Gaming off the Beaten Path

“There ain’t no gettin off this train we’re on...” Happy Final Fantasy VII month!  In case you weren’t aware, the much anticipated remake of the 1997 classic is slated to release April 10, quarantine or no quarantine.  I was going to cover FFVII with my other 10s anyway, but one post can’t adequately convey how I feel about this game and its universe. So, I am going to dedicate this whole month to FFVII, its spinoffs and finally, the remake (If I can actually get my hands on it, that is).  Now is probably the time to mention that there are going to be some serious spoilers, though I am going to actively try to avoid them. What is there to say about Final Fantasy VII that hasn’t already been said?  It was a killer app for the original PlayStation, which was even more impactful for Sony as it flipped one of Nintendo’s key franchises.  It put the PS1 through its paces, setting a new standard for what games could do in terms of graphics, sound and presentation

Don’t let the title fool you, I’m not going to start writing about movies any time soon. There are plenty of video game movies out there, most of them terrible.  There are probably even more video games about movies.  But what about video games about movies about video games?  I can only think of one. Street Fighter: The Movie is the fighting game you weren’t sure you needed, or even wanted.  I can’t imagine what was going through Capcom’s head when they green-lit this.  Think of it like this: imagine that someone decided to write a book called “Lord of the Rings,” but it was based on the movie, which is already based on a book.  It wouldn’t make much sense at all.  There would be some differences, sure.  But would it really be worth your time? While you think about it, let’s talk a little bit about the similarities between SF:TM and Super Street Fighter II.  It’s got all the same characters (Sans Fei Long, the only character that wasn’t in the movie

While the series is a little too mainstream for what I originally intended, I realize that I have yet to review a Mario game.  I have tried to stick to the obscure, but at this point I have covered Sonic, Final Fantasy, Madden and any number of popular franchises, so why not. I still wanted to keep it a little out there though.  Most people have heard of the Lost Levels, but its certainly the black sheep of the old school series.  It’s origin story is probably more well known than the game itself.  This was actually Super Mario Bros. 2 in Japan.  It was deemed “too difficult” for U.S. audiences by Nintendo of America, as it was assumed they weren’t as skilled or patient as Japanese players.  Instead of releasing it stateside, they re-skinned a game called Doki Doki Panic with Mario characters, called it Super Mario Bros 2 and called it a day (which explains why that game is so different from everything else in the series).  It wasn’t until the release of the Super

Taking on the armies of hell, one demon at a time... When you think about it, its really unbelievable how many first person shooters are out there right now.  Call of Duty, Battlefield, Halo, the list goes on and on and on. And its not just straight up FPS’ anymore.  Open world games are FPS’ now (Far Cry).  Hell, even RPGs are more FPS’ than RPGs now (looking at you Fallout).  It’s getting a little tiresome, even if I do love a good FPS.  But that wasn’t always the case.  There was a time where these games were a novelty, something you only saw a few times in a generation.  So what happened?  Doom.  Doom is what happened. Don’t get me wrong, Doom was far from the first FPS.  There were games like maze war dating back to the 1970s and of course, there was ID software’s precursor to Doom, Wolfenstein 3D.  But none of those quite captured the hearts and minds of Americans like the journey of a single, unnamed space marine and his battle against the armies of he

(Just a heads up, there are some light spoilers ahead) So, we’re going to take a break from our regularly scheduled programming to discuss this early look at the Final Fantasy VII remake.  I wasn’t expecting this, and it wasn’t very long, but I wanted to give my thoughts on the demo before the official game arrives next month.  This is going to be one of the rare times where my most anticipated games and the industry’s most anticipated games will match up. The demo is short, it only lasted about an hour.  It features the opening cinematic and the first attack on the No. 1 reactor.  As everyone knows by now, this will be the first in a series of remakes of the initial game.  It will take the party up through the end of Midgar.  That was about 10 hours in the original game, but will need to cover a full 40 plus hours here.  As such, there will certainly be added story elements and extended sections.  It looks like the opening segment will be one such section, as

I am always going to prefer old school games to modern ones.  I would never say never, but its unlikely that will ever change.  Gaming always had an “indy-ness” to it, even with big budget titles.  With that came a certain sense of creativity that has since been lost. However, modern gaming offers a bevy of conveniences that absolutely improve the player experience.  One of the biggest is easy access to cheap games.  I have talked about PS Plus/Games with Gold at length, but even beyond those services there are massive libraries of budget titles, including this week’s entry Anodyne.  How budget was it?  I spend $0.99 on this game.  Ninety Nine cents.  That’s the cost of a doughnut at Dunkin Donuts.  I don’t know if I have ever bought a game for less (although through a strange BoGo promotion in the early 00s, GameStop did once give me, not charge me, give me, $1.50 to take a game.)   But at that price point, you are going to get what you pay for.  This

While traditional platformers aren’t all that common anymore, many games have taken elements of their gameplay and spun them off into other genres, like rogue-likes. I should back up for a second, because even though Spelunky has randomly generated levels, it is technically not a rogue-like in the strict definition as it doesn’t not have most of the role-playing elements the genre calls for (It's also not really that new, having come out in 2008). It is what some people call rogue-lite, as it lacks a level system or a turn based gameplay.  I wouldn’t call it that though.  In doing research for this game, I learned that some in the community have yet another name for games like this: Procedural Death Labyrinth.  I couldn’t think of a more appropriate description of Spelunky if I tried.  Gameplay wise, it is pretty simple.  You explore a mine filled with various enemies in a free range, 2D platforming style.  You have two goals, stay alive and find the exit.