Monthly Archives: March 2012

Shufflepuck Café for Famicom

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This is a game I’ve been playing quite a lot lately. It’s fun, entertaining, but super hard o_O


You have a bunch of opponents in some kind of cyber-futuristic café (looks more like a bar) where you can battle each of them in a game of “shufflepuck” which resembles air hockey.

The story: “You are the galaxy’s most successful Krypton-3 salesman on the way to close the biggest sale of your career. Your brand new Nash Sombrero has blown a capacitor in the reactor valve. You exit the gravy and coast down into the wrong side of town. Now all you need to do is find a phone and a repair sled will be on its way. The only signs of life seem to be coming from a shoddy structure three doors down and across the street. Opening the door you make your way down a flight of debris-covered stairs. Something loathsome scampers over your feet on its way to the activities below. A shout of recognition is heard as whatever it was enters the smoke-filled room. You stumble into the room and suddenly it’s as silent as the depths of space. Several pairs of hostile eyes, and a few sets of three, challenge you to enter. The only thing that stands between you and the telephone is eight galactic misfits, and obsolete droid and a few “friendly” games of shuffle puck. Relax, if you lose, you’ll earn their contempt. Win, and you’ll earn their resentment.”

All of the opponents are different, they all have different styles of playing and various difficulty levels (where most of them are ridiculously hard, and some even unbeatable!!)

The only easy one is Skip, some kid that just moves in slow-motion when you’re playing against him.

The goal is to get a score of 15 first. There are only 2 or three other opponents that I have even a chance of beating.

This is Vinnie, winning over me.. .>_<


This is Visine beating me..

This is the grim reaper.. or I mean, Nerval (!?)…

Here’s the drunken Lexon getting wasted whenever he scores…

Here’s the General:

Here’s DC3 the Robot waitress with nipples o_O

And Biff with anger management issues.. damn, he really wants to kick your ass!


I did get a few hits in there though.. ^^ pure luck…

And this is Bejin, the worst opponent there is.. she cheats by using the force!!

All in all, an entertaining game which also brings quite a lot of frustration ;D

Here’s a video I put together of the gameplay, the music is quite good :) in between stages that is, during stages you only have the sound effect of the puck bouncing around >_<

The Odyssey 2001

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So here’s a little something from my collection:

ODYSSEY 2001: SPORTS FIELD THRILLS ON YOUR TV SCREEN!

Sounds exciting doesn’t it? ;D Well it wasn’t, I couldn’t get it working since the power adaptor is broken :( I’ve been searching and googling for a replacement, but it’s a really odd and rare one..

Anyway, it’s still a nice edition to the collection and really fun to look at ^^

It comes with the original manuals and papers. There’s a double sided manual, or 10 of them actually, in different languages (Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Dutch, Italian, French, Spanish, Finnish, German and English) so I guess this is the version that was released all over Europe. There is also a typewritten letter from Philips in Swedish which states “Corrections to the user manual” so I guess it had some typos to begin with ;D It’s dated from 03.11.1977.

Btw Philips released the Odyseey 2001 in Europe, in the rest of the world it’s known as Magnavox Odyssey.

The Odyssey 2001 has 3 games built in to it, there are no cartridges of games for this one. The games are Tennis, Hockey and Squash.

They’re all basically the same, just different versions of Pong. They have different colors on the screen, the Hockey game has some lines resembling the goals and the Tennis has a “net” in the middle. You really had to use your imagination back then ;D

By the way, if anybody has any clue on where I can find an old (European!) power adaptor for a Philips Odyssey 2001, I would much appreciate it ^_^
 

NES games & Nintendo Power: vol 33 -92

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I got some more games from Ebay this week :D I also started buying Nintendo Power magazines, and in this lot there was a Nintendo Power issue with TMNT III. I also got a book called “How to Win at Nintendo”, written in 1988 by Jeff Rovin. It actually only has 30 games in it, described with the story and strategies to winning. Including games like Arkanoid, Balloon Fight, Castlevania, Commando, Ghosts n’ Goblins, Gradius, Kung Fu, Metroid, Mega Man, Zelda II and many other big titles. However there’s no pictures, only text describing everything. I’m not much of a reader, I need pictures to look at to stay focused >_<

The games I bought were Millipede, Wurm, Lone Ranger, Xenophobe, Friday the 13th, Dungeon Magic, Joust, Twin Eagle and Predator. Wurm is awesome <3

Well, in this post I think I will take a closer look at the Nintendo Power issue, volume 33 from 1992. (all images are clickable to view full size)

You just gotta love Nintendo Power. 16 pages of a comic about Zelda a Link to the Past, 8 pages Super Mario Adventure comic, Nester’s Adventure and a bunch of game walkthroughs, guides, pictures, game promotions, ads from the 80’s and early 90’s and more!

Here’s the Zelda comic for those of you who want to read it ^^ All 16 pages, large enough to read it clearly :D

 

Now I’m actually not that into the Zelda franchise.. I know many ppl think I’m weird now, but it’s a long story and I basically just never got into it.. but I know there’s a lot of ppl who do love Zelda so this was for all you hardcore Nintendo fanboys, and girls ^___^

Now this is some hardcore advertisement for the Nintendo Power!

And what the hell do they mean by this? Hook your SNES to your NES?! I guess they just wanted people to keep buying games for both systems..

They feature a lot of games in this issue, such as Gradius, one of my favorites ^_^

Another featured games is Super Hunchback for Gameboy, never heard of it. Has anybody played it? There’s apparently many bells to ring…

And T2, “He said he’d be back”, he sure did!

And here’s the Super Mario Adventure comic for those of you who are interested in reading it ^_^

There’s also a 10 page long walkthrough for the game  “The Legend of the Mystical Ninja” for Super Nintendo. I haven’t heard of that one either. It looks kinda fun though, however all the stages seem to have the same shade of orange throughout the game, usually SNES games were more colorful..

The poster for this Nintendo Power volume was Lemmings:

 Super Scope was the shit back in ’92!

And all the children playing Gradius wanted to become an Astronaut! ;D

The Nester’s Adventure cartoon is only  1 page, it’s quite good though. This one is about Castlevania IV:

And last but not least, here’s the Top 20 of the NES, SNES and GB games in February 1992!


There’s a bunch of other stuff in this issue, like walkthroughs of TMNT III, G.I. Joe, Rampart, The Simpsons Bart vs the World, Asteroids, Q*Bert and Wanderers from Ys. If there’s anyone of these in particular that you’d like to see then just leave a comment and I’ll post some more pics :D

The Baconing – Xbox Live Arcade

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Sorry I haven’t published anything in a few days, but I’ve been busy the last three evenings playing the third Deathspank game! The Baconing! It was a lot of fun ^_^ and I just finished it tonight! :D

I didn’t buy it when it just came out, since it was 1200 microsoft points at that moment, so I’ve been waiting, and finally they lowered the price so I bought it ^^

For those of you who haven’t heard of Deathspank, you should really check it out, it’s a really fun action rpg that kind of resembles the Monkey Island games, since it has a lot of humor and it’s filled with silly quests where you have to figure out what to find and where to use it. I really love it!

Deathspank is created by Hothead games which also made Braid (an amazing puzzle-platformer that you should play NOW if you haven’t already!) and the Penny Arcade Adventures.

It also has co-op, however your friend will be more of a sidekick and only the main player will get achievements. It might make it easier though when there’s hordes of enemies coming at you. I died quite frequently however that was mainly because I always rush into close combat and don’t pay attention to explosive barrels, so I always smash them and commit suicide >_< You always spawn at the nearest checkpoint and only loose a bit of cash (which you can run back and collect where you died) so it doesn’t really matter.

This game really has it all.. Cyborques, Pirate ships that you can commandeer, Leprechaun Mafia, A Casino, Valhalla, A two-headed dog, Clones, Z.I.M.O.N says, Aliens, The King (Elvis), and much much much much more!

All three games (Deathspank, Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue & The Baconing) are available on XBLA, and for those of you who don’t play Xbox, it’s on PS3 and Steam as well ^_^

I’m already looking forward to the fourth one!

Gyromite for NES

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Yesterday I watched the episode ROB the Robot from AVGN, and it made me wanna play Gyromite, even though I didn’t have the Robot.

James from AVGN made it clear that it is possible to play the game even though you don’t have a robot. However, it demands control over both the P1 and P2 controller, since the P1 controller steers the character while the A and B button on the P2 controller controls the pillars that you need to move up and down to guide the character through the stage. Here’s AVGN’s solution:

I didn’t quite go to the extent of sawing apart two controllers and attaching them together with duct tape. Instead I played it together with my friend Becky, it’s a great game for 2-player co-op ^_^ However I did need to use two controllers myself while recording the game today for the review, one in each hand, not too difficult except when you need to pick up or place a radish which is controlled with A on the P1 controller:


The cartridge says Gyromite, but the title screen claims the name of the game is Robot Gyro… anyway, Gyromite or “Robot Gyro” is a classic arcade style game where you have to collect all the dynamite on each stage to clear it.



There are Dinosaurs that kill you if you touch them, and your character can not jump, so you will have to figure out ways to go around them, or try to crush them with the pillars. You can also pick up radishes and place in front of the Dinos, this will make them stop and eat for a while so you can pass them.


Gradually the stages get harder, and you will have to collect the dynamites in the correct order, otherwise you might get stuck with no way to get back up to collect the remaining dynamites. Then there’s no other option than to crush yourself or wait for the time to run out..

I made it to stage 35 today, apparently there’s 65 stages in total. I might give it another go the next time I have a friend over, cause it’s just more fun that way ;D
 

If you haven’t seen the AVGN episode with ROB the Robot you should check it out. I definitely have to get me a ROB eventually ^_^

Here’s a video I put together of the 35 levels I got to:

..and even more Sega games =D

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Today I got more games!

Here’s the lot of Sega Mega Drive games, and one Sega Master System game:

Chakan, DJ Boy, Fantasia, Greendog, Last Battle, Rambo III, Rolling Thunder 2, Taz in Escape from Mars & Double Dragon.

I tried all the games briefly and got stuck playing a few of them. First off Fantasia which was really hard compared to other Mickey Mouse games like Castle of Illusions (looove that game!!!). You start off with a few shots (represented by the magic hat at the bottom) and they disappear immediately! Even if you die you don’t have new shots, you will have to collect them through a random magic book that comes flying (if you can catch it, Mickey is really slooow..) and even then you just get two shots. So you basically just have to avoid all the dangers by jumping, which is not easy since there’s enemies everywhere…


I made it to the second stage and then I gave up… >_<

Rolling Thunder 2 was nice, much like Rolling Thunder 1 that I have on Famicom and NES (where it’s called Code Name: Viper).

You can choose between playing as the male or female character, Albatross and Leila.

It wasn’t too hard if you took it slow and figured out where all the enemies came from, but you can’t rush through the game. One hit kills you. And you can’t jump and shoot, which is really annoying. It was the same in Rolling Thunder 1, but in the NES version (Code Name: Viper) they changed it so that you could jump and change directions and shoot while in the air.

I will try to finish this game later, I just managed to get to lvl 2 in my first attempt.

Then I played Last Battle.. and the first thing that greets you is a bunch of scrolling text. The Story. And it never ends…

It even scrolls just a little bit too fast so that it makes it hard to read, and you will miss a few rows here and there. What were they thinking?!

At least they made a nice title screen after the story…

Then there’s the gameplay.. it’s stiff… and slow.. and the enemies are easy, they die from just touching your toe.

The stages are really short and at the end you meet  some person that tells you something and your character responds:

What?!?!?!?!?

Seriously?!?!?!?! Who wrote this???!

And after a 2 stages I must have taken a wrong turn on the map cause I ended up at some boss that I could hardly even get close to and that killed me in a few blows….

One life, that’s all you get!  ò_ó

Chakan was really cool though, great story and nicely told, with music, images and good writing (compared to the shitty Last Battle way of doing things…)

Awesome…. ^^

So I tried out the four stages I could find in the room, and I couldn’t beat them. This game is really hard.. there’s flying enemies coming at you from all directions and almost unbeatable beasts on every stage. It was a good game though. I will have to practice and try it again.



This stage was unbearable! Flying shit and fishes everywhere and everything drains the life of this so-called “immortal” Chakan character >_<

If there is any game you would like to see more of just let me know and I’ll make a longer review if I can ^_^