racketboy.com

I've been playing Tomato Adventure on my Japanese Wii U's eShop over the past couple days. As the GBA RPG Alpha Dream made before they made Superstar Saga, I expected it to play somewhat as a proto-M&L game, and that isn't entirely untrue. Though it's definitely geared towards kids a lot more than the M&L games (it's REALLY easy), it's still an alright time. The game has active time abilities you use to attack enemies a lot like in the M&L games, and you can even adjust the difficulty of those abilities' executions to have them deal more damage, a lot like you can with Bro Moves in Superstar Saga. The bosses have very little health (at the very least the first bosses were each about as strong as two normal enemies with how fast I killed them, one hit each), but the other part that makes this a lot easier than Superstar Saga is down to how there is no dodging attacks. That means there's a lot less going on you need to keep track of were you a little kid playing this. It never came out in English, so it's a little hard to recommend for kids who can't read Japanese, but it's definitely a fine kids RPG so far if they CAN read it

When I was like ten years old, a friend's dad took us to see the WWF. At the time, I knew nothing about wrestling. I had no interest really. But I went because I was invited and I thought this was the kind of stuff that boys are age were supposed to be into. I probably would have said yes to a monster truck show under similar conditions. But that invite never came. Anyway, I don't remember much about that WWF show, other than those guys The Road Warriors were there. Actually, I just googled it and apparently they were known as Legion Of Doom during this period. I don't know. Shrug.

Anyway, the point is I was never a wrestling fan, even when I went to that show. I know who some wrestling dudes are of the late 80's and early 90's because friends were into it. But I have no memory if I actually saw like Jake The Snake or Rick Flare or Macho Man Randy Savage or Andre The Giant. I have no knowledge of the history of wrestling. And it didn't really matter when I was there. Hacksaw Jim Duggan must have been there because we got foam two-by-fours that he may or may not have signed. Again, didn't care and my memory is fuzzy.

The point of all this rambling is to say - wrestling is not something a fan of. However, there are some wrestling games that got some praise over the years and because of my lack of interest I overlooked them. Having just recently acquired a Nintendo 64 not too long ago, I couldn't pass up a WCW Vs NWO cartridge when I saw it at a yard sale. I figured, hey, wrestling games are pretty much just fighting games. I like some fighting games. Maybe I'd enjoy this game - and beef up my new N64 collection on the meantime.

You guys... no. I don't like this game. Not at all.

So first things first, I didn't recognize too much of the roster. There was Hulk Hogan and Sting and I think Rick Flare. But that's it. And maybe his name is Rick Flair? I'm not going to spend any more time googling wrestling stuff tonight, so I don't know. But yeah. I guess this game came out at a time where even hearing about current wrestlers via osmosis was out of the cards for me. So not a good intro to the genre.

Anyway, I gave it a shot but oh man... boring. The main portion of the game is five-on-five matches. I couldn't even build a team of five recognizable faces here. Even worse, the matches go on for what feels like an eternity. I couldn't figure out how to end it. Do you have to pin the other guy? I don't know. And I don't have a manual. And I don't care enough to find out. I also couldn't make myself lose. So it just went on and on and on. Just me as Hulk kicking a dude and flipping him and falling on him. Just really really boring and clunky. I'm all set with this one.



The Street Fighter Alpha series started somewhere between Street Fighter II and III and served as a sort of prequel to the series. As such, I've always kind of thought of the three games as a bit of a remake of the original Street Fighter. Only if it was really good.

Even though there are three Alpha games and they're actually numbered, they were released in fast succession and feel more like incremental upgrades. In my mind, Alpha 3 is just the "best" or final version of Alpha, much like Third Strike is best or final version of Street Fighter III.

I actually have some pretty fond memories of Alpha 3. Back when my wife and I first bought our house and I finally had my own game room, I remember setting up a makeshift arcade stand with a standing desk and some arcade sticks. I can remember spending weeks playing the Dreamcast port of Alpha 3, trying to really learn a handful of characters and see how far I could get on a single credit. I was tenacious back then. And I had time to burn.

Playing the game now on the Switch Street Fighter Collection is a whole different story. At this point in my life, it feels funny that I was ever any good at Street Fighter games at all. And maybe it's the difficulty of the arcade original CPU, but oh my gosh I'm getting destroyed. It's honestly embarrassing.

But what can you do?

The game itself is still awesome. I love the look of Alpha 3. It's a beautiful looking game. Just look at a screenshot of Blanka and how awesome he's drawn in this one. And what's cool about Alpha 3 is the interesting roster, which lies somewhere between the old familiars of Street Fighter II and the kind of weirdo new inclusions we'd see in Street Fighter III. It's also a very large roster, which I appreciate.

So I spent some time last night dancing between various characters. Cammy has always been my favorite in Alpha 3, which is interesting as I never really use her in Street Fighter II. Though I did like her in Street Fighter IV. Chun-Li works okay for me if I switch it to the X-Ism (the "isms" being Alpha 3's various playstyles... it's complicated). I also like Blanka a lot here. So okay, I guess I'm a bit of a traditionalist. But I also think Sodom is pretty cool.

Anyway, like I said it's a neat game that bridges a gap. Or rather it sort of makes up for the weakness of the original Street Fighter by re-imagining it as something altogether awesome and also retro-fits a lot of the Final Fight universe. And it's gorgeous looking and plays well. But... I am terrible at it. Terrible.

As a still recent New Dad, I'm still trying to balance how and when I can play games. The answer is often that I have to try to squeeze games into short windows of time. So while I do still get to play games throughout the week, it's often in small bursts. It's also not always easy for me to go and sit alone in my game room. So I've been really embracing keeping the Switch or 3DS or GBA close by.

This week I got in a Supaboy that I had managed to get in a bundle of traded games. The Supaboy is Hyperkin's portable SNES console. It's interesting. It's sort of shaped like a really big PSP or something, and can play SNES or Super Famicom cartridges. I didn't know much about it, but I think Hyperkin's Retron 5 is a fine device, so I took a chance on this thing.

And so I need something to test the system out with. Now you tell me, what's the first game you'd want to test on a SNES clone? Mario World or Kart? Link To The Past? Maybe Super Metroid? No, of course not! Obviously you'd want to play some Looney Toons game that Sunsoft made, right? Yeah, me too. Sigh. Sometimes I don't know why I do this to myself.

Alright so Road Runner's Death Valley Rally is as far as I can tell, Sunsoft's attempt at making a Sonic game. A really really bad Sonic game. And please remember, that in 1992 Sonic was at the height of his popularity. Much like Sonic, Road Runner can basically just, y'know... run. Which would be fine if the levels were well designed, or the screen was zoomed out enough so you could see upcoming obstacles, or the hit detection wasn't crap, or if you even knew what you were supposed to be doing!

It's bad y'all. The first stage feels sort of like a quick tutorial, but by the second I was lost. The level isn't really linear and I couldn't figure out where to go. There were some signs with arrows that seemed to be sending me in a circle. Annoying. Just everything - ALMOST everything - felt bad about this game.

There was one good thing, though: the graphics. I suppose if you're a Loony Toons fan you'd want to check this out. The animations are really good, and the little intro thing where the sprites freeze to allow for name credits to pop up is such a good throwback to the cartoons. It's almost too bad that the game looks so good, because it fools you into thinking it'll play better than it does.

I actually kind of like that game...Dunno. Nostalgia, I guess.

@prfsnl_gamer: I never was able to figure out freddy's either, I played it for a bit but could never beat it. I also enjoyed death valley ralley as a kid so don't feel bad. I havent touched it in decades but I still got some good nostalgia vibes from reading about it.

@noiseredux:

"Playing the game now on the Switch Street Fighter Collection is a whole different story. At this point in my life, it feels funny that I was ever any good at Street Fighter games at all. And maybe it's the difficulty of the arcade original CPU, but oh my gosh I'm getting destroyed. It's honestly embarrassing."

This quote is probably the most relatable thing I have read on the internet in a long time. As a teen - early 20's I was a street fighter 'god. I was legit and could beat players who were high level tournament players. Nowadays I could barely react to a jump in. Makes me sad.

On topic: I'm kind of between games and not playing anything right now, I'm in kind of a weird place, I just started a new job, so I'm working a little late and usually have stuff to do when I come home so I haven't dived into anything in about 2 weeks. I have been just playing a smattering of nes games that I have beaten a trillion times, I finished double dragon 3 a few nights ago and just had a flawless god like run of Mike tysons punch out an hour ago. I just picked up gunvolt chronicles on steam so I may play that tonight, or I may just back to back play super punch out and wii punch out for the 10,000th time. I dont really know

Yay! Pool’s back! How’ve you been?

pook99 wrote:This quote is probably the most relatable thing I have read on the internet in a long time. As a teen - early 20's I was a street fighter 'god. I was legit and could beat players who were high level tournament players. Nowadays I could barely react to a jump in. Makes me sad.

yeah, man. It seems like Street Fighter - and youth - is wasted on the young!




I originally played Modern Warfare on Xbox 360, and loved it. My fandom for COD is casual for the most part. I don't play every release, but rather tend to cherry pick the ones that standout as being especially interesting to me. And for a long time I overlooked Modern Warfare because I thought it looked like one of the more generic ones. But COD4 was always popping up on best-of lists and eventually I gave it a try and it turned out to be one of the more riveting experiences I've had with the series.

What I liked most about the console version was the story - as surprising as that might sound. Basically, the campaign was a series of vignettes with multiple protagonists. And it was intense. The action sections felt like a rollercoaster ride, and the more somber moments were horrifying. I loved it.

When I heard there was a DS port, I absolutely had to pick it up. Unfortunately, it turns out that this is not a straight up port of the console game. Instead, it's a bit of a remix - using similar environments and throwbacks - but acting as a kind of gaiden campaign. You might think of this as more of a companion to the original game that lets you experience even more of the story from even more viewpoints.

Once my initial let-down wore off and I got into the game (and I came to grips with playing a FPS via stylus) I started to realize that, hey - this game is actually pretty fantastic. I'm actually super impressed with how well this game controls and how good this game looks considering it was developed for the original DS.

It's funny, too because sometimes I think I forget just how phenomenal the New 2DS XL hardware is. This game is a good reminder. Thinking back to when I had an original 'phat' DS and now playing something like this on this gigantic and sleek new screen is just amazing.

Anyway, I'm not too far into the campaign yet. Maybe an hour at most. My understanding is that this is a pretty short game, though - probably about half the time of its console big brother. But I must say I'm really into it. I kind of can't wait to get back to it and continue on.

prfsnl_gmr wrote:Yay! Pool’s back! How’ve you been?

Busy, just started a job as a high school principal so it is a ton of work, definitely enjoying it, but it has seriously hampered my game time.

I decided to take a break from Might & Magic 2 for a couple of days and check out Miasmata, an adventure game from 2012 in which you are a plague-infected scientist exiled to an island that must explore and examine the plant life to find a cure.

Unfortunately, there is one other resident of this island, and it's a big demon cat that is more interested in hunting and eating you rather than helping find a cure. But hey, life can't be perfect.

It's an indie title, so it's rough around the edges. Some of this is made manageable through a community patch that has had a couple of updates over the years. However, the core idea is quite good. I have just about wrapped up my first run, though I'm now clearing up the map and seeking out some of the various things hidden around the island.

When I was a kid I remember Contra being a pretty big deal. Y'know all the usual Contra memories - the Konami Code being passed along on the playground and so on. But oddly, I can't really remember playing the sequel which was stupidly called "Super C" instead of "Contra 2." I definitely played the heck out of Operation C (another stupid title) on Game Boy. But Super C? I'm not so sure.

So I went ahead and added this one to my Virtual Console library on Wii U. As much fun as collecting old carts can be, I must say that Wii U is my preferred place to play these old games. You can organize the games into neat little folders arranged by console; you can play them on TV or the gamepad; you can remap the buttons (something that the Switch's Online NES and SNES games still don't let you do!); and of course, save states.

The Contra games aren't exactly "horror," but their homage (read: ripping off of) the Alien and Predator series definitely feels like it brushes up against horror. So it felt kind of fitting for October.

I'll be honest, though... run and gun games really don't seem to scratch the same itch that they used to for me. So I put in the ten-lives code, and figured it'd be fun for a night of mindless shooting. And it was. Mostly. The running and gunning still play about as smoothly as I recalled. Deaths definitely felt like they were MY fault and not due to unfair game design.

But is it fun for me? Eh, just kinda. I just don't get the same thrill out of these games as I did when I was younger. It feels like I just don't really care enough to get good at this. So instead I die a lot. Because I AM NOT GOOD at this. So instead I'm stuck in this loop of (A) get power-up, (B) die, (C) lose power-up and have to play further under-powered. It feels kind of like Gradius in that regard. It would probably be really rewarding if I wanted to like, memorize the level layout and keep at it... but I don't.

I think I made it to the sixth stage with my three continues. Not impressive. Oh, but I did enjoy those overhead levels like in Operation C. Those were pretty fun. Anyway, chalk this one up to another old NES game that I respect and can have some fun with for a sitting, but it's not something I'm really into and would want to spend a whole lot of time with actually improving or progressing. Oh well.