Gaming off the Beaten Path

  As anyone who was around in the 90's could tell you, one on one fighting games were absolutely everywhere. I know I've talked about the mid to end of the decade being a golden era for RPGs, but it seems like the entire decade was a golden era for tournament fighters. These things were absolutely everywhere, largely due to the popularity of the two pillars of the genre, Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat. Argue that other series' were better all you want, talk all you want about how Karate Champ or Pit Fighter came first, but the absolutely insane levels of success of those two games are what catapulted the fighting genre into the stratosphere. It became the most popular genre in arcades by far and was probably neck and neck with mascot platformers for the top spot on consoles, though it didn't quite take off as much on PC. Some developers tried to innovate, but far, far more tried to simply rip off the two titans. I could probably spend an entire half hour just listi...

  Sometimes, I wish I had more time to play video games. You know what? That's not a sometimes, it's an always kind of thing. I actually do play the games I review and unless something is just straight up terrible, I try to play it to completion. Trust me, I'd like to play more RPGs but I can't bang out a 40 hour game in a week. Usually, I feel like I have sufficient time to get at least an everyday gamer's level of understanding of a game. That's kind of all I need, it's sort of in line with my gimmick. But sometimes I come across something I wish I could put more time into, or at least feel like I should put more time into. I have heard since the 90's just how great Virtua Fighter 2 is, that it's incredibly easy to learn but incredibly difficult to master. I don't know how true it is, but I remember hearing stories of Japanese players lining up and waiting for hours to receive lessons from pro VF2 players back in the 90's. It's not hard...

 Whenever something is successful, there are going to be imitators. That's especially true of video games. I think just about everyone that has ever picked up a video game controller has played or at least heard of Super Smash Bros. Honestly, I'm surprised it took someone until 1998 to think of the concept. A company takes the characters from its most famous IPs and shoehorns them into a fighting game, what's not to like? Smash Bros. was an instant success when it landed on the N64 and every time a new version of the game comes out, it's a major deal. One of the major factors that sets Smash appart from other fighting games is its accessibility. It's so incredibly easy to learn, each character's special moves are all performed the same way and they all get similar effects from their buttons. But it's tough to master, players have spent countless hours studying frame data and perfecting strategies for the strongest characters. Super Smash Bros. Melee for the ...

  One of the biggest problems I believe the gaming industry has is how quick it is to dismiss mediocre or even bad games as a complete waste of time. That may not seem like it makes sense at all, but hear me out. Just because a game is bad doesn't necessarily mean all the ideas it presents are bad. In fact, I feel like you can sometimes learn more from a failure than a success. But that doesn't always happen in the gaming industry. I think this is a big part of why it sometimes feels like the same game gets released over and over again, developers just take everything from their successes and slap a new label on them. Sometimes, it would help the industry innovate more if they took some of the more positive aspects from their less successful titles. In case it wasn't immediately apparent, Flying Dragon, a fighting game for the Nintendo 64, isn't a particularly good game. I probably could have just said "fighting game for the Nintendo 64" and you probably could...

You know, for all the racing games I've covered over the years, I think last week was the first time I ever played a simulation racing game. This week I'm going to re-visit another genre I haven't touched in a while: arcade sports titles. Arcade sports games are a love it or hate it kind of thing. In some respect, it's difficult to pin down what exactly an arcade sports title entails. At its most basic level, it's a sports game that isn't a simulation of the sport it represents. But I personally would take it a bit further. It's any sports game that doesn't even attempt to simulate the sport it represents. Obviously, RBI Baseball on the NES isn't anything close to a simulation by modern standards, but it was the best they could do at the time. Would you consider that sim style or arcade style? At any rate, I think it's safe to include any over the top, ridiculous sports titles in the arcade side of things. Games like NFL Blitz and NBA Jam are som...

 It's been a busy week, so I decided to go back to fighting games. I also haven't done a Dreamcast game in a while, so I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone. I'm not sure I would consider Dead or Alive to be that obscure a fighting game franchise. When I covered Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, I thought a lot about "tier levels" of fighting game popularity and how all of the series' would rank (strictly based on popularity here, not quality). SF and MK would obviously be at the top, but what about all the dozens of other franchises? Maybe that's a discussion for a different day, but today we are talking specifically about DOA, a series I would put towards the upper middle of that tier list. It definitely can't touch the big two, it's certainly not on the level of stuff like Tekken or even Virtua Fighter, though I would put it in the category below those. While the original came out for the PS1 and the second was an early title in the ...

 Mortal Kombat is back baby! I hope everyone is excited as I am about the new movie. It came out last week but at the time of this writing, I still haven't had time to watch it. As to why, well, we'll get to that later. But I've heard good things. The original MK film was great, it had some really great fight scenes and memorable moments, but as a PG-13 rated movie it had to scale back some of the blood and guts that the franchise was known for. Not this time though, the new version is R-rated and apparently features more of the copious amounts of viscera we've come to know and love from the franchise, including some fatalities that are true to the ones you see in the games. In a way, it's something of a reboot of the franchise. Honestly, I can't think of any franchise that reboots itself more frequently than MK. It's like a cycle at Netherealm Studios, they make an MK game, add whatever insane or ridiculous ideas they can come up with to its sequels, realiz...

Time to check another console off the list. With the official launch of the new generation (I think this would be 9th Gen?), it's safe to assume a lot of folks out there will be getting new gaming consoles for the holidays this year. I know I did! So, did I pick up a PS5, or did I go with an XBox? Neither. I got a Sega Dreamcast for Christmas this year. I've been after one of these for a long time and thanks in no small part to my wife, I've finally got one. It even came with a bunch of games, running the gamut from console mainstays to obscure outliers. I should also mention that while I've never owned a Dreamcast before now, I do have a lot more familiarity with it than I do other Sega consoles. I've certainly played more of it than the Saturn and I would even say I put more time on it than I did the Genesis. I've played a lot of the heavy hitters here, Sonic Adventure, Soul Caliber, etc. A lot of these titles were also ported to other consoles, I covered Gran...

Every series seems to have 'that game' that ends up among the ranks of the forgotten. Since I started reviewing games almost two years ago, I have played plenty of forgotten, totally out there titles, the Shadow Madness-es and Nano Breakers and Gain Grounds of the world.  That was to be expected.  Hell, that was the point of this entire thing to begin with.  What I didn't expect was how many mainstream series' I would touch, whether it was via Mega Man X5/6X, Castlevania: Lament of Innocence or Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles.  Those are all offbeat games from big time gaming heavyweights, something that I have found a surprising amount of.   Tekken 2 doesn't quite fit into that mold.  The aforementioned games were never really considered a big deal, even if the series' they are a part of were household names.  Tekken 2 was absolutely a huge deal when it came out, a highly anticipated sequel to one of the PS1's most popular fighting games.  ...

Here’s a fun fact: Ehrgeiz means “ambition” in German. Sorry, I didn’t know what else to start with.  I have been thinking about covering this very, very strange game for a while now and looping it in with Final Fantasy VII seemed like the best idea.  Your first question was probably “what does a random 3D fighting game from the 90s have to do with Final Fantasy VII?” (Actually, your first question was probably, “how the hell do I pronounce the title? But whatever.) It’s simple.  Most of the cast of FFVII are playable characters in this game.  Before I get really going, the more hardcore FFVII fans out there are probably all like “why didn’t you just review Crisis Core?”  Well, it’s been a while since I played it and while I do have access to a copy of the game, I don’t have a functional PSP to play it on.  Crisis Core is awesome, and I’m not sure I could get too in depth with my thoughts on it since its been so long.  So, b...