Volume
4, Issue 6 - June 2005 |
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Also Featuring: Andrew Raub, Richard Franzen, Bruno Tarancon, Geoff Keighley, "Leisure Suit Larry Used to be Good" and "No Really, He Doesn't Ever Leave" |
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At precisely 8:46 PM on Friday, May the 27th, my Nintendo Entertainment System was declared dead by a team of video game experts. (aka, me.)
It is survived by a Colecovision, an Intellivision, an Atari 2600, a Sega Master System, a Sega Genesis, a Sega 32x, a Sega CD, a Sega Dreamcast, a Super Nintendo, a Nintendo 64, a GameCube, a Game Boy, a Game Boy Color, a Game Boy Advance, a Game Gear, an Xbox, a PlayStation 2, and an empty place in my heart.
It is not known exactly when my NES passed away, but it died while I was off at college. I left the Nintendo at my parents' house, taking with me only the current-gen systems (plus my Super Nintendo—goodness knows I couldn't go a few months without playing Taz-Mania!). Alone it sat in my old room, amidst a sea of empty Mountain Dew cans and nice shoes that don't ever get worn. Alone it spent its days, weeks, and months, with only a few assorted insects to keep it company. And they sure weren't about to play Balloon Fight.
This NES was the very first system I ever owned. Well, "owned" probably isn't the correct word; technically, it belonged to my older brothers. But it was the first system I ever played. It's the system that weaned me on video games, that taught me that eating flowers makes me spit fire, and that jumping on turtles is a right good pastime.
And now it's gone, and I won't be able to play another round of Karnov until I find a new one.
Learn from my mistakes, my
younglings.
Don't let what happened to my Nintendo happen to one of your consoles. Don't completely forgo
the classic systems of our past for the newer, fancier, soulless models of
today. This is what GameCola's all about, after all—making
sure everyone remembers the older consoles can still be fun. Don't let
our past die of neglect. 
Love,
Paul Franzen
Editor-in-Chief
e-mail: pfranzen@gamecola.net
P.S. GameCola is now YOUR number four source for knob-polishing. Check it out.
II. 
Letters:
I loved the Ten GameMandments cos I've been
more than peeved off by the stupidity of the button assignments...plus the fact
they don't include the option to redefine the controls!!!!!
GGRRRRRR!!!!!! : )
- Matteous
- Sorry we don't have a GameMandment for you this month, man! E-mail sgipp@gamecola.net
if you're not satisfied with this development.
I'm not sure what my favorite part of this issue was, because I have a notoriously short attention span, and GameCola is longer than three words, but I do know that my favorite part of next issue is when you send me that Double Dare book.
- Zack
- Too bad it didn't actually work out that way, eh? Ah well, try again this
month—you could win yourself a copy of Diablo II... in German.
The table of contents... I mean, the end... I mean, the Resident Evil 4 review, yeah!
- Andrew Raub
- Rock on. That was one of my favs, too. Check out Travis' review of Virtual
Hydlide this month; I've already gotten some positive feedback on it.
I don't really have a favorite part of GameCola,
I'm just stuck on your mailing list. The wrestling thing with Donkey Kong
was mildly humorous I guess.
And I want my Double Dare game back, I had to host that damn Nickelodeon themed
birthday party.
- Richard Franzen
- Only mildly? Where else on the Internet are you gonna see a horde of
banana-clad villains scaling a steel cage and toppling a great ape?
Hello, I'm the owner of i-love-videogames.com,
I have linked to your site. My site is based on individual game pages which provide fan links... the link would go from a specific game page on my site to a specific fan page on your site. If you do not want my site linked to yours, please let me know.
I have already added a link on our NHL '94 / Super Nintendo Entertainment System page.
Thanks for your attention.
- Bruno Tarancon
P.S. – If you would like to link to my site, I wont stop you.
- Hey man, thanks for the link! I'm not sure the first issue of GameCola
really qualifies as an NHL '94 fansite, but I'm not gonna argue against
exposure.
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This is your place to shine, readers! Send us...well... just about anything, and chances are we'll paste it in here. Letters, artwork, poetry, photographs, comic strips—anything you can think of, you send it to us, and we'll put it in an upcoming issue. Sound good? e-mail - submissions@gamecola.net |
Nearly everyone by now must have seen epic blockbuster The Lawnmower Man, with its incredible special effects and Virtual Reality (VR) scenes. What a lot of you wouldn’t have seen yet is the brand new, soon to be released system from Nintendo.
The new system consists of a portable headset and a controller. Yes, you read correctly, a portable headset! This system is unlike anything you’ve used before, in that the main unit is exactly the same as a VR Headset! To minimize harm in the way of neck injuries, the headset sits atop a stand so the player doesn’t have to support its weight.
It doesn’t work in the same manner as the VR Helmets though, in that the playing field doesn’t move around with your head movements. The Virtual Boy uses sophisticated technology to create a very convincing 3D effect for all games being played. Imagine that—feeling the need to duck as you swing back your golf club when teeing off, or when Mario stomps a Koopa Troopa and the shell goes flying towards the screen!
The Virtual Boy uses high-resolution red and black images to create the 3D effect which is, at first, unusual looking. The graphics are similar in style to the old vector graphics used in such games as Tempest (the old arcade shoot-‘em-up), but obviously they are a lot more advanced and polished. Basically, the system provides two slightly different angles of the action, one for each eye-piece, creating the illusion of a 3D game. The effect is similar to the old blue and red glasses you used to get with 3D comics.
The system runs off batteries for complete portability, or if you’re sitting at home you can run it off the mains using an AC Adaptor (supplied with the system).
During some initial testing, a small amount of users found the illusion a bit disorientating after long periods of gameplay, but the majority of users had no problems with it. Nintendo is looking into exactly why some people felt a little bit dizzy after using it for a while.
The Virtual Boy is due to be released around August '95 for a quite pricey $179.95, but the price may be dropped slightly prior to its release.
So far only a couple of games have been announced including the usual Mario games, but it’s early days yet, and developers
no doubt have a lot more exciting announcements to come!
IV. 
Platform: Mattel Intellivision
Genre:
Strategy
# of Players:
1-2
ESRB Rating: N/A
US Release:
c. 1979
Developer:
Mattel Interactive
Publisher:
Mattel Interactive
On the one hand, Checkers for the Intellivision looks conformity straight in the eye and says, "You know what? There's absolutely no reason why I should do what you do. I can do my own thing, pursue my own dreams and follow my own heart, and there's just nothing wrong with that."
On the other hand, Checkers for the Intellivision looks sexism straight in the eye and says, "Right on."
Checkers, for the Intellivision, brings the fast-paced catch-as-catch-can action of the home game home to your video console. It offers (according to the instruction booklet) five modes of play, though those modes mainly comprise various combinations of "1 or 2 players?" and "high or low difficulty?". The game-board is represented by a swank square that only takes up about 1/6 of the screen, filling the rest of your screen with this yellow color that almost, but not quite, makes you think you're playing in a field of dead sunflowers.
The checkers themselves deviate from the norm of the board games, choosing a stylish blue/white motif instead of the typical red/black. No doubt, this is to show off the stunning array of colors at the disposal of your Intellivision. A little black bar is placed atop your piece if ever you are kinged, as though the game is trying to censor your king's private parts.
Checkers offers nothing in the way of background music. The only time you'll hear any sort of tune is if you win the game, when a 16-bit version of what Dan's Classical Music Page tells me is "Ride of the Valkyries" is played. (Incidentally, if you lose, the game farts at you. I'm not making this up.) Some may find the silence unnerving, but I think it adds drama to the game. Plus, you can always just supply your own soundtrack, which would no doubt be better than anything the Intellivision can handle.
Though, there is a spot of sound playing when
the computer is deciding its next move. This spot of sound isn't
necessary at the beginning of the game, when the CPU requires little
thinking-time, but it shows up and grows in length as the game progresses and
gets more complicated. The best way I can think of to describe this sound is
that it reminds me of a Match Game contestant who's just spun the giant wheel
and is hoping to go one-on-one with Betty White. Oh yeah.
This rendition of checkers follows the obnoxious rule of "if you can jump a piece, you will jump a piece" that I've never witnessed in any real-life game of checkers, but I suppose might actually exist. There's no way to turn off this rule, so you're stuck with it until the end of time.
Checkers, for the Intellivision, assumes that all of the checker pieces are men. When it's your turn to go it says "SELECT MAN TO MOVE," indicating that no female could possibly be a round bit of plastic in a cardboard environ. There are two ways this can be taken:
1) In a Good Way. Women are above being round bits of plastic in a cardboard environ; leave that mess to the men.
2) In a Bad Way. How dare the game say that no women could never be a round bit of plastic in a cardboard environ!
As you can see, Checkers for the Intellivision could stir up a great amount of controversy in mixed settings.
As absurd as it sounds, the controls for Checkers are far too complex. There's one button to select your "MAN," which is separate from the button to move your "MAN." There is no reason this has to be. There are only two actions in the game, and they don't occur at the same time; it'd be much more convenient to just set both of these actions to the same button, so players don't have to hunt around the Intellivision's telephone-inspired controller to figure out which button actually does something, instead of producing the generic "YOU SCREWED UP" buzz that most Intellivision games play when you press the wrong button. If you can do it in one button, do it in one button.
If Checkers is too complicated for you, don't panic! With nearly every move you can ask the computer what move would be the most beneficial. This essentially means that, if you really wanted to, you could take yourself out of the game completely and just have the computer play for you against the computer. I'm surprised Mattel didn't advertise this as a separate mode.
It's just occurred to me that I haven't
actually said whether the game is any fun or not. Well, it is. It's about as fun
as Checkers can be, at any rate. The only reason to play this instead of an
actual game of Checkers, though, is if you don't have anyone to play with you in
real life, making the two-player mode pretty useless, unless you just don't own
a Checkers board. After unlocking both endings ("Ride of the Valkyries"
and *pppppfffffttttt*) you'll have seen most of what Checkers for the Intellivision
has to offer, but that's no reason to never play again. If you like Checkers,
you'll like this game. That's about all there is to it.
Intellivision:
Checkers |
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Fun |
Audio |
Controls |
Visuals |
Replay
Value |
Overall:
4.1
|
| 6 | 3 | 3 | 2.5 | 6 | |
Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
Genre:
In the mid-1980's, Nickelodeon consisted of little more than You Can't Do That on Television re-runs from Canada and old Looney Tunes cartoons. It was a dark time for children's television. Although You Can't Do That on Television has been cited as not only the sole non-shitty project that Alanis Morrisette took part in, but the reason for Communism's fall, it takes more than one show to make an entire cable channel not suck. Luckily, Nickelodeon soon premiered its own game show: Double Dare! A few years later, Nintendo finally got around to cashing in, and we, the gaming public, were left with one of the worst games that Nintendo ever bothered to waste plastic making.
Much like all of the other NES games that were based on game
shows, Double Dare is primarily a trivia game.
Unlike its other NES genre brethren, the questions in Double Dare are only
difficult for that one kid in first grade who ate paste, had nervous tics,
flunked quizzes on the color blue and bragged about how many different animal
cocks he had touched. For the rest of us, this game is hardly worth any sort of
effort.
On the off-chance that you don't know the answer to "Which hole does food go in?" you have the option of "daring" your opponents, who in turn have the option to send the question back to you by way of the "double dare." This almost always leads to the coveted physical challenges. Actually, this is how it worked on the show. In the game, the computer very rarely Double Dares, so unless you have the luxury of a save/reload feature on an emulator, you aren't going to win this win without forsaking the physical challenges and just answering all of the questions.
Don't worry about skipping the physical challenges, since you really won't be missing much. There are two basic types of physical challenges, those where you have to catch something, and those where you have to aim and hit something. Both of which are near impossible to do within the twenty second time limit that every challenge has.
After two rounds of mind-numbing inanity, you should have more points than the other team, meaning you earn passage to the final round. The only way that you could possibly have lost Double Dare would be if playing this game was your very first experience with an electronic device. If this is case, then you need to shut down this browser window immediately and stay the hell away from GameCola, you Amish dirt bag. We don't welcome your kind here. Besides, don't you have butter that needs churning or some shit like that?
The final round of the game is the obstacle course. Here is
where you make your way through as many obstacles as possible within a minute's
time, while grabbing the blue flag at the end of each one. In order to simulate
the excitement of a real obstacle course, Rare decided to make you have mash the
buttons as quickly as possible in order to run. The end result is that you've
grabbed four or five flags, and developed some mean Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. But
don't worry, Rare was kind enough to end the game by showing you pictures of the
prizes you may won if you had actually been a contestant on Double Dare, instead
of the overweight slob who still plays NES that you actually are.
Nintendo:
Double Dare |
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Fun |
Audio |
Controls |
Visuals |
Replay
Value |
Overall:
1.2
|
| 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | |
Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
Genre:
Action
# of Players: 1
ESRB Rating: N/A
US Release: February
1991
Developer:
Acclaim
Publisher:
Acclaim
Hands up—anyone out there who didn’t have at least one piece of Simpsons merchandising
during the 90s? Didn’t think so. Honestly, can ANY of you tell me you didn’t
have a Bart Simpson mug or poster or trading card or something? Well, I know I
had absolutely heaps. I couldn’t (and still can’t) get enough of that
jaundice-inflicted family and their antics. It was obvious that at some point
someone was going to bring out a video game of The Simpsons. What wasn’t
obvious back then was that this game would be crap. This was a time when
licensed games weren’t known to be rushed pieces of crap with a recognizable
character or two thrown in (or at
least, I didn’t know this). I saw in CVG, a reputable videogames magazine,
that The Simpsons: Bart vs. The Space Mutants was coming out soon for the NES. I
had to have it.
As luck should
have it, my best mate bought the game before I did. He absolutely loved it, and
still loves it to this day (though that might be a nostalgia thing). I
couldn’t understand why he loved it so. Even at the time, I thought the
graphics were pretty damn poor (except for the beginning where it shows The
Simpsons sitting on their couch—I thought that looked pretty cool ), and the
controls would reduce us to tears they were so frustrating. But he still played
it to death. Why? I’m hoping I’ll be able to answer that question soon.
Let’s start with the basic gameplay. Put simply, Bart vs.
The Space Mutants is a platformer, nothing more. You play as Bart Simpson (of
course), and the Earth has been invaded by aliens. They’re collecting
everything that’s purple, and using these things for some all-powerful weapon
or something. Why would aliens collect purple things? Don’t ask me. They
go on to explain the aliens also need hats, exit signs, balloons and nuclear
rods for their weapon, so that’s what you’ve got to collect for the next
levels. You go around semi-recognizable locations collecting items,
spray-painting things (or blowing them up), and avoiding the aliens. Sound
thrilling? It shouldn’t. There’s one thing I thought was pretty cool, which
was you can get some x-ray glasses, and that way you can see which humans are
actually aliens in disguise. It's pretty basic, but I thought it was pretty
cool for its time. The thing that annoyed me the most was that there is no
variety at all. Every level you jump around, avoiding bad things, collecting
good things. That's it.
Graphics should neither make nor break a game; it should be
about the gameplay. Sadly, this game's graphics do little to disguise its bad
gameplay. There are some pretty bits (like the aforementioned couch intro), but
the vast majority of the game is poorly presented. Okay, I know the NES isn’t
a silicon-graphics workstation, but damn, it can do much better than this. The
main sprite (Bart) has from what I could count, a total of 10 frames of
animation, maybe one or two more. The enemy sprites repeat over and over again,
and the backgrounds are basic to the point of confusing the gamer about what
they're actually supposed to be. Simply put, the effort simply wasn’t put in
to making this game a little bit prettier.
As for the sound, I’d rather not think about it. The
Simpson's theme song rendition is poor, the music for the main game is
repetitive and grating, and the sound effects are basic. About the only thing
that impressed me about the sound from this game is the sampled (albeit very low
quality) “Eat my shorts” and “Cool man,” as I wasn’t aware the humble
NES was capable of speech at the time.
The controls are not extremely terrible, but they definitely
aren’t great. Let me put it this way: in terms of responsiveness, Mario 3 it
ain’t. There will be many occasions when you die through no fault of your own,
and that is not a good thing at all. It’s extremely trial and error, which I
don’t mind, to a certain extent. When nearly every new obstacle requires dying
to get past, it’s just not fun.
Replay this game? Why in hell would I want to replay this
game?? It’s not fun, it’s frustrating, and it’s not rewarding in the
slightest. I don’t want to play this game EVER again. And anyone who tries to
make me play it will face the wrath of a severely frustrated Matteous, possibly
wrath involving a funnel, melted heat-rub, and a pair of industrial strength
pliers!!
*ahem*
Anyway, as I was
saying, I have no intention of playing this game ever again (except if my mate
comes over and I’m pissed, or in a sadistic mood). Replay value? What replay
value?
This title was my first real taste of video game
disappointment. Sure, I’d played crap games before this one, some that were
even worse for sure. But this game was supposed to be an interactive version of
one of my favourite television shows, and it was infinitely less fun than I
expected. I mean, even when it was released, The Simpsons had made Fox millions
of dollars (to add to Rupert's other couple of billion), so why couldn’t they
spend a bit (well, a lot) more time and effort on making this game something
special? In the end, this game is no different to the hundreds (maybe thousands)
of other crap licensed platformers that were prevalent in the 90s. I just
really hoped it would be something great.
Also, to answer my question as to why my mate loved and still
loves this game? No idea. He smokes a lot of the doochie, so that might be why;
he forgets how crap it is every time he plays it.
Nintendo:
The Simpsons - Bart vs. The Space Mutants |
|||||
Fun |
Audio |
Controls |
Visuals |
Replay
Value |
Overall:
1.6 |
| 1.5 | 1 | 3.5 | 1.5 | 0.5 | |
Platform: Sega CD
Genre:
If you had $100 to blow, what would you use it for? Apparently Sega, faced with this question in 1994, decided to produce an all-FMV game called Midnight Raiders. Why not, huh? Midnight Raiders is one of the worst “movies” I have ever seen (and the only reason it’s not the worst is that I actively search out bad movies), and the worst game I’ve ever played, bar none. The absolute lack of any quality in this game, either of presentation or redeeming gaming value, leaves the most outstanding scar on my mind of any horrible game I’ve ever laid hands on.
The opening scenes (which, by the way, can’t be skipped) set the mood of the game: the mood of poorly conceived, laughingly directed, and teeth-grindingly dumbly acted video. It seems that some chip-on-their-shoulder country in the “Middle East” has kidnapped the world’s most brilliant biochemist and forced him to make a little vial of black stuff that will destroy the whole world. Who ya gonna call? That’s right—America! More specifically, the fate of the world rests on the shoulders of one hotshot helicopter gunner who plays by his own rules, codenamed “Joker”, and his wise mentor, who can’t really fly a helicopter anymore because of his violently shaking hands but hasn’t been fired yet ‘cause nobody has the heart to tell him, “Stryker.” Maybe the manual says it best:
YOU: ''Joker''--Gunner, 1st Apache (Codename: Dragonfly) You're a young rookie with a lot of guts. You always look like you're having fun—good cover when you're really petrified. You won't wear a helmet (uncool) 'cause you're usually jamming to great rock & roll.
Against all odds, Joker’s gonna move his little crosshair like nobody’s business, shooting down the exact same enemy choppers again and again, until at last, he’ll infiltrate the enemy oil rig, rescue the chemist, and leave a nuclear bomb inside. Oh, yeah, baby!
The gameplay in Midnight Raiders is like a blissful shining pixie world where all of your dreams come true and you’re constantly having an orgasm. But this only applies if your dreams consist solely of moving a little red crosshair around on a background of grainy video with the d-pad and aiming it at green boxes, because that’s all you do in the game. It’s as difficult as it is simple, because the timing of your shots is a bit off, and also because the guy flying the chopper can’t keep it steady, meaning that your green boxes are flying all over the screen most of the time. Every time you get a hit (or for that matter, a miss), a bunch of random video plays as your reward, usually involving a huge explosion of a small model of whatever you just shot at (or a body, if you manage to make it as far as the infiltration area). If you miss and get hit three times, the game is over. There is no way to save your game in progress, so you’d better eat your Lucky Charms before popping the disc in if you have any hope of seeing the hilarious scientist again.
The best graphics you’ll experience during the course of playing Midnight Raiders are the in the Sega CD bios (bootup). When Sonic waves his hand at you on the Sega logo screen, he’s waving goodbye to any kind of mercy on your eyesight from that point. The rest of the game consists exclusively of that god-awful Sega CD FMV. In case you haven’t seen it, the video looks like a printout from an old dot-matrix printer, with a maximum of about eight colors at any time painted on a separate layer in square inch blocks across the screen. The Sega CD drive can only access data at 1x as well, and the short load times are disguised by this odd looping video of what appears to be a man grabbing his crotch, and sometimes a close-up of some spinning gauges, no doubt gauging the intenseness of the situation. It’s hard to make out... well, anything in the game, and that’s where the green boxes come in handy. There’d be no way to aim at the enemy without them, making them the single smart move made by the developers of this game.
The “editor” of the video should be executed. Each time you fire a shot, the camera changes about seven times, and each time it does it looks like you’ve warped to a different locale at a different time of day. Sometimes you’ll also see the same exchanges between characters (and enemies) that took place only seconds before repeated with no changes. Shoot a guy on a ground floor, and witness the camera warp (after skipping) to a high ledge to show what has to be a completely different guy falling down from it. Add this to the spinning and crotch-grabbing load scenes, not to mention constantly switching back to close-ups of the CO’s back at HQ, and you’ve got some of the most disorienting and offensive visuals ever on a console.
The music also has this action-porn feel to it, although it’s very quiet (when you get to the credits, you’ll understand exactly why they left it out) and overshadowed by the no-talent actors vomiting up their even-worse written lines. These actors, who look and sound like they flunked out of McDonald’s school, will definitely grate on your ears and cause you either to laugh or cry. At one point, upon being begged to pull poor Joker out of the impossible odds he faces, the resident tough officer with a cigar in his mouth leans over, crosses his eyes, and says in a suddenly deepening Satan-like growl, “We'll abort this mission when I say so and not one second sooner. Do I make myself clear, old woman?” Let me take this opportunity to point out that the person he’s addressing is not a woman. Is this a typo in the script? A holdover from the earlier transsexual-themed version of the game that was never released? Perhaps the writers just sucked beyond words? I’d lean toward the third option, though that’s just me. The world may never know. Lastly, the sound effects are, as many of the Sega CD’s sounds seem to be, fuzzy and out of synch. It sounds like someone had a blanket over the microphone when they were all recorded. Adding to the aural agony, the voices and sound effects very often skip (any time the video changes). Suffice it to say, you’d probably get better sounds than Midnight Raiders’ by listening to a radio with no tuner.
Laughter or
tears... It depends on your personal taste, but Midnight
Raiders should draw one of these from you. I’m kinda like Jesus in that I
have suffered so that you might not have to. I’m here to warn all of the
innocent people of the world that you’ve got to have one helluva penchant for
campy video and hall-of-fame-worthy crap games to get anything out of this. If
you don’t have that masochistic quality that compels one to compulsively
collect films like “Troll 2”, just stay away from it.
Sega
CD:
Midnight Raiders |
|||||
Fun |
Audio |
Controls |
Visuals |
Replay
Value |
Overall:
1.1
|
| 1 | 1.5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
Platform: Sega Saturn
Genre:
Role-Playing
# of Players:
1
ESRB Rating: K-A
- Kids-Adults
US Release: January 1996
Developer:
Atlus Software
Publisher:
Atlus Software
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
That about sums up this game. And no, it’s not supposed to be funny. This game is funny the way the movie Terms of Endearment is funny: unintentionally. And I’d like to go ahead and throw in this disclaimer lest you all think I’m lying: I swear I am not making any of this up.
Anyway, Virtual Hydlide has been sitting untouched in my Saturn collection for years, rubbing elbows with games that wouldn’t take five seconds out of their busy days to kick its ass. Shit, I caught Drake of the 99 Dragons giving Virtual Hydlide a wedgie after gym class, and that masterpiece claims a spectacular 21% on GameRankings.com.
But wait! Not unlike Manimal (google it), this train-wreck is so ridiculously abominable that you find yourself—gasp!—actually sort of enjoying it. In a stick-your-thumbs-in-your-eyes-until-you-tickle-your-brain sorta way.
So, for you, loyal readers, I will present my experience with this award-winning gem step-by-step
Friday, May 13, 2005 8:00 pm—“Okey dokey, time to review this game for GameCola,” I say to myself. I take the disc out of its standard oversized Saturn case and look at it. It certainly doesn’t look evil. I throw the game in and hit power.
Immediately, I
realize I must have put in the wrong game, as what appeared to be a Meatloaf
music video begins playing. We see an ancient, foreboding castle with lightning
crackling outside, its shadows flittering demonically across the walls after
each strike. A comely maiden with hideously crimped hair piled atop her lovely
plastic tiara runs through
this structure, holding her dress off the floor with
one hand while looking anxiously over her shoulder. It does no good, however, as
a cardboard cut-out of Satan turns our lovely Motley Crue sycophant into three
tiny fairies. Inspired, I sing along; “I would do anything for love, but I
won’t…do...that!”
You begin in a field that has been randomly generated with trees (that you can walk directly through) and…well, you’re guess is as good as mine. Just toss some random words out there. Green boulders? Sure. Three-legged jellyfish monsters made from tennis court nets? Why not. You realize you have never seen pixilation this bad before. SNES Doom was sharp as steel compared to this. My eyes actually asked if they could leave my sockets and go play some Jaguar games in the other room. They said they’d rather play Aircars. Aircars.
By the way, one of the first things I discovered while screwing around with my in-game buttons was this: If you use the L and R triggers to side-step, your chubby little Meatloaf will immediately go bowlegged and turn his head directly profile to whatever direction you’re going and prance from side-to-side.
So, I consult my map and objectives and see that I am tasked with finding my way to the Graveyard. Exiting said map, I turn my hero to the direction I’m supposed to go and notice that any time I move my fatty one way or the other the environment grinds to a screaming halt while the CPU tries to puke up some new pixels that seem to indicate landscape. I started off—a little seasick—ambling slowly towards my destination. After screaming at my on-screen overweight slowpoke to hurry the fuck up for ten minutes, I finally figured out if you hold the X button down he breaks into a huffing kind of lard-sprint. Let me tell you, friends, it was a shock to me as well. Who knew Meatloaf could run?
So my alter ego—Corporal Baco Fruity McCheeseHead—makes it to the graveyard at last, and after leaning over and catching his breath for 20 minutes, we’re ready to enter. It’s upon entering that things start taking a turn for the truly bizarre.
See, this is supposed to be 3-dimensional game, meaning that all objects can be viewed from all angles in real-time at any point. Well, drop your acid now, because the truth of this misnomer stood proudly front and center during this section. There are four gravestones in this area that you need to walk up to and interact with to advance. You can clearly see them above the pixely oatmeal world around you as they stand eight feet tall. I cautiously walk up to one, and then have my MC Meatloaf saunter sideways around it, promptly notating that the face of the gravestone rotated with me. Yes, dear friends, in this world there is no such thing as “sides” and “the back of something”. With this newfound information grasped triumphantly in my chubby fist, I wobbled over to the skeletons vomiting themselves out of the ground with disgusting splorking noises. I approached one, drew my mighty Useless Dagger of Shit, and then slowly (as in around 5 FPS) rotated around him to score a hit from behind. He matched my nefarious plan by rotating with me step-for-step. I left him and tried the same thing with the trees, bushes and assorted clumps of whatever. The truth hit me like a ton of bricks:
I…I was living in a work that had no back-side.
That meant no
sneaking up to slit the throat of some unsuspecting dirty Cobra soldier (go
Joe!). No piggy-back rides. No “guess who”. No wheel-barrow rides at the
company retreat (who will hold the legs, smart-guy?). Speaking of corporate
retreats, no more “trust falls” either because none of 
your co-workers could
get behind you. I don’t think I need to tell you what a world without
trust-falls would be like.
So, I saved my game, went into the bathroom to scrape the top three layers of my cornea off, and went to bed, determined to finish up what was turning out to be quite possibly the most creative thirty car pileup in the history of video games in the morning.
Saturday, May 14th, 2005. 11:14am—I return to my game and discover that somehow my previous days’ saves have been erased. I will have to start over. This makes me unhappy.
Oh, but it gets better. When you boot up this game, it first gives you the option of Internal Save or Cartridge Save. Neither shows I have a game saved, so I exit out to the Memory Manager section of my Saturn. Hmm. It shows I clearly have a saved data block for Virtual Hydlide that is uncorrupted, but it’s simply not there when I go to load. I take this news calmly. Virtual Hydlide is trying to break me. I know this game can be beaten in a few hours; all I have to do is be a man. Buck up. Show I’m not yella. I restart.
This time, I put in the code that will give me the famed Fairy Armor. The code is FAIRYPLATE. What this code did, besides boosting my defense stats considerably, was to cement in any doubt what-so-ever you may have had about your character’s sexuality. I’ll save you the suspense: he’s gay. The fairy armor may be strong, but Michelle Kwan sure is going to miss it at her next ice-skating event. Say what you will, but while battling away green blobs and frothing, teeth-gnashing trees at least my hero is going to look fabulous. So that leads us as to why, exactly, he’s spending all the time and effort to save this 80’s butt-rock princess if he’s a homosexual. I dunno, maybe she owes him money. or he’s trying to get her to the Whitesnake video shoot in time. God, this review is already too long and I haven’t even mentioned the Vampire’s Castle with its trans-dimensional furniture, various lava caves or the trippiest last stage this side of opium.
Look, humor is my weapon against games like this, but let me make one thing straight: I truly appreciate this game for what it is. I’m sure I would have been supremely pissed if I would have bought this for $50 just for a next-gen RPG at the time (*cough*King’s Field*cough*), but I didn’t. Think about it: Would you rather watch a schlock splat like Leprechaun in the Hood or sit through “legitimate” cinema like The English Patient? I don’t know any friends I could call over to watch English Patient just to make fun of it.
No, when my friends come over I take them to the other television, in the back bedroom. They look at all my shiny Xbox and GameCube games and wonder where we’re going. I pop open a beer and hand it over.
“Friend,” I say, “Meet Flamboyant Meatloaf. Flamboyant Meatloaf, meet Friend.”
Take these scores with a grain of salt, and if you
ever pick up this game for god’s sake email me and tell me about your
experiences.
Sega
Saturn:
Virtual Hydlide |
|||||
Fun |
Audio |
Controls |
Visuals |
Replay
Value |
Overall:
4.4 |
| 8 | 2.5 | 1 | 1.5 | 9 | |
Platform: Sony
PlayStation 2
Genre:
Action RPG
# of Players: 1
ESRB Rating:
E - Everyone
US Release: September 2002
Developer:
Square/Disney Interactive
Publisher:
Square Electronic Arts
Once upon a time, in a tiny island in the middle of the ocean, there was a boy named Sora. He lived a carefree life, and played every day with his little friends (some of whom bear a stunning resemblance to characters from another video game universe, but more on that later). Then, some bad stuff happened and he was separated from his friends, and whisked away to a distant land and set on a journey to save the world. Thus begins Kingdom Hearts, a story in RPG format about friendship, loyalty, and the power of the heart, with some fun twists thrown in.
The main attraction
behind Kingdom Hearts (in case you hadn’t heard already) is its integration
of original characters, Disney characters, and Final Fantasy characters into
one story. This strategy works rather well if you happen to be a fan of (good)
Disney movies (as I am), or the Final Fantasy series (as I feel like I should
be), but even if you have no great love for either, Kingdom Hearts is still a
great game in its own right. As the main character, Sora, you travel to many
different worlds, most of them from Disney movies like The Little Mermaid and
Peter Pan, searching for your lost pals Riku and Kairi, and accompanied by
your new friends Donald and Goofy, who are on their own quest to find King
Mickey. On
the way, you do battle with your keyblade (it’s a key… and it’s a
blade) against the Heartless, a group of dark beings which have mysteriously
sprung up everywhere and threaten to engulf the world, as well as various
Disney villains who have joined them. In addition to Donald and Goofy, you
have the option of adding other Disney characters to your party, each with
their own special moves and such, although it is generally a good idea to rely
on yourself rather than these fellows when it comes to things like fighting
and healing.
The visuals and sound in this game range from stunning to really quite good. Right away, you’re treated to a few introductory cutscenes with amazing graphics and the game’s catchy pop-y theme song playing in the background. Even when there aren’t any super high quality cutscenes to watch, the graphics for the game itself are smooth and colorful. The background music during gameplay is almost always pleasant and hummable, and features some really cool remixes of classic Disney songs. And while it’s not the best video game music I’ve ever heard, the variety is wide enough and the tunes catchy enough that you don’t find yourself throwing things at the screen or anything like that (although I did get comments from my parents like "aren’t you tired of the same music playing over and over again?!", but that’s nothing new). My only complaint, if I have to have one, is that my favorite bit of music from the whole game—a haunting choral piece during the fight with Sephiroth—does not appear on the game’s official soundtrack. Ah well, I guess I’ll survive somehow. The game also features top notch voice acting, with many of the Disney characters voiced by their real movie actor counterparts, and some famous people doing the other voices too.
The controls in the game, mainly as they relate to camera angles, seem to have been a major negative point for some people, but personally, I didn’t have too much of a problem with them. I don’t really remember a time in which they detracted greatly from the gameplay, although it could sometimes get annoying when you’re in the middle of a battle and you have to remember a which combination of buttons you assigned to healing and which to a fire spell. Other than that though, the controls are decent enough, and it’s pretty easy to get by with the good ol’ "hit the X button a million times and you’re all set" sort of thing, at least for a little while anyway.
As far as replay value goes, this game has quite a bit of it. There are loads of extra things to do, which you may have missed on your first play through. From rescuing the 99 dalmations to beating extra bosses to finding the ultimate weapons—if you ever get tired of the main story, there’s an almost endless supply of other quest-type things to occupy your time. This even includes various minigames scattered throughout the world, which may not get you anywhere really but sure can be addicting if you let them. As an added bonus, if you accomplish a certain list of extra quests, you’re treated to a "secret ending" after the real ending of the game, which consists of a nifty video, most likely footage from the upcoming sequel. Of course, if you happen to do all the extra things before you beat the game, then the replay value drops to roughly 0. It all depends on how thorough you want to be, really, and you don’t get anything special for having beaten the game and starting over again.
So, having said all
that, I will leave you with this: Kingdom Hearts is a fun game. It’s lively,
entertaining, engaging, has believable (and mostly loveable) characters and is
nice to look at to boot. No wonder it was GameCola's game of the year in 2002.
Plus, it left itself wide open for a sequel… and I don’t mean Chain of
Memories, although that’s a nice enough filler. Kingdom Hearts II, I’m
waiting for you.
PlayStation 2:
Kingdom Hearts |
|||||
Fun |
Audio |
Controls |
Visuals |
Replay
Value |
Overall:
8.1
|
| 9 | 8 | 7 | 9.5 | 7 | |
- Elizabeth
"Lizo" Medina-Gray
Platform: Sony PlayStation 2
Genre:
Platformer
# of Players:
1
ESRB Rating: T
- Teen
US Release: October 2003
Developer:
Naughty Dog Software
Publisher:
Sony Computer Entertainment
I rented Jak II on a whim, and was not expecting much. I wasn’t a big fan of the first Jak and Daxter game, but as I had heard decent things about Jak II and because I was really bored, I decided I would give it a shot. I’m glad I did, because despite its flaws, Jak II is a very good game.
PlayStation
2:
Jak II |
|||||
Fun |
Audio |
Controls |
Visuals |
Replay
Value |
Overall:
8.4 |
| 8 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 7 | |
Platform: Nintendo Dual Screen
Genre:
If you’ve ever
played any of the other Wario Ware games, you know exactly what to expect from
this one. It’s not so much a completely new game as it is a remake of one of
the previous games, with a new way to play the mini-games. This way, for those
of you who have trouble with titles, is by touching the screen. So, in other
words, this game is not,
necessarily, a completely new game from the other Wario Wares.
This means, more or less, that if you hated the other Wario Ware games, you will more than likely hate this game, and I’m going to go ahead and assume that you know what happens if you liked the other games. While all of the games do involve touching the touch screen, the minigames are divided up into different categories where different techniques are required to beat them. For example, some games require you to simply poke things on the screen, while others have you drag things across the screen, and others even have you blow on your DS. All together there’s something like 200 mini-games to play, but I have no idea how that compares to the other installments, as I don’t own any of them. Ask Paul.
My favorite part of this game (which I guess speaks badly of the gameplay, even though it’s not bad…) is the music, specifically a few songs like Ashley’s Theme. It’s definitely some of the best music I’ve heard on a portable gaming system, with lyrics and everything.
The controls are just as simple as they need to be, with you doing mostly everything in the game by touching the screen in some way. Since the controls are obviously different than the other Wario Ware games, you clearly do not need to have any sort of Wario Ware experience to learn them easily.
The graphics are basically the exact same thing as all the other games, with the same characters and minigame graphics and everything. If you are looking for some sort of new take on the whole Wario Ware look, then you are out of luck with this one.
The most important part of this game like any similar game is the replay value. Without it, you waste all your money on 17 minutes worth of gameplay. Fortunately, this game has loads of it. There are many different mixes of all the minigames, so you don’t have to play the same rotation over and over, and there are many hidden mini-minigames to unlock by fulfilling certain conditions.
All in all, this game is fun to play, but due to the nature of it it is not going to be one that you play for hours and hours day after day. It’s more of a game that you leave in your DS and play whenever you are bored and have 15 minutes to burn. Fortunately, since there aren't many decent DS games out right now, you’ll know it’ll always be sitting there waiting to be played when you need a break from whatever GBA game you are playing.
Nintendo
Dual Screen:
Wario Ware Touched! |
|||||
Fun |
Audio |
Controls |
Visuals |
Replay
Value |
Overall:
7.9
|
| 7.5 | 9 | 7 | 7 | 9 | |
You asked for it, and man, did you ever get it! Terrence Atkins is here drawing the keywords YOU used to discover GameCola.
does a newly created poker game need to be patented
final fantasy vii hits such a sentimental cord with me
how to make gamecube's disk spinning when it is not spinning
is yasunori mitsuda depressed
restraining order my ass
VI. 
With Geoff Keighley, "Dean of the Gaming Press"
5/24/05
When he isn't busy writing for Business 2.0 or Entertainment Weekly, Geoff Keighley can be found contributing articles to TIME, Premiere, Rolling Stone, The Hollywood Reporter, and MTV Magazine. Either that, or he's off filming segments for Extra or The Electric Playground, or working on his GameSpot feature "Behind the Games." Geoff Keighley was named one of the Top 30 business journalists under 30 by NewsBios/TJFR, and has spent the last 12 years of his life covering the gaming biz. He took some time out of his CRAZY busy schedule (made even more crazy this month by E3—he moderated a conference there, you know!) to answer a few questions for us, and if you'd like, you can check out his responses right here:
GameCola: How did you get started in video game journalism?
Geoff Keighley: I started writing volunteer reviews for a CompuServe forum about computer games back in the early 90s. An editor from Computer Games Strategy Plus read my reviews and asked me to write for that magazine in 1993.
GC: Did your education at the University of Southern California adequately prepare you for video game journalism?
GK: I
studied philosophy and business administration at college, not journalism—but
I’m a big proponent of getting a university degree. I
actually wrote most of the GameSpot “Behind the Games” series while I was
still in college.
GC: What areas of study other than journalism do you think could help prepare someone to be a video game journalist?
GK: I’d
definitely recommend a strong liberal arts background with a focus on creative writing—the
more education the better.
GC: If you were developing a college
course on video game journalism, what would you include in its curriculum?
GK: Henry Lowood at Stanford University runs a great class about the video game industry—with a fantastic reading list. Check it out: http://www.stanford.edu/class/sts145/. There honestly haven’t been many good books about the video game business. Dean Takahashi wrote a good book called “Opening the Xbox” and I would also recommend David Sheff’s book on Nintendo.
GC: What would your advice be for high school students aspiring to be video game journalists?
GK: In
the day and age of the Internet and blogs, I would
just encourage you to play a lot of games, work hard in school and don’t let
money get in the way. I started writing reviews for free because I loved
games so much.
GC: Do you prefer writing for a dedicated video game publication, or a publication that's more mainstream?
GK: I like both for different reasons. It’s nice to speak directly to hardcore gamers through publications like EGM, OXM and GameSpot. But one of my big goals these past few years has been to bring video game journalism to more mainstream magazines like Entertainment Weekly, Business 2.0, and TV networks like G4 and Spike.
GC: Have any publishers ever gotten angry at you for things you've written about their games?
GK: Not often but it has happened. Back in the late-90s Monolith Productions attacked me in the credits of BLOOD II because I said some not-so-nice things about the game before it shipped. But most of the time I find that game designers respect your opinion.
GC: What would you say are the top three benefits of being a video game journalist?
GK: Access, access and access—it’s great to be able to talk with CEOs and big name game designers.
GC: What do you think is the biggest problem of video game journalism today?
GK: I
wish there was better investigative journalism and better storytelling. Right
now I can flip through a new issue of a gaming magazine in about 10 minutes—You
look at the screenshots, read a few review scores, and throw the magazine in the
trash. Think about it: What’s the
last truly memorable story you can remember reading in a gaming magazine? A
story that you wanted to tell your friends about; a story that made you say,
“I want to save this magazine and read this piece again in a year.”
GK: Not really. I sort of grew up with the industry, so I see many of the designers as friends, not idols. Take someone like CliffyB from Epic Games—I first met Cliff when we were both teenagers just starting our respective careers. It also helps that 99% of game designers are very humble and world-class people.
If
you'd like to hear more from Geoff Keighley, check out his website.
or his feature "Behind the
Games" at GameSpot!
Chapter Twenty-Three
Enrique: I’ll drive if ya want.
Render: Well, I can’t say I didn’t see this coming
Narrator: Me either. Enrique is never allowed to drive again.
Enrique: !!
Rivers: Hey, you can’t just make decisions like that, can you?
Narrator: Of course I can—I’m the narrator. Watch: The group missed an entire issue due to Enrique driving while not having a clue where he was going and getting them lost for months, and he was therefore never allowed to drive the ship again. See? So it is narrated, and it cannot be undone.
River: The power…
Jonathan: So, where are we?
????: Who are we, eh?? EH??
Render: What?
????: Silence!
Render: …
????: WHO are you?!
Rivers: W…
????: Silence!
Enrique: Annoying…
Render: Tell me about it. Who’s the annoying guy? Where are you?
????: Silence! We are the rulers of this island! You are trespassing!
Render: Oh for crying out loud, why are we always on a damned island?
Rivers: How big does a land mass actually have to be for it to stop being considered an island, though? 'Cause when you think about it, if the world is surrounded by water, every land mass is an island, right?
Jonathan: That is a good point…
Enrique: Totally.
????: Such disrespect! Charge forth, my brothers!
Render: Ah… So they are coming.
????: We are almost upon you! Fear for your lives!!
Render: What? Where are you?
Jonathan: Look! There, at the ground!
Enrique: Holy spoontasms Captain!
Rivers: It’s a regular spoonanza!!
Render: Spoon people!
Enrique: We need some yogurt people, man.
Spoon Lord: …WHAT?!!
Render: I don’t even like yogurt that much, but you’re right, Enrique.
Spoonlad: First the dragon comes, and now there’s all these sexy giants wanting to eat us! Oh ho ho this is simply unbearable!!
Rivers: Sexy, eh?
Render: Dragon?
Spoonlad: Oh ho ho, yes!! A couple weeks ago this horrible dragon came to this island! He has been terrorizing us with his terrible howling and wailing night and day!
Spoon Lord: Enough!! Do not waste your time explaining things to these outsiders; they were just on their way out!
Jonathan: Perhaps we can help you.
Spoon Lord: Ha! As if you are any match for a dragon!
Render: Well, we sure haven’t seen this dragon, but we know at least Enrique here can take out a giant singing sea bear with his "bear" hands.
Rivers: Aaaaahahhaahahahahhahahaha!
Render: Aahhhhahhahhhhhaaahahahahahahhahaa!
Enrique: Wow… that was pretty sad.
Render: No, it was hilarious.
Spoon Lord: Him?? He took on a giant singing sea bear by himself?!
Enrique: Indeed.
Render&Rivers&Enrique: FU-NA-KI, FU-NA-KI!
Spoonlad: Hooray, great adventurers! Our saviors!
Jonathan: Well then, I guess we best get going.
Narrator: And so the four adventurers, accompanied by Spoon Lord and Spoonlad, set off for the dragon’s lair. As they got closer, they could hear the horrible screeching and screaming growing louder and louder.
Render: Good lord, that’s the most horrible sound I’ve ever heard.
Enrique: d00d, my ears are bleedin’.
Jonathan: Yes, it is quite disturbing.
Rivers: Oh, come on guys, it’s not that bad.
Narrator: Actually, it was just that bad.
Rivers: No, it…
Narrator: SO IT IS NARRATED, SO IT SHALL BE!
Rivers: Whatever.
Spoonlad: Ho ho ho here we go! These sexy lads off to slay the dragon and save the spoon nation! Hooray hooray what a glorious day!
Enrique: This d00d is creeping me out, man.
Rivers: Sexy eh… iiiiiinteresting…
Render: Don’t worry about it, we’re almost there, and this noise is really getting to me.
Narrator: Several painful moments later they all arrived at the dragon's lair.
Render: Ugh… This noise is disgusting… I’m so irritated, I want to vomit.
Jonathan: Wait… doesn’t that sound like…
Enrique: Like crap, YES!
Rivers: It’s singing!
Render: No, that crap really can’t be considered singing, I’m sorry.
Jonathan: Yes, it’s bad, but… there’s distinct words…
Dragon’s Voice: Baby, I used to think you were so sweet
Honey, I wish I could massage your feet
Baby, I loved every juice you’d secrete
BUT YOU STUPID WHORE WHY’D YOU HAVE TO CHEAT?!
Enrique: Oh god no…
Jonathan: Jordan…
Render: It’s worse than I thought. This isn’t just any dragon…
Spoon Lord & Spoonlad: What kind is it?!
Render: It’s… an Emo Dragon.
Rivers: Jeez, it’s not that bad! Let it go already!
Narrator: This was probably the gravest situation our spoon-proclaimed sexy heroes had ever been in. So horrible… so horrible…
Rivers: IT’S NOT THAT BAD!
Emo Dragon: WHO DARES DISTURB MY EMOTIONAL LIFE REFLECTION?!
Render: Oh crap…
Spoonlad: Oh great sexy Enrique, champion of the giant singing sea bear! Hear my plea and destroy this Emo Dragon!
Enrique: Eh…
Jonathan: Well, someone’s gotta fight it…
Which Gate Do You Choose?
All For One!
Jonathan: I think we should all go, that way we have a better chance of defeating it.
Fyoooooooooozhuuun!
Render: Okay, you don’t mind this junk Rivers, why don’t you go deal with him?
The Great Mighty Sexy!
Spoonlad: Enrique my sexy hero! Show me your power!
Enrique: Ehhh….
I Hate You All.
Narrator: As Captain Thomas "7-Eye" Render VI of Trelenodora stepped closer to the lair to see how close the Emo Dragon was to reaching them, Rivers placed his finger on his nose. The rest of the group noticed this, and likewise placed their fingers on their noses before the good captain could turn around.
Render: Okay, he’s… Oh what the hell? I hate you people.
Rivers: Nose goes, man. You’re it.
Hello all, and welcome to the second installment of testgame.exe: Making the Adventure. As some of you may know from last month’s issue of GameCola, the purpose of this feature is basically to provide an opportunity for you, the reader, to watch as I, the Lizo, attempt to create an adventure game. It’s also a great opportunity for me to show off. ;)
Over the past month, I’ve been playing around with different bits of the game, figuring out what works and what doesn’t. The most notable change in this version is that I’ve actually discovered how I was supposed to be using spoken dialogue. So now, if you want to hear Paul’s awesome voice, you’ll have to download a separate voice file, and if not, you’ll still be able to see the dialogue in the form of word’s floating above the character’s head. This way, you can’t do things like make Paul moonwalk by telling him to walk one way and then looking at something in the other direction, which was rather strange when it would happen before (to say the least)…
And while we’re on the topic of voices, there are new parts in the game in which there is dialogue but no voice over. This is due to the fact that I am lazy, and should be remedied next month. Also, the best way I could figure out to do narration makes you have to click to remove some of the messages, which is reeeeally annoying I know, and I’ll try to find an alternative soon.
There’s not much more I can say here, so, without further ado, I give you (my thanks to anyone who’s actually doing this by the way!)…
Speech.vox (optional)
(no extra files needed to run the game, but the .vox file must be placed in the same folder as the .exe file for the voice pack to work.)
Things
to do/new features of note:
Inventory items. They exist. :)
New and improved backgrounds! OK, not so much new, but certainly improved!
Check out that door! It’s flawless I tell you, flawless! It doesn’t open until it’s been unlocked. When you open it, it opens. When you close it, it closes. And you can only walk through it when it’s open! You have no idea how happy this makes me. :D
A bit more voice acting. If you’re lucky enough to have downloaded the voice pack, you may even get to hear Lizo’s voice as she tries to be a narrator.
Upcoming tasks for Lizo:
Another character/plot. Yeaaah, I know I said I’d do this last time. I already have one fourth of a second character animated, I swear!
More interactions with inventory items… maybe even the ability to read the letters or look at the map.
Redo second background screen. I’m really not a fan of how
much I have to zoom in on Paul to make him fit the right size for the door.
This must be changed.
All the graphics, design, and dialogue are by Lizo. Paul is voiced (appropriately) by Paul Franzen. Adventure Game Studio (the program used to create this game) can be downloaded at: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/
- Elizabeth "Lizo" Medina-Gray
Welcome to another HISTORIC version of the SUPER THUMBS!
In this issue I will be talking about a wonderful series that I had a lot of fun playing over the long long
period of time I spent playing it... which wasn't exactly recently. The other game
I will be featuring is not only the continuation of an Epic Series but also from the legendary collection of one Mr. Paul Franzen, who...
isn't all that great at showing me how NOT to die! Then again, not many have been able to say that they could save me.
THAT'S JUST HOW GOOD I AM!!
.hack//Infection (PS2)
.hack//Mutation (PS2)
.hack//Outbreak (PS2)
.hack//Quarantine (PS2)
Since these games all are from the same series, and have basically the same gameplay with the same
continuing storyline I just decided to talk about them all together in greater detail, since their
similarity pretty much ensures them all getting a THUMBS UP... sorry to ruin that for you, but
I really
enjoyed these RPG's.
The storyline revolves around a boy getting into one of those MMORPG type games by his friend, and the gameplay consists of you controlling him throughout the game, finding new information and putting it together to save your friend, and putting an end to the madness that is being caused all around the world. It's a very interesting story that should keep you playing from start to finish.
Each game isn't that long by itself, as you would imagine from a game broken up into four parts that were all released three months after each other. (Or at least, they were supposed to be.) The actual gameplay is more of a button mashing hack-and-slash RPG game combined with different commands for magic and weapon attacks as well as controlling your party. Your party can have two other people other than the main character, Kite, and you can choose from the characters whom you found and are available at the current time. There are lots of characters you can pick but, as in most games, because of storyline purposes you pretty much stick to the same four-five. The battles and controls are fairly easy to get used to and as you play more you learn better ways of taking out certain baddies than others, such as the ones that can bring themselves back from the dead—that's never fun!
One of the more annoying things in the game is the camera; it likes to stay put a lot of the times, so in the smaller parts of levels that can be a problem, as you have to play with the buttons that control it to save your ass! Though, the game does have a mini map that is very useful for navigating quickly thorough the different stages. Some of the higher level creatures do take some strategy to take down which is a nice change of pace from some other games like it. However most of the bosses are pretty simple and straight-forward to take down. One miniboss whom you have to face numerous times is tricky however and it takes some patience to take these down.
All in all its a very fun series and its worth a shot at least trying the first game. They are all pretty similar so you can tell if you will like the series or not just by one game—GOOD TIMES
Captain Eric's Super Thumb Says: Four Games, Four Thumbs Up!
ToeJam & Earl 3: Mission to Earth (Xbox)
Now I only played this game in two-player mode, so that might be one of the reasons
that I found this game completely
insane and no clue what i was doing.
It's very confusing. Your character can jump and shoot some sorta funkaficing rays or some such at
enemies, though it is very hard to distinguish between your allies and enemies.
There are also power-ups and such you can find to enable you to do more fun and "exciting" things. However for me they just allowed me to die even quicker
now. While that IS my specialty, it doesn't make it any more entertaining.
Captain Eric's Super Thumb Says: Thumbs Down :(
BONUS THUMBS~!
Shining Soul 2 (GBA)
This is the sequel to another GBA game... can you guess what it is?? CAN YOU??
No, I'm sorry its not Pokémon, it's.. Shining Soul. They are some RPGish
leveling-up-your-class-smack-the-baddies-around kind of games. They aren't all
that long but can provide you with lots of entertaining times and are good for
just having something to play a bit while your bored and have nothing else to
do. Now the sequel is better than the original in my opinion because it fixes a
lot of the annoying things of the first game and adds a lot more fun things, and
has the coolest class ever which allows you to use knives or claws, the coolest
weapons around, dont you know. If you can get some friends together it also has
a multiplayer mode, but if all your friends are video game addicts whom gain 50
levels a day and are bored with it within a week, you're probably kinda out of
luck with the multiplayer part. The graphics aren't much different from the
first game, and aren't exactly stunning or anything—just your run-of-the-mill
Game Boy graphics. But it's a fun game that's worth a look at if you're a gamer
on the go!
Captain Eric's Super Thumb Says: Thumbs Up!
Well that's the end of this issue folks, I hope you enjoyed this month's ramblings! I am deeply sorry to have to relay the news to you all that ToeJam & Earl THREE really sucks and yeah, I
'm sorry, i know how much everyone looks up to their heroes but they just didn't bring the goods. Damn old people! SEE YOU NEXT MONTH.
VIII. 
Release Date: 2001
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Jon Voight
Directed By: Simon West
A few years ago, video game movies become popular again. Well actually, they didn't become popular so much as they become the next fad for Hollywood to blow millions of bucks trying to cash in on with really shitty movies. Tomb Raider is one of those movies. To play Lara Croft, Paramount got Angelina Jolie, who was fresh from having what I assume was about a gallon of Calogen injected into her lips.
A sizable chunk
of the movie is spent trying to establish that Lara Croft is super-cool. She's
always listening to techno music and cruising around in any number of stylish
vehicles. Mostly, the movie attempts to portray Lara Croft as the queen of cool
by limiting the amount of emotions that she shows. That, or it's because
Angelina Jolie isn't a very good actress. I'm willing to believe that it's a
combination of the two. 
In either case, the only emotions that Lara Croft ever show are either indifference or horniness. I'm sure the makers of this movie would have had her maintain apathy throughout the entire flick, if it weren't for the fact the majority of this movie's payday came out of the pockets of the thousands of fanboys with way too many fake porn jpeg's of Angelina Jolie on their hard drives.
Even in the arctic, the weather doesn't get to her. She effortlessly stands around with her coat hanging open, revealing her tight, thin shirt, lest we forget about her breasts. It's extremely rare for Lara Croft to not strike poses in this movie that do not bring extra attention to her bust line. Or at least, that's where my attention was always focused.
On rare occasions, Croft takes some time away from not caring to show a little bit of sadness. This is whenever she thinks about her dead father. I don't know about how this was in the video games, but in the movie, Lara Croft has quite an Elektra complex. The plot of the movie is based on a really stupid fucking premise. Basically, Lara Croft has to stop the Illuminati from gaining immortality from some crazy triangle deal. Yeah, that Illuminati. The tired conspiracy theory that claims a secret organization controls the world. They could have at least chosen a better conspiracy theory to incorporate, like David Icke's theory about Lizard people mating with mutants from Atlantis to rule the world.
Movie Quality: The movie sucks, pure and simple. But if you can look past the bad writing, and acting, and the fact that the movie is all-around stupid, the fight scenes look less real than WWE, and the dialogue is tired, then um... at least some of the scenes looked cool. Only a couple scenes, really.
Faithfulness to the Game:
Anytime Angelina Jolie is in a new movie, every single nerd male wonders to
himself if he'll get to see her naked. The same can be said about Lara Croft.
Every single installment of the Lara Croft series has rumored nudity codes.
Both Jolie and Croft have a number of fake nude jpegs of themselves floating
around the internet. So I'll give them some points for having that in common. On
the other hand, I remember that the games were fun. This movie is not.
IX. 
Paul: Hello everyone and welcome once again to Digital Championship Wrestling. I'm Paul Franzen alongside Eric "I had no life potions!" Regan, and we've got a pretty good matchup for you on this warm summer night. What say ye, Eric?
Eric: It's freaking HOT damnit, I'm sweating—this better be one awesome matchup! But IT WILL BE, because we only bring you the best here at DCW! Isn't that right Paul?
Paul: It sure is Eric, though I'm not sure how we're gonna top last month's epic cage match! We'll sure try though folks, and heck, let's start trying right now! Somebody start the damn match!
Eric: The music is playing, and that the ring announcer is ready to bring out our fighters! What sorta of mayhem lies ahead for us tonight? Here comes the first participant... Pikachu?!.. oh no... what have we gotten ourselves into this time!?
Paul: Hey he
