Messages

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TalkBack / Re: Zach's Gaming Stuff: Soul Calibur IV Special Edition

« on: May 15, 2011, 10:49:17 PM »

Yes, but I gave it away looooong ago. It just had a picture of Mitsirugi and Darth Vader, from what I remember.

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General Gaming / Re: PSN = Privacy? Security? Never!

« on: May 15, 2011, 10:10:07 PM »

I have a love/hate relationship with that game.

As a huge fan of the Cthulhu Mythos and Lovecraft in general, it's good to see a horror game mine that particular sub-genre. However, the gameplay is the worst part of the game. Combat never ceases to be a chore, the magic system is a mess (I should make it clear right now that YOU CAN RESTORE SANITY) and the game's central "hook" (sanity effects) are initially cool and jarring but VERY QUICKLY lose their appeal. It's always obvious when something is a sanity effect.

I had to struggle to finish the game, and once I did, I had no desire to go back and replay it.

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General Gaming / Re: PSN = Privacy? Security? Never!

« on: May 15, 2011, 09:16:41 PM »

Well, Trophies and multiplayer are well and good, but I'm still waiting for my Dante's Inferno DLC.

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TalkBack / Re: Letter From The Director: An Auspicious Debut

« on: May 15, 2011, 09:14:58 PM »

My Dead or Alive review may or may not come with pictures of my DoA figures.

[Overall pretty useless.]

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TalkBack / Zach's Gaming Stuff: Soul Calibur IV Special Edition

« on: May 15, 2011, 07:33:32 PM »

Overall pretty useless.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/blog/26313

Exciting story about this special edition: it took like six weeks to get to me. I'm not sure whether the United States Post Office has started using box tortoises to make deliveries, but I was going crazy after about two weeks because Best Buy's website claimed I'd get it in between seven and ten business days. This did not happen. I really wanted the special edition for reasons I don't remember now, and had I known then what I know now, I would have saved the ten extra dollars it cost. With the recent announcement of Soul Calibur V, I thought it might be a good time go over the previous game's special edition, as it might serve as a warning against buying the next game's premium version.

Of course, it comes with the game. Everything is packed into the steel case shown in the opening picture, and you should know that the steel case is impressively thick, yet holds virtually nothing. Its heft is not caused by its contents, but rather its molecular makeup.

There's this comic/art book. It's nicely illustrated and printed on reasonably thick, glossy paper. I think it's supposed to be a prequel to the game, but it's not really clear at all. It just shows off some good comic representations of Mitsirugi, Hilde, and Tira. Once you read the comic once, you'll never touch it again.

See? Nothing too special.

The concept art section is pretty nice, however, and includes a lot of scratched costumes for the game's menagerie of characters. There are two pages dedicated to Isabella Valentine. I think you can guess why.

Then there's this double-sized poster. On one side, you have Hilde flanked by a bunch of other characters. Having never been a poster guy, this is pretty throwaway to me. But the art is nice...I guess. Now, let's check out the other side. It's horrible.

I don't know if you can tell, but this is a tournament bracket sheet. If you ever have a ton of people over who are all hardcore Soul Calibur IV fans, well, you can thank your lucky star that this special edition included a bracket sheet. It even comes with a miniature Sharpie pen (left)! This seems like a monumental waste of space. Back in my day, we used a NAPKIN AND A PEN. I'm also pretty certain you'd have to laminate this poster if you wanted to use the marker on it more than once.

There was one final extra: "exclusive" DLC which unlocks every character's ultimate weapon and joke weapon, which is actually pretty nice, and bonus costume pieces...in which you can make a...sexy maid character. That may be a Japanese perk, because it's not working for me. I guess you could use those costume pieces to re-make Valeria from SC3 but I'm not seeing much utility beyond that.

If ever there was a "waste of space" special edition, this is it. I use the steel case to hold all my "misc." special edition stuff, which I'll probably discuss next time.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Metroid Prime 3 Vouchers

« on: May 14, 2011, 09:17:10 PM »

Cyrian, I thought I edited my post but I guess it didn't take.

I don't think the Wii is registering you, even though I clearly did (and I can't do it again). I can't see any vouchers from you. :-(

F-ZeroBoy, I'll add you tonight and figure out how many I still need/want.

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General Gaming / Re: PSN = Privacy? Security? Never!

« on: May 14, 2011, 08:33:58 PM »

See, I couldn't buy that Darmok episode, largely because I cannot understand how a civilization could FUNCTION by speaking only in metaphors. How would that even develop? You have to have a more stable grammatical system before you start going off and forming metaphors, so why not just stick with the base linguistic skulls? It's less of a hassle.

It was also cheap that the horrible alien monster they were trying to avoid was conveniently cloaked.

[Just like Sam Fisher, this game is hard to see.]

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TalkBack / Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell 3D Review

« on: May 11, 2011, 12:11:13 PM »

Just like Sam Fisher, this game is hard to see.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/26274

I’ve always wanted to try the Splinter Cell games. In particular, I wanted to play the third game in the series—Chaos Theory—because it was universally lauded, grounded (somewhat) in reality, had some really interesting multiplayer modes, and seemed to fix a lot of the things I didn’t love about the Metal Gear Solid games. Exactly why I never just ran out and bought a cheap copy, we’ll never know. As it turns out, the game’s been down-ported to the 3DS as a launch window game. Does Splinter Cell 3D sell me on the series? Kind of, though it really just makes me want to run out and find the PS2 original, as it’s clear this is not how Splinter Cell was meant to be played.

First things first: players hoping for a full port of Chaos Theory will be disappointed to know that this 3DS game only has the single-player campaign mode, and nothing else. No co-op and no multiplayer exist here, so you’re not really getting the full game. The second disappointment is that the 3DS doesn’t have the comfort factor or button configuration that, I assume, made Chaos Theory playable on the PS2. Here, many of the game’s controls are mapped to the touch screen, including weapon swapping, ammo selection, night vision, and Sam Fisher’s “scan visor.” Whenever you have in-game options—like before you open a door—you have to select it on the touch screen. The Circle Pad is used for movement, and the camera is unfortunately controlled by the face  buttons, which is never ideal. Worse, when you tap a gun on the touch screen, Sam goes into aiming mode (yes, he can strafe) and you suddenly have to aim with the face buttons, which is never precise and takes way too long to set up a shot. Some other movements, like hugging the wall or jumping, are unfortunately mapped to the D-pad. Because of this, it is actually impossible to jump forward.

The camera is also far too restrictive. I don’t know if it was like this on the original game, but in Splinter Cell 3D, it hugs Sam’s back, and whenever the room is restricted (which is often) it closes in even tighter, sometimes going into a pseudo-first-person viewpoint just because it has nowhere else to go. Because of this, your field of vision is just terrible, and you have to spend a few seconds manhandling the camera before going forward in many areas just to find out if any bad guys are going to see you. The slug-like aiming means that very often, if an off-screen enemy sees you, your best bet is to run toward him and stab, because you just don’t have the ability to aim quickly. More often than not, being seen means that Sam will be killed. And the checkpoints aren’t always great.

The core gameplay is actually fairly interesting. Sam sneaks around using shadows and ambient noise, shooting people in the head, hiding bodies, and/or giving judo chops to the neck. One new element, borrowed from the most recent console Splinter Cell games, is the presence of words superimposed on the environments telling you what to do next. It’s a nice touch, but it’s inconsistently used.

One of Sam’s goggle settings paints the environment in blacks and whites—objects you can interact with are white while everything else is grey and black. I found myself using this setting for most of my playtime because the game is naturally so dark. Splinter Cell 3D is in a sort of Castlevania: Circle of the Moon position: unless you’re playing it in the ideal lighting circumstances, you won’t really see what’s going on.

The graphics are pretty nice, though nothing really stands out because Sam is sneaking around in the shadows. The production values are high, however; There are a lot of voice acting and pre-mission cut scenes in this game. I daresay there’s almost too much information during pre-mission briefings—a gaggle of talking heads tell you information you may or may not care about. Unfortunately, for all this pre-mission chatter, there doesn’t appear to be a Codec parallel, so if you need some help during the mission—for example, where do I go from here?—you’re out of luck.

As in any 3DS game, Splinter Cell 3D has a 3D effect, though it’s not particularly engaging. It is never actually useful and serves only to make the visuals “pop” a bit more. However, the game is just as playable (or, as I’ve been saying, “unplayable”) without the 3D effect, and I’ve been turning it off completely with no drop in enjoyment.

I didn’t really care for Splinter Cell 3D, but for once it’s not really the game’s fault—it’s the developer’s fault for trying to cram a control scheme onto a system not designed for it, and the fact that you can’t really see what you’re doing half the time. The exclusion of all multiplayer is disappointing too, as that was one facet of Chaos Theory I was really looking forward to trying. If you’d like to play Chaos Theory (as I still would), run out and get it on the PS2—the console it was built to run on.

[Relatively new Xbox 360 in tow, I've been diving into XBLA.]

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TalkBack / Whatcha Been Playin'? 360 Edition

« on: May 09, 2011, 11:45:37 PM »

Relatively new Xbox 360 in tow, I've been diving into XBLA.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/blog/26257

Director’s Note: In an attempt to deliver you more game-related content in a more personable fashion, staffers will post semi-regular What’cha Been Playin’? posts. Let us know what you think in Talkback.

Two reasons I haven’t been playing my Wii much lately. First, it is half dead but I can’t afford to send it to Nintendo for repairs right now. Oh, it still works—it’s just really finicky: won’t start up properly, freezes on the menu screen, freezes while loading a game, etc. It’s just a matter of time before the thing starts spewing smoke from the GameCube controller ports. The other reason is that my brother sold me his Xbox 360 a few months ago for just $100. I’ve already acquired the one disc-based game I wanted for the system (Dead or Alive Xtreme 2—don’t act surprised) so I’ve been repeatedly gorging myself on XBLA games, which is what I wanted a 360 for in the first place.

First up: Geometry Wars 2. I didn’t have to buy this; it was already on the system when I got it. After about an hour of play, I found myself having unlocked all the game modes. I really like Evolution because it’s really trippy, but Pacifist and Waves are fun, too. I’m not usually a big fan of score attack games, but what makes it oddly compelling is that I can see exactly how far I am from Karl Castaneda on the online scoreboard. I tried and failed to initiate a game club among my local friends with this game but I think they all forgot about it. It would be fun since we’d all be started on the ground floor.

If he doesn't kill you right away, you'll instead be driven completely insane! As though you were at a Justin Bieber concert

Based on Jonny’s RFN recommendation and my established love for all things Lovecraftian, I went ahead and “splurged” on Cthulhu Saves the World, a charming little retro style RPG. Built to look like a late-era NES RPG, the game has our heroic villain rising from the horrible sunken city of Ry’leh to enslave mankind only to have his powers drained by a random wizard. To regain his evil powers, Cthulhu must do heroic deeds. Thus, he goes about the land defeating monsters and saving people’s dogs. The writing is hilarious, the battle system actually has legs (or, if you prefer, tentacles) and the music is catchy. Just to give you some idea of how ridiculous things are, the first new party member you meet is a young girl who is a Cthulhu groupie. She loves all things Cthulhu. Your second new party member is a talking sword named Sharpe. He wears different hilts for armor. The game is filled to the brim with references from not just the Cthulhu Mythos but the Dreamland Cycle, too. I daresay it’s one of the most fun RPG’s I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing.

Whereas a lesser hero, such as Mario, would have abandoned Peach at the mere sight of blood-covered saw blades, Meat Boy ventures forth. Bandage Girl must...make it worth his while

And then, of course, there’s Super Meat Boy. Oh, how I’ve longed to play this game. Listening to countless podcasters trumpet this game’s virtues to the heavens without any way of obtaining it has been torturous, but I’ve finally gotten my eager claws on it and it…is…amazing. In all stone-faced seriousness, Super Meat Boy might be the best 2D platformer I’ve played since Super Mario Bros. 3. While brutally difficult at times, the game is never unfair, and rarely veers from being hard to frustrating (unless you’re going for bandages). The level design is so tight that it’s hard not to stare in awe at this amazing game that two people made. It’s also drop-dead funny at times and features a slew of old-school game parodies. If you think the standard levels are hard, try the Dark World levels, or the Warp Zone levels, or…dare I suggest…the Internetz levels. They are heart-stoppingly difficult. But there’s so damn much content in this game, you’ll never run out. You can unlock new characters from other indie games—including Commander Video—who all have unique powers that may help you through particularly tough levels. But what drops my jaw more than any other aspect of this brilliant game? The music, dear readers, the music. Super Meat Boy has one of the best soundtracks I’ve ever heard. I could listen to it all day and long into the night. And since I bought the soundtrack, I CAN!

"What? Why are you all looking at me like that? Oh. Oh, I farted. Yeah, that's...pretty bad

Finally, as far as games I’ve actually purchased, I just recently bought Beyond Good & Evil HD and have loved every second of it. The game doesn’t necessarily look a whole lot better, just a little sharper (as it should) and the water textures seem better. But it’s otherwise the same game I loved on the GameCube with the occasional graphical hiccup. As one of my favorite games ever, BG&E was a no-brainer, and I’m finding that a surprising amount of it is muscle memory. I’ve already acquired more Pearls and moolah than the game thought I’d have, so it didn’t really know what to do when I left Mamago’s Garage with the triple-shot before the second dungeon. It was funny: there was a DomZ attack but there weren’t triggers for my new item, which is the usual way things go. Anyway, it’s a great game; you should buy it.

Lara Croft: tomb raider, detective, holder of multiple Ph.D.'s, and bikini model

As Newscast listeners know, I bought the Tomb Raider Trilogy but was disappointed to hear that the XBLA content wasn't coming to it. For the curious, this meant a bunch of a Underworld content, including a bunch of a alternate outfits and two levels…one of which came with more alternate outfits. So I found a copy of the 360 version for eight bucks and used some unused Allards to get the first of the two new levels: Beneath the Ashes, a surprisingly short visit to the cavernous basements of Croft Manor. All in all, not really worth 800 Allards, but I've heard that the second level, Lara's Shadow, is significantly different and in many ways better. That'll happen in the future. I also discovered that all the Trophies I earned during my playthrough of Underworld (on its own) are counted toward the Trilogy's Trophy completion rate. That is, it's not considered a different game. So I may as well just play Underworld on the 360 and get some Achievements.

And that's what I've been playin'!

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 52: Beginning at the End

« on: May 09, 2011, 02:09:58 AM »

Special thanks to Nathan and Andy for toiling over the technical issues that plagued this particular podcast. They are better men than most!

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Nintendo Gaming / Conduit 2

« on: May 09, 2011, 02:07:57 AM »

Maybe it's more fun with friends?
 
Halbred: 4556-0371-9362

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Metroid Other M

« on: May 08, 2011, 03:10:45 AM »

My hope is that Nintendo announces a 3DS Metroid game at E3, that Sakamoto is not involved.

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General Gaming / Re: PSN = Privacy? Security? Never!

« on: May 07, 2011, 08:59:20 PM »

Geezus, this is getting ridiculous. It's not like I play online games or anything (often) but I want my online back, for Cthulhu's sake. I just bought Dante's Inferno for super-cheap (special edition, nop less) and I want to download my exclusive goddamn content.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: The Conduit 2 confirmed.

« on: May 07, 2011, 08:56:44 PM »

Really? Atlantis felt generically "futuristic" to me. For some reason, it reminded me of the Hive of the Mantids level from Turok 2. Don't know why, though. :-P

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TalkBack / Re: Conduit 2 Review

« on: May 07, 2011, 08:41:45 PM »

@KiaskiProject: It is kind of funny, isn't it?

[Zach Miller returns to Radio Trivia! Is paleontology somehow involved? Probably, but we make no promises.]

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Podcast Discussion / Episode 92: I Can't Believe It's Not Beta

« on: May 07, 2011, 02:24:07 AM »

Zach Miller returns to Radio Trivia! Is paleontology somehow involved? Probably, but we make no promises.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/radiotrivia/26251

Did you like the third and fourth games? Let your fellow listeners know in TalkBack! Think you've got a better choice? Then send it my way and your request might be on the next episode of Radio Trivia: Podcast Edition!  Heck, throw in a question and specific songs if you want.  Just remember, it has to be a game found on a Nintendo system in North America (unless we say otherwise)!

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TalkBack / Re: Conduit 2 Review

« on: May 06, 2011, 11:31:13 PM »

We should play, Oblivion, next week?

[It's been a long road from "below average" to "average".]

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TalkBack / Conduit 2 Review

« on: May 06, 2011, 06:41:32 PM »

It's been a long road from "below average" to "average".

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/26244

Scroll down to the bottom for a video review.

The problem with the original Conduit game, released on Wii in 2009, is that it was severely over-hyped. Claiming to be a first-person shooter on par with those found on the Xbox 360 in terms of production values and gameplay, The Conduit turned out to be a disappointing corridor shooter with limited gameplay scope, uneven graphics, generic art direction, persistent bugs, and a mess of a 12-player online multiplayer mode. The game received mediocre reviews, and High Voltage shrank back into the night, promising to deliver a sequel that made good on those original promises. Two years later, they bring us Conduit 2, and while I can definitely tell you that they've improved the original, the unfortunate passage of time has rendered many of these improvements moot.

The story starts off where the first game ended; smack-talking soldier Michael Ford is after power-hungry Trust boss John Adams, who has been in cahoots with alien invaders called the Drudge. He follows Adams through a Conduit portal and ends up…on an oil platform. Adams escapes through yet another Conduit within five minutes and leaves Ford to deal with an angry-looking cybernetic serpent. The plot never really rises beyond this cat-and-mouse game: Adams is always one step ahead, leaving you to deal with the Drudge, then the ending comes along and makes you just scratch your head. Unlike something like Metal Gear, however, you're not suffering through the gameplay for the story. It's the other way around.

The gameplay in Conduit 2 is notably improved from the original, due in large part to the variety of control options. You can use the Wii Remote and Nunchuk with or without the MotionPlus accessory.  With MotionPlus, the control feels a little tighter, but not a lot. Using the aim assist option brings more precision. The control customization from the original Conduit makes a triumphant return in the sequel, though I will say it might take you a long time to get everything working just right. For my part, the Classic Controller Pro, configured to duplicate GoldenEye's control scheme as much as possible, worked the best.

The game's visuals have been improved largely by increasing the disparity between environments. You'll find yourself wandering through Washington D.C. (of course), China, Russia, Central America, and even Atlantis. Sadly, despite the visual panache, you'll still be walking through a lot of corridors, and the more open areas feel a little messy. Cover is strewn about in an uneven manner, unhelped by the fact that there is no specific cover system aside from "duck, then stand, then duck" etc. While set pieces exist, none of them make you say "wow," and more often they serve only to throw more enemies at you. On the plus side, the character models are much more striking in this game and include several variations on Drudge aliens and a few new Trust designs. Michael Ford himself gets a makeover early in the proceedings, from a wetsuit to an armor super-soldier suit.  Strangely, it doesn't really absorb damage any better.

Nothing looks good close up, and anytime your field operator (Andromeda), appears in a cut-scene, you'll wonder if this is a good-looking N64 game (she doesn’t so much talk as chatter incessantly). The sound design is nice: enemies chatter constantly and realistically, and Michael Ford is now voiced by Jon St. John—that's right, Duke Nukem himself. The script seems to have been written specifically for this occasion, as Ford tosses out groan-inducing one-liners at every opportunity.

While gameplay is rarely more complicated than "get from point A to point B," your interactions with the All-Seeing Eye have nicely evolved to the point where it's basically a Scan Visor. You can find story information, weapon blueprints, and what Call of Duty fans would call Perks scattered throughout every level. You can also revisit any level you want to find everything, which is cool.

The multiplayer options are legion. You can play split-screen with three other people in competitive modes or a cooperative Hoard-type mode where you try to mow down as many enemies as possible. Playing any of these modes really racks up in-game currency so you can buy new weapons, gear, and Perks for customizing your load-out and avatar. The online multiplayer itself is shockingly inconsistent. Framerate issues plague most games, being dropped in the lobby was a constant hazard for me, and connecting to games is sometimes an issue. I also encountered one instance where the game just locked up while trying to find a game. Once you actually do connect successfully, there are a good variety of maps and game types. Conduit 2, however, doesn't have the staying power of GoldenEye in the online arena.

One other thing to point out—almost every time I jumped online, the game went through a lengthy process of searching for and downloading patches. These patches fix not just online problems, but solo campaign problems too, including a troublesome one on the very first level. While appreciated, it’s troublesome to see so many patches released, and it’s irritating that it takes so long to search for and download them (the game then restarts itself).

Conduit 2 has some good moments and has proven itself a perfectly competent shooter with some middling issues. My biggest complaint is that the game just isn't memorable, and there are other shooters I'd rather play. For a single-player experience, I'll go with the Metroid Prime Trilogy or GoldenEye. For online multiplayer (or even offline multiplayer), GoldenEye still reigns supreme. If you need to get your FPS fix, Conduit 2 has you covered, but there are honestly better shooters out there in the gaming landscape.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: RetroActive #18 Poll - Originals & Remakes Edition

« on: May 04, 2011, 09:27:24 PM »

Hmmm, I've played all of these except BG&E, but the recent discussions of BG&E and its stealthy aspects lead me to think I wouldn't like it.

But in most cases, TYP, you can kill the guards even after they've seen you. Things do get tougher later in the game, though, what with the insta-kill lasers.

[Watch out for rogue pelycosaurs!]

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TalkBack / Extra Life: Jurassic Park

« on: May 04, 2011, 01:18:26 PM »

Watch out for rogue pelycosaurs!

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/feature/26219

It’s fairly obvious to even the casual reader of this site that I’m an enormous fan of all things prehistoric. If I could do it all over again, I’d live somewhere else and go to school to be a genuine paleontologist. This next sentence, then, shouldn’t surprise you: my favorite movie is Steven Spielberg’s antediluvian Jurassic Park, a film in which a highly anticipated theme park is forced to delay its grand opening due largely to a power outage. I saw the film when I was but a lad of just 10 years, and my enthusiasm for the film knew no bounds. After that, I quickly began accruing a substantial mass of toys, comics, tie-in books, posters, and various other paraphernalia related to my newly minted favorite film.  Among these acquisitions was, as one might assume, the Ocean-developed NES game. I would also come to own the Game Boy version and the Game Boy version’s sequel (“The Chaos Continues”). Despite the game’s laundry list of faults, I enjoyed it immensely as a child.

But I thought Samuel L. Jackson went to turn the power back on?

You play as Alan Grant as he battles to escape Isla Nublar. This involves shooting dinosaurs, going into blind underbrush where, of course, dinosaurs lurk, and collecting keycards with which to unlock doors. Interestingly, you have to find and destroy dinosaur eggs in order to earn keycards, and each level begins with a mission given to you by Mr. DNA (who, as you’ll recall, is “in your blood”). During your Mesozoic walkabout, you’ll have to survive a Triceratops stampede, restore power to the island, and reboot the park’s computer systems. Somewhere near the end of the game, Alan decides to destroy all the raptor nests on the island—reminiscent of the book’s plot—using grenades. You’ll find yourself traveling down a river while avoiding Brachiosaurus heads (must be a deep river), exploring what appears to be an active volcano, helping Lexine survive the game’s only encounter with Tyrannosaurus, and caught completely off-guard by rogue Dimetrodons and stegosaurs.

Dinosaurs tended to lay their eggs in unusual, arbitrary places

The game is notable in that it took full advantage of the NES’ ability to display the color brown. Almost everything in the game is one shade or brown or another: Alan himself, most of the dinosaurs, the ground, some of the vegetation, and the buildings (and their interiors) are the color of (healthy) poop. Alan himself is capable of moving in eight directions, jumping weakly, and shooting things. He has different guns that require unique ammo types that vary largely based on strength alone. The island’s dinosaurs have found an interesting way around the Lysine Contingency: they consume bullets of all types, which as we all know are very high in lysine. Whenever Alan manages to shoot down a rampaging raptor or scuttling compy, their gut contents are invariably preserved, shielded from damage by the enormous meat-sack surrounding them. Since he is in the field without support, Dr. Grant must make use of these acid-etched bullets to refresh his weapon stock. Ick.

The game’s menagerie of prehistoric beasties is, for the most part, totally invincible to damage. Something about that West African frog DNA turned most of the island’s dinosaurs into Wolverine-like mutants. Of the dozen dinosaurs (and one pelycosaur) you’ll encounter, only three can be killed: Compsognathus, Velociraptor (actually Deinonychus), and “Dilophosaurus.” The rest are wholly immune to your projectile-based weaponry. Two of them—Stegosaurus and Dimetrodon—simply rush out of the brush and stampede over you without warning, killing Alan instantly. The game’s single killable boss, Tyrannosaurus rex, never actually dies. From what I recall, you just empty its invisible HP gauge, which takes like ten minutes, and it just kind of bumbles away, leaving Lexine free to be irritating for an hour and a half before miraculously saving the day thanks to her knowledge of obscure computer software. Tim, the Human Piece of Toast, doesn’t fare any better as,left to his own devices, he can’t even manage to notice, much less avoid, a gaggle of Triceratops despite the clearly marked paths between animals. He’s like a parakeet, kept in a cage since hatching, yet suddenly let loose in the wild; the usual concepts of “danger” do not apply.

Compsognathus, as this game shows, looked kind of like a walking fetus

Of course, it’s not all wine and roses at InGen, and the game definitely has problems. Typical of so many NES titles, Jurassic Park lacked a battery save, but Ocean also forgot to include a password system. The game isn’t super-long, but still, by 1993, developers should’ve figured out how to cram one of these things into their games. By modern standards, the game is considerably unforgiving; Alan has very limited HP, a set number of lives, and while you can continue once or twice, Game Over takes you right back to the title screen. The game’s most abundant ammo type is pretty terrible, and as the game goes on, ammo-draining raptors become more and more common, to the point where you’re facing raptors exclusively while snuffing out their nests. Item boxes include med packs, ammo, and temporary West African frog DNA. Unfortunately, you might also get an automatic death or grievous injury—like the Poison Mushrooms in Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels. Thankfully, the item boxes are not randomized, so you eventually learn which ones to avoid.

While there’s probably no hope that the game will ever see renewed life on the Virtual Console, I certainly would appreciate the opportunity to re-play it, if for no other reason than to see how much muscle memory I retain. I recall beating the game many times in my childhood through plenty of blood, sweat, and tears. Of course, there were plenty of other Jurassic Park games: a graphically superior version for the SNES, a graphically inferior version for the Game Boy, a graphically in-between version for the Amiga, and a completely different side-scrolling platformer for the Genesis in which you could choose to play as Alan Grant or a Velociraptor. If even one of these games somehow made it to the Virtual Console or Virtual Handheld, it would be a Jurassic dream come true.

"Mr. Hammond, after careful consideration, I've decided NOT to endorse your park"

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TalkBack / Re: Game Controller Combo Pack for Wii Review

« on: May 03, 2011, 02:06:22 AM »

They're not sold separately, though...

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: The Conduit 2 confirmed.

« on: May 01, 2011, 08:37:33 PM »

Jonny, just so you know, it has downloaded a patch every time I've gotten online with it.

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Movies & TV / Re: Rate the last movie you've seen

« on: May 01, 2011, 08:36:19 PM »

Red Planet - Better than I expected

Remember Red Planet? Batman, Trinity, Tom Sizemore, and Martian bugs? Yeah, that movie. Good for some laughs, especially when Sizemore (a geneticist in the film) gets the four amino acids of DNA wrong.

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TalkBack / Re: The Best 30 DS Games

« on: May 01, 2011, 08:33:57 PM »

I'm going to start a riot if Moon didn't make the list...

Oh yeah, man. Moon! And Dementium 2!

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Metroid Prime 3 Vouchers

« on: April 30, 2011, 07:48:39 PM »

I'll check right now. If I got it, I'll send you one too!

Sorry it took so long to check back on this. :-(