Games Beaten 2014

[Stark]

32. Disney's Aladdin (SNES)

I've never cared too much for Disney cartoons, but this is quite an entertaining platformer. It's very simple too - perfect for a night when you just want to kick back and relax.

From what I understand there were a couple of other Aladdin platformers released around the same time, but I've never played them.

I've played the Genesis version. Well version is the wrong word, games are different. I like the animation, sound, and music better on the Genny game. The platforming controls are tighter on the SNES, IMO.

[Luke]

32. Disney's Aladdin (SNES)

I've never cared too much for Disney cartoons, but this is quite an entertaining platformer. It's very simple too - perfect for a night when you just want to kick back and relax.

From what I understand there were a couple of other Aladdin platformers released around the same time, but I've never played them.

I've played the Genesis version. Well version is the wrong word, games are different. I like the animation, sound, and music better on the Genny game. The platforming controls are tighter on the SNES, IMO.

Controls are tighter on the snes, mostly due to the addition of the floating blanket, which has pin point precision. Both are worth playing and owning though for two different reasons. Aladdin on the Genesis is a bit more EWJimmy, no?

Mental note* Add Metal Gear NES and Mario Baseball Gamecube to my list.

[prfsnl_gmr]

FYI: The Genesis version of Aladdin was ported to the NES(!), Gameboy(!), and Gameboy Color(!). The SNES version was ported (with extra stages!) to the GBA.

Aladdin on the Genesis is a bit more EWJimmy, no?

Yes. The team that created the Genesis version became Shiny Entertainment, the creators of the Earthworm Jim series.

[Stark]

FYI: The Genesis version of Aladdin was ported to the NES(!), Gameboy(!), and Gameboy Color(!). The SNES version was ported (with extra stages!) to the GBA.

Aladdin on the Genesis is a bit more EWJimmy, no?

Yes. The team that created the Genesis version became Shiny Entertainment, the creators of the Earthworm Jim series.

Huh, gotta love history like that!

[Luke]

Yes. The team that created the Genesis version became Shiny Entertainment, the creators of the Earthworm Jim series.

Schooled, and thanks for the schooling.

This makes sense as Virgin was picking up every property available and making darned good games with it. Cool Spot also comes to mind.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Cool Spot also comes to mind.

Same team! According to Wikipedia - and consistent with my personal knowledge of old EGM articles - the Shiny Entertainment team worked on Global Gladiators and Cool Spot before forming their own studio and developing the Earthworm Jim games.

The quality slipped a bit in the late '90s, and their 3D games were not as well-received. Shiny Entertainment's final games were the mid-2000s Matrix tie-in games, and the team was eventually merged into Double Helix Games (which worked on Killer Instinct for the Xbox One and the recently-released Strider reboot/sequel).

[Sload Soap]

There is also a chinese hack of the SNES Aladdin for the Famicom. Have a gander.

Metal Gear(MSXemu)

Went over the deadline on this but powered through it yesterday and today. I'm kind of torn on how to judge it.

A lot of my issues with the game are issues I have with a lot of games of that era: cheap deaths, respawning enemies, inscrutable level design and convoluted item menus. Metal Gear has these things in spades. It also has unnecessary backtracking and points where losing health is unavoidable.

And yet, I actually had a good time playing Metal Gear. The setting is excellent, the implementation of items like the cardboard box, IR goggles and mine detector are great and very forward thinking. I liked how you have to get your pen and paper out and make notes. You have to pay attention to the environment and what NPC's tell you. Most importantly the stealth is well implemented for a 2D game. I also liked how the environments were interconnected and the items are handed out at steady pace. I can see the seeds for Metal Gear Solid in this game and Kojima's characteristic style.

So overall the games style and play-ability won out over the foibles of the era. Glad it was selected for TR.

[elricorico]

1. Pikmin 3 (WiiU)
2. Kirby's Adventure (WiiU VC)

So... getting distracted by Minecraft over the past month or so practically guaranteed that I wouldn't be finishing a lot of games. However I had purchased Kirby's Adventure when it was 30 cents for the Wii U Virtual Console. I had never played it prior and slowly picked it up for 15 minutes at a time here and there. I finished it today.

It is of course pretty easy for an NES platformer, which I don't really mind, considering it is now the only NES platformer I recall completing (unless I count Mega Man 3 - which now that I think about it does have some things in common with this game). It controls pretty well and has a wide variety of moves which kept it pretty interesting. I did have some moments where I felt Kirby just wasn't turning around when he should have been. The bosses were generally fun, but there wasn't a great amount of variety in how they should be fought. It has pretty nice graphics for an NES game and the levels all looked different enough to stay engaging. I like it. I'm not sure I would have liked it as a kid growing up with the NES (I mostly wanted to play RPGs), but it has held up really well and is still worth playing.

Overall it may have been the best 30 cents I've ever spent on gaming. Will any of the other 30 cent games dethrone it...?

[alienjesus]

Overall it may have been the best 30 cents I've ever spent on gaming. Will any of the other 30 cent games dethrone it...?

Punch-Out and F-Zero are certainly in with a shout, but Super Metroid is in a league of it's own.

[elricorico]

Punch-Out and F-Zero are certainly in with a shout, but Super Metroid is in a league of it's own.

I love Punch Out, but I feel like Kirby had more to offer in the way of gameplay. F-Zero never really gripped me in the way the Mario Kart series did. I've never played a Metroid game since the original, so that series is something of a mystery to me. I bought Super Metroid, but that is the only one of the 30 cent games I haven't even tried once.