Batman Returns is a 3-Dimensionally challenged sidescrolling beat ‘em up where players assume the role of the Dark Knight as he attempts to murder hundreds of criminals before the Penguin steals Christmas. This is one of those games that as a kid I wanted more than anything but since I was never given Nintendo related gifts outside of my and the lord daddy Jesus’ birthday, it was one of many to slip through the cracks. Well I finally got my hands on a copy not long ago, played it and now I’m writing a little something. Click here to allow more of my words passage into your brain.
And yes, this port is about as good as you think it is. Maybe even worse but I still can’t help but love it. This whole owning only Nintendo systems my entire life thing definitely had some pros and cons growing up which resulted in a particularly painful stretch of time when PC games started to take off in the early 90’s. Back then there was this massive swarm of entries in some new genre referred to as “first person shooters” that allowed you to play games from the actual point of view of your character in a fully 3 dimensional space. Wolfenstein 3D kicked the craze off and I can clearly remember being at this kid’s house the first time I saw him run through it, killing nazis and wild dogs. Compelled is not a strong enough word but it wasn’t until I first laid my eyes on its spiritual successor Doom, that I realized this was a style of game that I absolutely needed to have access to. Going after a robot with Hitler for a head is a fun concept sure, but tearing through swarms of monsters with a shotgun and chainsaw was what my 12 year old mind would be consumed by. I’d have to wait 3 years before I got my hands on the SNES version for Christmas at the ripe old age of 15 and the end result is an experience and a game that I will always have a tremendous soft spot for.
Let’s throw a few words at this 16-bit miracle, shall we? READ MORE
Super Ghouls ‘ Ghosts is a game that is so hard it will make sitting on your balls feel like a Summer breeze. Seriously. I don’t know what Capcom’s problem is with this series but every single entry has been inappropriately difficult to a degree that as a kid it felt like borderline child abuse. This SNES entry is a particularly sore spot for me because the graphics and sound are so beautiful that I’m regularly lured in to give it another shot. Always with the thought that maybe, juuust maybe this will be the time I make it if not close to the end (LOL) at least to the midway mark. Of course, this has never happened. So why am I bothering to post about this game at all if it’s such a frustrating experience?
I wonder how Splatterhouse 2 has managed to exist on the Virtual Console this long without me drunkenly throwing 800 points at it. Oh right, because the first one was such a massive piece of shit that no level of intoxication could convince me that typing in my credit card number with one eye shut again would be worth it. Well, that and the fact that I’d read somewhere that once the Splatterhouse series jumped ship from the Turbografx 16 to the Genesis, that the 3rd installment was by far and away the best of the bunch. So you see rather than be disappointed yet again by Part 2, it made a lot more sense to me to wait around until Part 3 appeared on the VC which as we all know now, was not to be. Still with me?
Pretty much every review you’re going to read about Kirby’s 20th birthday compilation will begin with a direct comparison to Nintendo’s own anniversary treatment for their mustached mascot a couple of years ago. And for good reason: When the announcement was made that a special commemorative box would be released to coincide with the 25th birthday of the original Super Mario Bros., a lot of longtime fans (yours truly included) were understandably excited. But as the end result wound up being essentially an unchanged 20 year old rom (Super Mario All Stars from the SNES to be exact) slapped onto a disc and packed in with a flimsy at best scrapbook along with an anemic 13 track CD…well, pissed isn’t exactly the right word but you get the idea. Now with HAL laboratory celebrating the second decade mark for their little friend Kirby with such style, what once simply felt like a missed opportunity for Mario at this point feels like a legitimate insult.
If you find yourself reading this site to begin with you’ve likely played a Super Mario game at some point during the past five years. Chances are this game was part of Nintendo’s “New” branding for their most popular platforming franchise of which there are individual entries on both the Wii and original DS. This particular take seemingly intended to throw Mario back to his roots after allowing longtime players to hand toss a polygonal Bowser into the stratosphere for the Nintendo 64 and eventually shoot their favorite plumber through Escher-esque Galaxies for the Wii. The “New” games represented a sort of back to basics approach that would hopefully appeal to both hardcore players that had grown up maxing out their save files on the more complicated 3D games and that treasured “casual” market that sorta kinda remembered enjoying the NES original. Well since numbers never lie, this formula worked like a charm as both games hover near the top of the all time sales charts for their respective systems. So now here we are with the inevitable New Super Mario Bros. 2. A title that in and of itself is something of an oxymoron and a gaming experience that while fun of course, is tragically derivative and borderline dated. I’ve finished burning through all of the stages in this new entry and am now in the process of answering Nintendo’s bullshit “Can you collect one million coins?” campaign question.
My answer? “Sure, yeah probably. But I don’t know that I WANT to.” READ MORE
I’d been planning on downloading Sega’s 1987 high speed racer Super Hang-On ever since it was made available for the Virtual Console back in May but held off until this past weekend. As incredible a display of willpower as that may seem, the real reason was that I’d already achieved platinum status on Club Nintendo a long time ago and made myself promise to not buy any new games until the year reset at the end of June. That’s how mediocre prizes get won, there fellas. Anyway, as a kid this was a game that definitely stood out in arcades due to the fact that you had to straddle a “motorcycle” to control the damn thing. The gameplay was shallow for sure but also a lot of fun and incredibly addictive (so long as there weren’t any girls around to see you make a complete ass out of yourself). “I wonder how well it holds up after all this time?” you may be whispering to yourself at this very moment.
Well, I guess it’s a good thing we’re around to answer big questions like these for you because after finally taking this thing for a test drive myself, you’re about to find out right after the jump! READ MORE
Capcom’s Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective came out a year and a half ago in North America on the DS, and I played the demo and fell in love about six months before that. Because human beings are terrible at making decisions that make them happy, though, I didn’t make it a priority to pick up the game on release and only bought it this past week (and finished it last night), despite being impressed with the demo, and furthermore despite loving Shu Takumi’s other famous creation: the Ace Attorney series.
Before I go into detail I’ll say this: If you loved Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, you will in all likelihood adoreGhost Trick. Please at least play the online flash demo. READ MORE
Jesus, I'm starting to rhyme my post titles just like Matt.
The Mega Man Anniversary Collection for the GC is one of those games that I bought purely out of impulse because it was a compilation and then let it fade away in the background. I threw it on once or twice in the ten years that I’ve had it of course but that was mostly only ever done out of those 3am drunken rage-needs to rock out to the Password screen in Mega Man 2. I mean we’ve all been there, right? So out of sheer boredom, last week I decided to take Mega Man 8 for a whirl for the first time. The fact that this is the one and only entry in the proper series to not originally appear on a Nintendo system (Playstation/Sega Saturn) obviously meant that I never played it back when it came out and that I was definitely going into this thing with completely blind prejudice against it. Ready and willing to hate every detail with unbridled and furious anger.
I should really work on how much I let stuff like this get to me. READ MORE
Nothing says 'hours of fun!' like numbers on a black-and-white grid. No, I'm serious.
If you’re a Club Nintendo member with at least 100 coins and a 3DS, you need to know that you only have one day left to grab a free copy Mario’s Picross. Seriously, if you even sort of like puzzle games, you need to give this game a shot. It’s kind of like Sudoku, only easier and more fun. When you’re done with a round of Sudoku all you have is a bunch of boxes with numbers scrawled in them and regret for being tricked into doing math for hours. When you’re done with a round of Picross, you have a picture of a doggie! Or a boat! You’ve also lost like four hours of sleep because you kept telling yourself “I’ll do just one more.” READ MORE
A few days ago and for the first time since the heyday of the Wii’s Virtual Console I woke up after a hard night of drinking to find that at some point my drunk ass busted out the credit card and decided to peruse the 3D’s eShop. The lucky treat I picked out for myself was this game: Sakura Samurai: Art of the Sword. Now normally, this would be an appropriate time to impart a serious message: Kids, don’t drink and download. But in the case of Sakura it actually wasn’t such a bad call. Thanks for the solid, drunk me. READ MORE
Hello, and welcome to the second installment of my ongoing “Wii Games You Should Be Playing” series where I tell you, yes you faithful reader what a sad sack of shit you are for not making certain Wii games more successful on the sales charts. Today’s game is Red Steel 2, a completely unrelated sequel story-wise to one of the worst games available during the system’s launch. In it, you take control of a Cowboy/Samurai as he slashes and shoots his way through wave after wave of futuristic enemies with incredible near 1.1 acuracy due to the magic of the Wii-Mote +. Sound fun? Good Lord it is so much fun. READ MORE
In case you hadn’t heard (which is likely judging by sales), a brand new Rayman game subtitled Origins was recently released across all 3 home platforms. Now what the hell is a “Rayman” you may be asking yourself? Well, it’s a long running series of mostly action/adventure platform games starring an armless, legless Frenchman as he runs and jumps around beautifully designed worlds killing bad guys and collecting stuff. If the thought of that doesn’t rivet you, then I guess you probably wouldn’t be reading this website to begin with. I’m sorry for making things awkward. READ MORE
I’d never heard of this game before yesterday and I’ve already forgotten what life was like before I played Pushmo. The brand new platforming puzzle title developed by those geniuses at Intelligent Systems (Advance Wars, Paper Mario) and which is now exclusively available through the 3DS Eshop. READ MORE
