You may have noted that this blog has gotten a whole lot nerdier in the last little bit. That's probably not going to change. However, I am, generally, trying to write most of these entries so that people who know little or nothing about videogames can understand them and appreciate them.
I already talked about Sonic. Here are some reviews of other games I downloaded onto my Wii.
F-Zero
System: Super Nintendo
Genre: Racing
F-Zero came out around the launch of the SNES and blew away pretty much every racing game that had come before it. Using "mode 7" graphics (essentially something the SNES did to rotate 2D images to make them into a quasi 3D plane), F-Zero gave a real sense of motion. And it was fast. So, very fast.
Now, fifteen years later, it still plays fairly well, though 3D graphics have advanced the racing genre more than any other and it shows in a quasi 2D game like F-Zero. And, though the racing aspect of the game is still fun, there is nothing to unlock, and the courses get hard much to quickly. F-Zero's spiritual sequel, Mario Kart was a better game because in addition to having the Mario characters it also added weapons and the ability to play 2-player.
Was it worth 8 bucks US?: Only if you have feelings of nostalgia towards it, or are interested in the history of racing games, or are really hard up for a racing game.
Bonk's Adventure
System: TurboGrafx-16
Genre: Platformer
This is another artifact from the late '80s early '90s that I had to try out because I couldn't play it on my SNES back in the day. Much like Sonic it seems to rip Super Mario Bros. off fairly heavily. Unlike Sonic, it isn't that fun to play. Yep.
Was it worth 6 bucks US?: Only as a historical footnote.
Ice Hockey
System: Nintendo Entertainment System
Genre: Hockey
Ah, the eternal question: fatties versus skinnies. If you haven't played the NES classic Ice Hockey here it is in a nutshell: You must play as one of several countries hockey teams in a match of simple four on four hockey. Each team is made up of any combination of fast "skinnies", jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none "mediums", and powerful "fatties". Of course no one ever plays as mediums or even mixes and matches their teams at all. It's always all "fatties" or all "skinnies".
Ice Hockey actually does stand up in that it replicates not so much the game of hockey as it does those hockey-boards with the players all on twisty turn spinner things. You know what I'm talking about. And it plays much better with two people. By the way: "fatties" for the win.
Was it worth 5 bucks US?: Yeah, actually. It's quite fun.
Gunstar Heroes
System: Genesis
Genre: Shooter/Platfomer
This is one of those classics that no one actually played, for whatever reason, but the small number of people who did absolutely swear by. I was fully expecting to be underwhelmed by the game, as many of these classics-that-no-one-has-played end up having a slough of neat ideas and then falling flat when criteria like "fun" or "playability" are factored in. Boy was I wrong. This game is totally boss.
Gunstar Heroes isn't really like any other game. It's sort of a hybrid between a Shoot 'em up (or shmup as they have become known) and a Mario style platformer. There are definitely elements of Contra in there too (it was made by the guys who made Super Contra, except you only have one life, but you don't die after one hit.
All I know is that it's amazing. This is the most fun I've had with an old-school game (that I hadn't played before) in a long time, and I'm still amazed at how well something this old can make me smile and go "damn that's cool". I think specifically when I first got to the level two boss "Seven Force" which is a series of seven very creative boss fights all in a row.
Was it worth 8 bucks US?: It's probably worth closer to 20 or 25 even. An amazing game.
Next up: a review of Zelda.
I never played Sonic back in the day. I was a Nintendo kid. I had a NES, and then I had a Super NES. So the first time that I really played a Sonic game was when I played through Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast.
I always wanted to play Sonic, just to see what all of the fuss was about. Though, even then, the games struck me as being more attitude that substance.
After purchasing the Wii and having the requisite $8US to download the game to the console, I decided to give Sonic a try.
I've played it for a while, and it certainly is one of the best non-Mario platformers from that era, but it certainly doesn't come near to even being in the same weight class as any of the old Mario greats. Though it is quite fun in a 1991 kind of way, almost everything that it does well is copied verbatim from Super Mario Bros 1 and almost everything that's clunky (such as combining the concept of "coins" with the number of times you can get hit) is a Sonic innovation.
It's also notable that it doesn't rip-off concepts from Super Mario Bros 3, probably because it was mostly through being designed by the time SMB3 came out.
Now I want to play Sonic 2 to see if they fixed most of the annoying bits in Sonic. I'm sure it's coming out on the virtual console eventually.