Gaming off the Beaten Path

 Last week, we looked at the 2002 Resident Evil Remake for the GameCube, a game I believe to be one of the greatest of all time. In that review, I talked a little bit about the gaming industry's obsession with remakes, especially in recent years. That led me down a massive rabbit hole, one I wanted to explore a little bit deeper here. There are times where it feels like literally every popular game from the 90's has, or will get, a remake, or at least a remaster. Final Fantasy VII, Secret of Mana, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, the original Resident Evil Trilogy, the list goes on and on. And it's continuing to grow. Remakes of Silent Hill 2, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, The Witcher and a boatload of others are on their way. At this point, it's not even just big-name games either. They are, honest to God, remaking Lollipop Chainsaw. Let that sink in. There's a Joe & Mac remake on the way too. Remember them? Don't get me wrong, I think it's cool that

It’s been about a year since I started blogging about games again.  The combination of goings on at work and a new year’s resolution led to this whole thing and frankly, I can’t believe I saw it through.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not stopping anytime soon, I’m just shocked I didn’t stop half way through.  I am excited for yet another year of gaming and I have tons of changes planned for next year. With that said, its time for my inaugural end of year awards.  I have played and reviewed a lot of games this year and its time to go back and reflect.  For these completely fictional awards that I just made up in my head, I will be naming best game, worst game, biggest surprise, most disappointing, most potential for a series revival/sequel and most unique.  First, a reminder of my scores, from highest to lowest. Sonic Mania 9.25/10 The Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon 9.25/10 Vigilante 8 9/10 All star Baseball 99 8.5/10 Guilt Gear X2 8.25/10 NHL Hitz 2003

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

The Legend of Dragoon, Part 2 Last week, we talked about The Legend of Dragoon, and its awful, awful translation.  It might seem like I hated the game, but that is far from the case.  We already talked about the negative, so lets focus on the something positive. The biggest positive?  The graphics.  This game looks great.  It may be the best looking game on the system and that is saying something.  Some of the pre-rendered backgrounds are truly breathtaking and the animations are really smooth.  The character models look really good, they’re a little blocky, but that’s to be expected on the PS1.  It isn’t even just the backgrounds, its the backgrounds of the backgrounds.  Perhaps the biggest standout moment comes when your party takes a boat from one continent to another.  The water looks and moves like its real, which is a huge accomplishment.  You can’t talk about an RPG without talking about the story and LOD offers a decent one.  You play as Dart

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

NFL Gameday 98 Sorry for no post last week, got a little busy.  Figured I would get back into it with another genre I haven’t touched yet, sports games. Yes, there used to be football games other than Madden.  Way back in the old days, we had options.  Tecmo Super Bowl was the first king of the digital gridiron, but that didn’t last past the 90s.  In the early 'aughts, the NFL 2K series (which I find to be massively overrated) scared EA so much that they decided to buy exclusive rights to the NFL license, essentially cornering the market on football video games.   Of course, this exclusivity wouldn’t apply to first party developers.  It’s how Sony was able to keep making “MLB: The Show” titles after 2K sports bought exclusivity to the MLB license as a measure of revenge against EA.  They could have continued making Gameday titles as well, but decided against it.  Why?  The PS1 era Gameday’s were widely considered to be superior to the Madden titles

Unlike most of the games I have talked about so far, I have played quite a bit of this week’s entry. I was never the most social gamer, often eschewing multiplayer staples for individual gaming experiences.  When friends came over, my collection of two player co-op games offered slim pickings, so we played a lot of Doom Troopers.  Of course, that was a long time ago and once we moved on to other systems, this game sort of fell by the wayside.  I figure now is a good time to revisit it. I remember being excited about this game when I got it, as the “Doom” in the title led me to believe this would have something to do with, well, “Doom.”  It could have less to do with the FPS juggernaut, but it does take place in the Mutant Chronicles Universe.  Ever heard of it?  Yeah, neither had I.  It’s a post-apocalyptic pen and paper RPG from the 90’s, which actually has a pretty cool storyline.  My guess is the game was part of a larger merchandising play, as it came out a

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