be quite tough especially in stage five but you’ll be able to go through with enough practice and patience. After all, it’s just another one of those fun games that can stay quite fun even at its hardest moments.

Pirate Games

David William

Castlevania Dracula X

There’s not a whole lot different from this pirated version, except if you look very close at the artwork on the label, it’s not as clear of an image. The game is also in Japanese. Other than that I believe it works like a charm. Thought I’d share a few photos of the game.

TurboGrafx-16

Chris Bucci

Neutopia 2

The game plays a lot like the Legend of Zelda games on the NES and SNES where as you explore a large 2D world taking on tasks and quests in any order you wish. A strange note about this game is at the end it mentions that Neutopia 3 would be coming soon, but no such game was ever released.

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.

Homebrews, Bootlegs & Unreleased Games

David William

Nightmare Busters

The fine folks over at Super Fighter Team have a new run and gun game for the Super Nintendo called Nightmare Busters. The first game made for SNES in 14 years. Works on both SNES and Super Famicom and PAL. The game appears to be pretty awesome. Seems like a mix between Alice in Wonderland meets Castlevania. The colors and graphics are spot on. Play alone or grab a friend to play on the 2 player cooperative mode. Nightmare Busters is available for pre order and is expected to be shipped out 2013. $60 will get you a game cartridge with authentic plastic shell and a full color instruction manual that come inside a sturdy full colored box.

Blog

J.A. Laraque

Animated Nintendo Controller Evolution

Here is a very nicely animated history of some of Nintendo’s controller designs. I remember switching from the classic Atari controller and thinking the NES felt so boxy. Personally, it was the SNES controller that did it for me and to this day it is one of my favorites. The video was animated by Chris Koelsch with music by Heath McNease.

Hardware

Honorabili

Logitech G27 Racing Wheel Review

The shifter is both soft and sturdy. I would compare it to using a shifter in a manual Japanese car like Honda Prelude or Nissan Skyline. The wheel itself has flappy paddles which can be used to much like in a real Ferrari or Lamborghini. It is a matter of personal preference and the G27 provides both the flappy paddles and the normal manual shifter. The wheel part has an LED tachometer, which is color coated green, yellow, and red, which makes using a manual gearbox a more viable option in your game.

Arcade Games

J.A. Laraque

BlazeOn

Now don’t get me wrong if you love these types of games then you’ll understand there is only so much you can do, but the key question becomes, is the gameplay fun. In BlazeOn you fight one against an army of enemies and like R-type you are not always in free open space. You end up traveling inside enemy bases and end up fighting a boss at the end.

SNES

Luis Zena

Mega Man VII

The graphics are quite enriching and beautiful for such a SNES title. Mega Man has never looked more lively and he is quite enjoyable to look at especially when you aren’t doing anything with him and he just stares side to side. You know he wants to shoot at stuff! Either way, all the classic Mega Man characters are here including Proto Man and the introduction of Bass starts in this game as well. They all look sharp and lively, it’s a great sight especially to gamers that were playing 8-bit Mega Man all these years.

Celebrity gamers

J.A. Laraque

Gamer Profile: Pamela Horton

I heard about it from my group of friends who had read articles on it back in 2009. The very first character I ever played was Janna. I was really good with her (or so I thought.) The second character I played was Teemo. It was love at first mushroom kill. He’s so cute! With Teemo I play AP hybrid, starting with boots and pots, building into a malady and a wits end. I always built Magic Resist because I was usually mid with Teemo. I was hard on banks top too. 🙂 I also play an AP support Soraka so my heals and skills do more than your typical support. It tricks the enemy team to blowin their ults and CDs thinking they are going to get a kill. Then they see their target full health and start focusing me. 😀

SNES

Luis Zena

MegaMan X3

Capcom has always been known for having such great soundtracks in their games and this one is like the others. The music is memorable and has its classic Capcom bits all over it. You’ll enjoy this soundtrack as much as the previous X games. The graphics are a little disappointing as they look exactly like the first X game graphics! Even with the help of the FX chip, this game wasn’t able to showcase much better graphical interface. I’m not saying I’m disappointed as Capcom and Mega Man games have always had that similarities on their sequels which is that they don’t change much over their releases. The gameplay is king of these series anyways.

Blog

J.A. Laraque

Killer Instinct Comeback?

Could there be a Killer Instinct remake or sequel in the future? That is the questions being asked after it was discovered that Microsoft has renewed the trademark for the classic fighter. Killer Instinct was originally released by Rare for the SNES in 1994 and featured some incredible combo’s that you could chain together and even connect to your finisher, your ultimate. Also, in its arcade version, was one of the first games to use an internal hard disk drive alongside the games ROM. This was due to the pre-rendered sprites created with Silicon Graphics and the pre-rendered movie-like backgrounds.