Something game related. Mario Paint music stuck in my head. Smells way too heavily of pizza here. I'm really excited for Gone Home.
what the hell happened to regular italian sandwiches Planet Sub these are exactly the same except you renamed it "Spicy Italian." Any way you slice it (right down the middle of the baguette typically) you lied. You lied, Planet Sub.
Haven't done this in a while. Due to the NCAA Tournament, I've been completely enthralled with watching every game, no matter how lopsided the victory is or how long it takes. (Also my mother is using the basement TV for basketball watching so I don't get to play as much as I would typically during a week without anything else to do.) Typically this week would be spent on the TV but for other reasons I cannot use a mouse on my laptop correctly this week either. SO HERE'S WHAT YOU GET
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (XBOX)
I own like 4 different versions of this game. When I first obtained a copy (back in 2002 when I turned 7 years old), I played through the game with nearly every character with all cheats in use. Special meter was always full, perfect grind and manual balance, and surf mode, which made it nearly impossible to fall if you land sideways. I was like 7, don't blame me.
Two years ago, I played and completed 100% the original Tony Hawk's Pro Skater on the Sega Dreamcast. While I actually probably had the least experience (of the first few THPS games) on the original, I played all the way through it. With every skater. On the Dreamcast. You see, I was working at a camp, living in a small 4-person cabin. I only had a small TV, my Dreamcast, and the great outdoors. In order to stay away from the great outdoors at the place where my job was to teach kids about the wonders of the great outdoors, I played with that Dreamcast. Unfortunately for me, my Dreamcast library was barely anything compared to what it is today. Basically, I owned the first two Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games, Sonic Shuffle, Sydney Olympics 2000, and Unreal Tournament. Most of these games were geared towards multi-player action, but the only roommate who I would have wanted to play against had stopped working there for a few months. So I sat alone, with the first THPS, intending to complete the entire thing. With every skater. Even the hidden ones. It took a long time, but I was able to get my 100% completion time down to like 25 minutes per skater. (I was really goddamn good is what I'm trying to get across)
So now, because I'm pathetic, I've started to do the same with THPS3. This is basically all in the name of misplaced nostalgia. I'd like to replay the game I beat as an eight year old but without cheats. Some kids were in little league. Some kids played games against their friends. Some kids rode bikes and went on adventures. I cheated and completed almost all of THPS3 and LOOK WHAT I BECAME.
College Hoops 2K7 (XBOX 360)
I'm playing 2 sports games. Sue me. This is an impulse play based on March Madness, nothing much to see here. I love the legacy mode, though. It's a whole lot of fun to take a small team from the Ivy League or the MEAC or the like and turn it in to a big program (though it takes a lot of time). I find stupid stuff like that to be very enjoyable (though I don't have any reasoning as to why). Hopefully, once I'm done with this, I can play a longer RPG style game, because I think it would be fun in the same kind of way.
March Madness fever has, like some sort of awful epidemic, spread through the United States of America within the past week, taking over the minds and voices of everyone within an office pool or with nothing else to do. If you’re an awful impulse player like me, who only plays some sports games when they’re in season, you’re scrambling for any College Basketball games you can get your hands on by this point. I’m here to help you out. Here are some of my favorite games that exemplify the sport and excitement of this month that we in the States call “March.” (and those in Quebec call “mars”)
6. NCAA Basketball (SNES)
Gamefaqs
I made a video about this a little while ago. The gameplay doesn’t look like fun, because players move very slowly. However, after a few minutes, you’ll realize that NCAA Basketball plays much better than it looks. You won’t get much more than a few games out before boredom takes over, but NCAA Basketball provides a pretty good time sink for a quick College Basketball fix.
5. NCAA March Madness 2003 (PS2)
Gamefaqs
This game makes great use of the NBA Live 2003 engine. In fact, you could get away with referring to this as a carbon copy. By no means is this a negative fact: NBA Live 2003 is an excellent basketball game as well. Unfortunately for those looking for an authentic simulation, NBA style gameplay does lead to NBA style scoring, so most games end up with unrealistically high scores. Still, the expanded Season and Dynasty modes add a lot of depth to an already enjoyable game. Does it lack a few things? Absolutely. There's a notable absence of most mid-major programs, but that's a common factor in many College Basketball games of that era.
Gamefaqs
4. College Slam (SNES):
Gamefaqs
I made a video about this game roughly two years ago in a hotel room in Wichita, Kansas at like 9:30 in the morning with a cheap Philips microphone headset from a Target. It’s a little out of date, but the points I brought up are still relevant today. College Slam basically stands as an NBA Jam clone made by the same people who made NBA Jam. While there are no real player names or likenesses, using the facsimile of your school of choice to jump like 80 feet in the air over a player from your rival team is amazingly satisfying. While College Slam lacks in the realism department, I don't think that fact matters to anyone playing, as players are sure to get a quick and enjoyable experience from this title.
3. Final Four 1999 (PSX):
Gamefaqs
The first in 989's Final Four series is undoubtedly the best. Unfortunately, it isn't terribly realistic, and the A.I. can be amazingly stupid at points, just giving up free possessions through penalties that any real team of level-minded athletes wouldn’t be caught dead committing multiple times per game (You’ll end up with 3-in-the-key calls multiple times per game). One thing that sets this game apart from others of the era is the number of teams. With most games of the era, you were lucky to have the entire power six. In Final Four, nearly every D1 squad is available. That's a tremendous technical feat for 1998. To show this at work, this year I simulated the entire tournament in this game, and I only had to replace 1 or 2 teams. (Granted, it had Oklahoma State making a championship run so you may not want to follow my example.) Along with the great selection of schools, there is still a fun interior basketball game, along with fairly deep season and tournament modes.
2. College Hoops 2K7/2K8 (XB360/PS3/PS2)
Gamefaqs
2K sports in the aughts kicked ass. ESPN NFL 2K5, NHL 2K5, and even recently the NBA 2K games have been simply awesome. These games defined how to make excellent sports sims. The level of realism found in most of 2K's outputs was so astoundingly high that they became the standard of sports games, until they all died out 1 by 1 due either to the greed of a certain rival company, or the apathy of a certain U.S. PUBLIC. College Hoops 2K8 was the final entry in the College Hoops series, and it contained just about everything that could be wished for in a College Basketball game and more. Full legacy mode, classic teams, alternate uniforms, in season tournaments, and even a weird chant creator! This had it all! By this time, full mid-major conference inclusion was standard, but it’s still nice to see how detailed it gets. It's the attention to detail, along with solid gameplay that makes this game great. Even the tacked-on mini-games, found in the student lounge, are fun somehow! College Hoops has it all. The only real downside is the amazing difficulty in making shots on default settings. The gameplay sliders help alleviate this problem. Even the addition of gameplay sliders add to the simulation aspect of this game. That's really the major point of College Hoops 2K8: Attention to detail. Nobody put as much work into their game as 2K did here.
Gamefaqs
1. March Madness 2002 (PS2)
Gamefaqs
Choosing to put games from the same franchise on this list may seem like a bizarre choice, but March Madness 2002 and NCAA March Madness 2003 from EA Sports could not be further apart from each other in terms of gameplay. March Madness 2002 employs a much slower, but still incredibly fun, style of basketball action. It lacks a season mode and almost all of the teams from the mid-major conferences, but they are made up for in the simple and enjoyable action on the court. A.I. flaws are present in some aspects, especially on the defensive side where blocks and steals rarely occur. March Madness 2002 applies momentum, alley-oops, and fast breaks nearly perfectly. Like most others on this list, the most fun in this game comes from playing a few quick games to satisfy your march madness craving.
Back in the mid-1990s, very few racing games could actually stand by any promise of realism. Outside of Test Drive and the early Need for Speed games, most racing games were based in fantasy. Fantasy is cool, but those looking for an actual driving experience (for whatever reason necessary) probably were left in the figurative dust of games of the era.
That was before Sega Rally Championship. This game understands driving and handling almost perfectly. This is remarkable, especially with the fact that this control, this near-perfect control, is done only on an 8 direction digital pad, without any sort of pressure sensitive buttons for acceleration. That's like Tony Hawk landing a 900 on a skateboard made from a broken, rotten 2 x 4 with a pair of roller skates strapped to the bottom with masking tape. But Sega did it.
There are only 4 courses.
But I don't even care about that
Because all 4 of the courses are great
Except for maybe the last one which is super hard.
Only 2 playable cars? Not even sort of a problem. You don't even need more than one. Despite the limited number of features, the near-perfect controls and courses make this a must-buy for anyone with a Saturn. Even if you don't have a Saturn, you should buy one and play this game.
Over the past year, I've really become interested in point-and-click adventure games. With the completion of King's Quest I, I have basically completed three of the first games that people tell me to try when it comes to point-and-click games. First, I played MYST, the game typically referred to as the game that killed adventure games in the '90s. Second, I played the Secret of Monkey Island, which essentially perfected the adventure formula. As of last night, I've beaten King's Quest. The first one. King's Quest was known as one of the original great adventure games.
This should be considered one of the most important games in the history of gaming. While some of the puzzle solving was confusing, (I had to use a walkthrough for most of the game) it was still a lot of fun to get through.
While my experience in adventure gaming has never exactly been great, (my first adventure game that I really played was actually Dark Seed II, a game that I probably shouldn't enjoy as much as I do) I know what a good game looks like, and King's Quest was just that.
Well, push has come to shove, and last night I took a shot at Super Bowl 28 in Tecmo Super Bowl. The opponent was (as was typical at that time) the Buffalo Bills. While they started off with a ten point lead, eventually, I was able to come back and it ended like this:
For one: Reggie White dominated throughout the whole game. It shows up there that Thurman Thomas ran for only about 26 yards. Weirdly enough, one of those runs was for around 50 yards, but the rest of his attempts were stopped by Reggie White. Also, Jim Kelly was injured in the 3rd quarter and he got replaced by Frank Reich, who proceeded not to do much.
On the other end, Favre had a terrible first 2 quarters. Aside from a 60 yard or so throw to Jackie Harris (Which I assumed would be intercepted) The passing game was dismal. By quarter 3, however, I started to figure it out, and I took the lead with 2 touchdowns. It was sweet.
Admittedly, this is the first time I've ever actually won a Super Bowl in a video game. I don't play many NFL games, but this is the one that I've played the most. I've probably had the most fun with Tecmo Super Bowl out of every football based game. While I'll never call this a great sports game, (because of the rubber-band A.I.) it's still a whole lot of fun. I'd say it is better when played in multi-player than single player, though.
This game has provided me some of the most fun that a game has ever given me. Unfortunately, the later games in the series decreased in quality, (even though I did like the recent "Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff" on XBLA) but this game, if you can find it, is one of the most enjoyable football games ever made.
The Monkey Island series was always a series that I wanted to play, but never was really interested in trying out. This past summer, however; I finally decided to give the XBOX Live Arcade release a try. This remake of "The Secret of Monkey Island" is just about as much as can be asked for from a company trying to rekindle interest in a franchise.
The remake gives the whole game a complete makeover, replacing the already great pixelated graphics with beautifully drawn art, as well as giving every character a voice and adding more ambience to scenes where it would apply. This provides a perfect example of how to remake a classic. For only 10 dollars, this game should be purchased and played by everyone.
