Author Archives: stopXwhispering

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 ^_^

My Sega Collection

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Thought I’d share what is in my Collection of Sega right now. They’re in alphabetical order just taken down from the shelves (except for Castlevania on Sega Mega Drive at the end, since it has it’s place among my Castlevania collection) ;D









There are a few carts and one Mega CD game, but I didn’t bother to take a photo of that ;D

I also just bought more Mega Drive games that hasn’t arrived yet, but I’ll post a picture when I get them ^_^

And this is what my Retro video game room looks like:

I’ll try to go through all my Atari, NES and Famicom games and everything else eventually with detailed pics like the Sega collection.


This is my Castlevania shelf and below that I have the space shooters and various other Famicom games and my Metroid darling (there’s a Japanese version in mint condition of Super Metroid in the back corner, hard to see). At the bottom you can spot parts of the Atari collection.


Here is my shelf of stuff I like and other stuff that just couldn’t find a place somewhere else ^_^ I love Bucky O’Hare for NES, and Binary Land (Famicom), Mega Man X and my mint Mario Bros for Atari 2600, that one always baffle people ^^


And another shelf with my Virtual Boy games and and stuff.

Sega Mega Drive games received!

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I was E-baying a few days ago and found some interesting titles through one seller, and I just ended up buying a few extra since  I was gonna pay shipping anyway…

So here’s what I got by mail today:

Battle Squadron, Skeleton Krew, Phantom 2040 and Wings of Wor.

I had recently lost an auction with Skeleton Krew so this was the game I was actually out looking for. It’s a really cool platform shooter or as they call it on the back cover “outeRAGEous blastfest!!!”.

It really does have some cool effects to it that are not usually seen in Mega Drive/Genesis titles. It kind of felt a bit like the advanced SNES games.


When the Boss appears he is hovering up and down and also sideways. It’s really well made, and they really manage to give a good three dimensional feeling to it. The controls are also smooth and easy once you get into them!

I only played through the first stage and saved the password, so I will make a longer review of this game later perhaps. =)

So after finding Skeleton Krew I browsed through the sellers other Sega titles looking for things I previously didn’t have, and looked up videos of the gameplay of the ones I found. I usually don’t buy Sega games without boxes, but after finding Wings of Wor and seeing the gameplay on youtube I had to have it!! And there were only cartridges of Wings of Wor on Ebay… I assumed it was rare..

I read a bit about it and found that the original Japanese version was called Gynoug, and there were complete Japanese versions of Gynoug on Ebay, however my Sega Mega Drive is PAL so I wouldn’t be able to play them.. So I figured that the Wings of War needed to be the PAL version. However, reading about it today on wikipedia it says that Wings of Wor was the north american version?! So I am now officially confused >_< Either way it worked when I played it on my Mega Drive.. (!)

I also briefly tried the other two games today to make sure they were in working condition. Phantom 2040 was horrible, no horrible doesn’t even describe it.. I will have to dedicate a whole angry post to it later, IF I will be able to put myself through playing it again >_<

And Battle Squadron was a mediocre shooter similar to many others. I will have to attempt it again though and perhaps I’ll grow fond of it, the back cover made it seem intriguing with Biotech Wingmen, Mutant Cybersnakes, Magno Strykers and MechnoGuardians! i didn’t get that far this time though.. Also it has the benefit of being 2 player. I love 2-player games so I can play simultaneously with friends ^_^


It seems like the Danish  people have developed Battle Squadron, hooray for Scandinavia! ^_^

Gorbachev’s Pipeline (or ゴルビーのパイプライン) for Famicom

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Yes, it’s a japanese Famicom game featuring the former President of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the goal is to lay a pipeline throughout Russia. Each dot on the map represents a stage, and the difficulty rises progressively.

Gorbachev however only appears on the Title Screen.

It’s actually a quite entertaining game if you like puzzle games. It resembles Tetris a bit, except here you have pieces of two pipes in each falling block and you will have to connect a pipeline from the right wall to the left by rotating and placing the blocks correctly.

There are quite a few games that resembles this one, like for example Pipe Dream for Game Boy. However Gorby’s Pipeline has a uniqueness to it. There’s different music on the stages, I only played through the first three, but they were all different. I guess it will start looping eventually. Both the animation and music has a very USSR feeling to it, the japanese have portrayed a very cosy image of old Russia. It makes me think of ballets like the nutcracker and swan lake, snowy landscapes, and of course the old fashioned Tetris.

It was fairly hard though, if you are not used to puzzle games it will take some time to think where to put the pieces. I myself have played quite a few puzzlers and love the genre, but Tetris is always easier. (Unless you’re playing NotTetris2)

Here’s a movie I put together of the gameplay: