Primal Instinct

Remember when fighting games were the biggest quarter munchers in the arcade? Some of my most fond memories were when Brian and I would run into our local arcade with a stack of dot-matrix printed move lists on every new fighting game. I got my ass paddled a few times for running the printer ribbon dry.

For me Primal Rage was the end of my craze for fighting games. Jurassic Park meets Mortal Kombat! How the fuck is that not the best game ever made?

For shame Atari, for shame...

Another Post

“Out of This World,” also known as “Another World” in Europe and “Outer World” in Japan, was little known when it was first released, but was very innovative for its time. It is a cinematic platformer originally released in 1991 for the Amiga, Atari ST, and for MS-DOS, and was ported to various other consoles later.

I played the game on my SNES as a kid. Or rather, I tried to play the game on my SNES for about an hour and gave up when I didn’t understand what to do. There is no text in the game, other than the title. There is no speaking in the game, either; characters interact mostly with hand gestures and facial expressions. The environment itself is a puzzle that you must interact with to solve other puzzles in order to progress through the game. I had little patience for it, and besides, I had a princess in Hyrule to save. I spent very little time on this game. I sort of regret that now. It really is a great game.

You play a young red-headed physicist named Lester who is teleported to an alien world when lightening hits his laboratory during an experiment. He must escape many dangerous creatures, including fanged worms, a lion-ape thing, and man-eating seaweed. Once making it through all of that in one piece, he is captured and enslaved by the resident alien humanoid race. Lester must try to escape from the prison with the help of another imprisoned alien, and continue to evade guards and battle monsters as he and his friend adventure through many different environments solving numerous puzzles.

While the game was frustrating as a kid, as an adult I have more appreciation for the visual style and gameplay. It features colorful vector graphics and animated cut scenes that possess a sense of humor. You can walk, run, and jump, and kick and, later, use a blaster gun to attack enemies. There are multiple checkpoints in each level and unlimited lives, and after completing levels you receive a code to use the next time you play, so you don’t have to start over from the beginning.

Though it requires a little patience, “Out of This World” is a challenging adventure game that is definitely worth a play. A high-resolution download for the original game can be found at: http://www.anotherworld.fr/anotherworld_uk/

I’ve even heard rumors that it will be coming out for Xbox Live Arcade soon…

Bo Knows

Montana to Rice, Montana to Rice, Montana to Rice, Montana to Rice, Montana to Rice...

VG History Should be a 3000 Level Class

Next-Gen.biz has an interesting article up on the most influential moments in gaming history over at their site. The article picks the biggest event for the past 30 years. Some of the bigs include...

1977 - The Release of the Atari 2600
I so wish they would bring back wood panelling on consoles.

1982 - E.T. The Harbinger of Death
Who would have thought the ugly alien could help bring down an entire industry?

1985 - Nintendo
Nintendo releases the NES and we don't "play video games" anymore, we play "Nintendo".

1994 - ESRB
Mortal Kombat and Night Trap pissed enough people off to warrant a new ratings committee.

I still got GTA without being carded, suckers...

Well it's kind of retro...

Brian and I have been absolutely enamored by Bioshock. After the demo hit on XBL last week there has not been one conversation between us where we didn't say something like "I want to take Bioshock behind the middle school and get it pregnant."

The last time I remember everyone going this ape shit for a game was God of War and a few years before that with Knights of the Old Republic. I truly think we are witnessing the release of Game of the Year and the birth of an instant classic.

Oh, I guess it's retro because it's set in the 60s... yeah that's the ticket.

A Blog to the Past

I was a late-bloomer to the gaming scene, not acquiring a SNES, my fist gaming console, until about 1996, around the end of its life cycle. I remember owning and playing a few classics: Super Mario All Stars (on which I played the hell out of Super Mario 3), the Donkey Kong Country series, and, of course, Super Mario World. However, the one game that really stands out, and one of the best games made for the SNES, maybe one of the best games of all time, was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

Sometimes called Zelda III, this top-down action-adventure game was released in the United States in April of 1992 and was the first in the series to introduce the Master Sword, as well as other features we’ve come to expect from Zelda games such as multi-level dungeons and parallel worlds.

Link, the hero of the story, must save Princess Zelda, the Triforce, and the land of Hyrule from the clutches of the evil Ganon, who has been imprisoned in the Sacred Realms, a parallel world that he has twisted into what has become the Dark World, and who eventually finds a link between the two worlds in order to rule them both. Playing as Link, one must first collect three Pendants in the Light World to obtain the Master Sword (which can later be tempered to become more powerful). Once in possession of the sword, and after defeating the sorcerer Agahnim, there are seven dungeons in the Dark World to conquer in order to rescue the seven maidens, who, once together, allow Link to enter Ganon’s tower and fight him. Ganon escapes at the end of the battle and crash-lands into the Pyramid of Power, where Link is able to follow, drop through the ceiling, and defeat Ganon once and for all, restoring the Sacred Realms and rescuing Princess Zelda.

I can’t even count how many times I played this game all the way through—five or six, at least. After I knew how to solve the puzzles, I played through it again and again, focusing on collecting all the heart pieces or seeing how fast I could get through it, or just to hear the complex and sophisticated, yet playfully addicting, musical score. [I sometimes catch myself humming the Dark World theme to this day (doo doooooooo, doo doo doo doodadoo…)]. I think the story was most compelling to me, though: rescuing Princess Zelda, saving Hyrule, and all of the side stories and quests along the way (my favorite was acquiring the flute and the bird). It was probably the most in-depth game I had ever played or even seen before, and I just couldn’t put it down. I even packed my SNES and copy of A Link to the Past and took it along with me to college (because sometimes saving a Princess is much more important than passing classes).

And on top of all that, the game has aged quite well; the gameplay is tight and natural-feeling (especially with a SNES controller in your hands), and, though it’s 2-D, the graphics still have a bit of a modern feel to them: not too fancy, not too real, well animated, and slightly cartoony, with detailed sprites that aren’t so detailed that they take themselves too seriously.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is probably my favorite game of all time. If anyone out there hasn’t yet played this game, and don’t plan to, they are certainly missing out on one of the best action-adventure games ever produced.

Win a Date With Mark Hamill

Wing Commander Arena is coming soon to XBLA and to celebrate EA is giving every retro gamer teh awesome. The lucky winner will have to find room in their studio apartment for every Wing Commander game ever made as well as the systems to play them on. So if your Sega CD and 3DO got sold at your mother's garage sell EA has got you covered.

One winner will receive...

1 Sega Genesis w/Sega CD

- 2 Controllers
- 4 way Controller Adapter
- Wing Commander Sega CD

1 Super Nintendo

- 1 Controller
- Wing Commander SNES
- Wing Commander: Secret Missions SNES

1 Playstation Console

- 1 Controller
- Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger Playstation
- Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom Playstation

One Panasonic 3DO

- 2 Controllers
- Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger 3DO
- Super Wing Commander 3DO

Game Boy Advanced

- Wing Commander Prophecy

Gateway 2000 Pentium One PC w/Windows '95

- 1 CRT Monitor
- 1 Mouse
- 1 Keyboard
- 1 Set of Speakers
- Wing Commander
- Wing Commander: Deluxe Edition
- Wing Commander II: Vengence of the Kilrathi
- Wing Commander II: Vengence of the Kilrathi Deluxe Edition
- Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger
- Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom
- Wing Commander Academy

PLUS


Xbox 360 Elite Hardware + 11,200 Microsoft Points and two runners up will receive 11,200 points for Xbox Live

To enter just sign up for EA's junk email bot.

The Win 95 machine would be nice, but having the Sega CD and 3DO I could finally replay those wonderful FMV Jurassic Park games.