Gaming off the Beaten Path

I just realized I missed out on the opportunity to do an on-theme post for the whole “May the 4th be with you” thing.  Oh well, better late than never I guess. It probably won’t come as a surprise that there are eleventy billion Star Wars video games out there, ranging from completely mainstream to totally obscure.  I bet most of you out there have so familiarity with “Battlefront” or “Force Unleashed,” but how many of you have played “Yoda’s Stories?”  I figured I would split the difference with a game that was a huge deal back in the 90s, but has since fallen out of the gaming consciousness: “Shadows of the Empire,” a third person shooter for the Nintendo 64. Before I get into the game, I should say that I am the rare “casual” Star Wars fan.  It seems like this is a franchise that everyone either loves to death or straight up doesn’t care about.  I have seen, and thoroughly enjoy, all the classic trilogy films.  I have seen all the prequels as well and I am

After last week’s review, I found myself in the mood for a vehicular combat game.  I thought a lot about playing one of the Twisted Metal titles I own, but decided I would save them for later.  They aren’t that far out of the ordinary anyway. Instead, I turned a game that’s very near and dear to my heart, Vigilante 8.  The genre is almost extinct now, but in the late 90’s/early 00’s, vehicular combat games were everywhere.  The genre, at least in its 3D form, was essentially created by Twisted Metal and most of the games that followed it tried to one up the early PS1 title.  TM was filled with crazy cars, bizarre characters and cartoonish stages, so others tried to compete by trying to get crazier, weirder and more “out there,” usually to mixed results. Vigilante 8, on the other hand, went in the opposite direction.  Set in the Southwestern United States in the 1970’s, V8 ditched the demonic ice cream trucks and guys stuck between two giant wheels for

The Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon Hi Kids!  Today we are going to talk about a very serious topic...drugs. It’s no secret that drugs are bad for you.  They are illegal, unhealthy and expensive.  Of course, that isn’t going to stop people from using them, but just because someone else does something doesn’t mean you should too.  Even if they can make you see or feel something completely out of the realm of ordinary, the long and short term effects can be devastating.   Besides, there are plenty of ways to experience what its like to be high/tripping/rolling/etc. without risking your health.  One of those is to play “The Mystical Ninja.”  The best way I can imagine this game’s development is that a team of folks at Konami hacked the source code of Super Mario 64, ingested one or more types of some unknown illicit substance, watched a documentary about Japanese culture and made a video game. And, despite all of its technical flaws, its an awesome one.

Oh boy, here’s an interesting one. Part of this whole “off the beaten path” thing is avoiding the infamous games as much as it is avoiding the famous ones.  You don’t need me to tell you all that Superman 64 is terrible or that all of those CD-I Zelda games suck.  The internet and common sense already told us all that as much as they told us that Super Mario World is great.  There’s a consensus there and its not based solely on name value. Which brings us to Quest 64.  One of, like, three N64 RPGs, quest is pretty much universally disliked.  It isn’t for lack of studio star power, THQ is gone now but they were cranking out hits in the late 90s.  Most of the complaints stem from the game’s simplicity, lack of story and general “my first RPG” vibe.  But are those criticisms valid?  And does it deserve the reputation it has?  Yes.  And Also No.   We will start with the story, or lack thereof.  You play as Brian, an apprentice sorcerer who sets out on a que

Spring is finally here!  Of course, that means baseball is back, so I figured its time to take a look back at the All-Star Baseball Series. As I discussed in my Gameday review, football games always sort of had “top franchise” that was regarded as being better than its competitors.  First it was the Tecmo Bowl series, then Gameday and now Madden is the only game in town.  The history of baseball games is a little more convoluted.  There were tons of these things, but they always seemed to be an afterthought.  Even sports giant EA’s baseball series, Triple Play, was considered a laughing stock by many.   I should also note that I do have a little bit of genre bias here.  While there are fun football games across generations of gaming (seriously, check out Super Challenge Football for the Atari 2600) I find any baseball game that came out before the 32/64-bit era to be unplayable.  Yes, that includes the much-loved Ken Griffey Jr. games on SNES.  I think b

Lode Runner 3D This week its back to the Nintendo 64 for yet another game I have no recollection of ever purchasing in another genre that we haven’t touched yet.  We have our first puzzle game and its a surprisingly good one. First, a little bit about the Lode Runner series.  It goes all the way back to 1983, when the original game was released for the Apple II, Atari 8-bit family, VIC 20, Commodore 64 and PC.  It would soon find itself ported to the NES, making it one of the first third party games for the system.  The concept was simple: gather gold, avoid monsters, break blocks and reach the exit.  It was primitive and simple, but simple. It also featured a level editor, a major novelty at the time.   The game went on to spawn about 1.2 trillion sequels and spinoffs, mostly for the PC.  Most console games in the series were Japan exclusive, with this version appearing on the N64 in 1999.  The core premise is still the same, but its (obviously) in

Dark Rift, N64 So after last week’s stinker, it’s time to mix it up a bit.  This will be our first N64 game AND our first fighting game. Fighting games are kind of hard to review in my opinion.  You can describe the controls in a platformer or FPS and its usually pretty easy to convey what you like or don’t like.  That’s harder in a fighting game as, at least for me personally, its really hard to understand control flaws unless you play them yourself. In addition, a lot of elements of other genres just aren’t that important in fighting games.  Most fighting games have nonsensical or non-existent storylines and Dark Rift is no different.  You have a collection of fighters competing for something called the “Core Prime Element,” all for their various reasons.  It doesn’t get much beyond that, but in a fighting game that’s okay. I should also mention this is a pseudo-sequel to another 3D fighter called Criticom, which I had never heard of before I di