Gaming off the Beaten Path

I've decided to do something a little bit different this week. Rather than focus on one single game, I'm going to rope a few relatively similar licensed Street Fighter clones into one post. This was a very popular route to take back then and it makes sense. Fighting games were popular and so were these franchises, so, easy money right? These games are all certainly SFII clones, but do they have any similarities beyond that? Let's take a look. Double Dragon 5: The Shadow Falls So, let's start out with another member of the "Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game" club.  DD5 is based on the Double Dragon animated series, which was based on the series of beat'em up games for the NES. If you're still following, that makes it a video game based on a TV show based on a video game. Weird. They could have very easily just slapped characters from the show into another beat'em up and called it a day, but at least they tried something different...right? Yeah, Tr...

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...

So I'm going to mix it up this week. I'm not really a big tv/movie person, but when I heard there was going to be a documentary miniseries about the history of video games, I had to check it out.  At this point, there are thousands of different pieces of media that chronicle the history of gaming. Video games are here to stay, a multi-billion dollar industry that has mainstream appeal and coverage. I don't think High Score breaks any new ground.  It does a lot of things well and in many ways, it does a good job of not trying to do too much.  The history of gaming as we know it today isn't particularly long, but it's very complicated.  There was no way they were going to cover it all in six episodes, they probably wouldn't have been able to do it in 12. A lot of that history isn't pretty, so covering some of that stuff would require proper handling and I understand why they elected to just skip over some of it.  But overall, I think they did a good job. First...

 After focusing on one of my son's latest obsession last week, it's time to talk about one from my own childhood. Let's be honest, I wasn't the only one.  Back in the early 90's, it seemed like everyone between the ages of 4 and 10 was in full blown love with the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.  This was much watch stuff every time it was on television for 90's kids.  Every time these five warriors, who were actually just five ordinary teenagers in glorified space suits, took on the diabolical Rita Repulsa and her intergalactic monsters, we had to watch. Everything about it was just so cool, the explosions, the giant, colorful monsters, the robots that turned into even bigger robots, it was tailor made for me and and every other 90's kid. This show put many a karate instructor's kids through college. It really is amazing when you think about it.  Who would have thought a teen drama written around repurposed footage from a random Japanese TV show (Supe...

Here's another one from the Joey file. He has been obssesed, like OBSSESED with Toy Story for the past few months.  And not just the first movie either.  I have probably seen all four of the Toy Story films ten times a week for the past several months.  I guess it could be worse.  There are a lot of lousy kids shows and movies out there that have no redeeming qualities for parents so at least I'm not watching those over and over again. It says a lot for these movies, at least the first two, that the mere mention of them doesn't make me cringe at this point.  I think almost everyone would agree, the original Toy Story is a classic.  Computer-animated films are almost guaranteed money now, but Pixar took a huge risk when they released it in 1995.  The risk paid off 1000-fold.  Pixar is now a household name and movies like this are everywhere.  That all started with Toy Story, which was the first fully computer animated feature film.  The s...

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.  ...