Physical Version of NES Remix 1 & 2 Coming to Retail

If you want to play NES remix, but you prefer actual discs to downloads, then I have some good news for you.

Thursdownloaday - July 24, 2014

Thursday. New games. Let's do this.

Retro Sunday - July 20, 2014 - Monopoly

Lazy Sundays are great for board games, especially when those board games are actually video games!

Club Nintendo Gold and Platinum Rewards are All Digital

Nintendo has announced the Gold and Platinum prizes for this year's Club Nintendo users. Oddly, there are no physical items. All the rewards are digital games.

Thursdownloaday - July 10, 2014

Are you prepared to buy a whole crap-ton of great games this week?! Then prepare to be disappointed!

Super Mario Bros. Speed Run Record Broken

It seems like every week we find something interesting to talk about with the original Super Mario Bros. This week? Someone has broken to world record speed run.

Miyamoto Discusses Cross-Platform Development

As technology improves, the differences between home console and portable games become fewer. Miyamoto-san, Nintendo's resident creative genius, has discussed this matter and how it will shape Nintendo's future.

Retro Sunday - June 22, 2014 - Metroid: Zero Mission

Sunday is fun day! So what game gets to be in today's Retro Sunday spotlight? Metroid: Zero Mission for the Game Boy Advance!

New Unlimited Lives Trick Discovered in Super Mario Bros.

It's amazing that almost 30 years after its release, people are still finding new things in Super Mario Bros. This week, someone figured out a new glitch to let you gain unlimited extra lives.

Happy Father's Day!

Today is the day when we honor our fathers. If you play games with your dad, that's awesome. If not, that's ok, too.

Capcom Reveals 15 Games Coming to Virtual Console

Capcom has announced via their Unity blog that a dozen games are headed to Wii U/3DS Virtual Console by the end of the year, with three more coming later.

Retro Sunday - June 8, 2014 - Bubble Bobble (NES)

Yay for lazy Sundays! Today, let's look at a classic old-school title for the NES: Bubble Bobble.

Happy 30th Birthday, Tetris!

Tetris turns 30 today. Yes, you read that right. And yes, you are old.

MeGF ManGF

Now that Mega May is over, I thought I'd examine some old Mega Man games by resurrecting an old feature: GFGF! Also known as Greatest Friggin' Game in the Franchise, where I decide which game in a series is the absolute best. So which Mega Man is superior?

Retro Sunday - May 11, 2014 - Super Mario Bros. 2

One of my favorite things to do on a Sunday afternoon is play old-school games. I'm not sure why, but it just seems like a lazy Sunday is the perfect time to delve into some retro goodness. So, for the first Retro Sunday feature, let's talk about one of my personal favorites.

How to Beat Super Mario Bros. 3 in Under 3 Minutes

It's long been established that the quickest time to beat Super Mario Bros. 3 was around 20-30 minutes.

Not anymore.

Happy 25th, NES!

That’s right, 25 years ago today, the Nintendo Entertainment System transformed the world, saving the ailing video game industry in the process.  Starting on this day 25 years ago, children (and adults) were treated to Mario, Zelda, Kirby, Mega Man, Metroid, and countless other franchises that have since exploded in popularity.

There’s nothing really special about this post.  Just wanted to pay homage to a system that will forever go down as one of the most important pieces of history in the world.  Can you believe a third of households had an NES?  So awesome.

Thank you, NES, for changing all of our lives for the better.  May your offspring provide us with more hours of fun, more characters to love, and fewer insanely hard games that don’t work unless you blow on the cartridge.

-benjamines

(btw, there’s a rumor that the spectacular 25th anniversary DSi XL will indeed be coming to the US.  Here’s hoping the Mario Collection [Mario All-Stars for Wii, more or less] gets here, too!)

Terrible Turdsday!

And now, it’s time once again for your favorite make-fun-of-crappy-games bit!  This week, we examine a REAL gem of a game.  Lemme tell ya.

This crappy NES game has a crappy NES name.  Well, actually, it’s more of a short story.

Chapter 1

Wizardy

Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord

The End

Personally, I like the name I gave it better: Gizzardry – Puking Clowns on the Bad Underwear.  That would have been a much better game, I assure you.

Let me show you what that would look like!

Look at that pretty dragon!

Remember those old text adventure games, where you have to type each command, like Go South or Get Rock or Break Wind?  Well, this game is pretty much like that, except, as you know, the NES controller has no keyboard.  Well, not much of one anyways.  I guess if your commands looked like BABSelectABBStartBBABBB, you’d be ok.  Fortunately for the universe, the game has several commands you can use!  Like LOOK!  Or like, TALK!  It’s so freakin’ AMAZAZING!!

In short, this game is stupid.  Don’t buy it.  Don’t play it.  Don’t look at it.

For the record, I didn’t buy the game.  Some dirtbag mugger guy gave it to me.  Stinkin’ weirdy.

Pros:

• Makes a great coaster!
• It’s not Bill Laimbeer’s Combat Basketball
• Makes ET for Atari look fantastic

Cons:

• Must you ask?

This game has earned a Blatantly Biased:

Retro Sunday!

Hello all! Today you get a new weekly feature at pretty much the only good blog on the internet. That’s right, it’s Retro Sunday! One of my favorite Sunday activities is to play an old-school game of some kind. Let’s begin!

As you know, the Mario universe took a strange turn in 1988. That was the release of Super Mario Bros. 2. This game was entirely different than its predecessor. There were all-new enemies and bosses, you could pick veggies (and other things) out of the ground and throw them at enemies, and each player had different abilities. You could play as Mario, Luigi, Toad, or Princess Toadstool. Mario was an all-around character, Luigi could jump super-high, Toad could run and pick veggies faster than anyone, and Peach could float for a short time. The levels all had a sort of Middle Eastern feel to them.

An odd mix, to be sure, but it certainly works. It’s a fantastic game that has since had a huge impact on the Mario universe. After all, this game saw the invention of the now-popular Shy Guy, among other characters.

For those who don’t know, SMB2 didn’t actually start as a Mario game. It was called Doki Doki Panic, and it was about an Arabian family of four, each with different abilities. When Nintendo of America decided not to sell the real Super Mario Bros. 2 (because it was insanely hard, also known here in the USA as the lost levels), they picked up Doki Doki Panic and changed the characters to Mario ones and sold it. The game achieved great success and has since been re-released in various forms.

I like the game so much because you can play as Toad, pretty much the best video game character of all time! Plus, he’s the fastest runner and veggie-picker of them all (although he can’t jump very high).

So, if you don’t have the game, go power up the Wii and download it. It’s only $5 and it’s completely worth it! Or if you have a GBA or NES or SNES, you could find Mario Advance or the original cartridge or Super Mario All-Stars and play it that way, too! Either way, it’s as great a game now as it was when it was released, and is still a joy to play. In fact, I think I’ll go play it right now. Enjoy!

-benjamines

EDIT: I just beat the entire game. I didn't use any Warp Zones, either. Took me a couple of hours or so. Also, I had H4 lives left. You read that right. I think that translates into about 174. So yeah. Fun times!

Awesome Video Games A-Z, pt. 5

Holy crap! I totally forgot that I never published this last post! I’m sure you’ve all been on the edges of your respective seats, waiting for the madness to end! Well, truth be told, school has been insane lately, so yeah. But there’s still hope! Only a couple more weeks until the semester is over, and then I’ll have to think of some other excuse not to write.

In any case, here we are at the last part of the A-Z game list thingy. Should be easy to decide since these last letters don’t have many games to choose from. So, here we go!

V! This one is an interesting one. I don’t many V games, but the few I do have are pretty good. And after a short deliberation, I’ve decided that the winner is Volleyball (NES). Just volleyball. Yup. It’s a game I got at KMart a long time when they used to sell repackaged used games. It doesn’t work very well, so you have to blow on the cartridge to be able to play. But it’s a pretty fun game. Kinda hard. But fun. You can be USA. Or Japan. Or BRA(zil). You can spike the ball. Just like real volleyball. And you can set it. Bump it. Whatever you want. It’s your game. Just make sure to win. Also, you can play 2-player, which is awesome. Oh, and it’s available on Virtual Console. So yeah. Um… go play it? Now?

Runner-Up: Viewtiful Joe (GCN)

W! Ok, this one was hard. Mostly because there are a bunch of Wario and Wii labeled games. But I have a winner. It starts with W. Its name is Worms 2 (PC). The worms games are very fun. It’s a turn-based artillery-style game. You take turns firing rockets, grenades, or exploding sheep at each other. You have to judge the trajectory and power of the weapon to be able to do well. But, there are plenty of weapons that don’t need a lot of skill. Like the Super Sheep, easily one of the best weapons of the video game world. It’s a flying sheep that you can control. So make it fly to your opponent and make them explode. Awesome. The game is exceptional is every way and is certainly worthy of this honor. It was my favorite game of all time before Kirby 64 came around. So it’s super-awesome. This one may be hard to come by nowadays, but if you can find Worms World Party, that can be a reasonable substitute. Either way, it’s totally worth it. Play it! Now!

Runner-Up: Worms World Party (PC)

X! This is a funny letter. It’s always used for extreme things. And exceptional things. And xylophones. But on this blog, it almost always means X-Men. Now, I’m no comic nerd, so I don’t have much X-Men stuff. But X-Men Mutant Apocalypse (SNES) is a great game. You play as Wolverine, Cyclops, Beast, Gambit, and the slutty Psylocke. Each character has some levels that only they can complete, and there are levels where you can choose any of the characters to complete it. It’s a cool concept, but it’s also a great game. The controls are great, the powers are fun, and of course, it’s just plain cool to see Beast and Wolverine beat the crap out of people. I mean, it’s not a perfect game (it’s insanely hard at times), but it’s a fun diversion. It’s not available on Virtual Console, but it’s probably not too hard to find in used game stores. So, if you’re an X-Men fan, you need this game. If you’re not, then… I don’t care. Whatever.

Runner-Up: XIII (GCN)

Y! All four of my Y games have to do with Yoshi, but Yoshi’s Island isn’t one of them, since its official title is Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island. So I’ll go with the next best thing: Yoshi’s Island DS. It’s a direct sequel to the first Yoshi’s Island, only this time, you have two screens to work with. Plus, there are more babies than just Mario & Luigi. That’s right, baby Peach and baby DK join in the fun this time. For those who don’t know, Yoshi’s Island games are fun! You play as Yoshi, and the objective is to get the babies to the end without letting them get captured. If Yoshi gets hit, the baby he’s carrying floats around in a bubble for a short time and if you don’t pop that bubble and get him back, the evil Toadies come and steal him away. Then they eat him. Just kidding! They don’t eat baby. That’d be gross. Anyways, the game is really cool. If you liked the first Yoshi’s Island and you have a DS (which by now, should be about 97% of the world), you need to play this game. Play! Now! Go!

Runner-Up: Yoshi’s Story (N64)

Z! So, after four previous posts and some insanely long gaps, the end is finally here. That’s right, we’ve reached the end of the alphabet! So without further ado, the best Z game: Zack & Wiki: The Quest for Barbaro’s Treasure. This is an adventure/puzzle game sort of like Zelda but not really. The game is very puzzle intensive, so I guess you could call it some kind of a Zelda/Professor Layton halfsy. But these aren’t just simple push-blocks-over-a-switch puzzles. These are insanely inventive and fairly difficult ones. In fact, if you go here, you can play a flash demo of the first level of the game! This will let you see how cool it is. This game may be difficult to find, but I would recommend it to everyone. It didn’t sell well, either, so I wouldn’t expect a sequel, so I would double recommend it. Plus, I think it’s awesome, which should be a recommendation in and of itself. So there you go. Three reasons to pick it up. I don’t need to tell you what to do next.

But I will. Go buy it now!

Runner-Up: Zoo Keeper (NDS)

So there you go. All done now. Now, you just need to wait another 300 years for a new post! How awesome is that?!

-benjamines

Currently Playing: Boom Blox Bash Party, Excitebots Trick Racing, Guitar Hero World Tour (Wii)