We aren’t responsible in any way for the work that went into this awesome video but I did stumble across it while browsing the internet today and if you didn’t know already: This site is all about sharing.

Just ignore the dipshit in the second half.

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.

Story:

Just let me play the damn game already.

Um, spoiler alert. Dr. Wiley did it. Actually I guess there is more of a “story” here than in most other entries in the series because there are a bunch of fully animated cut scenes that pop up now and again. But to be honest they’re so badly compressed that I skipped right past them. That sort of thing is a cool addition for some players but I can’t really see the appeal. Cut scenes in general kind of drive me up the wall because I’ve obviously made the decision to turn on my video game system and not the fucking DVD player.

Graphics:

Yep, that's Mega Man. Kinda.

Since this is a 32 bit game Capcom is absolutely trying to show off but for me the results wind up a bit mixed. When I first started playing I was kind of turned off by how cartoony and detailed everything looked. Not to say that the previous 7 games in the series were examples of how to portray realism or anything it’s just that a lot of this franchise’s charm stems from it’s lo-fi spritework. Obviously the decision to take Mega Man 9 and 10 back to their visual roots on the NES was the result of some Einstein over at Capcom realizing what fans of this series already knew. The visuals do grow on you though. The character sprites specifically all feel very unique and animate really well and a lot of the stages sport some fancy multi-scrolling background work. It brought Mega Man up to date at the time and served that purpose just fine but now oddly feels the most dated when looked at alongside the other games.

Controls:

Um, how do I put this? THAT D-PAD IS TOO FUCKING SMALL.

If there’s one clear issue with this collection in general it’s that for some reason the decision was made to switch the jumping and shooting buttons. Instead of the traditional route of pressing A to leap and B to fire it’s now backwards and the result is an experience that can eventually be adapted to but will lead to some frustrating mistakes based on the sheer habit of how you’ve been controlling this character for over 20 years. Luckily in this game’s case you can press the X button to jump which comes about as close as you can get to replicating NES control. Also as with the other game’s in this compilation, the different attack suits that you gather from bosses can be cycled through by using the L and R shoulder buttons. Someone give the guy that thought that up a firm yet loving tap across the tush!

Music:

Oh, this is one aspect that I think Mega Man 8 got really right. Obviously Mega Man 2 will forever carry the crown of not only the best soundtrack from the entire series but also one of the most classic collection of themes for any game ever. But 8 has a few that manage to really stand out. For example, the track for Tengu Man’s stage is one that upon first listen had me instantly pressing pause to turn the volume up and hang out with it for a while:

Definitely no complaints about the game on this front.

The Final Word:

Despite my burning desire to rationalize my hatred of all games that weren’t designed for a Nintendo system I have to let this one go. Capcom manages to deliver a title that might not feel like a true entry in the series but definitely a relative and that’s close enough for me to have squeezed plenty of enjoyment out of it. Simply put, Mega Man 8 is lot of fun and isn’t that why we’re invested in this medium to begin with?

Time to give 7 for the SNES a shot.

There was this video game character I grew up with. I sorta looked up to him, you know. We did our first work together, worked our way through several titles. Things were good, we made the most of it. During the N64 era, we collected lums in 3D for the first time… made a fortune, your father, too. As much as anyone, I loved him and trusted him. Later on there was an idea to make a game for him that would be in true 3D for Nintendo’s new portable system. That character’s name was Rayman, and the new game that he intended to star in was Rayman: Origins for the 3DS. This was a great mascot, and the game promised to be one full of vision and guts. And then when it was time for the game to hit store shelves it was nowhere to be seen! Someone delayed it for several extra months. No one knows who gave the order. When I heard it, I wasn’t angry; I knew Ubisoft and the game’s lead designer Michel Ancel, I knew they were head-strong, talking loud, saying stupid things. So when I realized I had to wait even longer for a portable version of this game that I loved on Wii, I let it go. And I said to myself, this is the hobby I’ve chosen; I didn’t ask who gave the order, because it was probably a smart business decision!

Link 4 Lyfe.

I do not consider myself a fanboy. I have all of the systems and if there is a good game made for any of them I will play it and enjoy it. The closest I come to being a fanboy about any game is Zelda. When I was around 22 I had kidney stones but didn’t know I had kidney stones. Kidney stones are INSANELY painful and I honest to god thought I was going to die. When my mom was driving me to the emergency room I told her that I thought I was dying and that I loved her, I told her how sad I was I wasn’t going to live to play the next Zelda game, I can’t remember which one. I have beat Ocarina of Time at least 20 times. My only tattoo is a triforce tattoo. So yeah, I may be a little bit of a Zelda fanboy.

My tattoo.

Story

It certainly has that classic Zelda charm in spades. In every Zelda game my favorite parts, story wise, are always the quirky side characters. Tingle, those freaky S&M clowns who run a cannon fixing shop in the middle of a lake in Twilight Princess, and even the hand living in a toilet – who makes a guest appearance in this game as well – all have a special place in my heart. Many of them look and behave so strangely that they make Silent Hill characters seem normal.

I really like the setting of a school in this game because it sets up quite a few side characters right from the beginning and allows them to have a developing story that you can follow as the game progresses. Even Groose shows some real growth by the end of the game. I really did end up caring about most of the characters. A lot of this has to do with the fact that the game pretty much has one town that you keep returning to and checking in with everyone. This game reminds me in many ways of Majora’s Mask. Both games have one centralized town and much of the story has to do with an imminent disaster that must be avoided. It is all good stuff and done very well. If I had to pick one stand out aspect of it I would say it’s the relationship between Link and Zelda. You feel for the first time that they really know and care about each other and you are watching their relationship grow.

Groose, you’re just jealous.

Graphics

Obviously they did something bold and risky with the graphics in this game, much like they did with Wind Waker back in the day. I like the graphics but I don’t think they have as much impact as they did in Wind Waker, mostly because Skyward Sword essentially looks like the Zelda we all know except with a special coat of paint, while everything in Wind Waker was original and exciting. How can you not love toon Link’s little round head and expressive eyes? Don’t get me wrong I love these graphics too, but they clearly did it to hide the limitations of the system and it certainly serves that purpose well, but it doesn’t add much to the games atmosphere that wouldn’t have already been there if they were using the Ocarina of Time art style. Still, overall the game is wonderfully pretty.

To appreciate the graphics in still photos it is best to look in the distance where the impressionist effect is most noticeable.

Gamplay

This it one of the best designed games ever made. Many people took issue with the fact that there are only a few areas to explore in the entire game and you mostly just go back to the same places and things are a little different than they were the last time you were there. I can understand how this could turn some people off considering how expansive Zelda worlds have become over the years. I didn’t mind at all. It is incredibly hard to design a game this way. You have to be able to let the player know where they are supposed to go when they return to an area they were previously in and have it be subtle enough to give them the feeling that they figured it out on their own. It takes designers who are really thinking about all the aspects of a game to pull this off correctly. They did it in this game. Even when I did get lost it was just the right amount of lost. As soon as I would start to feel frustrated I would figure it out and feel accomplished instead.

The three areas of the game.

It seems to me that every aspect of the game was designed to engage the player in ways that have in the past been confined to the dungeons. Much of the dungeon-style puzzle gameplay has been incorporated into the main world, which again is similar to Majora’s Mask. Every fight has some trick to figure out and, with the new addition of the stamina meter and the run button, traversal often becomes a puzzle in itself. If you have played the game, think of how you figured out what path to take when climbing the slopes in the sand area. The game is constantly engaging you. It’s an amazing accomplishment of design.

I haven’t even talked about the dungeons yet. Many of them fall into the old formulas: fire, water, and so on, but the art design still manages to make them stand out. Some of my favorite dungeons of all time are in this game. The sand ship and the mining facility are both amazing. They also both happen to use the time travel mechanic in the game. You carry around a ball that turns back time in a radius around you. In one section you drive a boat through a desert that used to be an ocean. The boat is equipped with one of these time-reversing stones as well so the desert turns to ocean all around you. It is so brilliant it makes me want to punch someone. The caliber of puzzles in the dungeons has been increased. I am pretty used to the Zelda formula and in previous games have figured out most puzzles fairly quickly. I found myself truly stumped a handful of times while playing this game, and I loved it. Usually it was because the game forced you to use the items in tandem to solve many of the puzzles and in the past that was much more of a rarity than it is in this installment.

The desert ocean I mentioned.

Controls

I am not a motion control hater in most cases. Sometimes I think it can feel a little unnecessary and forced, but even then I can still usually get past it if the game is at all good. The controls in this game add more to the experience than any other motion control game to date. It is extremely precise and does not reward flailing. It makes combat a puzzle and a true challenge. You no longer look at Deku Babas as minor nuisances, you have to fight every enemy with caution and skill. It gives the game a stronger sense of danger. It’s not Dark Souls but it is a step in that direction, and that is a good direction to be headed in as far as I am concerned. Yes, there is a bit of a learning curve and there were times that I couldn’t figure out exactly what angle and timing I was supposed to attack some enemies with but in the end these problems just made mastering the nuances more rewarding.

Deku wants his Baba.

Replay Value

It is essentially what you expect from a Zelda game, you can complete the main game in around 25 hours but there is a ton of stuff to do and collect after that, so if you are into that sort of thing there is a lot of extra fun to be had. Also you get Hero Mode, in which the enemies do double damage and don’t drop hearts. My only problem with this is that it overwrites your save. I would rather have it split the file into two files that way I could play the main story again on hard but still be able to go back and get all the stuff I missed.

Sound

Damn, this game has awesome music. It was all recorded from a real orchestra, just like Mario Galaxy 2, and it really adds a lot. Many of the songs are new but still feel like they fit right in to the Zelda universe.

I also want to make a comment about voice acting and Zelda. I hear people complaining all the time that they need to add it and catch up with the current generation. I personally don’t care if it never happens. Bowser had a voice in Mario Sunshine and it was just… off-putting. I would be okay with it as long as Link doesn’t talk. I just can’t imagine that working out too well. I would, however, love to hear what Tingles voice sounds like.

Keep your mouth shut!

Conclusion

This Zelda isn’t going to please everyone. Mostly because of the amount of backtracking. I can see why some people might be a bit turned off by some aspects of the game, however, it is undeniable that this is one of the most expertly crafted games of all time. As someone who has a passion for game design I can’t help but love this game.

The Mario power up figures were the first video game clay project I did and this is the most recent. I just finished it the other day. It’s the masks from Majora’s mask. I freaking love this game and have been wanting to do this project for a long time. It is actually not quite done. The mounting is a picture frame and I plan on eventually printing a screen shot from the game and putting it in the frame so it looks even more like the pause screen it is based on, but my printer is currently out of ink and that shit’s expensive. I made the edge gold rather than the weird green that it is in the actual game just because I thought it would look better. Also it is important to note that the masks are based on the pictures of them in the pause menu, not the actual ones in the game. There are some rather big differences with a few of them.. Specifically the great fairy mask and the midnight mask. I have to say I am pretty freaking happy with it. I hope you like it as well.

Original Menu

I’m glad I decided to make the menu version and not the in game one.

See the pic from the menu is pretty different from the in game mask.

Dubya.

Wario Land: Shake it.

This game, like many Wii games, is underrated. It has become fashionable to dismiss Wii games as not worth playing. I could go on about this phenomenon at length. In fact I probably will in a post specifically for that relatively soon. But now the task at hand is discussing Wario Land.

First of all, I love Wario. I love that he is gross, greedy and weird. He is basically Nintendo’s version of Garbage Pail kids which I also love. On top of that I appreciate the more subtle differences in gameplay that set Wario apart from other Nintendo side-scrollers. There are the obvious big game defining things like the fact that Wario can’t really die. But the true brilliance comes in the movement of the character. It lies somewhere in between Mario’s fast paced, high jumping momentum-based gameplay and Kirby’s floaty, slow platforming. Wario feels like he has just the right amount of weight to him. It is extremely fine tuned and brilliant and most people don’t even notice.

Look at this cheeky greedy bastard, His tongue is hanging out…over money

I wanted to say something about the box art and name. I don’t like the American box art and name as much as the European ones. In Europe it is called WarioLand: The Shake Dimension, which to me is much better than Shake it. I would venture that the Shake it subtitle turned off a lot of older players on sight. The box art in Europe is reminiscent of the old school Game Boy Wario covers and it is amazing. I like it so much there is a poster of it up in my room. The American box art is fine I guess but nowhere near as awesome as the European cover.

Old School Wario

That’s Wario in general. This game in particular has so much going for it, I will break it down into sections to make it a bit easier to get through all of it.

Story

Like most Nintendo games it has a lighthearted story that matters very little. Wario gets transported to some other dimension by a little weird nymph thing and has to beat up this bearded viking pirate dude to save everyone. Not that he cares about saving anyone, he is in it for the garlic and the G-O-L-D.

Graphics

Beautiful, hand drawn art gives the game an enticing look evocative of a Saturday morning cartoon. The themes of the levels are strangely real world based, which really sets it apart from other Nintendo franchises. Canyons, trains and pyramids are all represented with meticulous detail. They also do an unusually great job of reusing resources and changing the color schemes to give different levels within the same world unique atmospheres.

The only negative thing I can think to mention is the fact that when playing the game on a wide screen display it puts the game screen in this weird box rather than show more of the game. Even stretching might be preferable.

Here is that weird wide screen display I was talking about.

Gameplay

I talked about what I like about Wario gameplay in general at the top. Every level is designed to be played once through left to right and then once right to left. Right to left is standard excellent WarioLand gameplay. You bash into things, pick guys up and throw them and at times use a few unique items like a mine cart that you control by tilting the controller back and forth. When you go right to left you are almost always in running mode. You get into running mode by jumping into this boost machine, if you hit a wall you stop and can’t get into a run again without another machine. Trying to get back to the beginning of the level without stopping becomes an amazingly fun and challenging game of trial and error, puzzle solving, and twitch gameplay. It is one of those ingenious gameplay ideas that I can’t believe more people don’t use. Probably because it takes a great amount of skill to design a level with the depth required to make it work.

Controls

The motion controls are mostly pretty good. I enjoy some of them and others are not that exciting or necessary, but nothing that I feel stands out enough to be worth a mention.

The only down side for me is the shaking of enemies and bags of money. Most of the time I feel like it messes with the games pacing more than it is fun. But it’s a very small gripe and you only have to do it of you need life or are trying to get a bunch of money.

Replay Value

This game has some interesting stuff in it that really pays off for those completionists out there. There are well-hidden items that are fun to find, as well as specific achievements to try and get in every level, like beat it in a certain amount of time or get to the end without taking damage. Often the time achievement is only attainable if you are able to race back to the beginning of the level from the end without stopping.  There are even achievements like this for all the boss battles including the final boss and they are rough.

This dude’s a dick.

Conclusion

Play this game. It is, in my opinion, one of the best side scrollers ever made and most people just passed it by. It makes me a little sad because I don’t know if the team that made it will ever make another Wario game. They did make the fantastic Kirby’s Epic Yarn, so at least they seem to be continuing with side scrollers. Here is hoping some sort of sequel is in the works for the 3DS. Portable is historically Wario’s home turf and perhaps sales would be a little better in that market.

Here Wii go again.

Welp.

My Wii is giving me the good old “System files are corrupted” song and dance yet again. And not even a month after I finally forced myself to muscle my way through that boring ass Subspace Emissary shit in Brawl to re-unlock all of the characters. Y’see this actually happened once before and I learned the hard way that any data that isn’t saved to an SD card goes bye-bye when those knuckleheads fix your system. Fine, whatever. The only problem is that both SSB: Brawl and Animal Crossing are delightful enough to not even allow saving to an SD card as an option.

GOD.DAMN.IT.

The really terrible part about this is that I’m going to have to re-download all of my hundred plus VC games again.That is both a brag and complaint.

Behold.

Alrighty, this is the first big video game clay project I took on. Obviously it is power ups from most of the Mario games. It is a few years old. I made it probably about six months after the first Mario Galaxy came out. If I am honest, I am unhappy with a lot of aspects of it. The clouds in the back are not placed ideally. Every single one is covered up with some power up. I wasn’t planning correctly. Also, I could make some of the figures look better if I was making them now. The thin blocks the figures sit on bother me a little too. They are good enough but they could be better. I forgot about the carrot from Mario Land as well and that drives me insane. I made it later but there is no place for it on here. You are probably starting to learn that I have the tendency to be a perfectionist. Don’t think I am too hard on myself, I also think some parts are amazing. Usually when I finish a craft I put it up on the shelf then over the next few days take it down for no reason other than to look at it. It always makes me feel like a bit of an asshole but it makes me happy that I made it. Also I google pictures of other people’s similar crafts and think about how much better mine are than the ones I see. I know that’s terrible and a little pathetic but it’s true and so what? I put a lot of work into these and also other justifications.

The whole thing

The red mushroom isn’t perfect

Happy with all these

Pretty damn proud of those wings

That is the metal Mario hat if you can’t tell

I still can’t believe I was able to make this. I regret not making the other power ups for it.

That mini mushroom was a pain

When I was painting the bee mushroom I slipped and got black on the bottom part and had to paint over it.  So it looks a little weird.

Sorry, the best light is in front of my messy countertop.

Here are the rest of the Mario power ups that I made since the first one was completed. Whenever a new Mario game comes out I just take a day or so and make the new ones. I plan on one day disassembling the old one with the cloud background and somehow combining them all into one big display that can be expanded as new power ups come into existence. Still haven’t quite figured out how to do this, but I have a few ideas. I also made the stand they are sitting on that looks like the ground from New Super Mario Brothers Wii. I did not make the giant question mark box or the figures on top, they were the platinum rewards from Club Nintendo 2010, I think? The blocks are just wood blocks I got from the craft store and painted.

Here are the fruits that serve as Yoshi power ups in Mario Galaxy 2

All the power up from Galaxy 2

The Mario Land carrot I forgot the first time

New Super Mario Brothers Wii power ups. That propeller was a pain.

Super Mario 3D Land. I am pretty proud of the leaf, it was tough to get right.

On the heels of Super Street Fighter II (again) coming to the Virtual Console (but now with online play!), Sega have put out three more releases over the last couple of Thursdays, with at least one of them being kind of a big deal in some gaming circles. Yesterday saw another two Wonder Boy/Monster World titles make their appearance: the arcade title Wonder Boy in Monster Land, whose Sega Master System port has been available for some time; and Monster World IV, a 1994 Sega Genesis game, the final game in the series to date, and which makes its Western debut with this release. Not only is it another VC import title, but Sega have actually gone through the trouble of translating the whole thing, making it another Virtual Console first five and a half years into the Wii’s lifespan. I’ve played a bit of it today and it’s lovely- like a polished Zelda II in some ways.

Rewinding a bit, last week saw the release of the arcade version of Super Hang-On, a motorcycle racer similar to OutRun except instead of branching paths one chooses from one of four continentally-based courses at the beginning featuring various stages in each. This one sees yet another first, or two firsts in one really, for the Virtual Console: (1)motion controls (2)via the nunchuk. All three new titles are 900 points each.

Why go through all the trouble now? Well, as noted in the announcement from a year ago,these titles aren’t just being released on Virtual Console. Compared to most other companies Sega has a fairly extensive history of bringing their arcade and Genesis/Master System back catalog to a variety of platforms (including the PC- oddly, while they were still in the hardware business.) This is just another brick in that strategy, though it certainly comes at an odd time for the Wii; the choice to add features, while appreciated, makes one remember how such things were hoped for at the outset but didn’t pan out until now. Maybe there will be some surprises in store in this area when the Wii U makes the scene. A man can dream…

Who doesn't love a little revisionist history.

Both Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS) and City Life (Wii) were decent if not overly familiar sequels to the incredibly addictive GameCube original, sure. But aside from the lack of including full on playable NES games as in the first, they really blew it in the soundtrack department too. I’d say that the theme to the original game’s menu screen alone is better than any one track from those follow ups. Most of the tracks (that change hourly) are so good that back when I was knee deep in that shit I’d find myself waiting until certain times of day before I’d play just to catch my favorites. Well, I just came across this this website which is apparently hosting each track in accordance with the actual time of day that it appears in during the game.

I know what tab will be open every night at 1:00am from now on.