You Get: Free Shit! - Capcom Arcade

(This is a new column dedicated to finding games online that are free and legal. Free shit gained by smash and grab, while pretty amusing, is not condoned by anybody at Haruokay.)

iPhones and iTouches are great for a lot of things. Mapping the best route to get where you're going, watching youtube videos about cats and fat people who can't dance, funding Skynet- er, I mean Apple, it's full of many wonderful uses. Unfortunately, gaming is seldom one of them. Most of the times actually, it's just an embarrassing mess and a waste of your hard-earned (probably) money. Fortunately, Capcom are meeting us halfway this time.

Capcom Arcade is a collection of classic Arcade titles from the titular publisher spanning the mid-80's to the early 90's that first appeared on the app store around the beginning of 2011. The app started with a list of only 4 games including 1942, Ghouls and Ghosts, Street Fighter 2 and Commando. Capcom has since been trying (and for the most part, succeeding) in adding a new arcade title every month. Most of those updates to this point have felt like a cop-out. The first update gave us Ghosts and Goblins which is essentially an older Ghouls and Ghosts. The second update was another version of a game already in the arcade but it was Street Fighter 2: Champion Edition so all was forgiven.

I can't stay mad at you.

To top it all off, this past weekend Capcom added not one, but two new additions to it's portable arcade: 1943 (Another sequel/new version of an old title) and... Final Fight which in any format, is still a classic worthy of your time. While it's true that you can find any of these games in just about any Capcom anthology collection out there, there's still an appeal to be able to carry those many games around with you at once for a few free playthroughs. Which brings me to the only catch-22 with this whole arrangement.

Free play tokens. Each day you get three free play tokens that the game will dispense to you as soon as you turn it on for the first time each day. (And sadly no, those tokens do not carry over if you don't use them that day.) Each game requires one token to play and one to continue. Capcom has set it up so you can purchase any arcade cabinet for only 99 cents for unlimited plays. For some people this may be worth it but mind you, these are iPhone controls. If playing Ghouls and Ghosts gave you bloodlust before, playing it on here will either make you break your iPhone/iTouch, or it will make you break the nearest person standing next to you.

Such situations bring out the best in Arthur, and the worst in you when you scream "Cocksucker!" next to that frightened child on the bus.

There are some extra bells and whistles thrown into this collection too, such as unlockable art (mostly unlocked through spending actual money) and in-game power-ups. (Also, at a price) They even threw in a few social networking options in as well if that's your thing. The controls are simple but some games translate better to iOS than others. Both Street Fighter titles play surprisingly well while games like Ghosts and Goblins are a lesson in masochism. Still, a little fanservice and some free tokens do a lot to increase the value of Capcom Arcade.

All in all, this little package is definitely worth checking out. The selection has already gotten to the point where it feels like there is enough variety and if Capcom keeps up with the monthly updates it's only going to get better. The prices never go higher than 99 cents for anything here and I would rate this as a decent choice for gaming on the go. Just think of it like when you were a kid and your parents would only give you a few quarters for the arcade, only with the added bonus of being able to play this while you're drunk.

By: Tim

Haruokay: Where are we going with this?

Part 1: History, Boring Interesting History

Its been a good long while since we first put this blog into effect, the idea was simple. We like video games so lets talk about them, be it new or old, bad or good, we just wanted to talk about video games. For most of us growing up video games were a big part of our lives, from the simple beginnings of the NES and Master Systems, right up to the Wii's and 360's of today. Now of course there was a time before us, when the Atari and its kin ruled the infant video game market way back before the North American Video Game Crash in 1983.

I myself personally never owned an Atari, however my brother owned an Atari 2600 and we had a fair amount of games to choose from (his personal favourite if I recall being Circus.) The games themselves were crazy simple, and fun for the most part. The problem during this time was the over-saturation of the growing market. You had roughly about 12 different consoles out, some of which being straight up clones of other consoles. Not to mention the large amount of hastily started companies which crafted wonderful “classics” like the unplayable ET the Extra-Terrestrial and the terrible port of arcade classic Pac-Man to home systems.

It was also at this point that personal computers were starting to get some spot light, in the early 80's companies were starting to release PC's that would connect to a colour TV which offered improved sound and graphics. Now most of us know, most early PC's in comparison to older consoles offered more memory, better graphics, better sound. PC's as well used various forms of memory storage, floppy disks, cassette tapes and so on which allowed players to save their progress seeing as most PC games were far more complex then their current console counterparts. This also allowed for games to be easily copied and exchanged thanks to this writable storage.

I am sure most of you know of Activision, this particular company was originally founded by former Atari programmers. Why is that? Well you see, these said programmers left Atari in 1979 due to the fact that Atari would not allow credits to appear on games and would not pay employees on a royalty biased on sales. Now when you put a lot of your own hard work and effort into creating a product obviously you'd want payment for your time, and seeing that Atari was owned by Warner Communications the developers felt that they should be paid and receive the same amount of recognition that musicians, directors, and actors get. Now remember these guys aren't making 8-bit NES titles, they are making very simple titles however many staples of platform and puzzle games would not exist if not for these simple titles. Now after Activision went into business, Atari moved quickly to try and block sales of their products, however they never won a restraining order and lost the case in 1982. Thanks to this case, more third party developers started coming out of the woodwork. Companies in an attempt to get some money out of this growing industry started rushing to create video game divisions. They even went as far as luring away programmers from each other, using reverse engineering to learn how to make games for proprietary systems, and hiring programmers from other studios.

Now because of all this stealing, poor mistreatment of programmers most of which working in obscurity, the creation of upstart competitors, this caused hardware manufactures to lose exclusive control of their platforms' supply of games. This caused them to lose the ability to make sure that toy stores were never overloaded with products. Now many of these companies created during this time had experienced programmers (Atari, Activision, and Mattel), but most of these new companies in an attempt to hastily join the market had little to no experience or talent to create games. As they paid into advertising and marketing the games themselves were of poor quality which further damaged the industry which already was slowly falling apart.

The actual crash itself was caused by two games, Pac-Man for the Atari 2600, and the infamous ET. In Pac-Man's case it was so rushed (they wanted the game out for the Christmas of 81) that it really didn't play anything like its arcade counterpart, and Atari thinking that it would be a top seller created more cartilages then it sold creating a huge loss. ET? Fuck what do I have to say about ET, it was an awful game. Rushed much in the same way as Pac-Man it was unplayable, and just overall not fun. As most of you know its considered to be one of the worst games in history and was so bad, Atari bought all of the unsold copies and buried them in a landfill in New Mexico (mind you this could be just a rumour, but I believe it.) These two factors became such huge loses for Atari that it was sold two years later.

By 1982 there were so many new games that most stores lacked the space to carry them, as stores moved to return the surplus games back to the publishers the publishers had no new products nor did they have the money to refund the retailers. Most publishers folded, and by June of 1983 the market was replaced by rushed to market budget games. Now as most companies fell apart, closed or abandoned games altogether, some companies like Activision survived by working on PC games.

At the end it came down to one thing, most toy companies saw video games as nothing more then a simple fad. Video games simply became ignored. This saw the movement of the home console market from the US to Japan, moving into 1985 when the NES is now at the top spot of a slowly recovering industry with Sega and Atari fighting for the number 2 spot.

Was anything learned from the video game crash? You bet your sweet ass! First thing was the placement of measures to control third-party game development which in the current video game market is key. Nintendo for example, would use methods such as a lock out chip and licensing restrictions. Not just anyone could come into the market and make a game for the NES, they need to have the appropriate key chip for the lock inside the console and they had to acknowledge its licence to Nintendo in the copyright notices. Without this key chip, the game simply did not work.

Nintendo set the standard for licensing third-party developers, and the NES itself is noted as being the best-selling console of all time!

Wait? Where are you going with all this information Kevin? Well I'll tell you, it was around this time when video games started becoming not only a large effect on my life, but the lives of many. Most of the people that were around during and after the crash are the very same who write and create games today! Video games, the systems, even the people that play them have evolved from being just people latching onto what was seen as a “fad” to being part of a worldwide phenomenon. Most game consoles today do far more then just play games, where the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) was simply a game console the very name it carried would soon carry more meaning then it did back in the day. Consoles now, are full on entertainment systems from playing music and movies some even carrying the ability to surf the web.

To get back to my point, myself personally have been able to see the evolution of games from a simple past-time to a powerful art form. The purpose of my next few articles, will explore my personal experiences and hopefully give you all an idea of what we hope to accomplish with Haruokay.

By: Kevin

LISTS!!

Who likes lists? Oh, you do? Of- goddamn-course you do. Here's a list of 15 of my most memorable games! Totally not stolen from a Facebook note! What? What did I say? You are now thinking of how awesome it would be to have a monkey as dance partner. Confused and titilated? Good! Let's Go!

1. Shining Force 2 - This was my first RPG and it's hard to forget my first playthrough. I got it for X-mas one year when I had actually asked for the first Shining Force. What I got instead was a game the trumped the first one in every way. It was back when Shining Force still came in "strategy" flavor and is probably my favorite of the whole franchise.

2. Rocket Knight Adventures - I remember reading a two-page spread about this game in Gamepro then finding it at what used to be G&A video. It's a clear memory because it's hard to forget being obsessed for weeks over finding a possum. Also, if the idea of a possum with a suit or armor, a giant sword, and a fucking jetpack don't interest you just a little it's possible that we can no longer be friends. Just sayin'

3. Battletoads - I got this for Christmas many a year ago now. The week we were supposed to go back to school that year from break there was a massive snowstorm. School was cancelled for a week and I was trapped indoors with nothing but play Battletoads to pass the time. To this day I have not beaten Battletoads. This game had me seeing red so hard that the walls started menstrating. Fun, amazing, and brutally, brutally difficult.

4. Metal Gear - No, not Solid. The NES version was the 3rd Nintendo game I ever owned. It had a horrible translation, the password system was brutal, and for some reason a key item didn't work meaning I couldn't even fight the end boss but damn if I didn't spend hours trying. It also helped me get that much more out of Solid's story. The words "Grey Fox" actually make that scene in the later a legitimate reveal.

5. Mega Man 3 - I was thinking about putting part 2 but the truth is, I played this one more. Alot more. I used to borrow this one off my cousin and would play it endlessly. Still not sure what the hell purpose Top Man was supposed to serve though? Perhaps his version of an evil child's toy personified was meant to bring out repressed memories of getting your ass beat by your father? That or Capcom started naming robot masters on drunken dares. It will forever be a mystery.

6. Street Fighter 2- Special Champion Edition - Getting this one along with a 6-button controller for the Genesis made for a sweet pairing. It was basically a Genesis version of Turbo but all that mattered was we finally got Street Fighter on the Genesis. It could have been made from child labor and plutonium for all I cared.

7. Mortal Kombat - What's more fucked up than being surrounded by a bunch of sweaty, sex-starved teenagers 4 times your size in a dark room with no adult supervision? Watching them cheer as the most realistic game I had ever laid eyes on to that point shows me a shapely blonde woman getting her head pulled off by a guy in a blue rapist mask, thats what.

8. Super C - Ahhh, the insanely difficult sequel to the insanely difficult Contra. While I did play the original me and a friend Played this way more. I loved the overhead levels as opposed to the corridors in the first game. I remember we did end up beating this game though I'm still a little hazy on how close we came to killing each other while doing it. Seriously, try depriving two men of sleep for 2 days, lock them in a room and make them play Super C. See what kind of twisted violent shit happens next. Foreign countries could use this as a torture method to break a grown man's will.

9. Final Fantasy II (IV) - Yup, the poorly (and sometimes hilariously) translated SNES title came to mind. It was my first Final fantasy game and I had seen at least four other friends play it and beat it beforehand, but it was still awesome to play through... three times. It had great characters, a solid battle system, and a flying whale ship that took you to the moon. I'm still not sure what a "spoony bard" is but since it was directed at Edward I always suspected to mean "to be bitch-like in one's behavior."

10. Super Smash Bros. (Original) - I wish I could sit here and count all the hours me and my friends played this game but I can't. No. That would be fucking impossible. But, I can say without question that we played this like a religion. It got to the point where we had a league in play with ranks, tournaments, titles, camps. It was pretty intense. it still gets brought out now. If you ever want to learn the game of N64 Smash bros. (Because... it's a dying relative's last wish? You lost a bet, whatever) I shit you not, go to Cape Breton Island. You will learn damnit.

11. X-Men vs Street Fighter - The arcade at CBU had a nice selection of Capcom fighters to choose from but this was the one we would all flock to when we were drunk making this one the most awesome of the lot. We had matches by the shit-ton during the day then our nights there would consist of beer, band, beer, break, x-men vs sf, repeat. If I can ever get a copy I'm getting a some good music, this game, some friends, and a 24 together. It may not be the same but it's the thought that counts.

12. Resident Evil 3: Nemesis - For two reasons: The first being that this was the first game to actually scare me. It was the part right before mercenaries mode where the disembodied voice over the pitch black backdrop gives you the mission then laughs like a fucking maniac. I first saw that alone, in the pitch dark, and 3 in the morning. Scared. Shitless. Oh, and reason number two? Zombie Hulk with a rocket launcher. Moving along...

13. Base Wars - This was an old NES game that featured a baseball league made up of robots. It was part baseball game, part fighting game. You could even play a season and upgrade your team with new weapons and stats. Why they never made a sequel or hell, something even remotely like it since is beyond me. You had to fight to get to second base more than a serial rapist. Desperately needs a sequel.

14. Goldeneye - Nowadays you can play anybody from home with XBL or PSN. Back when Goldeneye came out we had to all meet up to play a proper multiplayer game. We were never short on players. It may not have aged well but this game is still a classic.

15 - The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening - One of the only games I really put any time to on the Gameboy and probably one of my favorite Zelda games. You could actually jump. Yes, you needed an item to do it but it was a cool switch all the same. Even if the ending kinda made you feel like a dick. Ruining families was never more fun.

By: Tim

DASH DASH DASH!!!

Fuck yesssssss.

Shareware!

When you’re a 10 year old kid with a 4 dollar allowance for the week, you’re hard put to find a good way to squeeze the most out of it. Thank Christ for Radio Shack. Every Friday for the better part of a year, I would take my 4 bones, run to very back of my local Radio Shack, and find a big, rotating rack of awesomeness. Awesomeness labelled “$2.99” Shareware mother fuckers.

“Shareware!”

Keep in mind I’m 27 years old. This means that back when I was 10 we didn’t have demo discs, (Well, actually we did via PC Gaming Monthly but that means shit-all to a kid whose computer didn’t have a CD-Rom drive,) and the idea of a demo download was a concept too big for most of our Neanderthal minds to grasp. Enter fun-assed DOS and windows games and a measly 3 bucks. What we got on each 3.5 floppy disc usually amounted to about a ¼ of the full game. Each disc had one, sometimes two games on it, each containing a trial version of the game that always encouraged you to mail away for the full version. Sure, I had no money to get a full game, but a quarter of a game a piece was good enough for the time.

As for the quality of the games...well, it kind of varied. Some weeks I would find a game that hooked me for days at a time and even made me want to find a way to find the full version of the game. Other games were what essentially amounted to the digital equivalent of hippo shit, even for the time, but I still at least beat each one once if only so my allowance wouldn’t go to complete waste. There was always a variety when it came to shareware titles: Platforming, FPS, Fighting, Strategy, racing, Shooter, even educational titles. Already having my life’s share of educational gaming though Captain Novolin for the SNES, (a hilarious edutainment title I may get into another day) I decided the other genres (largely FPS and Action) were the way to go. Have a seat and let me show you some of the above mediocre to awesome DOS/Windows titles shareware had to offer. Also, what the hell were you doing reading these last three paragraphs standing up?

Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold

OK, if you’ve ever played this game before odds are you’ve noticed that this game is essentially a Wolfenstein 3D clone. The game plays the same, the sprites felt similar, and the levels weren’t much different in presentation. That being said, taking your cues from a game like W3D isn’t necessarily a bad thing either. The game puts you in the role of the titular character who is on a quest to stop the evil Dr. Pyrus Goldfire from using his army of aliens, mutants and scientists to take over the world. Also you get a cool blaster gun that blows holes in people’s chest.

Score!

This game had alot of the standard elements you would see in a FPS of its time. Lots of similar looking hallways and corridors, killing scores of clones made from gradually less inept villains, and key cards. Always with the fucking key cards. This one was actually pretty fun to play and I recall giving it more than a few playthroughs. It had 8 episodes, one of which was playable in this case. What most don’t realize is that this game in a way acts as a precursor to legendary FPS title Goldeneye. How you ask? Well, true Blake Stone was supposed to be a British Agent who worked for Her Majesty the Queen, but the where the real connection comes in is the inclusion of the scientists.

Aside from regular enemies, you also had random scientists who would either open fire on you if you tried to talk to them, or they gave you hints about how to get health, and maybe even give you tokens that were used to purchase health via vending machines scattered throughout the game. We would see this used again later in Goldeneye (Dr. Doak!) and used again even more prominently later when Half-Life came into existence, but Blake Stone did it before any of them. As a full title however, BS:AOG didn’t do very well in sales. Well, to be more accurate it did great it’s first week. Unfortunately old BS was in the position of being released a week before another somewhat popular shareware title hit the market...

DOOM

Oh yeah. Poor Blake didn’t have a chance once this bad boy came out. We’re talking about not only one of the most popular PC games of all time here, we’re talking about what is widely considered to be one of the most important games of all time. Id software made this game after the classic Wolfenstein 3D, a game already known for its high level of violence at the time (At least by early 90’s standards) and still cranked that shit to 11. The story was simple enough. You were a lone Marine stationed on a base on one of Mar’s moons. Demons from Hell take over the base and the assholes in charge leave you guarding the back with nothing but a pistol while they take all the good weapons and go charging in to get annihilated. It’s you job to go in after them and kill everything with a pulse.

"Like so."

This game is one of the better examples of getting ¼ of the game in the shareware version. Actually, later releases non-withstanding you actually got a 1/3 of the game instead. Doom was separated into 3 chapters, the entire 1^st of which, the episode “Knee Deep in the Dead,” was given to us in the shareware copy. This was actually the one shareware title I went out of my way to find the full version of. Unfortunately, it just did not seem doable in Sydney, NS. Not for me anyways. I think I picked up 3 different versions of the game. All of them turned out to be shareware in a bigger box. I recently decided to remedy that (better late than never) and downloaded this game via XBL and it still holds up today. Especially the full version. By the time you reached the second chapter the screen would get filled to the gullet with enemies. The only thing missing was “It’s the most wonderful time of the year” playing through the speakers as you used your trusty shotgun to kill every single one of God’s mistakes. No cover, no waiting for your health to magically regenerate on its own. It was just you and a metric fuck-ton of zombies, imps, and demons to kill. Doom was all about the bloodlust.

Also, cyber-demons with rocket launchers for hands.

Sure, I could go into some of the technical marvels it displayed for its time like LAN deathmatches (before it was cool) and the use of shadows and multi-level planes (W3D only has single floor corridors. The concept of “shooting up” was still exclusive to heroin junkies at this point.) but others have said it better and truthfully I didn’t know the first thing about LAN back in the day and I didn’t really notice things like shadows and multi-level yadda yadda yadda. When I was a kid, I just wanted to kill stuff. Cyber-Demon stuff. And in the end, isn’t that what being a child was all about?

........

Annnnnyways.

Duke Nukem 1 and 2

Remember Duke Nukem 3D? The game with all the strippers, pigs dressed up like cops, peeing in urinals, and one-liners stolen from Evil Dead and They Live? Yeah, it was a pretty epic game of its time. The thing is, that game wasn’t just called “3D” because of the fancy graphics. The “3” in “3D” actually stands for the 3^rd entry in the series. Unlike 3D however, the first two DN games were actually platforming/shooter titles and were both fun in their own right, even if they certainly feel dated by today’s standards.

The original Duke Nukem followed the story of Duke as he fought an invasion from the evil Dr. Proton and his evil robots. Duke lacked his trademark shades and proper spelling of his name, (Duke NukUm as at the time. “Duke Nukem” was a Captain Planet villain.”) but you could still see his attitude was still somewhere in line with what we would see in later games. The graphics were certainly cruder, but Duke’s trademark personality was still there

The gameplay was fairly straight-forward. You went through stage after stage, jumping and shooting bad guys, traps, cameras, etc on a 2-D plane. There were 3 acts in total and you would get the entire first act in the shareware copy. It played a lot like other shooters of its time and looked about the same in terms of graphical quality. It may not have been mind-blowing but it was certainly a good start for what was to come.

Before medkits, there was chicken.

The sequel, the now properly spelled “Duke Nukem 2,” was a noticeable improvement from the first title. This time around Duke is abducted by aliens while in the middle of a talk show appearance plugging his new book, “Why I’m so great,” an account of how he kicked Dr. Proton’s ass in the first game. Once abducted and jailed, Duke busts out and begins to open the proverbial 40-pound box of rape on everything breathing. Of course, the story goes a little deeper than that, but you basically get the jist of why the ass kicking has to start.

He broke out using a radioactive molar. I am not making that shit up.

Duke’s design was a little closer to what we’ve come to know and love in this game, minus the shades. You can see more of his trademark attitude and sense of humor shine through in this one too. (Duke became even more of an arrogant bastard after beating Dr. Proton.) The graphics are also a step up from the original and with more colors and more detailed stages. The gameplay has also been improved. You still need weapon upgrades and keys but Duke can now shoot in more directions than just straight. The music is better as well although I’ll admit, not having speakers at the time certainly put a damper on things. I could only ever hear the damn sound effects.

Both of these titles were my introduction to the world of Duke Nukem. A year or two later, Duke Nukem 3D would come out to kick ass and steal from John Carpenter, but this is where the story really began. The best part? This was one of those shareware releases that came with both games bundled in one package. Groovy. Very damn groovy indeed.

Raptor: Call of the Shadows

Honestly, there weren’t a whole lot of vertical shooters in the shareware department. Not in the places I was looking anyways. Actually, most of the titles outside of edutainment were either platforming games that played similar to Duke Nukem, or FPS games that played like Wolfenstein. I wasn’t a big fan of shooters at the time but after a few months of what felt like playing the same damn games over and over I decided to give Raptor a roll in the hay. Unlike several other times in life where I’ve followed that logic, this time I was not disappointed.

At the time, these graphics brought a smile to my face. A big smile.

There’s isn’t much of a story to speak of in Raptor but this is a game that really doesn’t need one. Hell, most vertical shooters I’ve ever played didn’t have any story save for what you read in the manual but who cares when the main goal is to simply blow shit up? You start every mission in a hangar which acts as your options menu. Here you can upgrade your jet and weaponry using money which you earn during each mission. You can upgrade your weapons, adding things like missiles and lasers to your armory as well as the option to upgrade your jet’s shields. They also switched up the gameplay a bit by giving you weapons that could only hit ground targets and weapons that could only kill airborne enemies. Plus of course, there was the nuke. Every good shooter needs that “kill the shit out of everything at once” button and thankfully Raptor was no exception.

”Did we get em?”

The shareware version of Raptor had 9 playable levels. That was a third of the entire game which consisted of 27 missions in total. I was never the best math student, but then more than ever before, the math made sense. 3 dollars + nuclear weapons = happy boy.

There are plenty more shareware games I could go on about here like Halloween Harry, Jazz Jackrabbit, The Catacomb Abyss; but if I did we would be here all day. (Or you would eventually get up and do something with your day. Vagrant!) If you’re curious to see what this whole shareware thing was about go to this site and check these guys out. You can find all the games I mentioned plus a shit-ton more from the era. All Shareware. All the time. I can almost feel my 10 year-old self giving the adult me the finger.

By: Tim

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World The Game....The...Review?

Unless you've been living under a rock this past summer then you've propably heard of this comic series. Its about some character (who is in many ways a massive douchebag) as he goes through the usual coming of age bullshit that most twentysomethings seem to go through. Except for one small twist, that being his current girlfriend has 7 evil ex's and in order to stay together he has to defeat all 7 of them.

Littered about in this odd love/coming of age/Wallace is awesome story are various references to video games. From save points, level ups, and fantasticly profitable murder SP's world is one that would translate pretty well into a game. Kinda like River City Ransom, except Canadain.

Wait a minute.....

So to call Scott Pilgrim vs The World The Game a homage to RCR would be somewhat of a lie, the game is pretty much RCR. From the leveling up, to the buying of goods from stores, this is all in all RCR for a new generation. Which. Is. AWESOME!

The core gameplay goes like this; you beat the shit out of people, they become money, use money to gain items and more expereience, beat the boss, repeat. Its glorious! Four player action! Fantastic! Online mulitplayer! Fuck no!

The game itself feels like an old style arcade beat-em-up, right down to the FBI-esque "Winners Don't Use Drugs" warning before the opening demo. You have 4 playable characters to choose from, with one hidden unlockable character. Obviously you have Scott, the members of his band "Sex-Bob-omb" Steven Stills and Kim, finally ending off with Romona the girl who dates evil guys (and one girl). Each pretty much play the same with their own little nunances, once they reach level 16 gain their own special technique, with one more additional technique that can be purchased in one of the later levels. Each characer has a max level of 16, and counting on what you eat and buy from the various shops characters stats will go up.

The controls are not too complicated, you have your usual jump, punch, kick and block which can be used for combos and the like. I cannot tell you how much fun this game is, both playing at home in single player, and with 4 people in mulitplayer. The game has 7 stages which are beautifully done and touch on a certain aspect of the story which oddly enough takes place somewhere in Toronto. Each stage carries a theme of storts which relates to one of the ex's and that particular part of the story. From the world map, right down to the wonderful chiptune music you can feel the love that was put into this game.

If you haven't heard of Anamanaguchi then I suggest you stop reading and start googling or youtubing right now (and while you are doing that, I'll be dealing with the fact I just said "googling and youtubing" when did that happen?) Every peice of music for this game was put together by Anamanaguchi which really adds to the classic arcade feel of this whole game. Its crazy awesome fun!

But Kevin did you not say that said wonderful game lacked online mulitplayer?

Yes the game lacks the one thing that most multiplayer PSN and Live Arcade games are known for and that is online play. While leaderboards are available so you can measure your gaming penis with the other men, the lack of online multiplayer is somewhat annoying. I can see in a sense why Ubisoft decided to make it a local multiplayer game, emulating the old arcade style beat-em-up having your buddies side by side. While the inclusion of online multiplayer would have been nice, there are many strong points to SP that lessen the sting. Once you grow tired of beating the shit out of people in the regular game, you can enter cheat codes on the title screen to unlock two additional modes. Survival Horror and Boss Rush!

Boss Rush is well....a boss rush, you fight through all the bosses without dying.

Simple concept!

Survival Horror is pretty much the same thing, except instead of the bosses you fight wave after wave of zombies. Its fantastic! Its fun, hell I've gotten a good month of playtime from this game and it was roughly about $10-$15 bucks.

Now obviously this really isn't a true review (even though it totally is), simply put I have no idea how our review system is going to work out yet. This is pretty much just me talking about how awesome of a time I had with SP, if you want a score I'll give it a 7/10. Why? Like I said, online mulitplayer. A game like this would very much benenift from it. Its not like its Ubisoft's first LIVE/PSN title that is a 4 person beat-em-up.

*cough*Turtles in Time*cough*

By: Kevin

What Nintendidn’t

By: Tim

Ok here’s the thing: When I was a kid I lived in a Genesis household. We were only allowed to get one console and we ended up with a fucking Genesis. I’ll admit to the fact that the “Get Sonic 1 and receive 2 in the mail” offer was the deal maker but in turn it meant years of defending a console like you would defend your local sports team. You know, the ones with a team who would win a game here and there and look great when doing it but usually get beaten shitless and stupid by the opposing team? Yeah, that was me with the Genesis.

This meant that when some awesome game came out on the SNES we had to hope against hope that the game would somehow find its way to our console. Sometimes it did (Maximum Carnage, Earthworm Jim) and but more often than not it never found its way over. (Final Fantasy 2 and 3, Crono Trigger, Wild Guns, a fuck-load of etc’s) I guess most developers just didn’t understand and grasp the technology and likely didn’t want to slow Sega down while they struggled and banged their primitive heads against the wall, trying to grasp the fucking intricacies of Blast Processing. Like a broken orphan telling them self that daddy just got lost on the way home from the ice cream and puppy store 15 years ago when I was 11, that is the story that I am forced to stick by.

Regardless of all of this, while we didn’t always get a port of the games we wanted we still got “versions” of them in a sense. We’re talking games here that had the same licence, sometimes even same basic game, but flipped upside down on its ass like the goddamn inverted castle.

Castlevania: Bloodlines

Super Castlevania was a big game when the SNES launched and a marked a huge improvement in the series. We didn’t get any of that action. What we did get however was Castlevania: Bloodlines. The big thing that stood out about this game for me when I first rented it was that you could choose from more than one character. Technically this isn’t the first Castlevania game to do this (Dracula’s Curse on the NES) But it did make it the first Castlevania to have a character select screen from the offset.

Pictured: Choice

You could choose from two characters that have the task of stopping an insane countess from resurrecting Dracula: John Morris who was your Belmont character only without the name, fought with the Vampire Killer (Also known as a “whip.”) He wasn’t able to attack in 8 directions like Simon Belmont in Super Castlevania but 5 directions wasn’t a bad number compared to most Castlevania games either. He could also swing from hooks using the whip. Your other choice for kicking undead ass wholesale was Eric Lecarde. Eric’s weapon was the spear, a weapon that would become a staple for pretty much every “Metroidvania” style game that came out later on. Eric could attack in 6 directions and do a charged jump that allowed him to access areas and paths that John couldn’t reach. Oh, and every time he dies his spear flies up in the air, falls back down and impales him. Like, every fucking time. Whether this is a badass display of not letting the enemy take you alive or just a mind-bogglingly consistent fuckup remains an issue of debate.

“D’oh!”

The graphics looked great for the Genesis and alot of detail went into the backgrounds and stages. The reflection of the stage and sprites in the water, the shattering windows when fighting the Hell Hound, the large multi-jointed bosses, all beautiful stuff.

And this is only the first mid-boss.

The music is pretty solid considering the limitations of the Genesis’ sound card. It’s better to hear for yourself so here are a few examples:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi8PKYgQfE0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH9X1iRAjC0&feature=related

The game played like your typical old-style Castlevania game complete with a clock tower stage with lots of gears to jump from, medusa heads to avoid and controllers to smash when one of those aforementioned heads knocks you off to oblivion and death when you’ve finally gotten to the LAST FUCKING GODDAMN PAR-*ahem* meaning of course that yes, this game was challenging. By which I mean this game, in proper Castlevania tradition, was pretty goddamn hard. You could lower the difficulty level but to get the full ending you had to at least beat it on normal. The game was only 6 stages but when you factor in two characters with different paths for each one it opens the game up and gives it some replay value.

Random fact: In the options mode play BGM 05 and SE073. Leave the options screen with settings left like this and start the game. Now whenever your weapon reaches level 4 the music will change to the old Castlevania theme, signifying that shit is about to get real...

...until one of those goddamn medusa heads hit you.

Mega Turrican

OK, the history on this one is a little tricky. Mega Turrican was developed by Factor 5 for the Genesis. Since they had trouble securing a distributor however, it was released for the Amiga (The console that the original two Turrican games were initially released on) in 1993, the same year that Factor 5 also released Super Turrican for the SNES. Now, a year later Data East picked the title up and brought it to the Genesis in 1994. This means we kids got a Genesis Turrican game made for us and released first (Woot Amiga!...show of hands? Anyone?) and we got to play it a year later. The people with an Amiga got to play at the same time sure but also, fuck those guys.

Nobody loves the Amiga kid.

Did you follow all of that? No? OK, the jist of things is Mega Turrican for the Genesis was an awesome game. It actually shared alot of things in common with it’s Super Nintendo counterpart. Since Factor 5 made both Mega Turrican and Super Turrican they ended up using some of the same music as well as similar backgrounds.

Genesis

SNES

The shitty part here however (at least for those of us with a Genesis) was that the SNES sound card was alot better so Super Turrican had better sounding music. Even so, Factor 5 managed to get a pretty sweet score to accompany the game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VRPDAEm8qI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYHNvYSgEAA&feature=related

Like Super Turrican, Mega Turrican gives you 3 weapon types with power-ups available for each type, obtained by means of colored orbs that come from item boxes scattered throughout each level. You had “Multiple” (Orange) which is your spread shot. “Rebound” (Blue) fires a stream of fire forward as well as two seperate blasts that bounce off the floor and ceiling. Finally “Laser”(Green) fires a powerfull green blast but only straight forward. You also get a missle attachment that fire slow-moving homing missles at nearby enemiest with infinite ammo (until you get your ass killed) and there is a shield power-up as well. To top it all off you can turn into a ball to get into hard to reach areas or evade bosses. It also drops a smart bomb which you have limited ammo for. (For those of you already drawing comparisons to some other games there, I’ll get to that in a minute.)

If Mega Turrican has one particular feature that really makes this one stand out from Super turrican it would be the grappling beam. Unlike the freeze beam you got on the SNES, the grappling beam let you reach areas that would otherwise be inaccessable. It could also be used for swinging from platform to platform as well as just swinging around like a monkey who somehow found a chandalier and refused to get his ass down.

”Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

I guess between the grappling beam and the ball and bomb moves I could be drawing alot more comparrisons for Super Metroid (and...shit. Yeah I suppose I am) but I’d also have to mention the other franchises you could say it borrowed from as well. The 4^th level of the game is spent fighting Aliens. No, I’m not talking about some little generic green men here. I’m talking James “I made fucking made Terminator 2” Cameron’s Aliens. The boss of the level was a giant head that may not have been, but most certainly goddamn was the Alien Queen for example.

The PLATFORMS in this stage were plagiaristic.

You could draw parallels here to Bionic Commando, Contra, hell even the final boss looks kinda like Galactus but being comparable in ways to any of these games is far from a bad thing. Except maybe Galactus...

Seriously, it’s more than a passing resemblance.

Either way I was a huge fan of this game. Comparisons be damned! I put hours upon hours into this game and still pick it up time to time. It’s a little bit of everything with an awesome soundtrack and a good enough challenge to keep things interesting without pissing you off. It was so good actually, that even though it was made specifically for the Genesis, it was ported to the Amiga as “Turrican 3.” That’s right. The game was good enough to be used as a numbered sequel in the series. Mega Turrican is definitely worth a look if you find a ROM...But only as a backup of course. For your actual copy of the game that is. The one you actually purchased and owned as any other way of doing that could be illegal...

*cough* Moving along.

Contra: Hard Corps

I’ve heard alot of talk about Gunstar Heroes being Sega’s equivilient of Contra 3: The Alien Wars but I always thought this one was an equally good game just in different ways. Hard Corps takes place 7 years after the events of Contra 3 and follows a 4 member Contra unit who are sent to stop an unmanned robot rampaging through the city. There are two important things that should be noted from what I just said:

1. There are 4 characters to choose from in this game.

While Contra Force for the NES may have been the first Contra game to do it, Hard Corps certainly did it better. You had 4 characters to choose from and you didn’t have to be in the second player port to play as any of them. There’s your standard male soldier Ray who will come in handy if you’re a fan of the spread shot (He’s the only one who has it) Sheena the female soldier, Fang the werewolf soldier with a chaingun for an arm. Actually wait, let us process that one for a moment. Werewolf Contra. Chaingun Arm. And.........

Fucking. AAAAAAWWWWWWSSSOOOOOOMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEE!

.......OK! And lastly we have Brownie, the robot Contra who’s also the shortest. All you need to know about him is that you equip his yo-yo weapon and run balls-first into victory.

2. This game has a fucking story.

Most early Contra games had little story outside of what you read in the manual and were more about endless bullet slaughter and over-the-top action sequences. This Contra has... well, OK it has all of that too. But thrown into the mix this time are cut scenes giving us mission briefings as well as parts where the action stops mid-stage to give us dialogue between characters and even puts us in the position of having to choose how to proceed in the game. There are parts in Hard Corps where you’ll be poised with the decision of where to go next. Will you go save the laboratory or will you chase after that guy who like, totally called you out on your manhood and shit? Oh yeah, there were fucking ramifications to your decisions in this one. The game didn’t recieve any awards for it’s storytelling but it was cool to see Konami trying something different with the franshise.

The game plays like your standard Contra although instead of having one weapon in each arm like in C3, each character comes with their own weapon set which (once gained by the usual method of bizzarre floating pod) can be selected on the fly. There is also an extra slot every one gets for the bomb. You know the one I’m talking about. The “Kill the shit out of everything but a boss” bomb. Yeah, Hard Corps had it too.

Hard Corps looks great on the Genesis with huge bosses and insane action sequence after insane action sequence thrown in the keep the pace frantic. (See: Really Difficult). They even threw some light voice work in there too. It’s nothing ground breaking but it was definately a nice touch. Also, if you had the japanese version of the game you got a healthbar (and yes that had to be bolded, italicised, and underlined. Contra is a series famous for one-hit deaths.)

The game may be missing those over-the-head sequences from Alien Wars but for what Hard Corps lacks in Mode 7 it makes up for in variety and replay value. A trait that another Konami game earlier listed in this article, Castlevania shares in relation to it’s SNES counterpart. The game sports a total lack of shitless guys killing scores of enemies but seriously, WEREWOLF WITH A MOTHER FUCKING CHAINGUN ARM!

”Fuck cars! Look at my goddamn gun!”

Mortal Kombat

“But wait! That came out on the SNES too! Why would you go and say that?” Why? Why you ask?...

THATS fucking why!

I won’t go into to too much detail on this one but that picture pretty much sums up the difference. Unlike Nintendo, Sega didn’t mind keeping all the hilariouly awesome fatalities and blood that helped make the series popular in check for their version. Seriously, in the SNES version Jonny Cage kicks (into?) you and Kano pulled out your grey, bloodless heart like the monster you are. Sub-Zero froze you then shattered you which I’ll admit wasn’t a bad substitute but it still didn’t make up for the lack of red stuff. The only thing that came off a character’s face when you smashed his/her face in was what could only be described as “sweat.” It’s like the SNES gave the Kombatants a fucking glandular problem.

There was one catch to getting 16-bit homicide on your Genesis however. There was a code. A blood code.

When you start the game you’ll see this odd little message pop up. Note how NONE of this actually relates to the story of the game. If you enter “A, B, A, C, A, B, B” during this screen though, you unlock the all the blood and proper fatalities. I’ll admit I wasn’t a fan of the fact that you had to put in a code for the blood and proper deaths at the time. Considering the violence was what the big selling feature of this version was it always seemed kind of strange that they would hide it initially and basically tease you into finding out how to get the gore. At the same time though, screens like that one helped give the feeling that you were “in” on something. A dirty, very poorly kept, secret. You didn’t just get to have blood in the game, you fucking earned it.

”MINE!”

Nintendo learned their lesson that there wasn’t as much money in the bloodless multi-valve organs business, so when Mortal Kombat 2 came around Nintendo put all the blood and violence back in. This pretty much levelled the playing field for MK games on the 16-bit consoles but, even with a code, it was still a small victory for Genesis kids at the time.

Well thats it for this one. We’ll be back soon but in the meantime let’s revel in simple pleasures in life. Ladies and Gentlemen, SWEAT AND GREEN BLOOD FOR EVERYBODY!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG2psMsfnRM&feature=related

By: Tim