Gaming off the Beaten Path

  It's amazing how much I've learned from video games over the years. Thanks to Sony, I recently got some practice in prepping for doomsday. I always sort of scoffed at people that hoard important items during the end times, something that seems to have happened a lot in the last year or so. But when Sony announced earlier this year they would shutter the PlayStation Store on the PS3, I started panic buying. You see, the PS3 has tons of "PSOne Classics" for sale that aren't available on the PS4. You have the standard stuff, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, etc. But there are also a ton, and I mean a ton, of rare, expensive JRPGs that can be had for under $10. I love physical media as much as the next person, but at the end of the day experiencing the games is what's really important. Do I want a physical copy of Suikoden II? Yes. Can I afford it for $300? No. But there it is on the PlayStation Store, for the perfectly reasonable price of $9.99. Sony did renege on their

 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

  Fighting games were everywhere in the early 90. I know I complain a lot about open world games and FPS' now, but it was just as bad, if not worse, with tournament fighters in the 90's. You couldn't go to an arcade or a game store and not see what felt like millions of these things. There were a huge amount of these everywhere, and that glut of similar games was due to the impact of two titles we've discussed at length here: Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. These two series' were the cream of the crop when it came to tournament fighters, they were critically and commercially successful and logically, they led to imitators. I already discussed some of the various Street Fighter clones out there and I think the games I covered are a good microcosm of all of them. Some are bad, some are good, some are even great. I kind of wanted to look at some MK clones, but I just don't have access to any and honestly, I'm glad. It seems like developers did a pretty good

 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

It's time to talk about what may be the clone-iest of the Street Fighter Clones.  Released by Data East in 1993 and ported to the SNES the next year, Fighter's History is the first in a series of games from the early 90's. I can't say I've ever played the others, the second game was only ever released on the Neo Geo CD and the third game never left Japan. Honestly, it would probably be easier and cheaper to fly to Japan to pick up a copy of the third game than it would to find a working Neo Geo CD and a copy of the second. But the first game was relatively easy to acquire and became infamous for taking fighting games to a place they'd never been before...the courtroom. You see, I'm not the only one that who considers Fighter's History to be the most egregious Street Fighter ripoff. Capcom thought so too. They sued Data East for copyright infringement, claiming they had ripped everything from their characters to their combat straight from their more popul

What? Killer Instinct? A Street Fighter Clone? No Way! Yeah I was confused too, but we aren't talking about Rare's much-loved fighter Killer Instinct. This is Power Instinct, a fighting game that I had never heard of up until about a week ago. Released in 1993, it was developed by Atlus, of all companies. It may not be one of their signature RPGs, but it certainly wears their influence on its sleeve. It's difficult to tell how serious its trying to be, it doesn't shy away from its Japanese roots, it's far more popular in its native country, etc. But do all of those quirks that make Atlus RPGs so endearing do the same for a 2D fighter? And what does any of this have to do with being a Street Fighter Clone? First, I think we need to back up and define just what constitutes a Street Fighter clone, or at least what I am defining as a Street Fighter Clone. It's a phrase that's thrown around quite a bit, but not one I've ever seen defined. After spending the l

I'm going to start this 10's entry off with something I generally try to avoid: a controversial hot take.  So let's get right to it.  Street Fighter II Turbo/Champion Edition is, objectively, the greatest video game of all time. It isn't my favorite (though it's obviously up there). It isn't the most groundbreaking or revolutionary. It didn't push the boundaries of what video games could accomplish as a media or art form. Final Fantasy VI, VII and Chrono Trigger may have been more ambitious.  Madden and FIFA may be more universal. Halo and The Last of Us may have pushed the boundaries of technology more. But in terms of just straight up video games, I don't think it's ever been equaled or surpassed. Just for full disclosure, I played SFII Turbo for this review, I am a Nintendo kid at heart after all.  Champion Edition was the SFII game that Genesis owners got, actually released before it's SNES counterpart. The two games have a few marginally dif

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.  Arcades were on

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, back to Ehrgeiz we go. As I m